#I do not control what crafting urges strike me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

helloporcelain · 1 year ago

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Fandom: Baldur's Gate 3 Pairing: Gale/Astarion Rating: Explicit Tags: porn without plot, dubious consent, inappropriate use of mage hand, blowjob, rimming, frottage, blood drinking, handjob, jerking off with blood, sex pollen

Summary: “…Precisely how much of this spider’s blood did you consume?” Gale asks, his hands brushing Astarion’s hair off his soaked forehead. The touch makes the unbearable, painful heat in his body squeeze around him like a heavy chain. “You’re scorching. You could give Karlach a run for all her gold.”

Read on AO3 if you prefer

It’s not the first time that Astarion’s thoughts linger too long on Gale. But it is the first time that the temptation to feed on him is truly born.

They’re at the goblin camp finishing off the last of their enemies when he notices the mage clutching his stomach. Stains mar Gale's usually pristine robe: vivid crimson mingling with golden embroidery and velvety plum fabric. Gale has never been injured to this extent before – and the smell of his blood is so insane that it takes Astarion a minute to actually register it as blood; it’s an unapologetic, scorching assault that stings his nostrils. It burns to breathe it in, like inhaling the acrid, heavy bite of smoke after lightning strikes the soil of the earth in a fury.

His curious gaze is clearly too obvious because Gale huffs at him. “Careful, Astarion. I'd exercise some self control if I were you. I'm fairly certain that indulging in my blood would lead to some rather disagreeable consequences for you."

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he sniffs, scrunching his nose up. “What the hells is wrong with your blood? The stench of it – it’s utterly disturbing.”

A wry smile crosses Gale’s lips even as he winces over his wounded abdomen.

“Perhaps the weave has granted me a natural act of defense. A deterrent to all creatures who might wish to devour me.”

"Well, it didn't do you any good here, did it?" Astarion drawls, playing his part of disinterest. "Consider me deterred, darling. A carrion crawler would be a treat compared to your freakish blood.” He tips his head backwards lazily towards the rest of the group fishing their arrows and swords out of fleshy goblin chests. “Somebody better tend to the soft little mage before he bleeds out.”

Gale clears his throat, maintaining his composure. “I can manage this just fine, thank you,” he insists. “The sooner we distance ourselves away from this fetid pile of corpses, the better.”

His bloodied form taunts Astarion the entire time as they get back on the trail, his head full with the noxious scent, pouding at the back of his skull – he barely contains the urge to shove Gale into Shadowheart so she can heal him, but the mage is too stubborn in making a show of how able he is. When they finally reach their home for the night, the group splits apart, and Astarion does his best to maintain some distance without coming across as too disturbed, even as Gale’s blood still accosts him in the air. With his feet aching from the long day, Astarion settles on a log and pulls out his arrows to wipe them clean of any lingering fleshy bits. Tav and Karlach start gleefully comparing all the stolen fruits of their labor they’ve gathered from the day as Wyll and Lae’zel hover over them to stake a claim on any well-crafted weapons. From the corner of his eye, Astarion sees Gale waving Shadowheart off, trying to step away to his tent, but her hand shoots out to pinch the fabric on his shoulders.

“Don’t be stubborn,” Shadowheart demands. “Let me see.”

“Ah, it’s just a scratch, really. Nothing I can’t sort out myself.”

“Sit, Gale, or I might just have to tie you down.”

Gale’s face flushes at the idea, but he relents and settles down on the bench next to Astarion, who tightens his lips at the proximity of him. Get away from me, Astarion wants to snarl. The smell of Gale is— is horrible, it’s awful. And irritatingly fascinating. He focuses his attention on his arrows, fixating on making them completely spotless, ignoring the gooseflesh rising on his neck from the pungent scent filling his head.

Gale shrugs aside his blood-soaked robe. He doesn’t notice when it misses the bench and falls to the ground in a heavy crumple. But Astarion does.

Halsin pops up behind the two — he’s chosen to spend the night here, and Tav is eyeing him suspiciously fondly — towering over and eclipsing Astarion from their view. Gods, he is big – the sheer magnitude of the elf is staggering, leaving Astarion momentarily awestruck.

“Might I suggest an alternative?” Halsin asks. “I am a healer of some renown, if I may cast aside modesty for a moment.”

Shadowheart considers this, and amidst their back and forth (with Gale flitting his eyes between them and wondering when they’ll decide to finally heal him already!), Astarion snatches up the garment discreetly and slips away. He doesn’t know why he does this— he wants to say he’s been compelled! That some mysterious force is urging him to do this! But that would be a bold-faced fucking lie. No – there’s an even worse reason – something innate, something primal that guides him to steal the damn robe.

In the dim privacy of his tent, Astarion carefully unfurls Gale's bloodied cloak. He turns it over in his hands and presses his fingers into the wet fabric, the stains practically pulsing underneath his touch. He traces his fingers along the ridges and then raises them to his lips. Astarion’s throat goes dry. The smell of it sends a searing burn down his throat.

The idea of consuming the essence of magic itself is fucking tantilizing .

But he takes heed of Gale’s warning. The wizard is many things – a love-bruised, disgraced prodigy being one of them – but an exaggerator? Hmm. Perhaps not. The blood is probably (no, definitely) vile, and Astarion is in no mood to try a sample and contend with the potential of vomit and the subsequent clean up. Still, it doesn’t mean he can’t just… ponder it. Heat pools in Astarion’s stomach as he contemplates the way it would feel to have an inkling of the power living in Gale’s veins, to claim a fragment of it for himself.

His cock twitches when his mind inadvertently takes it a step further: how Gale might sound pinned under him, how he might arch and drool as Astarion fucks him into the ground. To shut Gale up for once and claim him , bent over, hands tied behind his back, neck stretched out..

It sends his mind into a tailspin, and Astarion knows he needs to go back out there and toss the dirty, unsightly thing back on the ground.

Instead, he brings the cloak up to his nose and holds it close, breathing it in. Astarion is near intoxicated from the razor-sharp scent of it alone, barely aware of what he’s doing as he stuffs a hand into his pants, grabbing at his length. His cock springs free from its confines, exposing itself to the cool air. He strokes up and down, working it to a full hardness, then he holds his breath. An intense idea overcomes him. What is wrong with his brain? Why is he doing this? No answers come to his mind as he wraps the fabric around his cock. His hips buck against it, cock drooling precum into the soft friction of the velvet, mixing in with the blood.

Astarion concentrates on staying quiet even with his tent being the furthest away from the others, what with the others still unpacking from the day and chattering about, but the sensation has him hissing. It becomes a mission: there’s urgency in the way he moves, anger even, to come as fast as he can. He arches into both hands and fucks into Gale’s cloak, struggling to keep his breath steady amidst the strange, charred scent that fills the air.

The sight of Gale’s blood coating around Astarion’s cock gets him off so fast that he’ll never have the gall to admit it, and he allows himself a quiet grunt as his cum soaks into his fabric wrapped fist. When his orgasm dies down, Astarion bites out a humorless chuckle. Well , he thinks flatly, I really need a bath now .

He also somehow really wants to eat still, he realizes, his stomach churning despite dining on bugbears and goblins.

Astarion remembers some boar tracks on the trail east of the camp and doesn’t spare another second – he grabs the cum soiled cloak and throws it into his sack, along with a change of clothes and a fresh jar for any extra blood. Not that he ends up needing it — Astarion is particularly vicious about his meal, for not only does he drain the boar completely dry, but he makes an utter mess of it too: ripping apart its neck and clawing its chest open for no reason at all, other than that he simply can .

An hour later, he emerges from the woods, freshly bathed and belly bloated. The camp is quiet now, save for the sounds of an owl hooting nearby and the gentle licks of the campfire’s flames. Everyone has gone to bed, eager to start a new day. Everyone except for Gale, who’s tracing his steps in circles to find his missing cloak. It's no ordinary cloak; it's his absolute favorite one, he can’t help but grumble to himself.

"Did someone really just toss it away?”

Astarion skulks up to him from the shadows, causing Gale to lurch with surprise, hand flying to his chest. “Oh!”

“I washed it for you.” With zero grace, Astarion throws the cloak at Gale, damp, but now clean of cum and blood.

Gale catches the garment, eyes furrowed as he untangles it with delicate care. His eyes scan it over to see if Astarion has perhaps messed with it – which, well…

“You know, I really could’ve just used my magic to clean it.”

“I was gagging at the foul odor, waiting for those two to finish with you, so it was either that or burn it in the fire. Gods know I would not be able to handle you drone on about how you missed such an antique article of clothing.”

“I’m going to go ahead and choose to believe that you were just being uncharacteristically thoughtful, Astarion, so for that, I will thank you.” Gale waves his hand to the bottle of wine nestled up against the log. “Care to join me for a drink? Tav swiped this vintage red and it feels far too selfish for me to finish the bottle myself.”

Astarion purses his lips. “Why not,” he replies, grabbing a goblet and letting Gale fill it halfway with the wine. “What’s so special about this cloak anyway? Surely not because it’s in fashion.”

Gale proceeds to yap on and on about why the cloak is so near and dear to his heart, how his mother had painstakingly sewn it herself, and Astarion actually sits there and listens to the whole thing while he sharpens his dagger with a whetstone in between sips from his chalice. The worst realization of the night is not that he needs to keep his distance from an injured, bloodied Gale from now on (lest his brain gets carried away with the notion of devouring and fucking Gale again), but that Astarion finds him… endearing?

How twee.

✼✼

Tonight, Gale cooks entirely without any magic.

Karlach and Lae’zel return from hunting with a bountiful sack of rothe meat, fresh for the hearty stew that Gale intends to prepare for their supper.

“You'll see,” Halsin tells him, igniting the fire beneath the cauldron as Gale extracts an assortment of spices and herbs from a weathered wooden box. “To appreciate the experience of cooking with only your bare hands – without any arcane assistance - it's a fresh perspective, a new joy.”

“I believe you,” Gale acknowledges, tenderizing the meat with a small mallet. “That’s not to say that I completely understand the appeal of taking the longer route. Work smarter, not harder, eh? Multitasking is a wondrous thing! Back in my tower, I could have the pot simmering, a pin kneading dough for my bread rolls, and savor a delightful cup of earl grey – all without worrying about keeping a watchful eye on it.”

Halsin smiles, rising from the floor. “Well, here, you are not alone. There are many eyes to assist you.” He proceeds to enlist some of the others to help out with chopping vegetables, setting up plates and silverware on makeshift tables. Astarion is relaxed and reading as this goes on, taking in the last of the day’s sunrays. (Warmth hasn’t lost its novelty – it never will.)

The rest of the group buzzes as everyone waits for Gale to work his culinary magic. Tav can’t help but hover over Gale’s shoulder with curiosity (‘ The onions I found weren’t too moldy?’ they ask), asking how everything is coming together and Gale is so enthusiastic about it all that his big eyes seem to just sparkle with delight — and ugh – isn’t he just adorable . Astarion buries his nose back into his book – some terrible pulp erotica he’s picked up somewhere – not at all interested in the commotion around him.

When supper's finally prepared, the group gathers with hungry anticipation. Moans of delight fill the air as they all dig into their meal, and Gale looks particularly satisfied with himself. “You’re right, Halsin,” he says, holding his bowl on his lap, surveying them all. “Something special about tonight’s dinner indeed.”

“It is acceptable,” Lae’zel muses, staring thoughtfully into her quickly emptying bowl. Wyll grunts with admiration, his mouth full of food.

“Why even bother trying to be the greatest wizard of all time?” Shadowheart jokes. “You’d make a fine house husband with the way we’re all fawning over this meal. I mean, Halsin is practically in an otherworldly state right now,” and she nods at Halsin who’s finished his meal so quickly that he’s just sitting there with a satisfied smile.

Karlach shoves in a mouthful of potatoes with gusto. She looks at Astarion with a sorrowful shake of her head. “Aw, Astarion, it’s too bad you vampires don’t need to eat, you’re missing out on some culinary genius here.”

He looks up from the pages of his book and lifts an eyebrow at the mess on the corner of Karlach's lips. “Well, I can still enjoy the flavor of something, if you’re curious about that; though I have a taste for the luxurious – and a meal made with the leftovers of near rotten produce is not exactly something that appeals to me. But! You know. I’m sure it’s very good. To a plebian without a refined palette.”

Gale offers a good-natured rebuttal. “I admit, I don’t exactly have the farmer’s market available to me right now, but I think I’ve done an all right job with what I was given.”

“Oh come off it Gale, this is the best meal I’ve had in ages.” She points accusingly at Astarion with her spoon. “And nothing about you is luxurious right now,” she says, making a face at the word, “You’ve been wearing the same doublet for the last week.” Astarion scoffs and straightens up in embarrassment at her comment. “Try it. I dare you to try and tell me it is not fucking delicious .” She grabs the book from his hands, squints her eyes at the cover, and pushes her bowl towards him.

Gale looks at him somewhat expectantly with those damned puppy eyes and the entire party is now goading him to try it, so— Astarion decides he’ll humor them. It’ll be funny when he’s correct about the food being perfectly average.

“Fine.”

He takes a spoonful from Karlach’s bowl and brings it to his lips. The moment the stew touches his tongue, his flat expression changes and his eyes widen. It’s an unexpected delight. It’s savory and rich and perfectly seasoned and damn it, where did he learn to cook like this? In truth, Astarion hasn’t thought about “real food” in so many years. In the moments where he was at a tavern scoping for victims or entertaining Cazador’s guests at a ball, it never crossed his mind to indulge just for the sake of flavor – it would’ve felt like a cruel, pointless delusion to partake in when he was so starved of blood.

And though the stew does nothing to sate his true hunger; it’s a bittersweet joy, a tugging reminder that at one time, he could’ve been here as another version of himself, filling himself up on a meal made with such careful tenderness. The corners of his lips curl upward as he takes another bite, and then another. Gale, who’s watching him with anticipation, practically beams with satisfaction.

“Was I wrong!?” Karlach exclaims, slapping at her thighs with enthusiasm.

"You’ve forgotten a key part of this meal," Gale says, reaching over to the wooden trunk acting as a serving table. “You have got to try it with some of the bread, the crunch makes it a perfect little bite.” He reaches for the loaf, slicing a portion for Astarion. But before he’s done with it, the blade slips from his fingers, nicking his thumb in the process. He tsks, and blood quickly wells up from the cut, a droplet falling onto the ground as he brings it up to his mouth to suck the rest away.

“Ah, and this is why magic is a man’s best tool, in and out of the kitchen.”

Gale wipes his finger on his pants and swaps to the other hand to hand Astarion the piece of bread, but Astarion is stiff and locked onto the sight of the petite ruby droplets rising from the tip of his thumb. He blinks, and Gale looks down at his hand, then raises his eyes back to meet Astarion’s. When he opens his mouth to say something – no doubt something unhelpful and insufferable – Astarion cuts him off.

"It isn��t that good,” he snaps, not letting the look on Gale’s face stop him from getting up from his seat and slamming the bowl down on the wooden trunk. “I think it's time I go get my real dinner.” Astarion needs to eat something, anything . With heavy, tense steps, he storms off, disappearing into the forest.

He can’t recall later how many carcasses he leaves out there in the woods, or even what kind of animals had the misfortune of being found by him — perhaps some rabbits — but he remembers that he drinks, and drinks, and drinks, until the only feeling that remains is a piercing ache deep within his belly. That’s one way to keep your appetite in check, he supposes.

✼✼

In all honesty, Astarion’s not even hungry. But he figures it can’t hurt to eat one last big meal before they make it to Grymforge and into the Shadow-Cursed lands where they’ll be stuck mucking about in for Gods know how long.

He slips away from camp to skulk around the caves near them, unfamiliar with the territory and wary of all the strange little creatures hopping about. He scopes over the area to ensure there aren’t any poisonous spores floating in the air and wracks his mind over his mental notes to remember what animals Tav had told him to avoid out here, and that’s when he smells it: a plump spider nestled away in a small cavern.

Sure, Astarion is used to mammals, having sworn off the idea of insects completely since his newfound freedom, but it smells positively mouthwatering, and there’s no rules, no person, to tell him what he can and cannot eat – or do – anymore.

He considers the spider, looking over it not once, not twice but three times just to consider its viability, and he decides that it is perfectly suitable for a meal. He descends on the creature without any resistance whatsoever – it seems like it is sleeping, or sluggish, but Astarion can hardly question it as he drinks from it, mind clouding over from the craving he has for it. The spider’s ichor is a peculiar blend of something sweet and milky and almost sour, and Astarion drains it all from the creature until it shrinks away to a withered husk of its former glory.

There’s a mild cramp at first as the blood courses through him slowly, and he chalks it up to simply overindulging – he’s gotten somewhat used to gorging himself over the past few weeks, like a youngling set loose in a kitchen full of sweets. But with each passing step, Astarion feels an unfamiliar, searing warmth spreading from his stomach, a sensation that grows increasingly intense. He swallows through his prickly throat, trying to focus on his steps to navigate his way back.

He’s hot, and gods, it is a foreign sensation, is this how it normally feels? He doesn’t remember. But better question is – why is he so fucking hot? Astarion starts to burn up as if scorching needles are being threaded through his veins. The heat is centered in his face at first, making his pallid skin flush with a ruddy hue as it snakes through his chest, twisting through his tendons; then, it is everywhere inside, the worst of it contained within flames coursing down his thighs, threatening to send him sprawling to the ground. The pain coils through his body, the intensity of it rising higher and higher as he trips over the tangled roots of plant life.

Astarion makes it to the camp, but just barely.

He stumbles back in a daze, mouth fuzzy as if stuffed to the brim with cotton, eyes delirious as he searches the camp for the tiny basin Shadowheart found earlier to dunk himself in. I just need a bath, he thinks dizzily, a nice, cold bath.

With hazy vision and a throbbing head, he finally spots the tub, hidden in a little corner around the camp. There's a tiny moment of relief as he hobbles toward it. His hands tremble as he gets closer, ready to dive into it even with his clothes on. But as Astarion approaches, his focus sharpens, and he realizes that someone is already in it.

“Get out,” Astarion demands.

The water swishes as Gale swivels his head around to look at him. He raises an eyebrow. “I took you as a man with more manners than that, Astarion. I only just got in and I would greatly appreciate not being rushed.”

“I’m not joking around, Gale, get out of the tub,” he says, his fingers twitching at his sides. He’s always lamented the lack of warmth in his body, but now it just seems like a particularly cruel joke that he feels like he’s been set on fucking fire. Astarion lets out a sound of frustration as his hands lunge into the water, unable to wait for Gale, and not caring that it's warm. His movements are frenzied as he splashes water onto his overheated face over and over, gasping as the liquid does nothing to soothe his skin.

Gale leans back with a baffled expression as Astarion’s fingers plunge around in the water. Beads of sweat trickle down his neck. “Shit,” Astarion says, wiping his face dry with his sleeve. He flicks his eyes back at Gale, actually taking in the sight of him sitting in the tub (the sight of his soft chest, his surprisingly broad arms) and he stumbles backwards when his cock twitches and his stomach lurches at the scent of him.

He smells so good: a whirl of black tea, mugwort, hints of acacia, woody and clean – “Shit.”

He runs his shaking hands over his face and looks away, breathing deeply to try to calm himself down. To try and make sense of the savage feeling building underneath the thin barrier of his embarrassment.

“Something is wrong with you. What in the hells did you do, Astarion?”

Gale’s voice brings him back to looking at him, but thank Gods — Astarion’s not sure if it is magic, or if his sense of time is off or if Gale is simply more dexterous than he seems, because he’s out of the tub and fully dressed in his robe, adjusting the collar back into its proper position.

“I –” Astarion scoffs, indignant at the idea that this is a result of his own actions. “I didn’t do anything. I had dinner. That’s– that’s all I did.”

“And what exactly, pray tell, did you eat? Were you mindful of all the animals that Tav said you could feed from?”

“Of course I was, I’m not a nitwit.” But he hesitates when Gale squints his eyes at him. “I found a spider.”

“A spider? Is that a frequent occurrence for you? Imbibing on the blood of arachnids? I admit, I lack extensive knowledge about vampire diets, but it doesn't seem to be particularly suitable –” “It smelled good ,” Astarion replies defensively, his voice cracking under an increasing sense of panic. “So I drank from it. As I am wont to do.”

“And how did it taste? What did it smell like?”

“It was – oh, I don’t know, milky? Bizarre in hindsight, but it was strangely appetizing. And — come to think of it, it didn’t even stir when I approached it.”

Something goes off in Gale’s brain and his eyes open with understanding. "Succubi spittle perhaps," Gale remarks as he scrutinizes Astarion's increasingly haggard appearance. "If my understanding of the fluid is correct, it's something one should be very wary of.”

“Get to the point, Gale.” “You consumed tainted blood from a spider that was likely dying from the effects of succubi spittle. That is… very bad.”

“Clearly – what’s going to happen to me?” Astarion chokes out, taking a step towards Gale. There’s a furious, irritated rash blooming now all over his skin, going down his torso and disappearing under the trousers that are stretched tight against his body. “I feel like I’m going to rip my skin off.”

Gale doesn’t seem nearly as alarmed as he should be as he cups his chin with his fingers and thinks. “The longer this spittle is in your body, the sooner you are bound to deteriorate. From what I’ve read, you’ll eventually find yourself reduced to hallucinatory, almost euphoric state, and if you’ve consumed a high enough concentration of it – you could move on to causing bodily harm to yourself, perhaps even death; which could happen through a few methods, such as incessant scratching or–”

"Enough!" Astarion silences Gale with a wave of his hand. “I’ve heard enough! I'm going to Shadowheart.”

Astarion’s stomach twists and turns as he moves past him with urgency, but the mage’s fingers shoot out like a bolt, wrapping firmly around his wrist. The touch sends an electrifying surge through his body and straight to his cock, making him recoil from Gale in shock.

“Fuck,” Astarion hisses. He glances down at his pants and can see them straining. And if Gale notices, well, he doesn’t comment on it.

“I’m afraid she can’t help you with this – well – unless… Ahem, allow me to clarify. There isn’t an antidote for this particular affliction, not in the form of a potion or spell, anyway. But you’re lucky, the cure is quite simple. You need to…”

Gale chooses his next words carefully.

“Well, normally, you could bed someone and be rid of it. So, essentially, in a manner of speaking, you need to flush it out of your body immediately.”

Astarion narrows his eyes, letting the insinuation sink into his brain.

“I see. Well. If you’ll excuse me.”

“Right.” Gale steps to the side, scratching at his head.

An agonized groan escapes from Astarion on his second step. The world swirls around him, and he loses balance, crumpling to his knees. His arms tremble as he tries to maintain his precarious balance. “This can't possibly be how I meet my end! This is far too pitiful for me."

“My fanged friend,” Gale bends down slightly to grasp his shoulders, unaware that his touch makes his cock pulse with precum. His voice stirs something fizzy in Astarion’s stomach, his brain swoops, and he can’t help it – he moans . Astarion tries to push the invading thoughts out of his brain, but they beat back at him, filling his mind with images of ripping away Gale’s clothes, shoving him into the ground, stretching him out –

"No need for the dramatics. I can help you back to your tent, but after that, you’ll need to muster the strength to combat this condition."

Never in his life – even throughout the endless forms of torture he’s endured under Cazador’s hands – has Astarion ever felt like his cock might rot and fall off, but he’s certain he’ll have to prepare a eulogy for it now. It takes everything in him to not reach out and grab Gale to ravage his mouth, his stomach twisting in agony at suppressing his urges. With desperation, he tugs at Gale's robes.

“I can’t feel my legs.”

He heaves a cough, and then a deafening ringing weighs down in his ears. Gale’s lips are moving but there’s nothing coming out of them. Astarion’s mind glazes over so quickly that he’s hardly aware of being carried back to his bedroll, where he ends up sprawled on his back. Throbbing, white-hot lust singes through his body and coats deep in his core as he sucks in rapid breaths of air. His eyes clench shut in agony when the unbearable itch moves through his body and settles on his thighs.

“Astarion,” he hears Gale’s voice floating back into his head. He sounds so far away, but Astarion knows he’s right there, because a hand gently smacks at his cheek. He flinches as another wave rolls through his body at the touch. “I’ve brought you to your tent. Can you open your eyes? I should take my leave, though it would be very uncomfortable for me to explain to the others how you died.”

“Died? Don’t you dare leave! No, no, stay and help me.”

“I’ll remind you again, Astarion, you can’t be healed of this, you need to–”

“I heard you the first – gods, ugh – the first time.”

His eyes flutter open to see Gale sitting beside him, tense with worry. Astarion doesn’t register it, because suddenly, everything is so much slower around him. Everything in his vision dips, and then he only notices the wizard’s eyes swirling like rich brandy and dissolved sugar cubes so bright they could burn a hole in his body. There is a whole galaxy swimming and humming in Gale’s chest and all Astarion can think of is how he wants to plunge himself into it, to wrap his hands around the magic nestled deep inside and to squeeze until Gale comes undone under him and —

“ Oh ,” Astarion breathes, eyes drooping into glassy little crescents. Well, if this is how he dies, Astarion thinks, this is how he dies. A shame that he’ll never get to plunge a stake through Cazador’s chest. “Death is so beautiful.”

“...Precisely how much of this spider’s blood did you consume?” Gale asks, his hands brushing Astarion’s hair off his soaked forehead. The touch makes the unbearable, painful heat in his body squeeze around him like a heavy chain. “You’re scorching. You could give Karlach a run for all her gold.”

“All of it,” he barks out a harsh laugh. “Of course. Of course you drank all of the tainted spider blood. And of course – I'm the one that has the misfortune of being the only one awake when you come back from feeding on said spider...” Gale trails off, shaking his head.

"I loathe," Astarion grits out as he aggressively scratches at his neck, his long, sharp nails scraping vivid red lines under his jaw, “wasting a good meal. Wouldn’t you know something about that?”

Gale stays silent, taking in a deep breath of frustration as he conjures a spell and casts it on Astarion. His arms drop sharply to his sides and his eyes shift to Gale’s face in confusion and anger.

“Clearly, you cannot be trusted to be in charge of your own limbs right now.” There is an agonizingly long pause before Gale sighs, and continues, “And yes, you’re right, I can't fault you. I do know what it means to quell your hunger, lest the maddening thirst overwhelms you.”

Astarion’s eyes grow wider and wider until his mouth falls wide open into the most feverish smile. “A lesson in overindulgence, slow down on your next decadent meal of boots, wizard…”

His face drops.

“Wait, I’m dead. I’m dead?”

“You are not dead.”

“I’m dying, then?”

"While I'm certainly no cleric, I can safely say you’re not dying – but you are in a state of delirium."

“Okay. Okay, if I’m not dead,” he says, blinking up at Gale, trying to get rid of the stars speckling in his eyes. “Then you can help me purge this from my body – and I do mean help.”

“Help…” He stares down at Astarion with a look of disbelief. “Help, help? Ha! Yes, you are definitely out of your mind.”

“You’ve only made this worse by touching me and– and smelling so good – only a buffoon would touch the person in literal heat. My body has decided that it – needs you.”

“I,” Gale starts and stops, his mouth settling into a thin, mortified line.

“What good is a mage who doesn’t make use of his magic in times of true need?” Astarion babbles. “I can’t do it myself, and you don’t have to either, just. Let a mage hand do it. It’s not like it’s you’re actually touching me – we wouldn’t want that – but this way we can get it out without provoking me into a frenzied itching fit."

“I suppose I can make some concessions and — help you. We are both grown men, after all, and this is an emergency. However, we will be having a long chat about your lack of self preservation later,” Gale warns. He clears his throat, clearly uncomfortable, but then he conjures up the mage hand, and Astarion strains his head to glance in its direction. His vision corrects itself a few times, eyes crossing under his half open lids until he sees spectral hands, glowing a dim sapphire, poised and ready for its next command. Its cool fingers brush up his thigh, the vague touch causing little pin pricks to shudder down his spine, stopping at the top of his waistband.

“Err — are you ready?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Astarion hisses.

His head feels too heavy for him to lift up anymore, and it falls back onto the pillow with a thud. The itch in his body is so extreme that he doesn’t even care how pathetic he looks right now, but a voice in the back of his mind shouts at him: it's not too late to turn back – you’ve lost enough of your dignity, tell Gale to leave! Deal with this on your own, weakling! Astarion stuffs it back into a crevice in his mind; right now, relief is all that matters. This – this desire is weakness, he knows, but he has an excuse this time. It’s the spittle… it’s not him.

“I’m only looking to see if there’s anything else abnormal going on,” Gale assures him. “Not a second further.”

The hand tugs at the fabric of his pants, then, his underwear; and he holds back a groan as his length is freed from the confines of his pants, rock solid and rigid. His cock is so extremely skin taut and bulging to the head, it looks like it’s suffocating at the tip. It seems almost bruised, tinged with deep shades of purple, nearly black at some spots. Gale coughs as he sees it for just a second before turning his head to the ceiling.

“What? What is it?” he strains, unable to muster up the strength to lift his head up to take a peek at what’s happening between his legs.

“The hue of it… I can’t imagine that such discoloration is normal for you, regardless of your undead nature.”

“Speak. Plainly.” Astarion grits out between his teeth.

“It’s purple.”

“Purple? My cock?”

“…Yes.”

“Oh – gods. It’s going to fall off. I’m going to lose my cock. I’m going to be a eunuch,” he splutters.

“You are not going to lose anything. If I can’t fix this then I’ll have to truly evaluate my skills as a wizard.”

He shudders out a heavy breath as Gale commands the hand to touch his cock. It’s a gentle touch, hesitant to do anything more. “This year, Gale,” Astarion croaks. The fingers wrap loosely around him, and that’s enough to make him take a sharp breath. It starts to slowly stroke up and down, squeezing when it reaches the head, the magic radiating from the conjured hand seemingly sparking through his cock. "Faster." The hand falters for a second, before it follows his directions and works along his cock with more intensity. A tense minute of this passes before Gale breaks the heavy, shuddering silence.

“Is… is it all right?”

“Yes,” Astarion answers, but he thinks what he really needs is Gale’s touch – his real hands, not some conjured imagination of them. “No – yes, but no, I need – I need – touch me,” he begs, fucking begs. If he was in a less unhinged state, Astarion would throw up from how pitiful he sounds.

“I am touching you,” Gale reminds him.

"Gale, damn it.” He barely notices the heavy way that Gale swallows through his dry mouth. “That’s not what I mean.”

The mage hand continues to move up and down in a seamless glide, spreading his precum around, coating his cock slick. Astarion’s so hard he could cut through steel, it’s so painful, and he’s leaking a puddle against his stomach. It feels good— yet... It’s. Not. Enough. He can’t come from this alone. His head tilts back as he pants, his hips attempting to hump up against the conjured hand for more. “It hurts. It hurts so badly.”

Gale finally turns his head away from the tent’s ceiling to look at Astarion. His perturbed eyes bear into his skull. He’s thinking, weighing an idea.

“Please remember,” he mutters. “You asked me to touch you.”

With some degree of hesitance, he reaches a hand out to rub his fingers along the outside of Astarion’s right ear, gentle as he moves root to tip, running his thumb along the inner surface. Astarion lets out a gravelly moan, eyes crossing over as his mind is flooded with even more pleasure. Such an intimate act – reserved for the most cherished of lovers, Gale must know this – is not one that he can recall ever experiencing. Astarion’s reaction is instant; the caress has him trembling and on the brink of tears. At the same time, the arcane hand wraps its slick fingers tighter around his cock and gives faster, firmer strokes, twisting at the base and rubbing its thumb over the head with each pull.

“It feels – okay?” Gale asks, voice barely above a whisper.

Astarion chokes out something between a laugh of disbelief and a whiney moan – what a stupid question, what a completely insensible thing to ask!

“Ta,” he slurs, mind short circuiting, unable to push the answer – yes – out in common tongue.

Gale thankfully knows Elvish, he remembers, though it wouldn’t matter much if he didn’t, because anyone with half a brain can tell that whatever is going on is very much alright with Astarion. Another hand reaches out to curl over the shell of his left ear, fingers rubbing back and forth between the tip, down to gingerly pinching his earlobe.

Astarion writhes, deep gasps turning into shuddering purrs from his ears being stimulated. Frankly, it feels fucking shameless – the sensation overshadowing the thrusts of his cock against the mage hand. The only thing better that he can possibly imagine would be to have Gale’s pretty lips wrapped around his cock – and though he knows vaguely that there isn’t a chance Gale will relent to that idea, he groans at the image, terribly pained, and horrifyingly, overwhelmingly aroused.

Gale probably mistakes the groan of pleasure for only a pained sound, because he whispers to him with sincerity, “You’re okay, Astarion. It’ll be over soon. You’re doing – you’re doing good. ”

The comforting tone pulls a pathetic whimper from Astarion and he looks up at Gale, eyes pitched dark in lust as the hand pumps his cock. Astarion meets each one with a thrust of his own. Gale tries to break his gaze and fails, his own face flushed with arousal, his chest dimly glowing in the darkness of the tent. Astarion doesn’t recognize the voice coming from his throat, whining for more, quicker, harder.

“Déithe. Le do thoil.”

Gods. Please.

The pace of the mage hand stroking his length speeds up, fist clenching more and more each time as it reaches around his tip, and Astarion feels the wave of his orgasm spiraling out from his belly already like Gale is actually pulling it out from him with a spell. His breath hitches, and his cock pulses with cum – so much cum –and it spills all over the blue fingers, thick and hot and seemingly endless. True relief washes through him, but it’s also agonizing in its own way, and Astarion can't help when a grateful, broken sob wrecks through his chest. It’s over. Finally.

“Buíochas, buíochas, thank you–”

Before Astarion can even register it, the relief is short lived, and his cock is still hard as ever, still the same unsightly shade of purple. What the fuck. It’s as if Gale didn’t help at all. The only comfort is that the itch burning through his body has subsided. He can feel his legs again, and it seems that the spell on his arms has worn off. But his lust is full throttle, somehow worse than before; Astarion continues to want, to need.

“You're still–” Gale begins incredulously, but Astarion scrambles with all his strength to push him down on the ground before he can finish his sentence. His hands are all over Gale, fumblingly groping at his chest. He’s hysterically turned on, mindlessly driven to seek more pleasure, more flesh, more anything from Gale by whatever the spittle blood is doing to his mind and body, and he makes a strangled noise when he pushes apart his cloak and sees it.

The outline of Gale’s cock straining in his pants.

A dark, wet spot at the top of the waistband.

Astarion’s hands tremble as they run down Gale’s chest to his soft thighs. “You’re almost as hard as I am. Did you also drink something suspicious?” He leans in and braves just enough to place a finger at the outline of the tip. “No. I caused this,” Astarion salivates. “Not an uncommon circumstance.”

“You—” Gale gasps, snatching Astarion’s wrist away. “You are not in the right state of mind, Astarion.”

“Why state something so obvious?” Astarion gives a maniacal laugh. “No! No, I’m not fully in the same realm as you right now. But it doesn’t matter. I want to thank you. It’s only good manners, and I am nothing if not a gentleman.”

“There’s no need to thank me. I mean, really, I’m being completely sincere when I say I've changed my mind – you don’t have to bring up this terribly maladroit situation at all –”

“Then forget about thanks, darling, and just allow me the pleasure of pleasuring you,” he implores, looking back up at him, pupils blown wide. Let me, let me, let me . “I’m not so completely rat-arsed to not know that you’re hard because of me .”

His fingers trace over the waistband of Gale’s trousers, pulling them slightly so that he can see the soft, brown hair that deliciously trails from his navel. Astarion marvels at the feeling tugging at his chest: how he wants , and what’s more, he carelessly wants to want.

Gale’s eyes flit across Astarion’s face, his own expression fraught with anxiety. “I need to go,” he says weakly. “Once you regain your regular state of mind, you’ll regret that I was the one to find you, to help you at all – this is a product of transient folly, spurred on by the spittle –”

“Please spare me from the precious coddling, it doesn’t suit you at all.”

Astarion spits the words out with venom. He wants to touch Gale so badly he might throw up, and for a second he’s sure that Gale is going to get up and walk away. Good . Good, he should get up and leave. How fucking embarrassing, how utterly uncouth and vile is it of Astarion, to push himself further on a man who simply wanted to help him not writhe around in agony due to a stupid mistake he made?

But Gale.

Gale – he doesn’t make a single move, his body might as well be frozen as he only offers a shaky breath, hand falling down to his side. Astarion can’t let another second pass him by, just in case Gale does come to his senses and Astarion doesn’t have the strength to accept it. He tugs his britches down to his thighs and Gale’s cock springs out against his stomach, already leaking and waiting at attention for him.

He swears there’s two versions of himself – one in control of the body, the other one floating outside– Astarion can see through another perspective as he drools, spit leaking onto Gale’s hard cock; he can hear the exact second when it hits the tip. He slobbers more saliva in his hand, then spreads it all along the veiny length, admiring the difference compared to his own pale cock – it’s not as long, but it’s curved, and thick enough that Astarion practically feels the phantom weight of it already in his throat.

His thumb dips over the dribbling tip, swiping over beads of precum. Astarion is mesmerized by the sight of it, by the erratic breathing from the man under him. It’s like he’s been bestowed a holy gift — and it’s all overwhelming for someone as impious as Astarion to accept it, but accept it he will. He drinks it all in at first, savoring the way he slowly works his fist; base to tip, then tip tortuously slow back down to base. Then, he speeds up with a fervor, and that’s when Gale’s hands reach to fold over his — and he’s so entranced he doesn’t even look up.

But it’s not that Gale makes him stop. He doesn’t make him pull off from him. He doesn’t even say anything at all. He just forces Astarion to slow down.

They're like that for a while, quiet, two pairs of hands moving up and down together, making the maddening lust inside of Astarion simmer and boil. The slick sounds and the way that Gale’s chest quickly rises and falls threatens to set Astarion ablaze if he doesn’t get his mouth around his cock immediately .

“Did Mystra ever deign to get on her knees for her darling little mage?”

“She— she is the Mother of Magic , Astarion,” Gale chides him, like he is some kind of unruly child.

“That’s a no, then.”

He takes his left hand off and pins one of Gale’s hands to his side and leans in to trace his lips along the fat head of Gale’s cock. The groan that falls from Gale’s lips makes it obvious that it’s been a long, long time since anyone, no less Mystra, has shown the worshiper what it means to be worshiped.

Poor Gale. A man who has had the unique privilege of making astral love with a literal Goddess, and yet, he is so starved of basic touch. Astarion feverishly contemplates what it means to be devout as he licks a slow stripe up Gale’s cock, savoring the taste of vaguely herbal skin, tongue lingering on the veins that line his length. Mystra be damned – Astarion will find out how it feels to hold Gale in his hands and pull tautly at all his strings.To desire and to be desired, oh, isn’t it all the same, so foreign in their intertwining? It’s a near violent, possessive urge: the need for Gale to remember the way his tongue works like a prayer, to recite it over and over in his memory long after tonight.

He realizes, grimly, that Gale will be the first living, free person to remember him in this way.

Astarion then looks up through his lashes, dismayed to see Gale’s expression: curious but somewhat flat, like he’s simply observing. Writing mental notes to review later. That’s certainly not an expression Astarion has ever seen while in this delicate position, and he decides he’s not fond of it – it better change, he thinks, before he says something needlessly cruel. He slides the head of Gale’s cock between his lips, before closing them around the crown; then, he drags his tongue along the underside and then up the slit, tasting the droplets of precum pooling at the top. He watches Gale the entire time, unblinking, and he hums with satisfaction when Gale’s eyes widen in awe; his attention shifting to suck all around the leaking cock, making it messy with spit and flat tongue.

“Gods above,” Gale whispers, voice raspy, hands sliding up to his silvery curls. Astarion groans, closing his eyes, letting the fingers in his hair guide his motions, slurping and tightening his mouth when he feels Gale involuntarily jerk against it. “This – ah, this , isn’t any form of gratitude I’m familiar with.”

Astarion hollows out his mouth and slides his cock all the way back, so far down his throat that Gale makes an incoherent noise. The sounds of Gale teetering on the edge of his hushed composure is too much for his over-stimulated brain – Astarion juts his hand down to his still viciously hard cock, tugging at it harshly. What is a prayer compared to the sanctity of Gale’s moans? They’re such sweet, hesitant little cracks under the way Astarion’s throat works like it wants to wring his cock out completely dry.

Astarion’s head wobbles from it all. Is he really after Gale’s cum or is it still his blood? Maybe he’s only after some of the sanity he’s currently missing, rattling around in Gale’s brain. Maybe it’s all of the above, everything. He gasps for air as he pulls away, long strands of spit and precum connecting his mouth to Gale’s cock.

“Tell me, Gale,” Astarion grins like a madman, pupils so blown that there’s just a sliver of crimson around the rims. “Is the regret settling in yet?”

“Yes,” Gale groans, frustration lacing his tone. Astarion’s face falters at the answer and his stomach almost drops, but then he feels fingers grasping around his curls. “I regret knowing that mouth — it’s completely wicked.”

“You’re not a liar, right?” Astarion asks, fluttering kisses all around Gale’s cock. “Have you thought about my mouth before?”

Gale nearly hisses in disapproval at the question: “ Astarion .”

“You have, haven’t you?”

“Anyone would, when you’re constantly boasting about your skills ,” Gale grimaces, as if admitting such a thing is painful.

Astarion nail’s scrape against the base of Gale’s cock, causing him to tense against his grasp. He’s not sure why he needs to hear this so badly. “Have you touched yourself, thinking of me?”

Gale is breathless, but he gives him a straight answer, no wit involved.

“Yes.”

Something snaps in Astarion at the admission and his hands shake when they go to tug Gale’s pants further down to his ankles, eliciting a surprised groan from him. Astarion pulls him apart and palms his ass, watching as he shudders, then dives in with a long, messy lick along his perineum. He laps at him, rolling his tongue around the tight rim of muscles, then sinks inside, burying his tongue in while Gale’s whole body shakes under him. Astarion’s cock leaks as he buries his tongue in and out, completely and blindly overtaken by desire. He's frantic and needy as he alternates between sucking sloppy kisses against the rim and intense licking; one hand hooking under Gale’s knee to lift him, the other snaking down to grasp Gale's cock to pump it in tandem with each lap. He listens as Gale’s breathing becomes more raw and ragged as he pulls at Astarion’s hair.

“Astarion,” Gale strains, “ Astarion, please, just –”

The moan that tumbles out from Astarion feels like it has been punched out of him. Oh, he thinks, how lovely – Gale has never sounded better than with Astarion’s name on his lips, it’s such beautiful pleading — he could get used to it.

His original goal was to make Gale come apart under his tongue, but he thinks of something else, another wicked way to make the mage fall apart, to come closer to the same raving lunacy that Astarion is experiencing. One that involves less mental juggling of hand and mouth. Astarion pulls his mouth away, pushes forward and climbs onto his lap. They look at each other with a shared gasp when their slick, aching cocks meet, rubbing together.

“You– we– we should stop.” Gale strains, angling to push him away. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Astarion scoffs, sinking further over him. “I know exactly what I’m doing to you.” Gale’s cock twitches against his and he licks his lips, baring his teeth as he simpers. “And you like it.”

“This – this could be too much for the orb in my chest – no matter how stabilized it is. I could be in danger of exploding, quite literally.”

Sweet Gale, exaggerating and trying to do the right thing, however late – and fruitless – at this point. If they stop now , what difference does it make?

“What a delightful death we could have,” Astarion ignores him, before he sways his hips and lines their cocks even closer together.

Gale whines as Astarion reaches over to put his palms on top of Gale’s, guiding them to wrap around both of their cocks. He gathers up more spit in his mouth to drool over each one; they both shudder as they squeeze their lengths together, sticky cock against sticky cock, threads of precum connecting their heads during the seconds they separate. Their cocks slide together, slippery with Astarion’s spit and Gale’s precum, rocking jointly in an ungraceful motion. Gale’s clearly overly stimulated, but Astarion doesn’t let up, he can’t even if he wanted to – he is a man, no, a creature possessed – he pumps faster, rougher, and makes their cocks push up harder into their palms.

“Astarion,” Gale chokes out, and he sounds so wrecked, it’s almost enough to convince Astarion that he’s under the influence of the same spittle as well. Gale’s head hits backwards on his pillow, eyes rolling as Astarion’s wild stare burns deep into him, unable to look away from his face. “Ah, I can’t –”

“You can,” Astarion breathes, stroking and tightening their grips on their cocks painfully. “There’s absolutely nothing you can’t do. You’re the great Gale of Waterdeep. Bí buachaill maith, agus tar chugam.”

Be a good boy, and come for me.

Immediately, Gale keens and his whole body lifts off, thick pearly streaks of his cum spraying across his stomach and chest. Astarion quickly follows with his own orgasm, panting, drooling over Gale, eyes fluttering with satisfaction. “There you go,” Astarion breathes, milking Gale through his tremors, nearly unphased by the way his own muscles constrict and release like a spring. “You deserve it for being so helpful. My little laoch .” My little hero.

And even after Gale is done, when he’s shaking and cumdrunk from emptying himself, Astarion strokes his raw and still hard length against Gale’s softening cock, playing with the cum pooling between them. Astarion swipes his sticky fingers through their cum and brings them to his lips, sliding them deep into his mouth. He makes a show of lapping between his fingers, holding eye contact with Gale, who is so delightfully flushed he looks like he can barely breathe. Gods, he is so pretty like this.

“When were you going to tell me you were so delicious?”

Gale shudders in sensitivity as Astarion goes back to swirling his thumb over Gale’s cockhead, rubbing up and down their cocks. He’s so unbearably hard, he thinks madly that he’s going to have to slit his wrists and force some of his tainted blood into Gale’s mouth to make him understand. “Astarion, for the Gods sake,” Gale stutters, trying to regain his coherency and attempting to pull away. “I’m not in an altered state like you – t-there’s nothing left from me.”

The utterly detestable thought of ignoring Gale crosses his mind, and Astarion is tempted to listen to it. To give into the sickly demand of his body. He thinks he would kill for it, could kill for it: to flip Gale over and hook his fingers around his pink lips and plunge his cock inside and fuck him deep until there’s nothing left, nowhere to go, until one of them – it doesn’t matter which – sobs from it, passes out from it.

No, he thinks, horrified.

Rational. Be rational. Think.

It’s the spittle.

He needs it gone , Astarion tells himself, it’s making him drag this out, glossing over the uncomfortable reality that’s bound to settle in between them after all is said and done. His jaw tenses as he looks down at Gale, nervous, jelly-soft, not anywhere near fucked out like Astarion desperately wants.

“Fine, fine. I think there’s another way I could flush the rest out…” Astarion murmurs, eyeing Gale’s neck.

“My blood ? Let me remind you that it's not exactly a delicacy, Astarion.”

“It doesn’t matter – the weave magic pulsing through has to be strong enough to combat what’s in my body.”

“If you think you can choke it down,” Gale takes a deep inhale. “Far be it from me to prolong your… condition. Intriguing to see how my blood interacts with yours, given the current circumstances, but don’t expect me to do anything if it happens to set you on fire, or something of the sort…”

There is no gentleness to it – no trepidation like the night when Astarion first grazed his two tips against Tav’s neck. Hardly a second passes by before his sharp nails dig into Gale’s shoulders, pinning him down, fangs sinking into his neck with reckless abandon. Astarion draws in deep, greedy pulls of blood and Gale’s pulsing life source gushes into his mouth and down his throat, bizarre and laced with a sharp, arcane bitterness. He chokes after the first few gulps, pulling away to suck in air, “Hells –”

Gale wobbles his head at him. Despite the pain in his neck, he’s concerned.

“Astarion, are you–”

He snakes his fingers through Gale’s hair and forcefully yanks his head back, baring his neck again. Astarion’s teeth pierces the flesh once more, latching on and swallowing despite the intensity of it prickling down his throat like jagged shards of glass, driven solely by the way Gale’s blood thrums with furious energy. Small trails of blood drip out from his mouth, sliding down his chin as he desperately drinks and drinks. He delights in the whimpers it draws from Gale and rubs his cock against his stomach, angling for another release like an animal. Astarion feels like he could suck the very soul out of Gale, steal it for himself, fit it right within his chest, he wants to, he wants to, he wants to. When Gale slides a hand up his abdomen and wraps his fingers around his cock, a moan gurgles from Astarion’s throat, and his thoughts fizzle out as he completely surrenders to the feeling.

His body surges forward with all the grace of a rabid creature as Gale pumps his cock vigorously and clumsily, biting down pained noises as Astarion sucks and sucks from the juncture of his neck. He groans something guttural, and then, he comes so hard his vision blacks out entirely. His cock shoots out ropes of cum across Gale’s body, marking his thighs and stomach, causing a sticky, mess between them.

The world finally, finally starts to slowly realign.

He feels utterly weightless as he retracts his fangs from Gale’s tender flesh. They’re both perspiring profusely, sweat pouring from their bodies, panting against each other in the stillness of his tent. When his ears stop buzzing, he can hear Gale’s thundered pulse ringing a vibrant rhythm in his ears and – it’s beautiful. It’s so alive . Astarion doesn’t want to mourn the loss of it yet, holding on to that crackly feeling beating unsteady around him. He presses their chests and thighs together, bringing a trembling hand up, smearing what’s left of the blood on his jaw into his mouth, pressing it along his tongue and against his gums.

“Your blood tastes so…” Astarion closes his eyes. He mulls it over, tracing around the ridges of his mouth, under the tip of his fangs. “It’s unlike anything I’ve ever had . I’m not sure what the right word would be. Nauseating. Or perhaps revolting?” “Don’t act like I didn’t caution you.”

“Rancid? Putrid? Could be used as a torture method for prisoners of war?”

“Alright, you’ve made your point very clear. I sincerely apologize that my blood is not to your refined taste.”

“Hmm. Well. Taste can be acquired.”

Astarion leans his head in and licks at the wound, contemplating it as Gale shivers around him, a hand snaking up to his waist with a firm squeeze.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. If you think that’s happening again,” Gale says, with the world’s worst conviction, “You’re sorely mistaken.” He waves his shaky hand, muttering a spell quietly, and then, the both of them are clean from the mess they've made of each other.

Even though he’s wired , Astarion’s simultaneously exhausted. He could retort something about how Gale should be afraid – should feel absolutely foolish – now that he’s gotten a taste of what it means to be filled with such special, arcane energy. Now that he knows how it feels to actually enjoy making someone come undone under him. That perhaps Gale has made an addict out of him, in more ways than one.

He could tell him all that, and it would all be true. But he’ll settle for being honest about something much more mundane.

“You know what was good?”

“Do tell me, Astarion, I’m dying to hear all your revelations tonight.”

“For once, everyone was right about one thing. Your stew, darling, it was delicious, I’ll never doubt your culinary skills again.”

“Well, I already knew that, but I’m glad you’re admitting it. Maybe next time you won’t run away if I happen to offer you some sourdough.”

“Only if you leave the bread slicing to someone else,” Astarion snorts as he draws away from the nape of Gale’s neck, exposing the fresh wound to air. He pushes himself off from his chest and falls to the side, draping his legs lazily around the other man’s legs, resting a head on his shoulder.

“I’m completely drained – pun intended, ” Gale mumbles, “And not too righteous to admit that I can't keep my eyes open…”

There is so much of Gale in his veins that Astarion is sure that he will burst if he moves even an inch, that it will all leak out of his chest, a violaceous firecracker just waiting to erupt from every pore in his body. Yet it’s the way that his legs are gracelessly hooked around Gale’s thighs that makes it all die down. He wraps himself a little more around the sanctuary of Gale’s body, sinking into the embrace. There’s no chance that he’s getting up any time soon; he’s on a cloud, bathed in sunlight, and there’s no more scorching pain. Just warmth, and only the right amount of it.

Three breaths are all it takes for Gale to slip into the realm of sleep, and Astarion stiffens at the unfamiliar concept of spending the night with him. “Gale,” he whispers.

Even his name fizzes on Astarion’s tongue.

When Gale doesn’t stir, Astarion thinks it would be unkind to disturb him any further. Not that being kind really matters at all to him, but, well. I’ll blame it on the spittle in the morning, he thinks, hypnotized by the gentle, barely there rhythm of Gale’s heartbeat and the rapid torrent of magic coursing through his own veins.

Before he realizes it, he slips away too.

#i'm honestly so nervous to post this be gentle with me lmao #bloodweave #gale/astarion #gale #astarion #baldur's gate #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 fanfic #baldur's gate fanfiction #baldur's gate gale #baldur's gate astarion #porcelainfic #gale of waterdeep #astarion ancunin #gale x astarion #astarion x gale #galestarion

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farity · 2 years ago

Text

Let’s Pretend, part 5

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x you

Summary: The pretend engagement trope courtesy of Aemond and you

Warning: Future smut.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

“Despite how much it pleases me to see you miserable, brother,” Aegon said, “will you just go fetch the girl? She may have terrible taste in men, but she was amusing at times.”

Aemond shoved his brother against the wall, and Aegon laughed. “You will shut your mouth.”

“She is most likely still on the road at this time. You can have Vhagar roast her in that carriage, although there might be some collateral damage but what is that to us princes?”

Aemond let go of his brother, stared at him. If only things were so easy.

“Don’t be a fool, little brother. You aren’t doomed to a miserable marriage, Should you waste the opportunity, I might just cut off your hair while you sleep.”

“You will not touch his beautiful hair.”

Aegon rolled his eyes at the sound of Helaena’s voice. “I need a fucking drink.”

* * * * *

Aemond followed the road to her home, his mind a tangled mess. He had no idea what he would say, if she was even willing to speak with him. Half the time he wanted to throw himself a her feet and beg for her forgiveness and the other half he wanted to shake her and ask her why she would request such a thing from him, when he was barely able to control himself the times he’d held her in his arms.

He had grown accustomed to her presence. Had felt her integrate herself so easily into his life that when she had surprised him by asking him to lay with her, he had not been ready for the realization of what that meant.

She was quietly making herself irreplaceable to him and the moment he understood that, he had no choice but to pull back. If life had taught him anything, it was that those who should love him didn’t care to. Some simply ignored him while others actively hated him. When he had stepped back, put up the wall between himself and any potential for heartache, he had not realized until too late the utter devastation that would ensue.

In the distance, he saw the carriage, and flew past it, all the way to the field where he had first left Vhagar back during that fateful visit when she had taken an arrow for him. He had never told her he had felt her purposely move to keep the arrow from striking him. She had simply, out of instinct, moved to keep him from harm, and he could not speak of it. Not without irreparable damage to everything that had taken him years to craft.

He landed easily, his heart beginning to race, and he saw the guards at the back gate. “If you wish to follow me, you may, I mean no harm to anyone,” he said when he walked past them.

He turned before anyone could reply, and headed toward the main road.

* * * * *

You all heard the dragon’s roar.

You looked out the window, following Vhagar until she disappeared from your sight, and turned to find four eyes, all beloved to you, watching you.

“My darling,” your father said, “you know whatever you choose to do, I will stand behind you, as will our army.”

“Goodness, I hope it will not come to that,” you said, trying to sound less nervous than you were. You hit the roof of the carriage, “stop!”

You opened the door, and turned to see your father and Lord Stoughton, hands clutched together, as you readied yourself to meet Aemond.

He had stopped out in front of your home, and you saw that some of your guards stood some distance behind him. You stopped a few paces from Aemond, unwilling to go any closer, then you sank into a slow, deep curtsy. A few moments later, he bowed. As usual, his expression was unreadable.

“Why did you leave without saying goodbye?”

“Is that what bothers you? That I did not say goodbye?”

“Yes. No.” He took a step forward and you felt the urge to run away. “You left, just like that. Without saying anything to me.”

This was an argument you had been ready for. “You turned around and left when I was trying to talk to you, Aemond. You left without listening to me.”

He looked to the side, as if trying to remember. “And then I came back- you know, it does not matter.”

“Clearly.”

That muscle on his jaw that twitched when he was trying to control some emotion jumped. “Why? Will you tell me that much?”

“Because we no longer agree on what we want out of this.”

He took another step forward. “Because I wouldn’t bed you.”

You’d thought about this argument, too. You had had plenty of time to think about this conversation. “Because of what you said after.”

He ran a hand through his hair, and you could now see the darker slashes of color on his cheeks. “Because I want to preserve your good name and reputation. That is why you are done with me.”

“Aemond, I wouldn’t have asked you to- you know-”

“Fuck you.”

You winced at the tone, the expression. He meant to hurt you.

“Bed me, just like that. I wasn’t expecting to lay with anyone that wasn’t my husband.”

“Yet you damn me for trying to preserve your name so you can make a good match later on?”

“There is no later on! Don’t you get it?” you snapped, grateful for the fact that both the carriage and the guards were far away from you both. “You’re still thinking there is going to be some other man after you, when in truth, I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t . . . “

“What?”

“Love you.”

He opened his mouth, eye wide, and said nothing.

“I wouldn’t have asked you to lay with me if I did not love you.”

Aemond closed his mouth, and gods damn the man, his face remained unreadable. “I know,” he said quietly.

You did a double take, “what do you mean, you know?”

“I knew the moment you asked.”

You had thought you could not feel any worse than you already did, but yet again, you were surprised. You could get through this. You could survive this. There could be a future for you where you were happy even though he knew you loved him and still chose to reject you.

“Well, then, since my declaration is as unpalatable to you as my earlier request, I will ask you to send the guards back and get out of my way so I can go home.” You smoothed your skirts, praying to the Maiden you would not start crying. Not until you were safely alone. “No one will blame you. I will say that my injury showed me life as a Targaryen is filled with dangers and I am simply not up to the task. I am sure dozens of ladies will start putting about how brave and fearless they are.”

“You are brave, and fearless.”

You nodded. “I am delighted to hear this praise from you, Prince Aemond.”

“Far more so than me.”

“Sure,” you replied. “the man who masterfully wields the sword and rides that giant dragon is not as brave and fearless as I.”

He took another step toward you and this time, you did step back. “I knew when you asked me,” he repeated. “and it terrified me.”

“That is a horrible thing to say. I suggest you do not say such things to your next betrothed.”

To your surprise, he laughed. “Love has always been given at great cost, or completely withheld. Or used as a weapon. In my experience.”

“It doesn’t have to be any of those things.”

“You took an arrow for me. Do you not know how guilty I feel that you almost died?”

You shrugged, “you never said.”

He looked stricken. “There are many things I have left unsaid,” he murmured. “I know I deserve no second chance, but I will ask for one, should you think me worthy of it.”

You were about to reply, but then he took another step and placed a knee on the ground before you, and it was then you felt the tears begin.

“I have heard it say that a soulmate is not someone who matches you precisely, but instead a mirror that shows you the best and the worst of what you are,” he extended his hand, which you took immediately. “You are that for me. Be my betrothed, in truth this time, I will spend the rest of my days making sure you know how much I cherish you. How much I love you. How much I desire you.”

You pulled him up to standing and brought his face to yours so you could kiss him.

“As many, many people have told me lately,” he whispered, “I have been a fool.”

You wrapped your arms around him, let him kiss you and lift you off the ground, and when you pulled back, he brushed the tears off your cheeks.

You heard the carriage drive past you and around the side of the house, and the guards turned and headed back inside, leaving you and Aemond alone outside.

* * * * *

“Tell me,” he said as he walked around the pretty gardens with her on his arm. “who else was on your list?”

She stopped, and he turned to find her giving him a look of exasperation. “It does not matter.”

“I agree,” Aemond said. “Who else?”

“Why? Will you go on a murdering spree?”

He considered the question, “well, Aegon still lives, which means I have successfully controlled my murdering impulses for years.”

“Oh good, that is very reassuring.”

“You will tell me, sooner or later.” He pulled her close, kissed her until she parted her lips for him, wrapped an arm around her. “I am very good at finding out information when I am determined.” He continued tasting the sweetness of her mouth, and when he finally let her go, her eyes were heavy lidded and her cheeks were flushed.

“I believe I will tell you anything you wish if you keep kissing me like that.”

His eye went to her mouth, then back up to her eyes. “I will remember that.” He ran the back of his fingers down the side of her face. “You are everything that is precious to me.”

“As are you, Aemond.”

He smiled suddenly. “Lord Stoughton made sure to let me know, before you left the keep, that he has an affinity, and should the need arise, a great talent for concocting poisons.”

She laughed, the sound of light and warmth, and he pulled her in to kiss her hair, the familiar scent now welcome.

“Will you tell me about them?”

There was some hesitation in her gaze when she looked up at him, but she nodded. “Lord Stoughton is the son of an old Baron from the Vale, he was a ward of my grandfather, a few years younger than my father but they grew up together. When father married, and the wardship was over, Lord Stoughton went back home.” She smoothed her skirts nervously. “A couple of years after mother died they met again. I have known him all my life, he was just always there and I never questioned it. He is kind and father is happy. Once I knew what things were, I realized how much they were willing to risk.” She tugged on Aemond’s hand and he turned to face her. “I will see no harm of any kind come to them.”

Aemond nodded. “I would say or do nothing that would ever cause them or you any harm.” When she smiled at him, he continued. “So now a choice is upon you, my lady. Send for your Septon and marry me here tonight, or we head back to King’s Landing and you marry me there tonight.”

* * * * *

Tagging:

@arryn-nyx @girlwith-thepearlearring @greenowlfactif @hydrationqueensworld @megzdoodle @melsunshine @queenofshinigamis @throughgoeshamilton @travelingmypassion @watercolorskyy @zillahvathek

@hb8301 @kaemond-zafiro @arcielee

Tagging for this fic:

@shros3b @malfoytargaryen @fedeffy @randomdragonfires @issshhh @opheliaas-stuff @brianochka @devils-blackrose @wolflinkpaws @fangirlninja67 @dahlias-and-marigolds

#aemond targaryen #aemond #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x you #aemond x you #hotd fanfic #hotd fanfiction

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therealvinelle · 2 years ago

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what are the cullen’s hobbies? (not canon ones, things and activities you think they’d enjoy - even if being a vampire made it a little difficult or damn near impossible)

God, my eye is twitching with the desire to give them the weirdest hobbies imaginable.

The Cullens have an insane amount of money and time, and their powers (ultra-fine muscle control, amazing vision, etc.) means they will excel at a lot of hobbies.

The hobbies they are prevented from by their vampirism are things involving animals, professional sports (as you'll have to submit to drug tests and your health and fitness routine being monitored), close contact with people in general, food-based hobbies, and hobbies were humans are likely to bleed one way or another.

To say nothing of how niche a hobby community can get. Everyone knows everything about everyone, and that opens up for a level of scrutiny a vampire might not be prepared for.

So, let's assume these barriers aren't an issue for whatever reason. What do the Cullens do?

(I... admit I wasn't entirely able to resist that weird hobby urge.)

Alice might just find herself doing cat or dog shows. The level of perfectionism and effort that goes into preparing your pet (depending strongly on breed and fur quality, of course, some breeds require little if any preparation. The universal experience, though, is GROOOOOOOOOMMMM and if it’s dogs, then TRAIIIIINNNNN your dog) could very well appeal to her, and I imagine she'd develop her own coat products. Silicone powder, color-enhancing shampoo, volumizing spray, she's got her own line, to say nothing of the edge her gift would give her, as she would know which puppy or kitten to buy. (The "which cub am I choosing?!!" issue being a common one because when a puppy is 8 weeks old you simply do not know if it will grow up to be a hottie or not, and it’s not much easier with 12 week old kittens. This is a science.) Her pets win everything.

Carlisle, well, the trouble with this guy is his work is his hobby. And it's already one vampires are supposed to be unable to do. The man is a fluke. Carlisle's hobby is now to be able to contribute to medical research and reference patients from the 1820's without anybody asking questions.

Edward... god, all I can picture is some intensely esoteric craft, one that five people in the world can do and that creates something beautiful and meaningful. Making instruments, the rarer and more elaborate the better, is the name of the game, I think.

Emmett would love to compete. He's a vampire, he's going to win at everything anyway, he's incredible. He kicks the butts of seventeen-year-old humans who worked hard and makes them all cry because he just took their scholarships. He whoops, beats his chest. VICTORY!!

Esme, cooking competitions. She's winning them all. And, because anon said to remove the vampirism problems, she's not eating her competitors.

Jasper is into theatre. Not because he's particularly interested in it, oh no, he just likes to abuse his gift this way. With his gift he can make the other actors bomb their scenes, or make an untalented schmuck seem like the next Rex Harrison. He's in a movie club for the same reason. He made one guy laugh during Schindler's List. Just the one.

Renesmée, if finding the limitations of her hybridness lifted, becomes a freestyle diver. Who needs to breathe? Usually Renesmée, but not anymore!

Rosalie has her cars already, but she strikes me as a horse girl. Give the girl an unafraid horse, and the ability to compete without that being an issue, and our girl is on a Dutch Warmblood competing on a national level in dressage.

#cullens #twilight #twilight renaissance #twilight meta #the cullens #carlisle cullen #rosalie hale #emmett cullen #jasper hale #renesmee cullen #you know this post has been in my drafts forever because renesmee was spelled renesmée #renesmée cullen #alice cullen #esme cullen #edward cullen

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stanislawkowalski · 5 months ago

Text

Beneath the bedding, Luka lay as a shrouded question, a sin that pervaded the very air with its foul sweetness. He was a poison that twisted through the veins of the world, a dark allure that promised both destruction and transcendence. The fabric that concealed him was soft, a deceptive veil that hid the sharp, hungry gaze of a predator. His eyes gleamed with a cold, intoxicating light, observing Achilles with a singular intensity, as if he were the prey in a grand, intricate game.

The air around him seemed to thicken, pulsing with the weight of his desires. Luka was a connoisseur of suffering and raw truth, a seeker of profound experiences that bordered on the sublime. His very essence was a contradiction, a paradox wrapped in elegance and cruelty. He was drawn to the edge of annihilation, the brink where reality blurred into something both intoxicatingly false and excruciatingly real.

As Achilles drew closer, Luka's muscles tensed, a serpent coiling in preparation for a strike. His body was a vessel of controlled anticipation, a dormant energy waiting to be unleashed. Yet, there was a deeper current beneath his poised stillness—a cold, calculating pride that kept him anchored in place. He watched Achilles with a gaze as unblinking and unwavering as a star in the night sky, every movement of the other’s hand cutting through the air with a delicate precision.

Achilles’ touch was a chill against Luka’s cheek, a sensation that sent a shiver through his carefully maintained facade. The contact was both unsettling and exhilarating, a reminder of the fragility and ferocity of human connection. Luka’s instincts flared, a reflexive urge to pull away or strike, but he fought it with a practiced ease. Instead, he remained still, the tension in his body a testament to the delicate balance he maintained between predator and prey.

Luka’s mind raced with a swirl of dark thoughts, each one a tendril of desire reaching out for the profound experience he sought. He was here not merely to witness but to consume—to be enveloped by the intensity of Achilles’ existence, to let it seep into his very core and destroy him. He craved the sensation of being hated, of provoking such deep-seated emotion that it would rip through the fabric of his carefully constructed reality.

His voice, when it emerged, was a silken thread of temptation, woven with both mockery and genuine longing. “Ah, you see through me, don’t you? But does my absence of urgency make me a lesser man ? Worse than your own people? Someone who shouldn't be listened, looked at, enjoyed?… hated….?.. or even adored? "

“What do I want?” Luka’s voice dropped to a whisper, a dangerous lilt that was as much a taunt as it was a revelation. "..possibilities… I want to see the world through eyes that are blinded by truth, to experience something so profoundly real that it breaks me. I want to provoke such hatred, such raw emotion from those you hold dear that it feels like a feast, a banquet of agony and passion.”

His smile, a crescent of cold fire, was a reflection of his inner tumult, a dance of shadow and light. Luka’s eyes locked onto Achilles’, his stare a fierce beacon of desire and expectation. “I want to be consumed by what you represent, to be so utterly immersed in the intensity of your existence that it drives me to the brink. Your strangeness, your power—it’s all part of the spectacle I crave. I want to be blinded by it.”

The words fell from his lips like a dark benediction, each one a step deeper into the labyrinth of his own yearning. Luka’s heart beat with a rhythmic anticipation, his gaze never leaving Achilles, as if he were waiting for a revelation that would either fulfil or shatter the vision he had crafted. The room seemed to hold its breath, the tension palpable as Luka waited for the response that would decide the fate of his twisted desires. "- can you give it to me? If I beg? If I just ask? … or are you scared of making your hands dirty, hmm? "

he's never still even when his shell is. his truth wriggles, tiny movements as though breathing, twitches and curling gestures as they slide against each other, dry for all that they look wet, the same way snakes do. barely heard rasp as they move, against skin, against own, tapping on glass to signal to bird alighting on the window ledge just beyond. achilles watches the other just as he's being watched, mother of pearl gaze unblinking in that odd way he has about him when he forgets. listens and stays still, forgets that humans don't do that, not like this anyway. doesn't breathe, doesn't blink, just listens and waits, tendrils on his back playing with his hair even as two turn sharp at the first sign of movement from the bed.

he's reminded of a alligator when he watches him. of stillness and laying in wait. patience right up until the point it's time to strike and then it's all over.

achilles has always loved alligators.

he knows the locals talk about him. knows they name him, genius loci. guardian. bayou god. knows they offer him prayer when they think he's not paying attention, those whispering things he feels in his marrow, their thanks and dreams winding with his own when he sleeps. but they're protective of him, those that live off the bayou, they don't give him away to stranger, covert him as their own, snarling when others get too close to finding out the truth. so the visitor isn't here because of them. father is sleeping and has removed himself from memory at the moment, not wanting to be disturbed. his mother is...

"y'aint here for the reason they always are when they come fo' me. y'ain't got no prayers on yer tongue, or no need in yer heart. nothin' desperate anyway, we all got needs. but surely there's easier ways'a satin' 'em than trawlin' through the bayou when she gets mean wi' newcomers." finally he moves, finally he speaks, accent heavy but voice quiet despite the size of him.

young eldritch abandons his place by the window to approach the bed. stops just out of reach, both his own and that of the visitor, head tilting in questioning. "I didn't call yer, an' i know the bayou didn't, so yer found yer way here all by yo'self, but why? yer say yer here fo' me, but why?" another step, in range now, another, height looming without meaning to. he reaches out, chilled fingers to alight on cheek, to rub a thumb under the other's eye if he's allowed. "what d'ya want? tell me an' i might grant it."

#bonesofchaos #i do not know where i am going with this but let's goooooo #luka ex devil

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whitleyschn33 · 3 years ago

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POLENDINA, Peri

After the destruction of the original PENNY unit, Dr. Pietro Polendina was urged to construct a new prototype for the project. Rather than building an exact copy of the PENNY unit, Dr. Polendina crafted a more mature chassis that bore a more striking resemblance to himself. When asked about his choice in redesign, Dr. Polendina simply said he was not creating the same person. Complimenting the change in appearance, this new prototype was given the project name “Peri”.

Along with a more mature appearance, Peri has been given several upgrades to her combat system. Chief and most obvious among them is the addition of gravity dust-powered thrusters, allowing Peri to fly through the air and increase her evasive abilities and speed. To her weapon, Floating Array, the ability of the wires connecting the swords to Peri’s control box to be detached automatically if they become outwardly influenced has been added, as well as deposits of gravity dust, enabling some manner of control even after detachment, though with far less accuracy.

I promised a Purple Penny, and I give you Purple Penny... and a new Polendina.

As I looked at my original edit, I realized that the red hair didn’t really suit this color scheme. I decided to try give her more suitable hair, picking a shade of yellow from Pietro’s shirt and tinting it to a more golden-brown to go with her gold accents (I’ll put this and an alt Peri below). Doing that made me wonder; what if I also changed Penny’s skin tone to look more like Pietro’s? This lead to the switch from simply a purple Penny to making a different character all together out of my recolor. Let me explain.

I had always headcanoned before V7 that if Penny was ever brought back, it wouldn’t be as Penny, or at least the Penny we all know and love. Death was something that hadn’t been reversed in RWBY outside the will of a god, and the fact that Penny was called out as having a soul of her own made me believe that even if she was robotic, her soul had moved on when her body was destroyed. Any rebuilt Penny would then, logically, have a different soul and be a different person. There was also the idea that this Penny wouldn’t have any of the memories from Beacon, as it seemed unlikely that her body and therefore her memory banks had been recovered (I also had a pet theory that Penny’s plan to stay at Beacon she mentioned was to upload a version of her AI and memories to a Scroll or computer on Beacon’s campus, but let’s forget about that) - so even if she had a similar personality from her AI, her memories wouldn’t be there, and she wouldn’t be “our” Penny. But that idea too was crushed when Penny returned and was the exact same Penny, just in a brand new body.

Well, taking this headcanon, I formed an AU for V7.

The original Penny was modelled mostly after Pietro’s late wife, representing the child that they weren’t able to conceive for (fill in a reason, any reason). After watching Penny get literally torn apart, someone designed to resemble his beloved partner, Pietro refused to go through the pain of seeing something like that again, modelling the next version of Penny after himself so that imagery could never be recreated (and so he wouldn’t be constantly reminded of the sight of his first daughter lying in pieces every time he sees the new robot), giving her massive upgrades in her defensive and offensive capabilities. With no memory core and with no guarantee that this girl would be anything like the original Penny just because the seed of their aura was the same, Pietro gave her a new name - Peri. Basically, more Penny’s sister than a new version of Penny, and now resembling her “father” more than her “mother” to spare Pietro the pain.

This allows RWBY to have a Penny-like character with more identity crises than ever (:D) back in the show, while respecting the rules of life in this show and keeping the original Penny dead. All the angst of Penny’s death can be brought up, Peri can struggle with the weight of a) knowing she was literally made to be a replacement, b) having to deal with someone that regarded Penny as a good friend, c) have the same “am I real?” questions that Penny had without it seeming like the writers are rehashing something that had already been resolved, and d) tack on the question of “am I just Penny reborn, or am I really my own person called Peri?” for added twist~

Btw, “Peri” comes from “Periwinkle” which, while commonly a shade of blue, can also be a shade of light purple. Periwinkle flowers are also associated with winter and ice - a less on-the-nose name for a Winter Maiden, perhaps~?

As a bonus, here’s the Purple Penny with blond hair and an alt of Peri.

This Peri’s eyes are less glow-y. I eventually decided I liked the more glow-y eyes better and made that the “official” one, but this one is still pretty~

#rwby #penny polendina #oc #peri polendina #recolor #edit #my edit #recolors

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willow-salix · 4 years ago

Text

Ok, so, here's the next chapter.

It's a wee bit weird, so feel free to skip most of it, it won't affect the story at all. It's just there, doing it's thing.

Here's the first part, you can follow the link to read the rest of dip out here if you don't want to read a full ritual.

---

“What do you mean Lin is in the hospital?” Selene gasped, unable to believe her ears. “I just saw him no more than...” she glanced at her phone, “four hours ago.”

“Yeah, well, that was before the arrow hit him,” Vera snorted, tugging at Selene’s dress as she unzipped it and yanked it down.

“Arrow? What arrow?” Selene asked, her voice muffled as a new dress was slung over her head.

“The one that hit him in the leg,” Alegra answered as she bustled past with an armful of candles, clearly heading outside to the circle clearing.

“What the hell was he doing to get shot in the leg?”

“Teaching an archery class, it appears someone had very bad aim. One legged Linden strikes again,” Alegra replied.

“That name is because he is the master of Tree pose, not because he only has one working leg!" Selene argued, starting to feel more than a little stressed. “Who the hell is going to be my Priest if Linden is out of action? There’s no one else I’ve worked with enough to even have a connection with let alone one enough to raise the power needed for the circle.”

“Don’t you worry your head about it,” Vera snapped, tugging violently on Selene’s arm, yanking her down in a chair where she sat as still as a statue, allowing the old lady to attack her hair. “Tanzi said she had a plan, so give her some time to see what she can pull out of her arse before you start your panic flapping.”

“But there isn’t anyone here,” Selene argued. “Why don’t we let Tanzi take my place, she’s worked with far more people than I have, she'd know how to work their energy better than me.”

“Because it’s your role, that’s why.”

“But I- OW!”

Vera pulled the brush back like she might donk Selene on the head again.

“We’ll have none of that negativity, my girl, I taught you better than that. You know negativity before a circle is a no no. Just trust the Gods, trust they have a plan and a reason.”

“Linden won’t like that he was part of whatever plan they supposedly had,” Selene grumbled but stayed still as Vera slapped a flower crown on her head and set to work curling her hair around it.

"Well, it's not like he has a say in it now, is it?"

-x-

“I feel ridiculous,” John complained as Tanzi straightened his tunic, giving him the once over.

“Oh hush, you look gorgeous, she’s gonna shit a brick when she sees you.”

“I swear, if anyone even dares to take a picture I’ll make sure that they never get an internet connection again for the rest of their lives,” John threatened, wincing as Tanzi grabbed a comb and a pair of scissors to start attacking his hair. "Are you sure this is completely necessary?"

"Oh yes, very necessary, you have to dress the part, besides, it'll be worth it, you'll thank me later," Tanzi grinned admiring her handiwork. "That bitch is gonna send me a gift basket for making you look so good."

"And there's really no one else to do it?"

"No, I already told you. Linden is out of action and it's been years since she's worked with anyone close enough to lead a ritual with them. You're bonded to her, you're basically her familiar, you're the perfect solution. Don't worry, it'll be fine, believe it or not she does know what she's doing, she won't let you mess up."

"I never thought for a moment that she wouldn't be completely capable and in control, she always is. She may seem flighty but-"

"You don't have to tell me," Tanzi interrupted, patting his shoulder. "I've known her since she entered the craft, in fact I think tonight will be quite eye opening for you. You've never seen her in a ritual before, have you?"

John shook his head.

"Then you're in for a treat, she's a natural performer as well as a talented witch."

"My wife with a penchant for dramatic performance? Never."

Tanzi sniggered under her breath but declined to comment, focusing her attention on the back of his head as she worked.

"Are you sure this is all I have to do?" John asked, unfolding the instructions he'd been given and reading them through again. They seemed simple enough, follow Selene, stand where he was told, do as she directed and only speak when she spoke to him first or asked him a question, it sounded like a standard social event to him.

"Yep. You've got your part of the performance there too, just make sure you give Sel her part."

"Tell me again why we aren't warning her about this?"

"Because I want to see the look on her face," Tanzi shrugged. "I'm old, I have to get my kicks somewhere."

John snorted out a laugh. "Don't let my Grandma hear you complaining about being old, she gets very defensive when anyone under sixty even dares to mention they have a wrinkle."

"Good job I'm over 60 then," Tanzi answered distractedly, tugging at the side of his head as she tried to wrestle his hair into submission. He resisted the urge to flinch and instead focused on her words.

"Sure you are, and I'm planning a career change to become a game show host." The woman didn't look any older than he did, let alone old enough to appease his Grandma.

Tanzi grinned evilly. "Look me up if you don't believe me, but sit still while you do it."

For want of anything better to do John pulled out his phone and did as he was told. It took him less than two minutes and a tiny bit of government file delving to find the truth.

"There's only one Tanzanite Summerland, who is apparently seventy-eight years old."

Tanzi hummed a little sound of acknowledgement as she worked on his parting, trying to force his hair to lay in a way that didn't come naturally to it. "Why won't your bloody hair stay where I put it?"

"Selene asks the same thing, I gave up trying to change it years ago and just work with it, but don't think I don't know you're trying to change the subject," he retorted, on to her game.

She huffed, giving up on the parting, deciding to work with what she had, smoothing it back into place instead. "I'm mated to a full bloodied Shifter, Nikos is 297."

"He's what?" John spluttered, turning to look at her. "That's impossible."

"Dude, you turn into a cat, nothing should be impossible to you," she drawled, her tone implying she thought he was being particularly dense as she grabbed his head and turned it to face forward. "Avery is 413."

"Avery too? What does he turn into?"

"Nothing, though I'm sure he'd love to embrace the bat cliché if he could."

"Bat? Why would h-"

Tanzi raised her curved fingers to her mouth in a crude depiction of fangs and hissed.

John's eyes widened.

Tanzi nodded. "Yeah, and he's still not matured into a fully functioning adult, he'd be lost without my sister, I swear. Now, you've got your words, I've done the best I can with your hair, I think you're good to go."

"What? No! I've got questions, you can't just dump this kind of information on me and expect me to just accept it. I need answers."

"No time my friend, chop chop, it's getting dark, move your arse, your wife's waiting."

-x-

"Seriously?"

Selene couldn't have been more shocked if Tanzi had produced a monkey from her pocket to slap her around the face.

"You think John is the solution to our problem? How? Why? He hates people!"

"Oh hush," Tanzi soothed, brushing away her concerns. "He'll be fine, it's only a little ritual-"

"Little? There's a hundred and fifty people out there joining in!"

"In at the deep end," Tanzi shrugged, "he married a witch, he's gotta learn sometime. He said he'd do it."

"But why him? Is there really no one else?" Selene fretted, more worried about her husband's social anxiety than the ritual itself. "Can't you do it?"

"Nope, you're our poster child, you're the one they came to see, we can't let them down. He's the only person here with a connection to you that won't dull your energy. You know a Priest is supposed to enhance it, not drain it."

Selene wanted to argue, but her friend did make a good point, not that she wanted to admit it. She had worked with John in little ways before, working on his intuition and raising his personal power quicker and easier before each shift he attempted; it really wouldn’t be that much different for him, you know, apart from all the people staring at him.

“Fuck it, we’ll make it work,” Selene huffed. “Did you at least prepare him, even a little? Gods, he’s never going to leave my side again after this. I walked away for an hour and he was drafted.”

“Of course I prepared him, I gave him a script and everything,” Tanzi promised her, crossing her heart.

“Which script?” Selene asked suspiciously.

“This one,” Tanzi grinned, handing Selene a book of Shadows already opened on a page.

Selene quickly scanned through the pages, recognising the revised ritual instantly.

“I’m going to make a few adjustments,” she stated in a tone that allowed no arguments.

“Wouldn’t expect anything less,” Tanzi assured her, knowing that she had won that round.

“Fine,” Selene sighed, checking the time. “Then I guess I'm ready.”

“Good, let’s go,” Tanzi said, draping a cloak around Selene’s shoulders.

“Hang on, where’s my chapstick?”

“Do you really need it?” Tanzi asked, desperate to get the other woman moving.

“Yes, I do, especially as I have a lot of foreheads to kiss out there,” Selene answered, already scrabbling through her bag looking for the elusive little tube.

“Where the hell is the bloody...Oh, thanks, babe,” she said in response to the chapstick that appeared in her line of sight, recognising the ring on the hand that held it. She took the stick and slicked on a generous amount, making fish out of water noises at her reflection in the mirror before turning around. She stumbled, reaching blindly behind her for something to hold on to, because praise be to every single deity for the God that was her husband.

“Holy shitballs Batman!”

“See, I look stupid!” John huffed, his cheeks burning. He should never have let himself be talked into it.

“Rubbish,” Tanzi scoffed.

“Wow,” Selene breathed, seemingly unable to form any full sentences.

“Told you she’d like it,” Tanzi grinned.

“What...I mean...how the...my Gods,” she breathed, unable to tear her eyes away from the pure gorgeousness she was seeing. Her eyes kept darting to a new part of him, there was simply too much beauty to take in in one go. “Wow.”

“Yes, I am a miracle worker, I know this,” Tanzi preened, brushing a non-existent speck of dirt off his shoulder.

“Is that a wig?”

“Clip in extensions.”

“My Gods,” Selene whispered again. John’s hair was now brushing his shoulders, falling in shimmering red waves that perfectly matched his own colour. His usual side parting had been maintained, the extensions having obviously been trimmed to blend in with his forelock, which somehow made it look less alien on him. Her fingers itched to run through all that silky looking hair and she actually reached out a hand but Tanzi slapped it down.

He was dressed in a black shirt with loose fitted sleeves that laced up across his chest under a dark forest green tunic. His legs were encased in black leggings and dark brown lace up boots that came up to just below his knees. He had a black cloak over one arm and a metal headpiece that encircled his head looking rather like a crown. But it was the pointed ears that peeked out from his hair that really pulled the whole look together.

“Fuck...me,” Selene was absolutely stunned, taking a few steps towards him, wanting to be close, to touch, to kiss...

“Later,” Tanzi ordered. “You two have to get moving, I can hear the drums already.”

Snapping out of her dazzling husband induced daze, Selene grabbed a sword that had been laying on a table in one hand and reached for his hand with the other.

If John felt nervous dressed in his ridiculous costume, it was nothing compared to how Selene seemed to be feeling. He could feel her hand shaking in his and hear the way she kept sucking in a deep breath before letting it out slowly.

He wanted to say something to make it better, but knew that in times like these words made very little difference to her. Instead he repositioned her hand in his, linking their fingers and giving it a comforting squeeze. She looked different tonight, he’d seen her in ritual robes before, but this time she had replaced the dramatic makeup she had been wearing earlier with something much more subtle. She looked younger, less sure of herself, with pale golden eyeshadow, pink blushed cheeks and no lipstick, maybe that was part of the reason that she looked a little less confident than normal.

They waited just outside the perimeter that had been marked out for the circle, around which a ring of people stood, others seated in little huddles on blankets, obviously not part of the actual ritual but wishing to observe. The whole clearing was lit up by the crackling flames of a large bonfire, which warmed the chill air to a more pleasant temperature now that the sun had gone down, taking its heat with it.

The drumming that had been growing louder with each passing moment reached its crescendo and abruptly stopped. He felt her stiffen and heard her inhale deeply once more, holding it for the count of five before letting it out slowly.

“Show time,” she whispered, more to herself than to him. “Just follow my lead, babe, I won’t let you down.”

“I know,” he assured her, bringing her hand to his lips and placing a gentle kiss on her knuckles.

Link to Ao3

#john tracy #selene tempest #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds 2015 #witch #thunderbirds fanfiction #paranormalromance #thunderbirdsarego

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lostcybertronian · 4 years ago

Text

Here in His Place

I reimagined Patroclus’s death scene from Song of Achilles into futuristic, spacey science fiction. Instead of wearing Achilles’s armor, Patroclus pilots his ship, the Hokumoros (swift-fated). I’m really proud of how this turned out.

Also posted on my A03.

Edit: the sequel is here: can you hear me, achilles?

---

I was never a fighter. I was never a particularly good tactician, either; nor was I a pilot, a soldier, a leader. But as I maneuver the Hokumoros into position at the head of my fleet, buried to the elbow in the pilot’s controls, head buzzing from the massive amount of input required to operate a vessel of this size, I realize in this moment I have become all these things. In all ways but one, I have become him; weapon and god, both. No longer subject to entropy but remaking it how I choose.

Something chimes behind me: a hailing from the Agamemnon. I know not its purpose, but it doesn’t matter. To answer would be to give me away.

Instead I face the helm, face the assembling of Troy, its enormous flagship all but engulfed with smaller fighter craft. Flanking it are smaller ships of every denomination; allies offering aid, or mercenaries, seeking reward. From all around the galaxy, they have come to defend what they believe is theirs. What is actually ours.

As Achilles would, I launch first, twin jets of flame searing open the cold, black void of space as I surge forward with the smooth click-whir of well-oiled machinery. My vessel is smaller than one would expect of a prince, allowing it greater speed and maneuverability, yet it is still far larger than the crafts my soldiers pilot. I close faster on the approaching forces than anyone, unleashing a round of blazing torpedoes that tear into metal and fuselage as a sword would into the soft flesh of men. I am gone before they offer retribution, diving with a flash of Phoenix-emblazoned gold-- despite Achilles’s adamant protests to stay at the fringes-- into the midst of my enemies, mouth gaping into a silent scream.

They become nothing but so much debris in my wake as I punch through them, volleying round after round of plasma shots into carapaces, fuel tanks, engines. Behind me echoes muffled explosions, but I do not look back even as shock waves shudder through me, even as the broadcast frequencies fizz out with a thousand voices— some orders, some the screams of dying men.

I do not take orders; Achilles fights for himself. I will not be among the dying; my aim is true, my resolve absolute. To my port side is the Odyssey, smashing through Trojan craft as if they didn’t exist, occasionally blotted out on my screen by the dying star of a destroyed ship. Moments later I jet away, narrowly missing the torpedo that sets my systems alight, and the Odyssey disappears into the fray.

The proximity alarm chimes, flooding my vision, and I nearly lose my newfound divinity in my scramble to avoid collision, shifting to the right just in time for the shot to race wide and strike a smaller Myrmidon ship. The man’s panicked cry— cut off suddenly— echoed over the general channel before dropping to static.

The Glory of Troy looms before me, a behemoth of a ship that seems to engulf my entire screen, the entire sky, even. Twenty, fifty, a hundred times the size of my craft it acts as the flagship for the entire army of Troy. I act fast, blood pounding in my ears, fingers dancing nimble over the controls to bring Hokumoros into a steep upward climb that drops my stomach to my feet and steals my breath from my slightly parted lips.

The thrill is still shivering down my spine when I come level with Glory’s flight deck; it is fully manned and its captain—Prince Hector himself— sits calm in the captain’s chair. Even from this distance his utter serenity is evident; he does not shake his fist, nor does he jab meaty fingers at the Hokumoros, demanding to know why I am not already dead. His head is, instead, tilted slightly upward, as if in silent prayer.

This sight lasts only moments before I pass over the ship, rocketing away from it. Already I am urging the ship into an about-face, a savage smirk pulling at my mouth. This too lasts seconds before it is falling from my face like it had never been.

Voices on the channel now, urging me to attack. To fight. But to breach the Glory would be to endanger Hector; to endanger Hector would be to doom my beloved Achilles.

I wrestle with the controls, suddenly overwhelmed by the tidal wave of data surging through the interface and into my head. Shots ping off the hull, and the monotone voice of the AI within Hokumoro’s software informs me that my shields have failed.

I’m barely pulling away when the ship goes dead. Systems fall silent. My mind stutters to a halt as, suddenly, there is no more data. I am floating.

With a cry I jerk, begin pressing buttons, slam the broadcast button in my haste, at the same time Hokumoros sputters a halfhearted rebirth. Divinity is wrested from my fluttering hands as my utter lack thereof is sent across the channel for all to hear.

I am not Achilles. I am merely Patroclus, here in his place.

My proximity alarm chimes, and I look up. The Glory of Troy has spun, and is facing me, blocking my view of the battle still raging just beyond. Its weapons turrets have opened, and I see a trio of flame-wreathed torpedoes racing toward me. In mere seconds, they will destroy the Hokumoros with me inside.

They are strangely beautiful. I watch as they approach, rapid, like frightened rabbits. I watch as they strike, and my surroundings begin to bloom white.

Achilles, I think, and succumb.

#patrochilles #achilles #patroclus #the song of achilles #tsoa #lostandwandering #my writing #lost writing tag #horror #angst #tw death

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carryonmywaywardcaptain · 4 years ago

Text

Imagine...being a demon and hunting Dean down

CarryOnCap’s Masterlist Dean Winchester Masterlist

Summary: When Dean says he knows you better than anybody, you’re surprised to find out that you may have more of a history with the Winchesters than you can remember...

Warnings: very slight Season 15 *SPOILERS* for like a paragraph; mentions of “need to kill”; slight angst and open-ish ending, but implied TFW 2.0 win

A/N: Written for @wayward-mikaelson‘s #Daily Imagine Prompt and (unintentionally) for @winchester-reload‘s #Suptober20 day 4 prompt “Brand” (even though I’m working on my actual entry sketches!) Idk where this came from and it took a weird route. Also, there’s an unintentional...nod? paraphrasing maybe? of dialogue from CA: The Winter Soldier, so credit to the MCU writers for permanently snaking their way into my subconscious because my love for Steve and Bucky apparently knows no bounds.

“If it isn’t the notorious Dean Winchester,” you sneered. “As fun as this little game of cat and mouse has been, you Winchesters are really starting to piss me off.”

They’d been tailing you all across the country and you’d had enough. Sure, you were a demon, but it wasn’t like you set out to hurt anyone. As long as everyone else could mind their own business, you liked to think you were pretty easygoing.

…aside from a few bloody slip ups here and there but, hey, who was counting?

At least you weren’t one of those crossroad douches in the soul collecting business. You preferred to spend your time topside, having fun and wreaking a little havoc now and again. It had been going just fine until those plaid-wearing pests became obsessed with you. Eventually you’d decided to hunt them down for a change so you could finally get a little peace.

You hadn’t spotted the tall, sasquatch Hunter yet, but you’d caught the green eyed one by surprise and knocked him to his knees. Glaring down at him with a smirk, you kept a firm hold on the pressure point of his shoulder to make sure he stayed right where you wanted him.

“Did the cat catch your tongue? Because, with all of our showdowns lately, I was expecting a little more of that quick wit you always seem to have stowed away.”

If you were being honest, he was a pretty fine piece of ass and you wouldn’t mind going a round or two with him under different circumstances. Even with the dopey look of intensity on his face, laced with...something you couldn’t quite put your finger on.

Distress? Of course it would make sense for him to feel that way--you were a demon after all. Was there a hint of longing in the way he was staring at you? Maybe he couldn’t help thinking you were attractive despite what you were.

Who cares? You practically growled at yourself, chasing away something nagging in the back of your mind that told you there was more to his reaction. Pretending you didn’t actually care because you were incapable of such feelings anymore.

“D’you remember me?” he asked, eyes darting back and forth between yours.

Fuck, he was gorgeous. And it was really hard not to get caught up in his eyes. Why did that piss you off so much?

“Of course I do. You two meatheads have been on my ass everywhere across this godforsaken world,” you spat. “I know we’ve had a grand ol’ time and all, but listen up because I’m only going to say this once-- Leave. Me. Alone. If I catch you two on my tail again, I won’t be such a ray of fucking sunshine.”

He studied you for a long moment, seemingly unfazed by your threat.

“What do you remember about becoming a demon?”

You narrowed your eyes and tilted your head at his question. “What does that have to do with anything? And why the hell would it matter to you?”

“Because it does. Now I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess you don’t remember a whole lot about what happened to you. That there’s some gaps you just can’t seem to fill in.”

“And let me guess--you just happen to have all the answers to that because you know me so well?”

“I do. I know you better than anybody.”

You weren’t sure what game he was trying to play or how he could possibly know how disconcerting it was that you couldn’t recall a damn thing before the last month or two. Your life as a human, your time in hell-- you didn’t have the slightest idea who you were or what had happened to you.

But there was no way you were going to listen to some Winchester--even if your gut told you he was telling the truth.

“I highly doubt that,” you retorted, seething with defiance.

“You know me--”

“No I don’t,” you snarled, unsure why his words were making you feel so unsettled.

“Your name is Y/N L/N. You’ve known me and Sammy your whole life. You--ngh--”

He flinched and groaned in pain when you tightened your grip, digging your thumb into the hollow area just below the crook of his neck and above his collarbone. With your other hand, you withdrew a large blade from the side holster you’d crafted yourself.

“Sorry, sweetheart. I’ve had enough of the foreplay.”

Dean threw a sidelong glance at the weapon. His nostrils flared as he clenched his jaw and fixed his olive eyes on you again.

“I know you’ve been bouncing around looking for answers on that blade. Just like I know that underneath that jacket of yours you’ve got a mark on your arm. And I know from the small trail of bodies you’ve been leaving behind that you’re trying to fight that hunger you have to kill anything and everything around you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Your voice quivered between your gritted teeth.

“It’s called the Mark of Cain. And that right there is the First Blade.” He nodded toward the weapon without a trace of deceit on his face. “I know the calm you feel when you’ve got the blade in your hand. And that power flowing through you? It scares the hell out of you.”

You grimaced, placing the antique blade against his throat as your chest began to heave from the growing rage pulsing through your veins. What gave him the right to pretend he knew a damn thing about you?

Maybe he was right. Maybe you could admit the power did scare you sometimes. You didn’t exactly give a shit about right and wrong, but the overwhelming urge to kill left you feeling out of control. It was why you were trying to uncover answers about the brand on your arm. Why you were fighting a losing battle with the trembling hand gripping the blade now-- you wanted answers and you needed him to keep talking.

“How do you know all of this?” you demanded.

He swallowed uncomfortably and the blade bobbed against his Adam’s apple. “It was Chuck--uh, God. You’re a Hunter, Y/N. You, me, Sam, Cas, Jack--we’re family. Chuck’s trying to end the world and we were working to stop him. On our last run-in with him...we thought he killed you. But it turns out he sent you to some other universe he’d created. In this world I had the Mark and, when I died, I became a demon. In the other world he tossed you into, we think that’s what happened to you. ‘Bout a month or two ago, somehow you found your way back to this world and we’ve been trying to track you down ever since.”

Furrowing your brow, your eyes fell away from him as glimpses of the events he’d described flashed through your mind. You squeezed your eyes closed, trying to latch onto fragments of the hazy memories emerging from the depths of your subconscious...

Dean screaming your name, face contorted with horror. A small man with graying hair and a wicked grin snapping his fingers. Your hand gripping someone’s forearm, just as his strong hand grasped yours. The deep red energy that flowed from his arm to yours, searing through your veins until the Mark bubbled to the surface of your skin--the scar that was always itching to let the darkest parts of you reign free.

“We can help, Y/N. Me and Sam can fix this.” Dean’s gruff voice was resolute as he briefly glanced away and begged you to consider his offer. “Just come with us and we can cure you.”

His words stirred something in your chest, making you realize he had triggered the faint prick of some long forgotten emotion. A small part of you longed to go with him, but it was miniscule and insignificant when you considered that “fixing this” might mean getting rid of the Mark.

Despite the fear and lack of control it brought you, you were unwilling to give up the power or the blade. It was an addiction you had no intention of overcoming.

“Maybe I don’t want to be cured. The way I see it? There’s nothing to fix. Time to say goodnight, Dean-O.”

You raised the blade but, before you could strike, something cinched around your wrist. When the power coursing through you became dull, you turned in surprise to see that Sam had secured your wrist in one end of the cuffs he held. He reached for the blade with his free hand and swiftly dodged you when you lunged at him after releasing your hold on Dean.

Snarling in rage, you again swung at Sam while he tried to wrestle the blade from your grasp. Dean suddenly collided with your back, circling his arms around you as he pinned your limbs to your sides. You thrashed your head and screamed as you tried to escape, but his cheek was pressed between your shoulder blades, tucked safely away from your efforts of fracturing his nose with the back of your skull.

“It’s okay, Y/N,” he grunted, arms tense as he squeezed you tighter. “We’re gonna fix this. You’re okay, sweetheart.”

“Dean, I still...can’t...she’s too strong,” Sam grumbled.

You continued struggling while you gripped the blade with every bit of strength you had. As you fought the boys, you spotted a young man in a tan jacket walking toward you who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He looked vaguely familiar and you surged toward him out of instinct, knowing he was a greater threat than the men holding you.

His hair was side swept, with a few of the sandy colored strands grazing his forehead. His eyebrows were drawn together over soft eyes, brimming with an array of emotions. The boy raised his hand in greeting, smiling in relief as if he’d managed to find a long lost family member.

“Hello, Y/N... We’re going to help you. I promise. Sam and Dean will find a way to fix this.”

“Do it, Jack!”

“Any time now, kid.”

The boys shouted in unison and you paused for a fraction of a second as another series of memories flooded you. Before you could make sense of them, Jack reached out and pressed two fingers to your forehead.

Your knees buckled and your eyes fluttered closed as you slipped into unconsciousness.

CarryOnCap Crew (Forevers):

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scarletaire · 4 years ago

Text

homeland (Chapter 5)

A/N: Last chapter before the epilogue, and it is the longest one by far! To each and every single one of you reading and supporting this little fic of mine: thank you. Just – thank you. This one's for you.️

Fandom: The Folk of the Air

Genre/s: Contains Fluff, Slight Hurt/Comfort, Slight Angst, Smut

Rating: E

Tags: Post-QON, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Protective!Cardan, Bewildered!Jude, Jude and Cardan discuss the Undersea, but they get a little Distracted

Description:

Cardan’s eyes flash open.

“Why?” he repeats, and Jude feels the power shift between them. “Don’t you remember, wife?” he croons. “It was the Undersea who stole you away from me.”

And Jude has only enough time to think, danger, before he lunges at her.

or:

Cardan and Jude work on removing their armor. Taking off this particularly stubborn piece happens in varying states of undress.

Links: Masterlist | AO3

Cardan doesn’t get very far.

Well.

She doesn’t let him.

Jude snatches her forgotten knife off the ground, not far from the couch, and throws. It flies hilt over blade, over and over, a flash of silver teeth in the moonlight, until it strikes its target: the patch of mossy wall just a hair's breadth away from the tip of Cardan’s ear.

He freezes. Inches from the door. “Did you just throw a knife at me?”

“I should’ve aimed closer.” Jude glares at his turned back. She still hasn’t quite gotten her breath back and it shows in her voice. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Back to the revel. The one you were so worried about missing.”

“The one you clearly don’t care enough about considering you led me here instead.”

He turns, finally, raising his shoulders as if to say, I guess you’re right. The smile has returned to his face. It is a mask, and it does not fit.

She wants to slice it off.

Jude stands. Or, well, attempts to, with as much dignity as possible. The thing is — she can’t feel her knees.

Cardan notices. His smile ripples, shifts. A smirk begins to flirt with the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t you dare.”

The smirk only grows.

Jude cuts her eyes to the knife embedded in the wall. “I mean it.”

“Or what? You’ll kill me?”

“Not funny. Listen,” she hisses. “I don’t have time for this. Trying to figure out what’s wrong with you. You’re distant, you’re brooding, whatever. But you don’t get to walk away from me.”

His eyes flash. “And what makes you think I’m walking away from you?”

“Because that’s what you do. Running away. Hiding under tables. Drinking wine to clear away reality.” She doesn’t know where this is coming from. There is something cold, too cold, in her blood. She let him have his way and he still turned his back on her.

Jude watches the words land, sees him rear back in response. This urge to hurt him, just a little, is familiar but wrong. Like putting on old clothes that are too small. She makes it fit. “I don’t see why it matters anyway,” she continues. “The Folk don’t care about these things. Brothers kissing the same girl. It’s what counts as fun around here.” She thinks of Locke, and of Taryn, and the taste of it is bitter in her mouth.

There is no mistaking the fury on his face now. She can’t even celebrate the loss of his mask. “Is that what you think this is about?”

“What else is there?” she says without thinking, at the end of her rope. “Are you jealous, Cardan? Do you think I liked kissing Balekin better than –”

“Shut up.”

“No.”

“Foolish human. You couldn’t possibly fathom it.”

“Exactly,” she snarls. “I can’t fathom it. I can’t understand what you’re thinking. Is that it? Is it because I’m human? So I got kidnapped and held hostage and you had to make a deal for me. Are you defending my honor? Is that how little you –”

“Tread carefully, wife.” Malice sparks in his tone.

They’re going in circles. Like a faerie dance that an enchanted mortal can’t break away from.

“I’ve made my peace with it!” She very nearly shouts it. “Why can’t you?”

Because that’s what the problem is, isn’t it? She’s made her peace with it, the whole, terrible lot of it. She was kidnapped, used, tortured in that insidious way the fae like to torture. Geases and tricks and not-truths. But she didn’t let it break her. So why is it that he’s the one that’s broken, the one shaken awake by nightmares, the one unable to meet her eyes?

Jude is — exhausted. She feels a little sick for goading him, and she despises how little she is able to control her words and her temper. This isn’t how she wants to treat him, but her head hurts. She desperately misses the way they were in the safety of their room: open, vulnerable, trusting. She wants him the way he was after his nightmare, trembling and soft and ready to tell her everything without making her guess a word.

She won’t let him see her shoulders slump, but her voice loses its edge. “Fine. You clearly don’t want to — to talk about it right now. I hate it,” and she makes sure her eyes burn her vitriol at him, “but that’s not my problem. I will not beg for your favor.” And she says it with her chin held high. “Nor do I need it.”

He’s watching her, the wariness unmistakable on his face.

“But know this, High King of Elfhame. The next time you turn your back on me will be the last time I throw a knife at you.” My blade will strike true.

Jude sweeps past him to retrieve her knife embedded in the wall. She means to leave him there, much in the same way he meant to leave her only moments before. But her hand has barely closed around the hilt of her blade before there are soft fingers encircling her wrist, gently tugging her backwards.

Cardan wraps his arms around her from behind, pulling her back against his chest. Jude wants to snap at him, to tell him that no amount of cuddling will account for the way he closed himself off to her – but then his head is dropping to her shoulder, stray curls brushing against her bare, chilled skin, and her body is melting against him because he’s warming her up all pressed close like this, and, well, isn’t this what she wanted all along?

He sighs, and it feels like a kiss against the skin behind her ear. Before she knows it, she’s leaning completely against him, until her cheek is resting against his temple and he’s supporting all of her weight. And everything feels like it could be alright, just for a little while.

Jude allows herself to chip a little. A piece of armor falling away. It wouldn’t normally be this easy, but this night has taken so much from her already. Her fingers wrap around his forearms. “Just – are you angry?”

“Yes.”

Jude swallows it, the word a lump of ice in her throat.

But Cardan is speaking again. “Not at you.”

“Oh.”

“Jude.” He sends her name into her skin. And he sounds exactly the way he did when he woke up from his nightmare. “How could you ever think it was you?”

Her fingers tighten around his forearms, digging into the black fabric of his shirt. She fixes her gaze on the ceiling, golden lanterns and constellations for a revel that suddenly seems so very far away. “I just always thought you would hate me for it. Think me weak.”

“I could never. If there was anyone weak in the face of the Undersea, it was I.”

Jude lifts her head. “What?”

“I couldn’t do anything when you were taken. Anything that mattered. I couldn’t stop them, couldn’t bring you back. Not without a king’s ransom and admitting Madoc one step closer to the crown. I hated that making the deal was the only thing I could do. But I did it anyway.”

The words he whispered in their bed ring through her ears.

I would have done anything to get you back. Anything. Everything.

She wishes she could see his face, turn around and lift his eyes to her. But his arms have become iron around her waist, and he is pressing his face into her neck as if he never means to surface from her again.

“Every day that you were gone, I stood on the cliff and gazed into the waves. As if I could bring you back by the sheer force of my longing. Never before had I loathed the feeling of being weak as much as then. All the power of Elfhame and I couldn’t bring you back.”

“But you did,” she says, because as much as she kept herself alive and refused to let them break her, he got her out. He got her out in the end. “You did.”

He doesn’t hear her. “And then now you tell me of my brother’s tricks and machinations. Taking what he can from you. Giving you no choice but to yield to him. Another tally in the long list of ways I’ve failed. Do you understand me now, Jude? I am haunted by the water.”

And Jude is thunderstruck.

Because this whole time.

This whole time, he was angry with himself.

He thinks — he thinks he failed her.

She tries to speak, to say something, anything — you didn’t fail me maybe, or I think you might have saved me even — but he’s pressing a kiss to her temple and turning her in his arms. Holding her hips and smiling a rueful smile, neither a fake nor a mask and even more disconsolate in its truthfulness.

“My Queen of Knives,” he says. “Come. We have a land grab to settle.”

–––––––––

They’re ambushed the minute they emerge.

The Courts of Elfhame are eager to stake their claim on the Isle of Ash, and it would seem the carefully crafted festivities of Cardan’s peace revel are not enough to placate them any longer.

They are met with a blur of faces and titles and allegiances and honestly, at this point, barely veiled propositions as the people of the kingdom vie for their favor. Cardan takes the lead in charming them all and maneuvering the conversation without really agreeing to anything, because they both know that’s what he’s best at. The revel continues as the politicking unfolds. The music is liquid, the air thick as syrup. And Cardan – doesn’t let go of her.

From the moment they stepped out of their secret room behind the throne, he’s made sure that he’s touching her somehow. It’s his tail twining around her elbow while a goblin with lime green skin outlines his extensive plans should Insear be bequeathed to the Court of Moths. It’s his pinky curling around hers while a pixie chatters away at them, her wings near vibrating with her enthusiasm. It’s his steadying hand on her back as he leads her away from a member of the Gentry that has clearly had too much wine.

As if he understands how much she’s pushing her body right now to keep going on. As if he understands how turning his back on her was a sting that she won't easily forget. As if maybe she isn't the only one in need of these small affections.

The King and Queen hold court with their kingdom, but neither of them are really listening, because they are also holding court with each other. The Folk watch them with bemusement.

Jude doesn’t really care at this point.

She had seen the tightness in his eyes, the clenching of his jaw. She had assumed their meaning, and oh, how wrong she had been. Now she is taking in all the things she missed the first time, wondering how she hadn’t noticed the slump to his shoulders, the unhappy tilt of his lips.

Anger is a strange thing, in that it takes root from the things that hurt the most.

Cardan steps away at one point when something far ahead catches his notice, and he presses a quick kiss to her cheek before departing. She almost chases after him, because he took all the warmth with him when he left, and she’s not sure if she could endure another round of simpering and sidling without him.

When the Bomb suddenly materializes at her side, Jude almost sighs in relief.

“Here.” The Bomb hands her a vial filled with clear, violet liquid.

Jude narrows her eyes at it. “What is that?”

“The king said you weren’t feeling well.”

“What? When?”

“Not long after we returned from Insear. He was frantic. Said you fainted into his arms.” There’s teasing in the corner of her smile, if she looked close enough.

Jude snatches the bottle from her. “I did no such thing.”

“Whatever you say, Your Worshipfulness.”

Eyeing the contents, Jude asks, “What kind of antidote is it?”

It’s the Bomb’s turn to frown. “It’s just a tonic. Why would you need an antidote?”

“I think I’ve been poisoned. But I can’t be sure. It’s not a poison I know. It’s just that the symptoms came on so fast for it to be anything else.” Jude goes over how she ruled out all the possible common fae toxins.

“Jude, you should have told someone sooner. What symptoms?” Her friend’s voice has transformed from easygoing to clinical.

“Headache. Chills. Sore muscles.” Jude thinks over the last hour, her encounter with Cardan behind the throne room. “And some kind of mood change. I’m… I’m too irritable. Volatile.” She shakes her head. “More so than usual.”

“Glad to know you’re self-aware, at least.”

Jude ignores the jab. “I’ve run out of ideas. I don’t know what it is, or how I imbibed it.” And the symptoms aren’t going away. But even in front of her friend, Jude is loath to show weakness. This conversation, asking for help, it’s already uncomfortable enough.

“Leave it to me.” The Bomb turns to go, but before she leaves, she looks back at Jude with a grin. “And here I thought you were out of sorts for a different reason.”

“What?”

She sends a look over Jude’s shoulder and melts into the shadows with one last wink. Jude turns and sees Cardan making his way back, eyes heavy on her.

His clothes are covered in glitter.

Blue, turquoise, and gold powder shimmering against all the black. Scattered on his shoulder where he threw her leg over him. Across the front of his chest where she grabbed him. Dusted across his cheekbones where he pressed his face into —

Her. His clothes are covered in her.

Has he looked like that the entire time? All the ambassadors they talked to…

“Your Majesty.” It’s Randalin. He pauses, leaning forward to peer a little closer. “Are you feeling alright? You look a little flushed.”

“Hm? Oh, I’m perfectly fine,” she lies. She’s not sure if it’s because of whatever poison is possibly in her system right now, or because she’s still not recovered from that mind-melting orgasm, but she wouldn’t mind betting that she always looks like this after a period of Cardan’s undivided attention.

“I’ve finally caught you alone, my queen. You see, I wondered if I might have a word –”

“Speak directly, Minister.” And quickly, for your sake.

Jude casts her eyes around. Where did Cardan – oh. It looks like he’s found himself caught in the clutches of the Council as well. Nihuar stands in between them, and they are locked in a conversation that clearly looks like one he doesn’t want to be having.

“The resolutions to the Insear claim have been delayed. Intentionally. Multiple times, all of them without due reason. Well, with perhaps as singular a reason as this.” He gestures at the revelry unfurling before them, and she much mislikes the disdain in his goat eyes.

Her fingers tighten on the vial in her hand. She hasn’t even had a chance to drink the damn thing. “What are you implying?”

“I come to simply say that perhaps in this matter, the king cannot be relied upon, and to prevent further damage to the kingdom, that the next course of recompense be –”

Jude sees red. The vial of tonic crashes into the floor, where it shatters and seeps like strange jeweled blood.

“How dare you,” she sneers. Rage creeps like frost under her skin. “Unreliable and incompetent are the last things Cardan will ever be. You should know. He saw right through you, didn’t he?”

And then there is actual blood on the floor, because Randalin is bleeding, a good chunk of his hob’s ear missing. She’s got her knife in her hand, and him in a chokehold, spluttering and gasping and scrambling to put pressure on his wound.

“That’s why you came to me, isn’t it? The king was too smart to play along with you, and so you thought to try your luck with the queen. Maybe you should change your title to the Fool, dear Minister of Keys.”

Finally. She finally got to sink her knife into someone who deserved it.

Her blood sings, loud in her ears.

Somebody screams.

“You will leave this matter alone,” she’s telling him. Threatening him. “You will not try to play the crown again, especially not for the sake of the Council’s useless pockets, or else the next time it won’t be your ear missing its tip.” She angles her blade towards Randalin’s horns, and he makes a little scared sound in the back of his throat.

Then there are arms, warm and strong, pulling her gently away. Unwinding her hands around Randalin’s neck and lifting her up. The bloodlust evaporates from her at his touch and suddenly, she’s dizzy and reeling.

“Take the Minister away,” Cardan says to someone she cannot see. She feels the words rumble in his chest where she’s pressed up against him.

“At once, sire. And the queen, will she need a healer’s attention?”

“No. Leave us.” The frisson of authority in his voice thrills in Jude’s blood. When he looks down at her, his eyes are pure black. “I will deal with the queen.”

–––––––––––––––

Cardan carries her all the way to the bathroom of the royal suite.

He doesn’t speak when he sets her down on the floor. He doesn’t speak when he starts to help her out of her dress, fingers masterful but not lingering as he undoes the laces, peels away her skirt, threads the feathers out of her hair. He doesn’t speak when he holds out his hand and guides her into the great, green marble bath, already steaming with fragrant, flowered water.

The scent is the first thing she notices. Pink roses and snowy jasmines float along the edges of the bath. The water swirls blue and turquoise when she sinks into it, the night’s colors washing away from her body. It’s wonderfully, blessedly hot, soothing the chill under her skin.

Jude is almost too distracted by how good the water feels to be self-conscious when he takes a seat by the side of the bath, folding his long limbs onto the floor to sit with her as she soaks.

And then, finally: “You do realize that there are other solutions to political scheming that are not attempted murder?”

Jude sinks further down into the water until it covers up to her mouth. “None quite so efficient,” she mumbles. The words come out as bubbles.

Cardan watches her as she leans back against the bathtub, expression neutral. “Liliver thinks you’ve been poisoned.”

“I think I’ve been poisoned. I told her so when she came to deliver the tonic you requested.” She raises an eyebrow at him in a silent question.

“Yes, I believe I gave her a bit of a fright after you fainted. How are you not dead?”

She doesn’t know if it’s a comfort or a concern to realize that they’ve reached the point in their monarchy where poisonings and assassination attempts are now considered topics for small talk.

“It’s either I was given the wrong dosage, or poisoning me wasn’t the intention.” She taps a lone rosebud as it floats by her on the water. “It’s not a toxin I recognize.”

“Maybe it’s not a toxin at all.”

She lifts her head to see him wrinkling his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Have you eaten anything? Drank anything?”

“Nothing you haven’t. That’s why I ruled out the food tray from earlier. The one with the honeycakes.”

“I remember.” A corner of his mouth lifts, and she thinks of the way he had pressed the honeycakes into her hands, wrapped in a king’s kerchief and a lover’s promise. “So if it wasn’t the food tray, then it must have happened at Insear. Did you… did you touch anything?”

She narrows her eyes. “Yes. Some of the flowers. Why?”

Cardan sighs. “The magic there is unfamiliar. New.” He looks down at his hands, rings shining. “I’m not entirely sure we know enough about it.”

“It’s supposed to be your magic, though, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he begins, then stops suddenly. He stares at her as if an idea has struck him. “If it was my magic that caused this, then I wonder…”

“Cardan?”

“I wonder if my magic can fix it.” Cardan is suddenly leaning forward. “Close your eyes.”

“I don’t really –”

“Trust me.”

And she does. The world goes dark behind her closed eyelids, and she is engulfed in the scent of roses and jasmines, heavy and dreamy in the air.

A stream of water trickles down her forehead and she opens her eyes in surprise to find Cardan’s cupped hand above her face.

“Trust me,” he whispers again, and his voice lulls her eyes closed once more. The next stream of water flows down her nose, and over her lips. She can almost taste the flowers. Another stream of water, this time over her eyelids, droplets catching in her lashes, and then Jude begins to feel the strangest thing. The cold is washing away. The tension, the ache behind her eyes, the soreness in her muscles, swirling off into the water. She is lighter, warmer, calmer.

Jude takes her first full breath in what feels like days.

She opens her eyes, and Cardan is smiling down at her. A real one this time, a small tilt of his lips, but real.

“There you are,” he says.

He healed her. He healed her and now he’s smiling like he’s proud and she wants to wrap her arms around his neck and drag him down into the water with her fully clothed, but instead she croaks out, “It’s my magic, too. Why didn’t I just heal myself from the beginning?”

Cardan’s smile catches. He searches her face. “Is it truly so bad to need my help, Jude?”

She looks away. “You know I hate feeling powerless.”

“I know it far too well.” A pause, and then, as if he’s speaking it through his teeth, as if he is barely leashing himself: “Balekin and the Undersea made you feel powerless.”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you killed him?”

It’s a good question. It isn’t the right one.

“A part of it.”

“And the other part?”

Jude meets his gaze, holds it. Unwavering. She lets another piece of armor fall. “You’re not the only one who’s willing to do everything.”

He doesn’t say anything. By the look on his face, it doesn’t seem like he can at the moment. Mouth parted, eyes wide. Stunned. How could he still be so surprised even now?

Clearly, she needs to do better at telling him how she feels.

Jude leans in, unrelenting. “Ask me if I liked it.”

His voice comes out a little hoarse. “What, killing him?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Did you like it, Jude? Did you enjoy kissing my brother?”

“No.” She’s daring him. Daring him to find the lie in her words, her face, her voice. “No. I loathed every second of it.”

“Then how –” The words come out in a hiss, as if he couldn’t stop himself from speaking them. He tries to take a steadying breath. It sounds ragged even across the bath water. “You said you made your peace with it.”

“Yes.”

Ask me. Ask me the right question.

It comes out in a whisper, as if the words themselves were something to be careful with. “Then, how, Jude? How did you survive the Undersea?”

“I thought of you,” she confesses, and there it is. “The whole time. Through the worst of it, I remembered you. Your face, your voice, the way you held me when –” She’s whispering now, and he has stilled, as if his entire being depended on the next words out of her mouth. “Sometimes I imagined you were there beside me, in my cell. And when I did, things weren’t quite as bad as they seemed.”

She seems to have shocked him into speechlessness for the second time in ten minutes, so she goes on.

“The only way I got through kissing Balekin is by pretending that it was you. That was the only way I could bear it. So you see,” she ends awkwardly, when he continues staring at her like he can’t believe she’s real, “you ended up helping me after all.”

The act of speaking this, of telling him, is somehow infinitely more intimate than sitting in a bathtub naked in front of him, or letting him put his face between her legs with hundreds of their people dancing in the next room.

“Jude,” he breathes, his voice hushed like hers. It’s as if they both realize that something sacred, something precious has passed in the air between them.

“You saved me then. And you also saved me now, tonight.” She reaches out to graze his cheek. “Not quite so feckless after all.”

It’s Cardan who moves first, curling his fingers around her hand at his cheek and pulling her forward, into him. His lashes are wet. Jude almost thinks it’s because of the bath water, but then he’s pressing his forehead against hers, his breaths coming out in little gasps, and no, it’s not the bath water.

Their lips are barely touching, suspended in this moment. She’s half out of the tub. He’s half in it.

She wants to kiss him, to lean those last few inches and close the distance. But this is just as important. This is what makes everything worth it. This is one last piece of armor crumbling between them, and suddenly it’s not quite so bad feeling vulnerable when there’s someone in the world who loves her this much. She tilts her head so that their noses brush. A silent comfort.

Somebody’s shaking. It might be her.

“You’re shivering.” His hands wrap around her shoulders. “Let’s get you dressed.”

Jude lets him pull her out of the tub. Normally, she would hate being coddled. Is this what being coddled even means? She realizes that she doesn’t really have much experience to draw from. But the soft, tender parts of her have been laid bare tonight and so she doesn’t fight it when Cardan begins to dry her with a warm cloth.

His hands. There are rings on most of his fingers, and the thought occurs to her that she should get him a wedding ring of his own. Something with rubies. Something that would match the one he gave her, the one she wears each day on the finger missing its tip. Jude tucks that idea away for another time.

She’s moving before she even knows it, palms rising to his nape and fingers sinking into his curls until she’s pulling him down, down. Until she’s brushing the hair back from his forehead and pressing her lips there. A kiss as tender as she knows it.

The air leaves him in a sharp exhale.

The cloth falls to the ground.

Cardan grabs her around the waist, and suddenly, it doesn’t feel like coddling anymore.

Anticipation curls low in her stomach.

But he doesn’t kiss her. He just stares down at her with his dark, deep eyes. Memorizing her. Drinking her in.

And Jude has waited far too long for the kiss he would have given her if they weren’t interrupted after waking up.

All her life she’s had to get what she wants herself. And what she wants right now, well, she knows exactly how to get it.

Cardan doesn’t bend down to make it easier for her when she starts to wind her arms around his neck. He makes her work for it a little. Makes her stretch her naked chest up his front. Makes her stand on her tiptoes.

She knows how this goes, this delicious war of bodies between them. She knows her weapons, and how to use them.

“Please,” she breathes against his lips.

Cardan melts into her with a groan. A sense of finality. Something important has changed between them tonight, and Jude welcomes it just as much as she welcomes the crash of his soft, lush mouth against hers.

Long, dragging, drugging kisses.

She had once told him that he was out of her system, and it was perhaps the biggest lie she has told anyone. It was definitely the grandest lie she has told herself, mithridatism be damned.

Nothing could have prepared her for the likes of kissing Cardan.

Kissing Cardan is like reaching to touch the sun.

She crowned him, cursed him, and killed him, and now — she gets his tongue in her mouth any damn time she wants. His hands pressed open on her back, her hips, his fingers spread as if to feel as much of her as he can against him.

She would have endured a thousand nights in the Undersea for this.

The journey from the bathroom to the bedroom is a blur. Cardan breaks away to lower his mouth to her breast, and oh, the way his tongue feels is obscene. Her skin is still damp and tingling from the bath and so she feels lit up everywhere when he sucks.

“Sweet,” she thinks she hears him mumble, his hands beginning a path downward, “always so sweet for me.”

“Off.” Her hands are taking a familiar path too, undoing buttons and unclasping fastenings. It’s wholly unfair that he’s still fully clothed. “Take it off –” Cardan’s cape of ebony feathers falls away from him, and she just about gets his shirt undone all the way before his fingers find her, wet and wanting between her legs, and her voice cuts off on a gasp.

His thumb presses against the bundle of nerves, driving her to the tips of her toes.

Her toes, which are slippery from the bath water.

Jude loses her balance, feels her feet slide out from under her, thinks oh, shit, before grabbing on to the nearest stable thing.

Cardan’s shoulders shake under her fingers.

“Don’t –” The order loses a bit of its ferocity because she’s choking back her own laughter. “Don’t you dare laugh –”

It’s no good. “That was the most uncoordinated I have ever seen you.”

“Shut up –”

As it turns out, kissing is the best way to shut the both of them up, but she feels the curve of his mouth against her lips, unable to hide his humor. One last chuckle escapes him before he hauls her over to the edge of their bed.

Jude looks up at him. His shirt is undone and half-way down his arms. His hair is mussed, his tail swaying from side to side. The last of the moonlight is streaming in through the windows, and it outlines the traces of laughter in his face. Jude has seen Cardan many ways, but happy just might be her favorite.

He guides her hands to the bed posts on either side of them.

“Hold on,” he tells her.

Then he’s kneeling before her for the second time that night.

It’s an encore of his performance in the ivy-filled room behind the throne, a symphony of fingers, lips, and tongue that he plays on the instrument of her body. She would have thought that it would take longer this time because he’s already made her come tonight, but no, it has only made her all the more sensitive. He works her up so fast it’s almost ridiculous, as if she’s back in her peacock skirts seconds from a climax just feet away from an entire ballroom.

Cardan runs his hands over the ugly gash along her shin. Along the multitude of cuts and scrapes that she’s accumulated over the years. “These are the scars I know you by. And these are the marks you’ll remember me for.” He mouths at the bruise he left on her inner thigh during the revel. Was that just hours ago? It feels like it’s been days.

He slips a finger inside her, then another one, when she whines. He curses at how wet she is, like he’s angry, like he can’t believe it. Then he gets her going with thick, luscious strokes and her thighs close around his head. He curls an arm around one, opening her to him again, until he can lick and lap and suck the soul out of her body and into her second orgasm of the night.

She must lose a little time because the next thing she knows, she’s opening her eyes and Cardan is completely undressed.

They stare at each other from across the bed, like two opponents waiting for the next move.

She wants him. She has him. She just doesn’t know quite what to do with him.

She thinks of honeycakes and hands helping her into her clothes and steaming baths waiting for her in the ensuite. All the things she didn’t know she needed until he gave them to her.

Moving slowly, deliberately, keeping her eyes on him the entire time, Jude releases her grip on the bed posts and turns. On her hands and knees in front of him.

She feels more than hears the strangled groan that leaves him. “Jude.” A warning. A plea.

Jude Duarte Greenbriar has always craved power. Tonight she understands that the relinquishing of her control is maybe its own special kind, the kind that she’s quickly beginning to realize is one that only she’ll ever have — the power to give her husband exactly what he needs.

“Please,” she whispers once more into the waiting night air, because even though she doesn’t know how to put it into words herself, she may have him the slightest bit figured out already.

He drops his head to kiss her, and Jude’s neck is craned over her shoulder in a way that would swiftly become uncomfortable, but she doesn’t care. The things he can do with his tongue are absolutely filthy.

“Heart of darkness, soul of mine,” he breathes into her mouth. “You ruin me.”

And only then does he press on, press in, press deep. Slowly. Opening her up. Inch by inch. Jude holds her breath, head bowing against the sheets of their bed, feeling that glorious stretch and that consuming pressure. This. She will give him this. They both groan when he bottoms out inside her, his hips flushed against her.

She cranes her neck back to look at him. Cardan’s face is vulnerable in a way she's never seen before, mouth open in stunned pleasure. He closes his eyes for a moment, as if he needs to piece himself back together.

Jude has never felt more powerful in her life.

He doesn’t move at first, letting her get used to the feeling of him in a different position. He bends his head and trails kisses along her spine, between her shoulder blades, up the nape of her neck. Each kiss is like a brand on her heated skin.

She’s bracing herself for him to take her, a little hard, a little rough in that way that she’s only seen from him once or twice before. They are perhaps two people well versed in how to find pleasure within the space of pain, and so she waits for him to fuck her with an unexplored sense of anticipation. But when he finally starts to move, it’s short, gentle rocking motions. He barely leaves her body, barely goes an inch without pushing back in again. He’s thick inside her, dragging along the front of her walls.

Jude’s back arches as that pressure gives way to pleasure.

Her body is still so sensitive from her previous orgasm just minutes before. Every stroke, every pull, she feels it like she has never felt before. Above her, around her, inside her. Cardan is everywhere, and she is surrounded without any fortification. She’s open. Raw. He could destroy her.

She is coming to terms with the fact that she might not be so afraid to let him get the better of her this way.

But instead of keeping her on her hands and knees like she thought, he’s pressing her down, his chest against her back, until she’s flat against the bedsheets and he’s holding her down with the length of his body. This is new. This she could like. It’s a different kind of forfeit altogether. And he continues to rock into her, the pace of his thrusting picking up. Jude can’t really move back against him like this, but it’s alright, he’s whispering in her ear that this is good, this is perfect, this is everything he’s ever wanted.

“Just like this,” he says. “I’ve dreamed of you just like this.”

Jude can’t quite catch her breath. It feels like all the air has been punched out of her lungs with the sheer breadth of him inside her.

She doesn’t really have any comparison, but she has thought more than once before that just a little bigger, just a little more of him pressing into her and he could easily break her into pieces. She has always managed before. Taking him, all of him, was a challenge she was determined to beat. And Jude’s always been good at winning.

Now, though, with his thighs holding hers closed and firmly together between his, with the solid weight of him bearing down on her back, her shoulders, the fit is tighter. Impossible. Almost unendurable.

He hitches his knees up a little, the bed dipping under them, and then he thrusts into her at an angle she has never felt before. And he goes in so deep, so hard, and he hits that spot inside of her that he’s only ever been able to reach with his fingers and it makes her feel —

“Oh,” she gasps, fingers scrabbling into the sheets. “What was that, what the fuck was that –”

She feels his smile curve into the nape of her neck. It’s the only warning she has before he’s pulling out and driving into her again. Jude loses her words. Her face drops into the pillows, unable to support herself any longer.

“That’s it.” His voice is rough. “I’ve got you.” And then he laces their fingers together, his palms to the back of hers, squeezing, reassuring. As if he hasn’t set out to completely devastate her with each pull of his body above her.

It takes her too long to realize that she’s just given him another weapon to use against her. Another weakness to exploit, another advantage to hold over her head. And he wields it against her so well, relentless in his pursuit of this new pleasure he has just learned he could take from her.

Cardan knows her body, knows it well. He knows the right angle to keep his hips so that every thrust hits exactly where it needs to.

She doesn’t recognize the sounds that she is making anymore.

It’s dark, with her head face-down into the pillows. She feels the skin of her forehead and cheeks shifting against the bedsheets with each thrust, but she doesn’t have it in her to move. She can’t get very far anyway. She is smothered. Tight and still and a little bit crushed. Like she almost can’t breathe.

Cardan is a voice above her, the one recognizable thing to anchor her. Without her vision, every other sense is heightened. She feels the kiss of his words as he speaks into her skin, feels it all the way down her spine. He’s whispering one more, Jude, give me another one.

“I can’t,” she sobs, and she doesn’t really know what she’s saying anymore. It’s too much. Too good. She’s going to die. “I can’t, I can’t –”

“Yes, you can. Of course you can. You can do anything, my love.” He sounds absolutely ruined, unmade above her, fucking her so sweetly and so thoroughly into the mattress. Some semblance of coherent thought forms in Jude’s brain that she would give whatever it takes to make Cardan Greenbriar sound like this all the time.

“Please.” And she’s completely lost track of how many times she’s said this tonight. It’s not a weapon she’s using against him anymore, it’s unmitigated and untempered desperation. “Please, Cardan, please –”

“I know. I know what you need. I’ll give you everything, Jude. Can you scream for me this time? The way I once promised you that you would. You were going to scream, weren’t you, in our secret room where all the revelers would have heard you.”

She tries to deny it, but he takes his sharp teeth to her neck and she is gasping and wet and writhing back against him.

“Show me.” His hand untangles from hers, finding a path against her stomach and down, down, down to her clit, which is throbbing and way more tender than she’s ever known it to be. “Show me what you can do.”

Then he begins to rub, artless circles around and over, and he doesn’t stop thrusting into her, dragging against that spot that makes her want to lose her mind — and oh, this will be her shatterpoint, this maelstrom of sensation, of pleasure, of the best thing she’s ever felt in her entire life –

– and Jude breaks.

It feels like a surrender, the way her body seizes up under him, head tilted back with an open-mouthed scream. The scream he asked her for. The scream she can’t hear because her vision goes white at the edges and there’s ringing in her ears. It feels like a surrender, but it’s also a consecration, the way she bares her heart and soul and body to him, unafraid to be caught against the sheets of their bed, letting him in and letting him take and letting him give, until she's quivering with everything he has made her feel tonight.

And then he’s coming too, with an ineloquent curse cast into the back of her neck. For the second time that night, the High King of Elfhame trembles against his queen’s pliant body. His weight crushes her for just a moment before he’s moving off to her side.

The room is cool, the bed is warm, and she holds her breath and tries to hold the moment with it. Then, one more breath in, shaky and not enough, like her lungs will never quite have the oxygen they need anymore. The air is heavy with the smell of sex and jasmine petals — and sunlight.

Jude turns her head just enough to see the beginnings of dawn breaking across their window. They’ve chased the night away completely tangled with each other in bed.

Maybe she was wrong. In the light it’s easier to see. Their bed isn’t a battlefield. It’s hallowed ground. Sanctuary.

Cardan pulls her closer against him, his arm draping around her waist. They’re moving like honey. She can’t see him behind her, but she knows that he’s there. He has her.

“I think tonight went well, all things considered.”

“I almost cut the Minister of Keys’ ear off in a poisoned haze. You think it went well?”

His tail sweeps over her hip, the top of her thigh. “Oh, yes. My heart is intact. You’re in one piece. The revel was a success, and Randalin’s in his place. See? Well.”

“You have a very strange definition of success.”

“I achieved what I set out to do. You’ll see.” There’s something smug in his voice. Is he talking about the land treaty? Because all she can remember from the negotiations is that there wasn’t much of it. “Did you like the decorations?”

“Yes, they matched my dress.”

“I wanted you to see that you belonged there. I wanted everyone to see.”

“Where I belong is my decision to make.” This bed. Soft and cozy. She belongs in this bed. Forever.

“And what is your decision?”

Jude thinks about prolonging it, making Cardan wait in suspense for her answer, and finds that she doesn’t much want to. She reaches down, fingers trailing over his forearm and then his wrist, until finally, she’s tangling her fingers in his and lifting their intertwined hands up above their heads.

“You,” she says. “I belong with you.”

The sunlight filtering through their window gilds the outline of their hands against a warm glow. There is gold on their skin, and gold in their blood.

A new day awaits them.

_______

Chapter Visuals:

Moodboard.

End Notes:

This officially closes the main arc of this little fic that could! I wanted to preserve a sense of parallelism with the very first chapter, bookending the story by finishing it exactly where they began: in bed and hopelessly tanged up in each other.

All that's left is one last chapter/epilogue of sorts to wrap everything up. Man, I'm getting a little mushy thinking about this fic ending. The update should come around the weekend of Dec 19, but feel free to check out my tumblr for accurate status updates (and other Jurdan goodies) in case anything changes.

Ooh, and if you'd like to read about Jude getting Cardan his own wedding ring, I've written about it in my oneshot, covenant mine.

I had the time of my life writing this particular chapter, and I can only hope that you enjoyed reading it, too. As always, kudos, comments and thoughts are unceasingly appreciated! ❤️

Tagging: @ireallyshouldsleeprn

* Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future chapters/fics and it would be my absolute honor to do so!

#jude x cardan #jurdan #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #tfota #The Folk of the Air #tfota fanfic #jurdan fic #jurdan fanfic #jurdanfanfic #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #tcp #tcp fic #twk #tqon #fic: homeland #zita writes

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writefightandflightclub · 5 years ago

Text

Violent Delights: Chapter 6

Pairing: First Order!Poe x reader

Author’s note: This is different to the other chapters, but I hope you like it! I’ll probably fix typos tomorrow. I’m impatient.

Summary: This definitely answers that KEY QUESTION I left hanging at the end of Chapter 5! If you’re new to this story, there are MAJOR SPOILERS under the cut, so please do read the other chapters first (series masterlist here). Even if you’ve been following, you may want to recap Chapter 5 first!

Song inspo: Oh, in my ears / My blood is just roaring / When he's the only one I've ever wanted / I suppose that's just the way it is / Just to think this could be / The last time I hold you, hold you / Ever again / Oh, I don't think I'll ever sleep till / Morning. (Nicole Aitken, The Way It Is)

Warnings: 18+ only, dark fic. This is nowhere near as dark as the preceding chapters but still some warnings: OOC!Poe, FO!Poe, Violence inc: injuries! shooting! Explicit language. Mentions of: torture / sex / death / poison! Let me know if I missed any others.

Taglist: @aussiefangirlwolfy, @localashe, @fictionalcharactersownme, @a-somehow-functioning-dumbass, @itsamedeemoney, @woakiees @tintinwrites@jyn-z-solo @spaghetti-666 @kittyofalltrades @planetpoes (TAGLIST OPEN- let me know if you wish to be added / removed)

Word Count: 6K. Yikes.

GIF by @solorenskywalker

It hurts you. Somehow, it hurts you.

And yet, you are solidified in place, no wound observable.

The moment slows almost to a halt as you register the shot.

Dameron is hit.

The blast hits first. Then, shock, pain, and anger strike all at once, eddying between you and the Commander like the swell of a vicious storm, the air charged and practically humming. At first, his rage at this insulting wound sunk into his flesh is so vital that an immediate hope blooms in your chest; how can he be fatally hurt if he seems so alive? Then; something alien surfaces in his eyes. Something which looks a lot like fear. He delivers an agonised moan, already sounding hollowed out, and your fleeting hope wanes with him.

He unfists his hands from your clothing as he moves to clutch his shoulder in agony. He is cleaved from you and you are split in two, in every figurative way possible. You are ruptured by the blast like a fault line snaking beneath an ocean. This boiling rage is subdued only by the heavy, cooling sea of grief with threatens to depress you down on to your knees. You are torn, the desire to erupt in retaliation on behalf of your “enemy” in stark opposition to your need to sink with your lover. You want to fall to the floor with him. To your knees. To hold him. No question. But if you try and help him, Barret might shoot you too.

The indecision burns you.

It hurts you, this shot.

But it hurts Dameron more.

The commander groans, creaks beneath the weight of this pain. It presses down on him and his body curls in on itself as he creeps further towards a colourless exit, the knives in his eyes blunted. There is no vivid, crimson tide of blood to warn you of death incoming. Not this time. This is death pouncing from the long grass like a whip crack. The predator no-one saw coming.

The commander’s face contorts in a rendition of agony, his face almost beautiful with it. But this is not the kind of pain he has made his friend. This is pain without pleasure. And, since you can’t reach out to him, pain without comfort.

The cruellest pain of all.

“No. No. No.” you repeat -almost inaudibly- as Dameron sinks to his knees. You feel like he’s sinking into the depths of a cold, dark sea. Sinking out of reach.

His dark, tempestuous eyes are directed up at you, teeth gritted, lips sucked thin as agony grips him. On his knees like this, he could easily appear like a beast defeated; defanged and declawed. But there is some fight left in his eyes yet. Enough for him to try and spur you into action. “Time to go, Rebel. You fly, he guns, understand?”

You don’t understand. How can you comprehend leaving him like this?

His voice is shot with gravel, full of holes, but it still speaks its way into the depths of you. “Now. Go!, he insists, his voice winding its way around your bones and pulling you into motion, as if he holds the reins in the palm of his hand. As if he can bend you to his will, even now.

He has been dragging you to him all this time and now he urges you to leave, as if he’s unaware of the strength it will take to release yourself from his orbit; from his gravity. But staying isn’t helping him. In fact, it’s worse than that, you’re a danger to him every second you’re still on this ship. You know too much. He needs you gone from his sky.

You obey reluctantly, giving him the smallest of nods, letting your trembling fingertips drag ever so gently, subtly along his jaw as you turn towards the TIE. You move with strings still on you, dragging you back to him and making each step feel like you are wading through mud.

Progressing towards the craft, you are vaguely aware of Barret barking at you, calling you in to the interior of the fighter. You clamber up the ladder and into the tight cockpit just as Troopers swarm into the hangar, the blaster shots bouncing off the ship’s exterior. Your shaking hands hover above the ignition controls, ready to punch it. Instead, you wait. You wait until you are assured that the Troopers have made their way over to the vicinity of the Commander. You wait until the last possible second.

With a final glance through the transparisteel windshield, you look down at his now stilled form on the ground below you. His crown of pitch-dark curls and his uniform-clad body splayed out -helpless- over the cold floor. You don’t know if it was a killing shot. Without a crimson tide of blood, you can’t tell if Dameron’s still alive. But you do know that you have to go, regardless. With a sharp growl of regret, of anguish, you boost the ship out of the swiftly closing gap in the hangar doors. Just in the nick of time.

And so, you fly.

You fly with a pounding heart, blood raging in your ears. You fly, so enraged with your passenger that you are tempted to crash the ship just to make him pay. But there is nothing around you. No ground, no sky. Nothing to cling on to. Just a loss. An emptiness. Just space. You fly away from him, like a satellite released from its orbit. Equally lost and purposeless in the endless dark.

From out of the darkness, the thought of the Resistance base should be calling out to you right now like a beacon. A beacon inviting you home, now that you are finally free. But you’ve never before had to escape somewhere you wanted to be and return to somewhere you were no longer sure you belonged. The thought of retuning to base with Barret suddenly seems incomprehensible. And so, when you’re clear of the fleet, you don’t know what else to do except keep flying. No destination in mind, except away.

Flying. Simply flying away, is all you try to focus on. But all you can think about is turning the blasted ship back around. Flying toward him. Following those strings the commander has tied on to you which extend across space, drawing you back to him.

But you know that’s untenable. You fly, and it’s likely a good thing that the Order is in chaos, that the chain of command is interrupted. Otherwise, you’re not sure how -or if- you’d manage to lose the pursuing fleet. Not in your current state of fury. Not with Barret’s meagre attempt at gunning, through intermittent groans of pain.

Somehow, you shake them regardless. As the remaining TIEs abandon pursuit, you hear Barret breathe a sigh of relief from the gunner position behind you. The reminder of Barret’s presence is enough to make your hands tighten so hard on the controls that your fingernails dig crescents into your palms. To make your chest tighten.

Then: “They track these things. Did you disable the tracker?” he asks you.

You are loathe to acknowledge him. Even so, you fiddle with the dash until you’re satisfied that the Order can no longer trace you. You cut the strings leading back to him and you feel that you’ve just cut a lifeline. That suddenly you’re lost to liminal space, in-between anywhere and anyone you’ve ever considered home. Still ruptured in two. The feeling sets a hollowness in the pit of you, like you are a ripe fruit which has been scooped out by a cool spoon.

“Affirmative. Plotting a course to base.” You confirm in monotone, all emotion scrubbed from your voice.

“I can’t believe I got such a lucky shot at that bastard.” Barret continues, his voice sickeningly jovial and full of relief.

You feel like you might throw-up.

“Don’t speak. Save your strength.” You say curtly, inordinately thankful that you are back-to-back in the TIE. At least you don’t have to look at him. At least he can’t look at you – can’t get a read on the emotions you would be incapable of obscuring right now.

Still, as you programme your course you feel like his eyes are roving over you, all the same. You feel like he’s poking around inside you, wondering what’s wrong with you. You can imagine the gears in his brain working in an attempt to figure out why your reactions seem off, to unearth whatever happened to you on that ship. Whatever tortures you may have been subjected to. You can imagine him retrospectively register the bite marks on your neck, the cuts to your hands. The blood on your face and clothing. You practically feel his thought process creep over you in the cockpit like a cold chill.

“What happened to you?” Barret asks then, ever so softly, his voice heavy with the implication of imagined atrocities.

“It’s not my blood. It’s Hux’s. I killed him.” You say, hoping to deflect from exactly what happened to you on that ship.

Barret hoots with laughter, and the sound jarrs you. You hear his hand slapping against his thigh in celebration. “Wow, we really fucked the Order over today, partner. Hux and Dameron dead!” Barret reaches behind him to squeeze your shoulder and you flinch away as if you are afraid of his touch; as if you don’t deserve it; as if he disgusts you. Perhaps all of those things.

“You don’t know that Dameron’s dead.” You bite off without thinking, molten tears of rage threatening at the corner of your eyes. The break in your voice is giving too much away. Emotion floods the cracks in your words like tributaries joining the churn of an unstoppable river. You can’t choke back the sob which follows.

Barret’s voice softens so much that you want to wring his neck to choke the pity out of it. “Did Dameron... hurt you?”. That’s why he thinks you’re crying, then? Because you can’t be certain that the commander’s dead, and surely you must want him dead for the terrible, unspeakable things he enacted upon you?

The truth might be even more unspeakable. The truth that you’re a traitor. The truth that you’d sell your soul to have the commander do those things to you all over again. To have him fuck you and hurt you and hold you. The truth that, yes, he did hurt you, buy you liked it. Barret doesn’t understand that you’re wretched with a crushing and unexpected grief at the thought that it may never happen again. Not since Barret did what you should have had the sense to do all that time ago. Not since Barret shot the commander.

You hope Barret doesn’t notice the course of the ship waver as your hands slip on the controls. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The close air of the TIE is suddenly thick with a loaded silence as the ship shudders back along its trajectory. As you regain control of yourself and the craft.

Barret, however, does not relent for long. “Do you think when we get back to base we’ll be welcomed as heroes?” The question simply makes your stomach turn. You refuse to pluck at the question while it hangs there, ripe, and so it becomes a rotten thing in the air between you. You feel that chill creep over you again, as if Barret is reaching inside of you, panning for your secrets. No escape within the confines of this ship.

You think back to the last time you were confined with Barret. It seems so long ago that you hunkered in that stakeout room, tracking that shipment and thirsting hard for the commander. The commander who had consumed you with just one bite. Now, mere days later, your partner seems like a stranger and your enemy seems like your lover. You indulged your appetite for that tempting, delicious darkness; you were willingly suckered into Dameron’s honeyed trap. And now that you have been given a taste, you should feel sated. But the truth is you would gladly open your mouth and drink more of that darkness down. You’d drink it until you were spoiled and loathsome with it.

The most disconcerting aspect of these tumultuous events is how little you know yourself. What you are capable of. What you crave and how far you will wade in to the darkness to get it. You know these are your mistakes, your weaknesses to atone for. You know that despite what you’re feeling now, Barret doesn’t deserve your hate. A part of you still knows that. Knows that, objectively, he’s simply a good guy who shot a bad man. That objectively, you should still be on his side. You know you owe it to him to take him home. At the very least.

An older, softer part of you resurfaces as you hear Barret grunting behind you with a fresh wave of pain. It’s likely that the initial burst of adrenaline is wearing off and he is beginning to suffer.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’ll be ok. My stomach is hurting like a bitch, though.”

In all the chaos, you’d given little thought to the extent of his injuries, until now. So, next, you ask a question you’re not sure you truly want an answer to. “What happened to you, Barret?”

There is a beat. He replies in a small voice. “The kinda stuff our training tried to prepare us to resist.” His answer is vague but loaded. That’s enough. That’s enough to understand what they’d subjected him to. Guilt flares in the pit of you, knowing that while he was being tortured, you were indulging your darker whims. Knowing how much you were enjoying yourself while he suffered. Enjoying yourself at his expense, when you could have been trying to get him out of there.

So, you still can feel guilt, then? You still know that, on some level, it was wrong. Maybe there is something of the Rebel left in you, somewhere. Buried under the landslide of darkness. But you know there is little chance of that part of you clawing itself out when your next thought is of the commander. When your whole body clenches around the memory of him, clings on to it. You think of how he can torture you in an entirely different way, until you’re begging for mercy. A part of you feels you’d raze everything you ever loved to the ground for a chance to beg him again.

Still, you’re curious. You’re curious whether your commander was involved in Barret’s torture. Perhaps so that you can weigh precisely how much you should loathe yourself. “Troopers, or one of the higher-ups?” you ask, trying to keep your voice level, void of feeling.

“Troopers mainly. Some droids, doctors…” Barret trails off, remembering. “Though, it’s funny, really. Dameron came to my room this morning. Told me -don’t worry- it would all be over for me today. Guess the joke’s on him. The bastard.” Barret’s voice sounds darker, more malicious than you’ve ever heard it.

“He came to your room? This morning?” Something about that doesn’t sit quite right with you, leaves you uneasy. Dameron doesn’t do anything much unless there’s something in it for him, you’re learning. Maybe the games he has been playing aren’t quite over yet. Is it wrong to relish that thought?

“He visited a couple of times. To mindfuck me, from what I can gather. Yesterday he tried to make me swallow some horrible lies about you. To make me think I was alone, I guess- to get some intel out of me. Today… well, he brought me my daily rations and told me it was all over. Well, fuck him, he’s dead.”

Panic flutters in your stomach. You try to remain steady on the flight controls, to calm your breathing. You know Barret doesn’t fully appreciate the implications of his words. Of the commander’s actions. But you might.

You have two burning questions you need answers to.

The first: How much did Dameron tell Barret?

The second: What did he feed him?

Your mind pores over any detail of Barret you can remember from the escape to establish which question is most pressing. You hark back to the sheen of sweat on his forehead, the glassiness of his infuriatingly concerned eyes. The way he was clutching at his stomach. More than being injured; Barret looked ill.

Realisation strikes you, and if you didn’t feel guilty before, you sure as hell do now. You can’t be sure, of course. But somehow you know. You’d bet that the commander had fed Barret some juicy, ripe, red fruit.

Bile rises in your throat, but you force yourself to gloss over your voice with a kind tone. To paint your face with a soft, reassuring smile. “Why don’t you try and get some rest, huh? You’ve been through it.” Your passenger hums, considering your proposition. “If I divert the power from the interior electrics into the thrusters, I can get us back to base a little faster than expected. If you don’t mind flying in the dark?”

Flying in the dark is all you’ve been doing ever since the commander hit your life and turned it upside down, like a hurricane. Ans it turns out you’re still caught in his wake. You can’t tell if you’re soaring or if you’re about to crash and burn.

“Yeah.” Barret reaches a hand around to squeeze your arm again and it is like a hand rising out of a grave. His hand is cold. You resist the urge to flinch away, despite the chill it sends down your spine. “Oh, and, partner? Thank you for rescuing me.”

You bite your lips between your teeth. You’re not sure if that statement could possibly be further from the truth of what happened. Hadn’t you doomed him, right from the start? From that first bite the commander took of you? A throwaway “You don’t need to thank me.” is all you can muster.

Barret curls himself in his chair and you are grateful to fly on in silence. Now that the affront of him is over, you suddenly realise how tense you are, how the emotions wracking you are beginning to take their toll. You can’t explain how it was more comforting to be in the arms of your enemy than trapped in the confines of this ship with someone you’d let down so badly. You owe it to Barret to try and make part of this right.

Don’t you?

An alternative option niggles at you, hiding somewhere beyond protocol, beyond the rules and conventions and obligations. Then you think that, perhaps, it’s a good thing for Barret that you can’t be sure if Dameron’s dead, after all. Because if you knew that he was, you don’t think you could find the compassion or strength to try to bring your partner home. You think you might seek retribution, in the end.

Regardless, you fly. You try and allow the darkness of the cockpit to swallow you. As if Barret is not sitting there, as if Dameron never marked you. You try and push it all down, but the commander did mark you. He’s branded you as his. He’d told you “don’t forget you’re mine”, and now his words are wrapped around your bones. His words will be buried with you. And every time you try and escape, your thoughts orbit back to him. His mouth swallowing your hot core, his hands delivering delicious tortures, his cock pumping into you. Most of all: those dark eyes, like shadowed planets you would kill to be marooned on again.

Left to the dark and the dark alone, your thoughts are consumed by him. That is, until you reach your destination, and swing your craft around in the air to bring her in for touch down. Until you approach base and spot that something isn’t right. Until you see the thick pillars of smoke billowing into the air.

“No. No. No.” You plead to no-one in particular, your protestations and erratic flying drawing Barret abruptly from his sleep.

You land harshly on the runway, avoiding blast holes and charred ground, and scramble hurriedly from the ship. Your feet relentlessly pound the tarmac until you’re in the centre of it all, scanning the scene around you with eyes wide.

No-one comes running to greet you or shoot at you. No-one is left. You look around you, surveying for damages. Surveying for bodies, you realise. That the X-wings and larger crafts are gone from the hangar provides some immediate comfort. Signs of a likely evacuation. Then, your eyes pick out the remains of familiar munitions, the tell-tale shell of a downed and lightly smoking TIE fighter.

The strike was committed by the Order. While you were taken. You shake your head in disbelief. It can’t possibly be a coincidence -not after everything that has happened. That means the Order somehow found out the location of the base while you were captive… but you hadn’t…

Oh. Oh.

You put the pieces together and turn back to Barret in disbelief. He has now come to stand several paces from you on the runway. Laughably, you know you must look betrayed when your eyes meet his. In one hand he grips a blaster and the other hand waves around defensively. No, he doesn’t look well. Now that you’re truly seeing him, he doesn’t look well at all. A sheen of sweat covers Barret’s face, his eyes red-rimmed, tears seeding at the corners. He instantly recognises the accusation in your eyes, in your stance.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” he professes, voice trembling. “I wasn’t strong enough. I hoped we’d make it back before the Order could put the intel to use. Or that we’d disrupted their plans. That maybe no-one would need to know.”.

“You sold the base out?” you spit with utter disgust, looking Barret over like he’s scum.

Apparently, neither of you were returning to base as heroes after all.

He meets your question with silence, which says it all.

“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” You are yelling now. “You let the Resistance down! You betrayed them!”

You’re so angry that it feels like your blood is boiling beneath your skin. Your breath is ragged, your thoughts swirling. You feel darkness crowding at the edges of you. You feel like you are sucking it up through your fingertips, draining your surroundings of it. Feeling it course through you, like the hum of static before a storm. Barret betrayed the Resistance. He did this. And you’re so angry that you can’t see straight.

You are devoid of any sympathy or empathy for him. You’re so angry at him, of course, because you’re angry at yourself. If you can berate him for being a traitor you will take it, if it makes what you did seem to pale into insignificance.

Instinctually, although you are stood some distance away, you lift your arm as if you could simply reach out and choke Barret. Make him pay for his weakness. Your arm extended towards him, you have the desperate urge to just close your grip and crush. “I wish I could just…”

You are as shocked as Barret when he physically clasps his throat and starts wheezing, his eyes wide and afraid. It shocks you enough for you to drop your arm and physically step back from him. You shrink back from the look he’s giving you as he processes what just happened, raising his blaster arm unsteadily toward you. He looks at you questioningly. He looks at you as if he’s looking at a stranger.

All you can do is look back at him. You look Barret dead in the eyes, and you must reveal just too much. Because, if it’s possible, Barret pales even further, his eyes swimming with disbelief.

“It’s true, isn’t it? I’m not the only one who let down the Resistance, am I?” His voice is so thick with disgust that you can’t bring yourself to keep looking at him. To keep facing what you did.

“The things Dameron told me yesterday. They’re true.”

“What?” you say weakly, a pitiful attempt to backtrack, but you already know it’s futile. You’ve been found out. And you might be a traitor but you’re not a liar.

“You fucked the enemy.” Barret spits. “While I was being tortured in that cell. You could have stopped this.” He yells, gesturing around to the scene of devastation which envelops you. And, in his anger he overdoes it - ends up clutching his stomach in evident pain.

There is nothing you can say. No protestation you can muster. You had been angry and ashamed at yourself, but when confronted with it, you find a small, absurd part of you which is proud of it. Which has no desire to deny it. To apologise for it. Barret may have caved in to weakness, but you found power on that ship. Whilst he may dish out judgement, with the commander you had found understanding. Affinity.

Barret’s blaster wavered with the fresh burst of pain but now he has it pointed back at you, trained intently on you. “I didn’t want to believe Dameron. I didn’t at first.”, he bites off, chewing on his words. “But I promised him that if it was true, I’d kill you both myself. I picked your bastard boyfriend off earlier- so I guess I just need to make good on the other half of my promise, eh, traitor?”

You’re getting sick of this righteous bastard already. Hadn’t he been weak? Hadn’t he caved too? Maybe all rebels were simply hypocrites.Maybe the Order were on to something.

Then, of all the things you should say or ask right now, the next question out of your mouth is entirely self-indulgent. “What did he say?” you ask slowly, stringing out your words. In no rush. You have all the time in the world. Unlike your partner.

“What?!” Barret replies in utter confusion.

“What did he say when you promised to kill me? Because given that he poisoned you I don’t think he was too happy with you about something.” You know it’s wrong, that it’s too cruel, but you can’t help that your eyes flash with a perverse kind of satisfaction as you watch the realisation play over Barret’s face.

Is that why? Is that why the commander has poisoned your fellow rebel? To protect you? Because he threatened you? Oh, how a part of you hopes that’s true.

His blaster arm wavers again, and Barret is so weak of body and wrapped up in turmoil that you are able to walk towards him and take the blaster easily, gently from his hand. You look into his eyes, your voice steely, suddenly not feeling worthless or ashamed at all. Not anymore. Maybe you were cut out for these games, after all. “You don’t look so hot, Barret. So maybe we agree that we both made some mistakes on that ship, yes?” Barret considers your words carefully and then nods, and it acts as a meanwhile truce of sorts. You keep your tone impartial. “I’d suggest that if you want me to help you, you should take a seat. Before you drop. I’ll see if there’s anything left of the med bay.”

“You’re going to help me?” Barret looks at you in confusion.

“Yes, I’m going to help you. I’m not a monster.”

The way he looks at you in response signals that he thinks otherwise. You huff out a breath, perturbed by the condemnation. And so, for the second time that day, you aren’t able to offer comfort to someone in need. Instead, you sling Barret’s blaster on to your belt and jog towards the med bay. Barret’s only hope is that there are some shots left which haven’t been blown-up or cleared-out.

You move as fast as you’re able, gathering whatever supplies you can, but by the time you return, Barret is lying still on the runway.

You are too late.

Barret is the third body you’ve had lying at your feet that day. Three enemies, in the end. One of whom was a lover, and one of whom was a friend.

Despite what Barret had done, you feel no satisfaction in his fate. You sigh deeply and turn your head into your shoulder. You don’t look. You try not to look. All you can do is drag him into the hangar and cover him over, paying final respects to the fallen Resistance member.

Now, you are truly alone.

Feeling somewhat numb, you wander around base, confirming there are no signs of life left at all. Passing collapsed buildings, smoking craters, and remnants of devastation. You act on autopilot, and before you know where you’re walking to, you’ve reached the canteen, picking up some remaining rations and stuffing your face. Then, before you realise it, you’ve meandered across base and stand at the spot where your quarters should be.

All that’s left is a shell.

Suddenly, it’s as if you dropped the bombs yourself. As if you’ve intentionally obliterated everything you used to know and used to be beyond all recognition. You pick through the rubble, try to leaf through the ashes, but nothing at all remains. Still nothing to cling on to.

In your wandering, your quest for solace of some kind, the next place you find yourself is General Leia’s room. Hers remains intact. You find it empty, but her presence is there in all the tiny details. The uniform hanging up by the small closet, the table covered in datapads and holo equipment. Her comb and tumbler of water on the nightstand.

You dearly hope that she’s safe.

Being as quiet as possible, as if she’s sleeping there and you might disturb her, you perch yourself on the edge of her bed, grabbing her blanket and tugging it around your shoulders. You let yourself dwell on all the ways you’ve let her down, the ways you may yet break her heart, and you will the grief to hit you. But it doesn’t. You feel like you should be primed to lie down and cry, letting sobs wrack you. But there’s nothing. Only numbness. Perhaps, deep down, you feel you don’t deserve Leia’s comfort. Perhaps, deep down, you’re not truly sorry. Perhaps you are still too ruptured to start healing. Perhaps all of these things.

At least, sitting still allows the exhaustion to hit you. Still, you don’t feel like you could sleep. You feel restless. A lost celestial object with no course and no orbit. A dark, unlit moon. So, you continue your wandering, digging out some fresh clothes and taking a shower, the cool water sluicing Hux’s blood away. It circles down the drain in a crimson vortex. You redress and rewrap Leia’s blanket around your shoulders.

Without knowing where exactly you’re headed next, you find your feet gravitating towards the TIE fighter, which you half-landed and half-crashed into the tarmac.

Of course.

It’s the closest you can be to him right now.

You clamber inside, the snug cockpit encasing you. And then, finally, the rush of feelings hits you. You remember the Troopers swarming around his still form and it’s as if a vice clamps down on your chest. You imagine the chaos on the ship, the discovery of General Hux, washed up on that crimson tide of blood. You remember how it felt to kill him, and then to have the commander exalt you and kiss you and rail into you. You picture how it should have gone; General Dameron sitting coolly, smugly on the bridge. Taking Hux’s place, knowing exactly what he’d done. What you’d done. Sitting there as calm and devastating as the eye of a storm.

You screw your eyes shut tight against the thought you know will follow.

Is he alive?

And, as you close your eyes, various thoughts and faces eddy through the blackness, coming and receding like waves. As you focus in on each of them, in turn, it is as if you are slipping into a current, or a hyper stream; as if you can follow the tide which might lead you to them. One thought begins to jump out at you, tugging at you like a riptide, causing your mind to drift towards it.

Leia?

You reach out with your mind, searching for her energy. You can’t explain it, but you feel that maybe you can establish where they’ve evacuated to.

At least you think that’s where your heart is reaching out to. But wait; it’s not Leia. It’s something connected, but something darker.

Kylo.

Your eyes shoot open in fright and you startle in your seat. For a moment, it’s as if you have linked to him, as if his face is blinking in front of you. He looks just as surprised as you feel. You recoil in terror. For a good while, you sit motionless in the cold shell of the TIE, as if Kylo is a creature hunting you and any small movement might allow him to pounce. You don’t know how long you sit there, heart racing, and your fingernails digging into your knees threatening to draw blood.

You just touched something so deeply dark. Something frightening. Something you are not quite ready to face.

You don’t know how much time passes, but you sit there, practically frozen, until a blue light begins to blink on the dashboard of the TIE. Your curiosity overriding your fear, you press the button. It’s a holo, patching through.

A cool, rich voice resounds through the cockpit of the TIE.

“It’s General Dameron here.”

Your relief is palpable – a fluttering in your chest. A smile which begins in the pit of you and blooms through your whole body. You hold your breath until you’re sure you can believe what you’re seeing. Your eyes pore over the holo, trying to establish where he is, how he is. He looks as though he may be patched up and lying in a med bay.

“Maybe you thought you could run or hide from me, Rebel, but Kylo -the space bloodhound- tells me he found you.” He looks off to the side of him. “You don’t mind if I call you that, do you, Supreme Leader?”

His voice is still full of holes, shot through with gravel. But he’s alive. You’re sure you can see the hint of a shark smile spread over his features. He dips his head slightly towards the camera droid at that moment, lowering his voice just a touch, his eyes narrowing. Unconsciously you lean in toward the transmission. “So, Killer. As you know, Hux is dead, and you’re responsible.” He leans in even further and even through the holo his intense eyes bore into you. “But I’m very much alive. So, I just needed you to know...” he exhales a breath and bites his bottom lip as if his next thought amuses him. “...that I’m gonna be coming for you.”

Whether his statement is a threat or a promise, you can’t be sure. However, you know that the games are far from over. Whilst tomorrow you may need to figure out your next move, for now, you finally feel like you could cry and you could sleep.

You lean back in the pilot’s chair and allow yourself a deep, relieving breath. And yet again, you can’t hold back your own resplendent shark smile.

You press the button to reverse the transmission before sending a message back to General Dameron.

“Bring it on, General Dameron. I’m ready for you.”

He’s alive.

It’s not over yet.

As much as you would like to run back to him, you know now, more than ever, that you have to return home to the Resistance - to see if it’s still where your heart is. Or whether you have any heart left at all. Then, if you happen to discover that your heart does belong to the darkness after all, at least you know the darkness is coming for you. And at least then, you will truly know that you are ready for it.

You lean back in the seat and close your eyes, allowing your relief to wrap around you -like a blanket- as the darkness holds you and rocks you to sleep.

To be continued (Chapter SEVEN coming soon!)

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treatian · 4 years ago

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The Chronicles of the Dark One: Magical Loopholes

Chapter 20: A Plan of His Own

He couldn't shake the nightmare he'd had. How Belle managed to do it night after night, day after day, baffled him. She had eventually fallen back to sleep, her arms had stilled around him, and she'd drifted off while she held him. Ordinarily, he'd have been mesmerized, he might have felt honored or blessed to have her there with him, but all he could focus on was the fact that it meant he couldn't leave without waking her. He'd wanted to get up and pace. He'd wanted to get up and go down to the basement, pretend like there was something he could do other than just wait for the Savior to return or for August to show up and give him his answers. But there was nothing. Nothing he could do except stay in Belle's grasp until the sun rose and he had an excuse to get up and leave her.

She was frustrated when he left for work. She asked him about town again, about going with him. He had been a bit short with her, telling her just as he always did that things still weren't safe, and he'd take her when they were. When he arrived, he was almost relieved to see that things seemed to have descended into more chaos overnight. That meant he hadn't lied to Belle, not entirely. And it also meant that he'd bought himself time, more time to bring her to the town as he'd promised, but the more he thought about it, the more he let his mind wander through plan after plan after plan, the more he was convinced it might not ever happen, not as he'd wanted it to.

He tried to focus, tried to concentrate on other things, tried to tell himself to wait for Emma like the Seer said, or break whatever spell August had protected himself with as the Dark Ones suggested. But, each time, the image of Baelfire calling out for him as he slid into the portal flashed in front of his eyes. Every time it happened, it drove him closer and closer to the edge.

He pulled out an old trunk, one that he hadn't used since before the Curse broke. It was the trunk that he stored Baelfire's things in. He took it out into the main room and opened it up, peering inside at the items he'd managed to find in his store that belonged to his son; some clothes, a pair of shoes, the ball August had brought to his attention, and Bae's old shawl. It wasn't much. But it might just be enough.

In the back of the shop, he found a black bag, one that he'd crafted in the Enchanted Forest for moments like this, for plans he needed to make and create. It was the black bag that contained all his spells, mostly simple ones that were common and he wanted to have on hand, but at the behest of the Seer, he'd made a few others that were complex. He didn't need the complex ones. Just something simple. He opened the bag, and his eyes drifted toward a tracking potion.

Perhaps he didn't need to find August or take Emma with him. Perhaps he could do this, strike out on his own, go find his boy. Gold would have been able to navigate the world without a problem. It was only now that he had his memories of who he was and the understanding that in all his time, he'd never left Storybrooke that he was suddenly uneasy about going. But if this was for Baelfire, if this was to finally get his son back, he'd do it. And…

Suddenly a gold vase on this table winked at him in the sunlight; a gold vase he remembered from another time, from his castle, something that Belle had once shinned up and set aside for storage. Belle. What was he going to do with Belle? He'd take her with him. That was how he'd keep his promise. It might not be Storybrooke that she would see, but it was the world, a new world. It was something far bigger and brighter than Storybrooke. Of course, he'd have to tell her where he was taking her and why he was taking her, but at least they'd be together. At least he'd know that she'd be safe, at least she'd be-

Cold. It was cold. The air was chilly and thin as it should be in the middle of Winter, but the space around them was smokey. The smoke rose from the ground, from a cart down the street. The ground was covered not with pavement or dirt but rather concrete. There was a trash can close by and tall buildings that reached impressively into the sky, but his focus was on the person, a man who had just fallen to the ground from above and started running. There was knowledge in him, things that he knew but could not see. One of those facts was that there were two people with him. One of them was a woman, though he couldn't actually see her face, only perceive that her presence was familiar. Another of those facts, the one far more important, was that the man running away from him was Baelfire. It was his son.

A different feeling suddenly reached up through his body and pulled him free of the vision, a feeling of importance and urgency. He recognized it. He'd had the feeling a dozen times over when he'd been in his castle and knew that it had nothing to do with the Seer.

Someone was on his property. And he knew who.

The bell to the shop rang as Former Mayor Mills entered. Rage from the last few nights of Belle waking up screaming and in tears tore through him, and he moved to go out and meet her, but as he listened to her rummaging through his front room, he stopped himself.

What the fuck she was doing here was unknown. He was curious, but his urge to kill in Belle's name was stronger. However, when he thought of what had happened that first night she'd come back and he'd tried to kill the woman, he tried to reel himself in. His urge to kill was stronger than his curiosity. His desire to go home and be with Belle was stronger than his urge to kill. So really, he could either give in to his curiosity to keep from killing her and go home to Belle an honest man. Or kill the woman.

Belle.

He chose Belle. Belle over Regina. It didn't hurt nearly as much as when he chose Belle over Baelfire.

He took a deep breath, and when he finally passed through the curtain, he found Regina tearing through some books he had behind the counter, casting them aside when she didn't like what she saw. She was looking for a book. He smirked as he watched her, and she seemed oblivious in her search. It had been nearly a week, and so far, Regina hadn't shown an ounce of power, not a bit of magic, to try and regain her control of this place even though with everyone in a panic and Snow White gone it would have been so simple.

What were the chances she hadn't tried because she hadn't mastered getting her magic back?

After the Wraith, she'd have to be truly desperate enough to step foot inside his shop. Or else certain that he had what she needed to make it worth it. What she needed was magic. Why did he have a feeling he knew exactly which book she was after.

"The library's beneath the clock tower," he pointed out, forcing her to look up at him. Her nostrils flared in irritation, but he had a feeling that wasn't because of him, even after what happened between them. Still, he did like to twist daggers. "You closed it, remember? When you still had power."

"I need the book. I need to get my son back," she insisted as he realized he still held the vase in his hand and moved across the room to set it down for a good polish before taking it home to Belle.

"Which book?" he questioned, knowing good and well what she was talking about. He just wanted the satisfaction of knowing she was going to squirm for this. "Ah. So, it's come down to that, eh? You need your mommy's help?"

When he turned, she was right behind him. She slammed her hands down upon the counter between them and stood with hunched shoulders.

"Give me the book."

He smirked. He was tempted to give it to her. That was surprising. Minutes ago, when she'd first come in, he was certain that he would have been all too happy to force her to leave here empty-handed, and yet now that he was watching her, the vein in her forehead pulsing, eyes dark and desperate for magic that he possessed…yes, he saw all too clearly how doing this could backfire. He saw how it could make her miserable. But Regina wasn't a priority. Watching her suffer wasn't a priority. He had other things to do. Belle was enough of a distraction on her own he couldn't let himself also be led astray by watching Regina gag on her own desperation. And him? Well…

"Do you really need the smell of the written word to get the magic flowing again, love? Maybe if you relaxed, it would just happen."

"I don't have time. It worked once; I know I can do it. I just… I just need a shortcut back."

"Yeah, well, I don't have time, either. Leave. Please," he snarled.

He felt it before she did. Or perhaps he should say he felt a lack of something where a feeling should be. Nothing. No stir of magic, nothing in the air to force her to comply, to ancient magic that forced her out the door at his behest. Fuck. He'd made that deal so that he'd have power over her when he had none. With magic back, it appeared there was a loophole he hadn't quite planned for. And if the little smirk blooming over her face was any indication, she knew it too.

"Well, how about that. Your 'pleases' have lost their punch."

"Well, the fact remains, jumpstarting your magic is not in my best interest."

"You know what else isn't in your best interest? Having everyone know the Enchanted Forest still exists. Knowing that you and I are keeping that little secret. You're up to something. And it doesn't involve going back home."

Suddenly Regina's hand crept out to the trunk he'd pulled free, the one with so many of his truly personal items inside. She moved to open it, and he slammed his hand down over the top of it. He would have done that even if it wasn't his and Baelfire's things. He hated the way she was here, hated the way she was snooping, the way she thought she had some form of control over them. He hated that when Belle woke up screaming at night it meant she did have some control on her left. But he was going somewhere. He was going to leave Storybrooke and take Belle with him tonight if he had to. So, what the hell did he care if Regina wanted to turn herself into a glutton for magic?

With a wave, he summoned the book the book he'd once given to Cora and then to Regina back into his hand. Regina inhaled as though even the smell of it could help her. Oh, this really wasn't going to be pretty. He almost wanted to stay another day or so just to watch the fun he was sure it would cause. He couldn't kill the bitch, but he could have his fun in other ways. But for Belle's sake, it was best if they left.

"Careful, dearie. These are straight-up spells; rough in the system."

She grabbed the book out of his hands almost viciously. "I don't care if they turn me green. I'm getting my son back."

"Oh my…" he laughed, unable to contain himself at the irony of that statement. With a sister who actually had turned green with envy over the fact that she'd never be her, Regina had no idea just how plausible that statement was.

"What?" Regina demanded, turning to look at him with a sneer. He hadn't meant to have her hear him, but she had. Now that he had her attention, he wasn't going to tell her about Zelena, that little bit of knowledge he preferred to keep to himself especially knowing that the Queen wasn't above blackmail herself, but what was it he'd just realized. He couldn't kill her, but he could have fun in his own ways. Mostly by striking her where it would hurt the most.

"It's just, holding that…I told you once you didn't look like her, but now…now I can see it," he grinned.

Regina didn't see the humor that he did. She sneered, clutched the book to her tighter, and left.

#Rumbelle #Rumple #Rumpelstiltskin #Dark One #Mr. Gold #Belle #Regina Mills #Evil Queen #ouat #ouat fanfiction #fanfic

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pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer · 4 years ago

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Right of Law, Section XXV

(Xia’s fate is decided, as Velika breaks free of his bonds and renews his assault.)

Swooping down onto the battlefield, Antroz landed a short distance from where the Sand Lord and Velika stood. “Sand Lord! Thank you for coming to Xia’s aid.”

“Save your gratitude until we have seized victory, Makuta,” the Sand Lord said.

Not far away, a group of Vorox were battling a combined drone. Antroz teleported behind the machine and ran it through, melting its insides with her Plasma powers. Quickly counting how many drones were left, she said, “It seems we’re nearly there...and you two are holding Velika off?”

“As best we can,” Bitil said. “This latest vessel of his...it’s no small task to damage it. We’ve been able to contain him, but it’s not a permanent--”

He and the Sand Lord both grunted. Antroz dispatched another drone, asking, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Blast,” Bitil said. “How was he able to--gah!”

The sand began to shift. Antroz focused her stasis field powers in that direction, hoping it would tilt the scales in their favor, but all she could do was slow the form she felt rising towards the surface.

“It’s no good,” the Sand Lord said. “Both of you, release your hold.”

“What?!” Bitil said. “How is that--”

“I have a plan, but your stasis fields are in the way! Hurry!”

Hesitantly, the two Makuta complied. The Sand Lord made some vague gesture, but before either could ask, Velika’s form began to emerge, sand spilling off of him and the platform of Shadow energy he was using to lift himself. Stopping only once he hovered above their heads, Velika said, “Your efforts are for naught. Accept your fate, and you may yet die with some iota of dignity.”

“And what do you know of dignity?” Bitil said. “You won’t even show your face in combat, you coward.”

Velika’s chest opened, pouring out another torrent of energy. Bitil and the others scattered to evade it. Hands crackling with Shadow, Velika said, “Watch your tongue, child. Every insult you aim at me buys greater torment for your Rahkshi.”

Bitil growled, barely able to quiet his urge to retaliate. Velika fired a volley of Shadow bolts, keeping his foes on the defensive, though Antroz managed to regroup with the Sand Lord amidst this chaos. “You said you had a plan?”

“And I am carrying it out,” the Sand Lord said. “I need only time. The more I can focus, the less time I will need.”

“So Bitil and I will have to draw his attention, then. May I at least ask what this plan is?”

“Ask if you wish, but I shan’t answer. In situations such as these, a plan shared is a plan doomed to fail.”

Antroz reluctantly agreed. Teleporting to Bitil’s side, she briefly explained the situation to him, and then the two of them set their sights on Velika. Antroz teleported next to the Great Being and swung her blade, leaving only a mild scuff on his armor. Velika swiped at her, only just missing, and Bitil used the chance to get in close and activate his Kanohi. Calling on the raw strength of a Tahtorak, he grabbed Velika and pulled him overhead before slamming him face-first into the ground. Velika tried to shoot him as he stepped back, but Antroz was able to capture the bolt in a small stasis field until her ally was clear.

“Seems we neglected to program you Makuta to know when to give up!” Velika said. At a swing of his arm, powerful shadows tore a trench into the sand, Antroz and Bitil saved from the attack by their Dodge powers. “But then, I know we programmed you to be loyal, and you still managed to fail there!”

“The failure is not ours, Velika,” Antroz said. “The Great Beings have shown they do not deserve loyalty! Bemoan your fate if you wish, but know that you have earned it!”

Velika lashed out. Antroz turned invulnerable to block him, and held him still while Bitil counterattacked, the edges of his armor glowing white-hot as he channeled the Rock Lion. Unscathed, Velika sent them both flying with a burst of Shadow; as he moved to chase them, however, he heard a crunching sound come from his elbow, and paused to examine it. Antroz blinked into existence above him, amplifying gravity as she swung down and managing to push Velika a few inches into the sand before he punched her back. Bitil tried to repel their foe with a Power Scream, but Velika simply walked straight through into the devastating river of sound.

“So arrogant,” Velika said as the plates on his chest began to move. “Why did we make you Makuta so blasphemously arrogant?”

Bitil chuckled. “Something we inherited, I suppose.”

He took flight as Velika fired. When the laser ended, a small spark leapt from the barrel, and its covering moved back into place very slowly. Not understanding, nor willing to give Velika a chance to figure it out, Antroz molded a sphere of sonic waves around him, rattling his body like a twig in a typhoon. She had to abandon her attack to dodge a Shadow bolt, but Bitil leapt in immediately, calling vines up from the sand to restrain Velika. It took the Great Being seconds to break free. He rushed forward, but after two steps he stumbled. The Makuta moved to capitalize on this, but were held at bay by a dome of shadows around their enemy.

“What nonsense is this?” Velika said. He glanced over his body and then looked up, spotting the Sand Lord standing in the distance. The realization of what was happening hit him instantly. “...How dare you…”

Antroz and Bitil circled Velika in opposite directions. Bitil glanced aside, seeing that the Vorox had subdued all but a handful of the drones, and then spotted movement near Xia’s wall. Hewkii and Neton came into view. “What are they doing here?”

Velika seized his chance. He lunged, fist cloaked in Shadow, and punched a hole through Bitil’s shoulder, before swinging him around and throwing him into Antroz as she charged. A flurry of Shadow bolts was then turned upon the Sand Lord, her body slowly losing its cohesion under the assault.

“I know what you’re doing,” Velika said. “You managed to get some sand inside my armor, didn’t you? But how difficult is it for even you to discreetly manipulate but a few fine particles? I imagine it takes all of your focus!”

Antroz tackled Velika, cutting his attack short. Velika prepared to retaliate, but found his entire body locking up, whirs and clunks spewing from its components in abundance.

“I’ve no further need for discretion,” the Sand Lord said. “I’ve figured out the gist of how this body works, and have navigated sand to all of its most vital components. In a few seconds, those mechanisms will be broken down entirely.”

Velika snarled, managing to turn himself towards Xia. “Wretched creature...know that when I find you...your punishment shall be excruciating!”

Energy shone within his chest. The covering was unable to move, but he fired anyway. The beam tore open its casing and lanced across the sand, bearing down on the opening in the city’s wall where Hewkii and Neton stood watching. Bitil shrieked. The Toa and Rahkshi saw the attack coming and just barely flung themselves to safety...for the most part. Neton wailed as he collapsed on the ground, one leg seared clean off. Bitil rushed to his side, while Antroz watched as the Sand Lord finished breaking Velika’s body, waiting a few moments to be sure the empty shell wouldn’t rise again or explode. Once satisfied, she saw to the remaining drones and went to help Neton. As she left, she noticed that, despite her victory, the Sand Lord had an oddly somber air about her.

***

Zaekura looked up as Bitil entered the room. She stood, but said nothing.

“Neton is alright,” he said. “The pain has subsided, and he is resting easy.”

Zaekura let out a long breath. “Good.”

“Unfortunately, even Surja can’t regrow his leg. We’ll outfit him with a prosthetic once he’s ready, but it could take him a while to master use of it.”

“Want me to try making one? I mean, I haven’t tried before, but…”

Bitil shook his head. “Thank you, Lady Zaekura, but that won’t be necessary. There are already several highly skilled prosthetic crafters here in Xia--I’ll see what each of them has to offer.”

The door opened again, this time letting in Krika and the Sand Lord. The latter paused for a moment before approaching Bitil, saying, “Makuta Bitil...I want to apologize. If I had managed to stop Velika sooner, then I could have stopped him from harming your son.”

Bitil looked her in the eye. “You did all you could, didn’t you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then you’ve nothing to apologize for. Moreover, Neton is perfectly fine. I thank you for your concern, but please, do not feel responsible for his wounds. This was done by Velika...and if we did not have your help, I do not know that we would have prevailed against him.” Bitil smiled. “Be proud, Sand Lord. Only a few have managed to strike at the Great Beings as you now have.”

She took a moment to absorb this, then chuckled. “...Indeed. Thank you, Makuta.”

Krika made his way over to Zaekura, handing her the dagger she had crafted. “Works like a charm. A good thing, too, now that the enemy has two Element Lords of their own.”

The Sand Lord turned, eyes immediately fixing on the blade. “...How long have you planned to make such a thing?”

“Huh? Oh!” Zaekura gently set the dagger down. “It wasn’t exactly a plan, really. I’ve been learning what I can from the lab at Bitil’s outpost, just trying to understand how elemental powers work. I was thinking about the possibility of disabling our enemies’ powers, but I hadn’t even gotten to the drawing board yet--I didn’t think I had made enough progress for it to be worth mentioning. Sorry, I probably should have been more upfront once I realized it was possible.”

The Sand Lord nodded. “I understand. There has been much to deal with of late.”

“Vastus and Tarix will require great consideration going forward,” Krika said. “Nora was only barely in time to save Ackar and the others, and Tarix took control of the situation to recover everyone we could have captured. We need to be ready to defend Xia at a moment’s notice.”

Zaekura reached for the box of equipment she had stored earlier, saying, “No doubt. Good thing our friend Nuparu gave us something that should make that a bit easier.”

“Good news from the Le-Koronans, I hope?” Bitil asked.

“They need time to discuss things, but we did get a parting gift.” Zaekura pulled out a crudely-constructed radio to show the others. “This uses technology similar to Kanoka Blades: it encrypts transmissions using a special circuit made from a Disk of Incomprehension, and then the receiver unscrambles it using a paired circuit made out of a Disk of Translation. Now that we’re actually expanding our territory, a safe way to communicate like this is going to be a big help.”

“Certainly,” Krika said. “That being said, it is possible that the Great Beings could still find a way to break the encryption. We should devise a code for our communiques as an added layer of security, and change it routinely.”

“Good point. Give me some time to work with it and make a few more, then we’ll work out a code.”

The door opened again, allowing Antroz entrance. “Pardon me. I was speaking with Toa Hewkii about the reconstruction. He’s optimistic as ever...if a bit distracted.”

Bitil nodded. “Is he worried about Neton? They seemed to be getting along quite well.”

“That’s part of it. He was also saying something about a kolhii tournament taking place in Civitas Magna? But we don’t exactly have time to indulge our curiosity over such things.”

“Hang on,” Krika said. “A kolhii tournament at a time like this? Interesting...and indeed, very distracting. I’ll bet the Great Beings are using it to keep public focus off of the war.”

“Alright...but what does it matter?”

“Well, Antroz...if kolhii teams from all over are gathering, then would it not be entirely ordinary for the Xian team to participate?”

Zaekura crossed her arms. “Oh, I get it. We make this backfire on them by putting ourselves in the spotlight they provide. But, wait: there’s no way they’re going to let a team from Xia participate now that we’ve secured control here.”

“Correct,” Krika said. “But that doesn’t stop our players from joining other teams, if they so desire...and our alliance with Mahri Nui has yet to be made known.”

Zaekura grinned. “Oh! Now I really get it. We do need to pay Pridak a visit anyway.”

“Hold on,” Antroz said. “Any player in such a position would be in great danger. The Great Beings would only care that they’re from Xia, and would act accordingly.”

Zaekura’s smile faded. “Hm. That is a problem.”

“Something to think about,” Krika said. “I’ll at least gather some more information while you examine the radio.”

She nodded slowly. Glancing around the room, she said, “We’re in a bit of a weird spot right now, but we’re holding our own. Sure got a lot farther than I thought we would. We’ve got plenty of ways to keep this momentum going...let’s make the most of them.”

***

“How could you be defeated in such a careless manner?”

“Excuse me? It was your armor that failed to protect my body!”

Seldoa rolled her eyes. Tools floated in a ring around her body, leaving her side occasionally to fulfill a task before instantly returning. “Oh, yes, the armor was the problem. Ignore the fact that the one wearing it couldn’t even get inside the city despite having enough firepower to vaporize half a block.”

Velika dashed a beaker against the floor. “This is your problem, Seldoa! You think only in the broadest of strokes and never of the finer details!”

From his seat on a nearby lab table, Angonce said, “The way I see it, you’re both to blame.”

“You were not asked to contribute, Angonce!” Velika said.

“Do you honestly have nothing better to do?” Seldoa said. “We have much work to replace, new plans to make, so it would be most helpful if you would remove the burden of your company from our shoulders.”

Angonce shrugged, hopping down from his perch. “Okay, okay, I can see when I’m not wanted. I’ll leave the two of you to stew in your failures for a bit, and then we can see if maybe you’re feeling any more social.”

Velika and Seldoa ignored him, immediately resuming their argument. Angonce exited the lab and started down the hall. A few twists and turns later, Gorast joined him.

“You seem troubled, Gorast,” Angonce said. “Something you want to tell me?”

“It’s nothing important, sir,” Gorast said. After a pause, she continued, “I’m just disappointed in my siblings.”

“Hah! Aren’t we all? I’m glad we still have you, Gorast: you at least prove that the Makuta aren’t an inherently failed design.”

Gorast grinned at this.

“I had such high hopes for the others. It’s tragic, really. All this over one little Glatorian? And now they’re blowing it so far out of proportion--is the society we’ve built really all that bad? We gave them everything they could have ever wanted: power, employment, the adoration of the masses. We even permanently solved their needs thanks to this gaseous evolution! Yet still, Antroz and the others are unsatisfied.”

“Antroz...I hope I get the chance to shred her down to atoms myself.”

“Well, if my brilliant colleagues don’t beat you to it. Or the Odinans. But anyway.”

Angonce stepped through a doorway leading to a narrow control room, one wall transparent to show the cell on the other side. Sitting there was a being the size of a Toa, his armor and unusual mask a strange mix of red and black. He looked up with a start, but upon seeing Angonce, he moved seamlessly from shock to irritation.

“Oh great. Come to talk me to death?”

“No, I’m still working on that particular device,” Angonce said. “I was just talking about failure and thought it might be fun to pay you a visit, ah…” He checked a monitor. “Vultraz.”

Rolling his eyes, Vultraz said, “Yeah, I get it, I failed. How long are you going to taunt me, your pettiness?”

“Oh no, I didn’t so much mean you and your personal failings. I mean you come from a failure of a universe.” Angonce shook his head. “That absurd robot plan our counterparts went with...of course it would fail. Everything they made went haywire, failsafes and all! It’s embarrassing! And what good are Matoran as labor if they’re built so small?”

Vultraz smirked. “Sure, sure. Feel better about yourself now?”

“Hm?”

“I know a little about what’s been going on. Whenever one of you ‘visits’ me, it’s the only thing you talk about.” He eyed Gorast. “Your Makuta are going rogue, just like in my universe.”

Gorast bristled. “We’re nothing like those freaks of nature.”

“Easy, Gorast, easy,” Angonce said.

“Face it: you Great Beings don’t have any clue what you’re doing in any universe.” Vultraz got to his feet, walking closer. “Your plans always fall apart. It just took a little longer in this one. Maybe you should’ve quit while you were ahead.”

Angonce put a hand on his hip. “I’ll admit, we have noticed a trend in the other universes. But at least now, we have their mistakes to learn from.”

“Yeah? And how’s that working out so far?”

“My, aren’t you smug for someone locked in a cage.”

“I might as well enjoy the suffering of my captors. What do I have to lose?”

The door opened. Instantly, Vultraz’s eyes shot wide. Angonce turned to see a broad-shouldered Great Being with thick gloves and a scorched apron, carrying a large hammer in one hand. Flipping up the welding mask he wore, he revealed a square jaw and a terrible burn scar across one side of his face, and he regarded Angonce with a look of calm suspicion. “What’re you doing here?”

Angonce grinned as he watched Vultraz shuffle back. “Oh, I was just leaving. Come to conduct another experiment on our guest of honor? I wonder how much more he can take.”

“I won’t kill him. Not that Heremus would mind if I did. If you’re leaving, then leave.”

Vultraz was pressed up against the rear wall of his cell now. Stepping around his colleague and back into the hall, Angonce said, “Don’t have to tell me twice. Best of luck in your work, Ekimu.”

#Bionicle #fanfiction #Melding Universe #Right of Law

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awintersrose · 4 years ago

Note

ObiKabu for kinktober #15 would be interesting.

Kinktober Prompt 15 - Impact Play (From this list of prompts)

This one is more rated M...

His skin is the first thing to draw the eye, genetically unique and begging for adornment. Adornment is something Kabuto can easily give.

The true challenge is the pride in the older man's eyes, his stance, the line of his spine. It would require building up, breaking down. Exploration, study, and a trained hand.

Working over a submissive is quite like a complex dissection at times - taking a specimen apart using the very building blocks of systemic response and release. Only these specimens, both precious and conscious, have the benefit of learning who they are, who they could be, who they would be under his control.

Kabuto is well accustomed to bestowing such gifts on deserving targets.

From the moment he sets eyes on Obito, the decision is made, the plan formed, right down to the implements, namely a sweetly crafted leather martinet gifted to him by his first master.

Learning from the best has had its benefits. Namely exposure to Leather culture steeped in tradition and protocol, most of which he’s adopted as part of his chosen play style. The rest is all his own, and that’s what leads him here, with an especially wondrous specimen all too willing to be tied and plied with pain and the prospect of pleasure.

“I bet no one’s ever used that on you before.”

Kabuto pauses. There’s no need to allow anyone to see him ruffled by such a statement, and really, it’s a silly one.

“I was mentored by a leatherman, and thus spent a lot of time in that community. I’ve bottomed before.”

“Yeah, but did you enjoy it?” Obito’s lips quirk in a slightly cocky smile.

It’s annoying. It’s entrancing. It feels a hell of a lot like a challenge.

“I don’t see where that’s of consequence. It was educational, as it was meant to be. I take it you think you can do better?” Kabuto loops jute rope around Obito’s chest, threading the ends through the bight.

The taller man stoops slightly so that his mouth is close to Kabuto’s ear. “I know I can.”

Definitely a challenge. One that Kabuto would be apt to ignore were it not for the hairs standing on end along the back of his neck and the curiosity that runs rampant at a single thought.

“Then I suggest you put your money where your mouth is. Prove it.” He smirks, letting the rope fall. “I presume you know what you’re doing, yes?”

Somehow their positions are reversed against the wall and Kabuto’s not quite sure how it’s happened. All he knows is that Obito is very warm and very close, with fingers poised at his chin - staring him squarely in the eye.

“I know what I’m doing, cutie. Take your clothes off and I won’t ask you to call me Master.”

“I would have undressed anyway,” Kabuto grumbles, unbuttoning his shirt and laying it aside, followed by his pants. “And you’ve not earned the title so that’s a moot point.”

“Well now you get to undress for me. Same limits as we discussed, or do you have anything more I should avoid?” Obito’s right hand spans Kabuto’s throat, tracing the fluttering pulse there and noting its urgent beat.

“No, my list was comprehensive. I’ll safeword if I need to.” Kabuto peers up at him, rendering a dare of his own. “Shall we begin? Show me what you were so confident about.”

“Oho, aren’t you demanding? I will. One thing first,” Obito traces his jaw then deftly removes Kabuto’s glasses, setting them aside. “Now turn around and put your hands up on the cross.” He gestures to the St. Andrews cross nearby.

Effectively blinded, Kabuto reaches up to hold onto the rich mahogany with a slight sigh. The relief, however, is short lived as leather falls run the length of his spine, then pure warmth presses flush against his back.

“If you safeword or take your hands down, I’m going to stop. Understood?”

“I understand,” Kabuto replies.

It takes active effort on his part to suppress the shiver that lingers somewhere around his spine, but when a hot exhale rushes across the nape of his neck, his ear, his reactions are rendered involuntary. He can practically hear Obito smile.

“I’m not going to expect you to count, but I am going to expect you to feel every. Last. Bit.” That teasing voice turns darker, almost purring, as if the man has become another person entirely. “And maybe, just maybe you won’t keep those sharp teeth gritted the whole time.”

At once, there is cool air at Kabuto’s back and the first strokes fall, criss crossed lashes laid one at a time across his shoulder blades, their warm points of impact radiating outward. The sensation steals his breath for all that the strokes are light.

He’d nearly forgotten what a good flogging feels like. The martinet’s falls are shorter than is usually optimal, but they are lavish and well tooled - and they bring Obito closer in proximity. Besides that, Obito wields it well.

Kabuto does own twin bullhide floggers that would be even more appropriate for the task, but as additional strikes are laid with almost mathematical precision several times over, he forgets all detail of the implements - too focused on the here, and the now. Obito seems to read his reactions in an instant, switching the pace, increasing it, laying incendiary stripes down the muscles of his back and his hips with near flawless technique.

Each fall leaves a mark, even if invisible, stealing away a piece of his sanity, his resolve. It’s as if the dark stranger is weaving a spell wrought in pain and slow-burning pleasure, turning Kabuto’s very nature against him. He had no intention of truly surrendering to his chosen submissive, merely enduring this little challenge, and yet he hears Obito laugh softly in response to something.

It takes him a moment to realize it’s because he’s uttered a sound.

“Kabuto - it’s alright if you like it. Let me hear you.” Obito’s broad hand runs the length of Kabuto’s spine and hot lips brush the skin of his neck just below his ear. “I want to.”

The unexpected softness leaves him reeling just before Obito draws away and lays another series of deft strokes across his buttocks and thighs, the martinet whipping through the air so swiftly that Kabuto can hear the tell-tale sound in anticipation.

Like it? Is that what’s happening? He could yank his hands away from the polished wood, call red and stop the scene in its tracks. Could, but doesn’t. The way that his mental capacity is drifting slowly from his grasp is alarming to say the least.

As leather makes contact with skin, another sound, a gasping sort of cry, gets bitten off in his hearing. The husky voice behind him still urging him on confirms that he is in fact the one guilty of the utterance, and the slight humiliation makes him feel as if he’s teetering on the edge of something.

He just might fall.

It’s strange. Nearly discomfiting. A soft haze lingers short of his inner sight, blurring the edges of sensation and emotion - a bit too far to reach. This is just as well when he’s not so sure he wants to relinquish a logical headspace. Yet as the scene meets its pinnacle, it seems it’s no longer his choice; everything becomes gently fuzzed over, less sharp… better than he imagined.

So, this must be subspace.

Obito’s hands, now free of the implement, trace the fiery heat glowing upon Kabuto’s skin, as if to soothe, never losing contact as they glide up his shoulders and slowly toward his wrists. His chest meets Kabuto’s back as he guides both hands away from the posts and secures Kabuto in a solid embrace. And just like that, the scene is over.

“Such a good boy.” Obito’s whisper is nearly tender, an unexpected anchor. “Thank you, Kabuto.”

Being called anyone’s boy should rankle and twinge, but somehow it doesn’t. Perhaps in combination with the play session, this is something to be documented in full, perhaps tested once more for the sake of confirmation. Being thanked, on the other hand, feels just right, and as he leans back against Obito, he turns to give him an imperious look.

“You’re welcome. I admit your technique was satisfactory - you didn’t lie. But next time - I get to do as I like with you.”

A smug grin crosses Obito’s lips as he leans in closer, brushing lips against Kabuto’s cheek. He can feel his new play partner’s breath stutter in his lungs. “Something tells me we'll see about that.”

AO3 Collection

#obikabu #obito #kabuto #naruto #naruto shippuden #rose's delayed kinktober #there was another request for this same prompt but I could only choose one #the rarest of rares #another to add to my list #my fanfics #awintersrose #if you enjoy it please let me know?#or visit the collection on AO3 #Anonymous

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multiverseofmiracleshq · 4 years ago

Photo

Every story has an end. After months of Wanda Maximoff controlling the town of Westview via her reality rewriting Hex, the WandaVision broadcast was dropped along with the barrier. As the barriers were set free and the Avengers rushed in, two confrontations occurred. Witches, corrupt government agents and the inescapable finality of loss all collided in one explosive finale that showed nothing would ever be the same.

THIS IS THE OFFICIAL CHAT LOG COVERAGE OF THE IC

AGATHA: She’d heard enough, seen enough — no more theories, Agatha had all the answers she needed. And that could really only end in one way in her eyes. Wanda had no idea what she was or what she was really even capable of for that matter. Whether or not that made her dangerous was irrelevant — because more importantly : it made her powerful. And if there was anything Agatha had been drawn to after all these years like a moth to a flame, it was power. Power to get out from beneath her coven — her mother — Oh the things one could do with the ability to shape reality. She’d be much more finely crafted with it too, this little world Wanda had created was impressive, but it wasn’t finely tuned. It had it’s kinks and tears — starting with her star contenders falling apart the second it caved. As the witch appeared in the center of the town square, Agatha clawed the air and curled a strike of purple magic at her back. Fitting. the beloved best friend striking her where she least expected it. “Did you know there’s an entire chapter devoted to you in the Darkhold?.” She asked, revealing the grimoire of dark arts before her. Its ember glowing pages flipped to a page for a creature of myth. “—It’s the book of the damned.” A sneer. “The Scarlet Witch is not born, she is forged — no need for incantation, or coven. Your power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme. Your destiny... is to destroy the world. —Don’t believe me?—Here.” Agatha contorted her wrist and like snatching scarlet spiderwebs from her mind, she plucked David free from the crimson witches spell. “James Buchanan Barnes.” Agatha grinned. “Welcome back.”

WANDA: Every game had an end. Maybe Wanda was the queen of denying the inevitable. The part in her brain that was unable to heal was backed by an excess of power she had never understood. It all made more sense now even though Wanda was fairly certain that she knew nothing at all. Darkhold, runes, spells. The Scarlet Witch. How fitting it was to have that as her true identity. Years of hurt and pain had left her feeling powerless but that was never the case. There had always something inside of Wanda that stopped her from falling back into the abyss. It was power, and she had never known how good it could feel. Her body was sore after being thrown around by Agatha. Everyone seemed to have found their way to the town square, every narrative now connecting into the big picture. These people were captives and the woman holding the key was in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. She had been forced down memory lane and had her children almost hurt. Vision and the boys remained in her peripheral as Wanda spun to face the Winter Soldier that Agatha had freed. Her chest was heaving from an earlier display of power, her now shriveled hand extended towards the crowd. “--You were happy. You were fine. I’m sorry.”

BUCKY: Mind control was supposed to be easy - a simple switch flipped and lights out to the occupant. Whatever narrative, whatever brainwashing, whatever storyline created would supplant and override, signaling movements and forcing conversations that were unoriginal and baseless. That was the idea behind it, but for someone who had been submerged and pulled from the depths for decades of his life, James could feel the pull against his mind as he emerged and took a breath. It was alarming and painful, as much as it had been the first time he'd look through his own eyes and saw Sam clearly -- saw Yelena stare at him blankly before slipping into a mindless smile --- the thoughts came back to him in waves as he started dumbly before him, settling back into his skin. Going under was supposed to be easy, coming to was supposed to be easy, but it felt more like he was being dismantled and put back together again. James sucked in a breath and felt his body move forward - his first autonomous movement in only Wanda knew how long. "Happy?" His voice cracked from the rush of frustration and anger - the swell of panic from years of torture much in the way of Wanda's methods. "You think I haven't heard that before?"

WANDA: They would never understand. They would never understand and Wanda couldn’t blame them. Her actions had been wrong. They had been selfish and self satisfying. Her grief had become an excuse but no one would accept it anymore. She swallowed thickly, automatically taking a step back away from Barnes. It didn’t matter that she could easily take him down. Wanda was done hurting innocent people. “I just -- I didn’t mean,” Her words were caught up when Dottie approached, now free as well. Sarah Proctor. Eight year old daughter -- please let her out of her room so I can hold her. Dottie then Herb. Phil. Dennis. The citizens were all there with her accusatory stares and Wanda was unable to ward them off. She tucked her hand against her side, the spot where the magic had been extracted shriveled and brown. “Agatha!” That was a shot towards the sky where the witch hovered. “Stop. Please. Just -- stop.”

BILLY: His ties to reality ebbed and flowed, drawing images of a world he didn't recognize, of feelings and emotions that he wasn't connected to - and Billy had always dismissed them. He'd complained to Tommy a few times, even his mom, but they were always dismissed. Dreams, Billy, they're just dreams. But as he stared at Agnes, he was slowly starting to process the mix of memories. He had them both and could reconcile neither and even as the sky cleared, Billy almost wished he could go back under. Stepping back, he searched for Tommy, that instinct to find a brother he had now grown up with and not tugging at him. He didn't know if he wanted to be here, seeing faces he recognized - Captain America, the Winter Soldier, Magneto -- his eyes traced over heroes and mutants that weren't here to help, but they were all awake, and they'd all been dragged into this hell by his alternate reality mother.

YELENA: A glitch in the code. Wanda said they were happy. That meant they were happy, right? Her face twitched as some of the townsfolk cornered Wanda. She wanted to join in even if she couldn’t quite remember why. None of it made sense but there was one thing that Yelena and the the other unconscious residents knew: Wanda needed to stay happy. People were offering her things but she just took a step up towards the man who was supposed to be her husband ( that felt wrong, for some reason ). She didn’t care where the kids were. They didn’t feel like hers anyway at that moment. “I think you should drop it.”

PETER: Peter had been one of the lucky few in Westview that were granted awareness prior to today, and while he couldn’t say he understood just exactly what people like James had been through, the ordeal they had now shared was certainly something he wasn’t eager to get back to. He however, was probably one of the few that harbored more sympathy for Wanda than anger, and the urge to speak up had never been stronger. But Peter knew he’d be outnumbered in his beliefs and doing so would get him nowhere, despite how much his spidey sense was leaving his stomach in utter knots. So he kept quiet, watching from the sidelines as the woman he’d come to know as Agnes hovered above their heads, ready to strike at a moment’s notice should any harm come to Wanda or any of her family.

SAM: Talk about an escalation. One second he was back on his fuckboy shit and the next he was blinking away a massive magic headache again as Wanda’s spell wore off. It wasn’t just him though. Barnes had already engaged in direct contact with her along with a few residents. There were some still asleep judging by the vacant looks on their faces but the whole shebang was rapidly coming to an end. He joined Bucky and Yelena a step closer to Wanda than he preferred, attempting to give her a tight smile. She looked like she was falling apart. A little satisfying, but they had years of light friendship between them. “No one wants any trouble, Wanda. These people just want to go home. Wouldn’t mind it myself, either.”

BUCKY: Sam's voice had felt a lot like Steve's when he'd first heard it in Romania - a tether to the reality he'd been pulled away from. His gaze didn't waver from Wanda's, even if he wanted to turn and confirm that Sam was a real live person next to him, and not more manipulation by Wanda, but the look on her face, the awareness in the people surrounding her was enough confirmation to keep his eyes trained. "Speak for yourself, Wilson." it was clipped, angry. His fingers twitched as the panic continued to rise in his chest, almost overriding his sensibilities. James knew they just needed to get people out, but he couldn't get past how tired he was of people meddling with his brain.

SAM: Shifting from one foot to the other, Sam shook his head. “Nuh uh, nope. I’m not letting either of us getting erased from reality right now.” They had lost Wanda’s attention but she looked like a deer in the headlights. Only issue was that when she panicked she was liable to take everyone with her. “Parker,” Sam turned to Spider-man. “Good to see you’re with us. You ready for ugly?” Not that he was trying to will it into existence. “I’m hoping we got back-up waiting out there.” Knowing Carol, he was surprised she hadn’t smashed through the barrier like it was a spaceship yet.

PETER: Peter was mildly startled when Sam addressed him directly, his head snapping in the direction of the man in question. “—huh- oh yeah. Of course. I mean, not really. But I don’t think I have much of a choice in the matter.” Offering up a smile that slowly began to morph into a grimace, Peter gave Sam a halfhearted salute followed by a not so convincing “Ready when you are, Captain.”

WANDA: They were loud. Their thoughts, their desires. Now, more pressingly: their fear and anger. Norm -- no, Albliash Tandon was talking. When they dreamed - when they were allowed to sleep - they were subjected to her nightmares. This was all a twisted perversion of a fantasy. The people in Westview wanted to die rather than live under Wanda’s thumb any longer and she couldn’t blame them. This was hell on Earth presenting as heaven. Each voice chipped away at her and Wanda crumbled inside. “No, you’re fine.” She reassured them. “You’re fine. I kept you safe in here. You -- You feel... at peace.” A lie. They felt her pain. Wanda was crying and pleading with them like a madman. Her grief was poisoning them. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop Stop. She kept repeating it but they would’t listen. A scream exploded from her chest, hands clutching her face as scarlet tendrils wrapped around their thoughts and everyone in the square dropped. Her children remained off to the side, Agatha in the sky. Wanda didn’t notice any of them as she doubled over. As they writhed and choked, realization set in. “No, stop. Stop.” It took two shakes of her hand before the magic faded. She stared down at them, one whole and one ruined. How had she turned into this? If you won’t let us go, just kill us. No -- no, Wanda would let them go. She’d fix this. And then there was Agatha, goading her. Heroes don’t torture people, The voice of the Witch voice rang out somewhere in her mind above the din. A hero. Wanda was one, past actions excluded. She cared about people. She wanted to change a world that had hurt her. Heroes didn’t hurt people. Wanda was done. Sneakers planted on the ground, Wanda’s spine curved as the force of her magic began to bend her backwards. The column of red energy hit the roof of the Hex and exposed its edges and corners. It felt like ripping a part of herself apart but she still managed a pained, “Get out! Go.”

YELENA: It was incredible to go from being mind controlled into a zombie to being choked out on the street. Her first conscious thoughts were trying to make sure she could breath and then flipping onto her back to blink against the red glow of the Hex. Hex. Barrier. Wanda. With a grunt, Yelena climbed first to her knees and then her feet. Maximoff was there but divided. She was in pain ( not as much as she’d inflected on them though ) and vulnerable. Killing her was tempting, but her belt held no knives or guns. Even though whatever outfit Wanda had forced Yelena into was gone the clothes she had been wearing that night were weaponless. “Блядь,” she spat. “This is where we kill her, isn’t it?”

CAROL: Carol had parked it just a few yards away from the glowing red wall, the force of the magic hot enough to feel like she was standing in front of the sun, but still, she didn't move. She sat with her knees pulled up, forearms resting atop, and she contemplated her options. Behind her, commotion was ongoing as they watched Westview dissolve and they were losing signal because Wanda was losing it and Westview was quickly going dark. It was only a matter of time, and if necessary, Carol would find a way through, even if it pissed Wanda off. She was ready for a head to head. Itching for one. But just as her eyes made the rounds again as she scanned the corners she could make out, the ground beneath her began to shake, responding to a sudden rush of energy. Carol jumped to her feet, the hex splitting open and spilling out light from the other side. She didn't look back, she didn't wait for confirmation. Sending a rush of energy to her feet, Carol shot forward as soon as she saw the trees on the other side, emerging and landing heavily in grass. She didn't even give a glance back - by the accounts she tracked during the observations, she had a pretty good idea where Wanda was -- even if there wasn't a beam of red energy erupting from ground zero.

BUCKY: "Yes." James shoved himself to his feet, the shifting of metal a suddenly phantom feeling as his shoulder accustomed to supporting the weight of his arm again. He didn't even want to think about what else Wanda had changed - what narrative she had forced down their throats. "It sure fucking is."

SAM: Well, shit. The town was glitching. It was rapidly beginning to cycle through the different decades that Wanda had subjected it to. Already in go mode, Sam began waving civilians towards the widening gap. He wasn’t sure how long Wanda could sustain it, but it didn’t look like very long. “No, we’re not going to do that.” He shook his head at Yelena. If she and Bucky wanted to duke it out over who got to deal the final blow, that was awesome for the assassins. Not for Sam though, and he planned on keeping everyone alive. Belova wasn’t pregnant anymore and Barnes had his arm back. His metal arm back, that was. “She hurt more than just us. Right now, our job is making sure she doesn’t hurt anyone else. We get them out of here with her alive. I’m not willing to risk what happens if this barrier comes down on us.”

PIETRO: He’d been standing outside the barrier for what felt like centuries. Each second ticked by like agony as he stared at the sea of red encasing everything he’d ever loved within its clutches. The spread of it was slow at first, crimson stretching apart until it tore — his eyes dropped to the narrow opening just as it shuddered open and he was gone. A deafening boom of sound obliterating the air around him as debris dusted in a wake of blue and silver streaks. He tore through the opening, moving with so much momentum that gravity barely had the chance to acknowledge his presence before he was gone again, across the side of a building in a wide take on the ninety degree angle turn, nothing but a gush of air as he raced down the street. Luna. Crys. Wanda. —Wanda.—Crys. — Luna. wandalunacryslunawandacrys. His mind was racing and then all at once it didn’t matter. She was standing there with their baby in his arms and he slid to a pavement shattering halt with a thunderous snap just thirty feet from them. “Crystalia—“ he appeared in front of her, searching her face—searching Luna’s. “Are you okay??”

HAYWARD: The crack was enough. They were already ready, beyond ready now, as their technology flew out ahead of them, disappearing through the separated barrier to complete its given commands. Hayward packed himself into an armored vehicle and lead the pack of vehicles and tanks as they climbed over the terrain to finally enter Westview. Their concern had little to do with the citizens and more to do with handling the mutant that had created this alternate reality mess. When the truck hit asphalt and entered the town square, he was finally facing down Wanda, depowered and looking exhausted. The town must be empty, he concluded, the citizens fleeing from the twisted story she'd subjected them all to. All that was left was just a minor handful of people, those Wanda seemed closest too considering all the video feeds he'd watched.

AGATHA: Agatha watched the scene before her, floating above the chaos she’d snipped the stitchings to with all the amusement of someone detached and cold. It didn’t really matter to her how Wanda felt. That wasn’t what she was after. “Careful Wanda, your precious babies are tied to this messy little world you’ve created.” Agatha sighed. “Collapse it all now and ..” she tsked “well, look at them. they’re writhing.”

BUCKY: He was seething, struggling to see beyond the slew of memories he had that weren't his -- how happy he had felt, and how that was being soured by betrayal. All he wanted to do was rush forward, even if Wanda snapped him out of existence before he got the chance. But he forced his feet back, forced himself to grab onto Yelena's arm --- something he wouldn't have done under normal circumstances but nothing about this screamed normal -- and started moving away. "This conversation isn't over, Sam." James said with a finality as he turned to usher out the crowd towards the nearest fault in Wanda's wall.

PETER: Peter was suitless, now clad in the same oversized hoodie and baseball cap he’d been wearing the night he was sucked into the hex. Thankfully, however, past Peter had been smart enough to not come unprepared, and present Peter thanked his lucky stars as the familiar feeling of his web shooters materialized around his wrists. Watching James and Yelena nervously, he opted instead to assist Sam in evacuating civilians, using his webbing to pull collapsing debris and obstacles out of the way of the crack in the hex.

DAISY: Daisy had been waiting for the order like everyone else to go into the hex, and as she watched the walls began to collapse she didn’t hesitate to aim her gauntlet covered hands to the ground and sent a shockwave large enough to propel her into the air. It got her far enough to where she was just trailing behind Carol, and she used her powers again to break her fall before breaking off into a sprint towards the town center. As civilians ran past her, she did her best to give them some encouraging words. “You’re all going to be safe soon! Just run towards the edge of the wall as fast as you can!” She didn’t have time to usher people out, though. She needed to find Hayward and stop him from making a strike on Wanda, and everyone else that was still in the surrounding area.

WANDA: It hurt. That was what her mind was focused on. It hurt with every fiber of her being to exert that much energy at once. As the town began to revert and glitch Wanda felt silent tears streak down her face. She deserved this on some level. Her creation and ruination combined. Wanda channeled everything she had into the rectification of her mistake until she felt it. An untethering. There was screaming but then there was the sound of her husband, her sons. They were dying -- again, in Visions case -- and Wanda wasn’t ready to let them go. There was a scream that left her throat and then the barrier was closing once more. They were tethered, tied. That was mostly true. There was no Vision outside of Westview. The world had saw to that when they took him away from her. But her boys, they persisted. The dissolving aura that surrounded Vision faded away while remaining on the twins. Just like it had happened before they were conceived, a division occurred. Two boys were left coughing on the pavement while their original selves - the older ones - were once again separate. The red faded away and Wanda was left breathless and weak. Even though she felt like she was going to fall over if she took a step she somehow managed to drag herself to her younger boys and her husband. “Are you okay? Look at me -- are you okay?” She grabbed the twin’s by the face, her attention on them and not Hayward’s militia.

SAM: At least everyone was working together. His head tipped in Bucky’s direction as he grabbed the Widow by the arm. Better to let them work it out among themselves. “Didn’t think it was, Bucky.” He turned his attention then towards the current effort. “Hey, spiderthing, you got any reservations about throwing old people?”

TOMMY: He couldn’t quite separate it any more — the younger version of him he’d been combined with and the person he was before, so much so that it was hard to tell which one was falling apart anymore until he finally thought it was just him. All of him being stretched and pulled and ripped away until finally it was like a rubber band snapping and he gasped, staring at a version of himself that didn’t even look like him when he was a kid. “What the fuck?” Tommy said, sitting flat on his ass in the middle of the street. His hands flapped around his torso, checking for—for holes or janky missing parts— maybe parts that weren’t his but nothing, none of that just...him. all him. “...Billy....???” He called out warily.

MONICA: Monica didn’t want to talk about where she had been or her unfortunate experience with Ralph Bohner. That was for another day. Ultimately, she had wasted time getting to the town square. The barrier was closing again but the space had been inundated with familiar faces. “Hey, S.H.I.E.L.D.” She tilted her head towards Daisy as their paths intersected. “Wanda -- is she alive still?”

YELENA: To say she was angry was an extreme understatement. Yelena had been indoctrinated for as long as she could remember. Her entire being had been reduced into being a replacement for a woman who had decided to move on. Yelena was not Natalia. She had learned that over time, even though they had denied her own name. She was her own, and yet, Wanda had erased that. An American. One who made pies and gave a shit about what people thought about her. Yelena was not the pretty one. She never had been. That was Natalia, lithe and delicate. Yelena hid in curved edges. She wasn’t a beauty queen and suburbia was never in her cards. Having someone who loved her was almost as ridiculous. Two assassins as parents? No. She refused to let her hand touch her stomach like it had when she was pregnant. Yelena knew what was there: a scar. no signs of life. She made it approximately five steps before pulling her arm from James’ grasp. “Ты не мой муж, James ( you’re not my husband). Отпустить (let go). I’m not leaving.”

PETER: Peter continued in his efforts of getting civilians to safety as quickly as possibly, but Sam’s voice once again snapped him out of it, “—do I what? You can’t be serious, dude!” Yelena was clearly growing angry pretty quickly and Peter was growing overwhelmed. The sounds of Wanda’s distress mixed with that of utter chaos were almost becoming too much to handle, but Peter stuck to it, launching himself toward the Captain with his webbing and landing beside the man with a soft thud. “You want me to — “ he held up a web shooter and vaguely gestured in Yelena and James’ direction with a shrug.

SAM: “Desperate times, desperate measures, man.” The octogenarians weren’t really moving fast enough and Wanda had finally lost steam. They were going to be trapped but the heroes could at least take care of themselves. As Peter moved to stand by his side, Sam’s shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t speak Russian and I know she can kill me. He could too, but we’re friends. Mostly. Think we let them work it out?”

VISION: It wasn’t the first time he’d felt himself being torn apart at the seams—at the barrier, he’d felt it then. The popping of parts as they flew loose, chunks of reality melting away into stardust and matter. He strained to reach them—his wife, his children. “Wanda!—Boys!” he gritted through his teeth, pushing through an invisible force that allowed no headway. Then all at once, he collapsed, all his pieces flew back into place and he caught his breath. His sons had once again separated into their older and younger selves. “I’m alright.” he assured her, looking to his children for any missing chunks.

WANDA: They were okay. They were fine. Maybe they wouldn’t be in the long haul, but in that moment her family was whole once more. No missing pieces, no slipping away and dissolving into the air. Wanda exhaled a sigh of relief, kissing the top of Billy and Tommy’s heads. The barrier was back in place and they had once again stolen a few extra minutes. “Go home, boys.” Wanda released them. “Get to safety.” Not that anywhere was safe. Their house had been a haven. At the very least it put a few walls between themselves and Hayward’s agents. Wanda had warned them off. She had told S.H.I.E.L.D. to leave her alone but they clearly no longer feared her. No fear, no respect. Wanda was just another obstacle. She squeezed Vision’s hand, relief bubbling in her chest. Wanda had barely made it to her feet when something slammed into her and a vice grip was around her neck. White hands led up white arms and a ivory form. It was the Vision but it was not. There was something cold and calculating about his blue eyes. Even though she had just seen her husband, there was something unsettling about his quiet form. He was achingly familiar. “Vision?” She rasped. He just stared at her before his grip tightened. “And here I thought you were supposed to be powerful.”

PETER: Peter spoke to Sam in a manner akin to a student whispering to his friend in the back of class, careful to not let the teacher catch them, “— yeah, but if we leave them be - won’t they go after Wanda? I don’t know if I can take them both — “

TOMMY: Grabbing his correct twin, Tommy took a fistful of the back of his shirt and raced them both out of Westview before the barrier could close back up.

CRYSTALIA: There was a chance that Crystal was the only one who had willingly entered Westview. She hadn’t really know what she was signing up for but knew she had no choice. The second that Luna had vanished there hadn’t been a single thing in the world that mattered more to her than setting things right. There was a crippling fear that it was Crystal’s fault it had happened in the first place. Realistically she knew Wanda’s powers, but as a young first time mother it all seemed so pivotal on her inability to hold on when it mattered. And so, she entered hell. Crystalia wasn’t a Princess anymore. She had a ridiculous backstory and always felt exhausted even when she smiled. And she was always smiling. Her child screamed and she was helpless to do anything until Wanda fixed it. It felt impossible to say how long it had been, but the second the red cloud began to leave her mind Crystal began to panic. Luna was awake but wasn’t crying. The infant almost seemed solemn. Had Wanda hurt her? Crystal would kill her if so, but the baby betrayed nothing. Everyone in the town square was loud. They were panicking but Crystalia was trying to center herself. She was naturally attuned to the world -- being in elemental meant being grounded. She could feel the vibrations of the earth and the moisture in the air and that was reassuring. That being said, it’s hard to be grounded when your not sister in law decides to choke an entire town out. Crystal had pressed Luna against her, resting the unaffected baby on her chest as she hit her knees. Pietro loved Wanda. Crystal had spent her abbreviated pregnancy watching him all apart. He loved her, but Crystalia hated her. She hated what she had done to her and her daughter. At the thundering sound, the Princess instinctively tucked Luna against herself. Head spinning, she took a step towards her baby daddy Pietro. “It’s you.” As in, not the fake version she had been forced to marry.

SAM: There was a noncommittal grunt. “Bucky, no. He wants to but he knows what we’re focusing on. Yelena, I’m not sure. It would be easier if Nat was here.” Not that the sisters relationship was outwardly anything other than contentious. “I’d say lovers quarrel but that wasn’t real.” Technically their sleeping together was but Sam wasn’t sure if that was public knowledge. “Speaking of lovers, you see a Carol shaped comet yet?”

PIETRO: When they’d vanished he felt the last parts of himself that he’d been clinging to, crumble. Wanda had been rejecting him in more ways than one and ripping his new born and Crys from him just days after Luna had been born had broken something for him that just hadn’t operated right since. His mind loosely drifted to his twin but he was more focused on this—Wanda could handle herself. Right now he needed to hold his daughter and her mother. Pietro pulled both of them against him, tucking Luna between their bodies as he wrapped them in his arms. He felt a breath fully expand his lungs for the first time in weeks. “It’s you.” he said. “Both of you.” He kissed the top of her bright red hair. “Please tell me you’re okay.”

DAISY: Daisy smiled a bit when she saw Monica, glad to see the familiar face. “S.W.O.R.D.” She breathed out in a sigh of relief before she stopped in her tracks and nodded as she pointed over towards the big red beam in the sky, but then it faded again and her head tilted to the side. The borders were closing, but thankfully she seemed to still be in her right of mind. For now, at least. “Where the hell is Hayward?”

CRYSTALIA: Folding into him, Crystal allowed herself to take a shaky breath. She wasn’t sad, only angry. Her child had been endangered for no reason at all. “It’s me. As of a few minutes ago, at least.” There was the sharp curl of humiliation in her stomach at the thought of who Wanda had forced her to be. Her family had to be worried. She was an adult but she’d always be the baby of the family -- forever the princess, never the queen. It was a miracle that the Inhumans hadn’t taken any kind of action against Wanda. Or, she assumed they hadn’t. Although it was nearly physically painful, Crystalia angled her body to offer Pietro his daughter. “She hurt us.” It was hard to explain the feeling. “Every second. Just grief. But you, you were there.” Wanda mourned her brother. Maybe she knew Crystal’s connection to him and let her share in that sorrow. Falling silent as her processing spun slowly, the Inhumans brows furled. “She had me get married to some knock off version of you who smelled. I had to live with him.” Not that he cared or was attentive. It was just part of the game.

BUCKY: James stopped, giving the collapsing Hex a glance before he shifted his gaze to her. "И что вы будете делать, Yelena." and what will you do? He didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to deal with it. With regret already settling into his skin, James bent and scooped Yelena up by her hips, hinging her over his shoulder, his metal arm tight around her waist. He knew he was taking her choice from her just minutes after she'd gotten it back, but she could take that out on him outside of Wanda's hell fantasy. He followed Sam and the rest.

PETER: Peter was shocked to notice James scoop Yelena off her feet and carry the assassin to the break in the Hex, but he didn’t question it, gaze instead flicking to the sky to check for any sign of the Carol shaped comet. “I don’t know? Thought I saw her earlier, Quake was nearby too — she shouldn’t be too hard to spot!” he spoke a bit louder, almost a yell, over the rumbling chaos.

YELENA: Body thrashing slightly, Yelena knew five ways to break his hold that would also bring him to his knees. She knew how to fight back but she was exhausted. Her body didn’t know how to handle going from being pregnant to remembering that it was impossible to exist in that state. “я собираюсь убить тебя ( i’m going to kill you ),” she hissed, knowing that his ear was right by her mouth. Going slack then, the spy allowed him to carry her away from the place she wanted to be and the person she wanted to kill.

VISION: He was flying over Westview, scanning for his wife among the scattered bodies running around below. When he finally passed over their home, he found a startling view: a being, stark white in nature — and worse, he seemed to have Wanda by the head. A visual that sent his vital organs or lack thereof plummeting to the earth below. Vision rocketed forward, slamming into the other synthezoid with a force that sent them tumbling into the ground like an asteroid. They left a crater in their wake as he carried him far away from his family. Vision threw the synthezoid up, chasing him higher into the sky—farther away from Wanda.

MONICA: “Hayward’s where Wanda is.” Monica replied, knowing it to be true. “He wants Vision and she’d do anything to protect him. That’s where I’m going.” Without waiting, Monica turned to move towards the glowing epicenter with the notion Daisy would follow. As the red column began to die down she hurried her pace into a run until she skidded to a stop. Hayward was looking smug and his shoulders were at the ready. It was then that they fired at the retreating forms of Wanda’s twins and without any hesitation Monica threw herself in front of them. She had been the one to help deliver them. Even if it was all fake, she had handed the newborns to Wanda and watched that love grow. One bullet entered and then the other. There was no pain or skin breaking. For a moment it was just light. It was like breaking through the barrier. Monica felt them enter and exit in a surge of energy. She blinked through a new golden glow, mind trying to comprehend the sight of Vision wrestling what looked like a ghostly version of himself away from Wanda. “It’s over, Hayward.” It was easy to say when you had just tapped into the light spectrum. “It’s done.”

SAM: Holding both hands up, Sam shook his head. They were going to sort it out. The Winter Soldier and White Widow were well equipped for one another. Maybe Belova would try to kill Barnes. He couldn’t see it going the other way. Not that Sam was actively betting on Barnes’ love life. “If you want to go, kid, I don’t blame you. I’m going to stay here though. See if anyone needs help.” Leave no man behind. Sam was trying to be the best Captain he could.

PIETRO: An actual twinge of pain ebbed through him at her words. She hurt us. They echoed through his skull like gun shots. He felt his tongue go dry and his legs go numb as he pulled her to him a little tighter. They weren’t words he’d wanted to hear, but he needed to. The part of him that twitched to run to Wanda in any capacity was subdued by a haunting feeling of guilt. He had missed her but the joy of seeing her again was squandered by pain she’d caused. To his daughter. Crystalia. Him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—I should have protected you.” You never should have been there. I should have stopped her. She should have never done this. The words died on his tongue before they had a chance to form. It didn’t matter. The damage was done. And no amount of words would remedy the scars that had been left. “What can I do?” He asked into her hair, smoothing a hand down her back. At her comment about the awful imposter that had been branded with his name, a subdued scoff of a laugh left his throat. “He smelled, huh? Well at least you don’t like him better.” He mused, an ill attempt at a joke. Of course she wouldn’t have. He’d been awful.

DAISY: Daisy quickly followed suit behind Monica, with absolutely no hesitation. They needed to make their way over there, and fast. There was no telling what Hayward had planned. And sure enough, Daisy ran up just in time to see an ivory tinted version of Vision and the real- er, hex vision flying up into the sky with him. “Shit..” She muttered under her breath as she sped up her pace. And when she ran up to Hayward and saw him opening fire on a couple of kids, her heart sank as she realized that she was too late. She quickly held her hand up and tried to pinpoint vibrations on all of the guns to shake them apart, but the bullets had already exited the chamber. In fact, he fired several rounds before she was able to destroy the guns. But then Monica was throwing herself in front of the kids and Daisy’s eyes widened as she watched the bullets go straight through the other agent. That must have been a new development. And she very quickly quaked most of the bullets in a different direction before they could actually hit Billy and Tommy. And then, she turned to Hayward and narrowed her eyes before tilting her finger and using her powers to snap all of the bones in his hand and his wrist. “Stand down, now. Or I’ll break a lot more than just that.”

PETER: Peter debated his next move for a few seconds, and while Sam was partly right - he did want to leave, to go home, to call MJ and Ned, and make sure everyone was okay - he also knew what he had to do. He was Spider-Man. Maybe he didn’t quite look like it at the moment, sans suit, but there was no denying it - and there was no walking away from that. “No — I’ll stay, I’ll stay. Just - tell me what you need me to do.”

CAROL: She felt sheer force slam into her shoulder as Carol full bodied the nearest armored truck, smashing it into the nearest one and then cascading that energy through the tank nearest to the rest. It was a calculated move -- they were aiming guns at children and the tank was setting up to fire. Now, she had put enough force and energy through the vehicles that they were little more than metal boxes now as she peeled herself out of the metal and took a moment to crack her back. "You really underestimate us, Hayward." She said casually just before she registered Monica. She didn't have nearly enough time to address that situation before she spotted Sam. She didn't say anything to him, she didn't know what she'd say, so she looked to Monica and Daisy. "Nice teamwork guys. Now. Where's our mutant?"

SAM: Peter was a good kid. They had a strange introduction but Sam could say that about everyone he knew at this point. He was offering his mouth to respond when the Carol comet he had inquired about smashed into Hayward. Coughing from the dust that rose from the rubble, Sam jutted his chin towards where Wanda was sucking in breath. “Looks like we have a Vision problem.”

LORNA: As it stood, Lorna was positive she was going to go back towards being an only child. Erik didn’t even like Pietro and they had basically just met him. The mutant had come to alongside her father. Her green hair was a dull brown that was only just returning to its normal hue. It felt ridiculous to be standing in a full cape and headpiece in the middle of the town square, but Lorna had other things to focus on. Carol Danvers ( ugh ) was smashing into Hayward and someone Lorna didn’t recognize was apparently casually breaking his bones. Striding up, green flared around the guns of the soldiers before they snapped in half. The bullets unloaded to clatter pointlessly to the ground. “God, I love guns. More than I love this family at least.”

MONICA: Teamwork made the dream work. Monica had been trained as an agent to learn how to balance working with a group. It made life easier. She became a human target, Carol was Carol and the new Agent was inflicting pain on Hayward that Monica would personally have loved to be responsible for. “She willingly took the barrier down.” Monica said as she strode in Carol’s direction. “But it was killing her family. That was before another Vision showed up. And, also, there’s a witch.”

PETER: Peter watched on in a slight crazed panic, at the scene Sam alerted him to, and a broken smile forced its way onto his face, “Hey then we better get some glasses — you know..? Because - vision problem,” he quipped, regretting even opening his mouth before shaking his head and launching a web toward the wrestling duo, the tendril managing to cling to the bottom of one of the ghostly vision’s feet. Peter gave a sharp tug, but it didn’t appear to do much besides briefly interrupt the fight, “Uhh - what do I do??”

CAROL: "Another Vision?" Carol shot a look at Hayward, but he was too preoccupied dealing with his bones and the loss of his firepower to pay Carol any mind. "Witch?" That also caught her attention. "Another mutant then or?" she didn't know why the questions mattered. They didn't. They'd just been so out of the loop for so long she was itching for answers. "So let's go get her then."

VISION: The sky lit up in an array of blue and gold as the two synthezoid’s went at one another, each determined to destroy the next. In all the thrashing, he kept them steered clear from anyone below. “What are you?”

CRYSTALIA: It was over. Or, at the very least, it almost was. Wanda was out of her mind and the absence of the spell left the clarity of uninterrupted thought. Pietro pulled her even closer and there was a comfort to be found in a firm embrace. He was strong -- maybe not strong enough to stop his sister -- but solid nonetheless. All Crystalia wanted to do was rest. If she broke down it would not be there. Her pride was too persistent. “It’s not your fault,” Crystal shook her head, one hand briefly resting above his heart. “Any anger I have is towards Wanda. There was nothing you could have done.” Once Wanda wanted something no one had been able to stand in her way. There was a hurricane of emotion that could be sorted through later. Right the she just wanted to make sure her daughter was safe. “You can take us home.” Wherever that was. New Attilan or the Avengers Compound. Home was anywhere but Westview. Even then she doubted that she’d sleep well but at least it would be on her own terms. At the mention of “Pietro”, Crystal shook her head. Her hair was down and loose in strawberry curls, fly aways blowing into her face. “He didn’t come around much and he didn’t care about Luna. I can’t even remember marrying him.”

THE VISION: What was he? A good question. He was functional, capable. He was built with a purpose to last. He was, most importantly, real. That was more than the synthezoid he grappled with could say. Their twin bodies phased through one another, mental beams hitting empty air. “I am the Vision.” The reply was simple, syllables plain and straightforward. This was not something he struggled to understand. His being was laid out in code and his object is clear. Body twisting in the air to get a grasp, the synthezoid managed to get hit a hit in that sent his counterpart hurtling through the air and crashing into what appeared to be a library. His descent was slower, cape gently fluttering around his legs as he hovered above the wooden floor. “And I am here to neutralize the Vision.”

DAISY: Once Hayward seemed to have given up, Daisy stomped towards him and grabbed him by the arm, glaring down at him. As she glanced behind her and spotted a couple other S.W.O.R.D. agents who made it through the barrier with them, she practically shoved him towards them and shook her head. "Take Director Dick here back towards the base once the barrier opens back up. We'll deal with the paperwork there." She insisted, and the other two didn't even question it as they got him in handcuffs and loaded him into one of the nearby vehicles. She approached Monica and Carol at the tail end of the conversation. "I'm sorry did you say another witch?" As she glanced up towards the sky, she finally saw the woman who was surrounded by a purple aura and her eyes widened. "Oh, yeah. That's another witch. Let's find Wanda."

VISION: Vision rose to his feet, facing his ghostly counter part once again, head on. He charged at him, tangling them in a web of vibranium limbs, he twisted White Vision into a headlock, stilling them for a breath of a moment. then it occurred to him: “But I’m not the true Vision. Only a conditional one.”

WANDA: It was time for it all to finally end. Wanda had kept up the ruse for as long as possible but the walls had done more than cave in. There were Avengers - friends - and there had been innocents. Wanda had walked through her reasoning and watched it go down in her minds eye. She had been many things, but fear was the root cause of everything. It all traced back to her fear -- and she was terrified no more. There was just calm resolve as she left Carol and the others with Hayward. Rising into the air so that Westview became a map below her, Wanda gave it her all. She tried to enter Agatha’s mind as the Witch had once done to her. It was a failure of an idea, the coven of witches that Agatha had drained instead turning on Wanda. In some ways she was out of her element, but there was also a part of her that had been waiting for this moment. Agatha wanted to know how she did it? Fine. She wanted her power? She’d let her try to take it. Wanda couldn’t escape her fate. She threw blast after blast and felt her body start to shrivel up. If Agatha wanted it all, she could have it. Red poured from Wanda into Agatha, purple and red mingling. She gave her everything she had until she was left floating with red eyes and withered skin.

AGATHA: Agatha had asked for it — but the funny thing about wishes — you had to be careful with them. After all the universe did like to screw you. Honestly she was a little surprised to see the red witch cave so easily — not that it stopped her from draining her of everything she could. Her magic tasted hellish on her tongue and it filled her with a sense of power she’d only ever sensed in beings of the cosmic scale. Her arms stretched wide as the tendrils of chaos flowed through her—and then...suddenly...it stopped. No. No—that wasn’t right, they weren’t done. Agatha tried to draw more, only nothing happened, not even a sputter of sparks from her finger tips. “What?”

MONICA: “Y’know, I really wanted to be the one who did that.” Monica shook her head. Hayward had taken something her mother had created as a labour of love and exploited it for power. There was a sharp sting of disappointment that she couldn’t be the one who finally got to haul him away in sweet retribution. But this was reality. You didn’t always get to be the hero you wanted to. Hayward had been taken care of and Monica had to be happy with that victory. “Agatha Harkness. Turns out Agnes wasn’t just a nosy neighbor.” They had only interacted marginally. Geraldine had no reason to pay her much attention. “I know where Wanda is.” A finger pointed upwards. “And I’m not getting involved.”

PETER: Peter jogged up to Monica and the others, having just witnessed the immense transfer of power between the two witches, “Does anyone have any idea what’s happening?? I don’t think my web shooters will do any good against that,” he pointed to the sky, worriedly.

REMY: Plenty of them had stood at the border, waiting for something more than silence and occasional updates on the happenings of inside. But then the Hex had fractured and teams had been ordered in for extraction - save the people, evacuate the town - and Remy had done his best to follow that order, but he didn't know how to be a hero. Not really. Not in the selfless capacity. He slipped down back alleyways to avoid the crowds of people and just followed where they were fleeing from until he emerged in the center of the town. There were trucks, SWORD had made it in, and a few stray heroes were incapacitating them. But his attention was drawn elsewhere, because goddamit he was tired of the loss and gain of their relationship. "You gonna keep making me chase you down?" he said, just loud enough to grab Lorna's attention. "I'm starting to wonder if it's on purpose" there was no immediate threat, nothing he could attack, even if they, and he, were still on high alert. And this was the only way he could manage because presently, he wasn't managing well at all.

CAROL: Carol followed Monica's gaze and she almost shot a load of energy into her boots but forced herself to stay planted. As much as she wanted to engage, it would be out of her own selfishness, not because she was needed. "Fine." she looked straight at Monica. "You wanna explain to me what the hell is going on with you then?"

DAISY: "He's all yours once we get back to the base." Daisy insisted, knowing that Monica would love to be the one who did his official intake. She may have let her anger get the best of her back there once she saw him firing at those kids, but then she was reminded of those bullets floating straight through Monica like she wasn't even solid matter. And then Carol mentioned it and Daisy couldn't help herself from commenting too. "That was really brave of you back there. Stupid, but brave. Did you even know you would be able to do that? That's new, right?" She didn't remember powers being mentioned at all when it came to Monica.

PIETRO: It didn’t matter whether or not it was his fault, he didn’t do his job. Against the one person he should have been best at it. Her words stung, but he understood where they were coming from. She had a right to be angry — he was still angry. Loving Wanda more than he could handle didn’t exclude him from holding her accountable. You can take us home. He nodded, relief flooding him to know they’d be sleeping under the same roof tonight. They were alive and well and his. He smoothed the stray pieces of her red hair from her face and kissed her. “Then don’t. Marry me instead.” He proposed. It seemed to come from no where, but he’d been thinking about it before. He’d only stopped himself because he hadn’t wanted it to happen just because of Luna. Now though — he just didn’t care what it looked like. He was tired of tripping up on calling her his girlfriend because it was so much more than that between them. “Yeah.” he said, tilting his head and tucking her hair behind he ear. “Marry me.”

WANDA: Surprise. It turned out that Wanda was an incredibly quick study. She was barely able to stay afloat and it felt like Agatha had taken everything from her, but Wanda persevered. That was what she did. Time and time again she found a way to survive. As Agatha’s realization began to dawn Wanda found herself revitalized. Runes. They began to glow as the giant shapes lit up the sky. “In a given space, only the witch who cast them can use her magic. Thanks for the lesson, but I don’t need you to tell me who I am.” It was like the floodgates were opening. This was chaos unleashed. Agatha was pleading but the world was a red blur. It encased Wanda in its blinding light. She felt it solidifying around her temple, infusing her with pure potential. Destiny, fate, burdens. All words that had been thrown at her. At that moment, Wanda didn’t care. She was everything and she was nothing. She was, without a doubt, the Scarlet Witch and as a nexus of powers potential personified. Maybe Agatha was right. She didn’t fully know what she had done. Encased in magic, the new scarlet of Wanda’s outfit reflected the failing borders of the world she had built. For so long she had lacked a name, and in some ways, a higher purpose. That was no more. Red swirled around her palm as Wanda lowered herself and the defeated Agatha back towards the ground. She dropped the Witch unceremoniously before gently drifting down herself. Something was different. Everything was different. Red died from green eyes as Wanda turned towards the small crowd of people she knew, silent as her power threaded itself through her veins.

CAROL: Carol shifted her attention abruptly, calculating the woman who stood before her. She always knew Wanda was powerful - she'd dealt with enough powerful mutants to build a roster and by now, her instinct was to defend. "Wanda-" she started, but she made no move to approach. "You've got a lot of things to own up to." If Wanda attacked, Carol would defend -- but the last thing Carol would do was retreat, no matter if Wanda got a fancy new outfit in the last ten minutes up in the sky.

PETER: Peter couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. Sure he’d fought in battles by Wanda’s side before, and even fought - well tried to fight - Wanda herself. But this was different. This was a whole other level — and Peter felt almost frozen in place as he watched everything commence, only broken from his trance-like state at the sound of Carol’s voice addressing the now grounded Wanda.

THE VISION: The two fought. They were beings forged with great power but remained intellects at heart. He required further elaboration. The two talked then, quick debate spurred on by processing cores and a desire to learn. This was the Ship of Theseus, the dilemma of a conundrum. They were both Vision and they were not. One was memory and heart and the other the tangible devoid of that which had once made him. He could not destroy the Vision because he was the Vision. Alternatively, neither of them were the Vision. They had been twisted by greed -- both that of Wanda’s love and Hayward’s thirst for power. Together, perhaps, they could be one but that was not to be. Life had made them diametrically opposed through intentions he did not understand. It was with a quiet hesitation that the Vision let Vision touch the processing chip that had once housed the Mind Stone. And then -- clarity. Wanda. Sokovia. Wanda. Ultron. An accident that rendered a man paralyzed. This was the Vision as he once was. He was machine made more. Recoiling backwards, the blue of his eyes began to clear. “I am Vision.” Where that left the other he knew not, but the revitalized Vision shot out o the building without another word and escaped the barrier to find a place to enter deep contemplation.

VISION: Vision watched him go, left to float by himself among the now quiet air of the library. After but a moment or two, he soared out of the hole in the roof of the building to find Wanda and the boys. He didn’t know where any of it left the other synthezoid in his programming to destroy himself, but he was hoping it would override it. Upon landing, Vision phased through Carol to get to Wanda. “Captain Danvers.” he said on the pass through. “With all due respect, while I understand your qualms with my wife, they can wait another ten minutes — we’ve our children to get to.”

DAISY: Daisy watched in awe as Wanda fought it out with Agatha, still kind of in shock that this was the level of threats she was dealing with nowadays. That really was an Avenger up there, and she was standing next to freaking Captain Marvel. She was practically in the same amount of shock as Peter was as she stared dumbfounded with him, only to snap out of it at the sound of Wanda’s feet hitting the grass. She glanced down at Peter and raised her eyebrows at him in an attempt at a silent conversation, knowing he’d probably get her amazement.

MONICA: For what felt like the hundredth time in her life, Monica stood with her head tilted up towards the sky. This time there was no stars or Aunt who had turned to legend. It was a broken woman and a force set out against her. “I think what’s happening with me can wait.” Monica’s voice was quiet. She understood aliens but magic was new to her. She wanted to hate Wanda -- and a part of her did. Didn’t change how beautiful she looked dripping in scarlet and power. Turning towards Daisy, Monica nodded a few times before she remembered to speak. “Westview side effect. Looks like a lot is changing now.”

SAM: Carol was right. Wanda did have a lot to own up to, but they also had a lot to process and a lot of people to deal with. There was an arm extended in front of Carol. It wouldn’t stop her. It was purely a gesture. “It’s time for goodbye.” He said quietly, knowing what Vision meant. Besides, he was tired. They all were.

DAISY: Daisy blinked when she realized she was being spoken to. She turned her head to Monica and nodded. “Oh yeah, you went in before..” She could only imagine how having your entire reality rewritten and unwritten like that twice could effect your molecular anatomy. Daisy just knew that FitzSimmons would have a field day with trying to figure that out. “Still, that was super cool you know.”

TEDDY: Teddy Altman had been through a lot in the last couple of months, let alone the year. He’d lost his boyfriend twice—once to death, a second time to his scary mom. He’d been crowned the emperor of two empires that hated each other and was somehow expected to hold them together. His time on earth was limited most days, and while it made the frustration of not being able to get his boyfriend out of the hex — he was pretty floored to find out it was not only open, but the woman he’d been told about was involved. “Monica Rambeau?” Teddy said, approaching her. “My name’s Teddy. Can we talk?”

CAROL: Carol's eyes snapped to Sam, an incredulous furrow in her brow. "You've got to be fucking kidding me." she said on a breath but ultimately, she took a step back, actually turning around fully and away from Sam. "Good to know. I'll keep this in mind for the next villain we face."

CRYSTAL: Marry me instead. Crystalia’s mind was torn between the subtle swaying of rocking the baby and the processing of what had happened. Wanda would always be in her life, even if she wasn’t with Pietro. They were bound forever by blood and bone now. She was lost in touch - actual touch not being controlled by another - and the feeling of his lips against her own. “Marry you?” Of course she had thought about it. They had a child together and it was all but expected by an aristocratic family that worked on tradition. Crystalia had a child out of wedlock. Not only that but it was with a mutant who had a terrorist sister nonetheless. “Marry you.” The word was a sigh. She loved Pietro. She loved the family they had made. He wasn’t on one knee and they stood in the middle of a possessed town, but there was an odd romance to it. “Of course I’ll marry you.” Crystalia leaned up to kiss him. It was nice to have a choice this time. “I love you. All this craziness aside. I do.”

PIETRO: He wanted Crystalia and the baby out before he could think much of anything else. They had to be safe before he could get to Wanda and once he knew that Crys had Luna cradled to her chest, he’d picked her up and ran both of them back to Attilan in the Hudson. The entire ordeal had really only taken just minutes — mostly because he’d had to separate himself from them once again and convince his now fiancée to let him go speak to the same woman that had caused all of their pain. Even if that person was his sister—his twin, the same flesh and blood of his own—it still left its scars.

WANDA: They stared. Wanda sensed their indecision and, in some cases, their anger. Let them. It didn’t matter anymore. She knew what she had and what she had to lose. “A villain.” She repeated softly. There had been times in the past Carol had defended her. She hadn’t wanted Wanda left at the mercy of the mutants. But that was a different time before unforgivable transgressions. “Maybe, but it’s not that simple.” She had been villainous but that was over. This was the after. Taking Visions hand, Wanda nodded at Carol. “My husband is right. We have to focus on the boys. I’ll come back. I promise.” The last word was spoken quietly. She’d come back. Not Vision, not the boys. Just her. The twins had returned to town square, two children with expectant faces. Wanda would not let her last moments with her children be defending herself against Carol Danvers. Without waiting for permission, Wanda turned towards her home. “The barrier is falling. Westview is returning,” she called over her shoulder. “It will be right once more.”

MONICA: “Went in and got thrown out.” Monica confirmed. Carol was getting upset and she instantly tensed up to see if there would be conflict. When Sam intervened Monica exhaled. She was turning to respond to Daisy when she was approached from the other side. “Emperor Dorreck?” Of course she knew the Skrull leader. Space had always been a part of the Rambeau’s life. She excused herself to the side. “Yeah, of course. I’ll meet you as soon as we’re out of here.”

WANDA: It was the beginning of the end. No, not the beginning. The end had come five years before even though it felt like yesterday to a woman who hadn’t been around to live through it. The end had come the moment the Vision had died in Wakanda. His empty shell hitting the dirt heralded a new phase in her life and Wanda had tried her best to live in it. She socialized and tried to smile. Her tears were regulated to moments of privacy. Wanda had tried - she really had - but she couldn’t do it. She rewrote the story, added a chapter. There was no end then, only beginnings. Westview was real. Westview was hers. Westview had crumbled. People were flickering back to consciousness and red still sparked in the sky. It was her home that had never really been. A promise that had never been lived out. When the Vision had signed the deed and secured the land had he ever fathomed just how much Wanda would pervert it to keep it? The white android with his hands on her throat hadn’t remembered but Wanda always would. After months of games and manipulation she was quiet as she rested a hand on the twin’s backs. The elder version of the boys had long since departed. Not that she could blame them. They were all people for her to answer to but they had all the time in the world. The three souls who walked beside Wanda were pinned now into a finite box. She was going to lose them. They were never hers to lose. As Tommy and Billy obediently moved towards their house their mother took the hand of their father. It was silent except for their boots on the now cracked pavement and the quiet slapping of their capes. One day, there would be too much to unpack. Wanda felt a new thrumming in her chest and magic in her veins. The Scarlet Witch was more than just a name now, it was a point of being. She wore the mantle and the crown with a heavy head. The second their feet hit the threshold of the door the new costume faded away to more mundane clothing. A soft sweater, jeans. Some sneakers. Wanda felt stripped bare and the hardest part had yet to come. “Go get ready for bed, boys.” Her voice was hoarse as she tipped her head towards the stairs. When she looked back at Vision there was a plea in her eyes. The barrier was a soft static hush in the background as it inched closer. She couldn't do this. Not again.

VISION: They’d been moving at an immeasurable pace toward an end that he wasn’t entirely sure sealed much of anything at all. Time seemed slow and fast all at once, which led him to consider that it was merely a construct after all. A simple tool for humans to capture moments of life in numbered little bottles. Not that any of it mattered now — it did — but it could wait. If not for just for the moment: their moment. After all, that’s all life was, wasn’t it? A series of moments that molded bodies and souls all the same. Certainly Wanda and Vision had shared theirs. And while he spent most of their short time in Westview without the memories of their life prior to the Hex, he’d witnessed them within the precious past of a body that was never his to inhabit. And he felt that perhaps now, he understood her more than ever. He understood what they shared, but not what he was. He had all of this history that he couldn’t claim, children, a wife—love, yet once this world closed, this form of his being would cease along with it. What did that mean? What did it matter? Vision took her hand in his red palm and gently intertwined their fingers. They weren’t gone quite yet — he didn’t want her to mourn them before she’d truly lost them. He was determined to outshine the bitterness of what inched closer with the sweetness of what was still left. “Let’s say goodnight.” he said, and though his feet stayed on the ground, he felt himself floating up the stairs into their children’s room. For once he went to Tommy’s bed first, and sat at his feet. He watched Wanda with all the tenderness and normalcy that he could, hoping to leave her with something fond to remember them by. An ounce of reality in all the fiction.

WANDA: Goodnight and goodbye. It was with a bowed head and her heart in her throat that Wanda followed behind her husband up the familiar stairs to the boy’s room. The house hadn’t looked like that at first. It had expanded with her narrative to fit their new and extended family. Two boys at the top of the stairs, the heavy pounding of their footsteps heralding every new day. Her natural instinct would have been to move towards Tommy, but she settled instead by Billy. William, Vision had said. Billy, like Shakespeare. Wanda couldn’t say if she always planned to have twins. She knew Tommy the second he had started to grow in her stomach, but the joy in her husband's face had brought a new life to light inside of her. Smoothing back Billy’s hair, Wanda fumbled with unscripted words. “Snug as a bug. Big day today,” she patted the sheets around him. They were a family. This was the kind of evening that could have happened on any night but Wanda didn’t want to betray what she knew. They were kids. How could she tell them this was the story’s end? Looking to Vision, Wanda took a breath. “It was a big day. Your father and I are… very proud.” She exhaled. “But family is forever. We could never leave each other, even if we tried.” Had she not carried a part of Pietro around in her heart for years? He had always stayed near to her even as his bones turned to ash. “You know that, right?” As Tommy nodded and smiled across the room something inside Wanda fractured. She kissed Billy on the head before rising, trying to mentally document every scent and curl. They were hers even if they were never meant to be. Wanda would always be theirs. She and Vision met in the middle of the room, hands squeezing before she was kissing Tommy’s head. For all the messy parts of Wanda that there were, she had somehow managed to compile only the best of her and Vision into their children. This was her duty as a mother. Her tears were kept so far back she didn’t even have to blink them away as she playfully shook Tommy. Giving Vision his space to say goodbye, Wanda eventually drifted with lead coated feet towards the door. As she looked back the glow of the Hex began to coat the room. “--Boys?” Wanda tore her eyes away from their undoing and back to the boys in their bed. “Thank you for choosing me to be your mom.” Billy smiled, but Wanda knew he had some semblance of an idea even if he couldn’t read her mind specifically. The light flicked off and for a second it was so tempted to stop the Hex’s progression and create the blanket of the barrier again. The red haze was now tinting everything with its light and Wanda took one last look before closing the door on that chapter of her life.

VISION: He hated the idea of missing this, — the mundane nights spent in, tucking the boys to bed and retiring to themselves in front of the TV. He ached of not knowing what would come next for her and not being alongside her to share it. But most of all, he hated the idea of ceasing to be — even if he had no real claim to feel such a way. To have had so much, only to be greeted with a nothingness at the end of it...no promise of paradise, or rebirth. He supposed it was the most human thing he’d ever experienced. Vision let Wanda do most of the talking, trying his best to exist in the precious seconds that ticked by. He forced his gaze on his son rather than the claustrophobic barrier that rapidly closed in from the window. He ruffled Tommy’s hair and stood, forcing one food in front of the other. “Goodnight, Chaps.” prompted a resounding “Goodnight, Dad!” from the both of them and he held onto the warmth it blossomed in his artificial chest. They lingered in the doorway for as long as time would allow until eventually Vision found himself descending back downstairs, after his wife. He turned on a different lamp as she turned hers out, eager to see her face in the light rather than night vision. “Sorry. I read somewhere it’s bad luck to say goodbye in the dark.” He offered a soft smile at that.

WANDA: Over time, Wanda had forgotten how to process. She lost the ability to move through the stages of grief and had nestled into denial as easily as if it were her second skin. Wanda lost and she lost and she lost. She ached, and for what? A moment of reprieve? She had those before the waves crashed back in and she was lost once again in the surf. It was wrong what she had done. After being coaxed through her memories by Agatha she knew that. It was wrong, but it was also the only time she had felt any semblance of right in years. The barrier was cutting its way through the town. She could feel it even if it was out of sight. Grass would grow yellow and wood would grow soft from moisture and lack of upkeep. Westview would return to its bitter self that she had first stumbled upon. Her dream had been their nightmares. The shiny veneer of Westview Wanda had painted wasn’t real. Her hand hovered over a family portrait. No one would remember it being taken. It was just filler anyway, an object in a house to keep up the illusion. No, not a house. Their house, even if it wasn’t this Vision who had so lovingly procured it for her so they could have a home. He would have done the same, Wanda liked to think, as the Vision had. He didn’t know the scope of her tragedy but he loved her. He looked for ways to brighten her life. No sooner than her lamp had clicked off did the one she had already turned off bloom back into light. Wanda couldn't help but start before she turned to see Vision standing by the lamp. “No,” a smile somehow found its way to her lips despite the situation. “You didn’t.”

VISION: He mirrored the soft sadness in her smile with his own. “No…no” he trailed, having grown comfortable in their shared silences...or maybe he just wanted time to stretch longer. “Perhaps not...perhaps I just wanted to see you..clearly.” He gazed at her softly. “And there you are.” He murmured more to himself than anything. She’d always been so beautiful — in more ways than just the high slopes of her cheek bones and the delicate look in her eyes when she allowed herself to be vulnerable. It was difficult to imagine he’d never see that face again...never do anything again.

WANDA: No one had seen her clearly in years. Pietro always had a sharp gaze that could cut through her vague indecision, but without him he had been adrift. The Vision had seen her, too. She felt the Stone that powered him and he looked at her with clear eyes. Dumnezeu, she had loved him. Past, present, future. Wanda knew now that he’d always exist in her breastbone, right alongside the after effects of the Mind Stone. Two ghosts, both shadows of their former selves but spurring her further nonetheless. There you are. It was heartbreak and love all wrapped up as one and reflected in Wanda’s smile. But the Hex was collapsing. She wasn’t the only one who could tell and she gripped his hand by the window. It was too soon. It was five years overdue, and yet, it was too soon. When he turned to her she found a way to tear her gaze from the sight of Westview shifting and locked her eyes on the flickering face of her husband in the red light.

VISION: “Wanda…” Vision started, suddenly feeling their world grow so much smaller as it crashed around them. Hungry scarlet swirls of the red barrier ebbed slowly around them in wait, allowing him to finish. He cast it only the briefest of glances before his gaze returned to his wife. “Before I go,” He begun softly “— I feel I must know… I want to know.....what am I?” Even as he felt himself ask, he wondered maybe it wasn’t his place to — or that it was even a question she could answer, but still he had to at least try. Closure was, in his opinion, often rather loaded. People wanted it, but weren’t prepared for whatever shape it came in. They had expectations, hopes for the way things would end...and often the reality of it was painful. And while he struggled to know if he was ready for closure now, he supposed it didn’t matter. It was never really his story. So maybe what he was really asking now, was for his writer to fit him with an honorable ending — whatever shape it took. He trusted her with that, even if the rest of westview and the world didn’t.

WANDA: This was her fault. All her fault, like so many other things. To her, it had never mattered what he was. He was hers and she was his. It was that simple. Couldn’t two people just be in love? Maybe, but not them. It wasn’t simple and in their case it wasn’t pure with Wanda’s interference. She had made him as she remembered him, but Vision was more than a memory. The Vision had many intricacies and complexities that could never be replicated. She had done the best she could but still had left hollow holes in her husband. It wasn’t fair to the Vision or Vision. “You, Vision,” her hand moved to caress his cheek. People heard synthezoid and assumed his flesh would be cold like metal but it was warm and real under her palm. “Are the piece of the Mind Stone that lives in me. You are a body of wires and blood and bone that I created. You are my sadness and my hope. But mostly, you’re my love.” His hand had fallen over her own at some point and Wanda finally lost the battle with her tears. She loved, she loved and she lost. This time had to be different because she had to accept it. She had look at him in the near darkness and remember just how all encompassing it felt to love and be loved by him in the days that would stretch out when he was gone.

VISION: He grounded himself in the warmth of her palm against his cheek, comforted by the melody of her voice — even with a vastness awaiting him the moment her lips stopped moving. It didn’t matter, he took those precious seconds to kiss her with all the tenderness he found even the complexities of 6,500 human language could not express. “I’ve been a voice with no body...a body but not human...and now…” he met her sad eyes “A memory. Made real.” He wanted so badly to leave her with hope, desperate not to let her drown in her own grief. “Who knows what I might be next.” What we might be. The barrier was closing in now and with it he found himself suddenly feeling the loss of time as if it were a loss of breath — he gently pulled her to him, placing his hand on her cheek in a delicate cradle. “We’ve said goodbye before...so it stands to reason…”

WANDA: Their kiss was bittersweet. It was the first hello of two beings who finally saw each other as they were and the last goodbye between tragic lovers. As a tear tracked down his cheek, Wanda caught it with her thumb. The moisture on her finger pad was real. Androids could cry. Perhaps not all, but hers was special. Vision had always been special and that would never change. To her it would be impossible for him to be reduced to just a memory. She would see him out of the corner of her eyes in the hall or hear a rustling and expect to see him phase through the wall. Scents would escape the kitchen and she would wonder for a second if it was him attempting a dish just because it would make her smile. Wanda had seen sides of the Vision no one else had. She had seen goofy and soft. He was the full spectrum of being, and his quiet steady nature even in the face of oblivion made her cry. She had never deserved him. Not really, at least. He was worthy to hold the hammer of Thor and Wanda -- she broke things, she threw fits and hurt people. From the moment she had sensed him in dreaming under Ultron’s watchful eye in the Cradle she had been doomed. Wanda felt love in her life but she never managed to hold onto it. It was a stream and the water always flowed right past her before her thirst was quenched. Vision was a memory made real, sure. But in Wanda’s mind he would always be real. We’ve said goodbye before, so it stands to reason... Wanda clutched either side of his head as her eyes frantically traced the lines of his face so she could memorize every one. “...That we’ll say hello again.” She was nodding quickly as the red raced through the town and finally made contact. The house began to fluctuate through all the variations that Wanda had forced upon it. The reality began to unwrite herself right in front of her eyes, but she was going to hold onto her husband until she couldn’t anymore.

VISION: The barrier came for them rapidly, then, and all he felt was her. Her hands on his face, her being somehow tethered to his as his body began to come apart much more gently than before. It wasn’t a ceasing to exist, merely a return home — a return to where he’d existed from the beginning: within her. It wasn’t painful, and it wasn’t something to fear anymore. So many more things he wished to say to her, seconds he’d ask for if they could. But they were out of time. “So long, my darling.” Until, hello.

WANDA: It didn’t end with a bang. It ended with a soft smile and the echo of a voice before its owner ceased to be. She felt him slowly fade out of her grasp until she was left clutching nothing but the air. The house -- their house -- had reverted back to a foundation that would never be built upon. Wanda wouldn’t sell but she could never live there either. Her happiness had lived and died within those fallen walls. Her heart was splintering in her chest. Clothed once more in the outfit she had worn when she arrived in Westview, Wanda slipped her hood up over her hair and ignored her car as she began her funeral procession of one back to town square. A promise was a promise, but Agatha’s words were heavy in her heart. There would always be pitchforks or women like them. Stepping into view, Wanda kept her head held high. “It’s over.”

SAM: His lips flattened into a tight line. “Jesus, Carol.” So much for a happy reunion. “Wanda fucked up -- bad. But she’s going to say goodbye to kids. Her kids. Give her ten.” He believed she’d come back, and she did. Defeated but present.

LORNA: Her sister had just turned and left with the family she had made. Lorna had a sinking feeling that Wanda would be the only one she saw again. “What can I say?” the words felt flat in her mouth. “I like to feel desired.” She turned to look at Remy then. He looked the same, if not ragged. It was hard to tell. Lorna felt like someone else all together -- which was fair, situation depending. “They let you in here?”

CAROL: Carol shot Sam a look, one that was one part confused and one part angry. She knew she struggled with the grey area, but rarely did her and Sam grate so blatantly. "That in comparison to torturing people for months. Sure." She was tired of the passes, but she'd relented and thrown her hands up. Once Wanda came back in to view, Carol didn't even make a move to approach her. Like Sam, Carol was tired too, but for an entirely different reason. "You did the right thing." She said, though there was no sense of sympathy in her tone. "The people of Westview are being extensively checked for neurological damage or magical after effects. They'll be lucky if they don't suffer from PTSD after this." she knew she wasn't making any friends here. Carol didn't care. But still, she shifted slightly so her body was turned towards Monica. "This is your case, Rambeau. By all means,"

REMY: "You know I have a habit of getting in even when I don't belong." He said passively. He was looking at her, but not really. He was exhausted, the feeling dragging him down over the past few weeks Lorna had been in here. He truly was spending most of their relationship losing her and it stung a little more every time. Still, "Are you okay?" it was a question said off to the side, because there was no way that conversation could happen now. He just had to ask.

WANDA: Two women forged by Infinity Stones. Carol and Wanda were powerful but in different ways. “They suffered.” She replied simply. “Extensively. And I’m sorry. I never meant to make my pain theirs as well.” That, at least, was true. It had not been her original intention but she had perpetuated willingly later on. “You’re not arresting me. But I’ll go with you willingly, Captain Rambeau. I owe you that much.”

MONICA: “Me?” Monica arched a brow. “Yeah, I’d say that’s fair.” Wanda had thrown her from town and caused Monica’s cells to metastasize. She had also used her powers to throw her around another time. Monica had felt Wanda’s pain first hand and was left with a detached pity. “Wanda Maximoff,” she began the formalities. “I’m Captain Monica Rambeau. I am officially bringing you into holding under the authority of S.W.O.R.D. I am not required to read you your rights as you register as a threat to the Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Division and will be treated as such. Do you understand?”

LORNA: Normally she’d launch flirtatious barbs back with him, but Lorna just gestured around slowly. “Not really a desirable place to be. At his question her brow furrowed. “No. Not really, but I will be.” Insanity did run in the family. “I need to find my Father. We need to go to Krakoa.”

REMY: "Why do you think we're here?" he asked, though there wasn't much room for answering. "There's no reason we should stay now. There's a gate close by." it was a suggestion for them to leave now, to turn away from Lorna's sister being taken in by SWORD.

LORNA: “Maybe you’re a fan of the show,” her tone was sardonic at best. No reason to stay. No reason to watch Wanda hauled off. The two sisters had ever been closed but it rattled Lorna more than she wanted to admit. Her family didn’t handle grief. No member of the Monarchy of M seemed to be sane. They threw tantrums and raged. Would she have done the same as Wanda? Maybe, if Lorna loved anyone that much. Far more agreeable than usual, Lorna turned away from Wanda in the square.

WANDA: “I understand.” Wanda nodded. She could never give the citizen of Westview the last two months back but she could at least own up to her own shortcomings -- of which there were a multitude. As Wanda took a step towards Monica her clothing rippled. Magic was always present. If she was going to leave Westview it was with a shrivel of her dignity intact. The hood of her jacket had redesigned itself into a cloak, red fabric falling over bare shoulders. There would be time later to address Agatha and wrap up that plot line. “And I’m ready.”

PIETRO: Pietro arrived in time to see S.W.O.R.D. and F.B.I. swarming the area like bees in a frenzy. A boom snapped through the air as he slammed to a halt, feet ripping up chunks of pavement — Christ, he had to get better at that. Fixing his sleeve, Pietro stood up straight and rolled his shoulders some, shoving his snowy hair out of his face. “I’m gone five minutes and you already want to get yourself arrested.” he said, walking around from behind her. He cast a glance to the others — Monica, Carol, Sam — scattered agents all braced for anything. “Just like old times, ah?” They had a lot to talk about — but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t happy to see her. She had to have known it was coming even though he didn’t ask, he just lifted her off the ground and shot off with a sonic boom, leaving nothing but a breeze and a standstill in their wake as he put over a hundred miles between them and Westview in two seconds flat.

DAISY: Daisy was waiting patiently in the back for the potential of Wanda running off, although she wasn’t quite sure any of them besides Carol were prepared to be able to stop that sort of escape. Even if she did feel for Wanda’s situation, there were rules they had to follow. And rules she swore to uphold when she became an agent. She blinked in surprise when she saw Pietro run up, surprised at how fast he was. She knew he was a speedster from the files she’d read, but it was an entirely different thing to see it in person. And then before anyone could even say anything, there was a loud boom and just wind blowing by them and both Wanda and Pietro vanished into thin air. After a few beats of stunned silence, Daisy let out a sigh and shook her head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Now S.W.O.R.D was going to have to look for both of the Maximoff twins after this whole mess. It was definitely a frustrating ending after being so close to getting Wanda to willingly come talk with them, and Daisy could feel a nagging irritation prickling under her skin as she shook her head. “I’m going to go help with those extractions.” She stated to Carol and Monica before turning and walking off back towards the direction of the base.

WANDA: This was the last thing she needed. Denial, anger, bargaining and now, after a painful breakthrough: acceptance. Wanda wasn’t resigned but renewed. They were mad and could have their moment. The energy from Darkhold whispered in her ear even though it was out of sight. Wanda was ready to face the stake they would inevitably try to force her to burn on, but then someone was making quips. The reverent air of a battleground that hadn’t completely found an ending was charged with a boom that rattled her teeth. Five minutes? It was five years and then some. Her eyes drifted closed. Wanda’s Westview was gone and her constructs with it. Everything left was real, but was he? This was a question she had turned over in her mind again and again. Acceptance. He was hers. He always had been. Agatha had laughed that he couldn’t be returned because his body had been left broken and isolated on foreign soil. Wrong and wrong. Vision and the boys had been tied to the town. It anchored their reality. Pietro was the exception. His accidental resurrection was tied to the one who had been half of his being. Pietro existed as Wanda did, their connection once again rekindled even though it was tainted red. There had been no reunion yet. Their interactions were tense and filled with a one sided disgust. Wanda had clung to an illusion because she was terrified of the fact that there was one thing she couldn’t replicate. This was real but Wanda did not deserve it. Not after what she had done. As her eyes fluttered open, Wanda’s lips parted. She was going to tell Carol it changed nothing, even though everything was different. She was culpable still. Instead her feet were pulled out from underneath her in the same disorienting blur that had once been familiar. Hair whipping around her face, Wanda’s hood had fallen off by the time he skidded to a stop. Blue and silver streaked the air behind him. The only thing new was the scarlet that threaded through the afterimage, the trail of magic that was still fresh on its mistress. The ground crunched underneath the wedged heels of her boots once contact was made. There was a cold wind but the heat of her magic still flushed her cheeks. “Pietro?” The word fell from her lips and hung in the air between them. Where did she start? You’re back? I’m sorry? I need to go face my fate? Wanda just stood there and stood for a long moment. It didn’t matter that she was the Scarlet Witch, chaos bound in flesh. It didn’t matter how powerful she was. Right then she was ten years old and flat on her stomach as the Stark missile ticked away. She hadn’t known then it was her power stopping it from going off as probability twisted. Pietro was the one keeping them safe as he held her close. She had always assumed it would be him who filled that role but now she had years of experience and tragedy that had affixed itself to her being and turned her into the woman she had become. But that was for later. She could be strong and suffer in a silent dignity later. Right then she was closing the space between them until her arms were wrapped tightly around his chest and her head pressed over the spot where his heart beat a little too quickly. “Îmi pare rău, frate. Îmi pare așa, atât de rău. ( I'm sorry, brother. I'm so, so sorry. ) If Wanda kept her head down she wouldn’t have to look at his eyes and see if disdain still lived there. “I lost you.”

PIETRO: He’d thought about what he might say to her if she ever did finally speak to him again — without all the facade of Westview to deafen her ears from everything he said. He wondered if he’d hold on to his anger—but it had morphed. Mutating into a hurt he didn’t know how to place. That he could. He knew it wasn’t intentional, but that was the sad part...it...it didn’t matter. Crystalia didn’t want Wanda anywhere near their daughter and while he understood her reasons, that didn’t make the cut any shallower. He shared everything with her, as a being he very much considered an extension of hims own, it was difficult not to bring her into the life of his child. And so he was crossed between the boy that would sever his own limbs just to quell the quiver of Wanda’s lip, and the man that wanted to stand by his soon to be wife. Maybe he fueled that into the mad dash he did away from Westview, because he didn’t even realize how far he’d gone until he started to smell salt. It was different to run so long with her, but she’d always been a light load. Pietro finally stopped when he hit the west coastline—kicking up an array of sand as he slid with her. It was one of his more graceful stops, but that wasn’t saying much. He set her on her feet and for once kept his mouth shut, waiting for her to say—literally anything. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but as she fell into him he felt his world tip a little, back into place. His hands gently smoothed the curls of her unnaturally strawberry red hair and he wrapped both arms around her. “nN pentru totdeauna” not forever, he said. In the most predictable way, his anger melted away, but it did leave welts in the wake of its fire. Dor the first time in their lives he didn’t know where her head was at—and he’d never needed telepathy to do that. And though he could never hate her, and he could never want her out of his life, he didn’t know where that left them. And he silently dreaded the problems having wanda in their lives would inevitably cause with the mother of his child.

WANDA: She lost him, but she had found him. Wanda couldn’t put into words how much that meant. “And now I have so much to tell you but it’s not the time. I have to go back, Pietro. I need to face what I’ve done.” It was the right thing to do, after all. Wanda owed the people she hurt and had given Monica her word. Flicking her hood back on so it cast a shadow over his face, she leaned in to kiss his cheek. “Goodbye, frate. We’ll be together again soon.”

MONICA: There was no reason for handcuffs when the woman they would shackle was a literal witch who could apparently teleport when she was in the mood to. Monica was immensely grateful for Wanda’s cooperation and had her own opinions on the matter. Wanda had been wrong. Her actions were more than just hurtful, they were dangerous. Monica knew that just as well as she knew that if she had been in Wanda’s shoes with her powers she would have done the same. It didn’t make her actions excusable or meant that Monica forgave her. She just had a throbbing sense of balanced justice instilled in her by her mother. Wanda would face the jury and it consistent of more than just Monica. But then, Pietro. Shit. He had been a little bit of a wild card ever since Wanda yeeted his kid and girlfriend (?) into the Hex. Now he was in a place to potentially cause an escalation with Wanda -- who had just returned and was compliant. “Maximoff,” Monica took a step forward and found herself blinking away grit that Quicksilver’s feet had kicked up. He was gone and Wanda had vanished with him. “Jesus.” Monica resisted the urge to turn and smack the solid army truck behind her. She could survive being shot but something told her that all she’d accomplish was becoming the owner of a broken hand. Nodding at Daisy, Monica made no move to follow her. Instead she turned to Carol, who had proven herself to be a powder keg consistently in danger of exploding. Had she always been like that? Monica couldn’t remember but childhood memories were faulty. They were blurred fact with fiction. Sam, at least, looked more stoic with his arms crossed over his chest. “--she’s coming back.” Monica pursed her lips. “Wanda was ready to go in, she was listening.”

REMY: "Haven't bothered to watch." His tone remained level as they started for the break in the wall. He had come prepared for a fight, but he was leaving with none, and he could feel the dissatisfaction even if he'd ultimately won in the end. It had been a tough few weeks and all his sitting had caught him in a loop with no outlet. "Your sister will be fine." He offered as the neared the edge. "We know people who have done far worse and are sitting on our country's council."

CAROL: Carol stared at the spot where Wanda had disappeared for too long, her eyes boring into the gravel of a city that had returned to its poorly maintained state. Though her features remained neutral, the tension in her shoulders was immense and all she wanted to do was strangle not one, but two Maximoff’s now. Forcing out a breath, Carol completely missed Daisy's comment and instead turned towards Monica. "I know." she acquiesced. "And yet here we are." Standing in the center of a town that had been pulled through the decades by magic, its citizens mind controlled and tortured, and the only person to blame was gone. "Maybe we should coordinate with Krakoa." she looked towards Sam, but it was nothing more than a passing glance. There was a lot to unpack there, but their personal lives could never cross into their professional. "As much as I'd love to argue with Frost that, although Wanda is a citizen a Krakoa and therefore untouchable, her mass mind manipulation of US citizens stands to reason she needs to face a trial. It's not a witch hunt," she said pointedly. "But Pietro did just implicate himself in this mess."

SAM: Maybe. Sam shifted before straightening up. “Last I heard, Wanda was pretty estranged. If we talk to anyone, it’s Magneto.” It was unlikely that the Master of Magnetism was going to be biased because it was his daughter. “But outside of Krakoa, Wanda isn’t a U.S. citizen either. There’s not a home country we can send her to for trial anymore.” That made her their problem. It was a little less messy internationally. “The guy was dead up until two months ago and hasn’t gotten to actually talk to her since. Guess we should have seen that coming.”

LORNA: What, could he not be bothered to tune into the home torture network to at least see that she was alive? Lorna just snorted, Westview now fading into the background. “Good for you. Hope Wanda gave me a new liver when she rewrote reality because all I’ve done recently is get wasted and make out with would be frat guys.” Which had never been her type. “Wanda is Wanda. She makes big messes and everyone finds a way to forgive her. She lays low and then the cycle repeats.” Not that Lorna could take another Decimation. The glow of the emergency gate that the mutants had situated by the barrier emitted a soft glow. “Like my father.”

REMY: Remy had avoided the broadcast because he hadn't been privy to watch, even if he knew he wouldn't have bothered given the chance. It was...a complicated mess of feeling, and he was still sorting through it. Lorna's words didn't help, but he didn't comment on them. He wanted out of Westview, he wanted to be back on Krakoa. They emerged together through the breach and he led her to where the mutants emerged originally - the closest gate back to Krakoa. "We can talk more once we're back." He wanted out of here. Away from the mess Wanda had formed. If he could, he would've rather pretend it never happened.

CAROL: "Guess we should've." Carol muttered, eyes flitting up to the sky and then back down again. "We can send a team in to do a clean sweep, gather up any evidence we may need. Otherwise, I think we need to get started on the citizens. Make sure everyone is okay." It wasn't necessarily their job to aid at this point, but Carol felt separated from victory, and she needed to do something. "Monica can make a call, I'm sure."

MONICA: She was not about to be in the middle of a lovers quarrel. It felt like she had been in her S.W.O.R.D. sweater and training pants for days. Her skin was sticky with sweat and the adrenaline had begun to wear off. Carol, Sam and Monica were some of the last remaining, three Captains who covered the spectrum in how angry they were. “Sam,” she turned towards Wilson. “We need a trauma evaluation. They’re not letting us do anything until after that.” It was just standard protocol. They’d need to find Wanda and the White Vision who had smashed through the town before vanishing. Agatha Harkness was still weak on the ground, stuck in stasis. They couldn’t restrain her. They needed Wanda and her fancy magic shapes for that. And, S.W.O.R.D. needed a director. It wouldn’t be Monica. She didn’t want it. That had been Maria’s job and her daughter didn’t want to squeeze into her shoes. She had always preferred walking beside her too much. It would be Abigail she talked to after Brand finished her counseling as well. S.W.O.R.D. would heal. Maria would never be back but her legacy would persevere. “We’re going to find Maximoff.” Monica sent a look to Carol as she began to take a few steps back. “She promised, and I’m big on holding people to their word.” She’d make her call. She’d do what she needed to, and at some point Monica would sleep. Westview was free. They were free. Why didn’t it feel like it?

#event: maximoff anomaly #maximoff anomaly: finale #momevents

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