#I started playing it in February and the last story has been unlocked for like 6 months now | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

masterofmagnetism · 4 years ago

Text

they put me in the ground (but i’m back from the dead)

They took my life but it isn't the end They put me in the ground but I'm back from the dead

Oh, I'm the World Ender baby and I'm coming for you

WHO: Erik Lehnsherr, Scott Summers @firstxman, Jean Grey-Summers @jeaniegreysummers, Bruce Banner @hulkout. Mention of @mistressxfmagnetism WHERE: Stark Tower’s CRADLE lab. WHEN: February 21, 2021 WHAT: Jean and Scott get Bruce’s help resurrecting Erik. Erik comes back and is Not Happy. WARNINGS: Reference to past major character death, abuse, murder, assorted mental health issues, grief, ptsd. WORDS: 11k

JEAN: Erik crossed a line. No matter how she cried over his body, no matter how empty she felt when he was lowered into that grave (and she felt it, the shift in the earth, felt the ripple of emotion that came from the funeral even as she curled up in the rain under a tree in the park, even as she flicked through annotated poetry anthologies, a German dictionary propped open beside her), she knew they’d made the right decision. The only decision. Because Genosha was meant to be a place of safety, of respite, somewhere to escape from centuries of persecution and war. They’d already declared their strength with the siege. Anything after that was nothing more than malicious.

More than malicious. Genocidal.

Jean tried to tell herself it was the Phoenix. She told herself that if she could wake up in the morning with moon dust on her knees and blood under her nails and not remember any of it, that maybe the same thing was happening to Erik. Maybe he was overcome like she was on that lawn. But Erik didn’t ask for help. Erik didn’t hesitate, didn’t have a moment of outward remorse, didn’t let her into his head to see if there was an instance of it even internally.

Didn’t trust her, at the end of the day, despite his promises, despite his love. Despite everything they’d been to each other for all these years, Jean still wasn’t enough to break through. Her other father made that same mistake, out on that beach all those years ago. He made the same mistake every time he sent children to fight an old friend he wasn’t entirely sure would pull his punches

But that still didn’t give her the right to kill him.

After all, it was Jean who put the Phoenix into him. It was Jean who split the Raft, Jean who helped orchestrate the siege, Jean who encouraged the alliance between Erik and Scott. It was Jean who was fundamental in the unlocking of Lorna’s memories, Jean who indirectly led to the assault on Julio Richter.

Jean at the epicentre, as always, for once a driving force in her own narrative and hating every goddamn minute.

She killed Erik Lehnsherr, and it was the right thing to do, but him staying dead was a decision she couldn’t swallow. Asking the Phoenix for help was impossible. There were forces at play there she could never understand. Science was the only way forward, and there was something there when they exhumed the grave (Lorna would kill her, if this didn’t work. Jean would let her). Erik didn’t feel dead. He didn’t feel gone. He felt like he was … frozen. Waiting.

Stasis. A pause, rather than a full stop.

Jean chewed at the inside of her cheek, arms folded against the white of her lab coat. “We’ve run the preliminary tests more times than I can count,” she said. Scott would recommend, no doubt, that she slept before they tried this -- but she hadn’t slept properly in weeks. She couldn’t, until this was resolved. “We don’t know what frame of mind he might be in when he comes out, so we need to be prepared for anything.” Including killing him again, if necessary. This time, it would be her dealing the final blow. Marriage was all about equality.

SCOTT: When Scott was a child, his father was a retreating back. He always seemed to walk out of the door more often than he walked in it, always seemed happier leaving than staying. Scott remembered carrying a child’s anger in tiny fists, remembered a heart pounding against a ribcage in a way he wasn’t yet familiar with, remembered asking his mother on the days when she felt well enough to leave her bedroom why his father never seemed to want to stay. ’This is supposed to be his home,’ he’d said, ’and people are supposed to want to be home.’ And his mother went quiet, looked down at her hands, tried to think of something to say, some way to explain away anger too big to fit inside a body so small. ’People do things sometimes,’ she told him, ’Not because they want to. Because they have to. Because some things need doing. Your father does important work, Scotty. He does what he has to do.’

He learned to hate that phrase over the years. He does what he has to do. Even after his father died doing what he had to do, even after he took Scott’s mother with him, the phrase lingered. It was one Sinister used in that basement lab, one he hummed as he poked needles into veins and pulled memories from an already fractured mind. It was one Winters sneered when he kicked Scott in the ribs so hard he heard something crack. It was one Erik clung to with missiles pointed at a city full of people Scott loved.

And it was one Scott used when he took off his glasses and painted the whole world red.

Erik wasn’t very different from the rest of the fathers who’d let him down over the years. Scott knew that now. He wasn’t entirely separate from Christopher Summers, from Nathaniel Essex, from Jack Winters. They all clung to the same excuse, all hurt people and offered themselves an easy out in the process. Erik wasn’t very different from them at all. But neither was Scott.

If he voiced the concern to her, Jean would reassure him. Scott was sure of as much. She’d tell him that he’d saved lives doing what he did, remind him that Erik hadn’t offered much of a choice. She’d tell him everything he needed to hear, and she’d make him feel better in the process. That was exactly why Scott hadn’t told her his thoughts aloud. Jean would comfort him, and Scott wasn’t sure he deserved comfort. He wasn’t sure he deserved forgiveness. And redemption, he knew, wasn’t an option at all. You couldn’t be redeemed from a thing like this. Once that blood was on your hands, it stayed there. You could never get it out from beneath your nails.

But… Jean was offering him a chance to come as close to fixing things as was possible. Bringing Erik back sans Phoenix wouldn’t undo the damage that had been done. Scott knew from experience that raising the dead didn’t heal the wounds they’d left behind, but it was something. And god, he couldn’t keep doing nothing. Anything was better than that.

So he was here. In a lab he felt fundamentally uncomfortable in, with a man he hardly knew, planning on doing the impossible for someone he’d killed himself. His palms itched and his chest ached and his eyes were heavy with all the sleep he’d missed since Erik’s death, but he was here. And he hoped that could count for something.

“Can you restrain him, if necessary?” He looked to Jean, nervous energy flittering in his chest. “He may need time to… calm down.” There was every chance he’d be angry, when he came back. Scott certainly had been, and there was a letter in the Bugle to prove it. And Erik…

Erik had always done anger better than anyone.

BRUCE: Assumptions disappointed and killed more people than anything else in the world. When Bruce was young, he thought it was because disappointed weighed you down like boulders tied to your ankles in quicksand, but as the scientist had aged, he found that it wasn’t because the feeling was so heavy - it was because assumptions were akin to hope. Hope spread like a disease: clogged your arteries, confused the mind, and chased happiness down like catfish in a barrel.

Hope, on its own, could save lives. Could bring a dead man back to life under the skilled hands of a mutant and a man who belonged nowhere - could salvage what little tenderness resided in a heart made of stone. And in the very next second, it could slit the wrists of the person wielding it. It starts as a small trickle of blood that eventually bleeds you dry without you knowing, Bruce thought, large hands pulling open a gaudy blue menu, full of numbers and operations that, with hope, man could understand.

Bruce didn’t know the X-Men very well. Knew Logan from the few times they were forced to cross paths in laboratories just like this one, but not much else. Knew what he’d read in the papers and knew how Erik Lehnsherr should probably stay dead.

In his apparent all-mighty knowing (that he’d likely adapted from Tony), he also knew what assumptions did to good people who were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing the wrong things for the right reasons.

While he hadn’t seen Scott and Jean very often, Bruce couldn’t imagine they looked this exhausted all of the time. While hero-ing and saving and destroying often took a toll on your mental and physical health, the look that they carried said ‘I’m pleading for hope, and this is the last place I have left to look.’ Bruce thought, for just a moment as he booted up the core CRADLE systems, that he’d probably worn that look too many times in his life too. Half-naked in the streets of Harlem, showing up in the rain on Tony Stark’s doorstep, visiting his mother’s grave with a clenched fist and flowers she would never get to see, or on the faces of the other monks at the Phuktal monastery in Zanskar when they finally learned of his story, who Bruce Banner really was.

Yet, he continued to hope that somehow things would change. That someone would bandage his wrists and tell him he could stop bleeding for the sins of others - do the right things because they felt right, sleep at night because it was OK if he stopped to rest, eat because it was alright to have something in his stomach other than regret.

People always assumed Bruce Banner was always battling for control, hoped that he wouldn’t let go of himself. Bruce always wondered if tomorrow would finally be the day he wouldn’t wake up again.

Staring down at Erik’s lifeless, bio-illuminated face inside of the CRADLE vault, Bruce wanted Erik to wake up. Whether it was for the right reasons or not, he wanted Erik to wake up. Licking his lips, Bruce gave Scott a somewhat sad smile, brows furrowed, “I think if things get out of control, I’ve got it covered.” We have it covered, his ridiculously sardonic brain reminded him unhelpfully. Even his mind and body were not his own - out of his control.

The stillness within the lab seemed almost clinical, if it weren’t for the fact that they were about to scientifically reconstitute living cells in an organically preserved carcass of someone they all considered a friend. “To be fair to Erik, I’d probably be pretty -“ Happy, “- mad if someone I trusted off’d me too.” The joke fell flat between them, and the chemical hiss of the CRADLE as it began to pre-register every input that he had settled into the machine filled in the silence for him. “I would say ‘ready when you are’ but I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready, so. It’s more ‘ready when you go because I have to be ready,’ haha.”

JEAN: Everything about this was a bad idea. Jean had fought between her head and her heart for as long as she could remember, and right now her stomach was squirming and her mind was screaming at her to stop, to leave well enough alone, to leave because Banner was a master scientist, but he needed their energy levels to make this work. She wrung her hands together as she looked down at the CRADLE and thought about that night, the couple of minutes that changed their lives completely. Erik stood there, argued with them that genocide could be an option. He turned into the very monster he’d been fighting since he was a child, and he saw nothing wrong with it.

Some people may say that was just Magneto. Jean knew better -- she had to know better. If she loved that man as much as she had, if she trusted him, then that meant there was something good in him, something worth protecting. That meant it was the Phoenix that caused him to stand there, thumb hovering over the metaphorical trigger. It was the Phoenix that almost had him killing her friends, her former students, even mutants who still resided on the other side of the bay.

He wasn’t thinking straight. He wasn’t thinking like himself. And when he came back, just as when she came back from Zatanna taking her out on the lawn of her childhood home, he would understand that. He would thank them, for doing what was necessary -- because he was the one who taught her how to do that.

Sentimentality had no place in war, Jean knew that, but she did what she did for him. She wouldn’t have his legacy tarnished by one final decision made in the heat of a cosmic flame.

“I can hold him,” she said. She was confident in that much. There was a reason why she wasn’t taking the risk of using the Phoenix, even if it was a tried and true method. She would stop it from fracturing into him again -- or anyone again -- if she could help it at all. “No,” Jean countered, turning around to Bruce. Softening her voice, she repeated, “No. You’re here as a scientist -- to help. If he’s going to lash out at anyone, it’ll be us.” Me, she thought to herself. If anyone touched a hair on Scott’s head, she’d never forgive herself … and chances were it would go a lot more south than she intended when she was trying to repair bridges.

She touched against the top of the CRADLE, ran her eyes quickly over the calculations flying across the screen. “There’s a reason I asked you, you know,” she said to Bruce. “Because I knew you’d understand it was more than just offing someone who was inconvenient. It was…” Mercy? The word itself seemed like an insult. “I thought of all people,” she continued, “you’d understand why we needed a Plan B.”

It wasn’t a personal secret. It had been broadcast over the TV, radio, newspapers. The self loathing that followed after Banner and the Hulk was comparable to that of Scott and Jean themselves. They’d never had pride in what they were unless they were trained to -- conditioned to. And from what Jean read in Stark’s mind, she knew Banner had contingency plans. The Hulkbuster armor, a series of arrows, certain poisons that would at least slow him down if not kill him if push came to shove.

“Erik didn’t know what she was doing,” Jean said, and her voice was far firmer on account of looking at Scott when she said it than she thought herself capable. “He doesn’t deserve to die for someone else’s mistakes.” A beat passed, a breath taken, and Jean nodded. “Start the process.”

SCOTT: Even without the Phoenix, paranoia ate at Scott’s gut like a disease. He’d never been a trusting man, not after a childhood wracked by grief and betrayal, and after everything that had happened since… Without a little doubt clinging to his fractured mind, he wouldn’t have made it as long as he had. He wouldn’t be alive now if not for his healthy dose of uncertainty.

(But was he alive at all? Did this count as living? He was clay and bone, an inanimate thing Jean had breathed life into, a body the Phoenix had claimed. Was living the proper word for what he was doing, or was it one assigned to him because no one knew any better term? How many times could a dead thing die? Maybe they were about to find out.)

This paranoia made him tense at Banner’s presence, made him uncertain and uneasy, made him shift and tighten at the reminder that the room was not occupied by his family alone. It was Scott, it was Jean, it was the empty shell of the man they had loved and killed, and it was Banner. It was them, and it was an Avenger. And they needed him, Scott knew. They needed him to ensure that this wasn’t a repeat of Jean standing over Scott’s grave on Valentine’s Day, needed an outside influence to ensure they wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes and call it a solution, but Scott was uneasy all the same. .

Banner swore he could handle it if Erik got out of control… but Scott looked to Jean anyways, didn’t relax until she confirmed that she would be able to hold him if she had to. The ease of tension didn’t last long before Banner spoke again and Scott tightened all over, wound tighter than a spring ready to take off. “If you’d rather have let him kill eight million people…” His voice was tight and sharp and unnecessary. It had been a joke, Scott knew, a poorly timed one, perhaps a tasteless one, but still a joke. But Scott Summers wasn’t known for his sense of humor.

(Scott Summers wasn’t known for anything decent at all. He hadn’t been for a long time now, and he was aware that it was a perception that predated the Phoenix’s reign of his body. He’d never been a good person. The things the Phoenix talked him in to doing only cemented a fact everyone else had always already known.)

Glancing to Jean, Scott let his lungs deflate, let the breath that was caught there escape in a quiet sigh. Erik didn’t know what he was doing. She sounded so sure of it, so positive, but… Scott had known what he was doing, with the bird ravaging his mind. He had known every step he took, been aware of every word he said. And maybe he wouldn’t have said them without the firebird insisting they needed to be said, but he would have thought them all the same. Maybe he wouldn’t have written a letter to the Bugle or killed police officers who stood in his way or participated in an insurrection against the government of a country he’d only ever wanted to belong to, but he wasn’t sure he would have thought those things were wrong, either.

It wasn’t entirely fair to say that Erik hadn’t been himself, but Scott wouldn’t argue it, either. He wouldn’t tell Jean that he wasn’t sure the bird absolved Erik of his sins, wouldn’t admit that he didn’t believe it absolved him of his, because doing so would mean saying that Jean wasn’t free of hers, either. And Scott loved her far too much to breathe that sentence to life, even if it might have been true.

“He deserves a second chance,” he said, because he believed that, if nothing else. Erik deserved a second chance because everyone did, because Scott had gotten more than his fair share and this was what he’d done with them, because Erik had suffered so much and worked so hard and he’d deserved a better end than the one Scott gave him. “So let’s give him one.”

BRUCE: It took a lot, for someone like Bruce to keep their comments to themselves. Even with the thought of his father barreling him down with a glass whiskey bottle, Bruce still piped up when it was not his place. He’d watched plenty of curses take the lives of people who didn’t necessarily deserve it - but Bruce knew from personal experience, just like the other people in that room, that Erik knew what he was doing. Likely deserved to pay some sort of penance for his actions. But Bruce also thought, calibrating the machine, that maybe knowing what kind of monster lurked beneath the skin was enough of a punishment in itself.

“I won’t say I understand,” The scientist started, initiating launch sequence, a loud hiss coming from the chamber beside them, hearing an echo of Tony’s voice in his head. Yeah, buddy. I’ll strike you down in cold blood if need be. Tony waving him off a moment later to talk about some sport neither of them gave a damn about. How hard had it been for Jean and Scott to make the decision to put Erik down? “But I get it. How much you want it, I mean.” How much you want the monster to be imaginary, he thought.

The hissing grew louder, echoing off of the metal room within the lab, numbers flying across Bruce’s panel and a loading bar appearing for the sequence duration. The ominous glowing green had Bruce shutting his eyes tightly for a moment, remembering the day the bomb went off. The gamma seeping into every fibre of his being - the excruciating pain he felt the first time Hulk entered his mind. Bruce wondered if maybe a piece of Erik would be missing too, when it was all over. If the Phoenix would gauge a hole in him that nothing could ever fill again.

“Go, Jean.”

ERIK: He’d been fifteen when Shaw had conducted the experiment that changed his life. Strapped to a table in the middle of the man’s lab in Auschwitz, leather strap between his teeth, Erik had been terrified by the manic look in the doctor’s eyes as he readied a syringe. The other doctor had been there, too, the one everyone in the camp knew only as Nosferatu, the one who never had his subjects come back to their bunks. Erik was scared of Shaw, but that one had his adrenaline pounding extra hard, noxious fear making his mind spin as he struggled to watch the two men out of the corner of his eyes.

He hadn’t realized he’d been shaking the metal table beneath him until Shaw turned to him and clicked his tongue, and Erik made a concerted effort to rein his powers back in—from the table, from the needle, from everything, because the last time he’d lost control, Shaw had pinned him down and broken his arm in two places.

Shaw finished his prep work and rolled over to the side of the table, the other man at his shoulder, watching with a detached gaze that made Erik feel like a butterfly pinned to a board. Shaw had brushed his hand through Erik’s hair as if he were trying to calm a spooked horse, shushing him as he readied the needle.

“This is my gift to you, Max,” he’d smiled. ”So you can be like me. Like us.” And then he’d slid the needle into his arm and pressed the plunger, and everything felt like it was on fire. He’d discovered later what the man meant, what ‘gift’ he’d bestowed on him in those labs.

Life. Too much of it. He’d been 93 years old, facing off against his children in the silo, and he’d scarcely looked into his forties. His cells aged slowly the way Shaw’s had, and he’d hated it, hated that the man couldn’t simply be relegated to memory.

When Scott had flipped the visor, Erik had died. But his cells hadn’t quite done the same—had sat in stasis through his burial, through his exhumation, through his settling into the Cradle and the tests that led up to the flood of energy that finally sparked his neurons back to life.

His heart beat once. Twice. His chest heaved as he dragged air into his lungs for the first time since the silo.

They tell you that your life flashes before your eyes when you die. They don’t tell you that it does the same thing when you come back.

Over the years, Erik had carefully constructed mental walls to keep unwanted memories at bay. Charles had once remarked that his mind was one of the most organized he’d ever been in, neatly linear and uncluttered by anything except The Goal and The Plan.

You wouldn’t know it, now.

The first thing he was aware of was that his mind felt empty, somehow, like he was missing a limb. He’d had a cosmic force that devoured worlds tucked in alongside his own consciousness for so long that its absence was jarring. Almost as jarring as the realization that all those walls were so much rubble.

Erik opened his eyes, saw a lab, and those memories of Shaw that should’ve been locked away assaulted him all at once. Terror, not helped by the realization that he was contained.

Get out get out get out get out.

The top of the Cradle slammed open, and Erik sat up, powers already stretching around the room, wrapping around whatever metal was in reach. Natural, unbidden, just reaching, leaving pens and tools hovering in the air above where they’d been resting. Defensive instincts long-honed seizing on anything that could be a weapon before he could even identify the threat.

And then he saw them.

“I love you, but I can’t love this.” Jean’s face, stone cold.

“You’ll be grateful I stopped you, later.” Scott’s fingers, perfectly steady on his glasses.

Betrayal from two of the people he loved and trusted most. ( But he should have expected that, shouldn’t he? Shaw’s voice, warning him that “sentiment will be the death of you if you let it, my boy.” Magda running away, Charles turning on him, sending an army of children after him—He should have known, always, and yet. )

Fury reared its head, as it always did, and Erik felt the beginning brushes of Jean’s mind against his and realized that those walls were gone, too, and no. No, no, no, no no.

<<Get OUT.>>

The sentiment was punctuated by the hovering metal around the room all flying toward the couple at once as Erik hauled himself out of the Cradle.

Jean didn’t even need to interfere, because the second his feet his the floor, a wall of exhaustion slammed into him. The Phoenix had been able to keep him going through almost no sleep for months, but without its energy in his mind, all that time putting off his body’s needs crashed into him at once.

His legs gave out from under him, and the airborne metal hit the floor at the same time he did.

Someone else was at his side, moving to help, and Erik snarled before he even realized who it was. “Don’t touch me.” Banner—it was Banner, and he was safe-ish, wasn’t he? Erik didn’t know if anyone was, couldn’t relax—stopped, hand halfway to his shoulder, and Erik curled his fists and shook his head as he tried to get the flood of memories clamoring for attention to settle.

“Make them leave. Get them out.” He was in no condition to be dealing with them—mind too loud, powers too weak. Maybe once, that wouldn’t have been a problem.

But he didn’t trust either of them. Not. One. Bit.

JEAN: Bruce wasn’t going to forgive them. He could say he understood a part of it, while distancing himself from the darkest aspects of what they had done -- the darkest aspects of the forces they were playing with now. The Phoenix remained silent in the back of her mind, though it was never true silence. That would imply some degree of calm, and Jean hadn’t known what that felt like since … God, since she was ten years old, maybe before. The Phoenix’s absence from this occasion said all it needed to about her stance. She thought Jean should’ve asked her. She thought they could’ve worked together, that Jean would turn to her and beg, that she’d regret what she’d done.

Regret that Erik was dead, perhaps. Regret over the actions she had taken to prevent something worse … not exactly. Charles drummed into her since she was fourteen years old that to be truly useful in this world, you needed to protect the downtrodden. To be truly good, you had to defend those who couldn’t defend themselves, defend those who would never forgive you for making yourself bleed on their behalf. The city of New York had done nothing for Jean Grey but rip her apart and refuse to put her back together again. The people hated her, splashed her husband’s face in graffiti, treated her father like a lunatic in the press.

But that didn’t mean she’d let them die. It was the same principle she extended here, standing over the CRADLE, watching the mechanisms begin to shift. (Did Stark know they were here, she wondered? He trusted Banner, she’d picked up on that much -- but from what she understood of Iron Man, he was a pragmatist. A logistician, at his core. He would say this was a terrible idea. Jean understood where that impression could come from.)

Everyone deserved forgiveness. The Phoenix had hurt, had ripped them apart, made them commit so many atrocities -- but this was the first step in giving a second chance, in piecing together the things Jean had broken.

But, again, that didn’t mean Jean was blindly trusting. Her intelligence wasn’t the first thing people thought of, when they thought of her (and she knew, of course, courtesy of hearing every goddamn ‘compliment’ that went through every person’s head), but it was something that only grew with experience. The CRADLE burst open, and Jean already had protective shields formed around Scott, around Bruce, and a split second later, around herself.

The metal dropped, though. The invisible shields remained in place, even if she knew Erik would assume their presence. The CRADLE hissed, smoke still rising from the chamber. The lights flickered, the walls shook, electricity in the air made her hair go static—

And Erik was standing in front of her. Erik was standing in front of her, eyebrows furrowed, jaw clenched, hands curled into fists by his side. Chest moving, breaths heaving. He was angry, always angry, angrier than she’d ever seen him -- but he was alive.

(Was that all that mattered? Rictor said, once, she over-simplified it. Breathing alone wasn’t enough to keep a person alive, but it was the first step. It was the foundations. Jean always had faith that could lead to something else.)

There was a beat of relief, a wash that went through her chest and relieved the tension that had curled into it (she could tell Lorna she brought her dad back), and then a moment where she realised it wasn’t dad she thought when she looked at this man. It was something else, something foreign, like looking at a stranger.

She’d mourned him, Jean reminded herself. She’d sat, curled in his seat, looking around at the books in his office. She’d taken a blanket from his home during the funeral, tried to find his smell under whiskey and cigar smoke. She’d mourned him, she’d loved him, and the first words that left his mouth…

Well, she had expected it. She had expected it, but there was a part of Jean that hoped, against all odds, just as there had always been.

“Last time we left,” she replied, coolly, keeping her hands stiff by her sides and her feet firmly on the ground, “you almost caused the Third World War. I’d like to make sure that’s not going to happen again.” If that meant Bruce and Scott remained wrapped in a telekinetic shield, if it meant she took the brunt of the flames, so be it.

Jean was used to the fire.

SCOTT: The process, once it happened, wasn’t a slow one. It was strange, watching it play out. Scott had never been present for this part before. He’d watched people he loved die so many times that the images were etched on the back of his eyelids, playing out like a movie projected on a sheet. He could rewind, pause, fast forward, take it from the top. Those moments were a part of him. And he’d had people come back to him, too, of course. Jean walking up to the Institute doors with her hands clasped together so tightly her knuckles were white, like a prayer and an answer all at once. Illyana showing up again years after she’d died, breathing and wild-eyed. He watched people die and saw them lowered into their graves, watched them walk back through the door after the dirt had settled, but this? The only resurrection Scott had ever been present for was his own, and there had been nothing miraculous about that. Nothing good, nothing incredible.

This was different. This wasn’t the Phoenix, wasn’t a cosmic force that described a curse as a blessing. This was some hodgepodge mix of science and telepathy that Scott doubted he’d ever entirely understand. Part of him hadn’t expected it to work at all, had thought the most they’d do was desecrate the corpse of a man who’d more than earned his right to rest, but he’d gone along anyway because Jean had asked him to and Scott had been bad at saying no to her since she took his hand on that park bench decades ago and asked him to stay. The Phoenix was like playing with fire, but this? This was more akin to trying to shape water into something tangible. Scott’s expectations hadn’t been high.

But they should have been. He should have understood that Jean Grey (Jean Summers) never failed at something she’d put her mind and heart into, should have remembered that she was the same girl who’d convinced a sullen, quiet boy that he was a thing worth loving, should have understood that she would move heaven and earth for the people she loved and that Erik, for all his faults, was one of them.

The Cradle slammed open. The metal in the room began to hum, hovering free of gravity. A familiar shield engulfed him, invisible and protective. And Erik Lehnsherr was revived the same way he had died --- suddenly, violently, and with a love so great that there was room for little else besides it.

There was a moment where the world stood still. Everything hung motionless. Scott held his breath, swore that his heart stopped beating for an instant, swore that the blood stopped pumping through his veins as the world waited to right itself again. And then it did, and everything came crashing back down in an instant. The anger slammed into the room like a train obliterating everything left on the tracks, like a car crash of rage and betrayal and grief and defeat. Erik was alive, and he was angry. Scott couldn’t blame him for that, couldn’t fault it. If not for Jean, he would have accepted whatever punishment felt necessary, would have let himself be skewered for his sins.

(“You don’t have to be a martyr,” Warren told him once. ”You don’t have to shoulder every mistake. You’re allowed to forgive yourself, Scott. You’re allowed to move on.” And he might have tried that if anyone had ever told him how. He might have done it if it hadn’t seemed so impossible, so unreal. How could you get out from under something that stretched the length of the whole sky above you? How could you get away from something that was a part of you? It only sounded easy if you’d never felt it before.)

But Jean was there, was shielding him, was protecting him no matter how little he deserved it. The metal dropped to the ground, and the shields stayed up. The anger remained. And with it, the guilt. The grief. The betrayal.

Scott stayed quiet, eyes darting away from Erik and back to Jean. She was hurt. He could feel it through the bond, see it in her posture. She wasn’t surprised, but she was hurt, and he ached with her. He’d wanted a happier resolution to this, a better end, but it had been a fool’s dream. Jean forgave Zatanna when she took the Phoenix down, just as Scott forgave Logan when he ended his suffering on that grassy knoll in Central Park. There were people, he knew that were easy to forgive. There were people good enough, decent enough, that forgiving them came as simply as breathing, as blinking, as turning your head. There were people who were easy to forgive because they were easy to love, because you wanted them in your life no matter the cost.

Scott had never been one of them.

BRUCE: Bruce wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. If there was one well-known thing about Erik Lehnsherr, at least to the public, it was that he was very focused. For good, for bad, he had the insight of an owl and the determination of a bull. Apparently, even in death, in exhaustion, he was equally so. He wondered if he would ever get to feel death. If it would always elude him like many other things in life; happiness, a home, a family, somewhere he felt safe.

He thought, for a moment, maybe he had been a little jealous of Erik. That Jean didn’t have the right to take that away from him, no matter how much he would be missed.

Jean’s protective barrier didn’t seem to move him. Emotionally of course, because her raw power was enough to match Erik’s, and he could take the static in the air like the Kansas plains right before a tornado came through. How many people would he stand beside who were more convicted than him? What kind of hurts did they hold, and why did they hurt enough to bring Erik back? ( Why did he bring Erik back? )

“Hey, buddy - it’s — hey. Let’s not do anything drastic,” Like accidentally murder someone else, haha — “I know you’re angry. Totally get it,” Bruce slowly approached with scuffed dress shoes, each click of their rubber soles sounding like a gunshot in the suddenly too-quiet room. He couldn’t imagine having that kind of power - to make everyone notice when he was there and also when he wasn’t. “But you’re going to be really dehydrated in a hot minute if you don’t let me help you up, okay?”

Bruce spared a look for his two companions, and maybe Jean was right. Maybe he was someone who could understand what they’d been through. That if someone had to save Bruce from himself, he would at least want it to be someone he cared about. Clint, Tony, Steve. He would never ask Nat to do it - she’d been made enough times to be a stone-hearted killer, Bruce wouldn’t add to that.

Although he didn’t really know either of them well enough, he could tell when somebody cared enough to still be there after you’d disappointed them. Jean thought Erik would be disappointed, stayed anyway. Would anyone care enough to stick around for him too?

Gently, as if approaching a spooked animal, Bruce placed calloused fingers on an expensive funeral suit, surprised when he electricity in the room didn’t shock him on contact. The ever-present scientist in him placed that interesting tidbit of knowledge in a file for future examination. Maybe because Hulk’s skin was like reinforced rubber? Was he a grounding material? Could that be something helpful in the future, like making schools safer during storms, or for severe weather shelters for the homeless—

“If you want them to leave, they’ll leave,” Bruce promised, not looking back at the couple again. He supposed the situation really wasn’t about them.

ERIK: Everything was too much. His mind felt like it had been ransacked, left in tatters as his previous cohabitant had rifled through memories and motivations alike to trim down only to what was useful. Tweaking perceptions, ramping up the paranoia.

Not paranoid enough, some part of him noted wryly.

Bruce's fingers wrapped gently around his shoulder, tone and stance reminiscent of the way they used to handle shell-shocked soldiers. He stiffened under the touch, knuckles going white against the floor, but he didn't shake him off. Reached up and dragged himself to his feet again, even if he swayed, even if the room spun a bit around him and wavered black at the edges. He needed food, he needed water, he needed sleep.

More importantly, he needed to get out of the presence of the two people who had murdered him before he lost control entirely. Scott was standing there in silence, expression torn between surprise and guilt, and there was none of Erik that had the capacity to feel anything but disgust for the man right now. It didn't take a genius to put together who had led the charge in the silo, who'd been calling the shots. Scott was a good little soldier. A good little husband. "Bird got your tongue?" Scott didn't have the Phoenix anymore, that much was clear--guilt wouldn't be anywhere in his face if it was. But the point stood regardless, and Erik didn't care that Jean always got tetchy when he so much as breathed a negative word in Scott's direction.

(Somewhat hysterically, he wondered if he'd make her mad enough to kill him again. Maybe he should--the time between his death and now was rapidly flitting away from his mind, but he remembered warmth, remembered family, and part of him wanted to claw it back.)

Jean's words had him choking on a laugh, and Erik nearly snarled at her across the Cradle, fingers pressing dents into the metal. "If that's what you're worried about, why am I back?" he hissed. And oh, there were other questions that came crashing on him, then.

"FRIDAY," he said, because he wasn't sure he could trust anyone in this room except the machine he could feel thrumming in the walls around them. "What's today's date?"

"February 21, 2021, Mr. Lehnsherr."

February. Two months. Two months.

Scott Summers had been resurrected a week to the day from his death. Jean had been so grief-stricken, so heartbroken, that she had moved heaven and earth and death itself to bring him back after just a week without him.

Two months. He hated that there was a part of him that was wounded by that fact almost more than the murder itself. There had always been two reasons that he was kept around, two reasons that people kept him close: love or use. She hadn't brought him back because she missed him or because Lorna did, which meant she must need him to do something—

Lorna.

The world constricted once again, because Lorna wasn't here. Her father was being resurrected, and she wasn't here. Erik knew his powers could scarcely reach across the room let alone the bay, but g-d if he didn't try anyway, breath caught in his throat. He felt the room tip at the exertion before he stopped, kept upright only by the tight grip on the Cradle and Bruce's hand at his back.

"Where is Lorna? Where is my daughter?!"

If she was dead, and they'd brought him back to a world without her, he would drag them all back to the grave with him.

JEAN: She’d never been the kind of woman who lived on an island. Her mind was tattered, splintered into pieces that could cut intruders like knives, ever since the Phoenix rushed into her body so many years ago and refused to leave. Jean never made sense, she knew, to the people around her. She burned too bright or not at all. She went hot or far too cold. She was capable of almost pathological compartmentalisation, or she saw everything at once so the picture was too damn big for anyone else to understand. She loved and loathed in equal measure, and she was, above all else, not the kind of woman who was easy to digest. Easy to adore, perhaps, but so many people desired to get close to the fire before they truly knew what it meant to be burned. There were so few who saw the worst of her and stayed.

Scott was one of them. If anyone touched a hair on his head -- even someone she considered family, someone who was more blood than anyone else on the planet -- she would rip them into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the wind without hesitation, without guilt, without grief. But there was another person who looked at her in all her chaos, in her fear, in her self hatred and mania, and who said, this girl is worth trusting. There was another person who approached her in the wreckage of other people’s lives and said it wasn’t her fault, that she held a great gift inside of her, and the only way to control it was to refuse to control it, to embrace it instead.

Erik had been that person. Erik knelt down in front of a child and he reached to her even when the rest of the world was pulling back. He gave her a safe place to rest, gave her logic, pragmatism, gave her a path that she followed long after he was gone. And then he was on the other side of a battlefield, throwing buses at her friends and threatening everything the X-Men were fighting for, and she was told to defeat him at any cost.

Perhaps this was inevitable. Perhaps there could only ever be Jean alive or Erik. Maybe having them both here at once, occupying the same space, defied some kind of cosic deity -- defied the Phoenix. Because as Jean looked at Erik, her chest tightening and her throat burning, the Phoenix was conspicuously silent. Conspicuously void of opinion, for one of the first times in living history.

Then Bruce opened his mouth, and the bird came back to life. We could kill him next, she offered.

“We’re not killing anyone.” It took a breath, just a second, for Jean to realise she said those words out loud, that she’d turned her head to the side as if a friend was standing right there -- as if Maddie was beside her (why was she thinking of Maddie, now, as if she was a shadow? As if she was someone lingering, constantly, even when she wasn’t here physically? Was it because they’d done it together, the three of them, and so it made sense to picture her now?) Jean collected herself, levelled a look at Erik as her eyes burned, too.

She wouldn’t cry. She refused to. But God, it would be so easy to let those tears spill, to fall to her knees, to run towards him like she was an eleven year old girl who’d lost everything that mattered to her in the world and he had all the answers.

But he was insulting her husband. He’d threatened the safety, the peace, of their entire people. He messed with Kara’s head, threatened Rictor, almost started another World War. She couldn’t forget that.

“I didn’t want you dead, Erik,” she said, as simply as she could. There were a hundred other things she could say. She could tell him how she knew the Phoenix felt in him, how it twisted everything, how it made things so simple and so complicated all at the same time. She could vindicate him, could say this wasn’t his fault -- but the way he was looking at her now…

(Maybe there was always meant to be one, in the end.)

She knew where his mind went, when he asked for the date. “I didn’t want to use her,” she said, because he deserved something of an explanation. “I couldn’t.”

You could have. Haven’t I helped you before? Haven’t I made things so beautiful—

“We needed you back,” Jean said, “not someone else. I found another way. It took some time, but …” It worked, clearly. It worked so far as there was breath in his lungs now and color in his cheeks. If that was the definition of life, they’d succeeded -- but Jean knew it was far more complicated than that. “Lorna’s alive,” she continued. “She’s safe, and she knows we’re here. I wanted to make sure we were … that she stayed that way.”

The Erik she knew would’ve wanted her paranoid, if it came to Lorna. He would’ve wanted her to take every precaution when dealing with something as unpredictable as life and death. Yet, as she stood there looking at someone who felt as much like a stranger as he had on that very first day they faced off in the middle of New York City, she wasn’t entirely sure he would see it like that now.

SCOTT: Banner’s voice was like radio static, something there-and-not-there in a way Scott had grown accustomed to as a teenager when the world became like a television with no static and he began to understand why his mother locked herself in her room for days at a time, why she spent so many afternoons in bed. It shut out the world sometimes, made him his thoughts and nothing else. Banner was there. Erik was there. Jean was there. And Scott wasn’t. Scott was in a silo, in a hospital waiting room, in a grave. Banner was promising he’d leave as if he knew how, Jean was throwing a shield around him as if there was something left to protect, Erik was---

---Erik was speaking to him. The realization dawned slowly, like a wave lapping your feet on a beach, covering them with sand slowly and quickly all at once in a way you didn’t realize until the pressure was there cementing you to the ground. It took Scott’s mind a moment to catch up with his ears, a moment for the words to register. It always did, when he got like this. When the world was radio static and his mind hopped from one place to the next like Kurt’s teleportation, like a superpower that took him to every place he’d never wanted to be.

Bird got your tongue? The words came to him, slow and deliberate, and for a moment he felt like he was twelve years old, like he was standing in Essex’s lab with his arms stiff at his side and his eyes locked to his feet, like fingers would come in at any moment to grip his chin and force it upwards, force eye contact. (Essex was the last person he’d looked in the eyes before the world went red and a pair of lenses separated him from everything he saw. He thought of that sometimes, what it meant. What it said.) For a moment, there was an echo of another man’s voice, decades ago but just as cold, just as disgusted. Come on, Scott. You’re so much prettier when you smile.

He flinched. He didn’t mean to, but he did. And it wasn’t fair, he knew. Scott was not a victim here. (And maybe he hadn’t been a victim back then, either. Maybe Essex had never done anything he didn’t have coming. Maybe if he were better, smarter, easier to love, things could have been different. Maybe - ) Scott had killed Erik, had opened his eyes and turned the whole world red, and maybe Erik was angry now but he had a right to be. Scott Summers was not Zatanna Zatara. He was not Logan. He was not a person who had done a favor for a friend, not someone who was only doing what his would-be victim asked him to do. What he did was his choice, his decision. No one forced him. No one made him. And maybe he’d only damned himself to save Erik from the same fate, but that didn’t make him any less damned. Did it?

Scott stayed silent, and the world kept moving around him. Time went slower, he’d found, without the Phoenix coloring it. The loss of immortality made every moment a mountain, every second a marathon. He watched realization dawn in Erik’s eyes in slow motion, watched anger turn to grief turn to fear. And Jean spoke, but it wasn’t---

It wasn’t to Erik. It wasn’t to Banner, it wasn’t to Scott. It was to someone else. Scott could almost feel her in the room, like a phantom limb. The Phoenix. Had Jean ever spoken to her aloud before? (He had, towards the end. He remembered it. Pacing in his room, muttering to himself. It was one of the things that made him realize the line had been crossed, one of the things that made him realize he was going, going, gone. His heart dropped into his stomach and his chest felt tight. Jean had a handle on this. She had to. She had to.)

He tuned back in to the conversation, listened as Jean insisted that they’d done what they’d done to ensure they resurrected Erik and not something else. A strangled sound escaped from the back of Scott’s throat at that, and he cursed himself for drawing the attention back to him. Given the opportunity, Scott had always preferred to exist in the peripheral. To be seen and not heard, the way he’d been taught by his father, Essex, Winters. “If we’d taken shortcuts,” he said, because the attention was on him and if he didn’t make it seem like he had something to say then it might stay that way, “we wouldn’t have solved any problems. Take it from me, that isn’t… It’s not how you want to come back.” An apologetic glance to Jean, the echo of a statement he didn’t dare repeat. Maybe we were better off dead. “Lorna’s safe. You’re safe. Genosha, New York… It’s all safe. We just wanted to keep it that way. That’s all.”

BRUCE: Every word Scott breathed made Bruce’s chest feel tighter and tighter. Safe, like Erik wasn’t capable of controlling himself. Safe, as if something really got out of control, they couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t handle him.

If Erik had needed to be put down because he was a danger to society and he hadn’t even hurt anyone yet, then what did that make Bruce?

Unbeknownst to him, lost in his thoughts, Bruce’s skin under his lab-coat began to turn an eerie shade of green, spiderwebbing out from under his sleeve and onto the fist that gripped Erik’s suit, holding the man up like he was Bruce’s lifeline. “Don’t talk to him like that.” The words sounded echo-y and far-away, like someone had smashed pots and pans together beside his ears and just let them ring. His throat felt full, like he’d been drooling for days and had forgotten to swallow. If they loved him so much, then they wouldn’t have killed him when it became inconvenient.

Would they have?

Hulk roared in the pit of his stomach, startling him into a barely noticeable jump. Gripping Erik tighter, green creeping into the corners of his vision, Bruce managed a not-so-controlled, “I’ve got it from here. You guys’ve done enough, right?” He hated, how much like his father he sounded when his ridiculous Dayton-Ohio-accent came out with his words.

Hated feeling like a monster, in front of judgmental eyes. Bruce may not have known Jean or Scott very well, but he couldn’t trust them any farther than he could throw them. As Banner, anyway. “I’ll make sure he ‘stays out of trouble.’” The words dripped with poorly hidden malice, maybe some misguided hurt, and he couldn’t hold eye contact with either of them anymore. Instead, he focused on Erik. Fed off of his exhaustion and hoped that maybe they could trade places. That maybe the next person that came knocking could put him down instead.

“FRIDAY? Can you make sure my floor is set to 75 degrees? He’s probably going to be a little cold, as tired as he is.” Licking his lips, Bruce cocked an eyebrow, still staring at the ground as if to say ‘Anything else?’

ERIK: Lorna's alive. It was buried in their responses, between excuses and explanations and lies he didn't care to hear, but it was there, nonetheless. Lorna was alive, and some of the panic that had filled his lungs like cement dissipated. Lorna was alive.

With that assurance, it was easier to focus on the rest of what they said. Safe, safe, safe, safe, safe....

(Alles ist gut, alles ist gut--)

And that was funny, wasn't it--absolutely hysterical, and the laughter bubbled up out of his chest before he realized it was coming.

We needed you back. Not someone else. (And it was needed, wasn't it, not wanted--)

It's not how you want to come back. The metal groaned under his fingers, lights flickering for as his voice rose. "What made you think that I wanted to come back?" he snapped, voice cracking for a moment. Just a moment.

Get it together. He cleared his throat, shook off the edges of black tinting his vision, marshalled his focus into staying on his feet. Don't show weakness. (Too late, too late, too late--)

"It doesn't really matter, does it? Because you needed me. And here. I. Am. My life was a problem. My death was a problem. How long do I get the floor this time, Jean?"

He stared across the Cradle at Scott, expression stuck in a strange space between anger and pity. "It was all for keeping everyone safe, hm? Is that what she told you to help you sleep at night, Scott? That you were making the world safe? No, no, no. You stopped me to keep everyone safe--fair enough. Can't begrudge you that. But that's not why you killed me. You killed me because you were angry. Because your chest was burning over Ric, over Kara, over Lorna, over all the failures of your fathers, and because you could take something in recompense. And because she told you to. Good soldier, good husband."

And then, for a moment, some of that anger edged back, some more of the pity filtering in, because Erik knew what it was like to love someone enough to do anything. "Did you realize you said almost the same thing she did, just now, hm? Did she notice?" A brief glance at Jean, before he looked back at Scott. They'd been sharing minds for years. Might be doing so now, even, and that had been the reason he'd never quite let Charles do the same--the fear of not knowing where your thoughts ended and theirs began.

"You and I both held the Phoenix, Scott. You know what it does, what it's like. How long has she been talking to it out loud? Do you feel safe, right now?" His head was starting to swim, the room growing more distant through the tunnel that was starting to settle in front of his vision, and Erik reflected absently that perhaps it wasn't the wisest of choices to be using so much oxygen on talking when his legs were barely keeping under him.

(You don't know when to quit-- oh, he owed Ric so much...)

He felt Banner's shift starting behind him, felt the radiation in the room spike, even through the dim grip he had on his powers at the moment. The man's voice, when it came, was strained, his grip tightening at Erik's back, and he would be lying if he didn't say it wasn't more than a little vindicating to hear the disdain with which the Avenger spoke to Jean and Scott.

He didn't quite get to express that, before the black won out.

JEAN: Jean had been angry her entire life. She’d been angry at what she wasn’t allowed to do, what she was, how she could go against the natural order of things and nothing ever seemed to come of it -- not until later, at least -- not until the sum of all her mistakes came crashing down in one fell swoop and she was left drowning at the deep end. But there was always someone who dove in, whether it was a backyard pool or the ocean during a raging storm, and that was Scott. Scott, who changed the world for her. Scott, who she changed the world for. Scott who killed a man when Jean asked him to, who would live and die for her, who promised to spend his life by her side regardless of whether she was beside him at the breakfast table or six foot under in a cemetery.

“Don’t speak to my husband like that,” Jean said, taking a step in front of Scott when Bruce shot him a glare. She didn’t come to the other scientist to be judged. She didn’t come here to be treated as the villain when she knew, deeply and instinctively, what the Phoenix was capable of -- how it changed people, twisted them up inside, changed them. She came here for one reason and one reason only, and he was standing in front of her now.

He was standing in front of her angry, but Jean knew him far too well to expect anything else, even if there was still a sickening disappointment swirling in her gut. “Because I always did,” she said, her voice quiet. Because she always would want to come back, regardless of what horrors were awaiting her the second air filled her lungs once more. Life would forever, constantly, be preferable to the lingering emptiness on the other side. “Because I thought--”

You didn’t deserve this. She wasn’t sure if he would hear it, if she was broadcasting it, if the feelings were leaking out of her like water from a cracked dam. “Because I’ve always needed you.”

Because it was her fault. The Phoenix wouldn’t be a part of their lives if it wasn’t for her decision on the shuttle at eighteen years old, a stupid child playing at being a god, a woman so desperate for approval from anywhere that she’d take sycophancy whispering in her head and preach it like gospel. “It wasn’t you, Erik. It wasn’t you any more than it was me on that lawn.”

He didn’t see that now. Maybe he never would. But Jean knew there was no other option, no other choice. Erik would admit himself there was nothing that could stop him from accomplishing his mission unless it was death. He was a man forged by soldiers’ cruelty, but he shared their pragmatism, their single-minded focus.

And then he kept talking, and the Phoenix roared to life in her mind -- almost laughing. Yes, it was laughing. It was bitter and cruel, but it was laughter, genuine amusement.

Oh look, she whispered, you brought him back insane.

“We were angry,” Jean said. “Of course we were angry. You violated the very principles we founded Genosha on when you threatened one of our own in a public place, for all to see. We were meant to be peaceful, a sanctuary. We were meant to be safety, and you turned it into your own personal battleground where you were judge, jury and executioner. You ripped apart the sanctity of a woman’s mind who is good and kind and honest in more ways than we could ever be, and you pointed a gun at the head of every citizen in New York and tried to justify it in a way that didn’t make you sound like Shaw.”

Because yes, that was in the notes she’d collected. Yes, that was in the memories he’d shared with her. Yes, she knew all about it -- and she knew that, if it came down to it, Erik would never become the monster that had ripped him apart and put him back together different than was ever intended. He wouldn’t wanted her to stop him. Her father would’ve wanted that.

Maybe this man wasn’t her father.

Bruce spoke again, and this time Jean let out a bitter huff of almost laughter. “Right,” she said, “because the Avengers are such a safe place for mutants, always have been. Remind me of all you did for our kind while you were parading the streets after your great victories and we were still hiding in backalleys, getting murdered for how we were born.”

(Jean never had a personal problem with the Avengers. She never understood why Scott burned with resentment towards what they represented, even if the people themselves weren’t to blame. She did now. Bruce stood there, on a pedestal despite his mistakes, looking down on them as if they were to pity. Like they were the monsters.)

“Erik, you belong at home. You belong in the place you helped to build. You belong in your own paradise. Come home, and we can be there or we can leave, but don’t--”

Don’t push us away. Not just Scott and Jean, which was inevitable, but the entirety of mutantkind that resided in the streets he’d pieced together. Everything he’d worked for, everything he’d sacrificed, and the Phoenix had torn it apart.

And then Erik hit the ground, and Jean was beside him in an instant, fingers going to the pulse on his neck as her other hand squeezed his arm.

Breathing? the Phoenix enquired. Jean nodded. How unfortunate. I thought we’d get to work together, again.

Jean looked back up at Bruce, at Scott, and slowly rose to her feet. Reluctant to leave him when the experiment was so new, so uncertain, and reluctant to leave him because everything within her screamed that was her family hurting, on the floor, aching.

“Take care of him,” Jean said to Bruce, reaching for Scott’s hand to intertwine their fingers together. Flames flickered, orange and purple at the tips, and formed a circle -- a circle she could see through, right back to their sofa and fireplace back in Genosha, right back to home where Rachel would no doubt be making cocoa in the kitchen. She’d never done that before.

Cosmic travel? Of course we have. You just forget. The human mind can only bend so far.

Jean squeezed Scott’s hand once more, knuckles white, and past the burning in her chest and throat she took a step into the portal, unsure whether she’d just healed a wound or created a new one.

#( adding a little bit of spicy doom tones at the beginning for *drama* )#f: discord #d: back from the dead #c: scott summers #c: jean grey #c: bruce banner #tw: murder mention #tw: abuse mention #tw: grief #tw: ptsd #tw: mental health issues

8 notes · View notes

callunavulgari · 4 years ago

Text

Scrapbook 2021 | Part I

For anyone that’s new to this, this is how I keep track of all of the things I enjoy and/or create throughout the year. I have literally been doing this since I had a livejournal. I think the first one was 2011? Maybe? In which case, woohoo, ten years of scrapbooking!

It’s a nice little snippet of my life and helps to organize my brain.

A reminder:

Normal font - Indifferent/Neutral Italicized font - Enjoyed bold font - Loved with an asterisk* - All time favorite (bracketed titles) - Re-watches/Re-reads strikethough - Disliked

Goals are: read 80 books, finish five video games, write more than 20 fics or something larger than 20k, and write either an original short story or start a novel.

Past Years

MOVIES

January

(Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring)

(Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers)

(Lord of the Rings: Return of the King)

Robin Hood

(Hook)

Wolfwalkers

February

(Age of Ultron)

From Up On Poppy Hill

(Tangled)

(Onward)

(The Mummy)

(Hercules)

(Promare)

March

Raya and the Last Dragon

(My Neighbor Totoro)

April

(Hunchback of Notre Dame)

(Tarzan)

(Beauty and the Beast)

Weathering With You

BOOKS

January

A Deadly Education | Naomi Novak [Fin]

Home Body | Rupi Kaur [Fin]

The Sunken Mall | K.D. Edwards [Fin]

Bloom | Kevin Panetta [Fin]

The Angel of Crows | Katherine Addison

All the Stars and Teeth | Adalyn Grace [Fin]

The Adventure Zone: Vol 1 | McElroys & Carey Pietsch [Fin]

I Hope You Stay | Courtney Peppernell [Fin]

Pillow Thoughts | Courtney Peppernell [Fin]

Piraneesi | Susanna Clarke [Fin]

The Ex Talk | Rachel Lynn Solomon [Fin]

February

The Adventure Zone: Vol 2 | McElroys & Carey Pietsch [Fin]

The Adventure Zone: Vol 3 | McElroys & Carey Pietsch [Fin]

The Angel of Crows | Katherine Addison

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink

March

Winter’s Orbit | Everina Maxwell [Fin]

Fireheart Tiger | Aliette de Bodard [Fin]

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink

Fire | Kristin Cashore [Fin]

Bitterblue | Kristin Cashore [Fin]

The Witch’s Heart | Genevieve Gornichec [Fin]

Winterkeep | Kristin Cashore

April

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink [Fin]

Winterkeep | Kristin Cashore [Fin]

The Memory Theater | Karin Tidbeck [Fin]

These Violent Delights | Chloe Gong

(Red White and Royal Blue | Casey Mcquiston) [Fin]

Rule of Wolves | Leigh Bardugo [Fin]

Alice Isn’t Dead | Joseph Fink [Fin]

Not the Girl You Marry | Andie Christopher [Fin]

The Echo Wife | Sarah Gailey [Fin]

The Midnight Library | Matt Haig

Catherine House | Elisabeth Thomas [Fin]

Séance Tea Party | Reimena Yee [Fin]

Lumberjanes vol 1 | Noelle Stevenson [Fin]

PODCASTS

January

The Unseen, Christmas and New Year Special

The Penumbra Podcast, Juno Steel arc, Heart of It All and What Lies Beyond

The Penumbra Podcast, Second Citadel, Strong Arm of Justice and The Priestess’ Fortune

I Am In Eskew, Episode 16

Welcome to Night Vale, Episode 67, 68, and 69

The Magnus Archives, Episode 190 and 191

February

The Magnus Archives, Episode 192-194

The Adventure Zone, Episodes 15-60

March

The Magnus Archives, Episode 194-200 [Fin]

The Adventure Zone, Episodes 60-TAZ BALANCE ENDING

MBMBAM, Episode 1

I Am In Eskew, Episode 17-22

April

I Am In Eskew, Episode 23-END

Alice Isn’t Dead, Episode 18-END

TV SHOWS BY SEASON

January

His Dark Materials, s2 [Fin]

Watcher Entertainment

Buzzfeed Worth It

(Black Sails, s1)

The Queen’s Gambit**

February

Cherry Magic

Wandavision, s1

Watcher Entertainment

The Owl House

(Little Witch Academia)

Star vs the Forces of Evil, s3, s4

Bridgerton

Buzzfeed Unsolved: True Crime

Heaven’s Official Blessing

March

Wandavision, s1 [Fin]

Watcher Entertainment, Puppet History & Watcher Weekly

Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Word of Honor

April

Word of Honor, s1

Watcher Entertainment, Puppet History

Falcon and the Winter Soldier, s1

Kim’s Convenience, s1, 2, 3, 4

Leverage, s4

Shadow and Bone, s1

The Great, s1

VIDEO GAMES

January

Hades, 37 hours [Fin]

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, 35 hours

February

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, 35 hours

Hades, 75+ hours?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 16 hours

Persona 5 Royal

March

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 45 hours

Persona 5 Royal, 141 hours

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, 35 hours

Concrete Genie, 3 hours

April

Concrete Genie, 6 hours [Fin]

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, 65 hours

Persona 5 Royal, 160 hours

Monster Hunter Rise, 2 hours

Civ, 5 hours

DELIGHTFUL FIC

January

Modern Rustic by beethechange | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 22k | “I think,” he says, finally, “that if we looked around this place hard enough, we’d find a rose underneath a—a glass thing, what’s it called—losing petals. Metaphorically.”

easy livin' by sarcasticfishes | Buzzfeed Unsolved (Fallout AU) | Ryan/Shane | 6k | The Wasteland - and Ryan - through Shane's eyes.

(in nocte consiliam by oxymoronic | Bartimaeus | Bartimaeus/Nathaniel | 4k | London, 2003. Britain is on the brink of war, and someone is trying rather hard to kill John Mandrake.)

made of glass the way you see through me by uneventfulhouses | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 19k | Will it always be like this? Ryan wonders, watching Shane lope up the snowy walkway and pushing his way through the front door, humming some jolly old tune in that way Shane’s prone to do. Theatrical, performing for an audience even though Ryan is the only one around.

All Your Stars In View by alpha_exodus | Harry Potter | Draco/Harry | 18k | Life after the war is difficult for Harry, especially when the only thing that makes him feel better is, oddly enough, being around Malfoy. So when Malfoy asks to paint his portrait, Harry can't refuse, even if it means baring himself in more ways than one.

13 Genuinely Awful Things About Steven by thefourthvine | Buzzfeed Worth It | Steven/Andrew | 10k | Andrew’s learned to like cake, he’s learned to like oysters, and he’s learned to like Steven.

we’ll make a brand new start of it (in old new york) by misantlery | Buzzfeed Worth It | Steven/Andrew | 10k | “Just to be clear,” Andrew says. “You want me to pretend to be your boyfriend at a party to spite your high school bully and your high school girlfriend and possibly the entire state of Ohio?”

Russian Roulette Croquembouche by misantlery | Buzzfeed Worth It | Andrew/Steven | 9k | “Get that on your business card,” Andrew advises. “Steven Lim, video producer, world traveler, fancy dessert boy. Human cream puff.”

rose-colored boy by juniperProse | Buzzfeed Worth It | Steven/Andrew | 2k | Andrew’s eyes are pink.

Like Wildfire by makemadej | Watcher Entertainment | Shane/Ryan | 20k | “Is this gonna be a thing with you?” Ryan demands. “You can’t keep committing to stuff that no one else knows about! When people online say they want you to be more open and vulnerable, this is not what they mean.”

Scratching the Itch by bendingsignpost | Doctor Who | Rose/Ten | 20k | Her mum had always told her that blokes had only one thing on their minds, but this was taking it to an entirely new level.

lie back and let me unlock you by Lise | The Untamed | Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang | 7k | Xiao Xingchen, reluctantly, admits to certain fantasies that he has. His friend is happy to indulge him.

in our respective ways by Lise | The Untamed | Jiang Cheng & Lan Wangji | 6k | Jiang Cheng has his golden core back. But he seems to have lost Wei Wuxian.

By Proxy by Lise | The Untamed | Jiang Cheng/Lan Wangji | 12k | Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji, looking for comfort in all the wrong places.

some good mistakes by Lise | The Untamed | Jiang Cheng & Lan Wangji | 18k | Or, the one where Wei Wuxian vanishes and Lan Wangji, reluctantly, asks for Jiang Cheng's help tracking him down.

efforts in a common cause by Lise | The Untamed | Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang/Song Lan | 12k | Everybody's walked out of Yi City alive. Now it's just three badly adjusted adults (and one badly adjusted teenager) trying to make things work - a project somewhat derailed by a night hunt that turns out to be something else.

swinger of birches by astronicht | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 23k | Lan Zhan is a little witch in the house on the hill, whispering out a love curse. Wei Ying is a witch undead, undone.

let me desecrate you by hkafterdark | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 6k | “Dangerous words.” Wei Wuxian drew back. The flickering candlelight gave him an otherworldly appearance; that, and his beauty, unchanged since the first time Lan Wangji had seen him. “You aren’t afraid to be at the mercy of the fearsome Yiling laozu?”

The Demon Affair by stereobone | Yu Yu Hakusho | Hiei/Kurama | 9k | Kurama accidentally seduces Hiei into a relationship.

i came to win (and i won) by paperclipbitch | The Queen’s Gambit | Beth/Benny | 3k | They play chess, and they fuck.The two things are not the same.

February

Sylvain Gautier Would Love To Try To Solve All Your Problems Through Sex (Hey It Might Help) by Fall Out Boy by harriet_vane | Fire Emblem: Three Houses | Sylvain/Felix | 22k | In which Sylvain wakes up on the wrong tour bus, and refuses to be their sex therapist (unless Felix asks nicely)

μήτηρ, in the Greek by antistar_e (kaikamahine) | Hades | Nyx & Persephone, canon relationships | 37k | At the end of this recounting, she tilted her head and asked politely, Is this not how you have children?Uh, no, said Persephone.

that voodoo that you do so well by veterization | Buzzfeed Unsolved | Ryan/Shane | 18k | Ryan buys a voodoo potion oil at Voodoo Authentica meant to attract Yummy Boys. Appropriately, things happen.

A Bridge Between by Runespoor | Spirited Away | Gen | 3k | Years later, Chihiro moves into a new apartment; her parents help.

the ghost king's bride by arahir | Tian Guan Ci Fu | Hua Cheng/Xie Lian | 10k | Ghosts won't stop giving Xie Lian flowers, Hua Cheng won't stop teasing, and Xie Lian is out here doing his best, man.

Side bitch out of your league by rohkeutta | Captain America | Steve/Bucky | 3k | “I tried to call Sam,” Captain America says, bewildered. He’s sprinting like Usain Bolt and doesn’t sound even a little out of breath. Fucker. “Who’re you?”

cause in your warmth (I forget how cold it can be) by madnessandbrilliance | Promare | Lio/Galo | 7k | Lio is always freezing. Galo is always warm. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the rest.

backdraft by broments | Promare | Lio/Galo | 32k | It happens in an instant, Galo gaping like an idiot while Lio presses forward to defend against the perceived threat, the weapon sparkling but not burning as it kisses Galo's throat.

Yosuke will now die for you! by DragonBandit | Persona 4 | Yosuke/Souji | 5k | ...This, causes problems.

dramamine by brawlite | The Untamed | Song Lan/Xue Yang | 7k | Song Lan is having a bad morning. Help comes from the last person he'd expect: Xue Yang.

Hearth and Home by lady_ragnell | Leverage | Alec/Eliot/Parker | 1k | When Eliot goes to a temple, or when he’s in one place long enough to build a shrine, he doesn’t do it for Ares. He does it for Hestia.

Where One Ends and the Other Begins by kalliopeia | Leverage | Alec/Parker/Eliot | 30k | Nobody’s particularly shocked when the job goes spectacularly sideways because their loot turns out to be magic. Parker and Eliot begin reading each other’s minds, accidental sharing happens, and shenanigans result.

Hungry Thirsty Roots by coolkidroland | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 56k | In which Akira absolutely does not learn to leave well enough alone. **

Without Grasping Yet by Angelic_Ascent | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 8k | Akechi and Akira end up far too cramped for comfort in the Morgana bus. And then they're left alone in Mementos.

Falling Up by KivaEmber | Persona 5 | Akechi/Akira | 2k | “If it helps…” Akira spoke up suddenly, his tone morbidly amused, “I forgive you, for shooting me in the face.”

March

Touch of Forbidden by tirsynni | LoZ | Ganondorf/Link | 2k | Nabooru warned him not to travel to the Spirit Temple. So of course Link went to the Spirit Temple.

breaking the same old heart by tardigradeschool | The Adventure Zone | Magnus/Taako | 11k | Taako and Magnus in triptych: before, during, and after the Bureau.**

your head is good, it’s loyal, it’s clean by Anonymous | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 4k | "Here, I do this all the time."Too quickly for him to react, Taako plucks away one of his golden rings and slips it onto the ring finger of Magnus' left hand.

bruising kisses, whispered confessions by tangerine_skye | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | The trio stop over at an inn for the night. Taako and Magnus share a bed.

i can see what's coming (but i'm not saying it) by pansywaist | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | His breath is still hot on Taako's lips, distracting enough he almost misses the strained whisper: “I thought I was gonna lose you.”

Emergency Consolation in the Pocket Spa by Anonymous | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | If Magnus wants to hug a wizard, Magnus gets to hug a wizard.

together for the long haul by kismetNemesis | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 6k | Magnus and Taako were married on a bright spring day in the year after they saved the world.

thin skin, bruises, and a cold cup of tea by GayFrankensteinsMonster | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 3k | Sleep is for the weak, and Magnus has no weaknesses, except for his own natural curiosity.

tender is the night by dollylux | TAZ | Magnus/Taako | 10k | “It’s just…” He runs a hand through the thick bramble of his hair, gripping the crown of it to anchor himself. He sighs, slumping back against the footboard. “I guess I’m just not very good at one on one. Like, not… not in any way.”

a note is attached to the top of the vial by GayFrankensteinsMonster | TAZ | Kravitz/Taako, Magnus/Taako | 5k | Elves have a lifespan of up to six hundred years. The people that you know don't even come close to that.

Pieces of Memory and Heart by ellemaris | Raya and the Last Dragon | Raya/Namaari | 1k | Raya isn't sure how to heal everything between Heart and Fang, but returning something important to Namaari seems like a start.

the gods laugh by miss_aphelion | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 11k+ | WIP | Wei Wuxian is just getting used to being alive again when he's ripped from the world he knows. He wakes in a place where his sister and her husband live, where his brother doesn't hate him, where the Wen remnants have all survived.

In Your Room, In Your Bed by giraffeter | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji/Jiang Cheng | 25k | After Wei Ying is disowned, Yu Ziyuan forbids Jiang Cheng from letting Wei Ying live with him. Jiang Cheng lets him stay anyway because Fuck That. He tells his parents Lan Zhan is his new roommate instead.

in the blossom season (in the pouring rain) by varnes | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 14k | “Doctor Flowers,” Lan Zhan repeats, pointing at the tiny plum tree, just to confirm that his son is suggesting a magical tree named Doctor Flowers sprouted overnight and made their tame family project turn into a verdant jungle.

34 years old - 5'8" - DL - no-BB by withpractice_ff | Ace Attorney | Edgeworth/Phoenix | 3k | Phoenix finds Edgeworth’s Grindr profile

spinning with the stars above by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 7k | Wangji returns home to Vulcan for the first time since he left for Starfleet Academy, this time with Wei Ying at his side. He’s not expecting Wei Ying and his uncle to be fast friends, but things go poorly in a very different way than he was expecting.

every breath that comes before by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 10k | Or, what if that cup of wine Wei Wuxian drank for Lan Wangji after the Phoenix Mountain hunt wasn't just wine?

never love an anchor by tardigradeschool | Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji | 31k | A fisherman and a selkie fall in love beside the sea. Regretfully, things are never quite that simple.

Be Careful by giraffeter | The Untamed | Song Lan/Xue Yang | 5k | Song Lan and Xue Yang try to survive a week in their shared apartment without Xiao Xingchen as a buffer.

April

running for a soft place to fall by tardigradeschool | The Untamed | Lan Xichen & Lan Wangji | 10k | As he leaves for his coming of age test at age twelve, half-Vulcan Xichen has a goal in mind. The rules of the kahs-wan prohibit taking food, water, or weapons. In accordance, Xichen is bringing none of those things, but he does have a compass tucked into his pocket. He is going to find his father.

an act too often neglected by Ariaste | The Untamed | Lan Xichen/Meng Yao | 60k | The single faceless, anonymous photograph on the profile that catches his eye is shot in elegant black-and-white, and there’s something about the crispness of the focus and the markedly off-center composition that says art, for once, rather than mugshot.The caption below is equally sparse: “5’6. Demanding.”

where you go, I'm going (so jump and I'm jumping) by Aria | The Magnus Archives | Martin/Jonathan | 6k | "I don't think so," Alex said. She looked at Martin. "Is this really how it went?"

Morning, keep the streets empty for me by feyburner | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 6k | Ghosts were drawn to the ring roads.

2am on a saturday by detectorist | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 11k | In which Lan Zhan gets high, slides into Wei Ying's DMs, and somehow ends up having the harmonica played to him at 2am in the morning.

Grief Kindly Stopped by ShanaStoryteller | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 5k | Nothing leaves the Burial Mounds alive.

Boat Basin by downjune | The Falcon and the Winter Soldier | 5k | He thought the 21st century now maybe suffered from an overabundance of classifications for all the different ways to fuck and/or romance a person, but the most important thing—and his therapist had emphasized this—the most important thing was connection.

my touch magnifies by isozyme | Word of Honor | Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu/Ye Baiyi | 7k | Wen Kexing gets hit with fuck-or-die sex pollen on the way to Longyuan cabinet. Everything would be fine, except Zhou Zishu’s been keeping an unfortunate secret: the nails in his chest mean he can’t get hard anymore.

DELIGHTFUL FANVIDS

January

2020 || Multifandom Mashup

Hades - Official Animated Trailer

Hades Mini-PMV: This Year

2020, I guess

MARVEL || Energy (ft. Easy McCoy + Black Hydra)

obi-wan || give it

2020 ll Multifandom Mashup

Multifandom | Goodbye 2020

Multifandom | Goodbye 2018

2018 Multifandom | MASHUP

His Dark Materials - No Sanctuary

Lyra & Mrs. Coulter | Hurricane

► mrs. coulter || way down we go [hdm]

Wonder Woman || BORN READY

Vikings | The End of the Journey

February

MARVEL || Ready Set (ft. Vo Williams)

MARVEL || Here We Go (ft. Chris Classic)

MARVEL || Is You Ready || The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Never forget || Hualian - Hua Cheng x Xie Lian AMV

【魔道祖师 / MDZS】Animatic - The First Siege | Safe & Sound

The Jedi Way | THE MANDALORIAN

Multifandom || Going Bad (feat. Drake)

March

Broccolli Casserole--The Untamed

Hey Brother - The Adventure Zone Animatic/PMV

The Adventure Zone: Balance trailer

The Adventure Zone: Balance Arc Trailer (Animatic)

13 Year Olds (A MDZS Animatic by Arcxus)

Multifandom || Die In This Town

DNA | shadow & bone

(Marvel) Wanda Maximoff | Grief

Defying Gravity | MDZS/CQL Animatic

It’s Quiet Uptown | MDZS Animatic

To The Stars

(Marvel) WandaVision || Awaken

Walt Disney Animation Studios | A Magical Journey

We don't have forever.

stop living a fake life.

► Wanda Maximoff | PAINT IT BLACK (+15k)

Multifandom || Take It (c/w Quang Truong) ft. @SEIGE WORLD

Kylo Ren | STAR WARS

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

April

MARVEL || Natural ft.ImagineDragons

xue yang & xiao xingchen ➤ gasoline

WEN KEXING || GASOLINE

Wen Kexing ✘ Zhou Zishu || Dandelions

Play With Fire - Wen Kexing

TOXIC ~ Wen Kexing ~ word of honor ~ 山河令

(Marvel) Bucky Barnes | Free

Bucky Barnes | Feeling Good

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier || Next Level ft. @7kingZ || (Marvel)

Eternity looking down on us.

The complexity of reality.

Captain America

✗ The Crows | Trouble (Shadow&Bone)

Shadow & Bone | Paint It Black

The secret fate of all life.

DELIGHTFUL MUSIC

January

A Better Version - Jessie Shelton

Start a War - Klergy, Valerie Broussard

Meet Me in the Dark - Melissa Etheridge

ily - Surf Mesa, Emilee

Space Man - Eurielle

To Be Loved - Aurora

In the Blood - Darren Korb

Can’t Help Falling in Love - Tommee Profitt

Astronomical - SVRCINA

Oh Comely - Neutral Milk Hotel

In This Shirt - The Irrepressibles

goblincore + cottagecore

moonlit love letters 🌙💌 (sailor moon-inspired lofi mix)

Moonlight Densetsu Lo-Fi Remix 1 hour version

Peaceful Meditation

February

Never Forget You - Zara Larsson

Is You Ready - Migros

Recomposed Four Seasons - Max Richter

The End - JPOLND

Love Yourself - Sufjan Stevens

Deja | Daniel Roure

Used To Like | Neon Trees

Material Boy - Sir Sly

Willow - Taylor Swift

Overture - Apashe

Evangeline - Josh Garrels

Gris, pt 1 - Berlinist

Inferno - Hiroyuki Sawano

March

BAMBAM - Angie

Dictator - Rei Ami

Demons - Hayley Kiyoko

Runaway - Rei Ami

Deep Blue - Marcus Warner

Brave New World - Kalandra

Nero - The Speed

The Path of Silence - Anne Sophie Versnaeyen

Tuleloits - Kerli

Soft to Be Strong - Marina

Relic - Reeder

Ascension - Gorillaz

Will You Follow Me Into the Dark - Klergy

Voidfish (Plural) - Rachel Mitchell

Raya and the Last Dragon soundtrack

Unicorn Wizard - Ninja Sex Party

Me Too - Meghan Trainor

Umbrella - Rihanna

Colors Flying High - Lollia

Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There - Lyn

lovely - khalid

Burn My Dread - Lotus Juice

Progress - The Dear Hunter

My Mother Told Me - Rachel Hardy

Savage Daughter - Sarah Ross

Four - Sleeping At Last

April

The Other Side - Amarante

Predator & Prey - Griffin Puatu

As the World Caves In -Matt Maltese

Tell Her I Wasn’t Scared - Dan Thiessen

Esmeralda - Adriel Genet

Woods - AfterInfinity

So Human of You - Shireen

Flags of Rome - Jesper Kyd

Do It All the Time - I don’t Know How But They Found Me

Hummingbirds - Venus Hum

On and On - Curtis Harding

Grand Escape - RADWIMPS

my ex’s best friend - machine gun kelly

Sofia - Clairo

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Charlotte Lawrence

Next Level - 7KingZ

Tell Me - Johnny Jewel

Get Out of Town - Firefles

Music for Anglo Saxes

I See Darkness In You - Red Mecca

Satan Is His Name - Holly Golightly

Rocky Trail - Kings of Convenience

Story - NF

Because the Night - 10,000 Maniacs

Use to Be (L.O.V.E.) - Chelsea Collins

Bird on a Wire - Simone Istwa

Huzzah - Nathan Barr

POSTED FIC

January

gonna make you feel, boy | Hades | Megaera/Thanatos/Zagreus | 1,101 words | “You can touch, you know,” she murmurs, satisfaction and anticipation warring within her. Her pulse pounds. Zagreus’s eyes have darkened, his pupils eating up all that color. He looks good enough to eat.

February

how long do we have? | She Ra | Adora/Catra | 1,539 words | “The war is over, Adora,” Catra tells her. Adora hums. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

March

only fools rush in | The Adventure Zone | Taako/Magnus | 5,209 words | “Okay,” Taako says, sitting down heavily. “So. Ancient ritual to… bring people together?”

til my lungs both billow out | The Magnus Archives | Jon/Martin | 748 words | The knife goes in. The tape runs out.

the echo, as wide as the equator | The Untamed | Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian | 2,927 words | “Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispers after it is done.

April

N/A

WIPS | UNPUBLISHED | ORIGINAL

January

1685 words of Buzzfeed Unsolved, tattoo AU

February

N/A

March

3121 words of Magnus/Taako, Stolen Century verse Posted!

April

852 words of Steve/Billy

FANMIXES/GRAPHICS

January

got the morbs: sad/somber songs for sad/somber people

2021: a mix for the year that comes after 2020

Sahara Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Spanish Sahara

Fire Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Play With Fire

Consequences Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Consequences

Paradise Baby: a mix for songs that sound like Paradise Valley

Real Boy: a Zagreus playlist

February

N/A

March

only fools rush in: a taako/magnus playlist

pomegranate seeds: a persephone playlist

make them bow: a megaera playlist

fuck feelings: a taako playlist

til my lungs both billow out: a jonmartin playlist

April

i am my mother’s savage daughter: a playlist for the girl

#heather says what #heather writes #scrapbook #2021

3 notes · View notes

ranger-report · 4 years ago

Text

Review: SPELUNKY 2 (2020)

Few things in the Year of the Apocalypse have brought us joy; once upon a time back in February, there was something about a Sonic the Hedgehog movie that people actually liked, and then we went full-on deep into madness. From there it was disappointment after disappointment; even an unstoppable giant with hype, The Last of Us: Part II fell apart under fan scrutiny despite huge critical success.

But then, there was light: Fall Guys, a true underdog of a game, released and swept the internet and gaming as a whole with excitement. Joyous, colorful, wild, aggravating, Fall Guys single-handed brought catharsis to a series of unfortunate events, followed by a masterpiece of deception, Among Us. Also capturing colorful characters in the most unlikely of situations, Among Us is the game of Secret Hitler that nobody knew they wanted, ruining friendships along the way -- a game I plan to do a write-up on soon. And yet, we still have another gem to consider now, one which is seven years in the making, and against all odds is just as good -- if not better -- than it’s predecessor: Spelunky 2.

Once upon a time, a developer named Derek Yu released a pixellated exploration game that was a love letter to Pitfall and Indiana Jones. Dubbed Spelunky, it followed the trials and tribulations of the Spelunky Guy as he dove headfirst into a series of ever-changing caverns as he explored mines, jungles, icy caves, and Egyptian ruins to discover the City of Gold. It was released free online, and was well-received enough for Yu to work on an upgraded version, Spelunky HD. Gone were the retro pixels, replaced with detailed cartoon art and vibrant atmosphere. Telling the same story with the same levels, only now realized in higher quality and deeper secrets, Spelunky HD helped create the roguelike genre, in which players start at the beginning of a game with nothing, slowly make their way through the game amassing items and weapons to assist them, but death takes them all the way back to the beginning pockets empty. Then, the game randomly generates a new series of levels for the player to try again, ensuring no two runs are ever the same. For some this is frustrating, for others an endearing challenge. Many have spent hours diving deep into the game, searching over and over for its most hidden secrets, discovering hidden paths and endings only achieved through insanely difficult methods. With that game cemented as a bona fide masterpiece, it seemed daunting to even consider a follow up, but Yu and development team Mossmouth have done it once more with Spelunky 2, a game that feels tighter, plays looser, and somehow holds even more secrets than the first game, partially due in part to the sequel having actual lore to follow and a story that literally is out of this world. Here the protagonist is Ana Spelunky, daughter of Guy Spelunky (the titular Spelunky Guy....the game is full of dad jokes like these), as she followers her adventurous father and mother to the moon as they have disappeared there. Turns out the Olmec guardian defeated in the first game also has a presence on Earth’s satellite, and the Spelunkys have vanished in their quest to research this. So Ana, full of spunk and vigor and dog Monty in tow, steps into the spotlight on a completely new adventure, along with completely new friends.

Where the first game gave players options to discover and unlock new characters during the course of the game, Spelunky 2 treats these side characters as actual companions. A base camp at the start shows life and livelihood where everyone beds down and preps for the next expedition, where shortcuts to different stages can be traversed (once properly unlocked) and dialogue can be had. There’s a simple joy just to stand around and see everyone you’ve unlocked hanging out, walking around, as more and more beds occupy the camp. It’s a very subtle way of showing player progress that is both incredibly rewarding and relieving. And for the most part, it’s the same essence of gameplay. Explore levels filled with creatures out to kill you, while collecting gold and rescuing animals. Gold can buy resources from the shops located in the levels, animals give you a kiss for extra health, but only if they make it to the end alive. Meanwhile, the areas are loaded with traps, bombs, hidden monsters, jars filled with any number of surprises, and bonus areas that can be unlocked with the proper use of a rope or a bomb. But tarry too long and the ghost that haunts this world will reveal itself, slowly stalking you until either you reach the end of the level or there’s nowhere else to run.

Differences with the new game come in gentle shocks: for starters, where the first game had a linear progression this one has multiple pathways that can be taken to get to the end. And minibosses! Journeying through the opening caves, divided into four sections, leads to a confrontation against a giant caveman named Quillback in World 1-4, which leads to a pair of doors, one on either side of the level. First time playing through might lead to discovering one of the doors due to the way they’re split apart, but casual exploration to the opposite side reveals the truth: a whole new world. One door leads to Volcana, the underground mining operation in a volcano, the other leads to the Jungle, which has received deadly upgrades from it’s previous life. Spelunky 2 is littered with these gentle shocks as I mentioned above: golden idols still set off traps when picked up, but the traps now vary from falling pillars to explosive lava to spiked walls. Beyond the Jungle and Volcana lies a boss fight with Olmec, making a surprise appearance early in the game. And from here the game moves ever onward, revealing new areas, new characters to unlock, new surprises. And the surprises are telegraphed even better than they were in the first game. For example: unlock a special box with a golden key in the Caves to gather the Eye of Udjat, which lets you see through the floor. But the Eye can also be used to start up the Drill in Volcana, the only way to power it. What happens when you use the drill? Gentle shocks, indeed. New ideas also include mounts to ride (once tamed, which can leave you vulnerable for a moment while you wait for the ride to settle), each one having a different attack or special ability, and brand new shops which can let you into their back rooms to loot...unless you have a skeleton key and you want to risk pissing them off by breaking and entering. But pissing off a shopkeeper usually results in guns blazing your direction, and the imminent threat of death.

Death is in abundance. The game knows it, you know it, the characters know it. With a premise around the idea that death is impermanent while inside the tunnels of the moon, it becomes eventual that the characters get in on the act. Turning the page in Ana’s journal on the game over screen reveals little thoughts of hers on this leg of the journey: from base facts such as when she first took damage, to giggly details like “I was vegan” (referring to the fact that she didn’t eat any turkeys or -- god help us -- cavemen for extra health), the game brims over with character aplenty. Even certain guardians refer to Ana as “Reborn” nodding to the endless cycle. And, in fact, it is endless: it keeps going and going and going until eventually there is the final level and the escape from the moon. But how long will it take to get there? What sacrifices must be made to make it that far? How many loops, deaths, rebirths? As always with Spelunky, there is gold both figurative and literal to be mined from the ruthless exploration. Secrets are deep and wide, surprises await around every corner (was that a LEPRECHAUN and did it drop a FOUR LEAF CLOVER??? And did that ghost just sPLIT into FOUr???), and all of it is rewarding.

It can be difficult to review a game that I haven’t finished. A lot of Spelunky players have never finished the game. There’s a certain finesse to it, watching speedrunners bounce through levels undaunted, gathering miracle items to assist them. Then there’s players like me, that bumble and stumble their way into lucky runs and slowly earn shortcuts to different worlds. It’s a gamble every single time, and sometimes I wonder why I do it, but the charm and the fun and the fist-pumping feeling of success against all odds is what makes this game so much fun. And to think that Mossmouth not only captured the feeling of the first game, the majesty of it, and renewed all of that magic with the second. Someone made a blood sacrifice to craft this game, that much is for sure. As of this writing, the Playstation 4 version has been out for a few weeks, and the PC version for only a few days. After playing both I can confirm that they are precise, concise, and play exactly the same, although I do feel I had slightly better control response times on the PC. That said, online co-op is not yet available for PC, as Mossmouth is going over that aspect with a fine toothed comb. Having playing online day one for the PS4, I can say that the hiccups experienced then will be best served through Mossmouth’s attention first. Online play has become much smoother since, but players deserve the best experience off the jump.

Spelunky 2 is mana from heaven in these trying times, and I’m gobbling as much of it as I can. And when a game like this is is this deep and wide, there’s a lot to gobble...and all of it is tasty.

Final Score: 9/10

#spelunky #spelunky 2 #pc #ps4 #mossmouth #derek yu #pc gaming #console gaming #review #ruby ranger #ranger report #ck burch

8 notes · View notes

robobirdie · 4 years ago

Text

Fan Story Forward

I have long struggled with mental illness my entire life and in 2012 during a very low period in my life I got a little parrot I named R2 even though we always called him Tooie. I had always wanted a bird, a living dinosaur, ever since I was very young and given my state my family thought it best to get me a companion parrot. He helped me get through many troubled times but in 2018 my beloved companion Parrot when he passed away suddenly July 12 at only six years old from a fungal infection. Just three months later my cat Keiko a beloved companion of 14 years was diagnosed with cancer in the jaw bone the week of Halloween. She was given only a week to live but hung on till February 26 of 2019. R2 loved watching TV with the family or when people played video games. My younger sister got me into watching Ninjago around late 2016 and I came to love it and so did he. Watching the show helped me feel better whenever times were low. I didn’t get into the Nexo Knights till after he passed but knowing him he would have loved it too. I had gotten into the Elder Scrolls series in 2012 during my very low period and it really helped me get by and both R2 and Keiko enjoyed hanging out watching as I played Elder Scrolls games. I’ve always been strongly creative and often write, draw or work digitally to create things and shortly after R2 passed I had started to come up with an idea involving three of the things we loved the most; a story involving the ninja and Nexo Knights. I only started writing however shortly after Keiko passed. I wrote this story as a sort of way to get over the grief of their loss. When I started I had a sense of where the story was going but no real end and many aspects were still blank. I was heavily inspired by the Elder Scrolls series particularly the third instalment Morrowind, the fourth instalment Oblivion and its Shivering Isles expansion plus the most recent instalment Elder Scrolls Online which my younger sister got me as a birthday gift in 2019. This inspiration is heavily noticed in environments, names and parts of the mythology in the story. While the story deals with the very dark subject matter of death and grief I tried to keep it light and keep in plenty of humor despite the dark subject matter. I also tried to keep it light enough in tone for young children which is very hard when dealing with such a dark subject. I originally wanted to keep it short but as I was writing I found that really was not going to work. The story became so complex that restricting it in size was not really wise. I knew from the start I was going to focus on two of the ninja similarly to how the show works. The two I chose are my two favorites', Zane and Cole (if you’re wondering Aaron and Clay are my two favourite knights). As I wrote I began to feel the story was best put into two parts. While the two are focused on through the whole story the focus is more prominent to Zane during the first half and Cole in the second. Part one is titled The Land of Ice and Ash while the second is titled The land of Stone and Shadow.

I have seen all the Nexo Knight seasons and Ninjago up to season 13 of the show so it will fit chronologically up till this point. It also takes aspects from Tomy Andersons story "Way of the Departed" since I have read those. Overall it is not heavily reliant on other seasons being focused on the story at hand though there are times when content from other seasons is implemented. Taking hint from what one of Ninjagos creators said, I believe it was Tommy, the knights and ninja are given a pretty hard time in the story but that helps propel the story and make it interesting. They are thrust into a strange world with strange people who have mixed views of them many hating them and beings who wish to destroy them at every turn. Overall I believe it is a fun, entertaining and heart warming story. It might even help you get over any grieving you might be having. It did that for me.

Originally when I started writing this story I had intended for the Knights of the Prong to be Legos Nexo Knights but did not know how to properly bring them in so simply came up with the Knights of the Prong as a stand in and this helped me get the story out. I always felt I could do more with the knights and as I have gotten close to the end I finally figured out how I was going to bring in the Nexo Knights and I think it offers more to the story The ninja are still the major focus of the story but the knights have their part and help flush out some parts and offer a different view of this place the two groups find themselves in. Like with the ninja the parts with the knights is not heavily reliant on the seasons of the Nexo Knights but does rely that you know who the Nexo Knights are and a bit of a back story on them.

For those who don't know about the Nexo Knights here is a bit of back story to help you know who they are:

The Nexo Knights come from a place called Knighton where they fight monsters created by a necromancer named Monstrux. They work with the great over 300 year old wizard Merlok who gives the knights magical aid to boost the knights powers against monsters. Due to an accident he became digitized. With help from two knights in training Ava a tech master and Robin a mechanic and inventing expert he was integrated into the knights moving fortress a vehicle called the Fortrex. The two are children and rarely get directly into a fight often working in the background alongside Merlok. Ava prefers her technology over magic and Robin aspires to be a full knight like his role model Clay. Clay Moorington is Merloks nephew even though for the longest time he did not know this. He wields a sword and is leader for the knights being the most serious and devoted to the knights code to protect others. During the 3rd and 4th season he got corrupted by Monstruxs magic which turned him to stone. He cured himself when he unlocked a power with magic he did not know he had. His mother was a wizard like her brother Merlok but got corrupted by monstruxs dark magic turning her evil when Clay was young. Macy Halbert is the daughter to Knightons rulers the king and queen however she prefers to be a knight over a princess often sneaking her weapon, a mace, and armor in to places when she is supposed to be doing princess duties. She is the second most serious about being a knight and cares little for the duties of a princess. Aaron Fox is the groups archer wielding a crossbow and is an ultimate adrenaline junky thrill seeker often using his knights shield as a hover board during a fight or for fun. While he often doesn't seem it he is serious about his duties as a knight. While Clay was corrupted he took over as leader for the knights taking his new role seriously. He is most often wearing headphones. Axl, who has no last name, is the muscle of the group wielding a war axe. He's kind, gentle, plays music and loves food. His younger sister has a crush on Robin which makes Robin uncomfortable. Lance Richmond is the spoiled party son of a rich lord. He's super into his good looks and social media and has been known to pay others off to do or finish jobs for him. Despite this he does take his role as a knight seriously despite originally not wanting much to do with the life of a knight. He has a pet pig named Hamletta and a little sister who's training to be a knight like him. The knights have special shields which can harness Merloks magic for use in combat. Another prominent character who does make it into the story as well is Jestro the courts royal jester. While not a knight he trained alongside the others and is a deep friend of Clays. He is very insecure and anxious and tends to have the unfortunate luck of falling to evil influences, particularly Monstrux, despite his attempts to avoid them. Even when corrupted he’s hesitant to truly hurt the knights preferring to just mess with them.

I am a strong visually orientated person so as I went I created many concept arts to help me visualize environments, creatures, layouts and characters in the story. I will include these with the story so you can help visualize things as well. Many of these artworks you can find here: https://www.deviantart.com/nerdy-hyena/gallery/72478681/story-project

Overall I believe it is a fun, entertaining and heart warming story. It might even help you get over any grieving you might be having. It did that for me.

Keiko and R2:

As in all Elder Scrolls games there is a prophecy that foretells of heroes journey for the ninja their prophecy as foretold by the scrolls is:

“The scrolls foretold of this; His defeat was merely a delay; after the oni would fall the dragons would fail. When their wings are clipped and they have fallen to shadow the border between realms shall weaken and fall and darkness shall come. Realms once light and familiar shall be covered in shadows, shadows that are in plain view yet hidden consuming the world in darkness. There is only one this darkness fears; one of its own. But to gain this darkness and for the realms to be saved knights must fall to ash and shadow and dragons must enter the tower of first light and fall to its darkness in order for realms to see the light.”

To find all chapters look here: https://robobirdie.tumblr.com/archive

You can also find a copy of the story written here https://archiveofourown.org/works/34894561/chapters/86888878 and here https://www.wattpad.com/1087355671-ninjago-the-oni-scrolls-foreword-important-info You can also find images pertaining to the story here: https://www.deviantart.com/nerdy-hyena/gallery/72478681/story-project

#ninjago #fanstory #ninjagofanstory #elderscrolls #nexo knights #ninjago zane #ninjago cole #ninjago nya #ninjago jay #ninjago kai #ninjago lloyd

3 notes · View notes

bitsandbobsandstuff · 6 years ago

Text

A love that never leaves (11)

Summary: Sometimes when you go looking for the past, you find things you never expected. When an accident brings him face to face with something he never knew he lost, Bucky Barnes begins to understand an age old truth – it’s so easy, sometimes, to love the things that destroy us.

Characters: Bucky Barnes x Reader Warnings: Bad language. Descriptions of depression. Some pretty heavy sads.

A/N: Flashback time. Grief can be all consuming and overwhelming. This time, we follow her while she tries to learn how to live again, before a night in 1946 changes everything.

And again...I am sorry.

Links don’t work, so if you want to access the full ALTNL Masterlist, just click the MASTERLIST header on my blog.

Previously...

In her hand, is a ripped piece of faded blue cloth, with a familiar gray patch sewn into it; smudgy rust-red splotches color the edges like fingerprints.

Wings. Gray wings. Nostalgically familiar, because back in the war, each of the Howling Commandos wore one on their left sleeve, a mirror image tribute to the one painted on Steve’s helmet.

Including Bucky. Who wore one on the left sleeve of his coat.

The left sleeve of his blue coat.

Now, he stares uncomprehendingly at the piece of cloth. “What - “ he starts, but his voice fades. Small shivers are running through her body as she watches him, her face filled with dread. Taking a shaky breath, she whispers.

“There was one other time we met.”

*****

February 1945

The telegram informing her of Bucky’s death, written in Steve Rogers’ messy, cursive scrawl, sits on her kitchen table for a week. Across the creamy white paper are crinkled watermarks and trickles of black ink, where the paper swallowed her teardrops and bled out the sorrow of Steve’s words. One night, in a fit of anger, she tears it to shreds and feeds each piece to the hungry flames licking up the stone wall of her fireplace. There is immediate relief at the words disappearing, but even without their physical presence, the grief always returns.

March 1945

The plush wool feels soft in her hands. A week after his last visit, she saw the bundle in a storefront and bartered two of her old dresses for it; the color was a simple heather gray, but she knew it would look perfect against the deep blue of his coat. Every evening, she would knit until her fingers ached, but in a few weeks, she had a thick wool scarf, one of her old hair ribbons tied around it for a bow. She thought she would keep it as his birthday gift. Now, on what would have been Bucky’s 28th birthday, she wraps it around her neck and crawls into bed. Sleep doesn’t come, but every memory of him arrives like a fresh bullet, punched clean through her chest.

May 1945

Over! The war is over! Relieved cries reverberate through the town when VE Day arrives, children running down streets screaming with excitement, mothers and widows weeping joyously in the streets. Healing will take decades, but with those words, the world begins to plan for what comes next. Life is breathed back into the village and in the crowded town square, she lifts her face to the sunshine and closes her eyes. Fingers the chain around her neck holding the St. Michael medal Bucky gave her for their engagement, and wonders if she will ever be warm again.

July 1945

Wildflowers grow in riotous bursts of yellow and red and purple, filling the space behind her chicken coop with color. Laying amid the blooms, she sits in the baking summer sun, tracing her fingers over the colorful images on the postcards Bucky gave her. She thinks about traveling. About visiting those places, seeing them with new eyes, free from war. When she looks at the Brooklyn postcard, she wonders about visiting his family, but then she sees the crooked hearts he drew on the back, and she knows it would be too much. She puts the cards away.

September 1945

Leaves begin to fall, carpeting the grassy bank near the stream. Going through the motions, she dumps clothes from her basket, dunking them in the gurgling water, scrubbing them clean under crystal clear moonlight. Humming under her breath, she sings to pass the time, but the only words she can find are the ones she sang the first night Bucky found her by the creek and walked her home. We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when. It hurts too much, so she just stops singing.

October 1945

Soldiers have been returning for weeks. Gaunt and haunted, new men arrive every few days, and do their best to pick up the threads of their old lives. One Saturday morning, she walks through the stalls of the market, examining produce and talking with the vendors. A young soldier steps aside to let her pass, quickly pulling off his hat and smiling. Offering a quiet hello in response, she finishes her shopping and leaves; the soldier jogs after her and nervously asks, could he perhaps walk her home? The earnest look in his eyes is so familiar, it makes her sick. She gently tells him no.

December 1945

Taking a sharp kitchen knife, she goes into the trees and cuts an armful of pine boughs. She spreads them through her house, taking deep breaths of the sharp, piney scent. In the white vase on her table, she tucks them carefully in place and adds a small sprig of holly, the red berries shining brightly. Curled in the armchair beside her fire, she drinks tea and listens to the staticky crackle of Christmas hymns on her new radio. It’s a daily battle, but it happens. Life really does go on.

February 1946

Coming home late one evening, she unlocks her back door and hangs her coat in the hallway. Rubbing chilly hands together, she walks into her kitchen and turns on the light. She skids to a stop. Filling the small space, are two hulking men dressed in black. One steps forward and quickly grabs her arms, while the other plays with a length of rope and smiles at her. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Someone wants a word.”

There’s a cursory struggle, but she doesn’t fight hard. She thinks to herself, if they kill her, maybe she’ll see Bucky on the other side.

That thought makes her smile, before the world goes dark.

*****

For the second time in her life, she awakens in a cold cell. Stretching her aching limps, she knows immediately this most certainly isn’t heaven.

Hell has a very specific look to it. One she knows far too intimately by now.

The small cell is clean, containing a lumpy bed and a worn blanket; in the corner is a pitcher of water and a bucket, and high on the wall is a small window letting in slivers of light. Her hands are bound in front of her, rough pieces of rope looped so tight around her wrists, the skin has rubbed itself raw. Blood soaks into the bristly rope fibers, staining it with streaks of black.

Where is she this time?

Leaning back against the wall, she blows out a long breath and there’s a strange satisfaction in her realization.

She just doesn’t care.

*****

Hours or maybe days later, her door creaks open. Outlined in the doorframe, is a tall Hydra guard dressed all in black, a mask over his face, a pair of reflective goggles covering his eyes. When he sees her, the gun in his hands trembles the slightest bit, before it steadies once more.

So, she thinks. Here it comes.

Motioning with the gun, the guard indicates she should stand, but she mutinously stays on the bed. If she has to go, she will be defiant to the end.

Stepping forward, he hesitates briefly, before grasping the rope and jerking her to her feet. Balancing his gun at the back of her neck, he pushes her forward.

Down a long hall they go, moving through a set of wooden doors. With a mute resistance, she refuses to walk, forcing him to physically drag her instead. Finally, he simply picks her up and throws her over his shoulder, stalking down the hallway with a series of breathless grunts.

She kicks him the entire way.

When he arrives at a heavy oak door, he bangs three times and throws it open.

The room is surprising. This is no torture chamber, filled with metal tables and metal chairs and the metallic taste of electricity on her tongue. It is warm and cozy, a roaring fireplace on one wall, armchairs strewn casually around, tall shelves lined with books.

In the middle of the room, stands Colonel Richter, a glass of whiskey in his hand.

“Please, come in,” he says cordially, laughter in his voice. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

The guard dumps her in a sprawling heap and departs. In the flickering firelight, she struggles awkwardly to her feet and readies for battle.

“You again. What do you want? You know I won’t help you,” she snaps, her eyes roaming around the room, searching for threats.

Richter looks amused. Sipping his whiskey, he comes slowly closer until he is only inches from her face.

“First things first. Before, when you stole away in the dead of night - that was a bit rude, don’t you think?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

The quick crack of his backhand sends her stumbling sideways. The heavy ring he wears rips open a fat gash on her cheek and she instantly feels blood begin to ooze.

“Such language for a lady. Did you learn that from him? Let’s try again, shall we? I have a story for you and I’d like you to listen,” he says. “A few months ago, we were working on him and in the middle of one of his delirious rants, I hear something interesting. Can you guess?”

Glaring at him, she remains silent.

“No guesses?” he grins, raising his eyebrows. “Alright then. Through all the screaming and crying, I hear him say your god damn name. Imagine my surprise.”

The first prickles of confused fear skate up her back. “What the hell are you talking about?” she spits out.

“It took some digging, but we managed to trace the path he and that wretched group of assholes from his unit made the last couple years of the war. I sent a few search parties out, and low and behold - here you are.”

Bucky told her once, how he and Captain Rogers parachuted from an airplane. She remembers him laughing about the free-fall, how it made his stomach swoop in a million directions. That feeling of free-falling sweeps over her now, turning her blood to ice.

“What do you mean? Who?”

Richter smiles widely, his eyes gleaming. Grabbing the bloody ropes around her wrists, he yanks her forward and pushes her into the shadowy corner of the room.

“Wait here. I have a surprise for you.”

Outside the door, she hears voices arguing. The scuffle of feet and the sharp bite of an angry voice. Suddenly, the door swings open and four guards enter, dragging a fifth man.

From the dark shadows, she muffles a scream.

Bucky looks exhausted. Dressed in a long-sleeved green shirt and ragged brown pants, he’s thinner than the last time she saw him. Rings of black circle his eyes, the vibrant blue now dull and listless. All his beautiful dark hair has been buzzed short and she can see bloody sores scabbing over along his temples. The left sleeve of his wool shirt is empty, pinned up at his shoulder and his right arm is tucked behind him, a leather strap looped around his wrist and stretched across his chest, keeping his good arm immobile.

“You didn’t tell me it was a party,” he rasps mockingly. “I would’ve put on my fancy clothes.”

One of the guards grabs a fistful of his shirt and drags him closer. “Jesus Christ, I am so fucking sick of your fucking mouth,” he sneers and Bucky shoots him a cocky grin.

“Sweetheart, you’re adorable when you’re mad,” he stage-whispers. In the blink of an eye, the guard draws back his arm and smashes his fist into Bucky’s face. Dropping to his knees, Bucky’s mocking laugh turns into a rattling cough that comes up with a spray of blood and he spits strings of red on the floor. “Like being kissed by your mom,” he says weakly.

Swearing ferociously, the guard moves to kick him, but Richter holds up his hand.

“For god’s sake, every fucking time. You know he does this, why do you let him get to you?”

The guard is visibly furious, but he says nothing. Instead, he grabs Bucky by the back of his shirt, hauling him roughly to his feet. Bucky sways precariously, before he finds his balance. Taking several deep breaths, he fixes his mouth back into that mocking smirk and lifts his chin.

“Evening boys. What the fuck can I do for you today?”

Richter gives him a congenial smile. “We have a visitor tonight. I thought perhaps you’d like to meet her.”

Bucky barks out a hollow laugh. “I sincerely fuckin’ doubt that.”

Richter’s smile grows impossibly larger. “Well, let’s see, shall we?”

Pulling her from the shadows, he throws her forward and she stumbles into the light.

Here’s the thing.

Bucky Barnes is so weak, he can barely stay on his feet. For the last five days, he’s eaten nothing more than a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water. When he walks, he greatly favors his right side, still unbalanced by the loss of his left arm even a year later, and when he speaks, his voice has a perpetually guttural sound, his vocal cords shredded from months of screaming. Sprinkled across his shaved head, are a mess of pink scars where the dull razor blades they used bit cruelly into his scalp.

He looks exactly as one would expect. A prisoner of war.

For weeks, he’s been on the verge of collapse, but the moment he sees her, none of that matters.

Horrified disbelief fills his face and his eyes flick from the tears on her face, to the trickle of blood down her cheek, to the blood-soaked ropes around her wrists.

With a feral howl, he lunges toward her.

Throwing off the shocked guards at his side, he head-butts the man in front of him, sending him flying back. With a well-aimed kick, he knocks the legs from under the fourth guard and the man falls hard, before Bucky levels a savage kick to his head.

Richter laughs delightedly as he watches the show, until Bucky rushes for him. Lifting his gun, he sets it casually against her temple and cocks it. At the click of the hammer, Bucky skids to a stop, his mouth still twisted in a vicious snarl. Sweat dripping down his face, blood dripping from his busted lip, his chest heaves furiously.

“You god damn motherfucking cocksucking piece of shit, you let her go. Let her fuckin’ go, or I’ll fuckin’ gut you.”

“I thought so,” Richter says smugly. “So, our Soldier has something to fight for. How utterly inconvenient.”

“You’re god damn straight I fuckin’ do,” Bucky hisses, staggering under the rush of adrenaline. “Hurt her and I swear to god, I swear to fuckin’ god, I will slit your fuckin’ throat.”

With a dramatic sigh, Richter keeps his eyes on Bucky and bends down to speak in her ear.

“Apparently this one’s special, fights harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. Every time we wipe him, every memory comes back in a couple days. I don’t know what Zola did to him, but his brain fixes it too fast. Basically, he just won't fucking stay down.”

“Fuck no I won’t,” Bucky interrupts.

“See what I mean? You know what happened last time,” Richter says softly, his breath hot in her ear. “I don’t care if he is Zola’s little pet, he’s a wild fucking animal and I’m not above putting him down. So here we are. You fix him or I kill him. Your choice.”

“What the fuck is he talking about,” Bucky asks, looking directly at her now. “What - darlin, what the hell does he mean?”

Looking into his eyes, she thinks about that lovely blue. For the rest of her life, she knows she will see it everywhere. In everything.

Behind him, the guard he head-butted lumbers to his feet and manages to get his forearm locked around Bucky’s neck.

Richter stands behind her, waiting. Against her skin, he presses a light kiss and she shudders at the hideous feel.

“Come now. You love him, don’t you? Do the right thing.”

Clasped in a tight chokehold, she can see Bucky’s face turning red as he splutters for breath.

“No,” she chokes out. “I won’t. I won’t.”

Cruel fingers dig into the back of her neck and he hisses in her ear. “If you say no, I will put him in that chair and fry his fucking brain every single day for the rest of his life and I will make you watch. Even if he heals fast, he still screams like a baby. Trust me on that one.”

Bucky is still fighting, his throat working uselessly as he tries to draw a breath.

Every scenario, every choice, every possibility, flies through her head. Trying desperately to come up with a solution, with a way to save them both, she thinks and thinks and thinks.

And she comes up empty, because the answer is simple.

There is no solution.

Then what choice does she have?

She remembers the parade of men from before, the sound of their screams as the chair rocked bolts of electricity through them again and again. The thought of Bucky strapped in that chair, his body convulsing as the electric currents wrack his body, as he screams for her to help him - it is inconceivable. She knows what she has to do. She knows.

What choice does she have?

“Yes,” she sobs, her eyes filling with tears. “Fine, yes, I’ll do it, please just - let him go.”

Motioning to the guard, Richter points at the floor. The man releases his death-grip on Bucky’s throat, kicking his feet from under him and Bucky falls hard to his knees. Wrenching herself from Richter’s harsh grip, she rushes to catch him before Bucky’s face hits the floor.

“You have one minute,” Richter warns, fading into the shadows of the dark room. “And then you do it. If you leave anything behind again, I will kill him.”

After everything, here they are. Together.

Kneeling in front of the fireplace, the warm light cocoons them in their own world, one last time.

Bucky rests his head on her shoulder, closing his eyes when she cradles his thin frame against her. In the quiet room, his short, shallow breaths echo raggedly. Carefully, she runs her fingers soothingly up his neck, over the spiky tufts of dark hair and his body wilts in her tight embrace.

Sighing wearily, he picks his head up and touches his forehead to hers. Cupping his face, she brushes her fingers over the scratchy stubble lining his sunken cheeks and he gives her a rueful smile.

“Hey, I’ve been thinking. You okay with a one-armed husband?” he breathes. “Promise I can still love you just as hard.”

Tears streaming down her face, she returns his smile. “I love it. It makes you look dashing.”

“That’s exactly what I said,” he replies, pushing his nose against hers. Precious seconds slip by as they sit in silence, breathing each other in. Both trying their damndest to remember everything about the other, before they lose it all. Finally, she whispers her favorite words in his ear.

“I love you, Bucky.”

He hums contentedly and smiles. “I love you too. Don’t ever forget it, okay? I know I won’t.”

It takes every last drop of willpower for her not break down. Because he will forget. He will forget, and she will make certain that he does.

Rubbing her cheek against his, she presses her lips to the shell of his ear, giving him one more thing that the rest of the world cannot take. Something that is theirs, and theirs alone.

“You’re everything for me, Bucky Barnes. You’re the love of my life,” she murmurs, and he leans his head against her. When he opens his eyes, she finds an endless ocean of sadness pouring from the blue depths and he speaks quickly under his breath.

“Listen to me. Whatever happens, I need you to do something for me, okay?” The desperate urgency in his voice makes her heart skip. “No matter what happens, don’t you dare stay here. I can see it in your face honey, don’t you stay here, stuck in this room inside your head, thinking you could’ve done something different. You understand me?”

Swallowing hard, she tries to answer, but he cuts her off. The words are full of fear, holding a message he needs her to accept. “Please, I’m begging you. When you get out of here, you find a way to go on. Find a way to live.”

Losing him again will break her. That fact is as certain as the sun rising in the east.

There’s no way she can do this again, but in her heart, she knows that’s not what he needs. He needs her to agree, he needs her to try, and if she has to send his mind into a graveyard of buried memories, at least she can do this one thing for him.

She owes their love that much.

“I will,” she says. “I promise, I will.”

“That’s my girl,” he whispers with a tired smile. Staring into his eyes, she does everything she can to memorize the love she finds there, before Bucky gives her a crooked smile and tells her one more secret. “You know what? I don’t regret anything that happened. If I had to do it all over, I wouldn’t change one damn thing. It all led me to you, and I’ll remember every piece of us to the end. Because this kind of love, it never leaves. Right?”

“No, it never leaves,” she echoes. Placing her hands on his cheeks, she kisses him full on the mouth, tasting blood and salt and love, trying with her whole heart to carve even a small bit of herself into his bones.

Breaking the kiss, her heart plummets at the sight of his sweet smile.

Blinking away her tears, she takes a deep breath.

And then she tears her entire world apart.

Surprise fills Bucky’s face when he feels the heat begin to pulse from her hands, when he sees the soft glow of white light from her fingers. Watching her in confusion, his lips part as though he wants to say something, but no words come. Concentrating harder than she ever has before, she gathers everything, all those beautiful memories that make Bucky Barnes the man he has become and she wipes them all away.

All his stories about the Howling Commandos. That spring day he caught a foul ball at a Dodgers game. Steve Rogers’ floppy blond hair shining in the summer sun at Coney Island. The way his mother sang while she baked, and the fairytales he read his sister before bed. How he felt looking in the mirror the first time he put on his uniform, pale and scared to death. Watching a brilliant red sun sinking in the ocean, the day he sailed for England. Every memory he has of her. The thrill of their first kiss and the way she held his arm when he walked her home from church and the first time they made love and how nervous he felt asking her to marry him.

How god damn much he loves her.

Every colorful memory he owns, she siphons away. Nothing is left behind, because this time, she can take no chances.

The white light burns hotter, so bright Bucky squeezes his eyes closed and still she watches him through it all, until finally, finally, finally -

She lets go.

Bucky slumps unconscious, his chin tucked to his chest. Pressing one final kiss to his forehead, her silent tears splash to the floor. She wants to stay forever, to be there when he opens his eyes, to force herself back into this new life, to make him remember her. To make him remember who they are together.

My god. Oh my god, what has she done.

Before she can say a word, the guards rip him from her arms. Dragging him away, his head lolls to the side and the last thing she sees, before they exit the room, are Bucky’s eyes beginning to flutter open.

“Wait -“ she says, panic filling every last cell in her body, “no, please wait, don’t - please, where are you taking him?”

“He has work to do,” Richter says dismissively.

Sick with heartbreak and drowning in regret, she remains kneeling on the floor, and every last piece of her soul shatters.

*****

Day later, there’s a screech of metal, and her door bangs open.

Richter saunters in, a length of cloth folded over his arm. Behind him, is the Hydra guard who escorted her from her cell last time, his gun cocked and aimed.

Caked in dried mud and an obscene amount of blood, the bright blue of Bucky’s Howlie jacket is nearly unrecognizable. The left arm is mostly torn away, the thick material hanging in ragged strips below the elbow. With a grunt, Richter tears away a piece of fabric at the shoulder and tosses it at her.

“Here. Thought you might want this,” he says coldly.

At her feet, the cloth looks dark and dirty, but in the midst of grimy blue, she sees the gray wings Bucky had sewn into his jacket sleeve. She remembers tracing her fingers over them, asking what they meant. Bucky had grinned, his chest swelling with a bit of pride, before he wove tales for her about the Howling Commandos. He glossed over their missions and focused on the men instead, and she remembers how wonderfully he could tell a story. The small bits of humor he found amid the bleakness of war painted a bright world for her to see.

Now, she picks it up, touching the rusty-red smudges lining the edges of the wings. She looks up at him.

“Why?”

Richter says nothing, but a grim smile pulls at his lips. He draws out the pause, savoring the expectation in her face, before carelessly dropping a bomb.

“Zola lost him during a routine experiment. He coded on the table. Guess we haven’t made our soldiers as durable as we need just yet.”

This bomb, it finishes the job Steve’s telegram began. For the second time, she learns the love of her life is dead and now there is nothing but cold emptiness where her heart used to be.

“We no longer require your services. We have a new machine that should work just fine,” he tilts his head, looking down at her. “But thank you for your help.”

Spinning on his heel, he shoves the remains of the blue coat at the guard still waiting in the doorway.

“Burn it,” he orders. “And leave her here to rot.”

The door bangs shut and the lock clicks with a sickening finality.

*****

No food. No water.

For two days, she hears footsteps marching back and forth in front of her door. Something seems to be happening, but through it all, no one pays attention to the woman locked in the cell at the end of the hall, waiting to die.

In her dreams, she sees Bucky strapped to a table exactly like the one they used for her. Was he scared? Did he go willingly or did he fight? Did it happen quickly? Did it hurt? Did he realize what was happening before his heart stopped?

Was there any part of him, maybe buried deep down, that loved her to the end?

She dismisses that last thought. No, of course there wasn’t. She made sure of that fact.

In a strange way, she finds a perverse relief in Bucky’s death. At least this way, he will never know how she betrayed him.

Perhaps if there is an afterlife, someday she can find him there and beg his forgiveness.

On the morning of the third day, sunlight flows through the rectangular window near the ceiling and she waits on her bed. For someone to come. Anyone. To save her. To kill her. Either would work, she’s not picky. Watching the slow crawl of sunlight move across the floor, she counts the minutes, until she notices something peculiar.

Silence.

Sitting up takes a massive effort and rising to her feet almost knocks her out. Knees wobbling dangerously, her sweaty hand presses to the wall for balance, and she stumbles to the door.

“Hello?” she croaks, but it comes as nothing more than a rough whisper. Wrapping her fingers around the bars of the door, she rests her forehead against the cold metal. Summoning her strength, she tries again. “Is anyone there?”

Silence.

No one answers. No lights illuminate the hallway. There is no hum of electricity, no sound of a distant radio playing, no raucous laughter. There is no one there.

So. They left her to die then.

Angry tears fill her eyes, and she bangs a weak fist on the door. Without expecting a solution, she grabs the door handle and rattles it, hot tears spilling over and streaking through the dirt on her cheeks.

But miraculously - the door opens.

Stepping cautiously into the doorway, she scans the hallway and finds nothing. Perplexed, she looks down and her confusion grows. Outside the door, a cloth bundle is propped against the wall. Crouching down, she hesitantly pulls at the loose knot and it falls open, revealing a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, two apples, and a cracked leather canteen full of water.

Common sense screams at her to think, but she throws caution to the wind. Grabbing the canteen with trembling fingers, she flips the lid and chugs the cold water. It has a dusty, alkaline taste, but she cries with relief. Tearing off a hunk of bread, she stuffs it in her mouth, her eyes drifting closed at the taste. It hits the hollowness in her belly so fast, she almost retches, but she manages to keep it down.

The rest, she wraps up in the cloth sack and hugs it to her chest.

She walks down the hall. Through a small office, down another hall.

With every step, she expects to be stopped. But nothing happens.

At the end of the hall, is a heavy black door. When she opens it, sunlight spills in and she takes a deep breath of fresh air.

From the outside, the base looks like a series of old buildings, but there is literally nothing else. No people. No vehicles. Nothing but the peppy chirp of birds warbling in the trees. For one brief moment, she stands in the morning light and thinks about giving up. Such a soothing thought.

But then the sound of Bucky’s voice fills her head.

Find a way to live.

The years that follow will be filled with devastating sadness, but beneath it all, she will hold these words close to her heart. She can do this for him.

So, she starts walking.

Down the ruts of the narrow access road leading away from the building, one foot in front of the other. She anticipates bullets hitting her from behind, but nothing happens. On she walks, through a forest of trees, one step after another. Into the open, where the access road joins up with a small country lane. She turns left and keeps going. Five slow miles she traipses along, until a town appears.

On the edge of the main street, she sees a small grocery store and walks inside. Covered in grime, shivering from head to toe, she tries to speak, but instead, she collapses. An older woman looks up from behind the counter, and her curls of thick black hair bounce when she rushes around the front counter shouting in Italian for help.

For two weeks, she stays there recovering, but no one comes.

In that sleepy Italian town, she finally understands.

After everything she has done, after everything they stole from her, after they broke her one last time - it appears that Hydra really was finished with her.

With freedom should come relief, but that is an emotion reserved for saints, not sinners like her. What she has done, she can never undo.

She will live with that fact, from now until the end of her days.

*****

Next Chapter

*****

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky #bucky fic #altnl

719 notes · View notes

jj-lynn21 · 5 years ago

Text

Bill and Princess/x-reader: long distance Valentine?

Warnings: fluff, fluff and some fluff for Valentine’s Day. Yes, it might make you puke. And I will ever deny this fluffy side of myself in public. I am 99.9% happily single. I may have to write something real dark or/and violent after these last few Valentine themed stories. I even have at least one thing in mind for Roman and his Princess. But for today enjoy the fluff. Spread some joy and fun mayhem on your life’s journey. Tears and anger are fine emotions to express but try not to let them overwhelm you.

other Valentine’s Day stories:

Mark and x-reader: You’re mine, Valentine

Roman & his Princess Valentine’s Day

Mickey’s Valentine’s Day surprises

Deadpool Presents: Axel’s Valentine’s Day special story

You are driving home February 14. The radio playing top 40 love songs because of Valentine’s Day. Its really hitting you since Bill had to leave last night to make an early morning meeting in New York. When the ZAYN and Taylor Swift song I Don’t Wanna Live Forever plays, you sing along, and tears start streaming down your face. “I just wanna keep calling your name, until you come back home…”

Cellphone rings as you pull in the driveway. It’s Bill wanting to talk while your crumbling to pieces without him. Wiping your tears and turning off the car, you answer. You smile the best you can for him. “Hi, how did your meeting go?”

“Fine, you alright?” He notices an escaped tear down your cheek and your blood shot eyes.

“I’m fine.” You laugh. “Just a song on the radio had my heart for a minute. When are you going to get home? I know we only have a month until you go to Ireland. And don’t you have another film festival for Nine Days?”

“No shop talk,” He sounded exhausted, but his face was soft. “I had enough of people telling me where I have to be and when today. I’ll be with you before you know it. I gotta go. A very important person is about to walk in the door.”

You start to say “Happy…” But he hangs up. You sigh thinking Happy Valentine’s Day to us.

Grabbing the bag of fruits and vegetables you got at the farmers market, holding it on your hip you unlock and open the door. You drop the groceries and your jaw when you see Bill standing there with roses in his hand. The house is full of heart shaped balloons. “Happy Valentine’s day,” He said smiling

Jumping on him you wrap your legs around his waist. “I didn’t think you were going to make it home today.” You kiss him like you haven’t seen him in months even though it was less than 48 hours.

He kisses you back with all he has to give as he holds you in place, so you don’t fall off him. “I didn’t think I’d make it home either but fate and a helpfully travel agent got me a flight home an hour after my meeting so I made it and did a few things while you were out since you told me you would be at the farmers market today.”

You slid down when he let go and took the roses. “These are so beautiful Bill. And so many balloons. Did you get every single heart balloon in the area?” You laughed. As you walked into the kitchen you are stunned by another surprise.

He has the breakfast nook setup with a pink tablecloth, bottle of wine and a box of chocolates. “I left a few balloons for other couples,” Bill chuckled.

“Chocolates and wine too?” “She puts the flowers in a vase and turns to him. “I think you might have gone overboard. This is fantastic but I would have been fine with you just being home and watching the sunset with me.”

Bill smiles wide, “I was hoping we would do that to.” He crosses over to the table and pops the cork on the wine. After pouring two glasses he hands one to you. “I ordered dinner from that pasta place you like. I would have liked to cook for you, but I rather just spend the time relaxing, you know?”

“Oh, you have to be exhausted.” Taking a glass. “Have you gotten any sleep?”

“I slept on the plane to New York and back home.” He said.

“Sit down Bill.” You lead him to the table and you both sit. “Now, a toast to a great travel agent, wonderful surprises and of course us getting to spend Valentine’s day together when I thought there was no chance of that.”

“I’ll drink to that,” He clinks his glass with yours. “And to my special woman who I was desperate to get home to so we could celebrate together.”

You smile wide now. And you both sip wine. He feeds you one of the chocolates. And gets the door when dinner arrives. As you are watching a TV show you both enjoy, you tickle his face until he doses off to sleep. As the sun goes down you don’t both waking him. You know all the traveling he has done just wiped him out and you are just happy he was able to get home for Valentine’s Day.

#happy valentines day #valentine's day #bill skarsgård x reader #bill skarsgård fanfiction #au #bill skarsgard #fantasy #fiction

10 notes · View notes

sigritandtheelves · 6 years ago

Note

I know you just poste but... PLEASE MORE!!! (whenever you can, this not ment for pressuring you, this is to let you know i love simple and can't stop reading it)

💗

Simple

Chapter 8

Other Chapters: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven

M | 3.3k wds | pre-XF AU | MSR, Melissa/Samantha

A/N: There’s some uncustomary angst here, but nothing too heavy. The good news is, it feels like the story has an actual emotional arc now. 😂

_+_

Wednesday - Stanford

He didn’t call her on Monday, after her terrible day, or on Tuesday, when she really hoped he would. On Wednesday morning before her flight, she tried his apartment, but got only his machine. She left him a message.

“Hi, it’s me. I guess you’re not back yet from your case. My flight gets in in at 7:30 tonight, and they’re putting me up in a hotel downtown, the, um… Hotel Harrington. I guess it’s just around the corner from the Hoover building. Anyway, I hope the case is going well, and, ah… I’ll talk to you soon.”

She hung up and tried not to be disappointed. She reminded herself that he was busy, that he was saving people’s lives, that he could even be in a dangerous situation for all she knew. Dana would not be the jealous type: not of his job and not of his partner. She would do some reading on the plane and she would wear her good suit tomorrow, and she would make a strong impression at the FBI, even if Fox couldn’t be there. So she ignored the mild ache in her heart, the sense that everything was somehow turning sour. She wasn’t even sure why she worried. Because she couldn’t reach him? Because recruitment by the FBI seemed too good to be true? She didn’t believe in signs and omens. She wasn’t Melissa.

Dana double checked her light switches and plugs and gave her single, sickly plant a final splash of water. Suitcase in hand, Dana locked up and went down to meet her cab.

—

Friday - Baltimore

Melissa Scully returned home later than she’d wanted. There had been a difficult case involving a drug-addicted mother and disputed custody: a grandmother trying to keep two sweet-faced children fed and looked-after. As she hung her coat and scarf, pushing down the static of her hair and stepping out of her shoes, she noticed something different in the feel of the house. Its air seemed thicker, and not just with the warm smell of dinner. Then, voices from the kitchen: a visitor.

“Sam?”

The voices quieted and Sam called out, “I’m here.”

There were two familiar bags beside the stairs, but she was still surprised to see Dana perched on a stool, slump-shouldered and tired-eyed. “Hi Missy,” she said.

Melissa felt her mouth drop open. “Dana? Oh my god, are you okay? What are you doing here?”

Dana tried to smile, but her lips trembled, and Missy quickly enveloped her sister in a hug. Dana melted bonelessly into the embrace and breathed in deep. So much fear, she sensed. And an angry wad of shame, balling itself up inside of her. Something must have happened.

Over Dana’s head, Melissa looked to Samantha. What is it? she mouthed, but Sam just made a face that said, I don’t know.

“Day,” she said again. “What’s up?”

Dana shook her head, red hair turning to fuzz against Melissa’s shoulder, words muffled into her sweater. “I took the train from DC. It was stupid. I shouldn’t have changed the ticket, but I thought he’d be there.”

“Who, Fox?”

A nod.

Missy looked again to Samantha, who shrugged and then waved her hands at the sisters, shooing them out of the kitchen to talk in private. Melissa tugged on her sister’s arm. “Come on,” she said. “Couch.”

Dana refused to cry while the whole story came out: Daniel (a name she hadn’t known before this) first spying on them during Fox’s surprise visit, and then confronting her with threats and accusations; her recruitment by the FBI; her fear about their father’s reaction; and finally Fox, promising to be here, or at least to call, but then leaving on a case and not returning her messages for days.

“I know it’s not his fault,” she said. “I shouldn’t have changed the ticket without talking to him, but I would have hated to not change it and have wasted the opportunity for time together.”

“You mean your plane ticket?”

“Yeah,” Dana said. “I’m flying back Sunday.” She looked up at Melissa, eyes wide and blue and sorry. “Can I stay here until then? I don’t want to have to explain to mom and dad.”

Melissa sighed and drooped an arm around her little sister. “Of course,” she said. “But you know you’ll have to tell them soon, right? I mean, did the recruitment go well?”

Dana nodded. “It did. It’s actually really exciting. Scary, but in a good way.”

A little squeeze around the shoulders. “Then let’s be excited. Let’s have a beer and some dinner and I’ll read your cards and then we can watch sad movies, hmm? A cry always helps. You can sleep ’til noon tomorrow.”

Dana laughed and nodded and they went back to the kitchen where Sam was hanging up the phone, a little too quickly.

“Who was that?” Melissa asked, eyes narrowed with a skepticism all the Scullys could do.

“No one,” she said, again too quickly, and began handing them plates piled with vegetables and rice and tofu.

—

Saturday - Alexandria

It was a short flight, but it had been a long week, when Fox Mulder finally unlocked the door to his apartment and dropped his bags on the floor at just after nine in the morning. He’d returned with more questions than answers, and a dead suspect, but the case was by all outward appearances (and filed paperwork), closed. Most of the answers he wanted would require military information, but all inquiries in that direction had been shut down right quick. Fox wiped a hand over his face and went to start a pot of coffee: the dinky cup on the plane had done little to relieve his week-long headache. Good work it may have been, but the non-answers at the end of walking in circles didn’t leave him with much sense of closure. The worst was that Diana had set up long hours of stake-outs throughout the first half of the week, and by the time he’d gotten to a phone with his calling card, he got no answer at Dana’s apartment. He’d missed her before she left, and he didn’t know where she was staying to call her once she got here.

While the coffee pot dripped, he went to his answering machine where the number 6 was flashing at him in anxiety-inducing red. First was a call from his landlord, reminding him about some work on the smoke detectors. Then one from Dana, letting him know about her flight and her hotel—he grabbed a pen and paper to take down the name, but then realized it was Saturday and that he’d probably already missed her. “Shit,” he said. Then her voice came back in a second message from early yesterday morning:

“Hi again. I’m sorry to bug you. Just an update: I’m touring Quantico and the labs this morning and then I was supposed to have an afternoon flight home, but…” There was a brief pause, and her voice was a bit cooler when it returned. “I’ll be checked out of the hotel in a few minutes. I’m sorry I missed you.” And then a quick click and the message was over. But what? He thought. “Goddamnit,” he murmured. He had fucked this one up good. She’d been here, just minutes away from where he now stood, and then at the same airport he’d flown into less than an hour ago. But they’d missed each other like ships in the night.

Two more messages played, first a hang-up, and then an automated call offering new long-distance pricing. He took a deep breath and started to do the math on when he could reasonably make a call to California, when his sister’s voice emerged from the machine in its final message:

“Fox, you dope. Your girl is here and she looks pretty fucking sad. What did you do? She flies home late Sunday morning. Don’t be an idiot,” and then the click of the receiver as Sam hung up in a hurry.

A smile spread out over his face as his heartbeat caught up to his mind’s realization. He hadn’t missed her. She’d just gone to Baltimore (and not told him). He could be there before noon. Fox barely waited for the machine to stop dripping before he sloshed some coffee into a travel mug, grabbed his keys, and ignored his still-packed bags on his way out the door. He thought maybe he could still salvage this mess of a week.

—

Saturday traffic in February wasn’t bad, but he may have committed a few minor misdemeanors on his way. He pulled up in front of his sister’s house at 11:48, swallowing the last of his now-lukewarm coffee. He thought for a moment, popped a mint into his mouth, then hurried for the front door. He was going to scoop Dana up, take her back to his place (six hours of travel today be damned) and make love to her until they both fell asleep from exhaustion. When they woke, he would feed her (preferably by hand, preferably naked) and listen to every single minute of her life over the past week.

“Oh hey,” Samantha said as she opened the door, looking smug. “Got my message?”

“I did,” he said. “Is she here?”

Sam stepped back to let him enter. “Mmhmm. Couch.” He was already walking toward the living room, but Samantha caught his arm before he could plow past her. Her eyes were brown and serious. “She’s had a week, Fox. Be gentle, okay?”

He frowned at that, a little confused. “Okay,” he said, wondering if the recruitment hadn’t gone well, if some jackass had said something to her. God knew there were enough sexist pricks at the FBI.

In the living room, Dana was curled around a throw pillow on the couch, eyes glued to the TV, freckled and beautiful and still in pajamas. Fox stood awkwardly a moment in the doorway before she caught sight of him and her eyes went wide.

“Oh my gosh,” she said, pushing herself up to sit.

He smiled, letting the warmth of her proximity wash over him. “Hey you.”

“You came back. I thought… How’d you know I was here?”

He pulled off his coat and tossed it over the back of a chair. “Sam left me a message. Mind if I sit?”

She shook her head and shifted to make room. He lowered himself beside her and hooked his index finger over her pinky, gave it a little tug. Something seemed off, he noticed. She seemed… hesitant, a little less excited than he’d hoped. He thought of Sam’s warning: be gentle.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment of her fiddling with his fingers with her left hand: rubbing them, staring down as if she were nervous.

“For what?”

He tugged again at her hand, trying to get her to look at him. “For missing your calls.”

Dana shrugged and moved her eyes to the coffee table, to the remains of her breakfast cereal and a worn paperback. “You were working, it’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have… anyway, it doesn’t matter. How was your case?”

“Frustrating. Too long. Hey.” With that, she finally looked at him, and he could swear she looked afraid. Fox raised his hand to her cheek and was relieved when she leaned into it. “Tell me about you.” He leaned in and touched his nose to hers. She smiled, just a little twitch of her lips, and it warmed his hopes. He braved a kiss, and she responded with a gentle pressure of her own lips. There she was. “Hello,” he said with another little kiss. “I missed you,” he murmured, and he let his fingers toy at the hem of her top. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

“Hi,” she said. “I missed you, too. And it’s okay.”

“Were you sufficiently wooed by the FBI?”

Dana smiled again. “I think so. I toured the Hoover Building first. Very impressive. Many important men in suits.”

“Hmm, yes.”

“And then the labs at Quantico.”

“And?”

“Amazing.”

“They let you slice up any dead bodies?”

Dana sighed, in mock regret. “Unfortunately no. I brought my own scalpel and everything, but I guess they want me to go through training first.”

Fox laughed and tugged her into his arms. She fell heavily against his chest with an “oomph” and a little laugh. He squeezed her tight, relieved at the warmth of her, here and solid and his. “And you will, you think? Go through training?”

She leaned her head back to look at him, and though she smiled, there was some distant and foggy look in her eyes. “Yeah,” she said.

—

The sight of him in the doorway should have overwhelmed her with joy, as it had three weeks ago when she’d found him waiting for her. But it was as if the earth had undergone a tectonic shift, or a tilt in its axis, that changed their orientations toward one another. Or hers toward him. She wasn’t sure. The feel of his palm on her cheek still set beating the small wings of her heart, but it was with anxiety now, as well as excitement. His lips on hers still felt exactly, perfectly right. And yet, she was afraid. Seeing FBI Headquarters, imagining herself there, stiff-backed and strong under the daily onslaught of authoritative men and their rigid expectations, was a thing difficult enough. Imagining him there, too, as one of those wielders of authority, who could sway the opinion of those who judged her… He could touch her in a hallway out of only affection and accidentally ruin her.

(Are you fucking him to get a place there?)

Daniel’s voice was a poison in her memory that she tried to shove away. But her recruitment by the FBI changed them, she realized. It gave Fox a kind of power over her she hadn’t considered at first, even if he would never use it. She would be, once again, sleeping with a colleague, and that recent burn still stung. Now, as she rested her head against his chest and felt his arms around her back, she wondered once again if she’d been too hasty with her affection. Take a step back, Dana. Armor yourself.

They both said goodbye to Melissa and Sam. She thanked them for the cozy room and dinner, and let Fox bring her back to his apartment. She was quiet on the ride, listening to him unravel the details of his case. She tried her best to offer words that didn’t want to come.

When they pulled up at his apartment building, Dana felt the tingle of nerves again, all the way into her fingers. She tried to carry her own bags, but he waved her away from the trunk. She bit her lip, surprised by her own irritation. This small gesture, meant with affection, now felt weighted down with assumptions and misguided chivalry. Inside, he juggled the bags and his keys to unlock the door. His apartment was much larger than hers, but a bit dim, even with the lights on. Well-decorated, though. Her lips twitched up at the sight of his fish tank. Fox nearly tripped over his own bags on the way in, then carried them all, waddling awkwardly, into his bedroom. When he came back, he stopped and stood before her, watching her watch him there in his foyer, still in her coat.

“I won’t bite,” he said after a moment, a little sheepish. “Mi casa, and all of that.”

She tried to smile, and tugged off her coat, hung it on the coat rack.

“Dana,” he said while she fiddled with the pockets and straightened the fabric. Slowly, she turned, and the worry on his face hurt her heart. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “I’m okay.”

“You’re not okay. Sam said you had a week. Will you tell me?”

Dana closed her eyes and breathed. Telling him would mean explaining the situation with Daniel, the whole situation. And what would he think of her then? Fox stepped closer, and his fingers brushed her elbow.

No, she thought. She wouldn’t break in front of him. She wouldn’t cry and tell him about her mean ex and beg his comfort and let herself be held, she who had stupidly thought he might rush back to see her. He couldn’t want this much complication, not so soon, and she suddenly couldn’t imagine letting herself seem so weak in front of him. So she swallowed and put what she hoped was a smile on her face. “Work stuff was stressful, that’s all. Because I had to take the three days off.” She tucked hair behind her ear and tried that smile again, but she could see that he didn’t quite buy it. It wasn’t a lie, she thought, not exactly—the trip had set off some trouble… which had unfolded at work. “And I’m not great at flying,” she added. “Cross-country trips stress me out a bit.”

Fox nodded, lower lip tucked between his teeth. “Okay,” he said, and ushered her into his living room with his hand on her back. His fish tank burbled and his couch was green. She sat down on it and looked out over his desk through the window. “Should I order us some lunch? I don’t have much here.”

“Okay,” she said, not looking back from the window. “That sounds good.”

So they ate in unfamiliar awkwardness, their noodles and egg-drop soup and chicken, and Dana felt she had maybe ruined everything. Here was this man who seemed to genuinely like who she was, not who she might be or who he wanted her to be, and she would either ruin it all with her neediness or push him away with her coldness. Dana swallowed a lump of baby corn that felt like a brick in her esophagus, knowing suddenly that she had done wrong. She had loved too much too soon at a time when she was too unsettled. Now, she was sure, they would suffer for it.

They spent the afternoon watching TV, and she clung to him wide-eyed, face against the warm cotton of his shirt, while he kissed her head and she convinced herself this might be the last time they shared this kind of quiet comfort. He hummed pleasantly against her scalp while she fought back tears he never saw. They took a walk to a small park down the street, and she twined her fingers around his like they were a lifeline, like they could save her from ruining this.

Shouts echoed on the playground until clouds purpled the sky. Children on skateboards and bikes wheeled home to their dinners, and soon she and Fox turned back, too. When it grew late, they swallowed leftovers and she curled into his bed in the dark. His fingers found her. His words poured into her ear: Dana, you feel so good, while skimmed his heavy palms over her body and she pressed her flesh to his. He slipped her panties down, and god she wanted him to, more than anything. She was glad of the dark that hid the depth of her love and sadness: the crease in her forehead, the wobble of her lips. She moaned into his clavicle, arched against his fingers, spread her legs and accepted him inside of her, all while thinking she could not keep him.

At the airport, she managed not to cry, and if he mistook the shine of her eyes for the sadness of temporary partings, she did not correct him. Again, she wanted to tell him she loved him, but hadn’t the courage. He palmed her cheek and kissed her lips in that way he had, like he was holding a secret. “Call me when you get in,” he whispered. And though she nodded (feeling ripped open, feeling hollowed out, feeling like she’d stepped on something beautiful in her clumsiness and broken it), she did not.

— end chapter eight —

Go to Chapter 9

#i have the world's worst post timing #anyway here's this #a thing i wrote #simple #chapter eight #melissa/samantha #au #msr

232 notes · View notes

fernwehbookworm · 5 years ago

Text

Woke The F*ck Up- Chapter 15

February 26th, 2018

Apparently, Kara no longer lived in her apartment. Lena found out the hard way when a squat Italian woman yelled at her until Lena responded flawlessly with an apology in her native tongue. The woman then made her come inside and sent her off with homemade cannolis. Lena didn’t want to call Kara and risk being ignored. This conversation had to happen face-to-face. Lena’s next stop was Kara’s gym. It was the only other place she could think of to find her since she was too tired to pay attention to where Lena could only assume her ‘hideout’ was.

Her driver was one of the agents assigned to her in a nondescript black SUV. He took her to the gym and waited in the idling car while Lena went inside. She was impressed. The building was spacious. Free weights stood near the front. Various cardio machines lined the center. Off to the side was a partially walled off room boasting of a 30-minute ab workout. At the back was the second set of doors. Above it was simply a sign saying 'The Box’. The whole room was brightly lit. Blue was the predominant color but red and white accented it. On the walls were large printouts of different fighters from early boxing to modern MMA fighters. Lena even spotted a few of Kara.

The girl working the front desk looked young, probably a high schooler working a part-time job. She looked up at Lena expectantly but then realized she didn't recognize the person walking in.

“Hi! Welcome to the Power House. Are you here to sign up for a membership?” She asked brightly.

“Ah, no. I'm actually looking for Kara. Kara Danvers.”

“Did you have an appointment?” Lena almost laughed at the absurdity of needing an appointment with Kara. But she supposed Kara couldn't meet with everyone trying to join her gym, most of which were probably fans of hers.

“No. I'm an… old friend. But I'm only in town for a few days and I need to talk to her about something.”

“Let me see if she can see you.” The girl dials the phone at the desk and waits as it rings. Lena watches the people in the gym. It's not very busy considering it is still early on a Monday morning. Two burly men puff out harsh breaths while using free weights. One woman is cycling away on a stationary bike while two others gossip on stair climbers. She can hear music seeping through the doors of 'The Box.’

“Hey Coach K. There is a woman here to see you.”

“Who is it?” Lena hears the faint question.

“Hold on, sorry I don't get your name.” The girl directs the last part at Lena. Lena debates giving the girl the fake name she usually uses but decided against it.

“Lena Luthor.”

“Le-Lena Luthor.” She repeats, shocked.

“Oh! Send her to my office.” Kara says a little louder and more excited, Lena thinks. The girl points Lena to a door at the end of the room labeled ‘K. Danvers, Owner.’ The girl looks after Lena with a mixer of awe, confusion, and excitement. Lene ignores her and walks to Kara's office. She hesitates outside, taking a deep breath before turning the cold metal knob.

She enters the simple office. Kara awkwardly stands behind her desk rolling chair, hands resting on the back. She looks hesitant. Lena takes in the new room. The bare walls only have a few posters from what looks like early in Kara's career. A simple computer monitor sits in the desk with a few photo frames facing away from Lena. Behind the desk is a bookshelf full of different health and exercise books and Kara's trophies. Kara clears her throat.

“Hey. I didn't know if you would want to talk so soon. I know everything… it just must be a lot.” Kara looks more awkward then Lena has ever seen her. Lena lets out a harsh laugh.

“Yeah. You could say that.”

“Well, I’m an open book to you. Come on.” Lena almost laughs again but bites it back as Kara reaches up and places her palm to on of the larger trophies. A glowing green light scans it and the bookshelf soundlessly slides to the side. Now Lena does laugh and shakes her head.

“Of course your secret base is under your gym.”

“How else do I justify spending so much time here?” Kara shrugs and starts to descend the stairs. Lena sighs and follows after her.

“How do you run the gym if you're always down here?” Lena asks on her way down.

“My office phone is forwarded to my cell phone. I told them if they had a question to call me. The door automatically locks when I open the bookcase. Also, Winn set up sensors so that I know when someone is outside my office.”

Lena takes in the room again as they make it to the bottom. It is more brightly lit then last time. Workout equipment stands ready for use, monitors seem to be scanning the city while a police radio prattles on a low volume. Kara heads to one corner of the room that is much more of a living space. Lena recognizes her couch and television. Her bed stands more off to the side. A counter lines one wall with a small fridge and countertop gas burner.

“Are you living down here?”

Kara blushes as she sits on the couch.

“Yeah. My lease was up a couple weeks after… after we broke up. I wasn’t spending anytime there anyway so I moved most of my stuff into storage and listed my permanent address as Alex’s apartment. It was just easier.”

Lena catches the ‘we,’ like it was a mutual decision. Guilt lances her heart again. Only tempered by the fact that Kara had been lying to her. Lena sits at the other end of the couch.

“I just… I'm trying to understand why you kept this from me. I've told you everything. I've been so open about me, about my past, and I thought… I thought the trust was mutual.” Lena grabs one of the throw pillows and hugs it to her chest. Lena sees Kara's jaw work out of the corner of her eye, she just couldn't look at Kara right now.

“I know nothing I say can or will excuse this. But I wanted to tell you. I was going to. That's what I wanted to show you. So you could see this. See how far we had come.”

“But why didn't you tell me sooner? I mean, how many times did you lie to me about where you were, or what you were doing? Oh God, and when I came to see you. The bruised shoulder. Where you really even with James that night?”

“Yes! He had gone digging into Cadmus and was kidnapped. Winn had called me and I had to save him. But then I got shot-”

“You got shot!”

“It's fine. The armor Winn made me protected me. It was just that bruise.”

Lena rubs her eyes. Maybe she shouldn't have come. She should have just went back to London. She missed Sam and Ruby. She had called them as soon as she woke up to assure then everything was fine.

“So James found out who I am and insisted on helping. But that's another story. Long story short, he became Guardian.”

“When did all of this start?”

“A couple months before we met. My sister figured it out when James released that first picture in the paper, he didn't know it was me then.”

“So everytime. Every time you rushed off or said you were late and hung up. Every missed phone call. Every missed flight. It was because you were off being a vigilante.” Lena accuses, acid in her voice. She finally looks at Kara who seems to shrink into the corner of the couch.

“I didn't want you to worry halfway across the world. It's dangerous and illegal.”

“No shit. No, I wasn't worried about your safety. I was too worried about what I was doing wrong. If I had screwed this up. Worrying about whether or not I was good enough for you. God. I'm an idiot.”

“Lena-”

“No. I need some space. I'll call you later.” Lena swiftly stands and ascends the steps. The bookcase is still open but as she steps through it shuts and she hears a faint click as the office door unlocks. She strides through the gym and back into her waiting vehicle, asking the man to take her back to her hotel room. She calls Sam just to hear the voice of a friend. She hadn't told Sam about Kara. Just that she had seen her and they had tried to talk but it was too much and Lena had to leave.

“Do you want to work things out with her?” Sam asks honestly.

“I don't know. I mean I see her face and I know I love her. But she was lying to me. About something big. And she has her reasons for it but… I just don't know. All I know is I miss you and Ruby, but I feel like if I leave now then I won't get the closure I need.” Sam is silent for a moment.

“Maybe you should try therapy or something. Just so you can both say what needs to be said in a safe place.”

“Like couples therapy?”

“Well yes and no. It sounds like you just need an outsiders opinion. Someone unbiased to help you get the closure you need, where or not that means you and Kara try to work things out between you.” Lena bites her lip as she considers her friend’s advice.

“I'll think about it. And Sam? Thanks for being such a great friend. I don't know what I would have done without you and Ruby.”

“Of course Lena. We both love you. We will see you before you know it.”

I love you guys too. Bye Sam.”

“Bye Lena.”

Lena hung up. Feeling slightly better than she did before. She orders lunch to her room and sat down in front of the keyboard Jess had managed to get set up in her room. She began to play Clair De Lune. A classical piece that stuck with her from her childhood lessons. It was slow but good for different techniques. Lena lost herself in the piece before starting it again. Allowing the soothing tunes to calm her racing mind. Lena began to play a new song and another one after that. She played until her fingers began to get a little sore and her thoughts had been soothed from the angry panic they were this morning. Lunch had arrived while she played. The young bellhop dropped it off as she requested just inside the door. Lena ate the sandwich and chips in silence, seriously considering her friend's advice.

Now that she knew about Kara, she wasn't sure what she wanted. She had left the fundraiser with only thoughts of winning her back, but so much had happened in such a short amount of time. The only way to know was to talk it out but Lena dreaded that. She was never good with feelings. For the most part, she had learned to shut them out. But after Kara, after living with Sam and Ruby, Lena was becoming more attuned to her feelings. She liked who she was becoming in the short time since she decided to be better, for herself and Ruby. With a sigh, Lena decides to follow Sam's advice. Tomorrow. Tonight she was going to play her music and go to dinner with Jess.

February 27th, 2018.

Lena waited in line at Noonan's. She was hoping to get her coffee and grab the table in the corner. She was able to snag it, putting her back to the wall and able to see the entrance. On her laptop, she was looking over LexCorp numbers and dredging up the ancient knowledge she had thought she had never need from high school and college. Jess had sent them to her but she was having trouble getting through everything that absolutely needed her approval instead of her CFO's. Lena still hadn't decided what to do with the burden her brother had placed on her shoulders.

“Hi.” Kara's soft voice breaks into Lena's concentration. Startled, Lena blinks up owlishly as she adjusts from screen to real life. Kara stands, slightly unsure, coffee in hand but not attempting to sit.

“Hi. Please sit. I was just working on Stuff for LexCorp.”

Kara sits slowly, looking ready to bolt as soon as Lena didn't want her there. Lena types in a few notes before shutting her laptop and looking back up at the nervous blonde.

“How is it? Owning a company, I mean.”

“Awful. I never wanted it. My only blessing is Jess taking care if almost everything.”

“Oh. Umm… Well, at least you have her.”

“Yeah. And Sam and Ruby really help. I don't know what I would have done these last couple of months without them.”

Silence falls over the pair. Both nervously play with coffee cups and avoid making eye contact.

“So are you and Sam…?” Kara trails off, unsure if she wants to finish the question.

“Sam is my closest friend. I moved into her spare bedroom when the album released. But we are just friends.”

Kara lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding and swallows past the lump in her throat. Silence stretches on again. Lena clears her throat and Kara looks up to meet her eyes. Lena pauses at the blue of them. The openness and the disarming kindness and hope. She swallows and finally says what she needs to.

“I don't know what I want Kara. I was never able to figure that out. That's part of the reason I never called you back. Then, when I saw your art at the fundraiser, I realized the massive mistake I made.” Kara opens her mouth to say something but Lena holds up a finger to stop her.

“Let me finish, please. That's why I came back, I realized that you did care about me and I had reacted rashly. I wanted to apologize at least, to talk things out. Then, I was kidnapped by my mother as soon as I landed, which I suspect had something to do with my new assistant, but that's another story. Finally, I'm saved from my mother by my ex-girlfriend who has been living a double life as a vigilante for as long as I have known her. Now I don't know what I want, again. It's something I need to figure out before I go back home. I can't do it alone. So, on Sam's advice, I'm going to see a therapist. I want you to come with me if you're willing, so maybe we can put everything in the open and get some closure for this whole giant circus of a shit show that has become my life.”

Kara sits silently until Lena gestures for her to talk.

“I think it’s a great idea, Lee.”

Lena’s heart soars at the nickname without her permission. Kara had a way of just slipping past all her defenses. It wasn’t fair, Lena should have known better than coming back here, where it all started.

“I actually already have one. A therapist, I mean. I started seeing her during my recovery after my accident. And after everything, I made some poor choices and Alex took me to see her again. She knows everything, so we can be as open an honest as we want to be.”

“You’ve been seeing a therapist?”

“Yeah, like I said, bad choices. But we can get into that later if you want. I’ll call Dr. Hamilton and send you her information.”

“Okay.” Lena takes a deep breath.

“So…”

“I’m not ready for small talk Kara. Thanks for coming, though. And I do want to talk through this, but not here.”

“I’ll leave you to your work then. Let me know when you make the appointment, I will be there. I promise.”

“No offense Kara, but right now your promises mean very little. But I will let you know.”

“Right. Call me later. Bye Lee.” Kara stands, hesitating before pushing in her chair and taking her cup away with her. Lena powers back on her computer and continues her work. After another twenty minutes, she looks up Dr. Hamilton and begins her own search before her phone dings with Kara’s shared contact information.

February 28th, 2018

“So, you are sure you want to do this? I am an advocate for closure, but I thought we were moving past this. At least it seemed that way to me. I don’t want you cutting open healed wounds.” Dr. Hamilton asks. Kara had arrived early to talk to her before her their actual session with Lena.

“Yes. I am sure. I think this will be good for both of us. Even if we both just say our peace and go our separate ways.”

“And do you want to go your separate ways?”

Kara opens her mouth to come up with a non-committal answer but they are interrupted by a knock. Dr. Hamilton’s assistant peaks her head in.

“Miss Lena Luthor is here, shall I send her in?” Kara nods when Dr. Hamilton looks at her and the therapist gives confirmation to the assistant.

Kara has never seen Lena look so unsure of herself, not even when she was kidnapped. Lena wears a large green sweater and black leggings and her hair is down. Everything about her is soft today, nothing of the Lena Luthor mentality came with her. That gives Kara a spark of hope that maybe they weren’t broken. Maybe they could fix this.

“Good morning,” Lena says. Kara shoots to her feet, then she realizes it was a mistake because there is nowhere to go from there.

“Morning, Lee. Umm… Lena, Dr Hamilton. Dr. Hamilton, Lena.” Kara gestures awkwardly between the two women. Dr. Hamilton offers Lena a hand to shake and gestures for her to sit in the chair across from Kara. Kara sits on one end of the couch while Dr. Hamilton site in a chair to the side.

“Lena, it's wonderful to meet you.”

“You as well, Dr.”

Once everyone is comfortable, Kara nervously plays with one of the throw pillows and Lena pulls her sleeves over her hands. The doctor watches the two as they both throw up defenses and gauge each other.

“Okay. so I am mostly here a moderator. Lena this is a safe place. I know everything about Kara and her sister has had me sign more NDA’s than I could ever come near to being able to get free of. Since this is a session with Kara, anything you say here is also covered by all of that.”

“Okay. Thank you.” Lena looks down to the ground.

“Now Kara. How about you start? Start from the beginning. When you decided to become a vigilante and then your side of events that have happened since meeting Lena. Lena, I am going to ask you not comment on anything Kara says. If you want to ask clarifying questions, that’s fine. Then when Kara is done, Lena can go and the same rules apply to Kara.” Both women nod.

“To start, I didn’t really decide to do it. More like I just couldn’t stand by any longer. There was a girl, barely out of high school, I think. She was rapped by some thug barely three blocks from my apartment. Later I found out he was low-level Cadmus muscle but I didn't know that then. Not until I started making connections. Then Winn and I had gone for a few drinks and to play pool at a bar, we were walking home and I heard a woman calling for help. I pulled up the hood of the jacket I was wearing, the red and blue one which was a gift from Alex, and knocked the man out that was trying to take her purse. That was the first night I stopped someone.”

Kara continues, telling about how she and Winn almost got caught several times. About the body armor Winn came up with and Alex figuring out her secret. Eventually, she gets to meeting Lena.

“I actually gave up my seat inside to an older couple when I saw you. It was the last table and I had just settled into my chair and I saw you through the glass. The couple was looking for somewhere to sit so I offered my table because I had to talk to the beautiful woman sitting outside, in August, in a sweatshirt. I will never regret that decision. Then when I saw you again the next day, I knew I had to convince you to go out with. I was never smooth with pretty women, Alex can give you horror stories about the clumsy, stuttering, mess I become. But with you, I was more comfortable and sure of myself than I had ever been.”

It takes nearly an hour. An hour of Kara describing her double life. In all fairness, when she was with Lena, then she was with Lena. She had only left that one night because James was in danger. And she had only taken phone calls again when James was in danger. She didn’t want being a vigilante to take away from Lena. At least until Cadmus became seriously dangerous and Kara felt like she couldn’t leave the country for days at a time. But when that happened, Lena did take a back seat in Kara’s life. Hell, Lena didn’t even feel like she was in the car anymore.

“And then when the news was released that you were missing, I just knew it was your mother. She was getting desperate with her funds depleted since Lex was arrested and I was a thorn in her side. Since she knew who I was then she knew how to draw me out. What she didn’t know is that my sister works for a government organization specifically tasked with taking her and Cadmus down. So as they stormed the compound, I could focus on keeping you safe and getting you out alive. And now we are pretty much caught up.”

Lena sits silently. It was a lot. Kara waits patiently, playing with the corners of the pillow in her lap. Dr. Hamilton had been scribbling notes the whole time. When the pen starts scratching, the doctor loos at Lena.

“Ok Lena, your turn. Go back as far as you would like but please, this is mostly about the events between you and Kara so try to keep it relevant to that.”

“I have lived a dark life. A simple one, coasting day to day, hardly ever sober as I tried to forget the pain of growing up in the Luthor household. I lost my mother at the age of four, I don’t even remember her face anymore. Just the love she poured into me. It was such stark contrast to the sharp coldness of Lillian. I think Lex tried to love me, but by the time I came around, everything good in him had been poisoned by Lillian. Lionel was hardly ever around. When he was, all he and Lillian did was fight. About money, work, women, me. Sometimes… sometimes I would hear objects breaking as they hit walls. It would echo through the mansion, long after servants went home. It got worse when Lex Left for college. Then, one night, I heard a gun go off. Just one shot. But I crawled under my bed and stayed there until the sun rose. The next morning I braved the rest of the house. There was Lillian and Lionel quietly eating breakfast like nothing happened. That’s when I accepted my early admission to college and stop fighting them to stay in high school. I couldn’t be in that house anymore.” Lena was giving a little background for the therapist's sake, Kara knew most of it at this point.

“My childhood friend, Veronica, was also going early; though she was two years older than me. We had spent most of our time together, escaping our families and high society life. It was all very shallow until it wasn’t. I fell in love with her and she didn't. I closed my self off after that and used terrible coping mechanisms to make it through everything. And I did, I made it through each day until my entire life was turned upside down by this beautiful blonde asking to share my table. She didn’t know who I was, she didn’t even listen to my music, she was just listening to it to make her sister happy. Then she smiled and brightened my whole world. I turned her down for a date even though everything screamed at me to say yes. The next day we literally ran into each other again. I couldn’t say no again.” Lena continues like that, sharing how Kara gave her hope that she could find the love she long thought she didn’t deserve. How magical everything had been since they met.

“The first couple missed and canceled flights I didn’t think anything of. I mean, I was asking a lot for you to put your life on hold to see me. But then you started not returning phone calls or texts. The another missed flight. I didn’t know what to think. Was I not good enough, did you get a few free trips across the world and that was it or was the paparazzi just getting to you and I wasn’t worth it? So I started talking to my only friend and she thought the same things. I couldn’t keep putting myself through that and so when you missed another flight, I ended it. I know voicemail is a shitty way to break up with someone, but what else would I have done? I hadn’t seen you in weeks and so many phone calls had gone unanswered. And then I went drinking with Sam, right back into my horrible coping techniques. I was dancing and flirting and I actually almost went home with this couple, a very low point for me. Then Veronica showed up.” Lena sees Kara flinch at the memories she was bringing up but Kara continues to be silent.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t really. I just needed to feel something that wasn’t a wrenching pain in my heart. Veronica promised the numbness that filled me for years. And it worked for a few hours until there was a knock on my hotel door. I opened it to find you, bruised and bloodied, then you were gone as soon as Veronica made her presence known. By the time I had grabbed a robe to chase after you, the elevator had already closed.” Lena takes a steadying breath. She looks at Kara who stares at the pillow in her lap. Lena can see wet streaks on her cheeks. It hurt Lena to hurt Kara all over again.

“After that, I spiraled pretty hard. Drugs and drinking. I scraped the album I had been working on and threw myself into my work to make the deadline. I saw Veronica a few more times, but then Sam and I got in a fight. Basically, it was sober up or forget seeing her and Ruby anymore. So, I did. After the album release, I moved in with them. I never had a place to call home before, never had somewhere to miss when I am traveling. In a very short amount of time, I found that with them. In all that I was also given LexCorp in the wake of my brother's arrest, which I turned over to be run by my personal assistant Jess because she was way more qualified than I am. Since then I have just been trying to figure out what I want for my future. I am taking a break from the music and touring. I think I will sell Jess my controlling shares and let her do with the company what she will.”

Lena continues to relay the events of the fundraiser and of the kidnapping. All too soon she is describing her decision for therapy and it leaves them sitting quietly in a room with a silence that is too loud. The doctor’s pen stops scratching as she lets both Lena and Kara process what has been said.

“Can I… Can I say something?” Kara directs her question at Doctor Hamilton. She nods.

“Lee, I know that how I treated you was awful. You questioned yourself because of me. But I think you did the one thing you knew would hurt me the most, whether or not I saw you with Veronica. You knew how my last boyfriend cheated on me, and yes you may have broken up with me over voicemail, but it still felt the same. Actually, it felt worse because… because… I… what we had was real.”

“I thought that too. Until I became an afterthought. Until you forgot about me for some personal crusade to save this city. You lied to me over and over again, you may not have slept with someone else but you cheated on me. You kept this vigilante a secrete like a dirty mistress.”

Kara sits back at the venom in Lena’s voice. She hadn’t thought about it that way at all. Lena settles back in the chair after saying her piece.

“Lena, tone it down just a bit. Kara is entitled to her feelings, as you are entitled to yours. Kara, do you have any other feelings to make known?” Kara shakes her head.

“Lena?” Lena shakes her head as well.

“Okay then. I think that is enough for today. I want you two to go home tonight and really think about what has happened. I want you to think about what you want from this therapy and each other. You both need definitive answers. If, if , you both want to continue your relationship together then I will strongly recommend a slow process of building trust and friendship before even broaching a romantic topic. But you both have to want it. And it will take time. So please consider your decision strongly.”

Both women nod at the doctor's advice and stand to be shown out. Lena heads to her waiting car with the agent holding the door open.

“Wait, Lena!” Kara calls.

Lena turns to her, trying to keep her face blank. Kara hesitates and Lena raises an eyebrow at her.

“Just… Thank you. For this. And for letting me tell you everything. I have wanted to do that for a long time. So, thank you.”

Lena nods, not trusting her voice and climbs into the vehicle. Kara stays huddled on the street against brisk winter wind. She watches the black SUV pull away and she swears she sees Lena look back at her through the darkly tinted glass.

#supergirl #supercorp #kara danvers #lena luthor #Singer #Vigilante #AU #fanfiction #WTFU

7 notes · View notes

shazyloren · 6 years ago

Text

Praise The Deity

Summary: Jon's new neighbour may just be the most sexually active person alive, which would be okay, if he hadn't had four hours sleep in four days hearing it. He's not happy, but there might be something he can do to punish her...

Notes: As you know, I am taking part in a challenge on tumblr by user @jonerysfics and @mhysaofdragons in which for seven days from Valentines day I am uploading a new one shot. The prompts have been provided and the stories have all been written and I gotta say you're in for a lot of Jonerys content.So Day 2, 15th February, which is when I'm uploading this, the prompt I chose was 'Hot Neighbour'. This is the story I came up with a while ago and was on my poll to do i had after the room. But it's hear and... it's hot.I really hope you enjoy, please leave kudos and comments if you do, it will mean the world!

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17798669

---

That’s the fourth fucking man this week and it’s only Wednesday morning , he thinks as he throws the pillow over his head and prays to a deity that it’ll stop sooner rather than later.

He knows it’s useless in praying, he may as well be asking for Dragons to exist or for himself to suddenly be deaf and not have to hear a single thing. He didn’t have a problem with anyone getting their funk on, like do as you please. But his new neighbour was taking the piss.

His older neighbour had died after a particularly bad case of heroin addiction, and it was an awful thing to see them spiral out of control, but at least the man hadn’t been shouting that he was gonna edjaculate all over someone’s face every night.

It infuriated Jon.

People had no class these days, and it was easily shown.

He had only briefly seen the neighbour once, a small blonde girl who looked as if she’d murder anyone who looked at her incorrectly. But clearly he’d misjudged her to be a sex mad lunatic instead, unsure if he’d rather she’d just be a murderer.

‘God you’re so big’

That’s the last straw then, he doesn’t care if she’s in the middle of her greatest orgasm of all time, he was putting his clothes on and he was going over there and giving her a piece of his mind.

Chucking his bed pillow back onto the small and indented bed, careful not to accidently put his scrubs for work on instead, he throws a pair of jogging bottom and a thin grey shirt on in the dark. His eyes roll over the alarm clock.

3:47am.

Unacceptable, he had to be at work in less than two hours and he’d had about four hours of sleep in as many days. It wasn’t good, he’s had more sleep than this when he was on call during his first days at the hospital.

Sliding his feet into his grey slippers and feeling around for the light switch he flipped it and waited for his eyes to get used to the light. As he began to move again, he began walking into the kitchen to get a glass of water first off, he drank the glass in one gulp.

‘Oh god, I’m gonna cum, yes, oh baby’

He hated how thin the walls were, almost like rice paper and definitely more than happy to let him hear the ridiculous noises next door. He’s already complained about it to his brother on the phone, but the response he got was less than helpful and made him shudder to think.

Go join in , that had been his advice.

Jon had not had sex in the best part of two years, his job at the hospital had been his main focus and when he wasn't there, saving people’s lives, he was generally sleeping to catch up with the long hours he was doing. Well, until recently that was.

Right, that’s it, I’m going over.

Jon, with a fervour and resonance inside him, marches over to his front door and unlocks it with haste. As he opens the door, he hears them ‘finish’ for want for a better phrase. Jon slams the door behind him, key in his pocket so he could get back in and turns to face the door next to his. Someone down the hall, pokes their head out of the door, clearly having heard all what’s gone on.

He pulls his hand back and with a seething anger within him, slams his fist down three times on the door, loud and clear.

There’s a yelp and a shuffling behind the door, a prolonged silence follows which gives Jon the chance to calm himself down and remember to remain calm about the situation. Five minutes of sleep is all he’d had, if the woman knew, she’d be reasonable, surely.

The door opens in one long swing and standing there is not the woman he’d seen, but a man of similar height and build to Jon, a beard too. He’s wearing his jeans but not much else and his face is smug as if he knows why Jon is here.

“Can I help you?” The man puffs his chest out, two could play that game.

“Get your shit and get out” Jon snuffs, his anger rising. The man looks disgusted but when Jon glares daggers at him, he holds his hands up and takes a step back. “Go on, get out of here!”

The man scurries then and runs off to somewhere he doesn’t know. There’s a hushed discussion and an incredulous shout but sooner than Jon imagined, the same man came back into the room with his shirt on and darted past Jon out of the door. He watches him leave and then, his attention is drawn elsewhere

“Who the hell are you?” Now all he has to deal with is this fiery blonde he’d only seen once, who had just entered her hallway with a red, silk robe on and nothing else. She was short, but beautiful, and yet she was glaring at Jon like she wanted to take a spoon and scoop his eyeballs out for stepping foot into her home.

“Your neighbour, I think you forgot you had some” He comments offhandedly. “I don’t care if you’re having fun, making money or whatever the hell you’re doing with all these men at all hours in the morning-” He started, her face looking offended at the mere mention of her being a prostitute. “-but I am a nurse at St. Maegor’s Hospital and I have had five minutes of sleep tonight, and thirty the night before, and almost an hour the night before that because of your fucking antics! I have to be up in two hours, reckon you can keep quiet long enough for me to sleep?”

There was almost a flush of embarrassment that swept across her face, but it was only there for the smallest of moments. Jon noticed her eyes were purple, a colour he’d hardly ever saw in people. Her hair was also a really white shade of blonde, almost silvery in appearance.

“Tell me, neighbour, does me having lots of sex make you angry, because you’re not having any?” She asked, stepping closer to him, making him slightly uncomfortable.

This bitch, honestly.

“I’m angry alright, angry that you can’t keep your legs closed at three in the morning” He retorts, his words sizzling on the air. To his surprise she doesn’t yell or curse, she just laughs, a wicked glance in her eye.

“Keeping the legs closed is for boring people, sex is fun” She teased, her eyes assessing him, as if he was meat. Jon did not like that feeling. “You should try it some time”

“I save people, I have a fifteen hour shift tomorrow, I don’t need sex or anything else so trivial, I need sleep” He hammered his point home emphatically yet the power in the conversation shifted. She walked a couple of steps closer to him. “What are you doing?”

“Neighbour, wouldn’t you like to know what you’re missing out on?” She winked for all intents and purposes, Jon couldn’t believe how forward she was being, and he knew that he needed to get out of the apartment or things would get dangerous.

“No I don’t, just keep the noise down” He cut her off, a scathing remark as he left and marched over to her door, pulling it back and storming out of the room. The door closed behind him and he sighed in relief as the cool air blew over his face. Shaking his head from the strange confrontation, he unlocked his own door and stumbled his way through to his bedroom.

I fucking swear to god if she doesn’t let me sleep I’m going over there and gagging her with duct tape .

Jon’s shift at work was busy, so much so he didn’t end up getting home until 11pm. When he walked up the outdoor stairs to his floor, he saw the woman he so very much did not want to see, outside her door, looking miserable.

“Waiting for a customer?” Jon chortled.

“Very funny, arsehole” She snapped back to him, wrapping her cardigan around her tighter. “If you must know I’m locked out”

“Can’t say I feel sorry for you” He shrugged and opened his own door. “Let me know if you need water, I’ll be sure to bring it out to you in a dog bowl”

“You know what, Jerk, I’m sorry that you haven’t gotten any sleep because your horny for sex and all, but don’t fucking be a prick! You’re not the only person with a life here, you know?”

Jon didn’t care for anything the woman was saying. When you’ve had six hours sleep in four days you tend to not overly care at all.

Fucking everyone else can be quiet in the early hours in the morning, so you should too.

“You’d know about it, if I was horny for you” Jon smirked before slamming the door on her and throwing his keys into the bowl by the door.

He goes to making dinner and decides on something simple like Stir Fry. He slices peppers and onions and grabs bean sprouts from the tray in the fridge. He creates his own sauce and fries the chicken off first. The smell is incredible, and he’s definitely hungry when he hears his stomach rumble.

He soon realises however, he’s made far too much. Why did my father raise me to be a nice person? He thinks to himself and so, reluctantly, he sees if the woman is still there, waiting for the super to let her in. He opens the door, and she is in fact still there.

“What do you want?” She grumbled, her face a little pale from the cold and her body shaking.

“I was gonna make amends, but I’m not so sure now. I don’t think I should be letting someone freeze to death outside our apartments. Come on, I’m made too much dinner, do you want some?” He asks nicely, trying not to moan about the night before.

“What is it?” She asks.

“Chicken Stir Fry”

Is she going to come in or not?

“Fine, but only because it smells delicious” Jon, showing the women through the door and to his living room, brought her a bowl and poured the remaining into it. He then grabs his own from the kitchen and comes to sit back down with her.

He flicks the TV on.

“Fucking never anything on at this time of night” Jon grumbles.

“Are you serious?” She screws her face up. “Gay Paranormal Historian Truckers is on Channel Five at midnight and it’s the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel”

“What on earth is that show about?” Jon screws his knows up.

“Gay Historians Loras Tyrell and Renly Baratheon hunt ghosts in their large truck. Gay Paranormal Historian Truckers, duh” She shovels food in her mouth and Jon doesn’t know why the events that have occurred have led to this, but he’s annoyed.

Still, he flips over to Channel Five anyways.

‘Jesus, Loras, it’s behind you while you’re driving!’ One guy says to the other. ‘The fucking ghost of Henry VIII!’

‘Tell him we didn’t kill Jane Seymour!’ The other one replies. ‘Tell him we did kill Anne of Cleaves, spiritually, that was his least favourite wife!’

‘Loras we’re gonna drive off the road, ain’t no time for telling fibs!’

Suddenly, the girl next to him was howling with laughter as the two truckers on the screen manage to avoid a huge dip in the road and regain control of the truck.

Jon didn’t understand the appeal of the show, but after a 15 hour shift, he didn't care. It was entertainment nonetheless.

“I just realised I don’t know your name” She says out of the blue.

“Jon” He sighs, not wanting to be known as the jerk neighbour. “I’m surprised I don’t know yours given the thin walls”

“Oh I never give out my real name to strangers. It’s always Katy or Bethany or Sally” She laughed, a half snort which he had to admit was odd coming out of her mouth. “But it’s Daenerys, or Dany for short actually”

“Strange name” He commented.

“Strange gal” She pointed to herself.

“That I will agree on” He nodded.

“Shove off” She cheekily smiled.

What the hell is going on? Jon finds himself thinking. One moment he’s banging on this woman’s door cus she’s shagging loudly the next she’s in his living room and he’s cracking jokes with her.

“I didn’t mean for you to lose sleep” She admitted. “I respect you for having the balls to come over and yell at me”

“Well, I didn’t want to do it, but you left me with no choice” He shrugged. “I’m a senior Nurse, we’re responsible for people’s health. If I make one incorrect diagnosis, or administer the wrong drug, the results are damaging. Sleep means I’m focused”

“And I’m sorry” She puts a hand on his knew so he knows it’s genuine. “I’ve been through a rough patch and well there’s no excuse but I’m not generally like that”

“It’s fine, I don’t need to know. Like I said, I don’t care who you’re sleeping with just, be respectful of your neighbours”

She nodded, there’s a brief silence as they watch the show.

“You’ve been nice to me, maybe you should’ve been the one in my bed instead. Mother would definitely approve of you”

“Pfft, you wish” He jokes.

There’s a small nod between the two of them before they burst into laughter. Jon feels pleased about the outcome of this chat, and he had to admit, the show was quite entertaining in the end. He looked at the clock and saw it read half twelve, he really needed to be going to sleep, so he could be up at 5:30 for work.

“You can stay on the sofa if you want” He offered. “It’ll be too cold now out there”

“Thank you, I appreciate it” She smiled, picking up both bowls and taking them through to the kitchen, he guessed to save him doing it as he was going to the trouble of letting her stay over.

Jon switched the TV off and tidied up a little, a weird feeling on the air as he realised he’d be able to sleep without trouble that night, but also with the girl who had been the source of his troubles a room away. But as he got a blanket out of a cupboard, and placed it on the sofa for her.

It would’ve been fine if she hadn’t mentioned me being in her bed.

“So, there you go” He put his hands in his pockets and fumbled a bit. When she nodded he started to walk away, this uneasy feeling in his chest.

“Jon?” He hears behind her, almost seductive in tone but curious too. Jon curses himself that he turned around in that moment, but he did and she was looking at him like a woman hadn’t in a very long time.

“Yes, Dany?” He’s tired, but he knows what she’s going to ask. And if he’s honest with himself, he wants her too.

“Can I join you?”

There was a moment, where everything that had happened between the two of them in the past twenty four hours was a complete mess, forgotten, remembered, infuriating, calming. And stupidly, or not stupidly, his reply was sure.

“I think that can be arranged”

Her panties were still on but he didn’t let that stop him, nosing them out of the way and tonguing her sex, making low, growling noises in his throat like a big cat purring with pleasure while it devoured its prey. She was small, and sensitive and everything his sex drive was missing.

He teased her like there was no tomorrow, he wanted to make her suffer for the things she’d done with the others. He was slow in his licks, teasing in the flicker of his tongue. He wanted her to feel frustration and the overwhelming sensation of being so close to the edge.

He would take it away when she was close, he would hold that power over her. It was the wildness of it that got him going: the primal lust, the sheer needs of two people in heat, quickly finding ways to express their sacred hunger to each other in animal passion.

He was someone who had gone so long, finding the drive deep within and exposing it. She was in the thick of it, feeling no control over her hormones. It didn’t matter to either of them, they both had to do this.

Fuck, she tastes good.

“Mmm” It’s her first loud moan of the night and Jon wonders if his mind is going to have flashbacks, but somehow, hearing the girl come undone from his doing made the sound sweeter. “Yes, Jon, eat it”

A muffled response is what he gave her. “Say please”

This was a problem for them both, he could tell. This was a huge problem, and his assault on her cunt wasn't about to make it any better. Her mouth was dry, but the words came out clear enough:

“Yes, please, Jon. Eat my pussy.” She opens her legs further, his fingers now holding her underwear to one side so he can fully eat this five course meal in front of him.

His eyes glance upwards and sees her, head back, hands on her breasts, squeezing her nipples tightly. Her skin is so smooth all over her, not just her legs and butt, she was an ongoing miracle of skin and lust and he wanted to bath in her every desire.

“I’m going to make you come so good, naughty neighbour” He growls almost, not recognising his own voice. She responds viscerally by leaning into his hand and mouth, wanting the ending he teased her about.

His tongue doesn’t need to work too much magic, midway through his assault on her cunt, she begins panting heavily and seconds after, gushes all over his mouth and hand. He’s shocked. “Ohhhh”

“Did you just have an orgasm, after hearing me talk about giving you an orgasm?” All she can do is sob in reply and Jon suddenly feels glad that he had the balls to go over to her apartment last night. “I think you just came ’cause I’m fingering your sweet pussy and talking dirty to you – you know why?”

“W-why?” She pants as Jon doesn’t stop, but increases his tempo.

“Because you’re so nuts for this. Aren’t you, baby girl? I can feel that hot little pussy clenching around my tongue every time I move a muscle or say a word – ohhhh, yeah. Yeah, arch your back so I can look at you going nice and tight around my fingers. You gonna do that around my cock?”

The noise that escapes his companions mouth is enough to categorise this night as the best he’s had in months. She’s giving in more, wanting more and he’s ready to give more.

Come for me, Dany.

She did, and it was glorious.

Jon licked as much of it up as he possibly could before the frenzy that was the removal of their remaining clothes. Jon’s cock sprang free and he swore he’d never been harder than the sight of this complicated and feisty woman writhing in ecstasy in front of him.

Seeing her in his bed, lying there breathless, she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever laid eyes upon, and for a moment, he wished he could keep her. But it was just sex, and so he’d make it the best sex the world had ever known.

“Daenerys, I give you permission to be as vocal as you wish from now on, because I am going to blow your mind in a few minutes and I want to hear how much you enjoy the ride.” He taunts her almost, a promise he was determined to keep. “We’ll see how those other men did a bad job when I’m done”

“I want that” She hisses.

“Excuse me?” Jon’s cock was ready to enter her, his hands pushing her legs wide with authority and strength. She was still teasing her own nipples.

“Yes, please, I would like that” She moans.

“Better” And with that, he pushed his head inside her and went for the first thrust. The sensation was overwhelming, and in some way surreal. Despite her many male partners the past week, she felt tighter than he’d ever imagined. The way he felt inside her, as if he was meant to be inside her.

“Oh, Jon” She sighed, unprepared for the depth and pace he was going to give her. He was going to fuck her with the unchained, debauched craving of a man condemned to die at dawn, or at least one who had to get up early for work.

Jon had experience lust before, he’d had his fair share of uneventful evenings and decided to pick up a girl, he knew what good sex was and how to please a girl, but as he thrusted into this magnificent fair woman underneath him, as he watched her face contort with the throes of pleasure, he didn’t understand lust completely until now.

Jon goes deep inside her, as far as he can, until his stomach is touching hers, her legs spread as far as humanly possible. He slowly pulls out inch by inch and watches as she becomes hungrier to be whole again.

“Very good” He coos as she moans and thrashes beneath him. “You ready?”

She only mumble in reply, a small smirk on his face as he pushes into her with speed and back out again just as fast. For want of a better word, she screams to high hell. “Ohhhhh god!”

Pulling up a leg to sit on his shoulder, he holds it there with one hand, his other, he uses his thumb to circle her clit while he thrusts his hips quicker than ever. She’s slick and wet, oh how wet she actually is.

“You’re a bad girl, making me lose sleep, you know that” He growls with each thrust into her moist cunt. She’s crying in pleasure, tears running down her face. “Tell me, tell me how bad you are, Daenerys”

“So bad, so very bad ohhhh” She moans and groans and each syllable that comes out of her mouth is a motivator to thrust harder. “Punish me, do it Jon”

So, egged on by the girl under him, Jon slaps her pussy while he’s inside her and watches her come undone beneath him. She loves it, she’s a filthy whore for him and they both know it. He wants to fuck her pussy all night, he could do, to punish her for her bad behaviour. He slaps her there again. “Smack those pretty tits for me”

She does as she’s told and suddenly, this primal and controlling part of Jon, who’s hair was starting to get soaked from the heat the two of them were creating, erupted. “Again?” She asks after rubbing the place her titties were now red. “You want me to keep going?”

“Again, you naughty girl” He commands and she does, wincing as she does. The next once she lands, he also slaps her pussy at the same time, making her writhe in painful pleasure once again.

She’s getting wetter and it’s at this moment he knows she’s not lasting long. He lands five sharp slaps on her cunt in a row and watches for her reaction. “You gonna come for me again, neighbour?” She nods desperately. “Do you want to come?” Again she nods. “Of course you want to, you filthy whore”

He is both ecstatic and flabbergasted by how much of a needy, wanton slut he somehow has turned her into, who even after two shuddering orgasms, wants to experience a lot more, who craves another release.

She looks as if she needs to speak to him, but the power of words had once again deserted her. The pleasure was climbing, spiralling high and fast, taking them both by storm. Unable to hold back, he leaned forward and hands slipped to her tits. She clutched at him and he at her; sensation gathered there, in the very centre of her body and on his dick, the place he possessed so fully. Had she surrendered? He wondered as she screams louder and louder.

He watched as she closed her eyes and flung her head back. Release was close for them both. He could feel it coming, shivering throughout her body as she begins to tighten around him. He feels himself losing control as she shivers around his cock, gushing as she did. He kissed the arch of her throat.

"Dany" he said, his tone almost raw. "Oh gods, Dany"

Her nails bit into his shoulders as he pushed up into her for the last few thrusts. The walls of her channel contracted around him again, again and again and again, sending spasms of release hurtling through them both.

“Fuck” She whispers, as he creams inside her and they lay there in what was now the aftermath of their crazy sex.

He doesn’t move for a while, a bold and disgusting thought of making sure his swimmers punish her for the time she kept him awake passing through like a fleeting memory. He pulls out and instantly they both ache for one another again. His seed leaks out of her yet she is so immobile, frozen with sweat and disbelief at the orgasm they both had.

“So” He starts. “Are you gonna keep me awake again?”

“No, Sir” She sighs all flustered.

“Sir?” He grimaced slightly. “You make me feel old”

“Shut up, idiot” She gently smacked his arm, her chest rising and falling. She turns on her side, his cums still glistening in her cunt. “So” She then mimics him. “Round two?”

Well shit.

#jon snow #daenerys targaryen #jon x daenerys #jonerys #jonerysvalentine #mhysaofdragons #game of thrones #fanfic

27 notes · View notes

thosedamnsmoshkids · 6 years ago

Text

some cdp facts

last hiatus i made the crime does p(l)ay(list), (and the one i made this arc too!) and people seemed to like that! i also referenced making this in my ‘five fun facts’ post, so, here you are!!

below the cut there are few arc one/two spoilers, so if you haven’t read cdp yet, go give it a read and then come back here!

more than half of the plot was written after chapter seven, which is why some of the characters seem a bit different in their personalities there than after.

i nearly completely forget that Wes got beat up in ch 5 and I almost wrote him without his rib and facial injuries

CDP was originally only supposed to be ~15 chapters, as i thought that i’d have run out of steam by now. boy was i wrong.

Leo was never meant to be a heavily focused character, and he was only going to be in the ‘raven room’ chapter. the role Leo plays was originally supposed to be done by a different character altogether. the character he’s based off of is from the original plotline, where instead of Damien feuding with Leo, it’s Joven feuding with the xiaolong’s leader’s daughter, who was characterized as being very loyal to both her father and the gang. her characterization (brash, commanding, and loyal), turned into Linghun. she was supposed to threaten Joven and act as a distraction before disappearing after arc one, probably having been killed off in the gauntlet

kate was supposed to be a one off character, but i ended up loving writing for her, (and i needed a character who was involved in Mari’s crime scene clean-up), so i added her to joven’s backstory, and gave her some more personality

ryan todd was supposed to have bigger sway in arc one, and have it end with his accidental death, but i wrote a few lines for his podcast and he ended up sticking around.

sunny was also supposed to have a much bigger role, but he didn’t fit super well, and i ended up keeping him to the sidelines

the only characters that were locked in to existing were the main five, the strippers, sohinki and lasercorn, and matt raub. everyone else was written in later.

mari was the first one to get a backstory, boze was the last.

though this has been briefly (albeit not explicitly) mentioned throughout the fic, the canonic ages of each character are as follows: Mari - 26; Joven - 27; Damien - 22; Boze - 24; Wes - 26; Courtney - 25; Shayne - 23; Noah - 21; Keith - 24; Olivia - 22; Sohinki - 25; Lasercorn - 30; Kate - 26; Sarah - 29; Matt Raub - 38; Leo - 24; Sunny - 37; Tim - 32

Most of the characters also didn’t have solid ages until arc two

i actually have mockups for the official Jackrabbit logo in my google doc for the plot (might post it for fun idk). i’ve done a few sketches, but the official logo has been recorded in there. i might make something out of it if i manage to finish all of CDP

the second thing i planned out for CDP after chapter one was the epilogue chapter that will follow arc three. and i basically knew how the fic would end the moment i started it.

CDP arcs all take place over varying amounts of time, arc one roughly takes place over several weeks and arc two takes place over four months. (i’m still trying to plan out how long -time skip wise- arc thee is going to take)

CDP begins roughly in the beginning of November (due to the fact that that’s when i started writing it), but time acts differently in the story as there are never any concrete ‘dates’. Wes mentions it being january in ch 35, and damien mentions that it’s february in ch 43, but those are the only times i really gave actual months

there was very nearly going to be a christmas episode, but i felt like it messed with the pacing too much

i wrote most of the pre-CDP plot/backstory at the end of plotting out the fic

The name ‘Xiaolong’ is actually a word in Chinese. I meant the word to be ‘dragons’, but after consulting two of my Chinese-speaking friends they have both informed me that it actually means ‘little dragon’. once again google has disappointed me, but given me a nice name.

The original name for the Xiaolong was the ‘Swhi Zi Long’ which (very roughly) translates to ‘blood of the dragon’

I still can’t spell the Russian words for ‘bear brotherhood’ correctly, which is why I frequently refer to them as just ‘the brotherhood’

Kate’s number, referenced in chapter 12, is 555-0930. The final four numbers is the date Kate and Joven got married

the Jackrabbit’s address - 1301 Verloren street is a mix of two different things. 13, the day i was born, 01, the year i was born, and ‘Verloren’, which is the verb for ‘to forget’ in german

damien references something in one of his early chapters that can be seen as somewhat of foreshadowing to what happens in chapter 55

a single chapter of CDP, (which are roughly between 1,500-4,000) can take anywhere from 2-7 hours to write, depending on my focus and depth of editing

the shortest chapter of cdp is around 1,000 words and the longest chapter is 5,400 words long

there’s a base 64 easter egg in chapter 43. (the code that leo gives to damien to unlock the storage space translates to a french phrase, (la douleur exquise), which basically means ‘the heart wrenching pain of wanting someone you can't have’. and if that ain’t a mood with leo’s feelings towards damien.)

the final five chapters of arc two were supposed to be formatted very differently. the arc was supposed to end with a damien chapter, but i felt like it messed with pacing too much to add more people’s points of view. instead we got some extra stuff and some cute coze interactions and more boze backstory, so it payed off well!

unlike arc one, the plots of each of the chapters of arc two were written WAY before i published them. some of them changed based on how the characters changed, but most of them have been the same,

the bare plot for arc one is roughly 3.5 pages long, the bare plot for arc two is 5 pages long, and the bare plot for arc three is 7 pages long

there will be 35 chapters this arc, as well as one, most likely very long epilogue chapter.

cdp will return this friday! for making it all the way through the list, have a few paragraphs from the next chapter - 56 - the aftermath

Mari’s heart was pumping out of her chest.

The ambulance sirens wailed around her as she followed closely behind in her car. The technicians hadn’t looked hopeful as they’d loaded the bodies into the back of the van.

There had been so much blood.

She’d been standing in the back, barely paying attention, trying to focus on the set numbers. Then the explosion had bloomed across the room. She had felt the sonic hum deep in her chest, and the ringing in her ears still burned, even now.

Mari slammed her fist into the steering wheel, letting out an ear splitting shriek as she let her emotions bubble over. Her friends might be dead. She had never thought that it would actually come it this.

She thought that they were safe now that the Titans were gone.

Sohinki’s words now echoed hauntingly in the back of her head.

The ambulance in front of her ripped into the hospital parking lot. Personel in white coats and white gloves ran with crash carts from the front door as soon as the ambulance stopped.

Mari found a parking spot quickly, putting the car into park before running towards the van, barely thinking to lock her car behind her. She could see them pull a gurney out of the back, moving it quickly towards the front entrance as doctors and ER techs shouted numbers at one another. Joven stepped out of the back, out of breath and sweaty, covered in blood.

#cdp #arc one/arc two fun facts #crime does pay #smosh fic

10 notes · View notes

dezembergirl · 6 years ago

Text

Zweisamkeit

Well, I couldn’t help myself. This was one heck of a 2. Season and I miss these two very much. So here is my take on what happened after the last episode (lots of Winterberg fluff and angst). Read on ao3 or continue down here.

(I would love to write the Valentine’s Day date we missed out on, if anyone has suggestions pleeeease tell me.

Mia had had a mess of a day, a hell of a week - as in literal hell. And judging by the shadows around Alex’s eyes he hadn’t fared much better. So maybe it came as no surprise at all that the very Friday night she had wanted to spend celebrating Sam’s birthday, had ended in Alexander’s bed with more tears than could be healthy for anyone’s hydration levels.

The past two weeks, in particular, had left their marks. Mia knew what depression felt like and this had been too close for comfort. She’d spent days in bed without ever sleeping and as a result, the fatigue had reduced her to wallowing mess. And every time she’d seen Alex things had spiraled downwards at an increased speed.

It had confused her to no end. Mia had prided herself on her ability to read others, Alex in particular. Having him break things off because of a business course in London that wouldn’t start until late summer, had made no sense at all. Or maybe it had, maybe this - whatever this was between them - had never mattered to him enough. Once that thought had occurred to her, it stuck. It stuck so well that she couldn’t decide if she missed Alex or wanted to punch him. A serious punch, with real power behind it. Right into his perfect jaw, the very one she had kissed and traced with her fingers over only weeks ago.

Alex had lain ruin to enough of her morals, and violence was the one thing she strictly refrained from. Sadly, punching the douchebag - because kissing was very much out of the picture now - did not qualify as self-defense.

Maybe forcing him to interact with her was the only way forward? So she had typed out more than one message only to delete them all before pressing send.

Fuck London, fuck the business course, fuck Björn, fuck our parents, fuck you, did not make for a compelling counterargument. What was she even arguing against? Alex’s broken ego or her own bitter and hurt pride?

On Thursday evening, Hannah had once again proven to be the type of best friend every girl should have at least one of. She had talked to Sam, both of the Sams actually. One had agreed to celebrate her birthday with Mia with a breakfast date next Monday, and the other had revealed Alex to be enjoying his new found freedom in the skating park most evenings.

IIF YOU DON’T TELL HIM YOU LOVE HIM, ILL KEY HIS STUPID CAR AND DO IT MYSELF, Hannah had written in all caps.

Love, the very word Mia had been pushing far, far away since Alex had become more than the stereotypical, arrogant asshole deriving to school in a Porsche. She was afraid, scared to death if she was honest. Mia had never considered herself in love before, infatuated sure, but never love. The notion that this was what tied her to Alex scared the living crap out of her.

Now that he had called it quits, confessing her deepest feelings seemed absurd. She hated how vulnerable it would make her, leave her entire flank exposed. But then, she also knew that Alex was not just another in a (very short) row of people she had kissed. He was the person that crept into her dreams and invaded her mind with memories of his voice and laughter. He had set up camp in her heart permanently, without the 50 euro per night fee. That’s why she’d rather not know if he didn’t feel the same way. Ignorance was bliss, she had told herself.

But ignorance was not a concept Mia could tolerate for long. It had taken her the entire day but once she had set a foot outside her apartment the doubts shrunk with every step and kept to the back of her mind. She opted to walk instead of taking the bus and the cold air made her face numb and sensitive all at the same time. She’d make him listen and tell him the whole truth. He had to see reason, wouldn’t he?

Her hands had grown into ice around the bottles of soda she’d brought when the door to the skateboarding hall had finally opened to reveal Alex’s unmistakable frame. He had looked sad and as miserable as she had felt but he had listened. The reluctance and how he had leaned away from her whenever possible had made her heart stutter and tears rise in her eyes. But she had hit something within him and the cold and indifferent eyes had grown wide with both relief and what was unmistakably love. And kissing him had never tasted sweeter.

Really, fuck you Timbuktu.

Ah yes, the tears.

They had kissed and hugged until the February air had penetrated their heated skin hidden under layers of wool. He had taken her to his car and Mia had never been more relieved to see the sleek leather inside of his Porsche.

She’d kept her hand across the center console toying with his right hand on the way home. It was, in fact, the first time she had agreed to enter the Porsche on the passenger seat. Alex did have a few years head start when it came to navigating his way through Berlin and she was in no state to drive. The stupid smile he couldn’t hide, she caught Alex press his lips together in an effort to keep them from rising up into a ridiculous grin. She hadn’t seen him this happy since the few days of bliss that had been the semester holidays. His cheeks were pink and the warmth in his eyes when he looked over made her insides twist and heat up in the most delicious ways. So much so that by the time he had parked them in front of his apartment building, her eyes were swimming in tears.

Alex swiped his thumb across her cheeks before unlocking the door. They lingered in the frame until he placed a kiss to her forehead and the look they shared spoke volumes. I love you had been the easy part. Love couldn’t erase the past week and both of them knew it. This would be a long, long night.

"Please don’t ever do this to me again,“ said Mia. She had curled up on the living room couch while Alex poured hot chocolate into mugs. The fridge provided an ominous background noise that stretched the silence between them. "I know that this,“ she gestured in Alex general direction „Will take work, so much work. But I can’t take the silence. It wasn’t fair and no matter how shitty things get we have to find a way to communicate that.“

Alex stopped inches from where she was sitting. The chocolate swayed precariously in the mugs as he sat them on the table. He didn’t sit down, but fixed her with his eyes and Mia knew this was not the moment to avert her gaze, no matter how heated her cheeks got.

"I am sorry, you know that. If I could go back and change how things played out, I would. I never set out to hurt you, not intentionally.“

Mia swallowed around the lump in her throat. The raw earnestness in his words tucked at her heart in the most painful ways. O,h how she wished they could jump past this to cuddles and kisses and waking up in the same bed. She should have brought the whole box of tissues, the tears were already announcing their return.

"There are many things I regret, and I think you do too,“ Alex sat, far enough away for another person to squeeze between them. "But if there is one thing I’ve taken away from it, it’s that honesty isn’t optional; not If we want to make this work. And in honesty, I would have probably reacted the same way again. That doesn’t make it right but it’s true nevertheless. Before you, there was no one who relied on me, who expected things. I’ve disappeared before, multiple times, and Sam knew the rough outlines so it was never a problem.“

"It is now,“ Mia toyed with the handle of her mug.

"Yes, it is. In reality, it always has been. And this is me telling you that I’m aware that it’s an issue. I will work on it. I have an appointment with my old psychologist on Tuesday. But it won’t be a quick fix, not by a long shot“

"So what if it happens again?“

"I will talk to Sam,“ Alex had started twisting his rings and his foot tapping made the couch vibrate ever so slightly. Mia wished she could pull him towards her and hug him tight for the next hour. Physical actions seemed so much easier because words were complicated and they hurt.

"I don’t intend for this to happen again, but I’ll give you my parents’ numbers. They are not the warmest people but after Sophie, they won’t turn you away. I know it’s not the perfect solution. But if this means as much to you as it does to me, I want you to know that this is not an empty promise. And I have to hope that it’s enough.“

"Thank you,“ Mia put the mug back down and reached for Alex's hand instead. It felt hot against her skin and when she squeezed it he closed his fingers around hers. "Thank you for giving us a chance. I felt so so stupid, but you breaking up with me hurt so much more than I wanted it to. And part of it is my fault. I was never totally honest, not to you and not with myself. The first time things got hard with Kikki, I was ready to run and I did. So, as much as I hated what you did, I can’t blame just you.“

They stared at each other in silence. Mia’s heart raced in her chest and Alex looked as close to tears as she felt. He exhaled and nodded for her to continue. "I didn’t listen to you after you resurfaced. Part of it was revenge I think and the other part fear. I don’t understand physical violence. I know why you did it and I can’t fault you for it now but then it felt like a betrayal. I couldn’t look at you without hearing you crack Björns ribs and I wasn’t brave enough to hear your side of the story regardless.“

Mia swiped away a stray tear and scooted closer to Alex. "Just like the butterfly effect really. We made minor mistakes and things spiraled out of control so quickly. I hope you can forgive me, I know I forgive you,“ she squeezed his hands again and looked up to find a tear making its way down his cheek. "I love you, so so much, and for now that is enough. I’m sure of that.“

"Of course I forgive you,“ Alex said and pulled her even closer and Mia felt his whole frame tremble as he did. They ended up hard hugging half spooning on the couch. "I love you,“ he traced the shell of her ear with his nose. "I love you, I love you so much.“

He kissed the parts of her face he could reach and Mia felt the warmth from his body overpower her own. With her head against his chest and her arms wound around his torso, the tears fell again. But Alex kept tracing circles on her back and pressing kisses to her temple and hair. Words hurt but pain could be cathartic. Mia felt a million times better no as if the thing that had slowly broken and splinter over the past week had been restored to its untouched state. The most important things were out in the open and as long as they had the truth between them things would work out.

Time slowed or increased tenfold, Mia couldn’t tell. But after a while, Alex’s movements had seized and her sobs had given way to the humming of the fridge. She felt his chest rise and fall in turn with his breaths. Just when she was sure he had fallen asleep Mia suddenly found herself being flipped over and off the couch. Before she could even register the impact - softened by the plush carpet covering his living room floor - Alex was already celebrating his victory, on his hands and knees hovering above her with his chest was heaving.

"I got you this time, no sleeping on the couch in my house,“ he had positioned his face inches above her own.

"On the carpet then?“ Mia tilted her head up but he pulled away before their noses could touch. "Doesn’t seem very Mr. - how rich exactly are you - Hardenberg. Or maybe on the hardwood, like a commoner?“

"You’re not in a position to taunt, Miss Winter,“ he clicked his tongue before moving on to her right ear and whispering in a voice, so low it made her hairs stand on end. "You have been compromised." Alex's lips moved against the shell of her ear. They weren’t kisses exactly but Mia suddenly felt very aware of just how close his body was. His chest hovered inches above her own and his breaths were fire against her temple. She couldn’t take much more, every fiber of muscle was pulled taught and her whole body hummed with anticipation.

Mia moved her hand, ready to close the distance but he shook his head. "Ah-ahh, so you do admit defeat? You will have to say the words, otherwise, it won’t count.“ He was still unbearably close to her ear and with every syllable enunciated to the max, goosebumps spread from her chest outwards, leaving her skin tingling. "Do you yield your rights to the couch?“

"No,“ she looked him dead in the eyes and for a moment she feared he had frozen and would keep her in this position forever. But Just as quickly his pupils dilated and the mischief was crackling in his eyes.

"I see,“ the corners of his lips twitched and before Mia could brace herself he had attacked her stomach. She gasped for air between laughter and half hysterical screams as he proceeded to tickle every inch of bare skin he could reach. Every attempt to block her body from his hands failed as he was kneeling above with her legs locked between his. The sensory input threatened to prove too much and when Alex finally relented Mia was panting beneath him.

She squinted away the tears that had leaked from her eyes, her chest heaving as she caught her breath; oh yes, even more tears. She would have to double her 2 liter water intake tomorrow.

Above her, Alex was running his hands through his hair, somehow managing to increase its volume even more. The dark spots under his eyes were still visible but the flush spreading from his cheeks made him look less like a worn man and more like an innocent boy. He was beautiful, with his stupid hair, cheekbones worthy of their own spread in Vogue and eyes that could, on one hand, make her stomach lurch, and explode with butterflies the next second. Now, they were fixed on her face, tracing her features from hairline to chin and finally landing on her own.

"Are you alright?“ Alex asked and she nodded "More than.“

Alex laid down next to her, propped on his side. He pushed stray strands of hair from her face before moving closer and touching his nose to hers with an amount of care that made her heart swell. But Mia, having recovered her heart rate and breathing, pressed her lips firmly together before he could fully close the gap.

Revenge, were revenge was due, she rolled herself on top of him and found that "Well Mr. I have 99 problems and money solves about half, you are quite susceptible to this kind of torture yourself.

Indeed, his abdominal muscles clenched and unclenched under her fingers and after several seconds of silent panting he couldn’t hold back the giggles any longer. Laughter proved to be a very potent drug, especially this late in the evening. Once they had started it was impossible to stop. Love couldn’t erase the trouble of the last weeks and laughter wouldn’t put Björn behind bars or bring Sophie back, but it made them remember how happy they had been in this very apartment and how right it felt have that back.

The giggles bubbled from her lips with an ease she wouldn’t have thought possible this morning, and only subsided when her obliques ached from exhaustion. By then, Alex had put his arms around her and pulled her to his chest.

She would hug him close and never let go, Mia decided at that moment. Future Mia’s spine would likely protest the choice (or lack of thereof) of a mattress but right there, snug in his arms, she couldn’t care less for how sore her back would be in the morning. At least the living room carpet should offer her a discount on the 50 Euro a night Hardenberg Suite.

Mia fell asleep to the sound of Alex’s breaths evening out and his chin tucked against her hairline.

#winterberg #druck #mia winter #alexander hardenberg #druck fic #fic #winterberg fic #fanfic

14 notes · View notes