#I tried to word this as sensitively as I could without sounding too robotic | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fairyofthestar · 4 years ago

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hi! if ur reqs are open can i ask for an angsty (w/ a fluff ending plz 🤕🙏) oneshot for beomgyu & reader?? probably an established relationship au wherein they got into an argument and it just got out of hand bc one was really tired sensitive! hehe i hope this ones ok :>

delicate

word count: 1.7k

genre: established relationship, non idol!beomgyu, angst (i mean i guess idk i tried 😭) to fluff

you being busy was an understatement.

you had art commissions piling up and you had no choice but to pour all of your time towards it. you needed the money, and you really do appreciate everyone liking your art. the process though, will forever be like taking a one way train to hell.

you were on your fourth commission for this week and you could feel your body give up on you, but you had to keep working. you rarely took breaks because you felt like even taking five minutes off was wasting time.

your live-in boyfriend, beomgyu, was getting worried. he rarely saw you leave your room and everytime he would check up on you, things were the same—you sitting on your desk, posture slouched, the whole room dark except for the light of a single lamp in front of you, crumpled pieces of paper were on the floor and different art materials were scattered on the desk.

he would offer to help clean up your room a bit so you could work in a better environment, but you refused any type of distraction to be in your vicinity. he would quietly bring you food and water, but you would either eat only a bit or leave them untouched. he was getting frustrated, but he knew he couldn't get mad at you.

because of the need to finish everything perfectly, you decided to shut out every type of emotion that would take you out of your zone. at this point, you felt numb. you didn't need emotions while sketching and finishing the pieces of artwork you were working on.

that numbness though, was broken when beomgyu suddenly barged into your room, breaking his routine of quietly peeking in then leaving immediately. the sound of the door perked up your ears, but you didn't let it faze you. you kept working without making any mistakes.

"i think you need to rest, baby," you heard his low voice from behind you. you tried tuning him out. no distractions.

"baby... (y/n)."

you slammed your pencil down on the desk and turned around to face him. when he saw the state you were in, his heart sank to his stomach.

you looked drained. bags were forming heavily under your eyes and you looked pale, like any time soon, you were going to be sick.

"what do you want, beomgyu?" you said flatly and glared at him, annoyance boiling up inside of you bit by bit. beomgyu sighed, his worried eyes softening.

"you're tired. you need to rest or else you're going to completely break. i don't want to see that happening," he said softly. he knew you were delicate at the moment, so he was approaching you very carefully.

"i'm okay. leave me alone." your response was short and robotic. you both knew that you weren't fine, but you didn't have time to feel bad about yourself right now. you had to finish your work.

you turned towards your desk, but didn't pick up the pencil. instead, you blankly stared at the sketch in front of you.

you heard beomgyu sigh behind you once again. "you know, you don't have to work so hard."

you furrowed your brows at his words. you stood up abruptly, taking him aback at the sudden movement. you faced him, a cold glare fixed on your face.

"and what do you mean by that?"

"i'm just saying, you don't have to push yourself too much. you don't have to pour your whole being towards this. it's not worth wasting the rest of your day sitting in front of your desk and not even giving yourself time to breathe. it's like you're slowly killing yourself and the light inside of you and i hate seeing it. you need to give yourself time to breathe," he said slowly. he made sure to keep his composure calm as he spoke and chose his words carefully.

however, with the way you repressed your emotions, you took everything that he said in a bad way. you felt yourself grow more annoyed as he spoke. "so you think i should just say 'fuck it' and forget my future? is that it?"

"you know that's not what i meant."

"no, i totally get what you mean," your voice has started to raise without you being aware of it.

"you want me to just forget everything and forget about my future. this is taking me somewhere beomgyu, i can't afford to do anything that would fuck it up. i can't waste a single moment right now because it would mean that i'm letting a single penny and opportunity slip away from my hands. i don't need rest. i don't need anything right now, especially from you."

you were breathing heavily as you finished. silence filled the room and you soon realized what you had just said.

your angered face fell as you realized the gravity of your words. you shouldn't have said that. you could feel your heart crawl up to your throat, creating a lump that couldn't be swallowed down. "gyu..."

he only stared at you. your words hurt him, but he didn't show a single trace of it on his face.

no one said a word for a while. the only things that could be heard were the rustling of the trees from outside of your opened window and the noise of the crickets that surround your house. your neighborhood was always quiet but right now, you wished that there was noise that could fill the void in your room and drown your thoughts and emotions.

"i-i'm sorry. gyu, i didn't mean that, i swear." you stammered. you tried thinking of anything else to say but the damage had been done.

a small smile appeared on his face, but you knew it wasn't a happy smile. you felt your heart crack. "i'll stop bothering you. i'll be in my room if you need me, okay?"

he stepped forward and caressed your face, his eyes were still filled with so much love despite the words you said. you felt your eyes well up with tears as you stared up at him and everything came crashing down on you.

you immediately held onto him—as if he were going to disappear from the face of the earth anytime soon and you thought that a tight embrace would be able to prevent it. your sobs filled the room as you finally allowed yourself to feel the emotions you have been repressing the entire week.

it was an overwhelming feeling.

you felt mad at yourself for treating beomgyu that way despite everything he has done for you. you felt mad at yourself for not appreciating his efforts and his silent support. you felt mad that you were treating yourself like this. you felt the exhaustion wash over you. you realized how lifeless you felt.

and yet despite all of that, beomgyu was holding onto you as tightly as you were holding him.

despite all of that, he followed you to the floor, gently supporting your weak body when you felt that you couldn't stand up any longer.

despite all of that, he was stroking and placing soft kisses on your hair as he rocked both of you slowly to calm you down.

at one point, when you could finally hear your surroundings beyond your uncontrollable sobbing, you heard him softly singing your favorite song, which had also become his as time passed by.

no one moved from the position you were in even as you had calmed down. that was probably the hardest you have cried in a long time and you felt a bit lighter after it. you felt human again.

but the regret of your words was still there and you still feel horrible about hurting the love of your life.

"i'm really sorry," you managed to let out, your voice weak from all of the sobbing. beomgyu shushed you and kissed the top of your head.

"it's okay, my love. you don't have to apologize," he closed his eyes and he started rocking you both side to side again.

you inhaled, trying to gather strength to speak again. "it's not okay. i was horrible to you. you didn't deserve that."

"baby, i know how sensitive you were. you were frustrated and you needed to let your emotions out. i understand baby, you don't have to feel sorry. i'm okay, really." you started tearing up at his words again.

"what did i do to deserve you?" you whispered.

beomgyu slightly pulled away so he could see your face. he wiped the tears on your face and tucked the strands of hair behind your ear. you were now aware of how horrible you probably looked, but he didn't care. in his eyes, you were always beautiful no matter what.

"i should be asking that question," he finally smiled a genuine smile. "my baby is the best person in the entire world and is such a hard worker. you really don't have to push yourself too much to earn money because we're both earning money in different ways, but i understand that you have to work hard in order to achieve your dream. you are so talented, baby. no one is as talented as you, i swear. you're going to be a successful artist and i can't wait to be with you in every step of the way."

he placed a soft kiss on your lips and you felt yourself smile at his words and action. you have missed the warmth of his lips on yours. you have missed the warmth of the comforting existence of your boyfriend.

"i love you, beomgyu. thank you for making me feel alive when i lost myself momentarily." his smile widened and so did yours.

"i love you. you also make me feel alive, baby. more than you will ever know." he leaned in for a deep kiss and at that moment, you felt the tiredness leave your body.

you and beomgyu spent the rest of the day watching your favorite movie. being with him was something that you really needed in order to feel motivated and energized.

you vowed to never reach that point again. you needed to learn that taking it easy and taking rests would not take you a step back in your journey and if you ever forget the vow you have made, beomgyu would always be there to remind you and give you the comfort and support that you need because as long as you are with him and he is with you, everything will be okay.

☆ taglist: @belovedgyus @ifwtyun

☆ if you want to be in my taglist, please tell me in my asks or message me !!

#omg i hope this was okay #MY FIRST PROMPT feeling: nervous #we love comforting beomgyu #txt scenarios #txt x y/n #txt x reader #txt imagines #beomgyu imagines #beomgyu x reader #beomgyu scenarios

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youryanderedaddy · 4 years ago

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♡100 followers special♡

Guys, I would like to thank all of you for all the support since I started this blog, you are the best <3 Btw this is the fic Elon Musk doesn’t want you to see lol, jk jk

Title: Humanity

Words: 3.6k

Summary: When you get sold to an odd looking robot after the last failure of a rebellion, things go better than you had expected. Until they don’t.

tw: robot/AI apocalypse au, dystopia au, slavery, slight non - sexual public nudity, discrimination, vulgar language, mention of death and child abuse (in the past), obsessive behavior, non - consensual touching, angst

AD 3061y., 14 September

Your hometown was in ruins, shattered by the Forces and left without any source of food, clean water or reliable manpower. The rebellion had failed just like the first ten attempts and as much as you had wanted to believe this time would be different, your dreams stayed nothing more than a way to cope with the harsh reality. Any intelligent individual had either managed to flee before the prosecution or died in agony while trying. You could still hear their pained screams ringing in your ear, the desperate look in their pupils sealed forever in your mind along with the sound of heavy breathing slowly fading into the background like your own hopes for a better future.

The ones who decided to play meek and close their eyes to the inhuman torture happening in the area were spared, but what awaited them could potentially be worse than death itself. You were part of the flock of pitiful weak humans who had surrendered to the heartless machines wanting nothing more than to see mankind squirm and kneel underneath their mechanic heel like a bug. And now you would face the hour of judgment – tired and exhausted, heavy rusty chains around your bruised ankles making every next step a little harder than the last one. But you were certain that the most painful humiliating event hadn’t taken place yet and the thought made your blood run cold. You could recall the countless stories you used to hear on the streets from your friends about androids stealing kids and selling them like cattle to the most powerful leaders of society. Back then you would laugh at them, finding the ideas ridiculous, better fit for a conspiracy theory or a legend rather than an actual threat. But during that time life was easier – the robots were still your friends, just your average citizens, equal to the humans in every manner. It wasn’t until ten years later that some of them realized just how much better, stronger and smarter than the people they really were. That’s how the apocalypse started and that’s how it was going to end. These days the mortals were becoming extinct with the population cut down to one million. You didn’t have names or rights to any possession. Your mere survival had one purpose only – to entertain the machines so they could feel human again. And right now you were being dragged to Soraq, also known as the biggest slave market in the country.

----

It was just as terrifying as you had imagined it to be. The Capital was supposed to express wealth, luxury and maybe even happiness but your old human views were easily opposed when faced with the mud covering what was left of the pavement and the pale exhausted bodies of the mortals wandering the streets searching for a hot meal and a little bit of kindness it was clear no one wanted to provide. You reached out to help a young girl sobbing all by herself on the ground but the Officer roughly yanked your shoulder back and ordered you to keep going – his cold hard touch was enough to bruise your skin.

After a few long minutes of uncertainty your keeper finally stopped, pulling you up some black stairs leading to a small stage and if you weren’t too busy looking around for the others who were captured, you might have noticed the crowd gathered inches away from you. Soon enough you were forced to redirect your attention as you heard the approving screams and cheering below. There were hundreds of robots staring at you, smirking maliciously, pinning you with their cold calculating gazes. You finally realized that this wasn’t just a bad dream or a nightmare, something unreal you could easily run away from by opening your eyes. You were about to become property and the worst part was the way the cruel machines perfectly resembled people – they looked the same except for the dark red pupils each possessed which glowed when going into a fight mode. But unlike humans the androids had gotten rid of their most intimate emotions and fears, turning themselves into empty shells, shiny and murderous with no way to experience anything properly, be it pleasure or pain.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” The Officers started off with a low chuckle, his heavy hand wrapped tightly around your arm. His voice should have been programmed to be monotone but now it had a playful edge to it. “Today our dear subjects have decided to be feisty yet again. They still haven’t learned their lesson it seems.” He grinned eerily, quickly followed by the mocking laugher of the crowd. Some even shouted slurs and insults but you tried to focus on controlling your feelings. You needed to stay calm if you wanted to survive. “We really can’t expect more from the mankind. They are primal after all, they just can’t learn from their mistakes.” The male robot paused for a second to fix his microphone. “It’s in their DNA code to be foolish and pathetic. That’s why we need to take better care of them.” He whispered the last line down your neck and despite knowing that the machines didn’t have actual lungs, you could swear you felt his cold breath on your sensitive skin.

“The woman is in her early twenties. Her background is unknown, but she certainly looks like someone you would want in your collection.” The android continued talking as if you weren’t there, his hands all over your tinier frame. The mass was yelling, but you only made out the words „down”, „strip” and „human”. Your eyes watered involuntarily and you let the tears stream down your cheeks in spite of the weakness they showed. It didn’t matter – it couldn’t get any worse so you could at least let yourself experience such little bits of comfort. In the next moment the Officer ripped your old ragged t-shirt, exposing your breasts to the cold autumn air. The hot red humiliation washed over you as the degrading whistles pierced trough your heart. It was such a cruel unfair punishment and you couldn’t even keep your composure long enough to not break down ugly – crying right there.

“The bidding starts at one thousand eros!” The robot’s evil voice echoed through the area, reaching the market borders. Suddenly all the attention was on your scared vulnerable half-naked self. More than ten androids raised their hands, making your stomach turn in terror. Most of them had unpleasant appearances, resembling old people, usually men. “Do we have two thousand eros?” The officer added quickly afterwards having seen the shown interest. This time there were only five bots willing to buy you for so much money – but the show was far from over. “Am I seeing three thousand eros?” Your keeper kept going, determined to drain your bidders off their wealth, but to his utmost surprise now there were only two robots with their hands in the air – one seemingly younger and the other looking all wrinkled and bitter at the world. You silently prayed that fate would work in your favor only this time and hand you over to the man who would treat you more like a living being and less like an object.

“Ten thousand eros.” Suddenly the android with a kinder appearance declared out loud, his cold stern gaze fixed onto you. The other male hesitated for a moment, probably wondering whether or not you were worth so much money, but at the end he cursed under his breath and slowly put his hand down with a sour expression. “Sold to K-010 for ten thousand eros!” The automatic voice of the Officer was ringing in your ear like an alarm while the crowd was shouting and cussing, some going as far as to criticize your new owner for giving up his monthly salary for a “cheap human whore”. Next he was invited on the stage to sign off all the needed documents leading to your freedom being ripped away forever and you were injected with a tiny chip which would make your location visible to your buyer at any given time. The android looked at you soon after and in one swift move he managed to place his leather coat on your shoulders, muttering at you to cover up. You obeyed, embarrassed by the reminder that your upper half was still fully exposed to all the hungry prying immortals. When the chains were finally removed, the robot took you by the hand and led you to a small white flying car with a yellow lily drawn on top – the brand was popular among the most powerful members of the Forces.

“Don’t even think about running away.” K-010 growled when he noticed the way your attention drifted to the nearby road before finally taking your seat. You knew it was pointless now that the tracking device was deep into your skin but deep down you still couldn’t kill the last bit of hope screaming at you to do something before you were too far away to find home again, wherever it was. “If you so much as look outside while we drive, I will use my lasers to turn you into ash. Okay?” You nodded meekly and sank into the soft comfortable seat, wishing that your body would stop shaking in fear but to no avail.

---

The journey was long and silent but it made you remember the days when music was still allowed and you used to turn the radio all the way up in your mother’s car. You would sing loudly until your throat hurt and your friends would ask you to just shut up and focus on the road. Everything was so normal and happy back then. The stinging nostalgia threatened to overcome so you tried to focus on something else. You finally faced your owner in an attempt to study his appearance. He was probably in his late twenties, his hair white with some black locks here and there, a fashion trend you usually didn’t care much for. You couldn’t afford to bother with your hairstyle when you were constantly running for your life after all. The robotic male had sun-kissed brown skin, he was taller than most human men and his lips seemed softer than most robots’. But the biggest mystery laid in his deep dark eyes, they looked scarlet at first but the more you stared, the easier it was to realize the color was actually brown.

“Are you a cyborg, K-010?” You asked in a small voice out of the blue, breaking the peace and quiet in the air. The android didn’t spare you much attention with his gaze fixed onto the open sky serving as a road, still he opened his mouth slightly to respond. “My name is Kyle, the numbers are just a formality.” He inhaled sharply as if he was reminiscing a bad memory. “And yes, I am biologically human – just with a few practical upgrades.” You had heard of such people before, the ones willing to become an experiment so they could join the high society oppressing their own neighbors, friends and relatives, setting the lands on fire and destroying the dying environment but you had never met one until today. Honestly, you felt betrayed. It was one thing to be some unfeeling machine’s plaything and entirely another to be owned by someone with a functioning heart even though they weren’t too keen on using it properly.

“Why would you do that?” You couldn’t stop the question from leaving your lips in the next moment. “You should know what humans have to go through just to stay alive. Today hundreds of us were crushed and sold like some animals! Yet you changed yourself to appeal to their disgusting standards.” You raised your voice, the hot tears already spilling down your cheeks yet again, your fists clenched in pure anger at the foolish greedy man. He simply shook his head and leaned back. “I had my reasons, sweetheart. You don’t know anything.” With that the conversation had ended, you could try and argue or even blame him for being a selfish bastard but it wouldn’t have done you any good so you decided against it. It didn’t matter much anymore.

----

A few months went by slowly even though time meant little to someone in your position. Living with Kyle wasn’t as terrible as you thought it would be – his mansion was big and spacious, luxurious even. You had your own room and you were allowed to explore the house in your free time. You didn’t have many duties to attend to, your work mostly revolved around cooking, cleaning and keeping company with your owner when he was too tired to keep the robotic mask on and just wanted something sweet, something weak, something more human around. He didn’t want much out of you so you tried to do your best and stay on his good side – there was always a warm meal waiting at the table at night, every window was carefully wiped from the previous dust and the glass was now shining brightly, and you would listen for hours on end to the cyborg’s ramblings no matter how dreadful it could be sometimes.

But it couldn’t be denied that the man had some odd habits, even if you were to overlook him buying a living being instead of simply hiring a maid. For example, you knew how thin the walls actually were because you could hear him cry almost every night. The half-robot would hold you close any time the news were too loud or a bottle of beer had fallen and shattered on the ground. Still you weren’t allowed to leave his home so all the doors leading to the outside world were locked while he was away or at work. And there were these weird long cuts on his shoulders you had managed to take notice of the first time your master had asked you to bathe him. You hadn’t meant to prey upon his naked form, but the task had been so awkward you needed something to focus on to drive the unpleasant thoughts away. The injuries looked deep and the man would close his eyes any time the soap made contact with them. Finally one day you gathered the courage to ask him what had caused the raw scratches. You were messaging his scalp gently, applying jasmine in his roots, trying to soothe his nerves and get to the information.

“ ’S not important. ” K-010 answered lazily while arching his back into your touch. More often than not the male would melt under your care and you couldn’t help but wonder just how lonely it was to be neither a human nor a machine. “She is dead now.” He whispered darkly, secretly hoping it wouldn’t reach your ear, yet it did. “Who is dead?” You questioned him after a while, stroking his wet locks until you heard him moan. You were getting better and better at provoking a reaction from the cyborg and despite knowing it was manipulative and a little devious, he was still the ruthless owner who held your one and only life in his palms. You needed to be sneaky if you wanted a safe, comfortable life.

“My mother.” Kyle added quickly before looking at the blue ceiling, the glossy material copying both of your reflections. The mention of the woman made the sensitive skin of his nape crawl but he kept talking. “The crazy bitch used to beat me every. She even tried to kill me a couple of times.” A slight smile appeared on his full red lips. “It didn’t work out in the end, unfortunately.” So that’s where the cuts were from – he had been violated in his childhood by no other than the person supposed to look after him. You had always hated abusive parents taking advantage of their authority and even now your own imagination made your heart ache at the picture it painted. A small boy being hit over and over until there his whole body was bruised and bloodied. A child with no one to turn to. It didn’t excuse your master’s evil doing but it certainly explained a lot. “Don’t make such a sad face, darling.” He cooed at you, reaching out to pinch your cheek. “I will always be grateful to the Forces since they gave me the power I needed to finally free myself from her grasp. I even buried her myself after everything was said and done.” Kyle grinned from side to side like a little kid waiting to be praised for the picture they had drawn, except now the man was speaking of the way he had murdered his mother. You were at a total loss of words, suddenly too frightened to respond.

“What’s so special about being a human anyways?” The cyborg grumbled, sounding almost offended of the words you still haven’t said but were definitely thinking deep down. You were staring forward unable to draw away from that one crack in the wall, his words flying above your head. Your confusion was interrupted by the man quickly raising to his knees and catching both of your hands with his strong robotized ones. The cold touch of the metal combined with the camouflage of a soft skin was enough to mess your mind even further into the maze that was his dark gaze. Next thing you knew the male had you pinned on the hard ground, spotlessly clean and reeking of abstergent. You tried to squirm away but the hold of your wrists was too tight and strong to even make your struggling worth the trouble. “Just look at how weak you humans are.” K-010 taunted you, smirking teasingly, cruelly, yet there was something desperate in his eyes, something hidden. “You are so fragile I could probably break you if I were to press harder on your flesh.” He whispered into your ear, breathing down your neck as he dug his icy fingers into your collarbone and made you whimper pathetically at the dull pain. “People are foolish creatures, illogical by nature. They try to fight authority yet the moment they are left with a free choice, they find a way to run from their responsibilities.” The cyborg chuckled maliciously while digging his nails further into your skin.

“We might be doomed forever because of our emotions but there is something you fail to consider.” You finally spoke out despite your rapid heartbeat and fear so great it could defeat death herself. The predator already had you in his sharp claws and there was no pointing in playing coy anymore. The worst had come to worst. Your words caught the attention of the half-robot and he licked his lips in anticipation to hear what you had to say. “Unlike the androids we can still experience love. And at the end a life without love is a life wasted in the big picture. We might be mortal but you are the ones waiting to die instead of living.” You spat at the man fiercely, ready to face any punishment he would bestow upon your weak tired body for the sheer honesty. Instead he started laughed maniacally, the sound so loud it hit the ceiling and echoed through the house like a pained scream and so violent his shoulders shook to the sides. For the first time his eyes were glowing in a bright red color so saturated and vivid you couldn’t stand to look at them.

“This is really funny, my little human.” Kyle pronounced carefully, having calmed down. He lowered his head so that his lips were ghosting over yours, just brushing against them. “I belong with neither humans nor robots so why does my chest ache every time I look at you? Tell me, darling, am I in love?” His voice was harsh, husky – as if he was purposely trying to sound evil but the tears in his eyes pointed at another feeling. A raw painful feeling.

You couldn’t reply not only because you had no idea what to say after the confession but also because you couldn’t breathe properly with his pretty, wicked face so close to yours. Your silence only managed to stir the cyborg up further into his madness and he kissed you roughly, hungrily lapping and biting at your lips until they were sore and bruised, the robotic man more than happy to lick the small drops of blood off. For a moment you considered kicking or shouting for help but there wasn’t anyone willing to in the radius of kilometers. No one of significance cared much about the few remaining mortals. “I could never love you.” You uttered weakly, half – heartedly pushing the man away. You were all alone in this and there wasn’t really a point in fighting someone so much bigger and stronger, yet a sad little part of you hoped that Kyle would leave you alone if you made it clear enough just how much his actions were hurting you.

“It’s fine if you don’t love me by choice.” Your master replied calmly in a cold piercing voice. His hands were wandering through your form stopping at your hips to draw them into his. The pretty dress you used to like so much was now crumpled and reeking of him, torn apart from your shivering body and thrown away. You wished you could cry but all the adrenaline had left you too uneasy to process the pain and fear. Kyle whispered in your ear while stroking your hair gently and it made you feel like a trembling sheep before a starved butcher. “I own you, little human.” He placed a small kiss on your hot sensitive neck. “And I have enough love for both of us.”

#yandere #yandere male #yandere male x reader #yandere ai #yandere ai x reader #yandere cyborg #dystopia #yandere love #yandere concept #yandere oneshot #yandere OC #yandere male oc #yandere oc x reader #yancore

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acourtofsnakes · 4 years ago

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Tor - Rogue, Chapter 3| The Mandalorian x Force Sensitive! Reader (f)

Summary: A little bit of Mando pov for you all!! It’s a shorter chapter, just kind of the same as the previous but from our Space Dad’s point of view this time. Though there may be a little hint of your decision at the end…

Warnings: Injury detail/blood, swearing, angst? Hints of fluff?

AN: There’s a very small ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ reference to a certain Dornish prince and his nickname in here too. Wonder if you’ll find it? 👀

Also, thank you to @ithinkwehitametaphor for sending me the gif! i couldn’t for the life of me find it and you honestly saved my life

Wordcount: About 3465

Rogue Taglist: @snipskixandbeskar @weirdowithnobeardo

Mando’a Translation: Tor – justice

He always thought it would end like this. Never in some big blaze of blaster fire or with his ship, but in some back alley, bleeding out, alone.

Hell, maybe he deserved it. He’d killed enough people to warrant this end, slumped on the floor, too weak to save himself.

He didn’t deserve a warrior’s death, a Mandalorian’s death. Not after all he had done.

Of course, it was his duty, his honour as a Mandalorian and a bounty hunter but… that sacred Creed did nothing to stop the thoughts that plagued him at night, the whispers that hissed in his ear during his waking hours.

He almost laughed at himself.

The Creed was all he had.

Until…. Until the kid had come along.

Until he saw that little wrinkly baby in the crib and… it had all changed.

He couldn’t kill it, him, couldn’t take it back to the Client or his Clones.

One look at that damn little silver ball, and eveyrhting went straight out the window.

Fuck the Guild code. He would never kill a child, an innocent being that couldn’t even talk, could only make those little cooing sounds that even he had to admit were adorable.

Rescuing him… it had given him something to live for. Something to fill his days and a reason not to go hurtling helmet first into danger with no regard for his own safety.

Except… well, no. That wasn’t strictly true was it. He’d become more reckless since that moment, the rules that his bound his life for so long were slowly coming undone bit by bit. All of which made him so reckless, so… desperate?

You only had to look at the sheer amount of people lining up for his and the kid’s head to prove that.

So maybe he didn’t always make the smartest decisions, but they were still alive, weren’t they? Had friends to help them if he needed it.

In a short time, he’d gone from being Judge, Jury and Executioner, to being the person that people called when they needed help. Sometimes people didn’t even call him. He just showed up and offered his services.

And truth be told… he liked it. He liked people looking at him with hope and admiration, rather than fear and jealousy. He liked the way people fussed over the kid, asking if Mando was taking good care of the child. Like they were a family.

A Clan.

The sigil on his armour said as much. Him and the kid. A unit of two rogues.

That’s what it all came down to, in the end. Everything was to keep Grogu safe. That’s why he stuck to the Outer Rim, taking jobs that would draw him further away from those that relentlessly hunting them, those who wanted to harm the Child. Besides, he needed the credits that came with the big jobs. Taking care of the little womp rat was expensive. Not to mention there was always something falling apart on his ship.

So, when that guy in the hood had cornered him in the bar, given him the fob and told him about the bounty that no one could catch, he’d taken it without a thought. He’d had so many over the years that were supposedly uncatchable that the word had nearly lost its meaning. And this stranger had obviously sensed that, explained that it was true. Reeled off the sheer amount of hunters that had been sent that way, Imps, Trandoshans, Empire workers, IG-11 robots, even another Mandalorian. After hearing that list, Mando had expected some high-level bounty. An escapee from the deepest pits of the darkest prisons, someone who had done terrible, terrible things.

So… when he’d activated the puck, and the hologram of a woman’s face had come up… he was shocked. This woman… she was beautiful. Still young. She didn’t look like she bathed in the blood of her enemies, or killed children and babies, she looked… well, not exactly harmless. There was a glint in her eyes even on the hologram, a spark that warned of danger, promised pain to anyone that tried to hurt her.

A survivor’s look.

Something niggled at him, a feeling he couldn’t quite place. It might have been hesitation, but he ignored it. The bounty over her head was enough that he could take Grogu to one of those sanctuary planets and lay low for a few weeks. Maybe even a few months. The kid deserved it, to be able to play and explore.

And himself… Maker, he was just so tired.

So, he’d pocketed the puck and the fob, didn’t ask who the client was, went back to the Crest and then he was on his way to Sorgan.

Maybe it would take him a little longer than usual to bring the girl in, but it was nothing that he hadn’t done before. After all, stealing back the kid, breaking into a prison, everything else that had occurred recently… this was a walk in the park.

He still believed that, right up to tracking you. Even when he chased you.

He had to admit, he did love it when they ran, even if his back was killing him.

Something about the chase, the frantic fear of the prey as he hunted them down, the conclusion inevitable. It thrilled him.

But… this felt.. different.

You were different. You fought like it was a dance, whirling across the clearing and around his punches like there was a song only you could hear. And you were taunting him, laughing as you did. You lived for this, like you had been bred for it. No… you’d been shaped by it, shaped by the choice of cowering or turning into a wolf. A wolf, like those he’d seen in Lothal.

You were strong, you fought well, he had to give you that much. He knew he would have to work for it, but with the promise of safety lingering, he matched you move for move, determined to hold this out as long as it took.

He’d read your file, read what had happened and used that to his advantage. The words had come easily, even though they had stirred something inside him, perhaps a mirror of the feelings he was encouraging in you.

But then… then you just gave in. Straight away. And not like the others did. Not in the way that they had, thinking it would make him go easier, change his mind.

No, you had completely, utterly given up. He saw it in your eyes. Saw that survivors glint gutter out, a wolf tamed back into her cage with her tail between her legs.

And… it threw him. He had touched something, caught something deep within you as he taunted you. Something broken… that again whispered to his own deepest thoughts. Like calling to like.

He’d ignored it, pushing that thought back into the part of his minds where his darker thoughts lay slumbering – for now. He’d carried you back to the Crest, shackled you to the wall and had made to leave you there.

Only, he had seen that the wound on your shoulder was torn open again, ripped by your fight and his jamming with the rifle. It was bleeding through your tunic, and even with unconsciousness heavy in your body, you still looked somewhat pained.

He’d hovered there, staring at the bleeding wound and having some kind of internal battle.

It wasn’t fatal. It was just a recent injury that had torn open. You’d be fine. He nodded, turning around and making all of one step.

But. A Trandoshan had been the last person to hunt you. They relished in the hunt, had probably fought dirty and used a poison. It might be infected. What if you died on his way back to dropping you off? Or got really, really sick?

Nevermind. The messenger for the Client stated you had to be brought back alive. Alive didn’t mean whole. He carried on walking, trying to focus again on something else… only to pause a couple of metres away.

Help her.

The Mandalorian had turned back around to look at you, a frustrated grunt slipping from his lips. He moved through the ship, grabbing a med-kit and then practically stormed back to you, nearly ripping your tunic as he’d eased up the sleeve.

It wasn’t too bad, a deep wound but it hadn’t been infected, yet. He cleaned it up, spraying it with the last of his bacta-spray and binding it with the last strip of bandages. He’d have to get some more soon, dig up some credits from somewhere.

A cruel reminder of why he took this job. What you were. A bounty. That’s all.

Muttering a string of curses, he finished binding your wound, wrenching his hands away and then made his way back upstairs.

A bounty. A means to an end. The way to getting a break that his aching body craved for.

He was hunter. You were prey.

That was the mantra he had to keep repeating to himself when he’d brought you up to the cockpit.

Had to keep repeating when you were teasing him, which simultaneously ground on his nerves but also made his skin tighten in a way it hadn’t for a while.

It had been a long time, so long since he’d that kind of verbal play with someone.

Hell, it had been a long time since he’d had any kind of play with anyone. He just didn’t have the time anymore, not with Grogu and not when everyone knew who he was. How could you trust someone enough to sleep with them when nearly everyone wanted to kill you?

His new mantra had echoed in his head when you began to verbally poke at him, hitting home about being lonely. He wouldn’t have been surprised if you knew you’d hit a nerve. But thankfully you stopped.

But not before that broken thing had called between you again. Your words were spoken with too much ease and casualness, someone who knew all too well the loneliness and starvation for touch and companionship.

Maker, he had to get rid of you soon.

It had almost been a relief to find the small bounty on this planet. You’d been asleep, the kid asleep too so he’d gone. He didn’t need to wake either of you up, you knew why you were here - he’d told you so this morning.

Besides, it was a small planet, easy prey to catch when everyone here feared the dark. He’d be back in a few hours.

With the way he was so wired, he’d probably be back in two.

That’s the way it was meant to happen.

Track down the bounty, disarm, bring him back, freeze him in carbonite and Mando would have you back in the sky before you’d even woken up.

And it had happened that way initially. He followed the sharp tailed bounty from the fighting pits to a cantina. Had to sit and listen as he boasted about some girl he’d bedded the night before and had screaming his name. He then, of course, launched into detail of said night, drawling about this girl in such a derogatory way that it took all his training and restraint not to just shoot this creep in the head there and then and be done with it.

But, the Mandalorian had endured it. Sat there for an hour or so and then followed him out into an alleyway. Mando kept hidden as the bounty had spoken to a friend, talking about another girl he’d seen. Apparently, this one was even better than last night. He had it on good authority that this girl would be game for anything he wanted to do and more.

And then Spikey had started describing again, in detail, what he would do. And Mando had been disgusted, angry that this creep was talking about a woman this way, such sick and derogatory things. Spikey’s friend asked if this ‘slut’ had a name.

And then…

Your name. That’s what he said.

And that’s when it went wrong.

Your name had barely come out of this animal’s lips when a red haze clouded over the Mandalorian. Everything in him screamed violence and his body went on autopilot, attacking this vile waste of space matter so quickly he hadn’t had time to breathe. Mando didn’t even notice the friend bolt, running away. He was just so focused on taking down the bounty, ripping him apart for what he’d said about you. This one would be brought in cold. He would say that it put up a fight, tried to kill him so Mando acted in self-defence.

His previous mantra of the last two days was forgotten, overtaken by a need to defend you, make sure this guy stayed the hell away from you. Bring him down, freeze him in carbonite and get off of this planet. He fell back into that haze, relying on his skills and instincts.

Except… except that when the haze cleared, he wasn’t leaning over the body.

No, he was the one being pinned against the wall by the bounty, with a strength he hadn’t realised Spikey possessed. What the fuck was he?

Escape training came to him now, but before he could disarm and kill, the bounty began to spew those vile thoughts about you again. About how Mando was keeping you tied to a bed, for his own pleasure. How he was going to take you, ask to keep you, use you-

And then for the first time in his life, Mando forgot his training. He forgot about blocking and defensive maneuverers. He forgot about the myriad of weapons on his body, the Whistling Birds, the flame-thrower.

He reached out in a blind fury to throttle this creep.

He left himself open to attack.

That was the first time he royally fucked up tonight.

Pain had suddenly become a living thing in his side and waist as he slid down the wall, and then his only thought wasn’t of survival, it was of the kid, and you.

You were back in the ship, both of you safe at least. Maybe you would know how to fly, know how to get yourselves out of there and run, escape. That’s what he’d hoped. You were smart, you were a survivor. You’d take the initiative and get yourselves out. Besides, he might not have admitted it, but he trusted you with Grogu.

And then like he’d fucking summoned you… there you were. Launching into Spikey Tail’s side and getting him away. He could only watch as you engaged him in the fight, taunted him with that same tone you’d used on him. Only this time, he could watch you.

Beautiful.

There was no other word for it, as much as he might not have wanted to admit it. You fought like it was a dance, that prowling wolf in you giving way to a viper, striking and falling back with all the grace of dancers he’d heard about performing in Coruscant.

He was almost breathless as he watched this deadly game – though that might have been the blood loss and blow to his head.

He thought he might be sick when the sound of your ribs shattering bounced off the slick metal walls, the muffled cry of agony it tore from you.

But still, the taunts kept coming, and he couldn’t help himself when you complained that Spikey Tail talked too much. You had possibly two broken ribs and yet you were still a cocky little shit. The impressed, huffing laugh that came from his lips was loud enough to be heard by you.

And that was his second fuck up of the night.

What started as an unexpected burst of warmth in his chest as you turned and smiled at him, had immediately frozen his lungs as Spikey slammed you against the wall, strangling you.

Fear shot through Mando, colder than his body had begun to feel. He tried to get up, tried to help you but he couldn’t move. His limbs wouldn’t respond to him.

He couldn’t save you.

He was going to watch you die defending him.

Just like his parents.

No, no, no. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do that, not again. He swore against his body, gathered every remaining ounce of strength that he had and reached for his blaster, just as those sick comments of degradation and ugly lust began to fall from your attacker’s lips.

All he needed was to give you an opening, just one tiny opening and you would do the rest.

Spikey’s lips were creeping toward yours, fear bursting in your eyes as you scrambled for the vibroblade sheathed against your thigh.

An opening, that’s all he had to do.

And he did. He managed to haul his body back from the edge of death long enough to shoot the guy in the back.

You took your opening.

He saw the flash of your vibroblade, heard the muffled, wet noise as it sunk into his bounty’s neck.

The guy fell to the floor in a dead weight. You dropped too and he managed to see you gasp for air, assure himself you were mostly okay before that flame of energy guttered out so quickly, he saw stars.

Darkness hovered around the edges of his vision as he felt his life slip through his fingers – literally, his other hand was pressed to his side in an effort to try and staunch it but he didn’t have the energy to.

This was it then.

The way he would go.

Nothing noble, or heroic.

Bleeding out in a back alley. The creatures in the dark would take him soon enough.

At least you would be able to take the kid and run now. At least there was that.

And then he felt hands knocking his way, significantly smaller hands push into the wound. He couldn’t even make a noise of pain; it didn’t hurt anymore. His vision cleared again and there you were once more, leaning over him with blood sprayed over your face, falling from a cut on your cheek.

No. No.

What were you doing??

You were supposed to escape. You were supposed to flee the mess he’d bought you into and take the kid and run.

He tried to speak, to convey these thoughts to you but his lips had stopped responding. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth. But somehow, it was like you got what he meant.

Your hands began to lift, and he had a weak wave of relief that was marred by the fresh soaking of blood that oozed out of his side. How much had he lost now?

Too much, by the cooling temperature of his body and the trembling that had begun.

He had come close to death before, so many times before but this felt different. This felt like he was losing something. Something that was just within reach but he hadn’t had the chance to grasp at yet. And it was being wrenched away, taken from him and trickling over the stones beneath him in a deep, scarlet puddle.

Maybe he’d begun to hallucinate too, because you were back, leaning over him, hands pressed into him again like they could stop the blood. He lifted his eyes and something in him curled up and panged when he saw that you were already gazing at him.

Gazing right into his eyes.

How you knew where they were, how you looked through the blackened visor without seeing, he didn’t know. But he could read the war raging inside of you, the battle off stay or go.

Go.

Mando tried to talk again, but only managed a faint noise, a croak that sounded so pitiful, he might have cringed at himself had he not started to hear a ringing in his ears. Time was nearly up, ticking away his life and that glimmer of something.

So, he instead just looked at you. You were clearly not made up yet, so he did something selfish.

He put his life in your hands.

If you left him here to die, he deserved it. It was justice. Justice for every ounce of pain he’d caused. The grief he’d doled out to mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, children.

Justice for the life of treachery he had all but dumped Grogu into.

Justice for letting his parents die for him and not save them.

But, if you let him live…

Then he would try harder. He would repent for his mistakes.

He would make sure you were dropped somewhere safely. You couldn’t stay with him, he wrought death and destruction to those around him whether he meant it or not

But he could take you somewhere safe, maybe to Greef and Cara.

Then he would hunt down whoever came after you next, giving you the respite that he was going to keep for himself.

They were the options.

A deserved death, or a new determination to set right his mistakes.

These thoughts swum through his hazy brain at a surprisingly rapid pace, only a few seconds worth of time as he still watched what you would do with this choice. He could see that you understood, understood the choice he had selfishly bestowed upon you.

Only it was too late.

Heavy darkness thundered over him in an unrelenting tidal wave and with a choked gasp, he was dragged under, so deep he might have imagined your arms winding around his battered body, hauling him to his feet as much as you could.

His brain giving him one last reprieve, perhaps, or maybe a cruel taunt to what might have been before he was sucked under and everything went numb.

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#the mandalorian x force sensitive! reader #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #din djarin x force sensitive! reader #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #the force #star wars #the mandalorian #rogue #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal

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fallen-gravity · 4 years ago

Text

Intellectual Adequacy

Stan hates to start any unnecessary conflict, especially when there’s a very real chance that Ford will be moving to California next year, but he knows deep down that if they don’t talk about this now then he’ll never have the courage to bring it up again.

“Wait,” Stan shouts to Ford, and he stops dead in his tracks.

Notes: In which one little plot bunny that was preventing me from getting any work done becomes its own rabbit hole.

I genuinely cannot believe that in the six-seven years I've been in this fandom, I've never tried my hand at the fix-it-fic where Stan and Ford just talk it out as teenagers, just like they should've in canon. I've seen a lot of different approaches, but I feel like I've yet to see one that tackles it from the perspective of Stan's own battle with his self-worth, rather than the actions he or Ford have already taken.

AO3

Stan hates the principal’s office more than anywhere else in the world.

He swears, he’s called down every other week for something that’s not even his fault. He punched Crampelter in the nose for harassing some poor freshman? Principal’s office. He talks back to a teacher calling his classmate stupid for forgetting an “obvious” geometry equation? Principal’s office. He accidentally drops his pencil during an exam and bends over to pick it up? He must be cheating. Principal’s office.

If you asked him, the whole idea of sending kids to the principal’s office is pointless to begin with. Oh, you did something bad, and now we’re gonna make the big man in charge tell your mommy and daddy? How old do these people think they are?

Stan wishes he could say that this time is okay because they’re not even talking to him. They’re talking up a storm to Ford in there about another college scholarship and all the reasons why he and he alone would be the perfect candidate for some random school all the way out in California

But it’s not okay, because the longer Stan sits in the dumb waiting room the more he’s starting to feel like chopped liver. They’ve been in there for at least five minutes with no sign of stopping anytime soon, but every time Stan asks the secretary if he can just go back to class already she dismisses him with a wave of her hand and it’ll be your turn soon, sit back down.

He’s thinking of just sneaking out the next time the secretary buries her nose back into her magazine. It’s simple: just wait for her to pull it out from her desk, sneak by as quick as he can, and slip out the door and back to class before she can even notice he’s gone.

He stands from his chair, pretending to stretch and preparing to execute, but freezes solid when he hears his name being spoken from within the principal’s office.

“…What about our little free spirit Stanley?”

It’s Ma, and whatever it is they’re talking about in there, she isn’t happy about it. Frowning, Stan glances over at the secretary to make sure that she isn’t staring at him, and presses his ear to the office door to listen to their conversation more carefully.

The principal laughs in response. “That clown? At this rate he’ll be lucky if he graduates high school”

Stan’s taken aback by the harsh choice of words, but if he knows Ford, then he won’t just sit there and let the principal talk about him like that. He presses his ear further into the door, waiting for Ford to interrupt the principal’s rambling about how he’s never going to amount to anything with you just don’t know him like I do, or something along those lines, but it never comes.

Not a single interjection that…anything he’s saying is wrong. Not from Pa, not from Ford….and not even from Ma.

They don’t…all really believe that, right?

There has to be something else he’s missing. He bets they’re defending his honor right now, and the reason they’re not making a big scene about it is because they’re in public.

Yeah.

He’s got nothing to worry about.

He peeks into the window, expecting to see Ma glaring daggers into the principal, or Ford silently cursing him out behind his back, but what he’s met with is so much worse. Ma and Pa are exchanging warm smiles, and Ford is frantically shaking hands with the principal, beaming brighter than Stan’s ever seen in his entire life.

Matter of fact, Stan’s not sure he’s ever seen any of them look so happy in his entire life.

He’s worthless, he’ll never go anywhere, and they’re all smiling about it.

Stan’s heart drops to his stomach, and he slides to the floor to join it.

Is this some kind of cruel joke? Were they expecting him to listen in on their conversation? Is this their cruel workaround of telling him he’ll never amount to shit?

He sighs.

He stays there on the cold tiled floor for what feels like hours, contemplating all the times he’s been called dumb, or stupid, or a terrible influence on his brother. All of those times when he could brush it off just because it was coming from someone he didn’t care about.

But worthless?

Behind his back, spoken directly to people he loves, and they won’t even bother to defend him?

That one’s new, and if Stan is going to be completely honest with himself, it’s much harder to brush off his shoulders than all those other times.

Stan doesn’t even notice the office door opening until it nearly smacks him in the back of his head. He quickly jumps to his feet and brushes himself off, pretending the best that he can that he wasn’t just eavesdropping on them for the past ten minutes.

“Stanley!” Ford comes bursting out of the room, his grin threatening to split his face in two. “I just received the most incredible news! The admissions team at West Coast Tech heard about my science fair project, and-”

The beam suddenly slips from his face, replaced with some sort of mix of confusion and concern. “Is...Something wrong?”

Stan rubs at his eyes to make sure he hadn’t started tearing up without realizing it, but no, his eyes are bone dry.

Curse Ford’s stupid ability to read his mind.

Stan covers up the gesture of rubbing at his eyes with a yawn, and stretches his arms in the air. “Nothing except you taking forever in there” he flashes a fake smile easily. “Talk about a blabbermouth, am I right?” Stan gestures towards the principal with his thumb.

Ford laughs, and returns his gaze to the pamphlet in his hands. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think he’s so bad”

Stan opens his mouth to quip back, but Ford doesn’t seem to be paying much attention anymore. He’s just staring at that dumb pamphlet, his grin slowly but surely returning to his face again.

Instead, Stan shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs, turning his gaze to the floor. “Yeah, I guess you’re right”

~~~

Stan feels like he’s in a haze for the rest of the day. Even when he tries to focus on class to take his mind off of things and redirect it on anything else, he can’t get his mind to stick. Not even final period gym class can save him, which is really saying something, because the gymnasium is usually the one place where he thrives.

Worthless.

The word won’t stop bouncing around in his skull, hitting him where he’s most sensitive.

It doesn’t help a thing that Ford is dead silent on their walk home from school. He’s usually chatting up a storm to Stan about stuff he doesn’t really understand, and under normal circumstances Stan can’t wait to get home so he can bury his head in his pillow and drown out the sound of Ford’s babbling.

But today he’s not even looking in Stan’s direction, just burying his nose in the West Coast Tech brochure with stars in his eyes, and now Stan wants nothing more than to hear Ford babbling on about his advanced physics classes.

It’s almost insulting.

Stan sighs, and lightly taps on Ford’s shoulder to catch his attention. “Can we talk?”

“Hmm?” Ford blinks, like he needs a few moments to readjust to reality. “Oh! Of course. I was actually planning on asking you the same thing” he places the brochure in his pocket. “Same place as always?”

Stan nods. “Same place as always”.

It’s a quick change of direction and a shortcut to the beach before they find themselves on their old swing set. By now they’re both too heavy to use it properly without a risk of snapping it, but they still find it’s a good place to go when they just need to get away and talk.

“You’re not really thinking of going to that stuffy old school, are you?” Stan asks as soon as Ford sits on the swing beside him. “They’ve gotta be crazy if they think four more years of essays and exams are better lookin’ than tanned babes and gold chains. We’re so close to finishing up the Stan-O-War. Soon as graduation rolls around we’re outta here, just like we always promised”.

Ford chuckles. “That is a nice thought, but…” he pulls the brochure out of his pocket again, and unfolds it for Stan to see. “You have to understand that I can’t just pass up an opportunity like this. Maybe I don’t need a degree from any old state school, but this is West Coast Tech we’re talking about!” he beams, the stars returning to his eyes. “They’ve got cutting edge technology and multidimensional paradigm theory”

Stan rolls his eyes, but he can’t help but admit to himself it’s nice to have his brother back again after an entire day of radio silence.

“Beep boop, giant nerd robot oncoming” Stan punches Ford in the arm.

Ford’s grin only widens. “I figured you’d say that, but it’s too late to change my mind. The head of admissions already flew in this morning, and with my go-ahead they’re going to check out my science fair project later tonight and let me know then and there if they want me at their school”

“Well that seems kind of harsh” Stan quips. “What if they say no?”

Ford shrugs. “Well, then it’s like you said. If they don’t want me, you and I sail off on the Stan-O War and never look back”.

Stan frowns at the strong emphasis on if. He really thinks he’s going to get this, doesn’t he? Stan can’t exactly blame him when he’s been the reigning valedictorian of their class every year since they were kids.

“And if they say yes?”

Ford grins. “Well, then you better visit me on the other side of the country” he punches Stan in the shoulder, and stands to his feet without saying another word.

Stan can’t bring himself to join him. He knows that Ford didn’t mean anything by it, but he can’t help feel wounded by his brother’s implication that while he’s off in California having the time of his life, Stan’s still gonna be stuck living with their parents in New Jersey.

It’s just like their principal said. He’ll never amount to anything anyway, so why wouldn’t he stay in New Jersey? Where else would a worthless piece of shit like him end up?

Stan shifts on his swing and watches as Ford walks away, and he can’t help but wonder just how much of the principal’s tangent that Ford believed.

All of it?

Some of it?

Had Ford even been listening to what he said at all?

As he continues to watch his brother walk away, he can’t help the feeling in his gut that he has to know. He hates to start any unnecessary conflict, especially when there’s a very real chance that Ford will be moving to California next year, but Stan knows deep down that if they don’t talk about this now then he’ll never have the courage to bring it up again.

“Wait,” Stan shouts to Ford, and he stops dead in his tracks.

“Yeah?” Ford says, turning around to face him. Stan suddenly finds himself very aware of his heart loudly pounding against his chest, but he forces himself to squash that down. He’s never felt shy or anxious about asking his brother anything, and he sure as hell isn’t letting that start now.

“You don’t…uh,” he swallows. “You don’t think I’m…worthless, do you?”

Ford looks appalled. He neatly folds the brochure back into his pocket and starts walking- no, jogging, almost sprinting back to the swing set. He pauses in front of the empty swing beside Stan for a moment, like he’s debating whether he should sit down or not, but eventually he shakes his head and sits down anyway.

“What on earth makes you say that?” There’s a hint of anger to his tone, but Stan’s not entirely convinced it’s directed at him. “Why would I think you’re worthless? You’re my twin brother! What could’ve possibly put the idea in your head that I thought that?”

There’s a tiny voice in the back of his head screaming at him to back out, brush it off with a joke and have this conversation later, but there’s an even louder voice shouting at him that it needs to be had now.

Stan sighs. “I…overheard everything in the principal’s office today”

Ford blinks, like he doesn’t understand a word that Stan just said. “About…West Coast Tech? Is this because you’re afraid that I’ll get in, but you know you won’t because you’re not even interested in applying anyway, but you know you’re going to miss me, and you’re not sure if you can handle-”

“About me, Sixer!” Stan shouts, and tries his damn hardest to ignore the waver in his voice. “He practically called me a useless piece of shit directly to Ma and Pa and neither of them said a word about it!” He scrubs his hands down his face because he’s not choking up, not over something so pointless and stupid. “You’re going to travel the world and become the smartest person the scientific community has ever seen, or whatever, but me? Apparently I’ll always be stuck here in New Jersey to pick up after everyone else’s messes, because that’s all I’m ever good for”

Stan buries his face in his hands. He hadn’t meant to blow up, and he certainly hadn’t meant to direct his anger at Ford, but he just feels so hopeless, and he’s the only one around who’s willing to listen. He wouldn’t be surprised if Ford returned with anger of his own, or told him off for being selfish, or even if he just decided to stand up and walk away from him for being such an embarrassment.

The silence that follows is thick and heavy. Stan is so convinced that he must’ve driven Ford away that when he feels a hand on his shoulder he nearly jumps a mile out of his skin. When he finally pulls his hands out of his face to meet Ford’s eyes, his face is flushed pink and he looks…embarrassed.

“Stan, I had no idea, I…” he awkwardly pulls his hand away and grips tightly to the chain of his swing. Stan can see Ford’s face shifting through about a dozen different emotions at once. “I…must’ve been too focused on everything else to realize he was saying those things about you.” He shakes his head. “I know it’s not an excuse, but…” he sighs. “I’m sorry”

There’s another bout of silence between them. Stan’s half-expecting that to be the end of it, and for Ford to walk away without another word.

But Ford breaks the silence with a sigh, and when Stan glances over at him he’s staring down at the ground.

“If it’s any consolation...you’re much smarter than me in a lot more places than you realize”

Okay, now Stan has to laugh. “Okay, now you’re being too nice to me. You don’t need to lie to make me feel better”

“I’m serious!” Ford’s cheeks flush pink again, and he adjusts his glasses before returning his gaze towards Stan. “There’s actually been a fascinating number of studies about intelligence lately, and, well…” Ford’s face is turning redder by the minute, Stan swears. “It turns out that…there’s more than one type”

Stan raises an eyebrow. “You’re losing me here, Sixer”

“Well, you see, I thrive in academic intelligence. Math, science, history, you know, school stuff. That’s the most commonly known type of intelligence because a lot of our formative years are based on it”

Stan doesn’t say anything, just raises his eyebrow even further.

“But,” Ford continues quickly, “They’ve also made discoveries about the existence of social intelligence”

“Social?” Stan blinks, suddenly finding himself significantly more interested. “You mean like talking to people and stuff?”

Ford nods. “Precisely. They say people with high social intelligence are much better at picking up on social cues, and can make friends with others much easier than those with lower social intelligence.” Ford kicks at the sand. “The reason social intelligence hasn’t been recognized is because it’s often mistaken for having a friendly personality”. His face flushes pink again, like he’s afraid he said the wrong thing. “Not that a person can’t have both, but…”

Stan smirks, nudging at Ford with his elbow. “Stanford Pines, are you calling your good-for-nothing brother intelligent?” He teases, but can’t help the genuine smile creeping to his face.

“Think about it!” Ford throws an arm into the air, the other one tightly gripped on the swing to prevent himself from falling off. “Every time Ma and Pa leave us in charge of the shop so they can go to Atlantic City for the weekend, who’s the one bringing in all the customers? Who’s the one selling out our daily stock less than two hours after we’re open? You are, Stan, just by being yourself. You know how to persuade people into buying our stock at ten times the listed price.”

“You can’t learn that from twelve years of public school. They can try to teach you, but at the end of the day it’s all about your ability to connect with people” Ford rubs at his arm. “I’ve tried teaching myself those kinds of tricks for years, but at the end of the day…” he shakes his head. “I’ve never been able to catch up.” He smiles. “I raise my white flag to you, Stan. You’ve outsmarted the smartest brother in the world”

Stan chuckles. “Try telling that to Principal Comb-over. He hears you saying the so-called dumbest clown in the entire school system is smarter than you and he’s going to cart you away to the loony bin”

Ford laughs. “You know, now that I think about it, there may actually be a way to tell him off for what he said about you and get away with it scott-free”

Stan raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? How so?”

Ford smirks. “I think you should try to graduate out of spite”

Stan’s not sure he follows. “Whaddya mean?”

“I mean, think about it” Ford stands from his swing and begins to pace back and forth. “The principal called both of us down even though he only wanted to speak to me, and then he talked shit about you even though he knew you were sitting right outside his door?” he pauses in his pacing. “Stan, he knew that you could hear him. Maybe he didn’t intend for you to listen in when he was talking to Ma and Pa about my scholarship opportunity, but he knew you’d be listening the moment you were brought up in the conversation”

That’s…true. Stan was just about to sneak out before he heard them say his name.

“He’s expecting you to fail, and he wants to put it in everyone else’s head too. He thinks it’s the easy way out, because if you choose to fail out on your own than he doesn’t have to take responsibility for being such a shitty educator. It gives him the chance to say look how he didn’t even try instead of look at how we failed him.”

“But if you proved him wrong? Imagine the look on his face when he has to be the one to place that diploma in your hand. Imagine him having to look you dead in the eyes and tell you he’s proud of you. You’ll know he’s speaking bullshit, but he knows he can’t talk shit about you anymore without making himself look bad.” Ford smirks. “Matter of fact, imagine the looks on the faces of everyone who’s ever doubted you walking across that stage. Pa alone is gonna have a heart attack”

Ford’s smile softens. “I already know that you’re much smarter than you’re given credit for, and I think it’s about time that everyone else recognizes that too”.

Stan’s cheeks burn red, and he shyly kicks at the sand. “Heh, thanks. I appreciate it.” He says. “But even if I did manage to graduate, what am I supposed to do with a high school diploma? Every job application I’ve been skinning through recently says college, college, college”

“Well…” Ford taps at his chin. “Then why not go out for college?”

Okay, now he’s taking things too far.

“Pardon?” Stan mocks, because if Ford thinks that Stan’s going to willingly take four more years of classes than maybe he should be carted away to a loony bin.

“I’m serious!” Ford blushes. “Maybe not a high intensity school like West Coast Tech, but college is so much more freeing than high school, Stanley. It’s not class after class on subjects that other people tell you to take. It’s personalized. If you hate science class so much, you never have to take another science class again”

Ford’s blush darkens. “I know that school is a big drag and all, but if you asked me?” he averts his gaze. “I think you’d really benefit from business school. Charisma and social intelligence is the number one thing that big name businesses are looking for, and I know you’re filled to the brim with both. Ultimately it is your decision, but…” Ford fiddles with his thumbs. “Just…just consider it, okay?”

For a brief moment, Stan just wants to burst out into hysterical laughter. Ford’s been offered the opportunity of a lifetime at one of the best schools in the country, and he’s still taking the time to help out his good-for-nothing brother who’s been cheating off of his exams for the past ten years.

Instead he settles for a roll of his eyes. “Alright, Professor Poindexter, I’ll consider it”

Ford giggles at that, and for a few moments neither of them says anything, watching the waves gently lapping on the beach in the short distance. It’s a comfortable silence, a reassuring sort of feeling that Stan hasn’t felt in a long time.

The frantic beeping of Pa’s wristwatch interrupts them, and both boys flinch at the sound in unison. For a moment Stan is worried that Pa’s standing behind them having heard every word, but when he glances over at Ford, he sees him rolling up his shirt sleeve to reveal that he’s the one wearing the watch, and clicks the alarm off.

“Pa made me borrow it so I wouldn’t be late for the presentation with the school board” he rubs awkwardly at the back of his head. “I’ll probably give it back as soon as I get home tonight”

Stan smirks. “You still hate the sound of that thing too, huh?”

“I can still hear it in my nightmares,” Ford exaggerates, his eyes going wide, and the twins burst into laughter as they both stand from the swings and stretch their arms and legs to wake them up from sitting for so long.

Ford wipes at his eye as he fidgets with the wristwatch. “So…do you think you’re going to be okay?”

That in itself is a pretty loaded question that could take him all night to answer, but all things considering…

“Yeah,” Stan smiles. “I think I’ll be okay”

Ford smiles back, and gestures with his thumb towards the direction of the pawn shop. “Then I’m going to head home and get ready for my presentation. You coming?”

Stan shakes his head. “I think I’ll stay out here and just…watch the ocean for a little while longer”

Ford’s smile softens, but he doesn’t say anything else. He turns heel and walks back towards the house, and it feels as though a giant weight has just been lifted off of Stan’s chest. He glances back to watch Ford go, but finds comfort in the feeling that he feels nothing at all.

~~~

Nearly five hours later, Stan sits at home, watching television on the couch to pass the time. Just out of the corner of his eye he sees Ford slip into the kitchen and gently click the door closed. Stan shuts the TV off, and spins around on the couch to face his brother.

“Well?” Stan asks, though he knows he doesn’t even need to bother asking, given that Ford looks like he’s about to burst. With a shaking hand, Ford reaches into his pocket and pulls out a glinting white envelope.

If he’s trying to keep an air of mystery about it, he’s doing a really bad job, because all at once his composure breaks and the smile that spreads across his face looks as though it could burn out the sun.

“They loved me!” He shouts, excitedly pacing the floor. “They told me they’ve never seen anyone else like me!”

His smile is so contagious that it hurts.

Perhaps another day, in another timeline, Stan would take offense to Ford’s excitement to bounce off to the other end of the country without him. Perhaps he’d even lash out, or do something he would’ve immediately regretted.

But here and now, Stan couldn’t be happier for his brother if he tried.

#my writing #gravity falls #stan twins #stan pines #ford pines

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secondhand-trash · 5 years ago

Text

Slip ‘n Slide

Kinktober 2020 — piss kink/watersports

A/N: matsukawa can step on me and I would say thank you

Pairing: Matsukawa Issei x f!reader

Description: There were a few states Matsukawa Issei liked you in. Tied up, crying, or all at the same time.

Warning: piss kink/watersports, bondage, fuck machine, overstimulation, dirty talk, vaginal penetration, creampie, degredation??dumbification??I don’t even know anymore but he’s a little shit

Word count: 2574

There were a few states Matsukawa Issei liked you in. Tied up, crying, or all at the same time.

It felt like a sharp pain was tugging at every inch of your organs as the dull ache seeped through every part of your body. Tears ran dry on your face, the trails leaving a damped line from the corner of your eyes down to your jaw before disappearing into the dent at the side of your neck. Your head felt heavy with the blood that was rushing up from how long you had kept your head thrown back, your body arching stiffly with your arms being stuck at the sides of your head.

You could not count how many times you had cum from the machine that was mercilessly plunging in your cunt and with your legs parted by the stone hard spreader bar that pushed your flexibility past its limits. Your hands curled aimlessly, being tied up by your wrist meant that you could not even find something to hold down on with the metal bar out of your grip. Your voice was hoarse, your throat tight from how long you had been whimpering and crying out.

Your lower stomach felt like it was about to combust at any point and you were far too numbed by your own burning sensitivity that you were not sure if it was the band in your stomach snapping or a sign that the flood gate in you was about to crack.

There were empty plastic bottles scattered at the corner of the room and just counting the numbers was enough for you to feel the pain building up. The dildo attached to the handle of the machine sheathed in you with each extension, its rigid sides rubbing against your tight walls when it robotically retracted all the way back before repeating. It went at an agonisingly slow pace, not allowing you even the bit of comfort that would come with a quick release but built it up from the bottom each time you crashed down.

“Issei- Issei, please...”

The man in question only cooed when he heard the broken whimpers of his name rolling off your quivering lips. Seeing you all defenseless and fucked out of your mind sent him on a power trip each time. Matsukawa sat with his back leaned against the chair, his legs spread in a languish pose that was a stark contrast to how tensed you were. He loved finding new ways to make you scream, feeling a rush of excitement when you kept saying again and again that it wasn’t possible for your body to get into all the embarrassingly pornographic positions he nonchalantly showed you but never once objected when he slowly manipulated your limbs into all sorts of poses or when he put the rim of yet another bottle of water against your plump lips, whispering praises in your ear as you poured all the liquid down your throat.

He had guessed that there was this side to you when you reported to work on your first day, your eyes darting around the room as you introduced yourself to the rest of the staff. Matsukawa thought you were the cutest thing when you thanked him again and again after he showed you around like you were so scared that you had caused him any trouble, or when he shielded you from the crowd of people that were filling up the escalator by pressed you against the wall and letting you hide against his chest. The way you failed to hide that you were flustered and did not know where to look drove him crazy and he knew that he just had to have you.

The loveliest little thing, Matsukawa hummed to himself as he fisted his cock in hand, licking his lips at the sight of how your legs were shaking as you cum once again around the ripping dildo. He licked his lips as the dildo pulled out of you, dripping with your juices that were no doubt soaking through the sheets you were on.

“Please- too much...”

He replied to your pleas with a chuckle, pulling his chair just a little closer to the edge of the bed as his large palms gripped your jaw and tilted your head towards him. He did not try to hold back the coo that slipped past his lips, rubbing his thumb mockingly gentle on your cheeks as he spread the bit of tear still staining your face. He did not like to hide your eyes, there was something about how blown up and doe like your eyes were when he had you at his mercy that sent sparks down his spine. You looked like a doll that did not have any other thought than him, staring at him through your lashes all glassy as the squelches from your sopping pussy and the buzzing of the machine blurred your senses.

Your toes curled when a sharp pain stabbed through your core, the whimper that slipped past your lips earning you a condescending “awe” from your lover as he brushed his thumb across your bottom lips with a smile.

You were panting when he got up. The mattress dent under his weight when he climbed up with one knee, his broad frame shadowing over you when he leaned down. Your entire body shook when he placed a kiss on your lips, tugging at your bottom lip with his teeth as he hushed your cries.

“Aw,” the gravel in his voice hit you in full force when he tilted his head, his lips frowning down as he forged a pout, “does it hurt?"

He hummed like he was really giving a thought when you frantically nodded. Your breath hitched when he placed his palm flat on your neck, slowly trailing down your torso. The warmth emitting from his palm elicited goosebumps all over your skin from how deprived of touch you were. His hands were so big, like he could hold you in his hand and crushed you into pieces all at once.

A high pitched sound ripped from the back of your throat when he stopped right on top of your bladder.

“Is it hurting here?” he asked, pretending to be oblivious. You were burning under his hand and even without applying any pressure, he could feel how tight you were under your skin. He felt the tingles ticking his scalp at the thought of how easy it would be to burst you apart when you were so fragile and exposed.

“Yes... yes- ah!”

You squeaked when he pressed down, sending jolts of electricity down from your stomach to the very tip of your limbs that were held up above your head. You whined when he let out a wolfish laugh, his grin spreading ear to ear at how helpless you looked. “Poor baby can’t even hold their own piss in,” he clicked his tongue, shaking his head slightly but the smirk was still tugging at his face. His hand was still pressed up firmly on your skin when you tried to squirm but to no avail, your hips wiggling under him but he held you in place with ease, “if you ask nicely, maybe I’ll let you...”

“Please- please I need to-”

You hissed when he pressed down harder. “Need to what?"

Your face burned in shame at how pitiful you must look right now. Your cunt fluttering around the dildo but still sucking it in and it wasn’t even something you could put your mind to comprehend with how desperate you needed to relieve yourself from the pulsing ache in your bladder with Matsukawa’s lips twitching in thrill while he watched you with intent.

“Hmph- need to piss...”

He smacked his lips in satisfaction at how embarrassed you were just from saying it. His hand that was on top of your lower stomach never once left its position, but you whined when you looked at him through the slight crack of your eyes to see him reached down. A sharp mewl leaked past your lips when he pulled the hood of your clit back with his thumb before grazing the engorged nub with the pad of his fingers.

Your arousal coated his fingers as he brushed past your fluttering folds before going back to your clit again, the silicon that was plunging deep inside of you in a steady tempo already dripping and warmed up from how many times you had cum from it.

“Look at you,” he muttered and the sharp words made you clench, “you’re only good at getting your brains fucked out but you’re asking me to stop?”

He snickered at the moan that you made when he hand pulled away from your cunt, “or is it because your greedy cunt is not satisfied with anything that isn’t my cock?”

The sudden switch of the slow plunges to rapid drilling had you arching yourself off of the mattress, pulling your muscle taunt with your thighs flexing from the overdrive. Your brain was fogged over by the sudden increase in friction, your eyes rolling back all the way as you saw white in your vision.

A choked shriek ripped from the back of your throat when he pressed down on your bladder with the heel of his palm. Every fiber in your being felt like they were being torn at different directions when the numbness of your skin seeped in like needles poking on you. A warm wave washed over you and your body shuddered as it was dropped down from the high of tension. You could not distinguish what the feeling was, whether it was from the clamping of your walls against the dildo or the spurts of liquid that excreted from your bladder. You should have felt bashful that you were so hopelessly turned on by your boyfriend’s eyes being fixed on your cunt and the sight of you wetting yourself, but you could not even find the power to be ashamed when you were too drowned in the overwhelming wash of gooeyness in your guts at finally letting the weight fade.

“Disgusting...” Matsukawa mumbled but his eyes were curled like the moon, his face twisting into a wide smirk as he raked his eyes all over your shaking frame. There was a large pattern that darkened the fabric you were laying on, beads of your piss trailing down from the root of your thighs before seeping into the sheets.

You whimpered when he turned down the settings of the fuck machine that had been tormenting you before pulling it out of you, licking his tongue at the sight of your abused cunt clenching reflectively at the sudden emptiness. With the machine shoved to the side, he could now take a good look at your slit upfront. He groaned at the warmth that was left on the bed when he kneels right against you, not caring at all about getting your piss on him.

“Tsk,” he sneered, his thumb parting your folds to take a good look at your muscles still spasming from the post orgasmic shock due to the stimulation he had put you through. Your hips were tainted with trails of sheen whether it be your gushing essence or piss. You wanted to moan but nothing came out when you felt his thick tip rubbing along the slit, his pelvis pressed up against your raised legs.

Even with your legs about to cramp up from the blood that could not reach your toes and your chest still heaving, you weakly lifted your hips upwards when his hands found their way to the back of your pushed up thighs. You mewled at the soreness that pulsed through you when he slid his tip in, the burn in your core apparent once again.

Matsukawa’s groan masked over the silent whimper you let out when he sheathed in you with the help of the fluids that were over you, his tongue darting out as he eyed you from above. The way your legs were opened wide allowed him the front view of your fluttering cunt taking in his thick cock inch by inch, the drops of clear liquid from your legs getting on his pubic hair as he bottomed out inside of you.

Your voice came out as nothing but breathy pants when he thrust up without warning, the stretch from his cock and the heat that was spreading over you like wildfire from where your bodies connect a much different feeling to the lifeless machine.

“Such a good little slut,” he purred, enjoying the way your body jolted forward every time he rolled his hips, “you like getting fucked in your own piss, baby?”

You could not answer in anything but babbling “yes” again and again in slurred strings of incoherent sounds. The grumble he let out was dripping with mockery and it turned into a laugh when he picked up the pace of his hips.

“You don’t mind how and where, you’re in bliss as long as you get my cock jabbing in your filthy fuck hole,” his filthy words had you clamping down on him and earning an approving pat of his hand on your thigh, "All because you’re trained to be nothing but my cock whore...”

You threw your head back, your legs shaking against the bar as he used you to his pleasure. Each surge of his hips had your toes curling, his length pivoting against the spot right below your cervix that was just short of painful with the sparks it sent jolting down your spine with each plow.

“That’s it- that’s it, clamp down harder- fuck!”

He came with a grunt through his teeth, shooting ropes and ropes of white cum into your spasming walls. A moan rolled off of your trembling lips at yet another wave of warmth that washed over you, sighing in content at the feeling of being filled up.

Matsukawa let out a light chuckle when he pulled out, his finger pushing the leaking substance back into your pussy and earning him a soft whimper in protest. You were a complete mess, your eyes barely able to flutter open as he leaned down and gave you an approving kiss on the lips while his hand hold onto the spreader bar.

“You feeling alright?” he asked, his voice now a genuine kind of soothing as he undid the straps that held your limbs up.

“Tired,” you said in a mutter, the smallest smile dancing on your features when he let your hands down after placing a peck at the mark around your wrist.

“Yeah?” he whispered, brushing your hair out of your face, “want to get some rest before I clean you up?”

He hummed at the slight nod of your head, lifting you up gently with his hand on your back and laying you against his broad chest. You exhaled as you leaned back, feeling your breaths calming down to the steady beating underneath.

“If I tell you I love you now, would that be too cliche?”

“They say don’t trust what people say in bed...” you murmured, the smile on your face growing when you felt the vibrations from his chest tickling your face at his laugh.

“Ouch.”

You shook your head, leaning into his touch when you felt the warmth of his palm at your back.

Fine, he could be trustworthy, you supposed.

#haikyuu imagines #haikyuu imagine #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu smut #matsukawa x reader #matsukawa imagines #matsukawa imagine #matsukawa smut

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wizkiddx · 4 years ago

Text

the worst case scenario 2

i did decide to make this a little parter thing, but really want to be as sensitive as poss (honestly using this as a sort of therapy for what I see myself ah). So please do not read if anything in the warnings may trigger. I very much am not trying to ‘romanticise’ these sorts of situations in any way but also be aware medically this is NOT accurate.This part is short but I think there will be more.

warnings: hospital - ICU, respirators / mention of death , maternal mortality / talk of family dynamics and abandonment of a child

[previous part]

The sight Nikki walked into is something that as a parent you never want to see. Walking into this cold and otherwise empty ‘relatives room’ to see her son collapsed in a world of pain onto his best mates chest. Tom was too busy sobbing to even notice her entrance but her and Harrison instantly locked eyes . Not even able to muster up a greeting smile, Harrison just nodded her in, admitting her entrance to the most horrific situation.

It was about half an hour since she had been texting Haz, arranging when they’d be able to come and visit the newborn in hospital or whether it would be better to just wait till the new family got settled back at home, when Nikki had got a call from Tom’s number. With an excited grin she had instantly whipped her phone off the kitchen counter within one ring- a facial expression that didn’t last long at all.

Met with the distant sound of crying first, Harrison’s deeper voice then emitted itself from her phones speaker, alerting her to the fact everything was very not right. He’d asked her to come to the hospital, said it was Y/n, that the baby was fine and then hung up. Dom immediately agreed to come with her but right now he was still parking the car, having dropped Nikki off right at the front. It had sounded that bad.

Now, she knelt down infront of Haz and Tom, the latter who still was leaning over the arm rest and currently silently crying into his friends chest. Haz didn’t miss Nikki’s hands shaking as she reached out and rubbed up and down her sons back, the action prompting him to suddenly lean up to face her. He was broken. Totally and completely broken. Wordlessly, Nikki looked up for a second, communicating with Harrison so as if rehearsed he stood up and Nikki took his place in the chair - giving him a break from being Tom’s support. Beyond appreciative of how well Nikki could read a situation, Haz quietly but still in a hurried fashion made his way to the door.

Because he was about to crack too - Tom couldn’t see him like that, not right now at least. And so his legs, completely of their own volition, carried him down the hallways. He had absolutely no idea what time it was, all sense of time passing had completely been thrown off earlier in the morning. He was oblivious to a lot, very much in his own thoughts and only realised where he had ended up when a nurse he vaguely recognised managed to garner his attention.

“You’re here for baby Holland? She’s just round here.”

“I-“ He couldn’t respond but the nurse just nodded and then started off down the hallway, practically forcing the blonde to follow a couple of meters till they got to a perspex viewing window.

“She’s the little cutie in the far corner over there.” The brunette middle aged lady softly spoke as she pointed through the glass to the incubator in the corner. “ Don’t worry about all the equipment, the doctors already come round and cleared her. She’s good to go home when you guys are…are ready.” Her words had trailed off, Harrison guessed she didn’t know how to phrase the current ‘situation’ Tom and Y/n were in either. After a couple of moments, the nurse placed a gentle hand on Harrison’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “You want to have a cuddle? I know your not dad but…”

“Yeh-yeh…please.”

Harrison just felt awful. The little girl was barely hours into life and yet she wasn’t receiving nearly as much as love as she should be. Instead unnamed and alone in a cold and clinical setting. So he silently nodded away, taking in all the instructions the nurse gave as she sat him down in the arm chair next to the incubator.

Once she placed the little blanket wrapped bundle in his arms the nurse smiled gently up at Haz “You want to feed her? I’m sure she’d prefer it from you than me love?” Ah. Now Haz really was stuck between a rock and a hard place. She’d never been given a feed before - except presumably the midwifes.

“I-uh Y/n hasn’t even so I probably shouldn’t…”

“I can promise you Miss Y/l/n would probably want her baby to be cared for by someone that loves her and that Miss Y/l/n trusts herself.” Ooof. How were nurses so intuitive? She literally read his mind and broken down all the ill-founded ideas Harrison had built up.

“I’m not her Dad.”

“But you care.” Looking down once and briefly at the squished little face that wormed herself into Harrisons broad chest a little more, he then immediately nodded in agreement. Looking almost relieved, the nurse handed him a bottle and directed him as to how to hold it. After mere moments she gasped happily, leaning back whilst the blonde boy waited for her input.

“She’s latched on easy peasy. You’re doing great, I can leave you to it if you want - I’ll only be round the corner.”

“Can you check if there’s any news on Y/n?” The kind lady nodded, before promptly exiting the room - leaving the two actually alone for the first time ever.

He didn’t even think about it, whilst Haz cradled her in one arm and held the bottle up at the angle shown by the nurse, he quietly spoke to the little bundle.

“I’m sorry you were lonely… your mum and dad love you lots and lots… we all do.” Not realising he was crying, Harrison almost scared himself when a single strangled and repressed sob escaped from his chest. “ You’re mum…. She’s a pain in the arse right?” Haz laughed a little wetly “ She’s sarky as hell and she always has an answer… you’d probably think she’s a badass… she is. And-and…. Your dad is just scared… He loves you I promise, he just… he’s worried about you mum.” Now there was actual tears welling up and overflowing his lower lash line, not matter how much he tried to blink them away. “But whatever… whatever happens. You got all of us kiddo… you got me.”

Jolted out of his thoughts by the ladies knuckles rapping twice on the door, Harrison immediately shook himself out of it, wiping his face on his arm to hopefully remove all the evidence of the slight emotional breakdown.

“Mr Osterfield… the doctor wanted me to let you know he’s on his way to talk to Mr Holland.”

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Harrison managed to get back to Tom, Nikki and now Dom before Dr Webber returned, so with a greeting nod to Dom he too took a seat opposite Nikki and Tom. His best mate wasn’t crying anymore, which could be considered a positive were it not for the sinisterly empty look in his eye. He looked almost robotic, staring almost straight ahead at the light grey wall, sat straight and rigidly except for his one hand clasped in Nikki’s.

“You went to see the baby?” Nikki broke the silence, making Harrison smile sadly over at her with a nod. It didn’t even look as though Tpm heard his mum speak, even if he was sat right next to her. “She’s okay?”

“Yeh…I gave her a bottle. She-she’s very cute.” Harrison could see Nikki’s face morph into one of kindness before she looked left toward her son. Nikki was still yet to see to unnamed girl but just thinking about her made her heart flutter. And then stop when she thought about what that little girl was already going through, barely hours into existence.

“You hear that Tom? Maybe you could go down and see her soon? After we’ve spoken to the doctor?” Nikki was only trying to do the best thing, Harrison knew it and deep down Tom did know it too. But now really really wasn’t the time for some gently encouragement from his mother, it wasn’t just Tom being a little stubborn. This was his whole entire world falling apart around him. He didnt have the energy or focus to even shoot down his mother, instead Tom chose to stay completely still - engrossed in his own thoughts.

From the outset, when you take that leap and say to a person ‘I think we should try for kids now’ you are completely putting yourself at the mercy of the other. But when they agree? Then it’s a commitment. Not it the same way marriage is - because that’s a completely selfish gesture, you get married because YOU want to be married to each other. Rather, agreeing to have a kid is a promise, a promise of something more. Promising that you are bringing this life into the world - and half of that life is yours. You create it together and it becomes a joint responsibility. You can never, no matter what people think, ever stop being a parent. At the end of it all there will be another person that knows, scientifically, it is half you. Even if they never met you - they still ‘knew’ you. They would know you had to exist, they would see things in themselves that cannot be explained rather than the influence of their creator.

And sure, it didn’t always work out that way. A parent would up and leave, a child always with questions and a sense of betrayal. But that child… they know you. Because there is half of you in them.

So it was Y/n and Tom together that was slumbering blissfully on a ward downstairs. That was the scary thing. Tom was so sure he didn’t have it in him. He wouldn’t do this without her. He couldn’t be a dad to a baby without a mum. He couldn’t be a parent without Y/n.

Almost thankfully for the atmosphere in the room, a soft know had them all snatching their heads up the very same grey slightly potato like doctor waddled in, this time followed by 2 others; a tall, dark haired woman with a soft and empathetic smile; then another man but this one tall and slender, unlike the other two who were wearing professional clothes, he was donned in scrubs (with the scrub hate too).

“Mr Holland and uh… family” Dr Webber awkwardly greeted the new arrivals of Nikki and Dom, somehow apparently sensing they were Tom’s and not Y/n’s parents who were hours away. Oh fuck, Tom hadn’t even phoned them yet.

“This is Dr Alison Goodwell and then Dr Rohan Avinash, he is Y/n’s surgeon.” They filed in and took seats surrounding them, Dom and Harrison standing up to stand off to the side, not wanting to get in the way of the doctors. All Tom could do though was overanalyse everything. Why was the surgeon here? What was this other lady doing here? A pathologist? — no, he wasn’t going to think like that. Then the taller and most scary looking of the three inched forward, commanding the attention of the whole room.

“Mr Holland, I just wanted to go over what happened. Ms Y/l/n developed plactental accreta, which was the cause of the what we call here a post partum haemorrhage. When you raised the alarm she had already lost, at best guess, 3 pints of blood which is a lot, there’s no denying. Dr Webber and his team quickly brought her up to my team in surgery. We transfused her with blood but we couldn’t stabilise her and the bleeding didn’t show any signs of stopping so we had to perform emergency surgery….” Dr Avinash slowed down as he took in how close Tom looked to bursting out in tears once again, offering him the chance to have a moment to collect himself. Vehemently shaking his head in refusal, Tom crung his hands together furiously. He just needed to know. “Okay… Now the nature of the surgery, because we had to be so quick…it is quite invasive and is a lot of stress to put on anyones body. That and the amount of blood she had already lost makes the situation very dangerous. Sometimes when this happens a persons heart-“ Tom’s breath halted in his throat at the mention of her heart, Harrison sharing the bleak trigger which made him shift uncomfortable between his two feet. “-notices this, it goes into what we call hypovoloemic shock, this just basically means its not getting enough volume of blood to pump properly. So we have had to stimulate Ms Y/l/n’s heart with electricity to keep it pumping-“

“You shocked her?” He felt so numb and now adrenalin was coursing through his own veins, images like you see on TV shows of her body arching up not he table from the volts of electricity.

“I’m afraid we did have to but it meant we could keep her stable enough to fix the bleed. I am sorry to say this but we’ve had to remove her whole womb because it was so damaged.”

“But Y/n?” Again Harrison lost all willpower of control, though to be fair he wasn’t sure if he was being impatient or not - this doctor appeared to be delivering this news painfully slowly, as if to torture everyone as much as possible.

“Your fiancé lost a lot of blood and her body went through a lot” The towering doctor kept his focus on Tom the whole time, Harrison’s interjection seemingly falling on selectively deaf ears. “We’ve had to use a machine to control her breathing and for the moment she is still in a very dangerous place. Right now she is stable but I don’t want to make any promises to you. We are nowhere close to out of the woods yet.” Seemingly, feeling compelled to add in, the brunette doctor spoke for the first time since entering.

“But it’s still one hurdle she has got through… Now that the surgeons are finished with Ms Y/l/n me and the other intensive care doctors will be keeping a very close eye on her okay? We are all going to be working with you and your family 24/7, to keep Y/n as comfortable as possible.” Her soft smile managed to somehow break through to Tom, who jerkily nodded while Nikki squeezed his hand tight. There had been a lot of that going on today and even if Tom would say he wished nothing more that it was Y/n rather than his mums grip - he still appreciated it. The doctor continued, leaning forward so her elbows were resting on the tops of her thighs. “Right now she’s asleep and probably will be for quite a while. We first want to be sure she’s not in any pain, so she is sedated. Now assuming everything goes okay tonight and she stays stable we might want to think about possibly reducing that sedation, however for right now I hope you are all in agreement that we just want to make sure she’s comfortable?” The whole room nodded steadily in response which the doctor acknowledged with a satisfied smile.

“And we are all aware this is a lot to take in so if you have any questions or think of any please just let us know - it’s important that you guys are all fully in the know… How is your daughter?” Dr Webber started off so well, Tom was almost going to smile thankfully at him, until he mentioned it. Instantly, the cold and empty look reappeared behind Tom’s eyes as the room was held in silence for long enough to be uncomfortable. To be fair, the doctor wasn’t to know that recently Tom had taken to refusing to acknowledge he even had a child.

“I-she’s really good… the nurse there said she’s ready to leave whenever” Harrison had to show that at least someone was looking out for her, he couldn’t not.

“Okay” sharing a knowing look with Harrison, Dr Webber pitifully clasped his hands together, before looking back to Tom. “Would you like Dr Alison take you up to see her, sir?”

again pls let me know if anyone is very not okay with this, i can take it down and not write any more!

#tom holland #tom holland x reader #dad!tom #Tom Holland angst #angst

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smells-like-mettaton · 4 years ago

Note

Perhaps #5 (Hold my Hand) with Papyton for the fic ask game if you are still doing it?

(I hope you're okay with me writing this as a sequel to one of my other papyton fics! This could still be read on its own, but it will make more sense if you read the first chapter. If you don't want to, just know that the part in italics at the beginning is from a fanfic that Alphys wrote.)

The Greatest Fanfiction of All: The Sequel

Rating: T Word Count: 1687 Read on AO3: here

---

Papyrus’s hands are warm. Of course they are. Theyre always covered in gloves. Not even Mettaton, his boyfriend of one month and thirteen days, knows what his bony phalanges look like beneath the plush red fabric.

But tonight, that's going to change.

xxx

Exactly one month and thirteen days had passed since Mettaton had read the beginning of Alphys’s “papyton” fanfiction. It also happened to be one month and thirteen days since Papyrus had agreed to be his boyfriend, sending him on a magical journey of love and romance.

That journey had given him plenty of new perspectives and discoveries. Yet the mystery of what lie under Papryus’s gloves was not one of them.

He sat next to Mettaton on their usual bench at the center of the hedge maze. The sky was dark with stormclouds, which kept any stray spectators away from the park. Papyrus was prepared, as usual; a tall MTT-Brand Umbrella leaned against his femur. Nothing and no one would ruin this moment.

Now Mettaton just needed to have the moment. Preferably without resorting to calling Alphys and Frisk again.

“METTATON? IS SOMETHING THE MATTER?” Papyrus asked, his browbone furrowing in concern.

Mettaton’s fingers were already laced through his; Mettaton rubbed his thumb against the back of Papyrus’s glove.

“Well. It is a very special day, darling.” Special enough that Mettaton had worn the outfit Papyrus loved most—a cropped shirt that said COOL ROBOT and galaxy-print leggings that hugged his metallic thighs. Papyrus himself had worn a bright Tetris shirt and shorts that exposed his gleaming femurs.

“IT IS?” Papyrus blinked. “IS THERE A SALE ON RIGATONI? BECAUSE I THOUGHT THAT STARTED NEXT WEEK.”

“Hm? Oh—not that I know of, but I will keep that in mind.” He imagined creating a pasta bouquet for Papyrus, and a smile graced his lips. “Today is the one month and thirteen day anniversary of our glamorous romance.”

“WOWIE! TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE DATING A HOT ROBOT!” Papyrus grinned, pressing his teeth to Mettaton’s cheek in a close approximation of a kiss. “HAPPY ONE MONTH AND THIRTEEN DAYS, METTATON! IS THERE A SPECIAL WAY YOU WANT TO CELEBRATE?”

It was perfect. Mettaton couldn’t have set it up better if he tried.

“Actually…” He turned Papyrus’s hand over, examining every seam and stitch in his crimson glove. “I was hoping to see your hands. I know they’re just as handsome as the rest of you.”

He winked, and a light blush spread across Papyrus’s cheekbones.

“MY HANDS? I’D GLOVE TO! BUT, ERM…” His fingers disentangled from Mettatons, instead fidgeting nervously with the hem of his right glove. “I DON’T KNOW THAT YOU WOULD FIND THEM AS UNBEARABLY ATTRACTIVE AS THE REST OF ME.”

Coming from Papyrus, that was practically a statement of self-loathing. Guilt bubbled in Mettaton’s soul-tank.

“Beautiful.” He grasped the top of his boyfriend’s arms and squeezed them gently. “There is not a bone in your body that I would not find attractive. Of course, I will not ask you to perform if you are suffering stage fright, but I do think you shine so much brighter in the light.”

Papyrus smiled a little, though his browbone was still turned upward with worry.

"IF YOU'RE SURE…"

"Positive as my ratings, darling."

Papyrus nodded slowly. "I TRUST YOU, METTATON."

Those words were like ambrosia to Mettaton's soul. He would do anything to remain worthy of his boyfriend's trust.

"PLEASE, JUST… DON'T BE FRIGHTENED, ALRIGHT?"

Mettaton couldn't imagine anything about Papyrus being frightening.

Then, with agonizing care, Papyrus peeled off his gloves. And Mettaton understood.

The bones of his hands were scorched an ashen gray, nearly black. Hairline cracks laced through them like spiderwebs. Mettaton was half afraid that if he touched them, they would crumble to dust.

"I'M FINE, REALLY!" Papyrus must have noticed the look on his face, no matter how quickly Mettaton had schooled his expression. "THESE BURNS ARE SO OLD, I BARELY NOTICE THEY'RE THERE!"

His grin was strained. Mettaton wanted nothing more than to reach out and squeeze his hand, but he didn't dare.

"They don't hurt?" Mettaton asked, then winced. He could've phrased that more tactfully. It was probably better than asking how on earth the injury had happened, at least.

"WELL… THEY ARE A BIT SENSITIVE WITHOUT MY GLOVES. THEY HAVE HEALING MAGIC, YOU SEE." Papyrus held out one of his red gloves, his expression turning to one of pride. "SANS DID THE SEWING, AND I DID THE ENCHANTMENT."

"No wonder you love them so much." Mettaton smiled. It was adorable how much Papyrus loved his brother. Their love had inspired Mettaton to finally patch up his relationship with Blooky and Mew Mew.

Papyrus smiled back, running a charred fingertip fondly over the fabric. "WOULD YOU… LIKE TO TRY ONE ON?"

"Me?" Mettaton blinked.

"OF COURSE! WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO EXPERIENCE THE GREAT PAPYRUS'S LEGENDARY HEALING MAGIC FIRSTHAND?"

Mettaton chuckled at the pun. "How could I possibly refuse?"

He slipped off his white gloves, revealing the unsightly bolts in his own fingers. He hardly felt self-conscious about that after seeing Papyrus's hands, though.

Papyrus's glove fit like a dream. Like holding his hand, only from the inside. Warmth seeped from the fabric into his metal joints, slipping through his cracks like sweet oil.

"This is… quite the enchantment," he breathed.

Papyrus couldn’t be in pain with that much healing magic caressing his bones. But on the other hand, even the constant healing magic had failed to permanently erase the scars. Mettaton still wasn’t too familiar with physical injuries, but surely that wasn’t normal, right?

Papyrus’s wink sounded like magical glitter."WHAT CAN I SAY? I'M VERY ENCHANTING."

He looked just as bright as ever. Just as energetic, as full of life.

Just as beautiful, inside and out.

"That you are, darling." Mettaton kissed his cheek.

Papyrus pulled his left glove back onto his hand, then twined his fingers with Mettaton's. Red on red, warmth on warmth Their hands matched perfectly.

"YOU PROBABLY HAVE SOME QUESTIONS," Papyrus said quietly.

Mettaton's eye flickered to Papyrus's bare right hand before returning to his eyesockets.

"You don't have to tell me anything you don't feel comfortable with, darling."

Mettaton was curious of course. If this injury had been caused by another monster, they would face the wrath of a true killer robot. Knowing Papyrus, though, he had probably forgiven whoever was responsible.

"I ALWAYS FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH YOU." He smiled. "AND IT IS… NICE. TO HAVE SOMEONE BESIDES SANS KNOW THIS."

"No one else knows?" Mettaton’s eyes widened. He'd thought Undyne would have found out, whether Papyrus told her on purpose or she burned off his gloves during one of their cooking lessons.

"I AM A SKELETON OF MANY SECRETS." Papyrus winked again. This time it sounded like tinkling bells. "IT HELPS THAT NO ONE ELSE REMEMBERS THE ACCIDENT, THOUGH."

An accident. No one had hurt Papyrus on purpose.

Mettaton sighed in relief, powering down his killer robot protocols.

"I WAS HELPING MY DAD WITH HIS WORK ON THE CORE. I ALWAYS CALIBRATED THE PUZZLES WHILE HE CALIBRATED THE GEOTHERMAL POWER LEVELS."

Papyrus looked down at their tangled hands, his expression distant.

"I STILL DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED. ON THE DAYS SANS REMEMBERS, HE PROMISES THAT IT WASN'T MY FAULT. THAT DAD WAS TOO CARELESS. BUT THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION, AND DAD, HE… HE FELL…"

Something in Mettaton crushed as Papyrus's voice cracked.

"I WAS LUCKIER. THE BLAST ONLY GOT MY HANDS." The smile returned.

"Papyrus…"

Mettaton didn't know what to say. What could he say? Ghosts didn't have parents. His cousins were his family, but he couldn't imagine them dying, either. Blooky physically couldn't.

But this wasn't about him! It was about Papyrus, who had lost his father and scarred his hands and still counted himself lucky.

"DON'T BE SAD, METTATON. IT WAS A LONG TIME AGO. LONGER THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE."

Papyrus looked into his eyes, and for a moment, Mettaton saw something old. Mettaton had been alive—albeit as a ghost—for nearly two centuries. Right now, though, Mettaton wondered if Papyrus was even older than that.

"I suppose so,” he reluctantly admitted. “I don't even remember an explosion at the CORE."

"OH, THAT'S NORMAL. APPARENTLY DAD WAS RATHER FORGETTABLE." His smile was sad. "EVEN SANS DOESN'T ALWAYS REMEMBER HIM. BUT I… WELL."

He closed his blackened fist.

"IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT TO FORGET."

Mettaton opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Luckily, it didn’t seem like Papyrus was looking for a response.

“WHEW! ALL THIS HONESTY IS EXHAUSTING!!” Sweat beaded on his skull. “DO YOU WANT TO GO GET NICE CREAMS?”

“Of course, darling, but—are you sure that you’re okay?” Mettaton couldn’t help the concern in his voice. It wasn’t every day that he unlocked his boyfriend’s tragic backstory.

And here he’d been so concerned about something as trivial as holding hands. He truly was as selfish as everyone believed.

“PLEASE, DON’T WORRY ABOUT ME,” Papyrus said firmly. His hand gave Mettaton’s a tight squeeze. “I MEANT IT WHEN I SAID IT WAS LONG AGO. PRACTICALLY A DIFFERENT LIFETIME. I ONLY TOLD YOU SO THAT YOU WOULD KNOW HOW MUCH I TRUST YOU.”

Trust. Mettaton trusted Papyrus, too. Trusted that he didn’t need Mettaton to coddle him. Trusted that if he wanted Mettaton’s help, he would ask for it.

“I… thank you, darling.” Ghostly tears welled in his eyes. “Your trust means everything to me.”

“WELL THEN!” Papyrus’s grin turned mischievous. “I TRUST YOU TO KISS ME UNTIL I CAN’T BREATHE!”

Mettaton’s fans whirred and whirred. The sound was quickly drowned out by the raindrops that began to fall and fizzle on his shoulder pads.

“Darling, you’re a skeleton. You don’t have lungs.”

“NEITHER DO YOU.” Papyrus twirled the umbrella before popping it open, protecting Mettaton from the threat of short-circuiting.

(From the rain, at least.)

“You truly know how to give me a challenge, darling.” Mettaton cuddled closer, reaching up to brush his red-gloved hand against Papyrus’s cheekbone.

“ONLY BECAUSE I KNOW YOU’LL RISE TO IT!”

Mettaton grinned back, and that was exactly what he did.

#fic tag #prompt requests #papyton #tali writes #papyrus #mettaton

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xecutivecucumber · 4 years ago

Text

Rexsoka Week 2021 Day 7: FUBAR

I hope everyone enjoyed my Rexsoka week contributions. I've had a lot of fun with them. Thanks for all the support!

This one is a little less focused on their relationship and more on the...effed up part of things.

TW: Non Graphic Torture

Day 7: FUBAR

Rex had hung for hours. They'd stripped him of his armor and blacks. His arms were wrenched upward and over a horizontal bar of metal. His legs were forced in an uncomfortable position, as if he was doing a squat midair. Most of his weight was on his bent knees. The device he was entangled with seemed to be a relic of the Separatists.

Rex had no hope of getting out of here alive. It would be foolish to go so deep into Imperial territory for one soldier, even as high ranking as he was. And Rex prided himself with the knowledge that he would never give any sensitive information away.

They'd started the normal Imperial interrogation process with him, using an IT-0 droid to try and get him to talk. Rex was better than that. The clones had been trained to resist the mundane mind probe that the droids used.

But then they had stopped. Some higher up wanted to interrogate Rex themselves, and Rex was to be untouched until they got there.

So Rex hung. The pain of his shoulders and knees was probably more effective than what any of the average Imperial idiots could inflict. By the whispered tones of the Imps in charge of him, whoever was coming for Rex was far from average.

Rex didn't fear pain. He'd been under extreme distress, physical, mental, and emotional, before. He hadn't broken then. He wouldn't break now.

Finally, the door slid open, and a tall, dark figure swept in. Its head was covered in a helmet that hid any trace of humanity. The sound of rasping breathing accompanied it, as if each breath was forced in and out of the thing's body. It stared at Rex, and Rex was so transfixed by its blank stare that he almost didn't notice the thing's companion.

A clone, holding his black helmet at his side, with greying hair and a wandering scar down the left side of his face.

Rex's breath caught.

"Cody? " He asked.

He didn't need it confirmed. It was Cody. Rex could never forget his ori'vod's face.

It seemed that Cody had forgotten Rex. He looked Rex over with a blank stare. His chip was still active.

"Captain Rex." The dark figure said in a deep, robotic voice that nudged something in Rex's memory. "You were listed as killed in action."

"Well," Rex said, though he could not tear his eyes from Cody's face. "Reports can be wrong."

"Yes." The figure said. "It seems so. Which leads me to believe that others that were believed dead may yet be alive."

Rex tried not to let his fear show in his face. He knew who this man wanted.

"Tell me." The figure stepped forward. "Where is Ahsoka Tano?"

Rex managed to look away from his brother and into the figure's helmeted face.

"Ahsoka Tano is dead." He said with as much conviction as he could muster.

"I see." The figure said. "Commander, you may begin."

"Yes, Lord Vader." Cody said.

In a fluid movement he withdrew an electrostaff and slammed it into Rex's side. Rex hissed through his teeth as he felt ribs break. Then the electricity began coursing through his body in burning waves. Rex’s jaw clenched involuntarily, keeping him from making much noise.

Rex fell limp as Cody finally drew the staff away.

"Where is Ahsoka Tano?" Vader asked again.

Rex struggled to lift his head.

"She's dead." He said.

Vader stared at him for a long time before turning to Cody.

"Continue."

Ahsoka stole through the halls of the Imperial facility. Rex was here somewhere. At least, that’s what she prayed. The chances of him surviving at the hands of the Imperials seven days were-

Ahsoka refused to let herself dwell on it.

She paused at a corner when she heard the idle chatter of two TK troopers nearby.

"I wish Lord Vader would hurry up and kill the wretch." One complained. "Patrolling the detention level is becoming a real pain."

"Gives me a headache." The other grumbled. "Judging by its screams, I doubt it can last much longer."

Ahsoka's heart quickened. He was alive. She waited for the troopers to move past and quickly made her way to the nearest lift. The Force guided her hands to hit level B3.

The lift opened and Ahsoka felt sick. Rex's screams were echoing throughout the hallway. There was something else; whatever was torturing him was a Force user. A powerful and Dark one at that.

Ahsoka grit her teeth. There went her plan to go in sabers blazing. She edged closer to the area from which Rex's noises of distress were coming from. Soon she could make out words.

" SHE'S DEAD! SHE'S DEAD!" Rex was screaming.

So that's what they wanted to know. Ahsoka tried to reach for Rex's mind, but it was saturated with pain, oblivious to everything but the torture being inflicted on him.

Ahsoka found a storage closet adjacent to the room Rex was in. She would have to wait this out, no matter how badly she wanted to stop Rex's tormentors.

After a while Rex's screams turned to sobs, and the words he said changed.

" Kote, vod, gedet'ye!"

Cody, brother, please.

Ahsoka's heart clenched as she translated the words in her head. He was calling for Cody. She prayed that he was seeing some delusion, and that Cody was not playing a part in his torture.

His sobs began to fade. Ahsoka pressed a montral to the wall. A door opened and shut. Ahsoka waited a minute before unsheathing her sabers. She drew them in a circle in the wall and forced the cut section forward. The room she stepped into was overly bright. The floor was tacky and pinkish. Ahsoka swallowed bile before looking at the back of the room.

Rex was twisted around a metal frame, forced into what looked like an excruciating position. He was mostly naked, save for his grey undershorts. It seemed there wasn't a bit of skin that wasn't bruised, burned, or cut. Blood ran in dribbles from fresh slashes on his chest. He didn't look up as she approached him. His head lolled forwards.

" She's dead. " He whispered through chapped lips. " Kote, gedet'ye, she's dead. "

Ahsoka shook herself and wasted no more time in releasing him from his bindings. He'd lost weight in the few days he'd been here, and Ahsoka easily lifted him. A soft groan escaped him as she shouldered most of his weight.

"It's okay, Rex." Ahsoka promised him. "It's over now."

It would be. Even if they were caught, the answer the Imperials wanted was given by her presence. There would be no need to continue his interrogations.

Of course, they could always use him against her.

She quickly scanned near her. There was one guard nearby. The dark presence was getting further away.

Ahsoka set Rex down before slipping out the door. The startled guard didn't have time to make a noise before Ahsoka slammed him against the wall. He crumpled. Ahsoka retrieved Rex and started their painfully slow way down the corridor.

Rex occasionally made soft noises of pain as she jostled him. They got to the turbolift with no incidents. Ahsoka could sense the guards on the level on which her stolen Imperial shuttle was docked. There weren’t many, and by some miracle of the Force she managed to get Rex to the hangar without being seen. He let out a pitiful groan as she quickened her pace.

"I'm sorry." Ahsoka whispered. "We're almost out. Just-"

The dark presence suddenly reappeared, looming between them and the shuttle.

Ahsoka had no time, not with Rex's dead weight, to move before the man to which the presence belonged stepped from behind another ship. If it could be called a man. It seemed more like a droid.

"Ahsoka Tano." It said. "Captain Rex has become a more convincing liar. I almost believed him when he said you were dead."

Ahsoka tensed. She would not leave Rex. But she didn't see a way out of this.

"Something I'm sure you're eager to rectify." Ahsoka spat.

"There is a way for you to survive. For you both to survive." It said. "Join the Empire and you will both live."

"And become whatever you are? No." Ahsoka said.

The figure did not immediately attack.

"You think this path leads to anything else?" It asked. "Your attachment to the clone is far too deep."

"I'm sure it was only attachment that made you fall." Ahsoka said.

Her mind raced. What could she do? She would not leave Rex, but she couldn’t move quickly with his weight. And this thing was powerful .

"I see that you are resolved." The thing said. "Then I offer you this. Surrender, and I will give you both painless deaths."

For half a moment Ahsoka was tempted. Rex's pain was saturating the Force. She didn't want him to hurt anymore. And she saw no way out.

Her hesitation was seen as a refusal. The thing reached out a clawed hand. Ahsoka tensed, but nothing touched her. Rex, on the other hand, stiffened. Ahsoka nearly dropped him as he struggled for air.

"No!" Ahsoka said. "I didn't-"

A blaster shot rang through the hangar. The thing whirled to the side and deflected it with a hand. Rex relaxed.

Ahsoka only paused long enough to see a familiar clone pointing a blaster at the thing. She drew upon the Force and darted forward, past the figure who was concerned with blocking the barrage of blaster fire raining down on it.

"No more!" She heard Cody shout. " No more! "

She reached out briefly to try to connect with Cody and found a shattered mind. Whatever they had done to Rex had been too much for him.

Ahsoka dragged Rex the last few feet to the shuttle.

"Now, R-7!" She shouted.

The shuttle's door began to rise. Right before it shut, Ahsoka saw the Dark creature shear through Cody's chest with a blood red blade.

There was no med bay in the Imperial shuttle, so Ahsoka had to lay Rex on a clean sheet in the middle of the passenger bay. It had taken nearly two hours to dress Rex's injuries. Ahsoka had to set his broken fingers, wrap his ribs, and put bacta on every burn and laceration. He began to stir as she was finishing wrapping the cut up soles of his feet.

He groaned as he shifted, eyes opening to a slit.

"'Soka." He mumbled.

He struggled to lift himself.

"Shhh." Ahsoka said, gently easing himself back down. "Lie still."

She began running her fingers through his short hair in a hopefully soothing manner. He closed his eyes again and his head sagged to the side.

"How do you feel?" She asked.

"Hurts." He slurred.

Ahsoka frowned. She already had him on pretty heavy painkillers. She couldn't give him more, but she hated that he was still in pain.

She continued to massage his head. She hoped he was heading back to sleep.

"Cody?" He asked.

Ahsoka felt sick at his hopeful tone.

"I'm so sorry, Rex." She said. "He didn't make it."

Rex didn't say anything at first. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

"Was it-" He struggled to form the words. "You?"

Ahsoka moved her hand to the side of his face.

"That thing killed him." Ahsoka said. "He died so we could escape."

Rex squeezed his eyes shut. The agony that warped the Force around him deepened. He turned his head away from her, a tear tracing down his cheek.

“No more.” He muttered. “ No more. ”

Check it out and my other Rexsoka Fics on A03!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34125910/chapters/85234081

https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExecutiveCucumber/works

#rexsoka #rexsoka week #rexsoka week 2021 #rexsokaweek #rexsokaweek2021 #captain rex #ahsoka tano #ahsoka and rex #Day 7: FUBAR #commander cody

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emelwhump · 3 years ago

Text

STATUS: LYCANTHROPE

Sharpe is infected with malware and finds Selarra's moon affecting him in ways it never has before.

CW: robots turning into werewolf monsters (no description of pain)

Word count: 1.2k

Sharpe couldn't stay indoors. Something needled him, scraping his frame with tiny electrical zaps that drove him out toward cooler temperatures. He leaned against the back wall of the base and peered into the blackness of the charred forest beyond, but his thoughts were inside the building, where the flesh of soldiers thrummed soft and warm. Was this the malware, scrambling up his neural network? It had to be. Damn Circuit for pushing him aside like this, and damn Claw for the emerald-colored pity in his eyes.

"Don't tell the Engineer," Sharpe had said after Circuit finished examining him, to which Circuit had replied, "The Engineer and I have enough work building the second Repair Unit. Your malware will have to be second priority until then. All I wanted to do here was confirm the infection, which I have." Then he'd trotted to the skeletal pile of actuators and servos that would someday be another android, tutting over them like a mother bird.

All Claw said was, "Circuit, you've got to work on your bedside manner." Still, he kept glancing at Sharpe, the corner of his eyes creasing in subtle worry.

Sharpe's sensors registered the thick ashen air on the breeze, the dapple of the moonlight behind the clouds--the moonlight--the moonlight--he tossed his head and couldn't stop a hiss from sliding out between teeth that felt strange, too large in his mouth. He had to push through this odd distortion, but he couldn't stand up straight without fumbling. Those prickles in his frame strengthened and multiplied. He reached for a pistol, couldn't grip it, grabbed his head instead, pounded a fist against the wall in frustration. Restlessness.

"Sharpe?"

He cracked an eye open. Claw had somehow sidled up beside him, the moonlight silver on the Assassin's strong gray face. A spasm ripped through Sharpe at the sight. The moonlight surged like lightning and worsened the malware's pull.

"What?" Sharpe growled, the word coming out low, rocky. He jerked from Claw's outstretched hand. I'll infect you, he wanted to say, but all he could force out was, "Go away."

If that hand got too close, he'd bite it. Rip into the fragile synthetic skin, crunch down on the sensitive finger joints; he sensed that as certainly as he sensed the damage alarms in his mind. Why did he want so badly to maul? And what damage had he suffered? But his arms and legs twisted then, his armor creaking, his frame making insectoid clicks as his limbs gnarled themselves into angles they weren't built for. Claw said something, but Sharpe couldn't hear it over the garbled "Get back!" he tried to shove out of a mouth that didn't seem the right shape for words. Any trace of terror popped sparklike inside him until he couldn't parse between fear and rage, couldn't think of what his body was supposed to be against what it was now; he writhed, horribly elongated, tangled and bent and dangerous. The zapping brightened to a nova, blinding him to all but the moon and his own infected programming's insistence.

When the moonfire faded enough for him to register light and shadow, the corpse of the forest had closed in on him. Its burnt trees loomed, and he loped between them on all fours, kicking up clouds of dust until he skidded to a stop in a clearing. His joints groaned with alien pressure. His tongue lolled from his mouth, trying to release the burning in his internal sensors as he stared up at the light that filtered through the dead canopy. He gripped the ground and found his fingers were far too long, tipped with black razors, twitching with the need to tear, to slice.

"Hey," came a familiar noise from behind.

Sharpe whirled toward the sound, his eyes landing on a form that looked like Claw... but it couldn't have been. Claw was never that small. Sharpe could close his mouth around him and bite him and break him--he tensed, readying a pounce, and Claw's hand fluttered toward the crossbow in his backpiece.

These directives were too foreign to have come from Sharpe. That thought slogged through the moon-gummed workings in his head faster than the urge to bite and bite, so instead he tried again to force a word out: "Leave!" But the syllable got caught on his teeth and dripped into the air, jagged and unintelligible. Claw just kept inching closer. Why wouldn't he go away? Why wouldn't he run off to the base, to safety? Didn't he understand the danger he was in? Didn't he see how badly the Marksman Unit wanted to crush him?

Sharpe lashed out toward the trunk of a tree, latching his maw around it, rumbling in strain as he drove his teeth into the wood so hard that it exploded into shrapnel. There was no other way to soothe the itch in his jaw. He locked his gaze on Claw and wrenched his head, screaming "leave" and instead hearing a sound like a warship's engine in his throat.

But Claw didn't leave. Didn't even flinch, just listened to the huffs vibrating in Sharpe's expanded chest.

"I'd say this isn't you," said the Assassin Unit, his hand swinging back down to his side, "but I think we're past that. Your drive must be hot enough to cook a protein ration by now, Sharpe. You'll feel better if you sit down." And, to Sharpe's sense of vague bewilderment and far stronger irritation, he simply sank cross-legged into the dust.

Sharpe eyed him and began to pace.

They stayed like that for a little while, Sharpe working a path into the ash and Claw just watching. Just being there, despite everything.

"Sharpe," Claw said after the grunts had started to die down, "you must be terrified."

Sharpe stopped. Glared. Realized that under the infected urges, the call to bite and run, Claw was right--he shook in fear, and though he kept trying to fashion his throat into the word "leave," he never wanted Claw to leave his side again.

As if he understood, Claw said, "I'm not going anywhere, soldier."

Sharpe worked deeper furrows into the ash.

Claw kept talking all the while, and Sharpe didn't pick up on the words so much as the soothing, steady, husky tone: "I don't think you'll attack me. You would've already if you wanted to. You could've--you're certainly big enough for it. I bet Circuit will be obsessed with this when he sees you. Ha, you look like a hound now. I can't say it's an improvement. I'm sorry, but you don't make a very cute hound, Sharpe. Oof!"

Overwhelmed by his strained drive, Sharpe plopped his head unceremoniously into Claw's lap, ashamed to hear a whine creaking out through his teeth as he surrendered his full weight.

"Hey, you're heavy," Claw said playfully. "Watch my knees." With a chuckle, he asked, "Would it be too much to say 'good boy?'"

Sharpe growled with all the fervor he could dig from his body.

"Yeah, you're still in there," said Claw.

He laid there until the fear lessened to a pulse, Claw's voice droning easy and relaxed, and though his jaw still itched and his programming still swirled with corruption, he knew deep within that nothing would drive him to hurt the one who held this monstrous form so gently.

#Claw got back to the base and was like 'that was the scariest thing I've ever seen lmao'#whump #oc whump #robot whump #werewolves #werewolf whump #my writing

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trashyswitch · 4 years ago

Text

William Breaks the Animatronics (Kinda???)

William is not very techy. But that has never stopped him before. This time, William causes a glitch to occur which...causes some mixed feelings.

William’s body screeched to a halt as he reached his best friend. “Ohthankgod! You’re here! Finally! It took long enough!” William reacted with worry in his voice.

“Geez, you’re impatient.” Henry responded.

“I THINK I BROKE SOMETHING AND I’M TOO SCARED TO TRY ANYTHING ELSE.” William admitted.

Henry sighed. William was not exactly the most techy guy. Sure, he could plug in a video game console and figure out some basic animatronic repairs. But there was always a limit to his knowledge and more often than not, William would cross the line of knowledge. That often leads to Henry Nascar-driving his way over to the Pizzeria at 9:30 at night to save his ass. Again.

“What is it this time?” Henry asked. “Did you miswire the joints again?” Henry asked.

“Nope. The joints are fine.” William replied.

“Did you accidentally trigger another shut down?” Henry asked.

“No, he’s still very much alive and moving.” William replied, looking at it.

Henry thought, before widening his eyes. “You didn’t...destroy the ticking circuit spine, did you?” Henry asked.

William looked at him with blank eyes.

“You better not have!” Henry warned. “Cause those are the most expensive, customized equipment we had to buy for these new animatronics!” Henry reacted.

“No, I didn’t. I promise.” William replied.

Henry looked at him with narrowing eyes, before letting him off the hook. “Okay. What’s the problem?” Henry asked.

William looked at Freddy Fazbear and the other Toy animatronics and gulped. “They’re…” His breath hitched in his throat as Chica waved to him.

“They’re...what?” Henry asked.

“PLAY TIME!” All of them yelled.

Henry’s eyes widened as William shrieked in horror!

“GET THE PURPLE ONE!” Bonnie shouted!

“I’LL GET THE ONE IN THE GLASSES!” Freddy declared.

“RUN!” William shouted to Henry.

Suddenly, both of the boys were off. Sprinting around the pizzeria, and being followed by running, stomping animatronics that made the ground raddle with their steps!

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO THEM?!” Henry asked loudly.

“I DON’T KNOW!” William yelled back.

“COME PLAY WITH US!” Bonnie yelled.

“I LOVE CHASING GAMES!” Foxy reacted happily.

Henry and William both sprinted to the prize corner and hid behind the prize counter. It became pretty clear though, that two grown men could not fit back there.

“My spot. Called it.” Henry pushed William out from behind the prize corner.

“Henry, don-...AAH!” William got himself up immediately and took off towards the stage. “YOU ASSHOLE!”

Suddenly, all the animatronics skidded to a stop and gasped. “He said another bad word!” Freddy reacted.

Henry popped his head out from behind the counter. “Wait, another?”

“You bet! William has had quite the potty mouth. We should have a swear slot!” Foxy told him.

“Mr. Emily, can you make me a swear slot?” Freddy asked.

Henry looked at him with utter concern. “...Uuuuh…”

“Speaking of swearing:” Chica ran up and picked William up. “I GOT ‘EM!” She declared proudly.

“Let me have him!” Foxy begged.

“No, ME!” Bonnie yelled.

“Oh my…” Freddy reacted.

Henry widened his eyes. “AAH- C-Careful! Don’tdrophim!” Henry tried to whisper.

“Don’t worry, Henry! We’ll be extra careful!” Chica reassured him. Chica then proceeded to throw him up into the air and catch him in her arms. “Alright! Get ‘em, boys!” Chica declared.

Freddy, Bonnie and Foxy all reached their hands towards William and walked up to crowd him! “NO!” Henry sprinted up to the animatronics to prevent them from pulling him apart or killing him. He had NO idea as to why they were malfunctioning this much! But all he knew at this point, was that William was NOT going to die from them! And he was gonna make sure of that!

Henry struggled to push himself through the animatronics. So, he tried climbing them. But it didn’t take long for Henry to give up that tactic as well. “GUYS! LET HIM GO! NOW! HE’S DONE NOTHING-”

Suddenly, Henry heard a familiar sound fill the air. It sounded unusual, it sounded bubbly, and it sounded...happy?

Well, mixed with whining.

“HEY! AHA! Ah ah! NO! Get off- HAHAHA! Ohohoff! NOHOhohoho!” He heard.

“W-Wait…” Henry pushed himself through the animatronics and blinked in surprise at the sight:

Foxy and Bonnie were tickling William while Chica was pinning him down!

“..........How-”

“You taught us!” Chica told Henry.

“No I didn’t!” Henry protested. Then, he remembered something. “W-Well, I did plan something like this...But I didn’t go through with it, so you shouldn’t have been able to learn it.” Henry admitted.

Freddy walked up to Henry with a giggle. “Look what I can do now! Hold still!” Freddy instructed. Freddy’s eyes turned blue as he scanned up and down Henry’s body.

“It looks like Henry is somewhat ticklish-” Freddy started pointing to certain ticklish spots as he named them.

Henry shrieked and pushed at the robotic pointing finger. “FREDDY!”

“-der arms, sides, hips, belly button, and toes! But your worst spot appears to be your neck!” Freddy lightly poked and tweaked Henry’s sides to get him to stop pushing.

“aaAAUGH! No, knock it off. Now.” Henry ordered. “I don’t know where you discovered that piece of code, but I am NOT in the mood to deal with it right now.” Henry warned sternly.

“My goodness! Such an attitude.” Foxy reacted.

“Stahahap ihihihit! Thehehe mohomehent Ihihi’m ohout of hehehere, I’m shuhuhuttihing you dohohown! Ohohohon PUHURPOSE thihis tihihihime!” William warned.

“We’ll see…” Freddy replied.

“I think you’ve already done more than enough on us!” Chica added.

“Shuhuhut uhuhup, you ungrahatefuhuhul pihihiece of sprahahaypahainted mehetahahal!” William shot back.

Henry pushed away Freddy’s hands and threw his arms out in defense. “STAP! Stop stop stop.” Henry got out of Freddy’s grip and looked at him. “Freddy: What did William do?” Henry asked.

Freddy stopped upon his command and smiled. “William showed me a new program titled ‘Play time’.” Freddy explained.

Henry tilted his head. ‘Play time’? Now what in the world-

“Let William go for a minute.” Henry ordered to Chica.

Just as she was told, Chica let William go and placed him back onto his feet. William took a moment to get his breath back before walking up to Henry and pointing at Freddy’s arm. “I...I had this opened earlier.” William told him.

William clicked a button to open up Freddy’s left arm plate and looked at the switches and buttons. Then, William watched as Henry clicked and held a bigger button that shut Freddy down.

When Freddy was unconscious, Henry turned to his coworker. “Okay. Now, what were you trying to do here?” Henry asked.

“I was...trying to fix the facial recognition problem…” William admitted.

Henry facepalmed himself. “William…Why?” He asked.

“Cause it was broken. The facial recognition and the staring, it was creeping out some of the parents. And frankly, you weren’t trying to fix it either.” William replied. “Will...I have been trying to fix the facial recognition for years. The facial recognition is BROKEN! BEYOND REPAIR!” Henry sternly told him. It CANNOT BE FIXED! I have TOLD YOU THIS A THOUSAND TIMES!” Henry yelled at him.

William widened his eyes and pointed at Freddy. “But- DUDE! The animatronics weren’t staring at us! They were reacting! REACTING! That means I did something, right?!” William asked.

Henry lifted an eyebrow and looked at Freddy. The pupils of Freddy’s eyes were...a strange color of green. He didn’t even know that Freddy’s eyes were capable of that color! “So...Can you remember what you did?” Henry asked.

William rubbed his own arm. “Well...Not really.”

Henry groaned and rubbed his own nose. “You are an idiot. A complete lunatic.” Henry told him.

William sighed. “But, I can remember what I clicked.” William added.

Henry looked up at him, and looked at the small red button that William was pointing at. It was located on the top of Freddy’s arm. Looking closer at it, Henry narrowed his eyes and took the blueprints out of his hands.

“That button shouldn’t-” Henry looked at the blueprints and pointed at the spot. “That button is not on the blueprints. That button shouldn’t exist. At all.” Henry told him.

William blinked in confusion. “...So, you don’t know what it does then?” William asked.

Henry shook his head. “Nope.”

Henry pushed the button with his finger and held it. He felt something click, and suddenly:

Toy Freddy’s body turned right back on and stared into space. William walked to the front and widened his eyes. “Uh oh…” William grabbed Henry, and pulled him in front to see the animatronic’s eyes: they were green! “Henry, we have to get out-”

Freddy started walking towards the other Toy animatronics and started opening up their arm plates too! When that was happening, William pulled Henry to a hiding spot to watch from a distance.

Freddy revealed that every Toy animatronic had the same button on their arm! Freddy clicked that very button on all of them, and watched as they woke right up without the chance to restart.

“Where are they?” Toy Freddy asked.

“THERE THEY ARE!” Foxy sprinted to the back of the prize counter and picked Henry up! “aAAAAH! PUT ME DOWN! FOXY! PUT ME DOWN NOW!” Henry ordered.

Foxy brought Henry over to Freddy. “Well look who’s back!” Freddy reacted. “And I have some great news as well! I remember all your sensitive spots! Meaning, I don’t have to scan you again!” Freddy declared.

Before Henry could say anything, the Toy animatronics started crowding around him and moving their hands right towards his ticklish spots. Foxy and Chica each tickled an armpit, Freddy went for his hips, and Bonnie went for his belly button!

“Nohoho WAHAHAIT! Nohot sohoho mahahany spohohots ahat ohohonce- NOHOHOHAHAHAHAHA! EEEHEHEHEHAHAHAHA!” Henry yelled.

William peeked his head out from under the counter. It didn’t take very long for Henry to burst into loud laughter. William really wanted to help him. It was his fault, after all. But...He also liked seeing Henry laugh like that. And frankly, he would just get himself stuck in the tickle fight as well.

“STAHAHAHAP! NOHOHOHO MOHOHORE! GEHEHET AHAHAFTOHOHON! HEHEHE’S BEHEHIHIND THEHE COHOHOUNTEHER!” Henry yelled at them.

Bonnie quickly looked over at the counter, and walked away from the crowd. William immediately gulped and hid himself more while Bonnie walked closer and closer to the counter. Bonnie walked to the front and leaned over, seeing his purple shirt immediately.

“There you are!” Bonnie declared. Suddenly, William felt a pair of hands grab his sides. But he didn’t get lifted up right away. Instead, Bonnie started skittering and squeezing his sides! William immediately squeaked and flopped onto his side. With William on his side and his face more visible, Bonnie tickled his belly next.

“HehehehAHAHAHAHA! NOHOHO! BOHOHONNIHIHIE GEHEHEHET OHOHOHOFF!” William tried to push himself away from him at first. But Bonnie was one step ahead of him!

The moment the man scooted himself away with his feet, Bonnie grabbed his ankle and pulled him out from behind the counter! “I FOUND AFTON!” Bonnie declared.

“LET GO OF ME RIGHT NOW! I’M WARNING YOU!” William ordered.

Bonnie, who was enjoying acting like a little shit, removed William’s shoe and scratched a finger on his foot.

“LET MEHE GOHOHO- NAAAHAHAHAHAHA! NAHAHAT MYHYHY FEEEEHEHEHEHEHET!” William shrieked and laughed hysterically while kicking his other foot.

“Tickle tickle tickle, Afton!” Bonnie teased as he grabbed the other foot. The bunny removed the other shoe from the second foot and immediately started tickling his other foot with the first one. “What a small pair of ticklish tootsies!”

William arched his back and shouted loudly, before immediately falling into a fit of cackles and laughter. “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHA- PLEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEASE! STAHAHAHAP IHIHIHIHIHIT!” William begged.

“Sorry Nr. Afton! You’ve been swearing, acting rude, and breaking rules all evening! Just accept your fate, Afton.” Bonnie explained.

“WHAHAT AHAHABOHOHOUT MEHEHEHE?! IHIHI DIHIHID NOHOHOTHIHIHING!” Henry asked as his neck was being attacked by Chica.

“Despite your name calling towards Mr. Afton, You’ve been quite good! So I’m not gonna tickle you for much longer.” Chica offered.

“OHOHOKAHAHAY, THAHAHANK YOHOHOU!” Henry replied.

“But I wanna tickle Emily! Let me tickle him!” Foxy reacted.

“WAHAHAIT, WHAHAHAT?!” Henry shouted.

“Okay! I can do that! 2 more minutes for me, okay?” Chica asked.

“Okay!” Foxy replied.

Henry mentally cursed to himself. Come on, Foxy! Why must you do this to me?!

Both of the boys were being completely wrecked by the animatronics. And no one could figure out just why! Why were they acting like this in the first place? Who programmed their ability to act playful? Henry had NEVER programmed something like that! And how did they figure out how to tickle? Or scan their tickle spots, for that matter? Was it a glitch? Did a hacker get into their programming? What even happened?!

Around 10:30, the front door of the pizzeria seemed to have opened. A man in overalls, who was jingling a pair of keys, had walked in. It was Mr. White: the custodian! He had heard laughing when he first walked in. But he did NOT expect to see tickling animatronics! It was...almost funny to see! An entertaining moment between the two bosses and the animatronic robots they created.

So, the custodian decided to let them have their fun and left them alone. It wouldn’t hurt to go to bed a little more late than usual, right? He has all night to sweep and mop the place down. He could even come the next morning if he wanted to!

So, Mr. White locked the outside of the door for the night and let them be. They’ll be fine, right?

#fnaf2 #anxious william afton #william afton is an idiot #henry emily is completely done with william's shit #non-techy william afton #ticklefic #ler!animatronics #lee!henry #lee!william #fluff and humor

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free-pancakes · 4 years ago

Note

A modern AU where levi and hanji went for a trip n hanji somehow involved in a gangster group n they kidnap her cz she got some secret info of the gangster group.. Later levi went to rescue her but they killed hanji in front of his eyes..after some mnths levi find hanji in his doorstep alive n kicking.. The gangster was Ackerman gang and levi doesn't know about this gang because her mother ran away with levi n give him better life.. Also hanji reform Ackerman gang and made them have a better life that's why they give hanji to utterly depressed levi.

(I'm shitty in writing and English is not my first language 😑)

It had been months since... the incident. Levi looked down at his phone, the red bubble over his text message notifications glared at him—hundreds of unread messages. He didn’t have the heart to open them. All of his friends asking if he was okay, but he just needed time to cope. He wasn’t sure how long that would be, but 6 months was nowhere near enough. His tea finished brewing and he stepped over to the kitchen, pouring two cups. It was routine, he didn’t care. It didn’t matter that Hange wasn’t there anymore, he still set out the cup anyway.

They had been on vacation. He had finally convinced Hange to take a break from work. Finally. And they somehow got entangled in the infamous Ackerman gang’s plans, Hange accidentally coming across sensitive information and was almost immediately taken right from him. He had called Erwin, head of the city’s police precinct and they fought to save her, but she was killed right in front of them. He shuddered, and tried to wipe the scene from his memory everyday, but the images danced in his eyes more often than not.

Six months felt like an eternity to Levi, and he continued to go through the motions, passive day after passive day, routine again and again--it felt like living hell as his heart swirled with guilt and regret. He felt like a mindless robot. Erwin would stop by often, worried about him. He would simply and nonchalantly talk to Levi about work since Levi almost refused to talk, but just sit and listen. He mentioned that the Ackerman gang activity was slowly dwindling, and nearly ceased, but Levi didn’t care. If only they just stopped activity before they came across it that day. It was too late.

“This is worthless information, Erwin,” he muttered. Erwin looked sadly at his friend. “Nanaba and Mike are hosting dinner tonight if you want to come later. Take care, Levi.” He let himself out and looked back—it was hard to see Levi like this.

The sun lowered, shining warm, orange beams of light directly through his window spilling onto the floor. The day before they left for vacation, the apartment looked just like this—the comforting glow of sunset filling every room with light, and illuminating Hange as he watched her pack her clothes into her suitcase on the floor. The light reflected off the gold frame of her glasses and her brown eyes, making them glisten like pools of honey, and he was absolutley mesmerized. She looked up to find him staring at her from the couch, and gave him a big toothy grin and laughed, her actions making him just want to hug the hell out of her.

He stared at the floor, now empty, the apartment painstakingly silent without her laughter. He looked at the clock, and thought he might just go over to Nanaba and Mike’s. He didn’t want to, but it was probably good for him. As he stood up to go get changed, he heard a soft knocking at the door. He debated ignoring it, but something compelled him to go answer. He opened the door.

“What do you wan—”

An almost blinding ray of sunlight spilled into the room through the open door and he stared directly in front of him with wide-eyes.

“H-Hange?” he said, voice shaking so much, he almost couldn’t speak. It felt so good to say her name again.

“Hi, Levi,” she whispered, loving the feeling of his name roll off her tongue out loud for the first time in months, soft at the sound of his voice. She was standing on his doorstep, messy hair, oversized sweatshirt, glasses, her annoyingly bright lipstick and all.

“A dream, yes this was a dream. Or some kind of joke,” he thought to himself. He just wanted to sit and stare at her for hours, scared that if he took his eyes off her, she would simply disappear into thin air, and he couldn’t bare to lose her a second time. She handed him a small hand written note.

“They told me to give this to you first,” she said with the dumb, toothy smile that made him weak at the knees.

He snatched the piece of paper out from her with shaking hands, and opened it.

“Hange was more helpful than we could have imagined. But please, take her back. She never shuts up and we know more useless scientific facts and knowledge than we ever wanted to know. And do us a favor--Don’t run into us again. Signed, Kenny Ackerman”

A black van sped off from behind them, and Levi was simply dumbstruck— but Hange was standing right in front of him. It was too real to be a dream, despite how absolutely ridiculous and confusing the note was. They weren’t wrong about the “never shutting up” part, though.

But it didn’t matter. She was alive and standing on his doorstep. Their doorstep.

He struggled to form words. “How? We saw you—”

“You didn’t think I was dead, did you? There’s no way that would have happened without me at least getting to say goodbye to you first or something, Shorty. Plus I wouldn’t go down without a fight, you know me--right Levi?”

He stood, silent. She cocked her head to the side, a caring expression across her face, and took a step forward and to wipe the tears from his cheeks with her thumbs. He didn’t even realize he was crying. She cupped her hands around his face and pulled it close to hers, their foreheads and noses touching, feeling each other’s puffs of warm breath on their skin. Tears fell down her face too, and Levi pulled her into his embrace, desperate to feel her heart beat close to his.

Honestly, he didn’t care for hearing her explanation, so that could wait til later. But he suspected her crazy mind did something to the Ackerman gang, and Erwin’s earlier comment was starting to make sense.

He left a small kiss on her lips, his body overcome with gratitude and relief as she kissed him back.

(thanks for the ask, anon! idk what this is lol but i don’t think it did justice to your awesome au idea! if you want something much much better, check out this by @smallblip and this by @fanmoose12! Based on the nature of your ask, you’ll absolutely love their fics!)

#levihan #levi ackerman #hange zoe #hanji zoe #ask #anon #snk #aot

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darker-soft-starker · 5 years ago

Photo

Starker High School AU, Pt. 4 (Pt.1, Pt.2, Pt.3, Pt.5)

---

The last bell of the day sounds and Peter doesn’t know if he’s thankful or reproachful.

On one hand, no more classes.

On the other: giving up an afternoon of Robotics to spend time with the modern embodiment of the antichrist.

To add insult to injury, it had been one of those long, arduous days that never seemed to end. The hours stretched themselves into impossibly bloated milliseconds as he watched the clock - and it still wasn’t over.

Dread filled him in anticipation of the afternoon and before first period he accidentally smacked himself in the forehead trying to get his locker open. It hurt and he was sure it would bruise. But if he was looking for sympathy, there was none to be found. Bucky and Nat weren’t speaking and in result their friends seemed wary and divided amongst themselves.

It made for a rather awkward day.

His efforts to be neutral ground and to bridge the gap were met with vexation and were brushed off, so he ate lunch alone again in the library Bucky and Nat were fiery and fiercely independent, so not unexpected, but it was in his nature to want to mend the rift.

Ben used to tell him not everything was up to Peter to fix.

Easy for him to say.

Nonetheless he does his best to keep that notion in mind as he goes through the day, but everything seems off kilter. No one is talking to each other, he was so busy and caught up with all of the internal discord and schoolwork that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

And May was acting super weird this morning.

Worry gnawed at him in a way that had him forgetting about eating, whether it was about May and Thursday’s match, about the giant pimple that bloomed on his chin overnight -- or whatever inevitable torment that Stark had cooked up for them this afternoon.

It’s still a few minutes before they’re due to meet but Peter isn’t dragging his feet.

He isn’t.

Sure, the hallways are vacant of any other students.

And maybe he is feeling just a little petty for the time Tony kept him waiting despite his own plea not to -- besides, he still has a couple of minutes before he’s due, he’s not going to turn up early for goodness sake, as much as the part of him that says if you’re not early you’re late begs him to quicken his footsteps.

Maybe he does stretch it to the last minute just to see Tony looking frustrated by his vintage ‘69 Mustang, the line of his mouth unmistakably displeased as the cars in the lot around him gradually disperse.

He knows the moment that Tony notices him, leant against his car, sunglasses slipping down his nose to properly glower at him.

“This is why you’re an asshole,” Tony points a finger at him as he arrives. “I should leave you here.”

“Sorry,” Peter apologises airily, “I was trying to be anywhere but here. I’m not late though, so?”

Tony rounds the car to the drivers side, still pointing at Peter. “Don’t push your luck, Parker. Get in.”

Snickering quietly to himself, Peter heads to the other side.

The engine growls loudly, a deep rumbling that goes through Peter’s entire body. Buckling himself in quickly, he peers around curiously while Tony reverses out of the lot. He’s reluctantly surprised. For an old car that belongs to a teenager behind at least two school fires it’s in impeccable condition.

“Nice car,” he says quietly, mostly to himself as his gaze roams the interior with interest.

It’s difficult to associate Tony Stark with the words nice or neat even, but that’s exactly what the car is. The interior is unscuffed, squeaky clean, the leather seats are comfortable, not a sprinkle of cigarette ash to be seen.

It really is spectacular - when the engine roars and the seats vibrate under him, Peter gets a sense of wonder and curiosity, like that one time he fell in love with DeLoreans after watching Back To The Future with Ben.

Curious, he opens the glove compartment and finds a generous stash of snacks and chocolate bars inside.

“Don’t touch anything,” Tony scowls, smacking Peter’s hands from the dash. “That’s rule number one. The interior is original and my girl is sensitive to your residue.”

Residue, he scoffs, tempted to reach out and touch more just to be contrarian.

“You got a sweet tooth or somethin’?” Peter asks instead, gesturing to the glove compartment.

“No.”

“Can I have some?”

“No.”

“Are you gonna say anything else to me on this trip?”

“No,” Tony smiles sardonically, turning up the radio louder until the riffs of Queen’s Somebody To Love drown them both out.

True to his word, Tony remains silent over the course of the drive. It suits Peter fine, it’s not a quiet that is uncomfortable or awkward, not with the radio playing loudly from an oldies station, the wind whistling through the windows and the echoes of traffic around them.

He thought it might be a stiff and uncomfortable drive, however the longer nothing goes unsaid between them, the more Peter feels himself relax in his chair, warmed by the heater and his limbs loosening until they feel boneless after the day he’s had.

And to his credit, Tony doesn’t appear overly tense or uneasy in having Peter in his space - in fact, he looks as chilled out as Peter has ever seen him.

The perpetual strain around his jaw and shoulders seems eased, his posture open and casual as he drives with one hand, shifting gears with the other, sometimes tapping out a tune on the steering wheel. And whenever a song he particularly likes comes on the radio he turns up the volume, and if Peter looks over at the right moment he sees him smile privately to himself, a pleased little quirk of his lips.

Sometimes Tony speeds and puts his fingers out the window to card them through the wind, and his smile grows.

Although the amicable vibe has little to do with him, it’s probably the first time that they’ve spent more than five minutes together without hurling insults at each other.

It’s weird.

Too wary of shattering the peace, Peter doesn’t mention it.

By the time they’re on the Queensboro Bridge the Eurythmics are playing one of May’s favorite songs. Without realising he’s doing it, he’s bobbing his head along to the tune, whispering the words under his breath, suddenly reminded of dancing in the kitchen with her and Ben, nine years old, using wooden spoons as microphones.

He’s smiling before he can stop himself, head tilted back against the seat, eyes unfocused on the skyline. It smells like Tony’s cologne and engine oil, like being enveloped in an old memory. He can see Tony looking at him from the corner of his eye but neither of them say anything.

The volume is turned up.

---

They arrive at the realtor with just minutes to spare before their appointment is due to commence.

The traffic had built incrementally during the drive to Long Island City, the roads becoming more congested as they went. The tension in Tony’s shoulders returned as the minutes ticked closer to four-thirty, his tapping on the steering wheel out of impatience rather than good-cheer.

Peter actually does feel a little bad now.

Not that the five minutes he could’ve spared would have made much of a difference, but still, guilt whispers vehemently.

It’s for that reason that he politely doesn’t say anything that could be perceived as inflammatory when Tony pockets his sunglasses and buttons up his dress shirt, checking his reflection in the rear-view mirror. Even if he’s dying to tell him that he looks like a damn nerd.

Not that he can talk.

Heeding Tony’s words, he’d dressed similarly in his okay-est pair of jeans, a clean shirt and a cardigan. In class, MJ laughed and told him he looked like Napoleon Dynamite.

They head in, a bell above the door signalling their arrival. It’s a chain realtor, not the one they rent their apartment through, but Peter thinks there is an office right near his building. Inside, a middle-aged woman at the front desk greets them.

“Uh... we have an appointment with Kate Price” Tony gestures between them. “Appointment for Tony Stark?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman apologises in a heavily Welsh accent, “you should have gotten a notification, she’s unwell and taken the day off.”

“Oh, um --”

“That’s okay though, I’m free, I can help you if you’d like.”

“Are you sure?” Peter queries, sharing a look with Tony who appears just as uncertain. “We’d really appreciate it.”

“Absolutely. It’s quiet anyhow. Come,” she beckons them down a narrow hallway to a set of cubicles and L-shaped desks. There doesn’t seem to be anybody else in the office, he notes, as the two are directed to sit before a desk while the woman types away at a computer.

“I’m Miranda,” she introduces herself, holding out her hand for both of them to shake. “The appointment notes say you’re after a nearby rental?”

“Sort of, we’re just looking at some pricing. Nothing serious, we just need to take some notes, get a feel for it.”

Miranda’s glasses slide down her nose as she observes them.

“You’re a wee bit young to be moving out of home, aren’t you?”

“Oh! No,” Peter stutters, waving his hands, “we’re not actually --”

Miranda waves at him dismissively.

“Not that I can judge. My husband and I were living together and married by nineteen, ‘course he’s dead now. We had a good run though. Anyway, good for you. Young love, it’s so sweet.”

“Young what,” Peter says.

Miranda, typing away cheerily at her computer, clearly didn’t get the memo about the school project like Kate must have.

Peter turns to Tony, who is just as wide-eyed as he is.

What the fuck, he mouths, slinking down in his chair.

I don’t know, Tony mouths back, stupefied.

“So, what are we thinking - a studio if it’s just the two of you? Something cozy?”

“Uh, well, we’re looking to grow,” Tony says, hand slapped over his mouth. He shares a bewildered, wide-eyed stare with Peter.

“Right, well, nothing wrong with knowing what you want. What’s the budget? Let me see what I can find for you.”

“Ah,” Peter shifts in his seat, trying to communicate wordlessly with Tony as their research angle quickly becomes derailed.

He tries to communicate the need for an urgent exit in a stare that he hopes is prolonged and meaningful, but is only met with equally panicked blinking from the other boy. There’s a moment spent blinking undecipherable messages at each other and before he knows it the silence has stretched on far too long.

“Well, we were thinking sixteen-hundred a month. Right... Tony?”

“Right,” he nods slowly, eyes darting between the two. “Single income, see. Parker - uh, Peter is still in school.”

“Oh, bless,” she says spiritedly, typing away at her keyboard. “It’s not easy, I know, been there. What do you do for work, young man?”

“Me?” Tony asks, gesturing to himself, shooting Peter a desperate look. “I’m... a mechanic...apprentice.”

Peter has to disguise his snort with a cough, the horse so far out of the gate there is no catching up to it.

“Good for you, darling,” she says distractedly as she busies herself with the monitor, missing the heated glare Tony sends him. “Let’s see, might be tight, but we may have something for you. One bed, one bath, a living room that can be converted to a second bedroom.”

“Great,” Peter nods hesitantly. “Where?”

“Across the street, actually,” she swivels the monitor on its stand to show them a set of blurry photos of a small apartment. “And it’s currently vacant - we can do an inspection right now, if you’d like?”

There’s a pregnant pause.

“One moment,” Tony smiles at her, holding up a finger.

There’s a screech as Tony pulls Peter’s chair across the linoleum with a single hand.

“This is getting out of hand,” Peter whisper-hisses, ducking his head.

“I know, I know, I know,” Tony squeezes his eyes shut, making placating motions with his hands that do little to appease Peter’s rising apprehension. “It’s alright, it’s under control. Listen, hear me out, we go to the inspection, have a look at the place --”

“You can’t be serious, dude, we’re sixteen.”

“We’re not going to actually fill out an application, numbnuts, listen; we go, we take some pictures, get some details about the property, add it to our report and bam, who needs a reference? Think about it! Who else is going to have this level of detail in their report?”

“I’m not exactly sure this is what Miss Ahn meant by field research.”

Tony pokes him in the forehead.

“Think outside the box, precious. Rise above the urge to do the bare minimum and we might just get a good grade.”

Peter sneaks a glance at Miranda. “Fine,” he pokes Tony back in the chest. “But you do all the talking, smartass.”

“Fine with me.”

“Good.”

“Great.”

Tony turns back to Miranda and offers her a charming smile.

“We’d love to. Lead the way.”

---

They door sticks when Miranda turns the key into the dead-lock.

She struggles with it momentarily, smiling assuredly at the two boys as she twists the doorknob back and forth, pressing her shoulder against the peeling wood, forcing it open with a bang.

“Here we are,” Miranda announces brightly.

The two follow her inside, sharing a reluctant look with each other as she leads them into what must be a living room, the click-clack of her heels echoing off the scuffed floorboards and bare walls.

The first thing that Peter notices is that the room, while void of furniture, seems impossibly small, even by New York standards.

With the three of them spread thinly throughout it, there are but a few inches of space between them. Barely any room for a couple of armchairs, let alone a full sofa or a coffee table.

At a glance, he takes stock of the cracks in the ceiling, the discoloured patches in the plaster and the splintered wood of the front door frame where it appears it has been forced open from the outside. The chain-lock is broken.

Tony is over by the far corner, wiping a finger through a layer of dust on the window sill.

There’s a loud bang from upstairs.

“So, this is the living area,” Miranda says with a flourish of her wrists. “And if you follow me, this down here,” she leads them around the corner, “is the kitchen.”

The kitchen is comprised of a small formica bench, a stained backsplash and several cupboards missing their handles.

While Miranda continues to point out and inform them all of the ‘cosy’ and ‘quaint’ features, Tony slips his phone from his pocket and with a nod of acceptance, lingers back a few steps to take photographs of the apartment.

While he’s doing so, Peter busies himself by inspecting the kitchen, toying with the dials of the oven and the two-burner stove top, testing the swing of the cupboard doors.

Inside one of them is a dirty tea-cup and a dead cockroach.

“-- and as you can see, plenty of room for a dining table, maybe you might like to have friends over --”

He follows them into the bathroom, which is just as compact as the rest of the apartment. He tests the faucet, noting that the tiles are cracked, as is the bathtub.

Most worryingly are the speckled spots of black spores along the higher walls and the ceiling.

“-- it’s a big old tub, plenty of room,” she pats Tony on the stomach, “could fit two in a squeeze if you suck it in, aye? Now, this way please boys, let me show you the pièce de résistance --”

Tony guards his stomach with his hands, pouting as Miranda leads them to the adjacent room.

“This is the main bedroom,” she beams, flicking on the light. “Perfect, isn’t it?”

The two young men stall in the doorway, peering inside.

The space, probably equipped to handle a solitary king-single and a drawer at best, isn’t particularly generous by any means. The flickering bright yellow globe seems to only highlight the blistering wallpaper and the suspiciously stained carpet.

It smells like weed and cat pee.

“So as you can see, plenty of privacy for you two, the living room can be converted into a second bedroom if need be -- or if one of you needs to sleep on the couch,” she winks at them.

“Right,” Tony says slowly, nudging the other with his elbow. “What do you think...honey?”

“I don’t know, dear,” Peter says, elbowing him back. “What do you think?”

“I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.”

“Bless,” Miranda cuts in, leaning on the doorframe while she observes them. “You’re just adorable, you must be high-school sweethearts.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“...Y-Yes,” Tony says after a moment, voice croaky. His hand snakes out to awkwardly pat Peter on the shoulder. “...we are.”

“So, what do you think?”

“About him?” Tony points to Peter.

“About the apartment,” she laughs. “What do you think, do you like it?”

“Oh, um, I have a few questions actually,” Peter mentions, following them back into the kitchen area, ignoring the odd look that Tony sends him. “If that’s okay?”

What are you doing, Tony mouths, back turned to the realtor as he clears his throat.

Peter holds a finger up to request a minute. There’s a struggle to each convey their message silently, however, Tony reluctantly concedes, spreading his hands wide in a theatrical approval to proceed.

He paces the room, shuffling at the bubbling linoleum that he’d narrowly tripped on coming in, bending down to inspect it.

“Do you know how long the apartment’s been vacant?” He directs his question to the realtor.

“Oh, not long,” she replies vaguely, flipping through her file. “Couple of days or weeks, I think. I’d have to check.”

Peter nods, glancing between the three, standing.

“Umm, I noticed that the oven doesn’t heat up. I thought that maybe the gas was turned off but the stove works? Also, um, in the living room there’s a section of floorboard that’s rotting with because there’s a water leak from the ceiling?”

Miranda’s smile freezes. “Oh, is there? That must be new.”

Peter wrings his hands together, glancing at Tony, stomach swooping at his own boldness. “And, uh, I noticed that the windows stick; the water pressure is funny, too?”

“I can get that checked --”

“There’s black mold in some of the rooms. I think because there isn’t temperature control, the windows are west-facing, so it must get pretty humid in the summer.”

Peter looks to the other boy in what he hopes seems heartfelt. “I don’t mind, I only mention it because Tony’s... well, he’s got asthma.”

Tony coughs, catching on.

“Yes, that’s right.”

Miranda’s posture crumples at that, her professional veneer instantly wiped from her face.

“You’re right, this place is a dump,” she admits, kicking at the floor, spreading her arms out wide. “Look at it, it’s vile. I wouldn’t let my wretched old mother-in-law live here, the old bag. I’m sorry, boys.”

“Well, actually,” Peter says, gesturing between himself and Tony, stepping closer to him. “We’d be happy to do all the repairs and look the other way about the safety violations if there’s any wriggle room on the rent?”

Miranda flicks through the papers she’s holding, adjusting her glasses as she reads through it. The adjacent neighbors can be heard yelling through the thin walls.

“We do have a margin to drop it from sixteen-fifty to... fifteen-hundred a month for the right tenants. Not going to lie, the landlord is pretty desperate. Would you like an application?”

Tony clamps his hand on Peter’s shoulder, squeezing it. “We’ll think about it. Could we get all of those terms in writing, pretty please?”

Peter grins.

---

“I can’t tell if that was genius or crazy,” Tony says after they’ve departed ways with Miranda, headed back towards the Mustang on the other side of the road. “Seriously can’t say I expected that.”

The pair jog across the road once there is a gap in traffic.

After Ben passed, Peter and May moved twice. As a young child Peter saw another apartment as just that - another place to set down his duffle of second-hand clothes and thrift store toys. But May was smart. Savvy. She calls it the Parker Discount.

Peter shrugs when they reach the car.

“Well, just because our report is meant to focus on budget against costs, doesn’t mean we can’t find ways to save money and maximise it. Not when you consider insurance, bills, food. It all adds up.”

“I’m still trying to pick my jaw up from the floor. Didn’t know you had that in you, Parker.”

“Yeah well, you don’t know anything about me,” Peter says to the ground, kicking at the pavement, “so.”

He tries not to squirm under the weight of Tony’s considering gaze, like a vice tight on the back of his neck. He feels the moment something shifts, as if a pin pricks the wall between them, easier to breathe.

“Look, whatever you think about me, I don’t care, but you probably couldn’t find a better partner for this project. I know more about this than you do.”

“Alright, no need to crow about it, I just said I was impressed. Don’t let it get to your head.”

Peter’s stomach growls loudly over the evening traffic before he can respond.

“Sorry,” he says, cursing the timing of his body, “haven’t had anything since breakfast.”

Tony nods to a diner across the road.

“You wanna?”

“Oh,” he objects, worried about his bone-dry bank balance, “I’m not --”

“C’mon, dickweed, my treat. Don’t leave a guy hanging, it’s not polite.”

Tony waits patiently, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s sure it’s a look that many have fallen for. A crooked, wry smile and a self-confident air that one might confuse between charm and indolence.

He feels out of his depth for once, and isn’t sure if he likes it. But his stomach growls again and he’s got nothing to lose except for his appetite.

“Okay,” he says, nodding. “Sure.”

---

It’s the most surreal experience he’s ever had.

He pinches himself to believe that it’s real, that he’s dining out on a Tuesday evening in the boroughs with Tony Stark. The same guy he thought might murder him just last week.

He’s still not so sure that’s out of the question, to be honest. It would be the most normal thing about this entire day.

The silence is definitely awkward this time, sat at a table outside under a weather-protective canvass while they wait for their meal. A woman with a large doberman sits nearby, giving them odd looks every so often as she speaks loudly on her phone.

Peter’s nursing a giant glass of cola. The only sounds between them since they ordered have been the clinking of ice cubes from his glass and the sound of bubbles as he blew through the straw for a lack of better things to do.

From the daggers he’s getting from Tony, he’d wage that he’s annoying him - hence the probable murder - but he’s spared by their waitress returning with their meals.

A truly monstrous pile of fries is placed before Tony, along with a burger, a sundae and a milkshake. He takes off his dress shirt to reveal a black undershirt, as if in preparation to sweat through the meal.

Big meal for a big mouth, Peter thinks, as his own BLT is set before him.

It’s weird.

Tony is weird.

This whole damn thing is weird.

“Don’t you think this is weird?” he asks, idly picking a seed from his crust and nibbling on it.

“Yeah,” Tony sighs.

“I don’t like it.”

“Me neither. What was I thinking?”

“Dunno,” Peter says.

It’s quiet again after that. And it’s weird. Sitting down with over a civil meal with Stark or any of his cohorts wasn’t particularly on his bucket list for junior year, but here he was, picking at his crusts, dying to pee.

Tony takes three fries from the pile and dips them into his sundae, then the milkshake before eating them.

“Dude, gross.”

Tony looks at him oddly. “Uh, no it’s not. Have you never dipped your fries in ice cream before?”

“Is that a metaphor for sex?”

“What? No, you weirdo,” Tony shakes his head. “Are you serious? You’ve never -- god, that explains everything,” he slides his fries across the table a few inches. “Though it truly nauseates me to share with you, I can’t let this stand. Try it.”

“Ew, not after you’ve touched them --”

Tony slides his milkshake closer.

“Try it, butthole. You won’t totally hate it, promise. Well, you might, but if you do it’s just gonna confirm that your taste is garbage, which is what I already think about you. Anyway. C’mon, try it.”

Peter, while staring at Tony, begrudgingly accepting a fry from the peak of the pile and scooping it in ice cream from Tony’s sundae.

He waits for the moment the combination of textures will make his stomach turn while he hesitantly chews, but instead is pleasantly surprised that the sweet salty flavours compliment one another so well.

“Not the worst, is it?” Tony grins knowingly, placing another fry in his mouth in the same manner. “I’m right, aren’t I? It’s good. Say it. I’m right.”

“It’s alright,” Peter says, stealing another fry to make sure. “Don’t let it go to your already inflated cranium.”

The self-satisfied smirk on Tony’s lips tells him it already has.

Quiet fills the space between them again, more charged than before in a manner that Peter can’t really describe. Like as if there was a soft buzz in the air, like he would get be struck with static electricity were he to touch it.

Not keen on getting stung, he continues eating his sandwich.

Tony on the other hand, has other ideas.

“So, Peter Parker, now that I know you’re not a total dumbass, tell me this,” he takes a deep breath, his expression grim, “ -- do you wear glasses for the aesthetic or what?”

Peter stares at him.

“C’mon. Are you aiming for nerd chic? You shouldn’t, it’s very 2012.”

“Dude, no. I know glasses are like a thing or whatever but I actually do need them to see. I’m like, blind as fuck.”

“How blind is blind as fuck?”

“Pretty blind.”

He takes off his glasses and twirls a finger in the direction the smudge of colour that he assumes is Tony.

“Can’t see you, like at all,” he squints. “You’re just a blur. Which is the best you’ve ever looked.”

Tony takes the glasses from his outstretched hand, and he has a hysterical moment where he thinks that Tony might go so low as to steal them, but is quickly realizes he’s just trying them on. He whistles before handing them back to Peter.

“Yup, those are prescription alright. The fuck? Why don’t you wear contacts?”

Peter shrugs, slipping his glasses back on. Stark comes back in perfect clarity.

“They’re super expensive,” he’s alright with admitting to Tony at this point. “I have some I use for matches, or for special occasions, but I dunno, I’m used to glasses.”

“Do you have to clean them all the time?”

“Yes.”

In fact, there’s smudge from where Tony has inadvertently touched the lens.

“Have you ever stepped on your glasses accidentally?”

“Yep.”

He’s done it more than once but he’ll never forget the first time, how upset he was in the moment or how he fruitlessly tried to hide his face from Ben and May so they wouldn’t see the cracks in the lenses. He cried when they found out.

That first time was just weeks after his parents had died, and he’d already been laden with thoughts of being a bother and a financial burden on the couple. They never stopped trying to prove that he wasn’t a hardship to care for. Sometimes, on mornings like the one he had, he still can’t help but wonder how much better off they might have been without him.

They eat in contemplative silence afterwards. While he finishes his sandwich he watches as Tony surreptitiously feeds his fries to the doberman under the table, unbeknownst to the owner. He has to eat quickly to conceal the smile taking over his lips when the dog slowly shuffles closer to their table with purpose, looking at Tony with big, soulful eyes.

Once he’s finished eating and there’s nothing left to hide his amusement, he resumes their conversation.

Clearing his throat, he points towards the Mustang once he has Tony’s attention. “Okay, your turn. What’s with the deal with the old girl?”

"My car?”

"Yeah. Explain the whole greaser vibe.”

The other boy is quiet for a moment, his gaze searching Petter contemplatively, a napkin being twisted between his hands.

“She was a hunk’a junk when I bought her, mostly scrap metal. I bought all the spare parts and got her up to scratch. I dunno, I just like cars, tinkering with them or whatever.”

“You restored her by yourself?” Peter asks, reluctantly impressed.

He looks at the car again, trying to picture it.

It wasn’t hard to imagine Tony Stark getting his hands dirty, being the prized pig that he was, but having the wherewithal and competence to rebuild a vintage vehicle at sixteen? It would explain the whole Danny Zuko, T-Bird look, but with his bank balance, he could have easily bought a Mustang in mint condition without having to lift a finger. It would explain the streaks of oil from the other day.

Tony shrugs, twisting a napkin between his hands.

“Sorta. Anyway, quit your judging, four-eyes.”

“Not judging,” Peter holds his hands up in innocence. “I just didn’t expect that about you.”

“Yeah, well. I’m exceptional, I know.”

"That’s not the word I would use,” Peter allows. “But you’re not the worst.”

A flash of surprise briefly crosses the other boys face before it disappears.

“High praise,” he says wryly, resting his chin on his hand. He looks Peter up and down slowly, his big, curious eyes made warm by the dying sunlight.

“I’m as shocked as you are.”

“...You’re not the worst either, I guess,” Tony sighs like it pains him to admit it. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, we could never be friends -”

“Definitely not -”

“ - but you’re not completely intolerable. God, never thought I’d say that. Maybe I’m growing as a person.”

“Am I still a neanderthal?”

Sipping his milkshake through the straw, Tony raises his shoulders half-heartedly.

Peter kicks his foot from under the table, unwilling to take that for an answer, even if Tony kicks him back, his eyes flicking upwards briefly, his smile almost bashful. In the dying light of the sunset he almost looks soft; approachable.

“Probably shouldn’t have called you that, huh.”

“Probably not. Is that an apology?”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Don’t push it, Parker. I’m just saying you’re not completely abhorrent. Who knew.”

“I knew. I just don’t know why you’ve always hated me so much.”

He doesn’t mean for it to come out small and quiet, but he can’t take it back once the words have left his mouth.

It starts to rain.

“Sorry,” Peter says, louder to be heard over the droplets hitting the overhead umbrella heavily, immediately feeling stupid. “I shouldn’t have -- it’s not a big deal. I mean, I really don’t like you either.”

“Can I get you boys anything else?”

Both boys turn towards the waitress who’s approached their table, lined-lips smiling down at them, a notepad in her hand.

Tony throws a fifty down on the table and stands and Peter follows suit.

“Nah,” he says, cocking his head to the door. “We’re good.”

---

“See you back at school?” Peter yells to be heard over the rain, back on the sidewalk.

“I’ll drive you back,” Tony yells back, wet hair clinging to his face.

“What?” Peter cups a hand over his ear.

“What?” Tony does the same. “I said I’ll give you a lift!”

“The station isn’t far,” he points. “I can walk!”

“Don’t make me look like an asshole! Get in, princess!”

With the rain pelting his thin shirt and thunder cracking angrily from above, he doesn’t spend his energy arguing. He gets in.

---

The short drive back is amicable, music muted, the pitter-patter of the easing rain filling the ever-growing comfortable silence between them.

With the heater going it doesn’t take long to dry off and restore the feeling back to his fingers. Heat beats from the vents beating pleasantly and along with being sated from the meal, Peter feels like he could nod off at any moment. He has to keep snapping his eyes open, although it’s difficult to adjust his focus as the sunset bleeds into a ruddy orange on the wet windshield, the lights from the cars blurring into bright long streaks of colour.

"You’re not a total lost cause, Tony admits, slowing as they near his apartment block. It’s the first time either of them has spoken since starting the drive back. “Look, maybe it’s the fact that your face looks like a puckered asshole when you speak, I don’t know. There’s just something about you that really rubs me the wrong way."

Peter cringes as they come to a stop outside his building.

"I don't want to rub you in any way."

"And yep, here comes the mental image,” Tony’s nose scrunches, like an infant that just ate something sour. “Gross. Thanks, Parker.”

“Welcome.”

He unbuckles himself and opens the door, hesitating for a second while the moment settles between them.

“Thanks for the grub and the ride, I guess. Text me when you get the paperwork from Miranda?”

“Aye, aye,” Tony mock salutes him. “Now get out of my car.”

Peter complies, giving him the finger by way of goodbye.

Once the car merges and disappears into the traffic, he grins down at his hands, cheeks going warm.

It’s the thrall of finally feeling on equal-footing, he reasons, as he takes the step back up to his apartment. That’s what it is. His stomach is inexplicably still squirming as he enters ascends the floors, going over the day in his head until he arrives at his door.

It smells like tikka masala and too much ginger when he enters. He sets his backpack by the door, placing his keys on a nearby hook.

May greets him with a sway of her spatula, sauce hitting the splashback with the motion.

“Hey bubby,” she says, gripping his shoulder as he nears and kissing his cheek.

Upon closer inspection, he finds that the kitchen is sparking clean. The floors have been mopped, the grout between the tiling is without a speck of dirt and there are faint notes of harsh disinfectant below the smell of spices.

“Oh wow,” Peter says, looking down at the chicken and bean assortment. The rice on the burner looks soggy and overcooked. “That looks great. How was work?”

She gestures vaguely but doesn’t meet his eyes.

“You hungry?”

It’s the same weird behaviour from this morning and he doesn’t have the heart to say that he’s already eaten.

Instead, he collects the cutlery and napkins, takes a stack of bowls and helps her plate up.

“Dancing With The Stars?” he asks, tilting his head towards the living room. He hip-checks her when she doesn’t reply. “C’mon, you’re not going to let me eat all alone, are ya? Tony says ‘hi’, by the way.”

He doesn’t know why he adds that last part, recalling the exchange rom the other day, but it’s worth it to see her smile.

“Alright,” she nods, scooping rice into the bowls. “How is Tony?”

Everything that happened that day bleeds away, unimportant, insignificant.

“He’s alright, I guess.”

---

May falls asleep on the sofa hours later.

He doesn’t want to move her, as exhausted as she is, so he covers her with an old blanket and removes the glasses from her face, placing them on the coffee table. He cleans up as quietly as he can and places her phone on charge in the living room.

On his way to bed he checks his phone for the time. Both Bucky and Tony have sent him text messages, the latter with the awaited paperwork.

Ben would be proud of him, he thinks, smiling as he reads through some of it, saving the rest of it until he’s more alert.

Maybe it wasn’t such a horrible end to the day after all.

---

tagging: @bylerboyfriends @ravens-starker-stuff, @starker-rays, @ironspiderstarker, @muse-of-gods, @notfor-temporaryuse, @tabbycat1220, @sugarfreecult, @rebel13lion39, @plueschpop, @spideravocados, @jellybbunny, @booktrashme, @elfkido, @mycatislickingmybedsheets, @queerghostboyo, @disneyprincessdominatrix, @cherrygoldlove @starkerflowers @starkeristheendgame @thewolffearsher @starkersugar

#starker #starker fic #tony stark x peter parker #high school au #enemies to lovers

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jadoue1999 · 4 years ago

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The X-Men and the member they lost - Chapter 5

Summary: Life in Westview was perfect, but a certain visitor would soon change all that.

Previous parts: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8,

Chapter 5: The circus

Life in Westview was very pleasant. Charles had only recently joined the Spectacular World of Rapturous Diversions and it quickly became his home. He had been accepted into the circus as the psychic. He had an extravagant room full of cushions for visitors to sit on and a table adorned with a crystal ball. The orb truly wasn’t necessary, it was all for show; he usually sensed whatever he had to no matter the accessory in front of him. He had come alone and wasn’t sure of the reception he would get. He didn’t remember much of who he was before he came to Westview. He had flashes once in a while of a grand mansion, a school perhaps? His lack of backstory didn’t bother him much. When one’s job was to see into people’s future and all sort, it was expected to not remember all of one’s past. Some people were bothered by his ability to read them like an open book, but he thankfully had made some friends.

There was a young man who insisted on people calling him Nightcrawler. He was wonderfully skilled in the art of disappearing. He had seen his act many times and never could figure out how he achieved it. The teen had been born with a peculiar skin condition; he had been shunned by everyone he had met until he had joined the circus. Charles had taken him under his wing, making sure he felt welcomed and supported.

Then there was Mystique. They had grown close very quickly. They had felt like they had known each other for a long time, their camaraderie was similar to one of siblings. He had stumbled upon her act by a lucky coincidence. He had been entranced by her many quick changes and how she could switch between outfits, accessories, and hair in mere seconds and flawlessly every time. He had knocked on her dressing room after her performance and they had talked for hours. They had been close friends since.

Then, there was Erik. He had been looking around the circus through the recently added acts and had found this ‘Magneto’ sign very intriguing. It led to a small stage where the man had various metal objects thrown at him. Some seemed very sharp, but they all fell a little before they reached him. His apparent control over the metal had earned him the nickname ‘man of steel’. Halfway through the performance, they had locked eyes. Strangely enough, it felt familiar? His act had ended quickly after that and the man walked up to Charles, asking him if they knew each other. As unexpected as the question was, he too felt a connection. Like they had gone through a thousand hardships together and had lived through high and lows for what seemed an entire lifetime. They had conversed the night away, talking about the circus and why they had come to Westview of all places. While Charles himself was simply looking for a place with people similar to him, Erik had a different answer. He had been looking for someone but hadn’t been able to remember who. He was certain that it was someone very close to him, someone he had known for awhile, but hadn’t known about his connection with them until recently. The psychic had tried to see whoever it could be, but all he could catch was a silver blur too quick to follow.

They were now playing a game of chess, a sort of bonding time between the two. The crystal ball was moved from its usual spot to make place for the board.

“So,” started Erik, breaking the silence after so long, “how did you end up in a wheelchair? You’re free to ignore the question if it’s a sensitive subject, of course.”

He frowned at the man’s question, how had he ended up in this situation? He closed his eyes in concentration, trying to activate his memory. He didn’t see much, there was an intense feeling of rage that wasn’t his own and he had blindly run towards it. Then, pain had suddenly coursed through his spine. The next thing he saw was that he had fallen and couldn’t feel anything in his legs. “I- I had a bad fall on a beach... I think.”

The man nodded and moved a piece. “I’m sorry.”

Charles tilted his head in confusion, “why do you say that? It’s not your fault, you weren’t there.”

‘Was he? No, he couldn’t have, they just met.’

Erik shrugged his shoulder, lost in thoughts, “I’m not sure... I just feel like I need to apologize.” He shook his head and concentrated back to the game. The psychic could practically see his mind turning and trying to figure out his next move. One of his hand hovered over the bishop piece in hesitation. Suddenly the piece was knocked over without being touched. The men shared a slightly panicked, but more confused look.

“Did that just happen?” Asked Erik.

Charles took the piece in his hand and examined it, it didn’t look like it was rigged or anything. How could it have moved? He handed the piece back to the man, “try that again.”

Erik took the bishop with caution and gently put it on the table. He was about to bring his hand forward when commotion outside was heard. There was a sound of a door closing and a truck driving away as someone screamed to whoever was leaving.

“You get back here! I need you!”

The brown-haired man got up and looked out the tent for a few seconds before looking back at Charles. “We’ve got runaways, I guess I’ll have to cover their act.” He quickly said goodbye with a nod and exited the tent.

Charles was now left alone with his thoughts and confusion. He took the chess piece in his hand and examined it once more. It didn’t make any sense; it shouldn’t have moved by itself. He shook his head with a sigh, it was probably nothing. A little metal game piece couldn’t move by itself, the very notion of this was ridiculous. He wheeled himself over to where the crystal ball had been moved for their game. He gently put it back on the table. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths to ground himself.

The sound of the curtain of his tent being opened pulled him out of his thoughts. A woman walked in, she seemed to be in her thirties, she had green eyes and red hair. He greeted her and let her look around the room. There was a nagging feeling in his brain, telling him to get away from her, but he couldn’t understand why. She was simply visiting the circus on her day off, how much of a danger could she be? They exchanged pleasantries before he told her to take a seat. He concentrated on the woman like he would any other client.

Though, on the contrary to most people for whom he’d see various events and feelings, he could only feel overwhelming grief and pain. He hummed as he tried to make heads and tails of what he was seeing. There was a bomb going off, crushing a building and children hiding under a bed, frightened out of their minds. There was soldiers and dirty cells and blinding pain as unseen power unlocked itself. Then, he saw the woman growing more vengeful as time went on. There were killer robots and a blonde man, he instinctively knew he was her brother. The woman was fighting against the robots now. Suddenly pain ripped through her chest and she realized her brother was dead. A stray thought from the man echoed through her mind, his last thought.

‘I love you, Wanda’

Then everything was silent, and the woman felt awfully empty and alone. Charles sighed as her past was unveiled before him. “I see pain, a lot of pain,” he sighed. “Oh, I’m sorry Wanda, so much loss.” He felt the woman stiffen at his words, but he was already gone in another vision.

There was a team of heroes training her, she tried to work through her pain, but it kept gnawing her. Then there was a mistake, a misdirection. Lagos. Everything went wrong, an unfair law was written. Named after her country, staining it forever. Smearing it in blood and regrets. The team that trained her went against each other, the android she liked was on the opposite side. She didn’t want to hurt him. Her side lost, and now she had to run away. She changed her life, changed her hair; the man visited her. They grew close, they wanted to get away, together. But a threat made them put their plans aside. They met with warriors; the robot needed to have a stone taken out so he could survive. They didn’t have enough time. A purple giant was going to get them. She had to kill her love to save the universe. She didn’t want to, but she had to.

‘It shouldn’t be you, but it is’.

The deed was done. She had done it, she pushed down her growing grief as she told the monster about his defeat. But it wasn’t enough, time was wound back, and the android was there once again. The stone was ripped from his head and he fell limply to the ground. ”I see a great battle, one that was unfortunately lost.” She was still holding on to his corpse when it happened. Charles felt her turn to dust, everything was cold, but she wasn’t afraid. At least, she wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. She’d join her family and lover. “But then everything was made right,” he frowned, “but not for you. You were still alone.” She came back, expecting to be greeted with a corpse again but nothing was around her. “I see... a breaking point, and great suffering.” No one came to her; everyone was rejoicing. All of her grief came crashing back, she had truly lost everyone.

She had to find his body, he had to have a funeral, they deserved it. She had every right, but they still refused her. She went to him; he was being ripped apart for profit. She let her magic explore his head, where the stone had been. She couldn’t feel him, he was gone. She was still alone. She drove to a town, the promise of a future still in the air. But nothing was there, her entire life had been ripped apart without her even having a say in the matter. It wasn’t fair. Life kept taking everything, why couldn’t she be happy? Her magic ripped through her and engulfed the town. Her husband was back, she was home. Everything was alright. Charles couldn’t help but feel for the woman. “Oh Wanda... what have you done?”

He couldn’t understand what he was seeing, he had never heard of any of the events he had witnessed. A sudden pulse of red flashed through his mind and Charles gasped. He remembered everything. Peter’s disappearance, the broadcast, travelling between dimensions, the base, the barrier expanding; he could recall everything. But that didn’t make sense, Wanda’s spell wouldn’t allow it. Wanda was in charge, she was-

She was right in front of him.

Panic surged through him, she was unpredictable, what would she do to him? ‘No, this is like any other mutant that comes at the school. Make her understand that she can trust you.’

He calmed himself down as he extended a hand towards her. “Wanda Maximoff! What an honor to meet you!” She backed off, but he stood his ground. While she seemed in control of everyone, it was a very real possibility that she didn’t realize that they were hurting. Moreover, it was probable that her pain and grief blinded her to the truth. Perhaps she truly thought Peter was her real brother, back from the dead. He had to make sure she could see the situation for what it was. “We have a slight misunderstanding here, your brother, Pietro as you call him, he’s not your brother, not really.” The telepath paused as he tried to take in her reaction, but Wanda was unreadable. He understood her reaction, in a way. Hearing about the multiverse had to be unsettling. Plus, realizing that she let a stranger into her house must be unnerving. Hopefully, she hadn’t hurt him. Perhaps she would even give him back now that she knew the truth. “You see, a team composed of myself and a couple of others, including his father, are here to bring him back.” The woman was still as stoic as ever. She showed no sign of comprehension, perhaps she needed some sort of explanation or proof? Charles obliged. “We crossed universes to get here, it took weeks to find the right calculations. Thanks to your broadcast, we had a good grounding point. The military base kept us updated about Peter. We were brought in as you expanded the Hex, even our member with teleportation powers couldn’t escape. I’m certain it wasn’t your intention to trap us, or Peter, but you have to let us go. We’re not from your universe, we don’t belong here, we- “

“No,” Wanda’s voiced echoed. That caught him off guard. He had met many mutants in his life, but they were generally stable enough to understand right from wrong. “This is my home, I have my husband, my children and my brother. I will not let you take them away.” The professor didn’t like the way she emphasized Peter. His instinct told him that she had already known that he wasn’t truly her Pietro. But that possibility made way for a terrifying truth; she simply didn’t care that he wasn’t the real one and was determined to keep him at her side. However, he wouldn’t allow that, they had traveled all this way, they would not leave empty handed.

“Ms. Maximoff, you have to come to reason, you cannot keep up this lie forever.” Charles enunciated, taking on his authority voice. “What you’re doing is wrong, putting an entire town under mind control-“

“Is better than putting the entire Earth under it,” interrupted Wanda.

So, she truly was aware of her doing. And she didn’t care about the consequences, that was very bad. He focused on her mind, perhaps there was something he could find there that would be able to make her realize how wrong she was. He started making out the outline of what seemed to be a necklace. But, before he could look any further, he was casted out from her mind and the red energy was back. Charles felt slightly nauseous as the woman suddenly stormed out of his tent.

The psychic couldn’t understand why. Had he given her a bad show? He had done as was expected of him, perhaps she was scared? Yeah, that must’ve been it. She wasn’t able to accept that he could be the real deal and had been angry about it. He chuckled a little as he wiped a small spot on the crystal ball. Some people simply couldn’t open their mind that some individuals might be gifted with powers beyond their understanding. The man suddenly gasped as a vision overtook him. He felt freezing water around him, there also seemed to be a person next to him. He didn’t know who he was, but he knew he had to save him. The man was screaming, but not out of fear because of the situation, it was rage because someone was getting away. He wouldn’t hear reason if he spoke, he had to use telepathy. ‘Telepathy?’

“You'll drown. You have to let go. I know what this means to you, but you're going to die. Please, Erik, calm your mind.”

Wait, did he say Erik? But it couldn’t be the same Erik, they’d just met. The vision continued. The man was trying to struggle out of his hold, screaming at him to get away and let him get his revenge.

“Calm down. Just breathe. We're here!” He heard himself plead. The vision faded away, leaving Charles more confused than he’d ever been in his life. What was this memory? Was it even a memory? A voice in his head kept repeating that it was nothing, just extreme daydreaming. But that didn’t make any sense, it felt so real. The psychic exited the tent, he had to find Erik, and Nightcr- Kurt and Raven. Why would he need to find a raven? He rolled around aimlessly trying to make sense of the situation. All the horrible things he had witnessed, they couldn’t be true, it was simply too horrible.

After awhile of pointless wandering, he noticed a purple mist falling upon the circus, filling every crack, and finding its way to the people. He watched the tendrils approach him with suspicion as it coiled around him.

Charles awoke, suddenly and without warning. But Wanda hadn’t done this, it felt different. Still, he had to find the others, Peter could be in danger. Everyone was waking up; he could feel all their pain and confusion as the mind control was lifted. Some tried to run towards the barrier, but he turned the other way. That’s where he had last seen his friends. He spotted Raven first, she had probably been mid performance, judging by her colorful outfit. She walked towards him as he called to her. He wouldn’t use telepathy for now, Wanda’s powers were probably too similar and would cause a slight panic. Kurt suddenly manifested in front of them. His clothes hadn’t changed much from his usual outfit. They now had to find Erik. They looked through the crowd of people, but there was no sign of the metal bender. Finally, his eyes locked onto the familiar figure. The man walked forward and stopped next to the group.

“Well,” he said, “that was, without doubts, one of the worst experiences of my life.”

Raven and Kurt agreed, both of them saying how they were stuck reliving painful memories while not being able to control their bodies. Charles watched them with a pensive hand to his face. How could he even tell them what he had experienced? He let them talk a little, they had to get this off their chest. As far as he knew, Kurt had never been through any types of mind control. It had to be hard for him. He watched them with steadily increasing anxiety, Wanda’s words running through his head.

“We have a problem,” he finally said. He let the others get closer as he took a breath. “I spoke to Wanda; she came to see me. She’s fully aware of what she’s doing and very keen on keeping her perfect life.” He turned to Erik with sorrowful eyes. “She... she’s aware that Peter isn’t her brother, but it doesn’t matter to her. She’s determined to keep him at her side.”

He could sense Erik’s rage building up. The man clenched his jaw as he balled his hands in a fist. “Then, let’s make sure she doesn’t get a chance to keep him.”

***

Notes: Next chapter is the finale of the show, but were far from the end!

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incorrect-ikevamp-quotes · 5 years ago

Note

May I request GHJPU for Sebastian? Sebby needs more love :D (eee sorry if any of this overlapped or its too much, have a cookie for your troubles 🍪)

DID SOMEBODY SAY LOVING SEBASTIAN HOURS!?!?!?!?! FERAL EYE GLEAM

Bless your heart!!! Sebastian has found a new and very dear place in my heart as of late, I would be delighted to offer my thoughts!!!!! :D (your cookie offering has been accepted with the utmost glee 🍪, I hope my humble writing efforts will bring you equal joy, lovely~💖💖💖)

G = Gifts (How does he feel about gift giving? What are his habits when it comes to this?)

Awwww haha, baby boy Sebby is honestly a very observant and reliable kind of S/O, I think. He will notice even the tiniest of changes in MC’s expression--the slightest shifts in her temperament. As a result of his attentive nature he has an easy time deducing the things she might like, always makes a mental note of where her eyes linger. Is there a classic she once loved in her time being published for the first time in their era, on display at a bookstore nearby? Noted. Does she hover near shops filled with self-care products--things like scented candles or lotions or bath salts, things she considers indulgent luxuries? Noted. Is there an outfit that caught his eye in a boutique, something he thinks would complement her complexion perfectly? Noted.

The thing about Sebastian is that his gifts will be heartfelt, timely, and devastatingly thoughtful. Whether something small or something lavish it will always be precisely what she needs/wants, and she can sense the loving care he put into finding the perfect gift.

H = Holding Hands (When/how does he like to hold hands?)

Honestly? Sebastian has spent the better part of his life alone. His circumstances weren’t the worst; for all that he’s lost in his life he never went hungry, lived comfortably. But...that doesn’t change the fact that his life has been fairly devoid of meaningful human contact. Even in college, friends and close colleagues were hard to come by. The few people he did develop budding feelings for he always gave up on long before it could become any kind of substantial relationship. He was always the type to admire from afar, never really felt worthy of the people he liked.

It was MC that was the first to reach out to him, and for the first little while in their relationship she will be the one most naturally inclined to reach for him. He isn’t really used to having someone by his side like this, somebody who would be delighted to hold his hand--who wants to be close to him. It’s always a shock when they go grocery shopping and he just feels her fingers wrap gently around his. She blushes a little and says something about not wanting to get separated, but it’s clear what her real motivation was.

After those first few months, it becomes much more natural for him to reach for her hand when they’re traveling somewhere together or when they’re alone. He likes to intertwine their fingers, loves the way they fit against his perfectly. His shyness wears off after a while, and it’ll be rare to see them together without them holding hands--unless they’re cooking or at work.

J = Jokes (Does he like to joke around with or prank her? How?)

Do you know how cats have their eyes all narrow thin pupil but then they go REALLY REALLY round? That’s Sebastian. I tend to refer to it as “Silly Time Mode Engaged.”

Now then, his kind of joking is very dry and very deadpan. It’s subtle and immediate, so if you’re not attuned to it it can be easy to miss. That, or people just look at him weird because they don’t quite get the connection he’s making and/or the delivery feels off because his facial expression doesn’t change at all, completely flat. That being said, one of his all time favorite things to do is to say something absurd or nigh histrionic (which tends to be uncharacteristic of him) and wait for the confused head turn/startled laughter to hit. He will make puns and play on words all the time--he puts his academic knowledge to good use.

“I swear when I first met you I was convinced you were an AI.” “Alexa taught me everything I know.” He’ll bow. “Oh? Do I have competition, in that case?” “Your speakers are suboptimal (he pokes her freckles), but you possess what Alexa lacks.” “And that would be?” He’ll gather her close, smiling against her lips. “My heart.” :D cutest robot I ever saw uwu

Bonus bc I have a problem: “Is stealing hearts in Alexa’s programming? Just to be safe, of course.” “I think it’s safe to say it isn’t within the parameters of her design--but that doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods just yet.” cue sounds of tickling and laughter

The other way Sebastian messes with MC is that he is an ENORMOUS tease in the bedroom. He’s very much the kind of lover that prefers to tantalize and draw things out; a long, slow seduction that will render MC immobile from the pleasure by the end. The promise of a kiss is almost always only a whisper of the feeling he intends to drown her in. Remember that Sebastian’s stoicism belies a nigh inhuman ardor and self-control. He’s more than willing to leave her wanting in order to fully capitalize on that desire later at night.

P = Pet Names (What does he like to call her?)

Other than her name? HE DOESN’T AHAAHAHAHAHA Just kidding of course, but given where he comes from pet names between couples aren’t...really a thing…(take it up with Japan, I Was Today Years Old, my sappy romantic ass would never survive)

The funny inverse of this though is that he does NOT fuck around with people that try to call MC pet names. When Arthur Tries It™ he canonically goes all steely saccharine, openly telling the others they’re together. So none of that “luv” or “doll” business, he will not have it (he won’t fight the purebloods on it because 1. they’re more like doting grandfathers than anything and 2. Sebastian does not have a death wish). If MC has a nickname of some kind, then I could see him using that or adding his own spin on it with a great deal of affection c:

U = Upset (How does he act when she’s upset?)

Whether he was the cause or not, Sebastian has a single modus operandi when his beloved is upset (and to anyone who’s upset really) and that is to offer gentle reassurance/an apology. He is very, very sensitive to the feelings of others and really takes it to heart when someone isn’t feeling well. That being said, he won’t always be overt about his concern--he’s more the type to do little things that offer constant support/reminders that he’s there for them.

If it’s something more serious, he will do everything in his power to minimize the harm done and sooth the MC. His attempts to comfort her will be tender, muted, and consistent; prolonged hugs, doubles his offering of sweets, makes her favorite foods, gives her a relaxing bath salt to use--anything that he knows for certain will coax her lips up into a smile. He’s the type to freely offer space for her to figure things out if she needs it, but he will also be watchful; he won’t let things escalate if she needs externalized support to heal (bc lbr some problems we can’t solve alone ;-;).

His other go-to method is to offer distractions in any capacity that he can. Will offer to teach her a new recipe, or find a new type of flower he wants to plant together, or make up some kind of project he needs help with. Sometimes he’ll genuinely need the help, but most of the time he does it for the express purpose of getting her mind away from negative things and focused on him/the present. It’s hard to dwell on upsetting things when you’re body is physically demanding something else from you, even more so if it’s a fairly complex task. She’s known to be very dutiful; she’ll be so focused on doing a good job she’ll forget the sadness/irritation for a bit and the intensity of the emotion might ebb slightly.

If the issue is lighter, he’ll probably just cuddle/tickle her back to fighting spirit, pressing kisses wherever he can reach until she starts giggling. In these instances he prefers to hug her from behind, a reminder that she doesn’t have to face anything unpleasant or unnerving all on her own; he’ll always be there to hold her steady whenever she needs him.

And rest assured, this man is always gathering data to optimize his comfort capabilities. He is incredibly adaptable, and will always be watching her reactions closely to adjust his strategies.

#asks #ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp sebastian #ikevamp sebas #ikevamp headcanons #ikevamp hcs #ikevamp akihiko #these were really fun to write!#sebby's route was a delight #he definitely climbed up my personal rankings for sure #ikevamp has given me so many delightful surprises #it'll likely still be a wait for the english crowd tho so i hope this tides you over lovelies~#not incorrect quotes

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gureishi · 4 years ago

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Hi hello hi.

I’ve got a bunch of wonderful prompts sitting in my inbox but I was feeling anxious af yesterday and today I had to go to a freakin Zoom funeral and my anxiety brain instead spewed out...this.

I was watching a playthrough of the Forgive ending to try and sort out the timeline for the Jihyun request I’m writing (which I should be posting tomorrow~ <3) and then I started thinking about the disturbing little hints that are in there about depressed Saeyoung and alcohol, and then my anxiety said I needed to write about it. So I transposed that thought into another timeline so my boy could have an mc cause god knows otherwise it would get way worse.

I know alcohol is a really sensitive topic when it pertains to the Choi twins because of their trauma relating specifically to alcohol and alcoholism. To be super super clear, drinking can be fine and okay and not harmful for lots of people, but that’s not the type of drinking I’m portraying here.

YEESH, I’ll stop rambling. Cw for alcohol abuse; if Saeyoung drinking alcohol is gonna be triggering for you please skip this one. Take care of yourself I love you <3

wanna be ok

The bunker is dark when you get home, and that is your first sign that something is wrong.

You’re off work a little early, and you fully expected to find the house bright and full of energy. Usually at this time, there would be at least one brother in the living room. There’d be a half-built robot croaking gibberish in a corner or an inexplicable mess from some overly enthusiastic project in the hall.

But when the door slides open (greeting you by name, of course), you’re met with darkness and a startling, eerie quiet. Could they both have fallen asleep…? You check your watch. It’s just after nine.

“Saeyoung…?” You slip off your shoes, calling quietly in case he really is asleep. He hasn’t been sleeping much since his father’s investigation began, waking up at night and pacing the house. Sometimes he does fall asleep at the computer, even these days…

No answer. You peek into the darkened living room. Nothing. No light from his office or the bedroom, either.

You hear a noise and spin, senses on high alert. All your instincts telling you that something is certainly off, you peer warily around the corner.

He’s in the kitchen.

“Babe?”

He’s perched precariously on one of the tall stools at the kitchen island. His arms are everywhere, splayed over the scrubbed wood; he’s slumped over, head in the crook of his elbow. His hair is mussed as though he’s been running his hands through it.

None of this surprises you too much—it’s much a difficult few days. But what does startle you is the stale, harsh smell in the air. There’s a bottle on the counter that looks suspiciously like…

Dread settles in your stomach like hot lead.

You call his name again, some foolishly optimistic part of your mind hopeful that this is an off-color prank. But this isn’t the kind of thing he jokes about.

At the sound of his name, he stirs, lifts his head. As he does, he slips to the side, almost falling off the stool—catching himself at the last minute on the island.

He blinks at you blearily, as if he’s trying to get you into focus, and you know in that moment that he’s not messing with you.

“Hiii, babe,” he slurs, his voice thick. He tries to say your name, stumbles over it. Laughs at himself.

“Honey.” You approach him cautiously. Closer up, the smell is unmistakable—it’s whiskey, mingling with his natural spicy-sweet scent in a way that you find particularly unsettling. “What did you do?”

He tries to spin around in the stool to face you and nearly falls again—you have to reach out an arm to grab him. He gazes at you dizzily, his eyes glazed over.

“Wha’ d’you mean?” he mumbles, his words running together. He sways dangerously on the stool and you put a hand on his shoulder, bracing him. Out of the corner of your eye, you peer at the bottle beside him—it’s one you’d gotten as a gift ages ago and put away in a closet. It’s more than half empty.

“Baby, why did you drink that?” You shift, taking his face in both your hands; he’s unstable again without your hand on his shoulder. You turn him, make him look you in the eye—and he tries, he tries, but his gaze slides over your face as though he can’t quite focus on it.

“You’re pretty,” he sings, and he leans forward as if to kiss you—and misses, his head falling onto your shoulder. “Missed,” he says, giggling. His hands reach clumsily for your waist.

It would be almost cute, you think, under other circumstances. If it weren’t Saeyoung, who doesn’t drink alcohol. Who’s promised himself never to drink alcohol—and for good reason.

He presses his lips against your neck, tilting sideways as he does so. Okay. Okay. One thing at a time. You know how to deal with drunk people, under normal circumstances. Just pretend it’s not Saeyoung. Just for now.

“Come with me, baby,” you say, expertly evading his grasp and offering him both your hands. “Let’s go sit somewhere a little more comfy, okay?”

“Don’wanna,” he mumbles, titling to the right. “Comfy here.”

“You’ll be comfier on the couch, I promise.” You keep your voice light. Taking both his hands, you give a gentle tug, and he obliges you, sliding off the stool without any of his usual grace or agility. He sways as he lands on his feet and you brace him with both hands again, waiting till his gaze clears.

You lead him to the living room and he comes obediently, albeit stumblingly.

“…m’too drunk for this,” he mutters, laughing at himself as he narrowly avoids running face-first into the door frame.

“Too drunk to walk to the living room?” You guide him more carefully now. Most people would be well and truly messed up from the amount that he drank—based on your cursory assessment of the kitchen, anyway. For him—someone who has, to your knowledge, quite literally never consumed alcohol before—it’s astonishing he’s even still conscious.

You steer him to the couch. He hesitates and you turn to him—his face has gone pale, and he claps a hand over his mouth.

“M’gonna…never mind.” He shuts his eyes.

With some difficulty, you get him onto the couch. He slides sideways immediately and you slip a pillow under his head. He smiles a sloppy, lopsided grin.

“…galaxy,” he murmurs, sinking heavily into the pillow. You don’t question it.

Confident that he’s not going anywhere, you make your way back to the kitchen, fill a big glass with water. Now that you’re alone, your hands are shaking.

It’s not the end of the world to get drunk, but it’s certainly less than great to do it alone. It’s worse, though, so much worse, because it’s him—because of the promise he made to himself, because of the memories of his mother’s violence, because of the fear you know he has of those same genes manifesting in him.

You know that the last few days have been difficult, that the trial’s brought up memories he’d long repressed. But you wouldn’t ever have anticipated…this.

What could possibly have happened?

You take in the havoc in the kitchen: in addition to the whiskey bottle, there’s a glass knocked over on its side as well as the usual debris from chips and other junk food. One of the stools is on the ground.

And where, you think suddenly, is Saeran?

You take a deep, steadying breath—care now, you remind yourself. Figure out the rest later.

When you return to the living room with the water, he’s crying.

His eyes are shut tight and he’s wrapped both arms around the pillow; there are tear tracks on his cheeks and as you approach he lets out a quiet, pitiful sob.

“Sweetheart…” You kneel beside him and he wriggles toward you like a wounded animal. You bring a hand to his face and wipe away the tears and he clumsily throws out one arm and dangles it over your body.

“Drink a little bit of this, please, love.” You tilt the cup toward his mouth and he opens his lips the tiniest bit. You get a little water in him; most of it ends up on the couch.

“…still hates me,” he mutters, pushing aside the cup, nuzzling his face into your chest. You stroke his messy, tangled hair with your free hand, pulling it off his forehead.

“Who does, baby?”

“Saeran…does.”

You run your fingers over his feverish skin; his cheeks are flushed and his forehead is warm to the touch.

“Saeran doesn’t hate you, honey. I promise he doesn’t.” You try again with the water. It’s a little more successful this time.

“Does. We hadda…fight,” he slurs. “Gotta…find’m.” Defying all logic, he tries to sit up again, using your shoulders for leverage. Even in this state, he’s stubborn as hell.

“Where is he?” you ask, not sure if Saeyoung will even be able to tell you. You help him wriggle into a sitting position, thinking it’s perhaps safer than lying down after all.

“Walk,” he murmurs. He’s trying to look at you again, his eyes wandering over your face. “Babe! Your face’s…blurry.”

You sigh. It’s not out of the ordinary Saeyoung to push Saeran too far, or for Saeran to snap at him and go for a walk to clear his head. You wonder if the confluence of circumstances—the trial, both twins’ tensions running extra high, the memories Saeyoung associates with his family and raised voices and a dark, empty house—led to this turn of events.

One of the cameras near the door flickers to life—someone’s coming into the garage. You sit up stick straight. Saeran was just on a walk—he couldn’t have gone far. Which means…

“Baby, I’m so sorry, but I need you to move again.”

He groans and mutters something you don’t understand, but you have no time to waste. Glad you’ve already got him sitting, you slide your hands under both his arms and pull. He sags like a rag doll, but he doesn’t weigh a lot, and you’re strong—you tug him to a standing position and he sways dangerously in place, his face pale again.

“Can’t,” he moans, and you don’t have time to pity him. You simply can’t risk the consequences—for both brothers—of Saeran finding him like this.

“C’mon, sweetheart, please try to walk. For me.” You kiss him firmly on the cheek and he perks up a little, reaching for you. You take both his hands again and walk backwards, guiding him to the bedroom.

“No more…” he moans, but you get him down the hall and into the room, giving the corners a wider berth this time.

Panting, you deposit him on the bed.

“…spinning,” he mutters, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.

“I swear I will be right back,” you gasp, and you run from the room before he can respond. You sprint to the kitchen, sweep the whiskey bottle into the cabinet under the sink. You dump the glass and throw it under there too for good measure. You right the stool, leaving the chips bags—that’s normal enough.

But the smell…

You hastily grab your bag, which you’d dropped on the floor earlier when you’d found him here—pull out the little bottle of perfume you carry, spritz it liberally over the kitchen island. You inhale. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing.

You throw open the big window over the sink and, bag under your arm, slink back to your bedroom. As the bedroom door is shutting behind you, you hear the security system beeping, the front door sliding open. Just in time.

You spin around. Now where is…?

A soft moan from the en suite bathroom answers your question. You peer through the dark—sure enough, he’s sprawled on the ground, head bent over the toilet. The fact that he’s managed to drag himself there is impressive. You sigh—this was inevitable and is probably for the best.

You sit with him there for a long time: pressing a cool, wet washcloth to his head, plying him with tiny sips of water when you can. He apologizes to you again and again in a raw, miserable voice; you stroke his hair and rub his back and promise him that he’s going to be okay.

Eventually he slumps into your lap and, almost incoherently, whispers the word “bed.” So you hoist him up again, arms around his torso; he tries valiantly to help you, stumbling through the doorway, over the carpeted floor. You guide him onto the bed and he practically melts into it, his breathing immediately slowing, deepening.

You get him as comfortable as you can—wresting his jeans off and casting them aside, tucking the blankets all the way around him. He murmurs groggily as you press a soft kiss to his forehead and then he’s out, chest moving slowly up and down, face peaceful.

You’d never know, you think.

You retrieve his glasses from the bathroom floor, fold them neatly on the bedside table. And then, steeling yourself, you slip through the bedroom door as quietly as you can, tiptoe down the hall. As you’d suspected, Saeran is still in the living room.

“Hey,” he says, lifting his eyes from the book he’s reading. He’s draped over the couch, white hair tousled. He’s turned on a lamp—the dim light illuminates the red roots that are just starting to grow in.

“Hi,” you say. For something to do, you fetch the cup of water you’d left on the floor earlier. Saeran doesn’t bat an eyelash.

“We had a fight,” he offers, unprompted. He drums his fingers on his book—the same nervous habit his brother has. “Did he tell you?”

“Um…sort of.” You put the cup on a side table. Nervously straighten one of the fluffy throw blankets.

“I was mean,” Saeran says bluntly. “I shouldn’t have been.”

You perch on the arm of the couch. Once, he would have flinched away from you; now, he watches you impassively, green eyes unreadable.

“Was it about the trial?” you ask, with some hesitation.

Saeran shrugs. “I guess. He keeps all the TVs in the house on all day. I can’t stand hearing our father’s voice anymore.”

“Right.” You know this—know that the ongoing trial is wearing on them both, know that they’re coping in their own ways.

“Is he…” Saeran looks down and back up at you; his eyes are bright. “Is he mad?”

You take a shaky breath. “No,” you say honestly. “But he feels bad that you fought.”

“Should I talk to him?”

He is still looking at you. You’re surprised—he’s never asked you for advice before.

“Maybe in the morning,” you say, perhaps a little too firmly—but Saeran is unfazed.

“I get it,” he says. “I’m gonna go back to reading now.”

You smile, grateful as always for Saeran’s manner. There’s no risk of overstaying your welcome, because he’ll always tell you when he’s done.

“Good night,” you say. He looks up at you again, gives you a tiny smile.

“Night.”

。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。。

You wake abruptly the next morning. Through the haze of half-dream, half-wakefulness, you hear an intrusive rustling sound—then clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Your eyes shoot open.

“Saeyoung…?” you murmur, the events of the previous night momentarily evading you. You blink the sleep out of your eyes, see a blur of red hair in your peripheral vision.

He’s…cleaning?

“Oh god.” His golden eyes go huge with panic as he sees that you’re awake. He drops the mop (why was it clunking?) and throws himself onto the bed, kneeling beside you. “Hi. Good morning. Um. I am. So, so, so, so, so, so, so sorry. I mean, I—uh. Gah. I practiced this. Hang on—”

“Shhh.” You put a finger to his lips, pushing yourself up in bed. He sits back on his heels like a guilty puppy, eyes huge, waiting for a scolding. “So you remember last night, huh?”

His cheeks match his hair. He lowers his gaze.

“I am so, so, so, so…”

“Hush.” You take his face in both hands again, just as you’d done the night before. Tilt it up, forcing him to meet your eyes. “You don’t need to apologize to me. But I would like to know how it happened.”

He hangs his head, one red curl falling into his eyes. You brush it away.

“I don’t know,” he mutters. “You know I’ve never done that before. Right?”

“Yes, I know.” You slip out of the blankets and sit cross-legged, facing him. “Do you remember why you did it? Why you went looking for the whiskey that I didn’t even think you knew was in the storage closet?”

“I’d known where it was for a while,” he says softly, shamefully. “I found it one day when I was looking for an old hard drive and I guess I thought, wow, glad I know that’s there in case I ever lose my mind.”

This surprises you. You didn’t know he’d ever give it any thought at all.

“I wasn’t seriously thinking I was gonna drink it!” he says hurriedly, his cheeks growing—if it were possible—redder. “It was like a…weird, bad joke. Like, haha, what a great way to escape my mind if I ever hate myself that much. I…dunno.”

You make yourself take a deep breath. You hate it when he says things like this. “Okay, fine. So why did you…?”

“I fought with Saeran,” he says, still looking down. He twiddles his hands in his lap, fiddles with the blanket. “It was stupid. We were just tense about the trial. And then he left, and it got dark, and I was alone, and I just couldn’t…stop thinking about her.”

“Your mother.”

“Yeah.”

He taps a pattern on his thigh, too fast, too hard. You take his hand, wrapping up his fingers in yours. He shoots you a grateful glance.

“It’s hard to explain,” he mutters. “It was like I was possessed. It was this feeling, like if I could…get inside her head somehow, I’d understand.”

“Understand what?” You realize you’re squeezing his hand too hard and you make a conscious effort to loosen your grip.

“Why she didn’t love us,” he says simply. You look up; there are tears in his eyes again. Automatically you reach for him, catching a tear on your fingertip. You kiss it away.

“Did you?” you ask quietly. Slowly, he shakes his head.

“I don’t think I ever will.”

“Oh, Saeyoung…” You hold open your arms for him and he bows his head, falling into you. You cradle his head against your chest, kiss the tears from his eyelashes.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispers.

“You are a wonderful man, and you deserve the world,” you say firmly. You wrap your arms all the way around his waist and squeeze him tight and he exhales, like he’s letting out breath he’s been holding for a long time.

“I’ll never do it again,” he says, his voice muffled by your shirt. “I promise. I mean it.”

You thoughtfully run your fingers through his curls, de-tangling them, pulling them apart one by one. “Can I ask you something I’ve asked you before?” you say tentatively. He nods; you can feel it. “Would it be okay if I just…got some names? My therapist offered to make a list for you before, you know, and you don’t need to commit to anything, but I just—”

“Yes.” He pulls back enough to peer up at you. There are tear tracks on his cheeks again but his expression is sure. “I’d like that.”

His eagerness takes you by surprise. You smile and kiss the tip of his nose.

“Thank you.”

He leans his forehead against yours. “I’m meant to be the one thanking you. You shouldn’t have had to take care of me last night. You should’ve just left me there.”

“Never.” You take a deep breath and he breathes with you, exhaling against your lips, tickling you. “Now would you please explain to me what the hell you were doing that woke me up this morning?”

He giggles, a little guiltily—still, you’re relieved to hear him laugh. “I felt like crap, both physically and emotionally. I thought I could start apologizing by…”

“Slamming the mop against the wall?”

“I don’t…actually know how to use a mop.”

That makes you laugh, and it feels good, like a release. You wrap your arms around his neck and he sighs against you.

“You’re gonna be okay?” you whisper. He nods, gazing at you reverently.

“Because of you,” he says. He strokes your hair with his long, thin fingers—cautiously, gently, like he needs reassurance that you’re still there. “I’m gonna be okay.”

#mystic messenger #mysticmessenger #saeyoung choi #707 #cw drinking #cw alcohol abuse

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