#I’ll never stop mourning the missed opportunities of them interacting | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

Text

Prompt: LQR/NMJ fuck or die, whether literally or socially

Without a Path - Chapter 1 - ao3

Warnings: adult content - please mind the other tags on Ao3!

These discussion conferences were getting less tolerable by the year, Lan Qiren thought as he trudged up the steep steps that led to the little house on the top of the hill. It was only two years ago that Sect Leader Nie had died, his place among the five Great Sects taken by his eldest son, and it was as if without his steadying (if irreverent) presence the other sect leaders had completely lost all sense of restraint.

Just last year, Jin Guangshan, who had been hosting, had set some late afternoon meetings in a “wine shop” that had almost predictably turned out to be a brothel, and he’d even taken the further step of paying the ladies of the establishment in advance to accompany them for the evening. A number of the smaller sect leaders had taken him up on the offer, carousing gleefully in the main room, but in the luxuriously laid out room reserved for the Great Sects, three of the five of them had stubbornly refused to partake – Lan Qiren on account of his sect rules, Nie Mingjue on account of his mourning, and Jiang Fengmian on account of his wife.

The entire evening had been unbearably awkward as a result: the ladies continued to make advances, even after having been rejected, and Wen Ruohan and Jin Guangshan only pressured them all the harder the drunker they got, both with a girl on each leg and one rubbing their shoulders. At one point, when Nie Mingjue had gotten up to leave, utterly disgusted – Lan Qiren couldn’t blame him – Wen Ruohan had even reached out to catch him, using his superior strength to pull him off his feet and onto his couch. Nie Mingjue had recoiled as if he’d landed amidst a bed of poisonous snakes, leaping up and storming out, and Jin Guangshan had nearly burst something laughing.

And now there was this year, Wen Ruohan was hosting, and he’d decided to do some sort of fancy winter night-hunt set up, encircling an entire mountain valley in the north for their use. There were a half-dozen houses in the foothills for all the sect leaders to stay in as their disciples conducted the hunts, excluding only the leaders of the Great Set, who were invited to walk up an unnecessarily steep hill to stay in the house up there. Fancier, more prestigious, with a better view…really, Wen Ruohan probably just wanted to rub all the smaller sect’s faces in the Great Sects’ glory, by which he meant his glory, again. Lan Qiren was most definitely not impressed.

The house might be better positioned, but it was inconvenient.

It was located on vein of power that boosted cultivation considerably but made flying by sword difficult – meaning they could only walk up, not fly – and the house itself was more elegant than it was spacious, meaning that once all the servants Wen Ruohan deemed essential were included the rest of them could each bring no more than two attendants. It was distant from the other houses, including the ones where their remaining sect disciples were being housed, and that in turn meant that someone would need to make the trek in between the two on a regular basis to bring them news of their own sects’ successes or failures in the hunt.

Moreover, it had already begun to gently snow, which meant they didn’t even get the benefit of the supposed view!

No, Lan Qiren was most certainly not impressed.

He entered the house, which was at least properly warm, and nodded at Jiang Fengmian, who was sitting with Jin Guangshan and receiving a cup of tea – he looked minorly pained, but that could just be proximity to Jin Guangshan and his idea of acceptable small talk – and it wasn’t long before Nie Mingjue arrived, habitual scowl on his face as he stalked in, flanked by his own two attendants. He was probably least comfortable out of all of them, it being no secret that he believed Wen Ruohan had had something to do with the death of his father – no, that was too polite. More accurately, he believed Wen Ruohan to have murdered his father, and Wen Ruohan had only barely gone through the motions of denying it, yet there was nothing anyone could do about it without starting a war that no one was ready for.

This was the first discussion conference he had to attend as Wen Ruohan’s guest. Lan Qiren felt a stab of sympathy and nodded to him; Nie Mingjue’s scowl softened, fading slightly as he nodded back.

The two of them were more familiar than most, and not only because the Nie and the Lan were long-standing allies. Nie Mingjue himself had spent some time in Gusu at one of Lan Qiren’s early lectures, back when he was still figuring things out – he had been a good student, thoughtful and hard-working, and he had become friends with Lan Qiren’s eldest nephew. That had been a friendship Lan Qiren had sought to encourage, thinking it would be good for them when they would both be sect leaders in the future; it was only that he had not expected Nie Mingjue to become sect leader so fast, so early. It was in many ways deeply strange to think that one of his students was now his peer and equal, even though Lan Qiren acknowledged that that was simply how inheritance worked.

(He wondered a little, sometimes, at Nie Mingjue’s age – the Qinghe Nie were unusually secretive on such matters, had always been. He’d never known the boy’s age when he had been his student, only that Nie Mingjue had grown tall at an advanced clip compared to the other boys, suggesting that he was perhaps older than he appeared. The Nie sect hadn’t objected to his ascension to the role of sect leader, suggesting he must be at least close to being of age at twenty, but really there wasn’t any polite way to ask. Not that that had stopped Jin Guangshan from trying to pry, though naturally Nie Mingjue had rebuffed all such queries.)

“Wonderful view,” he remarked, seeking to ease the mood, and Nie Mingjue briefly almost smiled.

“If you like dull white,” Jin Guangshan sniffed, completely missing the implied criticism. “But then again, I suppose that is the Lan sect’s preferred taste.”

“We generally prefer clouds to snow,” Lan Qiren said, not rising to his bait. “Where is our host?”

“An excellent question. One typically expects a host to be present to greet his guests,” Nie Mingjue said in agreement, his voice low and hot with seething rage.

“He was here, but was called away unexpectedly,” Jiang Fengmian said, acting as the peacemaker as always. “I have no doubt he’ll return shortly.”

Another ke passed before Wen Ruohan strode in, his shoulders slightly damp with snow that turned into condensation from the heat of his cultivation – a waste of spiritual energy, really, but quite in character for him. It occurred briefly to Lan Qiren that for there to be sufficient snow to make such a performance meant that the gentle snow must have gotten stronger since he had entered earlier, but then Wen Ruohan was opening the meeting and he had to focus on more important things. These discussion conferences might officially be held out to be social events, a way for the cultivation world to come together to share knowledge and trade pointers, but for the sect leaders, the Great Sects most of all, it was also an opportunity to do business. Interactions between the great cultivation sects was an especially cut-throat business, each move, even those of allies, being filled with traps, and that meant Lan Qiren had to be paying full attention at all times.

Wen Ruohan seemed especially enthusiastic for business that day, the agenda for that afternoon’s meeting being more filled up than usual with contentious subjects that required significant debate. The meetings on the first day always ran long, a shichen or more, but this one ran past two and was nearing three by the time they started to near the end – they’d even worked through dinner, servants flitting into the room with trays that they placed in front of each sect leader’s seat and communal dishes carried around, a set-up that suggested that Wen Ruohan had anticipated such an over-long meeting from the start.

An attempt to finagle some benefits through driving them all into exhaustion, perhaps? He would have had the advantage of being here for several days in advance, while the rest of them had only just arrived. A cheap trick, if that’s what he was up to, and not successful; if anything, the pressure put them all on their guard.

“I think we’re just about done,” Wen Ruohan finally said, which was a relief. “It’s too late to have the entertainment I planned with our dinner, but I’ll have them bring out some wine to accompany us.”

Lan Qiren suppressed a groan.

Jiang Fengmian cleared his throat. “I had planned to go check on how my disciples were settling in,” he said apologetically, and Lan Qiren was just about to agree that that was a marvelous idea when Wen Ruohan broke the sound-suppressing arrays that had been protecting the room they were in and they abruptly heard the rattling sound of intense winds.

“A storm?” Jin Guangshan asked with a frown, and they all went out to look – it was indeed a storm, the snow from earlier having intensified into a blizzard. It was impossible to see more than a few zhang out, even with eyes sharpened through cultivation; it would be inadvisable weather to fly in even if such a thing were not already made difficult by the dense qi of the hilltop, and of course the stairs would be impossible to navigate. “Ah, well. Such things are impossible to predict.”

They weren’t, actually, Lan Qiren thought with irritation, and Wen Ruohan should have put some more effort into trying to predict it before insisting on this ridiculous winter hunt. Perhaps he’d even deliberately planned for something like this to increase the difficulty level for their disciples, who would not be expecting it – the man’s pettiness and need for victory truly knew no bounds.

“I suppose it’s time for the entertainment, then,” Wen Ruohan said with a smirk, clapping to summon in the dancers. Scantily clad ones, to Jin Guangshan’s delight and everyone else’s growing misery, and Lan Qiren couldn’t help but think grumpily that he wouldn’t have considered dancers ‘essential’ enough to take up space that could have been used by adding in additional attendants.

Luckily, a glance at the candle clock revealed that it wouldn’t be long – enough time to burn an incense stick or two, no more – before he could plausibly plead out on the basis of his sect rules regarding the right time to retire for the evening. It wasn’t an excuse that always worked, unfortunately, as the other sect leaders knew that the rules of hospitality took precedence, but in this particular instance when he tried it Nie Mingjue made some noises about wanting to take advantage of the mountain spiritual vein and winter storm to cultivate and Wen Ruohan for once acted the gracious host, allowing them to retire without raising too much of a fuss. Jiang Fengmian stayed behind to continue watching the dancers, his posture clearly appreciative and more interested than usual, but Lan Qiren had no doubt that he’d be following them soon enough; with a wife like his, he’d soon conclude that the momentary pleasure of watching the admittedly beautiful and well-trained women wasn’t worth her reaction should she hear of it.

He himself settled into his room with a sigh, dismissing his two attendants to go to their own beds. It was already hai hour, the time for sleep according to the Lan sect rules, and by all rights he ought to be fading off to sleep as well through sheer force of habit.

Unfortunately, sleep did not seem forthcoming. He felt restless and confined, hot under the collar with suppressed inactivity – still full of adrenaline from the high-pressure tension that always accompanied the business parts of the discussion conferences, the often vicious arguments that always danced on the very edge of a war he was no longer certain he could say that no one wanted, and, worse, because of the ice storm battering the windows, he could not take a walk to burn off the excess energy.

Sleep seemed far out of reach.

At least he had his duties as sect leader to keep him busy. Lan Qiren occupied himself with taking down notes regarding the results of the meeting at once, lest he forget and have his forgetfulness used against him, and with a meeting that went on so long there was a great deal to record and plenty of information he would need to obtain from his disciples once connection was reestablished in the morning.

A shichen later, he was still awake, writing out one final set of instructions, and he was just about to finally retire for the evening and try to go to sleep, however unsuccessful he expected that endeavor to be, when there was an unexpected knock on his door.

Frowning, Lan Qiren rose to his feet and went to open it.

“Sect Leader Nie,” he said, surprised. “What brings you here this late?”

“Can I come in?” Nie Mingjue asked, and Lan Qiren would have refused if he hadn’t noticed that the other man appeared unusually upset – although the room was lit only by flickering lanterns, Lan Qiren’s cultivation was high enough to make his night vision excellent, and he could see the tightness in Nie Mingjue’s eyes and the bulge of his jaw as he ground his teeth together.

“Very well,” Lan Qiren said, and stepped aside, allowing Nie Mingjue to enter. “What’s the matter?”

“Have you been feeling unusual this evening?” Nie Mingjue asked, voice abrupt. He was standing especially straight, his hands behind his back. “Uncomfortable, or – overheating?”

Lan Qiren frowned.

“I have,” he said slowly. Now that he thought about it, he could feel sweat on the back of his neck, which could not be explained merely by the braziers and conductive array keeping the room warm – not in the face of the ice storm right outside. He did not like that, nor did he like the implications of Nie Mingjue coming to him late at night with the question. “Why?”

“I found this in the kitchen,” Nie Mingjue said, and he stuck out his hand with a jar with herbs in it. “It was – I think they put it in our food.”

Lan Qiren accepted the jar and examined it, his lips twisting into a scowl of his own as he realized what it was. “A consequence of our refusal to participate in the planned entertainment last time, no doubt,” he said, his voice tight, thinking that this was truly intolerable behavior. They were sect leaders, not schoolchildren; such a prank went beyond the mere unseemly into the inappropriate.

He noticed that Nie Mingjue’s expression had only grown more anxious, however, and sought to reassure him. “It’s not poison,” he explained. “At least not in the traditional sense – the drug is a powerful yin stimulant, with amatory properties.”

An extremely powerful aphrodisiac, in other words.

“Although it has some legitimate uses, it is best known to be used in the more dubious forms of dual cultivation. The effects cannot be simply filtered out with a golden core, but are easy enough to blunt with an infusion of yang energy.”

That was, of course, the basis of the prank, stupid and infantile as it was: for a man, it was generally not difficult to infuse one’s core with yang energy. Although it would of course be easier and more beneficial to accept an offer from one of the undoubtedly specially selected female dancers to engage in dual cultivation, a man could always utilize his own hand to stimulate the appropriate effect, even if it would take longer. Wen Ruohan – and Jin Guangshan, no doubt – would undoubtedly laugh themselves sick, dallying the night away with the dancers while the rest of them were forced to abuse themselves for hours just to have some peace.

Bastards.

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue said vehemently, and Lan Qiren found to his surprise that his expression looked, if anything, even worse, his face having gone a ghastly shade of pale. “I can’t – do that.”

“Why not?” Lan Qiren asked, bewildered. Surely the former sect leader Nie had given his son the most basic education – Lan Qiren truly hoped he would not be called upon to explain the cultivation mechanics of masturbation, although he would grit his teeth and endure if necessary. “It may take several repetitions to flush it out entirely, but the drug itself will assist with – with the, uh, motivation – physically – for the infusion, that is –”

“You don’t understand,” Nie Mingjue said, and his face was now flushed, red at the cheeks as if he had a fever. “It’s not – I know what an infusion of yang energy is. It’s just – it’s not…”

He closed his eyes tightly. He was actually shaking, Lan Qiren noticed, his shoulders trembling – he was clearly very distressed by the whole thing.

“He knows,” he finally muttered. “He must have…there’s no other explanation. This was intentional, all of it. Wen Ruohan knows.”

Something about Nie Mingjue’s tone – almost fatalistic, defeated and resigned, as if he had lost some great battle that he had not even known he was fighting – made a hard tight ball of anxiety in Lan Qiren’s stomach.

“What does he know?” he asked cautiously.

Nie Mingjue laughed dully, a short bark of sound that was all bitterness. “That I can’t generate that type of yang energy on my own, Sect Leader Lan. That I’m misaligned.”

The implications of that hit Lan Qiren with all the impact of an avalanche.

Misaligned. It was one of those strange Qinghe Nie traditions, along with not disclosing private information such as the year of one’s birth – they believed that it was possible for the reincarnation wheel to err, for a man’s soul to be born in a woman’s body, or a woman in a man, or even in some cases a nebulous sort of existence that recognized neither. The substance of what they were wasn’t important, not really; the term was all-encompassing, meaning only that the physical body and the ephemeral souls and spirits did not match.

But for Nie Mingjue to say that he couldn’t generate an infusion of yang meant that the body he had been born with was that of a woman – yin-aligned, not yang-aligned, even though his stature and bearing suggested that his eight characters were likely to be heavily tilted towards yang, if not entirely yang. For a woman, giving in to the aphrodisiacal effects of the drug would aggravate the effects, not cure them; for a woman, ingesting such a drug in sufficiently large quantities could even be fatal, with the effects of the excess yin unbalancing her qi, causing –

Causing a qi deviation.

The former sect leader Nie had died of a qi deviation only two years ago. His father had died of the same.

Nie Mingjue, with his only heir a child under ten, could not risk one.

If they had been at home – if they’d been anywhere more civilized, Nie Mingjue could have summoned some doctor to help flush out the effects through a manual infusion of yang, using drugs, purges, the transfer of spiritual energy, that sort of thing. Without one, the only way to obtain a yang infusion of the strength necessary to keep the effects of a drug this powerful at bay would be through dual cultivation.

Through sex, specifically. Sex in which he was penetrated by a man.

And that, itself, was the problem. The Qinghe Nie recognized the misaligned, and some of the cultivation world followed their lead, but the majority did not. If it was ever publicized that Nie Mingjue had the body of a woman, and that he had, moreover, lost his chastity – it would be a crippling loss of face for the Nie sect, not unless he subsequently married the man who had dishonored him.

“Who can you ask?” Lan Qiren asked, his heart sinking. Between the ice storm that he’d thought had been an oversight on Wen Ruohan’s part, the tall hill with its barrier to flight, the restricted number of attendants they were able to bring, and the application of the drug in such quantity that it could affect a cultivator as strong as Lan Qiren so quickly…there were too many coincidences for this to be anything but what Nie Mingjue suspected it was: a trap designed to ensnare him in an impossible situation. “Perhaps…your attendants? You were allowed to bring two –”

“I wanted to bring people I could trust,” Nie Mingjue said dully. “With such a small number…”

Lan Qiren understood. Nie Mingjue was young, still new to his role as sect leader even after two years – there must be plenty of people both in and out of the Nie sect waiting anxiously to see him fail. For a situation in which he would have to be at close quarters with the other sect leaders, he would have wanted people that he believed would support him unreservedly.

He would have brought family.

“Too close?” Lan Qiren checked, and grimaced when Nie Mingjue nodded. Obviously engaging in incest would only make a bad situation worse, even if Nie Mingjue were willing to order such a thing, which he very obviously wasn’t. “In that case, there’s only…”

His voice trailed off.

“Servants,” Nie Mingjue said, his voice very tight. “Servants, or another sect leader.”

He swallowed, hard. Then, suddenly, before Lan Qiren could do or say anything more, he knelt down before Lan Qiren and pressed his forehead to the floor.

“Sect Leader Lan,” he said. “Please help me.”

Lan Qiren stared down at him in horror, quickly crouching to pull Nie Mingjue up again. “Me? You can’t be serious!”

“It has to be you,” Nie Mingjue said. “Fucking another sect’s servant while they were still in their employ would be as good as saying that my sect was only good to be servants themselves, and of the sect leaders…there’s no one else. Jiang Fengmian is married to a vicious shrew that would castrate him if he even thought about anyone else, Jin Guangshan is a notorious whoremonger known for his cruelty to his bedpartners – and Wen Ruohan…”

He looked up at Lan Qiren, tears glinting in his eyes.

“Sect Leader Lan, please,” he whispered. “Please. It can’t be Wen Ruohan. It can’t.”

Now it was Lan Qiren’s turn to swallow.

“I am faithful to my sect’s traditions,” he croaked. There was no rule against engaging in sexual relations in his sect, only against promiscuity, but among those who were the most faithful to the traditions of their founder, those like Lan Qiren who sought to model themselves on Lan An, such things were taken very seriously. This situation fell nowhere in the list of acceptable exceptions that the young used to explore their inclinations and manage the hormones of adolescence and early adulthood; for Lan Qiren, at this point in his life, he wished only to go to bed with the woman who would become his wife.

The one he would walk to on foot without a path, as Lan An had done, bringing gifts and an oath of eternal loyalty, binding their hands together with his forehead ribbon in a promise that would never be broken.

His dao companion, his one, the other half of his life.

Not this.

Not like this.

“I know,” Nie Mingjue said, and he sounded truly wretched. “I know what I’m asking of you. I know I have no reason to expect anything from you, much less something that may affect the rest of your life. But – please. I beg of you, please. I know what a drug like this can do, especially if combined with certain others, and I just know he’ll find a way to get those to me, too. He won’t let me have the chance to just wait it out and hope for the best – I’ll enter delirium and be unable to resist, and then I’ll wake up and find myself bound to marry the man who murdered my father. Teacher Lan, please!”

Lan Qiren’s shoulders shook. Nie Mingjue was a proud man, and rightfully so, powerful and righteous as he was; it was abominable that he should be begging on his knees for Lan Qiren to violate him because he feared the all-too-plausible alternative more. And at the end he had slipped up in his desperation and called Lan Qiren ‘Teacher’, as if he was still his student, not his peer, still that boy from not so long ago.

The worst of it was that he truly could not think of another option.

If he refused, and he knew he was well within his rights to refuse, Nie Mingjue would try to submit himself in desperation to someone else – Jiang Fengmian would reject him, claiming that Wen Ruohan would never do such a thing even though it was patently obvious that he would, and to submit in such a way to Jin Guangshan was very nearly as bad, given his greed and treatment of women. Faced with such a rejection, with his only other options being intolerable politically or personally or both, Nie Mingjue might try to leave this place contrary all reason, heading into the snow and ice and the steep steps that had been treacherous even without a blinding blizzard, but that might kill him.

He might prefer that it kill him.

“I will help,” he said, because the alternative was unthinkable, because Nie Mingjue had been his student and he couldn’t abandon him now. Nie Mingjue looked up at him, eyes wide as if with disbelief, so he repeated himself: “I will help you.” He hesitated, but only briefly. “Come to bed.”

Nie Mingjue rose to his feet unsteadily and followed him obediently to the bed.

(From his daydreams and the admittedly minimal exploration that he had done in his youth, Lan Qiren knew that he liked obedience in his lovers. He enjoyed pampering them, caring for them, but most of all he liked having them wholly yield to him and trust him, as Nie Mingjue was doing now. He liked it best when the submission was worthwhile, when it was someone brave and bold and smart and powerful, and in another time, another place, a person very much like Nie Mingjue would have been just what he wanted. But he was only doing him a favor – had only been sought out in desperation, not desire – he should not think of such things, nor of how beautiful Nie Mingjue was in the flickering candlelight.)

“Have you done anything before?” Lan Qiren asked, and was unsurprised when Nie Mingjue shook his head. “Anything at all?”

“With another person? No.”

Lan Qiren nodded, accepting it. “You should – probably get undressed.”

Nie Mingjue nodded. His gaze was averted, but his hands were sure and straightforward as he removed the various layers of clothing he wore, the visible markings of the sect leader of the Nie sect; underneath, he was as tall and broad as might be expected.

Lan Qiren put a hand on Nie Mingjue’s thigh. He flinched.

“You’re going to have to relax,” Lan Qiren said, trying to be kind. Nie Mingjue lay back on the bed and clearly made an effort, shoulders settling and muscles unclenching through sheer willpower. Lan Qiren would like very much to blame the fact that his cock hung heavy and hard between his thighs entirely on the drug he had consumed, but he wasn’t that ignorant of himself. “Would you like me to…?”

“Just get on with it,” Nie Mingjue snapped, and then amended to add, “If you would.”

To his shame, Lan Qiren’s cock twitched.

He ignored it and reached forward to touch Nie Mingjue’s body, which shivered invitingly under his hands: his shoulders, his hips, the hard planes of his belly and the surprising softness of his chest – Nie Mingjue flinched once again at that, and Lan Qiren moved away immediately – before dipping a hand down between his legs.

It was probably the drug that made Nie Mingjue warm and wet for him, he reminded himself, and the expression of surprise and the way his hips jerked up when fingers slid over his cunt was simply inexperience. And the way he bit his lower lip and tried to force himself to grind into Lan Qiren’s hand –

“Stop that,” Lan Qiren said, and Nie Mingjue obeyed at once, cheeks pinking with embarrassment. He sank back onto the bed when instructed and spread his legs wider, and Lan Qiren wanted to eat him out until he cried. The effect of the drug, he hoped. “Tell me what feels good to you.”

“It mostly feels strange,” Nie Mingjue confessed, even as Lan Qiren worked a finger into him. He was unsurprisingly tight as a vise, so tight that Lan Qiren was starting to have doubts that he would be able to fit himself inside – he was not small by any measure – but after a few moments either the drug or the sensations started to do its work and Nie Mingjue softened around him. “I don’t normally touch myself in there.”

“Can you show me what you normally do, then?”

“Is that really necessary?” Lan Qiren gave him a stern look. “…yes, Teacher Lan.”

Lan Qiren could have done without the self-knowledge that he liked being called teacher in bed, especially by a blushing former student – who was of an age to be his nephew’s dearest friend, no less – but he was stuck with that now.

Just like he was stuck with the knowledge of what Nie Mingjue looked like when he touched himself, of hearing the muffled grunt he gave when his fingers rubbed against his clit, how he arched his back and raised his hips as he pressed down on it. How tight and wet he was when Lan Qiren gave him another finger, how he hissed at the stretch and then furrowed his brow when Lan Qiren crooked his fingers, rubbing him from the inside. The way his thighs trembled.

“Are you going to fuck me at any point?” Nie Mingjue asked, a little plaintive.

“I’m not sure you’re ready,” Lan Qiren said, but he pulled open his clothing – it hadn’t occurred to him to get undressed, even if Nie Mingjue was, and the little inequality jarred his sense of righteousness even as it turned him on – and took out his cock, pressing against it Nie Mingjue’s slick cunt.

It didn’t go in.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Nie Mingjue, who had been staring at the ceiling and bracing himself, said, and pushed himself up onto his elbows, craning his neck up to look down at where they were failing to join. “Oh, well, see, that’s the problem right there. I’d assumed that I’d invited a man into my bed, not a horse.”

“My bed,” Lan Qiren reminded him, though he wasn’t quite able to keep his lips from twitching in amusement. “It might be easier if you reached completion first. It would relax you.”

“Oh, sure. No problem. Because the prospect of imminent impalement is so very sexy,” Nie Mingjue grumbled – Lan Qiren did not laugh, but it was close – and reached down, closing his eyes as he started touching himself in earnest.

Lan Qiren ground his cock into the bed as he waited, two fingers still inside and steadily stretching, his mouth dry as he listened to the slick, rhythmic sounds, as he watched Nie Mingjue’s face go steadily more slack – too slack, actually, and when Nie Mingjue opened his eyes he looked dazed. Maybe it was simply how he reacted to pleasure, or maybe it was the second drug he’d suspected that he’d been dosed with, perhaps, something to make him less vigilant.

Lan Qiren hoped it was just pleasure, but he knew that it didn’t make a difference either way to what they had to do.

Lan Qiren waited until Nie Mingjue’s hips finished shuddering – one foot twitched and nearly kicked, and he caught it with one hand and pressed it back down – before pulling out his fingers and pressing his cock up against the young man’s entrance again. It was still tight, but he was able to force it in, squeezing himself until the head had gone inside.

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue said. He sounded half-drunk. “That’s so weird. You’re – inside of me.”

“Not yet,” Lan Qiren said, and pressed himself forward slowly, bracing himself against the bed for leverage as he did. He managed to get about halfway in before Nie Mingjue whimpered. “Are you in pain?”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said. “More like – pressure. Heat. I don’t know. I can feel you.”

“Focus on cultivation,” Lan Qiren advised, which was very good advice except for the fact that Nie Mingjue said, “Yes, Teacher Lan,” and Lan Qiren’s hips involuntarily jerked forward, making Nie Mingjue groan and getting him almost all the way in.

He forced himself to slow down again, to stop. His arms were trembling where he was holding himself up, and it wasn’t with the strain – as if someone raised in the Lan sect, with their habit of handstands and other such exercises, would feel strain over something like this – but rather from the effort of restraint.

He was not going to grab Nie Mingjue by the hips, bend him in two, and start fucking him into the bed until he shouted for mercy, but it was – more difficult than he liked to admit to stop himself from doing just that. This was not a type of restraint that he was familiar with.

“I feel like I should be doing something with my hands,” Nie Mingjue said.

“You may touch my shoulders,” Lan Qiren said, and felt Nie Mingjue’s hands settle there a moment later, fingers gripping the cloth tightly. A moment later, he could felt the spiritual energy inside of Nie Mingjue starting to circulate, and he nodded, impressed that Nie Mingjue was able to find his focus even in such a situation. “Well done. Good boy.”

Nie Mingjue’s legs had ended up slung over Lan Qiren’s hips at some point in the process and he abruptly tightened them, before releasing the pressure just as abruptly a moment later.

“Would you prefer that I avoid saying that?” Lan Qiren asked, desperately trying to focus on starting his own cultivation instead of thinking about Nie Mingjue’s reaction.

“…no,” Nie Mingjue muttered, and turned his face to the side. He was blushing again. “It’s fine. You can – I like that.”

Lan Qiren put one hand on Nie Mingjue’s hips, and pulled himself halfway out, then thrust back inside in a sudden motion, making Nie Mingjue cry out in surprise.

“Cultivation,” he reminded him as he started moving his hips, more cruelty than anything else because he was having some considerable trouble thinking or focusing himself. “You can do it. You’re a good boy for me, aren’t you?”

“Y – yes, Teacher Lan,” Nie Mingjue said, his whole body shifting with the force of Lan Qiren’s thrusts. Amazingly, somehow, he really did start to cultivate, and then Lan Qiren finally got his act together and did the same, and suddenly their spiritual energy was intertwining, yin feeding into yang and yang spilling into yin, and it wasn’t long before that metaphor became a reality, Lan Qiren gripping tightly onto Nie Mingjue’s hips as he came. He reached down between them and rubbed Nie Mingjue’s clit, mimicking the actions he’d seen him take earlier – a little rough, circles a little careless – and a few moments later the dual cultivation did its work, pulling Nie Mingjue along, his hips jerking up again as he hit his peak once more, squeezing him from the inside.

“Fuck,” Nie Mingjue said, with feeling. “Fuck.”

“A good start,” Lan Qiren said. He was still hard, even after he’d finished inside of him. That was definitely the effect of the drug. “Make sure to draw the yang energy into your dantian. Use it to cleanse your core. Would you like to try another position for the next round?”

“Huh?” Nie Mingjue asked, the daze he was in earlier having clearly deepened, so Lan Qiren pulled out of him – Nie Mingjue whined at that – and helped him turn over so that he was on his hands and knees, his hair having fallen out of some of its braids, though not all, and falling down over his shoulders and back. “Oh, I see. Is this right?”

Lan Qiren was able to push back inside much more easily, whether from the earlier stretch or the new position. “Yes, very good,” he praised, and Nie Mingjue shivered underneath him. “Spread your legs a little more – good, good. Start cultivating again. I’m going to fuck you.”

Nie Mingjue’s cunt tightened around him when he used the crude language. Anticipation, not dread, he hoped, and matched action to word.

Having gotten the edge off with the first round, the second round took longer, Nie Mingjue reduced to shuddering and gasping almost despite himself. The new position also made balancing easier, as Lan Qiren could rely on Nie Mingjue’s own body to steady them both, and that gave him freer use of his hands: he could run them up and down Nie Mingjue’s sides, could press a hand to his belly as if he were trying to feel himself there inside. Could reach up and touch that tempting softness at his chest – this time, Nie Mingjue did not resist, too lost in sensation to really notice, although Lan Qiren did not linger – could slide his fingers down so that he could finger Nie Mingjue’s clit. Could trace around the place where they were connected, the slick dripping out and smearing across Nie Mingjue’s thighs as he fucked into him with wet sounds.

The cultivation aspect was also improved: their spiritual energies recognized each other better now, and for all its faults this mountaintop house was in fact an excellent natural source of spiritual qi. Lan Qiren could feel the energy being drawn throughout his body, strengthening him much faster than meditation or playing guqin or swordsmanship usually did, the ecstasy of spiritual pleasure accompanying the physical sensations besieging him.

Nie Mingjue begged me to do this, Lan Qiren thought hazily, his balls tightening in anticipation of another orgasm. He wondered if he could get Nie Mingjue to beg him again, although maybe this time it would be for his cock or for permission to come.

He suddenly wanted to see Nie Mingjue’s face again, currently hidden in his folded arms with his ass in the air like some bitch waiting to get bred. He wanted to fuck him for a week, never resting, until he couldn’t walk any more, and then he wanted to take him home and do it all over again. He wanted to see Nie Mingjue bent over the low table he used in his study at the Cloud Recesses, hands held obediently on his wrists behind his back, calling him teacher like the good little student he’d been as he used his body to milk Lan Qiren’s cock dry.

One of those, at least, he could have.

He pulled out again, even though he was starting to get close. “Turn,” he ordered, and Nie Mingjue did. “Hold your legs open – no, use your hands. Put them under your knees.”

Nie Mingjue obeyed. He looked obscene in that posture, as Lan Qiren had expected he would: his face was red and sweat was dripping down his forehead, drool at the corners of his mouth and eyes glassy with tears that occasionally rolled down his cheek.

Lan Qiren put his cock against him, but did not go in, just rubbed up against his cunt, marveling at how slick with his juices his cock was. “Are you in pain?” he asked again, an echo of his earlier question when he’d actually meant it as a serious question rather than a tease. “You’re crying.”

“No,” Nie Mingjue said, then stuttered, “Yes. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just – a lot. Don’t stop.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t want to hurt you –”

“Teacher Lan,” Nie Mingjue whined. “Please fuck me already.”

Lan Qiren clicked his tongue. “So impatient,” he said, but he was already sinking in, their spiritual qi at once twining together again, and it wasn’t hard to reach in and tweak it, making Nie Mingjue’s hips jerk and his mouth fall open slack as he came once again. His whole body tensed, and then relaxed, and Lan Qiren used the moment to fuck him hard, hips pistoning as he thrust in and out, using his own hands to keep one of Nie Mingjue’s legs up – he’d released them when he came, hands dropping to grab at the bedding instead – and it wasn’t long before he was coming himself, buried deep inside.

Nie Mingjue was crying in earnest now, but not unhappily – tears spilling down his cheeks, but enthusiastically participating the whole while – and Lan Qiren pulled out and pressed their bodies together.

“It’s going well,” he assured him, reaching for his own cultivation to encourage his cock to recover faster. “Once or twice more. You can do it.”

Nie Mingjue nodded

“Good boy,” Lan Qiren said, enjoying the way it made Nie Mingjue both blush and pant at the same time. “Your teacher is proud of you.”

Nie Mingjue covered his face with his hands, but Lan Qiren was inside of him again by that point, and he could tell from the way Nie Mingjue bore down on him that didn’t really object to it at all.

Still, the pleasure and joy of their coupling – the physicality of sex, the way they unexpectedly suited each other in temperament and in cultivation – was tempered by the reality of their situation. After his third orgasm, or possibly fourth, Nie Mingjue started to succumb to delirium as he’d predicted at the start, and by this point there was no denying that the daze he kept slipping into was pharmacological in origin.

They had both been dosed with the aphrodisiac, that much was clear, but somehow Nie Mingjue had also received a dose of something else, something that made his eyes go increasingly vacant even as he curled his limbs around Lan Qiren, trying to increase the amount of bodily contact between them. Whatever the secondary drug was, it clearly increased his pleasure, which was good, but Lan Qiren disliked the dullness of his expression, the way that it was increasingly obvious that Nie Mingjue no longer recognized what exactly he was doing or with whom. If he’d refused to accede to Nie Mingjue’s request…

Best not to think on that, he told himself, and set himself to the task of reaching his own peak once again as quickly as possible. As much as he was repulsed by the idea of bedding a man who was clearly no longer sober, he knew that it was only through more of his yang energy that Nie Mingjue would pass through this night unscathed.

“Truly it is as they say,” a voice drawled from behind him, and Lan Qiren froze mid-thrust even as Nie Mingjue whimpered and jerked up against him. “The quick-footed ones climb up first, the early bird catches the worm – however it goes. Sect Leader Lan, I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”

“Sect Leader Wen,” Lan Qiren said, voice stiff. “You are not welcome in my room.”

Wen Ruohan ignored him, walking forward until he was standing by Lan Qiren’s side, looking down at Nie Mingjue lying senseless on the pillow.

“Lovely girl,” he said idly, and reached down to tuck some of Nie Mingjue’s hair back behind his ear. “Do you know, I had no idea she was a woman until she fell into me at last year’s discussion conference? Her breasts pressed up against my arm, my knee between her legs – the Qinghe Nie really do play their cards close to their chests.”

“By the traditions of his clan, he’s a man,” Lan Qiren said icily, or as icily as he could with Nie Mingjue still squirming on his softening cock. “Wen Ruohan. Leave.”

“Have some shame, Sect Leader Lan. It’s my precious jade that you pilfered, after all,” Wen Ruohan scolded lightly. He skimmed two fingers down along Nie Mingjue’s cheek before pressing into his mouth, pushing down on his tongue before starting to move them in and out in a familiar motion – fucking his mouth with them. Nie Mingjue’s eyes were completely blank as he sucked on the fingers of the man who he believed killed his father, who only a shichen or two earlier he had begged on his knees to avoid. “And here I thought your Lan sect had a rule against illicit sex.”

“It isn’t illicit if I’m willing to marry him,” Lan Qiren said. His entire body was tense with rage: he hadn’t expected Wen Ruohan to admit that he’d been planning this at all, much less so causally, as if there was nothing anyone could do about it.

He was right, though. There wasn’t. Even if Lan Qiren could bring forward proof of this atrocity, no one would join hands with him to enforce any type of punishment other than the Nie sect, and the Nie and the Lan by themselves could not hope to shake the power of the Wen sect.

It was as pointless to try to make something over this as it had been over Lao Nie’s murder.

“Marry?” Wen Ruohan echoed, and then laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Tell me, is there any chance you’d share her?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Wen Ruohan asked, and he seemed almost genuinely curious. “Sect Leader Jin and I shared one of the dancers earlier; I assure you, it’s a very enjoyable experience, and most beneficial in increasing your strength.”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed,” Lan Qiren said, his teeth grinding together painfully. “But he hates you.”

He wanted nothing more than to stand up and reach for his sword to run Wen Ruohan through for his presumption, but his cultivation, however powerful, had always been centered in music, not swordsmanship, and at any rate Wen Ruohan’s own cultivation level left his own far behind. As it was, he didn’t even dare pull out of his intimate embrace with Nie Mingjue no matter how vulnerable the position made him feel – he half suspected that if he did, Wen Ruohan would take it as an invitation to simply push him aside and replace his cock with his own.

It can’t be Wen Ruohan, Nie Mingjue had said at the start, tears in his eyes. It can’t. Please!

He stayed where he was.

“I’m not sure why you think that matters,” Wen Ruohan mused. “That bit about killing her father, hmm? Look at her, Sect Leader Lan. She wouldn’t say no even if the man fucking her was her own father.”

“Because you drugged him.”

“Because I drugged her,” Wen Ruohan agreed. “The second one was in the incense in her room, if you were curious. Why do you think I was so willing to let you two off the hook earlier? If everything had gone according to plan, she would’ve absorbed it while meditating and then succumbed to the temptation of getting herself off before retiring for the night, and after the first orgasm or two her rationality would have started slipping away. By the time I arrived, she would have been begging for me to fuck her. Me, and anyone else I chose to invite.”

Jin Guangshan, probably, Lan Qiren thought to himself, white hot fury filling his head.

“Don’t look so offended. I would’ve invited you, too.”

That was worse.

“It could have been a bonding experience,” Wen Ruohan said, then laughed. “You’re the one who’s always talking about the importance of creating ties between the Great Sects, so as to better forestall a war between us – I’m not sure what could be better than having us share our very qi with each other.”

“Sharing,” Lan Qiren said flatly. “Is that what you call gang-raping an innocent young man? Who’s probably your son’s age?”

“Younger than Wen Xu, I expect, though of course with Qinghe Nie you can never really be sure,” Wen Ruohan said, utterly indifferent. “Girls mature faster than boys, don’t they? And anyway, it’s rather hypocritical of you to raise such a protest; you’re the one balls-deep inside of her.”

Lan Qiren hadn’t thought about that, though now that he did he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had always assumed that Nie Mingjue was older than the other boys that had been his students, that the distance in ages between him and Lan Xichen was larger than might be expected, but that had been based on the fact that he was growing so fast – but Wen Ruohan was right. Because Nie Mingjue’s body was a woman’s, the growth spurt he’d had at the Cloud Recesses wouldn’t have signified that he was in the middle of his adolescent years, but at the start of them; he might have been even younger than Lan Qiren had thought, younger than his peers rather than older.

He’d already felt like an old cow eating young grass, but the feeling was abruptly magnified, and no matter that Nie Mingjue had asked him – had begged him – to do what he was doing.

“If you feel so strongly about it,” Wen Ruohan murmured, his voice too close to Lan Qiren’s ear for comfort, “I won’t even insist on having my own turn. I’d be happy with just her mouth – look at how well she’s taking my fingers.”

Lan Qiren didn’t mean to look, but he did. Wen Ruohan’s fingers were shining with spit as they dipped in and out of Nie Mingjue’s mouth, his lips swollen. Tears dripped unconsciously from his eyes.

“You could always just tell her that she needed more yang energy than you alone could provide…”

“What I do is of no concern to you,” Lan Qiren said harshly, cutting him off. “You asked if I would share; I told you that I would not. Do you intend to start something over it?”

Wen Ruohan paused.

Lan Qiren waited, his nerves strung tight. He couldn’t fight Wen Ruohan personally, one-on-one, and he had no authorization from his sect to start a war over this – nor any assurance that they would back him if he did, even though the ethics of the moment seemed clear. He was instead gambling on Wen Ruohan’s past: the other man was older than him, and remembered the wars of Lan Qiren’s grandparents’ generation. There were stories passed down about those battles, about how they had begun, how they had ended, and the role played therein by the contemporaneous members of the Lan sect. The five Great Sects had not been so at odds back then; Wen Ruohan would know the same stories.

He knew about Lan Qiren’s brother, too. He knew that the same madness of all those years ago still ran true in at least some of the current generation.

“Very well,” Wen Ruohan finally said, and withdrew his fingers entirely. “You Lan sect and your ‘one’ – tell me, was your sect founder’s wife as inappropriate a choice as you all seem to land on?”

“Lan An was a monk,” Lan Qiren said, keeping the irritation and tightness in his voice to avoid letting on his relief. “I suspect any ‘one’ would have been inappropriate. Now, as much as I enjoy discussing matters of sect history…”

“You’re somewhat otherwise occupied?” Wen Ruohan chuckled. “Yes, I suppose so. Well, let me not further encroach upon your happy time, Sect Leader Lan. I wish the two of you much joy, both now and in the future.”

From anyone else, that might have been sincere. From Wen Ruohan, it was a threat to watch themselves carefully in the future – that he hadn’t yet changed his mind about what he wanted to obtain, because he never did, not really; he only postponed the date in which it would fall into his hands. He believed all things in the world belonged to him, his acquisition of the object of his desires an inevitability, and he behaved accordingly.

Lan Qiren would have to instruct Nie Mingjue not to agree to any one-on-one meetings with Wen Ruohan in the future, however awkward conveying such a message to a peer would be. Wen Ruohan had already been daring enough to plan out the gang-rape of a fellow sect leader; he would not hesitate to try to take Nie Mingjue by force in the midst of a conference if he thought he could get away with it.

But those were concerns for the future; for the moment, he was content with Wen Ruohan leaving the room with a final chuckle and a crude suggestion about what Lan Qiren ought to do to Nie Mingjue on Wen Ruohan’s behalf – a suggestion he would not be taking.

Nie Mingjue had stopped struggling at some point in the conversation and was lying beneath him, insensate and shivering; Lan Qiren dropped his hand onto his stomach and began transferring spiritual energy directly, hoping to help counteract the effects of the drugs he’d been given.

After a while, Nie Mingjue started to stir, responding again – as much to the spiritual energy as anything else, he was obviously exhausted – and Lan Qiren was able to finally rouse himself as well. His movements this time were slow and gentle, their bodies rocking together and spiritual energy comfortably circulating between them, and when Lan Qiren finally shuddered to completion once again he could feel Nie Mingjue drawing in his energy and letting out only clean, untainted energy in return.

Lan Qiren exhaled in relief. He was more than a little exhausted himself.

“Sleep,” he instructed Nie Mingjue, who blinked at him and nodded. He grunted when Lan Qiren pulled out of him, but didn’t make a sound when he wet his sleeve and ran a few rough swipes over them both to clean them. “We’ll discuss more in the morning.”

#mdzs #lan qiren #nie mingjue #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #without a path #please read the tags on ao3 if you want to know what you're getting into #i don't use warnings on tumblr other than to direct you to ao3

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another-cancer · 3 years ago

Text

Day 11, July 19th Enemy Mine

“What the hell Hood?”

“Let go Replacement, the enemy is mine.”

///

After they returned to the hospital they barely talked. Not because they didn’t want to, but because neither of the two knew how. Jason was so fucking terrified of anything that could possibly happen if he said anything. Meanwhile, Marinette was noticing a lot of changes and was too afraid to ask.

As days passed and Marinette was able to handle herself better, Jason started disappearing leaving her alone. It was in complete contrast to his watchful eyes when they first returned. She was no longer treated like a delicate flower, but as an independent person. Marinette truly felt she was somewhere in between. She still needed the help. She needed someone to communicate with. She needed Jason.

But he wasn’t there.

One night when Jason got home Marinette took the opportunity to ask, “Where’s Adrien?”

Jason’s eyes went wide. It had been eight days and neither of them had mentioned Adrien at all. He never told her what happened at the hospital, it was all too fresh.

‘ She is the love of my life.’ Adrien made it all complicated. Because Adrien cared too much for her and that scared him. Jason was terrified that Marinette still loved Adrien. Jason considered that maybe he is the second choice. And he didn’t want to lose Marinette, but that was selfish. He was selfish.

“I- I screwed up. At the hospital, I made him leave, he left the city. He left a note for you, I should have shown you it, but I didn’t want you to stress- But I was too busy being an asshole. It’s in my nightstand. I didn’t read it or anything”

“Oh,” that was all she was able to say in return.

But Jason had more to say, “He knows we got married, I told him, that’s how I was able to stay in the hospital, I’m sorry.”

Jason gathered himself and walked out the door.

Marinette stood there and watched wanting to stop him, but not having the words to do it. Instead, she made her way to the note. Finding it right where he had said, a tiny post-it tucked away from sight.

‘Dear Marinette,

I’m sorry I left so suddenly, during a time you probably need all the support. I had some things to figure out and your apartment probably wouldn’t be the best place to figure it all out. Knowing Jason he’s probably already taken the blame for me leaving. It wasn’t his fault. It was no ones.

I still love you, and I think I always will in some capacity. But I don’t want to drag my feelings in your path to happiness, I need to deal with them back in France. I’ve known you’ve loved Jason since the first time I ever visited you in Gotham, I’m not even sure you knew. Maybe I was selfish for not telling you, but I have a feeling you know it now. M’Lady you’re going to get better. And when you’re better you should tell Jason how you feel.

Do what makes you happy, Marinette.

The one and only,

Princess’ Kitty’

Before she even realized it the tears were rolling down her face right onto the note. Marinette curled up into a ball and sobbed. Finally feeling everything she had held since Hawkmoth's first attack. For the first time in over eight years, she felt safe enough to cry alone. Marinette allowed herself to mourn, be angry, and regret.

She missed her days in Paris moonlighting as a superhero, she regretted taking up the mantle. She was angry at Gabriel, Lila, Jason, everyone who left her. She understood why they left. She was conflicted. But she was at peace.

Sobbing violently on the floor she was finally at peace with the past eight years. And that was how Tim found her.

“Marinette,” he had entered the apartment through a living room window that had been left unlocked despite the paranoid humans living in the apartment.

Hearing Tim’s voice she calmed herself, “I’m okay,” she said.

“But you were just-”

“Yeah, I just- It felt nice to cry again.”

“I’ve seen you cry, that’s not it, that is sobbing.”

“I haven’t cried alone in over eight years, let me have my moment,” she said, wiping away the tears, “Is there a reason you’re here?”

“Yeah,” Tim began, recalling an interaction he had with Jason earlier in the evening.

///

As soon as he left the apartment Jason decided to patrol. He had been increasing his patrol since Marinette left the hospital determined to make the city safer. Joker had already been caught, but there were still so many petty crimes around him that needed to be stopped. Robbers, muggers, traffickers, drug lords.

Jason had been even harsher on crime than he had in years.

He had a lot of anger to let out, anger towards the Joker, anger towards himself, and even anger towards Adrien. Patrol was a good way to let a controlled amount of anger out.

Until he saw it.

A man was trying to kidnap a dark-haired woman, and all he saw was green. He felt something he hadn’t since meeting Marinette, the pit. His anger was no longer controlled as he dropped down into the alleyway right on top of the man.

“Run!” Jason screamed at the woman.

He punched the man repeatedly. Blood was visible, but all he saw was the Joker's face. Feet thumped behind him and his punch was interrupting.

“What the hell Hood?”

“Let go Replacement, the enemy is mine.”

Tim heard it in his voice. It was terrifying, he left immediately.

///

“Fuck you should have started with that,” Marinette said getting up, “Where the fuck is he?”

Tim gave her directions as she rushed out of the building with him in tail.

“Wait, you're going to get a cold!” Tim shouted as he followed with her jacket in hand.

“I’ll be fine, Jay on the other hand is about to murder someone.”

The two ran through the streets of Gotham to Jason’s location. Marinette followed by Red Robin, thankfully there weren’t too many onlookers. When they found Jason the area was abandoned with the man he was hitting unconscious.

“JASON PETER TODD WAYNE,” her voice boomed, “you need to stop.”

When she was close everything was always better, he could feel the pit dwindling away. Jason was becoming more conscious about his actions. Pixie was standing there and told him to stop. He stopped.

Tim raced over to check for a pulse and breathing.

“He’s still alive. I'll call the cops you two get out of here. I’ll meet you back at the apartment.”

Marinette grabbed Hood’s bloody gloves and took off dragging him along, only stopping to make a quick costume change. Once back in the apartment Jason gave Marinette a big hug.

“I’m so sorry Pixie,” he sobbed into her.

“Just don’t do that again, okay? Seeing you over his body,” it sent a chill down her spine as she thought back to Paris.

“I think I need to get out of town for a couple of days, I need to get my shit together and then I’ll be back, for your death date and then we can just talk I promise.”

“Okay,” she cried a bit as he held her.

When Tim got back, he was gone.

“He’s leaving town for a couple of days,” she said.

“Oh, are you-”

“I think it’s a good thing, but um would you mind staying till he gets back? I just don’t want to be alone.”

Maybe it was a regression from her newly found peace, maybe she just wasn’t ready. But she didn’t want to be lonely.

“Of course Mari.”

He settled into the spot on the sofa next to her.

Masterlist AO3

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#jasonette #jasonette july #maribat #marinette dupain cheng #ml x dc #mlb

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 4 years ago

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Top 5 Reasons Doug’s Pretty Great

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nine years since the first episode of S1 was released. I can still remember be a wee little lass first discovering it on youtube and becoming obsessed. At the time, I had no where to play it myself, so I watched as many playthroughs as I could until my family got an xbox.

While the first episode in this series has a lot of memorable moments, the one that always stands out in people’s memories is the moment where you’re trying to escape the drugstore as walkers pound away at the door and windows, and you realize that both Carley and Doug need your help or they’re going to die.

But... you can only save one, and whoever you don’t help, they end up being eaten alive by walkers and you get to feel bad about it for the rest of the episode.

I bring this up because it’s interesting to look back nine years ago and see that... well, not a lot of people saved Doug. Which is crazy, because now the stats are pretty 50/50 with Doug even having a bit of an edge over Carley. That definitely wasn’t the case back then because the stats were more along the line of 20/80.

Why? Well, the writer’s didn’t exactly do the best job of showing how great Doug is in ep1, especially compared to Carley who has more interactions with Lee and more screen time.... which is even funnier because they did actually think they did a good job and were surprised by the results after the episode’s release.

Even back then they had a habit of making imbalanced routes then denying the imbalance... something they never grew out of.

I guess they were a little butthurt about it since Doug is a favorite among the team given that he’s actually based on a real person, Doug Tabacco, an IT guy they worked with. This got to the point where Telltale never missed an opportunity to tell everyone to #SaveDoug over Carley.

I also love that they use the Stranger to guilt trip everyone who saved Carley by having him be like, “Doug was in a worse position! >:( You only saved Carley because she was a pretty girl!!” just.... real subtle, guys haha

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that more often than not, I choose to save Carley over Doug for many reasons, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate Doug and enjoy having him around in the off chance I do save him. So I thought it’d be fun to talk about Doug as a character and why he was pretty great as a little tribute, y’know?

5. Doug’s a pretty funny dude

Now, I wouldn’t exactly call twdg a comedy, y’know? It gets dark, then manages to get even darker at times, but if the game was nothing but doom and gloom, it’d get boring and become unenjoyable.

While other characters do get a laugh out of me from time to time, I enjoy the humor that Doug brings to the group, even if it’s not intentional and just the way he is.

Even from the beginning, Doug had me chuckling with the fact that this nerdy dude didn’t want to bring profanity to Lee’s ears when talking about Larry, so he’s just like “ He's kind of a dick... pardon my french,” like Doug.... it’s okay, you can call him an asshole, no one will judge hahaha.

Then there’s the biscuit scene that I think we all know and love. Helps break the tension of meeting these weirdo’s who own a dairy and are totally not suspicious or anything.

But it’s not even just that Doug is funny, he’s also a character that gets you to crack a smile when he’s talking about something he’s passionate about, or when he’s proud of the alarm he rigged up, or when he’s being adorably awkward.

One of my favorites is in ep3 when Lee goes to ask Doug if he has any chalk, and he goes into this spiel about charcoal-- “You know, a piece of charcoal is a suitable alternative, depending on your marking surface. Since we're on the subject, did you know that while chalk is traditionally known to be calcium carbonate, what's often used in classrooms is actually made of gypsum, thanks to favorable domestic mining conditions?”

And Lee’s response is just-- “Doug, I did not know that.”

“Happy to be of service.”

It’s just really funny... and it makes you feel better after all the implications about Doug’s mental health in the episode... like you gave him a moment to flex his knowledge and get excited about it.

But yeah, what can I say? Doug makes me laugh and he brings a bit of light to the groups constant shitshow.

4. Doug saved the group’s ass at the St John farm

And he did so with a laser pointer.

I always hate it when Doug/Carley leave the group at the St Johns and remain absent for most of the episode, though I chalk that up to the writers trying to make the different routes easier on themselves, y’know?

But, at least they come back to save the day.

In Doug’s case, he’s not comfortable with guns like Carley is, so he’s gotta get creative when it comes to getting Lee’s attention and stopping Andy from hurting Duck and Lee.

That’s where his fancy little laser pointer comes in.

We first see him with it during the walk to the farm, but then see it in action after Lee escapes the barn and is nearly blinded by the light. Doug claims he was doing morse code before Lee tells him and Ben that these assholes cut off Mark’s legs and tried to feed them to the group.

Now, here’s the thing... If Doug and Ben had done what they were told and stayed at the motor inn over night, things probably wouldn’t have turned out so good for the group. Doug is the one who shines the laser pointer in Andy’s eyes when he’s got ahold of Duck, giving Lee the advantage of attack. Without that, if Lee tried anything, he would’ve ended up like dingdong Kenny with a bullet in his side.

Also there’s just a lot of bravery from Doug, y’know? Like as soon as he finds Lee and knows the situation, the first thing he asks is what can they do to help, and he sticks around to do what he can.... even if it is just to point a laser in someone’s eye.

No one gives Doug enough credit for savin’ the day, y’know? And if you have any doubt, even Lee says, “I never thought a laser pointer would be the thing that saved our lives.”

3. Doug’s friendship with Lee

Speaking of Lee, his friendship with Doug is underrated. The two have chemistry and work off each other well in the scene’s they’re in. While it’s not as strong as Carley’s in ep1, saving Doug and having around in ep2 & ep3 lets you see it at it’s best, y’know?

After Lee saves his life at the drugstore, Doug is shown to mourn Carley and asks Lee why he would pick him, lamenting that he wished he had picked her over him and you can tell that Doug feels that he owes Lee a lot for saving him. Hell, he even says as much when Lee tries to give him food in ep2-- “Why don't you keep my share today. I know I said it didn't matter why you saved me and not Carley, but... I owe you a lot more than half a day's rations."

Also, I love this one line from Kenny when you’re on bad terms with him and they’re talking about going separate ways where he’s basically like “We all know Doug’s gonna stay with you because you saved him that ONE time >:(” and on top of it being such a bitchy Kenny line, it also shows that every can see that Doug is a loyal friend to Lee and would want to stick with him where ever he decides to go.

One thing that I think people tend to overlook, though, is how concerned Lee is with Doug’s mental health in ep3. There are implications that Doug might be suffering with depression due to the situation of the walkers, bandits harrassing and threatening them, and believing that he isn’t useful to the group, stating that he feel pretty worthless. Lee asks Clementine if he seems sad, and hell, he even talks to Lilly about it.

In fact, speaking of Clementine, Doug is real sweet with her, too. Of course, he gives her those batteries for her walkie, but he also asks about how she’s doing as they’re leaving the dairy. Hell, 8 years later, Clementine still remembers him by name and how sweet he was when fucking dingdong Lilly can’t remember his damn name. That says a lot.

Y’all know how important Clementine is to Lee, so he wouldn’t have grown as close to Doug if he wasn’t a genuinely good person who treated Clementine with kindess.

I dunno, there’s a lot of trust and care between the two and it’s a relationship that I truly love. I just wish we could’ve seen a bit more of it but y’know...#2 happened.

2. Doug saved Ben’s life

Yeah, I think we all saw this coming...

Look, doesn’t matter what you think about Ben, okay? Not what we’re talkin’ about. We’re talkin’ about Doug saving Ben’s life, which unfortunately meant ending his own.

Still haven’t forgiven Lilly for this one. Though I’ve always found the difference between Doug and Carley’s death’s interesting. With Carley, Lilly intentionally kills her after Carley tells her off. But with Doug, Lilly was aiming for Ben and even when Doug pulled him out of the way, she still fired the gun... even though she didn’t have a clear shot and ended up hitting Doug.

Then she tries to play it off like it was an accident which, yeah I guess it was but that doesn’t change that you were intending to murder this 6ft tall child.

It’s just... I dunno, man, it’s sad. I always feel more sorrow for Doug’s death, but more anger for Carley’s? Even though both make me angry, it’s just different characters, different things that led to their deaths, different feelings. This is the first real “Fuck you, Lilly” moment for me and she can spend the next 8 years wandering around for all I can.

Doug didn’t deserve this shit.

But, the reason I put this at #2 because it really says a lot about Doug as a character. The second he saw Lilly aim that gun, he yanked Ben out of the way. He could’ve gone into shock, he could’ve just yelled “no!”, or he could’ve gone at Lilly instead.... but no, his first instinct was to grab Ben and move himself in front and it really fucking sucks that that’s what killed him.

And y’know this isn’t the first time Doug has put himself in danger to save someone. I already talked about him saving everyone at the dairy, but can we not forget how he and Carley met? She was gonna get eaten by walkers then our big hero Doug came in and saved her?? Didn’t know her or anything, just saw her and her crew getting attacked and did what he could to save any survivors??

Like... no one talks about that because it’s so played off and never brought up again and I need everyone to remember this, okay?

Doug selflessly putting himself in danger to help those around him? Fantastic. Beautiful. Love that.

1. Look, Doug himself is just #1. His personality, intelligence, everything.

Wow, Doug’s personality being the #1 reason he’s so great? Who woulda thought?

Well, ME woulda thought because obviously.

Listen... in case you haven’t gather this from the previous four entries, Doug is an intelligent, awkward, caring, selfless, funny, and brave man, okay? He’s likable, he tries his damnedest to pull his weight for the group, he shows actual loyalty and kindness unlike some people, and when he tends to avoid the constant Lilly and Kenny conflicts, he does his best to step in when things take a serious turn, hence the Ben situation.

No to mention the dude is smart.

I mean, he really took a random remote and was like, “Oh it’s universal, let me just program it to work on ALL the random TV’s across the street as a way to distract these walkers!” like dude.... you just know how to do that, huh?

Or his fun little bell trap that alerts the groups of strangers and walkers? Oh, and remember when he fixed the RV by hitting it with a fucking hammer and was like “It works now, drive!”

And have I mentioned that he bested Andy St John with a goddamn laser pointer??

Oh, also wanna add that I really like his voice acting, as well. He’s voiced by Sam Joan, who does a good job at selling Doug’s soft-spoken but intelligent nature, and knows how to pull off “dorky” when needed... and I mean that in a good way, when he’s talking about charcoal Doug is being a dork and I love him.

I mean... what else is there to say?

All that’s left to do is pull a Telltale and--

#SaveDoug

---

Honorable Mentions

-Doug is a pie guy, going off of that time he named all the different kinds of pie he could thing of and I feel that. -He’s a very fashionable person. I want that weird polar bear deer thing shirt he wears in ep1. -also, you can’t go wrong with socks and sandals, my dude. -He had a crush on Carley and honestly, I feel that, too.

---

There it is, there’s my whole thing about Doug. What are your thoughts? When it comes to that choice in ep1 of s1, do you save Doug or do you save Carley? Do you agree or disagree with any of my choices for this list? Or have anything to add? I’m always down to chat.

Have any suggestions for future T5F’s? Feel free to send ‘em in! :D

—

Next week’s T5F

#twdg t5f #twdg doug #twdg lee #twdg clementine #twdg kenny #twdg lilly #twdg carley #twdg ben #twdg larry #twdg mark #twdg andy #twdg #oh boy next week is gonna be a doozy #talking about characters everyone hates?#lovely

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sanchosammy · 4 years ago

Text

You’re My Person

Flip Zimmerman is a stubborn man heavily committed to his job and nothing else. That is until you’re hired to work in the file room. With past history between the two of you, a sudden shift in his priorities that he’s fighting against, and drama in a case that unknowingly involves you... Who knows what will happen next.

Note: I swear the other chapters will be so much better than this! And will include waaaay more Flip content! It was just a bit difficult to get the storyline started. I’m trying to do a whole plot for this series! Hopefully someone can enjoy this, much love from ya girl.

Word count:2123 - Chapter One

It was never in the plan to return back to your hometown Colorado Springs. You moved away without any warning at fifteen because of your fathers’ job problems. Though the recent death of your uncle Tommy had left you with his house in your hometown according to his will… Which surprised everyone in the family including yourself. He never had any children of his own but he always considered you one of his. That being said you had completely run out of options after the breakup with a boyfriend a year ago. With no more money to afford an apartment in your last location, this house seemed like the best option for you at this point.

Back here once again.

It was weird being in a place that had hardly changed since your childhood. Now being an adult and seeing the familiar sights that you once saw each day; it was somewhat comforting. This was home before and it could possibly be home again, right?

You allowed yourself to have the first few weeks in town to mourn the death of Uncle Tommy, and to settle in your new house. It felt a bit strange at first moving all of his stuff into one of the spare bedrooms. Tommy had never remarried after his first divorce, so you never worried much about upsetting anyone by changing some of the décor… It was basically a mancave with a few photos of his long-term girlfriend. Of course, you allowed her to take whatever she wanted from his place, you never felt too attached to the physical items but more the house itself.

After that though came the next step… a job. You watched the newspaper religiously looking for something that would help you not drown in debt considering you were hardly able to keep afloat for the past year. And then there it was!

“Colorado Springs Police Department: Looking for someone to work fulltime inside the file-room. Similar position to a secretary. Call for further details.”

You never considered working for a police department before. It was never something that crossed your mind growing up; but this position sounded so much better than returning to waitressing. When you called for more information on the position the local police chief was the one who wanted to speak with you. He explained that you wouldn’t need any sort of certificate, intense training, or anything truly special for this job. The listing had two requirements: you needed to pass a background check and be able to read… Easy enough considering you’ve never got into any serious trouble in your life.

In the middle of the phone call it had become pretty clear that your uncle was truly your guardian angel. You casually dropped his name and the chief instantly recognized it. They happened to be close friends in recent years and with that knowledge alone, he practically slipped you into the position without a second thought because he “owed that son of a bitch a few favors.”

You laughed that night and said, “considered them paid, sir.”

The first morning at the station you arrived earlier than you meant to. It wasn’t the worst thing because the sweet secretary Brenda introduced herself. She was kind and soft spoken, around forty-two, and the only other woman in the building. According to some sort of immature girl code carried on from high school, this created an instant work friendship between the two of you.

You figured out rather fast that Brenda was real gossip that could talk someone’s ear off and she would if you allowed her to… Which felt somewhat ironic considering she worked for a police station. She mentioned that the rookies were beyond relieved by the news of someone being hired to work in the filing room. Apparently for police officers this was the most dreadful job that came with mockery from their peers.

You were thrilled to have this opportunity though. It was almost stupid how simple the job was. Find a file for the officer and return it when it was no longer being used. Well sometimes you’d need to fill out paperwork but if that was the hardest part of the job then you considered yourself lucky. A reliable paycheck and something interesting to say about yourself at social events. What more could someone ask for?

After talking with Brenda, a man by the name of Ron Stallworth walked you to the file-room. He never made it seem like it was bothersome to be put in charge of helping the new employee though and you felt appreciative for that. He handed over a stack of papers with information about building polices and how to fill out specific paperwork for the future occasions.

Ron was an interesting guy. There was some sort of charm about him; throughout your first conversation he made you feel as if you’ve known each other before. He had an ability to keep the conversation funny and lighthearted. As he showed you around you slid in how nervous you felt in such a new environment.

“I wouldn’t sweat it, (Y/L/N). Once you get the routine down it’ll feel natural.” You recalled his words a few hours later and he was honestly right, the whole routine was somehow calming by how straightforward it was.

The sound of the door being pushed open snapped you out of your thoughts that surrounded earlier this morning. The door was the only bothersome thing about this room, the sound was hard to miss every time someone attempted to move it. You came out from behind the several rows of shelves and nearly died on the spot.

You practically stopped in your steps when you saw him. It’s been so many years since you’ve seen Flip Zimmerman… and somehow you still recognized that face in the blink of an eye. He was one of your closest friends growing up. Throughout school and on most weekends from seven years old to fifteen, the two of you had practically talked every day. Hell, you once had been camping together at fourteen… That was your first kiss.

The memories and feelings nearly overwhelmed you. He looked so different now. The last time you saw Flip was the day before your father moved the family out of town without any warning overnight… You came home and everything was packed up. You never had the chance to say goodbye to anyone. It was practically as if you died in the town, a person who slowly was never mentioned again.

Flip was a man now though. A huge one actually, he was incredibly tall with broad shoulders. A gun holster tightly holding onto them. He now had long hair that covered his big ears but it complimented his rough handsome look. Not only were you shocked by seeing him after all these years but completely blindsided by how attractive he was.

He stepped up to the counter that was separating the two of you still focused on the paper in his hand. You didn’t know what to say, would he recognize you? Would he remember you at all?

“How can I help you, officer?” you attempted to keep your voice steady as you spoke.

“I need a file on a Henry Johnson, case number four-eight-one-five.” You sucked in a breath when you heard his deep voice. The words came out his mouth so smoothly when he spoke. It baffled you how the goofy Flip Zimmerman you knew at fifteen was now the most attractive man you had ever laid eyes on.

“Sure thing, I’ll get right on that.” Your thoughts were racing as you shuffled through the boxes to find the case number. It sounded childish and stupid but this man used to be everything you ever wanted. You cannot explain how much you hated your father for years after not being able to say goodbye to Flip. The childhood feelings were stirring through you with way more intensity than you’d ever want to admit.

What if he doesn’t even remember you? It’s been nearly fourteen years, he probably forgot that entire part of his childhood. Oh God, he could be married… with children! You felt nearly sick with so many thoughts rushing through your mind at once.

As you walked towards him, he finally looked up. His eyes stopped dead on you and didn’t move. He looked serious all of the sudden, his face tense with an emotion you weren’t sure of. He just stared wordlessly as you placed the file on the countertop waiting for some sort of reaction from him.

His eyes being locked in on yours, it was harder for you to look away. You couldn’t. He hadn’t had the chance to say anything to you before a new voice broke the tension between the two of you, and it nearly made you jump out of your skin. “Well, holy shit. I didn’t know they hired a beautiful woman to work in here. I’m Jimmy, what’s your name sweetheart?”

An older man who was standing next to Flip held his hand ready to shake yours. A part of you wondered how long Jimmy had been standing there. Had he really been there the entire time and you’ve been in too much shock to notice?

Your cheeks flushed feeling overwhelmed by so much happening at once, nonetheless you reached out to his hand. “(Y/N) (Y/L/N), you can just call me (Y/N) though. It’s a pleasure to meet you Jimmy.” You nervously bit your lip for a second unsure what to say to Flip, and so you slightly turned towards him.

“Flip Zimmerman?” You asked, the name coming out quiet as if you shouldn’t be saying it. His eyes never left you throughout the interaction with Jimmy, and they remained locked on you now.

“You… (Y/N).” He no longer sounded casual like before when he was reading off the words from the paper in his hand. It was strained and forced. He seemed nearly angry at the sight of you and that made you want to shrivel up and disappear.

His jaw remained tight as if he was nearly grinding his teeth. He just stayed silent looking like a provoked animal who was hurt and ready to bite at the slightest thing that came his way. You picked up on how Jimmy glanced at Flip with a confused look, that was before he picked up the conversation back up in an attempt to ease the uncomfortable feeling in the air.

“How’s the station treatin’ you?”

“I can’t really complain, It’s pretty quiet in here. Anything was better than waitressing if I’m being honest with you.”

Jimmy chuckled in response. Flip snatched the folder off the desk before walking towards the door without a word to you or Jimmy. The feeling of concern creeping in your stomach and the feeling of queasiness returned. He seemed so upset to see you, flat out disgusted and angry. You’d never had that kind of reaction out of anyone… it felt awful.

“Don’t worry about him, we’re just busy with a new case.” Jimmy commented, noticing the tension left behind in place of Flip. He seemed nice for attempting to act as if this was a normal reaction.

You dryly forced out a laugh out of politeness. “I, uh, we know each other. Childhood friends.” You didn’t know how to explain his reaction because you didn’t understand it yourself, what did he want from you?

You attempted to shift the subject “Case?”

“We’re detectives.”

You hummed in response and picked up some folders that needed to be placed back in order. “You’ll have to tell me about it sometime, sounds interesting.”

Jimmy followed your hint which you were so thankful for and knocked on the counter before heading towards the door, saying over his shoulder. “Glad to. We’ve got plenty of stories to tell.”

As you listened to the door close behind Jimmy, you sat down in the desk chair trying to settle your nerves. You don’t know what reaction you hoped for but that was surely not the one. You had never seen Flip so angry; I mean sure he had fights with people at school but this was pure anger… directed at you. You knew he may have been somewhat bitter about you leaving but you assumed being an adult he wouldn’t have held onto that anger to such an extreme.

You wondered if it would be worth trying to talk this out with him. It felt wrong inside knowing that someone you cared so much about in the past nearly hated the sight of you.

Well, work just became more interesting…

Series dedicated to the person who is most supportive in my fanfics... and in my life. I love you dearly, @warrentrash

#flip zimmerman #flip zimmerman x you #flip zimmerman x reader #flip zimmerman fanfic #flip zimmerman fluff #adam driver fanfic #adam driver

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neverendingparable · 3 years ago

Text

KuroŌji

This wouldn’t leave my mind until I wrote it. Inspired by the fact that no matter how cool a black butler AU would be, there’s no way Phobos would go around serving a human being (probably?). And so...

@sassycompanions

TW for mentions of torture through sleep deprivation, death, and demon shenanigans.

Sleep deprivation did all kinds of things to you.

He knew it well by now, the familiar agonizing ache of forced wakefulness, how it felt like to be so tired he wanted to sob or whimper or beg for mercy.

But the experiments kept on going, relying on his unwilling participation to find and remove whatever obnoxious part of the human mind robbed society those precious eight hours of their lives.

If they could cure sleep, they would change the world. And get very, very rich. And that sort of purpose is enough to dismiss a few human lives no one would truly mourn for.

Hallucinations were common. They twisted at the edges of his vision at first, then crept closer, getting bolder and more frequent. He'd hear breathing next to his ear and see no one there when he'd turn his head. Or the soft murmur of voices roused him from his miserable thoughts, lingering even when he'd focus.

Sometimes he'd like to imagine they were his shadowy friends, unable to help other than keeping him company for however long he had left. Or he'd imagine this was a horrid nightmare he could wake up from, that the cage and the needles and the never ending torture for the sake of science were nothing but a mean trick his mind was playing on him when in reality he was tucked away safely in some bed, safe and loved, the real world's whispers seeping into his dreams.

But as vivid as they were, they never interacted much with him, their shapes disappearing when he'd grasp at them.

So when one night, one of the shadows reached through the bars of his cage and gave him a curious prod, he knew something was off.

The sudden touch startled him so badly, he nearly leapt across the cramped space to get away from the shadowy hand whose owner, a dim face half visible in the darkness, was now watching him with amusement.

They stared at each other for a couple of moments.

This is a vivid dream, he thought finally.

Ah, not quite~ a voice responded in his head. It was melodic, with a hint of an accent he couldn't quite place. None of the previous voices were this coherent.

I've gone insane, haven’t I? Took long enough, I suppose.

Darling, you're not even halfway there yet.

The experiment closed his eyes and shook his head fiercely. When he opened it again, the shadow hadn't disappeared.

You're still here?

Did you think it would be that easy?

Who are you?

The shadow's smile stretched wider, inhumanely so and despite all the horrors he had gone through before, the sight struck him with dread. Its voice scratched on the inside of his mind like fingernails on bone, making him shudder.

เ ค๓ ץ๏ยг ฬ๏гรt ภเɠђt๓คгє

He wanted to scoff, laugh and tell the shadow it was a little too late to the party. But then it twisted its form, for just a minute, and the face that leered out from behind the shadows made his heart stop in terror. A beat later it was back to being indistinct, floating between the cage bars, amused at his ever growing fear.

Have you come to kill me? He thought, unsure what answer he was hoping for.

No, it grinned back.

Then...

Don't you remember? You called me. You want to make a deal with the ๔єvเl, you foolish human.

But don’t you see that no matter they do to you, เ ςคภ ๒є ๓ยςђ ฬ๏гรє~?

It prodded his forehead with a shadowy finger and he believed it. The experiments here could break his body before his spirit but this...demon, it could reach into his mind and cut the very cords that tethered him to sanity. It could probably rip his soul out if it wanted to.

But it was looking for something. It wouldn't have come just to kill an abomination that would be dead in less than a few weeks. He felt another thing right then, something more painful than the hellish torment his body had endured and with this tiny flame of hope burning inside of him, he reached out and asked to be saved.

Protect me, he begged. And I'll serve you however you want.

The being reached into the cage and he placed a hand in its cold palm. It seemed pleased.

We have a deal.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

"Just kill me already, please." Mason moaned, staring at the list of tasks he had just been handed with a mix of despair and annoyance.

Rooms to clean.

Supplies to stock up on, which meant a trip into town.

Writing and sending off letters address to various partners of his Lord, shady or dangerous people who dropped off packages and signed contracts even he didn't get to look at.

Tending to rose bushes, watering the garden, just to name a few.

"Tsk, that would go against our contract." Came the reply, filled with feigned indignance.

Mason's head snapped up and glowered at the man lounging on the regal couch, watching him with obvious mirth.

A butler who complained about work was worthless in most households and would be replaced by yes men who followed every command with a docile bow. But that would be too boring, wouldn’t it?

His Lord allowed him the occasional grumble without any severe reprimanding because Phobos took great delight in his suffering and never missed an opportunity to point out how serving a high maintenance prince was a hell of a lot better than rotting away in some moldy cage.

He was right, of course.

"I restocked this yesterday!" Mason continued regardless. "And we don't have any guests over for at least another week, why do I need to clean the rooms out now?"

"You can't possibly know that," the prince replied, calmly picking up a porcelain tea cup with a graceful hand. "I may be expecting guests."

"Shouldn’t you tell me then? Seeing how I am your butler and need to know if we are expecting company?"

"Ah, do you?" Phobos' eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. "It seems like you spend more time arguing and whining than being useful."

Mason opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"Of course, my Lord." He sighed, giving him a disingenuous bow. "I apologize."

Phobos dismissed him with a wave that meant 'now don’t bother me again unless it has something to do with food, wine or actual entertainment' and Mason withdrew back into the kitchen to check with Charlotte if they have enough food for any surprise visits Phos the future threw at them.

(He was convinced that Phobos sometimes threw impromptu balls just to watch him scramble around desperately arranging catering and schedules at last second.)

When the shadowy figure had first pulled him out of that hell hole, Mason had expected a lot of things. A culling, perhaps. Hell. A place of punishment.

Instead, he got a butler costume, his name back and a grand, luxurious dark castle to look after, spoiled prince included.

Learning to serve was hard but Phobos refused to go easy on him, giving him elaborate instructions of how he wanted things and forcing him to spend hours perfecting the chores. When Charlotte eventually came into their midst, he was happy to hand over the cooking to someone else.

Mason never figured out why the prince kept them around - maybe out of loneliness or boredom or a hidden sinister plan yet to be discovered - but he kept up his end of the deal.

A few times, someone came for Mason. Their bodies never left the castle and he burned the remains in the basement's hearth.

Months after his rescue, a rich doctor stopped by for a visit. He had only one servant along, a sickly looking maid with hollow eyes. What had happened behind closed doors was unknown to them both, but when Mason came to serve tea, he found the doctor, lying in a pool of his own blood. He had sent the maid back into the kitchen before she could see the mess and wordlessly cleaned the blood off his Lord's hands.

Thus Charlotte joined their little party.

Mason learnt a few things about Phobos too, in the time they spent together.

He had a different name, once upon a time and a past he spoke of occasionally with a hint of derision and disgust. He had been a powerful tyrant, reflected in the way his guests spoke in his presence. He had a curse that tore him apart and left him exhausted, his room always smelling faintly of blood afterwards. None of Mason's questions were ever answered directly, so he learned to keep spare bed sheets and healing flasks at hand, knew how to recognize the signs of pain when his Lord was too proud to ask for help and ended up on a first name basis with the witches in town in his search for a cure.

You can't cure a demon, Phobos mocked him constantly.

Mason disagreed.

If a soul could be redeemed by a deal with the devil, then he felt quite confident of attempting the impossible.

#drabble #black butler au #sassycompanions #the masochist #torture tw #kinda open ended too?#i guess this just leaves room for more headcanons later

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prince-septimus · 4 years ago

Text

hard-hitting

pairing : jack thompson x SSR agent!reader

summary : 3 times jack punches someone because of you, and the one time you punch someone because of him

word count : 2.6k

You rubbed at your eyes, trying to wipe away the sleepiness you were beginning to feel. It was late. You, Agent Thompson, and Agent Sousa had to be the only ones left in the building. You weren’t sure where Peggy had run off to tonight.

You had been at this for what felt like hours. Jack was sure this guy had some information on Howard and with you being one of the best interrogators, Chief Dooley had put you on the job. You were beginning to feel the fatigue set in, though, and you hadn’t gotten much out of this man except that he liked to flirt.

“Do you want to take another break?”

You looked up at the two men in front of you. You had stepped out of the room for a moment to grab some water and try to wake yourself up a bit. It was Daniel who had asked you the question, his eyes filled with genuine concern. Jack just stood, leaning against the table with his arms crossed over his chest as he looked at the man you had been interrogating through the two-way mirror. His foot was tapping quickly, revealing his impatience.

“No, no. No more breaks.” You let out a deep breath, trying to prepare yourself to go back in there. You didn’t like this man, and considering he hadn’t said anything so far, you thought either he knew nothing, or he was never going to say. “You sure he knows something, Thompson?”

Jack’s eyes flicked towards you. He looked just as tired as you felt with his blond hair falling onto his forehead. “He has to. His name was all over those reports.”

You just nodded and turned to head back in the room.

When you saw the man’s smirk, you wanted to hit him. That wasn’t your style of interrogation, though, and if Chief Dooley had wanted someone to beat the information out of this man he would’ve sent Jack in instead.

“Needed a break, sweetheart?”

“You know, we could end this now if you’d just give up your buddy.” You assumed Jack’s previous position of leaning with arms crossed. You so badly wanted this interrogation to be over so that you could go home and get some well-deserved sleep.

“I told you, I don’t know anything about Stark.” He shrugged before leaning back in his chair, using the length of the hand cuff chains to his advantage as he placed his hands on the back of his head. “Haven’t talked to him in a couple years at least.”

“We know that’s a lie, so I don’t know why you keep pushing that narrative.” You motioned to the files you had left sitting on the table at the very beginning of the interrogation. “Your name shows up quite a few times showing that you’ve interacted with Howard Stark within at least the past 6 months.”

The man didn’t say anything.

You sighed. “You know that if you help us with our investigation, we can help you out with some of those misdemeanors you have piled up.”

Still nothing.

You reached up to pinch the bridge of your nose for a second before moving forward and slamming your hands down on the table. You felt your palms sting slightly as they made contact with the rough surface. “You have information on Howard Stark. Valuable information. Maybe you can just give it to us and we can stop playing games here.”

The man brought his hands back down and leaned forward in his chair. “Maybe I like playing games with a pretty thing like you.”

“The information. Now.”

“You know, maybe if you give me a kiss, I’d think about offering up what I know.”

You hadn’t noticed when Jack had entered the room, but there he was, his fist making contact with the man’s face. It knocked the man’s chair back, causing him to fall to the ground though his hands were still cuffed to the table.

Daniel appeared in the doorway. “I couldn’t stop him.”

“Jack,” you tried to berate your coworker, but frankly, you were too tired. Instead you reached out and tugged on his shirt sleeve, encouraging him to step away from the man who was now trying to stifle the blood dripping from his nose.

“You hit me!”

Jack made to step towards the man again, but you kept a firm hold on his sleeve. “I’ll do it again if you don’t tell us what you know.”

“Jack.”

“Fine.” The man made to stand, spitting out a bit of blood. “I’ll tell you.”

You let out a deep sigh and looked back at Daniel, giving a small smile in victory.

Chief Dooley was dead.

You hadn’t quite realized how much that would affect you until it had happened. It had hit you hard, and now, hours after it had happened, you were still shaking, and your eyes were rimmed red.

“It’s really something, ain’t it, Agent?”

You looked up from the paperwork laid out across your desk to see one of the other agents, one whose name escaped you now. He was smirking at you. “What?”

You voice was rough after the events of the day, and this agent seemed to find some joy in that. “Oh, you know, now we won’t have to worry about the Chief picking favorites.”

You stood from your chair then, coming face to face with the man who simply grinned at you. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He motioned to the room, where everyone had been mourning in their own way, everyone other than this man, of course. “We all know Dooley favored you over everyone, even Thompson.”

“How dare you.”

“Roberts.”

It was Jack who had said the agent’s name. ‘Roberts’ seemed to lose all his courage at the sound of his new Chief’s booming voice calling his name.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Roberts looked like he would rather be anywhere else. “Just giving this agent some advice.”

“Like hell you were,” you fired back, but Jack reached out a hand to place on your shoulder, squeezing slightly.

“I got it.”

You were about to turn to look at Jack and question what he was about to do, but you didn’t get the chance before he surged forward and punched Roberts, sending him flying back.

Your mouth fell open, but no noise came out. When you turned to Jack, he simply gave you a nod before turning around and marching back to his office.

You struggled to hold back Jack.

Tonight had been another long one, and the two of you were meant to go out to a local bar to find a suspect.

It hadn’t ended well.

“Jack, come on, let’s get out of here.” You had a hand on his chest, attempting to push him back, but he held strong.

“Come on, I can take him.”

You gave a hard shove to his shoulders, pushing him towards the door. “Not all of them you can’t.”

Work had been hard lately. Jack now had all the responsibilities of Chief and it had clearly taken a toll on him. He had been more hostile, even to you.

“Jack, please.”

“Oh, you need your girl to hold you back, Thompson.”

You might’ve purposely loosened your grip on Jack. He took the opportunity to push forward and get a well-aimed punch in on the man.

You tried to hide your smile as you pulled Jack out of the crowded bar.

“I always feel uncomfortable during these types of things.”

Jack glanced sideways at you, his champagne flute held halfway to his lips. “You don’t like dressing up and roaming around a ballroom, talking to rich people about how rich they are for two hours?”

You playfully bumped your shoulder against his. “Not when I could be at home sleeping, or at the office catching up on paperwork.”

“Am I that bad of date to spend time with?”

Your eyebrows shot up and Jack gave you a smile.

There was something different about you and Jack lately. Nothing major had changed. Work was still the same, and you still spent most of your time working rather than taking time for yourself, but there was something that had changed between you and Jack.

There were more excuses to talk to each other. More fleeting touches between the two of you – pats on shoulders after a successful mission or a hand on the arm in order to get each other’s attention. It had taken a while to realize, too, how much you had begun to enjoy being around Jack Thompson.

You were aware of all this now as Jack put a hand on the small of your back, pushing lightly to lead you forward.

“There’s our target.”

You followed Jack’s line of sight and spotted the person the two of you were after. “Wow,” you breathed out, “she’s gorgeous.”

She was the most beautiful woman you had ever seen, besides Peggy of course.

You missed the way Jack looked at you then.

“Let’s go get her then.”

Jack nodded, placing his still half-full drink onto a waiter’s tray as they passed. “Do you remember the plan?”

You felt the heat rush to your cheeks at the memory of what the two of you had planned to do in order to get this woman alone so that you could figure out what she knew.

You and Jack were to poise as a married couple, one who had an interest in this woman and were planning to drag her off to a corner for a good time. You weren’t sure who had discovered this woman’s desire for nights spent with married couples, but Jack decided it was a good way to get her alone without seeming suspicious.

When the two of you finally reached the beautiful woman, she smiled at you in a way that you knew meant something more than a greeting.

You swallowed hard.

“Miss Chekov,” Jack spoke smoothly. He had clearly turned the charm on. “It’s so wonderful to finally meet you.”

“Please call me Mia.” Her accent wasn’t as thick as you had expected, probably from all her time spent working on American film sets where directors encouraged the use of a fake accent. “And who are you, might I ask?”

“Jack Thompson,” Jack stated clearly, taking Mia’s hand when she held it out and placing a kiss on her fingers, never breaking eye contact with her. “And this is my partner,” he added on when he straightened up, his arm looping around your waist. “We’re married.”

Something in Mia’s appearance opened up then. She looked at you with an overly sweet smile. “Really?”

“We were wondering if we could go somewhere to talk?” you finally spoke up, returning the smile. “You know, privately.”

“Well, of course. I know the perfect place.”

You were wondering what you had gotten yourself into when you found yourself shoved up in a corner in an abandoned hallway, Mia’s lips attached to your neck. You were glad your appearance wouldn’t matter any longer since you knew her lipstick would be smeared all over your skin.

“You have gorgeous body,” Mia mumbled, pulling back to give you a lust-filled look. “Maybe you should kiss your husband. He’s looking truly lonely over there.”

You looked over her shoulder to meet Jack’s gaze. You weren’t surprised to find that he had gone tense, but you needed him to continue playing the part. You needed Mia to feel relaxed enough before you threw the truth out there. “Jack, dear? Don’t you want to play?”

Maybe it was because he knew he needed to continue on with his plan, maybe it was the way your voice sounded so sweet and melted into him, but Jack took the few steps forward to meet the two of you and kissed you with so much passion you gasped into his mouth.

Jack didn’t let up. His hand found your waist, squeezing lightly as he deepened the kiss. If this weren’t a mission and the two of you weren’t playing the part of a married couple, you’d think this kiss held some meaning behind it.

Mia put a hand on Jack’s shoulder, pushing slightly. “Alright, you don’t get to have all the fun here.”

“Neither do you,” Jack said simply. You knew he meant it for Mia, but he hadn’t looked away from you yet. You wished he’d look at you that way any other time besides this moment, right here.

Finally, he turned to Mia. “We need you to tell us everything you know about what the Russians are planning.”

“What?” Mia took a step back, her eyes flicking back and forth between the two of you. “Who are you? FBI?”

Jack smiled. “SSR.” He used the hand still on your waist to pull you off the wall and steady you on your feet.

“Agents?” She gave a sigh and a flick of her hair. “How disgusting. So, are the two of you even married?”

“That’s none of your concern, Miss Chekov,” you explained, feeling a little dizzy from Jack’s kiss. You tried not to let it show. “Now, if you could come with us—”

“I’m not going anywhere with the two of you.”

When Mia turned on her heel, attempting to walk away from the two of you, Jack reached out to grab at her arm.

“Miss Chekov—”

There was a loud smack and you couldn’t stop the little gasp that escaped your mouth.

Jack was holding the side of his face where Mia had just slapped him. He was clearly stunned, and without thinking about what you were doing you marched forward and punched Mia, knocking her to the ground.

"Shit,” you breathed out, flexing your hand and gasping at the pain you felt. You hadn’t been prepared to throw that punch, and your already bruising knuckles were proof of that.

“Did you just throw a punch for me?” Jack appeared next to you, reaching for your hand. You flinched as he opened it, carefully running his fingertips across your knuckles. “We’ll have to put some ice on it.”

“Don’t worry about me,” you nodded your head at Mia, who lay on the ground grasping her face. She seemed dazed. “Let’s get her and go before someone comes back here.”

After the punch, Mia seemed more complicit. She caused no more trouble and left with the two of you easily. The rest of the night was calm, and you were left to ice your hand and write out a report as Jack did his thing with interrogation.

When he returned, it was late. He had removed his suit jacket and sat with his sleeves rolled up. You headed for his office with your report, knocking on his already open door and giving him a smile.

“Get everything you needed out of her?”

“As much as I could.” Jack leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh. “How’s your hand?”

You scoffed. “How’s your face?”

“You threw a nasty punch back there.”

“Ah, anything for my friends.” You walked up to the front of Jack’s desk and threw the paperwork for your mission down before flexing your hand for him. “It’ll be fine. Nothing’s broken.”

Jack leaned forward with his elbows on the desk as he looked up at you. “Friends, eh?”

You raised an eyebrow. “Is that not what we are, Chief?”

“I don’t think friends kiss each other like that, Agent.”

You felt your breath catch. “That was for the mission.”

“Perhaps.” Jack ran a hand through his hair, messing up the neatness of it. “But are you sure it meant nothing?”

You were at a loss for words but decided that being honest was the best way to go about this. “I will admit, I don’t regret that kiss.”

“And?”

Your lips pulled up in a smile. “And maybe I wouldn’t mind doing it again.”

#jack thompson #jack thompson x reader #jack thompson imagine #agent carter #agent carter imagine #my fics

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satonthelotuspier · 4 years ago

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There Are Two Ways To Live A Life

“There are two ways to live a life either forget everything or, remember nothing.” - Santosh Kalwar.

Jamais vu: From the French, meaning "never seen". The illusion that the familiar does not seem familiar.

We have only one person to thank for this (again) - Dee - @BangpurpleTan - this idea is based very strongly on her indescribably brilliant edit here. All Dee's edits are a blessing on the timeline but this one fuelled the plot bunnies immensely.

This fic is endgame Xicheng.

If you follow me on Twt or on AO3 you’ll probably be aware this is already updated to chapter 5 over on AO3 - I’ll post the rest to tumblr over time if there’s any interest.

Chapter 1 - If Snow Melts Down to Water

“If snow melts down to water, does it still remember being snow?” ― Jennifer McMahon, The Winter People.

He could smell nothing but fire and death; the scent of blood hung in the air; between that, and the smoke, it was almost too thick to breathe, even where the smoke was less thick, here, as he lay on the courtyard floor in front of the great hall, in a pool of blood that was both his own and from the other’s lain slain around him.

It was red flames and redder blood that were the last things he saw before his eyes drifted closed, and everything else faded to black.

Jiang Shao woke suddenly from the nightmare, taking in a deep gasp of air as if he really had been struggling to breathe, suffocated by the smoke from burning buildings.

But a nightmare was all it was, wasn’t it? His hands tightened in the quilt covering him, but he forced them to relax, as his movements woke the sleeping figure at his side.

“Shao-er?”

He tried to force his breathing to steady, and cleared his expression, as he turned it on the now wakened Xue Rong.

“It was just a bad dream. It’s faded now. I’m sorry to wake you.” He sounded normal. Or at least like he’d sound if he was woken from sleep by a normal nightmare.

“I have to leave soon, so it’s fine. You should stay and try to rest a little more though.” A soothing hand squeezed his shoulder, intending to offer comfort.

Jiang Shao nodded, and lay back as Xue Rong rose, threw on his robes, and, with a final goodbye, disappeared into the still-dark morning.

He was glad; it gave him time to consider the thing that bothered him the most about the nightmare; the death of the woman who looked exactly like Jiang Shao.

Could it be that it wasn’t a nightmare, that it was an actual memory trying to surface?

He didn’t know.

In reality he could remember nothing about his childhood. He had no memory of who his parents were, and therefore the figure in his dream could either be formed from a subconscious remembrance, or his dreaming mind making up a maternal figure; what else did he have to go on except his own features?

His earliest memory was waking up in the home of a farming family somewhere near Yiling. A merchant prince passing through had, apparently, stumbled upon him wandering dazed and barely alive in the wilderness, and taken pity on the severely injured young man, paying for the village healer to tend his wounds and the family to board him until he was well enough to leave.

Less honest folk might have seen the opportunity to accept the gold, slit his throat the moment the merchant had moved on, and profited greatly from him; luckily he hadn’t fallen into the hands of dishonest people.

He didn’t know his exact age; the best guess that could be made was he had been in his mid to late teens when found. He didn’t know where he was from; though they claimed his dialect was that of Yunmeng.

When he had healed enough he helped during the harvest season alongside the family’s own sons, as thanks for their kindness, and then left in search of the merchant who he owed his life to; he had no better idea of what he could do than to pledge himself to that man to repay his goodness.

There had been a part of him that hoped the travelling would spark memories; but it hadn’t helped at all.

Once he had caught up with the merchant in Jiuzi, that kind gentleman had again taken pity on him, and had offered him military training, as long as Jiang Shao joined his personal army, and they were both pleased to find out that, though Jiang Shao’s mind didn’t know it, his muscles clearly showed the memory of martial training.

Jiang Shao was thankful that he could be useful, and had found a place in a world he didn’t really know.

A little while into his tenure in the private army of Ye Qingyan he had been part of the forces his master had loaned to join the imperial army to quell an invasion from the northern kingdom. He had recommended himself to the son of the Emperor by saving his life on the battlefield; he had taken a wound that had been meant for Xue Rong, earning his gratitude and thanks.

They had met again some years later. By this time Jiang Shao had undergone training as an assassin and spy for his merchant prince master. Ye Qingyan had rendered some service to the then acknowledged Crown Prince, enabling the two to renew their acquaintance and friendship. Some time later the merchant had elected to step away from court life in the capital and retire to his family estate in a distant province, to focus on his new young wife and the children she would hopefully bear him. A father and a husband had no need for a spymaster and assassin, so Jiang Shao had been ‘gifted’ to Prince Jin, as a final act of service and good regard by Ye Qingyan.

It wasn’t long later when the old emperor’s failing health had put his intended Crown Prince on the throne, and Xue Rong had donned the Dragon Robe.

Now Jiang Shao was the Tianzi’s secret weapon. His hidden blade.

To the court he was passed off as a male lover the Emperor had taken as a young man, who he still occasionally bedded, and appointed to a minor ministry role, which sent him travelling around the empire. A perfect cover for a man often sent from the capital to enact the will of the Emperor in secrecy.

Jiang Shao turned over, and pulled the blankets over his head, trying to calm his swirling thoughts.

Despite Xue Rong’s orders, he didn’t think that he’d be able to sleep again that night; but undeterred by his doubts he did drift off again just before dawn.

***

The moonlight shone through the laden branches overhead, giving the night an ethereal glow, making it feel almost unreal, as they walked along the paths together. No matter how much he tried to give himself the courage to meet the other’s gaze head on, he still couldn’t steal more than quick glances from beneath his lowered lashes.

The other was too handsome. Too perfect. Especially with the moon’s pure gaze limning his jade-like features. It was almost overwhelming to be near someone as gentle and warm as dawn light; and to think that he might like him too.

Overwhelming.

Jiang Shao’s heart had begun to flutter in his chest as the taller boy paused on the pathway, reached up into one of the overhanging bows, and pulled free a sprig of magnolia blossom.

His mouth formed a tender smile, and he held the sprig out to Jiang Shao; who reached for it tentatively. It was all he could do to stop himself from clutching the gift to his chest, and he felt a rush of heat climb up his neck in the still night air.

“Thank you.” The words were barely more than a whisper, as loud and as forceful as he could manage past the lump in his throat.

They walked on a little further, to a cluster of buildings, where Jiang Shao mounted the steps, and the taller boy paused at the foot.

Jiang Shao stopped, and turned.

He felt unutterably sad.

“Tomorrow I’ll have to return home.”

“I know. I’ll miss you. But I’ll wait for you. Forever if I have to, A-Cheng.”

Some of the sadness melted away at his words.

“You will?”

“I will.”

He felt an answering smile shape his mouth, before the other took Jiang Shao’s ( A- Cheng’s?) hands in his own, then, leaning up due to Jiang Shao’ s position on the steps , brushed a gentle kiss against his cheek.

The dream faded, and Jiang Shao woke up plagued by a feeling of indescribable sadness and loss.

He was frustrated that whenever he experienced these unusual dreams, he couldn’t tell whether they were created from his lost memories, or purely formed from nothing at all.

He had spent a long time under the yoke of regret, caused by the hopelessness of knowing nothing about his previous life, whether he still had parents living, or other family; whether he was been missed, or had been mourned, when he vanished. The feelings were crushing. And there were something that, if he hadn’t learned to put aside and compartmentalise them, would probably have destroyed him by now.

So he had learned to put those feelings aside, bury them deep and only take them out when he was feeling particularly maudlin or introspective.

A luxury he didn’t often afford himself.

To the rest of the world, what little he interacted with of course, he was a cheery young man with a ready smile who went with the flow of life, no matter where it took him.

That mantle was heavier some days than others.

***

The sun was bright and clear that morning as he stepped foot back in Jiankang after several weeks in the provinces.

He still wasn’t entirely used to the hustle and bustle of a capital city; especially after he had been away for any length of time. There was something that always seemed to make him feel like a country bumpkin when traversing the packed streets of Jiankang.

It was probably the air of importance everyone seemed to try and give themselves in the capital; it was never a feeling that manifested itself in small agricultural towns with equally as busy markets, for example.

His discomfort told him he had never been a city boy, even in the past that he couldn’t remember.

It seemed, to him, that people in the capital considered that they were made more important by mere virtue of being so close to the Son of Heaven.

If that were genuinely the way it worked, however, it made Jiang Shao particularly lofty in rank.

In reality, the idea amused him immensely; it wasn’t a concept he could take seriously. He was a nobody who had had the good fortune to recommend himself to Prince Jin before his ascension, and who proved useful still to the Tianzi.

And that was all Jiang Shao needed from life. A purpose to drive him on. And what more purpose could he wish for than to serve his Emperor in protecting the Empire and it’s people?

He paused at a vendor and bought Jianbing; if he ate on the way back to the royal city he could quickly bathe and be ready to report to the Tianzi when the Emperor’s schedule allowed.

He wandered along the packed streets as he ate.

The thing he missed most when returning to Jiankang was the food. His palate naturally craved spicier foods than were typically available here; he was a long way from what might have once been his home. Although home was an assumption he made only, going only on the dialect he spoke with, which had been softened over the years by his travel in the private army of Ye Qingyan and then his life in the capital in service of the Emperor.

He pondered as he walked; perhaps it was time to request a little time away from the palace, so he could return to Yunmeng to investigate his possible origins. He had wandered through the lakes soon after he’d left the farm near Yiling, hoping to stumble across some clue as to who he was, or jog his lost memories, but the area was occupied by invading forces, and was a bloody war zone; it wasn’t safe for ordinary people to be caught in the crossfire of two massive armies.

He had heard tell of a slaughtered family, of young generals making names for themselves, and he privately wondered if, before his memory loss, he might have been part of the defending army, and that was where his wounds had been earned. But how was he meant to pinpoint one missing life in a sea of so much death and destruction? It would have been impossible, and he couldn’t stay, and take the risk of falling into the hands of either side; how could he when he didn’t know friend from foe? Interrogators wouldn’t believe a story about lost memories if he fell into the wrong hands and was thought to be an enemy spy.

So he had abandoned his search and continued east in pursuit of Ye Qingyan, avoiding battles and armies as he travelled across the Central Plains.

Now, with his gained skills as a spymaster and information broker, he might still come up against the same impossible task of identifying one lost grain of rice in a field full of it, but he had more hope than he had then. Even with the passage of time a cold trail might sometimes be stumbled upon.

He had spent so many years putting the sadness, the emptiness, the sense of being broken, less than his whole, aside, covering it with a smile and a laugh. He hadn’t dared to dwell on it, lest it crush him.

But every little while, he would dream one of those unusual dreams that seemed too real to be purely imagination, but not real enough that he could be certain they were so. They plagued his sleep in clusters, and now those clusters came with increasing frequency.

What if it was his past life trying to break through to the surface, now the trauma had faded?

He should at least try to see if there were any trails to follow in Yunmeng. And he had a possible birth name to begin with.

Chéng.

It wouldn’t make things easy but it would ensure he was able to disregard some leads.

He finished his makeshift breakfast, called briefly at his lodgings in the barracks to bathe and change out of his travel-stained clothes, (oh how it annoyed Xue Rong, even now, that he refused to use the ministerial palace that had been allotted to him,) and made his way to the Emperor’s hall.

He intended to let Xue Rong’s aide know he was back and ready to report at the Tianzi’s leisure, then spend his time bringing himself up to date with happenings while he had been away from the capital.

Due to the fact he approached from the barracks and not the city gate, he saw the group approaching before any of them would have been able to see him.

He halted like he’d walked into an invisible wall.

One guard escortedtwo gentlemen cultivators

He guessed from their dress and the easily identified symbols of their clans that these two were likely Lan Xichen of the Gusu Lan sect, and Jin Guangyao of Lanling Jin, and current incumbent of the title of Chief Cultivator.

One was dressed in richly appointed gold robes, decorated in a peony motif, he was of medium height and bore a vermilion mark on his forehead. He wore a gauze hat, which was just as exquisitely embroidered and jewelled as his robes.

Jin Guangyao, Lianfang-zun, half-brother to the current Jin Sect leader.

And the second man should really have been overshadowed by the first, considering how plain his garb was in direct comparison to his companion’s. But in reality was like the dawn light measured against a star in the sky; it could only outshine.

This man was tall, willowy, and perfectly graceful in figure, movement and look.

A pristine white headband decorated with clouds sat at his brow and he was robed in pure white.

Lan Xichen, Zewu-jun, current sect leader of Gusu Lan.

That gentleman looked at his companion, as Jin Guangyao spoke to him, with gentle amber eyes. Eyes that Jiang Shao sometimes saw in his dreams.

Pure white robes.

Mourning robes. A strident, mocking voice, one he knew so well, but not at all, sounded in his head.

Gentle amber eyes.

A-Cheng. Tender tones spoken lowly in a rich timbre.

There was such a clamour in his head suddenly. He must have made a noise, or they caught his movement from the corner of their eyes, because the pairs’ gazes turned his way.

But he was a creature of the darkness and secrecy, and he didn’t wish to be seen. Not yet. Not like this, when he didn’t know up from down or real from false, so he ducked out of sight, and sank to the ground when he was assured he was unseen.

The implications were overwhelming.

If the jade-like lover of his dreams was real, how many of the others who appeared there were?

Chapter 1 Notes:

This is a post I referred to quite heavily, originally from lansizhuis blog but added to, as is one of the beauties of tumblr, by even more useful and helpful information by various people. I, and no doubt others who've found the information useful, can only thank them for their sharing their findings with the rest of us.

I needed an idea of what would be going on at court for the Emperor and Jiang Shao in the mdzs timeline. Xue Rong is therefore enthroned as the Emperor of the Southern Dynasty, who's capital would have been Jiankang, (present day Nanjing), in the 450's, which is situated georgraphically between where the Jin clan was based in Lanling, (present day Linyi), Shandong province, and the Lans in Gusu, (present day Suzhou, just south east of Nanjing), in Jiangsu province.

It's perfectly fair to say that an Emperor, at war with a powerful neighbouring empire would be very uncomfortable with these two powers almost pincering his capital, and would be suspicious of them if they weren't openly declaring for or against him. The entire arena for what happens in MDZS is in the borderlands between the Northern and Southern Dynasty's lands, it would make both north and south very nervous.

This is canon time divergence AU MDZS, but alternative universe SGQJ, which was set in the Zhou Dynasty. over a thousand years before when the likely time for MDZS to be set is, as per the research done by anon and others in the post linked above.

#mdzs fanfic #the legend of two sisters in the chaos fanfic #crossover #shaorong #xicheng #chaptered fic #mdzs canon divergence #alternate universe two sisters verse #blood #injury #amnesia #torn loyalties #slow burn xicheng #TWTLAL AU #Shay's stuff

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project-ohagi · 5 years ago

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Keigo Takami ღ Hawks x Reader 3/4

Buy me a coffee!! <3

Parts 1 / 2 / 4

"I'll take her back with me. We…we lived together anyway." A little white lie couldn’t claim to be quite so harmful - not now.

In order for his beautiful baby bird to flourish once more, she would require round-the-clock attention, provided by someone knowledgeable of her life, someone who would willingly offer her unbridled love and protection…someone who vowed never to force a sense of abandonment upon her. Never again. The doctor neglected to question this, thankfully saving him the embarrassment of being coerced into further conversation with a voice that shivered from heartache.

In that instant, a previously-dormant determination ignited inside his chest. He would rebuild your life together, your sweet romance. If he didn’t even try…well, perhaps that would be the universe's way of plaguing him with evidence of his worthlessness - if he didn’t at least attempt to repair the foundations of your relationship, whether by curing your amnesia or just starting from scratch, then he didn’t deserve you. If he wasn’t prepared to venture to the extremes for you, then he would concede that he wasn’t good enough, that he couldn’t hold a candle to your grandeur. He would cut himself from your life. You didn’t remember him, so you probably wouldn’t mourn. Gods…that thought alone killed him. To think, after one dreadful decision, after a single moment of weakness…he could suddenly mean nothing to you…

I'll set work aside for now. The Commission can say what they want, but I'm not letting her go. Not again. Not so soon.

You giggled, the sound seeming to caress away any stray tears dripping down his face. "We lived together? Are we related or something? Oh, you're not my brother, are you?"

How much did she forget?

"I-I'm your…" The words caught in his throat.

No - he would spare everyone the overly-emotional display, the unsightly waterworks. He was a hero, for gods' sake! He couldn’t act so goddamn vulnerable in public! The only person who ever managed to detrude his masque of confidence was you, and you would often tell him how special it made you feel. So even now, even when you had no memory of him…he would reserve his innermost feelings, solely for you. A small sniffle was all he allowed, because it became impossible to stop. Shortly thereafter, the two of you were dismissed. Hawks was adamant about flying you bridal-style to his house, which, following your inclusion, would morph from a lonely bachelor pad to a home filled with warmth and comfort. He wished to be consumed by excitement, as he should have been...but this was all wrong. The series of events, the manner in which you were to be confined…he would barely even receive any welcome, since his comings-and-goings would be less frequent.

He was resolved to stick by your side, like superglue.

He refused to let you hide from his watchful gaze, until the time was right.

The minute he touched down, a phone was pressed against his ear. It was a little confusing at first, but you could hear a few curt words. He was being reprimanded, but his expression betrayed no concern. At least, not for them.

With a dejected sigh, he settled you on your feet. "Well, dove…I'm taking some time off work to look after you. This is…this is our house. Do you remember it?"

You hated to shatter the ounce of hope bleeding from his voice, but it couldn’t be helped. "Um, no…sorry. It's really big, though. How'd you afford it?"

"…So you don't remember my job, either?...Is there anything you do remember?" He led you inside, careful not to startle you as he closed the door.

"Yep!" You sung, and although Hawks' heart should have swelled with rapture, it instead sunk further into a chasm of despair - he knew that he was no longer your missing puzzle piece, the thing you had been searching for constantly, until you met. "I remember my childhood, and apparently everything up until I turned nineteen."

Did I traumatise her that much, her mind purposefully erased me?

He gulped, anxious to scrabble back into your life. "We met…just after your nineteenth birthday."

"Really?" You sounded happy - happier than he could recall you in a while. "Hey, uh…I'm sorry I don't remember you, but I still don't know your name."

"It's…It's Keigo. Takami Keigo. I'm a…pro hero." Usually, pride would coil around his voice when this information was given, but it was nothing more than embellishment; it couldn’t have reflected his heart any less.

I gotta smile, right? Otherwise…she'll end up miserable. I can’t do that to her. I can't take away that happy look. Not now. I'm such a bastard for ever letting my mission get in-between us.

Throughout this entire interaction, Hawks had remained nigh-silent, any last trace of alacrity dried up. Thus, an extremely sudden shift in character bewildered you beyond words. A smile might have graced your lips, had you not been gifted with such sharp perception. You didn’t believe, not even for a second, that he had overcome that intense sorrow. Yet, you couldn’t risk triggering something. You were directed to a large couch, while one of those gorgeous, crimson feathers floated towards you, carrying what appeared to be a book. For more specificity, it was a photo album. It weighed down his feather, but he wasn’t paying attention. You wanted to laugh, to explain how weird this was, when phones and social media existed, but…that look, that glint of upset intertwined with hope…

...It muted you.

As he flicked through the pictures, often lingering on the most heart-warming scenes - the two of you sitting lip-locked underneath the stars, weaving flower crowns for young hero fans, your utter devastation upon dropping an ice cream...and the next one was Hawks sharing his own - you watched his hands. He had started lovingly stroking the pages, as though yearning to relive those precious moments. You refused to glance up, to get sucked into the kindling fire of his eyes; you knew, somehow, that you wouldn’t escape their dreamy sheen.

If only you had enabled yourself to drown in those golden pools, to explore them for an eternity. Hawks was desperate to lay claim to you again, before someone else lured you away. This prospect terrified him, and his wings rustled as the fear shot around his whole body. Couldn’t you see, couldn’t you understand how much he treasured you? More than fame or money, even the photo album! He needed you - the real you, climbing back into his arms. Forcing his self-restraint, Hawks closed the book. If his tear ducts turned into dams, he wouldn’t be capable of battling the flood. He would succumb to the glacial water, and then who would you run to for shelter? If you fell into the homeless population, or the callous hands of a villain…

I thought we would last forever. That we would still be together, even after we died. We made a promise, didn’t we…? Don't drop me like I never meant anything to you. Please, don't drop me…

The subsequent days brimmed with bliss.

At least…for you.

Hawks was a surprisingly adept cook, but take-out was on the menu every other day. He tended to your needs with a sweeping devotion. He never failed you, not even once. You also had the opportunity to wander the perimeter of his house, but your rebellious streak compelled you further, far past the invisible barriers erected for your own safety.

"Hey, I've been meaning to ask…" You began, while Hawks traced circles on your arms. "These scars…did you - did you do something to me?"

His recovering heart plummeted, and he spent a few minutes just staring, eyes glazed over with shock, hurt and a touch of guilt. When he finally responded, his voice was hoarse. "W-Why would you…think that I…? T-That I…hurt you?"

"Ah, I'm sorry! I was just wondering. I didn’t think you'd done anything, but I had to make sure. Can't exactly stay with an abuser…right?" Although you endeavoured to laugh it off, your words did nothing to console him.

His head drooped, as he whispered and sniffled all at once. "R-Right…"

"Oh yeah!" You giggled, as though the storm had been quelled.

I've always adored her voice, but right now…I can't bear it…

"I met someone today!"

[Word Count: 1393]

#bnha #bnha x reader #my hero academia imagines #my hero academia x reader #bnha hawks x reader #bnha hawks #keigo takami x reader #hawks x suicidal reader

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fullmetalscullyy · 4 years ago

Text

elizabeth’s origin

“may i request a Young!Royai fic about the origin of "Elizabeth" where Roy thinks he overhears Riza listening to a radio play but really she's just living her best lonely, only child life and doing different voices/acting as different characters? thank you so much for all that you share!” – shmesco on ao3

The music that was playing somewhere in the house was just enticing enough to draw Roy away from his studies. He should stay. He should continue with his studies. Glancing at the grandfather clock in Master’s study, he was due for a break in five minutes. Settling himself into his chair, Roy refocussed on the paper in front of him, a small frown on his face as he concentrated on trying to block out the faint music.

Since when did anyone in this house play music?

Master Hawkeye was out on an errand in town. Riza was… somewhere. Roy didn’t know where. It saddened him to know she was on her own most of the time. He vowed he would try and make more of an effort to spend time with her –

The grandfather clock chimed on the hour, making Roy jump with the sudden sound. Slamming his textbook closed, he stood from his chair and left the study. He should’ve noted what page he’d been working on, but he didn’t care. His brain was feeling fried and he needed a rest, the words beginning to swim before his eyes. Plus, a walk through the house to try and find this mystery music would give him a good opportunity to stretch his legs. Roy grimaced as his muscles strained after sitting for so long.

The music called him up the stairs to the second floor. His assumption was correct that it was Riza, as it was coming from behind her bedroom door. He didn’t know she liked to listen to music.

The house could be suffocating in its silence because that was the way Master Hawkeye liked to work. Roy just thought he was the only one who found the silence to be too much sometimes.

Creeping forward, then cringing at the old creaky floorboards, Roy strained his ears to listen.

She was singing.

It was soft. It was incredibly quiet, but Roy could hear her voice matching the one coming from the radio. He froze in place, listening in closer.

Riza was singing along with the story.

Roy realised it was a tale he recognised after overcoming his initial shock. It was an old children’s one, but it was one of his sister’s favourites. Over time, the more he listened, the more he’d come to enjoy it too.

“Do you ever wish you could be someone else for a day, Hayate?” Riza whispered suddenly, breaking him from his thoughts.

Roy blinked. Hayate was her little dog toy. Was she… playing along with it?

“I do,” Riza continued, unaware of someone listening in on her. “I would be… Hm, I don’t know what name I would pick. I wouldn’t want to take Mother’s name. It’s too close to mine.”

“And so, Queen Elizabeth defeated the evil sorcerer who had cast a dastardly spell of silence over her kingdom,” the storyteller on the radio announced passionately. “With the spell broken, music could return to her lands and the people would rejoice once more, with song and dance. They would be happy for many years to come, all thanks to their wonderful Queen. The evil sorcerer who had held her people hostage with his tyranny and his silence was banished, defeated completely by our hero.”

“I like Elizabeth,” Riza breathed. “I would love to be like her. I like playing her parts too,” she admitted shyly, even while in the privacy of her own bedroom. “What do you think, Hayate?”

Roy was stuck in place. Too much new information was flooding his mind and he was trying to consume it all. Riza appeared to hate the silence in this house just as much as he did. And, she could sing! It was wonderful to hear from the girl who was always so silent and shy. Up here, in her room, she could express herself freely. With her father out the house, she could finally be free for a few hours. And she spoke to her toy animals. That was cute, Roy thought. He wondered what other things she liked. Did she do this often? It endeared her to him even more, and he had flashes of memories of him playing with his own toys a few years ago, running through his aunt’s bar with his toy horse in his hand, playing make believe. The stories and adventures he’d had… He missed them.

The sound of the front door slamming jerked him out of his thoughts. Roy got a fright, and there was a scramble behind Riza’s bedroom door as she flicked the radio off. Master Hawkeye had returned. Panicked, Roy realised she was hurrying towards the door. If she saw him standing outside, appearing to have been listening in, she’d never forgive or trust him again –

Roy turned and sprinted just as the door opened. A surprised gasp left Riza’s mouth and he paused, shoulders bunching up to his ears as he cringed.

“I…” Roy stammered as he whirled in place, trying to think of some excuse. You shouldn’t have run, you idiot!

“Mr. Mustang,” her father called with authority, demanding his presence.

Riza flinched and looked towards the stairs. Roy ignored him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to –” Roy started to babble but was cut off by another door slamming.

Riza’s cheeks were bright pink. She was embarrassed.

“Riza,” Roy called desperately, forgoing the use of “Miss Hawkeye” like Master insisted upon. This was more important.

“Mr. Mustang!” Master was irritated now.

He pleaded with his eyes, begging her to believe him. Instead the bedroom door closed firmly. Blocking him.

You blew it, you idiot.

“Where were you?” Master Hawkeye asked as Roy entered the room. He hadn’t even bothered to look up as he rifled through his papers.

Roy stared at his back, eyes narrowing with distaste, because he was the reason Riza was so afraid to express herself. He was the reason this house was as silent as the grave. And… Roy had begun to resent him a little for it.

“In the bathroom,” Roy lied casually, sliding back into his chair. “I was on a break.”

Master glanced at the clock, like he didn’t believe Roy, then grunted in response. “Get back to work. We have much to do this afternoon.”

* * *

Riza didn’t talk to him. She was embarrassed and Roy felt incredibly guilty because of it. He’d tried to reach out, but it was either ignored completely or she stood and left the room.

He fidgeted as he approached Riza’s bedroom door. Master Hawkeye had gone into town again, but the radio wasn’t on. There was silence once more in her bedroom, and Roy mourned its loss.

Roy knocked nervously, feeling a bead of sweat form on his brow. He swiped it away, his hand shaky slightly. He had to make this right. He couldn’t mess this up either, so nerves were bundling uncomfortably in his stomach.

There was no reply from his knock.

“Riza?” he called out, dismissing the formality forced upon him by Master. “You – You don’t need to come out. Master Hawkeye is out the house just now too. I… I don’t know if you already know that or not…” Roy gave himself a shake, feeling foolish. “Anyway, I – I really liked your singing. It was beautiful –” Roy felt his face turning bright red. The words had come from his heart because her voice really was! But hearing himself saying it out loud felt like it was too strong a word. “I mean,” he stammered. “Your voice is beautiful. I hope I didn’t put you off.” Embarrassment was flowing through him, collecting more sweat on his forehead, and causing a bead to drop down his spine.

He was no good at this. He was used to people bending over backwards for him, but only because the people he’d mostly interacted with before coming here were his sisters. They spoiled him rotten because he was their baby brother, but it left him floundering now as he tried to resolve conflict that he’d created. Still, he was trying, Roy told himself. He had to try. His sister’s voices floated around his head, mentally scolding him from stopping this young girl from singing and doing something she enjoyed.

“Um, I really like that story. My older sisters do too. But I’ve also heard some more that are kind of like it.” Roy crouched, sliding the piece of paper in his hands underneath the door. “There’s more with Queen Elizabeth in it. I’ve written down the days and times they air. I… I understand if you can’t listen to them because…” Because of him, Roy wanted to say, but despite resenting Master Hawkeye for his behaviour, Roy was still afraid. He even looked over his shoulder to see if the intimidating man was standing at the top of the stairs, staring at him angrily.

Clearing his throat, Roy straightened. “I really like Queen Elizabeth too. She’s my favourite,” he added softly. “And, if you want, we could maybe listen to it together some time?” he stammered again, his nerves rearing their heads just when it mattered most. “Just – Just let me know. Or – Or don’t if you don’t want to. I’ll understand, don’t worry.” Roy let out his anxious breath, expelling the air forcefully from his lungs. “I’ll… see you later.”

Hoping he’d gotten through to her, or at least solved some problems he’d caused by his stupid eavesdropping, Roy trudged back down the stairs to Master’s study.

* * *

Two days later Roy was dozing on the couch in the Hawkeye’s living room when the sound of quiet music filled the room. Blinking his eyes awake, disorientated, and confused, he looked around but paused when he saw Riza standing by the radio. He jumped up in place, heart in his throat.

“My father is away out for an hour,” Riza whispered.

Nodding in understanding, Roy straightened his posture and looked at her expectantly.

“Would… Would you like to listen to…?” Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes were cast downwards.

“I would love to,” Roy replied.

Riza strode over and sat next to him, her face the complete opposite from her purposeful walk. Roy had noticed her cheeks had turned even pinker after he spoke.

Perhaps love was too strong a word too, Roy thought, swallowing thickly. But it was the truth. He really enjoyed those stories and would love to listen to them again. They were a nice reminder of home.

They sat in silence as they listened together, the nervous and awkward air between them fizzling out as time wore on.

“I think you’d make a wonderful Elizabeth,” Roy murmured to her when the story finished.

Riza turned to look at him shyly, but there was a smile playing over her lips.

“Thank you for this, Mr. Mustang,” she replied, her voice quiet. “I really enjoyed it.”

“No, thank you,” he stressed, turning to face her properly. “I… I did too,” he added. “And I’m sorry, for eavesdropping, I didn’t mean to, I just thought your singing voice was really good and I enjoy that story a lot.”

Riza blushed. “Th – Thank you, Mr. Mustang,” she stammered.

“Roy,” he insisted.

Riza glanced at him quickly. “Okay,” she relented. “Thank you, Roy.” Her voice was stronger, and her eyes were bright. A smile spread across her face and it was different from the ones Roy had seen before. This one met her eyes and she looked happy.

#royai #royai fic #royai fanfic #royai oneshot #fic request #writing prompt #emma writes

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sophcaro · 5 years ago

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Warriors | WMatsui - Chapter 28

A long, blissful sigh escaped Mayu’s lips as she enjoyed a rest under the shade of the large branches of a maple tree. From her position at the top of the hill, she had a privileged view over the main grounds of the Shinoda clan. The head of the clan’s main residence. The samurais’ private quarters. The stables held over two hundred of horses of every color and kind: black, white, grey, chestnut, roan and bay; packhorses, workhorses and riding horses. The Buddhist temples, central places of prayer. The cemetery, where people came to mourn their lost ones, often soldiers fallen during the last great war. But also, the small houses, taverns and trading centers, that stretched in the valley as far as the eye could see.

The movement, the hustle bustle, the energy. It reminded her of her childhood. Of how the Watanabe clan used to be when it stood proudly as one of the leading authorities of the country.

The remembrance of her lost heritage made Mayu a touch melancholy, but she pushed it firmly to the back of her mind. She was content living here. Every passing day, she was grateful Shinoda-san had accepted to let them stay. At last, they were off the roads, filled with disreputable individuals ready to rob them of their scarce resources. Mayu felt safe within these walls, and wasn’t afraid to call it her new home.

She had settled into what proved an idyllic life, with only one cloud on her horizon. Her sister, Jurina, who had difficulty adjusting to their new day-to-day routine. Maybe it was her optimistic side speaking, but Mayu wished to remain positive. Believe she would come to appreciate this second chance life gave them.

The maple forest had become a sea of reds, oranges and yellows. The grass swayed in the autumn breeze, the sun bathing the foliage and flowers in its golden rays. Gone was the scorching heat of Summer. Mayu found the current temperate, neither hot or cold, pleasant. She had heard that, in this northern region, Winter could prove to be ruthless. Some years, inhabitants had even witnessed lakes freeze. The sole idea made her shiver, and she hoped her thick kimono would be enough to keep her warm. She had spent all her childhood in the South of Japan, where the Watanabe clan used to be located. Only recently, she and her sister had begun to travel norther.

Never before had she had the chance to witness lands covered with the white substance people called snow. The prospect made her secretly excited.

Mayu’s eyes fluttered close. Relaxed, her body felt heavier. She wasn’t particularly tired, but the atmosphere was serene. She drifted away. Without warning, a certain kiss came back to the forefront of her mind, and she was wide awake. Her heart leaped. She raised her hand to her lips; they quivered slightly at the touch. A shy but happy smile broke out across her face. The memory of the soft and warm kiss she had shared with the kyudo instructor was vivid and sharp.

There were gaps in her memory concerning that particular evening, and she blamed it on the excessive use of alcohol. She had always been a light drinker, and she couldn’t explain why she had gotten carried away. Despite her mind fuzzy about the course of events, she didn’t imagine the kiss. She had a hard time believing it happened. For months, her attraction for Kashiwagi-san grew, but she hesitated to make the first move.

What if her protector was gentle and caring out of duty? Mayu had seen a couple of signs suggesting a mutual romantic interest. The personal attention, the lingering eye contact, the physical proximity. And what about the evening Jurina had left the bedroom in a haste after a violent nightmare, and Kashiwagi-san, witnessing Mayu’s disarray, had invited her to her room and provided her comfort?

As days transformed into weeks, and weeks became months, the protégée and her protector grew closer than ever. Their relationship didn’t progress as much as Mayu secretly hoped, but she didn’t want either to take the risk of overstepping boundaries. What if Kashiwagi-san held herself for the same reasons, and believed a romantic relationship between them was inappropriate? The kiss, reciprocated, had put an end to any remaining doubt, and filled Mayu’s heart with happiness.

At the crackling sound of leaves and twigs stepped upon, Mayu pulled out of her reverie. Her eyelids peeled open, finding Jurina standing in front of her. Mayu blinked, coming back to reality. Her sister’s delight caught her attention. “I see some habits don’t change.”

Mayu readjusted her seated position, flustered to have been so lost in her thoughts she didn’t hear someone approach. “What do you mean?”

“It reminds me of when we were little. How often would I find you napping under a cherry tree?”

“You mean…” Mayu continued, in a slight humorous tone. “You mean when you escaped your bodyguard’s attention and explored the lands of our clan, disappearing for hours, sometimes even until sundown?”

Jurina slumped down beside her, and rested her back against the tree. “It’s not my fault if they were too slow to catch up.”

Mayu let out a small chuckle. “I’ll always remember Father’s fury when the bodyguard confessed having lost you. How many times did he change your bodyguard? Four? Five?”

“I have no idea.” Jurina shrugged her shoulders, grinning. “It never made a difference anyway.”

Mayu laughed openly. A comfortable silence fell over them, during which both enjoyed the view and each other’s presence. Once in a while, Mayu would steal a peek at Jurina when she wasn’t paying attention. She felt so lucky to have her by her side. They had endured so many hardships. The murder of their father. The downfall of their clan. Years of restless wandering. Life at the Shinoda clan was a fresh start; an opportunity to put their painful past behind.

“Why don’t you join Rena-san’s lessons? You haven’t come to the dojo. You need to learn kenjutsu.”

Mayu shifted uneasily. “Thank you, but… I’m fine with kyudo. It suits me more.”

An awkward silence followed.

“You’re spending way too much time with Kashiwagi-san. You follow her everywhere. You barely leave her side all day.”

“What are you talking about?” Mayu asked, taken aback by her manifest disapproval.

“I’m not blind,” Jurina rolled her eyes at her. “You get that dreamy expression when you interact with her. You have a crush. I hope you’re not making yourself false illusions about your relationship.”

“W-We kissed,” Mayu blurted out.

Jurina’s mouth dropped open. “What? When?!”

Mayu hesitated. “The other day, after the dinner organized by Shinoda-dono. Kashiwagi-san offered to accompany back to my room, and we ki-”

“Did she take advantage of you?!”

“W-What? No… Kashiwagi-san is not like tha-”

“I knew I couldn’t trust her!” Jurina abruptly stood up. “I warned her to not play with your feelings but she seized the opportunity as soon as she saw one! She used you during a moment of weakness! What else did she do to you?! Tell me! You have to tell me everything!”

Her outburst rendered Mayu speechless.

“Do you even remember what happened that evening?!” Jurina asked, in a slightly mocking tone. “No, of course you don’t. Let me refresh your memory. Hasegawa-san harassed you the whole evening. He made you drink again and again, and you were too nice and polite to refuse. I had no choice but to intervene to make him stop! I wouldn’t be shocked if you were half drunk when Kashiwagi-san walked you back to your room. Your beloved protector didn’t lift a finger to help you!”

Mayu was baffled by Jurina’s fury. Processing the information revealed, she put the missing pieces of the puzzle back together. Little by little, her memory of that evening became much clearer. “Kashiwagi-san couldn’t say anything! It would have caused an incident!”

“Tss. What a silly excuse,” Jurina huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “She was too much of a coward to act, and I was forced to step up.”

“Yes, and it could have gotten yourself killed! And what do you mean by you ‘warned her to not play’ with my feelings?”

“Exactly as I said,” Jurina spoke with confidence. “I had a clear conversation with her on the subject. I won’t let anyone toy with you.”

Mayu didn’t like arguing with her. Conflicts left her emotionally and mentally drained. But this was too much. She couldn’t accept nor condone what she had dared to do behind her back. “I can’t believe you did that!” Mayu sprang to her feet, anger bubbling within her. “How could you? You had no right!”

If Jurina was shocked by her raised tone, she didn’t let it show. “You’re my sister, and it’s my role to protect you. I don’t trust Kashiwagi-san. I never did. Even less after her behavior during dinner.”

“You don’t know her like I do. Kashiwagi-san is a good person!”

“You’re naïve.” Jurina wasn’t so easily deterred. “You always see the best in people. Kashiwagi-san is acting nice to get close to you. Once she gets what she wants, she’ll get rid of you without any remorse!”

“You always believe everyone has bad intentions. I know what my heart feels and that Kashiwagi-san feels the same. I don’t judge your relationship with Matsui-san!”

“I-It’s different.”

“How is it different?” Mayu countered. Her sister avoided her gaze, and Mayu guessed she had caught her off guard. “I won’t pretend I fully understand the nature of the relationship you two have. But look me in the eye and tell me you don’t have feelings for her. Or you want me to believe it’s a simple flirt? That it’s not serious?”

When the younger girl didn’t reply, Mayu added. “I think we’re both experimenting the same. We met someone who makes us feel something different; something new and strong. But at least, I’m honest about it, and not afraid of saying it.”

Mayu stood face to face with Jurina. She wanted her to realize she meant every single word, and nothing, no one, would make her change her mind. She half-expected her to come back at her with a clever retort. Against all odds, Jurina’s lips remained tightly sealed. Mayu took a step back, and slowly walked away. Their heated debate had left her shaken, and it would take her a while to recover from it, but she was also proud to have been brave enough to stand up to her convictions.

**********

“She’s totally infatuated with Kashiwagi-san,” Jurina mumbled, leaning her back against the stall. “It doesn’t make her think clearly.”

The whinny of her horse distracted her. “What?” She cocked an eyebrow at her black stallion, meeting his visible disapproval. The animal tilted his head to his left, pointing his nose towards the untouched saddle on the rack. “Yes, yes, we are leaving! You can be so impatient, sometimes!”

Jurina pushed away from the door stall and picked the saddle, throwing it on the horse. All morning, she couldn’t get out of her head her argument with Mayu. She had taken the direction of the stables, hoping a ride would help dissipate her bad mood. “Why won’t she listen to me!” She growled, putting on the bridle. “I know I’m right, right?!” She studied her horse’s reaction, hoping for support and understanding, but all she got in return was a silent stare.

Akihira-kun, the thirteen-year-old stable boy, who brushed the knotted beige mane of a horse, spoke up in a small, hesitant voice. “I-Is everything alright, Watanabe-san?”

Jurina spared him a quick glance. “Yes, yes.” She answered, attempting to sound as nonchalant as possible. A complete lie. She was anything but fine.

“And how can she compare it to my relationship with Rena-san! It’s ridiculous! It’s completely different!”

A chestnut head popped over the next-door stall. Her protector’s calm and gentle mare appeared, and twitched her ears at her in a friendly hello. The stallion disregarded Jurina’s presence and greeted the mare with a nicker, rubbing his nostrils against the head of the female horse.

“Great,” Jurina groaned, her frustration rising. “Remind me who defended you when Rena-san didn’t want you two to be together? Me! So, you could at least pretend you’re interested in my problems!”

The stallion turned his head partially towards his owner, and snorted in response.

The front door of the stables opened, and Jurina diverted her attention from the couple to the group of four men entering. Amongst them, Jurina recognized two kenjutsu apprentices, Tanaka-san and Matsuura-san. She failed to identify the two others, but by their dark blue outfits, concluded they were young shinobis at Kitahara-san’s service. Her own horse ride all forgotten, she observed the scene unfolding. The four horses saddled and prepared. The heavy, large packages. The weapons concealed beneath the kimonos or wrapped up in dark clothing.

This group of men spiked her interest.

Unable to contain her curiosity, Jurina approached them. “Going somewhere? You seem prepared for a long travel.”

“W-Watanabe-san.” Tanaka-san spun around. “Oh no, we’re only going to the village.”

“So heavily armed and food supply for what? A week? Has anyone told you before you’re a terrible liar?”

He swallowed nervously. “Matsui-dono told us not to disclose any information.”

“And if you’re not aware of it, it means Matsui-dono doesn’t trust you enough,” Matsuura-san chimed in, snickering.

Jurina glared at him. Her hand travelled toward the hilt of her katana, loosening it from its guard. Her protector had asked her to work on her temper, and to socialize with the other trainees. On that first point, Jurina had made efforts. Did she sometimes lose her calm? Yes, she did, but she had made great progress. Three months ago, she would already have pulled out her sword and challenged him to a duel.

Concerning her relationship with the other apprentices, it was a different story. At first, any opportunity was good to challenge them into spontaneous fights. She relished the adrenaline coursing through her veins when their swords clashed together. Eventually, her thirst depleted to a more reasonable level, and she was satisfied with the daily trainings and regular tournaments. Jurina had neutral feelings for the majority of her fellow companions. She hadn’t developed any friendship, but some had owed her respect, such as Tanaka-san, whom she considered as a valuable opponent. However, if there was one trainee she remained in permanent conflict with, it was the pretentious and self-assured Matsuura-san.

Jurina released her hold on the tsuka of her katana, calming down. Ignoring the provocation, she addressed Tanaka-san. “You’re going on a mission?”

“Yes, we are,” he confessed, a little reluctantly. “We were ordered to patrol the clan’s southern border with Ikeda-san and Abe-san.”

Jurina’s eyes widened at the revelation. The southern border. It was where she and Rena had been attacked. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Jurina thought of interrogating him further, but refrained. He probably had been told the strict minimum. The group mounted their horses, and trotted out of the stables. Why didn’t her protector warn her about this mission? And why wasn’t she part of it? As the four riders vanished in the distance, she decided to have an explanation.

**********

Jurina made a beeline to the samurais’ quarters, discovering Rena’s bedroom empty. She moved to the dojo, finding the kenjutsu instructor equally absent. For an instant, she wondered if she had briefly left the clan. No, it wasn’t possible. Her protector had to be within the grounds of the clan: her horse was still present in the stables. Jurina checked a few other locations, such as the courtyard and the garden, without any success. After half an hour of fruitless research, she came to the evidence: she needed to question a guard.

The first guard proved completely useless, having not a single clue about her location. The second one she interrogated provided her, at last, with the information she desperately sought: the kenjutsu instructor was in the council chambers. Jurina took its direction, feeling slightly foolish for omitting that place. Her protector had regular meetings with the head of the clan, and lately, her presence was requested on a daily basis.

Jurina arrived at destination, but was disappointed to find the doors shut. Jurina hesitated: come back later or wait? In the end, she chose the second option. Ignoring the two guards eyeing her suspiciously, she made herself comfortable in the waiting area, praying it wouldn’t take too long.

Time passed slowly, so slowly she found her patience strained. She never had been the most patient person in the world – Mayu would be the first to attest to it - but this meeting was unusually long. Nevermind. She would have to postpone this conversation to later. Jurina raised from her chair, decided to not wait another minute, when the doors opened. An advisor hurried out, his arms filled with scrolls, and Jurina used the opportunity to take a peek inside the room.

Astonishment touched her. The head of the clan was nowhere to be seen. Behind the office where she usually handled meetings and claims, was present the one and only master kenjutsu. Head bent down, she was focused on the table heaped with papers, listening to the male advisor who stood beside her and gave her instructions.

Jurina considered her next move. Should she make her presence known? Or leave her protector to her occupations? No, she had waited long enough to turn back. She approached the entrance, but was halted by a guard. “Do you have a meeting? Matsui-dono asked not to be disturbed.”

“No, I don’t. But I want to talk to her.”

“What is it?” Rena’s inquiry sounded from inside the room.

“It’s Watanabe-san,” the guard announced, turning in her direction. “She wants to speak to you. I told her you wished not to be disturbed.”

“It’s fine. Let her in.”

Jurina walked in and, as the doors closed behind her, didn’t wait to point out the oddity of the situation. “Shinoda-san is not here?”

“Momijimori no kami dono is unwell, and is resting in her quarters. In the meantime, I’m assuming her obligations.”

Jurina frowned. “Is she sick?”

“It’s a simple allergic reaction to the season.” Her protector’s tone was controlled, but Jurina detected a hint of concern in her tone.

“Well, for what it’s worth,” with a slight joking tone, Jurina went on. “If anything were to happen to the head of the clan, you would make an excellent replacement. You’re practically already doing the job for her.”

The advisor’s features contorted with shock and stupor. Rena pursed her lips in slight disapproval, yet a look of veiled amusement crossed her face. “Forgive my protégée’s erratic sense of humor. Obviously, she wishes no harm to Shinoda-dono. Am I wrong, Watanabe-san?”

“Of course not,” Jurina answered, suppressing a smile. “I hope Shinoda-dono will be on the road of recovery in no time.” She continued, not losing sight of her primary objective. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Matsui-dono has a busy schedule. I’m sure this conversation can wait,” the advisor intervened firmly.

“Yes…” Rena’s voice trailed away, with embarrassment. “Suzuki-san is right. I have all this paperwork to finish by the end of the day.”

“It won’t be long,” Jurina tried to sound reassuring.

Rena could sense her advisor’s eyes boring into her, pressuring her, but she felt guilty for denying her protégée’s desire to speak. “Alright.” Rena relented, and lowered on the table the document she was reading. “What did you wish to talk about?”

Jurina’s gaze drifted from her to the advisor, and Rena deciphered the meaning of the message conveyed. “Suzuki-san. Would you mind leaving us?”

The advisor exchanged with her a glance of surprise, not making any secret of his discontent. His mouth opened as if to speak, and it took him all his self-restraint to not object, bowing slightly, and leaving the council chambers.

“I don’t have a lot of spare time…” Rena’s face creased; her stress palpable. “It’s not I don’t wish to speak to you, but this added workload was unexpected. The Autumnal season seems to affect Shinoda-san’s health… more than usual. She’s been unwell for the past few days.”

“Is it true you sent Tanaka-san and Matsuura-an on a mission?” Jurina didn’t intend to be so blunt, but the question had been nagging her all day. She couldn’t hold herself any longer; she was in desperate needs of answers.

“H-How do you…” Rena stared at her, astounded. “Yes, I did. A couple of days ago, Shinoda-san organized a meeting. She asked me and Kitahara-san to gather and send a group on a patrolling mission. She wants to make sure the frontiers of the clan are well secured. It’s simple routine.”

“We both know it’s more than that. She sent them in the South, where we were attacked.” Jurina confronted her with the truth. “Why didn’t you choose me? I’m your top trainee. I was the best fit.”

“Tanaka-san and Matsuura-san have proved their value. Choosing my protégée would send the wrong message. I didn’t want Shinoda-san or the other trainees to believe I was partial in my decision.”

Rena sounded extremely convincing, but Jurina didn’t buy it. “It’s not the real reason. You didn’t choose me because you don’t trust me. You don’t have enough faith in me to complete a mission without messing up.”

“Jurina-san… No, it’s not true.”

Jurina drew closer to the table, placed her hands flat on the surface and leaned down inches away from her. “You think I’m uncontrollable, don’t you? That I can’t follow orders?” She studied her, trying to read her response. “You know how much I hate being cooped up in this place! I told you… I opened myself to you. This mission, it was exactly what I needed! I needed the distraction!”

Jurina glanced away, overcome with embarrassment. This wasn’t right. She was doing it again. Losing control over her emotions. Precisely what she fought so hard against. She breathed in and out, calming her fast-beating heart. It wasn’t the image she wanted to project. Not to her protector. She wanted to prove she changed, and wasn’t anymore the impetuous child of their first encounter.

“I feared you would be unhappy if it came to your attention. It’s true, I didn’t want to send you. But it’s not for the reason you think. Of course, you have issues to work on. Your temper, your independent and stubborn personality. But you had all the physical and fighting skills required to fulfil this mission.”

“Then why?” Jurina said, allowing her frustration to leak into her tone. “Why didn’t you send me?”

Rena grew rigid and tense, and drew her attention back to the scroll in front of her. “I don’t think it’s the appropriate time for this conversation.”

Jurina felt a stirring of anger. “No, I want to know!”

“Jurina-san, please.” Rena cast her a pleading look. “We can talk about it later. But now is not the best moment.”

“Why?!” Jurina slapped her hand on the table. “It’s not fair, Rena-san! I deserved to go on that mission! You had no right to-”

“I don’t want to lose you!” Rena blurted out, her voice shaking angrily. “Two years ago, I lost someone. It was supposed to be an easy mission, but things didn’t turn out as planned. She never made it back alive to the clan! She died! I don’t want the same thing to happen to you! Can you understand that?!”

Shivers racked Jurina’s body; the confession destabilized her. She withdrew her hands from the table and pulled back. Her protector’s deep brown eyes glittered, and brimmed with unshed tears. What was she supposed to say? Or to act? When the silence stretched unbearably long, Jurina did the first thing that came to her mind. She reached out, touching Rena’s hand. As she held her palm, fingers tremble inside hers, and Jurina met her watering eyes.

“You’ve come to mean so much to me,” Rena’s voice crackled; a tear slid down her cheek. “I cannot accept to lose you too.”

Jurina was about to protest, before realizing the irony of the situation. Who was she to disagree with her protector’s desire to protect the ones she cared about, when she acted the same way with Mayu? “I understand you want to protect me.” Her voice was calmer and gentler when she spoke up. “But I can protect mys-”

They were interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Forgive me for the disturbance, Matsui-dono.” The advisor, Suzuki-san, stopped at the entrance, and bowed in respect. “The emissary of the Yokohama clan has arrived. Will you receive him now, or should I make him wait?”

“Oh, right.” At the reminder, Rena straightened up in her seat. Noticing her hand still linked with Jurina’s, she gently extracted her fingers from her hold. “Let the emissary know I will receive him immediately.”

The discussion was over. The thought of protesting didn’t cross Jurina’s mind. She couldn’t delay her protector from her obligations. Jurina slowly backed away from the table, not breaking eye contact with her. “Maybe…” she paused for a breath, hesitant. “Maybe later we’ll have the opportunity to continue this conversation?”

The master kenjutsu didn’t hide her surprise. She didn’t reply immediately, before giving her a small silent nod of consent.

Jurina’s face relaxed into a faint smile of relief.

She spun on her heel and retraced her steps back to the exit. At the doors, she marked a stop, and glanced over her shoulder. The male advisor, Suzuki-san, had already reached her protector’s side. Jurina was too far away to distinguish the content of their conversation, but imagined he was prepping her for the upcoming meeting. Jurina observed her protector attentively, amazed by her ability to regain her composure. In the blink of an eye, her demeanor had altered entirely, her serious, work-hardened expression not revealing an inch of what had transpired in this room.

**********

Every evening, Rena had a ritual.

Her daily chores done, she bid goodbye to Momijimori no kami, and took the direction of the samurais’ quarters. After a hard day’s work – the life of a master kenjutsu anything but restful - it was often sundown by the time she joined her bedroom. Her first action was to lit the candle on the small table, wait for the flame to grow and illuminate her surroundings, and move towards the weapons rack.

Detaching the katana and wakizashi from her belt, she disposed of them and proceeded in disrobing. She removed her hakama and kimono, swapping her daily clothes for her nightly yukata. Before laying down on the futon, she checked her tanto was secured under the pillow, before falling into a deep slumber, exhaustion gaining her.

This evening followed the same path, for one exception. As Rena removed her weapons and placed them onto the rack, she fixed the ninjato laying at the top. She tried not to dwell on it, but was unable to look away. The familiar sword brought her back to the conversation that occurred in the council chambers, one that triggered painful memories to reemerge.

Rena took if off the rack; her fingers slid along the surface of the 30 inches flat blade. That moment of her past was supposed to remain buried deep within her. Only two people, Shinoda-dono and Kitahara-san, had borne witness to the scene, and seen how devastated Airi’s death had left her. The monster who took control. Her delirium and destructive fury. It wasn’t a memory she was proud of, and wished she could erase it from her mind forever. Unfortunately, it still haunted her.

People praised her benevolence and good manners, her sound education and ability to never let her emotions cloud her judgement. Aside from her misconduct two years ago, she had kept them under control. Her encounter with the young Watanabe sister had disrupted the stability of her perfectly organized daily life. After the confession that left her mouth in the council chambers, she didn’t recognize herself. It wasn’t like her to disclose such personal information. The weakness she had displayed. It left her both disturbed and ashamed, and she was lucky only one person had been testimony of it.

“May I come in?”

The familiar feminine voice, hesitant behind her bedroom door, distracted her from her thoughts. Rena cleared her head, and carefully replaced the ninjato back in place. At the request, her mouth lifted into a smile. “Since when you do my protégée ask for my permission to enter?”

The fusuma panel slowly slid open. “Since I learned it’s not appropriate to barge into someone’s bedroom without their approval.” Jurina said, mischief flickering in her eyes. “So, is that a yes? You haven’t answered.”

Rena suppressed the urge to laugh. “Yes, Jurina-san. You may come in.”

Jurina stepped inside the room, closing the fusuma panel behind her, and locked her gaze with hers. They fell into silence and Rena turned around, busying herself with the untying of her hakama. She convinced herself she was simply following her nightly ritual, but revealing secrets of her past had left her vulnerable. She didn’t know how to confront the situation. Rena fumbled with the hakama, the knot resisting her. Her fingers, usually so clever and deft, seemed to have lost all dexterity.

“Do you need any help?” Jurina moved behind her and wrapped her arms around her waist, cradling her against her. Rena stiffened in surprise. “It’s funny. You always seem to have troubles with your hakama. Last time, you couldn’t tie it properly. Now, you have difficulty removing it. What would you do without me?”

It took her a few seconds to recall what she referred to. That day at the lake rushed back with vivid clarity, and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. She turned around in the embrace, and frowned at her protégée’s wick grin. Jurina’s hands didn’t wait to work on the front himo of her hakama, untying it, then moved to the back. Rena watched as she followed the process, respecting the steps, impressed by her calm and diligence.

“I see I don’t have anything more to teach you.” Rena smiled at her warmly.

While a smile appeared at the corner of Jurina’s lips, she wore a pensive and serious expression. “You know… it’s alright. I’m not upset.”

There was a startled pause. “You’re not?” Rena bit her lip, attempting to keep her voice casual. “Then I guess I must have imagined your anger when you entered the council chambers and interrogated me about the mission.”

Jurina’s expression clouded with unease. “Yes, I was angry at you. Upset, disappointed, and angry. But I’m not anymore.”

Rena vacillated between disconcert and disbelief. “But you have all the right to be. You deserved to go on that mission.”

“You explained yourself. You told me about your past. After what you went through, I understand you would want to protect me.”

Rena stared wordlessly at her, uncomprehending.

“Nothing will happen to me. I’m too stubborn to die,” Jurina said casually. Her job done on the hakama, she took a few steps backward, and sat down on the edge of the futon. “Besides, I’m counting on you to teach me everything you know. I won’t be satisfied until I managed to beat you. So, you need to fulfil your part of the bargain.”

The teasing in Jurina’s tone made her relax, and she smiled in spite of her worry. “Didn’t you defeat me in the forest?”

Jurina waved a hand in dismissal. “No, that didn’t count. I want to beat you in fair fight, without any trick.”

“Please don’t be offended, but I’m afraid you’ll need a few more years for that,” Rena said softly and kindly, but truthfully. “It took me years to perfect my technique, and acquire enough experience to defeat my own instructor.”

“Years? That’s perfect. I’m not going anywhere.”

Rena sent her a small, doubtful look. “You have enough patience to wait for so long?”

“Ah yes, that’s one of the many things I need to work on,” Jurina chuckled, nodding in agreement.

Rena gave her a knowing smile. Dragging her eyes away from her, she stepped out of her hakama, collected it from the floor and neatly folded it on the chair. She reached for the belt of her kimono, aware of her protégée peering at her, but didn’t feel uneasy under her scrutiny. Halfway through the process, she gave her a sideways glance. The amusement had died from Jurina’s eyes, and Rena saw something new and deeply serious within them she couldn’t decipher.

Jurina rose from the futon and closed the distance between them, catching her off guard when she gently pulled her into her arms. “I know you’re troubled by what happened in the council chambers.” She whispered close to her ear, her breath warm against her cheek. “You don’t you like being vulnerable in front of others, and I understand the feeling. I don’t have the habit to confide in people. I’ve never been good at comforting people either,” Jurina confessed awkwardly, struggling to find the right words. “When I told you how much I felt lost and lonely here, you didn’t judge me.”

She pulled back enough to gaze into her eyes. “Today, Mayu told me something that made me think. There are many things I don’t understand. Things… that confuse me. But I know I’m a better person when I’m with you. You said you wanted to help me feel more at home, and I want to try. Not only for my sister’s sake, but because I think it’s worth it. I think you’re worth it, Rena-san.”

Rena’s heart accelerated.

Jurina reached for the front of her kimono and began to detach it. Rena reacted on instinct and seized her hand, interrupting her. She expected the younger girl to fight against her hold, but she didn’t resist. Rena was used to her protégée’s dominant personality and possessive moves. Tonight, she could sense the dynamic between them had changed. She felt her protégée’s desire for her, but she showed more patience, her gaze soft as a caress as it traveled over her face.

A shiver came over Rena, and a knot welled up in her stomach. Jurina leaned closer, her lips paused inches from hers, offering an invitation without taking any liberties. The decision would be all hers. Rena hesitated for the briefest of moments, as her self-preservation instincts warred with her heart’s desire. She knew where this was leading if she didn’t push her back. Her heart won out. She closed the gap separating them. Their lips brushed. She could feel her heart beat faster as Jurina’s mouth moved gently against hers. They had kissed before, but never like that. It made her go weak in the knees, and Rena responded to her kisses with equal tenderness.

Her grip on her protégée’s hand diminished, conveying her consent for her to keep on. Jurina broke the kiss and drew back slightly. Her face brightened with happiness, and Rena gave her a shy smile. The younger girl took her hand in hers, leading her towards the futon. Jurina sat down and gently pulled her down to sit on her lap, and she didn’t oppose any resistance. Without haste, Jurina untied her belt, and swept aside the fabric of her kimono. She feathered her lips along the valley between her breasts, and Rena felt her hands slide over her arms as she freed her from her kimono.

Rena felt the air caress her skin. Her touch claim her. Jurina’s kisses bathed her in delicious intoxication. Her senses roared. Rena’s hands plunged into her hair, fingers tangling, getting accustomed to the sensations of pleasure coursing through her veins. She tried to fight for a minimum of self-control, but found no desire to back out of her embrace, and allowed herself to give free rein to her feelings.

Jurina lifted her off her lap, and laid her gently down the futon. Rena settled back, enjoying the feel of her arms around her. Jurina swooped down, her lips brushed her neck, her cheek, and found her mouth, kissing her. The friction of the fabric of her protégée’s kimono against her skin reminded her that one of them remained fully clothed.

“Is there a reason why I’m the only one naked?” Rena murmured in between kisses, tugging at her protégée’s kimono.

The latter removed herself from her lips and looked at her, visibly entertained by the complaint received. She rose from the futon and undressed, keeping her eyes locked on her face, letting her clothes fall on the floor without ceremony. Rena found herself openly staring at her nude form, admiring her shapely body in the pale moonlight that came through the fusuma leading to the garden.

Jurina climbed back into the futon, reclaiming her position on top of her. “Better?”

Rena reached up, capturing her chin with her thumb and finger, tugging her down for another soft lip touch. “Yes, much better.”

Despite the dominant position, Jurina’s touch was not aggressive or demanding. It was remarkably gentle, coaxing. Jurina’s mouth wandered up the tingling cord of her neck. With a slow, leisurely touch, her fingers roamed over her curves, and she explored her body as if she had all the time in the world. When she touched her breasts and traced their roundness, her nipples surged at the intimacy.

Rena softly moaned with pleasure.

Their eyes met through the dim light, and Rena wondered if the other girl wasn’t holding herself. Taking things slowly for her sake. Rena studied her, trying to obtain a response, but didn’t detect any sign of frustration. On the contrary; all she witnessed was the similar raw pleasure etched on her features. It set her heart pounding. When Jurina dipped her head to recapture her mouth, she met her halfway.

Soon, they both were back in a passionate embrace, their naked bodies entwined, gently making love. While Rena’s hands glided over her back and shoulders, Jurina’s hands left her skin hot and tingling. Tonight, Rena was witnessing her protégée’s softer side. But if those last three months had taught her one thing, it was that Jurina was a complex, multifaceted person. And she was eager to discover all aspects of her personality.

#wmatsui #matsui jurina #matsui rena #wmatsui fanfic #Watanabe Mayu #Kashiwagi Yuki #SKE48 #AKB48 #Warriors #chapter 28

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realmythology · 5 years ago

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can we all as a fandom please stop devaluing steve and peggy’s relationship just because we’re mad about how steve’s plot in endgame was handled?

i’m mad about his regression and his being inexplicably hung up on peggy, who lived a long and full life and died of old age eight years before the events of the movie, too. i’m mad about the hand-waving ridiculousness and the absolute nonsensical explanations regarding steve traveling back in time, having the shield, the frozen-steve issue, and the clusterfuckery of the timelines. i’m mad about the loss of steve’s character growth and how much the russos shunted aside his close friendships. i’m mad he wasn’t torn up about sam and bucky and wanda during his weird therapy session, the people he should have been mourning. i’m mad about steve clinging to a long-gone past when part of his whole thing in the comics was letting the past go.

but for the love of god, stop calling peggy “some woman steve kissed once.” there was clearly a lot more to their relationship than that and you know it.

stop saying that steve and peggy had “crushes” on each other. it’s clear from steve’s reaction to losing peggy in the subsequent cap movies and in peggy’s reaction to losing him both on-screen and in agent carter that they were in love. just because there weren’t hearts and rainbows doesn’t mean that there was nothing there.

stop assuming because they “kissed once” (on-screen, that is) that there was no depth to their relationship. they were working together during the war for a solid two years. we’re given a lot of context that we should be able to perceive a close relationship from. peggy, a hardened agent by that point, can still barely talk about steve in the 50s, years after his “death,” without breaking into tears. and y’all are the same people who psychoanalyze every second of screentime steve and bucky get to hell and back and get off on fics that go neck-deep in romantic tension and mutual pining scenarios, so miss me with that “just because they weren’t fucking 24/7 means they weren’t in love” bs.

stop calling them “coworkers” just so that you can further devalue a canonical romantic connection. steve literally had peggy’s picture in his compass, she knew it and was touched by it, all their interactions were full of romantic tension that was supposed to imply more going on off-screen, and they were both profoundly affected by the loss of one another. i sure as hell am not nor have i ever been hung up on any coworkers of mine years after the fact.

stop implying (or outright saying!) that steve rogers, of all people, went back in time to force peggy carter to be his trophy wife. literally in what world would steve do that, and in what world would peggy carter allow that? why are you assuming that she couldn’t run shield while married to steve, when she was clearly able to run shield as a married woman in the original timeline? why are you saying that a woman being in a loving marriage is misogynistic? why are you assuming that married women can’t work? what are you doing with your life?

stop saying that steve “stole peggy’s agency” by going back in time to be with her. how the hell does that make sense? if peggy didn’t want to be with him, she wouldn’t be with him! she’s margaret fucking carter, she isn’t just going to lay back and let anyone force her to do anything. as stupid as i think the plot was, most normal people would absolutely jump at the opportunity to reunite with their long-lost love. which is what steve was to peggy. he wasn’t just some guy, some coworker, or some random fleeting crush to her.

stop saying that this is just like those gross time travel movies where a guy tricks a girl into dating him. in all of those movies, the girl was never interested to begin with or was barely interested or was with someone else before she met the time-traveler, and he used time-travel to manipulate her into being with him. in all those movies, the fundamental issue is that the woman isn’t interested in or attracted to the protagonist. peggy was already very much in love with steve before any time-travel bullshit started; i sincerely doubt he had to trick her into a relationship with him.

look, i’m not saying all this to imply that steve’s entire endgame plot was a good idea by any stretch of the imagination. but you can criticize how absolutely senseless it was without insulting peggy and steve’s relationship, throwing shade at peggy by making it seem like she wasn’t all that important to steve, or acting like steve was some evil rapist who went back in time and forced peggy into a relationship with him.

tl;dr: YOU CAN CRITICIZE THE SHEER RIDICULOUSNESS OF THE WHOLE PLOT WITHOUT PROPPING UP HEAVY-HANDED STRAWMAN ARGUMENTS TO MAKE YOURSELF SEEM MORE RIGHT OR MORALLY SUPERIOR TO ANYONE WHO WASN’T AS OUTRAGED AS YOU WERE.

and i know, i know, that most of the people who were/are really hardcore mad about steve’s endgame debacle are stucky fans. i’m also a hardcore stucky shipper. i’ve written hundreds of thousands of words of stucky rp and have read hundreds of stucky fics over the years. i’ve been in the fandom for years. and i’ll be the first to gleefully point out that how much the stucky fandom hates peggy carter for daring to stand between their precious ship (even though they claim to love her sooooo much) has never been cute, and it’s been especially un-cute this past year. you just sound bitter, misogynistic, and entitled when you do this shit.

second tl;dr: you’re allowed to be angry about steve’s character assassination. i’m also angry about it. just stop lying about why you’re angry by propping up weak arguments and feigning moral outrage.

#steggy #peggy carter #steve rogers #avengers endgame #fandom negativity #i have no idea where this rant came from given that it's been so long and i somehow restrained myself from doing this last year #but quarantine has been making me fight-y #stucky fans don't @ me about how justified you are in your pettiness please #you can hate endgame without so throughly disrespecting peggy and dressing it up as some bullshit feminist critique #endgame negativity

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edendaphne · 5 years ago

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“Discordant Sonata” Chapter 7

I told you I wouldn’t leave you guys hanging on that cliffhanger for long! ;)

> Read it here on Ao3 <

> Read it here on Wattpad <

CHAPTER 7: SYNCOPATION

(Mood Music: I Hate Everything About You - Three Days Grace)

Ignoring Ladybug’s and his friends’ frantic shouting, Adrien sprinted towards the villain with only a vague and most likely very, very stupid plan.

Whether or not it was the intrinsic bond between the cat and ladybug miraculouses that compelled him to do so, he couldn’t say, and at this point, he didn’t care. All Adrien knew was that he couldn’t let anything else harm Ladybug. At this moment, absolutely nothing was more important than keeping his other half, his partner, his Lady, safe.

Nothing else mattered; not even himself.

Upon reaching the monster he stood in front of it and yelled, “Hey, did you know that Chloe actually has a boyfriend?”

That certainly got Reaver’s attention. He stopped in his tracks and bellowed, “She WHAT?!”

“I bet he thinks you’re jealous of him!” Adrien continued his ruse. “Did he whisk her away from you right under your nose, big guy? Boy, that’s gotta suck!” He could have sworn he saw Reaver’s eye twitch, and he had to suppress a chortle. “He probably thinks you’ll never find out who he is, or that he lives in an apartment by the Seine because you’re dumb as rocks!”

Reaver sputtered, enraged, “Why, that son of a— I’ll rip him apart!! I’ll show him! He shouldn’t have messed with me!!” In a huff he spun around and ran towards the Seine river with a new (yet vague and questionable) goal in mind.

Adrien quirked a triumphant grin, turning his head to give a quick wink at Ladybug (who was staring at him slack-jawed like he’d grown a second head, along with Nino and Alya), then followed behind Reaver. He could hear Ladybug clamoring and demanding that the couple allow her to stand up and run after him, but thankfully to no avail.

Once he was far away enough from his friends that they couldn’t see him anymore, he sneaked into an empty building, its inhabitants having already evacuated to one of the nearby akuma shelters.

He transformed into Chat Noir and quickly dialed Hawkmoth’s number on his staff’s communicator. He struggled to keep his anger in check while it rang, trying to figure out what he would say.

Hawkmoth’s face finally appeared on the screen.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Chat yelled urgently, manners and decorum tossed out the window instantly.

“What I’m supposed to be doing. Unlike yourself,” Hawkmoth snorted loftily. “You had so many opportunities to take Ladybug’s miraculous just now and yet you didn’t. What’s the matter with you, Adrien?”

“W-what’s the matter with me?!” Chat stammered. “Your akuma is out of control! He’s more violent than any others we’ve ever had! You can’t do this, you have to call him off!”

Hawkmoth scoffed in annoyance, clearly already fed up with this conversation. “I’m only doing what I must to achieve our goals. Goals which you clearly seem to have forgotten. You shouldn’t have any sympathy for that two-faced sham pretending to be a hero. All of this wouldn’t have to happen if she’d just give us the damn earrings.”

Chat recalled the conversation he and Ladybug had had a few weeks prior, while they were dancing at the akuma’s ball.

“I’m not just holding on to my miraculous to spite you and Hawkmoth, or because I’d rather keep my superpowers instead of helping you guys. I’m protecting it. Using a miraculous for personal gain always ends in tragedy. Always. I know you have no reason to trust me or believe me, but what would I gain by lying to you?”

Chat bit his lip, bracing himself for his following question. “But Father, what if there’s a good reason she can’t give them to us? What if we really aren’t meant to use both the cat and ladybug miraculous together?”

Hawkmoth pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing exasperatedly. “I see she’s attempted to deceive you and play you for a fool. Don’t fall for that delilah’s sugar-coated words and pretty face, Adrien. Even if whatever lies she told you were true, it still doesn’t amount to the destruction she’s inflicted on Paris throughout all these years due to her infuriating stubbornness. This fight could have been over long ago, and yet she continues to allow all of Paris to suffer for her pride and arrogance.”

Shelving aside the accusation of Ladybug being the source of Paris’ misery for a later discussion, Chat insisted, “But this time you’ve gone too far. You’re going to kill her!!”

“Good. You might actually manage to collect her earrings if she’s a motionless corpse!” Hawkmoth spat, disgusted.

Chat’s eyes grew wide and he gasped sharply, blood running cold. This couldn’t really be his father talking, could it? Had he any love or compassion left in his soul? Was this another effect of his miraculous; was misusing the power of empathy rendering him unable to actually feel it anymore? What could this mean for Hawkmoth and his powers? Was he losing his control over his abilities and that’s why the akuma had become so ferocious recently, almost feral? Countless questions swirled around in his head, heart racing at the implications.

“I… You…” Chat stuttered incredulously, clenching his fists, claws painfully digging into his palms.

Fighting a sudden bout of nausea, Chat struggled to formulate any kind of coherent sentence. But how could he, when his mind was reeling at his sudden realization? That this was not the man he’d grown up with and loved.

While Gabriel hadn’t ever really been an outwardly doting or affectionate parent, Adrien had good memories of a caring father who loved him; one who had read to him as a child, played the piano with him, and had laughed with while playing trivia games. And while during the last few years he’d become more cold, unrepentant, and spiteful year after year, Adrien would never have suspected that he’d spiraled so out of control and deteriorated into such a ruthless and uncaring person.

Dismayed, he asked almost in a whisper, “Father… What’s happened to you?”

Hawkmoth snarled with a glower, “If this is how it’s going to be, then I have nothing more to say to you. Just stay out of my way.” He huffed, then added, “You always were a disappointment.” He then hung up without another word.

Chat couldn’t help but sit in silence, trying to blink back tears and calm his heart, which felt like it had just been rent into a thousand pieces. He didn’t know what to think or how to feel. This wasn’t how families were supposed to treat each other. Especially when there were only two of them left. Or three, if you included his mother.

His stomach dropped. Oh, God... What would Mom think? She’d be coming back to an insecure and troubled son and a husband who had become a cold-blooded husk of the man he used to be. Would she even want to be brought back to life if it was only to suffer?

His thoughts were interrupted by what sounded like a bus being thrown against a building, followed by the akuma’s enraged roars.

Chat cursed under his breath and stood. He’d allow himself to mourn later. Right now he had an urgent task: to stop his father from destroying Paris.

“If you were actually a nice guy, you wouldn’t be hounding Chloe and trying to pressure her into a relationship just because you think you deserve it,” Chat barked irritably at the akuma, who was stuck in the middle of the Seine hanging with one arm from Chat’s staff, which extended from one end of the edge to the other. “Leave Miss Bourgeois alone and stop being such a persistent douchebag,” Chat scolded, rubbing his sore muscles as he walked towards the discarded rugby ball off to the side.

The akuma grumbled and grunted as he floundered around in the water, holding onto the thin staff with great difficulty.

“Don’t worry, it’ll all be over soon and you can go home. Or better yet, go apologize,” Chat said, turning around to head back to where he’d left Ladybug and the others.

“Hey, you can’t just leave me here!” Reaver howled.

Chat looked back at him, giving him a cheeky smirk. “Watch me,” he quipped, then dashed away to a string of curses and incoherent shouting.

Shortly after, Chat arrived back at the street where his friends were located. He took a deep calming breath and, scooping up the stray Lucky Charm on the way, carefully approached the group, who was still huddled around Ladybug. She looked exhausted, breaths ragged, beads of sweat trickling down her face, as if she’d been trying to get up the whole time he’d been gone only to be held back by his friends. The idea caused a shiver creep up his spine, and the dusty air became harder to breathe.

Nino caught sight of him first. A strangled whine escaped his throat, and he frantically attempted to squeak out, “It’s C-Cha-...!” Having failed at formulating basic speech, he poked Alya’s shoulder to get her attention instead.

The latter’s eyes widened in terror, but she quickly composed herself and darted in front of Ladybug getting into a protective stance, courage largely fueled by adrenaline. Nino followed suit, crouching by the superheroine’s legs, halfway blocking her with his body.

“Don’t you dare come any closer!” Alya snarled, voice dripping with venom. “Haven’t you caused enough trouble?!”

Despite the numerous powers and abilities the cat miraculous bestowed upon him, the sight of a fierce and tenacious Alya terrified him. His countenance fell, hands nervously fidgeting with the rugby ball. He tried to think of a way to appease her and assure them he meant no harm, but was coming up short.

Before he could open his mouth, however, they were both shocked to hear Ladybug speak. “Alya, it’s okay.”

Alya’s jaw dropped in astonishment, having never seen them have any interaction that wasn’t hostile. But after a few seconds she hesitantly stepped aside, allowing Chat to walk past her.

Chat slowly knelt down by Ladybug’s side, offering her a tiny, penitent smile. “Hey.”

Ladybug smiled brightly in return. “Hi,” she said, chuckling lightly. “You came,” she breathed.

Chat felt his chest flutter at the thought of her being happy to see him. Still a bundle of nerves, he sputtered, “H-how are y- uhh… Are you oka- um...”

“I’m alright, Chat,” she answered him reassuringly, touching his forearm. Her brows became knitted and she asked quietly, “B-but did you happen to see a young man, the supermodel Adrien Agreste? He’s my- I mean, he’s their friend,” she corrected hastily. “He ran after the akuma. And I’m worri- uh, we’re - worried about him.”

“I did,” he replied, touched by her concern even now, and still protecting the nature of their relationship from anyone else who might overhear. “He’s fine.”

Ladybug’s shoulders relaxed a bit and a small breath escaped her, a relieved smile replacing tightly pursed lips.

Chat fiddled anxiously with the hem of his cowl. “I, um…” he stammered, then reached into his pocket. “I have something of yours,” he said finally as he brought out her yo-yo and offered it to her. “Also this,” he nodded towards the polka-dotted bottle of oil, holding it up with his tail.

“Thank you,” she replied, voice full of warmth. With a hint of shyness she asked, “Um… I might need a little help, if you don’t mind.” She extended her hand towards him tentatively.

“Oh! O-of course,” he said. He took hold of the rugby ball and ripped it open, freeing the blackened butterfly within. Then he draped Ladybug’s arm around his shoulders, supporting her waist with his other arm, and helped her to stand up. She hissed in discomfort, Chat’s own pained expression mirroring hers. Handing her the Lucky Charm, she took it and laboriously threw it up in the air.

“MIRACULOUS LADYBUG!” she croaked rather than shouted.

Ladybug had never been as happy to see the swarms of tiny magical ladybugs as she was now. They sparkled and swirled around them, removing injuries and setting everything back as it should be. Ladybug’s strength and energy returned and Nino could now stand without aid.

Next Ladybug purified the corrupted akuma, giving it a small wave as it flew off.

Everything was back to normal... and yet everything had completely changed.

Still in a half embrace, Chat and Ladybug turned their heads to look back at each other, faces almost touching, and if Chat didn’t know better, he’d say she was looking at him with a fondness he’d never felt from her before. Eyelashes fluttering slowly, her eyes seemed bluer and more vibrant than even the brightest of skies; a hint of red dusted her freckled cheeks and her rosy pink lips looked tantalizingly soft, almost inviting.

“Um…” they heard Nino say hesitantly.

In a flash the pair pulled apart, chuckling awkwardly and wearing matching blushes, nonchalantly dusting off and smoothing out their suits despite no more dirt being present.

Nino continued, “What do you guys think happened to Adrien?”

“He’s probably on his way back,” Alya said, shrugging.

A loud yet familiar beeping suddenly rang through the air. Ladybug habitually raised her hand to touch her earring, knowing her time was up.

Apprehensively walking up to Alya and Nino, she nervously twirled the ends of her hair and said, “When Adrien comes back, will you– um… Will you please tell him that I really appreciate what he did? The way that he– I mean, he was amazi- uhh! That is, he was very…” She took a deep breath to try to get her stuttering under control and tried again, “I-it was very brave of him,” she finished lamely, her face almost as red as her suit.

Alya nodded with a smile. “Sure thing, LB.”

Thanking her and giving them one last goodbye, Ladybug turned around and was surprised to see that Chat was just as flushed as she was for some reason. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, averting his eyes to look anywhere else but at her.

Gathering up her nerve, she approached him and cleared her throat slightly. “Shall we?” she asked amiably, slipping her hand into his. Chat’s eyes widened, flicking up to meet hers. His face turned an even deeper shade of crimson, but managed to nod in reply. They headed off together, and Ladybug could have sworn she heard an awed Nino quietly mutter, “Dude...” as they leaped onto the rooftops.

(Mood Music: Paper Boats - Transistor OST, Ashley Barrett)

They stopped once they had traveled few streets down to a quieter neighborhood. Chat began to pace back and forth, arms tightly crossed and tail whipping back and forth agitatedly, still avoiding her gaze.

Is he angry? Ladybug fretted. Despite being short on time, she decided to give him a few moments to work out whatever was going on inside his head.

The telltale beeps rang again, more urgently this time. Only 2 dots left.

The earrings had first begun to beep as she lay helpless next to Alya and Nino. She’d practically resigned herself to the fact that they’d be forced to find out who she was, putting them both in extreme danger. To say that she’d been terrified would be a massive understatement.

And then Chat Noir showed up against all odds. Even though she’d had no reason to believe he would help her, inexplicably, deep down, part of her had faith that he would. She wasn’t sure about his reasons or if anything had happened between him and his father, but she was grateful that luck had been on her side during this battle, despite having gotten closer to death than she ever had before.

She chewed on her lip as she recalled the amount of pain her body felt, how close she’d been to despairing and yet somehow managing to keep it together for Alya and Nino’s sake. She would surely have some nightmares about it for a while. But if this experience helped her and Chat begin to solidify a friendship and started her on the path to rescue him from Hawkmoth, then it would have all been worth it. He was worth it. She wasn’t going to give up on him, not ever. He needed her just as much as she needed him.

Finally Chat spun around and approached her but stopped short just beyond arm’s length, almost as if he was afraid of her. He opened his mouth to speak yet couldn’t force anything out, and despite him trying to hold himself together she noticed his fists shaking at his sides. She could sense the significant inner turmoil he was experiencing, tormented by too many conflicting thoughts. He was so hesitant and anxious, Ladybug wondered if he thought she was upset at him for not turning up to the akuma attack earlier than he had.

Wanting to help or offer whatever comfort she could, she stepped closer, looking up at him to see if he approved of her proximity. Not sensing any resistance, she gently took one of his hands, slowly stroking the back with her thumb. Finally he looked at her, eyes shining, struggling to keep his composure.

Unable to hold back any longer, he surged forward and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her body flush against his into a bone-crushing hug.

“Ladybug,” he uttered, his voice almost a whisper. She could feel his arms trembling. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Chat…” she returned his embrace, stunned by his apology.

“You almost– I thought you were…” he trailed off, unable to say the word.

She squeezed him back firmly and reassured him, “But I’m fine now, it’s okay. I’m okay.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “Chat, you saved me.”

Hearing this only made him choke back a sob, a shudder racking his entire body. After a few ragged breaths, he murmured, “I should have been there. I always should have been. All these years you’ve needed me and I was never there for you. I fought against you, made your life a living hell along with Hawkmoth, and yet somehow you don’t absolutely loathe me? Why?!”

She pulled away to hold his face in her hands, lightly sliding her fingers across it to wipe his tear-streaked cheeks.

Looking him in the eyes, she stated definitively, “Kitty, I could never hate you. I care about you. You’ve been in a bad situation all these years with no one to help you either. But we’re in this together now. And I’d like us to finally be friends, if you’ll allow it.”

Chats mouth quirked into a tiny smile and hummed out a small chuckle. “Does this mean that you really forgive me?” he asked hopefully, knitting his eyebrows, eyes glimmering with hope.

Ladybug tilted her head in endearment and smiled back brightly. “Of course,” she replied, struggling to resist a strong urge to snuggle up to him and cuddle all his doubts away.

Covering her smaller hands with his, Chat breathed out something between a relieved sigh and a laugh, squeezing his eyes shut to try to prevent even more tears from falling. Hands still trembling, he whispered absently, “How are you real…? Why are you so good to me?”

Taken aback at him being overcome by the concept of being actually forgiven for his shortcomings, she felt a hard lump rise to the back of her throat. She wondered more than ever when was the last time anyone had shown him any affection or understanding at home, or was sympathetic to him when he made any mistakes. Although come to think of it, she also wasn’t sure if she truly wanted to know the answer, lest her heart break for him even further.

But how could she answer him? There was so much she wanted to say, a million words at the tip of her tongue and yet it was impossible to sum it all up into a single sentence.

Because I want to help.

Because you’re deserving of love and kindness, not abuse and exploitation.

Because I want you to know what it’s like to be cherished.

Because we were destined to be partners, kindred spirits.

Because we finally found each other.

Because somehow, inexplicably, I love you as I love myself.

Before she could say anything, however, he declared softly, “From now on, I’ll always protect you. I swear it. I won’t let anything like this happen to you again, not ever. I’ll fix everything. I’ll make it right.”

“We’ll do it together,” she replied. “And I’ll protect you, too. You’re not alone anymore, Chat.”

Chat’s breath hitched and his eyes fluttered open, boring into hers, the significance of her comforting words sinking in like a warm breeze, and he gazed at her as if she’d just given him the most important gift in the world unconditionally.

But there was something else there too; something she couldn’t put her finger on. Something that had always been there but had grown from a small flame into a roaring fire. Whatever it was, it was overwhelming and intimate.

Throat suddenly dry, she could feel her face redden and was almost certain that Chat would be able to hear her heart pounding. She’d scarcely noticed how close their bodies had become, faces almost touching, breaths mingling together. Chat’s gaze flitted towards her mouth and he absentmindedly bit his lip.

Moments passed in silence; tension slowly ebbed away from Chat’s shoulders and his posture relaxed. His throat bobbed as he swallowed audibly before opening his mouth to speak.

“Ladybug, I–”

The abrupt trill of Ladybug’s earrings startled them apart, urgently reminding them that they were out of time. Ladybug held back a frown, annoyed at the near heart attack those blasted earrings gave her. Stupid time limit.

“Uh… I guess that’s my cue to skedaddle,” she chuckled awkwardly, tucking some loose hair behind her ear.

Chat let out a shaky laugh and cleared his throat. “R-right…” he mumbled as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“I-I’ll see you around? Well, I mean, of course we’ll be seeing each other- I mean, duh. B-but uhh– Not that kind of seeing! I meant to ‘see’ see! That is– AUGH!” she stammered, unsure of the reasons behind her underwhelming eloquence, and she facepalmed, groaning in embarrassment.

Smiling, Chat walked up to her while she was busy covering her face in mortification. He took her hands and pulled them away gently. Ladybug hadn’t heard him approach and gasped lightly, butterflies swirling all over her insides; her whole body felt like it was made of gelatin.

“See you around… My Lady,” he said, placing a featherlight kiss upon the knuckles of one hand... and then on the other. Ladybug’s chest burned in a way that had nothing to do with the current summer weather, surprised she hadn’t melted onto the roof.

Not trusting herself to speak any more, she grinned and stepped back towards the edge of the building (and almost tripping on absolutely nothing at all) giving Chat a small parting wave before swinging away.

Minutes later, Marinette finally found Nino and Alya, who were still a bit disoriented but no worse for wear. Despite having to endure Alya’s stern lecture about safety and enforcing the buddy system (during which she came dangerously close to eye-rolling wearily), seeing them again after being so close to losing everything just a short while prior brought her untold relief.

“Girl, you are never gonna believe what happened during the akuma attack,” Alya continued indistinct, talking a million miles a minute, recapping everything in extreme detail. Nino nodded along and would chime in now and then, still in high alert after what had transpired.

While Nino and Alya rambled on (with Nino being particularly bemused by the idea of Adrien literally stupefying the akuma with the power of shouting, “Just like in Skyrim!”) Marinette felt a tingle run down her spine and became filled with the telltale distinct feeling that they were being watched.

Hair standing on end, her gaze darted around discreetly, mentally preparing for another potential danger. Finally she spotted a pair of familiar emerald green eyes lurking in the shadows a few meters away, faintly glowing from within a small darkened alcove behind Nino and Alya. Her eyes widened in surprise, which made Chat realize that she’d noticed him, and he froze in alarm.

To Marinette it felt like time had stopped during this impromptu stare-down. Chat looked like a deer in headlights that was about to flee because he’d been caught spying (although knowing what she did about him and his character, Marinette suspected that he just wanted to make sure Alya and Nino were safely reunited with her and Adrien)

Tensed like a guitar string, Chat seemed almost resigned and expectant that she would scream and give him away, as any Parisian did whenever they caught sight of him. He wasn’t prepared for what actually happened.

Marinette smiled at him.

Chat’s furrowed his brows with a baffled expression. After a moment he relaxed and even smiled back slightly, looking relieved and even grateful, even if he didn’t understand why he’d been gifted a smile instead of a scowl. Maybe he would assume that she’d seen him help Ladybug during the akuma attack and had garnered the tiniest bit of sympathy. That was just as well. She was sure he would appreciate having two people in Paris that didn’t despise him: Ladybug and Marinette. He would need supporters if was to prove to the world that he was no longer their enemy.

But that was a worry for a later time. At the moment she was just thankful to be alive and surrounded by her loved ones.

And now, fortuitously, Chat Noir had finally become one of those loved ones.

#Discordant Sonata #Miraculous Ladybug #Ladynoir #Enemies AU #Marinette Dupain Cheng #Adrien Agreste #fanfiction #Eden writes

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nicolewoo · 5 years ago

Text

Good News Pairing: Fergal Devitt X Reader Warning: Smut, Oral sex, masterbation, consentual sex, Sexual Content Language NSFW, slight BDSM (18+ only peeps) Do not interact if you’re under 18!

I stayed at the apartment to work as Ferg and Colby went to their afternoon physical therapy appointments. It was really great to see them getting along so well, although they tended to be worked up when they got home. My mind began wandering from my work to how to keep the boys busy when they got back. They were always so hyper after therapy that if they didn't do something physical like hiking or swimming, they got depressed. I figured today was a perfect day for a bike ride. I quickly called over to the bike rental place and reserved 3 bikes for 5 pm. That should be enough to keep them out of trouble.

Back to work. I've got to concentrate. I told myself, but my mind wouldn't focus, so I went out to the back porch for some fresh air. I couldn't have been out there for more than 5 minutes when a loud, rowdy knocking on the back window scared me. I looked up to see Fergal's face through the window all full of smiles. It was obvious he was so happy he couldn't stand still.

“You're early.....” I started as I came in the back door, but looking at Fergal and Colby, I realized something good was happening. Both of the guys were all smiles and energy.... plus they were hours early getting home. Ferg walked up, wrapped his arms around me, and kissed me while he dipped me close to the floor. I squealed in surprise. “Babe....” He started to say.

It was then that I realized what was happening, “You're cleared?” I half asked and half said.

“Yes!” Ferg leaned in to kiss me again. He picked me up and spun me around in joy! “T'ere clearing me for Wrestlemania too!

Nothing in the world could have been better news to Fergal, and I was so happy. Wrestlemania.... the dream... his dream... since he was a child.... He had been cleared for his first Wrestlemania. When Ferg set me down, Colby came over and patted him on the shoulder, “This man is going to live out his dream!” He beamed.

“And you?” I asked Colby.

He was still smiling as he shook his head no, “But I've been to Wrestlemania before. This will be Ferg's first time. We need to celebrate!” he said as he went to the fridge and grabbed 2 bottles of beer. “Y/N?” he offered, but I declined. “Anyway, Doc gave me the rest of the day off to celebrate with you guys. What do you say we go to dinner? Ferg's choice. My treat.” He lifted his bottle to toast with Ferg's bottle.

“Well, If it's MY choice, I gotta go wit'......”

“Sushi” we all three said at the same time and broke down laughing.

True to form, they were hyper as could be, and the good news only made it worse. There was no way these guys were going to be able to wait until 5 pm for the bikes I rented, so I called and cancelled the reservation. Meanwhile, Colby made dinner reservations. The next step was for Fergal to tell his parents. It was late in Ireland, but luckily his parents were still awake. “Mum, Dad, I got cleared!” He chimed into the phone. He was skyping, but I stayed out of view. It was too early for a meet the parents call. His parents were ecstatic. Mum got a bit teary eyed and dad hollered loudly in joy. I left the room to give them their privacy and tried to focus on work, but it was no use. This afternoon was going to be a wash.

Colby came out as I packed up my files and computer. “I'm so happy for Ferg. He deserves this.” He said again, taking a big drink of his beer.

“He does,” I answered. “I want to thank you for helping him through this.”

Colby looked a bit surprised, “It's the least I could do, given....” He trailed off.

I waited a beat..... He said nothing..... “Given that you hurt him?” I questioned quietly. He hung his head a bit. “Colby,” I put my hand on his arm. “He doesn't blame you. I don't blame you. Nobody blames you. It was an accident... pure and simple.” He tentatively peeked up at me. “I mean it. I've seen that exact move done a thousand times, and nobody got injured. This one time he just landed wrong.”

“It's hard not to feel guilty.” He said.

I hadn't even noticed that Fergal had come into the room, “It was jus' an accident, mate. I'm not mad at ya. I keep tellin' ya that.” He called out from the door.

“Do you blame Kane for your knee injury?” I asked.

“No.” he was quick to answer, “but that was different. I fell wrong doing my move.... In Ferg's case...” He trailed off.

“In my case, it was exactly t'a same t'ing. I fell wrong. Ya got nuttin’ to feel bad 'bout.” he said slapping Colby on the shoulder harder than he needed too.

“Ok. Ok. Enough of that.” I changed the subject. “What are we going to do for the next few hours?” I asked.

“Lets go swimmin'” Ferg said.

Seth quickly agreed, but I was certainly not ready to be in a swimsuit around the two of them. “You should go. I need to do some more work.” Seth looked at the bag where I had just packed up my work and computer.

“I thought you were done,” He said.

Shit. “I just thought of something I forgot to do.” I lied.

It seemed to appease him, and he didn't ask any more about it. The boys changed into their swimming suits and headed to the apartment complex's pool. Once they were gone, I pulled out my work and tried to concentrate, but it didn't work. I opted to call some friends from home instead.

“Where are you?” Stacy's voice came through the phone.

“Girl, you're never going to believe me.” I said.

“You were supposed to be home days ago. I was getting worried.” She said.

“I sent you a text that I was staying longer. Didn't you get it?” I asked.

“Yes, but you said you'd call me and tell me why. That was three days ago. What's going on?” She urged.

“Stac..... If I could have anything in the world (aside from having Jake back), what would it be?”

She chuckled jokingly, “That wrestler you're crazy about... Frank, Fred.... what's his name? The one with the abs...”

“Finn....” I corrected and just waited for things to fall into place.

“Wait!!! Is he? Is he THERE?” she hedged.

“You've missed a lot.” I joked.

“What's going on?” she prodded. “Wait! What was the meeting about? Did you get to meet Finn?”

I giggled like a giddy school girl. “Not only did I meet him, I'm in Alabama with him.”

She damn near screamed into the phone, “WHAT??? WHAT HAPPENED???”

It wasn't like her to get so excited, and I laughed again at her. “Let's start from the beginning.” I relayed the story to her... the dinner, how Fergal and I met, the instant attraction, the meeting with the McMahons, the job offer, the trip to Alabama.... all of it.

When I was done, there was nothing but silence on the other end of the phone. “Stacey, are you still there?” I asked.

“Yeah. Yeah.” She said. “I just... I don't know what to say. You're in love with him? And he's in love with you? Love at first sight?” she asked.

“We haven't said we love each other, but yes, I'm pretty sure he feels the same way I do.” It honestly was the first time I'd thought about if he loved me.

“So, you're just going to uproot your life and go on the road with him?” She asked with a disapproving tone.

“I am.” I said gently. “You know how miserable I've been since Jake passed. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I need to take it. I need to get away from that house, those memories. It's time for me to stop mourning and start living.”

She paused a second before continuing, “I haven't heard you so happy since Jake died,” she admitted. “And you're right, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. I'm just going to miss you so much.”

“Sweetie, I'll miss you too, but I'll still keep my house for us to visit when we are in St. Louis and we can Skype whenever we want,” I answered.

“I'm really happy for you though. So, is he everything you'd dreamed he would be?” Her voice took on a teasing tone.

“Yes. And more.” I admitted. “I feel as comfortable and happy as I was with Jake.”

“I'm so glad.” She replied.

We stayed talking on the phone for a while, discussing the ways that my life had changed and what my plans are for the future. We also talked about our church, her family and everything happening back home.

I was still on the phone when the boys got back. They were still rowdy. Colby was flicking Fergal with a wet towel as they walked over to me. Ferg bent over and kissed my forehead. “Who's on the phone,” he whispered.

“My best friend.”

“Hi best friend!” he yelled out.

Colby had to join in, “Hi best friend!” He yelled too. “Is she single?” Colby asked.

“No!” I whispered as I heard Stacey laughing.

“I'm going to let you go so you can get ready for dinner.” Stacey said. “Please call me in a couple of days.... don't leave me hanging here.”

“I promise. Things are changing so fast here, but I promise to keep you updated.”

Both of the guys had disappeared into their bedrooms. Once off the phone, I decided that if Fergal was showering, I should join him. As I guessed, I heard the shower when I entered the bedroom. I quickly stripped down and headed to the bathroom. Fergal was stepping out of the shower when I got there.

He looked me up and down, “What are ya doin'?” He cocked an eyebrow at me as he reached for a towel and started drying off.

“I was hoping for another shower with you.” I said.

“I'm done with my shower, luv” He teased. “But I wouldn't mind getting dirty again.” He reached out and pulled me closer to him. He laid a blazing hot kiss on my lips then trailed his mouth down to my neck. He kissed, sucked and nibbled his way from my ear down to my collarbone. His hands ran down my back and grabbed my ass gently. “Let me finish drying off. Why don't you go get started and I'll join you in a second?” He placed his hands on my shoulders, turned me around and playfully slapped my ass to push me to the bedroom.

“Get started?” I knew what he meant, but I was shocked at the request.

He wrapped his arms around my waist again. He pressed his wet chest against my back, and his semi hard penis grew as it touched my ass. Lowering his mouth to my ear, he ran his tongue over the shell for a second then seductively said, “You heard me right. Go touch yourself. I want to watch you please yourself.” I gasped slightly, but did as he requested.

I laid on the bed, feeling very exposed, but then I guess that was the whole point. I started with my nipples... twisting, gently pulling them, getting my nipples even harder than they already were. I looked over to see Fergal hanging his towel up and staring at me. He slowly walked into the bedroom, walked past the bed and grabbed a chair that was in the corner of the room. Once he turned back toward me, his eyes locked onto my hands. He watched me as he brought the chair to the end of the bed. His cock was fully erect now, and I wanted it. I wanted him, but he was going to make me wait. He placed his hand on my left foot and slowly, gently, he trailed his fingers up my body until he reached my hands. He grabbed me by the wrists and slowly dragged my hands down in between my legs. “Make yourself cum for me,” he growled as he sat in the chair he'd just moved.

I wasn't exactly comfortable being on display for him, but I couldn't deny it turned me on even more; especially because he looked at me hungrily.

I began slowly exploring my pussy, teasing the lips, dipping a finger inside to get wet then running my finger over my clit. I was awarded with a slow deep growl from Fergal. “You look so beautiful.” He said. “Keep going.”

At his prompting, I continued slowly circling my clit with my finger, and a moan escaped me. “Does t'at feel good?” Fergal asked, and I moaned again. I heard him move the chair closer. “Keep goin'” He added. “I wanna see ya make yourself cum.”

I continued teasing my clit, but I had to admit I was uncomfortable being on display like I was. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with putting on a show for him, but I wasn't used to this. He moaned as I slid two fingers inside me to caress my g-spot. The sound of it was so sensual. It spurred me on. I was close to cumming when he cleared his throat, “move your fingers back up to your clit, luv.” He rasped out. I knew I'd cum faster with the g-spot, but if he wanted me to cum by my clit, then he would get it.

My fingers returned to my bead and began quickly brushing over it. I was squirming now, wanting to cum, but unable to. I knew if I was going to cum, I was going to need to stop trying to be sexy for him and just be myself. With that, I curled my fingers and began scraping my nails over the sensitive spot. Another moan escaped me, and Fergal stood to get a better view. “My luv likes things a little rough, doesn't she?” he asked as he ran his hand up my thigh. It was then that I realized he was stroking himself in the same rhythm as me. That made me moan even more. “Do you want this?” Fergal said as he came around to my side of the bed and stroked his cock right beside my face. I couldn't talk now. I couldn't tell him how much I wanted him, but he saw my eyes pleading for him.

He climbed on the bed next to my head. “Open up. Get ready to suck my cock.” He ran his thumb over my bottom lip and pushed my mouth open. As he grazed my bottom lip with his cock, I reached my tongue out to lap up the pre-cum on his dick. He moaned at the contact and wrapped a hand around the back side of my head, gently pulling my mouth over his dick. He filled my mouth and moaned as he watched me please myself. “T'at's a good girl.” He praised as I began to suck hard. “T'at's a very good girl.”

He began to buck instinctively into my mouth just as I felt my orgasm begin to rip through my body. I immediately stopped moving my hand, and he pulled it away from my sex only to reach down and gently slap my clit. FUCK! He slapped it twice more, which extended my orgasm. I knew I wasn't doing any good at sucking him, but he didn't seem to care. My mouth was around him, and he was helping me cum even more.

As my orgasm was ending, I focused my attention to sucking his cock, and I expected him to let me, but he pulled away from me.

He moved to the end of the bed and sat back down in the chair. Wrapping his arms around my legs, he pulled me down so my pussy was lined up with the end of the bed. I moaned as he flicked his tongue over my clit then flattened his tongue to run it over my slit. The second time over, he allowed the tip of his tongue to slide inside me a little, and with each subsequent lick, he went deeper and deeper inside me. “I want you to cum for me again.” He whispered just before curling his tongue inside me and hitting my g-spot. His tongue was phenomenal, and each lick, each suck, each gentle nibble was moving me closer and closer to the edge again.

This man's mouth. I could live just for this man's mouth. I collapsed in a shaking moaning mess as he kissed his way up my body and easily pulled me up higher on the bed, burying his head in my neck and said, “T'at's my lass. Feel better now?” He sucked my earlobe as his hand played with my nipple. I moaned; unable to form words, and a shit eating grin spread across his face again. He adjusted his position and ran his hand to his dick to guide it inside me so slowly. It was excruciatingly slow. All I wanted was to cum again, but Fergal was going at his own pace. Slow steady strokes. The concentrated look on his face told me how difficult it was for him to keep the slow pace, but I had to admit it felt wonderful. He always felt wonderful.

He sat up and pulled my legs onto his shoulders, causing him to go deeper inside of me. He began to thrust faster and faster as his dick slammed into the back of my pussy. Faster and faster over and over until he grumbled out, “NOW!” my orgasm overtook me as he filled me with his hot cum. We didn't move for a minute. He stared at me, and I stared at him as we both came back to reality.

He collapsed next to me on the bed and wrapped his big arms around me. I ran my fingers sensually up and down his arm and tilted my head to lean against his. “Thank you.” was all I could say.

“No need ta t'ank me, luv. I should be t'ankin' you.” He smiled at me.

“No. I'm certain I got the better end of that deal.” I chuckled.

He paused for a second and said, “Can we agree to disagree?” He pecked me on the lips. “Now about that shower.....” His eyes glinted as he guided me out of the bed.

#fergal devitt finn balor finn balor smut

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