#Mummy venture x reader

[thatsoundslikeadate]

what about mummy Venture who wants to seal you in their temple with them 🤭 w like very possessive/needy smut

THAT IS SICH A GOOD IDEA

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You speaking, venture speaking, others speaking.

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Warnings : NSFW, breeding kink, mentions of rotting body parts, praising, venture has a dad build, AMAB!Venture, p in v, rutting, biting, FEMALE READER!!!,cumming, multiple rounds mentioned

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Also another warning, I am NOT a history person, so stuff maybe wrong but it's whatever ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥😝😝🙏🙏

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Ahh, who would've thought the roles would switch?

Instead of venture finding you and your artifacts.. your finding THEIRS.

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You walk towards the camp with great pride, you're team behind you. It's made up of strong men AND women!! You guys put everything in your back packs, your friend Aria walks up to you and hands you a map. "These show the inside of the temple and what remains to be found, isn't that so cool!" Your friend asks, the map appears to be old, crisp and sand fall from it each time you fix your hands to look closer at the artifact. "Very much, go get Tyler and tell him we're going to the temple in about... 13 minutes. And to get out of the shower! He's wasting warm water.." you complain, stretching and watching aria run towards the bathroom. You clean up the remaining sand off of you're desk and look at the map once more, looking at the tomb of Sloan Cameron, 2000 years old. No one's come out. But you were about to change that! You walk towards the golf like car that you and your team will take to this massive underground temple and start your way, the dessert sand blowing out of your hair and onto the ground, your team listening to the radio broadcast, you start putting on sunscreen, since you don't want to get burnt.. again. As you reach the temple the humidity drops, it's dryer and more crisp.. more than normal. you shiver from that. But let it go. You reach the temple doors and step out, your previous set still there. You get you and you're team ready and walk in, you take out of the map and tell you team to split up, they do and your stuck with... No one. You walk to and from the sides of the temple, grazing your hand over the artwork that covered the wall. You walk into a dark but lit room, covered in gold and jewels, you shiver as the once hot air turn very cold. Your body shuffling you back.

You hit the back of something, the sound of sanding falling and hands wrap around you makes you jump. "Dammit Tyler! Let go! I told you I won't date you!" No answer. You hit the sides of the stranger to find... Bandages.. no. Not bandages. Their crisp and.. sandy. "Y/N! Where are you!" You hear Tyler scream from outside.. so if he's outside... Who are you backed up against?...

You slowly look up, the air leaving you as you see Sloan. Sloan Cameron. No.. this can't be real.. their dead! They died 2000 years ago! You back up from the figure as they step into the light, scars across their rotting skin, the crisp bandages moving with each step, Sloan put their hand up to take off the bandage over their head, taking it off, their hair still well.. "hello human." Sloan starts making a obvious sign that they are friendly by staying back and not moving, until you move forward. "Y-you've been dead for.. 2000 years!.." you graze over their skin, crust and dust moving from them again, they shake and sand goes everywhere... Onto you too..

"Yes but.. I was always alive.. it was a curse.. from a witch when I switched on her.. she turned me into a immortal monster!..look at me! She made me watch everyone I love rot away.." they point to the obvious meat on their bones, they aren't a skeleton.. just rotting and greenish... Human?.. they move a lot more into the light and you can clearly see they aren't dead, not at all, it's just the lack of sunlight, the gold is the only light here, other than the torches that adorned the walls. Venture walks towards you, yet you hear the doors behind you close and you run over to them, banging on the door. A few seconds go by and no one comes. You slide onto the floor. Sad and upset. Your team just left you here, with a mummy. Who was probably gonna kill you like those horror movies. But Sloan didn't make another step. Not until you got up. "Yet I have a question.." "WHAT!" They flinch, a rare movement from them considering their a king.

"if you want to.. instead of dying in here.. I could seal you in with me and you wouldn't die? Since those doors don't open until the next 100 years.. also what's your name? I uh-" you look behind you and a shock expression takes over your face. You consider it, if you try to escape, which you probably can't, you wouldn't be alive to see the temple again and Sloan. You consider it again. "My names (Name..).. okay.. so how do we seal?.." you ask them, they look nervous, putting their hands together and looking down at the floor, you get the idea like a lightbulb over your head. You look at them shocked. "Really?.." they shake their head yes and shuffle around, trying to find a spot to make in comfy so you guys can seal, venture goes to find some ancient clothes that aren't fucked up by the ages, once they do, they ask you to change, you do and the gold shines off of you it's a silk fabric, with gold lines on it, Sloan has you put rings and bracelets on, and finally a necklace, they clip it to their hand and draw out blood, than do your finger too, putting it on your neck to symbolize that you are apart of them now. They allow you to get comfy before looking down at their body, wondering if it still works.. they undo the bandages that cover their waist, the fabric falling, you stare in shock and blush, looking away, venture pushes your knees to the side sliding the silk fabric up your body, tracing your body with their rough hands, your soft skin different than their rotting dry skin. They allow you to get enough courage to wrap your arms around them. Your shiver as they push into you, your wetness a lube for the mummy, they push in even more, filling you up, allowing you to against will rutting their hips, whimpering at every little movement, Sloan bites your shoulder, than traces to you're neck, biting and marking you with hickeys, like a choker.

Sloan starts moving in and out, slowly letting you adjust to the feeling of them against you, you whimper as they hit your cervix, they pound into your body faster as you moan and whimper, you wrap your arms around their body as they slam into you, whimpering and wet sounds coming from the room in the temple, Tyler and aria are confused and worried, but also sketchy, because all of the team except you is here, who could you be with?

Sloan pushes against you again, this was their 4th orgasm and your 2nd, the cum seeping out of the hole they been using for 4 hours. Groaning your name, and praising you. "Nghm-.. [name].. your gonna look so beautiful with my children stuffed into you.." your speech into bubbles and babbles as they rut against you even more, signaling their orgasm. They came for a 5th time before calapsing on top of you, regaining their strength, they pull out and cum leaks out of you, venture jumps back in surprise and scratches their neck. "Heh- sorry-!" You try to say something but your mind is mush, they cuddle against you. You both sealed together.

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100 years later

<3

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You wake up as venture rummages through the gold, moving around quickly as the door to the room opens, a adult who looks just like Tyler walks in, you guys stare at him.

"yes?.." you ask the human. The adult runs out screaming and you both laugh before the door closes, another 100 years in the temple is fine with you two <3

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ITS FONE!!!

[klauw22]

little lore/fic/x reader stuff under cut bcs im insane abt mummy vencha,,,

Sloane Cameron, once a young devotee to the kings and queens of the land has been chosen to be sealed alive in the royal temple in order to guard the graves and riches of the dead. Unbeknownst to them, the scripture painted onto their limbs and back were not for protection or luck in the afterlife like they've been told, but rather curses and spells binding their soul onto the thin thread which laid between the two realms, dividing the living from the dead. That is where their soul was now bound to wander until eternity, losing their grip on mortality yet unable to pass on like the rest.

With time their flesh rotted away leaving nothing but a husk of sand and bones. Before sealing, their sight was blinded as they weren't worthy of looking onto the royals that rested within these tombs, not even in death, and to ensure that Sloane wouldn't try to escape.

For centuries the guardian remained asleep in their designated chamber. That was until now. Until you and your crew of explorers too curious for your own good uncovered the entrance to the temple, awakening the guardian from their peaceful slumber in the process.

The guardian now awake had one goal in mind.

With a torch in hand you scanned the golden walls upon entering, lightly tracing your fingers along the carved paintings. Sand and dust coating your fingertips. For a moment you swore you could feel another presence there with you. Another pair of eyes watching, lingering on you while your crew stayed behind. The room suddenly felt cooler, as if a draft of cold air passed through you making a shiver run up your spine. This spooked you even further but you were determined to continue onward.

Its probably just my imagination you tried to comfort yourself as you stepped deeper.

[tadaoren]

Tada! I’m working on a.. spice comic of mummy!venture x reader.

Things to note..

•Page count unknown

•Full color.. sigh. imma regret that.

•Full release unknown. (I work slow and procrastinate)

•Ven is based off Anubis. Reader is based of Anput. (I did mad research, please.)

[godihatethiswebsite]

Call of Duty

°•. ✿ .•°.•° ✿ °•.°•. ✿ .•°.•° ✿ °•.°•. ✿ .•°

✽ Writings cross-posted on Ao3

Series

✽ Desert Oasis - Johnny "Soap" MacTavish x f!reader

(The Mummy AU) When you stumble upon a small metal object engraved with the name of a fabled lost city, suddenly the legend you grew up hearing stories about becomes rooted in more than just fantasy. Arm in arm with your cousin Kyle - and with the help of his old comrade turned treasure hunter whose eyes you can't seem to resist - you venture into the Sahara in search of the truth. But when the truth comes at the cost of humanity's future, will the three of you be enough to keep an ancient curse at bay? Original Concept︱Part One︱Part Two︱Part Three︱Part Four︱Part Five︱Part Six︱Part Seven︱Part Eight︱Part Nine

✽ Tethered Bonds - Poly 141 x f!reader

(Omegaverse AU) A lucky stroke of fate led you right into the arms of your alpha soulmates. But is it everything you dreamed it would be or just the continuation of a nightmare? Part One︱Part Two︱Part Three

°•. ✿ .•°.•° ✿ °•.°•. ✿ .•°.•° ✿ °•.°•. ✿ .•°

One Shots

✽ Mourning Doves - Johnny "Soap" MacTavish x f!reader

Johnny provides you with some comfort after your favorite hockey team loses

✽ Everything's Perfect - Simon 'Ghost' Riley x f!reader

You find yourself learning a painful lesson in futility when a possessive romance becomes too stifling

[after-witch]

Horrorfest: Nothing Ventured [Yandere Sesshoumaru x Reader]

Title: Nothing Ventured [Yandere Sesshoumaru x Reader]

Synopsis: Sesshoumaru lets you put together stuff for a Halloween party. Jaken is whiny about it.

For Horrorfest request:

Sesshoumaru with a darling that’s really into Halloween? (Maybe she’s in a kagome situation where she’s from the modern world) and goes on and on about Halloween and spooky things in general?

Word count: 1132

notes: yandere, reader is captive but is pretty much just like "this is my life now" about it

“I don’t see why you should be allowed to waste precious supplies for such, such--nonsense!”

Jaken’s impish fury being directed at you was nothing new, and you dutifully ignored him and continued working on your makeshift Halloween garland. It wasn’t anything like the type of stuff you might have bought back home, mass-produced and printed and ready-to-go, but maybe that just made it more special. 

Jaken paced back and forth in front of you, waving his stick and ranting.

“To think! The invaluable ink I use to assist our lord Sesshoumaru, wasted for some… some… silly human festival!” 

“Jaken.”

You and Jaken both froze in place. Jaken, out of anxiety, and you, out of curiosity. 

Sesshoumaru, who had been sitting silently with his eyes closed ever since giving you permission to make some decorations, was now looking directly at his servant. He looked, as he often did, passive; but you knew that didn’t mean he wasn’t irritated. 

“Y-Yes, my lord?” Jaken gave a little bow, eyes darting from you to Sesshoumaru.

“Did I not give them permission for this?”

Jaken bowed his head a little. “Y-Yes, my lord, but--”

Sesshoumaru leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes again. “Then shut up and help them. I’m tired of your complaining.”

Jaken’s face split into fury before smoothing out into exasperated obedience. “Of-of course, my lord.” 

He turned to you, mumbling, and you didn’t hold your breath that he was anything but irritated with the command his lord had given him. It wasn’t the first time that Sesshoumaru had ordered Jaken to obey your whims; something which might have seemed impossible ages ago, but now that you had settled into an uneasy acceptance of your forced servitude to a demon lord from feudal Japan, it had become more common. 

“You should be grateful, you know,” Jaken muttered, grabbing one of your complete garlands and stringing it onto the rope you’d commandeered for your makeshift Halloween celebration. He looked like he could make a good decoration himself, you thought--a creepy little creature who ran around terrorizing children while they trick-or-treated. 

He continued speaking, even as his hands began to nimbly put together a garland. “A high-ranking demon lord like lord Sesshoumaru should never demean himself by giving in to some… human celebration.”

You hummed. “I know. But Halloween is my favorite holiday back home. So I’m glad I get to bring it here… sort of.” You glanced at the DIY supplies you’d been creating for a few days. There was your garland--the highlight of the decorations, in your opinion, although  you wished you’d been able t find orange paints; a costume, for yourself, as you didn’t even entertain the idea that Sesshoumaru would be willing to dress up (you were secretly working on something for Jaken, but you would cross that bridge when you came to it); and a smattering of dishes that you were hoping to turn into something like Halloween party food. 

You sighed. It was a shame you couldn’t make mummy hot dogs or use a gelatin mold to make a Jello brain. But it wasn’t like you had a way to get back to your own time period, or a way to get back… anywhere now. Sesshoumaru wouldn’t let you, even if you asked. Even if you pleaded sweetly and obediently. That’s how you got permission to set up Halloween, by pleading and pleading, and explaining how it worked and pleading some more. 

After the garland, you were going to get to work on the pumpkin carving. At first, you’d assumed that you’d have to carve something else--plump round radishes, maybe--but when you’d sketched out a pumpkin for Sesshoumaru, he murmured that he recalled seeing some in a human vegetable garden once. 

These pumpkins were dark green, almost black. You hadn’t tried to carve them yet--hopefully the insides weren’t too different from the bright orange pumpkins you always bought around Halloween time. 

Jaken saw you looking at the stash of pumpkins he’d been forced to procure for your Halloween celebration and scoffed. “And another thing! What a waste of food! Carving faces into food… and for what! Some silly festival that I’ve never heard of? I tell you, you are the most--” 

“Jaken.”

This time, when the two of you glanced at Sesshoumaru, his eyes flashed red in warning. Just for a moment. 

Jaken stammered out an apology and you bit down on your cheek to avoid saying anything. While Jaken went dutifully back to work, you kept on looking at the demon lord, who--you would swear this on your life--gave you something like a teasing smile. Just for a moment, before he closed his eyes to rest again. Or maybe it was a trick of the light.

Abandoning the garland for a moment, you grabbed one of the charcoal drawings you’d made to test out designs for the pumpkins. You approached the seemingly resting lord Sesshoumaru and dropped down to sit near him, kneeling out of a habit of forced respect.

“Do you want to see what I’m going to carve into the pumpkins?”  

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he opened his eyes, looking at you for a moment. 

“If you want to show them to me, you may. I don’t care.”

It was the closest thing to a “yes” that you were going to get. Really, you were grateful that he was letting you do this at all. Especially after you’d talked his ear off about Halloween the first time and his only response had been, “There’s nothing like that here. It sounds foolish.” 

Maybe it was foolish. But it was the only thing you had going for you right now. So you smoothed out the papers and held them up. He looked at them with disinterest, even as you chattered away, explaining the design for each one. 

When you were done, he glanced over at his impish servant. 

“Jaken,” he said. Jaken, busy finishing up a garland with an expression of clear distaste on his face, looked up.

“Yes, my lord?”

“Watch over them while they do this. If they injure themselves, I’ll cut off your hand.”

Jaken bristled. You could practically see little feet of fear scampering up his spine as he straightened.

“Of-of course, my lord!”

Sesshoumaru sighed, and closed his eyes. 

You scampered back over to Jaken and picked up the other end of the garland to help him finish. 

Maybe you weren’t going to get to go home. Maybe it wouldn’t be a real Halloween. Maybe you were being held in this quasi-captivity by a demon lord who barely spoke to you (Jaken, for all his protests about your very existence, did respond to your chatter)--

But at least you were having some fun for once.

That counted for something. 

[radiolore]

venture x childhoodfriends!reader

heeeyyy soooo.... I watched that one episode of mlp where twilight meets and reconciles with Moondancer and it inspired me to write this 😈😈

ALSO MY FUCKIN DRAFT OF THIS DIDNT SAVE SO I HAD TO START OVER RASGDHFJXKSN

also I haven't written a fanfiction since like.. middle school and for reference I've already graduated so I'm sorry if it's not that good 😭🙏

Sloan Cameron, also known as Venture. a now very well known archeologist, talon fighter, and the occasional overwatch agent. needless to say, their strength, wits, and discoveries has put them in the news and a few articles a good number of times.

right now, believe or not, they're not on some site looking for ancient relics of the past. or, in some way they could be. right now, they're at home looking through old photos of their childhood. they had recently moved after their previous apartment had been destroyed in an omnic attack.

for hours, they had been giggling to themselves, reminiscing old memories.

"awww, that was when I dressed up as a mummy for Halloween! I got called a nerd so many times.." they cringed briefly at the teasing they used to face. not like it was their fault that nobody else seemed to care about having a historically accurate costume! well... nobody except....

"wait.. who's that?" Sloan grabbed another photo, one of them in high school standing next to someone. they scratched their head as they tried to remember who this mystery person is.

"oh! that's y/n!" they finally remembered. their victorious smile faded as they started to remember you. "wow i... completely forgot about them.." they furrowed their brows.

they started to look for more photos of you. the more they saw, the more they remembered.

and the more they remembered about you, the more they remembered what they did to you and the pain they caused.

you and Sloan were best friends. from grade school until high school. the two of you met in grade school, both sharing a passion for dinosaurs, and you were inseparable since. you did everything together. you had a passion for art that matched the passion Sloan had for archeology.

Sloan remembered how you always said that you'd become an infamous artist, creating art for all to see and relate to or empathize with. they thought to themselves... well, if you were as passionate as they were, as they remembered, they were sure they could look you up and find countless of articles and online discussions about you. it would be easy to get in touch with you.

so Sloan pulled out their old cracked phone, and started to do some research on your name.

but... nothing. not so much as an online profile appeared. they blinked, confused. what happened? where were you?

their mind was filled with conflicting thoughts about why they couldn't find you online. they didn't doubt your ability to become successful, but maybe... you have an underground succession thing going on?

after not coming to a satisfying enough conclusion, Sloan shook their head. then they had an idea. even if you don't have an online appearance, you two used to be childhood best friends. it wouldn't be that hard to find you.

Sloan didn't know why, but they felt compelled and determined to find you.

actually, that's a lie. they do know why. they just don't want to think about it.

~

Sloan's nerves were through the roof right now. they started looking for you in their old hometown, and, surprisingly enough, you never left. so after some asking around, they found the apartment you supposedly lived in.

Sloan felt nervous as they stood at your door, feeling like an unwanted guest. well, they kinda are, but you'd be happy to see your old friend, right? who wouldn't be?

taking a deep breath in and puffing their chest out to feign confidence, they finally mustered up the courage to knock at your door.

after waiting dreadfully for a few seconds, the door slowly creaked open. Sloan's heart raced with anticipation for seeing your face again after so many years. and, from what they heard from the people who live here still, it seems nobody else has really seen you that often either.

eventually, the darkness inside your home filled with some light as Sloan was finally able to see your face. wow... you looked.. different. but still just as beautiful.

you styled your hair/hijab differently now, you were wearing more casual clothes (assumably resting at home), and.... you had bags under your eyes?

Sloan stood there awkwardly, watching your face go from confusion to shock. they lifted a hand and said, "hey..." while looking off to the side, unsure of how to greet you after so many years.

"uhm.. do you remember me? it's me, Sloan! we used to be friends? I just moved recently and I found some photos of us, and I thought of you so I wanted to-" they started rambling a bit, before they got interrupted.

"what are you doing here." Sloan's heart dropped as they heard the slight venom in your tone and they looked at your expression, only to find an emotionless, yet slightly bitter face. it wasn't the face they remembered... you used to be so sweet and caring, never letting a sour expression on your face. so why are you so different now?

"er- well.. I wanted to reconnect. I know we haven't talked in years, a-and I'm sorry for not reaching out before! but I got so focused on my work that i-" they were interrupted yet again as you scoffed, looking away.

"right. I know you were. I see you all the time on the news." you sighed. "look, it was real nice of you to stop by, but I'd rather be alone right now. goodbye." you shut the door.

Sloan stood there, shocked at your words and reaction.

meanwhile, on the other side of the door, your hands shook as you gripped the doorknob still. your heart ached as you just slammed the door in the face of your old friend, and... your old love.

way back when you two were still friends, as you grew up, you grew to like Sloan. like, really like them. they were everything to you. they meant everything to you. that is, until..

you shook the thought away, not wanting to remember. you let out a shaky sigh, trying to clam down from the flurry of emotions flowing through you right now. you held your head in your hands, overwhelmed. another knock at your door snapped you out of your thoughts. feeling anger build up again, you opened the door again, narrowing your exhausted eyes at your ex-friend.

"why are you still here? what do you want from me?" you spewed at them, feeling annoyed at the sight of them still at your door.

"listen, I know that we've- I've been gone for a long time, but I really want to reconnect with you. I want to be friends with you again." they pleaded, hoping you'll agree to their request.

your heart winced at the word "friends". you bit your lip, closed your eyes and sighed. "no thanks. I don't need anyone else, and I certainly don't need you." you closed the door again, this time with the intention of ignoring them if they tried knocking again.

Sloan stood there yet again, not knowing what to do. you were so... angry. and they knew why. and they knew they had to make it up to you. they did try knocking again, but after you didn't open the door again after the third knock, they left. they were still just as determined as ever to make it up to you.

you on the other hand, was determined as ever to push your feelings away and forget about them. you thought you had moved on, but seeing them again just brought up so many old memories, feelings, emotions, and heart break.

you sat on your couch, going through your phone. finally finding your and Sloan's old messages, you scrolled through the countless unread messages you had sent. tears welled up in your eyes as every emotion you felt then made themselves known again.

you remembered the heart ache you felt. the betrayal you felt. the sadness, the anxiety, the frustration, and the anger. you felt so.. distraught. you didn't know what to do with all these emotions.

after what happened, you became a shut-in. you closed yourself off from everyone else. you never left your hometown, never having enough money to do so and no goal in mind of where you would even move to if you wanted to. the sheer pain Sloan had caused you ruined you.

you had spent countless nights remembering them. so many nights wasted on laying in bed awake at 3am crying your eyes out over them. after a while, you convinced yourself that you moved on and that they weren't worth your time or emotions. nobody was worth your heart anymore. and you weren't going to mope around anymore hoping someone would change your mind. and you certaininly weren't going to let Sloan give you that hope.

~

Sloan felt defeated as they continued on their walk throughout their old town. every idea they had seemed like an idea that wouldn't work or go well.

almost considering giving up and going home, they paused as they saw a flier on a telephone pole. it was an advertisement for an art show coming up, which happens to be the next day. face lighting up, Sloan had an idea, it may be a dumb one, but most of the ideas they had were dumb, and those pretty much always worked out, so why wouldn't this one?

grabbing one of the fliers, they started to make their way back to your home, remembering your door had a mail slot in it.

~

you were sitting on your couch, sketching in your sketchbook to calm yourself down from earlier. even after what happened all those years ago, you still pursued art as a hobby.

your ears perked up as you heard something go through your mail slot in your door. curious, you got up to check what it was. you opened up the folded piece of paper, and saw it was an ad for an art show coming up tomorrow at the local museum. you felt a little excitement run through you at the thought of going to another art show. you enjoyed going to shows like this, seeing other artists' work. but that excitement was short lived as it was replaced with confusion.

"why am I getting mail at 8pm at night...?" you mumbled to yourself. opening the door, hoping to catch the culprit who gave you this ad, you looked around but found no one in sight. you just shrugged your shoulders and closed the door.

around the corner, Sloan was hiding behind a corner, silently celebrating that didn't seem to find out it was them who left it there and, fingers-crossed, were going to the art show the next day. their heart raced again that day as they prayed that you would show up.

~

sure enough, the next day came and you dressed up in some nice clothes and showed up to the art show. but, as you were arriving to the first steps to the museum, a familiar face stopped you dead in your tracks. Sloan.

"what are YOU doing here?" you asked, irritated.

Sloan took some steps towards you, "well, I know how passionate you are for art, so I thought I'd invite you here! we could walk through the exhibits and all the art together and catch up!" they excitedly explained, reaching their hand out for you to take.

they looked away for a second, finally being more honest, "look i- I know I hurt you. and I wanted to make it up to you. so please, let me try." they pleaded, looking back at you, flashing that famous smile at you that you loved.

your eyes wavered, considering taking their hand for a brief moment. but then you swallowed your feelings and pushed their hand away.

"and.. you think this is going to make up for everything?" you questioned.

"uhh, yes?" they said, full of hope.

"oh, so, you're gonna invite ME to this art show, when you couldn't even bother to show up to the last one?" you felt your emotions begin to rise up.

"what after this? you're going to leave? are you going to leave me again without even saying goodbye?" tears started to well up in your eyes.

"everyone was expecting me to be able to make a name for myself at that show, to finally start my successful career in art like I said I would! and i completely bombed it! I felt absolutely humiliated!!" your voice started to rise as you finally started venting all your feelings about what happened to them.

"I spent the whole event thinking about you: 'where's Sloan?', 'where are they?', 'maybe they're just late!', 'where's the person that i love?'!" your voice cracked.

"I felt like I didn't matter to you! it was the biggest opportunity of my life and I needed you there, and you! DIDN'T! SHOW! UP!" finally being overwhelmed by your emotions, you stormed off, tears rolling down your face as you ran off back home.

Sloan stood at the entrance of the museum, unaware of the people staring and just focused on your fleeing form. they were absolutely mortified. they knew they had hurt you.. but they didn't know it was this bad. or maybe they just didn't want to accept that it was this bad. they let a few stray tears go down their face before wiping them and coming after you.

~

you were at home, feeling as embarrassed and exhausted as ever. you felt empty too. tears were still coming down your face as you heard a soft knock at the door. you knew who it was. you briefly contemplated ignoring it, before getting up and opening the door, avoiding eye contact with the tall figure.

"y/n... can- can I come in?" Sloan stammered, unsure if you'd actually say yes.

you didn't even care at this point, you nodded and opened the door enough for them to come inside.

Sloan looked around your home, various art pieces and papers scattered around. they watched as you sat on your couch, following suit.

"hey.. about what-" they started before getting interrupted by none other than you once again. except this time it was much different than the last times.

"im sorry." you croaked out. Sloan had a confused expression on their face.

"i-im sorry for yelling and making a scene like that at the museum. I'm sorry for being so cold to you before when you were just trying to make amends." you genuinely felt guilty. you started to realize that, as much of a horrible friend they were for leaving you, you were just as bad for treating them that way.

Sloan shook their head, "no, I should be the one apologizing." they paused. "I abandoned you when you needed me. and... I never even said goodbye. I left. and we never spoke for over 10 years." Sloan started to feel their own guilt begin to rise up in them as they confessed.

"the reason I left... well, we were 16 and I had gotten accepted for an internship with the wayfinders society. but... it required me to leave to wherever they needed me, whether it's Cairo, Petra, Egypt, anywhere. it was the biggest opportunity of my life... and I knew that if I didn't accept it, I'd miss out on having my dream job." they smiled a bit as they remembered their early days as an archeologist. you started to look up at them, listening to their explanation.

Sloan frowned again, "but... the day they needed me to get on the plane and leave.. was the day of your art show. I had to choose. and... I'm sorry. I couldn't let this opportunity slip by me. so.. I got on the plane and left." their voice started to waver. "i.. I'm sorry I never even said goodbye. I wanted to but... I didn't know how. I knew it'd hurt you. and after you started texting me so much, asking me where I was and why I disappeared and left, I didn't know what to do. I was scared." there were now more tears coming down Sloan's face as they finally confessed how they felt about that whole situation. ever since it happened, they had never told a soul about what they did. they had too much guilt ridden inside them to ever tell that to anybody, especially you.

you reached over to hold their hand, hoping to comfort them, just like you used to.

"im... I'm sorry you had to make that decision. I know it must have been an incredibly difficult one. but you not showing up and leaving without a word really did hurt me a lot..." you swallowed nervously, preparing to say your next words.

"the truth is... the reason why it was so important to me for you to be there was because.. I was going to confess to you afterwards." you closed your eyes, not wanting to see what Sloan's reaction to that was. "i... I had a huge crush on you for so long, and-and i had planned for months how I was going to confess, and after I heard about the art show and applying, I had a whole plan to invite you and confess to you afterwards." your cheeks started to flush a little.

"so... when you didn't show up.. and you left... it completely broke me. I felt abandoned, I felt like you hated me and didn't care about me." your voice started to crack again as tears threatened to spill.

Sloan's own cheeks heated up a little at your confession. you.. liked them? suddenly little behaviors you exhibited way back when started to make sense in their head. seeing that you were about to start crying, they brought a hand up to your face and caressed your cheek with their thumb.

you jumped a little at the sudden feeling of their hand comforting you. it had been so long since you've felt a comforting touch like this, let alone from them. you naturally leaned into and actually begun crying again.

"y/n.. I had no idea you liked me that much.. I'm sorry for not realizing sooner." they paused to think... they knew they never really had feelings for you like that. but... that was over 10 years ago. both of you were completely different people.

"do you think maybe.. we could start over?" Sloan proposed. they still wanted to make things up to you. hurting you was the last thing they ever wanted to do.

you sniffled as you looked up at them through blurry vision and teary eyes.

"i.. I'd like that." you finally smiled. the smile that Sloan loved.

"great.." Sloan cleared their throat as they stuck out their other hand to you for a handshake. "Heya! I'm Sloan, also known as Venture, it's nice to meet you! that's your name?"

you giggled at their silliness, but after calming down, you gently took their hand and shook it. "hi, I'm y/n. it's nice to meet you too." the both of you sat in comfortable silence, smiling at each other.

neither of you knew what your own respective feelings were for the other.. you didn't know if you loved them still. and Sloan didn't know if they'd ever grow to love you the way that you did. but either way, neither of you will ever be abandoning each other. you're here for each other.

~

HOLY SHIT I FUCKING FINISHED IT JESUSSSSS

anywayz

I hope at least one of u gooners liked this even tho I yap a lot 🙏🙏

also not proofread cuz it's like 5am and I've been typing for hours and I'm not gonna read allat 😭🙏

anywayz

hope it was good enough considering I hadn't written for years lol

Bai Bai :3

[oldhalloweentape]

🪨Venture (OW II) x (gn) reader headcanons⛏️

(Start of Romantic Relationship Pt. II Edition!)

(Not my picture!)

(Not much to say at the moment, hope you enjoy it nonetheless!!)

(Pt. I) (Pt. III)

- Ok so, in comparison to the more common outdoor dates, indoor dates are just as eventful, especially movie dates.

- Alright so, I think out of the other genres, horror is their favorite out of the bunch, with an emphasis on the older and more dated ones. The ones with folklore and culture references being an all time favorite.

- After all, folklore is a kind of history that can give a person insight into the life and tribulations people from different periods and eras had to deal with.

- Anyway, I believe Sloane loves to just overanalyze these kinds of movies, having to restrain themselves from doing so while you two are still watching the movie.

- Has an obvious love for the Mummy movies, you’d have to pry that from my cold, dead, and mummified hands.

- As much as they love it, they still get a bit miffed about inaccuracies that seem so obvious to them. You have to remind them that movie people don’t exactly care for such things as passionately as they do.

- It doesn’t stop at folklore themed movies, or even the horror genre, I mean movies in general are parts of history solidified in amber to them, and they reasonably like indulging in them.

- They especially love to be doing it with you, an arm wrapped around your shoulders, teaching circles onto the skin of your arm as they shove popcorn into their mouth.

- Avid popcorn lover, eats up most of it the second they get their mitts on the bowl. Make sure they get their own bowl because they can and will try to gobble it all up.

- Thinks they’re slick with it too, like goes and kisses your head as they take a healthy handful from your bowl, shoveling it into their mouth hastily, and proceeds to laugh with a full mouth as you smack them on the chest when you realize what they did.

- Besides that, there are also other activities, for example, Lego dates, specifically making things like Lego bouquets.

- Considering you both might not have the time to tend to actual plants if you’re both either in Overwatch or as archeologists, legos are a nice stand-in.

- The overall idea of them never wilting or needing to be thrown away is plus as well!

- They may get distracted more than once, lose a couple pieces, but the end product is generally sound and looks mostly like the image on the box. They’re so proud of themselves about it too.

- Yet another thing they’re proud of, a vase they made at a pottery class date you guys decided to do just because.

- It’s another way for them to talk about the history of pottery and the use of clay, getting too caught up with what they were saying more than once.

- In the end they were able to produce a vase, a bit misshapen but nice and sturdy.

- It becomes the vase you guys use for the Lego bouquet. Yet another way to remember those moments between the two of you.

- They’re used to doing things that take physical exertion, but will always have a great time while dating you, being able to share anything and everything that loosely reminds them of that particular situation.

- In a nutshell, every date can be extremely fun for the two of you, which only solidifies the connection between the two of you and the desire to have you as a permanent staple in their life.

(Hope I'll be able to conjure something else for the first kiss and beginning relationship pt. III!)

[violetsaffron5]

Infinity

| Ao3 | Discord 18+ | Series Masterlist | Taglist | Chapter 15 |

14 | Misery

Pairing: Gojo Satoru x f!Reader

Things finally come to a head and you get the answers you've been waiting for

words: 3910

cw: canon typical violence

an: two more chapters left!

an2.0: I was watching The Mummy (1999) while writing this chapter, so there is def some inspo taken from that. If anyone tries to say the one with Tom Cruise is better, or even good, we can't be friends

When you come too, there’s no telling how long it’s been, your vision is blurry but you can make out the flickering of light bouncing off jagged stone walls. It’s cold where you’re at, and the surface you’re laying on his slick but solid, akin to a slab of rock.

Moving your arms, you can feel the ropes dig into your wrists, the metal of the hooks the rope is tied to clinking together. There’s also several hands roaming over your body, making you toss and turn, flinching away from their touch.

The last time you were kidnapped it was by Satoru, but something tells you this is going to be a lot less fun than that turned out to be.

When your eyes adjust, you can make out candles littered across the large open space you’re in. It looks like a cave, more man made than natural, but definitely underground judging by the foundation of the room you’re in.

It’s quiet, only the sound of people murmuring as they move about echoing off the walls, the flickering of light belongs to candles littered about the space, the sound of the wicks burning barely evident.

Your feet are also bound, you notice, when you try to kick away the woman rubbing some sort of oil on your ankles. Lavender and jasmine are being burned in tiny jars at your feet, with what looks like offerings of some sort, lining the space as well - they’re all golden trinkets.

“Hold still, girl,” a woman scolds as she works to weave something into the strands of your hair.

You move your head from side to side, kicking and waving your arms as much as possible, but not able to get much traction due to being bound.

The woman Satoru had gone out with walks up to you, holding your shoulders still as another comes over and holds your feet down, halting your movements.

She’s in a thick black cloak, with the hood down as the other people walking around the room are in thinner ones, with their hoods up shielding their faces. Judging by the voices, you’d venture to guess it’s a mixture of both men and women.

“You know, being tied up is only fun when it’s with Satoru,” you say, voice strained and sore from whatever was used to knock you out.

The woman rolls her eyes before stepping away, Aoyama Kenji taking her place. He’s in a similar cloak, slightly more intricate with the designs that run through the black cloth. You can only imagine he’s the ring leader of whatever is going on around here, but the woman is likely in a higher position as well, due to her thicker cloak than the others.

You watch as another person comes over and caresses your skin, concentrating on letting your energy flow through you and into them, but the small whirling of energy you typically feel flowing through you is nonexistent, and despite trying to will them to stop touching you is having no effect.

“What the fuck is going on?” Your heart is pounding now, realizing the gravity of the situation. You’re tied down, helpless without the use of your abilities.

“Shush girl, let the man talk,” the woman above you tugs on the strands of your hair a few times, holding your head in place as she continues to tie something into your locks.

“Her ability prevents others from using their own. A handy little trick, in situations like this.”

They’re all murmuring something you can’t quite make out, but if you had to guess, from whatever their saying, the cloaks they wear, the gold trinkets, the woman doing something with your hair, the lavender and jasmine burning at your feet, it all feels very ritualistic.

“We’ve been watching you for some time,” Aoyama states, “with a man on the inside informing us of your whereabouts and abilities.”

You're staring at him, eyes roaming his face. He’s told you his name but you still can’t place why he looks different than the night you met him.

“Great, care to enlighten me as to who?”

“Geto.” The man states simply, and it really comes as no surprise.

Suguru would be the number one suspect on your list with the way he’s treated you from the day you met. You sigh, wondering if it would have been worth the effort to try and explain Suguru’s attitude towards you to Satoru, or if it would have made any sort of difference in the long run.

“Were you the reason why Satoru and I were brought out to investigate the club?”

He smiles, it’s large, creepy and looks like it belongs to the devil, “primarily a distraction, to lure you to us. The club has plenty of land we could use to set up a base here without rousing too much suspicion.”

“That’s a really stupid plan, you know? What if Satoru wasn’t assigned this mission and what if he didn��t bring me-”

“Not a worry. Geto was able to arrange it so Gojo was assigned this mission and then all he had to do was put a bug in Gojo’s ear about how enticing it would be to bring you along with him.”

Another man comes and joins, Aoyama next to you, this one you do recognize as you had just met him a few weeks ago while dress shopping: Saito Akira.

In his hand he holds an intricate dagger, blood red rubies lining the hilt.

“What are you going to do, sing Jenny as you stab me with that? If you’re looking for a virgin for your little ritual, you’re sorely mistaken for what I am.”

Saito grins, it’s beautiful, but his eyes are mischievous, a terrifying glint present in his dark orbs, “do you know what you are?”

“Does it matter? And why do these people keep touching me?”

Nearly everyone in the room chuckles at your question, as if it should be obvious, as if you shouldn’t have been wondering what you are and why you’re different from everyone else your entire life.

“You’re a vessel for our goddess, Lilith. This is a great honor for not only us, having the chance to resurrect her, but for you as well, to be the body she takes over.”

You furrow your brows, stumbling over your next words, “I-how am I a vessel of all things?”

“Because of your abilities. It’s rare for someone with the gifts you were born with to lack cursed energy, and the fact that you do is proof you are the reincarnation. It only happens once every… oh, I don’t know, a thousand years or so.”

Watching their faces for any form of teasing or a hint of lies you find nothing, they’re dead serious and they plan on using the dagger they just brought over as the tool to sacrifice you with.

The woman above you finally stands, stating she’s finished fitting the crown on your head before grabbing a jar from the floor and pouring some of the remnants from inside on her hand and blowing it towards the entrance of the cave.

“A manipulation technique,” she answers your question before you’ve asked, as curses are seemingly brought to life from nothing but the particles she just blew around the room. You can’t hear what she says next, but it’s clear she’s able to control the curses in some manner, with the way they’re headed out to the corridor.

And really, you can’t help but hate Jujutsu at this point, and maybe you should have taken Satoru up on his offer to quit and lounge around his place all day, waiting for him to come home. It would certainly beat getting kidnapped, thrown through walls and nearly dying, or actually dying, as it appears the case may be today.

You’re feathering your jaw, watching the two men prepare the dagger, and of course, at the last moment, you realize what is different about Aoyama.

“You wore contacts the night we met. Your eyes were a beautiful hazel color, now they look like a shitty, dull blue.”

“I put them in as a countermeasure, just in case your lover were to show up, which as you know, he did.”

“So your big disguise incase Satoru showed up was contacts? That’s hilarious.” You can’t help the laugh that escapes you, just all of it, being so ridiculous. These people follow you around, trying to get close to you. Thinking contacts would stop Satoru from being able to find out who they were and what they were really doing, had he cared to research.

Tears form in the corner of your eye due to laughing so hard, your stomach is even beginning to cramp a little. And then you feel his presence before you hear a blast so loud it’s shaking the entirety of the cave and footsteps approaching quickly.

“Satoru’s here. He’s going to kill you all.” You have a smile on your face as you say the words, you only wish you would have had the chance to kill one or two of them. A few lives you would have gladly rid the world of.

“We never planned on making it out alive.” Saito states, raising the blade over his head with both hands, “as long as the ritual is completed before he makes it in, then that’s good enough for us.”

You’ve been missing for several hours and Satoru feels like he’s going insane searching for you. He’s made his way around the grounds of the club he saw you walk away in, called your phone over and over again with it going straight to voicemail. He even warped to the skyline, removing his glasses to really get a good look around.

Nothing. You’re just gone. No traces of you, no traces of residual energy anywhere.

There’s a sour feeling growing in the bit of his stomach and his hands tremble as they reach into his pocket when his phone rings, he briefly wonders if this is what fear feels like.

He hopes, when he takes his phone out of his pocket, that it’s you, with some silly little story about what happened and why your phone is off, but he has a gut wrenching feeling it won't be.

And he’s proven right when he sees Principle Yaga’s name flash across the screen.

“Yeah.” He answers, short and simple, annoyed that the person he wants to get in touch with isn’t the one currently on the other end of the phone.

“Suguru’s defected. Massacred a village this morning.”

“What?”

Yaga sighs on the other end of the phone muttering “why are you making me say it again,” before repeating what he had just told Satoru, to his disbelief. Not only are you gone, but now he’s being told Suguru has killed over 100 humans. Something he would never do.

Satoru holds his phone in his hand, cracking the screen as he thinks about what he should do. He wants to stay and search for you but if efforts have been fruitless, and he doesn’t want to believe what he was just told about Suguru, there's a restless pit in his stomach telling him he should go see his friend. Perhaps for the last time.

Satoru doesn’t have to go far when he warps away, finding Suguru on the streets of Tokyo near the club, waiting for him to arrive.

“What the hell happened to you?” Satoru asks, voice strained, the streets filled with pedestrians coming and going to the shopping centers and food courts nearby.

“I just came to realize over the years I hate all monkeys, and she’s even worse than that. Not a human, not a sorcerer. She has no place in the world, especially with us superior beings.” Suguru easily explains, “I didn’t realize how much disdain I held onto after the Star Plasma mission, until after I met her. I suppose I should thank her for helping me realize I can no longer hide who I am.”

Suguru says your name slowly, “she’s being held in a cave 24 kilometers northeast of the tennis courts on the property of the golf club you were sent to investigate.”

“Was that your doing we as well?”

“I just provided them with the idea, had nothing to do with the execution. But I no longer care, my plans have changed. If you leave now, you might even make it in time to save her.”

Suguru turns his back to his friend, raven hair blowing in the wind, hands in his pocket. Satoru scoff, holding out his hand, debating on sending a wave of cursed energy through his head, but after taking a deep breath, he lowers his hand slowly.

There’s no way he would be able to kill Suguru. The only way he may be able to bring himself to do it is if he decides to destroy everyone and everything.

Satoru makes quick work of finding the cave Suguru mentioned, making his way inside, running along the manmade corridors. There are charms hanging on the walls, some of them wet from water dripping from above.

He scoffs at the sight - clearly Suguru had given them inside information on his abilities and ways to prevent him from being able to warp, but that’s the most they can do; try to delay the inevitable.

There’s curses coming down the man made passage, likely another attempt to delay him from reaching where you’re being kept. Though, they clearly underestimated him, even with their inside knowledge of his abilities.

Holding his hand in front of him as his long legs carry him further and further in the depths of the cave, the red light from his technique shines along the walls, everything glowing a blood red color as he releases a wave of reversal red.

The curses in front of Satoru explode, loud enough he’s sure you and every cultist in this damn cave will have heard it, not that it matters, they’re all going to die anyway.

Once he reaches the depths, Satoru finds himself in a large open area, cultists surrounding the innermost circle where he can see your frame with a man hunched over your body.

Even without being able to warp at the moment, Satoru is fast. Fast enough to make his way to the man next to you with ease, grabbing his head and twisting, effortlessly snapping his neck.

As soon as the man falls to the ground, Satoru’s heart stops seeing a knife plunged into your chest, blood pooling around the blade and your skin draining of all color.

As much as he wants to stop and focus on you, he has to turn his attention on the other cultists. Some of them are standing in place, knowing this is where they’re going to meet their end, not trying to fight it. Others are in shock at the sight of the white haired man and the lengths he would go through to save you while the last few are running away in fear, trying to save their own skin.

It’s not going to work.

Satoru takes out his anger in… unique ways on the cultists. Starting with the ones standing, just so those who are running think they have an actual shot at getting away from him.

He doesn’t care if they’re curse user or human, the way he’s kicking their heads back, snapping necks in the process, slamming them so hard into the side of the caves their bones are broken, alive or dead, he doesn’t care. They’re unable to move and nobody will bother to come save them.

Their screams and pleas for their lives fall on deaf ears as he works his way through each person, one by one, letting them fight back as much as they could, without his infinity on to make them think they had a chance of harming him.

When it’s finally said and done, he’s covered in cultist blood, wiping what managed to get on his face off as he makes his way over to you.

“Baby.” Satoru’s voice is quiet, looking you over. You’re too quiet, too still. His hands are on your shoulders, gently shaking you from side to side, “baby, wake up. It’s over now.”

You still don’t move, his eyes search your face, looks at the knife plunged in the center of your chest, blood splattered around where the knife entered, still slowly seeping out, soiling your clothes.

“You can’t leave me too.” It’s a whisper, he’s swallowing thickly, grabbing your small cold hands to clamp them between his larger warmer ones, “you can’t leave me too, baby, wake up.”

Nothing. And he’s about to lose his goddamn mind.

“Wake up.” He commands in a much firmer tone, angry. “Do what you did with Nanami. Right now. Figure it out.”

You don’t stir. And for a man who’s never really stressed, he’s fucking panicking, heart beating too fast and hard in his chest it feels like it’s going to explode into a million tiny little pieces that will never be able to be put back together again.

Because what the fuck is he supposed to do if you’re gone too? His best friend and the woman he loves, both gone on the same day. Both gone but in different ways.

There’s a knot forming in Satoru’s stomach, he’s not sure if he’s ever felt nauseous a day in his life but fuck if he doesn’t feel that way, right now in this moment. How is he supposed to go on if he loses the two people he loves the most on the same day?

He chuckles, it’s strained, sounds insane, thinking if you don’t wake up, if you don’t come back to him, he’s going to burn the world to the ground, starting with the higher-ups. Because you deserve the world, deserve everything, and he wanted to give it to you.

There are footsteps echoing into the room, Satoru doesn’t turn to have to know who it is, he knew he was followed, that the person hung back to watch what would happen.

“The knife is laced with a poison to cause mild paralysis. It’s not a very strong one, the intention just for it to be inserted into the bloodstream long enough for the ritual to be completed. If you remove it now, she’ll be able to feed and survive.”

“Why are you helping me now, Suguru. After all of this?” Satoru’s voice is angry, pissed at his best friend for turning his back on him and everything they hoped to achieve together.

“She won’t exist in the world I plan to create, so it doesn’t matter if she lives or dies right now anyway.”

Clenching his jaw, Satoru takes a deep breath as Suguru walks away. He quickly debates the pros and cons of leaving the knife in and taking you to see Shoko, or pulling it out now. But he knows Suguru, still trusts him enough in his words to believe what he just said.

And If he has to live his life without Suguru in it, then he sure as hell isn’t going to live it without you too.

Grabbing the hilt of the dagger, Satoru pulls the blade from your chest. He’s seen a lot of fucked up things in his life, due to curses. Dismemberments, friends dying. But he closes his eyes at the sight of the blade leaving a loved one's body, not able to stand it with the squelching sound your blood makes as the blade is removed.

He waits, for what feels like an eternity for you to stir. First with a cough, then struggling to gasp for air, trying to catch your breath. When you open your eyes, you’re met with Satoru’s worried gaze, his eyes flickering across your face making sure you’re really you.

Your eyes are the same, albeit furrowed with panic and fear evident. He doesn’t let you speak, doesn’t let you try to move.

Instead, he leans forward, pressing his lips to yours, letting you siphon as much energy as you need.

The wind is blowing a cool breeze as you sit outside the cave you were brought to, still somewhere on the acreage of the Golf Club you were investigating, tucked away in a valley of trees. You were able to fully heal from Satoru, the wound not being quite as bad as he had anticipated, it was definitely not comparable to the injuries you received during your mission with Nanami.

It’s quiet out in the woods, sitting next to Satoru with your knees pulled to your chest as his long legs are sprawled out in front of him, sitting back on his hands next to you. The birds are chirping, leaves rustling as the wind passes by, your clothes are tattered where the knife made its way through the fabric and his clothes are covered in drying blood.

Looking over to him, his glasses are off and he has his eyes closed, face turned up towards the sky letting the small amount of sunlight that’s filtering through the trees hit his face. There’s a glow to his skin, he’s always looked ethereal, even more so with the small halo glowing around his skin.

“When we met any of them, did you know they were curse users? Is that why you were so weird with Aoyama and Saito?”

Satoru shakes his head, “nope. Didn’t like the way they were looking at you. Knew the one was wearing contacts though.”

You let the silence come between you again. It’s easy with him, it has always been between the two of you. Satoru loves to talk and fill the space at work or spending time with friends, but when you’re alone, he’s content just being in your vicinity.

“Did you ever suspect Suguru?” You ask quietly, watching his reaction, moving your hands to your hair to finally rid yourself of the stupid crown the woman laced in.

He takes a deep breath,opening one eye to look over at you before answering, “no. Seems like he covered his tracks perfectly, or I wasn’t paying close enough attention to notice any mistakes he may have made.”

There’s a hurt in his eyes he’s allowing you to see, showing his vulnerability right now just because it’s you. Satoru will act stoic around others, but there’s no denying the hurt he’s feeling from being betrayed by his best friend. It will take him some time to overcome it, even if he pretends to be okay in front of everyone else.

You’ll be by his side every step of the way, though your heart is heavy for Satoru.

“I’m sorry. If I had never moved here-”

“Don’t.” He interrupts with a firm voice, “Suguru was going down that path no matter what. If you hadn’t come, maybe it would have been delayed some, but it was inevitable from the moment we failed the Star Plasma mission.”

You stay quiet, nodding and pursing your lips before laying back on the grass next to him, exhausted from the events of the day.

Reaching out, you let your hand find his, the metal from wedding bands you’re still wearing clinking together as you entwine your fingers with one another.

taglist: @q-the-rockaholic @greenlovers @naorizenin @a1hina @plants-w0rld @patat-boi @rlvslouis @littledemoness15@thisbicc @nothisispatrick300 @km7474 @missyasma @hecatesflames @arisucat @creolequeen11210 @imperatorkhaleesi @xiaosie @the-loneliest-girl @violetsapplejuice

[venturethighs]

Rhinestone Eyes is so zombie!reader x mummy!Venture coded idk how to explain it

[steelcladbutterfly]

Introductions and Masterlist

So, I suppose I should get this out of the way.

I work mainly on Quotev under the username JaguarEarth, which is where the majority of my works are currently. I mostly write yandere for myths and monsters, with a focus on the less popular. If you enjoy that sort of stuff, I suppose feel free to look through the list below or check out my full works over on Quotev.

Main tags are yandere and yandere x reader. Otherwise yandere mythology encompasses many of these. Character sheets specifically are under the tag character sheet.

Yandere Masterlist:

Headless Horseman:

Your small town has a sudden and ferocious problem. A murderer has been going around, seeming to slaughter at random, with the only clue being the next victim seeming to hear and see something no one else can. When it turns its sights on you though, something seems to be amiss.

Mummy:

Living a life of thievery and plotting was not what you originally wanted in life. But the greed of others meant your talents had use to them. But when their greed grew too much, it was you caught in the crossfires of a bloody mystery wrapped in a veneer of sand and gold.

Fairy:

Xenon:

Living with your father on the edge of the woods, life was simple and easy. The forest held many secrets and you were always told never to venture to deeply lest you find something dangerous. But you never fully heeded these warnings and soon, you found yourself catching the eye of a monster intimately connected to your own life. He left it once and now he refuses to do so again.

Halloween request:

A journey into a forest reveals much more than a simple legend resides within the woods. But what can be done when the whole forest is fighting against the intrusion?

Ghost:

A trip to an abandoned house in the middle of the woods promised little but wasted time and shot nerves when your friends originally dragged you out. But a truly haunted house was enough to pull you in forever, whether you like it or not.

Apollo:

Your semester seemed like it would be the same as any other until someone new showed up several weeks late in the middle of class. What to do when he proceeds to follow you around and pester you at every moment? That’s simple, put him in his place. However, after he settled down and you started to get along, dark desires soon began to overrule everything else. And what is there to do but run?

Ao Guang:

A sudden sickness prompts a concerned lover to seek out care for their currently fallen spouse. Aid is found in the form of a powerful dragon lord, but there is more in store for the pair then simple help.

Poseidon: Pulling pranks, teasing your best friend, and helping keep the small inn at your home village of Whesprey was how you thought your life would stay. Until one day an injured man appeared at the shore, thrusting you into a series of events that would end up destroying everything you hold near and dear to your heart.

Sun Wukong:

Your travels are much more fun with a cheerful companion. Especially in comparison to the coldness still lingering from your family. But what are you to do when the cheerful, sunny being you cherish turns on you just as coldly as you felt living under your family’s gaze? What do you do when it follows you?

Archdemon (1):

A trip with your friends to experience Las Vegas is nothing like what you wanted, but you go along with it anyways. But after one of your friends had a one night stand, with no one but you to pick them up, you never would have imagined he would have an interest in you from that single event. A single rebuff of his advances leads him spiraling down a path to obsession, and nothing would get in his way of having you for himself.

Cecaelia:

Two lives abandoned to the sea. One learned on his own, the other taken in to avoid the hardships. But when others disturb the tranquility, the first shall do all in his power to restore it and more.

Aphrodite:

What does one do when faced with someone who has always gotten everything they ever wanted? You’d hope and pray they would never want something of yours. However, your luck has run out.

Miscellaneous Masterlist:

Poseidon Character Sheet

Archdemon (1) Character Sheet

Fairy Character Sheet

Archdemon (2) Character Sheet:

Basically what it says on the tin. It’s a character sheet for a new story I’m working on.

[tadaoren]

hear me out..

Mummy!Venture with hanahaki disease, but the flowers they cough up are Silphuim petals from way back in ancient egypt and are told to be extinct. The significance for the flowers? Those flowers are used for medicinal purposes and Y/N is a botanical explorer etc, etc. They try and use Ven for study but the flowers die as soon as they fall past their lips and the only way for them to live is if Y/N falls in love with them like Ven craves, uses the flowers for a cure, and makes Ven like.. normal-ish.

[godihatethiswebsite]

Desert Oasis

✽ Johnny "Soap" Mactavish x f!reader (The Mummy AU)

Main Masterlist ✽ Ao3

°•. ✿ .•°.•° ✿ °•.°•. ✿ .•°.•° ✿ °•.°•. ✿ .•°

✽ Part 9 - A meeting with ghosts

This is my longest one yet folks (don't ask, I have a problem). Was going to chop it up and make it into two, but then reasons...

Also it always bothered me that the only bits of Hamunaptra we ever got to see were the couple pillars up top and a handful of creepy caverns below. It's the fucking City of the Dead - resting place for royalty. Forgive me if I fix that oversight.

Some of this I had to look up. Some of this I'm just a nerd ^^;

The first four years of your life were spent in the fields of Buckinghamshire. 

It was an easy existence given your age, only knowing the worries of a toddler, ignorant to anything outside the little sphere your parents raised you in - until your father’s business partners convinced him to take up stakes in northern Africa. With the big archaeological boom in the early 1900’s, it made sense to cash in on the amount of trade flowing in and out of the country. 

If you thought back about it hard enough you could faintly recall the frayed edges of a memory where your father argued with your mother behind closed doors about the change, her not wanting to leave society behind and especially not wanting you to grow up away from all that in the ‘wild, bandit-infested gutters’ of lower Egypt (an awful sentiment she eventually got over after experiencing the bountiful culture firsthand).

You know from the following years that some sort of arrangement had been made that the family would travel back and forth to England often enough that would allow you a ‘proper education’ and keep your name in good standing for your eventual launch into the matching market as a teenager.

You’d been a bit too young at the time to truly understand the move, only knowing that one day everything went from mild and rainy to suddenly everything was far too sweltering and uncomfortable. Your mother plied you with all sorts of cold sweet treats at first until you inevitably adjusted to the foreign climate. But besides leaving your newly beloved cousin behind, it hadn’t really affected you in any sort of considerably extensive way. 

You longed for the meadows of your cousin’s backyard, but found beauty in the tropical fauna that now grew in your estate. There were new rules to abide by - different boundaries and regulations your parents put in place for your safety in unfamiliar territory - but once you’d learned that goats replaced pigs and that you began conversations with 'As-salaam ‘alykum' instead of 'Hello' it had been a smooth transition.

The biggest change came in the form of the towering architecture that was visible in the distance even in the middle of the city. Once you’d taken an interest as a youngling, your father allowed you to venture with him outside the walls of Cairo to see the massive monuments in person.

It was a normal occurrence to glance outside and gaze upon the remnants of Ancient Egypt. Locals hardly batted an eye at the things that dazzled the imaginations of foreign tourists - not unfeeling towards their history, merely conditioned to register it as background noise. All you had to do was travel minutes outside of Cairo proper to come face to face with the marvels that were the colossal pyramids of old. In some areas of the country you couldn’t even walk five feet without stumbling over some ancient piece of civilization or another. Sometimes they were integrated into the newly built infrastructure, others torn down and cataloged to make way for industrial progress.

This was different. These weren’t just any old dusty ruins. 

This was Hamunaptra.

Riding into the courtyard of the long forgotten city, you felt the air get pulled from your lungs as if some higher force desired this to be your final resting place.

Patting the camel’s neck in appreciation of its well fought efforts, your eyes bursting with wonderment couldn’t take the sights in fast enough to really process them. For as ancient and run down as it was, the majority of structures still standing were in impressive condition - the result of millennia hidden from the prying eyes of thieves and foreign kingdoms. The secrets of the New Kingdom were here - preserved intact - and ripe for exploration.

Replacing the pyramids of old, Hamunaptra was a sacred place where only the dead and those who kept them may enter. By all rights and customs, your head would be promptly removed from your shoulders for even daring to set foot on holy ground.

How many figures of vast importance were lying in rest less than ten meters under the topsoil? 

Ahmose I? Amenhotep I, Tuthmose II, Ramesses VII? Nefertiti?

Long have they remained hidden. Countless expeditions with thousands of pounds invested and archaeologists were still no closer to unlocking the secrets of their whereabouts than they were since we’d first learned their names.

You were yanked out of your inner musings by the clopping feet of a large animal that heralded another's arrival, adjusting in your saddle to peer over your shoulder towards the entrance and the figure that crossed over the threshold.

Johnny hadn’t even brought his mount to a full halt before he was suddenly vaulting off his camel, hardly wincing at what must’ve been a jarring impact for his knees as he quickly crossed the distance between and came up next to yours. 

Windswept hair and wardrobe; tanned skin flushed and glistening even under the newly born sun. Ocean blue orbs dazzling with mirth as he reached up with outstretched arms, fingers wiggling seductively beckoning you into his hold.

What was it that was stealing your breath again…?

Swinging a leg over the saddle, you allowed yourself to start sliding far enough down for him to securely grasp onto your waist with meaty well-worked hands, your own landing on his shoulders for a bit of balance. You wrongly assumed he’d place you back on your feet - a blind mistake, caught up in the logistics of getting down and missing the obvious moment his wide grin turned puckish. 

The two of you twirled as he kept you lifted high above his head, squealing in surprise before your own sounds of crowing delight mirrored Johnnys in both volume and excitement.

“Brilliant, lass! Pure brilliant! Left ‘em all in the dust, ye did! Thatta girl!” 

It was hard to tell if the ensuing lightheadedness was the outcome of all the spinning he had you locked into or if it was the result of something else entirely, lowering you down with powerful biceps as he planted an obnoxious kisser right on the side of your face. He was over the top with his fawning, playful in his affection in a way that felt oddly comfortable and left you in girlish giggles. “Gonna be hackin’ that outta their lungs fer weeks and spend even longer nursin’ their bruised egos. Christ, hen, ye should’ve seen yerself go.”

You pulled back from him just enough to give yourself some more breathing room, head tilted up as you responded to his praise with an insinuating remark. “Might’ve had something to do with the sudden bout of speed my camel caught on the back half. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you Johnny?”

“Eh, poor thing was jus’ as excited tae reach the city as ye were is all.” The way he shrugged his shoulders and cocked his head with a devil may care grin couldn’t disguise the way he spoke with all the innocence of a sweet toothed toddler in a cookie jar.

“Causin’ trouble over there, MacTavish?!” Came the teasing call of your cousin as Kyle rounded the corner of the ruins and brought his camel up to graze alongside where the others stood in the shadow of a crumbled wall, getting down with far less hurry than the two of you had. “Gonna give poor dolly there a conniption if you keep that up.”

“Och! Haud yer wheesht, Garrick! Or ah’ll gie ye a skelpit lug fer yer troubles!” 

That may not have been the King’s English, but you’re fairly confident you understood the sentiment just the same. 

It also hadn’t passed your notice that Johnny’s arm was still firmly snaked around your waist, holding you to him with an iron grip you had no care in the world to escape.

Part of you was almost disappointed when your cousin tugged you away from him, afraid for a moment that Johnny wouldn't relinquish his claim and feeling the possessive strength in his arm up until the last possible second when he finally turned you over to Kyle. 

Swept into your cousin’s arms this time and far more delicately than his predecessor, Kyle raised an eyebrow at his friend, head perched on top of yours. “Laying it on a bit thick there, dontcha think?”

Johnny shrugged, making eye contact at where you were glancing over your shoulder at him and offering you a little wink in return. “Jus’ givin’ our girl here some well earned praise s’all.”

That shouldn’t have pleased you as much as it did. His words sent a shiver of something sinful down your spine, distracting you from the hug your cousin had you currently encased in and forcing the blood in your face to travel southward.

You missed the look Kyle gave him in response, gone and replaced with one of concern as he held you at arm’s length and gave you a thorough once over in order to better ascertain your condition. “And you, dolly? Came out unharmed?”

They had witnessed Graves lashing out at you a few minutes ago, your outcry shocking them into action that toppled him off his horse and sent him rolling hard along the packed earth. Thankfully you hadn’t been the intended target. 

You weren’t sure they’d have let him walk away without a red stain in his gut if that had been the case.

“No, he didn’t get me. The only thing he wounded was his pride.”

As if summoned by your thoughts, the man in question slunk his way along the perimeter of the city, giving your posse a wide berth as the three of you simply watched Graves meander along past with a wobble to his gait. 

Still… he kept his head held high with all the arrogance of a man too stubborn to know when he had been humbled. Grasping the reins of his horse and leaning against the animal in a weak attempt to mask his minor limp, he avoided eye contact with your group except to briefly cast you all a scathing glower tinted with defiance. There was a bite to it aimed especially at your Scottish companion, something that held the promise of things to come that Johnny gladly returned until Graves finally averted his gaze and kept on trudging.

You kept tabs on him until he wandered too far out of view, a gentle hand on your back prompting you to start walking as the rest of the rival entourage slowly trailed into the courtyard.

As the sun climbed ever higher in the early morning sky, the atmosphere amongst the gathered crowd steadied. Now that coin was no longer on the table and the winnings had been begrudgingly handed out (though not without a few snarky comments that simmered under a powder keg of explosive personalities) it was all back to business and barking out orders. 

It was clear the Americans had well funded their endeavors. The amount of workers they’d secured to excavate the site was a bit much in your opinion, but considering the mostly empty saddlebags left hanging from their mounts you imagined they hadn’t felt like dallying around longer than necessary. No, these were the types to come in and seize as much as they could with as much haste as possible in a shoddy get rich quick scheme before telling their associates back home how to make out like bandits with their own weight in gold.

The only one who seemed to actually give a damn about where they were was the older gentleman in a well tailored suit whose image didn't quite seem to gel with the scraggly unkempt mess of salt n pepper hair - their scholar, Klaus Fisker. Danish by the accent; voice as gruff as gravel. You weren’t surprised to see the chain of cigarettes attached to his lips, dropping butts on the ground and lighting another as if he hadn’t had the last one in ages. 

He felt out of place even in his own skin, but you could at least appreciate his attention to detail as he spit out commands in abrasive Arabic from behind an impressive beard, unwilling to let the hired hands do things that could jeopardize the items they were tasked with handling. 

They might be trying to rob this place blind, but at least you were assured their plunder would all make it to the auction blocks in one piece.

They’d set to sprawling out on the north side of the courtyard whilst your group took up camp in the south - enough distance between you lot that the thirty or so of you could play nice for the duration of your visit.

Johnny had moseyed off a few minutes back after assisting your cousin with the task of setting up camp - a luxury you hadn’t previously been afforded in an effort to arrive at your destination before the others. You saw to the camels' needs during that time, making sure they were well fed for their labors and removing their saddles to give them a chance to more comfortably lounge in the shade. 

Once that was done, you took to unpacking the scant items the two of them had previously procured for you, your cousin perched nearby after you’d smacked his hands away from your things to do it yourself.

“Soooo… this is the fabled city, huh?” Kyle leaned against one of the tent posts with his arms crossed, taking stock of all the hired hands clattering about doing this and that. It was obvious the Americans were wasting no time roaming around the site in search of shiny things to pawn back home.

You paid them no mind as you tended to your belongings, already mentally cataloging major structures of importance to explore and document later.

“Well, it’s called a city when in fact it’s actually a large necropolis - a burial site for the pharaohs of the New Kingdom as well as all their worldly treasures. The only living people who were allowed entry were the high priests, their acolytes, and the soldiers tasked with guarding them. Even the slaves they brought in to dig grave sites and haul antiquities were promptly beheaded upon completion so as to be sure the exact location of Hamunaptra was kept an absolute secret. Walk about two hundred paces westward outside the city walls and I’m sure you’ll find an unmarked mass grave where all their remains were dumped.”

“Sounds charming,” came the dry response as he uncorked his waterskin and took a few needed gulps, splashing some on his face for a quick reprieve from the heat, the droplets rolling down his neck to disappear under his linen shirt.

“Well, be glad you’re coming here three thousand years in the future then instead of me digging up your own grave from the past.”

“You’d miss me being your cousin too much, dolly.”

“Perhaps then the Lord could’ve instead seen fit to bless me with one a bit less reprehensible.”

“Oi!”

You couldn’t help your little grin at your own quick wit and his indignation. Unfortunately for him he didn’t get a chance to fire one back, the small banter interrupted by the return of your other companion as he sauntered his way over to stand next to Kyle.

“‘Right.” Johnny clapped his hands together, motioning over his shoulder towards a group of six workers who were starting to haul some equipment further north. “Looks like they’ve started in on clearin’ out the rubble blockin’ that great pylon o’er there. Any idea where ye’ll be wantin’ tae start, lass?”

It caught you off guard to hear yourself being the one addressed, turning your head to find the both of them staring at you expectantly as the voice of leadership. At this point you were so accustomed to them being the ones taking control and calling all the shots that you completely forgot it was you and not them who was the technical expert in this part of the operation. 

They were the ones out of their depths.

It was a realization that was equal parts terrifying and incredibly satisfying after so many days feeling like a chicken strutting around without its head.

You put yourself back in the familiar headspace needed for something like this, standing up and brushing the dirt off your palms as you briefly cased the surrounding points of interest. “I wanna take a look around on the surface first before venturing into the catacombs below. Let’s focus on getting a brief overview of the layout that we can then narrow down for later. Most of these temples and buildings should be untouched and I want to get a glimpse of them first before our ‘friends’ start ransacking everything.”

“Yer the boss, hen.” 

It was said so matter of factly and without any sort of veiled ribbing in his words. This time you were the one in control. And damn if that didn’t make you feel ten feet tall.

It felt good to finally be back in your element after days spent floundering for something sturdy to grasp onto. While you’d been growing ever more comfortable in the situations foisted upon your trio simply through trial by fire, you were finally in a happy medium between the covers of your books and the world beyond. 

It was nice not having to share the space as you made your way deeper into the city with your two self proclaimed bodyguards, unencumbered by gleaning eyes only interested in how much profit they could obtain from pocketable treasures rather than the breadth of history ripe to be storied. You could walk the worn limestone at your leisure, piecing together clues from the golden age of architecture and art. 

The perceived idiocy of it wasn’t entirely lost on you. Here you were in the grandest monument to the wealthiest peoples of both upper and lower Egypt - a discovery that could grant you as much worldly renown and untold riches as was possessed by the very kings concealed below your feet… and all you wanted to do was step through time into a piece of ancient history for the chance to waltz with the ghosts who haunt these hallowed halls.

It wasn’t some giant leap to surmise whose temple stood tall next to the towering height of the statue of Horus, not much alike in its design to the one located miles away in Edfu. Of course that one was built in the Ptolemaic Empire between ten to twelve hundred years beyond this one. Nevertheless, the structure of buildings hadn’t changed much in the ensuing millennia and you’d done enough research on both periods to be able to navigate a temple without much fuss.

You’d needed the boys' assistance to scale up the side of a toppled pillar blocking the entrance, getting a much needed boost from Kyle at the bottom as Johnny hauled you up over the top with a firm grip and steadying hand on your waist. The buildup of drifted sands on the opposite side kept you from needing any further help from them, sliding down the small slope and hesitating at the bottom in front of the main entrance. 

Gods, this was a moment to take in. 

You were almost afraid to look inward; to take that next step into untouched territory that felt more sacred than the importance you had allotted it. The first to do so since it was lost to the shifting desert hidden within a mirage. Everything was so real now there was no mistaking the gravity drawing you in - the weight of all your decisions until now leading you to the steps you weren't sure you were brave enough to take.

But remembering the tales recently come to light of a secret courage you’d discovered you’d always possessed, you allowed curiosity to lead you forward through the doorway of the temple.

…or was that the steadfast hand ghosting over the small of your back? The heat of a corporeal body stood close behind, the soft whisper of ‘go on, m'eudail…’ breathed so delicately against your ear you’d barely heard it murmured?

Who was the last man to walk through this same threshold you found yourself now stepping over? Be he priest or slave? Medjai or king? Perhaps a close relative come to pay homage to Horus before they bid a final farewell before the forever stilled body of their dearest loved one glimpsed its last at the shimmering veil of starlight above.

Your hand was shaking as you brought it to your gaping mouth, enraptured eyes pulled in every direction as you gluttoned yourself on the near perfectly preserved views. The amazed utterances of ‘steamin’ jesus’ and ‘bloody hell’ of the men were mere wisps on the wind compared to the pounding of your heart in your ears.

In your opinion one of the worst misconceptions about the Romans and the Egyptians was that they avoided the usage of color like the plague. Just because time had eroded the polished white marble and beige sandstone did not mean they hadn’t once been just as full of life as the vibrant cultures who created them. It was unfortunate that the elements washed away their former grandeur and such an important part of society's understanding of their craftsmanship.

There was no mistaking as you entered through the courtyard and into the hypostyle hall, surrounded by rows and rows of wide stone columns of staggered heights that supported the sloped roof and allowed the hall to be lit by clerestory windows. Every inch is elaborately decorated with colorful displays of pharaohs and gods and ceremonies for worship and life and funeral arrangements. They were reminiscent of the ones famously carved at the Temple of Karnak, but upon seeing how detailed and dynamic these were up close you realized just how lacking you thought the former truly was.

You weaved between pillars raking your gaze up and down, some motifs familiar while others spoke of things you hadn’t learned in your books. Perhaps they were rituals held only within this necropolis, or maybe the other outside temples had them at one point, but were lost to erosion and vandalism…

All paths lead further into the inner sanctuary - the heart of the temple and what had at the time been considered the home of the gods.

The room was deep and narrow, a beautifully preserved statue of Horus with his sacred boat placed at the end of the hall. The walls were decorated with mythology, weaving the tales of his birth from Isis and Osiris. The murder of his father by his uncle Seth and the ensuing battle between the two gods. His triumph and aftermath of their bloody escapades. The healing of his left eye by Thoth. 

If you closed your eyes you could almost smell the incense left burning at the altar, threadbare tapestry fluttering with the draft held in place by instruments of worship. There would have been chanting as high priests read from sacred texts, prayers for the dead and celebrations for their deity. 

“You wanna tell us what the hell we’re lookin’ at here, dolly?” There wasn’t any mocking in Kyle’s tone, just pure inquisitiveness at the unique carvings on all sides of the chamber.

“I could spend a very long time educating you on the importance of where we are, but I don’t think you’d appreciate it enough to spare the proper breath.” Your eyes hadn’t strayed from the intricate bas reliefs on the wall for a moment as you addressed his remark, the awe of the sight prominent in the breathiness of your vibrato. “What I will tell you is that we are in a place of great importance and that you will never find a more perfect specimen of what life looked like three thousand years ago than you are right now.”

Johnny was oddly quiet as he observed your surroundings, scrutinizing them with an eye that suggested he was giving them far more attention than someone like your cousin afforded them. Curious for a soldier and treasure hunter to take such an interest in the ancient world considering it wasn’t anything of monetary value. 

Kyle was the one who eventually spoke up about moving onto the next site, lingering back in the doorway to the chambers as you stopped in front of the falcon at the end of the sanctuary. Clasping your hands in front of your chest, you bowed your head in reverent respect for the god of the sun and prayed to him for safe passage and good fortune, thanking him for letting you all enter into his domain and promising to do no damage or harm.

Once you’d finished with your silent parting, you were surprised to lift your head and see Johnny doing the same to the right of you, eyes still closed for a few moments longer than yours until he straightened up and glanced your way, a gentle hand on your shoulder turning you towards the exit where your cousin patiently awaited.

You could’ve sworn you felt someone’s eyes on your back, watching as you made your way from the chambers and back out into the heat of the city.

Horus was not the only one you visited. There were temples of worship to most of the major gods; Anubis, Osiris and his wife Isis, Amun-Ra, Hathor, Thoth. You’d even located Ptah amongst the structures despite him having no relation to anything regarding the Egyptian life cycle as the others did. As the god of construction and craftsmanship, perhaps he had been placed there to honor the vast array of noble architecture. Or maybe the occupants of whatever nearby temporary housing complex was erected somewhere outside the city walls created it first to honor their patron deity and bring them good fortune in their hard labors. 

Whatever the reason, you’d stopped inside and paid your respects just the same.

Empty boat pits lined up alongside the major temples. Whether for the gods themselves or the ones buried beneath you couldn't say. You hadn’t expected to find one still intact unless they were buried somewhere. There were surprisingly still traces of their remains at least, Johnny lowering you down gently into the depths as you gathered small fragmented pieces of wood so brittle most of them fell apart as soon as they met the warmth of your hands.

With each new place visited the more overtaken you were with each new find. There were long stretches where you were stuck silent in reverence and others you couldn’t stop going on and on with enthusiastic exuberance, pointing out important symbols and phrasing on the walls, the significance of an animal statue or the items left discarded by the last priests to visit centuries ago.

Truthfully you were glad to have been so lost in the moment that you were incapable of giving even half a care to the well meaning snickering of your cousin as he watched you halt every few paces to gawk at the glory of a bygone civilization laid out in front of you like an open banquet. But really who was he to judge when you’d seen him turn stupid at the sight of a tall glass of expensive amber brandy?

Your infatuation was far more dignified than his liquor cabinet full of rare imported inebriation juice.

But it was all in good fun, carrying on for the majority of the morning bleeding into mid afternoon until your tired legs humbly requested a small reprieve. The boys continued to entertain your chirpings long after returning to camp, smiling at you over their cooked portions of lunch, completely enamored by the way your eyes lit up to match your grin now that you were free to be unabashedly passionate to your heart's content.

The city itself was comparable to an iceberg; for how much there was on top to explore, the real meat of Hamunaptra was underground in the vast unexplored catacombs winding miles long and spanning the full breadth of the walled area above. 

It was by mere happenstance that you stumbled upon a way down into the area beneath - quite literally. You’d felt your foot slip with a rather ungraceful startled squawk of surprise, your stomach dropping as a piece of the stone path crumbled out from under you and tried to drag you down along with it. It was only due to the quick reaction of Kyle’s hand latching onto your bicep and dragging you backwards to hold securely against his chest that you hadn’t had an untimely discovery of just how far down that rabbit hole goes.

Once you’d calmed your racing heart from the unexpected fright, you’d been ushered back away from the opening as the two of them prodded the entrance for any more structural weaknesses that might cause it to further collapse. Besides a small chunk that had already looked iffy, they deemed it safe enough to stand near as Johnny got on his hands and knees to peer into the blackness.

“Jus’ a blank void. Cannae see shite down there.” He rolled back onto the balls of his feet, resting his forearms on his knees as he turned his gaze upwards again to where you and your cousin stood. “Dunnae think this is the place tae go down, Garrick. Might have tae try somewhere further south.”

The problem was that the actual entrance to the catacombs was currently occupied by the Americans. They’d hadn’t been unwelcoming so far, but none of you necessarily wanted to test that considering the real prizes were waiting down there. And even though you were fairly confident your boys could take on more than you thought they could, you didn’t want to press your luck or ruffle any feathers - especially when said birds were equipped with firearms.

But for all you knew, there was only one way in.

The two of them debated in the background as you took a gander around the area, trying to put together why that hole was even there in the first place. The structural integrity up until now had been solid, having walked a decent chunk of the grounds in the past few hours since you’d arrived. For there to be a sinkhole when it was so impor–

Something catching at the corner of your eye had you swiveling your head, a sparkle in the sands pulling your feet in its direction while your companions remained oblivious. Tucking your skirts under your legs as you kneeled, you wiped away the sand to reveal what looked like polished hammered metal, silver glinting in the sunlight as you brushed away more and more from its surface. 

You started to gather you had a pretty good idea what this thing was doing over here.

A large round disk - heavy too as you tugged at the newly revealed edge in an attempt to tip it upright with little success. Too stubborn to ask for help, it was only once you got back onto your feet that you were able to haul it up into a position it could be balanced on its own. 

You chortled quietly to yourself as you figured out exactly how it was you were going to accomplish your task, feeling good in your cleverness and turning to see your companions still at odds with each other on the direction you all should take next. The discussion appeared to be getting rather heated from what you could tell, the two of them standing toe to toe as arms gradually became more and more animated.

It entertained you just how unaware they were of anything outside their own minor argument, watching in growing amusement as they failed to notice you and your find that would ultimately put an end to their incessant babble if they only stopped to pay attention. 

But you were burning the daylight required for this and frankly you didn't have the patience to wait for them to finish.

“Oh booooys…” You called over with a sing songy lilt, watching as they came to the sudden realization you were no longer next to them and mildly panicking before their eyes fell upon you a few meters away, leaning the large mirrored object against your legs and knocking your foot against the winged falcon at the bottom. “Would you be ever so kind enough to cease your incessant yapping and come give me a hand with this?”

While Kyle got to work securing a hefty length of rope to a nearby obelisk, you’d located another one of those mirrors a few feet away, dragging it over to position it opposite the first and tilting it in a way that the sunlight would catch on the other as well. Thankfully you had made this discovery with a few hours of daylight left to spare. Otherwise your ancient party trick would’ve had to wait until tomorrow to be shown.

Once again Johnny had wandered off unannounced, leaving you and your cousin standing around waiting for minutes longer than you would've liked only to reappear holding a pack of smokes in one hand and a bundle of cloth in the other.

Hands perched on your hips, you found yourself mildly annoyed at his little disappearing act when he was supposed to be helping out here. These mirrors hadn’t exactly been light. “That’s the second time today you’ve trotted off to nowhere without prior warning.”

Tossing the cigarettes to your cousin who gave a grateful nod, Johnny stopped a few feet away to watch you clean the dirt off the reflective surface. “Apologies, lass. Had tae take a leak.”

Ugh. Men.

You scrunched your nose up at the vulgar thought. “I did not need to know that, thank you very much.” 

Johnny shrugged, unbothered. “Ye asked.” 

The slight offense was forgotten as he held the bundle out to you, your ruffled expression dropping to one of doe eyed curiosity. 

“What’s this?” You asked even as you took it from his hands and started unravelling the cloth.

“Didnae jus’ empty mah bladder while ah was away. Took a stroll o’er tae see our American friends fer a wee chat. Bartered fer Garrick’s cigs and ah…” Johnny rubbed at the back of his neck, gesturing with his free hand at the parcel. “Ah dinnae ken how helpful it’ll be, but ah thought it couldnae hurt tae ‘ave ye be well prepped jus’ in case.”

By the time he finished speaking, you’d been staring at the items in your hands for a few seconds, dumbstruck at the professional quality of the archaeological tools you’d unwrapped. You’d had a set with you in your original belongings, but it had been old, worn down, and incomplete. Now they were mere toys for the fishies at the bottom of the Nile.

Blinking up at him, your tongue felt like it was stuck to the roof of your mouth, keeping you from speaking until you forced yourself to swallow. “Thank you… truly.”

He didn’t say anything in response, just a subtle nod and a quirk of his lips before he turned and strode over to Kyle to finish helping sort things out. You watched his back and shoulder muscles untense, a swagger in his step that gave you the impression of a man content with his own workings. You couldn’t help but bite your lip with a small smile, a giggle under your breath as you examined the gift again before rolling it back up and securing it with the provided buckle.

Kyle went ahead underground, rappelling down the rope and leaving you and Johnny on the surface to eventually follow behind once it was deemed safe enough. The shadows swallowed your cousin like a hungry maw, quickly out of sight from your spot peering down despite the light being bounced into the chasmic pit. It was a few moments before he reached the bottom, the sudden jostled thudding of his boots the only indication he’d landed roughly on the ground.

“It’s bloody dark down here!” You snorted at Kyle’s muffled proclamation, Johnny joining in with his own chuckle a heartbeat later.

“Ye’ll be alright, lad! We’ll come rescue ya from the boogeyman in a jiff!”

Your cousin muttered something too faint for you to hear from above, but you had a pretty good idea as to the contents of it.

Once he got the green light from Kyle, Johnny gave the rope a quick tug to confirm it was no longer attached and began reeling the length back up so that you could go next, Johnny following up at the rear.

“Ye certainly seem tae ‘ave found yer footin’.” Having recovered from the earlier lapse in his usual personality, he was back to sounding his normal self.

You felt good about the compliment, far more at ease than you had been given the past few days. It was nice to have your countenance acknowledged as something positive for a change. 

“That’s what happens when you take a fish out of a river and toss it up a tree. It starts gasping for air and questioning its worth until it returns to its home in the water.” Stepping away from the pillar you were leaning against, you met him halfway as he approached you with the length of rope. “Survivability and exploration are part of your repertoire. This is mine.”

Johnny stepped in front of you, taking up far more of your space than was proper or necessary for him to secure the slip knot around your hips. Fronts barely brushing up against each other, round buds hardening at the teased contact. Eyes kept locked in place by the enchantment only he seemed to wield over you. Deft hands worked to tie the rope, taking special care for your safety as he gave them a harsh tug to ensure they stayed put while the two of you shared the same breath. The unexpected movement sent you stumbling into his chest, face warming at the contact mirroring the spike of heat in his eyes.

“Good tae finally see ya, m'eudail...” Fervid pools of oceanic blue scorched your insides raw until you were sure white hot flames were licking up your throat and parching your mouth dry. The twinkle in his eyes telling you he knew exactly the effect he held over you.

You’d barely managed to eke out, “...thank you for seeing me.”

There was a sort of pleased rumble in his chest before he took a step back, smothering the pyre he’d lit in your bones and tilting you off access to the point of almost stumbling forward without his presence to keep you standing. He laughed at your reaction, motioning with his hand towards the gaping pit at your feet.

“Go on then, lass. Let’s see wha’ the desert’s been hidin’.”

It wasn’t the most graceful entrance you’d ever made in your life, but eventually once you’d lessened the death grip you held on the rope and allowed gravity to assist in your descent it hadn’t taken much to get you at the bottom. Kyle had been there to keep you from landing in a haphazard heap, unlatching you from the knots so that Johnny could have a turn. 

You’d halted him from moving as you peered into the shadows, hardly able to make out anything beyond vague shapes and blindly reaching out in the very dim light. Damn thing had to be nearb–

Hands met polished metal just as expected, brushing away the cobwebs and tilting the mirrored surface to catch on the beam filtered down from up top. You smiled over at your cousin, positioning it just - “And then there was…”

Suddenly the entire chamber was awash in stolen sunlight, illuminating the room without the need for candle or torch and leaving you with a smug satisfaction at the impressed look on his face. “...light.”

“Well I’ll be… MacTavish! Get your ass down here and have a look!”

Johnny wasted no time in jumping off the edge at the urging. It had startled you to see him drop so quickly, his prior experience in the act evident with the casual confidence he rappelled down the line. Practically puffed up like a peacock once he’d straightened and saw you gawking at him, tossing you a wink that had Kyle rolling his eyes and giving you a small shove onward as the three of you began to explore your new surroundings.

“Well this is certainly what we signed up for, wasn't it?”

“A whole surface full of colorful architecture and you’re most thrilled by an embalming room?” You shot over your shoulder at him from where you examined the small animal heads on a few nearby jars.

“Embalming?” Came the quizzical response from your cousin, retracting his hand from whatever container he’d been poking at on one of the nearby shelves.

It hadn’t taken much sleuthing on your part to deduct that conclusion. The tables arranged in rows throughout the chamber, large earthen pots along the walls smelling of faint rot, rolls of fragile linen stacked on shelves. The scent of palm wine and salt masked under all the muskiness.

“For the afterlife, dearest cousin.” There was a small smile on your face as you spoke to him with mild patronization. “This was the preparation room.” 

Pointing over at one of the stone tables closest towards him, you could almost make out the dark splotches of bloodstain hidden under the thick layer of dust.

“If you’d have died three thousand years ago and were wealthy enough to afford it, a chief embalmer wearing a mask of Anubis would have laid your corpse atop that table, gutted you like a pig, scooped out your insides, scrambled your brain with a hot poker, and then placed your internal organs inside one of these,” you held up an empty canopic jar you’d been inspecting that would’ve held a liver, “before smothering you in natron for forty days until you were a dried out husk of a man ready to be wrapped up in linen and packed away in a pretty colored box.”

“Mummies, Garrick.” Johnny gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder, softening the sting with a gentler one as he brushed past. “Good ol’ mummies.”

“It’s a wonder your mum ever let you study this shit in the first place...” Kyle remarked as he glanced down at the same spot you’d been looking, sidestepping the table as if there was fresh viscera still dampening the stone.

“I won’t tell her what was in those books if you don’t,” you added with a little dark humor before placing the container back where you’d found it, gaze raking over the rest of it as you moved through the room and out into the hallways beyond. 

Away from the clever structure of the mirrors there was at last a need for torchfire, your two companions holding one alight each as they took up the front and rear of your little group, sandwiching you between with Kyle taking up the lead. The air was stale down here, a constant itch at the back of your throat that travelled into your lungs with every breath. The corridors were sloped at the sides, thick cobwebs dangling like vines covering almost every inch of their surface. You made sure to keep your footsteps in the middle of the path, not wanting to accidentally back up into one and getting them all over your skin.

It impressed you how the pair of them communicated, speaking reminiscent how they might’ve clearing a battlefield rather than exploring ancient caverns. They parroted directions back and forth to each other, somehow keeping track of where you were long after you’d been able to keep up with the twisting path ahead. You passed by small antechambers filled with various supplies, assuming wherever you’d popped in was less a part of the tombs themselves and more the storage areas for the priests.

Eventually the walls started looking a little less run down and a little more smooth, empty metal brackets for holding wooden torches poking out of the stone. Whoever put this place together seemed to have taken a little more care in this section.

You found yourself pausing in front of another entryway, staring down a dark corridor with sconces lining either side. For all intents and purposes it wasn't anything remarkable; it didn’t stand out really from any of the others you’d passed by this point. It was just the first to look like someone had taken more care with the cut of the stone.

“Spy somethin’, lass?” 

You were vaguely aware of Kyle halting up ahead, backtracking as you reached out for Johnny’s torch that he willingly passed over.

“I just want to take a quick look down this one…” Your feet were already moving even as you spoke, lighting the sconces you passed with the weight of something in your chest tugging you forward. The walls were bare save for the oil lamps, but there was a subtle slope to the floor that led you downward and piqued something in the back of your mind.

About fifteen or so meters later, you found yourself standing inside an antechamber that was sparsely lined around the perimeter with only a few tables full of valuable artifacts. 

“More storage?” asked Johnny, skimming over the objects laid out on a table shaped like a…

…wait.

That wasn’t a table. It was a curved bed frame made up of the elongated bodies of two lionesses. 

Suddenly, everything clicked. 

You scrutinized the objects more closely, the cogs turning rapidly in your head as your eyes widened further with every new find. A painted wooden chest. A stool overflowing with sandals. Shabti dolls tossed haphazardly onto a thin lumpy mattress.

You bolted through the open doorway to your right, the other two shouting after you as you came to a halt inside the next room, torch clattering to the floor at the sight you took in. 

It wasn’t as grand as the pictures you’d seen of others like it elsewhere - certainly not possessing the same majesty or opulence as that of King Tut or Ramses IV. The room itself was small by comparison, not surprising considering the size of the annex you just exited and its meager furnishings. There hadn't been as much thought or care in the scenery depicted on the walls. But there was still a subtle elegance to its design that hinted at someone more important and incorporated all the way down to the large stone sarcophagus in the middle of the room.

“Fuckin’ hell!” Johnny might as well have not said anything for all the good it did reaching your ears, drowned out as white noise as all your attention was pinpoint fixated on the large box in the center.

You couldn't believe it. You could not believe it. Forget every moment that ever came before this because there was no way in hell it could ever live up to the overwhelming well of emotions bubbling up to the surface threatening to overflow from your tear ducts.

Was this how Howard Carter felt the first time he laid eyes on the burial chamber of Tutankhamun? Did he have to remind himself to manually breathe so as not to pass out? Did he yell and rejoice or just stand there in abject shock the way you did now? Was this figure nobility or just of high station? 

Whose golden death mask laid in wait inside the coffin housing it?

On newborn foal limbs you slowly approached the stone sarcophagus, ignoring the babble going on between the others and the questions being lobbed your way. Your vision was blurry enough from unshed tears that you were having a hard time making heads or tails of the hieroglyphics adorning the box, eyes frantic for the cartouche that would reveal everything.

You at last found the oval, tracing over every symbol until your brain supplied you with the accurate translation.

“Hatshepsut.”

This was Hatshepsut.

Wife of Thutmose II. Fifth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Egypt's second queen regent.

Six inches in front of you.

Johnny stepped up beside you, making his own assessments from the various artwork sprawled across every corner of the room. “Gonna take a gander that’s someone important?”

That was a massive understatement. “Ruler of Egypt for twenty two years, one of the most prolific builders in all of history, responsible for the Temples at Karnak, Pakhet, and the masterpiece that is the Djeser-Djeseru. Peace and prosperity flourished under her rule and she was lauded for re-establishing vital trade routes previously lost to war and conflict.”

It was the first time since entering the chamber that you looked somewhere other than the coffin, meeting his gaze with the still wide eyed one of your own. “Yes, Johnny. She’s important.”

“But we already found her husband, yeah? So why wasn’t she buried with him in the Valley of the Kings?” Honestly you were going to have to give your cousin more credit for all the things he picked up on through the sheer osmosis of growing up in your vicinity.

“There were rumors that her stepson Thutmose III held resentment for her after the two of them became co-regent towards the end of his father’s reign. Politically he would have been afraid of being seen as the lesser candidate to succeed his father’s throne considering his young age. There’s documentation of how he tried to belittle Hatshepsut’s accomplishments throughout his life and many believe he was the one to deface and try to destroy most records of her from the history books.” 

The destruction of her statues, the erasure of her name from chiseled walls; there was a great deal of work that went into trying to keep her from being remembered. “He must've honored her enough as a ruler to bury her with dignity, but not enough to place her somewhere she would be found.”

Here amongst the other hidden kings of old.

“Makes you wonder who else is buried down here…” Kyle motioned over to another doorway on the eastern wall of the chamber, already inching towards it in curiosity. “Think we’ll find another one through here?”

“Unless there was a sudden fashion for corpses getting dipped in pure gold a few millennia back I doubt you’ll come upon one in the treasury room.” 

“No.” The way his eyes lit up was positively cartoonish, shaking his head with a cautious hurry to his steps almost as if he suspected you were pulling his leg, only to pause in the doorway not unlike you had when you’d first entered the burial chamber. The moan that left his lips was practically lewd as he supported his weight against the frame, taking in whatever he’d discovered out of view that had him practically buckling at the knees. “Christ, I'm about to be rich…”

Johnny rolled his eyes in exaggerated exasperation, the jovial smirk on his face betraying his fake ire at your cousin's inflated antics.

“Pump yer cock tae the trove some other time. Best be crackin’ on if we wanna keep makin’ progress before sundown.” Softer to you he added, “We’ll come back again, lass. There’s still plenty more explorin’ tae be had down ‘ere, aye?”

You knew you couldn’t linger here forever. And whether you’d return to this place or not she would have plenty of visitors soon enough. Now that you’d proven Hamunaptra’s existence there'd be historians and archaeologists flooding to the site in droves to get a glimpse of this lost piece of history and those inside it.

She wouldn't have to be alone anymore.

Resting your forehead against the cold stone lid of the sarcophagus, you imagined the person lying reposed within; the life she would have lived and the people who’d come to care for her even long past expiration. Closing your eyes, you allowed yourself to connect with the spirit on the other side, whispering words of gratitude and comfort to the soul at rest. “We didn’t forget. The world still knows your name, and we are all the more better for you having existed. May you forever find peace in the Field of Reeds, Pharaoh.”

It was only then that you allowed yourself to be led out of the room, casting one last glance over your shoulder to the figure sleeping peacefully in a tomb fit for a queen.

It was hard to shake off the emotions of witnessing the final resting place of such a great and powerful woman, constantly straying back to it as the three of you continued forward with your current venture. At this point you weren’t sure what discovery could possibly be better than rediscovering the body of a three thousand year old pharaoh, but far be it for you to call it a day when the other pair seemed so eager to continue.

Heads whipped upwards and the three of you froze, the sudden sound of dozens of chittering things scurrying overhead, torches raised to illuminate the ceiling in search of the source only to come up empty. You couldn't tell if that was a relief or if that only added to your paranoia.

“Must be movin’ inside the walls...” Johnny’s murmurings didn't do much to ease your nerves, not exactly a fan of creepy things with multiple tiny legs crawling around where you couldn't see. Hair stood on end and goosebumps ran the length of your spine, scooting just a tad bit closer to the Scotsman as you carried on with your journey.

The tunnels narrowed to an almost claustrophobic size, the lot of you having to duck your heads to avoid hitting them on the carved rock. Cobwebs dangled in front of your face, having to constantly bat them away to keep from accidentally inhaling them into your mouths. The passage went on and on without any sign of any other rooms, apparently having taken a wrong turn somewhere further back that led away from the royal wing and onto wherever the hell you’d ended up now.

“Maybe we should turn back?” You suggested at one point, only to be shot down by the others.

“Don’t worry, dolly.” Kyle placed a placating hand on your arm, a warm smile helping to ease the worries of your mind. “We’re not gonna get lost. Got the way out right up here.” He tapped on the side of his head for emphasis, apparently confident in his abilities to get you back to the embalming room safely.

“And when he inevitably screws it all up then ye have me who actually remembers.” The cough you spluttered wasn’t enough to hide the chuckle from Johnny’s words, laughing in earnest as your cousin walked up to him and tried to wrestle him into an easy headlock. It warmed your heart to see them so spirited and boyish with one another, a gentle reminder that there were still kind souls within that hadn’t been completely hardened by a life of brutality.

It took a few more turns until you finally arrived at an area big enough for you all to stand in at your full height. It was a bit surprising when you realized the carved bottom half of a human was completely obstructing the way forward, a thick stone platform embedded in the floor from where the statue must’ve fallen through from the world above.

Kyle recognized it the same time you did, bringing his torch up to inspect the dark coloration of the stone that matched the upper portion in the courtyard. “Huh. The legs of Anubis. Well it looks like we’ve found where the rest of the statue went.”

“Was wondering why the Bembridge scholars said it was a full body sculpture...” You were fully aware of the contents supposedly held inside the base, recalling the conversation you’d had with Johnny on the boat a few days back when he’d wrongfully accused you of only being out here for the money. 

“Well, here you go, mister treasure hunter.” The hem of your skirt flared out as you turned on your heels to face Johnny, one hand on your hip with the other pointing behind and a grin on your tilted head. “You wanted something for your troubles? Here’s your chance - the Book of Amun-Ra. Should be a secret compartment somewhere in there if you want to take a whack at it.”

He flashed his canines at you, a sweaty arm brushing up against yours as he walked up to the base and started reaching for the bag slung over his shoulder. “Dunnae mind if ah do.”

The droning of garbled voices from somewhere nearby gave you all pause, already on edge from the mysterious bug encounter earlier and the overall eerie quality of the catacombs. The atmosphere in the group shifted as Kyle motioned for you to press up against the statue. Handing over his torch the same time Johnny set his on the ground, both reached into their respective holsters and withdrew their firearms, hammers pulled back and pistols at the ready.

The droning grew louder and louder, breaths steadying in anticipation of whatevers approach. Johnny giving Kyle a quick nod of unspoken agreement as the two darted out from behind the statue–

Ten loaded pistols aimed right at each other's faces from both sides as the two groups found themselves engaged in a standoff. The hired workers squirmed antsily behind the American’s, you holding out your own torch as if it would do anything against a loaded gun.

Roze was the first to cut the tension, a wobbly frustration to her voice. “Sweet Jesus, you tryin’ to turn us into mummies too, gents?”

Guns lowered slowly to their owner's sides as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, all of you apparently on the same wavelength that this place was starting to mess with your heads.

“Maybe don’t make a habit of sneakin’ up on people and you won't get shot,” Kyle snarked back with a quiet huff.

A greasy pit dropped in the middle of your stomach upon noticing Graves amongst their team, mood turning sour as he opened his mouth with that stupid patronizing tone of his. “Well maybe if you boys learned to keep your noses out of where they don't belong you too might find yourselves living a little longer.”

“Hey,” came the confused voice of Hutch from the back, stepping forward from the group as he gestured towards the bundle of tools wrapped in your arms, “hey, that’s my toolkit!”

Johnny didn’t let him any closer than that, raising his pistols again which immediately prompted the other trigger happy morons to do the same. “Think yer mistaken there, lad. That there’s hers.”

Hutch was smart enough to retreat back to his spot, taking one look at your Scottish friend and rethinking his life choices. “Must be... my mistake...”

“Enough of this!” shouted one of the others, Oz motioning with his head to move out of their way. “This here’s our territory. Go run along and look somewhere else.”

“Claimed it first, mate.” The toothy smile on your cousin’s face was a mask for the slithering creature under his skin preparing to strike, given away only by the deadness in his eyes. “Might want to reconsider your next move if you don’t want to join these poor sods here in the afterlife.”

Graves was more than happy to take the bait, a mocking sneer hidden behind an amused chuckle. “Would ya look at that. Pretty boy Garrick here thinks he still has the guts to go toe to toe even after high tailing it away from that fight in Turkey.”

“Ye shut yer mouth, Graves!” Johnny barked straight venom, raising his voice as the muscle in Kyle’s jaw jumped, grip only tightening on his loaded firearm. 

“Woah there!” Graves continued to antagonize from behind spiked teeth. “Down, boy! Someone outta put a leash around your neck and remind you of your place.”

The tension in the room was growing exponentially at a rate you weren’t sure could be interrupted anymore, mind scrambling for anything to diffuse the situation before someone pulled a trigger that couldn’t be undone. Twenty five of them against three– two of you. Those weren’t odds you were willing to chance.

It was by sheer luck you heard the shifting of sand under your feet, daring a glance down at the floor to watch a pebble disappear through a crack and revealing a chamber below. If the statue of Anubis was wedged deep into the floor… then maybe…

The next thing you did was possibly the stupidest move of your entire life.

You walked out in front of ten loaded guns.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen. Please.” One by one you began lowering the barrels, the shaking in your hand the only thing giving away the nerves underneath so eloquently masked by the English charm of your disarming smile, the perfect picture of ladylike decency in a room full of missing manners.

Ignoring the heated looks your companions sent your way in favor of focusing on the unruly Americans, even Roze seemed to fluster from such a rapid change in atmosphere. “There’s no need for such excitement. You’re all men of intellect here. Surely you wouldn’t let yourselves be overcome by a bit of schoolyard slander.” 

They all glanced between each other in conflicted confusion, not sure what was happening but unable to summon the emotional intelligence to deal with the situation. The secret to breaking a man - fluffing their egos while simultaneously giving them a dressing down. 

“Now,” you continued, satisfied when their postures relaxed and their weapons were no longer facing each other, “since we all learned how to share when we were younger, I don’t see anything wrong with letting you fine folk get to work on this statue here.” You finally met the stern gazes of your companions, secretly pleading with your eyes for them to go along with what it was you were saying. “There are other places to dig…”

A few tense moments passed before Johnny lowered his pistols and offered you his hand, sending one more scathing look at the others before leading you from the room with Kyle at the rear.

“Happy digging! And best of luck!” You shouted with a good natured wave to the other group, flashing them one more smile before being tugged out of view around the next corner. It wasn't until you were far enough out of earshot that he relented his tight grip.

Your back met the wall behind you, startling a gasp from your lips as Johnny suddenly crowded you against it with a simmering expression and a finger in your face. “Donnae ever do that again, lass! Do ye have any idea what would’ve happened if one of those triggers slipped?!”

His anger had never been directed your way before, just as intense as every other emotion he’d always expressed. Johnny didn’t know how to do things by halves and that was evident in the way he processed feelings as well. It tore at your chest, the rage in his eyes burning holes in your heart that left you aching and blind to see it for what it really was. 

The cool confidence you’d pretended to exude earlier fell away under his harsh judgment, the girl underneath who’d been terrified for her friend's safety and only wanted to help revealed underneath. You tried to shrink back from his gaze as far as the space would allow - which in reality was practically nothing. The stinging behind your eyes, the flood of emotions rising to the surface from the earlier threat of confrontation combined with this unanticipated lambasting left you shaking.

You tried to explain. “T-There’s a chamber underneath that room. If we can find a way down then we can try to bust our way up from the bottom. W-We can steal the treasure right out from under their noses.”

“I dunnae care what yer reasonin’! That was naive and foolhardy and ye know damn well better than tae put yerself in harm’s way like that! Ye could’ve been shot! You could’ve–!” He cut himself off with an infuriated growl, hands slamming into the wall beside your head as his own bowed forward. For a moment you thought Johnny would continue with his admonishing tirade, huffing out a breath like an enraged bull as fingers dug into the stone.

You held as still as you could, unable to turn away from the penetrative orbs searching through your soul. Something must’ve shone in your watery eyes that brought him out of the ‘what ifs’ and back into the here and now, stare softening into weariness as he leaned the last bit forward to rest his head on top of yours with lidded eyes.

You didn’t know what to make of it as you stood trapped between him and the wall, listening to his soothing baritone as he began murmuring something soft in his native tongue. You weren’t sure if he was speaking to himself or to you, but it had the effect either way of settling most of your nerves like you would a frightened animal. Gentle lips pressed a kiss to the top of your head, pulling back to look you in the eyes with a grounding weight before quietly uttering, “C'mon, lass. Let’s go find ye that room.”

Where Johnny was a flintlock, Kyle was a smoldering ember.

He said nothing as Johnny led you all through twisting catacombs, following some unknown path he’d mapped out in his head that he assured should lead you all to the level below. The silence from your cousin was deafening, hurting just as much as Johnny’s earlier explosion but cutting far deeper. The fact that he hadn’t spoken up when you were being manhandled only confirmed to you how pissed he must be.

Keeping your voice low despite the close quarters ensuring the conversation wouldn't be private anyways, you finally summoned enough courage to address the man following behind you.

“Are you just going to keep being mad at me?”

“I’m not mad.”

The breath you exhaled was loud as you halted your movement, forcing Kyle to come to a quick stop so as not to run into your back. “You could at least have the decency not to lie to me.”

“Not lying. We need to keep moving…” It wasn’t ‘dolly’ he said at the end there. It was your real name.

That’s how you knew you fucked up.

Turning on your heel, you instantly hated the unphased expression he wore, wishing he would just snap at you the way Johnny did so that you could get it over with already. But no. That wasn’t Kyle’s style. He let his anger fester under his skin and rot away at his internal organs until you could see the decay in his eyes.

You were gonna have to push him. 

Thankfully your other companion had sensed the impending conflict and kept moving farther down the hall to grant the two of you a bit of space. “Over two decades of hanging around each other and you think I don’t know just how much you want to throttle me for what I did back there?”

“You’re a grown woman who can make her own decisions.”

“And as we’ve already established it was a stupid one and I deserve to get a scolding.”

“Johnny did just fine with his version.”

“You’re not Johnny.”

“The accent give that away?” 

Damn it, this was getting you nowhere.  “What gave it away was that he has enough emotional intelligence to get his rage out instead of letting it systematically destroy him.”

A vein twitched in Kyle's forehead, the only tell you’d hit a nerve. Perfect.

“If I had a problem I’d say something about it.”

“If that was the case then you wouldn’t have spent all these years burying your problems at the bottom of a bottle!”

That hadn’t at all been the sentence you'd meant to say, immediately regretting the spewed out words as soon as they left your lips. Kyle's eyes narrowed down to slits, his jaw clenching and muscles bulging in his arms where hands formed into tight fists. God, this was not the time nor place for this conversation.

“How I choose to spend my time is none of your business!”

Hurt mixed with outrage as you took a step toward him and shouted right back in his face, rare tempers flying on both sides. “It is when I have to sit and watch my cousin waste away every night in a bar because he refuses to open up to the only family he has left!”

His scoff was mean, but the red bleeding into his dark brown eyes wasn't from anger. “You think I'm gonna subject the person I love most to every terrible thing I've ever done? The horrors I've had to witness? You think I'm gonna willingly tell you just how much of a fucking monster your cousin has become?!”

“Yes, you asshole! Because I fucking forgive you!”

There was stillness in the corridor. Chests heaved with shallow breaths; words hung suspended between you. Droplets fell to the parched earth beneath your feet as you shed tears enough for the both of you.

Too long had you watched your cousin suffer under the weight of his own choices. 

No more…

“Just because I didn't have to fight in it doesn’t mean I went untouched by the war! None of us did!” Arms spread wide as you bore your own grieving soul in hopes he’d finally let you see his. 

“We were the ones keeping things afloat while the men in our lives left to serve king and country. We were the ones bent over the toilet violently shaking and throwing up every time the postman came, never knowing if the next letter we received was going to begin with the words ‘we deeply regret to inform you’. We were the ones who had to deal with the aftermath of our soldiers returning home from distant fields - changed, violent, distant men. I saw the boys I danced with take their own lives because they couldn’t stand the nightmares that plagued them even years later and hundreds of miles away from the trenches!” 

You would never know what it looked like to see a man with his intestines pouring out of his gut or a decapitated body from where a canon blew it clean off. You would never have to look a man in his eyes as you became responsible for the way the light slowly left them. But that did not mean you didn't know suffering in your own valid way.

“So I don’t care what you had to do over there to come back home to me. I don’t care that there’s blood on your hands that will never wash away. Tell me you strangled a man with those bare hands. Tell me you relished in committing heinous acts of torture. Tell me you stayed in the military far past your original enlistment date just because you realized you found something you were both good at and fucking enjoyed. I don’t fucking care! It was war, Kyle! And whatever it was you had to do was done in order to stop the other monsters - the real ones who didn’t feel remorse for the countless lives they've destroyed - from reaching our shores and doing far worse to people like me than you did to them. You think you don’t deserve to be here for what you’ve done? You think you’re beyond forgiveness? Well guess what? I forgive you! Be a monster for all I care! Just fucking let me in!”

It was the first time your cousin cried since the death of your parents, standing there like a marble statue as it poured over his face like rivers. You could tell he grappled with the vulnerability of your words - the permission being granted to share his pain and trauma with an understanding soul.

You reached out for Kyle the same time he did, crashing together in an embrace that left you even more raw and torn open than before. His iron grip on the back of your head and banded around your waist kept you locked against him, hair dampening with tears matching the ones you were leaving on his shirt, face buried in his chest with your arms clamped around his broad torso.

You’d tried to have this talk with him in the years prior, but each attempt ended in failure either with him shutting you out from the start or you were just too scared to dredge up feelings in the first place. You promised yourself never again would you stand by while the people most important to you suffered - whether by their own actions or any outside force, including you.

“Supposed to be brave for you, dolly…” The strained voice came muffled against your scalp.

“And I was a stupid little girl who didn’t want to see her two favorite people in the whole world end up with bullet holes in their heads. We’ve both made mistakes. No more pushing me away because of them, got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He squeezed you extra tight, pressing a firm kiss to the side of your head before finally relinquishing his grip to smooth away the tear tracks from your cheeks. You returned the favor in kind, your fingers lacing with his as the two of you turned to glimpse the last of your trio waiting patiently at the opposite end of the hallway.

Johnny hadn’t said anything the entire time the two of you were duking it out. He merely stood watch as a silent sentinel, his added presence a not uncomfortable witness to the long overdue confession. His gaze lifted from the floor at your approach, heavy with understanding and weighted with something glistening of his own. It wasn’t until you got close enough that it was replaced by a familiar sparkle that spoke well before his mouth did, pushing off from the wall he’d been leaning against and coming to stand directly in your way.

“So… ah’m one of yer favorites now, eh?”

The loud groan of annoyance from Kyle was echoed by the exasperated sigh from you. The playful shove you gave him had you grateful for his constant ability to so easily lighten a heavy mood, feeling like everything would eventually - in time - be alright again.

“Shut up, Johnny.”

Something you hadn’t anticipated in your ‘brilliant plan’ was the fact that the ceiling above would be so damn high, the tools the boys brought with just barely out of reach even for their six foot something statures. The idea was briefly put on hold as they went off to search any nearby rooms for something that could support their weight, returning a short while later dragging a couple decorative jackal statues on small platforms. 

You didn’t want to know whose tomb they’d raided for those, hoping you weren’t offending the dead too terribly badly.

“The statue of Anubis should only be a few feet above us now. So long as we’ve landed in the right area we should come up right between his legs.”

Dirt rained down on the group, the loud clunk of mining tools a steady beat chipping away at the sand and stone above. It was a real effort to keep your eyes on the ceiling so as not to be constantly admiring the flexing of a certain Scotsman’s beefy biceps and corded hairy forearms every time he swung his heavy hammer.

Johnny paused in his endeavors for a quick breather, glancing in your direction and accidentally catching you in one of your rare moments of weakness. Tossing you a quick wink with a knowing smirk, he rolled out the stiffness in his joints from craning his neck before resuming the task at hand. 

Meanwhile you had to act like you weren’t ready to spontaneously combust from the mortification of having been found practically drooling.

“Ye sure we’re gonna find this secret compartment this way?” Johnny coughed as a dusting of sand accidentally fell into his mouth.

To be honest: you weren’t. But at the very least it gave you a chance rather than letting the others be the only ones having a go at snatching it.

“Don’t worry, MacTavish,” chimed in your cousin, grunting with the exertion of swinging his pickaxe. “We’ll get to it before those beastly Americans do and then we’ll have even more riches to rub in Grave’s ugly mug.”

The pair took out their aggressions for the next few minutes, pausing only briefly here and there, driven by the need to reach the golden book before the team up top. The item in question hadn’t been the reason you’d started this expedition - that honor still belonged to the discoveries you’d made thus far - but you couldn’t deny there was a certain allure to it now, whether because of the knowledge it might contain or some sense of competition evoked in you by the two men banging away at the ceiling. 

A loud rumbling drew your eyes upward, the boys halting their movements with quizzical brows as they glanced between each other and the spot they’d been carving away at, hesitant to take another swing. The noise went on for a few moments longer, sounding far bigger than it had any reason to before disappearing a few seconds later.

Even still, everyone remained on edge. “The whole thing isn’t gonna collapse down on top of us… right?”

“Nah. Ah’m sure it’s jus’–”

Johnny didn’t get to finish that sentence before the sound came back with a thundering vengeance, clamorous enough to make you flinch back and reverse your steps in the opposite direction of the now growing crack opening up in the ceiling.

Kyle’s eyes were the size of dinner plates, violently smacking his friend’s arm as dirt rained down on top of them and something started to violently burst through. “Back up, back up!”

They dove off their platforms just in the nick of time, barely avoiding a deadly catastrophe while you stood stunned pressed against the far wall of the chamber as an enormous stone box broke through with a resounding CRACK and crashed to the floor in a heap, taking up almost the full width of the room.

“Steamin’ Jesus…” Johnny groaned out from the dirt, bringing himself to his feet and assisting Kyle in doing the same from where the two of them had rolled out of the way to keep from being pancaked.

Once the dust kicked up had settled, you slowly approached the box, recognizing it for what it was and glancing up at the sizeable hole from where it’d fallen through. “A sarcophagus… buried at the feet of Anubis…”

“The hell they do something like that for?” Kyle was still gawking at the exposed stone on the ceiling, partially to check if anything else was about to topple down with it.

You could only imagine the reasoning behind doing something like this. After all, the ancient Egyptians weren’t exactly known for this kind of unorthodox burial. 

“I honestly don’t know. I can only assume that this person was either someone of great importance, or alternatively…” and you were really banking on it being the former, “they did something entirely unforgivable.”

The whole thing was covered in a thick layer of dust and sand, settled after millennia of being buried and obscuring any and all writings. Using your hands only seemed to smear it, forcing you to pull out your new archaeological equipment as you began brushing away the film coating every inch of its surface, searching for any kind of markings that could be used as an identifier for the figure inside. 

But there was nothing written along the sides as one might see on the tombs of pharaohs and high priests. Why give a man the honor of resting at the feet of a god for all eternity only to tell us nothing about him?

Whistling for your attention, Johnny pointed to a small section he cleared away at the top of the box with his hands, visible indents still obscured by tiny grains of sand. You moved your brush over the area, sweeping away the dirt gathered in the cracks keeping you from reading any of the rather roughly carved hieroglyphics. You’d expected to find a cartouche at the very least, but this… this was not that.

“He… that shall not be named.”

But… but that didn’t make any sense. If they weren’t going to tell us who he was then why even bother giving him a title in the first place? Who was this man to be hated so much that the high priests reduced his very existence down to unspeakability?

Something wasn’t right here.

Your arm bumped against a raised texture just below the symbols, glinting metal embedded in the sarcophagus that once cleaned out revealed an eight pointed star with a scarab at the center.

Kyle ran his fingers over the serrated edges, glancing over at Johnny as the two of them tried to work the problem. “Feels sturdy; built into the container, not just slapped on top. Some sort of locking mechanism?”

“Could be. The hell kinda key looks like that, though?”

An enraged voice shouts from the recesses of your mind, flashes of glinting metal threatening your neck and impatient eyes belonging to a man you encountered not three days past: "THE KEY!"

That's when it hit you. The robed men, the attack on the boat, the key, the eight sided container burning a hole in your mind.

The box.

You scrambled for the bag you carried with you, digging around in one of the exterior pouches before emerging with the little metal box that started this whole adventure in the first place.

“Thought that’s empty.” Kyle looked at it with a tilted head and a raised brow, wondering if you’ve by chance gone off your rocker in your current frenzied state.

“It is,” you confirmed, flipping the item around in search of that tiny pressure plate, “but that’s not the point, dear cousin. The point is… Aha!”

The box sprung open with a click, the top unfurling into a recognizable shape as your two companions eyes flashed in understanding.

“...that I have a better memory than you.” You gave him a cheeky grin overflowing with smugness as you tipped the box upside down, placing it against the symbol where it slotted in perfectly into the eight pointed star. 

Johnny squeezed you against his side in a one armed hug, an enthusiastic kiss to your temple that had you giggling. “Lookit our clever lass, aye Garrick.”

Kyle didn’t get a chance to respond. 

Agonized screaming filled the air, blood curdling and twisted and gripping into your very core. It was a primal sound of torture, cutting into your soul and filling you with abyssal dread that left you feeling white as a ghost. 

The boys made haste in rushing out the open doorway, you trailing along behind them as Kyle held an arm out to block you from potential danger. You weren’t prepared for the sight of a man you didn’t recognize flailing about and crashing down the corridor, nails clawing into his bald scalp leaving rivulets of blood soaking his skin. 

His brutal screams of everlasting torture rang out like a cathedral bell as he ran headlong past you, unseeing or uncaring as he flailed violently, repeatedly bashing his head against the wall and leaving a red gory mess in his wake. 

Johnny almost moved to stop him until the stranger suddenly collapsed in a heap on the floor, back cracking and arching off the ground in an almost inhuman way as his fingernails dug deep scratches into the earth. Eyes bugging out of his head, mouth open in a garbled choked off scream, limbs twitching and spasming until - eventually - they moved no more.

You were getting far too used to seeing corpses…

No one fought Johnny when he made the executive decision of being done for the day, the sweet taste of discovery turned to rot in your mouth at the unexpected turn the evening had taken. 

You'd seen men struck down right in front of you that night on the ferry, blood staining the carpet of your stay rooms and the polished wood of the upper deck. But they had been bad men doing horrible things and deserved not one ounce of pity for their fates. This however had been on the other end of the spectrum. That man hadn’t suffered for any crimes he’d committed - he'd merely suffered. And that to you was more disturbing than watching the man who tried to cause you harm take a bullet between the eyes.

Your trio emerged from the darkness of the catacombs up into star speckled nightfall. Kyle stayed behind to fill the other team in on the details of what just transpired with one of their workers while Johnny escorted you back to the opposite side of the courtyard. 

He sat you down on the laid out rugs in front of the blackened firewood, striking the kindling with a match as the dry pieces of timber quickly set ablaze. Digging into one of the nearby bags, Johnny carefully draped a blanket over your shoulders before quietly taking a spot at your side.

“Thank you...” The voice that came out from your lips was smaller than you might’ve liked, very telling of your current delicate psychological condition. Even with the added heat it wasn’t enough to take the chill off your bones.

It took you a few breaths to bring up the question you didn’t really want to know the answer to. “What do you suppose killed him?”

The arm that had been around you earlier for your cleverness returned now for your comfort. “Dunnae ken, lass. Must’ve been somethin’ wit’ his head the way he was holdin’ it screamin’ like that. Seizure maybe?”

It was at that point that Kyle rounded the other side of the tents, an unlit cigarette already wedged between his teeth as he struck a match and raised it to the tip, tossing it somewhere in the sand before joining the two of you on the rugs.

“Got confirmation that the man was indeed one of theirs. Going back to retrieve the body now. Poor buggers just can’t seem to catch a break.” Kyle muttered with a tired groan as he sunk into the blankets next to you, leaning back on his elbow and exhaling a billow of smoke skyward.

Seemed like there was an awful lot of that going around since this whole trip started. “More bad news?”

“Only if you were one of the blokes that went and got himself melted today.”

Johnny scoffed, tossing another piece of kindling on the flames. “Yer bum’s oot the windae.”

“Swear to god, mate. It’s true. You can go ask them yourself.” He motioned over to the north where the other party had taken up camp. “Lost three of their workers opening up that compartment we almost had our own hands in. Soon as the lid was popped, poof!”

You flinched away from his animated arm gestures miming an explosion, the mental image that brought to mind combined with the screams of the deceased man from earlier making you shrink inward on yourself and pull the woven blanket tighter around you as if the thin barrier would protect you from the outside world.

“Hydrochloride then,” your Scottish companion muttered, a soothing hand beginning to rub large circles on your back at your obviously perturbed expression. It helped even if only a little bit.

Your cousin made a small hum in agreement at Johnny's conclusion before taking another drag. It was painfully obvious you were out of the loop concerning that information, wondering what it was they apparently knew regarding the matter that you didn’t.

“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that term…” You trailed off, looking between the two of them for some sort of explanation.

Kyle piped up with the answer. “Salt acid, dolly. Pressurized salt acid. Would’ve dissolved the flesh right off their bones. Bit old fashioned, but we’ve seen it used before.”

Part of you wasn’t surprised - either at their familiarity with the substance or the fact that the statue of Anubis had apparently been booby trapped. It made sense that the guardians of the city would’ve had a host of implemented deterrents they used to ward off plunderers. The fact that you hadn’t considered that as a possibility earlier weighed heavy on your heart with guilt.

Christ, if either of them had been the ones to pry open the compartment instead…

Your depressing ruminations were interrupted by the horses whinnying in the background, the boys turning their heads towards the sound with focused eyes as if sensing something that you weren’t. 

You almost made fun of them for being so antsy. After all, it was only a bunch of animals talking amongst themselves. Just as you were about to open your mouth with a quick remark, you heard the disturbance again - only to realize the shuffling of hooves was coming from the opposite direction of where the other team's horses were currently grazing along the hillside. 

So then who…?

Movement pulled your gaze back to your companions, furrowing your own brows as the boys began grabbing for their nearby rifles in a hurry. “Wha–?”

“Stay here, lass.” Came the harshly barked order, wasting no more breath on you as they turned in tandem and sprinted off in the direction of the commotion, expecting you to remain obedient.

You weren’t an idiot. You knew if they were headed into something guns blazing then you stood no chance against whatever it was they might face. You trusted your boys enough to stay right where you were, scooting backwards on your butt to further conceal yourself in the shadows of one of the tents. Curling your legs up to your chest, you could only sit and wait for whatever outcome might befall.

The first echoing gunshots rang out in the courtyard, multiplying quickly as gunsmoke drifted upwards into view from your position. Distant screams and grunts and foreign battle cries told you everything you needed to know about the situation your friends now found themselves in; flashbacks to the only other fight you’d ever witnessed as your imagination supplied you with pictures of damp crimson earth and bullet ridden corpses. You’d have covered your ears to muffle the cacophonous sounds if you weren’t trying to remain on alert in case the fighting veered any closer.

The camels grew restless and frightened by the loud echoing bangs, yanking on their ropes in blind panic as their distressed bleats joined the horses whinnying. You tried in vain to calm the spooked animals without moving towards them, but they were all but deaf to the gentle hushes and calming words sent their way. It wasn’t until the one tugged hard enough with a reverberating snap to free itself from its confines that you bolted upright from your hiding spot with a sharp curse, following along after the panicked beast as it started to run in the wrong direction of safety.

It was easily outrunning you, charging away at speeds your tiny human legs could not compete with until you were forced to abandon your mission of bringing it back. Its path led you right towards the fighting, something you realized far too late until you had to dodge out of the way of a horse galloping past, nearly tripping over yourself to turn back in the direction you just came from. It was your turn to panic as you were finally met with the sight of your aggressors - men in familiar black robes directly blocked your intended path back to the far end of the courtyard, frantically searching for another way through when a gunshot rang out in your vicinity, startling a high pitched shout from your lips as you cowered away in terror.

It gripped you with the force of a thick iron chain, wrapping around your torso and snaking its way up around your delicate neck. Your airflow was constricted, the metal slipping inside between shocked parted lips to paralyze your windpipe and slither down to form a dense weight deep in your gut. 

It was pure pandemonium as lit torches were tossed onto thin linen canopies, men who’d been hiding within running out shrieking in pain as fire licked across their blistering skin. Those closest to the exit tried to flee in alarm only to be halted by reinforcements trampling through the gates and turning them away. Those who could defend themselves were doing so, casualties on both sides as the Americans fought back against the foreign adversaries, cheering as each shot knocked an enemy clean off its saddle. But there were too few of you in comparison to the number of intruders spilling down into the city.

All around you, faces of the men you’d encountered throughout the day contorted in agony as they were cut down like rotted trees, blood coating the blades of their enemies and bubbling up from the gruesome gaping wounds in their chests. You heard their cries to mothers and wives they would never see again; their prayers to gods that would not arrive to save them. It broke your heart to turn away from outstretched hands, looking to you as if you were their savior when in reality you’d never felt more useless in your entire life.

It took someone nearly bowling you over for your brain to finally drag itself out of freeze mode, the deep rooted need for survival powering your legs to seek cover elsewhere. 

In all the chaos you could not find either of your boys, hoping they were not amongst the bodies you rushed past as you swerved between tents towards a crumbled obelisk, hefting yourself over the side to crouch down hopefully out of view. Your hands trembled and your head felt dizzy, breaths shallow and ragged as you fought back nausea from the taste of copper soaking the air. 

Clenching your eyes shut, you begged whatever higher power might be listening to please… please not let this be the end for you. Please let Kyle and Johnny make it out of this alive and unscathed. Please don’t take away your chance at living now that you just discovered what it felt like to live.

A deep gravelly call to halt came from somewhere to your left, first in Arabic and then again in English as the clattering of swords stilled and the shouting quieted. Risking a glance, you raised up onto your knees to peek over the stone structure for whatever seemed to bring the fighting to a temporary pause.

It wasn’t hard to pinpoint what had captured everyone’s attention.

Dark clothing intermixed with light, everyone turning to face the same area awash with burning firelight highlighting two figures amongst the chaos.

And there in the middle of it all stood a man in black faced in a tense standoff opposite the familiar form of Johnny, a lit stick of dynamite the only thing keeping him and his forces at bay.

The stranger didn’t cower from the sight in front of him, keen eyes taking in the situation with careful calculations that told you he was weighing all outcomes - well aware of the destruction in Johnny’s hands and the promise in his gaze that dared them to call his bluff.

The man in black straightened to an imposing height, a deceptively bored stance with a calm aggression sparking in his gaze. He didn’t flinch away from the harsh glare of your friend, meeting it head on with one of confident arrogance. It was hard to tell his full expression, a black cloth covering the bottom half of his face that he had yet to lower. His sword swung limply at his side - dripping dark blood onto the sand below - but the muscles in his arms tensed as if they were prepared to strike at any moment.

You weren’t sure you’d ever met a more dangerous man.

“We’ve spilt enough blood tonight.” The rough bass in his voice rumbled through your bones even at a distance, the surprisingly silky timbre cutting through the undertone of lethality. “This is the only warnin’ I’ll give you so best listen carefully.”

He took a step forward as if unbothered by the sparkling wick counting down in front of him, eyes narrowing down to slits above the black fabric of his mask. 

“Leave.” The singular word sent an ominous chill down your spine. “Leave this place, or else we'll be sendin’ you to meet your heathen god.”

You didn’t doubt it, not for one minute. It briefly flashed across your mind that this might just be some elaborate trick to lower your guards, but you somehow trusted the man to keep his word. You were only grateful the killing had ended for the time being, glad to be given the opportunity to leave with your heads still intact. 

One of his men came up beside him, holding out the reins of his horse for him to take, head dipped in a reverent bow.

“Shabah.” Ghost.

The stranger's gaze swept over his surroundings as he made to turn away, halting his movement as he picked you out amongst the sea of faces. Dark brown eyes pierced yours as he came to a sudden stop, something brewing within that once again pulled at the back of your mind the same as it did that night on the ferry. There was something staring you right in the face and you were too blind or traumatized to see it.

He held you captive a moment longer, a hidden message within those orbs that he granted you no time to decipher. Breaking eye contact to mount his steed, he turned his harsh glare back to the others present, yelling out again in English for everyone to hear. “You have one day!”

Calling out to his men, they all took to their steeds and scattered with the wind back the way they came, funneling out through the city gates to disappear out into the darkness of the night. They may have gone, but their chilling warning remained.

You hoped that would be the last you ever saw of him.

°•. ✿ .•°.•° ✿ °•.°•. ✿ .•°.•° ✿ °•.°•. ✿ .•°

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[f10werfae]

Henry Cavill realising Reader is the one when she does little things for him and Kal, showing that she truly loves and knows them🙏🏻❣️

It’s The Little Things

Pairing: Henry Cavill x Reader

Word count: 1,152

Fluff

Summary: I mean the request pretty much tells all ♥️

(I did write this while listening to Little Things by One Direction, highly recommend while reading this)

Requests are open!

Likes, Comments and Re-blogs are appreciated♥️

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

(Y/n’s P.O.V)

Waking up at 6:30am on a Saturday wasn’t always part of my routine, but ever since I had started dating Henry a little over a year ago, it had become my routine.

Trying not to wake the sleeping bear beside me, I got up and tiptoed my way over the other sleeping bear on the floor, Kal. Wearing only Henry's jumper and shorts, I made my way to the kitchen to get started on breakfast.

Before Kal would wake up, I already refilled his bowl and water just so he wouldn’t have to wait. Then for the next half an hour, I worked on blueberry pancakes and got some fresh orange juice.

Henry would need all the energy he needed today, as I knew he would be filming quite a few of his own stunts today.

(Henry’s P.O.V)

Feeling the sunlight pour onto my eyelids, I scrunched my face turning to the other side of the bed, my hand instantly reaching for my love. Only to touch empty space?

I was confused for a second until the smell of her pancakes entered my nose, causing a sleepy smile to form onto my face. My hand ended up hanging over the side of the bed when I felt Kal licking my fingers furiously before jumping onto the bed.

“You smell breakfast Kal? Mummy has made you breakfast” I said scratching in between his ears, earning myself a few nuzzles.

Deciding to finally get up, I put on some shorts and venture out into the kitchen, to see the love of my life wearing her apron cooking, all while humming. Times like this made me cherish her even more, the times where her caring instincts took over and she would go above and beyond. She’s quite extraordinary.

Even the way she cared for Kal, watching him scoff down his breakfast made me laugh lightly.

(Y/n's P.O.V)

Putting the last pancake onto the plate, I felt a pair of buff arms pull me against a rock hard chest.

“Good morning Bear” I said tilting my head back, already puckering my lips, hearing him chuckle before kissing me softly.

“You know you don’t have to make us breakfast all the time right?” Henry said resting his chin atop my head.

“I know, but I like doing it. I know you have a lot of work today so you’ll need it” I said explaining my choices, guiding him to sit down at the table as I gave him a few pancakes with his glass of orange juice.

“Aren’t you going to eat love?”

“No, i’m not hungry, plus those pancakes are for you Hen”

“Nope” Henry bluntly said and before I knew it I was sitting enclosed on his lap, his fork already bringing a bit of pancake to my lips.

“Fineee” I gave in and took the bite, instantly receiving praise from Henry

“Good girl Y/n”

(Time Skip to when he comes home from work)

Looking at the clock strike 7, I decided to go and run Henry a warm bath knowing he’d be needing one when he got home soon. I grabbed his blue fluffy towel and robe, hanging it onto the back of the door. Taking the muscle soak and bubbles then pouring them both into the warm water which was steaming. Walking into the bedroom I grabbed our vanilla scented candle before lighting it and setting it on the sink.

Then I turned on the water heater, just to make sure the bath wouldn’t turn cold. With that, I returned back downstairs, taking back my spot beside Kal on the sofa.

Not long after, I heard our front door open with a click, revealing my clearly exhausted boyfriend. His bag was instantly thrown to the floor, his clothes tatted and his face may as well have dropped to the floor.

Quickly I walked up to him, “You okay bear?” I asked helping him take off his coat then hanging it on the banister.

“They made me redo so many stunts, even when they knew I was so tired. It’s pissed me off and i’m exhausted” Not knowing what to say, I just let him rant while I rubbed his back soothingly.

“Do you want something to eat?” I asked leading him into the living room, where he smiled at the sight of Kal sprawled across the couch.

“No thanks love, I just want a warm bath”

“Already ran you one, now come on” I said dragging him up to our bedroom’s bathroom.

(Henry's P.O.V)

“W-wow” I said feeling myself choking up. Y/n had lit our favourite candle, already prepared my clothes for after the bath, added bubbles and muscle soak.

Days like this made me appreciate her presence to the maximum, after the terrible day I had, I knew she’d be the only one to make it better.

“Are you crying Henry?”

“W-what no! There’s something in my eye darling” I replied pretending to wipe something from my eyes.

Starting to take off my shirt, I felt a muscle in my shoulder ache with pain, “Shit” I breathed out shakingly.

“Calm down babe, i’m here to help remember?” She said helping me take off my shirt, trousers and boxers.

This is what I loved about our relationship, we were clearly very comfortable with each other, nothing was ever awkward. Y/n loves me for me and I love her for her.

“Ok beast let’s get you into this bath”

“Yes ma’am” I said chuckling, lowering myself into the bath, the hot water instantly soothing the tight muscles all over.

“Will you join me?” I asked her hoping she’d say yes.

“Don’t you want some time to relax to yourself hun?” She asked, pushing my curls away from my forehead, her fingers massaging my scalp.

“I want to relax with you, although w-would you mind being the bigger spoon?” I asked, feeling the blush rise to my cheeks.

“Of course baby” She said instantly, stripping herself of clothes and sliding in behind me in the tub.

“Am i squishing you?”

“Nope, everythings just fine back here bub. Don’t even worry about me, today is about you”

Before I could even reply, she grabbed the scrubber from the side and started dragging it all over my body while placing kisses where she could, the love radiating from the both of us. Nothing needed to be sexual in order for us to be intimate, we just needed each other.

“Y/n, marry me?”

“W-what?”

“I know I don’t have a ring, and it’s out of the blue; I don’t think I can stand another minute knowing I could still lose you, I want to make it official with you. I need you, your love brings me to a place of comfort i’ve never been before”

“In that case, I guess we better start planning a wedding then Bear. Although Kal has to be our ring bearer”

[comfortscripts]

I'm Gonna Be a Brother?! ¬ James P.

Plot - 'Heyy can I pls request a James potter X female!reader where reader finds out she is pregnant with their second baby and surprises James and a few yrs old harry (thank you ♥️)' by @sluttylesbian4you

Genre -☁️️ Fluff ☁️️

Pairing - James Potter x Fem!Reader

Notes/Warnings - Nothing except cheesiness and pregnancy obviously. Lily is happily married to Mary Macdonald and Harry is the reader's son. Sorry this was delayed!! Also I added Christmasy theme

Word Count - 1.1k

“Congratulations Mrs. Potter. You are definitely pregnant, about 2 months along from the looks of it”

Pregnant.

Eyes widened at the word as your breath hitched. Emotions rang through your brain before settling on one, pure joy. Another child, another little bundle of happiness to love.

Thoughts of baby-names, future tender moments and plans clouded your brain as you bid goodbye to St. Mungo's, deciding to take advantage of the gentle Winter Day as you began your walk home.

Flecks of snow brushed against your skin and the cold air nipped playfully at your cheeks, but nothing could pull you away from the happiness you felt. James and you had always wanted Harry to have a brother or sister, but neither of you had been particularly sure on when. For the past two years, Harry had been receiving all the attention and care a little one could wish for, and for that time, both you and James were content with one child.

The crunch of the fresh snow beneath your feet acted as the soundtrack to your thoughts, with the wind rustling the remaining leaves in accompaniment. That one question lingered in your mind, how would you tell James and Harry?

Ideas of a Christmas decoration saying ‘World’s Best Big Brother’ appealed to you, but you remembered quickly that your darling son couldn’t read. Perhaps telling Harry and using him to surprise James might be the best option, but then again, the little one was never good at keeping a secret.

By the time you reached the wreath decorated door of the Potter Household, tunes of holiday songs ringing from inside, you still hadn’t decided on a method of surprising them.

‘Maybe it’s better to just tell them outright, or maybe I should just wait’ You thought as you entered the warmth.

Boxes were covering the lounge, glitter was floating around, and the two Potters were dancing up a storm as they placed the final touches on the tree. Brilliant white lights highlighted the sparkle of the blue tinsel Harry insisted on using, and the baubles looked perfectly beaming against the deep Brunswick-coloured tree. It was a joyful sight to see.

“Mummy, you home!”

The patter of little sock covered feet stopped abruptly as he leapt into your arms, bringing you into the warmth of his love-filled cuddles. Harry was always a mummy’s boy when it truly came down to it.

Holding the toddler on your hip as you ventured closer to the impressive tree, allowing Harry to tell you every detail of how he was the greatest tree maker ever. Taking in every sight as you praised the little one for his amazing work, before sending a thankful look towards your husband.

As Harry was set on the ground, running off to find the last decoration, James placed a delicate kiss against your cheek before wrapping his sweater covered arms around your waist.

“Harry wants you to place the final decoration on the tree, my love”

The confusion didn’t last long as Harry appeared with the glimmering silver star, ready to complete the sheer beauty of the tree. His little hands clutched onto the ornament as if it was treasure and could only be safe in the hands of his mum.

“Daddy put the ladd’er for you.”

Finally noticing the ladder waiting patiently beside the tree as you took the star from Harry’s cautious grip. The maternal fear crept up at the sight of the steps, realising the dangers that ladders held now you were expecting, but the look in Harry’s eyes was too adorable to deny.

“Mummy has a better idea. It involves magic.” Pulling your wand from its confines as you muttered a simple charm, knowing that Harry could never resist seeing magic in action.

The star rose from your hand as it gracefully spun, lifting closer to the top of the tree as the silver glowed from every angle and the glitter danced in the magical lights. It may have been a bit dramatic but the look on your son’s face was worth it.

His eyes reflected the shimmers as he looked on with childlike wonder, knowing that his mummy could make this beautiful thing with magic made him happier than he could word, but his face said it all.

Finally, the star perched itself on-top of the tree, completing the look as the three Potters looked on in appreciation and joy. Harry soon ran off to find his muggle camera that aunt Lily and auntie Mary had gifted him, leaving James to lovingly tease your use of magic.

“Bit dramatic love, could have just used the ladder that I so kindly set up.”

Giggling at his words as you lips moved without second thought. “Wow, so you’d make a pregnant lady climb a ladder just to put a star on a tree?”

It was as if the room had fallen silent. Realisation of your words hit you as you turned to face your husband, and when you dared to meet his eyes, you found them lined with tears. His widened eyes hid behind the frame of his glasses, the lens making the glisten of unfallen tears so prevalent.

“Is it? Are you serious?”

“Yes. I’m pregnant, my darling”

The gate opened as tears of excitement ran down his face, almost catching in his beaming smile before he embraced your body with such vigour that the two of you tumbled onto the sofa. Wrapping your arms around his broad shoulders as you pull him closer, allowing your own sobs of delight to escape as you relish in the joyous moment.

“Daddy, why you and mummy crying? You want snack?”

Those confused words pulled the two of you apart as you chuckled at Harry’s suggested cure, both you and James wondering how you ever got so lucky as to lead the life you currently have.

Scooping the worried toddler into the older Potter's arms, bringing him between the both of you as Harry tries to rub away some of the tears. You caress the little boy’s face as you settled his concerns.

“These aren’t bad tears, baby. These are happy tears, mummy and daddy are happy” Pulling Harry onto your lap as James shuffles closer to the two of you and allows his arm to rest over your shoulders. “We are happy because you are going to be a big brother. Mummy has a baby in her tummy.”

The little toddler’s eyes widened in shock, even though he didn’t know what it meant, he did know that he wanted to have a sibling to play with. A glowing smile overcame his features as he leant down, hovering his face over your stomach.

“I gonna be the best brother for you. I love you”

Taglist - @fairycirclebrat @merlinsdaughter19 @ildm4ev @carmellasworld @remusslittleslut @scandalous-chaos @timmyslover @comfort-reads @gracepotter26

[noirrose21-blog]

“Elvira” sequel to “Like It’s My Last Night”

Riven x Reader & Andreas of Eraklyon x Reader (cuz there ain’t enough or ANY!

Plot = Elvira’s grown and her Magic’s become unstable thanks to bullying. You enrol her in Alfea after a visit from Farah, your old friend, and after a few weeks, you’re forced to face your past and your daughter’s future.

WARNING = bullying, smut, violence, rough sex

NOTE = I STILL have no idea if Andreas is King of Eraklyon or something like that, so for this fic series, he’s King, and reader is a female in this series.

requested by @marinac15

Check out part one here! ⤵️

https://noirrose21-blog.tumblr.com/post/645135048012644352/like-its-my-last-night

———————————————————————

You remember Elvira’s birth. It was the 21st of December 2004, and when you went into labour, you saw as the snow outside violently flew around, making it impossible for First Worlders, or humans, to venture out in the London streets.

You were living with your roommate, a London resident named Liana, who helped deliver Elvira. It was because of Elvira’s birth, your roommate decided to become a nurse.

As Elvira grew, you noticed familiar moods. Of course she’d inherit her father’s moody temperament. You remembered one day when Elvira was 7, you were called to her school to pick her up because she had gotten into an altercation with some other kids.

“Sweetie? Can you tell me about what happened at school?” You asked softly at your little seven year old daughter.

Elvira pouted “No, mama.”

You sighed. As you and her walked around the park, you both sat at a bench and watched some ducks swimming by a pond “Elvira, what did we say about telling lies?”

“Lies are bad” Elvira mumbled sadly. You heard her and you wondered why your baby sounded so sad. “Mummy, what’s a bastard?”

You blinked your eyes. Where the hell did she hear that word?! “Where did you hear that?”

“Some of the kids called me that. They said because Daddy isn’t here with us means I’m a bastard.” Elvira frowned, tears bubbling in her eyes, you could already see a tear falling down her eyes.

Your heart broke. Andreas just had to go fight bloody Burned Ones, he just had to leave you a widow and forced to raise your daughter on Earth while Sky… oh poor Sky. You cursed yourself everyday for being too cowardly to take your son with you, but Sky had enough painful changes. Eraklyon and Silva were familiar to him, why take them away too?

“You are not a bastard, Elvira. Your father wanted you. He’s just in a special place. A place where he will watch you and love you and be there for you, even if you can’t see him, and I don’t want you to ever use that word again. I’m going to have a word with those vicious people at your school.” You promised

Elvira nodded “Can we have ice cream now?”

You giggled “Yes sweetie, what flavour would you like?”

“Mint!” Your little blonde girl exclaimed happily.

You watched as your now 16 year old Elvira slept on the lounge, clutching a Harry Potter book in her arms. When Elvira turned 8, you gave her the Harry Potter books and secretly explained to her how you and her were both ice fairies and you had to keep your gift a secret or the humans would become frightened. You explained how you were the Princess of Arctica, the Ice Kingdom, and you were married to a warrior who died before Elvira was born, hence why you had to abandon your life back in the Otherworld.

As you washed the dishes and Elvira soundly slept, you heard a knock on your door of your London townhouse, which you were able to afford after spending your years working as a children’s psychologist, something you achieved while your roommate, Liana, learned to care for a young child. Liana’s grandmother had died and left her over 2 million pounds, which Liana gave you half to provide for yourself and Elvira, including buying the townhouse you were currently living in.

You turned on the dishwasher, and quietly walked towards the door, and swiftly opened it to see a face you didn’t think you’d see again.

“Hello, Y/N.”

You were frozen with shock “F-Farah? What are you doing here?”

Farah walked inside “I know about your daughter. Saul told me.”

You scoffed “Oh sure, come in.”

Farah walked into the living room to see the news playing on the flat screen television and Elvira sleeping on the lounge.

“She looks like you.” Farah smiles

You nodded “I know. But she got her temper from Andreas. She’s a bloody dragon when she’s mad.”

“She froze her entire school.” Farah nodded “I know.”

Of course Farah Dowling would know. How long before Rosamund found out?

“Elvira needs to learn to control her magic. She needs to attend Alfea.” Farah began.

You nodded “No! Elvira has been through enough for her life. She was called a bastard at 7, she witnessed horrors on television, she froze her freaking school because of a few fucking assholes! I don’t think a school where she’d be bullied would be healthy for her. I need to protect my baby.”

“She’s bullied here because she has magic. She won’t be bullied in a place where everyone has magic.” Farah argued

“She’d be bullied for being on Earth for her entire life! She’d be bullied for being different! Farah, you know what teenagers are like. We were teenagers! Surely you remember the bullies in Alfea?”

Farah remembered. She remembered you were bullied, and Andreas had come in and saved you from a bully. It was how you fell in love with the handsome Prince of Eraklyon at the time. He had introduced you to his group. “I remember, but you would be there, preventing more of that abuse. We do need a psychologist for the students.”

“Is he attending?” you asked

Farah nodded. “This year will be his second year there. It won’t be just your daughter I’ve found on Earth. There’s a fire fairy in Gardenia.”

——————————

Elvira looked around the tall castle like building, she noticed a blonde guy walking up to her

“You lost too?” He asked. You knew who he was. Farah had shown you a recent photo of him.

Sky.

Your son.

“Yeah. Where would I find the Fairy Hall? My mum and I are new-ish. I’m a student, mum’s the new psychologist. Elvira Y/L/N.” Elvira extended her hand to shake Sky’s, who smiled and shook it.

“Another first year?! Man, you are balls deep!” A crude voice called out and approached Sky. The voice belonged to a brunette boy who looked like every stereotypical teenage boy turning into a young man. You watched as the brunette’s eyes loomed over Elvira.

“So, you a fairy or a specialist?” The brunette asked

Elvira responded “I’m a fairy, and my mum over there is the psychologist. I also have no romantic interest in blondie here, he looks more like my brother! No offence.”

Sky chuckled. “Not offended. My sort of ex-girlfriend wouldn’t like girls around me anyway.”

“Who’s your sort of ex girlfriend?” Elvira asked

The brunette snorted “The Princess of Solaria. Stella aka Psycho Night Lights. Name’s Riven, hot stuff.”

Elvira dropped her right hand to the direction of Riven’s feet and smiled “Well, my name is Elvira, not hot stuff, and I am not hot. I’m cold.”

Riven looked down to see his feet encased in ice, making Sky laugh as Elvira smiled wickedly and took her luggage away, with you following in tow, and smiling at your two children already becoming friendly.

——— A Few Months Later ———

You had gotten to know your son thanks to stories told by Silva, Farah and Ben, and also learnt from him by his ex, Princess Stella of Solaria, and his best friend, Riven.

He had been the perfect specialist, and the good son you always wanted him to be. A kind and honourable gentleman who thought of others and would do anything for their wellbeing.

You even saw him defend his own sister. Your Elvira, and resisted the urge to hug your two blonde babies and express your pride in Sky for being such a good young man.

It was after the defeat of the Burned Ones, that you were clutching to your daughter as her friends, Bloom Stella, Aisha, Terra and Musa surrounded her, with their unique outfits and wings. Sky and Riven, your son and his best friend, were in their specialist attire and Riven kneeling close to Elvira’s face.

Elvira placed a hand over Riven’s cheek and smiled at him. You recognised that look they were giving each other.

The ice fairy and the specialist… once again.

You also noticed Sky was looking at Bloom with concern and care.

“There’s something I need to come clean about.” You said

The teenagers looked at you “I’m also the Princess of Arctica, and your mother, Sky. Elvira is your sister.”

Sky looked in disbelief. His best friend was in love with his secret sister and his mother was at the school.

“I always wished you would come back.” Sky smiled as he hugged you and Elvira

“Just when I think I have a shot, you add more challenges. Now I gotta get my own friend’s approval to date you!” Riven joked

Elvira looked up at him “You want to be with me?”

Riven nodded. You were touched. You had observed as Riven and Elvira’s bully named Beatrix had gotten awfully close, but you were happy to see that Riven had become disenchanted by Beatrix and found better company in Sky and Elvira.

As the teenagers were now packing for their trips back home for the break, Elvira was joining her friends to Gardenia where Bloom would tell her parents about her magic, you were fixing up your office when Riven and Sky came in.

“Ms Y/L/N! Can I please date your daughter?”

You looked at Sky, who was mouthing no while Riven looked at you like a little child on Christmas. Just like Elvira had during her childhood.

“If you ever hurt my baby, not only will she and I freeze you, but Sky will use his weapons too.” You warned.

“Elvira’s too perfect to be hurt. I’d die if she got hurt!” Riven exclaimed. Sky’s eyes widened at the declaration. You remembered when Andreas made a similar declaration about you.

As Sky walked with Silva, and you were talking with Riven about what your daughter liked as to help Riven’s chances, you saw Solarian vehicles approaching and Queen Luna and guards surround Silva

“Attempted?” You heard Sky ask.

Another car door opened and you saw the ghost of your past. Or you thought was a ghost.

“Dad?” Sky asked

“Andreas?!” You exclaimed in surprise

“Hello Sky.” The King of Eraklyon breathed as he faced his son.

He had grown a beard which matched his brown hair, and his eyes… they were oceans you’d drown in. That voice didn’t age a bit, but instead made you weak in the knees after sixteen years.

“I missed you, Y/N.” He smiled as he wrapped his arms around your body. You could feel his… ‘sword’ grow stiff against your thighs as his chest was pressed against your breasts, and his nose pressed against your hair to smell your scent.

“Why don’t we go and make that daughter, hm?” Andreas huskily whispered in your ear.

Andreas pulled you inside the school and into an empty classroom, where he locked the door and passionately kissed you, his erection becoming harder… if that was possible.

“We already have a daughter, Andreas. You got me pregnant before you… left.” You confessed in between kisses.

Andreas wore a shit eating grin, as he unbuttoned your pants and sank to his knees, admiring your wet core, licking his lips as he attended to you down there.

You moaned in enjoyment as you felt his tongue explore your core, you felt release was quickly approaching you as your eyes shut as you rode your release.

Andreas rose from your core, licking his lips and a hungry look of lust still on his face, as his huge calloused hands tore off his pants and his ‘sword’ pressed into your core, you moaned. That was a sound Andreas longed to hear again. Not in dreams and fantasies he had about you during the sixteen years apart.

“Did you fuck anyone else?” He growled as he stretched you out.

You had. Only two men since you left for Earth. The first was while you were pregnant with Elvira and very needy in THAT way, and when Liana had arranged a date with a handsome doctor she had met and recommended for you.

“Yes.”

He removed his long ‘sword’ and turned you over, your arse was exposed as he spanked it, making you yelp in surprise

“You are my wife. Mine. My woman. My children’s mother. My whore.” He growled as he suddenly turned you on your back, shoved his cock inside you and started roughly thrusting in you.

He missed this. You missed this. You missed him in you. Filling you. He missed filling you and you clutching him around your tight walls. He missed the way your breasts jiggled while he pounded you. He missed seeing you when you were pregnant with Sky. You missed seeing him shirtless and sweet and loving. You were addicted to each other and god did you need your fix.

“A-a-Andrea-assssssss!” You moaned as Andreas felt his seed slide into your womb, he still felt his semen shoot inside your walls as he brushed your face with his hand

“I missed you so much, baby.” He muttered as you both fell asleep in each other’s arms.

By the time school came back, Elvira walked with her friends to Alfea to see Rosamund and Andreas standing in place of Farah and Silva.

“Who the hell is he?” Elvira asked

“He’s our dad, Elvira! He isn’t dead!” Sky exclaimed happily.

What. The. Hell?!

[be-the-spark-flyboy]

Pathfinder [1]

The mummy Au

Pairing: librarian!Poe Dameron x GN!Reader

A/n: I’ve tagged some ppl I think might be interested. If you don’t wanna be tagged please lemme know

Series warnings: major spoilers for both the mummy and star wars movies (duh😂), swearing, violence, fluff, Finn’s a jedi bitches!!!

Word count: 2.8k

—-

Sweat slid down your back as you adjusted your grip on your blaster. This was just going to be a massacre, you know it. No one was coming for a troop of soldiers who went wandering. The bandits were getting closer on their speeders and you cursed your commander once again. Fucking idiot. Now you were going to pay for his curiosity with your lives.

You felt something moving in your peripheral. Not something, someone. Your commander was sprinting full speed towards his speeder. Fucking coward. You could feel the unease within your troop passing through like a wave. Uncertainty, watching their leader running away, leaving them for dead.

“You just got promoted,” a voice snarked. You looked at Hux kneeling on the sand beside you with his own blaster in a death grip.

“Hold your positions!” You bellowed to your men. “You’re with me on this one right?” You asked him.

“Oh, your strength gives me strength,” Hux replied. Bantha shit. You only hoped he didn’t run off too early in the battle for you to notice. No such luck. 

Hux scrambled to his feet, kicking up a cloud of sand as he ran for his life. “Wait! Wait for me!” It was so quiet you could hear his blaster clatter to the sand where he dropped it. 

“Steady!” Force help us. “Fire!” Figures toppled from speeders as many of the glowing red bolts found its marks. Some nicked just the right places of the speeders for them to combust. But it just wasn’t enough. They kept coming. It took seconds for the sand to be littered with spoils of a battle. At least the scavengers were up for a treat.

“Shit, shit, shit,” They were gaining too fast. Where the hell did this many bandits come from? There were already many soldiers running for their lives. And there were only so many bolts left in your blaster. You got up from your position, firing and running. And it wasn’t easy by any means.

You catch a glimpse of Hux running before you. Now his decision to desert only seemed smart. You never should’ve trusted your commander.

“Run Hux! Run!” You yelled after him, trying to take out as many bandits on your tail as possible. Hux was running towards a heavy stone door.

“Get inside! Get inside!” You yelled again. Maybe you could make it too.

“Hey!” No, no, no. “Don’t you close that door!” That fucker! Hux was very enthusiastically shutting the door after himself. Kriff, he really didn’t care if you died, did he? “Don’t you close that fucking door!” Again, no such luck. Hux shut the door on your face. The stone ledge cracked and crumbled under the assault of the blaster bolts and you took off running again.

Leaping over walls and dodging pillars did no good. You only ended up more winded by the time you got cornered against a large sculpture. There was nowhere left to go. About eight bandits stood in a single file before you, their blasters aimed for your head. There are worse ways to go, you tried to tell yourself. Like what? Your brain unhelpfully supplied. 

You squeezed your eyes as tightly as possible, bracing for the impact of the blaster bolts ripping you apart, but it never came. You slowly opened one eye against the harsh sun and saw... nothing. None of the bandits were there anymore. Only a lingering cloud of dust signalling their swift exit. Weird.

You dared to venture one step from the shelter of the statue. Then another one. The sounds of battle had ceased. The only thing you could hear was the distant sound of speeders fleeing. And a rasp in the air like a whisper.

“You will die,” It chanted. You had to run. 

“You will die,” You took a step forward and the sand shifted beneath your feet. Jumping to your side, trying to dodge the sand which now erratically shifted around like something was moving underneath it.

You stumbled backwards just in time to see the sand form the shape of a huge screaming face. And then there was a deafening roar. Nope, you were not sticking around to see what happens next.

--

“The creature remains undiscovered,” The dark-skinned man announced, sitting on the speeder, flanked by men and women dressed similar to him in robes of beige.

“And what of this one, Finn?” One asked, nodding at the figure scrambling away towards the vast spread of sand.

“Should we kill them?” The figure turned as if it heard them speaking about it.

“No,” Finn said as it turned back and continued running. “The desert will kill them,”

---

“Battle of Yavin volume one, volume two,” Poe was standing on a ladder propped against a shelf, sorting out the new arrivals into their proper places. His dress shoes pinched uncomfortably, but Ben insisted that the dress code be strictly followed at all time. It did get annoying at times.

“Crait Terrains? What are you doing here?” That doesn’t go on that shelf, he must’ve picked up a wrong book.

Poe wasn’t mad, talking to books in an empty library. It was routine work and it got really quiet sometimes. The sound of his own voice was his only companion. “I’m gonna put you where you belong,” 

It would’ve been wise to climb down the ladder, prop it against the opposite shelf, climb said ladder, then place the book in its place. But sometimes, Poe liked to work smarter, not harder. Or so he told himself.

He reached back towards the shelf behind him, firmly gripping onto the rung. The problem however, was not how hard he held on to the ladder. The momentum of his weight shifting forward was enough to move the ladder in an upright position.

With a yelp, Poe managed to pull himself up, which wasn’t the smartest move considering he was now perilously balanced on a ladder propped against nothing.

And then the ladder wobbled, Poe shifted his weight, trying not to fall. But he was just having a very bad day and the ladder wasn’t cooperating. He managed to wrangle it in an ever more precarious position away from the shelves.

“Help,” he whispered unable to find his voice in his very mild panic. The ladder creaked and wobbled again but at least now he faced the shelves.

Then he fell.

Right on top bookshelf he had painstakingly sorted and arranged all day long. It toppled right on top of the next on, setting off a chain reaction as Poe watched in horror. He crambling away just in time as the last shelf collapsed over the spot he was standing on barely a few seconds ago.

Well, fuck.

“What... How...” It seemed his bad luck wasn’t done fucking with his day. Just then, his employer appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Very few things really elicit a visible reaction from Ben Kenobi, but Poe seemed to be the only person who managed to make his blood boil without even trying.

“Oh, look at this! Force!” He exclaimed. “Give me Banthas! Or even porgs! Anything but you!” Poe grimaced, shrinking back from the old man who was a whole head taller than him, now marching over to him.

“I’m so very sorry, it was an accident,” He stumbled over his apology, but it seemed his employer wasn’t done berating him.

“You, are a catastrophe! Look at my library! Why do I put up with you?” Ben threw his hands in the air. 

“I put up with you because... because,” Poe grappled for something to say. Something that wouldn’t send Ben into another fit of rage or get him unemployed, but he couldn’t come up with anything.

“I put up with you because of your godmother is one of our finest patrons!” Oh well, “Now, I don’t care how you do it, I don’t care how long it takes. Straighten up this mess!” Ben exclaimed one final time before spinning around towards the entrance, his long tan cloak billowing behind him like a cape.

Poe threw his head back groaning, loudly. It seemed like luck just wasn’t on his side when it came to Ben Kenobi. In just one week of employment, Poe managed to get himself almost fired, not once, but a total of three times. He wondered if he was going to break some kind of record for the fastest person to ever be sacked as a librarian of all things.

A clattering noise pulled him out of his reverie. Poe sighed. The last thing he needed right now was something else to fall apart in the storage room and risk further angering Ben Kenobi. He quickly grabbed a flashlight from the desk before going to check on the noise.

The storage room, much to his annoyance, almost never had working lights in it. Somehow, the room filled with ancient artefacts and important documents was almost always dark. The beam of light dancing over random objects made shadows dance over the walls. Poe hated the dark.

“Hello?” Poe called out into the room and no one responded. He wasn’t sure if he would’ve preferred to hear a reply. Great. Now he’s got to risk his life twice before lunchtime. Librarians are so underrated.

“Snap?” He called out, noticing his voice only wavered slightly despite the darkness. Poe swore to himself, he was going to haunt the hell out of Kenobi’s ass if he died today. “Beebee?”

Poe almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of a loud thud coming from a corner. Please let it be Beebee, please let it be Beebee. Poe chanted under his breath. He couldn’t die, not today, not in the hands of a ghost. No way.

Thud. With a rare boost of bravery, Poe persevered towards the sound. How bad could it be? It was just a storage room in a library, there’s no way he was going to-

SCREEEEEEEE

A skeletal figure popped up with a deafening screech. Poe screamed, almost dropping the flashlight in his hurry to get the fuck out of there. But the sound of laughter that soon followed the screech, stopped him on his tracks.

He turned back to the open sarcophagus that Rey sat on, her whole face red from wheezing from laughter. The withering glare Poe sent her might have sent a stranger running but Rey only laughed harder at his expense.

“Don’t you have any respect for the dead?” He started to berate her.

“Of course I do, But sometimes I’d rather like to join them,” she grinned up at him, throwing an arm over the skeleton as if it weren’t a fucking skeleton. Poe suppressed a shudder. He hated bones. Yeah, ironic for someone trying to dig up dead stuff.

“Well I wish you’d do it sooner rather than later before you ruin my career-” Rey gave a long-suffering sigh, having heard this speech just about enough times already.

“Oh please, career is too generous of a word for whatever it is you’re doing,” She folds her arms behind her head, leaning back. But Poe wrapped his hands around her arms, easily hefting her off. For someone who looked like they’ll snap in half if it gets a little too windy, Rey got into more trouble then anyone he knew. Himself included.

“Now get out,” Poe unceremoniously dropped her on the floor.

“Woah! Hey, now who pissed in your drink,” she kicked him, dusting off her tan pants.

“Rey, im really not in the mood right now, I just made a bit of a mess in the library and Kenobi’s gonna kick my ass if I don’t fix it.” Poe plopped into an upturned crate, signing. He really didn’t want to go back into the library. It gave him a headache just thinking of the colossal mess he made.

“Besides,” She continued, paying no mind to him. “I’ve got just the thing to cheer you up!”

“What did you do this time?” He whined as she thrust a pyramid-shaped object into his hands, softly glowing a deep shade of red. There were inscriptions along the edges. Inscriptions he recognized.

“Rey, I think you found something,” He whispered, looking at her wide-eyed with excitement. Rey thought he looked very slightly deranged like this. In an endearing way, of course. “Its the Sith pathfinder,”

---

“You see the inscriptions on it? It’s the royal seal of Palpatine the first, I’m sure of it,” Poe announced as Ben Kenobi intently examined the pyramid-shaped object.

“Two questions,” Rey interrupted, “Who the hell was Palpatine the first, and was he rich?”

“He was the second emperor of the Sith dynasty, said to be the wealthiest emperor of them all,” Poe informed her. He had more than a little distaste for the name. After all, his parents were both taken by the war started by the Sith sympathisers. 

“Good. That’s good. I like this fellow,” Rey proclaimed. “I like him very much,” Poe shook his head in resignation. He didn’t fault her, Rey was way too young to know the horrors of war. But she was no stranger to hardship. She was just a scrawny eleven-year-old alone and fighting for survival in the harsh Jakku dessert when Ben Kenobi and Luke Skywalker found her.

“I’ve already dated the map, its almost three thousand years old,” Poe pointed to a part of the map, “And if you look at the hieratic just here, well,” Poe shrugged, knowing full well the kind of scepticism the place invoked. “Its Exegol,” Rey perked up at the sound of the name, suddenly becoming a hell lot more interested in the object that had come into her possession.

“Force, don’t be ridiculous. We’re scholars, not treasure hunters.” Ben Kenobi snaps at him. “Exegol is a myth told by ancient storytellers,”

“Oh? Was the war instigated by the senator who believed in Sith dictatorship a myth too?” snapped back at him. Ben looked taken aback by his reaction. It was rare for Poe to act out or even be disrespectful, at least it had been the past few years. He had more than a few rebellious years when he was much younger. Poe sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “My research has led be to believe that the city itself may have actually existed,”

“Are we talking about the Exegol,”

“Yes, the City of the Sith, located right over the cave kyber crystals are said to be found,”

“Oh, yes. A cave full of kyber crystals,” Rey’s voice was full of awe. Ben scoffed at her eagerness. “Oh please, everybody knows that story,” then proceeded to yelp as the sleeve of his robe sleeve caught on the edge of the table and the sith pathfinder goes tumbling over the desk. Poe and Rey dived right after it trying to catch it before it hit the ground but to no avail.

“You broke it, you broke a part of the city!” Rey accused him, scooping up the pathfinder, now missing a chunk on the side which laid shattered on the ground beside her.

“It’s for the best, I’m sure,” Ben said. “Many men have wasted their lives in the foolish pursuit of Exegol. No one’s ever found it.” He had a distant look in his eyes, almost like he was reminiscing. “Most have never returned.”

Rey’s voice was soft when she spoke again. Poe almost missed it. “Is there where uncle Luke went?” Ben sighed, getting up from his seat. He walked over to Rey, cupping her face in between his palms. Her small face dwarfed by his much larger hands.

“What makes you say that, Rey?” He asked her with a tenderness Poe had almost never heard from the man before. He felt like he was intruding in a private moment. “No one knows where he went or why, my child,” Ben pulled Rey into a hug, allowing them a single moment’s grief for their missing family member.

“Now run along, you both have things to do,” Poe didn’t resist, mentally drained from the eventful day he just had he was more than ready to call it a day, even if it was barely three o’clock.

Rey nudged him with her elbow as the two of them walked out of the office. Her face was alight with the conspiring smirk Poe was well acquainted with. “I have an idea,” 

Despite his earlier reservations about being more than ready to end the day, Poe felt his own lips pull into a smile at the promise trouble. “Lead the way, Kenobi,” Just like old times then, he thought. Rey hooked at arm under his elbow, skipping down the steps as she led him out of the library.

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Part 2

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