#Only worry would be the space mosquitos or whatever-

[techs-study-buddy]

After rewatching The Mandalorian, I'm just sitting here thinking about how nice life on Sorgan would be. You could just be a lil krill farmer- you got no worries, just your fellow villagers :) And part of me like the idea of a rainy evening on Sorgan. Just me?

[tiredfox64]

Hi! I was wondering can you write Earthrealm champions x Arab reader who is like a Marcelina from Adventures time. She basically doesn’t need blood to feed and she sucking the red from things making it grey and one day when the boys was in mission reader jumps on Kenshi and sucked his coat dry.

Cherry Cola

Yip notes: Ngl Adventure Time scared me as a kid and I still won’t watch it.

Pairings: Earthrealmer Champions x Vampire! Afab reader

Warnings‼️: Bonk, somewhat proofread

Something is wrong at the Wu Shi Academy. The monks have been discussing the possibility of a wild animal in the area. But what kind of animal sucks the color out of a piece of fruit? And what could leave such big holes behind?

Oh, this doesn’t seem good. Vaeternus must be behind this. What else could create such marks? Why would they be targeting fruit? Nobody knows but they will still believe they are behind this.

This situation has put many on edge. Liu Kang would look into this himself but this might be a better mission for his champions to go on. He is confident that no one will be hurt. Because if this being is what he thinks it is then it will only be harmful to a primary color.

══💤══╡°˖✧🦊✧˖°╞══💤══

All four of the men walked through the wooded forest of the mountains. They followed a trail of plants that were missing their colors. Roses, berries, mushrooms, and leaves. All of them had two holes left behind. Johnny took a look at one of the mushrooms and saw how deep the puncture wound went. He grimaced at the thought of being bitten by the possible vaeternian that was doing this.

“Damn, I really hope we don’t come across this thing.”

“Better to catch it now than let it roam around and believe it can do whatever it wants.” Kung Lao replied to Johnny’s worry.

“What is it, Cage? Afraid to be bit?” Kenshi teased his friend.

“Johnny’s concerns are reasonable,” Raiden advocated for him, “But we should try to capture whatever this thing is. Even if it is not a vaeternian it is something else that doesn’t mind sinking its teeth into things.”

It doesn’t help Johnny’s nerves that they were wearing the same outfits they wore when hunting down Shang Tsung. The outfits were made to lessen any possible injuries. His face is still open though! What’s gonna stop this creature from taking a bite out of his nose and sucking him dry…pause.

If a mosquito can find an opening, so could a vaeturnian, if this is a vaeturnian.

The further they walked the more they saw the flora missing its color. Raiden and Kung Lao began to recognize something. All of the plants and fruit they had seen would have been red. Everything else had been left alone. They give each other a look before looking at Kenshi. It might have been a bad move to let him wander with a coat that was almost all red. He is literally a walking platter of food for whatever is out there. It certainly isn’t a vaeturnian but it has vampiric elements.

They were passing by a cave before Johnny stopped them, “Woah, you guys better take a look at this.”

The three stepped back and looked at where Johnny shined his light. Further in the cave was evidence that there was someone staying there. There was literally a house in the cave. It looked a little rundown, but it wasn’t in any bad shape. The true evidence that showed that someone was there was the pile of rose petals. Half of the rose petals have been drained of their color.

“Nope, nope, nope.” Johnny wanted to turn back but Raiden stopped him.

“We have to finish our investigation, Johnny.”

“Do you not see what I’m seeing? That’s a trap. It’s a trap to lure us in and when we are deep into the cave whatever is in there is gonna bite the back of our necks.”

“You should stop using your phone. All those conspiracy theories are making you paranoid. This is not one of those “liminal spaces” you talk about.” Kung Lao mocked Johnny for being so afraid.  

While those idiots argued about what to do Kenshi stood there in confusion. His vision could only make him see so far. He didn’t see what everyone else saw. He didn’t even know that the flowers and fruit were missing colors.

It didn’t matter. All he wanted to do was end this mess. He took out Sento and carefully made his way into the cave while everyone else kept arguing. The further he went the more he saw the house. The feeling of being watched hit him hard and he feared he might have walked into something dangerous. His head looked up and saw…

“Huh?”

A being. A human being or so he thinks. All he can see is someone upside down with their feet planted on the rock ceiling. He couldn’t see many details since he could only see the blue outline of the body. He stared in awe as he tried to figure out what was going on. That left Kenshi wide open to the mouth of a ferocious beast.

The head of this creature turned slowly towards him. The creature lunged at him before Kenshi could bring Sento up to protect him. Its body collided with his and he was knocked to the ground. Its mouth opened wide and Kenshi could see the razor-sharp fangs. He heard Johnny yell out to him.

“KENSHI!!”

Down the fangs came onto Kenshi’s…clothes…?

Wait what? Hold on, did I misread that? Ah, okay, this was more dramatic on his end than yours. Let’s step back a bit and get your side of the story.

You are no vaeturnian, you’re just a chill vampire. You look the role and play the role except you have an easier time when it comes to feasting. You don’t need to go out hunting every night for a human body to suck the blood out of nor do you need to pin down a bear and drink its blood. You have it easier by only needing to drink anything red.

It’s way more pleasant than blood. Blood is metallic and the taste stays longer than you would like. But when it’s something like berries or rose petals, it’s much more flavorful. It’s floral, it’s bitter, it’s sweet, it’s way better than blood.

You declared yourself a “vegetarian”. No drinking blood, only the color red. You wandered around the land trying to find new objects that had the color red to them. You found that being near the Wu Shi Academy was beneficial because of the many plants that were around and the clothes they left out to dry.

Oh you scoundrel, no wonder some of Kung Lao’s clothes were losing color. You couldn’t help it. Once you realized clothes had a whole different taste you had to try whatever you could. Kung Lao was like a sweet lychee to you. He was your favorite to feast on.

The little bit you could get from Raiden was alright. He would taste like blood orange if his amulet wasn’t involved. He was way too metallic with all that lightning he was producing. On the rare occasion you got to steal from Johnny he had a red wine taste to him. It’s sweet but could use more aging than he would be perfect.

You never got the chance to try Kenshi however. It’s a shame. You saw how he always wore red but he never left his clothes out to dry. It must be his expensive taste and how his clothes need dry cleaning kind of care. He just looked so tasty with all that red he wore. You thought you would never get the chance to taste that delicious man. So you sulked in your cold and lonely cave, drinking from the same old things.

Your wishes must have been heard since you heard people approaching your cave. You went into hiding by crawling on the cave ceiling and hiding behind a stalactite. You peeked to see who your mysterious visitors were. You were unable to see them until

gasp Kenshi?! All in red? What a treat!

You walked out from behind the stalactite to get a better view of him. That’s when he peered up at you with that lovely red cloth covering his eyes. This was it. This was your big moment to finally get a taste of him.

You lunged at him with a wide smile on your face. You were on him in an instant with your teeth ready to snag onto his coat. You heard the yell that Johnny let out but paid no mind to it. Down you snapped your mouth on his coat and began to suck the color right off of it.

Kenshi was rightfully confused. All he could see was you nibbling on his coat. He couldn’t see how the cherry red color was slowly draining from his clothes, leaving only a pale gray color. Johnny was the first to run over to Kenshi and you. He shined the light at you guys so he could see what was going on. He was perplexed by the spectacle in front of him. You were not harming Kenshi at all. You were harming his clothes more than anything.

“Wh-What is she doing?” Kenshi asked.

Johnny stayed silent as he struggled to explain the situation to the blind swordsman. How could he logically explain that all the color in his clothes was draining away? Raiden and Kung Lao came running, only to be stunned by the situation at hand.

“Would anyone like to tell me what is going on?” Kenshi asked once more, sounding more aggravated this time.

“She seems to be…uh…” Raiden was struggling to tell Kenshi the truth without upsetting him. Don’t worry, Kung Lao will say it.

“She is sucking the color right out of your clothes.”

“WHAT!?”

Just as you were about to finish sucking the last of the cherry red color, you felt the back of your head being hit with something. It made a loud thunk noise and you finally unlatched your jaw. You backed away while rubbing the spot where you got hit. You assumed that Kenshi hit you with the handle of Sento.

The men helped Kenshi up and looked at the damage you have done. All of the color in his coat was drained. There were only a few items of clothing that still had their red color. It’s not a bad look on him but that doesn’t help the fact that your actions were uncalled for. You hadn’t the slightest bit of guilt on your face. You seemed happy and full. Very gluttonous of you

“What was that?” Johnny asked.

“What was what?”

“That! That thing you did to Kenshi! How did you suck the color off his clothes?” Johnny’s concerns were echoing through the cave.

“Johnny, I think that is her ability. I think she can drink anything that is red.” What would these idiots do without Raiden?

You nodded your head, agreeing with Raiden’s spot on observation.

“So, if you drink red things, why have fangs if they are not used to cut through flesh?”

“You can’t drink soda without popping a hole in it. I need an entrance to suck the color out.” You answered Kung Lao with as much attitude as you could provide because his question was just stupid.

“So just to be one hundred percent with you, you weren’t trying to suck the blood out of Kenshi?”

This moment was weirdly incomprehensible to Johnny. He has never encountered a vampire creature that only sucked the color out of things.

“Clearly not! I don’t even like blood. The color red is much sweeter. He was really sweet, like uh cherry cola kind of sweet.”

There was silence for only five seconds. In those five seconds, the men found this situation a bit funnier, except for Kenshi. They realized there was nothing to worry about. You were an extremely harmless vampire who only sucks the red out of things.

“Wonderful…I think we can return to Liu Kang now. We can tell him that the culprit has been found.” Kenshi turned away from everyone and started to walk off. He put Sento away and walked with his fist clenched tightly. This day was just too weird for the men but it sure would be an interesting story to tell Liu Kang.

“Wait!” You called out to Kenshi.

He stopped for a second, hoping to hear an apology come from your red-stained lips. It could be about ruining his clothes, or pouncing on him, or even worrying everyone. But instead, you decided to say.

“Can I drink the red part of your shoes?”

“Haven’t you had enough?” Give Kenshi a break, please.

Yap notes: Not too sure I liked this one but I tried my best. I was pushing through my depression but nothing was making me feel great. Lots of thunderstorms and heat so it makes me a bit ill. Hopefully I can do a little better for the next fic I write. Sorry again if this wasn't my best. Adiós!

[fruitanddarkness]

@viciousbite Continued from: || x ||

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

"Liar! I know you stole my hairpins! You're probably hoarding them in your stupid little nest somewhere. Give them back!"

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·

Flying around and laughing so carefree? Where does he get off?? How could this dumbass be an upper 4 when all he did was bother others with his little games and interrupt any peace and quiet the other kizuki found themselves with. This feather-snatched waste of space only cared about himself. Joy? What a joke. Being happy didn't get you anywhere in life if that was all you sought. No.. happiness and joy came from luxury, power, and admiration of others. It guaranteed a life without worrying about where your next meal comes from, and just how many dared to prostrate themselves in your presence.

"Hmph! I wouldn't expect a half-formed mosquito to know anything about beauty. My looks help Lord Muzan and get me what is rightfully mine, unlike you."

Those talons did land their mark on the female upper moon. Entangling themselves rather easily within her thick long hair; Urogi was able to get a few good tugs into the thick smooth locks on her head. The carefully crafted style that sat beautifully atop a feminine form was snared and snagged with relative ease, causing her hair to fray and spread across her face in an inelegant manner. A shrill shriek followed as Daki got her bearings and realized just what atrocity had been committed on her flawless appearance. Even from above, the demon in flight would be able to see an expression of fury that erupted on the lesser moon's face.

"You...!! How dare you!! I spent hours on my hair..!!"

The ornate obi that the female wore around her waist came to life in the wake of her rage. It began splitting into several sections with malicious intent to wrap around whatever had so deeply offended its master.

[ratmonky]

Blood of Purity

Word Count: 3.9K

Warnings: non-con, virginity kink, blood kink, blood, stalking, simple and badly written horror pron

AO3 Link

Being brought back to earth to feel the sunlight kissing his skin made Choso appreciate these two new associates. Other than that he was grateful because he and his two brothers were finally united back again, it warmed his heart.

To him, family was the most important thing in the world. Losing his brothers could make him go berserk because that would mean that he couldn’t hold his promise of protecting them.

He hoped he could protect them for another century and live a quiet life after he was done with whatever those other two wanted from him.

The smell of something delicious filled his nostrils, he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Ahh, the sweet, sweet scent of blood that was pure, almost like a flower. It had been a long time since he had smelled it.

He froze, there wasn’t anyone up in the mountains with him to produce such redolent-smelling blood in their body.

“Are you alright?” A meek voice asked.

Choso was a little surprised and couldn’t stop his shoulders from rising because of the sudden noise. His stare found you, you were wearing hiking clothes looking a little too tired but still had a worried look on your face, which was aimed at him.

“You look awful, do you need food? Did you lose your hiking trail? Should I call for help?” You took out your phone but clicked your tongue soon after, “Ugh,  no service. Whatever I can try to help. Are you hurt?”

He didn’t want to talk to a human, so he turned around to walk back into the hideout. The hideout was a simple cave with some furniture, away from the civilization and humans as the other two said but here you were standing.

The last thing he wanted was to being disturbed by another living.

However, as he took another step, he realized that he was being held back. He whipped his head around to glare at you for pulling at his clothes but his face sort of softened when he saw you holding out a bottle of water for him.

“This is for you to drink!” you said slowly, assuming he didn’t understand. While you were exaggeratedly and embarrassingly trying to showcase to him how to drink water, Choso spoke.

“I don’t need anything.”

“Ah.” Your cheeks flushed from embarrassment and you pulled your hand from his clothes at the same time you nearly dropped the water bottle. “You should’ve told me you understood me, I feel so bad now. Was it embarrassing?”

“Very.”

Slapping a hand on your forehead, you slowly dragged it down. “Please forget that. Let’s start from the beginning, hi, I’m (name).”

“I didn’t ask for your name.”

“O-oh.. right. Sorry, I just hope you aren’t hurt or anything. I wasn’t expecting to meet someone this high up in the moun-”

Choso walked away to avoid the conversation and you didn’t try to talk or stop him again.

It worked.

He glanced over his shoulder as you continued your trail and the delicious smell of pure blood became fainter the further you walked into the forest.

There was a moment of hesitation for him, something within him twisting. It felt like he had knots all over his chest, yearning for that pure blood. He had forgotten how delirious it could get him.

Shaking his head, he tried clearing his thoughts. No. This wasn’t the time nor the place.

~~~

After finding an open clearing that could be a good enough campsite before it got dark, you set up your tent to sleep for the night, the opening was large enough for your tiny tent and small enough for you to feel safe. You skipped lighting up a fire and went straight inside your tent to avoid blood-sucking mosquitos.

Although staying inside the tent and eating a granola bar wouldn’t count as a camping experience by many people, it was your first time camping alone. So, you wanted to save your energy for hiking rather than the useless stuff. Nobody cared. The real experience was the hiking, the tall trees, the breathtaking views from the cliffs, and the cute animals you come across if you were lucky enough,

That was the whole purpose. To come here and forget about everything else to enjoy nature.

Several months ago you had made a promise to yourself that you were going to go hiking in the mountains if you never got the promotion you pretty much earned at your job. Well, you never got promoted nor did you work at that office anymore. You dropped off everything to make a fresh start.

That was how you ended up here. Your hiking adventure was going to last for three nights and four days. Today was your only second night and you still had a long way to hike. You were hoping to reach this one cliff you had heard about from the locals, they said that there was a flower field under the cliff, making the view look straight out of a painting.

Maybe if you were lucky you could have a picnic on the cliff before the dark fell tomorrow, watching the view under the bright blue sky. Oh, perhaps you could even set up your tent on the cliff so you could enjoy the scenic view while having breakfast.

You were full of high expectations for tomorrow and the excitement had you rolling around in your double sleeping bag. Having eaten your dinner hours ago, which consisted of a simple granola bar, you were ready to sleep.

Turning off the small lantern you had in the corner of the tent, you nestled inside the sleeping bag, closing your eyes with a smile.

Rustle.

You turned around in the sleeping bag. The rustling of the trees from the wind continued. Humming contentedly in your sleep, a smile spread across your face, it felt peaceful, calm.

Whereas the sounds of car honks and screeching tires would interrupt your sleep in the city, here… there was nothing. Just peace.

Moving further inside the sleeping bag, you smacked your lips, nuzzling your face into the small pillow to continue sleeping.

The wind returned, shook the trees, and crunched on the leaves.

Crunched on the leaves?

You snapped a single eye open and froze in your spot, listening carefully.

Silence.

Ugh, it could have been a single old tree branch falling down and crushing some leaves. Nothing too important. Go back to sleep.

Crunch.

It came from outside of your tent, right where the tent door was. Though, whatever it was, it was far away.

Crunch.

Closer.

Crunch.

It was coming closer.

Crunch.

As if someone was knowingly stepping on the tree branches and the leaves that would make the most sound to announce their approach, each step forward and closer to your tent was being taken deliberately. Whoever was outside, they wanted you to know.

Crunch.

The sinking feeling of not being alone left you petrified and you only hoped they were a passerby, another hiker.

Are you dumb?

Who would hike in the middle of the night?

Crunch.

You sank deeper into your sleeping bag, heart palpitating in fear and lips trembling. There was this urge to scream and yell at them to stay back but you wanted to hold onto that silly idea of it being an animal. A fox or a deer.

Don’t you know?

Crunch.

Both of those animals moved quietly.

Crunch.

This was a human.

Crunch.

At least… you hoped it was a human.

Crunch.

It stopped. It was right outside. Standing directly in front of the door of your tent.

Your entire body was trembling violently inside the sleeping bag, your limbs had turned to stone, you couldn’t move them.

You heard a sigh and a mumbling.

It was a man.

Now, you were even more scared. You didn’t know what to do, if you made a sound he could get scared and leave or just dive inside. Or what if you turned on the lantern? Would he leave then? No, no, no. This wasn’t some gambling game, you weren’t going to get to redo any of these, you had to be careful.

You chose to wait.

Wait to see what was going to happen.

You didn’t know what you were expecting but it wasn’t the man outside grabbing the zipper and opening the tent flap without giving you a moment to react.

He was coming in.

You yelped in surprise and the person stopped briefly but his hand still grabbed the flap to lift it so he could duck inside.

Finally finding the vigor to move, you started kicking at the sleeping bag and crawled to the furthest corner of the tiny tent as the man entered inside the tent, closing the zipper shut after himself.

“G-get out!” Your ears were ringing, you had never been in a situation like this. You didn’t know who he was or what he wanted but it was clear as day that he was here to hurt you. No sane person would invade someone else’s tent like this.

“As I guessed, it’s coming from you.” He spoke to himself, ignoring your words.

Fear began taking over your nerves, your body was shaking uncontrollably as you realized that the man’s features you managed to make out in the dark were awfully similar to the man you had seen earlier today. The one who looked like he was about to pass out at any given moment.

Your mouth popped open but you couldn’t scream, the fact that you had walked past him five hours earlier and him finding you here meant only one thing.

He had followed you here.

There was only one question and it was-

“W-what do you want from me?”

He was crouched down by the tent’s door, he hadn’t moved ever since he entered inside but you could see him shaking his head, debating for something in his own mind.

“No, no, no…” He covered his ears with his hands like a kid and crawled up into a ball by the corner of the tent. “This isn’t the time.”

Oh, he was deranged. You could feel your own sanity slip away, wanting to disappear, teleport away or drop dead at this moment to avoid dealing with this man.

“Please, leave.” Your words were weaker than a whisper but even with his covered ears, he heard you, lifting his head to look in your direction.

You flinched from the way you could see something reflecting light in his eyes.

“I shouldn’t have zipped that thing closed, the smell is intoxicating.” He moved a hand to cover his mouth and nose. The delicious smell of the pure blood in this small space was overwhelming all of his senses.

“W-what smell?”

He was surprised you didn’t even notice but he couldn’t blame you. Humans couldn’t understand these sorts of things. Not curses either. He was… different than the rest. He knew his brothers couldn’t differentiate pure blood from the corrupted. They didn’t need to anyway, they were younger than him.

As an older brother, Choso was more mature. He knew about the things his brothers didn’t know about.

Choso looked at your pretty face. He hadn’t noticed it before, how foolish of him! If he hadn’t overreacted at that moment he would have noticed that the sweet smell was coming from you and he wouldn’t have to trail after you for so long.

It was curiosity at first. Then it was a mission to confirm if the smell was actually coming from you but now that he knew it belonged to you, he wasn’t sure if he could just… leave.

He moved, crawling towards you, you spared him a single warning look and hissed out your next words. “Stay back.”

He didn’t stay back, Choso crawled closer to you slowly, without any real hurry because both of you knew that you were only a prey. No matter what you did, there was no way out for you.

It would be like a rabbit going against a wolf. However, from the way he was towering over you with his height in the cramped space with his hair brushing against the tent ceiling, it didn’t look like you were the prey he was going to kill. There was a soft look on his face, indicating that what he was going to do was so much more sinister.

“I never told you my name. It’s Choso.”

You leaned back onto the tent to put distance between the two of you but he grabbed you by your ankles, abruptly pulling you under him.

A fearful shriek left your lips, you started kicking and struggling but Choso held you in place with a single hand. His strength was unmatchable, you were helpless against him.

“I don’t understand! What do you want from me? Is it money?” You weren’t dumb, you knew he wasn’t here for money nor was he asking for help.

Choso couldn’t give you an honest answer. Not even if he tried. He was a composed man, he liked to believe that was true. He was mature and the oldest of his ten siblings. He had to be a role model to them yet here he was overpowering a poor, helpless little human.

“I will take something from you,” he explained, slowly. He lied to himself, telling himself that he was going to take it because he believed in those silly myths. Myths of the pure blood giving a curse like him that uses blood power no one had experienced before.

He was doing this to protect his brothers. But he had done this in the past too, he knew the myths were untrue and this was only for his own personal satisfaction. He liked the feeling of the pureblood on his skin, the luscious taste of it, and the sweet smell it produced.

How selfish for a brother like him. How childish for an older brother like him.

“W-what?” you dared to ask.

Choso gave you the answer by pulling off your pants along with your underwear.

With renewed vigor you started struggling harder, screaming and kicking. Again, Choso was stronger. You were only a little rabbit trying to fight against a vicious wolf. You had no chance of winning.

“Don’t… Don’t fight back. It’s been a while since I held a woman and I may hurt you,” he said in a straight tone, it was indifferent but his words were threatening. I can hurt you if I’m not careful.

Your body went stiff at his words. He was actually going to take you with force. A pained sob got stuck in your throat and it made your chest clench. You wanted to tell him to stop, beg for him to stop.

He knew you were a fragile little thing, he found it adorable. Small things were cute, things to be protected were always adorable in his eyes. Your cuteness was clouding his mind His instincts were getting all over the place because of you as he managed to take off your pants and underwear. The scent of the blood was stronger now. He felt the straight black line on his face tingling, his eyebrows furrowed while he tried inhaling through his mouth to keep himself sane.

“Please, don’t,” you pleaded as he was undressing himself using one hand. He was keeping you down with his other hand, no matter how much you struggled you couldn’t budge a tiny bit. This was it. You could only watch in horror as he got undressed and got in between your legs.

Finally pulling down his own pants to release his cock, he let go of you for a brief moment to pull you under him after grabbing you by your calves with both hands. You shrieked in surprise as the friction from the sleeping bag under you lifted your shirt up. It reminded Choso that he still hadn’t freed you from one last article of clothing that was preventing him from seeing your naked body in its all glory.

To your luck, he was happy with just lifting the shirt up and over your chest, the sight of your bare chest was enough and he couldn’t want any longer.

The smell of your blood was already making him dizzy. The blood of the innocent was always hard to find but here you were, laying under him.

He would have felt ashamed for indulging in the pleasure if this was any other time but tonight he was alone. His brothers wouldn’t have to see him lose his composure like this. He could do as he wanted.

You put your tiny hands on his chest to push him away but he was already dragging the tip of his cock between your folds.

A wolf shouldn’t mate with a rabbit. It was common sense. It was wrong. However, as a product between two or more species, Choso was unbothered by the rules of nature.

He shoved the entire length of his cock inside of you with an abrupt thrust of his hips. You screamed, hitting his chest as the pain of your hymen being torn intensified. His girth was too much for your virgin walls, they were being stretched without any preparation but you could feel the slick fluid starting to leak out.

Choso took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

There it was.

The blood of a virgin.

The sweet, almost delicious smell filled his lungs and he tentatively pulled out of you. He gracefully dragged his long fingers along your slit to scoop most of your pure blood and brought his hand up to his face.

His digits were covered in a small trail of blood, it was slowly streaming down from the tip of his fingers towards the base. He took a deep inhale of the blood before parting his lips in admiration. Agonizing slowly he put his fingers in his mouth to taste your blood as you watched in horror.

Humming around his digits and savoring the taste of your innocence, Choso thought he would be satisfied with only getting a taste. His cock swelling bigger proved him wrong.

When he turned his attention back to you, the two of you glanced at each other. You pleaded for him to stop once again but he didn’t waste any more time and surged his hips forward, refusing to leave your slick heat empty.

His cock stretched your tight virgin walls, forcing them to take the very shape of him while you dug your nails into the sleeping bag under you, pulling at the fabric and silently screaming. He was filling you up with no gaps.

He pulled his hips back and snapped them forward with enough force to punch all the air out of your lungs. Then, you realized he was right. His strength could hurt you if he wasn’t careful.

“I-it hurts.”

Unfortunately, he was too lost in the pleasure of tasting the blood of a virgin and his mind was a mess. It was like he was high on a drug, completely intoxicated, unable to think straight. So, he didn’t hear your words. Instead, he grabbed you by your sides and started fucking you frantically almost immediately.

Each thrust had his entire weight behind them, his brute strength and frenzied pace were unbearable for your little mortal body.  

Choso didn’t remember how fragile and delicate humans were compared to curses like him, especially women. He was treating you as if you could handle the immense libido he had. He also failed to notice the way you were losing control over your body; like how you were incapable of closing your mouth as you drooled down your chin. Your legs twitched, toes curled, and back arched.

All because of the ferocity of his thrusts.

The pain of your hymen being torn was now a faint memory, your virgin walls being stroked by something so thick and firm began feeling delightful, erotic.

You stopped gripping the sleeping bag under you and put your hands on his shoulders, grabbing the broad muscles to avoid being rubbed against the sleeping bag no more.

Choso’s hands on your sides slid down to grab you by the supple flesh of your ass. Like this, he could both slam into your pussy and slam you onto his cock to meet his thrusts, resulting in a loud skin-on-skin clapping sound.

A moan escaped your lips as more of your sanity drained out of you.

He leaned down to take your tit in his mouth, sucking on the soft skin before drawing circles around your nipple with his tongue. You tasted as good as your blood, something he hadn’t been expecting. It made him wonder if you tasted the same everywhere.

Wanting to test it out, he left your breast alone and licked his way up to your lips before crashing them onto yours and forcing his tongue inside your already gaped open mouth.

Like he guessed, you tasted, oh, so sweet. He swirled his tongue around yours as he continued moving his hips like an animal in heat.

Surprisingly, you clumsily kissed him back, having lost the lost drop of sanity, you were now completely gone out of your mind.

The kiss turned sloppy, you were gasping and whimpering into the kiss each time he snapped his hips forward at the same time he abruptly slammed you onto his cock to meet him halfway. Your eyes were rolling to the back of your head from bliss.

Savoring your luscious taste and indulging in your heavenly warmth, Choso felt like he could go on for hours. He was getting drunk from the intensity of your smell and taste.

However, his cock was already throbbing and your gummy walls were pulsating around his girth, seducing him to cum inside. The least he could do was to give you what you wanted.

Grabbing you harder until his fingers dug into the meat of your ass and planting his knees stably on the tent’s floor, Choso quickened his pace.

Unhinged.

You could feel something bubbling in your stomach as he was moving way too fast inside of you. There was a voice in the back of your mind yelling, shouting, breathlessly telling you to wake up, to push this stranger away but all you did was to pull him closer and wrap your legs around his hips to shamelessly encourage him.

You knew his name, he was no stranger… right?

When his hips started staggering, Choso slammed his hips into yours one last time, burying himself balls deep inside of your cunt. Your not so virgin walls clenched around his pulsating cock, moments later you felt the small twitching of his balls against your skin before thick spurts of cum painted your insides white.

Choso groaned audibly and pulled back from the kiss, simultaneously pulling out of you before his seed could overflow your pussy.

He threw himself next to you on the large sleeping bag and stared at the tent ceiling. The sweet smell of your innocence was still in the air, he inhaled it deeply one more time, treasuring this moment of satisfaction a second longer.

You on the other hand were barely awake and kind of in pain since it felt like he had broken your hips or a rib… or two, maybe three. You would live, he guessed.

Choso left you in your tent and returned to the hideout after a long walk. During his walk, he promised himself to hold back if he smelled another chaste woman again, just like he had many other times in the past.

[ginwhitlock]

summary: JASPER/ BELLA. set in eclipse (but is so far from canon honestly all you need to know is that victoria is after bella). When Jasper snatches Bella away to Texas to escape a vampire’s hunt for the girl who killed her lover, Bella comes clean about her hearts unfaithfulness on an unsettling summer morning, in front of God and everybody.

fic type: oneshot, no explicit scenes

warnings: religious guilt, Bella’s weird brand of horny, cheating on Edward, oh and Alice just doesn’t exist— don’t think about it too hard

There was this openness in the air, something stirring from the west, saturating the cotton fields. A yellow eyed barn cat stood still in the morning light, it’s black coat shifting with the bite of ghostly mice. Whiskers twitching. 

It was watching her, she was sure of it, like the pecan trees and the paddock mud and the mosquitoes. All beady-eyed and searching the brown haired girl, the one with crooked ankles and misaligned bangs that just barely kissed her cheeks in the late summer sun. She looked home grown. Wheat wild. A child of desert planes. And most importantly, she looked lost. 

“I thought you’d still be sleeping by now.” A hushed baritone slipped from the screen door, it’s owner donned in dark royal denim and loose leather. 

If it had been just months before, Bella would’ve rolled her eyes. 

But she was different now. As different as Washington was to Texas. As different as evergreens were to red oak. She swore even the sweat didn’t smell right. 

“Wanted to catch the sunrise.” There was a softness to her front teeth, the round of her molars quiet against one another. To whose ears she was catering to she didn’t know. And to be honest, she didn’t quite care anymore. 

Bella made out a lazy nod from her peripheral, the shaggy haired man seemingly relaxed out here on the front porch of her judgement day, all tan and tall and scented like rolled tobacco. 

Shut up, stupid girl. 

Jasper murmured out a response, something about humans needing sleep and southern sunrises being worthy enough to diminish the former from its place on his immortal pedestal. There was a creak and a groan from the haint green floorboards underneath her before she found herself shoulder to shoulder with the two hundred year old soldier; a stray wind had blown through the shaved baby blond hair lining his chin in the slightest of ways. There was a caution light screaming out from his stature and the brunette girl had the painful urge to swallow it under her teeth and tongue. Soak it in holy water and hide it in her skin for him to find. Or rather, Him, if this stay was going to end like she thought it ought to. 

He couldn’t feel that… could he? Stupid, stupid—

“The marigolds should be blooming about now, just west of the barn. They’re quite a bit prettier than Peter’s fields.” There was something off in the lit of his tongue, the way it flipped and rolled off his teeth. It came out… wrong. Forced. Like he was trying to be overtly kind. The way you talk to a frightened rabbit you clipped with the lawn mower. 

Bella frowned something deep and turned nose at Jasper. “Why did you bring me here, Hale?” 

With the question came a wince to his brow, a noticeable blow to his stature. He seemed to fold ever so slightly towards the young girl. 

“Don’t— don’t call me that.” 

Silence filled the unwalled prison of the porch like nothing else, the birds and wind seemingly gone to rest whenever the two entered into each other's space. Like worldly magnets, chess pieces that threw blows instead of diagonals. The quiet held them both. It held them together. 

Bella Swan blinked slowly in an unknown apology before settling back on the blond with the stone facade. She waited for him to continue. 

He sighed. “It’s safer here. Victoria wouldn’t come this far south without encountering things far worse than the likes of Emmett or Rose.” 

“But this wasn’t Edward’s plan, was it?” Bella’s lashes were like rodeo announcers with their back and forth turns to the outlook of western Texas. 

Jasper looked every bit of his one hundred fifty years as he laid a freezing hand on hers, their knuckles slotting together with unpracticed ease. “No. But it’s mine. And you’re gonna have to accept that.” 

She refused to nod at the man with the thigh clenching, hard work mending, touch, for more than a second. She was far from the type of girl that would lay down and let the boys run out their wildest stupidities on her seemingly catastrophic life, but she felt almost resigned in Jasper's hands. There was a calmness between them she couldn’t place as artificial or not, the soft wool of contentedness slowly covering the surveyor-ship she felt stepping outside this morning. The stares of the flora and fauna turned internal. Fire burned in the pit of her stomach, on the nape of her neck, across the fragile skin of her cheeks where freckles started to show, and mostly, on the warming flesh of her hand where their hands met gently. 

Maybe it was Edward looking onto them from a frozen forest hundreds of miles from here as he hunted a scarlet monster, discovering the hidden plumpness swirling around in his lover's chest for the brother he always worried about, but for all the wrong reasons. 

Or maybe… 

“Jasper, can I ask you something?” 

His eyes were like serpents, glowing yellow under the copper wind chimes above them. 

“Whatever you wish, Isabella.” 

Swallow. Breathe. “When you were human… did you believe in God?” 

A pause sliced the air in two. The cotton plants seemed to stop swaying. The feline vanished. A golden eyebrow fell to his browbone. 

“Yes, Isabella. Yes I did.” His face was drawn, distant, like an old time movie screen was playing out on his stone eyelids. 

Bella’s lips pulled at themselves with her front teeth. “Do you think He’s vengeful?” 

Their eye contact sealed itself, his hand moving on its own accord up her hand to her wrist, cradling the small, delicate bones that allowed her to touch him— but not now. Not ever again. 

“When I was a boy, my mama took me to church every Sunday at seven A.M sharp, and sent me to Sunday school after the service. I was the oldest, even then, and I had more responsibilities than just listening to the preacher ramble on about divinity and charity and sacrifice.”

Jasper's face was taught with memory. 

“I had two baby sisters by the time I turned seven and they were the number one priority, you have to understand, Isabella. Ada and Caroline couldn’t have been older than three when the Leroy boy died sitting in the pew behind us… poor child got heatstroke in his wool britches and after that I started dressing the girls in the lightest things I could find and never waited long after the sermon to get back.” 

Bella turned stormy under the weight of the seemingly young man's words, her eyes dropping from his own to study the way his fingers wrapped around her skin like a life jacket, one part caregiver and one part destroyer. Jasper's own hands seemed to start to tremor just slightly under her stare, or maybe it was from the wash of his own words. 

He took a breath he didn’t need. “But. I started listening when my mother got sick, before the girls finished schooling. Started praying. A part of me was guilty that I hadn’t started before I needed something, that the reason I spoke to Him was for a favor, and a big one at that. I was making up for lost time, I thought. I was begging on my knees for anything. And I didn’t get it.

“They buried an empty coffin with my name on it under a white wooden cross after the army said I went missing. Caroline would plant violets around it in the spring, weed out the planters and start again in the fall. She’d leave me communion wafers in our family pew and have Ada try to talk with me through the minister.” 

“I’m so sorry.” A true sadness settled in her bones, her seemingly selfish desire to have the question answered sat like a heavy stone in the out of her stomach. Her heart held out a warm woolen space for him and she silently begged he would sit in it, for his own sake. 

He waved her off and took on a slight smile, something she had never seen from Jasper. Not in any capacity before that very moment. 

She decided she would try to see it every chance she got for as long as he’d let her. 

“I wasn’t a man of religious structure, Isabella, but. I was a man of faith. The small times I was allowed to watch over my sisters only reminded me of that, no matter how far down to hell I had reached, I still had faith in redemption.” 

His teeth clicked together not unpleasantly. “But I haven’t answered your question have I?” There was a knowing-ness in his voice box and Bella wanted to drink it down like communion wine. She smiled back slightly. 

He was beautiful when he sighed. 

“I’ve done horrible things. Killed innocent people. Slaughtered children and mothers and lambs of God. I have worn blood on my hands like a second skin and not once during any of it did I feel remorse. But darlin,” his lashes fluttered like leaves, “not once did I think God wanted me to hate myself for what I had done. I think… He forgave me a long time ago, before I ever forgave myself. So no. I don’t believe in my brother’s vengeful punisher. Not today. Not in this lifetime.“ She’d never hear the ‘not with you’ fragment he had stuck in his mind.  

She had to step back from him then, the vampire who had become all consuming to her chest and her heart and her fingers. The air was warmer in the space behind him but it almost didn’t matter, the warmth layering her skin was enough to burn through an air conditioning unit anyway. Bella’s hands found clumsy solace in her back pockets as she stared ahead at the rows of painful cotton buds waiting to be harvested. The blood almost pulled to her fingertips. 

Teeth and lips found each other. “I don’t think I’m not going to get punished for this.”

Her words were concrete. Cement. Blacktop on a Kansas back road. They could’ve cut glass if she wanted them to. They almost did as he looked at her. 

“For what, Isabella?” 

Knowing bastard. Always. Knowing. 

No trembling allowed now. 

“For wanting you when Edwards away. When he’s in the same room as us. When he’s hunting the woman who's trying to kill me and you’re just standing there telling me not to be afraid of my own horrible heart… for betraying everything I’ve begged for since me and your brother met. I deserve to get punished for this, don’t I? Don’t you think?” 

She was sweating now, cold droplets running down her back to her the soft slope of her ass. Her knuckles were popping against each other like fireworks and she thought she might faint right then and there, MONSTER written across her forehead in a bruise from the impact. 

A scarred hand felt itself into its place under Bella’s chin and forced her rocking skull to finally glimpse the face she had been thinking of every moment she pulled her eyes away. Jasper Hal— Whitlock? And his clear midnight pupils branding her soul in a sinner’s blush. His lips formed a wonderful crook as he slowly pushed her flat against the ancient siding of the old farmhouse belonging to his long standing brother who looked like everything Jasper was except for his spirit. 

She could die this way and she would face God with a smile. 

“What I feel for you deserves no punishment darlin, but if you insist, I think I’d rather do the punishing than any divine power.” 

His lips were light rosy steel against Bella’s own as the clouds started to stretch out infinitely behind his back, unnoticed by the interlocked couple in their wake. A soft moan escaped as felt the soft chill of a crucifix digging into her neck. 

Maybe God would forgive her for this. Just once.

[thosewickedlovelies]

When Missions Go Right

Pairing: Frankie “Catfish” Morales x afab!Reader

Rating: E for Explicit

Summary: After Frankie makes everyone believe he was killed during a mission, hours later you're still shaken from the reveal that it had been a ruse. You can't stand the idea that he might have never known how you felt about him, so later that evening, you go and check on him.

Tags: SMUT; minimal angst despite the summary lol; unprotected PinV sex (pls wrap it up irl); oral (f receiving); they briefly drink alcohol but are not drunk; swearing

Word count: 6,794 lmfao

A/N: Reader’s nickname is Mosquito- I wanted a nickname and my brain got stuck on this one once I thought of it sorry. It’s explained :)

---

You sit in your hut at your team's temporary camp in the jungle, fidgeting. You don't know why you’re so torn- there’s nothing weird about checking on a teammate after a stressful mission, and you and your boys had done it for each other countless times before. This time is different, though. This time had shaken you more than any other incident, after you thought Frankie had- No. You exhale.

Just thinking of him emerging after the mission that day, appearing when you thought he was lost, causes another swell of emotion to rise in you, hot tears filling your eyes. You clap your hands over your mouth, force yourself to take deep, steadying breaths. Frankie had looked so surprised at everyone's reaction to his reappearance: stunned, relieved tears and a five-person hug that had pulled everyone to the ground in a tangle, with himself at the center. You don't know what he had expected. His impromptu plan hadn't been ideal, sure, but it had made their mission a success, and he was alive.

You smile a little at the memory. The quiet relief on Frankie's face, how soft and vulnerable he looked surrounded by affection, dust and sweat in his hair. Your smile fades at the remembrance of what had happened next. After everyone had untangled and straightened up, Santiago held out Frankie's hat to him, retrieved from where it had fallen during their dogpile. Frankie had secured it on his head, smiling cautiously at his friend. Then Santiago had punched him in the face.

“Don't you ever do that again!” Santi's voice had cracked. In the split second before he turned and strode away, you caught a glimpse of his eyes, turbulent and red-rimmed with emotion. Frankie, holding his jaw, had stared after him in shock. The Miller boys offered reassurance: “He'll be okay, Catfish. You guys are close. He was just upset.”

“We all were,” you added, stepping closer. Frankie's attention had focused on you for the first time since his return. Apprehension in his eyes, guilt and worry clearly visible on his face. You didn't let yourself think about what those dark eyes did to you as you flung yourself at him, hugging him fiercely. It was only partly to hide your face that you buried it in his neck. Santiago’s outburst echoed your own anger at Frankie’s deception, at him making you believe he was dead- but now was not the time to deal with it.

You had made no effort to stop the tears as you breathed in Frankie's scent, muddled with sweat and gunmetal. His arms wrapped around you carefully, one hand cradling the back of your head. Holding each other the way you were, his voice seemed to rumble through you, low and warm. “Hey, Mos. Thought you were gonna punch me too there for a sec.”

Memories flooded through you at the sensation- all the other times the two of you had been this close. Dancing to sultry music in some club, both of you too tired to pretend to mind lying pressed together in a cramped tent-

You exhaled, shoving the memories aside. Now was also not the time for that particular train of thought or its familiar destination.

Pulling back, you gave him a watery smile. “Nah, I think Pope did enough damage.”

You kissed him lightly on the cheek Santiago had just punched. Frankie's eyes were wide when you looked up at him, but you ignored the fluttering in your chest and turned your soft look into a glare. “But you'll get what's coming to you after that stunt.” His bulletproof vest was hard under your finger as you jabbed it into his chest.

You hardly held up the glare for a minute before it cracked, and Frankie chuckled in relief. “Whatever you say, Mosquito. Let's just get out of here.”

Skirting the edge of your team's small camp, you pause to scan for anyone else moving around in the dark. Briefly you find yourself distracted by the brightness of the full moon above, the beauty of the starry sky this far from any major towns. The remote location of this mission was why you were all still in camp tonight, instead of blowing off steam at some local watering hole. Usually some booze was brought along anyway, so you could unwind around the campfire, but you suppose things are a bit tense for that after today. Secretly, you're glad. You don't want to have to compete with everyone else for Frankie's attention tonight.

Now, you blink rapidly to clear the tears from your eyes. Taking a final deep breath, you stand. You had done enough crying since then; it was time for a different kind of release.

Mosquito. Sneaking around in the night like this, you're reminded of your nickname's origins. After a particularly successful mission, Santiago had been raving over your skills of infiltration. “...hitting 'em before they even knew they were there! Bam!” Crowing with laughter, their victory relaxing him as much as the booze.

“Like a mosquito,” Frankie had murmured, just barely peeking out from under the brim of his cap. The bugs had been particularly bad in that region, but the look in Frankie's eyes was anything but. Gleaming with admiration in the dim bar light, a knowing amusement quirking his mouth into a smile-  because Santiago's jaw had dropped. “Mosquito! Yes! ‘Fish, you're a genius!” Before Frankie could stop him, his friend had stolen his hat, ruffled his hair, and planted a kiss on his head with a smack.

You laughed as Frankie snatched his cap back. Santiago lifted his beer and spoke ceremoniously. “From this moment on, you will be known as: Mosquito.”

“Here, here,” Benny and Will had enthused, holding up their own bottles.

You shook your head, but there was no arguing with it. You clinked the neck of your beer with Pope's. “Mosquito it is.” The conversation drifted then, but you had looked at Frankie meaningfully. You lifted your bottle almost imperceptibly in acknowledgment. You're still not sure if the blush on his cheeks was from your appreciation, or Santi's smooch.

A buzzing near your ear reminds you that there are also bugs in your current environment, and that you've been standing here long enough. Certain there is no one around to see, you slip around the side of Frankie's hut to where a camo-patterned blanket hangs as a door. You knock lightly on the wood beside it. “Catfish? It's me,” you call softly. “Can I come in?”

There's a rustle and the sound of a throat clearing. “Yeah.”

You push aside the blanket just enough to step beyond it. It falls back into place behind you with a swish, and you blink as your eyes adjust. Contrary to the cool moonlight falling outside, the hut is lit only by a lantern sitting on the nightstand. In the dim, warm orangish glow, the figure perched on the edge of the bed is a study of shadows. You catch your breath as Frankie lifts his head.

Frankie “Catfish” Morales epitomizes the phrase “it's always the quiet ones”. But what he doesn't say out loud, you can always read in his eyes. Endlessly expressive, occasionally accompanied by an eyebrow raised to varying heights, they never fail to draw you in.

“Hey, ‘Squito. Come to take your shot?”

Your brow furrows. That wasn't what you expected. The guys only called you ‘squito' or ‘skeeter’ when they wanted to needle you. Buying time, you cast your eyes around the small space. A few square feet at the foot of the bed where Frankie had dumped some gear; the single bed that Frankie sits on, three feet in front of you; and the nightstand at the head of the bed, a surprisingly homey feature. On it sits the lantern, Frankie's dog tags, and- ah- a tall bottle filled with golden liquid.

“Only if that's tequila I see,” you reply.

Frankie looks caught off-guard for a beat. Then a huff of laughter escapes him. “Make yourself at home.”

So saying, he pushes himself backwards on the bed, loosely crossing his legs in front him and resting his head against the wall. His eyes drift shut.

You snatch the bottle up with one hand and use the other to maneuver onto the bed next to him, mirroring his position. Consciously, you make sure your knees touch. Despite your earlier anger and whatever Frankie seemed to be thinking now, you want him to know you're here for him. His leg hair prickles against your skin, pleasant and familiar and warm.

"How many have you had?"

"Just two."

“Easy catch-up, then.” You remove the shot glass resting upside down on top of the bottle, fill it up, and knock it back. You can't help but shudder as it goes down, warmth settling in your belly.

You turn your head to find Frankie's eyes open and fixed on you. You swallow reflexively at how close your faces suddenly are, how depthless his eyes look in the lamplight.

“How's the tequila?”

You blink, barely registering his words.

He nods down to the bottle resting on your knee. “It's a new kind.” His low, raspy voice, normally comforting, now feels like it's sliding along your bones, setting them alight and turning them to liquid all at once.

You blink several more times and resist the urge to clear your throat. You glance down at the bottle. The label looks vaguely familiar, but not as much as it would if it were a brand he or Santi normally bought. And you would know; you've drank with them both countless times, enough to know their preferences.

“It's good,” you say. You offer it back to him.

He takes it, moving at a leisurely pace as he unscrews the cap. You watch the deftness of his hands, your gaze traveling up his arms- perhaps not as defined as Santiago's or Benny's, but just as capable of holding you tight. The lantern's glow gleams on his brown skin, the line of his throat as he tips his head back.

Your gaze catches on the strands of hair that drift along his brow. Usually they're tucked beneath his cap, even after-hours- an easy target for teasing amongst the guys. But tonight they're free, and you wonder at how soft they look. If Frankie would let you touch them, the tiny curls at his temple.

One eyebrow raises into your line of sight, interrupting your train of thought, and you realize he's caught you staring. Flushing, you wordlessly take the bottle back from him and sling another shot, before setting it down on the bed next to you.

After a beat of hesitation, you lean your head on his shoulder. “What's wrong, Catfish?”

You can feel him struggling to decide what to say. “Benny and Will caught me by the campfire. Scolded me for pulling such an idiotic stunt. You know the drill.”

“But then they slapped you on the back for it working out so well, right?” That's how their “scoldings” usually went.

“Yeah. Just not until after a solid helping of guilt. And I still haven't spoken to Santiago.”

You sigh. How could he not understand? You reach out and take his right hand in your left, entwining your fingers and pulling them toward you. Both of you happen to be wearing old, standard-issue PT shorts as pajamas; short enough for Frankie's hand to be resting on bare skin where you hold it against your leg.

“Frankie.” He seems reluctant to look you in the eye. “Hey,” you say, softer this time. He lifts his gaze. “It was an idiotic stunt. Brilliant, and it worked, but…” Frankie looks like he's bracing for a blow. “We thought we lost you, Frankie. How could we not be messed up by that?”

For that had been part of what made his plan so risky. Frankie hadn't counted on his team being so upset and distracted by his apparent loss that they could have been caught for real.

Seeming agitated, Frankie runs a hand through his hair. “I know, I know. I heard it all earlier.”

You wonder if Benny and Will had mentioned, if they had noticed, just how uprooted you had felt. You and Santiago both; their unflappable teammates, nearly unhinged.

You wait until he looks at you again. All traces of moisture seem to have evaporated from your mouth. “I thought I lost you, Frankie,” you whisper.

He remains still as this realization unfolds, unfurling like a flower in the sun. Revealing in crystal clarity what you had both been carefully stepping around for months. Longer. His eyes rove over your face as if searching for any possibility of a joke, a catch; his breathing quickens as his gaze flickers over the rest of you, taking in your knees pressed together and your hands entwined above them.

He reaches out with his free hand and slowly, delicately cradles your face. His skin is callused where his thumb strokes your cheek. Slowly, as if this was a dream he didn't want to wake from, he dips his head toward you until he is only a breath away.

“That's never gonna happen, Mos.” The words hang in the space between you for a heartbeat, an eternity. Frankie's gaze drops to your mouth for an instant; you feel the glance zip through you with a physical certainty. One of you must lean forward, or both of you- but in the next moment, without any movement you're aware of, your lips meet.

If either of you had been unsure earlier, you weren't now. Frankie kisses you like you're the air he needs to breathe; your free hand clutches a fistful of his t-shirt in an effort to pull him even closer.

His lips are improbably soft compared to his pilots' hands. You lightly run your tongue along them and his mouth opens for you, warm and welcoming. Frankie lets out a muffled groan as he tastes you, his hand shifting back to grip the nape of your neck. A needy sound scrapes the back of your throat at the feeling, the discovery of how much you trust his hands there, and fuck, you realize- you’re in even deeper than you thought.

But as suddenly as it had started, it stops. Frankie pulls back just far enough for the two of you to look at each other. Your ragged breathing mingles in the space between you. A breeze outside ripples the bottom of the blanket-door, the cool air a welcome contrast to your heated skin.

Through the overwhelming desire hazing your thoughts, you realize you're still holding hands. You glance down your lap and laugh a little, easing some of the tension. Squeezing his hand, you look back up at him. He's smiling too, despite the fact that his torso is still twisted toward you, straining to be close to you.

“Are you...okay?” you venture.

“Never better,” he answers, almost absently. He disentangles your hands to rest his flat on your bare thigh, his thumb stroking the skin, and you close your eyes at the touch. That such a small motion could wash through your whole body, make you hollow with want...when you open your eyes again, Frankie is looking at you with such intensity it steals your breath. “I just want to be sure that you're okay. With this. Us.”

Gently holding his hand in place against your thigh, you shift your bottom half so it aligns with the top half of you, facing him. Tentatively, you rest your hands on Frankie's leg so as to still be touching him. “This isn't just about today, you know? What happened today may have...triggered it, but this isn't a new feeling. I want you, Frankie. I care about you.” You look him in the eye at the last sentence, praying you've said the right thing.

But oh, have you- because Frankie looks like he wants to devour you whole. “Fuck,” he growls, and surges into you, his mouth crashing into yours. He wraps an arm around your waist, bending you backward while hauling you against his body, which now kneels over yours.

Instinctively you throw your arms around him, clinging to his shoulders as he holds you above the mattress. Heat surges through you at such a blatant demonstration of Frankie's strength, especially as his lips continue to move along your jaw and his teeth tug on your earlobe. “No more words,” he rasps, and that's all the warning you get before he's crawling the rest of the way up the bed, one arm holding you to him the entire time. Your feet scramble to help propel yourself along with him.

You've felt tantalizing brushes of Frankie’s muscles before, and now his every motion introduces the same tortuously brief sensations. When he finally lowers you to the bed his body chases yours, pressing himself into you, and you both groan aloud, finally able to give into the desire to sink into each other.

There's a dull thud and the sound of liquid sloshing as the tequila bottle is knocked off the bed, but Frankie seems to have only one thing on his mind. He is everywhere at once while you writhe beneath him; his teeth sink into your shoulder as he sucks possessive marks there, his hands span your hips and slide up your skin in a way that has you seeing stars.

“Fuck, Frankie,” you gasp, and he hums, dark and approving, from where his nose is tracing patterns down your belly.

“I like you saying my name, querida.” His breath is hot on your skin as he presses kisses up your ribs, steadily rucking up your shirt. He's probably already guessed that you aren't wearing a bra: you never do when the team is officially off-duty, a question that was once asked and quickly settled the first time it came up, in a camp much like this one.

You spare a thought as to if you should feel self-conscious that you're also not wearing underwear. After spending so much time sweating in jungles, you like to let things breathe when you can. You didn't plan for this to be happening tonight.

But then you imagine Frankie's reaction when he discovers your single bottom layer, and you decide not to worry.

You're lured out of your thoughts by Frankie's voice, coaxing, asking: “Take this off for me, dulzura?”

Barely a glance down at his beseeching eyes has you moving with impossible eagerness. You half sit up to oblige him, thinking that you would do just about anything with him sounding like that. His voice as rough as his hands and just as tangible against your skin, just as capable of inciting the slickness between your thighs.

You pull your shirt over your head, arching your back a little more than strictly necessary for him. Your nipples harden as they're exposed to the air, exposed to him- because Frankie is staring, his lips parting like he's already imagining them being on you.

You give in to the urge to plunge your hands into his hair, running the soft strands between your fingers and then tugging, reminding him that he can do more than imagine. His eyes snap to your face and you have half a second to register their wicked gleam before he's on you. His hands grace your breasts first, callused fingers as capable directing your body as they are his machines. You wonder if it's the tequila or his touch that has your head spinning so- his mouth warms you better than any liquor, and the slide of his tongue on your nipples makes you cry out.

Your hands scrabble at him during his ministrations, determined to wreck him as thoroughly as he’s wrecking you. You roll your hips into his thigh, wedged between your own, but any thoughts beyond repeating that single motion fly out of your head when you feel the hard length of his arousal. You rake your nails down his back- gently at first- but the guttural noise he makes when you do convinces you to do it again, harder. He shudders above you, and when you continue downward to squeeze his ass, he exhales shakily.

“Fuck me, querida.” Frankie sits up, his weight pinning your legs, rendering you unable to  continue tormenting him.

“That’s the idea,” you say cheekily, before your jaw falls slack at the sight of him yanking his shirt over his head by the neck. He chuckles at the look on your face.

“You were saying something, Mosquito?” he quips, bending down to kiss you again. You both gasp at the sensation of your bare skin meeting. His kiss is searing, claiming, and you can’t get enough. How had you not given in to this before now? Every inch of him, every sound he makes, is familiar- you’ve gotten used to catching glimpses of him out in the field; you’ve heard him spill endearments and sweet sounds in your ear on the dance floor after one too many rounds (no matter that neither of you ever brought it up the next morning). But now, with the world tilted sideways and all your senses tuned to him at once- every sensation is utterly new, and you want them all.

You want Frankie to feel them too; you wrap your arms around him, caressing newly exposed skin as he sighs into your mouth. Your hands slip beneath his shorts to stroke the divots of his hip bones, but before you can reach for the maddening hardness between them he stops you, tearing his mouth from yours with a snarl.

“Not yet, dulzura,” he says. You've never seen his eyes so hooded with lust, the meaningful smirk playing on his lips. “Ladies first.”

Fuck, you’ve never been so turned on in your life. You whimper helplessly as his hands and mouth descend to the waistband of your shorts. Just barely coherent, you lift your hips so he can slide them off- and watch the smugness vanish from his expression.

“You’re not wearing- were you?” Frankie looks dumbfounded, his voice hoarse.

You almost laugh. As if you’d had a chance to slip off your panties without him seeing since you arrived? “I wasn’t, no. It’s an occasional habit.” It’s your turn smirk at him, broadly, as his expression immediately goes hazy, imagining the implications of that.

You squirm a little where you lie, your shorts pulled down just enough to reveal your sex. Laying there mostly naked, your bottom half restrained, you can already feel tension coiling in your core. Frankie’s attention focuses again at your movement. Everything feels hypersensitive against your skin: the thin sheets beneath you, Frankie’s knuckles on your thighs where he still grips your shorts. Even his gaze as he drags it down your body, coming to rest on where he’s just exposed.

He tugs your shorts down and over your feet. Sliding his hands back up you slowly, he eases your legs apart, pressing kisses as he goes. Each one warm and deliberate, soft and slightly ticklish from his facial hair. As he reaches the apex of your thighs his tongue traces hot lines toward where you want him- teasing, warning. He breathes your name, and your eyes meet.

You’ve been watching him make his way up your body, enthralled by the sight. You never imagined that sex with Frankie would be like this (to the point that you let yourself imagine sex with Frankie at all)- equal parts silly and smoldering, with an aura of reverence around the whole thing, like neither of you ever dreamed this would really happen. Now he refocuses on what’s closer to him: you, soaked by the evidence of just how much you want him. He circles your entrance with one thumb, testing, and spreads the wetness up to your clit. You gasp and buck your hips as he continues this circuit, back and forth, for several seconds.

“Fuck, Frankie,” you moan in a higher pitch, an unspoken plea for more.

In the time it takes you to register the satisfied smile and promising glint in his eyes, he’s lowered his head and licked a long, hot line directly up your center. Then he hooks his thumbs into you, spreading you open, and does it again.

“Fuck!” you swear and pant and grip the mattress as Frankie’s tongue works you, like nobody you’ve ever been with. You feel pinned down with the way he holds you open and you love it, like you’re for his pleasure and not the other way around. Like he could do this all night but oh, you’d never last that long. You have to remind yourself not to moan so loud as he sucks on your clit; the thin wooden walls of this hut feel too small for the feeling overtaking you as Frankie licks into you, fucking you with his tongue.

Thin walls, thin walls- “Frankie!” you cry desperately, all the muscles in your body contracting as his mouth brings you to the edge-

“Yes, querida please, let go for me,” he urges, and his rough, low voice combined with his mouth latching back onto you is all it takes for you to come, hips rearing, your body shuddering under him as pleasure pulses through you. With eager, steady strokes of his tongue, Frankie draws out your orgasm like he’s the one who never wants it to end.

As the high gradually passes, you move one hand to rest in his hair. “Stop,” you say weakly. You tug gently, but otherwise don’t move from where you lie with your eyes closed, still catching your breath.

You hear him chuckle; you don’t even want to think about how smug he probably looks. Frankie presses a last kiss to your inner thigh and then crawls up your body, pressing his still-clothed hips into yours.

“Is that all you can take, Mosquito?” he teases.

Instinctively you lift your hips to meet him- and your eyes fly open as his cock lines up with your center. Frankie lets out possibly the most erotic sound you’ve ever heard, a cut-off, huffing groan, and his eyes flutter shut as his face contorts.

Your teeth sink into your lower lip at the sight, and the feel of his length (because it is a length, you think dizzily) pressing at your entrance, even encased in shorts, jolts you right back to life, thrumming with want. Your lips curve into a smile. “If that’s your reaction while you still have pants on, Catfish, I’m not sure you can take much more,” you drawl.

He grumbles something unintelligible in Spanish, lowering his head to nip at your neck. His hardness slides against you deliberately as you giggle and then gasp. When one large hand grips your hip you whimper, and Frankie’s husky voice sounds in your ear. “Those are the sounds I want to be hearing right now, dulzura.”

His commanding tone makes you flush with need, and you whimper again, wondering how this man could possibly give you so much bliss and still have you aching for more. You tug at his shorts. “Take these off.”

“Oh, you’re giving the orders now, huh?” Frankie raises an eyebrow, but slides off the bed to oblige. He hooks his thumbs into the waistband, and you suddenly find it hard to focus on anything else.

“Well, I can’t let you have all the fun,” you say, your mouth forming the words while all your attention is on his hips, the incremental amounts of skin being revealed as he slowly draws down his shorts.

Your mouth goes dry as the proud length of him springs free, his shorts finally falling to the floor. His cock looks just as long as it felt pressed against you, the tip gleaming with moisture, and you feel yourself clench at the thought of taking him inside you. You run your eyes back up him, following the trail of hair to the dusting over his chest, the span of his shoulders. Lost in your admiration of his beautiful, soft, strong body, you’re almost startled when you hear him speak.

“Like what you see?” Frankie’s gruff voice draws your attention back to his face. You feel a pang of surprise at the trepidation there, and you wonder what that eyebrow means this time. Is he...shy?

A smile fights to bloom on your face, but you hold it back, just for a moment. “Oh, do I,” you purr, shifting smoothly to stand in front of him. The wooden floor beneath your bare feet is rough but not splintery. He watches you move, lust darkening his gaze as he rakes it over you again.

“Francisco Morales,” you say. Your grin flowers fully across your face then, and you try to channel every ounce of suppressed affection you ever felt as you aim it at him.

A shy smile flickers across his face as he absorbs your affection; he has the gall to look almost surprised by it. Your exasperating, wonderful man. Thinking about everything that led you here makes your eyes feel hot again; the idea that he might have been gone without you ever telling him, showing him, what he really means to you.

You step forward and wrap your arms around him, burrowing your face into his chest. Frankie stifles a gasp as your hips press into him, but returns the gesture, understanding. He strokes your hair with one hand.

“It’s okay, querida. I’m here. I’ll always be here,” he vows softly.

You tilt your head up at his declaration, blinking watery eyes. He gently catches your chin and lowers his lips to yours. You sigh-moan into his kiss, letting it melt your worries away, stretching up on your toes to meet it equally. Frankie’s tongue is hot in your mouth as it intensifies; your knees feel weak. Finally you tear away from him with a gasp, breathing heavily.

“You okay, Mos?” Frankie’s hand rests on the back of your neck again. After that kiss, it makes it even more difficult to think clearly, but you’re more okay than you’ve ever been.

“Never better.” With a smile, you echo his words from earlier. Your hands wander down the muscles of his back, coming to settle on his now bare ass. You look at him from under your lashes and bite your lip.

He answers your look with an equally sensual smile, his hands caressing down your spine to mirror your position. Thick fingers massage your rear before gripping firmly, fitting your hips to his. Your eyes flutter shut. Frankie’s body slots against your own perfectly, all its curves and contours molding to yours like pieces of a puzzle box sliding smoothly into place, holding something secret and wonderful within.

All the nerves in your body zero in on the hard length pressed between you. Frankie’s cock burns with heat, and you can feel every ridge and vein where it rasps against your skin.

“Dulzura,” Frankie says, his mustache tickling your ear. “How do you feel about taking this back to the bed?”

You giggle and nod your consent, eyes shining. Frankie groans in relief and bundles you backward. Your back hits the mattress and he climbs atop you, your limbs tangling, kissing and caressing with mounting fervor. Your back arches and a breathy cry scrapes free as his cock drags through your sensitive folds. Frankie lets out a guttural moan at the feeling, clutching at you like he can’t get close enough.

“Frankie...’Fish,” you gasp, through the chaos of your thoughts. You have just enough willpower to pull back and meet his gaze. “Flip us over?”

Desire flares in his eyes. In a blurringly quick move, he spins you, and then you’re atop him, the base of his cock nestled against your sex. Frankie groans again at the sensation, seeming beyond words. He palms your thighs, your breasts. You feel short of breath, consumed by the need sweeping through you.

You wrap your hand around Frankie’s cock, stroking firmly. He makes a choked sound and his hips buck up from the bed.

“Mos,” he grits out. “Please.”

All you can do is nod. Rising up on your knees slightly, you position yourself over him, grasping his cock and running the tip of him through your wetness. Thighs trembling, you line him up at your entrance.

Frankie reaches for your free hand and entwines your fingers, prompting you to look up and meet his gaze. His hand squeezes yours in a wordless question.

Your heart swells, and you feel impossibly fond as you smile at him. Your Frankie. Even as far gone as you both are, he’s checking on you. Making you feel safe. In answer, you lower yourself down onto him.

The effect is swift and immediate. Your moans are loud enough to wake the stars; you forget everything but each other’s pleasure, the absolute euphoric rightness of this feeling.

Then you clap a hand over your mouth, eyes wide. “Shhh!” you remind him giddily.

Frankie looks utterly gone, his lips parted, awe and adoration on his face. The hair on his forehead is damp with sweat. “Move for me, querida,” he says, and the strained, pleading rasp in his voice shoots heat straight to your core.

You set a steady rhythm on him, your eyes fluttering shut as Frankie’s cock fills you, stretches you so deliciously you can already feel a familiar pressure building. The sinful ease with which he slides in and out of you is a testament to just how wet you are. His fingers stroke and squeeze your flesh in time with his vocal gasps, and when they brush your cheek, you open your eyes.

“Fuck,” you mumble. You’ve always thought Frankie was beautiful, but this…the muscles in his arms flex and pull through your movements. The intensity in his dark eyes as they drink in every inch of you, like he still can’t believe this happening. The restraint he’s showing, letting you set the pace, is evident in the tension you can feel in his body beneath you. It makes you grind your hips down, squeeze him, wanting to push past his cautiousness.

Frankie chokes back a shout at your change in rhythm, throwing his head back and exposing the length of his neck. Immediately you lean down to trace it with your tongue, relishing the taste of salt on his skin. He swears.

He grasps the back of your neck for the third time that night, and you whimper, ecstasy thrilling down your spine. “Please, Frankie,” you breathe, not even knowing what you’re asking for.

“Yes,” he answers roughly. He kisses you and then tugs you back upright. This time he thrusts up into you, hard, and the sound of skin slapping on skin fills the air. You cry out, needy and desperate, and Frankie growls in approval.

“Fuck, yes, Mos. Want to hear you, want you to feel good…” his praise stutters, some of it in Spanish now as his pace quickens.

Only Frankie could make you feel this good, and you make sure he knows it. He grips your hips firmly enough to bruise, but you don’t care; you want it, want him to mark you. Claim you, so there will never be any question about it again. You are his, completely.

“Frankie, my Frankie..” Pleas and praise tumble from your lips.

“Fuck, yeah.” Maybe he likes the idea of being yours, too, because he moans loudly in response. His palm splays against your side, slides across your skin until his thumb presses down on your clit.

Your nerves jolt. Fuck, you’re gonna come. Frankie’s thrusts speed up- had you said that out loud? Your breathing quickens; you can feel the tension rising in you as surely as a cresting wave.

“Mos,” Frankie gasps. “Can I..?” His eyes flicker to where your bodies connect.

You understand his meaning and your eyes widen. “Yes!” And the idea of him spilling himself inside you, the sudden force of his thrusts, the pressure of his thumb- the wave breaks.

Blinding pleasure crashes through you, a roaring in your ears muffling everything else. Distantly you feel yourself shake and keen; your walls pulse around Frankie’s cock, and then a new heat fills you as his hips slam into yours and stay there, buried deep. He groans, long and low in his throat.

There’s a moment of stillness as you both recover, the only sound your heaving breaths. Feeling wobbly, you topple forward, catching yourself with your palms on Frankie’s chest. You let out a soft groan as aftershocks ebb though you, every nerve singing.

“...Mos,” Frankie murmurs, his eyes still closed.

“Mm,” you manage, words still beyond your abilities.

“That was fucking amazing,” he breathes out the words on a sigh. He releases your hips to cover your hands with his. His eyes open. “You’re fucking amazing,” he says with more strength.

You can feel yourself blush. “Frankie...” You duck your head.

“Uh-uh, dulzura,” he scolds. He tips your chin back up. “You know I’ve always thought that about you.” He holds your gaze, his clear-eyed certainty so unlike the careful distance he kept before.

You lean down and press a kiss to his heart before snuggling into him, nose against his neck. He’s still inside you, softening slowly, and you savor the intimacy and connectedness of it. “I know,” you respond. “I’m just sorry I never did anything about it.”

Frankie strokes a soothing hand along your back. The air is close and humid after your exertions, and your skin is faintly damp with sweat. “Nothing to be sorry for. I never did anything either,” he points out.

You chuckle, a bit nervously. “Well, we’ve done something now.”

You can feel his laugh rumble through his chest, comforting, like the reverse of a cat purring on your lap. “No kidding.”

You wait, sensing he has more to say.

“Querida,” he prompts softly. You lift your head to look at him. His hair is a mess, all sweat-damp curls, and though his face is serious, his eyes are as soft as you’ve ever seen them. Your heart squeezes.

“I care about you too. You know our lives are crazy, and dangerous, so I was scared to say anything. Scared you didn’t feel the same. But...I can’t go back to you not knowing. I’m all in, Mos. If you want this, so do I.”

Frankie’s face is open, vulnerable. How could he possibly imagine that you’d want to go back? You shake your head at him. “Well, there’s no way I can top that speech, ‘Fish.” It feels like he’s holding his breath. You level an exasperated, affectionate look at him. “Of course I want this. Don’t you ever think otherwise.”

Before you’re even done speaking he’s kissing you, his lips and tongue saying what words cannot. As it deepens you shift forward, and Frankie’s cock slips out of you, causing you both to flinch and then laugh. His face crinkles adorably, and the moment makes you indescribably happy- the kind of contentment that comes from realizing you know exactly what you want. And right now, it’s this perfect, effortless bond you have with Frankie.

He gives you a shy smile. You lay your head down on his chest, overcome by a wave of satisfied tiredness. Idly you trace shapes across his abdomen with a finger while you speak. “You know, Catfish, your chest is much comfier than my bed. Mind if just I sleep here?”

He chuckles, and you think hearing Frankie’s laugh through his chest might be your new favorite sound. His arms, still wrapped around you, squeeze you lightly. “Please; stay.” He reaches out and clicks off the lantern. Despite the darkness, you get the feeling that both of you are still thinking, absorbing everything that just happened, but gradually your thoughts lull towards sleep.

Until Frankie’s voice slides through the dark: “I can’t believe you weren’t wearing underwear.”

---

A/N: Thank you for reading!! This is the first fic I’ve ever written, pls be nice. Fun fact, I originally intended for this to be a Frankie x Reader x Santi fic, but then decided I was getting too into the Frankie x Reader feels to do that. HOWEVER, if anyone is interested and even if no one asks lol, I might still write a threesome AU of this scenario

[unlikelyempathpruneauthor]

Biology doesn't matter, love does

BAU!Reader x spencer

Summary: So this is kinda like Link and Amelia situations from greys. Where the reader thought she was early in her pregnancy but then was told some news and Spencer and her go through some stuff but in the end fluff, haha lol

a/n: again this is me watching greys and criminal minds way too much haha. Hope you enjoy this drama filled Criminal minds tic.

As you and Spence walked into the bullpen you just spoke out your lovely thoughts. I mean it was a pretty wack thought since you are far in your pregnancy and well, you knew Spencer would either freak out, or for a change laugh, but you knew that puppy dog eyed genius, he would worry.  The thought was going to jump out of nowhere, so you felt it was best to just speak about it.

“How late is too late to get an ultrasound.” you asked Spencer as he just processed what you said. “Wait what?” he said as you nodded and walked along as he kept the same expression when you reached the others. “Well there's the answer to my question.” you said arriving at your desk and having morgan overhear your conversation.

“Question to what baby mama?” morgan said. “Nothing.” you said sitting on your chair.

“You haven't gotten an ultrasound?!” Spencer finally broke as he got his cell phone out and Morgan just looked at you in shock with a laugh.

“Woah baby mama, you haven't gotten an ultrasound?” he said as you placed your hand on your head regretting ever speaking your thoughts.

Honestly the only reason you didn't get it was one, you were a pretty busy woman, and well, to be honest it never crossed your mind. I know i know, that sounds horrible, but i mean you weren't really trained for this part of your job, as a human being. But then again you lacked common sense when it came to motherhood. As you were working on your paper work from passed cases, Spencer was still on the phone, with whoever he was talking to.

“Okay yes, thank you so much, goodbye.” Spencer said after a while as he smiled at you.

“I made you an appointment, so you have to go alright?” he said as you gave him a half smile.

“I will go, as long as you go with me?” you asked as you made him blush.

“That I can agree to, it's today at lunch…” he said as you baffled.

“What.. I just wanted to take a nap, but I guess I could nap while I wait.” you said as spence just shook his head playfully, enjoying the way the hormones had taken over his girlfriends body. As lunch hit, you made sure to tell hotch about your whereabouts and headed over to Spencer who was waiting for you at his car.

“You were serious about this huh?” you asked as he nodded slightly.

“Well yeah i mean i should be worried about them and i'm surprised you didn't mention this before, you tell me everything, like that one time you got a mosquito bite.” he said as you giggled.

“Well, I needed to know i wasn't going to die, and my boyfriend happens to be somewhat of a genius, so i had to ask you, and I'm going now, aren't I?” you said as he smiled and nodded.

Becoming a mother was a surprise for you and Spence, you two had just started dating and you had told him you wanted to take things slow. Now here you are having a baby with your boyfriend of 5 months. Yeah 5 months. Your relationship was pretty slow, I mean you two have been friends for years but you didn't know you would be falling for one another, but when Spencer had admitted his feelings to you it was unreal, but you knew that was your chance to tell him how you felt as well. As your name was called you walked into the room and got set up so the OB could check you up and ask questions, you know the usual. She was showing you guys the side profile of your kid. To Spencer this was a moment of new beginning, I mean he's having a baby with a girl he's always loved, and well he couldn't be more happy. You were over the moon when you told Spencer, at first you were a little scared, but once Spencer knew he had been there for you through everything, and you were grateful for that.

“Do you want to find out the gender?” the OB asked as you two looked at one another.

“What do you think?” Spencer asked as you were thinking, and you knew the suspense was killing him so you wanted to find out.

“We should find out.” you said as he nodded with a smile as the OB did her searching and smiled.

“Well this is a healthy baby girl.” she said as you two looked at one another in excitement about having a girl, you two didn't really mind at all what the gender was but the team knew whatever the baby is, they will be so smart they'll be in college by the time they get to kindergarten.

The OB wanted to look some more to see how far developed you were and you let her do her job, but then you being a profiler saw the way she flipped back and forth and seeing very closely the developments of your baby.

“You said you're 20 weeks?” she asked looking back at you as you nodded quite confused.

“Yeah I am.” you said as Spencer held your hand and you looked back at him with a smile.

“Well you seem to be 24 weeks.” she said as your eyebrows knitted.

“Uh are you-are you sure?” you asked as she nodded and you knew she wouldn't lie, she spent years studying this type of stuff.

“Yeah you are.” she said leaving you with a couple thoughts.

“Oh god.” you said as Spencer looked at you in quite confusion.

You were thinking back to everything, i mean you and your ex were having sex near the end of your marriage, but was it that possible that he was the father? He never wanted kids though, so how could that even be possible. As you sat on the car seat in silence, Spencer had parked the car in the office parking lot and looked at you wondering what the “oh god” was.

“Is everything okay?” he asked as you were brought back into reality facing Spencer.

“Yeah everything is fine, why?” you asked about covering up your lie.

“Well you were surprised at how far you are, is that something bad?” he asked as you shook your head.

“No that's a good thing, it's just that, it's starting to feel real.” you said as he nodded and held your hand.

“Hey don't worry about it, i know you're going to be amazing.” he said as you smiled.

You both had got out of the car and ended up getting called into a case. you were still okay to travel, so you went along with the team just not out in the field, beside going to the coroners to check on the dead victims. This case was a little too much, I mean the unsub was targeting pregnant women or women who were trying to conceive so you were strictly told by hotch to stay inside at all times and to not be alone when going outside.

During this case you had been avoiding spencer, but you knew this secret of yours had to come out somehow and some way. As were looking at one of the victims, jj had joined you, she had also noticed a slight change in attitude.

“Hey, what have you got?” she asked as you were looking very closely at the victim.

“I mean beside the obvious attempts at a c-section and failure to keep the baby alive, i would have to say this is overkill. Same with the other women who were trying to conceive, genitalia was brutally stabbed.” you said as she gave you a half smile.

“Jj why are you smiling.” you asked goofy as she shook her head.

“No nothing, it's just well one, you are looking at women who were brutally killed and two I want to know if everythings alright?” she asked as you sighed.

“Well for one i am scared and two I am pregnant and I have no idea who the father is.” you said bluntly as she reacted with shock.

You had explained to her that you and your ex had sex before your divorce, as a last harrah, and well a month later you had started dating spencer and lets just say things got hot, and now you were stuck with the unknown father of your child.

“Have you told him?” she asked as you shook your head and started to cry.

“No..i haven't, i'm scared.” you said as she had given you a hug.

“Look Spencer is reasonable, he will understand,” she said as you nodded.

As you left the coroner's office you had seen Spencer with his bulletin boards marking up maps. Hotch had asked everyone to take a break once you got in and Spencer looked for you hoping you would talk to him.

“Hey do you wanna grab lunch?” he asked as you nodded and followed him to a conference room that was full of files as he brought pizza and a couple of drinks. You giggled at the sight of your boyfriend who would literally die to take care of you, but the thought that he might not be the father broke you. “I have to tell you something.” you said as he looked up at you wondering what this was about. “What is it?” he asked as he scrunched his nose.

“You might not be the father.” you said as silence grew thicker than fog. You knew he would either be mad or just something related to mad. You understood if he was going to be mad because you were scared and well emotions were allowed.

“What do you mean “might not be”?” he said, breaking the silence as you saw his emotion turn to sad. “My ex, Dan...we had some, you know, before we got a divorce.” you said as he nodded.

“And you're not sure who the dad is?” he asked as you nodded, very shameful. “Yeah, and I want you to know that no test is gonna change the way I feel about you. I love you so much. Biology to me doesn't matter.” you said with tears running down as you wiped them off as he sighed wanting to weigh in. “To me it does y/n i want to know. Dan was in your life once, you don't think he would want to be in your life again, if he knows you're pregnant with his kid?” he said as you nodded. “Those feelings for dan are long gone, that doesn't mean i want him to be in my life if its his, i want us to move on together.” you said as he just stayed lisent.

You got up leaving him and getting back to case, and giving Spencer some space. You felt really shameful, it hurt Spencer seeing you like this, not knowing what to do, but he needed time to think about this.

...

As you sat looking through more files the next day and figuring out why this unsub was doing this, your little genius was kicking as you groaned a little. You placed your hand on your belly trying to calm her down a little.

“So now you're trying to help me huh.” you spoke to her as she kicked some more.

“Okay okay, tell me why this unsub is getting at pregnant women, or women who are trying to get pregnant.” you said as she kicked some more but that didn't really get you an answer.

As you sat your brain was clicking some more connecting all the pieces like a puzzle and you got it. “Oh my gosh.” you said getting to the conference room where everyone was waddling your way there. “Get garcia on the phone.” you said out of breath as morgan called her and you sat down from your little run that seemed like a mile run.

“Hello, what can I do for you?” she asked as her usual perky self. “I need you to cross check these names of the victims in fertility clinics, and make sure all these women went there sometime last week or this week.” you said as morgan raised his eyebrows at how out of breath you were.

“Did you run over here?” hotch asked as you nodded.

“Yes I did, and little miss genius kinda helped out.” you said as you calmed down as garcia did her magic.

Your team had gotten so close, but there was something missing, you had redone your     profile, but something struck you. So you raised your hand so weirdly.

“What's up y/n?” Rossi asked as you looked at what you did, it was a habit you had in the academy. “Uh sorry, but have we considered that the unsub might be women?” you said as they looked rougly at the evidence on how the unsub left the victims.

“I really doubt that.” spencer said as you nodded and the rest of the team was left shocked at what had just happened.

“Well I mean they look like they are left in funeral-like positions and style of clothing, almost like the lost of a loved one.” you said as Spencer again spoke.

“Loved ones don't do this to person they love.” he said as you nodded looking down again

“y/n is right, the way these women are dressed neatly and placed in like funeral positions i’d say she's a woman.” hotch said as he sternly looked at Spencer as he nodded.

You were moving on trying to get closer to see who this woman was. I mean you were still pretty far away from that, but you knew you'd get close.

“So we said this might be her mother, but what if she had a significant other and these victims are the meaning of what she couldn't have.” you said as jj agreed.

“That could explain how she stabs the genitalia, could be that she also couldn't have kids either and is showing her version of what it's like.” she said as Spencer jumped in.

“I mean it's kinda unlikely,” Spencer said as you scoffed.

“Can you just trust me for like a minute,” you asked as he rolled his eyes.

“I've been doing that.” he said as the room went silent.

You had redelivered your profile, but there was no active moment of the unsub, so you had to just wait. This was the hard part of it. You knew that if you wait someone would lose their wife and their chance of having a child. You then felt a weird feeling in your belly that was unrecognized, you knew this was not normal so you just stood there trying to feel what this feeling was. You groaned some more, getting the attention of rossi.

“Hey you alright?” he asked as you shook your head.

“I'm not sure, it's a weird feeling-ah.” you said as he walked you out to take you to the hospital to make sure you and the baby were alright. You were hoping this was normal. A middle aged women had come in to check you out. She had smiled at you looking at your belly. Rossi was in the room with you and he thought it was weird how she looked at your belly then at you, but he stayed quiet.

“Okay so what you are experiencing is braxton hicks, which is normal.” she said as you nodded.

“Oh okay, how soon can i get out of here.” you asked as she checked.

“In a little i just need to make sure this is correct before you leave.” she said as you nodded.

After she left rossi and you were talking about the encounter and had penelope look her up to see if she was a possible suspect. As he went out to make that phone call you just started talking to her and while rossi and penelope were talking she found out that she had been doctors for all of the victims, and once that phone call ended. She had walked into your room.

Rossi had started running towards your room making sure she didn't place a hand on you.

She came closer and closer to you and you were getting scared at how close she was to you.

“Is everything okay?” you asked as she nodded.

“Yeah, I just wish I had a baby.” she said as you half smiled.

“I'm so sorry about that,” you said hoping she would calm down.

“Yeah you are, but you don't deserve a child.” she said as she grabbed you but once she did rossi was behind her with security. They had surrounded her making sure she had no weapons on her and they took her away and you sat in relief. You were able to get dressed and walk out of the hospital and met up with Rossi in the car.

“You alright?” he asked with a hug. He was kinda a father to you so this was normal. “Yeah i'm alright, i'm thankful you were there.” you said as he smiled. “How bambina?” he asked as you placed your hands on your belly. “She's fine, kinda scared, but she's a badass.” you said with a laugh.

“I'm not the type to mingle, but you know Spencer will love you no matter what right? Even if you do the paternity test.” he said as you nodded. “I know rossi, but i did do the paternity test,” you said as his eyes grew wide. “Good news or bad?” he asked as you smiled happily.

“Good.” you said as he smiled taking you back to the pd where everyone was waiting for you two.

They all asked how you were doing and you just told them it was a false alarm and it was a normal thing that happened in the pregnancy. So you all started packing and took off home.

As you got to your apartment, you had sat on your couch resting your legs. You were starting to take a nap until there was a knock at the door. You got up to open only to reveal Spencer with a sorry look, you smiled that he had shown up.

“I'm sorry, I don't care if she's not mine, I care that you and her are healthy and are in my life. I love you so much, both of you, and I don't want to force myself to be alone, when I have you two in my life.” he said as you opened the door for him to come in.

“I mean today you seemed to express the way you feel.” you said as he shook his head again.

“I know It took me a while to come around, but i wanna spend this life happy with the both of you, even if im not her father.” he said as your eyes spilled tears. He had gotten close to you and wiped your tears away.

“Thank you for this, but I did the test and I got the results.” you said as his eyes started to water too.

“She's yours spence.” you said showing him the results as he read it and he was smiling and he took you in his embrace at what he just heard.

“She's mine.” he said with tears in his eyes and a happy smile.

“Yeah she is.” you said as he got down to your belly kissing it as you played with his hair.

With this happy news you and spencer were over the moon. Even if she wasn't his he knew he would love and be there for her no matter what as long as he had you and your little bean.

[tellmealovestory]

That Summer (1/?)

Summary: You’ve spent every summer since you were a child in the idyllic beach town you call home three months out of the year. This summer should be no different except for the addition of Bucky Barnes. Sparks fly upon first meeting, but it’s only a summer fling, right? Modern AU.

Notes: Also posted on my ao3. The beautiful divider I used is from @whimsicalrogers​

Warnings: Surprisingly no swear words and a very brief mention of sexy times. 

Mosquitos battled with the scratchy blanket beneath your body in a fight over who could do more damage to your sensitive skin. So far it was a tie. Music drifted out of your car speakers, a bouncy pop song, something meant for being blared at top decibels in a darkened club, sweaty bodies moving together, colorful drinks filled to the brim of expensive glasses. Not something for laying in a field an hour outside of the city stargazing.

It was a warm night, a promise of what was to come as summer began its lazy descent. Summer. Just the word always conjured long days, lazy nights, uniforms of shorts and tank tops, bare feet. Frozen slushees from the local convenience store staining lips and teeth and tongues blues and reds and purples, bags of potato chips and handfuls of candy bars. Windows rolled down, music turned all the way up, singing off key to lyrics that seemed as if they were written for you and only you as you drove aimlessly through the city before venturing onto the back roads that would take you far from the bright lights and the familiarity of your life to somewhere else.

The crinkle of a candy wrapper being balled up, the obnoxious slurp of a straw searching for the last remnants of a cherry slushee mixed with vodka had your teeth grinding in annoyance at your sometimes friend sprawled out next to you on the blanket.

“This is your last night here and this is how you choose to spend it?”

You didn’t have to take your eyes off of the stars shining and twinkling above you, winking like they held secrets, like they knew what the future, more specifically what this summer would hold for you to know she was rolling her eyes at you.

And while you tried to tell yourself you didn’t care her tone still stung.

“You didn’t have to come,” you pointed out, leaving out the part about how she only came because her sometimes boyfriend ditched her again. “And it’s not like I’m not coming back. It’s only for the summer, remember?”

“Whatever. Have fun with your summer friends,” she sneered, tone icy, piercing straight through the warmth in your chest.

It was harder this time to hide the physical way her words stung. Flinching you inched away from her on the blanket. You weren’t a mean person, but you still thought about getting in your car and abandoning her here.

Ignoring her huffed sighs, the slurp of the straw, the way she boldly reached across you grabbing your plastic cup still half full with the blue raspberry slushee you kept your gaze focused on the sky above you.

A bright streak danced across the sky, so quick if you had blinked one second sooner, if you had turned your head away from the sky you would have missed it. Your heart sped up at the sight, awe and doubt mixing in your mind. Blindly grabbing for your friends arm you excitedly pointed at the sky, blabbering about the shooting star.

Obsessed since you had learned about them in school books had been consumed, online articles inhaled, paintings painted, stories written, but you had never expected to see one.

In the blink of an eye it was gone and you were left wondering if you had seen its beauty at all.

Closing your eyes you inhaled damp grass, the alcohol infused breath of your sometimes friend, the sugary sweet slushees, the salty potato chips that swirled around you and made a wish on the brightly burning shooting star that had streaked across the sky for that one glorious brief moment.

I wish to fall in love this summer.

“You’re not mad are you?”

Your eyes were glued to the scenery that shot past your windows. The large mansions that sat dotted on the beach before giving way to gift shops and tourists traps. The ocean that glittered and shined when the bright sun hit it. The sand that had you itching to beg Wanda to pull the car over so you could run through the burning heat before dipping your feet into the still cold ocean water. Tires hummed on the road, salty ocean air inhaled, wind rustling against your hair and ruffling your shirt.

After stepping off the plane, smile on your face, sweat soaking through your shirt at the heat that hit you as soon as you had stepped out of the air conditioned terminal you had run straight into your best friends arms squealing like preteen girls at a boy band concert.

The conversation had flowed easily with her pointing out the new shops, restaurants, the gossip you had missed out on when you had left at the end of last summer. It wasn’t until the conversation had drifted to the evenings plans that it began to stall.

Your first night back had always been a girls night with take out food, homemade desserts you had brought with you, bottles of soda when you were younger that turned into shared bottles of wine, trashy television shows as you caught up with each other’s lives in person instead of over texts and skype.

This year however plans had changed.

“I’m not mad.” It was hard to be mad when you would be spending the next three months in paradise, but you were disappointed.

You had always looked forward to the first night together to unwind, to catch up, but now you were going to be spending it with their friends feeling like the awkward out of towner struggling to keep up with their inside jokes, their familiar banter.

Tearing your gaze away from the scenery you turned your attention to Wanda offering her a small smile. It was only one night.

“It’ll be fun!” Wanda chirped.

Showered, fresh faced, damp haired, bags piled high on your bed in Wanda’s spare room a quick girls night had commenced with Natasha. Gossiping over chips and dip the three of you had made plans for the summer before piling into the car heading to the party.

Christmas lights were strung throughout the house and on the back porch leading the place to have a whimsical feel. When they had told you a party you had been expecting wall to wall people, red solo cups, couples making out, drunk people stumbling and laughing.

What greeted you instead were motorcycles parked in the driveway, along the tree lined streets. Loud music spilled from the peach two story house. A few people stood outside, bottles of beer held between fingers, thumbs furiously scrolling through phones, leather jackets adorning shoulders despite the oppressive heat.

Everybody seemed to know who Natasha and Wanda were. It was impossible to take two steps without someone coming up to say hey. Introductions were made, but the more people you met the more the names and faces blurred together.

Ending up in the kitchen leaning against the counter, a bottle of warm beer pressed into your hand your eyes swept over the small crowd that clustered around the keg. More leather jackets placed on shoulders, animated conversations swirling around you, cigarette tips burning bright orange, smoke exhaled leading the kitchen to be filled with a hazy fog that made your head ache with fatigue.

Weight shifting from foot to foot, beer bottle sweating with condensation in your hand, strangers nodding in your direction in lieu of hellos. You were used to standing on the sidelines, watching everything and everybody with a keen eye, but it didn’t make it any less lonely.

Pushing through the scattered bodies of the kitchen you slid open the patio door inhaling the pine trees that surrounded the back yard, the salty ocean air that could be faintly smelled in the distance. The night air was muggy, the sky dark, the stars twinkling and as you stumbled to the railing you closed your eyes willing the fresh air and the stars to ease your loneliness.

“Careful there.”

Your body froze at the husky voice that dared to break your peaceful solitude. Shoulders tensed you exhaled, slowly opening your eyes to see a tall man, dark hair pulled into a man bun, cigarette dangling from kissable lips. He was beautiful standing there in the glow of the Christmas lights that were strung along the railing.

Convinced he was talking to someone else you turned your head, gaze inspecting the patio, the yard, but it was just you and the dark haired stranger.

A long drag off the cigarette, a quirk of an eyebrow and he was speaking again, voice low and gravelly. “You good?”

“Uh yup, yeah, great, thanks,” you rambled, loosening your hold on the railing. Worried that he’d think you were drunk you whirled around to face him, watching the way his beefy body leaned against the porch railing a few feet away from you. Caring what people thought about you, trying too hard to make everyone happy around you were were faults you had yet to overcome. It didn’t matter that you didn’t know him you still found yourself, to your horror, blurting out, “I’m not drunk!”

Exhaling a stream of smoke he stubbed out his cigarette. “Never thought you were.” His lips tilted upwards, a ghost of a smile on his face, a wisp of hair falling from his bun and framing his face.

“Right,” you said slowly. Shifting your weight from foot to foot you cleared your throat determined to start over on a better note. “I just... my friends left me alone for a couple minutes and I guess I sort of panicked and needed some fresh air and I didn’t know you were out here and... you’re laughing.”

It was rich, the kind of laugh a person could fall in love with. Throaty and hoarse like he had used his voice up on talking all day though you suspected it had more to do with the cigarettes. So far he appeared to be a man of few words.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to.”

The only thing better than his laugh was the way he stepped closer, the floorboards of the porch creaking beneath his clunky black boots as he closed the gap of space between your bodies.

Up close he was even more striking. Sculpted jaw, cheeks painted the lightest shade of pink that reminded you of spring roses, eyes so bright they rivaled the color of the ocean. Tight black tee shirt that you hinted at the built body beneath it, black leather jacket that matched the other ones inside of the house. Blue jeans that you somehow knew hid a perfect ass.

It was impossible to take your eyes off of him, but the feeling appeared mutual as his eyes lingered on your hair, your makeup free face, the thin strapped summer dress you had thrown on with a pair of sandals.

Had it been any other man standing before you, stare lingering you would have felt self-conscious, would have crossed your arms over your chest and cleared your throat before politely making an excuse and scurrying away.

It was reckless and dangerous. You didn’t know him, but instead of being put off by his staring you felt strangely... okay with it. You didn’t know him, had never seen him during any of your previous summer visits, but there was something familiar about him tugging at your heartstrings as if you already knew him, as if you guys had known each other your whole lives. It was a feeling you had never experienced before. You didn’t even know his name, but you couldn’t help feeling that this man was somehow going to be important to you.

Maybe it was jet lag, too much cigarette smoke, thrown off your usual first day rituals, but being in his presence made you feel alive, made you feel like you could truly be yourself. You didn’t have to be the perky, can fix anything, people pleaser that made you a such a good fit working at your moms wedding planner company. And you didn’t have to be the awkward fly on the wall third or fifth wheel when out with your friends. You felt like you could be yourself, whoever that was and it was freeing.

Inhaling the muggy night air you met his gaze. It was electric, inviting and you found yourself wanting to plop down on a lawn chair and spill to him all your secrets.

“Can we start over? I’m Y/N.”

“Bucky.”

Cheers erupted from inside the kitchen, but neither of you turned to look. In a matter of minutes the party was forgotten and you were fine with that.

“You new in town?”

“It’s that obvious?”

There it was, that smirk again, gentle lift of his shoulder in a shrug, another piece of hair escaping his man bun. In a way you supposed it was obvious. It seemed as if everyone at the party were wearing leather jackets with the words Howling Commandos stitched on the back and everyone had known who Natasha and Wanda were.

“Small town,” he said. “I know most of the people here, but you I don’t know.”

“Not true. I introduced myself before,” you quipped, feeling a sense of pride when he let out another throaty laugh. “Are you the welcoming committee in town? Cause if you are I gotta say you’re not doing too good of a job hiding out here.”

His laughter filled the porch and in that instant you knew you’d do anything to hear it again and again. It was so warm like feeling the sun on your bare skin the first time after the end of a long winter.

“Maybe I was monitoring the situation out here. Gotta make sure no one comes barreling out and runs into the railing. Don’t want anyone getting hurt on my watch.” His eyes drank you in slowly, a smile cracking through his smirk waiting to see your reaction.

Biting back a laugh you shook your head at the banter feeling both out of your element, but somehow so at ease. “I’d say you need a little more work.”

“You do, huh? I dunno I thought my methods worked. Got you to stop didn’t it?”

“Total fluke.”

“You sure about that, Y/N?”

The way he said your name had your heart beating straight out of your chest. He said it slowly, letting it roll across his tongue, confidently as if he was used to chatting up girls, making them feel special for a night or two. His hand moved to the railing, his pinky finger nudging yours. It was a light touch, barely a touch at that, but the electric sparks it was emitting had you itching to grab him by the collar of his leather jacket and kiss him.

Consumed by the way his barely there touch had you feeling you didn’t notice at first the way he had stepped closer, close enough that you could smell the smoke from his earlier cigarette, the beer that he must have been drinking mixed with something woodsier. Your favorite scent had always been coconut, but now... now it was whatever was wafting off of him.

“So you know why I was out here, but why are you out here?” You asked softly, not wanting to speak too loudly and break the spell. Your gaze flickered from his eyes to his lips and back. His gaze followed suit.

“Told you why I was out here,” he murmured, voice just as low, fingers ghosting over your hand, circling your wrist.

Your eyes darted down to watch the way his long fingers danced over your bracelet. Resisting the urge to close your eyes at the relaxing touches you flinched when the patio door slid open, loud music spilling out, louder voices shouting in the distance, a drunken couple stumbling out the doors, lips attached, hands roaming.

“That’s why I’m out here,” he grumbled.

His words could have been referring to anything, but when his head turned to stare disdainfully at the couple tearing each other’s clothes off oblivious to their surroundings you murmured an ah understanding.

“Should we...?” You asked, words trailing off when the woman let out an embarrassingly loud moan that rivaled that of a pornstars.

“C’mon.” His large fingers circled your wrist giving it a gentle tug.

You didn’t know him, but that didn’t stop you from following his lead as he led you down the patio steps and around the house to the front yard. The grass was cool when it rubbed against your ankles, laughter and bottles mixing and clinking together could be heard drifting from the open windows. The moon was only a crescent, but it somehow seemed to shine brighter out here than it did back home.

The front of the house was empty, but the line of motorcycles still lingered. Leading you to the front porch steps he sat down, gesturing for you to do the same.

“I’m disappointed, Bucky.” Turning your head to the side you caught a flicker of that beautiful smile that laced his lips and your only hope was that with your next set of words you could coax out another hearty laugh.

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“As head of the welcoming committee in town you really should have welcomed them instead of running away.”

Bursting into laughter at the groan he let loose you nudged his shoulder trying hard to settle the way your heart sped up at the contact.

“Stick around long enough and you’ll be seeing more of them than you ever wanted to.”

“I feel like there’s a story behind that.”

“Maybe I’ll tell it to you sometime.”

“Maybe I’d like that.”

A motorcycle roared to life before racing off down the street. A group of guys carrying cases of beers stepped around you and Bucky entering the house, their raucous and drunken laughter filling your ears. The moon subtly shifted its position in the sky. But through it all, the distractions that flitted around you urging your attention elsewhere your focus never left each other’s eyes as if you were magnets drawn to each other and in a way you supposed that was true.

“Bucky!”

The voice was impatient as if they had been trying to grab his attention for awhile now. The spell you had fallen under was broken. A muttered curse word under his breath, a thin line of his lips, his head tilting to the side glaring at the man who had interrupted him, another piece of hair slipping from his bun.

For a minute no words were spoken and you felt caught in the middle, torn between ushering him towards the man calling his name and staying out of it.

“When you get done making googly eyes at your girl over there we could use your help in here, man.”

Staring down at your lap you tried to hide your smile at the way he had referred to you as his girl. You barely knew Bucky, certainly didn’t know his friend, but that didn’t stop the pattering of your heart or stretched smile.

“Sounds serious,” you commented, eyes lifting up to his.

“Probably a fight,” he muttered. Running a hand through his hair he heaved a sigh. The reluctance to leave was written across his face and you were pleased that the feeling was mutual.

“You should go. You know make sure nobody’s barreled through the railing out back,” you teased. The last thing you wanted was for him to leave, but it was the right thing to do. Even so that didn’t stop the stinging in your chest or the worries that this would be it, the first and the last time you saw him.

Standing up he exhaled a slow stream of breath. “Yeah,” he murmured lowly, more to himself than to you as if he had to talk himself into leaving.

Still, he didn’t make a move to leave. It was only when that impatient voice yelled for him again did Bucky yell back that he was coming.

“I’ll see you around, yeah?”

It wasn’t what you had been hoping for. You had hoped he’d ask for you number, maybe ask if he could see you again. Swallowing your disappointment you painted a smile on your face.

“It’s a small town, right?” You called out to him.

His smile was bright, lighting up the front porch steps. His laugh was rich, sending your heart racing. And when you turned around to get a final look at him your heart almost burst out of your chest when you saw him watching you too before he disappeared into the house.

“Wow,” Natasha smirked, arm looped through Wanda’s they strolled down the front steps coming to a stop where Bucky had been only moments before. “For someone who wasn’t excited about the party looks like you were enjoying yourself quite a bit.”

Keeping quiet for a second you struggled to gather your thoughts as Wanda looped her arm through yours and you began an unsteady walk back to the car. Choosing your words carefully you said, “It was... better than I expected it was going to be.”

Most of your experience with parties involved attending wedding receptions and those weren’t for enjoyment, those were part of your job working quickly to settle feuding family members, making sure to hand out coffee to the people toeing the line of tipsiness and embarrassingly drunk. In high school you had only ever gone to a couple parties too worried about your classmates would think of you to ever truly let loose.

“You should have given him your phone number,” Wanda said. Unlocking the car and unlocking your arms you slid into the backseat your head resting against the headrest, your fingers pushing the button that lowered the window.

“All done.” Natasha’s smirk was wide as she stared at you in the rear view mirror before starting the car.

“Natasha!” You yelped. “You can’t just give guys my number and don’t you think if he wanted it he would have asked?”

The radio blared to life as the car started, a semi familiar song blasting from the speakers, tires thrummed on the road, the mugginess of the night rushing in through the open windows.

Wanda reached forward to turn the volume down, but Natasha swatted her hand away. Their laughter mixed with the pumping bass flowed to the back seat where you smiled softly at them though they couldn’t see you.

“He was going to. I’m sure of it,” Wanda said. Twisting in her seat to face you her expression was open, tone confident and despite your own doubts about his intentions or lack there of you believed her.

Closing your eyes you let the music wash over you, your mind replaying the nights events over and over again.

Tags;

@nacho-bucky​

@redhairedfeistynerd​

[writing-gifts]

datura (moth!bruno x butterfly!reader)

—–

A/N: ahh this fic just passed 10k words 👏🏾

First Chapter || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

Reader is gender neutral!

-----

[Mid Summer]

There were insects everywhere.

Avoiding going out early in the day would only last so long. You knew this, as it happened every year, but you couldn’t help feeling a bit frustrated while avoiding brushing shoulders with mosquitos, butterflies, bees--everyone!

Even the place where you met Bruno was much more crowded than usual. But you still try to bear it as long as you can.

However, today when you see the crowd, you finally decide it isn’t worth it.

Adjusting your sunhat, you fly to Abilene’s. You didn’t want to go home just yet so you might as well visit.

Once you’re in front of their home you start knocking over-enthusiastically on the door.

"Abbyyyyyy!"

You continue this until the entrance swings open and your nose is immediately pinched between two fingers.

You grimace and grab at Abilene’s wrist but they don’t let go. “Is this how you greet guests!?”

“Loud ones!”

With one more squeeze, they finally let go and you rub your nose. “Why must you bully me?” you whine dramatically.

The grasshopper rolls their eyes and moves to the side so you can walk in.

“Why the surprise visit?” they ask.

“No special reason. It’s just too crowded for gathering so might as well bother you instead.”

“It must be really bad then.”

You sigh as you lay down on the couch, taking up all the space. “Where did everyone even come from?”

Your friend shrugs. “It gets like this every year.”

You notice Abilene walking towards their kitchen. “No come back, I won't stay too long.”

You were a little thirsty but you didn’t want them to have to make anything since you came by without notice.

They come towards you and move your legs off the couch so they can sit down.

“Shame, I had just stocked up again recently.”

Your brow furrows slightly. “I could have just bought some for you. Why trade for something you won't use for yourself anyways?”

“I already told you why."

“I know but still…”

“Seriously, it’s fine and you won't convince me."

One of these days you would. But for now you decide to give up and lay your legs on their lap.

"Getting nectars much cheaper right now anyways. By the way I wanted to ask if you want to go watch a play with me, maybe you can invite Bruno along.”

You sit up at Bruno's name. That did sound like a good time and you could use this as a way to introduce both of your friends to each other.

“What’s it about?”

------

"You seem less energetic than usual," Bruno says.

He just stopped for his nightly visit and you had admitted that you didn't have anything new today to trade. Which he didn't mind of course, but you were still bothered by not being able to get fresh nectar.

You shrug. "I guess."

“Do you want to tell me what's wrong?

"...It's just that all the flower fields I go to are busy and I don't really want to gather in the crowds. It’s super awkward when you visit a flower and someone has already occupied it."

There wasn't exactly any harm telling him. And you wanted to try being more open and honest with him--with your friends in general.

Bruno nods in understanding. “Well, I know a quieter place that I can show you. It would have to be at night though.”

"Really?"

“It’s also somewhat out of the way, if that’s okay?”

“That's totally fine! When would be the best time?”

You and Bruno decide on an appropriate night to go. And when it finally comes, you make sure to pack up enough canisters where you can gather a good amount but still be able to fly back without needing to take breaks.

Bruno greets you when you meet him at the front of your home.

“Here.” He places a glowing lantern in your hands

Your eyes widen in shock. “Holy crap, where did you get this?”

These weren’t cheap but very useful.

“Someone owed me.”

For some reason that comes off a little ominous, but you pin it on the moth's stoic expression.

“You can see in the dark though.”

“But you can’t. It would be better if I didn’t have to lead you. And now you can get back home safely whenever you stay out too late.”

“You--you're giving this to me? Are you sure?”

He nods as if he’s not casually gifting you something that's extremely hard for most to obtain. Part of you wants to deny the gift but you force it down. It would most likely be hard to make him take it back anyways.

You look at the lantern in wonder before looking back at the moth. “This is a really great gift. Thank you.”

Bruno gives you that dumb small smile and you suddenly feel a lot at once.

"L-LETS GO!"

Bruno’s eyes widen, caught off guard at your exclamation and you laugh awkwardly.

“I'm just so excited!”

He gives you a questioning look. "Okay...Is that all you want to take?” He points at your satchel.

“Well, I usually carry more than one bag but it’s going to be a longer flight than I’m used to”

“How about we both carry a bag each then?”

“You're already doing so much--”

“It’s fine.”

Instead of saying more, you decide to remove your satchel instead and hand it over to him. “I’ll be right back!”

After you quickly fill one of your other satchels with empty canisters, you both leave. You trail a short distance behind Bruno as you both fly through the night sky.

Flying without the Sun brightening everything was definitely a different feeling but...it wasn't bad. It was probably better when the moon was completely out.

You could get used to this.

“You okay?”

You're almost surprised to.see that the moth had slowed down to fly next to you.

“Flying in the dark is definitely different.”

“Do you not like it?”

You think you hear a hint of disappointment with that question.

“It’s not that, I’m just not used to it. But I’d like to do it again.”

“That's good. It’s especially nice during a full moon.”

“That's what i was thinking!”

“Well in that case, I’d like to bring you out again during one.”

“For fun?”

“Why not?”

Well there isn't really anything stopping you from doing it.

“I guess you're right so...why not.” You smile to yourself at your “clever” use of words.

When you look over at Bruno, he’s giving you a funny look and you stop smiling.

“W-What?”

After some time, the sparse giant tree trunks that you’re used to seeing become much more common and packed closer together and it gets much darker, thankfully the lantern helps light your way. It wasn't your first time in a forest but it had been a long while.

Soon you both enter a clearing within the forest and Bruno starts to slow.

The little light coming off the revealed parts of the moon in the cloudy night sky barely lights the area. Fortunately, it's just enough for you to make out the silhouettes of flowers.

You marvel at all the different kinds, you think you even see a couple of Datura shaped ones among them. The surrounding area was impressive too with all the trees.

“This is so cool! I feel like you know a bunch of cool areas.” The lake was most likely as scenic as this.

Bruno leads you to one of the flowers' open petals. It was a part of a shrub and it gave off an amazing smell. Not as amazing as your Datura of course but pretty close.

You open your mouth to tell Bruno that you're gonna start gathering and that he can wait here but he's kneeling to crawl into the flower.

“What are you doing?”

“Gathering?”

“I can do it!”

“Let me help. It’ll be quicker this way.”

It would take half the time--or at least three-fourth with your current vision. And you didn’t want to take too long with this. It would also help conserve your energy for the flight back. So the both of you start working, flying from flower to flower to fill all the canisters with nectar. You pretty much leave Bruno to pick whatever for you, while you try to figure out what you wanted to collect more of.

By the time you're both done, you both smell of various flowers and you feel very full.

As you both sit down to rest, you hold the glowing lantern out in front of your face. You wondered how it works, but you quickly find your mind going blank and you struggle to look away.

It takes a long while for you to notice that Bruno's staring at you which finally pulls your attention away from the lantern

“What?”

He rests his head in his hand. “Nothing, you just look so content staring at that lantern.”

“The lights pretty…I really couldn’t look away for some reason?”

“Don't worry, I do that sometimes too.”

You couldn't really imagine him zoning out like that like that though.

"Wow…"

Bruno doesn't stop staring at you though and you quickly get caught in his eyes. They always glowed more intensely at night and just like the lantern you didn't want to look away. But when you realize what you're doing, you force yourself to look elsewhere and lower the lantern, placing it in between the two of you.

Your heart beats rapidly but you try your best to look calm as you stare at your lap. Was he still looking at you?

“L-Look lights!” You point out the small floating lights that were fading in and out in the distance.

What's wrong with me tonight?

“Those must be fireflies,” you say.

“...Or maybe butterflies with glowing lanterns."

"Th-That's ridiculous..."

The moment passes and you open one of the canisters and smell it before taking a sip. You had been “taste testing” the whole night so you didn't see any reason to not do it now. The flavor reminds you of thick white petals.** **

“Hey do you know what this one’s called?”

Bruno leans towards you and smells directly from your canister.

“That’s Gardenia.”

You nod. Now you had a name to the taste and smell. You take another sip before closing the canister and pulling out another.

“At this rate you're going to finish everything before you get home.”

“Please, even I have a limit.”

You continue to ask the moth about the various flowers you met today until you start to get tired.

“Okay maybe we should head back, I don't want to take up your whole night and I think I might fall asleep here.”

Bruno hums in acknowledgment and hangs one of your satchels from his body before flying.

You pick up your other satchel as you take one last look in the distance. The lights from the fireflies in the distance were nice to look at. It was easy to feel jealous when you struggled to find your way in the dark but now you have this lantern.

The view had you thoroughly distracted so you weren’t really watching where you were standing.

Suddenly, your foot slips off the edge of the petal and you fall off the flower.

You should have fallen into a leaf or bumped into something before catching your bearings, but instead you fall into a pair of arms.

“Careful.”

Your mind goes blank as you look into Bruno’s face. You had gotten used to his presence but you were way too close!

The moth's 2nd pair of arms help you balance as the 1st lets you stand on a nearby leaf.

Once you're on your feet again you look at the moth. “Uh thanks--!”

You clear your throat.

“You okay?”

You nod way too harshly. “I'm usually not this clumsy.”

“Just easily distracted?”

“I mean, the lights are pretty.”

Bruno smirks, amused. “Come on, let's go back.”

----

“Baking Take Two LETS GO!” you yell. “Well I've actually been practicing so technically not ‘take two’ but whatever.”

“So did you figure out what went wrong last time?” Bruno asks.

“Yep! I’m 100% sure everything will work out this time.”

After the first cake you went back to the ant who provided you with the oven and asked them to show you how to work it again. And you quickly realized that it wasn't the weather that prevented the first cake from cooking properly. Honestly, you're just lucky you didn't cause a fire.

You grin. “By the way, I got honey this time so this is going to be super yummy.”

“So we are doing honey flavored instead of Datura?”

"Yep. Well maybe I can mix them?"

Bruno looks slightly disgusted.

“Okay, we will not mix them.”

After you run out to turn on the oven, Bruno assists you in the kitchen as your sous chef again but much more proactive as he had a better idea of what to do this time.

You pick up the measured honey to pour into the batter but stop. “Wait, you like honey right? I think you said that.”

“Yes, I actually like it a little more than I should.”

You tilt your head. “What does that mean?”

“Moths don't really eat honey.”

“Well, I doubt most bugs other than bees are supposed to either but here we are,” you chuckle.

You grab a spoonful of the honey from the measuring cup and put it in your mouth.

Bruno takes the cup from you. “Now I have to refill this.”

You roll your eyes. “Have some, it tastes good!”

Bruno sighs but takes a small sip from the cup. You watch his usually sure eyes light up in wonder. But just for a moment.

“It's really tasty right? Super strong.”

“Where did you even get this?”

“Straight from the source. A lot of non-bees like to water it down so it's just better this way!”

You toss the dirty spoon into the pile of other dirty dishes to wash later.

“I didn't know that. It’s really good.”

“You can have the rest of mine if you want?”

“Is that really okay with you?”

“Bruno, please you literally gave me a glowing lantern and I can easily get more. And you looked so pleased when you tasted it! How can I not give you my honey?”

“...I did?”

You nod.

It was actually kinda cute...

When you both finish mixing you did the same thing as last time--wait on the daybed.

You talk about unimportant things but you start to notice that Bruno is drifting off.

“You can sleep on my actual bed if you want?”

Bruno shakes his head. “I don’t think that's necessary. It won’t take that long and I’m not that tired.”

“If you say so...”

You watch him fall asleep on the daybed--you still aren't sure if he’s fully asleep but at least you knew that he was comfortable.

You decide to rest on the couch, watching the sand slowly sprinkle from the top of the hourglass to the bottom.

Once it’s empty, you quietly go out to remove the cake from the oven. You smile seeing that it came out well.

Looks like the practicing is paying off!

You ready the cake in the kitchen and fly back into the living space to place it on the low table.

You kneel in front of Bruno and shake him awake.

“Urgh, what’s wrong?” The moth groans. His usually prim hair looks slightly awry and you can’t help grinning at the confused look on his face.

“I thought you were a light sleeper?”

He stares at you, still dazed. “What do you mean?”

“Nevermind--cakes done and it came out great!”

You point at the sliced pound cake and plates and utensils sitting behind you on the table.

Bruno pushes himself up into a sitting position while you move to the side of the table.

“It looks like it came out well,” the moth says as he smooths his hair down.

“Yea, but what really matters is the taste.”

You grab a slice for the both of you. You hand over the plate and fork to Bruno and stare.

Bruno picks up the fork, cuts off a piece of the cake with the side of the fork and brings it to his mouth.

You watch his face closely for anything as he chews. You can’t help remembering the first time he came into your home.

Bruno finally nods.“ It’s good. I think the honey was a great choice.”

You feel a burst of satisfaction from that. “Thanks! I’ve been practicing on my own so yea…”

“It really shows.” He continues to eat the cake.

You pick up your own fork to take a piece from your own cake. “You can actually take the rest of the cake for you and Narancia. I've been giving away anything I bake cause it’s too much for just me…”

“That sounds good. I might not be able to stop Narancia from trying to sneak and eat it all though.”

“He's a bit of a troublemaker?”

“I wouldn’t say that. He just a handful a lot of the time.”

You’ve interacted with larvae around his age so you knew they had way too much energy in their tiny bodies.

“Being a parent must be hard...”

"Yea. I didn't really plan for it either but I don't think I would give it up."

A soft look shows on his face--one you had never seen before--and your heart clenches a bit.

The moth is being extra cute today.

You both finish up your slices and you go to package up the rest of the cake in a bakery box for your friend so you don’t forget. You also gather the jars of honey you have and place them in a small bag for him.

You both spend a good amount of the evening talking about nothing in particular and then you remember the play.

“I almost forgot to ask. Do you want to go see a play? It's in the Fall--the unlikely love between two opposites is a common tale but can it prosper the supernatural trials thrown its way, “ you recite the synopsis you read from the poster Abilene showed you. “My friend’s gonna be there too.”

“Supernatural?” Bruno questions.

You shrug, “The poster didn’t explain, but we can all find out together?”

“It would be nice to spend more time with you outside of your nectar addiction.”

You're so happy by the agreement that you barely realize what he fully said, “I’m going to ignore that last bit! I’ll let you know the exact day when it’s announced.”

[eirabach]

Interregnum

1 : the time during which a throne is vacant between two successive reigns or regimes. 2 : a period during which the normal functions of government or control are suspended.

This one is for @gumnut-logic‘s final(?) Sensory Sunday challenge “Sixth Sense” AND it’s canon to Savages (a missing scene between chapters five and six, so, chapter 5.5). I’d say you don’t have to know what’s going on to enjoy, but it would probably help? Otherwise just have at some sad kids being starcrossed in a liminal space. Love you all.

The thing about is knowing, is that it’s an art.

Not like music or painting, not a portrait of a lady or a soft serenade, no, nothing so simple nor so easy as that. 

A man can be taught to draw, a child trained to sing, a woman can write ream after ream of nonsense, fill pages with dreams and desires until her fingers bleed and her heart falls into the page an empty husk, her life's work a thing to cast out on the wind. 

Knowing is different. 

Knowing is being four years old, and a man coming to your door in the dead of night.

It had been the door of the manor, not the door to her room, but it was her door even then. Her mother had been long gone, her father already hardly more than a ghost, and she, the Lady of the house, had tucked herself away on the grand staircase, watching as the dirty faced man in the torn jacket had spluttered in a language she didn't understand, a sack of tools at his feet, a crowbar held tight in his grubby fists. The stranger hadn't seen the narrowing of round blue eyes as he'd concentrated on the lock to her father's study. 

He hadn't known, but she had.

She'd known her father would come, known the butler would drag the stranger from her sight, and Nanny would carry her away. 

She'd already known what would happen when her father called her down that morning, that he’d tell her, "This is Parker, he's a friend."

The man had smiled at her then through newly broken teeth, and Penelope had nodded, sure and certain, because she is, was, will always be, because knowing is something you're born with. It's a prickle up your spine. The skipped beat. A hum that no one else hears, and Penelope has always known. Good or evil, friend or foe, love or hate. Always. It’s what makes her so very good at her job, so perfect a hostess, so subtle an interrogator. That well honed ability to look a man in the eye, just once, and be utterly and entirely certain of the content of his soul, and it has never failed her, not once.

Until now.

Now the only thing she knows is that she absolutely cannot be seen to cry. Far too unseemly. Weak. Pathetic. The paparazzi smother her as she leaves the hotel, buzzing like mosquitoes as Parker opens the door and she offers them a media smile -- sweet, coquettish, slight -- that she has no idea if she actually achieves.

"Lady Penelope! Lady Penelope do you have any comment on Jeff Tracy's return? Do you --"

The door slams closed, a sign of Parker's wavering restraint, and cuts the reporter off.

Does she have any comment? Not one fit for publication in a family paper that's for sure.

Family, and just the thought sticks in her throat, makes her chest ache and her eyes burn, because God, but she’d thought she’d known that at least. Pitiful, silly girl. 

"Milady?" Parker's gentle, because he knows her, and she must look frightful all flustered and wet eyed because when he looks in the mirror she sees the way his brows draw low in concern. "Where to?"

And she doesn't know that, either. Doesn't have a clue, only, "Anywhere, Parker. Anywhere but here."

---

Gordon loves his father.

Loves him with a fierceness that pounds through his veins, that thunders his name in time with the rhythmic smack of the duffle against his spine, the thud of feet against asphalt.

Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad.

He loves him so much that he hates him.

He hates the way he's so sure, so certain of every damn thing all the goddamn time, and hadn't Gordon been sure? Hadn't Gordon been certain? And then he'd died and then he hadn't --

Two hundred yards ahead of him FAB One merges into New York City traffic, just a pink blur lit by camera flashes with a pull on his heart so hard he feels like it might be torn in two.

Might.

Two just seems kinda restrained, kinda delicate, compared to the crushing, sickening feeling behind his breastbone. Seems like something that might be fixed, somehow, stitched back together when all Gordon's doing is falling apart.

Falling apart and catching the damn car.

Scott's the runner in the family, old skinny legs can eat up the miles like Alan gobbles brownies, but Gordon's no slowcoach. The traffic's on his side, keeping Parker at a crawl, but the pack of salivating paparazzi aren't. They crowd between him and his goal, dark shades and darker grins sharp as shark teeth as he struggles his way through.

"Is that --?"

"Yeah! The one with the rocket?"

"Nah man, the other one, the swimmer."

"What the hell is he --"

He doesn't hang about for the end of that one -- wouldn't know the answer if he did -- instead he barrels through the chattering crowd and launches himself at the back of the car.

He realises, half a second too late, that Parker has ways of dealing with people who are stupid enough to stay on FAB One's tail.

"Aw shit."

---

“What in the blazes?”

She has her compact open, drafting the letter that she absolutely must send to Colonel Casey but has no idea how to write, and the jolt as something slams into the rear of the car sends it skittering to the ground at her feet, the screen cracking as it bounces off the console.

“Parker?”

“Already on it, Milady,” her erstwhile Chauffeur states grimly, his hand moving toward FAB One’s defences as she twists her body round to try and get a better look at whoever has been foolish enough to ram them.

“Oh my -- Parker don’t!”

But it’s too late. She catches a last glimpse of tow-headed blond as thick, dark oil arcs out, and then she’s launching herself at the door of the still-moving car, Parker’s squarks of displeasure blending into the furious clattering of two dozen paparazzos all throwing their cameras up at once.

Gordon lies amongst them, just two huge brown eyes in the pool of filth she’s left in her wake, and, lord above, if that isn’t a thought she doesn’t want to examine too closely.

“Gentlemen,” she says it like she was taught to, like she means it, like she wants all those cameras to turn on her and this time, only this time, she actually does. “Please, do excuse us. Darling?”

It’s a considered choice, the pet name. Chosen because she knows the ways their minds work, can already see the cogs turn into credits in their eyes, already read her name in the headlines, not his. Gordon blinks up at her, perfectly forgotten, and she lets her next smile reach her eyes. 

“Get in.”

---

She feels Parker’s shudder, FAB One shaking under the force of it as Gordon slips and squelches his way into the backseat. He leaves perfect dark hand prints on the cream leatherwork and drips, morosely, onto the merino wool carpets.

“Milady --” 

She cuts him off with a sharp tsk, her own hands coming away hopelessly filthy as she wipes her thumbs across too-damp cheeks where oil and something else have mixed into a horrid black paste. Gordon says nothing, only leans into her touch before backing away, skittish, at Parker’s groan.

“Ignore him,” she assures him, “It’s entirely his own fault.”

Parker makes another, ruder, sound, but neither of them pay much mind. Gordon’s breathing heavily, heavier than he ought to be after such a short sprint, and she finds herself patting at his shoulders, his sides, worried eyes scanning for whatever injury must have spurred him after her.

“Penny?” He’s holding his own hands up, surrender style. “Pen -- you’re getting -- Penelope, stop it!”

“You’re hurt?” It’s a question that isn’t, not really, because Penelope is good at knowing, and she knows that twist to those lips, the shadow in those eyes, knows them as well as she knows her own name. “Let me see.”

Gordon huffs, something that might have been a laugh, once, but now sounds half a beat from a sob. “Nah.”

She rolls her eyes, and makes nimble work of his shirt buttons. He snatches at the edges, head swivelling toward the windows, and hisses a scandalised, “Hey!”

“Oh do relax,” she mutters, slapping at his wrists until he lets her pull the sodden material away from his shoulders. “This is New York, sweetheart. This is nothing.”

“So you say!” But he lets her continue, shifting his weight and kicking his own jeans off, until he’s sat in nothing but his boxers, body streaked with sweat, hair black, surrounded by discarded rags and wearing a smile that makes her heart seize.

“See?” he flings his arms out as far as he can in the confined space. “I'm fine.”

It's an invitation, an opening she doesn't take, and the silence lingers a moment too long -- long enough for him to shiver, to reach for the duffle he'd dragged in after him and pluck something soft from its depths. Long enough to wonder.

"What 'appened?"

They both move to answer, both their jaws snapping shut as they realise, and Gordon pulls a marl hoody over his head, taking his time to work his arms into the sleeves as Parker's eyes narrow in the rear view mirror.

"A misunderstanding," Penelope says breezily, far too breezily. "That's all."

One bushy eyebrow rises out of his reflection.

"Is that so, Master Gordon?"

The hoody is too long, too tight in the shoulders. The sleeves hang over his hands and the hem sits around his mid thigh. He’d clearly left in a hurry, although she should have guessed that by how quickly he caught up to them, and he refuses to meet either of their eyes as he rummages deeper into the bag muttering invectives about stupid lanky brothers.

“Gordon?”

He pauses, his hand leaving marks on the waistband of a pair of NASA sweats. "Yeah -- no. I don't know."

"You didn't 'arf run." Parker says it conversationally, an observation. Penelope only hears the pauses in Gordon’s answer.

"Yeah. Well."

"In fact seems as if we're all running, Milady."

She balks at that, offence at the very notion ingrained into her bones. "Nonsense. I don't run."

Her broken compact has come to rest beneath the duffle, and as he tosses he bag to one side to work the too-long sweats up over his knees Gordon spots it, leaning down to pick it up as he wriggles his backside into them. “Oh Lady Penelope,” he says with something of his usual humour. “Brains is gonna be cross!” 

She snatches it, or tries to, but her hand slips and the cracked screen lights up, reveals immediately what she’d been doing -- what she’d been trying to do -- in the moments before Gordon had thrown himself bodily into her vehicle. 

Colonel Casey,

Despite all my efforts it would appear Mr Tracy has taken against my advice and plans to move TI further in the direction we have previously discussed. I am sorry that I have been unable to convince him of the folly of such choices, and as such I am forced to resign as --

"So this isn't running?" He runs a hand across his face and lets it lie there, covering his eyes. "Jesus, Pen. What's happening to us?"

Carefully, terribly carefully, she peels his fingers away until she can twist her own between them and bring their joined hands to rest in her lap. Her business suit is ruined, but it isn’t as though she hasn’t half a dozen others. There’s only one boy -- one boy with callouses on his palms and oil under his fingernails. One boy that she absolutely cannot keep but oh -- oh --

She doesn’t look at him. Can’t. Because she knows herself, knows the streak of absolute selfish want that runs right through the very core of her, and it’s all she can do to keep her voice steady. 

"Your father will no doubt be arranging further investor meetings, we can drop you at Heathrow. By the time they get back you'll --"

"Whoa, hang on -- I'm not going back!"

"Don't be ridiculous! What are you going to do instead?"

He stares at her.

"I thought -- you and me --"

He thought, but god, she wants.

And wanting makes her mean. Makes her scoff when all she really wants to do is say yes, yes of course.

“You’re going to sit in my house and watch your family save the world? Don’t be obtuse. You’ll go mad.” Then, quieter. Truer. “You’ll hate me.”

“Never.” The vehemence surprises her, though it shouldn’t, not really. She’s never seen Gordon do anything that wasn’t with his whole heart, has she? “I will never regret choosing you.”

“Over everything?”

“Anything.”

At that moment, and only for a moment, she lets herself imagine it. The two of them, and nothing, no-one else. The two of them and their own choices, their own dreams, and she knows -- she knows it will never happen. Can never happen. Gordon covers the hand holding the compact with his other, lifts it and drops a kiss to her knuckles that cracks her heart right down the centre.

"No. No, Gordon. Don't let him be right." Her voice cracks right along with it. “If he thinks I’m trying to steal you away --”

"What, like some kind of pedigree puppy? Forget it, what am I gonna do, let him get away with speaking to you like that? No chance. Never. Not happening okay, so don’t even bother."

"Your brothers --"

There's hesitation there, just as she knew there would be, but it doesn't last, doesn't work the way she'd thought it would.

"Are big enough and ugly enough to cope without me. I'm just the pool boy nowadays anyway it's not like I can do anything useful."

"That's not true."

"It's completely true, and you know it. He wants me to, what? Choose between you and brunch meetings in a penguin suit?" He grimaces. “It’s not you or the job, Penelope. It’s you and the job, or it’s him.”

“We’re on the same side, Gordon,” she says quietly. “We all only want what’s best.”

“Do we?” He shakes his head. “I dunno, Pen. I don’t know anything anymore. Dad’s --” he takes a deep breath. “He’s not the same.”

Parker scoffs at that, breaking the spell that seems to have befallen the two of them before gesturing rudely to a fellow motorist with poor lane discipline. “I’ll say. He’s spent eight years alone in outer space, young Master Gordon. If he was the same man, he’d be a blummin’ mirage.”

“I know that,” Gordon insists. “I do, I get it. But -- people will die? People are dying and we -- my dad, he’d have helped them. He’d have let us help them. I just -- I don’t even know him anymore. I don’t even know if I ever did.”

And Penelope may have lost a little faith, somewhere between Tracy Industries and the oil-slicked backseat of her car, but she hasn’t yet lost her tact.

She knows, still, just enough. Enough to recognise fear in a man’s eyes. Ambition. Dread. Lust. Courage. So she doesn’t tell him, doesn’t dare, that when she looks into his father’s eyes she sees nothing. Nothing at all. Instead she tightens her grip on his hand, on the broken compact, and says;

“Take us home, Parker.”

---

(Gordon loves his father.

He does.

His father is a dead man.)

[magicianapprenticelyra]

Day IX & X: Memory & Familiar

Featuring Apprentice!Lyra Nguyen, the Aster-Nguyen family, Asra, Faust, and Nook the Book Mimic.

Timeline: Five years ago [takes place a few months before Accidental Sprain]

It started off as a night that was slightly off kilter.

Walterine went home a touch early to look after her family. Neha had caught the flu first, which now has James and Bảo in a strangle-hold. This leaves Walterine and Lyra as the only ones left standing within the Aster-Nguyen household.

Asra decided to stay far, far away from them all in the meantime. Walterine completely understood, though was confused when he offered to get her some of the rarer items of The Shop’s inventory while he waited it out.

“Asra, the places where these things are from . . . you’re going to be looking down, down almost to the very borders of the South,” Walt reminded him. James was the one that took on that endeavor, having been a former resident himself. “You sure you wanna do this?”

Asra confirmed as such, and Walt helped him to prepare for the journey. The task was estimated to take about a month, going both ways. This, of course, worried everyone but Asra.

Before he left, with Faust cleverly wrapped around is scarf-covered shoulders, Lyra gifted him a new necklace. The pendant’s a bright blue, teardrop-shaped thing on a decently sized cord.

“For luck and protection,” Lyra said.

When Asra accepted the gift, his hands decided to start shaking. As he fumbled with putting it on, Walt struggled to not laugh.

In the end, Lyra assisted her friend to put it on, but not before she gave him an eye-roll. As she did, Faust decided to be extra cheeky: the blue-lavender morph looped around both of their shoulders.

While this meant Faust wouldn’t be completely in the way, this drew the two young adults very close to each other.

Asra swears in a language Lyra doesn’t know, almost breaking away from her in a sprint once she had the necklace properly clasped. Walt caught him before he was out the door, handing him his pack for the journey. With that and friendly farewells to the women, he left.

That was two days ago now, leaving Lyra to guard The Shop.

The light of lamp above the front door is out, and she already performed the ‘Cross-Me-Not’ spell over the wood grains. Despite there being a bedroom up the stairs, Lyra opted to sleep downstairs. There is a precious amount of merchandise on the shelf behind the counter, after all.

To her reasoning, so long as she was within reach of a broom or the empty bottle on the counter, whatever intruder that wanted to rob the shop was in for a bruised head.

She’s setting up her sleeping arrangements on the floor when she hears a racket outside. It’s coming from the back alley.

For the past week, the alley cats had been arguing with one another more heatedly. According to Faust, she said they weren’t always fighting each other. Whatever that meant, they couldn’t figure it out.

Asra himself didn’t see much of note when he checked around, but he placed more protection spells into the walls of The Shop.

Nonetheless, Lyra herself needed to see what’s going on . . .

. . . and damn it she was terrified.

Why didn’t Walt leave Bruno with me? Lyra thinks to herself. The faerie dragon, Walt’s familiar, is a pint-sized deterrent to mosquitoes and thieves alike. He and the Stove Salamander are the best of friends, often on the brink of making a bonfire of The Shop if they laughed too much.

She grabs a hefty broom. Armed with it, Lyra reaches for the door. Her hand’s unsteady, but manages to set her hand on the handle. Pressing down on it, the door lets out a gods-awful creaking noise. The woman peers out of the doorway, squinting into the dark night.

Thanks to some lit lamps from the neighbors, Lyra can make out the silhouettes of several alley cats, digging into rubbish piles. For a few minutes, she keeps watch. After a longer while, she resolves to scoot back into The Shop. Before she could close the door however, all of the alley cats started to yowl and hiss, spitting at something from the other end of the alley.

Lyra presses herself against the door, squinting as the cats start to attack whatever’s intruding on their territory.

The sounds coming from the cats’ target however, made all her hairs stand up on end. It sounded like another animal, fighting for its life!

Lyra doesn’t know why, but she rushes from the safety of The Shop, shouting at the cats to leave whatever they’re mauling, alone! She used the brush side of the broom to sweep away the cats. When the cats round on her, Lyra summons a ball of light. Shutting her eyes, the magician turns the sphere into a starburst, effectively stunning and/or scaring away the alley cats.

Lyra opens her eyes, picking up whatever the cats left behind. In her hand, it felt like a carapace of sorts. The texture of this creature’s topside was not unlike the shell of a crab, though from what she could tell, it was very flexible.

Quickly closing the door behind her, Lyra swears under her breath, unable to see in the darkness of The Shop. The draft from the doorway must have blown out the candles . . . great.

“Hang on little buddy,” Lyra soothes as she sets down the creature on a low stool. The animal let out a wheezing, gurgling sound.

Lyra hadn’t felt blood on her hands, nor smelt it, so she hopes the poor thing will survive . . .

Upon finding a candle and lighting it, she exhales, relieved.

“Alright little one,” Lyra addresses the creature, turning around to face it. “Let's get a look at—” Lyra stops in place, unsure of what she was seeing was right. To her utter confusion, the space where she left the creature is now occupied by . . . a book?

Lyra gapes at the space. She’s soon turning around and round, searching for the creature. The magician racks her brain, trying to figure out whether or not she did place the critter on the table in the first place.

As she’s looking around on the floor, Lyra can hear movement on the table she had taken her eyes off of. Slowly, still acting as if she’s searching the floor, Lyra peers around the corner of a chair.

On the table, right where the book was, she witnesses it sprout four eyes . . . and ten spindly legs. Lyra bites her lower lip, preventing herself from screaming in terror as the . . . the thing wobbles on its appendages.

It’s then that she notices that several of said legs are severely mangled. The poor creature barely stands, almost immediately flopping back onto the table. The sound of impact is a heavy thud, and the creature, as far as Lyra can tell, has no energy to hide themself any longer.

Slowly, carefully, Lyra stands up, looking on at the pitiful thing. She summons a few orbs of light, sending them to various parts of the room to illuminate the area. With the added radiance, she can see how badly hurt the creature was.

Their injured legs are beginning to leak a strange, blue-colored blood. One of them is bent in a very painful way, which makes her heart go out to them. Lyra carefully approaches the creature, murmuring, “Hi . . . may I take a look at you?”

The creature looks up at her, eyes big and scared.

“Okay . . . do you want to eat?” Lyra asks, looking around for any possible snacks for this one. The creature has a massive set of teeth. It seems to be more teeth than anything else, to be honest. “Do you just eat meat? Well, I have some scrap vegetables and . . .” she rushes up to the kitchenette, bringing down a small metal bowl of berries.

Lyra places an orange rind, a wrinkly raisin, and a speckled, beige shell of a longan in front of the creature. They sniff the provided offerings. Lyra cannot help but note they did that without any obvious nose.

Seeing that they aren’t moving with her so close, Lyra decides to clean up a bit. As she retrieves some towels to wipe up the blood on the table, she wonders what the creature is. A sort of shapeshifter for sure, but it makes her wonder: where did they come from?

For now at least, Lyra would have a fun story to tell Walt, Asra, and the others when they got back.

[zintranslations]

Kaleidoscope of Death, Ch. 124

Kaleidoscope of Death by Xi Zixu Link to Chinese / Novel Updates

Chapter 124: Long Sword

Once the insect swarm dispersed, Lin Qiushi's group left the dining room. The moment they stepped outside, however, they found that the flying insects had appeared in the hallway, batting their wings to form a faint black line in midair that led off to some unknown room.

This was likely what the string signified. Lin Qiushi had thought it would be more complicated than this, but somehow, Ruan Nanzhu's messing around had yielded them the correct answer. He glanced at Ruan Nanzhu and asked, "do we follow and see where it goes?"

"Sure." Ruan Nanzhu looked at the time and confirmed it was still early. "Let's go."

Then they headed off in the direction the insects were guiding them in, toward where all the rooms were.

Every five minutes, the positions of the rooms changed, and when that happened, the direction the insects pointed to also changed. Hovering in mid-air, they were all connected together in a single-file line. The three of them kept following the path of insects, but very quickly, they discovered something off—at one point, the insects broke off into two swarms. One pointed left, and one pointed right, in different directions.

"Why's this happening?" Gu Longming was utterly confounded when he saw the split insects. He grabbed a bug off-hand and trapped it in his palm. When he released it, it swiftly returned to its original position. "Why have these mosquitoes split up? Unless…"

He understood something. With a pained expression he peered at Lin Qiushi.

"Unless there are two monsters?"

That seemed to be the only answer, but Lin Qiushi didn't think the matter would be so simple. He asked, "we'll split up and see?"

Ruan Nanzhu thought for a bit.

"Okay, Gu Longming goes left with you, and I go right."

Lin Qiushi nodded, not arguing. He only reminded Ruan Nanzhu that if Ruan Nanzhu did find something strange, he shouldn't force anything; the objective this time was to gather information.

Hearing Lin Qiushi's earnest suggestion, Ruan Nanzhu couldn't help but smile.

"I knew it, our Linlin's all grown up. He worries about me now, how heartwarming."

Lin Qiushi: "…I'm very serious."

"Yes, I know you're serious." He came over and gave the corner of Lin Qiushi's mouth a casual peck. "I'll be careful. See you later."

Lin Qiushi waved a hand at him.

"See you later."

As they were conversing, the space around them changed again, and the directions they were heading altered once more. This time, the insects seemed to be guiding them toward the lowest-level deck.

Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming wasted no more time, jogging the rest of the way ahead, hoping to find the room the insects were guiding them to before everything changed again.

The two were quick, finding the room indicated by the insects in half the time. At this room, those bugs flew through the air and attached themselves in a dense layer all over the door. As soon as he was near, Lin Qiushi got a whiff of a strong, rotted fish stench.

It was truly too pungent—about as bad as how the room from last time smelled. It was too easy to anticipate that inside this room, they would find that giant fishman monster shut away.

At the room, Lin Qiushi didn't rush and try to enter. Instead he put his ear to the door and listened for any sounds inside. The room was quiet enough to seem like it held nothing alive, but Lin Qiushi still heard something odd: a faint breathing sound coming from the door…The breaths came from somewhere close to him, as if there was only the single door between him and whatever was inside.

Gu Longming, on the other hand, was looking through the window. He seemed to have spotted something in the inky black, face going slightly pale as he took a couple of steps back. He gestured toward the inside of the room at Lin Qiushi, nodding emphatically to say that there was something inside.

So Lin Qiushi got up and looked through the window too.

Through a crack in the curtains, he saw a pair of yellow eyes hidden in the dark. They were fish eyes, with perfectly circular pupils and the whites of the eyes giving off a bright golden glow. They were currently staring out the door with a none-too-friendly expression.

Those eyes slowly moved, like the thing had sensed there were people standing outside. Lin Qiushi saw it slowly open its mouth, filled densely with white teeth and a tongue softly glowing blue.

Hang on…yellow eyes? Lin Qiushi’s breathing froze. He felt that he'd caught onto something, swiftly pulling out his cell phone, turning on the flashlight, and tossing the beam of light in through the curtains.

As the light entered the room, Lin Qiushi could finally see the thing clearly. It was a creature difficult to describe—at least, Lin Qiushi had never seen its like.

It had a gigantic head of a fish and a fragile human body. Because the head was so big and heavy, the creature couldn't even stand straight; both the head and the thin, mismatched body could only sprawl on the floor. Most eye-catching was the long, sharp horn at the top of its head—it looked both piercing and deadly…and the first thing Lin Qiushi thought of was the long sword that killed the Minotaur from the myth.

The fishman's attention was caught by the light Lin Qiushi brought and a strange roar came out of its mouth. Gu Longming saw its strange appearance and couldn't help but rub at his arms, forcing a grin.

"The heck is that thing?"

"What we saw in the first room seems to be this fish-person," Lin Qiushi said. "Remember the yellow eyes from that room?"

Gu Longming nodded that he remembered.

At the mention of the yellow eyes, he finally realized. The eyes of the human-eating fish-monster were not yellow, but a discomforting shock of white. This kind of detail, however, easily blurred in shocking situations, and it was only due to Lin Qiushi's reminder that he could now faintly remember.

"So there are two monsters?" Gu Longming swallowed. "And so the purpose of this monster, could it be…"

His gaze fell on the needle-sharp horn at the top of that monster's head, and said the words Lin Qiushi was thinking.

"The long sword?"

Lin Qiushi: "We can suppose so."

At least so far, they had yet to find another appropriate, weapon-like item on the ship. The truth was, the moment he'd gotten a clear look at this fishman's apperance, Lin Qiushi had had the similar thought. Gu Longming had clearly drawn the same conclusions that he did.

The sound of the two talking seemed to have stimulated the monster inside. It began to crawl about a little violently, twisting about in a grotesque and scary manner.

Seeing its agitation, Lin Qiushi got a bad feeling. So he grabbed Gu Longming and backed up a few steps.

The moment they backed up, a long sharp spike appeared through the solid wood wall in front of them. The thing in the room had used the horn on its head to stab straight through the wall—two, three times, leaving a number of holes behind. Had they not backed away just now—and had gotten unfortunately stabbed—it was easy to see how painful it would've been.

But after Lin Qiushi confirmed the identity of the thing inside the room, time was up for another switch. The room before them disappeared, replaced with just another normal bedroom. The path of the insects changed as well, and the location of that fish swapped to the upper deck.

Gu Longming was disgusted by even the thought of this fish. He'd actually enjoyed eating fish before this door, but after marinading in fish stench for the past few days, he’d become reflexively nauseated at the thought of that taste. The unfortunate likelihood was that even after leaving this door, it would be a while still before he stopped being grossed out by fish.

Lin Qiushi: "Come on, let's go see where Zhu Meng is."

Gu Longming nodded.

The two left the bottom-level deck and headed up. They found Ruan Nanzhu standing on the top deck with his head poked out over the black seawater.

He turned around at the sound of their foot steps.

"What did you find?"

Lin Qiushi said, "I think we found the long sword."

Ruan Nanzhu's eyes gleamed: "You found it?"

Lin Qiushi nodded and gave him a quick rundown of the thing the saw. He emphasized the long horn they'd seen on that fishman monster's head and how it’d looked both sturdy and sharp, like it would make for a great offensive weapon.

As for Ruan Nanzhu, he said that in the room he found, he saw the giant fishman who'd eaten a person the night before.

"But how are we supposed to kill that fishman?" Gu Longming asked, squatting on the planks and dejectedly eating the candy that Lin Qiushi gave him. "I don't think that thing's any easier to deal with than the fish monster we saw before."

What they were most concerned about was not the width, but the depth of the wounding; once a wound got deep, it had a hard time healing, particularly on a ship that lacked medical supplies like this. It was obvious that once stabbed by that horn, even if you didn't die the day of, complications like tetanus, etc.  would kill you in the next few days.

Ruan Nanzhu listened to Gu Longming's worries and comforted him—by saying don't worry, if it really does come to that, we'll finish you off nice and clean.

Gu Longming: "…how about no. Thank you."

Lin Qiushi thought this was something of a paradox. They had to first kill the yellow-eyed fishman before they could kill the monster symbolized by the Minotaur, but that was where the problem lied—how were they supposed to kill the yellow-eyed fishman? Did they really have to just take their dinner knives and go head-to-head with that thing?

As the three were discussing what to do, they heard a sudden ruckus from the dining room, interspersed with shocked shouts and agonized screaming.

At this sound they knew instantly that something else had happened. Lin Qiushi traded a glance with Ruan Nanzhu and turned for the dining room. Before he even went inside, he could smell the thick scent of blood—Lin Qiushi looked down and found a pool of it on the floor planks. A wounded man was lying on the ground inside, covering a wound in his abdomen with his hands. The wound seemed very deep, lumping up and spilling forth bright red blood.

Gu Longming took a few steps forward.

"What happened? How did he get hurt?" He took off his jacket and, using it as bandaging, began treating the victim's wounds in well-trained motions. He was trying to stop the man's bleeding.

Seeing his actions however, Lin Qiushi formulated a guess about Gu Longming's job outside the doors.

"He discovered outside that the insects seemed to be leading in a certain direction, so we followed it." The person speaking was the man's companion—he'd been a bystander and witness to the entire process of how his friend got hurt. He continued shakily: "But when we got there, this long spike came out of the room and stabbed him right in the body."

Gu Longming frowned.

"It doesn't look good, the kidney looks like it's been perforated." There weren't any useful medical supplies at hand either, and considering the blood flow, this person was likely…

A girl nearby said: "I brought a hemostatic spray, can you use that?"

"Give it here," Gu Longming said. "I can only try—treat a dead horse like a live one, right?"[1]

He did his best to tourniquet the person's body to reduce the output of blood. Then, after using up a good half of the hemostatic spray, he managed to stop the ever-flowing bleeding.

"What was the thing that stabbed your friend?" Seeing the person stabilize, someone turned their attention onto the person who was still alive.

"It looked like a fish," the survivor answered. "I'm not sure…I only caught a glimpse before this happened."

"We'll go have a look too." The crowd was clearly interested in this fish, and so dispersed from the dining room.

Moments later, there were only a handful of people left inside.

"How does it look? Will my friend survive?" that person asked Gu Longming plaintively.

Gu Longming sighed, saying, "if he gets out early he might be saved, but…" This wasn't a place they could come to and go from at will.

So everybody quieted down. Gu Longming looked at the blood on his hands and said, "I'm gonna go wash my hands real quick." He got up and went to the bathroom.

The victim's breathing grew weaker and weaker, and even though Gu Longming did all he could, a few hours later, the man still died.

The entire dining room was filled with the thick stench of blood. It was also, coincidentally, time for supper; the Dead Fish Dinner Sets just happened to be placed on the tables, and the stench of the fish plus the smell of blood meant everyone had even less appetite. Nobody even wanted to go through the motions before taking off from the dining room.

Ruan Nanzhu, however, stayed where he was. Lin Qiushi didn't rush him either, because he knew that if Ruan Nanzhu was staying, then Ruan Nanzhu must have his reasons.

Due to the death of the person that afternoon, Gu Longming was a bit down. He poked at the noodles on the plate in front of him without much energy or appetite.

After most people left the dining room, Ruan Nanzhu pulled a few plastic bags out of his clothes.

"What are you planning to do?" Lin Qiushi startled.

Ruan Nanzhu: "I don't think the door would have us go head-to-head with that thing. There's too much of a difference in power."

Lin Qiushi: "So you want…" He watched as Ruan Nanzhu took all the dead fish from the dining table and stuffed his own pockets until they were bulging. "You want to feed the fish to that thing?"

"It was the aperitif that got the Minotaur drunk in the myth," Ruan Nanzhu said. "We pretty much know what the aperitif refers to now."

The eaten fish was fermented inside the belly, to be tasted once the stomach was split open; it was truly a kind of appetizer liquor.

So Ruan Nanzhu wanted to use the dead fish to lure the Minotaur to the yellow-eyed fish monster. They didn't know if it would work, but they had to give it a try.

This method, after all, was a lot more reliable than bringing a dining knife to a fish fight.

Ruan Nanzhu packed up all the dead fish and took them to go, following the path of the insects to once again find the room where the yellow-eyed fish monster resided.

There were already many more holes in the room; it had clearly used the sharp weapon on its head to make them.

Ruan Nanzhu gestured for Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming to stand further away as he tossed, with a single throw, the fish in his hand through a gap in the window.

The dead fish splattered all over the ground. That yellow-eyed fish monster pounced on them in excitement. It picked them up with its hands and began an aggressive gnawing; it ate quickly, and finished in short time the entire bag of fish that Ruan Nanzhu tossed in. It was a good thing they were prepared, quickly throwing in the other few bags of fish as well.

As it ate, Ruan Nanzhu stood watching from the side. Lin Qiushi was a big worried about him getting hurt though, since the blood from the last victim was still dripping in display on the window.

The yellow-eyed fishman finished all the fish, not leaving behind any heads, even. When it was full, it looked on, contented, before going to sleep on the ground just like that.

"Let's go," Ruan Nanzhu said to Lin Qiushi.

It was already a bit dark outside, and even though he really wanted to see what would happen here tonight, staying out was not a smart move.

So the three went and found another room they could rest in, and got in bed waiting for evening to arrive.

The last beam of light disappeared with the sun descending beneath the horizon. It was a moonless evening, with only the howling sea winds and the storm clouds like a piece of fabric hung up in the sky.

Lin Qiushi couldn't really sleep, staring idly out the window.

Ruan Nanzhu had first been in a different bed, but mid-sleep he'd somehow scooted over beside Lin Qiushi. So the two were now squeezed together.

They didn't speak, nor did they even look at each other. The way they simply knew each other was as if they'd already experienced hundreds and thousands of the exact scenario before them now.

They were both waiting—waiting on the answer to their experiment.

Around three in the morning, their waiting finally yielded results.

Lin Qiushi's ears caught something like the roar of a wild beast—and then the sounds of a violent battle. They were quite far from those sounds, and couldn't really make out what was happening, but the battle lasted for a very long time. It wasn't until the sun was almost up again that it gradually faded away.

"Who do you think won?" Ruan Nanzhu asked quietly.

"I don't know," Lin Qiushi said. "There's no difference either way."

Though things were mostly going as planned, something still happened that exceeded their expectations—not long after the sound of fighting stopped, there came the sound of human crying and screaming on the ship. When he heard this, Lin Qiushi jumped, crawling out of bed and going to the window. He wanted to see exactly what was happening outside, but the evening was too dark and he couldn't make out anything at all.

Luckily, Ruan Nanzhu's vision came into use at a key moment. He saw the fishman drag a struggling human onto the upper deck.

"How could this be?!" When Lin Qiushi heard Ruan Nanzhu's description, he couldn't believe it. "Nobody ate any fish inside the dining room today—"

Ruan Nanzhu's brow puckered. "You…remember the guy that Jian Qianyuan injured yesterday?"

Lin Qiushi: "…" He nodded.

Ruan Nanzhu: "I don't think he came to the dining room at all today."

Lin Qiushi's attention had been on the two monsters all day, and he hadn't noticed: "But isn't it a good thing that he didn't come to the dining room?"

Not coming to the dining room meant that he didn't eat the fish, so why would the monster target him?

Ruan Nanzhu only grimaced.

"It's not only the dining room that has fish."

Lin Qiushi: "…" He immediately remembered that filthy kitchen.

"There's plenty of fish to be had in the kitchen," Ruan Nanzhu said. "There's got to be a sacrifice."

Lin Qiushi sighed. He'd thought that there wouldn't need to be a sacrifice tonight, but now that he thought about it, he’d been naive. It wasn't kind inside the doors at all. The longer they stayed here, the worse the casualties would be.

That person's screams gradually faded, leaving behind only the silence of a long evening.

Before morning came, Lin Qiushi managed to get some sleep. But he didn't know whether it was due to a nightmare or if he didn't actually manage to sleep—he kept feeling that for the rest of the evening, that thing had kept circling the room they were in. He'd even smelled that nauseating stench of fish.

On day three, none of the three were in good spirits. They hadn't slept well for the past few nights, disturbed as they'd been with a number of things.

Conducting several days of christening meant the group was already numb to another body appearing on deck. They got rid of the body in well-trained motions and scrubbed the deck clean, returning to the day like nothing had happened at all.

Lin Qiushi's attention was not on the deck. He went off to the dining room early, hoping to find trace of the bugs. But disappointingly, the insects that had formed the string yesterday had disappeared.

"There's no rush." Ruan Nanzhu glanced at his watch. "It's still early."

"Mh," Lin Qiushi said in understanding.

Without the string, they couldn't find the two monsters, so they could only keep waiting.

At around eleven or so, the scenario that Lin Qiushi had been waiting on finally appeared—the NPC that became the insects yesterday showed up once more in the dining room. He wore the same clothes, had the same expression, and looked just like an NPC who kept resetting in a game.

They didn't need Ruan Nanzhu this time for someone to approach this NPC and pat him hard on the shoulder.

So the same thing that happened yesterday happened again. The insects swarmed then dispersed, disappearing from inside the dining room, and at the same time, two lines of insects formed outside, leading off in unknown directions.

Lin Qiushi, Ruan Nanzhu, and Gu Longming began following a string to find the place they were looking for. A few minutes later, they came upon the exterior of a room. Compared to yesterday, it looked very different, because it was readily apparent from the outside that last night, this room had been the site of a vicious battle. The wooden window slats were completely crushed, and the lock that hung on the door had also been torn violently off.

It seemed like the two monsters did have a fierce battle between them. Judging by the final incident from the night before, however, it seemed that the giant fishman had gotten the advantage.

[Ch. 123] | [Ch. 125]

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

Today I seriously considered lying in the front yard of Mom’s house and seeing how long it would take for someone to wander over to find out if I was dead.

To be honest, I expect I would lie there a very long time. 

The spot was perfect, next to the mail box and the only open space in the yard so the eye would be draw to it. Right now the front yard is piled high with two mountains of branches and limbs. The town is supposed to collect these things, and two days after the tropical storm my neighbor’s pile was hauled off. My piles, started before the storm and now with things from this new huge limb, now take up the entire front yard and the town hasn’t taken any of it all month. The grass must be dead under neath  and the piles are as tall as I am. Still, they would make a lovely framing for my “corpse”.

But just because would people see me lying sprawled unnaturally in the yard  doesn’t mean they would come check on me. 

I’ve been hacking on that fallen limb for three days now, and since it was the size of a tree itself I have more to do. I’ve worked my hands bloody in full view of the street, and folks have been gawking. They slow down, sometimes point, sometimes just stare and don’t wave back when I politely do. They don’t stop to talk to me.

This is not covid-19 related, but the reality if a town of less than 500 people when you aren’t related to anyone and don’t belong to any of their many, many churches. You are an oddity to be stared at but not quite a full person to them.

Well, someone did speak. 

Ricky zipps around in his motorized chair several times a day, going down down many streets to nose around, speculate, and spread  gossip to anyone he meets. 

He has told me a few times what my neighbors think of Mom’s house and the yard. Apparently they are judging me very hard for not meeting their esthetic standards. A few times I grumbled back that he could tell them that if it bothered them so much they can lend me a hand. I’m just one person, with no money, and with no one willing to do some of these jobs even if I could afford to pay. I work very hard to try to keep the two houses together enough that between them I have a livable home. I don’t care if they don’t like the parts are over grown or the paint is peeling when I’m worrying about keeping enough floor to stand on and semi functional plumbing....

He didn’t talk to me for a while after that. 

The only other thing that has ever gotten him to not talk to me at all for a while was when I haven’t panicked over him spotting a black racer in the yard. Well, these snakes are non-venomous, tend to try to get away from people (thus the “racer”), eat pests, and darn it all, I like snakes! In this town there is a weird terror of all snakes when most are totally harmless. My shrugging off the snake horrified him...

Well, geez, they know I’m weird. They know my family was weird. Heck, my father used to have signs at our river landing telling folks to not shoot the snakes (they love shooting things here) and when someone had a rat snake in their house, who got called to rescue it...sorry, remove it? My parents and I. Did he really expect me to be scared? 

Anyway, today he saw me sawing myself to exhaustion on that limb and he paused his chair. He called out “Hey girl!” like he usually does. I waved and yelled back “Hey” but kept sawing. He stared and I realized he was storing what I was doing away. I wonder how he will spin my sawing. I’m sure it will be full of exaggeration and wildly inaccurate speculations. 

I expect this. The neighbor who came out to stare but not speak to me has told many a tale about my family. She used to tell people that my brother, who was staying in that house alone for a bit after my grandmother died until my parents could move in, was a wild one. She insisted he had women in every night, with coming and going at the wee hours. Actually, my brother was at our house playing video games until those wee hours, when he would drive around to that house to finally sleep. My brother said when he heard the gossip that he wished she would call him to wake him up when the women got there because he’d sure like to meet them. 

And then there are the stories of how that house is haunted. It absolutely is not. Members of my family have lived in it for 60 years and none of us saw a ghost, not even me and my imaginary friend was a ghost! My imaginary friend’s home was the barn behind the shop, not the house in town. No one that has ever even been in the house has claimed to see a ghost. 

The ghost myth grew when I refused to ghost write a history of the area for one of my high school teachers. If I wrote something I wanted credit, and payment. I expect, offended, she added the story about our house being haunted to her book to get back at me. I still wonder which classmate she roped into writing her damn book.

 While the house was built in the 1800s, as far as we know the ONLY person to have actually died in that house was my grandmother, years after they created the story. And her ghost, about the most unthreatening person you can imagine who died very old of a sudden massive stroke, would hardly be scary if it existed. Which it doesn’t.

And to this day at Halloween some kids and parents are scared to come to the porch because they have “heard” it is haunted.

So who knows what Ricky was saying about me. I already know I won’t get credit for any of my hard work. No one ever notices what you do, only whatever you don’t.

It’s probably good I didn’t lie down in the yard. Tired as I am I might have dozed off, only to be waking up in the dark and possibly eaten up by mosquitoes. I’m pretty sure wouldn’t have been interrupted in my nap, unless that annoying yappy beagle had run over like it often does to growl at me for daring to be in my own yard. 

Humans wouldn’t check to see if I was dead, but boy would they have gossiped about it. Geez, I wonder if I’d have encountered people saying “I heard you were dead!” because there cousin said they saw me lying in the yard “right before the ambulance got there” with my cause if death a subject of argument, but some insisting they knew someone that worked at the hospital that said.... and so forth . Maybe it would even take a while before folks believed I was alive and not my own ghost haunting the place! 

Now I regret not not doing it! LOL

[howaboutleeches]

For the Au, trope, prompt thing. How about 9, 9 and 2 with Julian?

“For the Au, trope, prompt thing. How about 9, 9 and 2 with Julian?”

9 - camp!au

9 -  strangers to lovers

2 -  “fuck. fuck fuck fuck fuck this shit. fuck.”

(Sorry in advance for my lack of knowledge about summer camps. I’ve never been to one and all my info about it comes from USA movies. I hope you like it though ;) )

@gangsterloli

——————————————————————————————————–

“His warmth” Camp!AU (Julian x Reader)

Word Count: 1,934

It was that time of the year again. Moody teenagers, hot weather and mosquitoes as predators. Summer camp was happening once again and now you were officially qualified to be a Camp Monitor. You remembered ‘till this day all of your monitors and how they were the best people ever. They always made summers happier, even if you didn’t want to go camping that year. And now, you were one of them.

You were now waiting at the bus stop for the minivan who was supposed to pick up all the monitors. Asra and Nadia were casually talking, also waiting for the van as you decided to drift into your thoughts and imagine all the possibilities of the next three weeks.

“Excuse, are you also monitors?” Your head snapped at the source of the sudden voice.

Standing tall, the skinny but charming man had his cheeks red and his chest going up and down with exhaustion. The tips of his hair were sweaty and you realized he had opened a few buttons of his monitor shirt. Damn.

“Yes, we are! Are you the new monitor, Jason?” Nadia extended a polite hand to the red-haired man and he responded with a very excited handshake.

“Actually it’s Julian, but no worries” He then proceeded to shake Asra’s hand with the same vigor and turned to you.

Both your eyes lingered on each other’s for a while before sharing the last handshake of the moment. You just stood awkwardly close to each other waiting for the van to arrive.

The trip was really quiet and everyone seemed to be trapped in their own thoughts. You looked through the window, taking in all the beautiful nature around you. The closer you got to the camp, the fewer buildings and houses you would see, and more green would be presented to you. Memories of the past years you went to the camping site crossed your mind. Hiking, laughing close to the fire…your first kiss.

“The last to get out of the bus has to carry all the bags!” Asra joked and rushed out of the van, rapidly followed by Nadia.

You got up quickly, not wanting to face the punishment and bumped straight to what felt like a brick wall. Eyeing you down, the tall redhead held a chuckle and gave you enough space to pass through. You accepted and quickly waddled out of the van.

Of course, as an act of kindness, you decided to help Julian with all the bags. Most of them were easy to carry, but when you had to deal with Nadia’s, it took both of you and Asra to be able to move it to your shared room. Her excuse was something among the lines of “the weather is crazy in here, you never know what to expect”. Forecast who?

“So, why did you decide to become a camp monitor?” The sudden voice from behind your back spooked you. Turning slightly, you could see Julian’s soft smile towards you.

“Well, I’ve spent most of my summers coming here and I really enjoyed it. I always admired the monitors though. They were always so happy, full of life. It looked like they were having more fun than all of us. I had my chance to be one and I didn’t want to waste it. What about you?”

“Well…I’m actually here in a secret mission, you know. My younger sister is going to spend her vacation here and I, accidentally, overheard her talking to some friends about the reason. There’s this guy, a few years older than her, that’s also coming. I had to do my duty as a caring older brother and not let her do anything stupid”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little. I definitely didn’t picture him as an overprotective older brother. But it was a little cute though. We proceeded with the small talk until noon when we had to get together with the rest of the team and make the pair’s divisions. We waited in the cafeteria for a few minutes until a tree of a man showed up.

He had his long dark hair tied up in a man bun and his physic was more similar to an MMA fighter than to a logistics guy. He analyzed each one of our faces and looked at his clipboard, trying to match names, photos and whatever other notes he had taken previously. He then nodded to himself and proceeded to point at each one of us with his pen.

“Nadia and Asra, Fane and Pietros, Maika and Kilian, Julian and (Y/n)” We looked at each other simultaneously and gave each other a warm smile. The logistics guy, Muriel, just rolled his eyes at the common excitement and retrieved to the room he came from.

————————————————————————————————-

“OKAY, WHO’S READY FOR THE BEST TREASURE HUNT EVER?” I yelled at the top of my lungs and heard howls and excited screams coming from the twenty-five teenagers in front of me “Jules, would you like to explain the rules?”

Julian rubbed his hands together before saying each of the treasure hunt rules as if they were sacred. It was really funny to watch him get so into this job. As a result of spending almost three weeks together, always talking and planning activities, you were really close by now. Sometimes both of you would just sit under a tree in front of the lake instead of going to sleep and talk about everything and anything that popped into one of your heads at the moment. Of course, you couldn’t be spotted by any of the teens or else it would be a huge problem, but all of it being a secret between you made things even more exciting. After the main rules were given, he turned to me, and I knew what it meant.

“Now, there are ten riddles hidden in the campsite. You’re all familiarized with it by now, so it should be easy for everyone to guess where we should go next to look for the next clue. And now…LET’S WIN” A horn sounded in the middle of the woods and you ran towards the campfire place. All you knew was that the first clue was there and nothing else. Everything was also a mystery to you.

Your group was smart and after ten intense minutes, you all were headed to the final clue. Portia, who you later found out was Julian’s sisters, was coincidently in your group, and she had found the 9th clue. “ “What always runs but never walks, often murmurs, never talks, has a bed but never sleeps, has a mouth but never eats?” What kind of riddle is that?” She angrily questioned.

Marvin, the quiet kid in your group, raised his hand energetically “I know, I know! It’s a river!” And then, everyone ran like crazy towards the nearest river, and the only one we had seen since we arrived. There was a boat on the edge of the river with a sign saying “monitors only”.

Apparently, it was way too dangerous for the kids, but it was okay for us to take the risk. Damn Muriel. We alerted the teens to stay away from the water as Julian and I would get into the boat, get the clue and get out, as fast as possible. They all agreed and we ran towards the boat. I, somehow, managed to jump right into it, but Julian wasn’t that lucky. While jumping into it, he gave the boat some impulse, making us back away from the shore.

Obviously, my first instinct was to pull him inside the boat, but after that, we were both getting further and further away from the kids we were supposed to be watching.

“fuck. fuck fuck fuck fuck this shit. fuck.” Julian mutter to himself like a mantra and it was honestly making me nervous.

“Julian, do you know how to swim?” He looked at me and nodded vigorously. I grabbed the clue, held it tightly in a fist and pulled Julian up by his wrist. I counted to three and then felt the cold water absorbing me into darkness. Well, this is definitely different than the pool. Or the beach. Yeah, definitely different. I tried to swim up, hold onto something, but I had let go of Julian and now I felt completely desperate.

I could feel my fingertips getting colder by the second and my body becoming heavier. I couldn’t end like this. My heart was beating too fast for its own good and I was feeling the urge to breathe, but I couldn’t, or else it would be the end. My eyelids were slowly closing when I felt this sudden pressure on my wrist and then my body was being pulled upwards.

Air filled my lungs in a matter of seconds and a cough harshly came out of my throat. My savior, Julian, was smiling at me, his cheeks as red as an apple and his long hair sticking on his face. I felt a sudden urge and I knew I had to do it immediately. I grabbed his face and pulled him towards me, giving him a very passionate kiss. I ran my thumbs on his cheeks and he gave into the kids. Of course, it didn’t last very long since I was already out of breath, but it was totally worth it.

We swam to the shore being greeted with whistles, claps and a very disgusted Portia, complaining about how all that was very inappropriate and that she would tell Mazelinka. Even being wet, we managed to read the next little and rushed to the final point. We were the first group to get there, meaning we had won the treasure hunt. Our group won double dessert, they could stay awake until 2AM, and the monitors were allowed to use the hydro.

“Are you guys okay? What happened?” Asra asked when he arrived with his group in second place.

“Oh trust me, everything is fine” Julian replied, holding my hand.

After eating our deserved dessert and making sure everything was in its place, we headed to the hydro. He was already in it when I got there and I felt a little embarrassed to take off my robe in front of him, even if I was wearing a bathing suit underneath it. He, reading my thoughts, covered his eyes and gave me enough time to take the robe off and hop into the hydro, sitting across from him.

“Are you sure you want to sit there, so far? After basically harassing me, I thought you would want some closure” I splashed some water in him in a joking manner.

“Oh, please, I was just dizzy and wasn’t thinking straight. You can’t take rushed and unthought actions seriously.” He gave me a smug grin and slowly leaned closer, putting his finger under my chin.

“Are you still dizzy?”

“No”

“Good”

He brushed our lips together before closing the gap between our mouths. He was warmer than I expected and, just like magic, I was sitting on his lap, his hand firmly holding my hips and my arms around his neck. He separated the kiss and looked me deep in the eyes.

“ I really like you. I want to get to know you. I want to make you happy every day. I want to make your heart beat faster and your cheeks hurt from smiling so much. Will you let me?”

I leaned on his chest, his warmth comforting me. “Only if you let me do the same to you.”

——————————————————————————————————-

So   much    fluff    

I loved it!

[team-iron-wannabe-man]

Count on It

Title: Count on It

Pairing: 40��s!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 1285

Summary: Y/N isn’t too impressed with the Infamous Sergeant James B. Barnes, however Bucky is definitely interested in her.

A/N: 40′s Bucky just does things to me! This is my first Bucky fic! Please be kind. Tell your friends! Feedback would be greatly appreciated! Also, if you LOVE Supernatural like me, follow me on my SPN page: @squirrel-moose-winchester. I also write fan fiction there as well.

Disclaimer: Gif Not Mine.

The party was in full swing and through the crowded room, you managed to spot the infamous Sergeant James B. Barnes standing near the wall. The past few weeks, he had been coming around you, chatting you up, and flirting shamelessly. Tonight was no different. He’d been stealing glances at you as he sipped his drink, talking to his best friend, Steve Rogers. Whenever you saw Bucky with Steve, it was like he was a different person. If only he was that Bucky all the time. Steve-Bucky was a pleasant Bucky.

When it came to Steve, Bucky always had a soft spot for the fella. He was always keeping him out of trouble, reassuring Steve every time he felt discouraged. Overall, Bucky always acted like an overprotective, yet encouraging, big brother. It was admirable and – dare you say – your favorite thing about the man. The protective, humble, compassionate, and selfless part of him were all traits that made him extremely attractive. Not what he was most of the other times.

Not long after, as to be predicted, Dot came swarming around like a mosquito, causing you to roll your eyes. It was to be assumed that if Bucky was around, Dot was not far behind. The dame was obsessed.

Once Upon a time, she had been the affection in Bucky’s eyes, but when he suddenly stopped pursuing her, in favor of you, she started fawning over him, trying way too hard to gain back his attention. It was sad… and cringing to watch, even more so than having Bucky flirt with you.

Turning in your seat, you asked the bartender for another round, giving him a sweet smile as thanks. Swirling the amber liquid in your glass, you didn’t notice that you had company.

“What’s a rare dish like you doin’ all alone in a place like this?” Some Sad Sam slurred. You rolled your eyes inwardly, ignoring him. “Oh, c’mon. Don’t be like that. I can show you a real good time,” he continued to pester you.

“Look here, dogface. I ain’t interested, so scram,” You hissed.

“Playing hard to get?” He snickered. “I like a good ch—”

“I believe she made it clear that she wasn’t interested.” Your eyes widened slightly, surprised to see Bucky defending you, however you tried to keep your composure. You weren’t phased by Bucky Barnes. Not one bit. His charms weren’t going to affect me like all the other dames he’s accumulated under his belt.

“Tch. Whatever Barnes,” the guy scoffed and walked away without much of a fight.

Bucky shook his head disapprovingly before dropping his attention on you. “Are you okay?” He asked, his expression portraying real worry.

“Yeah. I’m just peachy. Thanks for that, but you really didn’t need to. I could have handled it.”

“Oh, Doll, I wouldn’t doubt it. I’ve seen you around. You’re quite the capable woman, but chivalry isn’t dead yet,” he winked.

Letting out a soft giggle at his ridiculousness, you looked up at him through your lashes. “With men like you, Sergeant, I’m sure it never will.”

Bucky smiled with pride, sticking his hand out. “Care for a d—”

“James! Is she alright?” Dot came barging in. The tramp had impeccable timing. “Y/N, are you okay? We saw what happened.”

“Oh, I’m doing swell,” you forced a smile.

“It’s a good thing that James was around to save the day,” she flattered, clinging to his arm.

“I sure am one lucky dame,” you grinned. “If you’ll excuse me, nature calls.” Bucky laughed, nodding his head before giving you some space to move.

“James, let’s dance,” you heard Dot say from behind, making you scoff in annoyance.

After freshening up a bit, you literally ran into Steve. “Whoa!” He jumped a little. “Hey there, Y/N!” He beamed, once he knew it was you. Steve wasn’t the smoothest guy when it came to dealing with women.

“Fancy meeting you here, Rogers,” you joked.

“Uh, yeah. Bucky invited me. Said I needed to let loose. Meet a nice girl…”

“Sounds like Barnes… but I have a better idea. Instead of waiting around for a nice girl, why don’t you ask a good friend to dance?” you quirked an eyebrow at the scrawny man. Steve may have not been the manliest looking man, but even with your heels on, he was still a tad bit taller than you.

“Um. Yeah. Of course,” he stammered apprehensively.

You couldn't help but laugh as his face went red, the poor guy getting nervous. “Rogers, we’re friends. Relax,” you cooed, giving him a warm reassuring smile.

He returned the gesture, the edge of his lips curling upwards, and nodded. “You’re right. Sorry. Y/N. W-would you like to dance?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” you beamed, assertively taking his hand and dragging him onto the dance floor.

You and Steve were having a great time, swaying and twirling to the jazzy music, and laughing between conversations. Steve had just twirled you under his arm when Bucky popped up beside the pair of you, with Dot in his arms.

“Mind if we join you?” Bucky asked with a wide grin. You noticed Bucky lean in slightly towards Steve, whispering something in his ear. “Punk, trying to steal my girl?”  If Bucky was trying to be discreet or subtle, he was failing. Even with the music blaring, you could here the words he spoke. Glancing over at Dot, her glare was all over you.

Great.

“Shut up, will ya? You and I both know that Y/N’s too good for you,” you watched Steve retort back, smugness spreading through your facial expression. Steve was right. You were too good for him. You deserved better than some womanizer, no matter how handsome or charming he may be.

Bucky laughed loudly, his head flying back before he patted his best friends shoulder. “Damn right she is.” He was whispering to Steve again, still loud enough for you to pick up on. “But that’s why she’s my girl. I’m gonna prove to her that I’ve got what it takes!” Bucky expressed passionately, a huge smile adorning his manly features.

Steve smiled, never seeing or hearing Bucky talk about a woman that way before. Bucky had never referred to a girl as his, not even Dot, and the man had proclaimed that he was in love with her, that is until you showed up. That first meeting was one he and Bucky was never going to forget. How could they?

It was at a bar in downtown Brooklyn. Someone tried to steal your purse, but you managed to not only stop the perpetrator, you knocked him out. He’d never seen a woman so fierce and fearless as you. It was even more of a surprise when they found out that you were the Command Sergeant Major’s daughter! But ultimately, it was your right hook that made Bucky fall.

In support of his friend, Steve decided to do Bucky a favor. You’re only as good of a wingman and you are a friend, so… “hey, how about we switch partners for a bit?” Steve suggested to the trio in front of him.

Dot looked like she was about to protest but Bucky jumped at the idea before she could, seizing the opportunity, he had no doubt, Steve had set up.

“Steve, you punk! You know I love you right?” Bucky hugged his friend before taking your hand in his. “Shall we?” He beamed. His smile was so contagious that you couldn’t help yourself. You’d give him an A+ for trying.

“You haven’t won yet, Sergeant Barnes,” you smirked, shaking your head at him.

“But I will, Doll. I will… you can count on it.”

---

A/N: Hope you guys liked it! If you did, feedback would be awesome! I’d really appreciate it. Also, thank you for reading. I really do hope it wasn’t terrible.

[roman-writing]

no end in sight (7/7)

Fandom: World of Warcraft

Pairing: Jaina Proudmoore/Thalyssra

Rating: T

Wordcount: 4,145

Summary: Jaina goes to Suramar seeking aid after leaving the Kirin Tor. An AU exploring the events post-Theramore and Jaina’s recovery during Legion.

Read it here on AO3 or read it below the cut

“But the landscape of devastation is still a landscape. There is beauty in ruins.”

— Susan Sontag, from ‘Regarding The Pain Of Others’

--

“You will get used to it,” they told her. “Eventually.”

Jaina did not believe them. 

The enchanted wrappings were gone, but some days she still felt like an Ethereal. It was something about the ground. Sometimes, even a week after her body had been fully healed, it felt as though the earth did not exist beneath her feet. As though she walked upon a pane of glass above the distant drop of the void far below.

She no longer felt an uncomfortable rush of mana when she stood on leylines, but she still avoided stepping on them for the first week. It was an automatic reaction she could not control, flinching when she expected to be burned. Jaina could not tell if this was made better or worse by the fact that she could no longer physically see the leylines. She could sense their vague location, but it was more like the buzz of a mosquito forever flitting just out of sight. 

“Oh, that’s just how it is for us,” Valtrois said when Jaina questioned her about it. 

They were standing over a darkened teleportation pad in Oculeth’s corner of Shal’Aran. Oculeth himself was on his hands and knees, attempting to repair the teleportation pad, which had gone dark the day before without warning, the portal anchored above it winking out of existence with a splutter. Jaina and Valtrois had their hands full of various tools, but weren’t paying any attention to what he was doing.

Jaina still wore the enchanted mask. Shal’Aran was bustling with more people than ever. And now that the Nightborne had a reliable cure to mana addiction, the final fight against the Legion began in earnest. Whispers of the Dusk Lily’s insurrection grew into murmurs, grew into shouts, grew into warsongs. High ranking members of both the Horde and Alliance flooded to Suramar daily.

For all her talk to Farodin about choosing sides, Jaina still hadn’t picked hers openly.

“Us?” Jaina repeated. Wordlessly, Oculeth held out his hand, and she placed a mote extractor into it. His fingers closed around the handle, and he continued working with the instrument.

“Us. Nightborne. And, well -” Valtrois gave Jaina the once-over with her gaze. “-whatever you are now.”

“Alive,” Oculeth supplied helpfully. Though he did not look up, he did give the mote extractor a little wave for emphasis. 

“She was never dead to begin with.” Valtrois took the mote extractor and replaced it with a scoped barrel forged from leystone ore. 

“Technically -”

“No, not even technically,” Valtrois snapped waspishly.

“Technically,” Oculeth continued, undeterred. He mounted the scoped barrel into a hollow section of the transportation pad made by disassembling its metal facing. “One could make the argument that she was neither living nor dead when she was an Ethereal.”

Valtrois looked at Jaina and her voice was flat. “Don’t listen to him. You were always alive.”

All too well Jaina remembered what it had felt like. It hadn’t been that long ago, after all. The sensation of drifting through space and time like an unquantifiable entity, untethered by death or physical feeling. 

In a way, she agreed with Oculeth, but she certainly didn’t say that aloud. Mostly because she didn’t want to think about it too hard herself. 

A thought struck her, and she said, “And what about now?”

At that, both Oculeth and Valtrois peered at her with curious expressions. Oculeth had paused in his work to answer, “I would wager you’re very much alive, Lady Proudmoore.”

“No, I mean -” Jaina had to pause to collect her thoughts and place them all in neat order. “Nightborne and humans have vastly different lifespans, but you said it yourself: I’m neither here nor there, so to speak. So, what happens now?”

For a moment, neither of them responded. Then, Valtrois tapped an instrument against her opposite hand and said, “The inscriptions make it so that your physical body acts the same way the enchanted wrappings do for Ethereals. They both contain your energy, channel it, and stop your body from further deterioration.”

“Which,” Oculeth added, his words slow and thoughtful, “could also refer to aging. We can’t be sure for certain how long you will live now. As long as other Nightborne? I doubt it.”

“But longer than any human,” Valtrois said.

“Oh, without a doubt,” he agreed. “Could I please have the -? Thank you.”

Valtrois handed him a vial of what appeared to be thick, viscous demon’s blood. It burned with fel-green energy and stank of sulfur when he unstoppered the vial and poured a few drops of its contents down the hollow leyline barrel. The interactions between them were, as always, comfortable. They moved with an ease in each other’s presence, the same way they did with Thalyssra and even with Jaina. 

They were the same people, Jaina knew. They moved, acted, and sounded the same, but they looked so completely different. It had been nearly two weeks now since Jaina had been unwrapped and declared stable, and still she had a difficult time reconciling the fact that these people were the same Valtrois and Oculeth who had dragged her into one of the most genuine friendships she’d formed in -- well. Far too long. 

Not to mention Thalyssra. But that was different again.

Jaina pushed that nascent thought aside very quickly. Thalyssra was too busy for any sort of nonsense these days. Which is what that sort of dreadful, sinking hope was: nonsense. Nothing good would come of it, Jaina was sure. 

There was no getting used to this. She kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. This was an unreal existence. She peered around every corner as if expecting something to leap from the shadows. She encountered every good fortune with suspicion. Hope was dangerous. Hope was frightening. Hope had failed her in the past. Hope was not something she had ever thought to feel again. Certainly not like this.  

“Is everything alright?” Valtrois asked.

Jaina started. It took her a moment to realise that Valtrois was not speaking to her but to Oculeth.

He removed the barrel from the ground, setting it and the vial aside so that he could study the dismantled teleportation pad and scratch at the top of his head. “On this end everything is fine, but that’s precisely what worries me. It means Thalyssra was right. The teleporter for the Waning Crescent was intentionally tampered with on the other side.”

Valtrois sighed out an elegant and exaggerated, “Fuck.” 

“My thoughts exactly.”

“So, who did it?” Jaina asked. 

Oculeth began putting the teleportation pad back together, sliding the heavy metal plate back into place. “I have an inkling, but we should send one of our Horde friends to investigate inside the city itself. Valtrois, would you update Thalyssra and ask if -?”

“Already on it.” Valtrois was walking towards Oculeth’s heavy work station, and placed the tools she had been holding atop the desk. She did not bother lining them up neatly. She made an abortive movement towards the stairs spiraling beneath the arcan’dor, but stopped. Suddenly, she whirled about, her eyes narrowed, and pointed at Jaina. “Don’t go anywhere. You’re not allowed to leave without saying goodbye.”

Jaina blinked, taken aback. “I wasn’t planning on it.” 

Valtrois gave her a knowing look.

Shifting her weight between her feet, Jaina added guiltily, “Not anymore, at least.”

With a suspicious grunt, Valtrois said to Oculeth, “Fix her with a tracking beacon.”

“I said I wouldn’t!” Jaina insisted, indignant.

“That won’t be necessary,” Oculeth said, affixing magnetic bonds to the teleportation plate so that it stayed put.

“Thank you!” Jaina said. 

“Those leyline inscriptions of hers have a unique enough magical signature. She’s like a piece of the Nightwell floating around, and -- once known -- that signature could pinpoint her in a crowded street.”

“Good,” Valtrois said, turning to leave once more. 

Jaina opened her mouth to protest, but whatever she had been about to say died on her lips. She glanced down at the back of one hand. The runic markings etched into her skin gleamed, infused with their own silvery light that pulsed with every heartbeat. 

Ever since the arcane wrappings had been removed, she no longer endured headaches or itching. She could cast spells of any calibre without threat of self-collapse, a theory which she had tested only a few days ago, when she and Thalyssra had gone just south of Moonguard Stronghold for precisely that purpose. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and Jaina’s spellcasting had felt exactly as it had before the destruction of Theramore. Apart from the heightened sensation of mana flowing through every vein, as if the procedure now made her aware of even the barest trace of arcane energy within herself. And perhaps it did. 

Oculeth rose to his feet and dusted off his hands. Valtrois had descended the stairs in search of Thalyssra, leaving him and Jaina in relative solitude. As alone as anyone got in Shal’Aran these days. 

His usual smile was gone, but there remained a softness around his keen eyes. “You could veil your magical signature so that nobody would be any the wiser. I could teach you, but it would require you to maintain concentration for that duration of the effect.”

Jaina considered that, then shrugged. “So long as you’re the only people who know it, I don’t mind.”

That familiar smile of his returned, but it was small. “Have you asked Thalyssra about why she chose these particular designs for your tattoos?” 

“No.” She moved to set down the instruments she was holding beside those Valtrois had dumped atop the workbench. Except Jaina did it with far more care for the instruments themselves. “Does it matter?”

Oculeth answered with a noncommittal hum. “Physiologically speaking? Not a whit. Socially speaking? In vast amounts.” 

He moved to stand beside her, and she allowed him to gently take her hand. He lifted it between them. He brushed his thumb against the tattoo on the back of her hand, nudging the cloth of her sleeve up her arm to reveal where the inscriptions wove along her wrist. His own markings stood out against his skin, the contrast stark in comparison to Jaina’s paler complexion. 

“To my people, these are signs. Signifiers.” Oculeth dropped her hand. “You’ve been branded. Wouldn’t you like to know what it means?”

Jaina’s fingers curled into a fist. She had to force her hand to unclench. “I’ll be sure to ask next time.”

--

That was only somewhat of a lie. Jaina was too afraid to broach the topic. In the rare occasions where she screwed her courage to the sticking place, Thalyssra always appeared so busy. Jaina would approach during the day to find Thalyssra engaged in deep conversation with Champions of the Horde and Alliance. During the evening, Jaina stood in the doorway to Thalyssra’s private study two floors beneath the bustle of Shal’Aran, and Thalyssra would be hunched over her desk, so entrenched in her work that she would not notice Jaina’s presence hovering behind her. Once, Jaina found Thalyssra sleeping at her desk, head pillowed by an open book. She still had a quill held loosely between her fingers. 

Jaina let her be. Thalyssra did not need any interruption to her already hectic life, what with all the rebel-rousing and insurgency. 

It was a flimsy excuse, even by her standards. But Jaina clung to it nonetheless. 

That being said, it was a difficult excuse to cling to when Thalyssra approached her instead.

“I’ve been saving this for a special occasion.” Thalyssra held a bottle of arcwine in her hands. It was one of the same bottles that Jaina had brought back from the Twilight Vineyards. That felt like so long ago. “Will you join me?”

Jaina hesitated. She was currently helping Valtrois pass out fruit of the arcan’dor to new arrivals at Shal’Aran. Before she could say anything however, Valtrois took the basket of fruit from her hands and said, “Go. I can do this by myself.”

Jaina went. 

“If you don’t want to we can -” Thalyssra started to say, but Jaina shook her head with a smile.

“No, no. A glass of wine sounds lovely.”

Jaina started towards the stairs, assuming they would be heading down to Thalyssra’s private study, only for a hand on her arm to stop her.

Thalyssra tilted her head. “This way. I thought we might go outside for a change. It’s a warm evening.”

They walked towards the teleportation pads in a corner of Shal’Aran. Oculeth was conspicuously absent, his tools lying about. The portal to the Waning Crescent had been restored, but another portal had been sectioned off with a length of silk rope. 

Thalyssra ducked beneath the rope barrier. “I asked Oculeth to restrict traffic through this one temporarily.”

And without further explanation, she stepped through the portal. Jaina lingered for a moment. Steeling herself, she followed. 

The ruins of Elune’eth overlooked the valley of Meredil. In the distance, the spires of Suramar raked the sky, the Nightwell’s tower foremost among them. The shield surrounding Suramar shimmered in the early evening light like a soap bubble, transparent yet full of colour. 

It was indeed a lovely, warm evening. Spring had draped itself across Suramar. New green shoots broke the loam, and the trees were flowering, purple and white. Thalyssra crossed over to a fallen pillar stretched along the ground and strewn with violet-veined ivy. 

Jaina blinked. Cushions, and wineglasses, and a plank of light food had already been artfully arranged. Either Thalyssra did not notice her hesitation, or chose not to react, for she sat facing the city view, and unstoppered the wine. 

“I don’t know if you realised,” Thalyssra said without turning around. “But you stole a fine vintage for us that day. This has been aged for no less than four centuries.”

They were alone. Jaina cast a quick glance around before removing her mask. Then she moved to sit beside Thalyssra, folding her legs, cross-legged, upon the cushions. She picked up a glass and held it out for Thalyssra to pour the wine. The mask she left on the ground, forgotten. “So, what’s the occasion?”  

“The beginning of the end.” Thalyssra poured one glass, and then the other. She gave the bottle a little twist as she stopped pouring, so as not to spill a single drop. She set the bottle aside. “I’ve just received news that good friend and ally has just been rescued from the Terrace of Order. As we speak, the sigil of the rebellion will be flying over his empty cage.”

Despite the apparent good news, Thalyssra lifted her glass towards Jaina in a mocking salute, before taking a large drink. 

Jaina turned her own glass slowly in her hands, rotating it by the delicate stem. “And yet you sound less than thrilled?”

Thalyssra sighed. She stared into the tide-dark wine of her glass. “I am happy, of course. Finally, we have sparked the rebellion into a wildfire. With it however comes a whole host of other worries.”

“Such as?” Jaina sipped at her wine. There was a heady slope of warmth upon the tongue, more like a mulled wine absent the bite of hard winter spices. 

Reaching into a pocket -- Light only knew where she kept pockets on an outfit like that -- Thalyssra pulled out a folded letter. “I have a meeting with this archmage of yours.” Thalyssra tapped the closed letter against the bowl of her glass. “What was his name again?”

“Khadgar?” 

“Yes. That’s the one.”

Jaina frowned and lifted the glass to her lips for another sip. “How could you not remember his name? I thought you two knew each other.”

The tilt of Thalyssra’s head was inquisitive. “I have never met the man.”

“But -” Slowly Jaina lowered the wine. “That can’t be right. He’s the one who arranged my coming here in the first place. And he said he’d asked you about my condition and whereabouts.”

With a vague wave of her wine glass, Thalyssra said, “I received exactly two letters from the Archmage of the Kirin Tor.” She paused, glancing down at the letter in her hand, then added, “Well, three, actually. If you count the latest correspondence from the warfront.”

“You really just took in a known war criminal without question?”

“Look around,” Thalyssra gestured back towards Shal’Aran, “I’ve surrounded myself with known war criminals. It just depends on who you ask.” 

Jaina laughed, soft and incredulous, and shook her head. “I spent so much of my time here thinking that you were only doing this to curry favour with the Kirin Tor and -- I don’t know -- earn some of their resources for your own means.”

“The same way you thought I was playing both the Horde and the Alliance against one another for my own means?”

“Well, weren’t you?”

Thalyssra’s answering smile glinted with a sharp flash of teeth. “Oh, yes. But that does not mean we cannot hold two opposing ideas in our minds simultaneously. Cunning does not preclude compassion.” 

Being on the receiving end of that look, Jaina could not stop the flush that heated her cheeks. Perhaps it was the wine. She took another drink. As she did so, Thalyssra gazed out towards the city. Despite her smile earlier, she held her jaw taut. 

“You’re worried,” Jaina realised aloud. 

Thalyssra did not answer immediately. She stared out across the night-washed land, her expression clearly visible even beneath the shadow cast by her hood. She worried the letter with her fingers, bright and nimble and rapping the folded parchment against her knee again and again. 

“I have been many things in life. A mage and a teacher before the Sundering. A coward along with the rest of Suramar during the War of the Ancients. A revolutionary only when no other option was available to me. And none of these things help me be a better diplomat.” Thalyssra snorted, a derisive sound. “Most days I feel like a fraud calling myself a leader. What will Tyrande say? My kin of old remember me as one of the Highborne they fought against so bitterly for so long. Worse, they’ll think of my people as relics, ruins of a time when we were great and noble and just, but no longer. How can I possibly convince them Suramar is worth saving?”

Reaching out, Jaina placed her hand over Thalyssra’s to stop her from fidgeting with the letter. Thalyssra’s nervous movements stilled, and Jaina said, "You convinced me that I was worth saving."

Thalyssra snorted softly. "A task for the legends."

"The stuff of heroes.” Jaina looked down at where she stroked the back of Thalyssra’s hand with her thumb. It was easier than meeting her eyes. Even so, when Jaina spoke she could hardly believe the words that came from her mouth. “Even if I might be able to convince Tyrande to drop a ten thousand year old grudge,” she said, "the Kirin Tor have already proven they aren't willing to listen to me. The Alliance are as dedicated to stopping the Legion as any. If all you need to secure their support is to let them think they will be driving away the Legion and destroying the Nightwell in the process, then -”

Jaina let her voice trail off suggestively. Hesitantly, she glanced up to find that Thalyssra was studying her with a veiled expression. “Lady Jaina Proudmoore, are you encouraging me to use the Alliance with the full intention of joining the Horde?”

“I suppose I am.” Jaina grimaced as though a bad taste lingered on the back of her tongue. She tapped her thumb against Thalyssra’s knuckles in faux admonishment before removing her hand. “Don’t make me say it again, though.”

Thalyssra laughed, and the sound was warm, as warm as her gaze. “You’ve come a long way since first we met.”

“Thanks to you. And Oculeth and Valtrois, I suppose,” Jaina added. “Don’t tell them I said that though.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

“I know.”

Thalyssra tossed the letter aside to refill her own glass, and held up the bottle towards Jaina in a silent question. Jaina held her glass out to be refilled. For a while all they did was drink in peace and comfortable talk, broken only by moments of easy silence. The wooden plank piled with food diminished, and the blunt little knife perched atop it gathered crumbs. 

Night began to sweep towards the dimmed horizon, and far-flung stars dotted the sky. Like this, Thalyssra seemed more in her element than ever, cast all in twilight and dusky hues. It was all too easy to remember her as the withered mimicry of herself from not so long ago. 

Jaina caught herself staring, and looked abruptly away. She buried her nose in her glass. Beside her, Thalyssra leaned forward to pluck one of the last dark grapes from its vine upon the platter, and eat it. The tattoos upon her arms gleamed in the early evening light. 

Mouth dry despite the drink, Jaina said, “Oculeth told me that I should ask you about my tattoos. Do you know what he meant?”

Thalyssra paused, but it was so small a thing that Jaina wouldn’t have noticed if she had not been watching for a reaction. She seemed to mull over her answer. “I told you once that Nightborne have natural markings that are similar across families. That is true. They are hereditary, but unique. They are demarcations of familial resemblance, like height or hair colour.” She reached out to ghost her fingertips across the markings that glowed on Jaina’s cheek. “These are my family’s markings.”

Jaina’s breath caught in her chest as Thalyssra pulled her hand away. “So, every Nightborne who looks at me will think we’re related somehow?”

“In a sense. From what I understand about humans, Nightborne kinship groups are very different. You might call someone a cousin, but we have specific terminology for everyone’s distinct relation to one another. To call Valtrois my cousin, for instance, would be technically correct, but inadequately descriptive.”

“And what would you call her?”

“There is no exact translation. She is my third cousin’s wife’s sister’s niece on her father’s side but my mother’s side.”

Jaina stared at her. “I swear you just said words right then, but Light knows what they meant.”

That earned a laugh. “It means: you have nothing to worry about. The markings don’t have to mean anything, unless you want them to. After all, what other markings was I supposed to give you? I was always under the impression you were going to leave Suramar after your procedures were finished. How many Nightborne would you ever encounter elsewhere that would make this matter?”

The thought of leaving made Jaina’s stomach clench. When she spoke her voice sounded faint even to her own ears. “I could - I could stay. I could help with your Alliance diplomacy.”

"It's kind of you to offer, but that's not why I would want you to stay."

Jaina looked away. She felt a gentle touch at her chin, turning her back to face Thalyssra. Her head was buzzing with warmth and energy, like the thrum of mana beneath her skin. 

“This was a bad idea,” Jaina murmured. “I did not think it would affect me this much.”

“The wine?”

“No,” Jaina breathed. “No, not that.”

Thalyssra had placed her own glass aside. One of her hands still lingered upon Jaina’s chin, and her thumb traced a line just beneath Jaina’s lower lip. “I would have you stay of your own accord. Not because you have nowhere else to go. Not because this is the only path available to you.”

Before she could think about what she was doing, Jaina allowed her own hand to drift up and grasp Thalyssra’s wrist. She did not pull Thalyssra’s hand away, but instead held it in place, maintaining that touch. “I want to. Even for a little while. One day I will have to leave, but until then -”

“You are always welcome here. For as long as you would like.” Thalyssra moved her hand to curl her fingers at Jaina’s jawline, the pad of her thumb brushing the corner of Jaina’s mouth until Jaina almost forgot how to breath. 

“I want them to mean something. The markings,” Jaina admitted in a rush. “I don’t know what exactly that entails, but I want it.”

Thalyssra smile. Her eyes were twilit, and her words were soft. “They can mean whatever you like.”

“Thalyssra, if you don’t kiss me already, I swear I -”

She did. And for the first time in a long time, sitting amongst the ruins of an ancient civilisation, this was a place that felt like home.