#a defensive tactic of sorts | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

daylighted · 3 months ago

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HEY, JUDE ㅤ₊ ㅤ˚ ㅤ✧ ㅤ ﾟ ㅤ. ㅤ☾

☽ㅤdetails, or, dean never expected to have a family of his own, and his expectations hold true when all that becomes of it is a baby who looks identical to you.

☽ㅤincludes, single dad!dean, girl dad!dean, reader exists in mentions, self deprecation, grief, blood mentions, death mentions, i am so sorry

word count: 7.1k

baby girl.

“hey, jude,” he murmurs softly into his baby girl’s ear, cradling the fussing, teary eyed infant to his chest. she was still so little — so fucking little — but he wasn’t sure when being little shifted from something to coo over to something to fuss over. and he doesn’t have much comparison to go off of, over what is too small, not when everything shrinks in the expanse of his biceps.

it is not the first time he wishes you were still around, but instead another tack on the growing list.

he is so fucking useless without you. he really is. and it only hits him now, in the dead of night when his little girl won’t stop crying like something aches or something’s wrong, and he’s completely at a loss on how to fix it.

he couldn’t fix losing you; and now he can’t fix her. he’s all she’s got left, and he’s failing her.

those thoughts are a plague. they fester. they gnaw on his skin and feast on his blood and whittle his bones. and he is so sick, and he is so lost, that he couldn’t find his way to a cure if he tried.

jude is wailing now, and he’s seconds from joining her. he doesn’t know, still, the difference in a baby’s cries. he did not nurse her for nine months in his belly, like you did; the internal guidebook on fatherhood was not automatically installed into him when she was brought out to be cradled by you that very first time. his was a manual installation, and it was still, seven months in, fucking lagging.

“m’sorry, jude,” he whispers into the soft hair gracing the top of her head. it’s the same color as yours. the only thing she inherited from him was his eyes, and he hates looking into them and seeing every failure he’d made so far reflected back at him.

all he can do is rock her, until she stops her fussing or she doesn’t, and then he can switch tactics. he doesn’t think often about the military-sort of childhood that he was raised in, but it comes up every time in times like this, when his methods of defense present themselves in tactics.

the cradling tactic: for when jude wailed like she was grieving, like she’d sobbed so hard in her dreams that it broke into real life. there was no way that little girl remembered your face, but sometimes he thought that she missed your voice, with the way his never seemed to soothe her in times like this.

the food tactic: for when it was clear that the cradling tactic didn’t work. sometimes her lips opened and closed like a fish’s, and he could skip the first step entirely and go to this one. maybe he wasn’t entirely useless as a father, after all, if he subconsciously knew this little tell of hers. he’d never let himself think so kindly of himself for long, though.

the diaper tactic: no explanation needed. this one he could always tell when was necessary. sometimes, it’d linger like the plague in his blood, and then he’d had to dive into,

the bath tactic: which jude hated. god, she fucking hated baths, almost like she could tell that warmth was the thing that took you from the both of them. that’s why sometimes, even when it felt awful, he let her cry while he sat idly in the rocking chair beside her crib. didn’t want to stress her out more with his lack of coherency when it came to what she needed — and that little fact, that he thought it upset her more sometimes when he tried to be the thing to fill the missing, bleeding wound that was you.

in his arms as he rocked her, jude’s little mouth opened and closed. her cries were still ear piercing and raw, but at least he could do something about it now. he nearly sighs in relief the moment that she gives him that little hint, like she can tell, in her infancy, that he was incapable of this on his own.

she’d moved away from bottles long before, and upgraded to the wonderful world of mashed vegetables and fruits. though, she hated new flavors. he thought it was a game, in a way; always making him have the first tiny spoonful of pureed asparagus. he felt like a bodyguard in moments like those, testing if the princess’s food was poisoned before she got a taste.

but it was late, and she didn’t need any of the cereals that they’d been working on, too — though, he really would never have argued with stealing a couple or a couple dozen of those little strawberry banana things.

and she was spoiled, despite all of his worries that he was failing her. she’d get to stay in his arms while she ate, instead of the high chair he should have been adjusting her to.

oh well. add it to the tallied list on how he was fucking up his — your — little girl. he could take it.

“feelin’ midnight snacky, is that it?” he asks, so softly, always so softly like any increase to his volume will shatter her. honestly, he thought that she was the strongest person he’d ever met, and she wasn’t even a year old yet. she could only grow up to impress him — and ruin him, with how she was already turning into a mini you.

she still cried, because she always cried until her problem was fixed in its entirety, but the sobs had broken and given way to sniffles and unintelligible noises that sounded too close to mama for his comfort.

mama, mama, mama. shit— how did he tell her that he missed her, too? how does someone baby-talk down the fact that she was dead, and there was nothing, nothing, nothing left anymore without her?

well, except for jude, of course. and what a stark reminder that is, that she’s all he has left of you.

tonight’s snack was mashed carrots. the last one of that flavor, because it was jude’s favorite. had to be because it was such a stark color, the color of the deepest sunsets, one of the things that you loved the most.

he pops the top with one hand, the other still cradling this tiny thing that was his daughter to his chest. the metal lid clatters to the ground, and he winces, thinking that the noise is only going to startle and break his daughter’s heart more. but to his surprise, as he dips his hand into the drawer of silverware, now mostly full of those baby sized spoons with zoo animals on the handles, jude is silent.

not just silent, but curious. dean knows the curious look, even if he doesn’t know how to differentiate most of her expressions still. it’s because it’s the same as yours used to be. lips parted, eyes wide, darting around. it’s more devastating on jude, though, because she has the longest eyelashes, and the smallest little lips, so small he can hear every breath she draws in as she searches for what captured her attention.

dean smiles to himself. it’s these moments where he doesn’t feel quite so much like a terrible father; when his little girl has stopped wailing, and looks at him for every answer he might have.

maybe by the time she’s grown, he’ll have some of those answers.

toddler.

“hey, jude,” dean snaps his fingers to capture jude’s attention, his expression flat and exasperated at once, “get the remote out of your chompers, alright? don’t know where all it’s been.”

really, he doesn’t know. at one point or another: between the couch cushions, underneath the rocking chair cushion — every damn cushion, really, the dusty floor, the clean floor. hell, it’d probably been in his mouth before, when his hands were too occupied with a beer and a plate. wouldn’t put it past him.

jude is becoming a sassy little thing. she does specifically what he tells her not to, even at her ripe age of four, when she’s just barely beginning to figure out she’s a person.

you didn’t even back talk him this much, when you were around, which leaves the answers for his many internal, baffled questions to be that jude had gotten it from him.

karma always does get its kiss, eventually. its kiss was in the form of a toddler with his attitude, his eyes, and your face.

she looked so much like you now.

her little button nose was filling out in the shape of yours, her eyes were as big as yours, and she was so little compared to him, just like you’d been. she was in the in-between stage of her growing, small chubby limbs that made her whine every night, thumb still in her mouth because he can’t, can’t, bring himself to stop that little habit.

if dean could keep her this little and innocent forever, he would. fuck, he would. it was selfish, to want to preserve this tiny little girl in a box and keep her on his shelves, but the thought of watching her grow into a version of you…

it was easier, now, that a few years had passed. never easy, and never simple, but easier. his feelings were still complex, still bottled up deep within him and ignored, where the oddest things sometimes could send him into a spiral. sam would come, pick up his pieces and keep him from doing something stupid, and the cycle of denial would repeat.

but every day, dean swore he saw more of you in her. if it wasn’t the fact she was a mini you, it was the way she acted. hence the attitude — which, realistically, was all his own, but why would he ever vocalize that out loud?

jude stomps her bare foot on the hardwood, her little face scrunched up with so much volition you’d think he beheaded all of her teddy bears, and she was coming to enact revenge on him for it. “why?”

oh, you used to do that too. that angry why at him instead of just trusting that whatever he said was with good intentions, or to the best of his knowledge, fact.

dean stands in front of her at his towering height, staring down at this knee-height little girl with bows in her hair, and a little sundress that she’d fought and fought him about putting on. it’s a battle of centuries.

jude breaks first. another foot stomp. her hand holding the remote is raising suspiciously slowly back to her mouth.

“juliet.” dean tries to make his voice sound stern and commanding but he can never quite manage it with his little girl. that’s his princess, alright? “don’t make me go get mr. bear bear.”

that used to get her. it used to get her so bad that she’d cry, thinking he was going to send mr. bear bear packing. that’s probably why he has such a hard time scolding jude — because any time he did, she’d start bawling. it had to be a manipulation tactic.

at least he was aware of it, even if he fell for it everytime.

“mr. bear bear isn’t talkin’ t’you.”

dean bristles. “and what does mr. bear bear think i did this time, huh? is he mad i made you brush your teeth?”

it’s ridiculous, standing in the middle of his living room, having a cowboy showdown with his four year old daughter about a stuffed animal named mr. bear bear. but that’s parenthood, he guesses.

her arms cross firmly over her chest. in this moment, and this moment alone, he sees himself in her. he’s standing just like that too. “he says,” she starts, interrupted by a hiccup that discredits all of his arguments, because he’s a goner. already wants to swoop her into his arms and apologize to her. “he says you make things up.”

vague. and true. but how does mr. bear bear know this? frankly, none of his business, if you asked dean.

“what’s he sayin’ i’m lyin’ about?” dean shoots back, his head tilting up in that cocky little sneer that jude loves. good cop, bad cop is her favorite game to play with him, even though her version of a good cop includes smashing her toy cars into his leg to make him confess. it works, though. his bruises prove it.

as if on cue, jude’s giggling up a storm, interrupted only by bursts of her hiccups. “lyin’ about mommy.”

the floor drops out from beneath him. he feels nauseous. he feared this day coming and here it was. the first time she brought you up, too much intelligence in that little brain of hers, to know that it just wasn’t common to not have a mommy alongside your bad cop daddy.

he keeps a brave face, though. bad cops don’t break persona the first time something detrimental gets dropped into their lap. “go bring ‘im out here. lemme give him a talkin’ to, too.”

she sprints off, so steady on her little feet now that it adds to the ache in his chest. she was getting so much bigger, and you weren’t here to see it. maybe you were looking down, watching as her tiny form grew taller and stronger. he could hope, couldn’t he?

jude returns moments later, soft brown teddy bear in her arms. his little bowtie is a mockery of him, if what jude says that he says is true.

in his heart, he knows that all of the things that the bear tells her are her own thoughts, manifesting in a gentler form so that it doesn’t hurt her as badly when they do. it breaks his heart. so little, and she’s already gotten a defense mechanism in place.

dean kneels down to be eye level with jude, gingerly plucking mr. bear bear out of her small fingers. “a certain pretty princess told me you were mad at me, sir,” he says, voice lowered like it was just him and this fucking bear, ear forever wet from jude’s gnawing, even though he’d thought she’d gotten over that fixation. he’ll feel like an idiot for having a serious, talk-it-out conversation later with his daughter’s teddy bear, but for now, her feelings are more important to him. always. “i’ll be honest, bear bear, i have been keeping things from the pretty princess. your feelings are very valid.”

he’s quoting things from his therapist, now. to a teddy bear. they don’t tell you a thing about parenthood before you get into it, but they certainly don’t tell you this.

“i just didn’t want her to think that it was her fault, not at all, about what happened to her mommy. surely you understand. you and i, we keep our pretty princess safe, don’t we?” he even pauses for an answer that won’t come, his eyes flicking over to his little girl, her folded hands in front of her as she patiently waits. she’s so sweet that it kills him. “mama didn’t go away on a business trip, you’re right. mama died, very tragically, while protecting our pretty princess. and it’s not her fault, and not our girl’s, either.”

there’s a little sniffle from behind the bear in his hands, and he looks up to see jude, eyes welled and lip wobbly in that way that makes his heart ache. just like when she was a baby, when her screams shattered his heart to pieces, but worse, because her tears were silent now, like she was trying to soothe it all away herself.

she didn’t have to. that’s why he was there. dean hands her back the bear, and in that same movement, scoops her into his arms in a tight embrace. instantly, she falls apart at the seams, her shoulders shaking as the stuffing pours from the buttons of her eyes.

“she would have loved you,” he whispers into the top of her head, smoothing out the tangly strands with his fingers. you really would have loved her, too. she humbled him — you humbled him. she broke his heart, you broke his heart.

maybe she’d forgive him one day, for letting something happen to you when he promised he wouldn’t, when he swore up and down that you were it for him, that you wouldn’t—

it’s too much. even when dean feels like he’s getting better with this grief thing, he can’t move past it. not when there’s a smaller you attached to his hip, waiting for him to hang the world for her and protect her, too.

he can only hope that he gets it right this time.

child.

“hey! jude!” dean stands out on the sidewalk before the elementary school, seeing jude off on her first day of third grade. in his hands is her little lunchbox, ever forgotten in her excitement.

every single first day, dean cries. he’s not ashamed of it, either. it’s tough seeing his little girl run off into the real world on her own, and being the one to see her off, all on his lonesome.

it wasn’t like the single moms didn’t try to catch his attention, either. they constantly did. it was that he preferred the isolation over the company every time. how could anyone hold a candle to you?

jude glances over her shoulder, her long hair flipping in the process, catching in the wind. he has to bite back a sigh. the braid’s already loose, the strands already spilling out of it, tangling in the wind.

her little feet stomp back toward him, splashing in the remnants of last night’s rain in the concrete,and dean wants to tell her to slow down. wants to tell her to stop time, stay exactly like this. young, small, forever protected by him. just to prove to himself that he could protect something, and that he’d never have to see her hurt.

“thanks, daddy!” she lisps through her wide, toothy grin. she’s got the cutest gap tooth right now from losing one of her front teeth in a burger a few days ago, the pink gums peeking from between her middle teeth making him smile every single time he saw it. she was never embarrassed, or shy, about that smile, either.

her hand is outstretched for the lunchbox. pink and purple and glittery, and one of the most expensive at the store. anything for his jude, though.

dean keeps it back from her, his chin tilting up in mock sternness. “what do we do if people are mean to us?” he asks in a reminder of their rules. he had a couple of them that he never let up on.

“kick their ass,” jude says, her fingers clapping against her palm in a gesture to get her box. “ass. ass?” each attempt comes out more lispy, her face contorting in her irritation. “kick their ass.”

dean cackles, inching the lunchbox slightly closer. “very good, baby girl,” he says with a nod, “now what do we do if someone puts their hand on us?”

“break their fuckin’ fingers,” jude grins, her eyes glimmering. ever since she found out that her dad’s rules had bad words in them, she was as mischievous as ever about saying them.

dean’s eyebrows raise. “how?”

her little hand — so big now, though, it makes his heart clench in his chest — grasps his fingers and pulls back, and once his hand is as bent as her strength can manage, she twists.

dean lets out a nervous chuckle, tugging his hand free from her light grip. “whoa, princess. no breakin’ daddy’s fingers, alright?” he flexes his fingers, reaching out to grab her hand and kiss her tiny knuckles.

she was nowhere near close to hurting him. but who was he to ever crush his little girl’s spirits? he couldn’t. he couldn’t.

jude’s evil grin only widens, though. “maybe someone will try me t’day and i’ll get t’break their fingers!”

“you should not be wishing for that,” dean says, even though his heart swells in the process. jude may have been an identical version of you, but the longer she spent around him, the more parts of him shined through. god, he loved her so much. “last rule?”

jude’s expression softens. her milky green eyes glisten with unshed tears, and this is the part that always ruins him, that brings him to his knees. “hug my daddy goodbye, always.”

“almost forgot this time,” he mumbles, his voice more strained than it should be after having done this four years now. he kneels, holding open his arms, the lunchbox still dangling in his fingers.

she was growing up too fast. getting so independent so fast. jude practically jumps into his arms, his grip tight around her little frame as hers is around his neck.

he doesn’t want to let go. letting go always feels like giving her away to someone else, and he can’t. she’s all that’s left of you, and he’s selfish, and he doesn’t want anyone else to love his little girl as much as he does.

“can i tell you a secret?” she whispers in his ear, and he nods into her hair, taking the liberty to reach up and tug the hairtie out of the ends. it would get lost somewhere in that school if he didn’t now, and the purple ones were her favorite. couldn’t lose them on his watch.

“i tell mommy goodbye, too,” jude says, lifting her head to look dean in the eyes. her look was so earnest, so warm and raw, that dean’s eyes got glassier than they already were.

“yeah?” dean asks, clearing his throat. the last thing he wanted to do was cry in front of his kid. he was a tough guy, took all of the hits that life tried to deliver to her, was covered in bruises and scars all over the skin she loved to cling to. “mommy ever say anything back?”

she nods, picking at a thread on her shirt. “she says she’s always watching.”

how weak did it make him to nearly buckle under that quiet admission? how pathetic was he that any mention of you, even in his daughter’s big imagination, had him clinging to those thoughts, using them as ways to self soothe the aching hole that you left in his soul?

dean reaches up to pinch her cheek between his two fingers, handing her the lunchbox, finally. “go on, pretty princess. don’t want you to be late.”

didn’t want her to see him cry, either. he was clinging to the last shreds of his stability, losing grip by the second.

“bye bye, daddy!” jude hugs him one last time as he stands, clinging to his knee for a second before turning on her heel and sprinting away.

he watches. watches as her little self disappears into the big front doors of lawrence elementary. watches until she’s long gone, and straggling parents running late drop off their kids that sprint away without a goodbye hug, or a promise that their mommy’s always watching them when dean can’t.

dean’s eyes flick up to the sky, like maybe he can see you there in between the clouds. the sun looks a little brighter today. maybe it’s you, seeing jude off, too.

“thanks,” he whispers, nodding once to you. he watches, then, too. for any sign in the sky that you heard him — a twitch in the clouds, a flicker in the sunbeams pouring down on the concrete. but everything is still.

☽ ₊ ㅤ˚ ㅤ✧ ㅤ ﾟ ㅤ. ㅤ☾

“i’m serious, sam,” dean says into the phone, keeping it held to his ear with the press of his shoulder, “it could just be kid stuff, but—”

“...but when is it ever actually just the imagination explanation, yeah,” sam finishes, voice scratchy through the speaker. both of them are silent for a second, dean shoveling fries into his mouth while he sits in the long ass pick-up line outside of the school. “and, you know, jude doesn’t seem like she’d make things up.”

dean almost snorts. he’s talking about the little girl that still puts mr. bear bear at the kitchen table when they eat dinner, still makes dean make him a plate and everything.

but he’s right, about this. jude had stopped asking her prying questions about you the moment dean told her the truth, so it didn’t make sense for her to suddenly tell him this, insisting that her mother talked to her—

“she died like mom did,” sam continues, his voice softer, more sincere. “which could mean—”

“that she’s one of those chosen special kids like you were, yeah, i know.” dean shakes his head. the thought makes his stomach feel like it’s bottoming out. he shoves the fast food bag further into the passenger seat, appetite vanished. “m’not thinkin’ about that right now.”

sam scoffs into the speaker. “you’ll have to. and if you don’t tell her now—”

“do not fucking tell me, sammy,” he says through gritted teeth, moving the phone from his shoulder to properly hold it at his ear, “how to raise my kid.”

“dean.” sam’s sincerity makes dean want to kill him, in this moment. “you can get cute little kid questions now, or you can get resentment later.”

dean’s eyes flick up to the front entrance of the school, to the hundreds of kids piling out of the doors. in the midst is his kid, her tiny feet carrying her quickly to his car. “gotta go, sammy. good talk.”

he hangs up before sammy can get another word in. realistically, he knows sam is right, but that doesn’t make him happy about it. what little kid doesn’t want to have superpowers? and what teenager wants to be outcasted? the choice was clear. just… uncomfortable.

jude throws up the front passenger seat door, tossing her backpack onto the ground with a hard thump. “fun first day?” dean asks, automatically scanning over her. no injuries, hair still in the loose waves from the fallen out braid, dress still in tact, shoes both still on—

“boring.” she sighs, climbing up into the seat with practiced ease. her eyes light up at the greasy bag in her seat. “for me?”

“who else, pretty girl? i don’t see anyone else around.” dean waits until she’s nice and buckled up before he takes the car out of park and starts to — slowly — leave the school zone.

jude already has her fist shoved deeply into the bag, digging around. there’s half a box of fries left, half a burger — he got hungry, alright? it isn’t until her little fingers are shoving two fries in her mouth at once than dean asks it.

“any new updates from mommy?” hurts to say, hurts to think, but he can’t imagine being jude, potentially having a direct hotline to you on the other side, and not ever getting to see you. not knowing how great you were, besides the fact that you were her mommy.

jude shrugs her shoulders. “just a little one.”

dean’s fingers tap idly on the steering wheel. “and? what was it?”

jude’s chewing with her mouth open, half bitten fries hanging out of her hand. “she said, ‘always.’ but i dunno what the heck mommy was talking about.”

dean knew. and maybe the sun was a little brighter now, and maybe the clouds looked a little bit more like you.

teenager.

“hey, jude,” dean sighs, a frown already tugged deeply on his lips at the sight of his daughter standing on the stairs, still dressed in her pajamas.

she’d been sadder lately. wouldn’t talk. wouldn’t open up. he’d pushed a little too hard, and now he was suffering the tail end of the silent treatment. tail end because he was certain that she was going to talk to him, now. even if it wasn’t to let him inside that angsty head of hers.

jude had her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes full of a deep disappointment that no girl her age should know about, let alone replicate. “dad.”

see? he knew she would talk. it was… a very poor start, but a start nonetheless.

“m’sorry that i asked about…” he made a broad, vague gesture with his hand. “you know.”

“about my abilities, or about mom?” she snaps back, her eyebrows raising. one of her arms unwind from herself and the hand leans on the stairs’ railing. “because i have a feeling that you’re only sorry for one thing.”

damn it. dean has to close his eyes and count to ten. he’s had to do this a lot, recently. teenagers were not for the faint of heart, and jude was as sassy as they came, just like you’d been.

god, she looked so much like you. it was more evident now than anything, as she approached the age that you were when you…

“jude,” he starts, his hand moving to his face, scrubbing at it. his face is scruffier than usual, not in the mood to clean it up when his little girl was seething and hurting in the other room. who could do that? who could go about their routine while their daughter suffered? “you know i don’t use you to hear from her, right? you know that?”

jude bristles. another wrong thing to say. he wants to be frustrated, but wasn’t he just like this as a teenager too? expecting everyone to know what he was thinking and what he wanted? “well, you never ask about the others.”

“the others?”

“the others,” she echoes again, like he’s the stupidest guy that’s ever walked this planet. “you never ask about grandma—”

“don’t wanna know about grandma,” he says instantly.

her eyes roll. “don’t ask about grandpa, either.”

“especially don’t wanna know about him.” dean’s figured out, in his own way, at his own pace, that his father’s treatment toward him wasn’t kind. all of the expectations placed on him were not normal, and were entirely neglectful as they were harsh.

it took having his own kid to figure that out, sure, but he did. it should count for something.

“why are you talking to grandma and grandpa, anyways?”

“because they’re telling me things!” she shouts, her lip starting to wobble. dean didn’t mean to break through to her like this, but he did, and he’s thankful, in a way, for the progress. “they’re saying—”

dean waits. he knows better than to approach without warning, has learned just how mean a teenage girl can get if you try and comfort her in the ways that she liked as a kid. he also knows that asking will only push her away. that’s how they’d gotten here, after all.

“they keep saying something bad is going to happen.”

dean blinks in alarm. “what?” he takes a step forward anyways, and he can’t help but reach out now. his hand closes around her wrist lightly, waiting for her to pull back. she doesn’t. that’s how dean knows that she’s serious, that she’s afraid. “what are they saying, princess?”

her free hand lifts to wipe at her eyes, the irises that match his own locking and holding his stare. he can almost see the little girl in them, again; the one that was so curious, had so many questions, that looked at him like he held them in his palms.

“grandma says she’ll be here for me,” she whimpers, shaking her head, “grandpa says to stay strong. mom says…”

dean holds his breath. as much as he hates jude thinking that he uses her to hear from you, each update on what you say sticks in his mind until the next comes. he’s selfish, selfish, selfish.

“mama says she’s so, so sorry.”

dean is floored. it’s all so vague, all of the messages that come through the veil and into jude’s heart are always so vague, like the energy it takes to reach her is too much, and so they try to condense it down, but it’s an unintelligible mess.

he can only think that that means something is going to happen to him. if the ghosts of his past are comforting her, that means that something godawful is in the plans for him.

he tries to keep up a strong appearance, but the thought of abandoning jude, his little girl, makes him want to be sick.

“that’s just ghost speak,” he tries to say lightheartedly, his thumb gently tracing circles on her inner wrist, trying to soothe her worries about his impending death. god, this was the worst update of them yet. he’d thought hearing your promise to watch over her always was hard, but this… “you know how they are. vague, unhelpful, stirrin’ the pot from the other side because they're bored…”

“mama’s never done that to me.” jude is starting to close off now. how come all of his worst traits made it into her, mixed in with all of your best traits? every time he’d come to terms with the fact that the only thing jude got of his was his eyes, something else peeked out, rearing its ugly head.

stubborn. hot-headed. reserved.

he couldn’t bear to see it all reflected back at him in her identical eyes.

dean doesn’t want her to keep pulling away, disappearing into her mind, a mind so much older than it needed to be. jude was only sixteen. there was no reason for her to bear all of this, to wear it so blatantly on her face.

“it’s little glimpses into the future,” he says instead of reassurances that don’t land, “right? you hear them speak to you when they can manage it, and it coincides with the—”

“visions,” jude fills in, nodding. every time sammy came over, they talked about this shared connection they had. it makes dean a little more angry than it should, that sam had this one-up on him, when it came to connecting with his impossibly-reserved daughter. “the visions.”

dean nods along with her, letting go of her wrist finally. “so what was the vision this time?”

dean’s phone starts to vibrate in his pocket. he doesn’t answer it. sam usually calls a few times after dean’s initial lack of response, and he either picks up if he’s freed before the routine comes to a close, or he just calls back when he can. right now, he wasn’t abandoning his daughter for anything.

the phone stops ringing. jude must have been waiting for it to, before she spoke, because her words are firm and confident. “you were there.”

dean closes his eyes. he expected this, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt still.

“you were there, and you had blood all over you—” her lip is trembling again. his phone is ringing again. “and you were screaming, your voice was nearly gone…”

his mind cuts back to his time in hell, when all he could do was scream as he was tortured relentlessly. every piece added up.

his phone stops for a few seconds, starts up again. dean pulls it out of his pocket to turn it off. “that it?”

jude’s eyes snap back into focus. “that’s it.”

he’s devastated. all sixteen years of jude’s life, he wished that you were here alongside him. now, more than anything, he wished it too. he’d be abandoning your daughter. leaving her to face the real world alone, by herself. he could have handled it — at least better than now — if he knew he’d be leaving jude with you, but—

“we’ll figure it out, okay?” he says softly, and when he pulls jude into his arms, she doesn’t pull away. she buries her face into his chest like she used to when she was smaller, less broken on the inside.

he wished you were here, too, with your ability to stop time. keep him and you and jude in this moment forever, before he was taken away from her.

young adult.

“hey, hey, jude,” dean’s voice trembles, shock and adrenaline at war in his veins. he’d never moved so fast in his life, catching her before she could tumble to the ground.

her body folds on itself anyways, blood staining her chin, pooled in the corners of her lips. her mouth opens and closes, and no words come out, only the sound of gurgles as her throat fills with blood.

her chest is so red that it’s black, shining under the moonlight. there, beneath her shirt, was a gunshot wound, fabric torn open where the collision happened.

this wasn’t supposed to happen. this wasn’t supposed to happen. jude asked for anything, and he gave it to her, even when she was twenty-one now, and a lot of parents would take that as meaning it was time for her to find her own footing.

how could she without trying the things that she wanted? she knew about how he used to hunt. was desperate to see what it was like, just once, at least, before he was stolen away. five years later, he was still kicking strong, and he thought — he thought it would be okay. just a lone vampire on the outskirts of kansas.

the drive had been fun. easy. he let jude drive baby a little, let her pick the music for once, and somehow fell asleep to the lullaby that was metallica. being raised by him had embedded itself into her nature, it seemed.

he didn’t anticipate that he was, maybe, out of practice. maybe a bit too old for this. it was no wonder that his dad was gone for long periods of time on hunts because it took a while to get things right, when your body was slowing and your defenses were weakening.

he hadn’t seen the gun. he hadn’t seen the gun. he—

“jude?” he asks, his voice uncharacteristically small. “jude, baby, c’mon, open your eyes—”

“dad?” her voice is barely even a breath, wet and thick and faint. “dad, what’s… what’s happening?” jude’s mouth is opening and closing again. she coughs, and blood splatters onto his shirt, onto the wetness seeping through hers. “i don’t feel good.” her grip on his hand is loosening. his tightens.

dean’s phone rings in his pocket. sam. has to be sam. no one else ever calls him but sam, anymore, and jude. but jude was here bleeding out. sam, sam, sam, if he could spare a few seconds to answer it—

but his eyes dart away and in that moment, jude’s eyes start to roll back into her head, and he panics. he pulls her tighter to his chest with one arm, letting go of her hand to fumble for his phone. it stops ringing.

“just keep talking, baby girl, c’mon,” he mumbles, and he wants to shake her, he wants to force her eyes open, to force every bit of his life force into her. it was on a time limit anyways, right?

his heart stops. his phone starts ringing again, or maybe it’s just his ears.

grandma says she’ll be here for me.

grandpa says stay strong.

mama says—

dean feels his stomach lurch, his throat full of bile and tight with the growing lump in it. it was never him that was going to die. it was never him.

it took five years for her fate to reach her. fate was so fucking fickle like that; turning your brain into a worried muddle of mess all the while knowing and withholding the exact things that worried you.

he looks down at himself, and he’s covered in blood. and he knows exactly when he’ll start screaming to the point of losing his voice.

“dad, it’s so cold,” jude says through a small sob, tears prickled in the corners of her eyes. “it’s so—”

dean isn’t going to tell her, that she saw her own death five years prior. that this was the moment they’d been dreading, but reversed. tears pool in his eyes and spill over like waterfalls, turning the blood on her face watery and pink.

“it’s okay,” he promises, his voice shaking, tremoring. “it’s okay, baby girl.”

it wasn’t okay. but he’d been keeping secrets and sparing her from the truth for years now, when he could. maybe she’d forgive him for it. but he was not strong enough to let her feel bad for his mistakes this time.

“i’m sorry,” she chokes out, another coughing fit bursting from her blood-slickened mouth. “i’m s’sorry—”

“nothing to apologize for, pretty princess,” he says, and his voice strains through his throat like it’s being cut by shards of glass. “you have always, always been the perfect little girl. even now, look at you. trying to apologize to me, when—”

dean doesn’t finish. his lips pull into a forced, small smile. “do you remember when you were a little girl?”

jude doesn’t react. doesn’t move. each moment between her chest rising and falling is growing longer. “you’d be scared of the shadows in your closet, or of the voices you heard that i didn’t,” he explains anyways, each breath of his own trembling, “and you’d make me sing to you. remember? like my mama — like grandma used to, with me.”

her lips quirk ever so slightly, her eyes distant, foggy. “hey, jude.”

he nods. his grip on her gets tighter, like he can hug the life back into her. but dean can’t. he’s not the son with the abilities, or the dad with the magic or the answers, or you, who could stop time in this moment and call someone while the clock stayed still. he’s just dean, and he’s losing the last piece of you he had left, and the pieces of his daughter that he loved so, so much.

“i don’t want you scared right now,” he whispers, moving her carefully in his arms to cradle her. he used to wish that she’d stop growing, would always stay small enough to fit in his arms. it feels like a sick joke now. “so if you want me to sing, i’ll sing.”

“okay,” jude says, and her eyes lock onto his for a brief second, before they start to fade again.

the words fall from his mouth in shuddering, shaky gasps, his eyes locked on jude’s. jude’s, that are open and unmoving. jude’s, that have always matched his, the one thing that she got from him.

his voice is raw, echoing in the abandoned den, screaming so loud that it would have woke the dead up, if it worked that way. but it didn’t, because jude didn’t move, and the world was silent and buzzing in his ears, or maybe it was his phone ringing again, again, again, and the only thing that played in his head was the song that used to comfort him.

hey jude, don't make it bad. take a sad song and make it better. remember to let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better.

tags, @depressionbarbie2023 @jasvtsc @deanswidow @titsout4nicholas @cosmicanakin

@beausling @whyyouegg @ostaramoon @ultravi0lence14 @bombarda-babe

i fr don't know who esle to tag the more ppl i tag the more i will have to say sorry to

#──★ dahlia's jrnl #──★ hey jude universe #divs by roseraris #dean winchester #dean supernatural #supernatural #spn #dean winchester one shot #dean winchester imagine #supernatural one shot #supernatural imagine #spn one shot #spn imagine #dean winchester angst

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abigailmoment · 1 year ago

Text

It wasn't just bad luck that Staeve was targeted. It was a calculated attack. Halsin knew well enough how a caster could examine their enemies for tells. Halsin did it himself. Considered an opponent's tactics, and guessed at the places their mind would be most vulnerable.

You didn't have to be a gifted empath to watch how Staeve hurled himself into the thick of combat, right at the biggest bandit wielding the two-handed great sword, and think that the man might be vulnerable to a spell that exploited wisdom.

The fact that it took down Astarion too, well, perhaps that one was just bad luck.

It happened like this:

This is written about @velnna's Tav, Staeve. I was delighted to discover that they don't mind fan fiction being written about him.

I'm always cautious about writing for other people's OCs--getting voices right is so important to me. I have elegantly avoided that issue here.

Full text below.

Full Text On AO3

The fight was an incidental bit of banditry. Dangerous banditry, certainly. Bandits with great swords, supported by wizards. Halsin hung back with Gale while the two rogues dashed forward to give truth to the old adage that the best defense was killing the other fellow extremely quickly.

They cut down the man with the great sword and the woman with the mace and shield. Reinforcements were coming from around a rocky overhang. Halsin coaxed the earth to throw up entangling vines to slow them down. Gale drenched them with glimmering light that illuminated all their vulnerable points for Astarion and Staeve to shoot at.

Only the half-orc made it through the vines and the light. He was bloodied and wrathful. He was huge, but it was two against one, and the two were flanking with each other. It would have been an easy end to the combat, except that apparently there was a bandit wizard hidden somewhere in the trees who chose this moment to cast a spell.

One second Staeve was a blood spattered half-drow sprinting full-tilt, sword out, towards a fighter twice his size. And then he was gone.

Some sort of teleportation? Banishment? Gale was saying something about trajectory and scanning the treeline. Halsin was yelling, he wasn't sure what, the concern was more important than the words. He started running forward. Because two rogues against a barbarian was fine, but one rogue against a barbarian was an extremely fast way for that rogue to die.

And Astarion knew that so he should be running away. But he wasn't running away. He was darting forward and ducking low and almost getting hit by a greataxe as he snatched something off of the ground.

Then he was running, thank the Gods. There was something cradled in his arms, which meant he didn't have his rapier out as he scrambled back.

It was a cat. Halsin saw. They were ten feet away from each other when Halsin realized that Astarion was carrying a large, extremely upset tabby cat with grey-green fur.

That was when Astarion vanished. No. Not vanished. As the tabby tumbled to the ground, something small and white was already there, darting for cover.

Then the half-orc arrived. Bellowing and huge, at least when compared to cats. Not quite as huge when compared to Halsin.

Halsin decided to turn into a bear. It was amazing how many problems you could solve by turning into a bear.

"I am feeling my oversight in not preparing dispel magic today," said Gale. "Or counterspell."

"This is not a situation we could have anticipated," Halsin said.

Staeve contributed to the conversation, but because of present circumstances, it came out as a meow.

He was large for a cat. His fur was pale brown, tabby-striped with green. His stripes crisscrossed in a way that reminded Halsin of his tattoos. His scar was a fur-less groove in his face. He had the same pale green eyes as always. That color was quite appropriate in a cat.

He meowed again, more insistently this time.

"We will," Halsin assured him.

"You're speaking with him?" Gale asked.

"Not magically," Halsin said. It had been a long day and he had barely anything left to cast with. "But I think I understand him."

"Do you?"

"Think a moment and I am confident that you too will guess what he wants from us."

It did only take a moment. Gale was an intelligent man, when prompted. And they'd all seen the small white cat vanish into the woods during the bear-orc fight.

"Ah. Of course." Gale addressed the cat, voice reassuring. "Astarion should be relatively safe though. Polymorph is temporary and even if something did happen to him in the interim, he would just revert to his natural form."

Staeve's whiskers went back and his ears went flat in a thoroughly unimpressed way.

"I think it would be best to find him and make sure nothing happens," Halsin said with mellow diplomacy.

"Of course." Gale paused, then said delicately: "Given my skill in woodland matters, or lack thereof, I may best serve this cause by getting out of the way."

Halsin smiled. "It is a wise man who knows his limitations."

"I'll meet you all back at camp then?" said Gale.

"Take a potion of invisibility for the trip," Halsin suggested. "There might still be bandits about."

Staeve had gotten impatient with them, and was padding off into the forest. Halsin handed Gale the potion and hastened to follow.

Staeve scampered about the forest like he was looting the place. No hole, hollow log, wasp nest, or brown recluse spider-web was left uninvestigated. The loss of seventy five percent of his gray matter had done the man's already flagging survival instincts no favors. Halsin spent half of his attention looking for signs of a small white cat, and half of his time making sure Staeve's efforts at tracking didn't get him killed.

After being only a hairsbreadth quick enough to pull Staeve away from the entrance to a dire-badger-burrow Halsin decided that his partner was now going to be carried. Staeve made a meowling, writhing objection. He was terribly invested in the search. A compromise was reached when he was offered a perch high on Halsin's broad shoulders. Staeve proceeded to clamber from shoulder to shoulder as Halsin walked, ears always forward and alert, eyes bright, head turning this way and that as he scanned the woods.

Small cats with stealth training were not easy things to track through dense forest. Halsin did end up using his last spell slot to cast speak with animals. The local mice and voles always noticed when predators passed, even small ones. Halsin spoke to them while keeping one hand on Staeve, who watched the tiny creatures with bright, newly interested eyes.

Halsin of course spoke with Staeve as well, but it wasn't quite the same. Talking to a person who had been transformed into an animal was not the same as talking to that person. Shape changed you. How you saw things. How you thought. The mind of a cat was a fraction of the size of that of an elf or half-elf. Thinking with it was different. The change was easiest for druids. It was hardest for the cursed, who did not choose the new shape. Who were surprised by it.

He spoke to Staeve and learned things he had already known from observation. He reassured Staeve that the mice had given useful guidance.

That guidance led them north, then west, and then to a long hollow log, moss covered and broken in two places. A good hiding spot, and the sort of shelter that had a lot of escape routes. Staeve jumped off of Halsin's shoulder as the druid knelt down and they both peered inside.

In the darkness, Halsin could just make out a pair of ruby-bright eyes staring warily back at him.

Beside him, Halsin watched Staeve relax for the first time since becoming a cat. He wasn't actually as large as Halsin had first thought--it was just that his hackles had been up and his tail puffed out for the duration of the transformation.

It could be a painful thing indeed, to have one's heart so completely entwined with another's safety. A deeply worthwhile thing, but a painful thing, sometimes.

Halsin made a deferring motion to Staeve, who nodded in a rather un-catlike like way. Halsin stepped back from the log, moving slowly so as not to startle anything. He shifted a few feet away and sat close enough to watch, but far away enough that his looming size wasn't an ominous thing.

Staeve didn't go inside the hollow log. He sat at the entrance. Lay down at the entrance, body long and casual, head up on the lip of the log so he could keep looking inside. Modeling relaxation.

He started to purr. Halsin could hear him purring even from a few feet away. A loud, constant, soothing rumble. It somehow did not surprise Halsin that Staeve had a loud purr.

And then Staeve waited. Patient as anything. Waiting and watching and purring in a low buzz, as steadily as a beehive.

Halsin could not see inside the log, but he could guess at when Astarion moved because Staeve's ears would flick. Staeve had a fine poker face, but everyone had tells.

Something happened, or occurred to him, that made Staeve raise his head and sit up slightly from his sprawl on the ground. Then he stood up entirely. He gave Halsin a significant look, and trotted off into the underbrush.

Conscious that he had just been assigned new responsibility, Halsin shifted so that he had a good view of the log's entrances and everything around it. There wasn't much danger, Halsin’s presence in general kept most predators away from this space. But still.

During his vigil, Halsin saw the glimmer of red cat-eyes once. And only briefly.

Staeve came back soon. He had a dead vole in his mouth and he looked exceptionally pleased with himself. He dropped the vole at the mouth of the log, took a few pawpads back and watched expectantly.

It took another long minute, but after that minute a small white cat crept out of the darkness.

This should surprise no one, but Astarion was a beautiful cat. Slender and graceful with large eyes. His fur was pure, silvery white and just long enough to curl slightly. He moved with a cautious precision that Halsin recognized as his habit, and that deeply suited his new form.

He sniffed at the vole. He shot Staeve a judgmental look, because Gods forbid the man accept any kindness without prevaricating about it in some way. He glanced at Halsin. And then he leaned down to slide exceptionally long canines into the corpse's chest.

Staeve flopped down about a foot away and watched him with an expression of pleased devotion that would honestly be a bit more appropriate on a dog.

Astarion ate fastidiously, and without getting even a blot of blood on his snow-white fur. When he finished he licked his teeth.

When Staeve was quite sure Astarion was done eating, he sidled up slantwise, sauntering around the vole corpse as if he just casually happened to be taking a stroll in this part of the forest for no particular reason. He stopped just short of Astarion. His ears were forward. His tail flicked lightly from side to side.

Astarion regarded him levelly with his 'I know what you're doing and I know you think you're being clever about it but you're not' expression. Then, as if granting a boon, he deigned to rub his forehead gently against the underside of Staeve's chin.

Staeve took this as the invitation that it was and pressed back, much more enthusiastic and honest in his delight at the contact. Which in turn gave Astarion an excuse and space to do what he wanted and enjoy it.

They were always very dear to watch together. Whatever form they took. In about a minute they were curled over each other on the ground and Staeve was industriously grooming Astarion's head.

Halsin let this go on for as long as he could. But the shadows were lengthening, and they were very close to the Shadowlands, and he was out of spell slots, and the rogues were currently housecats.

"It is getting late, dear ones," he said softly.

Astarion twitched at the interruption, and Staeve licked him three times along the neck and chest in a soothing way. Then they disentangled from each other and padded over to Halsin.

Halsin picked up Staeve, but he knelt down and laid his arm on the ground so that Astarion could climb up and find what perch he wanted by himself. They did both end up in his arms. Staeve was tired and quite ready to be carried, and Astarion didn't want to be out of contact with him.

As Halsin walked through the woods with an armfull of cat, Staeve started to purr again. It was really the most marvelous sound. A soothing distillation of satisfaction and care. Almost enough to tempt one away from being a bear.

Astarion did not purr. Some cats didn't. Or purred only very rarely. But Astarion did, at one point, look up at Halsin and blink his bright red eyes very slowly.

And that was a precious thing.

****

Other stories like this.

****

#staeve #astarion #bg3 #Transformation #Fluff #Hurt/Comfort #Cuddling #A Great Deal Of Cuddling #Implied Trauma #Very Brief Peril #taking care of astarion as a group project

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imissa3en · 22 days ago

Text

TWST X FE3H

Heartslabyul here!

Notes:

On the left we have the academy phase outfit, and on the right we have the war phase (after a 5 year timeskip)!

I feel like the arrows should be self explanatory, up for good at, red for bad at, and the stars are for budding talents (things they could be good at)

Class explanations and extra notes under the cut!

Leona:

If he gets recruited he comes pre-promoted as wyvern rider

Easy wyvern lord choice honestly

Actually, every savanaclaw member is pretty easy to turn into a wyvern lord in end game

Personal skill would be either royal lineage (multiplies unit experience) or cat nap (restores hp if he doesn't do anything during player phase)

Not sure which one tbh

High strength growth, poor resistance?

Pre-timeskip he acts as sort of leader in training students into wyvern riders

During the war he acts more as strategist, only going into battle when things are looking dire

Ruggie:

When recruited, he comes with all the skill necessary to be reclassed into thief

Although his personal skill would probably be lock touch (can open chests without keys) so reclassing him into thief isn't too necessary

Probably better off in brigand to help his strength growth?

Can easily be turned into an assassin for the high speed and dex

DODGE TANK

His clothes are leona hand me downs

During the war he kinda replaces leona's position as a leader on the battlefield, which is why he also gets leona's armor

Jack:

Starts off as a fighter since he's a first year

Gameplay whise, he'd probably be turned into a war master

Which explains the MASSIVE GAUNTLETS I've chosen to give him

I picked gauntlets as his "canon weapon" since they kinda look like claws

But he wouldn't be too hard to turn into a wyvern lord in end game with his budding talent in flying

I think it'd be kinda cute if every savanaclaw member can be easily built into an army of wyvern lords

Like leona, he has poor resistance

But he has massive defense growths to help

Personal skill would be lone wolf (+5 attack without battalions)

Story Notes:

You(yuu) fill(s) byleths role as a "tactician"

They meet ace, deuce, chenya and neige in the woods while the four are attacked by bandits

After they show off their master strategies (a.k.a hiding in bushes for evasion), the four invite them to nrc and rsa's shared monastery)

At the monastery, Crowley and Ambrose (that's his name right?? The rsa principal? ) make you(yuu) join one of the two schools

No matter which school you pick, 2 of the four from the earlier battle join your side and you make another choice in picking one of two dorms to fill your roster

Yknow how when you first play twst your free ssr is always either from heartslabyul or savanaclaw? Kinda like that

If rsa is picked, cheya and neige join you + 3 other people the dorm you chose ( twst hasn't revealed any rsa dorms im sorry, idk??)

If nrc is picked, ace and deuce join you +either heartslabyul (riddle, trey and cater) or savanaclaw (leona, ruggie, jack)

You(yuu) first gets to show off their tactics during the mock battle where they fight with their team against either rsa/nrc(depending on which school you chose) and 5 dorm leaders from the school you chose.

#twisted wonderland #twst #leona kingscholar #ruggie bucchi #jack howl #savanaclaw #sorry for the wait i hope it wasn't too long ??#honestly not sure on the writing since im not a writer #im open to suggestions by this point #ive made vague designs and class ideas for everyone else #just gotta draw em #btw taru i saw your tags #i lovee youuu!!!!!!!

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murdrdocs · 8 months ago

Text

implied stepcest; bsfs sister trope; sort of same universe as this MDNI 18+ w/ ART DONALDSON & PATRICK ZWEIG

patrick wants to fuck you.

it's not even a secret at this point. he's practically shouting it from the rooftops, but even then everyone would have already known. anytime he's over at art's—which is more often now that you're officially moved in—patrick finds any possibly excuse to be around you. any excuse so that he can let his eyes shamelessly rake across your body.

he's brazen and lewd about it. his tongue licking over his lips and his eyes squinting as he stands in art's backyard, a beer in one hand and the other tucked in the pocket of his khaki shorts. he's watching you. just watching. and art stands there beside him all the while, watching his best friend watch you, his stepsister.

patrick continues to remind art of your relation over and over again.

anytime art chastises patrick for his behavior, a pointed, "stop eye fucking my sister," patrick is quick to correct him.

"stepsister."

and then patrick does what he does best: he instigates.

he might not realize it in the beginning, but he picks up on it eventually. he picks up on the look that art sends your way, on the way art defends you—too stern to be the defense of a brother, bordering more on the defense tactics of a lover.

patrick doesn't know if something has happened between you and art or not, but even if something has happened, patrick wants in.

"look, if you don't hit that i will."

art looks at patrick as if he's fucking stupid.

"you do know we're technically related right?"

and patrick just scoffs. "your dad just got married like two months ago. he's still in the honeymoon phase. so you're not technically related."

patrick takes a second. he licks his lips, glances at you from across the yard, watching the way the wind blows the hem of your dress against your ass.

"maybe we can do it together, huh? you think she'll go for that?"

art pushes patrick's shoulder, rolling his eyes when his best friend laughs like what he said was funny and not degrading. but art can't stop thinking about it.

he can't stop thinking about the feeling of your cunt clenching around his fingers. he can't stop imagining the same sensation around his dick. as if thinking about fucking his father's new stepdaughter wasn't bad enough, art feels his dick start to harden when he thinks about doing it with patrick.

he's heard enough of patrick's lewd sex stories to be able to paint an image of his own. patrick spitting on your cunt before he slides in. patrick fondling your tits and kissing you stupid. patrick multitasking—something he's always been fairly good at—and fiddling with your clit while he rubs his thumb over art's weeping slit.

it's all far too much to think about, especially when he's in the backyard of his father's house, supposedly celebrating independence day. he invited patrick here in hopes that his best friend would help him get his mind off of you, but alas, you is all patrick wants to talk about.

you start walking their way, a gentle smile on your lips and a glint in your eyes like you're gearing up to tell them both a story. art straightens his spine, his stance getting impossibly tighter when patrick leans over and whispers in his ear.

"just think about it, okay? she's more likely to say no to me than to you."

#patricksworld!#artsworld!#art donaldson x reader #patrick zweig x reader #celeste writes challengers

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socialistexan · 7 months ago

Text

Honestly, the new Democratic party tactic of dropping "you go low, we go high" and just calling Republicans "weird" is honestly kind of brilliant.

We've had over a decade of the right has been able to sort of dictate the conversation, tie anything to the left with cringe, constantly calling us weird and whatever the fuck else. Then they juxtapose it with them being the Moral, Just, Classical, Common Sense, Normal ones when they're really a bunch of weirdo shit posters who use Roman statues as icons and never grew out of their 4chan phase.

I still see right-wingers use that one blue haired person with a beanie screaming when Trump won in 2016 to this day. It's still everywhere.

We've been on the cultural defensive since then. We've already seen the fruits of that labor with how much it worked in making Gen Z men more right-wing compared to millennials and even gen x and boomers at their age.

But the sense of decorum that Dems wanted to maintain meant we really didn't have a chance to have messaging from top to bottom to counter it.

A lot of what right-wingers say, do, and want are just weird! A lot of the time it isn't even "traditional" things they want like they claim they do, but it was given the aesthetics of it. But they've controlled the cultural conversation basically since I would say 2014-15.

Fascism thrives on aesthetic and mystique. The aura of the Brave Hyper Masculine White Man protesting his Demure Soft Feminine White Tradwife and Essentially Carbon Copy With No Independent Thoughts White Children requires near total maintenance in the collective consciousness. Any crack in that armour and the whole thing starts to fall apart.

No more We Go High, that needs to be over.

You go Low, We Kick You in the Teeth.

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shelter-clangen · 1 month ago

Note

"ONLY IF SHE ASKED ME TO"?????? based. also im trying to picture husk attacking kindred with his horns. how. would he have to walk into him backwards?

WHEEZE ok ok HAHAHAHA that’s a good question and I want to answer it too HAHAHA

ok let’s say theoretically husk had a target to attack in this scenario

so like when I was first concepting husks design my first thought was that husk’s antlers pointed forward and curled up, but then I actually started drawing him, and I realized my own ability to draw depth like that was very lacking and these are the benefits of having a 3d model. alas I am not well versed in the art of 3d sculpting

so like the original goal was something like this:

which makes more sense, yea?? but then I tried to draw it from the front

and I think that’s. kind of where things fall apart and I am 90% certain that is entirely my own fault lmao

so I try to draw it more spread out so the silhouette is clearer

but now I have a new problem lmao. because now his horns look like they’re directly pointing out to the sides. which means if I draw him from a side angle it should probably look like this?

because they point directly towards the camera now ?

but instead to continue to make the silhouette clear I drew them like this lmao

Which now means his antlers are pointing BACK, and are like curved around his head?? which makes attacking with them almost. uh. null and void?? impossible?? they’re like fancy cheek guards now lmao

so yea naw chief I don’t think that’s working out for ya.

so now that leaves like….if I assume the horns are actually pointing out to the side and are not curved around his head pointing backwards, then maybe?? side attack??

but. I don’t think. uh. I don’t think having to blindly tilt your entire head to the side in order to mmmmaybe get a hit in would be very effective??? and he’d certainly never spear anyone with them

In the end im pretty sure I’ve accidentally fucked this guy over and any chance he had at some sort of defense haha. I should probably fix that sometime, because that’s,,, definitely a bug and not a feature lmao

But at the end of the day, never forget that he has the most effective tactic of all:

Slapping people with the knives on his ass.

#shelterasks #clangen #wc clangen #art #my art

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zriasstuff · 1 year ago

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Final blow— Mattheo Riddle x reader

Oneshot including a classic wizarding duel and tension filled atmosphere <3 (SFW)

“For our next duel, I’m asking Mattheo Riddle and Miss Y/n to please step up onto the platform”

The words from professor Snape echoed through the duelling practice room, and as of right now everyone was staring at you two. It didn’t come as a shock to you when you were picked. Both of you were pretty much on the same level, with the exception of course that you had way less of an ego than Mattheo.

Defense against the dark arts was your favorite subject, especially when it came to doing hands on things. Duelling just happened to be one of your favorite things to practice. The tougher the opponent, the sweeter the victory, you believed. With Mattheo, you had to make sure that you would fight till the last moment, and to not go down without a proper fight.

“C’mon, go up!”, your friends encourage you, “You got this!”. They all believed in you, and told you that your chances were good, making you feel more secure in your skills. Through all the encouragement you got, you start moving towards where the showdown would take place.

As you go up, you look at Mattheo, who seemed confident to say the least. He knows he’s good and everyone else knows it too. Moreover, all the quidditch training certainly gave him a strong and muscular body to work with.

Before the duel begins, you scan the crowd one more time for looks and chants of support. “MAKE US RAVENCLAWS PROUD!”, you hear someone yelling amidst all the people. That you were extremely thankful for, since you could really use all the positive reassurance you could get. You quickly say thank you back to the crowd.

At the same time, the Slytherins must’ve seen this as another competition and started yelling all sorts of things in support of their representative too. Together, they sure looked like a mean bunch.

“YOU GOT THIS MATTHEO!”, his friend Blaise hollers loudly. Draco, right after, shouts out “YEAHH, DESTROY HER!”.

What a gentleman you mutter to yourself, and Mattheo must’ve heard it because you hear a slight chuckle escaping his mouth.

“Nervous”, he quietly asks you.

“Not at all”, you respond in the most self assured manner that you can muster.

He himself didn’t look nervous at all, but rather excited to have a “play partner”. Frankly you weren’t either, but you also knew that going up against him wouldn’t be easy.

Mattheo keeps looking you in the eye with a slight grin, so to match his energy, you hold eye contact with him too and make sure that your posture is straight. If you don’t look capable from the beginning, you are never going to make it to the end.

To commence this duel at last, Snape retells the rules of combat and announces that “only magical acts can be used as a form of offense or defense. You may disarm or harm your opponent, but must not seriously injure them.” Otherwise Madam Pomfrey would surely throw another fit at you “immature rascals”.

You were counting on disarming Mattheo to be your tactic. His fatal flaw was, noting from your past observations, being too aggressive, and not fully protecting himself. Besides that, he was flawless.

All eyes on you guys now, you start off by bowing to each other to pay your respects. “Good luck”, he whispers to you while you’re on eye level. “Same to you”, you reply, to make him know that you weren’t scared.

As Snape was counting down from three, you calmed yourself down once again, telling yourself that it would be fine. When Snape reaches the final number three, Mattheo immediately goes into the offense and casts several stunning spells, which you block with your shielding spell. You had practiced that one so often, that you could confidently utilize it at any given time. Mattheo keeps trying to push you back further. One after another, his attacking spells are blasted at you. And one after another you block them. It was a back and forth dance between you two, neither one of you budging yet.

He came alarmingly close though. One of his spells had caught your shoulder, sending an electrifying shock through your body. Another one had hit your torso straight like a bullet. That one had caused you the most pain. You grunted and held your hand over the wounded area, but it was still bearable. You just had to fight through the pain.

Both of you kept going, at this point recognizing that victory wouldn’t come easily to either one of you. Mattheo, looking forward to making things a little more playful, cheekily calls out “holding up pretty well for someone like you”. You knew he was trying to get you off of your game by sounding condescending. He was well aware of your capabilities. Therefore you clap back by saying “that shouldn’t come as a surprise, and you’re not as good as you think you are”.

Having said that, you hear a few murmurs amongst the students. Snape takes the time to remind you to keep the personal bashing to yourselfs until the duel is resolved. Mattheo seems to take it quite personally though, now casting out especially aggressive spells.

Even by then you are able to hold up, but there was still no opportunity to really harm him. The back and forth kept going to the point where neither of you saw an end to this.

After a while, having been so concentrated on defending yourself and managing your pain, you hadn’t even looked at Mattheo anymore to see how he was doing. You just saw his spells shooting at you. So, when you finally did look, you noticed that Mattheo was getting a little riled up himself and losing his edge. He always tries to keep his cool, to not show any signs of weakness. Yet, there you were, taking hit after hit, and not backing down. It made him frustrated to see his efforts not meeting his expectations.

After more exchanges of non sufficient spells, you are getting way too tired, and you decide it’s time to put this exhausting duel to an end. You just had to wait for the perfect moment.

In Mattheo’s mind, he was also just waiting for the perfect moment, hoping for you to retreat.

When you glance at the audience again for just a second, you see the gawking mouths of some of the Slytherins. Instantly, it boosts your confidence. If even they were stunned by you, then all was going right, and you knew you got this. If you could really defeat Mattheo, his ego was probably going to be bruised for a good several days at least.

Between further dodging spells, and shielding yourself, it was really difficult to find the perfect moment, though you had a feeling it would come soon enough. Mattheo was getting even more frustrated. His spells weren’t as accurate anymore. His arm was losing strength and going a little limp. And most important of all, his confidence became tainted.

While trying to catch his breath for a second, Mattheo simultaneously lowers his arm. During that one scarce moment, you decide to deliver the final blow.

“EXPELLIARMUS!”, you call out. Everyone’s eyes were wide open, seeing exactly as the spell hit Mattheo, causing his wand to fly across the platform, all the way into your hand. You catch it with precision, and watch his look of disbelief. You couldn’t even fully believe it yourself. He was done for.

“Wanna wave the white flag now?”, you cheekily ask him now, as he’s still trying to catch his breath. It was a little mean, but he could handle it.

Mattheo still can’t believe what just happened based on the look on his face. You see him scrunching his eyebrows, and mouth hanging wide open.

Although he knows he’s got nothing left, he still replies with “never”.

“As you wish”, you say with a wide grin, because in the next second, your final spell sent him flying across the room. Mattheo falls off of the duelling platform at the end, all the way onto the ground.

As his body hit the hard floor, all students from every house, except the Slytherins of course, started cheering for you. You felt as if you were on cloud nine hearing all their chants. Your heart was still beating rapidly, as if it was going to explode any second. A little part of you can’t believe that you just sent Mattheo flying across the platform, but the bigger part was gloating with pride.

You watch Mattheo prop himself up and walk back onto the platform to go up to you. He warmly, to your surprise, meets your gaze and brings out his hand to shake yours.

“Looks like you didn’t need luck after all”, he congratulates you. You’re taken aback for a second because this behavior of him wasn’t what you expected at all. He clearly notices and goes on to say “I rarely lose, but when I do I try not to be a sore loser”.

When he goes to his friends, he turns back and winks at you with a smirk plastered on his face. Winning was already quite the event, but Mattheo being a perfect gentleman weirdly made your insides churn.

…

You wait for everyone to leave the room after enough duelling was done for the morning. The reason was because you saw, from the corner of your eye, that Mattheo was also taking his time. You didn’t even know exactly why you were waiting for him.

Not that it was your planned intention, but you decide to go up to him and tell him that it was a great, although stressful, duel. Perhaps that would fuel some kind of conversation.

“No need to gloat”, he throws back at you. He didn’t sound all too happy, and maybe he did take the loss stronger than he showed at first. Your mind starts to spin and look for kind words. You definitely didn’t mean to insult him, so you quickly stutter out

“No- that’s not what I-”

Before you could finish that jumbled sentence though, he chuckles out loud, his eyes giving you a look of sympathy. His entire demeanor has changed now, the upset look from before just having been a facade.

“Chill, I was just kidding”, he cheerfully says. Seconds later he adds “You won fair and square, I’m actually really impressed with you”. It sounded like he meant it genuinely.

That compliment wasn’t something you expected. Relieved at his relaxed attitude, you choose to go along with his joking manner and respond with “I’m definitely going to hold that over your head forever”.

That earned you yet another precious chuckle from him. His laugh was truly contagious because shortly after you start laughing too. You had actually never expected that talking with Mattheo could feel so carefree and fun.

“Y’know I actually thought you were a lot more arrogant”, you honestly admitted to him during your talk. As far as the truth went, this was it. You could see that it had certainly been a little presumptuous of you to assume that about him.

“Well that’s because you don’t really know me and make pointless assumptions, but I don’t blame you”, he boldly calls you out on your prejudices too.

Perhaps he wasn’t as bad as you imagined, but definitely still cocky.

Suddenly he puts his hand on your shoulder, which makes you jerk back at first. The sudden contact just came as a surprise. He also takes notice, but when he sees that you don’t mind after the initial shock, he just kept it there. “So, wanna get out of here?”, he suggested. “We could talk and you could get to know me better”, Mattheo proposes, obviously referring to your previous statement.

“Well, how can I say no to that”, you comply while flashing him a gentle smile.

And with that, both of you leave the room, with Mattheo’s hand still wrapped around your shoulders.

#harry potter #oneshot #slytherin #slytherin boys #fanfic #mattheo riddle #ravenclaw #drabble #wizarding world #harry potter oneshot #mattheo riddle x reader #mattheo riddle x you #mattheo riddle oneshot

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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 5 months ago

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Chapter 26: I Hate You, I Love You

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When the reader left Payback 40 years ago after a falling out with her childhood best friend she never looked back, but when two men show up to her apartment and start asking her questions about the past, the reader begins to think those things can’t stay hidden and starts to question what’s real and what’s fantasy. This is a re-telling of The Boys Season 3, where the reader is a supe who's known Soldier Boy since 1927. The chapters will fluctuate between past and present. This is chapter twenty-six of my "You Call It Madness But I Call It Love" series. (I'm so bad at summaries please forgive me!)

Word Count: 8.3K

Warnings: I'm gonna label this one 18+ because it's Soldier Boy. , Angst, Cursing, Sexual References, Family Problems- A LOT of family problems, Past Trauma, Death Mentioned, Self Deprecating Thoughts, Blood mentioned. Soldier Boy might be, is, really, absolutely, completely a little OOC. Soldier Boy is really all you need as a warning.

Note: This is told from the Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. Reader is described as "curvy" occasionally. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal Monologue is in first person and is in italics

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

A/n: I know that this isn't the final battle, but I wrote most of the battle and the chapter was so long (it was over 13K and I wasn't close to ready) that I needed to break it up. So now this is just a wonderful helping of angst in which the reader and Ben do the thing that they do best… fight with each other and then make up.

READER POV

The silence that follows Homelander's disappearance with Lou and Rosemary's pursuit after him is deafening. It feels like hours have passed, but it's only been seconds. You feel cold and hot, nothing and everything. Fear, anger, anxiety, and terror all congeal into an ice cold ball in the pit of your stomach. Rubble is covering the thick shag carpet on the bedroom floor, the air filled with flecks of dust and drywall from Homelander's departure. You weren't thinking about how Legend would react though, couldn't think of anything else except the fearful look on Lou's face when Homelander grabbed her and refused to release her.

The thought that Lou was trapped with someone like him broke you. The fear that came with the thought was almost mind-numbing, because Homelander was dangerous and now that Ben and you had told him that you didn't want anything to do with him, there were no other bargaining chips. Homelander couldn't be placated because you had crushed the glimmer of hope in his eyes by telling him that he wasn't your son and that he was monster. You knew that Homelander was smart enough that he wouldn't believe you now if you promised him family, not when he had Lou and probably had Rosemary.

Rosemary had minimal training when it came to fighting, yes you'd made sure that she knew the basics of self-defense, but she'd never fought another supe before. She was never interested in that sort of thing. And it wasn't always about using your powers when it came to fighting another supe, it was about tactics and knowing the weaknesses of your opponent. In a fight with someone like Homelander, you couldn't just rely on your abilities, you had to understand what you were up against and see the little ticks that he tried to hide. You'd watched stronger supes fall because they relied too heavily on their abilities, and you worried that Rosemary would be the same way. That she would be filled with a blind rage because Homelander had Lou and that he would use her anger and frustration to his advantage.

Tears were streaming down your face and you were still struggling in Ben's grip, where his arms were wrapped around you, holding you back from chasing after them. And the longer he holds you, as more seconds tick by, everything else goes and you're left with something else.

To say that you were angry was an understatement, you were livid. You hated that Ben had done this to you again. That once again Ben was acting like you weren't a supe, like you weren't powerful, and like you needed to be locked away from the world in a glass cabinet. You were sick of it.

Because you understood that Ben loved you, that he wished to protect you and that he feared losing you, but you refused to allow him to walk on eggshells around you and put you in a glass bubble because of his insecurities.

Yes Ben had told you that he saw your strength in the past, that he saw how powerful you were, and only wished for you to need him, but you were done with this. He didn't have any right to do it. And yes, he was the man you loved, but he was not your master. Perhaps that's what made all this worse for you, that Ben said how much he loved you and that he saw your power, but every time things went South he did shit like this.

"Ben, let me go." You growl, turning your head to look over your shoulder.

"No. Not until you promise not to go after them." Ben's eyes are narrowed. He knew that if you promised him, you wouldn't do it, that you cared too much about what a promise represented to break one.

It was true, which was why you weren't going to promise him shit.

"I won't promise that."

"Then I guess I'm not letting you go." He says it casually, but the look in his eyes is meant to convey that he is just as upset with this turn of events as you are.

"Oh I think you fucking will." Your teeth clench together and as you say it, you turn your palms face down in front of you and break his hold. Having Homelander's strength made it easier to face Ben. In the past the two of you had sparred together in training. Back then you didn't think too much about it, but now you understood that he did it to make sure you knew how to protect yourself when he wasn't there, that he worried about you more than he wanted to say and that was the only way he could prepare you without telling you how much you meant to him.

Ben stumbles back a step, his eyes flashing with anger and you’re sure that he can see the same emotions written on your face.

“What the fuck is your problem?” You snarl at him.

“My problem?” Ben sputters.

“Yes!”

“What the fuck are you talking about? If anything it’s you that’s having a problem-“

“Oh I’m sorry Benjamin. Am I being difficult?" You press a hand to your chest feigning remorse. "Forgive me for having a fucking problem when our granddaughter has just been KIDNAPPED by a psychopath. And our daughter is going to face him alone!"

"She's not alone-"

"Wrong. She is alone, because you wouldn't let me help her."

"I told you that I didn't want you to fight him alone. I told you that we would do this together-"

"I wouldn't have been alone if you'd stop being so damn overprotective!" You snap, stomping over to the chest of drawers, searching through them angrily for something to wear. It was difficult not to rip the handle off the front in your anger. You were still wearing your sweatpants and an oversized paint splattered t-shirt, and the last thing you wanted was to face Homelander looking like that.

Why can't he just understand that I am powerful too? Why can’t he let me go for once? Why does he keep doing this?

You hated that he was acting like you couldn't handle yourself, especially after he had seen you destroy Legend's backyard single handedly the other day with your mind. You were so sick of being underestimated. First Vought, then Stan, and now Ben, and you didn't want to be seen that way anymore. You were powerful and damnit you weren't going to "sit" and "stay" because some man ordered you to.

"I am not being overprotective!" Ben's voice is a low growl. "The other day I told you that I didn't want you to do this by yourself, that I didn't want you to do any of this alone. That I'm here-"

"Well congratulations Ben! Our daughter is doing exactly that right now, facing fucking Homelander alone, because you couldn't just let me go." You grab the end of your shirt and take it off, shucking it to the floor before you begin to put on the tight long sleeved black t-shirt. "You always do this."

"Do what?"

"Underestimate me!" You take off the sweatpants and quickly step into the dark jeans. By now your eyes were flashing bright purple and you could feel the thrum of your abilities under your skin, begging to be released. The energy was growing with each passing second, the lights in the room flickered and you could feel an unnatural breeze rustling the curtains that were hanging from the windows, coming from you.

"I do not fucking underestimate you. I know how powerful you are-"

"Well you have a funny way of showing it." You spit turning around to face him again.

Ben is also getting dressed. His sweatpants have been replaced with the bottom portion of his supe suit, his knife, pistol, and top half of his suit is laying on the unmade bed. "We have already talked about why I have a problem with you doing shit like that alone." His words are almost a growl, but you can hear an emotion on the edge of them that isn't anger. It was worry.

You knew what he was referring to, when he told you that he hated watching you die because it made him feel like he'd failed to protect you, that every time you were hurt, Ben struggled with that.

You knew how he felt.

The other day at Herogasm when Homelander had him by the throat all you saw was red. You didn't want to witness Ben's last moments just as he had witnessed yours multiple times. But it didn’t mean that you held Ben back from doing what he needed to do. You saw his strength and supported him. All you wanted was for him to support you.

A part of you deep down registered that he acted like this to protect you, that he didn't want to lose you as much as you didn't want to lose him. And as happy as you were that Ben was finally getting comfortable showing and talking about his emotions in front of you, you still wished that he would let you be strong for yourself. You had to be strong without him for forty years, protecting Rosemary and Lou.

Does he really think that Stan and Countess are the only people who I've killed in the past forty years? That there haven't been other people and supes that figured it out? Did Homelander really think that Stormfront's death was a suicide?

"You let me face the twins!" You shout.

"Those incestuous fucks couldn't handle you when they were full powered, let alone when they were dried out." Ben states pulling his shirt over his head.

"I don't understand why Homelander is any different." You cross the room to grab the long dark green leaver overcoat, the same one that Ben had scraped the blood and bits of flesh off when you returned to Legend's after you killed Stan. "You saw me handle him the other day-"

"Because he is different!" Ben practically stabs his knife down into it's holster on his belt.

"Oh really?" You tap your lip as if deep in thought. "Huh. Because I remember you calling him a pussy when you were thinking about killing him. When you told me that Butcher asked you to."

"He is." Ben's eyes are blazing now.

Your sarcasm always did that to him, and it did tend to rear it's ugly head in the most inopportune moments. In all the years you'd known him, Ben never really did like it when you got like that.

The room was quickly heating with the force of Ben’s anger, a slight glow radiating out from his chest, but Ben was keeping it under control. At least for now.

"Oh, so he is a pussy, but not when I have to fight him?"

"Yes." He seethes through clenched teeth.

"I hate to break this to you Benjamin, but of the two of us, I'm the one who has fought him and kicked his fucking ass." You spit back at him, sick of his attitude.

Ben crosses the room in two heavy strides so that he's standing over you, his hands on his hips. "The only reason why you fucking fought him, was because you felt the need to step in when I had him handled."

"Did you have him handled? Could have fooled me. When someone has you by the throat I find it hard to say that you have a handle on the situation!" You mirror his stance, refusing to back down.

"Don't fucking do that."

"Do what?"

"Be sarcastic! You know that I hate it."

"That's just too damn bad!" You snap. "I'm not your dog Benjamin you cannot tell me what to do."

"I do not treat you like a damn dog. I will say that you're being bitchy." His teeth are grinding together, so hard that you can audibly hear it.

"Well excuse the fuck out of me! I think I'm allowed to be bitchy," You seethe the word. "Because you're acting like a sexist dick!"

"I am not-"

"Yes you are." You poke your finger into his chest. "And I don’t want you to come with me."

"Like fucking hell I'm going to sit here and wait around for you to come back."

"I don't want you to come with me because I don't want to spend the whole fucking time worried that you're going to get in my fucking way and prevent me from doing what I have to do."

"I do not get in your way." Ben roars.

"Yes you do." Your eyes narrow. "And I don't need some "big strong man" to do things for me!" You make air quotes around 'big strong man' to emphasize the point, but Ben was not getting it.

This was one of the worst fights you'd ever had with him, you knew that. The two of you had many over the years, Legend was not lying when he told Butcher that, but this one was quickly nearing the same magnitude as the fight the two of you had the night of the premiere. This was more than just the two of you going through the motions of being frustrated with one another and more than the two of you shouting over a little problem, this was about Ben's continuous need to hold you back and keep you out of harms way like you weren't a supe and perfectly capable of doing thing by yourself.

"All I do is try to protect you." His eyes are dark now, not a trace of green in them, looking more like darkened pits. When Ben was really angry you'd seen them go that dark before, only the night of the premiere had you seen them like that when he looked at you, all the other times you'd seen that look when he felt the need to put someone in their place, to beat them into submission.

"I don't need you to protect me!" It comes out in one breath, uttered in an exasperated tone, because again Ben just didn't understand.

Ben stops. "You don't need me?" The words aren't in the same harsh tone that he used before, it's softer, and the anger in his eyes shifts to something else for just a moment.

You could feel regret swirling in your chest, because you did need Ben. You needed him more than life itself, didn't want to spend a moment away from him. You hadn't meant to say it like that. And you know that it was something Ben struggled with, the idea that you didn't need him anymore or never did need him.

"No. Ben, I do fucking need you, but I don't need you to protect me all the time." You emphasize with a sigh. "I've changed. I'm not the same person I was in Philadelphia. I'm not the same little girl. I've been taking care of myself and Rosemary and Lou for years. I needed to change and so I did."

Ben still looks like he can't fully understand what you're trying to say.

"Ben do you really think that Stan is the only person that I've killed in the past forty years?"

Ben blinks surprised.

"There have been others. People who asked too many questions. Supes that just didn't believe the lie that Stan and I made up." You sigh. You weren't ashamed of that, weren't ashamed of the things you had to do to keep your daughter and your granddaughter safe. "You think that every death leaves a scar, but not always." You murmur remembering the fight with Stormfront, the one you never talked about. When she showed up on your doorstep and threatened you and Rosemary. And the others who threatened you, tried to blackmail you because they didn't fear you the way they should have. Stormfront had expected the same woman she knew from the past, but you weren't her anymore.

"What do you mean there have been others?" Ben's expression hardens, malice swimming in his eyes when he realizes that other people have hurt you.

Flashes of the past come creeping up, years you spent with Ben and the cold ones that you'd spent without him stumbling around like someone trying to find light when they were buried underground. And you did love him, but you hated that he did this, because every time he did it made you feel small, it made you feel again like he didn't see you or comprehend who you were.

"They don't matter now." You sigh. "But I am not something to be possessed. I am not someone who’s going to hang on your arm make you look good and laugh at all your jokes. I am not something to be controlled or shielded from the world. If I wanted to just be a trophy or a doll for someone to use any way they wished I would have stayed and married Howard. But I didn’t. I came with you, but I never imagined that you would treat me that way. I never imagined that you would treat me like he did.”

Ben looks stunned. He should. In all the years you’d known him you’d never compared him to Howard like that. It was a low blow and you knew it, but you were pissed. It hurt you to say the words, hurt you to open up that wound all over again, but it was the truth. You didn't lie to Ben and you weren't going to start now.

The words ring through the air between the two of you, the space between your bodies suddenly miles apart even though you were standing in the same room. It was the first time you'd ever felt that distance with him, not since the night he came to your apartment the night that he almost killed Noir and after the two of you talked you cried in the shower frustrated and angry with yourself because you couldn't tell him how you felt and upset that he didn't love you the way you loved him. And now you were just as frustrated and angry with him.

Ben opens his mouth to answer you, the look in his eyes heartbreaking.

"What the fuck happened in here?" Butcher shouts stumbling down the stairs and into the room. He looks disheveled, like he just rolled out of bed.

"Homelander." Your gaze leaves Ben. "He took Lou, Rosemary went after him."

"He took Lou?" Hughie sputters from behind Butcher, fear flitting through his eyes.

It was the same fear that had begun to trickle back in after the fight you just had, but the things that Ben and you had yelled at one another were still there, soaking through the air like a foul odor and seeping in to your heart. You weren't sure if it meant that you could come back from it or not.

"Yeah." Ben grunts.

"Then lets go get her." Butcher says. "Come on." He gestures with his hand and begins to trek up the stairs with Hughie in tow, leaving Ben and you in the bedroom alone once more.

But this time you can't say anything, can't bring yourself to apologize because you're still so damn mad, and so instead you follow after Butcher, without giving Ben a backwards glance.

SOLDIER BOY POV

The car smoothly followed the long stretch of highway under Butcher’s hand, the trees along the road flashing by in a green blur, but it still didn’t seem like it was going fast enough.

It had taken Butcher and Hughie ten minutes to get ready after they stumbled downstairs to where Ben and you were and now the four of you were on the road and driving to New York. Hughie and Butcher were in the front seat while Ben and you sat in the back, but unlike the other day when you drove to Herogasm together, you were sitting on the other side of the car, arms crossed over your chest staring out the window, and not touching him at all.

Ben's jaw clenched when he remembered the day you drove together to Herogasm, when he held your hand and you leaned into his shoulder, reveling in the fact that you wanted him there with you.

And he wasn't sure that you still did. As much as he hated to admit it, that scared him. He didn't know where he should be if he wasn't with you. Everything else felt wrong. To be without you was like being without the sun, living in the deepest darkest cave and refusing to see the light.

That being said, Ben knew you were pissed, he was too.

Watching Homelander take Lou all but ripped him in half. He hated that the pussy had used a fucking child as a shield and hated that he had gotten away with it. Ben felt his body tense when he remembered the fear in Lou's eyes and a jolt of white hot rage burns through him at the thought that Homelander was hurting her.

Ben cared about Lou as much as he cared about you. She loved him and always made him feel welcome, and even though Rosemary never did, he was worried about her too. Maybe it was because he saw how much it hurt you for them to go, for Homelander to take Lou and for Rosemary to race after him. He knew that was your worst fear, but that didn't stop Ben from holding you back, for refusing to let you go alone to a place that Ben couldn't follow.

He'd never resented his abilities before, but he suddenly wished that he could fly. He would have soared after Homelander, after Rosemary, and after you if you had followed behind them. That was why he had held you back though, because he couldn’t and he was scared.

The word felt like a curse to think, but it was true. Ben knew that it was fear coursing through his veins in those few moments when he realized that you were going to go after Homelander and he wouldn't be able to follow. He didn’t want you to face him alone, didn’t want to watch you die again. After all these years, each time you died he feared that it would be the last, he feared that it would be the time it stuck and that he would be left all alone. He didn't want to live in a world without you, he'd done that for forty years and he was done with that.

Ben believed that it was his job to be there for you and after forty years of him being away, he wanted to be there to help you and take care of you. He was ready to make up for the lost time and he had told you how he felt the other day when you destroyed Legend's backyard, that he wanted the two of you to do this together.

That was before today.

Ben's hands are curled into fists on his lap as he forces himself to look out his own side of the car, refusing to look at you. If you could do the silent treatment he could too. Of all the fights the two of you had in the past, Ben knew this one was worse or at least it was as bad as when he fucked up, fucked Countess and then pushed you away when all he wanted was to bring you closer.

Honestly, you'd never compared him to Howard before. Ben could still remember the words you uttered to him the night of your birthday before you allowed him to take you to bed:

"Don't be jealous of Howard. He meant nothing to me. No one means as much to me as you do Ben."

Ben remembered the way you'd smiled up at him when you said it cheeks slightly flushed, lips red from when he kissed you. He remembered the way he felt like he'd swallowed pure sunshine, because that was what you always did to him. You always made him feel like he was the only person in the world that was allowed to see the real you. He knew that you loved him, knew that he loved you more than life itself, but what you'd yelled him before Butcher came downstairs made him feel like taking a two by four to the chest. It hurt him.

He hated what you said to him, that you compared him to that asshole from back home. Ben wished for nothing more than to wipe the memories of that man from your mind. When you were younger sometimes Ben would see Howard and you sitting in the park or getting lunch. He remembered the way that you never seemed to smile as wide, how small you looked, how Howard liked you better in the gowns that your mother chose for you, how Howard liked you silent, and how Howard preferred your body covered in heavy coats even though it was the middle of summer.

That particular thing always pissed Ben off, because he knew how you struggled with that, struggled with the way you looked and Ben hated that someone else who stated they loved you made you feel small and ugly, when you were the most beautiful woman that Ben had ever seen in his life.

Ben hated Howard with a passion for that exact reason, because Howard did try to control you. He chose what you wore, complained about what you ate, discouraged your art, and did other unspeakable things that you had told Ben over the years. Things that made Ben want to go back to Philadelphia and end Howard’s bloodline.

But sometimes on the nights when Ben was away at boarding school and he couldn't sleep he would think of Howard and you. Ben would never admit this to anyone, but he would compare himself to Howard, try to find the little differences that Ben thought made you like Howard, the differences that Ben thought about doing himself to make you love him the way he loved you. It always made him feel like a fucking pussy though. His father probably would have beat him within an inch of his life if his father knew that Ben was comparing himself to another man. It was something that Ben's father ingrained in him, that Ben's was from a strong, proud, family that never did that. And that a real man knew that he was better than everyone else, and if anyone tried to challenge that then it was best settled in the ring.

Ben sighed. He was trying hard to weed out the toxic things his father told him. You helped immensely with that, by letting Ben know that he didn’t have to be strong all the time and didn’t need to keep everything inside, that he didn't have to hide what he was feeling from you.

He loved that about you, that he felt like he never had to hide who he really was, that you saw all the parts of him he locked away for so long from everyone else and didn't care. And in exchange he got to see all the wonderful things about you and he didn't want to trade that for the world.

Even though he was angry with everything the two of you shouted, he still loved you.

You were just so damn stubborn all the time and never wanted to see things the way I do and-

Ben gritted his teeth together as another wave of annoyance came over him. He really did hate how stubborn you were. Probably because you were just as stubborn as he was and that meant the two of you were often at a stalemate.

Ben glanced over to where you were looking out the window. You were frowning, arms crossed tightly over your chest, leaning back against the cloth seats.

The awkward silence in the car was palpable and Ben knew that Hughie and Butcher were also trying not to notice the tension in the backseat. There was a song playing on the radio that Ben didn't recognize, but Hughie kept bobbing his head along to the music while Butcher's hands tighten on the wheel.

Ben's eyes flick back to where you are staring out the window. He wanted desperately to know what you were thinking. Honestly he'd rather the two of you be yelling at one another than you give him the silent treatment. At least then he had some semblance of what was going on in your head. Ben knew you better than anyone, which meant that he was usually good at reading you, but not now.

Even Ben could admit to himself that you'd changed some, you were a little harder than you had been when he knew you, but it didn't make him love you any less. He had been shocked at your revelation that you'd killed other people. Ben was trying to ignore what you'd said about not all deaths leaving scars.

He'd been present for most of the ones that had happened in the past, but he wondered how many others there had been, and what other powers you had maybe acquired. That was the thing about you, you weren't one to brag, never seemed to need to use as many powers to take someone down.

Your arms tighten around your body and Ben watches a single tear roll down your cheek.

Fuck. He thinks to himself. He really didn't want to be the reason why you're crying. He had been the main reason for so long and he hated that, he hated making you cry and hated when you cried in general. If you weren't so mad at him he would have unbuckled your seat belt and pulled you over onto his lap so he could hold you close and make you feel better, but he wasn't sure you wanted that, still wanted him.

The thought that you didn't made him feel like he was sinking into the sea, that the sun was slowly being sucked away while he's dragged under into the depths. Ben didn't know who he was without you, didn't know where he would go, and certainly didn't know what his purpose was if he wasn't in your life.

Before he can stop himself he reaches out to touch your arm, but you flinch away from him, still looking out the window and not turning to him.

Ben fights the urge to make you talk to him, and drops his hand back down to his thigh, curling it into a fist again. Ben felt something in his chest that was unfamiliar when you didn't let him touch you. He wasn't sure if it was fear or anger or frustration but it was there, simmering underneath the skin.

It reminded him too much of when he came back you didn't let him touch you, didn't want him anywhere near you. He didn't want to admit how much he relied on that, you touching him, not just sexually. The little touches you gave him on the back of his hand to comfort him when you knew he was anxious, or the brace of your hand against his shoulder or back when he was sitting down to reassure him that you were with him and that you weren't going anywhere or the moments you adjusted his collar when it was facing the wrong way, or smoothed a wrinkle at the front of his shirt or even just running your fingers through his hair the way you knew he liked, Ben lived for them, for all those little moments.

No one else had ever tried to touch him that way before, with comfort and love.

Even when you were children, the hugs you gave him when you saw him made everything else seem colorless in comparison. When he came back to you and you refused to let him touch you he was afraid you never would again and when you began to touch him again he felt like he’d ascended to another plane, but now your refusal for him to touch your elbow or even take your hand worried him.

He did not believe that he could survive without something as simple as that.

But all of that just solidified the one thing that Ben knew deep down, had known since the moment he realized how much you meant to him, that you were his one weakness, his fatal flaw, the one thing in his life that he couldn’t live without. He didn’t want to imagine that world existed because he couldn't survive without you.

That was why he didn't want you to fight Homelander alone. It wasn't because he didn't see how strong you were, it was that he was so afraid that he was going to lose you that he couldn't control himself.

He hated admitting that even to you, but now he knew he had to, because he knew his pride wasn't worth losing you.

READER POV

After the most awkward car ride in history, you were ready to get out and kick some ass. Despite Butcher's accelerated driving it had taken five hours to get back to the city from Legend's due to traffic and the whole time you were especially aware of Ben's presence. His brooding was practically audible from the other side of the car where he sulked and refused to look at you. You figured that just as he did the silent treatment you could too, but it didn't make it any easier.

Frankly nothing made any of this easy.

You were frustrated by this turn of events, that Homelander had done the one thing that you feared more than anything else in the world, the one thing that you had tried to prevent from happening your entire life, but he had.

But as upset as you were and worried about Lou and Rosemary, you were upset with yourself over what you had said to Ben. You hadn't meant to mention Howard, it was a low blow and you knew how much he hated the time you spent with Howard. You knew that Ben struggled with the thought that you possibly loved Howard more than you loved him and the possibility that you regretted spending your life with Ben rather than him. And you knew that it hurt him as much as the moments you watched him with other women over the years.

You didn't want Howard, never wanted Howard, never felt anything for him, and for Ben you felt everything. Sometimes you were afraid to show Ben just how much you felt for him, feared that it would make him push you away when he realized just how much you needed him. In the forty years you spent away from him you tried to convince yourself that you didn't, but having him back was like everything coming back in color from black and white. But at the same time you were still a little angry, angry with him for holding you back when you knew you could have taken Homelander down yourself.

Because in your heart you knew that was what Howard did to you. Not that he held you back from fighting a psychopathic supe, but that Howard never saw you more as a possession, a jewel in a crown adorned on his lofty head, nothing more than something to parade around Philadelphia. That's why it was so different for you when you were with Ben, because Ben saw you, he never covered you up with heavy cloaks, he never discouraged your love of art, he never bored you or made you feel like your opinion wasn't important. Ben made you feel alive, and Howard? Howard made you feel like the empty husk of what you used to be.

You press your lips together in a tight line as Butcher pulls up the seat so you can get out of the backseat and set foot on solid ground. Hughie had been left behind at a gas station, and yes you hated that Butcher had done that, but at the same time you were relieved. You didn't want him to get hurt. You still believed that Hughie was different than you, not that he was innocent, but he wasn't jaded or hardened the way you had to be to survive.

Your gaze lifts to look up at the towering skyscraper that rises from the earth like a proud oak tree on a hill. Vought tower looks the same way it always has, bold and haughty like the men who founded the company all those years ago. The setting sun glints off the glass windows like the last glimmer of summer, something to be grasped before the cold of winter comes to take it all away.

You'd stood here looking up at the building before, watched the lights turn off and on, watched the people go in and out of the building, and had crossed the threshold a handful of times. The final time was to deliver last rights to your good friend Liberty.

She, like a few others, hadn't believed your story and had shown up to speak with you. But unlike the others, her methods of finding out if you were still you was to try to kill you. She had succeeded and then left stating that she would "be back to catch up." When you'd gone to Vought to find her, you hadn't been expecting her to look the way she did, half burned and laying in a hospital bed. You didn't know why she looked that way. It had been odd to stand there over her, odd to remember the person she used to be, proud and powerful and then look at the broken body that laid there. Her death had been a necessary evil, the only time you ever stepped foot in Vought Tower in the last forty years, but if it was to protect your family it was worth it to you.

Your frown grows the longer you stand there underneath the ominous glow that emanates from inside, anxiety prickling along your skin like the spines of a cactus. You couldn't remember the last time you felt this way, just that you didn't want to feel this way ever again. The building was a symbol of everything you hated, and you vowed deep down to destroy Vought and send it to hell where it belonged and make those who were responsible for Vought's success pay.

You think about the other day in Legend's backyard, when Ben pulled you back from the darkened pit and back into the light, when Ben told you that he didn't want you to do it alone, that he wanted to be there for you, and when he promised you again that he wasn't leaving and that he wanted you to give him all your burdens.

Yes he wants to be there for me, I get it, I GET IT. You sigh in frustration. I understand that he loves me and that he wants to protect me, but I wish he would just-

"Y/n?" Ben says from behind you. His voice is quiet, reserved, but you know that he's probably just as upset as you are.

You turn and glance up at him. Ben hadn't tried to touch you since you shifted away from him in the car. It hurt you to do that to him, to pull away from his touch when all you wanted was for him to comfort you. The night he came back to you, you hadn't lied when you said that he might have been the one who hurt you, but he was the only person you wanted to comfort you. That was the hard thing about loving him and him being your best friend. It was difficult to draw the line in the sand, to separate the two.

The feeling was normal. It was the same one you had when he broke your heart. You had hated him then too, but he was still the only person you had and the longer you stayed in bed running over the years you spent with him, the more you wished that he was with you. The only person that you wanted to comfort you and care for you even after everything that he had done and yelled at you at the premiere, was Ben.

Sometimes it scared you how much you relied on his touch, how much you needed just a comforting hand on your arm, or for him to tuck your hair behind your ear or for him to kiss you or for him to hold you while you slept. You didn't realize how much you needed it, how much you craved it until he came back and you allowed him to touch you again.

In the car you had been trying not to cry, but everything was building, your frustration with Ben over the conversation the two of you had, fear over what would happen to Lou and Rosemary, and red hot anger directed at Homelander. A single tear had slipped and when Ben had tried to comfort you, you pulled away from him.

Fuck.

You hadn't wanted to. You'd wanted to curl up against him and let him make you feel better, but you were still angry with him for holding you back.

The words you yelled at him momentarily ring in your ears. It wasn't just that you compared him to Howard, it was you told him you didn't need him to protect you. But you knew Ben better than anyone and you knew that he was probably circling the drain and thinking that you basically told him that you "didn't need him" when you did.

"Yeah?" You clear your throat. It was difficult to look at him, not when you were so close to just breaking down and telling him that you were sorry. You knew that you needed to be focused on what was about to happen, but you couldn't, not when things were like this between the two of you. You hated fighting with him.

Ben's gaze drifts to where Butcher is staring expectantly at you.

"Give us a minute." Ben says to him.

"Why?"

"Just give us a fucking minute." Ben snaps, obviously annoyed, but you knew that he was probably upset about the fight the two of you had and he was projecting that anger onto Butcher.

"Fine. I’ll clear the lobby. Don’t take too long." Butcher frowns, but turns and stalks up the front steps of the building.

You turn back to look at him, unable to stop the sarcastic comment from building. Because yes, you wanted to forgive him, but at the same time you were still frustrated with him. "What? Are you gonna lock me in the car? Or are you going to tell me again how you don’t want me to fight him?"

"No." Ben growls.

"Then why-"

"Because I don’t want it to be like this." Anger lurks on the edge of his words, but at the same time you can hear something else in his voice, something that sounds a little broken. And it makes your heart clench in you chest.

"You don’t want what to be like this?" You ask confused.

"I don’t want us to go in there angry at each other." He continues.

"Why not?"

"Because I-" Ben stops, his jaw tightening for a moment, before he sighs. "I hate it when you’re mad at me. When you don't let me-" He swallows and you watch his eyes drop to your hand for a moment and you understand what he's saying.

That he hates it when you don't let him touch you. You hated it too.

"You think I like being mad at you?" You whisper, fingers itching to touch his cheek, to push back the dark hair that has fallen forward into his eyes.

"No." He breathes.

You stand there for a moment, letting the silence fill the space between you. The sounds of the city rising around you, the sound of traffic, vendors downtown, and the smell of the pretzel stand around the corner are everywhere. There aren't as many people on the streets now, but you know that it's only a matter of time before someone recognizes Ben in his uniform.

You sigh as you look up at him. Despite the uniform there's a vulnerability in his eyes that you can't shake and you understand how much it must have hurt him too.

“I don’t like it when you’re mad at me either.” You reply.

"I don’t like being mad at you." Ben exhales heavily. "And I don't want it to be like this before we go in. If something happens I-" He stops talking. "I don't want our last conversation to be like that."

"What do you mean you don't want our last conversation to be like that?" This time you can't help, but take his hand and Ben physically relaxes as you do, squeezing your hand back just as tightly.

"If this doesn't work out, if-" His jaw locks and he drops his eyes from yours. "I can't lose you."

"Ben." You whisper and this time you can't help but hug him, pull him close to comfort him. Your arms go up around the back of his neck, burying your face into the hollow of his throat. "You're not going to lose me. Everything is going to be fine." Ben's body immediately curves around you, arms holding you against him so tight it's almost painful, like he thinks you'll never allow him to do this ever again.

"I'm not strong enough for that y/n-" He whispers it so low that you're not sure he meant for you to hear it. "I can't-"

"Shh." You breathe, moving your hands into his hair, smoothing down the unruly strands at the back of his head. "I promise you're not going to lose me." You pull back to look him in the eye. "But I want you to treat me like an equal, like you see my power-“

“I do.”

“No you don’t, because if you did you wouldn’t hold me back all the time.”

“I’m trying not to, but-“ Ben sighs leaning forward into you. “You said it’s your job to take care of me, well it’s my job to protect you.” His expression hardens. “And I failed before.”

“What happened to me was not your fault.”

“I should have been there. I shouldn't have left you for a second-"

“Just like I should have been there in Nicaragua." You whisper back, with a sorrowful sigh. "Just like I should have asked more questions, should have made sure that you were really gone. Then you wouldn’t have had to be in that lab, you wouldn't have been alone-"

“That’s not your fault.” Ben's forehead is against yours now. "Please don't feel bad about that."

“It doesn’t matter if it was my fault or not. I should have been there for you. I will forever feel guilty that I didn’t come for you sooner and that you had to endure that for forty years.” You drop your eyes to his chest.

“Then I’ll forever feel guilty for the way I treated you.” Ben replies.

"I don't want you to." Your gaze rises to his once more, locking with his deep green eyes.

It was true. You could still remember what he said to you, remember what he did, but he was here now and he was doing everything right to make you forget. He was being so different and working so hard to make up for the past that you didn't feel the prick of pain with the memories that you used to.

"And I don't want you to feel guilty about what happened to me." Ben murmurs, raising his hand to cup your cheek. "Those years don't matter to me. The only thing that matters to me is being here with you. And I don't want to miss another second because I did something stupid again."

"And I don't want you to feel guilty about what you did to me anymore. Because you're making me forget, you're doing everything you can to be different, and you're making me fall in love with you all over again." You whisper, leaning in to his hand where his thumb traces gently over your cheekbone. "And I don't care what the past held as long as I have a future with you, as long as you're here with me I don't care about anything else."

Ben smiles when he kisses you, the shape of his lips imprinting against yours, and making you lose yourself in loving him the same way that you had all those years ago. "I love you sweetheart."

"I love you too." You smile just as wide, fingers tangling in his dark hair. "And I'm sorry. I shouldn't have compared you to Howard. You're not like him Ben. You are my everything and Howard was nothing."

He nods. "I'm sorry too. I didn't mean to hold you back I just wanted to make sure you were safe."

"I know. I want to keep you safe too." You nudge your nose against his, breathing in the same air for a few moments.

He is still smiling softly. "Why are we like this?"

"Like what?"

"We always find something to fight about and I-"

“I kinda like it.” You shrug.

“What?”

“Not that I like that you’re mad at me or being mad at you, I just think that we like to keep it interesting." You snort. "I think that if we didn't have a healthy amount of fighting we would just be so boring and-"

Ben kisses you again to shut you up, but it doesn't work.

"Plus, I like to think that the make-up is worth it after." You whisper against his lips with a smirk.

You watch Ben's eyes darken, with your comment. "Well, sweetheart, I'd say that we've got about forty years to make-up for." His hand on your waist tightens, moving his lips to your ear. "And I look forward to every single second." Ben's voice is rough and he bites your earlobe, sending a shiver down your spine that for a moment clears your worry about Homelander.

"I love you." You smile, kissing him like it's the last thing you'll ever do, like it's the greatest good you'll ever amount to.

"I love you too." Ben replies kissing you like it's the last time he'll be able to and trying not to think that it could be.

A/N: A lot of delicious angst before the final fight! I have written most of the fight already, but I am hoping to finish out the next chapter by the end of the week... if the writer's block isn't blocking. 😂😭 I hope y'all liked this one. I see only maybe 2 chapters left officially in the series, but we will see how everything wraps up.

As always thank you so much for reading! I am so happy that so many people love this fic as much as I do. Let me know if you'd like to be added to the taglist! :)

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#soldier boy x you #soldier boy x reader #jensen ackles #soldier boy x female reader #soldier boy #jensen ackles soldier boy #soldier boy/ben #the boys amazon #the boys fanfic #soldier boy x y/n #soldier boy fic #soldier boy fanfiction

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wittyandobsessed · 1 month ago

Text

𝐈'𝐦 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮

𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 | Jack Sparrow x Reader

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 | none.

𝘎𝘪𝘣𝘣𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯.

The Black Pearl sat idle in the harbor, her dark sails resting against the stillness of the afternoon air. Will Turner leaned against a post on the gangplank, arms crossed, watching the woman approaching with a mix of disbelief and cautious curiosity. She moved in a way that defied reason, a sort of confident stagger that somehow kept her upright despite every indication she might tip over at any second.

“Gibbs,” Will murmured, nudging the older man beside him. “She walks like…”

“Jack,” Gibbs finished, squinting at her as if seeing a ghost. “Aye, she does.”

Her attire was as haphazardly theatrical as the man she so eerily resembled—boots scuffed and mismatched, a coat too grand for her frame, and a hat adorned with what looked like a battered seashell tied to a feather. She carried herself like she owned the dock, and perhaps in her mind, she did.

Jack Sparrow, lounging at the rail with one boot propped up and a half-empty bottle of rum in his hand, caught sight of her. His face froze for a moment, his dark eyes narrowing as if he wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t imagining her. Then, as if struck by some divine inspiration, he stood, dusted himself off, and sauntered down the gangplank.

The woman’s gaze locked on him as she closed the distance. She stopped a few paces away, tilting her head, her grin slow and sharp.

“Well, if it isn’t Jack Sparrow,” she drawled, her voice laced with mockery. “Still breathing, I see. Must be my lucky day.”

“Captain Jack Sparrow,” Jack corrected, tipping his hat with an exaggerated flourish. “And to whom do I owe the pleasure of this most curious encounter?”

She twirled a ring on her finger idly, her grin never faltering. “Captain,” she replied.

“Captain…?” Jack prompted, stepping closer, his hands flitting through the air as if to pull the answer from her.

“Just Captain.”

Jack blinked, his mouth twitching into a bemused smile. “Just Captain?”

“Aye.” She tapped her temple. “Keeps things mysterious. Fewer people to come after me for debts.”

Jack’s eyes lit up as though she’d spoken the sweetest words he’d ever heard. “A woman after my own heart,” he said, his grin widening.

Will groaned quietly, and Gibbs took a swig from his flask.

“Captain Sparrow,” she said, stepping closer and giving him a once-over. “Rumor has it you’re the second-best pirate in the Caribbean.”

Jack’s jaw dropped, his hands flying up in protest. “Second?!” he exclaimed, indignant. “There must be some grave misunderstanding, love. Who’s been spreading such vile slander?”

She raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms as she leaned in with a conspiratorial air. “Maybe the same people who said you got caught in Port Royal while chasing your own hat?”

Jack’s face twisted into a defensive pout. “That was a tactical misstep,” he muttered, then quickly recovered his swagger. “And who, may I ask, has the audacity to claim they’re better than me?”

She leaned back, her smirk widening. “You’re looking at her.”

For a moment, Jack was utterly silent, his mouth opening and closing as though trying to form words. Then, suddenly, he let out a delighted laugh, spinning in a circle and pointing back at Gibbs and Will. “Do you hear this, mates? She thinks she’s better than me!”

Will crossed his arms tighter. “I don’t know if the world can handle two of them.”

Gibbs sighed. “We’re doomed, lad. Doomed.”

Jack turned back to her, his expression alight with giddy admiration. “Well, Captain Just Captain,” he said, stepping close enough that their hats nearly touched. “You’ve piqued my interest. What’s your game, eh? Treasure? Adventure? The eternal pursuit of rum?”

“All of the above,” she quipped, leaning in to match his proximity. “And you?”

Jack’s grin turned devilish. “A little of this, a little of that. Mostly, I prefer to keep people guessing.”

Their exchange was a flurry of rapid-fire banter, their words overlapping as if neither could wait to one-up the other. It was like watching two storms collide, chaotic yet mesmerizing.

Will finally couldn’t take it anymore. “Are you two going to flirt all day, or are we actually going to leave port at some point?”

Jack spun to face him, offended. “Flirt? Flirt?! I’ll have you know, Mr. Turner, this is no ordinary exchange of pleasantries. This is an advanced tactical maneuver.”

She chimed in, raising a finger. “Pirate diplomacy, if you will.”

“Exactly,” Jack said, pointing at her.

Will’s expression was blank. “Right.”

“Don’t worry, lad,” Gibbs said, patting Will on the shoulder. “Best to let it play out. You’ll hurt your head trying to make sense of it.”

Jack turned back to her, his hand outstretched. “So, what do you say, love? Care to join the crew of the Black Pearl? Finest ship on the seas, and, if I may say so, the finest captain.”

Her grin softened slightly, her hand slipping into his. “Well, I suppose I could use a ship.” She tugged him closer, her eyes gleaming with mischief. “But only if you’re ready to be second-best.”

Jack barked a laugh, pulling her up the gangplank. “We’ll see about that!”

Gibbs chuckled, shaking his head as the pair disappeared onto the ship. “Mark my words, Turner,” he said, taking another swig. “This’ll be the start of somethin’ legendary—or a disaster.”

Will sighed. “With Jack, it’s always both.”

#oneshot #x reader #captain jack sparrow #pirates of the caribbean #jack sparrow x reader

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noneatnonedotcom · 8 days ago

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behold my ultimate creation! autism knight!

simply put it's jaune but instead of being based on joan of arc he's based on the nameless knights of fairytales and arthuriana.

he'll work in any au, basic idea is he's a really good knight but he's got no idea what's going on in the deeper plot, he's just interested in being a really good knight and helping people then leaving to help others.

dude's got knight autism.

this can also work for characters like pyrrha or ruby.

Peerless: (800CP) The knights of Britain are renown for their skill, power and honour. The knights of the Round Table exemplify Britain’s virtues to an even greater extent. You? Lancelot at his height is the only one you can call a peer and he doesn’t remain there for long. Few men are as perfectly well rounded as you. Your physical abilities are enough that you could fight powerful adult dragons and demons to a draw with your bare hands or even win if you added a good weapon to your side. You’ve got unbelievable levels of martial skill in both offense and defense, across two dozen kinds of weapons, such that even without your physical abilities being so great you could slay armies. You have strategic and tactical abilities that let you lead small forces to crush far larger ones and can even make a good substitute for a king if your liege needs to spend a few months away at war, though you are far below the sort of king that can create a golden age. You have a high level of natural talent at any skill or ability you try your hand at and find it very easy to learn and train to become better at new things, quickly surpassing even the most venerable of warriors in their specialties. Of course, you would not be peerless if you did not also look the part. Among all the men in the world, only the divine could outmatch your physical splendour and even then, only by a touch. Your king might frown on the hordes of maidens that lust after you but you really can’t help it, as you gather admirers and love interests even when fully armoured and masked. Just something about you.

Mysterious: (100CP) "Enigmatic, mysterious, people stop to stare and have no idea why. There's just something strange, different about you, at least after you get your hands on this perk. Upon purchase, you gain an air of mystery that makes others curious and questioning about you, like there's always another layer to your character or something buried further down that you're hiding.

You also become good at maintaining it.

If you act up front and casual, then people just might be a bit curious about you. If you really go all in on being mysterious, you may develop into a kind of small urban legend or have a profile in some intelligence gathering agencies."

Can’t Read My: (100CP) You got one hell of a poker face. You could be having a mind shattering meltdown while appearing outwardly as perfectly composed and well mannered to the extent even the Cloudy Sword Sect would be impressed. This is also somehow genetic, meaning your kids will be equally as good at containing their inner freakouts behind a face of serenity.

the basic idea is taking the mysterious badass and turning it on it's head. the person with these powers can't be read in any way, can't be predicted as a result. and has the skills and physical abilities to always win no matter what situation they end up in!

... they just havn't been paying attention and have no idea that they've been foiling the same bad guy's plans for the last six months and now secret relics are getting involved and magic is real I guess and why the fuck is this all spiraling out of control?

what the fuck even is aura!?!?

also why is everyone coming onto them? they just wanna save people from evil is that too much to ask?

whichever character you make the autism knight will gain unfathomable abilities but at the cost of forever not knowing what's going on and everyone assuming it was all going to their keikaku (keikaku means plan)

thoughts on which character you'd make the autism knight? it can be from any media it's a very versatile character.

@howlingday @weatherman667

@heliosthegriffin why does this feel like the shadow knight if he was OP instead of barely scrapping by? like in an au where jaune had amazing abilities from the beginning he just never bothered to look deeper into things and kept saving the day never knowing that he was becoming enemy number 1 for the forces of evil.

#rwby #jaune arc #rwby au #none rant #[email protected] fics #ruby rose #au #lancaster rwby

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rynnthefangirl · 8 months ago

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“I don’t get why people are so mad about the Mad Queen, Dany’s character has been building to this and it makes perfect sense for her!”

Okay, so even if we pretend for a second that Dany burning KL at the time and in the way she did made sense (it didn’t), there’s a whole other element as to why the Mad Queen arc was SO infuriating. And that is because for two seasons the entire logic of the show bends backwards until it breaks in order to get Dany to the point where they could try to justify that act.

Let’s look at some examples:

Tyrion instructs Dany to invade Casterly Rock, leaving Highgarden unprotected. It makes zero sense for a character renowned for their intelligence to propose this. CR is a defensive stronghold that offers no tactical advantage to a Conquerer, while Highgarden is one of Dany’s strongest allies with the funds to support her conquest. Dany loses House Tyrell and the Reach because of this.

Tyrion also advises Dany to send some of her most valuable men Beyond the Wall to capture a wight to convince Cersei of their existence. Again, this makes no sense for Tyrion to propose. He of all people should know that Cersei is a deranged narcissist who could never be trusted. I guess Tyrion kind of forgot his sisters central character traits. Dany loses a dragon because of this.

Dany also would not have lost Viserion if she had not arrived in time to rescue Jon and the others. But lucky for them (and unlucky for Viserion), ravens can now fly from the wall to Dragonstone in a single night.

“Dany kind of forgot about the iron fleet.” Apparently this Conquerer queen heading south for war just didn’t send out any sort of scouts, and entirely forgot about one of the like two forces that she needs to watch out for. None of her war advisors remember this either. She loses Rhaegal and Missandei because of this.

Cersei decides to behead Missandei as opposed to keeping her prisoner in the Red Keep in order to discourage Dany from just burning it down.

The Iron Fleet— which would later fail to strike down Drogon despite firing dozens of scorpions— is able to take Rhaegal down with two back to back perfect shots. Also apparently they can see Rhaegal well enough to do that, but neither Rhaegal nor Drogon nor Dany were able to see them.

Upon coming to Westeros, Dany has three dragons, a huge army of Unsullied, a huge army of Dothraki, a portion of the Iron Fleet, the full support of Highgarden with all their wealth and armies and probably much of their Bannermen, and the backing of Dorne. Dany is told that this is not enough, and she will not be able to take KL without tons of innocent bloodshed. Dany then proceeds to lose 2/3 dragons, Highgarden, Dorne, the Iron Fleet, and a huge portion of her Unsullied and Dothraki armies. In exchange, she gets an army of tired unmotivated northerners. Meanwhile Cersei obtains all of Highgardens wealth, the Golden Company, the Iron Fleet, and a massive force of scorpions. Dany proceeds to take Kings Landing and force a surrender with virtually zero civilian bloodshed.

Dany is portrayed as unreasonable and irrational for wanting to immediately attack Kings Landing with her full force. This perceived irrationality is the basis for her advisors questioning and betraying her. Dany is later proved correct in all of her courses of action when— again— she forces KL surrender quickly and cleanly and with virtually no civilian bloodshed.

Varys, a character renowned for his patience and ability to play the game and wait to strike until the opportune moment, a man who sat through Joffrey’s reign and did nothing, suddenly feels that Daenerys (who has not done anything worse than what Varys already knew her capable of when he decided to support her) is such a risk that he tries to poison her before she has even defeated Cersei for him. Again, the supposed reckless plan that Varys betrays Dany for is later proven to have been the correct plan.

Cersei faces no backlash from any of her actions. Nobody cares that she blew up the Westerosi Vatican. Nobody cares that she murdered the Queen of Westeros. Nobody cares that she helped orchestrate the fall death of Ned Stark and bears responsibility for the subsequent war and massacre of many of the remaining starks. Nobody cares that she is very very unlikely to accept Northern Independence, and very likely to hold a grudge against the north and house stark and seek to wipe them out. Cersei faces zero criticism or opposition from anyone besides Daenerys, and dethroning her is treated as an unnecessary inconvenience that nobody really cares that much about, and are only doing because Dany wants to.

These are just the examples I can think of off the top of my head. There are surely many many more.

Dany was too OP coming into season 7. As such, in order to make the plot work and reach their predetermined Mad Queen ending, the very fabric of the universe twisted and warped for the explicit purpose of taking away everything she had and loved. Dumbass plans from characters known for the intelligence, fast travel, discarding of the “action and consequence” internal logic of the show for Dany’s opposition, forgetting of basic war time strategy. Cersei’s forces are a formidable threat when Dany needs to look reckless and bad for wanting to attack Kings Landing. Cersei’s forces then proceed to not be a threat at all and collapse like a tower of cards when Dany needs to look awful and evil for burning down a city that surrendered so easily.

So yeah, even if in that moment you believe Dany would burn down Kings Landing, the fact that Dany fans had to sit there and watch as every single aspect of the show was manipulated in the most illogical way for the sole purpose of making her the villain…? Is it really in character if the fundamental logic of the universe has to change in order for it to happen?

#anti got season 8 #pro daenerys targaryen #daenerys targaryen #anti d&d #house targaryen #asoiaf

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missyandthemisfits · 11 months ago

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Obi/Hinawa x Reserved!Fem! Reader

A/N Requested a whiiile ago, I'm so sorry for the wait *cries in procrastination*

)()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()(

Akitaru Obi

- Obi likes to think he's a nice cross between a serious, strong willed leader and a fun guy to be around - and he'd be correct in his assumptions.

- He doesn't take himself too terribly seriously but also knows when and how to command authority and as such, has experience handling all sorts of personality types; so meeting someone as even tempered and reserved as (Name)?

- Truthfully, it's almost like a breath of fresh air .

- He approaches her like he approaches anyone; with kindness and a warm smile, careful not to startle her out of her book but speaking just loud enough for her to know he's addressing her.

- Somehow, she's still a bit jumpy despite his approach but he makes sure not to draw any attention to it, introducing himself with an outstretched hand, patiently waiting for her to take it. They're pretty fast friends and from then on, it's like they lean towards the other's company more than they realize.

- It's subconsciously grained into them a few months after meeting; Anytime they're in a room together one will gravitate toward the other, sitting or standing, exchange glances and smiles all the while, even during team meetings.

- She just feels... really seen with him. And very safe.

- And she's always incredibly attentive, able to scope out his emotional state with pinpoint accuracy, even when he's trying not to make a spectacle of it.

- In fact, they soon realize how much emotional support the other provides, mere seconds later realizing just how much the other means.

- He wastes no time confessing his feelings.

- "-And I know this might be sudden, but I'd very much like to take you out to lunch some time. Honestly, I think you're a real catch (Name), and I'd hate to miss out on the opportunity. Life's too short."

- The confession is so forward yet well meaning it sends (Name) into shock; a blushing, stuttering shock.

- But he waits patiently, albeit slightly nervous, for her reply; it's a yes, of course.

Takehisa Hinawa

- Hinawa is...a very no-nonsense individual, one could take a single look at him and tell.

- It's because of this fact that he actually strongly prefers someone a little more reserved than most. That said upon meeting (Name), he was convinced that if the infernals didn't eat her alive, the rigorous Fire Force training would. To his surprise, he was dead wrong. In fact, she excelled.

- She was capable of taking out swarms of Infernals in seconds with expert offensive abilities partnered with spot on defensive capabilities. She was tactical and focused, something he noticed many of his peers lacked even on the battlefield. He grew to respect her prowess, honestly.

- "Excellent work out there, (Name)."

- "!!!"

- She gasped loudly, startled at the approach of the man and his seemingly random compliment.

- He watched in disbelief as she subconsciously backs into a wall, facing him, face reddened.

- He doesn't necessarily lose respect for her, but he certainly thinks twice before approaching her unexpectedly again - not hard for him at all, but she does feel pretty bad for overreacting.

- Works up the nerve to apologize but also stumbles into a very unexpected confession.

- "...Th-that is to say... I respect you as a Lieutenant and-,"

- "So am I wrong to assume you want a pursue a romantic relationship?"

- "Um...!"

- (Name) is at war with herself for a few more moments and he sighs, running a hand through his hair with the tiniest blush, gaze averted somewhere to the side.

- "...I only ask because I myself might be interested..."

- It's... less than romantic but (Name) can tell it took him a lot to say it. She could tell they'd be taking their time in this thing, together.

)()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()(

#fire force x y/n #fire force x you #fire force x reader #fire force #akitaru obi #takehisa hinawa #Did I mention I have started taking requests???

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lazycats-stuff · 9 months ago

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Ra's Al Ghul kidnapping reader, a son of Bruce, because he 'finds him interesting'. Obviously the reader is put off, but after some time and some really kind treatment from Ra's, reader kinda finds him sweet, at this point Bruce's comes to rescue reader and stomp on Ra's skul, but the reader convinces him to not kill Ra's, and Ra's and reader kinda develop a relationship, but the reader is still a bit 'you didn't have to kidnap me, but I guess you are just different but don't think I'll let this go, we'll do this how i want it to go'

Hell yeah. Oh Bruce is ready to kill someone. Hehe... I love it. Also, can't find and gifs of Ra's so a repeat of one of the former ones. Also, I'm done with school until my exams begin! A weekend off... Ah... Sounds like heaven.

Summary: (Y/N) gets kidnapped by Ra's. (Y/N) is confused and scared.

Warnings: kidnapping, Ra's tries to make (Y/N) like him, Ra's is sweet to (Y/N)...

(Y/N)'s eyes opened, head pounding like someone wacked him with a hammer. So he was either drugged or really got hit in the head with a hammer. Also, why does the bed feel far too comfortable for a... Why is the bed so damn soft comfortable?

(Y/N) sat up in bed, hissing from the headache as he looked around the room, nearly getting a stroke. The room was lavish. I mean, more than lavish. Whoever kidnapped him is rich, but not just rich, filthy rich.

The room was just marble and gold. This person had money to burn. Not to mention, everything is more spacious... This person was a shit ton of money to burn. (Y/N) closed his eyes as he tried to remember what has happed before this.

He was walking to his car from the college building... And then... A full on blackout. Well, that is not good... How much time has even passed? A day? A few hours?

More importantly, does Bruce know he's missing?! (Y/N) was never a vigilante. He knew self defense, but this is something... (Y/N) laid back down from the headache. He huffed as he laid back down on the bed, the bed warm and comforting. And soft... Is this silk?

Not even Bruce has that much money to burn.

(Y/N) sat up when he heard the door opening, eyes widening at the sight of Ra's Al Ghul entering a room, with... Water and some sort of rectangular box? What the hell?

" Ah, I see you are awake. Is your headache bad? " Ra's asked as he closed the door behind him.

" What in the actual fuck?! " (Y/N) yelled, wincing as he made his headache worse. " You old bastard. " (Y/N) added, making Ra's chuckle as he approached the bed, sitting on the edge of it, observing (Y/N).

" Nothing I didn't hear before. Now, do take these pain meds. " Ra's said as he presented a box. Now, (Y/N) was suspicious beyond belief.

" And how do I know they weren't tempered with? " (Y/N) asked as he took the box, checking it carefully.

" I give you my word that the pills weren't tempered with. Now, take two. They'll help you with the pain and you'll sleep it off. " Ra's said as he watched (Y/N), who was now hesitantly opening the box. Ra's watched in silence as (Y/N) took the pills, downing them with the water from the bottle.

" Now, just lie down and sleep it off. You'll feel better once you wake up in the morning. " Ra's said as he made (Y/N) lie down, making sure to tuck him in.

(Y/N) watched in silence and more so in shock. Why in God's name is Ra's so gentle? This has to be a manipulation. A tactic. Lower down your guard and then, when you least expect it, bam! You get hit where it hurts the most and then they catch you off guard and you are killed.

(Y/N) just needed to stay alive long enough for Bruce to find him. That's it. (Y/N) wanted nothing more then Bruce to find him. His room sounded nice. (Y/N) felt more and more drowsy as the seconds passed, under the eye of Ra's al Ghul.

" Just relax. Don't fight it. " Ra's whispered as he dimmed the lights to make it more bearable to sleep in. And the headache was slightly better. Then, Ra's came back and checked to see if (Y/N) is properly tucked into bed.

And (Y/N) couldn't fight the pills, no matter how hard he tried. His eyes closed, body finally happy to rest again, but this time with no pain. Ra's stayed for a couple of more minutes, watching (Y/N) as he slept, hand gently reaching to caress (Y/N)'s cheeks. So soft, Ra's thought as he enjoyed the fact that (Y/N) was finally here, with him.

Ra's couldn't wait any longer if he tried. Now there was a sense of contentment as (Y/N) was on his base, with him. Yes, he did follow (Y/N), but he wasn't a normal stalker. Well, he isn't a stalker. He simply found (Y/N) interesting.

And Ra's has every right to explore that curiosity. And Bruce and his wrath? Well, he can and will deal with that later. Ra's stood up silently going to the door, giving one last glance at (Y/N)'s sleeping form, before leaving, closing the door behind him, locking it too, just in case that (Y/N) decides to leave the room.

Sure, his assassins will stop him, but still, never enough caution. And the base is in the middle of an ocean so escaping... Well, Ra's was confident that (Y/N) wouldn't escape. No way he could anyway. Ra's smiled to himself as he walked to his office, knowing that (Y/N) will be out for a while, which in turn meant that he could get back to his work.

(Y/N) woke up the next day, in no pain and actually more rested then before. (Y/N) took a deep breath as he explored the room. He needed to find a way out of here. Like, now. He started with the doors that looked like balcony doors. He saw water and nothing but the blue water and sky.

That bastard.

(Y/N) decided to abandon that route and just went to the other doors in the room. He opened the door and entered the biggest bathroom he has ever seen. A bath, a shower... Marble and gold yet again. (Y/N) looked around, curiosity taking over. And sure, he can try to be more careful, but if Ra's was to torture him...

He wouldn't do it in this lavish room. He wouldn't get blood on the marble... Maybe he would and he would just replace it, considering the amount of money he has to burn. (Y/N) sighed as he looked himself in the mirror. He didn't look like pure shit. He looked somewhat normal, as if he wasn't kidnapped.

(Y/N) closed the door behind himself and then doing the normal morning business in the bathroom. He quickly pissed and flushed the water behind him. He washed his hands and then he washed his face with water, just to wake himself up a little bit more.

He sighed as he went back into the room, however, he nearly jumped out of his skin when Ra's was just sitting on the edge of the bed, legs crossed elegantly. His eyes seemed to soften when he saw (Y/N).

" I see that you are awake. How is your head? " Ra's asked softly and (Y/N) was now caught off guard. Completely.

" It's great. No pain. " (Y/N) said hesitantly, eyes narrowing in suspicion. Now, something is way fucking off. Ra's al Ghul, this soft with the son of his enemy?

He is going to get tortured soon. Just thrown into a dungeon and broken...

" Why in God's name are you so... So... I can't even say soft because you and soft don't go together. " (Y/N) said, making sure to not move an inch. He needs as much space as possible.

Ra's chuckled at the statement. Soft and Ra's al Ghul don't go together, that much was right.

" I'm soft because of you. I kidnapped you here because I thought you were interesting. And maybe there are some feelings involved too. " Ra's admitted, watching as (Y/N) became speechless. (Y/N) was trying to respond, but couldn't say anything. His mouth was opening and closing.

No sound came out.

" What? Ra's al Ghul and feelings? Damian was wrong. You are capable of feeling something. But I'm pretty damn sure that all of this is just a ploy to get me to lower my guard down and then bam! I'm in a dingy cell. And tortured. " (Y/N) said crossing his arms as he leaned on the wall.

Ra's laughed. (Y/N)'s eyes widened both at the sound and the scene.

Ra's al Ghul laughing? Pigs must be flying outside.

" What's so funny? You are a ruthless man. I've heard things you've done. "

Ra's stopped, eyes still soft. " I have a soft spot for you. I won't torture you. You have my word that nothing bad will happen to you for as long as you behave. " Ra's explained as he stood up, eyes still soft and still trained on (Y/N).

" If I didn't know you and your honesty, I would've called bullshit. " (Y/N) muttered and Ra's chuckled.

" I do speak the truth and more so, I would never lie to you. Are you hungry? It's been a while since you ate. " Ra's asked, watching as (Y/N) tilted his head, clearly still suspicious about Ra's and his treatment.

" I could eat something... As long as you don't lace it with something." (Y/N) mumbled and Ra's chuckled.

" I won't lace your food with anything. You have my word. " Ra's promised softly, offering (Y/N) a smile in return. " What would you like? " Ra's asked and (Y/N) shrugged his shoulders.

" What is it that Americans like to eat? Pancakes? Bacon? Anything heavy? " Ra's teased and (Y/N) was shocked yet again. Ra's al Ghul teasing?

" I like something light. Some granola, yogurt and fruit is my go to. " (Y/N) explained and Ra's nodded, pretending he didn't know that already.

" Come with me. I would like to share breakfast with you. " Ra's said as he opened the door for (Y/N), stepping outside to allow (Y/N) to get out first.

(Y/N) huffed at the fact, but stepped out anyway. Ra's smirked from behind him, gently leading (Y/N) to Ra's room and then through the said room to get to a beautiful terrace with a beautiful view of of the ocean and the sky...

" Please, do sit. " Ra's said, pointing at a chair to his right, before sitting down on the chair to the left. (Y/N) sat down, getting comfortable as he took in the fresh air, a salty smell in the air.

" No fresh air in Gotham I see? " Ra's said, turning to one of his guards, giving him an order in Arabic. The guard left and (Y/N) closed his eyes for a moment.

" Not really. " (Y/N) said. Even though he lived far enough to not be affected by the polluted air, he still couldn't get fresh air. But this? This is amazing.

" Glad to see you relaxed. " Ra's said and (Y/N) snorted.

" I'm not relaxed. I'm not trusting you as far as I can throw you. " (Y/N) said as he opened his eyes again, glancing at Ra's, who had an amused smirk on his face.

" I gave you my word that I won't do anything to you. As long as you behave of course. "

(Y/N) scoffed, but stopping when he heard the guard come back with food. He put the tray on the table between them. (Y/N) took a look into the bowl that was facing him. Granola, yogurt and some fruit...

" Your go to breakfast. I listened, you see. " Ra's said as he started eating his breakfast.

(Y/N) eyed the food suspiciously, but still ate it none the less. He was hungry and food sounded great at the moment.

" Later, I want to show you around the premises. I have a library in my office, filled with some literature classics that I'm sure you will like. " Ra's said and (Y/N) raised his brow.

How did he knew that? He does like classics the most, but he likes all genres.

" I won't question how you know that. I don't think I'll like that answer. " (Y/N) said and Ra's smirked.

" It's better that way. "

It's been a few weeks and (Y/N) has never been so confused in his entire life. Ra's was nice and gentle to him. (Y/N) was loosing his mind slowly. But in the entire process, (Y/N) was developing feelings for him too.

If it weren't for the assassin part, Ra's would be a man of his dreams. Gentle, attentive, handsome... (Y/N) thought about Stockholm syndrome. Immediately. But for a few weeks... They can't develop that fast can they?

(Y/N) was sleeping in his room, tired from the heat of the day. He was sleeping peacefully, but woke up when he heard a crash. His heart was beating fast as he sat up, throwing the blanket off of him. What the hell was going on?

He stepped out of the room, looking for Ra's. He may know self defense, but he doesn't have experience in this thing.

" RA'S! " He heard a deep yell and he recognized it immediately. It was Bruce's... Oh God, Bruce will break the code. (Y/N) ran to the office, stopping at the doorway.

" Dad! " (Y/N) yelled and both stopped fighting. Bruce turned his head, eyes widening at the sight of his son. Not hurt... Nothing...

" (Y/N)? " Bruce said quietly, clearly not believing his eyes. He quickly walked over, checking over his son, then hugging him tightly. " My son... " Bruce breathed out, happy to see his sons alive.

" (Y/N), go to the roof to the Batplane, I have some unfinished business with Ra's. " Bruce said, turning to Ra's and (Y/N) knew that look.

Bruce was pushed over the edge. And he is ready to kill.

" No! Don't kill him! " (Y/N) said as he grabbed Bruce's arm, trying to stop him.

" He hurt you! More so, he kidnapped my only son who isn't a vigilante! That won't go unpunished! " Bruce said, ready to lunge at Ra's.

" He didn't hurt me! Please dad! " (Y/N) begged, clinging onto Bruce, stopping him with his weight.

" He didn't? "

" He treated me gently! I wasn't hurt! " (Y/N) said and Bruce's head whipped to look at him in shock. " Don't kill him dad. Please. " (Y/N) pleaded again and Bruce relaxed a little bit.

" Are you being honest with me? " Bruce asked and (Y/N) nodded.

Bruce sighed quietly as he held his son tightly to him. (Y/N) turned his head to look at Ra's. " As for you Ra's... " (Y/N) started, not sure how to proceed.

Ra's waited patiently for (Y/N) to finish what he was going to say.

" You didn't really have to kidnap me, but since we have developed something, I want to see where this goes. Sure, you may be different, but don't think I'll forget this. This relationship will go on as I please. " (Y/N) declared and Bruce felt nothing but pride for his boy.

" As you wish beloved. We will do it at your pace. " Ra's said and Bruce glared at him.

" Damian won't be happy. " Bruce noted.

" Damian will be happy to finally have some sort of payback. " (Y/N) retorted and Bruce chuckled.

" Well, either way, it's time to go home. Your brothers are worried. " Bruce said, leading (Y/N) out.

" Bye Ra's. " (Y/N) said as he was led out of the room and Ra's smirked.

" Bye (Y/N). See you soon. " Ra's said and Bruce nearly decked Ra's for even saying that. But he had more important matter right now.

And that's getting his son home.

#dc comics #dc x male reader #x male reader #ra's al ghul x male reader #ra's al ghul

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