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zeb-z · 1 year ago

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minecraft-sinfonia family in the Star Wars au, because brain worms never sleep

Chayanne is hardly a toddler in the crèche when the Jedi temple falls and the Empire is born. Phil saves him, cares for him, raises him as his own on a homestead after meeting Missa, far from the core worlds. He grows up learning to farm, to cook, to find his own resources and how to make do with what you have. He has no idea where he’s from - his records were sealed in a holocron along with the other younglings his age, and who knows where that is now. Not that it matters all that much to him - his family are his parents who have raised him, and later his sister.

Tallulah is also force sensitive, but was never picked up by the Jedi. She knows where she’s from - an outer rim dustball of a planet where she had no one but the other street kids, where they all had to eat dirt. According to Wilbur, who picked her up and took her in, she had been crying in the rubble in an ally, where a building had managed to collapse sideways into, somehow entirely unscathed, the only survivor. Now that she’s older, and has an understanding of her powers, she can guess she had used the force in some sort of subconscious survival instinct. She spent a good year or two with her father, before she had been dropped off during a visit to her “abuelo Phil”, and never picked back up. It’s another year before she starts calling Phil her Pa instead.

For a year after the fall of the Jedi, Phil travels with Wilbur, and tries to take care of a very young Chayanne as best as he can. He tries to make it easy on Wil as he can, but he know it can’t be simple, traveling with an ex-Jedi on the run and a force sensitive toddler who makes all the noise a toddler does. Whatever guilt he has is buried under the knowledge that this is safest. Staying in the wind, between the stars, without making a name or life for himself, is necessary until the panic around the Jedi dies down.

Phil meets Missa shortly after he parts ways with Wilbur, on some forgettable, relatively mild planet on the edges of the mid rim, in a town full of farmers and workers. He’s clearly lost, and exhausted, and struggling to find something he can afford to feed the hungry child in his arms, and Missa may not have much but for this he has a few credits to spare, and well - he just can’t ignore that feeling, tugging in his gut and wrapping around his chest, that’s pulling him towards the two strangers. Kindness has him buying them a meal and offering his home to them for the night, and when Phil asks if they can stay for just a while, to figure out where to go next, he says yes before he even processes the question. A little foolish, maybe, given the state of the galaxy, but Phil would be lost without that kindness.

Phil makes himself useful helping around the farm, feeding the growzers and nerfs, pulling weeds, planting new crops, at least when Chayanne doesn’t demand attention. Missa works as he always does, keeps them all fed, and looks up all the articles he can find about childcare - and then double checks with a few parents when they drop into town for market, because surely Chayanne isnt old enough to be eating full carrots yet, his teeth are just so small - that’s when he realizes he’s far more open to Phil and Chayanne staying around than he thought he was. It isn’t much longer until Phil comes to a similar conclusion, during a dinner like any other night before, where Missa had taken care to cut Chayanne’s carrots and had made a pot of tea that was Phil’s favorite (one he got based on a hunch back in town a few days prior), and he realizes that he doesn’t want to lose this. That he wants to stay.

After he finds that Missa himself is also force sensitive, and he comes clean about who he actually is, their life continues on without the idea that this just a temporary set up. They get officially married just before Tallulah comes into the picture, which gives Phil an official new identity to the Empire, from a legal standpoint.

Chayanne and Tallulah both grow up learning Jedi techniques to balance their connection with the force. They learn early on the extent of their powers and how to meditate. The better trained you are, and the more you know of your own powers, the better you can master self control - that’s what their dads say, at least. While Phil had been anxious when Tallulah first arrived - wondering if them knowing their powers would make them all more obvious to those hunting for them - it’s cemented when Chayanne uses the force in the market, floating a fruit from a street vendor towards him when he couldn’t reach it himself. They were extremely lucky he wasn’t noticed. Chayanne, with enough core memories in the temple, where using the force and connecting wasn’t only second nature, but was encouraged all around him, would only struggle if they pretended anything different. Besides - as much as they have to keep themselves hidden and safe from the Empire, the force was something to celebrate. They were never taught that their gifts were anything but special - it wasn’t them that was wrong, but the Empire for hunting them.

After their home is raided, and the kids go with Phil to the rebellion, separated from Missa, is when they learn to fight. Chayanne is extremely disappointed he can’t actually train to learn how to wield his dads lightsaber. Tallulah leans less into physical training, and gets a better handle at using the force to interact with the world. She learns a technique to help plants grow just a little faster, and a little stronger, and likes to help around the gardens and greenhouses. It makes Phil a little sad, but only sometimes - she would have loved the Room of a Thousand Fountains, had this universe been kinder.

When Missa manages to find them again, worn and weary and somehow with Phil’s lightsaber still intact and all his limbs attached, he joins the rebels cause and fights with his family. Phil insists Missa keeps his lightsaber on him, pretending like it isn’t as big of a deal as it is, saying he’s grown used to fighting without it - but Missa knows better. A lightsaber is a Jedi’s life, their being connected to their crystal that gives it power, the weapon an extension of themselves. He understands the significance, of Phil’s life humming in his hands, protecting him above all else. There’s an immense amount of love, of trust, in the decision. It makes Phil a terrible Jedi - giving up his saber by choice, for a familial attachment he should never have made in the first place. But who gives a fuck - the temple has long been gone, the Jedi and all their believers dead with it, and Missa is here in front of him, alive, unlike the fucking Jedi council, the merry band of hypocrites. He’d like to keep it that way.

Chayanne still gets Phil to train him with the lightsaber, and it’s the coolest thing ever of all time.

#thank you for coming to my TED talk. please keep asking me about them about anyone in this au to keep the speeches going lnfjsjfoaofjej #out of everyone they’re who I’m working on an actual fic for. them and etoiles #Also okay. listen I know growzers are like specifically native to celwis. a chiss world. if you also know this pls suspend your disbelief #sorry once again I don’t know brevity. take my word dump I hope you like it #mcyt #qsmp #sw #Star Wars #qsmp au #z speaks

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flowercrowngods · 2 years ago

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🤍 also on ao3

The clock shows 3:27 when Scott wakes to an empty bed, and the sigh he lets out is familiar, if involuntary. He's not exactly a light sleeper, but these days he wakes up most nights, feeling like something's wrong. Every time, the bed beside him is empty, and every time, Scott worries.

Tonight, he gets out of bed.

He finds Wayne in the kitchen downstairs, sort of just staring at the counter, like he was in motion and then just stopped. Like he's trying to remember what he came down here for, like he's a bit lost with it.

Scott approaches him slowly, the gnawing worry inside his chest only increasing with each step that doesn't make Wayne look up.

"Hey, love," he murmurs, barely interrupting the silence of the room, but it's what finally gets a reaction from his man.

"Shit," Wayne says, running a hand over his face and looking around as if taking stock of his surroundings. "Did I wake ya?"

Scott shakes his head and comes to a stop beside Wayne, leaning against the kitchen counter, their shoulders touching. "I don't think you did. I just wake up sometimes when you're not there. Like my body senses that something's missing."

It sounds cheesy, but the analogy makes sense. Maybe his body does notice -- what do we know about sleep and the human subconscious anyway?

"Sorry," Wayne says anyway, like he doesn't wonder about sleep and the human subconscious, like the simplest explanation is always just talking the blame. It's something Scott has to pry away from his subconscious, gently and with care.

"You've nothing to be sorry for, love." He looks over at Wayne and even the darkness of the kitchen can't hide away the circles under his eyes or the slump of his shoulders. "Wanna tell me what's wrong?"

Wayne shakes his head, but it doesn't mean that he won't talk about it, just that he's busy fighting some kind of war against himself, breaking down his own walls brick by brick. Scott knows. So he waits, leaning against Wayne a bit more, sharing his warmth a little.

"It's the quiet."

The silence that follows this statement almost hits Scott in the face with how intense it is. Unfortunately, he doesn't really understand yet.

"What about the quiet?"

Wayne shrugs. "'M not used to it. I'm... I can't sleep."

Scott takes it in for a moment, connecting the dots, filling out the empty spaces, the little holes in the past nights. The fact that Wayne sleeps perfectly when they spend the night at the trailer park, rare as that is.

And his heart falls a little when he asks, just to be sure, "My house is too quiet for you?"

His house. His quiet. His bed that Wayne can't find a good night's sleep in. His guilt when Wayne nods.

"It's just... See, I never grew up in the fancy parts of town. There was always something going on, some car pulling up or speeding off, someone taking a walk around my walls that are thin enough to hear the grass growing. It was never quiet, growing up, and when i was a teen it was me walking on gravel paths, it was me pulling up or speeding off, it was me chasing the quiet away. And then Eddie. Y'know, I never used to sleep when he first... moved in with me."

They both snort at the notion of Eddie 'moving in' with Wayne like he wasn't twelve years old and abandoned, with Wayne as his only chance in life. It cuts into Scott every time he thinks about it, remembering the wild, unruly boy in middle school.

"He'll kill me for this," Wayne continues, "but he cried every night the first four months. That was a new kinda noise I had to get used to, and I did. I listened for it. Sat with him most nights, just to be there even when he wouldn't look at me. And then over time, the cries and sniffles turned into frustrated yelling at his homework. And then into self-taught guitar lessons and that music of his. And then into reading, because the boy loves to read out loud until late at night and then grumble about it in the morning. Still does, the menace."

A smile tugs at Wayne's lips and Scott mirrors it, determined to just listen and soak up all the information this man who captivates him so has to offer about himself.

"The trailer park, it's never quiet. They talk big game about cities that never sleep, but they ain't seen nothin'." A sigh, and Scott reaches out to take his hand. Wayne tangles their fingers and Scott hides a smile in his shoulder, feeling bashful in the middle of the night in his kitchen, where everything should feel out of place.

"And my house is big and has great insulation, and you hate it," he concludes, playful but only mildly joking.

"I don't hate your house, darling," Wayne counters, squeezing his hand and lifting it until it read against his cheek where he likes to nuzzle it. Something that never fails to make Scott feel about ready to melt on the spot. Something that makes him want to give his Wayne all the noise in the world if that means he's gonna sleep.

"But you sleep better at the trailer park. You sleep better in your bed."

At that, Wayne only nods. "I'm sorry, sugar. Think it's hard-wired into me or something."

"No, it makes sense."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah! I could tell you a little something about brains and 'wiring' if you want me to; but I don't think you do, so you have to trust me when I say it makes complete and utter sense, my dear."

Wayne looks up at him then, meeting his eyes for the first time tonight, and with the way they catch the light of the street lamp outside Scott almost things they're shining. He smiles, leaning in to kiss Wayne's forehead just because he can.

"Would it help you if i put on some music down here and we went back upstairs? Should easily reach your sensitive ears and provide background noise, but... Does music help?"

"It does with Eddie," Wayne shrugs.

"Well, love, I shall apologise profusely for the lack of heavy metal records." He grins and winds his arms around Wayne's neck, just to hold him close. "All I have to offer is some Johnny Cash, but I have it on good authority that you won't mind."

"Cash is fine," Wayne grumbles, like he's not obsessed with the man and his music. Scott chuckles and leans in for another kiss, this time to the man's nose, who only now seems to catch up with his plan. "Wait, are you sure you're okay with that? You're the one who has to get up at ass o'clock and function for, like, eight hours or something."

"I'll be fine," Scott reassures him. "Before you entered my life, my darling man, I used to listen to music to fall asleep almost every night."

"Really?"

"Yes. It was for an experiment if you will."

Wayne leans back in his embrace just to give him that Look. His certified You ridiculous man look. It makes Scott laugh and his heart flutter

"Will you come back to bed with me?"

Wayne nods, taking his hands from around his neck. "Yeah, let's go back to bed."

The music does help. Wayne is out like a light within minutes and Scott falls asleep with a smile. He wakes up with one, too, when he sees that Wayne is still asleep and hasn't so much as rolled around in his sleep.

They spend more nights at the trailer park after that. Some nights, when Wayne has a shift so early it should count as a night shift, Scott will read to him until he falls asleep. Most nights, there will be music.

Its a gentler kind of noise that even Scott soon finds himself unwilling to live without. He makes it his mission to explore that kind of gentleness and love, expressed in favourite records and slow dancing in their pyjamas and a book so compelling he reads the same chapter four nights in a row until Wayne finally catches all of it.

Wayne's apologies become rarer and rarer until "I'm sorry" turns into "I love you". The the gentlest noise followed by the tenderest quiet that is filled only with a matching heartbeat of two.

#clarkson #scott clarke #wayne munson #wayne munson x scott clarke #scott clarke x wayne munson #so i tried to sleep but it didn't work and it's rude so have some clarkson at least #my keyboard is fucky though so all the double spaces and letters being out of place?? courtesy of my phone and the reason for my absence #dio words #there are too many commas in there but that's how it is sometimes it's 2:28am aand i wrote this in the tumblr app

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synthient · 1 year ago

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In the first movie, Morpheus functions as a pretty clear symbol of dreams and the subconscious (made kind of obvious by the "god of dreams" thing, I guess). Neo risks everything to uncover the truth about what he subconsciously wants and to live/actualize those dreams (and is ultimately willing to sacrifice his life for Morpheus, in a slightly less overt version of his fly-or-fall choice in resurrections. "What you're talking about is suicide" indeed). Smith wants to violently repress his subconscious, force it back into conformity, prove his purity and separateness from it, etc

By 2 and 3, there seems to be a bit of a stepping back from this symbolic level - possibly because the casting had been finalized by that point (some early picks were Will Smith as Neo and Val Kilmer as Morpheus), and there was a moment of hm. maybe not ideal to keep instrumentalizing our most prominent black character for two white* characters' expression/repression tug-of-war. So we get more of a focus on Morpheus as his own distinct character, via the 'controversial faith leader' subplot and the Niobe love triangle subplot (there also seems to be a concurrent effort to not reduce Niobe to his love interest. which means Morpheus spends a good chunk of the 3rd movie just kind of standing supportively at her shoulder while Niobe does cool stuff). He actually has surprisingly little interaction with Neo or Smith in these movies, culminating in that stiff little farewell handshake

* "is Neo white"/"is Keanu white-passing"/"is Neo written in a 'raceblind' way that amounts to presumed whiteness" is an old question in matrix criticism

Things get interesting in resurrections, which seems to attempt to split off Morpheus as distinct character with his own life and arc, from the original conception of Morpheus as symbol of the subconscious. Trilogy Morpheus lived to a ripe old age and became president of Zion. Meanwhile, Morpheus 2.0 popped out of Neo's head Athena-style. We get a new version of the Neo-Smith shared subconscious thing: Morpheus 2.0 was forced to play the role of Agent Smith, with Agent-ness as a stand-in for all the most repressive parts of cishet masculinity/whiteness/imperialism/etc. And we get the new subtext of Neo's subconscious being expressed through his art, with Morpheus 2.0 as a sort of avatar for the matrix series itself.

Despite appearing to have been created so someone else could fill the symbolic role while letting the og Morpheus 'have a life,' Morpheus 2.0 does still get his own distinct arc - the coming out narrative, his toying with self-expression, his mixed feelings/resentment toward Neo as indifferent creator - although it kind of peters out by the third act. Hard to say how well the splitting-off strategy Works, but it's an interesting meta level to think about

#lots more points to think through w this. ex how it plays into the morpheus 2.0-smith confrontation in the warehouse fight #the matrix

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grineerios · 1 year ago

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Insomnia won and I got around to writing things down about my Operator and Drifter instead of just letting my thoughts do laps of my brain. So uh. Long-ass backstories, I guess?

I do have memory loss so I'm not entirely sure how canon-compliant this is, but I guess there's no harm with a few tweaks if I had fun doing it lmao

New War/Duviri Paradox/Main Story quests spoilers(?)

(I do not have names for these nerds, but I'll update whenever I figure that bit out. I've debated calling them Sigma (O) and Lavan (D) after railjack parts, but it just doesn't suit them. I guess only time will tell)

Both Operator and Drifter are He/They, and AroAce. I haven't figured out their gender(s) yet, because gender is hard.

THE DRIFTER

Drifter is a very different man when interacting with Duviri and the Operator, versus everyone else. To most of the world, he's a stubborn individual with a streak of having a short temper. His seemingly obsessive need to have some kind of control can easily get on folks' nerves, making him a hard person to work with. Occasionally, though, one can see a small glimmer of the man behind the persona.

When it comes to Duviri, as well as with The Operator and other children, a laid-back, almost jovial man emerges. He has a very strong "what happens, happens" philosophy. When faced with adversity, he mocks it. When faced with hardship, he pushes through with a stiff upper lip. When faced with loss, he waves his hand dismissively.

But this isn't the full truth either.

In reality, The Drifter is an extremely anxious person with a desperate need to protect The Operator, especially after the events of The New War. This manifests as him flip-flopping between letting the Operator do what they want, and needing to control and have a say in everything the Operator does.

When in Duviri, this anxiety manifested slowly over time, starting with the Void's subconscious influence on Duviri. The landscape's shape was the first to change, next the sky turned to Void-like clouds, followed by the fracturing point- the Zariman itself appearing in the sky.

Up until this point, the Drifter was a mere side character in Duviri's story, a manifestation of an unimportant and uneventful life far away from the horrors of 10-0. Primarily, he was a Tammherd, moving flocks across Duviri's verdant islands, even as the Void's influence poked and prodded at the memories he'd repressed.

After the 10-0 appeared in the sky, however...

Everything changed. No longer could he pretend that things were well, that the Void-spirals didn't poke at his mind, that the Void-forsaken ship wasn't real, that Duviri was all he'd ever known.

As his anxiety grew, Dominus Thrax became more and more maniacal, pushing new laws and standards that began crushing at Drifter's soul and personality, hardening him into apathy after being hunted again and again for seemingly infinity.

Long forgotten were the days of falling asleep under the stars, having nothing but a Tamm for a pillow- no, now his days were split between the void-contaminated Zariman and being hunted and executed by Thrax. The songs of Void Angels and the scream of arrows and blades set the soundtrack for his life, replacing the shawzin music he'd formerly enjoyed playing.

No matter how Thrax decided to execute him that day, he'd always wake up, lost in the world foreign to him of the Zariman, a horrifying feeling tugging at his mind as he wandered the halls, confused and lost. But.. he'd always find his way back to Duviri. Through a vent, a door, a mirror, or a broken screen- it didn't matter. He always found his way back into his personal hell away from hell, doomed to live in his damned loop forever.

On one of these loops, before Teshin beats into their thick skull that yes, you can just leave this situation dumbass, while stuck in the Zariman, he was injured by either a void-touched item or a Void Angel. Throughout subsequent spirals, void crystals began to grow from the wound. And it hurt like a bitch. If he'd ever let you look at the wound- or the scar, as it presents itself in the Origin System, you might faintly see the curled spikes, if you squinted, as they're mysteriously mostly invisible when exposed to direct and indirect sunlight. Under artificial light, they're slightly more visible, but the Drifter intentionally wears clothes with baggy sleeves so as not to worry The Operator. Regardless of where he is, undercroft or origin system alike, the crystals feel like it buries itself deeper and deeper into his flesh when he uses transference.

We all know how the story ends. With the help of Teshin, the Drifter finally Gets A Fucking Grip On Things and is able to voluntarily exit and enter Duviri at their leisure. The only real difference is that instead of Lotus' hand granting the Drifter Transference, it's his void injury that allows for weak Transference within the Undercroft. He must make physical contact with a Warframe to transfer into it, even after his Void abilities are strengthened in the New War.

THE BEFORE

Before the void-jump incident, and before Eternalism made the Operator and the Drifter, there was the Before.

The Before was an isolated and distractable child. He didn't do well at school, often losing himself in thought and awe over whatever was outside the nearest window. His parents were botanists and agricultural specialists who helped to tend to and monitor the Zariman's agricultural biomes. Sometimes, much to his parents' frustration, he'd skip school to watch them work. They often would joke that they wished he'd pick a normal activity to skip school over, like Lunaro.

Although he did eventually pick up Lunaro and tried to learn shawzin, he never was far from the agri-zones if he could help it. There was something that pushed away his fears. Besides, if these plants could grow here, then who was to say he couldn't thrive cultivating life in Tau?

Aaaaand then the void jump incident happened.

Of course he wasn't paying attention when it happened. He was wayy too distracted by all the amazing colors in Saturn's rings. Melica's words all sounded like the same stuff he'd hear her say after day. Blah blah blah Entrati this Golden Masters that and who could forget the Seven? Drivel. Meaningless drivel. It mattered a lot to the adults but not to him at all.

The jump hit him like a truck, when the force knocked him out of his seat, and when beautiful Saturn was replaced with the eerie, wispy void. That's when he felt fear nag at him.

In the time before Wally made their deal with him, he somehow managed to get a grip on his emotions and channeled that fear into taking control of the situation, despite shaking the entire time he was checking in on folks. He buried his emotions, focusing on the new drive in his heart, to protect the others. Even if he was a little... Blunt. Or rude. Or aggressive about the whole thing. No matter how hard you try to hide intense emotions, they'll bubble out somehow, and I doubt the Void helped with that very much. But, his practical and stubborn mind kept most of the kids he was with safe- until the Orokin dubbed them Tenno for the Operator, or until he decided to go search for more survivors alone in the Zariman, wandering the vents while the others were found and taken away; Left behind, becoming the Drifter.

I don't think the Drifter ever forgave himself for letting that happen. Even if it was because Wally twisted words.

THE OPERATOR

In the present, the Operator is less angry, and less socially isolated than the Drifter. What they lack in comparison to the Drifter's temper and isolationist tendencies, they make up for in flippancy and spite.

He took well to transference, and his training as a Tenno under the Orokin empire gave him a sense of purpose. He'd protected his kind on board the Zariman, and he'd continue to protect them even now. With the help of his warframe, a Volt, he'd stand by their sides, and ensure everyone made it out alive. They were his Tenno fellows. His Clan.

As time went on though, his faith in the Orokin evaporated, as he saw how little they actually cared about his friends and himself. Vowing to never trust Orokin word again, he relished the Night of Naga Drums, when he finally got to strike back at the Orokin for their foul play.

His distrust of the Orokin carried over from Margulis to the Lotus, instead, looking up to the Dax remaining after the fall of the Orokin empire, knowing that they too had likely been manipulated and used by their Golden Masters.

Even knowing he'd been hurt and exploited by the Orokin, he had (and still has) a hard time seeing himself as anything but an Orokin weapon, the confusion and intensity of which only became more overwhelming after awakening from the Second Dream.

Things only got worse from there, really. His distrust of Lotus burned into outright hatred and he isolated himself from his fellow Tenno, occasionally doing mercenary work for syndicates like the Arbiters of Hexis and Steel Meridian. What purpose the Lotus had offered, he rejected, leaving him with a void in his life. Depression set in, and all he could do was wait for purpose to find him.

THE PRESENT

(My memory is fuzzy on details of The New War, so I'll need to replay it before getting into specifics about what Drifter and Operator were doing at the time. but.)

In the aftermath of the New War, the Operator has brought himself to understand that Lotus too was manipulated by Orokin power. This doesn't completely nullify his feelings, but does certainly mellow them out a bit more, to the point that he willingly participates in Tenno culture once more.

Drifter and Operator are working together, although Drifter insists on doing most Tenno missions, saying that the Operator should "catch up on being a kid" while they have the chance. This of course, does not help the Operator who desperately needs to get out and do things, as they're prone to going stir-crazy if they can't do anything for even short periods of time.

Despite having the transference circuits damaged in the Old War, the Operator almost exclusively uses his Volt, who's probably the closest thing he has to a best friend post-New War.

In the times when he chooses to, or is forced to use transference, the Drifter uses primarily an Oberon, followed closely by a Kullervo and Excalibur Umbra, the latter being an ideal choice as he doesn't require transference to be useful.

TL;DR

My Drifter is typically stoic with a hotheaded streak and a tendency for intimidation as the solution to problems. This, of course, is all fueled by a desperate need to protect people, and keep the Operator above all, safe. He's kind at heart, but it's a side rarely seen by anyone other than children or animals.

My Operator is an immature ball of spite, nigh-dependent on other people for his purpose in life. He shares Drifter's anger and aggression, but it's tempered with a strong sense of justice. He's deeply bonded to his Warframe, and the two are nigh-inseparable. Has an insatiable thirst for action, and is high-energy.

Both of them desperately need therapy and ADHD meds.

#warframe #personal oc lore #grineerios drifter #grineerios operator #all of this Subject To Change (tm) of course #im very sleep deprived i'll fix any glaring lore errors or typos when i wake up #long post

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ikahimedi · 1 year ago

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Killer on the Boat

"Have you caught a good one yet?" I asked, as I felt a tug on my fishing line.

"Come on, Aria, what do you expect? We'd be lucky to find two good fish in a week," Emmy replied.

I pulled up my fishing line. I looked at it, observing the tumor on its back with nearly no emotion. I saw fish like that all the time now, ever since the radioactivity from the bombs had spread to the lake just a few miles from camp. I held it behind my back and turned to Emmy.

"Guess where," I asked, starting a game we invented to guess where the next tumor on our fish would be. It made it a little easier to pretend like the infected animals weren't living, breathing creatures whose lives were affected by our actions.

"Mouth?" Emmy replied uncertainly.

I shook my head and brought out the fish. She gasped and wrung her delicate little fingers. I sighed. She could be so dramatic sometimes. I turned away to stare at the waves for a while, then threw the fish back into the water, watching it sluggishly swim away. I turned back, and I saw the brim of a black cloak and felt the impact of hard, sturdy hands before I found myself falling through air, feeling the rush of wind between my fingers.

Somewhere in my subconscious, I thought, really?, just beginning to process what had just happened. Someone had tried to push me over the fishing boat into the water, theoretically to injure or kill me. Hah, I thought. I curved my body into a graceful dive and sliced through the air, disappearing into the deep water with barely a splash.

I had never been in this river before, mainly because of the sharp stones that never seemed to erode, and the whitewater rapids and small waterfalls that would pocket its otherwise smooth and calm surface. Thankfully, I landed in a calm spot, but I was drifting away fast.

"Emmy!" I shouted.

"I'll throw you a live preserver!" she shouted back, almost too faint for me to hear. Even though I was in mortal danger, I found myself aware of how amusingly theatrical the whole business was, just like those archaic 21st century movies mom liked. I caught the white ring and held on while Emmy tried to pull me back up and shouted for help.

Back on the ship, I sat in the sun and tried to dry my clothes the best I could before we had to head back to the forest. My mom would be worried if she found out if I had fallen into the water, even though the water itself wasn't radioactive. She was over concerned about these kinds of health issues even before the war started, and when it did, she whisked us away to a faraway neutral island that had been recently discovered to wait out the warfare. Little did she know that we would be one of the few hundred people left on the face of the Earth. Something like that had happened to almost everyone in camp. It was sad to see how much devastation World War III had caused. Emmy’s voice entered my conscious hearing as I resurfaced from my long-winded thoughts. "What even happened? You don’t seem like the type to fall off a boat,” she added hastily, as if she was afraid I’d take offense to her unsaid accusation.

“I think someone pushed me over the edge, but I’m really not sure. I think it was an accident,” I told her, trying not to give her any information that would cause her to jump to conclusions. I failed.

“There could be a killer on the loose! We have to find them before they can kill anyone else!” Emma squealed almost excitedly, forever the dark optimist. She could handle murderers in a small enclosed space with her, but not some ugly looking fish. Go figure.

I didn’t bother contradicting her. It was better to go along with her assumptions. There were still a few hours of time before we had to go back to camp, we weren’t allowed to fish anymore today. It seemed like a good way to pass time, I figured. There was no one else on the deck at that time, so I began with a list of suspects.

“Who could have tried to push me off the boat for a personal motive?” I asked Emmy, since she had been here longer than I had and knew most of the people really well.

“Well, there’s Billy, and Valerie, and Dorin, and Brad, and that rude chef with a big knife, Trod-something,” she said, counting them off on her fingers.

“Anyone who was in the area at the time of the incident, or someone that I, oh, I don’t know, possibly ever interacted with me and had a reason to attempt murder?”

“Eh, no not really, unless you’re planning to suspect me. I was kinda busy thinking about that horrible fish you’d shown me, so I wasn’t paying that much attention to the other people on fishing duty,” she said sheepishly.

I sighed and buried my head in my hands. Well, this wasn’t actually a murder anyway, most likely, I tried to convince myself. But still, I conceded, if it was, this was a big problem for us all. I was pretty sure I had felt that push into the water, and the railings were quite high. My mind began to whir. There were plenty of people on this ship who might have had something against me, since we were all from different places which had been fighting against each other during the war. There were many people who hated each other for being part of the enemy country, maybe even to the point of murder. I was from America, and America had plenty of enemies, so many I could barely count them all.

I decided to drop this theory for a while, and instead look at people I might have personally offended. I was relatively new here, so there weren’t that many enemies I had made, but there was this small group of girls that I had tried to befriend first coming here, but they were obviously the last people I should have tried to get along with. It was absolutely horrible.

“What are you guys doing?” I had asked, watching them stare at the water.

“Oh, we’re just waiting.” they replied enigmatically.

“What are you waiting for?” I asked, trying to stay polite.

They whispered amongst each other.

“Should we tell he-”

“No! What are we stupid?”

“Maybe we can do her next…”

They turned back to me, the leader of the group flipping her bright pink hair and clicking her heels.

“So we have this, like, thing, where we give someone a dare, and like, today it was Raya. Oh. My. God. She was so annoying I just couldn’t stand her face. We told her to go take a swim in the water, and she downright refused. To me. So we pushed her. It was so much fun.” She giggled girlishly. At that point, I tuned her out and looked at the other girls, who looked just as cruel and traitorous.

“Doesn’t she remind you of Raya? Such a wannabe,” one of them whispered.

My face burned, and I began to storm out. Just as I did, I felt Annoying Leader Girl’s obnoxiously hot pink nails dig into my back.

“Don’t you dare tell anyone else about this, or there’ll be hell to pay.” she said, glaring at me with such intensity I wanted to melt into a puddle of radioactive mush right there and then. I nodded, and she let go of my shoulder.

She flapped her hand, twisting her face into a disgusted expression for the amusement of her disciples, as if she was trying to get the dirty germs off. She flipped her hair and put on a wide smile, like a great white shark.

“Great. By the way, my name’s Sophie!” and went back to her clique.

Later I found out that Raya had nearly died, but some kind passengers had jumped in and dragged her to shore.

I crinkled my nose at the memory.

“There is one person,” I told Emmy.

“How did you not remember this earlier?” Emmy asked in exasperation, leaning against the railing even though I had told her not to thousands of times. She loved being the dangerous, risk-taking detective, even if the only risk she was taking was leaning against a creaky railing.

“Well, it was as soon as I had come to camp, and right after getting off the boat, I saw you with that missing dog of yours and I had forgotten about her until now,” I said, smiling at the memory. I had found Emmy at camp, right after I departed the ship and encountered the Special Sophie Society. She had been searching frantically for her pet dog, which we had eventually found soaking wet after a dip in the creek, clinging to a piece of driftwood and licking it as if it had the most expensive red wine splattered across it.

“Fair enough,” she giggled, also, evidently, remembering the memory.

Her smile turned a bit wistful. She had to have the dog put down when he became too much to care for.

“So, do you think Sophie would have done it?” I asked her, trying to change the topic before she erupted into another fit of tears.

“I guess she could have been the murderer, but that would be no fun. Can’t we have a proper mystery for once? With clues, and a thrilling car chase? ”

“First, we have to make sure it really is her. Don’t get your hopes down just yet,” I told her, not believing the words that were coming out of my mouth. Wow, she must have been rubbing off on me.

“WERE YOU THE ONE WHO PUSHED MY BEST FRIEND OVERBOARD, YOU MEANIE?” Emmy asked Sophie, leaning forward with her hands on her hips in just about the most imposing stance in the history of the world. Emmy could be terrifying if she wanted to be.

Sophie didn’t even bother to cower in fear. She checked her nails, cleaning out small specks of seaweed.

“Ew. No. Why would I bother with, like, her?” shaking her head at the thought. She had obviously heard of my big ‘falling overboard’ story, almost everyone on board had.

Emmy brightened. She started to bounce on the balls of her toes, her hands clasped together. I tugged her down just as a maniacal grin began to spread on her face.

“ It could still be her,” I whispered.

She regained her common sense.

“Prove it.” she said, more of a statement than a plea.

“Well, you can ask, like, literally anyone with me. I was in the spa room all day long, getting myself a seaweed wrap.” she said, calling over a tall, dark haired girl as her witness.

I waved her away, turning to Emmy.

“We should go ask the workers,” I said. The spa was basically just a place where all the fancy rich kids, or some people looking to try something new, would go to have their nails filed by some small children looking for a cent or two. The seaweed wrap Sophie was talking about involved covering your arms and legs with seaweed, staying like that for half a day, and then trying not to scream when you got it all off and saw how slimy everything was. I spoke, regretfully, from personal experience.

“Sure! Oh, this is going to be so much fun.” Emmy said, skipping towards the door.

Sophie performed another extraordinarily flappy hair flip, exaggerated her rolling eyes, and left the room.

We picked our way through the hoards of people on board towards the main deck, where the chairs were set up for the day. Nobody seemed to mind the setup, since everything else was stinky and crowded anyways, and it was so heartwarming to see the small children smile brightly when somebody walked by.

I walked to some of the kids that I knew. I had never bothered to socialize with them too much, since they were so tiny and most of their time was used up massaging people’s legs, which I surely did not want to do.

“Hey, Robby!” I waved to him.

“Hi Aria! Hope you’re feeling better after that big fall!” he replied jovially.

So he knew. This would make the job a lot easier.

“Do you remember which customers you guys were serving around that time?” I asked him.

“Um, well, I only really remember Sophie, since she was being so annoying about her customer service,” he said, the loathing in his voice extremely obvious.

“That’s all I needed to know. Thanks!” I said, trying to conceal the frown on my face.

If it wasn’t Sophie, then who was it?

“ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS!!!!!!!!” the loudspeaker announced.

We all covered our ears.

“AHEM! Okay, I think that’s better now. Bring me my coke.”

We cringed as his personal assistant dashed to a large box marked ‘Cap’s freezer’.

“People are reporting good fishing channels around this river. I’m going to be around here for as long as rations allow it. Word will be sent to your families, and NOBODY GETS OFF. We might want to do night shifts as well. EMMY, NO!” he said, preemptively answering Emmy’s volunteering hand.

All heads turned to Emmy.

She blushed and shrank down.

“Anyone who has been previously banned will NOT be allowed to fish on this expedition. The waters are extremely fast, and I don’t want a death on my hands.” he said.

Could he be the one who tried to push me overboard? Was he using reverse engineering now? I put him on my list of suspects.

Emmy leaned over my shoulder.

“Oohh, that’s a good one. And, he probably wants to kill everybody on this ship, pick them off, one by one, until he can venture to new lands all by himself and conquer the remaining population,” she whispered, jiggling her fingers near my face.

“Eh, why not.” I said. This whole thing was absurd anyways. Although, I didn’t suppose the captain would be so murderous.

He would keep himself a skeleton crew of servants.

I tried not to make any noise as I climbed up the stairs to the captain’s cabin. He was truly a horrible man, who didn’t truly care much about others and wanted to take as much advantage of his position as he could, taking all the prime food and electricity from our few solar grids to power the only iPad on the base, which, coincidentally, belonged to him. He was super self-obsessed, flashing a “handsome” grin at everyone he passed and wearing what he considered “fashionable”, but actually made him look like he was wearing a blanket of whale skin. He was only elected captain because fishing was essential and he was the sole person who vaguely knew how to work a boat. Of course, we could have fished ashore, but there were too many rocks and not enough opportunities or ground space, and the only fish stupid enough to wander around the jagged rocks were the radioactive ones.

I was extremely nervous about what I was going to say to the captain, so I began to rehearse it all in my head before I had to actually say anything. I considered starting off with regular conversation and then hinting at my accident, but the doorway appeared too soon and I began to consider stopping and turning back.

Emmy would have murdered me, so I forged forward.

The door was open, so I stepped through it nervously, hoping both that the captain was present so I could get this over with, and hoping he was somewhere else so I could have more time to overthink this.

“Ah! If it isn’t for our very own on-board daredevil!” he exclaimed, spreading his arms wide and smiling to reveal his pearly whites.

“What?”

“That little stunt you pulled, jumping into the water. Oh, it was dangerous, but it reminds me just of how I used to act in the good old days,” he told me with a reminiscent smile on his face.

“Um…”

I slowly backed out of the room.

“So, you were here to see me?” he asked me, raising his eyebrows suspiciously.

“Yes,”

“Well then, what for?”

“I just wanted to check out an, um, an, um, estimate, of how long, um, we will be… staying here!” I said, hoping he wouldn’t see through my lie and also scanning his monologue on the announcer to check whether he had already given one.

“Oh, well, I’m not really sure, but I’m confident that we will find some good fish soon!” he said, and I practically melted with relief as my spine relaxed and I sauntered out of the room, feeling like the queen of the world.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the conversation I had just had, but it seemed that the captain absolutely did not want anyone to think that this was something intentional, since it would spoil the reputation of his boat. He also, apparently, thought I was five.

It could also just be that he thought I was feeling hot and wanted a dip in the lake.

Obviously, the rumor had twisted quite a bit as it traveled throughout the boat.

Still, the captain was not to be taken lightly after today’s events.

I immediately went to Emmy and reported my findings.

She decided to begin writing a book about our recent adventures.

Of course, running around with Emmy wasn’t the only thing I did on the boat. When I returned to my room, I found one of my other friends waiting on my bed for me.

“Hi Aria!” she said. She was the ‘bright and bubbly’ kind of person, the person you’d go to for book recommendations and the kind of person who always got A++++s at school on every test. At least, for the moment. She changed her personality every week. Last week, it was ‘super sassy’ and I could barely stand her.

“Glad we got past last week,” she said with a smile.

“I was definitely avoiding you on purpose,” I admitted.

“I know. TBH, I kind of hated myself. But hey, I picked out the personality,” she said, shrugging while I marveled at how far ‘TBH’ had come. Apparently, it was super common in the olden times, but now people only used it when they were being uber personal.

“Are you okay after your, like, fall on the boat?” she asked.

My eyes widened. Had Kelly been the one? I dismissed the thought, but it still haunted the back of my mind. If she could have done it, I reasoned, even Emmy could have been the murderer.

“Yeah. Just a bit rattled,” I added, to make it look like I wasn’t just trying to act tough.

“Cool. I just came by to see whether you wanted to go get some snacks. I can’t stand the thought of going to that horrible place alone.”

“Maybe later. I’m kind of busy right now,” I said. I didn’t want to involve her in our investigation, since the less people involved, the easier and faster solving the whole thing would be.

A while later, I decided that I should go and check out the food rations with Emmy, to get a feel for how long we’d be here.

“Come on, I want to see if the captain really does have enough time to kill us all slowly and not have to return to shore until he’s satisfied,” I said to Emmy.

She smiled and ran to the supply room, which was supposed to be off-limits.

I was scared to death of being caught. I slowly tiptoed towards the third door on the hallway, wincing at every creak of the rotten old floorboards. A waiter made his way down the hall.

“Oh. My. God.”

“Why is there so much stuff?”

“WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE AT THE HANDS OF THE CAPTAIN!!”

“How come they don’t give us any of the canned chicken?”

It was basically the two of us in an enormous, gargantuan, so-many-supplies-I-don’t-have-any-words room filled to the brim with non-perishable food.

We were doomed.

If, that is, the captain was evil.

It all could also be a big mistake and some random person was actually the psychopathic murderer who thought I looked like a good practice suspect for a larger murder, like the murder of the president of a country nobody has ever heard of, like, Nauru or something. He was actually staying at our base, so that was a possible theory. I decided to drop the captain lead, since that just made me more depressed, but I didn’t cross it off my suspect list.

Emmy politely excused herself to the bathroom, where I heard a hoard of gagging sounds and fearful sobbing.

I left upstairs to see what I could do. I heard the bathroom door open, but I decided to give Emmy some alone time.

Stretching out on a lounge chair, I opened my newest book savoring the feel of a fresh new page.

I started on page one.

I was on page 467 when I heard a scream echo in the distance.

I raced to the dining room, where the sound seemed to have originated. Where was Emmy when I needed her? I could totally use her mood lightening commentary right now, since my brain was already cooking up worst-case scenarios for everything.

The boat was generally a quiet place, and there was never any commotion, save for the recent events and the Special Sophie Society disaster.

My feet skid on the old wood as I screeched to a halt in the doorway of the mess hall. They tried to maintain the dignity of the little food we had to eat, but nobody really bothered to keep decorum. It was a disaster, people talking to each other so loudly that I could barely hear myself think, some old, moldy food on the ground being carried away by a team of ants, and small children spilling water everywhere. I tried to identify who had screeched, but I couldn’t figure it out.

Then I saw the cluster of people around a young boy in a bright blue shirt.

He seemed to be telling everyone about something horrible that had just happened. He was around eight, just four years younger than I was.

I walked closer to the huddle.

“And then, that mean kid over there-”

“Which mean kid?” I interrupted.

“That one.” he said, pointing to the kitchen.

He frowned.

“Huh, she’s gone.” he said. He swiveled his head around, reminding me uncomfortably of a snowy owl with his blond hair whipping around, but couldn’t seem to spot her.

“That’s okay, tell me if you see her again,” I said.

I gave him a go on motion.

“Yeah, okay, so, then she came up to me and,” he shuddered, “she had a big fat butcher’s knife and she had me cornered while I was on kitchen volunteering duty, and then she tried to carve me up like a big fat hunk of beef. I screamed as loud as I could, ducked under her, and bolted. I heard a loud clatter, so I think she might have dropped the knife and fled from the scene as well,” he said. He sounded pretty smart, but this was concerning news. I now knew that this killer was a girl, and I didn’t even know if the murder attempts were by the same people or representatives of some evil cult. The worrying part was, this was clearly not a mistake. Someone had truly evil intent in their hearts. The killer would strike again soon, I knew it, but I didn’t know how soon.

“Did you get a good look at her face?” I asked, hoping desperately that he did.

“Kind of ish?” he said.

I sighed.

Suddenly, Emmy came up to the group. I ran over and hugged her.

“Okay, come on. The murderer struck again!” I whispered into her ear.

Suddenly, I caught a glimpse of Kelly in the background.

I let go of Emmy and tried to turn to talk to her, but she turned sharply and exited.

She was really looking suspicious now.

“I have a friend named Kelly, I think she might have done something. I haven’t been spending that much time with her recently, and maybe she had a grudge against the little kid or something,” I said to her, already leading the way to Kelly’s cabin.

“I don’t think-” Emmy said, looking uncharacteristically embarrassed.

“Yes you do. Come on,” I whined, tugging her sleeve.

We pushed the door open and found her crying on the bed.

“See what I mean?” Emmy whispered.

Kelly looked up.

“Just go away.”

We obliged.

“Wait, why did we just rule her out like that?” Emmy asked as she followed me down the hall.

“Ah, see, but we didn’t just rule her out,” I told her smugly.

I took an assured right turn and arrived at what I thought was the right cabin area.

“I’ve been asking around a bit while you were in the shower, and I think this could help us come further in our investigation.”

I opened the door and saw the young boy again sitting on his UFO-themed bed.

“Hi!” he said.

“I didn’t catch your name in the dining hall earlier, I just wanted to ask a few questions about what had happened. I think that someone might have tried to push me overboard too.” I said.

“Oh. My name’s Evan,” he said, not sure how to continue.

“Okay, I’ll take it from here. What color was the girl’s hair?” Emmy asked.

“I couldn’t really see. She had a black hoodie on, and her face was kind of shadowed.”

“Was she really tall, or super short, or what?” I broke in.

“Well, she was pretty average sized, kind of around you guys’ height”

Emmy stood a bit taller.

“Chillax, he doesn’t mean it’s one of us,” I said to her.

“Plus,” I added, “Kelly is super-short. There is no way he could confuse someone our size with her. And, I really doubt that she owns any ‘hoodies’. They’re so antique.”

“Who knows?” Emmy shrugged.

“Do you think you can remember anything else that might help identify her?” I said, turning back to Evan.

“No… But are you guys trying to find the killer? Could I help?” he asked eagerly. Someone had read a few too many mystery books.

“Aren’t you worried they might strike again?” I asked him.

“Exactly! We have to catch them before they do!” he exclaimed, still excited.

I sighed. There would be no convincing this child.

“Okay, fine. But you can’t do anything dangerous, and you have to tell me,” Emmy glared at me, “-us, everything, okay?”

“Sure! Sometimes, I don’t brush my teeth at night,” he whispered.

I did a facepalm.

“Oh, like the-the-um, sure, yeah, um, okay,” he muttered.

“Mhm. So, now, let’s get started. Emmy, I want you to go to the captain again and see how he reacts to Evan’s near-death. Evan, I want you to go and make me a list of everyone that hates you, and I will go and visit all of Sophie’s friends, to see what they say to all this nonsense,”

I was so excited I was almost trembling. I’d have to start a diary soon. My life was getting so eventful, just like the audiobooks I loved to listen to.

Evan trudged off to his desk, while Emmy slowly extracted herself from the dent she made in his bed, and I marched off to my room.

First off:

Ava.

She was easily the most evil of all of Sophie’s gang.

She. was. Absolutely. HORRIBLE.

She was the one in the purple sequin vest, that one girl at school that just thinks she owns the world.

That one girl who pretends to be her friend and then pushes the brainiac with glasses into the mud and then asks about its corrosive properties to human skin.

Her.

I walked down to the spa, where she was getting her nails glitterized, also known as putting-dirt-on-top-of-sea-gunk-on-top-of-your-nails.

“Hey Aria!” she said in a sing-songy voice as she used her free hand to adjust her immaculate ponytail.

I glared at her.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I am after the fall?” I said in a flat voice.

“Well, you’re here, so you must be okay,” she tried innocently.

“Aren’t you curious how it happened?” I asked her.

“Why would I care?” she sounded genuinely confused now.

“Oh, I think you would if I told you someone pushed me in,”

“What?! Oh, and now you think I did it, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“Well, I didn’t. You can ask Sophie. We were all in the spa at that time, except for Mia.”

“And I believe what you say. Totally.”

“Go ask!” she nearly yelled, sounding exasperated.

“Okay, okay, chill,” I said, on the defensive now.

I knew she would expect me to go verify all this, since Sophie must have told them about my investigation and inquiries around here.

It should be fine, I figured.

I could ask around later.

But for now, she’d given me a lead.

“Emmy?” I called. I had already looked for her in the captain’s cabin and in her room, and now I was stuck wandering the deck and hallways.

“EMMY!” I shouted after a few more calls. I was beginning to get worried, and with a killer on the loose, who knew what could have happened to her. I wanted to tell her my latest theory.

Sophie had mentioned that Mia wasn’t with the Sophie Society at the time of my fall, and all I had to do now was ask around some more to see where she was when Evan was attacked. I ran to her cabin. She wasn’t there either. I went to the bathroom on each floor, checking under the stalls and peering around the walls at the rusty sinks. Nothing.

My heart began to race. She wasn’t in any of her usual hiding spots.

I ran around, asking everyone if they’d seen her. Maybe she was above deck, but that was one of the worst places to be with the fishy scent that she had always hated.

She was so scared of the murderer, the fact that we might be stuck here forever. And then, she goes missing? Something didn’t add up, and I was afraid it was staring me right in the face.

I rushed to Mia’s room.

I found a knife, a pool of blood, a lifeless body on the floor.

I screamed as the knife was pressed against my throat.

And then I was fall

ing

the

void.

I woke to find Emmy staring at me concernedly.

I slapped her across the face.

“Shoot,” she muttered.

#Shortstory #adventure #murder #boat #suspense #mystery

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filmfanaticfables1990 · 12 days ago

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Jacob’s Ladder (1990): A Descent Into Psychological Horror And Existential Mystery

Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder is not just a film—it’s an experience. It grabs you by the psyche and drags you through a fragmented, nightmarish landscape, forcing you to question what’s real, what’s imagined, and what it means to be alive. For anyone who loves psychological horror with a dash of surrealism, this cult classic is a must-watch.

The story follows Jacob Singer, played with remarkable vulnerability by Tim Robbins, a Vietnam War veteran struggling with the aftermath of his experiences. Jacob’s life is fractured—he's caught between haunting flashbacks of the war, eerie visions in his present-day New York City life, and a growing paranoia that something is terribly wrong. The film unfolds like a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces seem to fit, only for the picture to change entirely with every new revelation.

What sets Jacob’s Ladder apart is its relentless atmosphere. Lyne’s direction creates an oppressive tension that permeates every scene. The film’s depiction of Jacob’s reality feels off-kilter, with nightmarish imagery that’s as subtle as it is disturbing. The infamous shaking heads, the shadowy figures lurking in the background, and the sense of being watched are all classic horror tropes, yet they feel fresh here because of how deeply they’re tied to Jacob’s mental state.

Thematically, the film explores the fragility of reality, grief, trauma, and the nature of death. It delves into the spiritual realm, drawing on concepts like the Tibetan Book of the Dead to frame Jacob’s journey. Is he navigating purgatory? Is this all a hallucination caused by PTSD or experimental drugs? Or is something more sinister at play? The film doesn’t spoon-feed you answers, which is part of its brilliance—it respects the audience’s intelligence and invites endless interpretations.

Visually, the movie is stunning in its grimness. The cinematography by Jeffrey L. Kimball captures both the mundane and the horrifying with equal weight. The gritty, rain-soaked streets of New York feel just as unnerving as the war-torn jungles of Vietnam. Coupled with Maurice Jarre’s haunting score, the film creates a sensory experience that lingers long after the credits roll.

Tim Robbins delivers one of his career-defining performances, making Jacob both relatable and tragic. You feel his confusion, his pain, and his desperation to find answers. The supporting cast, including Elizabeth Peña as Jacob’s girlfriend Jezzie, and Danny Aiello as his angelic chiropractor Louis, add depth and nuance to the narrative.

Jacob’s Ladder isn’t an easy watch. It’s emotionally heavy, visually unsettling, and refuses to give you a clean resolution. But that’s precisely why it’s so impactful. It’s the kind of movie that seeps into your subconscious, making you ponder its layers and implications long after you’ve turned off the screen.

If you’re in the mood for a film that challenges your perceptions, tugs at your heart, and leaves you questioning the nature of existence, Jacob’s Ladder is waiting for you. Just be prepared—once you step into Jacob’s world, it’s hard to come back unchanged.

#adrian lyne #tim robbins #elizabeth peña #danny aiello #jacob's ladder 1990 #psychological horror #classic horror #vietnam war veteran #mind bending #cult classic #horror movie #mystery film

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casspurrjoybell-29 · 1 year ago

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Frayed Ties - Chapter 13 - Part 3

*Warning Adult Content*

"What Lynna said, back at the river, about what you aspire to as a Companion..."

Danya stiffened and absentmindedly squeezed Simon's hand, which was still in his lap.

This topic was still uncomfortable to him.

"Is that really what you want, or wanted or... I don't know."

Danya let out a long breath.

"It's like an arranged marriage, I suppose. You don't get a choice but that doesn't mean you can't be pleased with the outcome or disappointed when the partner you've been assigned doesn't care for you. You had no obligation to me but you were still supposed to be mine, in a way. But you weren't."

"I think I understand. Or... I'm starting to, at least. I'm sorry for anything I've done to hurt you."

"It's okay," Danya said. "I don't think there was a way for you to not hurt me."

"I hope you can have a life here. Whatever kind you want."

Danya smiled sadly.

"None of us get everything we want, do we? But... I have hope. I've never really had that before. For now, that's enough."

A couple of hours later Noni returned with Lynna, Sharn and a mage who looked to be not much older than Danya following behind her.

This was the first male mage Danya had seen in this little settlement,and the only one other than Lynna who was not a Soldier.

It was something Danya hadn't really noticed with Lynna because he wasn't as used to girls but she and this new mage held themselves differently from other slaves Danya had known.

The Soldiers did too of course, they were Soldiers but Lynna and this young man had a kind of confidence Danya didn't expect from any slave not bred for fighting.

They didn't subconsciously try to make themselves smaller and less conspicuous like Danya did.

The new mage looked between Simon and Danya, the slightest hint of a smile on his lips.

He didn't resonate hostility like many of the other mages here did.

"This is Delton," Noni said. "He'll be concealing Danya's tattoo for you."

"Illusion magic," Delton explained as he knelt down next to Danya.

"Let's see it, then."

Danya tugged down the collar of his robe to reveal the tattoo.

"Will this cover it permanently, then?" Simon asked.

"Oh, no. You've got like..." Delton made a thinking face. "About an hour. Should be plenty of time to get there and get through the inspection, though."

"Ah," Simon said. "There's no way to permanently hide it with illusion magic?"

"Well, I mean, I couldn't."

Delton's fingers lightly brushed over Danya's tattoo.

"I can hold an illusion on myself as long as I'm awake, though, so Danya might be able to learn to do it himself if he has a knack for that sort of thing. Not really the kind of thing that's worth it unless something about your appearance really bothers you, though."

"It's fine," Danya said, his eyes firmly planted on the ground in front of him. "I wouldn't mind learning some illusion magic if you're willing to teach me, but the tattoo... it's fine."

Delton brightened up.

"Yeah, I'd love to see what you can do some time. Soldiers and Companions tend to have fairly rigid skill sets but I bet being a mix gives you a bit more flexibility."

Danya shrugged.

"Or simply makes me substandard at being either."

"That's the problem with breeding for something."

Delton's fingers felt unusually warm where they touched Danya now.

"It creates failure points. It doesn't matter how useful you could be, if you're not this exact thing, well, you've failed. The end."

"I suppose," Danya said carefully. "I do perform better at the magical aspects of being a Companion than my peers. Which is not so much better when compared to a standard which would prefer I not be quite that powerful but outside of that it can hardly be seen as a fault. I'm very good at mending things. I even have some skill with healing wounds."

Delton pulled back to look at Danya.

"Wow, see, now that's rare. That's special. Those kinds of talents have been largely lost since the war."

Danya shrugged self consciously.

"I'm not very good at it. I just... if we're talking about usefulness, it's a deviation that can't objectively be considered a fault."

"Well yeah, no, of course."

Delton leant in again and got back to work.

"Lynna and I, we went to the same training facility. We roomed together pretty much the whole time we were there. This was a place that bought all the smart kids, the ones with special talents, from slave farms."

"They allowed mixed gender rooming?"

A silence fell that lasted long enough for Danya to realise he'd stumbled into an uncomfortable topic.

It was Lynna who finally answered.

It wasn't a concern in our case."

"Yeah," Delton said uncomfortably. "Anyway, uh, yeah. So, they'd actually go and ask which were the kids who caused them the most trouble. Those were typically the ones they wanted and they'd get them at a discount. So... I guess we have a bit of a different perspective on these things."

"So they taught you proper skills depending on your talents?" Danya asked.

"Was that as nice as it sounds?" Lynna took hold of Danya's wrist and pressed the chip device against it until it beeped and the screen flashed.

"It was nicer than most get."

Delton nodded.

"I went from being scolded for messing with illusion stuff to be trained specifically for it. We had things far better than most. I think, though, that makes us more aware of how bad things are elsewhere. Or no... more sensitive to it. Others probably have more knowledge about all that but those who are down in the thick of it tend to see things differently. Being treated poorly becomes normal."

"Not that we've never been treated poorly," Lynna added. "But, I think, we've been treated well enough that we came to expect kindness. When you live like that, mistreatment becomes something that demands response rather than something you simply live with."

Delton smiled.

"Escaping to live in the woods wasn't quite what I expected when I came crying to you but I can't complain. I should have known you'd go above and beyond."

Simon turned to Noni, who had settled herself back into her chair to watch them.

"So, what's the plan here?"

She leant forward and rested her elbows on her knees.

"We'll supply you with fake papers for Danya, which Lynna has already overridden his chip to match. We'll escort you to the facility and then hang back while you and Danya enter. You'll go in, say you want to sell him, and then they will examine him and complete the sale."

Simon turned to Sharn.

"I want my knife back."

"You won't need to be armed for this," Noni told him.

Simon scoffed.

"Are you really so sure? Have any of you been through this before?"

Noni nodded in Danya's direction.

"Danya has."

Simon shook his head.

"Danya hasn't. Danya has been sold as an expensive, valued slave. He will be worth very little to these people and they will believe he's worth next to nothing to me. Are you really certain the guards won't decide to give him a kick in the ribs because he's too slow to obey, or he looks at them wrong, or just because they want to?"

Noni pressed her lips together and let out a long breath through her nose.

She gestured to Sharn with a flick of her fingers.

"Give him his knife back."

"Aw, boo," Sharn said but she handed it over.

Simon gave the knife a quick glance over, then tucked it happily back into place inside his jacket.

"Anyway, Danya," Noni continued. "Once you're inside, you'll need to explain to the mages what's going on and convince them to cooperate. That shouldn't be too difficult, given their circumstances."

Danya made a face.

He didn't like to contradict an authority figure but...

"I'm not so certain of that. Most of the boys I grew up with would have taken death over rebellion."

She inclined her head to him respectfully.

"A fair point. These slaves will likely be cheaper and not so well groomed but it's far from out of the question for them to resist. If anyone reveals you to the guards or it looks like someone is about to get hurt, scream as loud as you can. We'll be close enough to hear you and we'll come immediately."

"Don't be afraid to defend yourself if you need to, either," Simon added.

"Of course," Noni agreed.

"Anyway, assuming all goes to plan, we'll attack around midnight. Danya, when you hear the commotion start, I want you to lead the other slaves into a back corner of the holding room and wait with them until we come to get you. We have the element of surprise and far superior numbers, so we're expecting a quick and one sided battle."

"All done," Delton said, and Danya looked down to see bare skin where his tattoo had once been.

Having a tiny bit of someone else's magic clinging to his skin felt odd, warm and tingly but the sensation was subtle enough that he suspected he would hardly notice it once he had other things distracting him.

"Then it's time we get going," Noni said as she stood from her chair. "Come."

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uroborosymphony · 4 months ago

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The dragons and the serpents have always shared a history. Welcome to Godhood. The words she spoke has been said to him before, which tugs at the corner of her mouth, pulling them into a faint smirkish smile. Of course Yong would have phrased it like that. Calista is no stranger to these echoes—repetition is part of immortality’s curse. Yet, she entertains them, for they held a certain irony. The Lamia never was a creature of warmth or connection. Few—perhaps one, perhaps two—remained by her side in her six centuries of wandering. Yong could have been one of them. It was convenient, after all, to be near each other. Indeed. No affection bound them, no emotional tied their fates. It was almost practical, a shared detachment, though always with an unspoken understanding. He never accepted her offers of alliance, her calls to join her chaotic ventures. And yet, he never stood in her way either. Yong was insufferable—a narcissist, as much as she was. They were alike spirits in their cruelty, two egocentric beings surveying the world with disdain. He allowed humans to inherit his core, the Earth without much of a care, while she, in her disgust, saw them as little more than insects—brief, insignificant. After their fleeting moments of intimacy, she would return to her croisades, plotting her wars from the top of her castle on the hill with her Council, leading then her armies of vampires and ghouls down to the underworlds. A war, a quest, born out of a single desire: to end her own immortality. Her path had begun with the witches, those ancient beings who alone possessed the kind of power she knew she would steal : similarly to her ability to travel dream realms now, it is a witch power. In the 1800s, she led a century-long massacre, a brutal campaign to strip them of their magic to combine it to hers, to be even more powerful and to hope to grab that One Power to End Immortality.

She won many battles and terrorized generations but lost the war—captured, tortured, judged, the Lamia fell short, the Witches found resources and alliances, too. Her quest had evolved since, growing more intricate, more desperate. She had come to the conclusion that such power could only be wrested from a god. But how does one steal from a god? She realizes now, standing in the sand, that perhaps Yong had been the key. Calista, a reptile devoid of empathy, can know nothing of the man who stands in Yong’s place now, nor can she guess with a simple look at him. But her mind, as logical as it was ruthless, could at least connect the dots. A human once, now ascended to divinity—like her. If gods alone held the secret to immortality, then surely they must also possess the key to its undoing. This man and Yong tells the exact tale of that. How had Yong fallen? Her gaze lingers on the man's scars. Hers heal in an instant, but his... they seem to persist. Were they relics of his mortal life, wounds that even godhood could not mend? Could this man be the end of her quest? Did it lie here, in the dreaming realm of a New god? “Greetings will suffice," she begins, her voice calm but edged with an authority earned through centuries. "I hold no intention of lingering in the subconscious of yours, though I find the serenity of the sea rather soul nourishing." She means that. The daughter of Nyx always stands tall, hands resting lightly on her hips, her gaze never leaving his. "I was, in fact, expecting Yong. My travels through the dreamscape were meant to lead me to the labyrinth of his mind. Hell knows what I would have found in there." Her lips curve. "If my heart were not that of a serpent, his presence might almost be missed." Her golden eyes glint. “It is quite the surprise, however, to find a former mortal in his place. It is of rare occurence, the experiencing of both mortality and divinity. We do share that, you and I.” She let the weight of her words hang in the air, a reminder of her own journey—once Sun Joseon, princess of the Joseon Dynasty, destined to rule and die as a human, before fate turned her into the twelfth Lamia. The pain of that transformation was something she would never share. The self-loathing, the torment—it all lay buried under the regal, composed exterior she presents to the world. She had led armies across continents with an iron hand, never allowing the monster she became to show its vulnerability. “I must ask, Earth,” she says, sharp as steel wrapped in silk. “Does immortality fulfill the fantasy? Many humans live as though they were gods, yearning for the power to transcend death itself—until time inevitably reminds them otherwise. Tell me, how do you enjoy he divine existence?”

#셋 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐀 / the immortal.#셋 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐀 / interactions.#셋 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐀 / chapter 03 ; to bring death upon.#Look at them gods who want to kill themselves I love them #Just two besties who don't wanna live anymore

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thislilstangirl · 2 years ago

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shuri and namor: the mirror image

let’s jump into this well overdue meta, shall we?

shuri and namor’s dynamic is compelling because we are seeing two mirror images meet each other, confront each other, and eventual align with each other. to see your mirror image is to see your reflection. you can read it as soulmates, twin flames, whatever. i use the word mirror image because the imagery of both shuri and namor standing on opposite sides of that same mirror is a pretty apt description of their relationship. and we see what happens when the glass between them breaks.

“the same wound”

tenoch has said repeatedly that shuri and namor share the same wound. this wound being grief and trauma. for shuri, this wound is fresh: the death of her brother despite her efforts to save him. it has left her with paralysing guilt, a cold detachment to spiritualism and an anger that could burn the world. for namor, this wound is centuries old: witnessing the heartbreak of his mother due to colonialism. as the ruler of talokan he’s burdened with trying to protect his people from an evil he has witnessed and has no real control over.

the scene at the beach is when we first see the two interact. “this better not be apart of your ritual” shuri says, as if their words or mere presence had summoned a stranger to them. and it’s kind of true. namor, only after overhearing the depth of shuri’s rage, emerges from the sea. at five hundred years old, he is well-versed in rage and he already understands that him and shuri share the same wound from her words.

most of the conversation flows through ramonda, wielding a spear as her guards herself and her daughter from a god who promises war and ruin if they do not deliver him the scientist. namor is calm and collected in this moment, at peace with the fact he holds the advantage in this tug of war. also at peace with the fact he has a potential ally in shuri already. shuri is on guard, but intensely curious at the vibranium clad god with winged feet. she doesn’t realise yet how alike they are. perhaps her disconnect with the spiritual has played a part in that. in any case, her curiosity is already tethering her to her mirror image.

“we must look at each other and recognise we are the same”

after shuri’s “not-abduction-abduction” we find ourselves just outside talokan in a cave. shuri is ready to face namor, for a chance to save riri williams and understand namor’s motivations. after a quick wardrobe change she meets namor alone, surrounded by his history.

shuri’s dress, which is specifically made for her, is pure talokanil artistry: a light white silk robe with an elaborate neckpiece made of jade and pearls. a royal fit. namor’s likeliness is also embodied on the lower part of the dress. interesting that namor, perhaps subconsciously, is creating a literal mirror image of himself. manifesting the mythical through the literal. when looking at shuri he is now seeing his culture, his history, his likeliness reflected back at him.

for them to be allies, he must show how they are the same. so he tells the story of his people, the spanish conquistadors, his mother’s heartbreak over leaving her home, the evil that took over their land, and finally his vow to hold no love for the surface world. shuri still doesn’t understand- why are you telling me this?. which makes sense. namor has had five hundred years to sit and understand his wound. shuri has spent the last year ignoring it. she isn’t making the connections between the two of them that namor was able to do in a heartbeat.

instead, she uses her smarts to try and save riri: keep her in talokan and send riri back to wakanda safe. and i don’t think namor was expecting that. he pauses, considering and thinking over her proposal. then shuri says she would love to see talokan and he stumbles slightly, perhaps bashful, but quickly agrees to her suggestion. it’s like seeing people on opposite sides a mirror, tentative tapping at the glass. while they are mirror images, they are not identical. the mistake on namor’s part is to believe shuri’s response should be the same as his. when really it should be complementary. shuri is actually softening his edge with reason.

ryan coogler has said one theme of wakanda forever is smarts v wisdom. while shuri is a certified genius, she doesn’t have the wisdom that a god of five hundred years have. and i think we see that on display throughout their scenes in talokan. namor is patient telling her the why. he’s betting that his wisdom will be enough to convince her. while shuri counters with reason and logic.

“only the most broken people can be great leaders”

namor gifts shuri his mother’s bracelet, finishing his literal mirror image, hopeful and confident that she understands how similar they are now. they share a vulnerable moment, the glass between them is the thinnest. shuri finally starts to unpick her grief, confused as to why she had to face such tragedy when she has the gifts to avoid it. and namor, a god who has to constantly deal with grief, doesn’t have the answer. all he knows is the wisdom his ancestors gave him- only the most broken people make great leaders.

but shuri, still doesn’t understand. she believes this whole situation about the scientist, but it’s about more than that. again, smarts v wisdom. shuri can’t see the bigger picture until namor shows her. and when namor lays all his cards on the table and shuri is shocked by his commitment to war.

namor needs an ally and shuri is his only option. if wakanda doesn’t stand by him, he will drown wakanda along with the rest of the world. while shuri thinks it’s madness, the glass between them paper thin. namor sees and knows her as well as he knows himself. he gives shuri one last reply so that she understands how thin the glass between them is: you said you wanted to burn the world. then let’s burn it together.

shuri’s rescue goes awry. the death of two innocent talokanil will be seen as an act of war. shuri knows this for certain because now she knows him. as soon as she is back in her lab she is looking at defences and telling aneka to keep her weapons, while ramonda is giving riri a tour and nakia talks with okoye. everyone knows namor is a threat, so why is it only shuri who is on edge? because the rage she sees in namor is exactly like her own. and that rage is enough to burn down the world.

namor, well namor is pissed. and rightfully so to some degree. but still he wants an ally. he still wants shuri by his side. but he thinks the only way that is possible, is for her to get wise. and fast. she needs to break. just like how he has been broken over the centuries. shuri needs to lose her innocence and to do that, he needs to kill the queen.

a child without love

the death of the mother triggers godhood for both namor and shuri. yes, namor was technically already a god king since birth, but it’s truly the death of his mother that marks the end of his childhood and start of his godhood as namor.

and shuri follows the same path. shuri becomes namor- a child without love. when burying her mother, shuri remarks that her heart is buried with ramonda. and just like how namor’s godhood is marked with the death of his childhood (triggered by the death of his mother), m’baku remarks that she could no longer be considered a child due to all the loss she has suffered.

and shuri isn’t a child, she’s vengeance incarnate. just like namor. the glass is between shuri and namor has shattered. the one is now the other. and more importantly, killing the one will now kill the other.

when two gods go to war the only outcome could be eternal war. namor and shuri can be interpreted as many different gods, or myths. one interpretation comes from the aztec gods quetzalcoatl and tezcatlipoca- brothers who were a part of the creation myth, one represented by a feathered serpent and the other a black jaguar. it’s fascinating dynamic (and probably for a different meta). it’s just important to highlight that this isn’t just two mirror images fighting. it’s godly mirror images fighting. which is why the phrase eternal war feels intentional, but also a stunning apt. and also it reminds me of the relationship mythical gods have, where destruction is inevitable and the grievances are personal.

so, anyway they fight. and it’s brutal. she clips his wing, grounding him, the god brought to the level of a mortal. a role reversal of their previous interactions. after punches, slashes, and stabs, shuri finally bests him. and goes for the kill.

but here’s the thing. you can’t just kill your mirror image. when you see yourself in another person, killing them would be akin to killing that part of yourself. it will only deepen the wound not heal it. but also you’re not suppose to shatter the glass between your mirror image because you’re not suppose to become your mirror image. it’s not natural. mirror images/soulmates/twin flames are suppose to be complementary. two separate halves coming together. not the same half overlapping. it’s why namor’s plan to force shuri is to become him- a broken ruler without love- backfires. he inflicted pain onto shuri, like how he had pain was inflicted as a child. trauma begets trauma. he was closer to a union when bargaining with a princess, not a goddess ready to rip his heart out. with her claws.

healing the wound

shuri almost makes the mistake of killing namor and pauses. she is reminded that he is her reflection, her mirror image. they share the same pain, they share the same love for their people. queen ramonda tells her to show him who you are and in that moment there is clarity. she is not namor. she is not a resentful, vengeful goddess. she is shuri, daughter of t’chaka and ramonda, sister of t’challa. and she will not risk eternal war. her last act as a goddess is to restore the glass namor had shattered. she finally understands and sees namor as her mirror image and thus is able to grant him an alliance.

shuri is now able to heal her wound. her stint of being a goddess and queen, has matured her. she confronts her grief in a healthy way- by going back to the spiritualism she dismissed at the start. as for namor, the alliance is healing his original wound by making him trust shuri, a person of a surface world, and choosing to put his people above the pain and anger that has been fuelling him for centuries. he is prepared for war but he will not be the one to start it. two mirror images that couldn’t heal without the other.

he paints their fight, two distinct figures- the k'uk'ulkan and the black panther. equals. he knows not to shatter the mirror again, to not risk the wrath of the most powerful person, in the most powerful nation. and he doesn’t have to. they are mirror images after all. if, or really when, shuri will want his assistance, all she has to do is knock the glass. and he will be ready.

#well that was long #but i hope that makes sense!#wakanda forever #namuri #namor x shuri #shuri x namor #wakanda forever spoilers #meta #black panther #mcu #seaprincess #mcu shuri #nashuri #marvel #mcu namor

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miseries-mistress · 2 years ago

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YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE IT'S HALLOWEEN | SITH!OBI-WAN KENOBI

Synopsis: You're the object of Furvor's pleasure, and amidst the haze of his obsession for his pretty Jedi, he seeks you out for the first time.

Warnings: female reader, possession, non consensual touching (not sexual), obsession, slight fanaticism, helplessness from the reader, mention of stalking, W/C: 2589

Notes: this is shitty, and i have no excuse for it. this is inspired by the Muse song, "You Make Me Feel Like It's Halloween," so here is my version of a halloween story. happy halloween!

star wars masterlist

There is a fear, a dark winding fear that twists through your body, consuming, devouring the light that brought you to the place you reside in the world. That light, more the connection to it, was being tried, tested if you will, by a man.

You don't want to refer to him as a "man" because that humanizes him, makes the threat of him more real, and appear like the Jedi he should have been instead of the creature he's fallen to. A creature was a better thing to refer to Darth Furvor as, for he was nothing more than a servant of the dark.

His servitude to the darkness left him with an insatiable obsession with the Jedi. You assumed his obsession was deeply rooted back to his long-forgotten identity of Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Jedi you had heard from in stories after he fell to the dark from witnessing the death of his master by a Sith, which he had supposedly slain in the wake of his billowing rage. The boy that Qui Gon had found, Anakin, had gone on to become your padawan, which you trained valiantly until he had grown up to become his own Jedi at the ripe age of 19. You were alone for the first time since Anakin's trials, where he left you to become his own person and fight the raging war infecting the galaxy. But, of course, that didn't last long when the same Sith you heard about in stories found an infatuation with you.

You didn't know where his infatuation with you sprouted from, for you had never met him before, but that didn't seem to stop him. You knew of his attempts to slay your battalion, either by his droids or his hand, but he never succeeded. Those attempts to pursue you were nothing more than that, attempts until today.

You were stuck in a room of sorts, separated from your commander, as you pursued the pull you felt in the Force. The tug led you to this place, where you have nothing but your connection to the light to guide you out of the abyss of blackness. Your eyes have poorly adapted to the lack of light, and you resist the temptation to pull out your saber to illuminate the way. Although you were trying to leave the area as soon as possible, something urged you to stay, and you followed your feelings, reaching out with them to determine the cause of the disturbance. It was almost like a string, tugging you down into the rabbit hole of the darkness you were afraid you could never climb out of. The coldness brushed against the bare skin of your hand, and you involuntarily shivered, the feeling spreading across your body in a slow, thick movement. The coldness was nothing like staying on Hoth bundled up with Anakin on a mission but the kind of iciness that created a tremble in your bones, rattling every anxiety out of its securely closed container. The icy metal of your lightsaber clutched in your hand did nothing to soothe your spiking nerves nor calm the raging storm of untangled emotions buried deep in your subconscious.

It was dread that you were feeling, you quickly realized, and you did your best to shove it down, control it so it couldn't control you.

"My, my, what do we have here?"

Your blade was ignited in a second, the steady hum of its deadly beat the only certainty you are given. The fast-paced beating of your heart drowns out the rush of your thoughts as you turn on your heel, your lightsaber illuminating no more than a few feet in front of you, yet there is nothing.

"Such a pretty Jedi." The ghost of fingers caressing your lips made you jump backward, the phantom touch lingering for a moment longer before dissipating into the night. The sensation of disgust crawls over your skin, biting into your self-consciousness. You hear the amused chuckle escape the man, and your lightsaber whirs with your turn, your eyes growing frantic as you search for the mystery foe.

"Adorable."

You consider the possibility that it's all in your head, but you discard it almost immediately. It all was too real…the sensations, the voice, all of it was too intricate to be a Force trick. As you follow that thought to conclusion, the scattered pieces slowly start to fit into place, the first piece clicking together like a light bulb going off in your head. This place, whatever it was, was composed of pure darkness, and something or someone was the tug in the Force that pulled you to encounter it.

"Who are you?" you ask into the void, and for a moment, you expect there to be no response, only to prove the thought of your insanity. But Furvor's velvety voice breaks through the veil, and you feel the warm breath against your ear, the barest wisps of hair tickling the side of your face.

"Whoever you desire."

Your lightsaber swings around, but it slices through the air, and you look over your shoulder to find him gone, whoever he was. He was dogging the question; that was obvious enough. Was it to hide who he really was? You thought to yourself. The man was surrounded by the dark side of the Force, and you could feel the tendrils of his presence pushing against your mental barriers on a quest to identify a weak spot.

"You're a Sith, aren't you?" you call out.

"You catch on quickly." You could hear the grin in his voice, and the fascination he seemed to exhibit with you did not remain unnoticed. If this was indeed a Sith Lord, then now would be your only time to bring him to the Republic to face his crimes for all they were worth.

"You've become quite the nuisance, my dear," he continues, and your body tenses as the realization dawns upon you. This man- creature- wasn't any Sith lord but Darth Furvor. The grip on the hilt strengthened. "My master wants you dead."

Goosebumps defiantly raised under your tunic, for however much you tried to quell your fear, it seemed to never fully subdue into the symphony of voices scattered across your mind. "Then why haven't you killed me?"

"You've piqued my interest." The undertone, the hidden message, sent your adrenaline pumping faster and faster. You needed to get out of here before it was too late.

"Let me go," you growled, and airy laughter followed.

"And why would I do that, my pretty Jedi?" You took a step back, your heart rate rising with every step. His voice was like an echo, a sound you couldn't quite pinpoint where it was originating from. It irked you more than anything but made you fearful of the unknown. Furvor could be around any corner, waiting for the opportune moment to strike you down with a single stroke of his saber. The man who had been chasing after you ever since the clone wars started.

"Because then I might be merciful," you snarled. You could almost see the grin flashing over Furvor's face at the challenge.

"Oh, really now?" he fired back, and with that, an unrelenting grip washed over your body in an instant, rendering you immobile. You tried to thrash against the invisible pressure, but your actions were futile. Then there's the soft click of your lightsaber as it is deactivated. "Because I think you rather like being at my mercy."

"I do not know of the lies you speak of," you reply, and a spark of amusement flashes over his sickly yellow irises. You feel the pressure of a hand coast up your arm to your neck, the back of it gliding over your supple flesh. You shiver.

"You're so weak." The touch grows firmer, ignoring your rebuttal. "So pliant."

You can't find a response to his observation, can't pull your thoughts together to think of anything but his touch, as shameful as it is.

"Don't touch me," you choke out. Furvor doesn't relent, but this time you hear his soft footsteps echoing through the place, and you feel him. His darkness and passion are consuming, twisting every ounce of the Force into something of his own creation. A Sith, he was indeed to manipulate the Force as he has.

"I first found you when the boy, Anakin, became a Jedi," he states, almost as if he had been reciting it. The information is common knowledge, nothing you don't already know, but your curiosity has peaked. Where was he going with this?

"My master wanted you dead, and I embarked on the mission as I was told. It was when I saw you for the first time that I became infatuated with you."

You feel it now, the coldness of his hand seeping through your robes as they trace the curve of your spine all the way to the base of your neck. Goosebumps arise at his hand, touching the bare skin of your neck, and you battle your alarm for the sake of your sound state of mind because it is the only thing that would be able to get you out of here alive.

"You became everything," his voice drips over the shell of your ear, and you desperately try to ignore the pinpricks of…something edge to the surface of your consciousness.

"I watched as you destroyed entire battalions of droids by yourself. I witnessed the graceful dance of your saber technique, and I knew then that I couldn't kill you. No, you appeared to me as an angel, so sweet, so naive; it was far beyond any beauty I had ever encountered. You lured me in with your innocence, and now I don't know what to do with myself!" He laughed unbelievingly, his hand running through his hair harshly before continuing.

"At first, I just wanted to corrupt that pretty little mind of yours, but that simple want became a need. I watched your every move, entranced by your power. How could someone as pathetic as you hold so much power, so much hidden anger underneath the lies the Jedi had bred? But I grew tired of simply observing while my men tried to capture you. I watched every hologram I could get my hands on, yet it still doesn't do justice to your beauty. I just couldn't get enough!"

It takes you a moment longer than it should to recognize the weight of his words. He was obsessed. With you no less. That obsession, the lust of passion, is what brought you here to him. He was obsessed with you and not keen on stopping until he achieved what he wanted. Which was what? You? Your life? Your devotion to the light?

Did he intend to turn you?

That idea alone sent your head reeling down a far darker passage than you should ever travel, and you shook your head to force yourself to remain focused.

"What do you want with me?" you snap, and his grip loosens for a moment, but it still isn't enough to liberate you.

"What do I want?" he repeated your question incredibly. "What do I want?! I want you! I want all of you!"

You flinch at the desperate glee in his voice as he turns to face you. You can hardly make out his features in the darkness besides his eyes, which seem to glow an impossible gold. His irises are glimmering with pathetic despair, pleading. His hands fly to your arms, clutching them so fiercely that you are sure his fingerprints will leave purple splotches along your skin.

"Join me, my dear. We could rule the galaxy together with no one to stop us!" Furvor's childish nativity is urging him down the spiral of fanaticism. He's fallen so far that a Sith Lord, for Kriff's sake, was pathetically begging for you, and now, standing in the face of it, you know why Master Yoda was so instant on the rule of possession in the code. It warps you, changing you into an object of greed.

"Don't touch me," you growl, but his grip remains firm, not acknowledging your demand. "I don't know who you are, Sith, but I will never fall to the dark side."

"Don't say such foolish things, my dear. I know of your anger you try to hide away, but you can't fool me. I know you better than anyone could dream of."

"You lying kriffing piece of shit-"

His hand reaches for your face, grasping it in a bruising grip under your cheekbones. He yanks your face closer to his so he can spit his next words in an unforgiving vulgar voice. "Speak to me that way again, and I will find a better use for that filthy mouth of yours."

The fear you so utterly tried to quell is back in full force, and with a sickening epiphany, you realize you're scared of Furvor. His desperation, his passion for you, is making your chest coil into a tight knot. You are trapped, you realize, and a flash of white-hot terror thrums within you.

"Good girl," he coos, letting his hands slowly slither away from your face so he could return them to your unmoving body. In your state of agitation, heat boldly rushes to your cheeks as you witness his use of praise. Furvor gazes at you, delighted by your embarrassment.

"Maker, you feel better than I imagined." His bare hands are cold as they run over your skin, leaving behind a trail of lewd desire that taints your once-pure skin. If anything, he seems enraptured by your response while the reality of the situation is tearing your mind apart piece by piece. You are helpless to his dependence, vulnerable to the unwarranted contact, powerless to a creature who wants nothing more than to devour you as you're now trembling before the Sith, weak and just as pathetic as him. A tear silently rolls down your cheek, and he looks up, his eyes resembling something of pity before they morph into sympathy.

"Shh, my dear, everything will be alright," he reassures, pulling you unwillingly into his chest for a hug. You are suffocated by his grip as the softness of his robes pulls your hope further away from you. I don't even know you. You want to scream. You want to punch him, beat him to the ground for all the turmoil he's put you through, but you can't. Your helplessness is dragging the teachings you've grown up with into the mud of the forgotten, forcing you to stumble further into a state of submission before the Sith, your sworn enemy as a Jedi. You feel your grasp on the Force weaken as you give into your fear, your mind falling apart around your own defenselessness. His following words are what puts the final nail in the coffin, the crack that shatters your heart like it's child's play. It's then that you finally break.

"You're mine now."

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buckys-little-belle · 3 years ago

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Hmmm GOSH I wish I could flood my brain with ideas for requests to you 😭 I did have one tho the other day Maybe something like a play date with Steve, Where Bucky’s pretty much playing caregiver with the two of them and maybe they’re both tugging on his hands and wanting him to carry em’ both on his hip and Bucky’s heart is just fluttering of how the two get along play together so well and it’s only their first play date together (it was Bucky’s idea lol)& maybe he’s making them lunch and etc

Grilled cheese, and juice (Part Two)

Two best friends one daddy

Bucky x little!Steve x little!reader (no gender specific pronouns used)

This is like a “sequel” kind of to “grilled cheese and juice : the way to anyones heart” fic which can be found here (you don’t have to read that fic first, they can both be read as separates)

warnings - fluff, some angst, tears, literally everyone cry’s at one point, but it ends very super happy! mentions of eating!

Authors note : this is kinda out of my comfort zone, i really tried to make it as natural as possible and really just write what i felt but i am aware that the story might be not as good as my other fics because this is something new for me (writing more than two people in a relationship, though its something I’m totally open to doing and something I’m willing to work on to get my skills to a prefect level for fics like these)

“Y/n?” Bucky called out, hoping y/n could hear him from where ever they were in the house. “Y/n, come here i have a surprise for you!” He called out again, a little louder this time.

Y/n heard Bucky from their playroom that was upstairs, after putting their crayons down and making sure the room looked as clean as possible they began to run towards Bucky.

“A surprise daddy?” They shrieked as they walked down the stairs, a large smile plastered on their face, ready to see Bucky and give him a hug.

“Mhm come here” he chuckled.

As y/n rounded the corner they saw their daddy, dressed in his favourite Henley and his hair down like usual, and then their eyes landed on the man next to him. The man was as tall if not taller than her daddy, his blonde hair short and his blue eyes shining.

The man had his hands grasped in front of himself, a shy smile on his face and his eyes seemed to wander around the front entry.

“Y/n, this is my friend Steve” Bucky said as he began to take his coat off, Steve following his actions quickly.

“Da boy like me?” They asked, Bucky had shared some stories from before the war and before his avenger days about his friend who was just like y/n, someone who also loved grilled cheese and juice.

Bucky nodded his head, taking Steve’s jacket from him and walking towards Y/n. Before he could give them a hug their hands grasped his face and held it still. “You said dat he was tiny, like a lil short” they whispered, peeking over Bucky’s shoulder to get a look at the very tall boy near the door.

“I did, but he’s the same as daddy bub.” Bucky said “In the war he also got the shot that made me big and strong.”

Y/n nodded their head, that made sense, they thought and walked over to Steve, simply looking up at him. “Let me see your arm pease” they said while making continuous eye contact.

“Mm why?” He said, his tone shy and his shoulders curling in, subconsciously making himself smaller.

“Daddy said you were da same as he is” Y/n paused and looked back at Bucky, he currently had a smile plastered on his face, his heart warm seeing the two of them interact. “So you gotta have a metal arm too?” They asked, the idea making sense in their mind.

“Baby, Steve doesn’t have a metal arm.” Bucky’s voice was playful but stern “Steve loves to colour, why dont you bring him upstairs and show him all your crayons?”

“Otay daddy” y/n said, maybe they could ask Steve later if he had a metal arm.

Y/n began walking through the house towards the stairs, “scuse me, you need to walk wif me” they said when they noticed Steve wasnt following behind them.

Steve mumbled a ‘sorry’ and began to follow y/n, the two of them eventually made it to the playroom. The playroom walls were white, a few rugs littered the floor, and shelving units covered the back wall from the ceiling to floor. “Dis is where all my stuff is” y/n said as they walked further into the room.

“Um would you like t’pick a colouring book?” Y/n asked shyly, not completely confident in Steve’s presence.

“Any one?” Steve mumbled as Y/n showed him all of their colouring books.

“Mhm! Daddy buys a lot, ‘s nice dat you’re here, he doesn’t like to colour wif me” Y/n’s body language went from happy to a hint of sorrow, clearly upset that they had always coloured alone.

“Hm I like dis one” Steve said as he grabbed a colouring book off the shelf, opening it up to an empty page and laying on the floor next to where y/n currently sat.

“Dat’s a good one” y/n mumbled before laying down too, pushing the crayon box closer towards Steve so he could also use the crayons. The two of them falling into comfortable silence as they coloured beside each other.

- - - - - -

Bucky decided to make all three of them lunch, some grilled cheese and homemade juice, maybe even let them eat in the living room and watch some cartoons. After preparing the food and setting up the coffee table with Steve and y/n’s plates he began walking up the stairs towards the play room. He was met with deafening silence, the only thing he could hear was crayons on paper and their breathing.

When he made his way to the playroom door his heart swelled, Y/n and Steve were colouring beside each other, crayons sprawled around them, both of them to focused on the books to notice him in the doorway. “Bub’s” Bucky called out, Steve and Y/n looking up at him, smiles present on both of their faces. “Lunch is ready, why don’t you two clean up and then we can eat!”

“Otay daddy” Y/n cheered as they sat up, closing their colouring book and putting some crayons back in the box.

Steve’s smile faded a little when he heard Y/n call Bucky ‘daddy’, Steve always called Bucky that and felt like he no longer could because Y/n had taken his spot. Steve stayed sitting even when Y/n got up, not sure how to deal with or express his feelings.

“Stevie?” Bucky cooed walking closer towards him “whats wrong?” He asked, Steve just frowning instead of answering.

Before Bucky could press the situation further Steve finally spoke up “You said dis would be fun” Steve’s voice teetering on the edge of crying, maybe even sobbing “ s’not fun”

Y/n stood beside Bucky, tears welling up in their eyes when they saw Steve start to cry. “Why isn’t it fun Stevie?” Bucky asked, now crouching down to meet Steve’s sitting frame.

“You love dem, not me no more” Steve sobbed “Your deir daddy now, ‘s mean”

Silence covered the room, Bucky close to tearing up as he saw Steve cry.

“Wat if, wat if he was both of us’s?” Y/n spoke up, their tears still making their way down their cheeks.

“What was that bub?” Bucky asked, not totally sure he heard them right.

“You can be my daddy and Stevie’s too!” Y/n cheered as she ran towards Steve and hugged him from behind.

“I like that idea, what do you say Stevie?” Bucky asked as he sat down on the floor, y/n walking over and sitting in his lap.

“Maybe” Steve whispered, his crying now stopped, a look of numbness taking over.

“Why don’t we have some lunch and you can think about it?” Bucky asked, Steve nodded and the three of them stood up, Bucky holding both y/n’s hand and Steve’s.

- - - - - -

The three of them sat in the living room eating lunch, y/n and Steve sitting on the floor using the coffee table as a lunch table and bucky sat on the couch as cartoons played on the tv.

Y/n really liked their daddy’s grilled cheese, it was their favourite, always so cheesy and perfectly made, his juice was also quite good in their opinion. Y/n looked over the Steve’s plate and saw his grilled cheese untouched, frowning they looked to Bucky who was too engrossed in the show to notice Steves full plate.

Steve still looked numb, his eyes glued to the tv, a frown permanently stuck on his face. Y/n knew that the grilled cheese was good so obviously Steve would like it, unsure of what they should do they simply picked up a half of Steve’s crilled cheese and held it up to his mouth.

Steve sensed the grilled cheese in front of him and absentmindedly took a bite, the grilled cheese just as good as he remembered, if not better. Y/n sat with their grilled cheese in one hand and Steve’s in the other, both of them once again glued to the tv.

Bucky eventually snapped out of his thoughts that seemed to consume him only to find y/n feeding Steve and themself. Bucky began to tear up, he felt like the worst person ever for not paying as much attention to Steve as he once did. Why didn’t he realize Steve was sad before it was too late? Why didn’t he notice Steve wasn’t eating? Through the tears a smile made itself present, Y/n seemed to be some sort of magic glue that held everything together without even trying.

Y/n helped come up with a solution to make Steve happy, heck they were currently feeding Steve. At that moment Bucky vowed to keep all three of them close together, become a small family that loved each other and helped each other out.

- - - - - -

“So Stevie what do you think? Would you like me to be your daddy too?” Bucky asked as he placed the dishes in the dishwasher and turned it on, Y/n and Steve sitting at the kitchen island.

Instead of hearing an answer he heard both y/n and Steve whispering to each other, turning around he saw the two of them huddled together quietly talking and laughing every once in a while.

Quickly the two of them turned back to Bucky, smiles on both of their faces. “I say yes” Steve said happily.

“But daddy” Y/n interrupted “You hab to pinky promise to pick both of us up all da time, put both of us to bed in your bed and … buy us new stuffies” y/n meant business, a serious look on their face and their words stern.

“Wait we neber said anything about new stuffies” Steve said, clearly confused as he turned towards y/n.

“Shhh, maybe he can do it anyways” y/n responded.

Bucky just chuckled at the two of them planing out their ‘contract’ “I will buy you two new stuffies, but only if you give me a hug” Bucky spoke, his arms crossed as he stood behind the island.

Y/n and Steve looked at each other, their faces lighting up instantly as they hopped of their seats and ran towards Bucky. As they hit his chest he scooped them up, placing one on each hip and giving both of them a kiss on the cheek. “I love the both of you so so much” Bucky said, a few tears escaping his eyes.

“Lub you too” both Steve and y/n mumbled as they snuggled Bucky closer.

The three of them felt warm and content, like they all finally found the missing pieces to their puzzle, finally a small family together.

#little!reader #age regression fic #bucky age regression #bucky barnes #bucky x little reader #bucky x little!reader #bucky x reader #bucky #james buchanan bucky barnes #age regression #steve rogers age regression #steve rogers x little!reader #steve rogers x reader #steve x reader #steve x little reader #little steve #little!steve #little!steve rogers #steve rogers

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labyrinth-runner · 4 years ago

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“I might already be on me knees, but I’m still gonna make you say please.” Darkling x Fem!Reader

Title: Worth the Wait

Summary: Reader is insecure of their powers and their ability to be the sun summoner. General Kirigan assures them that they have what it takes.

Word Count: 2600

Warnings: It's sinful sunday folks. This is literally going to turn into smut. Unprotected smut. Marking.

You'd been at the Little Palace for almost a month and by now you felt like you should have been making progress. They called you a Saint, and prayed to you so that you would be their deliverance, but who would deliver you? Who would save you? The weight of your responsibilities was almost debilitating on your shoulders. Most of the Grisha looked at you like you were so much better than them, like they could only dream of being you.

If only they knew the truth. You were a sham. You could barely manage to bring forth your power on the good days. Your arm had felt the wrath of Baghra's rage more than once this week.

Your power on your own was nothing like when Aleksander touched you. When his hand closed around your wrist, it was like your power would do anything for him. It bent to his will, and you were okay with that. The warm sureness washed over you and made you feel for one small moment that you might actually belong here. With the Grisha. With him.

The way he looked at you made you feel like you were more than you actually are. He made you want to live up to that look.

After another failed day of practice, you couldn't sleep. You tossed and turned in your comfortable bed, unable to relax. Eventually, you decided to get out of bed.

Your feet took you down to the main hall downstairs. The room was empty. Fires crackled in the hearths as their embers cooled from neglect. Your hand dragged along the tables, settling on the Darkling's seat. He had never used it in your time at the Palace, yet the Grisha fought over where they sat in relation to this chair.

There was nothing special about the chair. Its dark wood was smooth under your fingers. Casting a glance around, you pulled it out and sat, looking out over the empty chairs around you.

"It suits you," a voice said from behind you.

You jumped up, turning to see the silhouette of the General leaning against the open door to the war room. "I-I'm sorry, General."

"For what?" he asked, "For taking your rightful place? You should be sitting there, anyway. Not with the other Etherealki. You're not like them, Starling."

You blushed, looking down. "I know I'm not like them. They belong here. I don't."

"Come," he murmured, pushing the door wider for you to enter. "Let me set your mind at ease."

You passed by with bated breath, smelling the familiar scent of ash and cedar wash over you. Your eyes fell on the map resting on the table. The armies of Ravka were stretched thin, with enemies surrounding from all sides as well as from within. The door closed with a thud.

"Do you know why our enemies wish you dead?" he asked cooly.

"Because I am Grisha and Fjerdans hate our kind?" you replied.

His lips turned up slightly, "A good guess, but no. With your power, you can destroy the fold and reunite Ravka. A united country is stronger. We would loose less men, have more area to farm, and would have a better supply route. With you gone, we remain divided, an easy target for those who would wish Ravka harm."

You sighed, shoulders bowing forward. "I'm not capable of that."

"Not yet," he replied in your ear. His voice sent a shiver down your spine, "But you will be."

"How can you be so sure?" you asked, stepping forward out of his reach. Nervously, you rubbed your arms as you looked over the map.

"For a sun summoner, you surround yourself with darkness," he commented. A chill went through you as one by one the lights were consumed by pitch black night. "If you surround yourself with darkness, it's no wonder you can't find the light."

Your hair stood on end as you bumped into the table. Pieces on the war map toppled over. "If you're testing me, it won't work. There's no light here."

"There's no light in the fold, either," he countered.

"I'm not strong enough."

"Yes, you are." His voice was all around you, like the darkness. "You're just looking in the wrong places for the light."

"What do you mean?"

"You're a sun summoner. Your power comes from within. You need to stop looking outward for the power, the validation. The only person who can unlock your true potential is you."

"That's not true! When you touch me I-"

"When I touch you, I amplify what's already there. I make it easier for you to find it within you, but it's always been there, Starling."

You swallowed. The darkness was oppressive. Your voice was softer, less sure. "I can't."

"You can," he murmured. "All of those people believe in you. Why can't you believe in yourself?"

"Because they don't know me!"

"But they do. You are their Saint! The world has known you before you knew the world!"

"I'm no Saint. I'm just... I'm just me," you replied, frustrated.

"And what are you?"

"I..." Your mind was swimming. You used to say a member of the army. You used to say you were an orphan, someone without a place to belong. Then, after the incident in the fold, you were welcomed here. You wanted so badly to belong here. The Little Palace was everything you dreamed of. When you walked into a room, you were noticed. When you stood next to General Kirigan, you felt like an equal. You were no longer a nobody. You were a somebody. In the darkness, you reached for his cheek, and with precision you found it.

"I am Grisha" you replied, dragging your thumb across his cheek. Warmth surged through you as your power snaked it's way up to the surface. Your blood rushed in your veins. Every fibre of your being felt alive. You pushed away the darkness, surrounding you and Aleksander in a halo of light.

You pulled away from him and the room dimmed back to normal. His dark eyes focused on you, seeing you as he always had. His gaze was intense as you slowly backed away, your backside nudging the table.

"You're not just Grisha," he murmured stepping into your space. His hand reached up, his ring lightly grazing your cheek as he pushed a strand of hair out of your face. Your eyes fell from his to his lips. The air between you was charged. "You are mine, Starling."

His lips crashed against yours, his stubble tickling your skin. Your hands sunk into his raven hair to pull him closer to you. His large hands slid up your thighs, pushing your robe further up as they hooked behind your knees to lift you onto the table. Your back knocked over multiple little pieces, causing you to chuckle as his lips made their way down your neck to your clavicle. His thumbs drew lazy circles on the inside of your thighs as his lips trailed lower. Landing on his knees in front of you, his lips sucked marks up the soft flesh of your legs, inching the fabric further up.

"Are you scared?" he murmured, looking up from between your legs.

"Of you?" you asked, smoothing a lock of his hair out of his eyes. You thought back to all the moments between you, the pull, the charge, the familiarity of him. There was a crackle between your skin as your atoms grew closer, wanting to bond. You knew it now, you were two halves of the same whole. He was darkness, you were light. You could not exist without each other. Just as you could not know light without dark, you hadn't known yourself until you knew him.

"Starling?" he asked, pulling you from your thoughts.

"No," you admitted. "I'm not."

"Well, Starling, what do you want?" Aleksander asked, his fingers slipping up to hook around the band of your underwear, tugging down gently.

"You," you groaned, your head falling back to look at the ceiling as the cold air hit your skin.

“I might already be on me knees, but I’m still going to make you say please," he smirked, nipping your thigh.

"Please, Aleksander," you breathed, subconsciously opening your legs wider for him. "I want you."

The smug grin that you got in response made you bite your lip. His eyes seemed to get impossibly darker with desire as his hand slid up your chest to push you flat back against the table top. His other hand tugged on the bow keeping your robe closed, letting it fall open. He stood between your legs, taking in how you looked spread out over Ravka. All of it would be his from this moment forth: Ravka and you. The world was at his fingertips.

The anticipation was killing you as he gently dragged his fingertips down the valley of your chest before settling on your hips.

You had to wonder what he thought when he looked at you. Was this love? Or was it simply lust? When two beings such as yourselves existed, was there any other course to take besides falling for each other? When you were the only two beings who could potentially live forever, why would you fall for those who could die when like should end up with like?

"I've waited so long for you," he whispered.

"Then why wait any longer?" you asked breathlessly, propping up on your elbows. You had never felt more bare; more seen.

He tapped his fingers in a cadence on your thigh as one would impatiently tap a table. "You make a good point, Starling."

Reaching up, you grabbed ahold of the lapels of his coat, pulling him down to you. He rested his forehead against yours as your hands smoothed up his chest and over his shoulders to push the fabric off his body. Then, your sure fingers worked his buttons over with determination.

He grabbed your hands, bringing them up to kiss your wrists. The Darkling took over from where you left off, shedding his own shirt and pants until he matched you.

Hooking your heels around his abdomen, you pulled him closer. His hard length bumped against your slick. His eyes closed at the feeling.

Suddenly, it was if something had come over him. One hand gripped your hip as the other cupped the back of your head somewhat roughly to pull you into a kiss.

This kiss was different.

It was rough, passionate, but it wasn't all sunshine and roses. Part of it was frustration. Anger. Disgust at himself for not being able to be the cool, controlled Darkling he was known to be. He blamed you. He blamed himself for becoming undone by you.

You kissed him back with the same ferocity, but opposing emotions. Your kiss was a resignation, an acceptance that this was how the world should be. Your kiss was relief. Your kiss was love and admiration. Your fingers tugged at his hair, making him open his mouth to fight your tongue for dominance. It was a long battle, but you won. You twirled your tongue around his, soothing him. Your breaths mingled as one, a balance. Your breaths were tantric as he pulled your body flush against his.

Unexpectedly, he lifted you, carrying you towards his bedroom.

"What's wrong with where we were?" you asked softly as he placed you on his bed. It was softer than yours.

"I don't want to think of the war while I make love to you," he sighed in your ear. He pulled back to kiss you softly. "I just want it to be you and me. Here. Now."

Lining himself up with your entrance, he took a deep breath. He kissed you again as he entered. He wasn't forceful, but it was still an adjustment. He swallowed your noises of discomfort with his mouth, waiting for you to become accustomed to the feel of him. When you nodded, he started to move.

He started slow, rocking back and forth into you, kissing you as he did. His hand dipped down to push your knee towards your chest to increase the angle. He hit somewhere deep inside you, causing you to gasp. The gasp quickly turned into a moan as he hit the spot again and again. His pace quickened in speed and increased in roughness, but you liked it. Your body had taken worse beatings that left you feeling less pleasure than this before.

Your fingernails dug into his shoulder, looking to ground yourself. Deep within you, your power was surging, giving you energy that you spent on the Darkling. You matched his thrusts.

"Saints," he gasped.

You grabbed his chin, bringing his face back to look at yours. "I am yours. Take me as you want me."

His gaze was unfocused, seeing through you, but he nodded. His hips snapped into yours at a pace that shook the bed. Your hand gripped his hair tightly as he bit your neck, sucking a mark that you knew would be visible.

It was almost on the precipice of being more pain than pleasure. Your body was incredibly hot. A slight sheen of sweat glistened on your skin as you gasped for air from the exertion of it all. Every muscle in your body was pulled taut, like a slingshot ready to fire.

"Let go," he instructed in your ear.

You screamed his name. Your toes curled as a blinding light filled your vision and you saw stars. You saw the light within you, soaring up towards the heat of your inner sun until you could almost touch it.

And then you were falling. Crashing into a pool of cool darkness. The cold washed over your skin and you realized it was Aleksander's release. The darkness quenching the heat of the sun.

He slowed his pace, fucking you both through your orgasm until life came back into focus for both of you. You blinked through your daze until your vision cleared and you were back in the arms of the Darkling, resting on his bed.

The Darkling had lived a thousand lives before you were even born. Part of you wondered how often he had laid with someone like this, wondering how you'd compare to the rest.

He flopped on his back to catch his breath, chuckling as he stared at the canopy of his bed.

"That was...." He turned to look at you, a boyish grin on his face that you recognized as a happiness he never wore. "Worth the wait."

You let out a breathy laugh of your own as you turned onto your stomach. "Good. I'd hate to disappoint."

"You'd never disappoint, Starling." His smile softened as he reached up to hook his thumb under your chin.

Your eyes trailed down his body, looking at his chest and scrutinizing it for the first time. Scars marred his body. "I'm surprised you never had Genya erase those."

"They remind me of what I'm fighting for." He followed your gaze and sighed, the wall of sadness back in place, and also, you realized, grief.

You reached out to take his hand, kissing his palm. "The fight will be over soon."

He held his arm up so that you could tuck into his side. Hugging you into his side, he kissed the top of your head. "One way or another, Starling. One way or another."

#darkling x reader #darkling smut #general kirigan x you #general kirigan x reader #general kirigan smut #aleksander morozova imagine #darkling imagine #general kirigan imagine #sinful sunday

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