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youllallriseintheink · 3 years

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Repeating the Cycle

I thought I’d write a little story about ink infection, as well as Sammy’s role after he was transformed. It’s inspired by Shazzbaa’s theories (I’d say which, but we don’t want spoilers, now do we?)!

I’ll tell you guys later tonight about the future writing projects I have planned.

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Sammy awoke in his sanctuary, as he had many times before. He hadn’t been to his apartment in... well, days anyhow. He felt better when he was near the ink. He tried the door to exit his private sanctuary, and it was locked. “Is this a sign?” he asked his lord. “Is it time?”

Yes, his lord spoke back.

Sammy smiled- smiled rather weakly, as the pain from his ink infection had been wearing on him heavily. “Finally.”

All the waiting. All the sickness. All the fear. It was time to see what it was all for. And his lord had assured him, with the comforting voice of a father to a young son, that it would be worth it.

Sammy dragged himself over to the leaking pipe that hung from the ceiling of his sanctuary and turned on the ink supply. Ink sputtered down onto Sammy’s face and clothes, and he fell to his knees, hands outstretched and mouth open as though he was staring into heaven itself. His heart was pounding. He was shaking from adrenaline, and not even being surrounded with, covered in, and consuming the ink that normally numbed his symptoms seemed to be helping. This had to be fear instead of withdrawal.

Do not be afraid, the voice comforted, you will have ascended in mere hours. I promise, you will be safe and healthy. I promise, it will be better than anything you’ve ever experienced.

“Thank you! Bendy, hear my praise! I want what you have for me! I crave your embrace!”

Sammy took a long suck of ink from the pipe, then laid down on the floor. He was weak. so weak.

That’s it. You’ve made it. You need only wait now.

Sammy trusted Bendy. Bendy told him that everything he’d done and experienced in his life- even the nightmarish last few years- was leading to something. It told him that everything was okay.

Sammy didn’t know how much time had passed when he felt Joey tying up his ankles. With some struggle, he sat up and tried to push Joey off of him, but it had little effect. Before long, Joey had finished on Sammy’s ankles and was straddling his chest to tie up his hands. The last thing he saw with his biological eyes was Joey’s knife slitting his throat.

When Sammy woke up, the voice of his lord was gone. By trying to make a toon out of him, Joey had robbed him of his ascension and severed his connection to him.

---

Grant awoke in his office to the horrid ticking of his Bendy clock and the array of whispering voices that had plagued him since early in his infection. The clock’s small hand pointed to six, but Grant had no idea whether it was morning or evening. Months of ink infection had ruined his sense of time. He tried the door to his office and found that it had been locked from the outside by chain and padlock. Grant laughed at the absurdity of it all- his life had spiralled into a nightmarish fever dream.

“Does this mean it’s time?” Grant asked.

Yes. Your time is almost up, the voice answered, and for once, Grant trusted it. He felt almost too tired from illness to care.

“I’ll do anything you ask to stop it.”

No response, except for those muttered voices. Grant hadn’t expected one- the voice rarely had his best interests in mind. He shuffled over to his desk and pushed aside some papers to go back to sleep- possibly for the last time.

And then he saw it- a report from Joey that he’d received mere days before his symptoms had started- ending with the words “Fix this or I’ll have your head!” angrily scrawled at the bottom.

That was it. Joey had done this to motivate him. He just had to figure out how to keep the studio from bankruptcy and he’d be cured!

Yes! Yes! You’re right. Fix it! the voice yelled.

Adrenaline flooded Grant’s system as he jerked open his filing cabinet with shaking hands in search of the necessary files to fix the budget. This was his one chance to survive. The muttering voices were screaming in his head- ear-piercing. His head felt ready to explode.

“Shut up and let me focus!” he screamed.

Ink will soothe your symptoms.

That was something that the voice had told him frequently. He hadn’t given in to it yet- not much, anyhow- because common sense told him that ink was inedible. It was also his sincere belief that the voice wanted to kill him. The voice had told him, back before the physical symptoms had become obvious, that he was merely losing his mind and needed to hide it from everyone, lest he be institutionalized. Then, as soon as the physical symptoms had taken root, it had changed its tune- he was losing his mind, because he was ill with an incurable, supernatural disease, and no hospital could help him, and going to one would only guarantee that he would be a test subject for the limited time he had left. Listening to it then had gotten him into this position, and he wasn’t eager to listen to it again.

But this was life or death. He opened the supply on the ink pipe that Thomas- for some reason he didn’t understand- had installed in his office, and drank deeply.

The voice- the muttering- the headache- it all stopped. Silence. Finally.

Grant’s hands were covered in ink now, and were sure to soak any paper he used. I can’t let that stop me. He dropped to his knees and started painting calculations on the floor.

The numbers didn’t add up. Not a single one. Was his mind was too frayed to do basic mathematical functions?! How could he fix anything, let alone this insurmountable debt, while he could barely think straight?! Calm down. Stay calm. Try again. Life or death. Time is money. What will Joey say?!

From the cracks within the wall, Sammy watched as Grant spiralled into panic and tears, and turned his office inside out trying to find anything that could help, expressing his fears through wall-writing, and attempting escape the room. Poor thing, Sammy thought, remembering the pain and uncertainty of his own ink infection, but soon I’ll be able to teach him the truth.

It had been years since Sammy’s sacrifice. Not only did Sammy still work for Joey now that he was a failed toon, Joey had him on a schedule. Every day at 11:00 AM, Sammy would ooze through the walls of Joey’s office for their morning meeting. Sammy wasn’t particularly happy about doing anything for the man who had turned him into a failed Boris just as he was about to fulfill a higher destiny, but the voice had once told him that to follow Joey was to follow his lord, and now those previous words (which Sammy had recorded and studied every day) were all he had left as a doctrine to follow. Sammy hoped that with enough obedience and service, his lord would see past his ruined body and grant him his destiny.

Joey’s demands were often difficult, but they were simple: sacrificing specific people into specific toons, and looking after the infected. Joey rarely sacrificed people on his own anymore, and instead relied on Sammy to do the dirty work of knocking people out, killing them on pentagrams, and then dealing with the resulting dead body, blood and ink-stains on the floor, and whatever abomination came out of the ink machine. Looking after the ink-infected was easier: keep an eye on them, and once they become too infected to be useful, lock them in their offices or in infirmary rooms and take them to their prison in the basement come night. Sammy had overseen the infection of nearly thirty people by now and had sacrificed dozens.

Thankfully, Joey’s demands were not very time-intensive, and he had plenty of time for his passion: teaching the lost ones about their lord and saviour, Bendy.

The lost ones lived in a prison in the very basement of Joey Drew Studios, along with the failed toons. Sammy’s sermons were some of the only times they were allowed out of their cages, and so they were always happy to see him.

Some agreed with him. Often, these were the same ones who had heard a comforting voice as they were infected- generally those with a religious background. Others thought him insane. Their voice had been different- wrong- hallucinatory- and quite often threatening. Sammy had these lost ones do penance in order to find their way to Bendy. Some found him, leaving Sammy feeling accomplished, but also jealous that he could never have what they had. Hopefully, his lord would see the wonderful work he was doing and one day ascend him along with the rest of them- because surely, that was not their final form.

Today’s meeting was like any other. Sammy waited in the walls until Joey’s 10:30 client left, and then slithered out before him.

“Anything to report?” Joey asked casually, as he looked over some paperwork. These meetings were usually uneventful.

“Two people are currently under quarantine. Three more are infected but still able to work for now. Everything is fine- except for one small detail. One of the people under quarantine is destroying his office out of fear. If you’d like, I could tie him up snug until he transforms, or force-feed him ink to speed the process along.”

Joey considered this. "Hmm... well, I do need an Edgar. He would work as well as any. Are you sure he’s close to transforming?” All ink-infected people had strange beliefs and delusions (except for Sammy, of course- his visions were absolute truth), but by this point in their infection, they were generally too tired to do anything destructive- especially ones like this one, who had increased the duration of their infection by resisting the urge to drink ink.

“It will be a matter of hours,” Sammy assured.

“Well, that’s not convenient, but I do have lunch right after this. I’ll get the Charley down to the basement, and you get the Barley and Edgar. The Barley’s name is Lacie Benton, and I’d suggest you knock her out before taking her anywhere- she’s a tough one. But the Edgar shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

“No... I suppose not.” Severely ink-infected people were, without exception, very weak, and Sammy was stronger now than he’d ever been as a human.

“Alright! See you down there as soon as possible.”

Sammy nodded, slunk back into the walls, and cursed everything, especially his order to obey Joey Drew. A severely ink infected person had never, and would never, produce a good toon- part of their souls had already been connected to the other lost ones. Joey must have known that, but he still insisted on stealing the people that were meant to be Sammy’s to guide, probably because in Joey’s mind, killing a person was murder but killing a lost one (or someone who soon would be a lost one) was not. Joey didn’t see his people as equally human, and it sickened Sammy. Nonetheless, he slithered through the walls until he came upon Grant’s office.

The office looked like a madhouse. The floors and walls were coated with repetitive writing. Furniture had been strewn about. Grant himself was curled against the ink pipe in his office, covered in so much ink that Sammy had thought he was already transformed before he realized he still had hair. The poor thing had tried so hard, while so sick, at something so futile. Sammy had his orders, but he wasn’t going to lay a hand on his sheep-that-wouldn’t-be until he had to.

Sammy slithered out of the wall- slowly, so as not to scare him.

“Who are you?” Grant asked. He sounded so tired of all the supernatural surprises that he barely cared.

“I’m here on behalf of Joey Drew,” Sammy began.

“I’m so sorry. I tried... but I couldn’t. I suppose you’re here to kill me, aren’t you?”

“No. I’m here to give you congratulations. The others in your department were able to use these brilliant calculations,” Sammy gestured widely at the messily scrawled gibberish on a wall, “to make a plan. The studio is going to avoid bankruptcy, and you’re going to be cured. Come with me.” Sammy offered Grant his hand. Grant took it, and Sammy helped him up.

“I-I don’t understand. I don’t understand how-” All of those calculations... Grant would have guessed that they were worthless.

“Shh... you’ll be clearer-headed soon. Just come with me, now. I can’t be out there where everyone can see me, but go to the elevator, go to the bottom floor, and I will be there. I promise- you will be fine.”

“Thank you so much. But, my door-”

Sammy slithered back into the wall. Grant heard the click of a door unlocking, followed by the clink of chains falling limp. His office door was unlocked. Do I trust him? Grant asked himself. This day kept getting stranger. If I don’t, I’m guaranteed to die. I have nothing to lose.

Sammy slithered into the wooden floor of the elevator and only reappeared once the elevator hit the very bottom.

“I’m sorry,” Sammy lamented “I want to lead you to Bendy. I want you to find peace as one of my followers. But it is not in the cards.”

The two made brief eye contact- or would have, if Sammy’s face weren’t covered in mask. Grant, obviously, had no idea what Sammy was talking about. Then, Sammy grabbed Grant’s hair, slammed his head against the wall a few times to knock him out, tied him up for sacrifice, and left to find Lacie Benton.

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #my fanfiction #sammy lawrence #grant cohen #joey drew

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miyaniacs · 4 years

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Distance

a/n: hey there, felt like writing a lil angst again, it’s not too bad though :) again, tell me if you want a second part and if you want to get tagged (comment or sent an ask) ALSO not Tumblr deleting my post right after posting so here you go again.

masterlist

characters: Oikawa Tooru x fem!reader (but I try to keep it as gn as possible and avoid using female pronouns/ characteristics)

format: angst oneshot

warnings: angst, mentions of cheating

It’s so hard to look at your phone right now.

On screen you see the beautiful face of your boyfriend. His soft brown hair into his face, his eyes are closed, his mouth slightly open. He is shirtless and thanks to the light of his own phone you can make out parts of his toned arms.

But why is it hard to look at such a beautiful few?

Well, the fact that he lives across the world.

You just woke up and he just fall asleep.

Your fingers ghost over your screen, over the picture of his soft skin. How badly you wish to be with him right now, to be in his arms, to caress his cheek, to play with his hair, to feel his lips on yours again.

You mumble a soft “I love you.”, and end the call.

You missed him so badly, your heat arches every time you see him on your screen.

Forcing yourself out of the bed, you get dressed, putting on the beautiful necklace Oikawa gifted you on your first year anniversary and put your hair in a bun. Putting your laptop and Keyes you leave your home, heading to a small cafe, in hopes to finally start your essay.

Three pages later, someone sits down in front of you.

Looking up, you see Luca one of your classmates.

“Hey Y/N.“ He smiles brightly and places a new cup of coffee next to you laptop, “For you, I thought you need it.“ He smiles even more now. With a smile you thank him and take a sip of the coffee.

“Did you already finished the essay?“ You ask with a sigh looking at your document.

“Finished it last night.“ He laughs and adds: “Do you need some help?“ Thankfully you accept his offer.

A few coffees later, you finally click “Sent“ on your email browser and close the laptop.

“Thank you so much!“ You look up at him, your head resting on your closed laptop.

You never really looked at him. His skin is tanned, dark brown hair, which he is right now pushing backwards. His eyes are a beautiful golden color, dark long lashes, making them even more prominent. From the perspective you got, you can clearly see the muscles flex under his shirt, as he pushes his hair back, his prominent jawline perfectly displayed as he slightly tilts his head to the side. His full lips turn into a smile as he waves his hand in front of your face.

“Hey? Y/n? I was asking something.“ He laughs and you snap out of your thoughts. “Sorry..“ You mumble embarrassed.

“It’s fine, I was just asking if you want to grab something for dinner?“ He repeats and lightly scratches his neck.

“Yes sure!“ You smile and start packing your stuff. On your way out, your phone vibrates.

Looking at it, you smile seeing it was a video call from your boyfriend. Quick you throw your back over your shoulder and tell Luca that you have to get this call real quick.

“Hey sleeping beautyyy.“ You tease as soon as you see Oikawas face.

“Hey, I need to keep up with your beauty.“ He winks and you blush. Luca walking next to you chuckles. “Oh, are you busy love?“ Oikawa asks.

“No, I just finished my essay thanks to Luca, and we’re about to get something to eat now.“ You smile and move your phone, so Oikawa was able to see the male, walking next to you. Frowning his brows, he looks at the phone. “Ahhh, I’m glad you finally finished it.“ He forces a smile, “Love, I’m sorry but I have to hang up now, practice starts earlier today.“ He lies and after saying your goodbyes he immediately puts the phone away.

He really doesn’t want to be jealous, he knew he can trust you, but seeing some random guy, doing what he is supposed to do? Helping you with your essays, taking you out to dinner … he’s supposed to be that person. Opening the calendar app, he checks his schedule.

“Perfect“ he mumbles and opens google.

4 weeks later

The past weeks, yours and Oikawas Video chats got shorter and shorter, sometimes you even declined his call. You felt bad for it yes, but it was finals week and you spent all nighters all the time, together with Luca. The two of you got along really well and started spending more and more time together, growing pretty close.

He was always nice and helpful, not even complaining when you fell asleep on him while studying.

Today was the day of your last test, putting on one of the random hoodies, laying in your room, you hurry to your University, trying to call Oikawa, hoping to get some encouraging words from him, yet he didn’t pick up. “He probably is already asleep.“ You think and continue walking.

Still sad form not hearing your boyfriends voice that morning, you see Luca standing at the entrance of the University.

“Hey - wait Y/n? What’s wrong? You just have to pass this test, we don’t get any grades, don’t ne too nervous.“ He says trying to cheer you up.

“No… I’m not nervous, I’m just sad, my boyfriend didn’t pick up today.“ You sigh. Putting an arm around your shoulders, he responds: “Well, it’s his loss, not seeing your beautiful face before he sleeps.“ It was normal for him to say things like that. He knew you had a boyfriend and you just assumed, he’s just naturally flirty, just like you and well… Oikawa.

“I just try calling him later that day..“ You sigh and together you two enter your classroom, ready to end this hell of a week.

A few hours later

“FREEDOM!“ You laugh at Luca, while you two walk down the hallways of your University.

“Ayyy, there’s your beautiful smile again.“ He teases and pokes your nose. „I just miss him, that’s all.“ You sigh. Luca remains silent and continues walking. Just as you two walk out of the building, Luca a few steps ahead, he stops and spins around, standing right in front of you, grabbing your hands. You look up into his golden eyes, which seem to be glowing in the sunlight, but it wasn’t only the sunlight, there was a certain passion lighting them up.

“Luca? What are you doing?“ You ask confused.

“Y/n… I’m so sick to always see you sad. Shouldn’t he make more time for you? And pick up your calls? And come to visit you? Y/n… be honest with yourself, you aren’t made for a long distance relationship. You need physical contact, you need someone to hold you, to make you feel save, to make you feel wanted.“ He says and looks directly into your eyes.

You being to shiver under is gaze and feel tears well up.

Was it because what he said directly hit that weal point of yours? Triggering all the emotions you tried to ignore? Or was it the stress from the past weeks? It doesn’t matter now, you have to admit that he was right. The past months you always put on a mask. A mask to cover up the sadness that started spreading in your soul.

You loved Oikawa to death, yet there was this small dark part inside of your head asking if all of this was worth it. Was it worth staying up all those nights, just to talk to him and then fall asleep in class during the day? Sure he always said that you shouldn’t neglect your education for him, but you had to. You had to hear his voice, to see his face, to hear him say that he loves you. Especially when all you see over social media, was girls, even models, hitting on him, telling he’s their crush in interviews, seeing all those ships with him and certain models. Well especially one certain model. She was on the cover of the magazine of some famous brand and yes you stopped shopping there because you couldn’t see her face anymore. You knew you can trust him. It was him, bringing up this topic, telling you about his fears that at one point all those lies on the internet would get into your head. You promised it wouldn’t, yet here you are. In all honesty, you just needed to feel his touch again. It was easier to shut off those thoughts when they were occupied by his soft fingers caressing you. Deep down you knew Luca was right, you knew that this long distance relationship was fucking up your metal state, but it’s only until you finished University, you planned to move to Argentina so you’d be together again, or well he comes back to Japan.

Even from across the world, he was so loving and sweet. Waking up to a good morning text or his video call was a given at this point. Receiving random presents from him that suddenly appeared in your mail, receiving a bouquet of flowers, whenever he felt that you needed something to cheer you up. Sending you hand written love letters, that always made you tear up and which you kept in a box under your bed. He really did everything he could, being a perfect boyfriend. Your perfect boyfriend.

“Y/n… you can’t lie to me, I saw how you craved my touch.“ He underlines his words by softly running his fingers over your cheek, cupping your face, moving his tumb up and down, wiping away the small tears running down your face.

You feel exposed. You did enjoy the physical affection he gave you. His arm around you, leaning into his strong broad chest, having his fingers comb through your hair, his hugs, falling asleep and waking up in his arms… you really craved that. But you never craved that from him, you always wished it was Tooru, or did you?

You aren’t sure anymore. A few days ago, you had a dream, you were on a date with your boyfriend, Oikawa, but then he shifted into Luca and you can still feel your heart getting warmer when it shifted to him.

“Y/n… let me hep you erase the pain…“ he whispers and moves closer and closer to you until his lips touch yours.

It was a strange feeling.

His lips are smooth and soft, moving perfectly against yours.

He is gentle and careful, yet you can feel all the passion, he’s holding back at the moment, just waiting for you to fully accept the kiss.

The dark sadness inside of you begs to kiss back, to feel loved again, to feel wanted and desired.

But then there’s this sting inside your hear.

And the more seconds pass, the worse it gets.

This is wrong, you don’t want this.

You don’t want him.

You push Luca way and open your eyes.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see a male with soft brown hair, walking away from the University.

“Luca stop! You know that I love Oikawa! Stop taking advantage of me being vulnerable, I thought we’re friends…“ you scream whisper, tears full of ager and regret run down your cheeks now.

“But does he still love you?“ He asks smugly.

Looking at him, you you shake your head, why should he say that, there is no way Tooru would not love you anymore.

Puffing up your chest, you push him away again and start walking back home.

That night you tried calling Oikawa again, but he didn’t pick up.

Neither did he answer to any of your messages.

He still loves you.

He does.

Right?

tags: @writingfreakk @volley-simp ( I know you like him too soooo enjoy the tag lol) @saucysamu @shoyosun ( just because you knew of me writing this lol) @kenmasgameboy ( so you can read some soft angst while being sober lol)

#haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu oneshot #oikawa imagine #oikawa headcanons #oikawa x reader #🔪

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olivarryprompts · 3 years

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Fanfic Friday #10

Welcome to Fanfic Friday! Each Friday I will post a new fanfic here and on A03. Enjoy x

Read and save it on A03 here

{peter stark and a no good very bad day}

Ship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Tony Stark/Steve Rogers & Peter Stark

Warnings: swearing, fluff otherwise :)

Wc: 3,984

Today, everything had gone wrong. He stayed up way past his bedtime the previous night and had gotten barely three hours of sleep by the time he arrived at school. He forgot his Spanish homework in the lab and that was the one grade he needed to pull from an A- to an A. He chugged a couple shots of espresso, and his usual store on the walk to school was closed. Meaning he had no redbull to sustain him through his classes.

Also, guess which class was straight bangout first, Spanish. So he hadn't done the homework and had no time to do it. Great. Fortunately, he made it through first period Spanish, only getting slightly scolded for not handing in the assignment. Then he had a break, and the kid desperately needed a pick me up coffee and muffin. He went to the closest cafe, one he’d come to love, only to find the whole football team there. Which would have been fine, if he wasn’t so goddamn awkward. He stood there for a solid five minutes before he asked the jock in his way to move so he could order.

Then, when the kid did get to ordering they ran out of fuckin chocolate muffins. What kinda cafe runs out of chocolate muffins at ten am? This one apparently. So coffee and blueberry muffin in hand, he headed back to the student lounge to get some work done.

The next portion of his day went as planned, a welcomed change of pace. Well Flash was a bitch, but what was new there. And his senses were through the roof. But other than that. That was all until the last period. To start, he got a text from his boyfriend, explaining that he’d no longer be arriving this Friday, but instead the following Saturday. Peter wanted to cry. He missed his boy. Leaving Harley on read, he tried to focus on chemistry, but he’d done the stuff they were going over about 100 times with Dr. Banner. He zoned out the entire class.

Finally, the bell rang and put him out of his misery. He quickly texted Ned asking if he was coming in the following day. He had been sick that day. He went to leave, but the class was stopped by the announcement of a test and more homework. For fuck sake.

He did get out, though. And he got straight in the car, barely pausing to say hello to Happy. Noticing the boy's unusual quiet, he didn’t press for more details about Peter’s day. Happy, though he’d never say it, enjoyed hearing about the kids day. He had come to really care for Peter, and his accomplishments made the older man happy. Ironic, he knew.

They had arrived at the tower in almost record time, and Peter was glad to have avoided extra time in the car. What he really craved was a couple hugs from his dads, a chat with his boyfriend, and to get through the stack of busy work that weighed him down.

Happy went round to the private entrance, wished the kid a good day, and headed off to some other errand. Peter exited, scanning his pass at security and being recognized and let through by Friday. So, he’d finally made it upstairs and there the sofa was, filled with a few avengers. Luckily his parents were among them. The two were sitting close to each other, as normal.

Peter simply put his head in his pops lap, and he laid his feet on his dad. Neither Steve nor Tony said anything, but they gave each other the look. Steve ran his hands through his son’s hair lovingly. “Pete?” Tony asked, “What happened kid?” “Nothin’” Peter replied, still buried in his Pop’s lap. “You sure about that?” Steve pressed. “Just a bad day,” Peter mumbled. “What happened паук?” Nat spoke up. She is very protective of Peter. “What didn’t happen?” he sighed dramatically. “Well you mope for as long as you like, Pete,” Tony joked. “Thanks dad,” he said, closing his eyes again in search of sleep. “Teenagers I tell you,” Clint said, rolling his eyes. “Fuck you Barton,” Peter mumbled before falling asleep properly. “He really is your child, Tones,” Clint laughed. “Hey Peter just said a bad language word,” Nat remarked. “God I hate all of you,” his Pops groaned. Then Peter fell into peaceful, safe sleep.

“Pete?” his Pops said, entering his room. He moved around, noticing he’d been moved from the sofa to his own room. He groaned. “Hello to you too.” “Yes, Hi, father, Captain America, Leader of the Avengers, Man of Strengt-” “Ok relax,” Cap rolled his eyes. Peter sat up, smirking. “Wanna tell me what actually happened today?” “J-just everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong.” “Did that start with you staying in the lab way past a normal sleeping time?” “Perhaps. How did you kn-” “You are aware that your dad designed that whole lab situation, right?” “Fair enough.” “Do we have to initiate Insomnia protocol again?” “God no, it was one night.” “Promise.” “Swear. Just an awful day. Spidey senses all acting up, being annoying, no chocolate muffins. Speaking of which, can I have the day off tomorrow? I have basically no classes.” (he wasn’t sure why, but all but one of his classes were cancelled.) Steve thought for a moment. He knew the kid had been through a lot always, and a day off never hurt anyone. Also, he was far too smart to be there anyway. “Yeah. Let me just double check with Dad, okay?” “Thanks.” “We’re eating dinner now so get cleaned up?” “Yep. Coming.”

The next day

Peter awoke at 10 with a smile on his face. He’d peacefully regained energy. He’d finished his school work the previous night, and he was happy to just relax for a day. He pulled on some SI sweatpants and a hoodie he’d stolen from Harley awhile back.

“Hey parentals,” he greeted, still holding his smile. “Morning,” his Pops said as he cooked breakfast. “Morning? Is it already?” I bet you can guess who that came from. “Tones,” Steve said, voice full of its normal concern. Peter just laughed, taking a stool at the bar. “What? I’m fine. I’m having fun.” “You promised you’d at least take a nap.” “Oops,” he smiled, heading back in the direction of the lab. “You’re a great role model to our son!” “You really are dad!” Peter added. “Love you both dearly.” Steve rolled his eyes and Peter chuckled. “Where’s the rest of the team?” Peter inquired. He’d come to realize that saying team was easier than naming all the residents of the tower. “Nat, Clint, Wanda, and Pietro are training. Thor and Loki went back to Asgard last night, and Bruce is in his lab.” “Oh, Loki didn’t tell me he was going back.” “Some emergency. Sorry kid.” “Yeah, i-it’s fine.” “He told me to assure you they’d be back soon.” “Good.” “Keaner getting here soon?” “Nah coming tomorrow now. Something about something, I don’t really know.” “Ok. Made grilled cheeses and tomato soups. It's almost done,” Steve offered. “Thanks,” Peter said. “What’s with Loki leaving that's got you so down?” “I just miss him a lot.” Steve knew that his Kid and loki had come to get on surprisingly well. They were as close as he and Nat. Not even Clint had managed to get that close.

Peter practically inhaled a couple of sandwiches. “I’m going to go work with Dad.” “Have fun!” “I will.” “Love you.” “Love you, too.” He sped down to the lab, where he could hear his Dad’s ACDC blasting as usual. “Heyo, what you working on?” “The suit nanotech. Wanna give your old man a hand?” “Always. Bring up the blueprints. What adjustments have you made so far? “Just the molecule distance and expansion weight. Trying to help stabilize the structure.” “What about the build construction stacking?” So they dove into work, Peter easily keeping up with the genius.

“Nicely done, getting too smart for me. What are you even doing in high school?” “Being bored and failing my humanities classes.” “You're not actually failing your classes are you? Grades are not everything bu-” “Relax father, I’m doing well in all my classes.” “I should probably know that. In fact I’ll actually show up to your next parent teacher conference.” “Please don’t,” Peter smiled. His father was generally very embarrassing. “Friday, make sure I’m at the kid’s next conference?” “Reminder set.” “Thanks, Fri.” “Anytime boss.” “God Fri please remind me to not show up for my next conference.” “Heyyyy,” Tony said, faking offence. “Dad, you can be very overbearing.” “I know, but-” “No.” “Fine, guess I’m not coming. Trying to be a good father and parenthood isn’t for me.” “I beg to differ,” Steve said, coming in to check on us, “realise you're no match for Peter’s intelligence yet?” “No fucking way. I’m a genius. Many PHDs. Kid hasn’t even finished high school, plus he has an A- in Spanish,” Tony laughed. “How did you-,” Peter rolled his eyes. “Friday just sent them to me.” “You’re awful.” “Hey watch it, MIT is still your dream school?” “I fucking hate you so much,” Peter really did loved this kind of banter with his father. “Maybe I do agree that parenthood isn’t for you, love.” “Capsical, you are a traitor. You’re supposed to always be on my side.” Steve kissed Tony’s cheek and ruffled Peter’s hair before saying, “Pepper needs you. Something about important business.” “Really important?” “She says if you don’t come she’ll lock you out of the company.” “That important then. Fri, tell Pepper that I’m coming.” “She has been notified, sir.” “Thank you. Bye then, Peter don’t fuck anything up.” “The same to you Mr. Stark.” Tony left the lab with a chuckle. “You two will be the death of me.” “Almost certainly.” “You staying in here?” “Nah, I have some projects in my lab waiting for me.” “You know your dad was joking about the grades right? Because grades really don’t mean anything, and they don’t define you. Nor does your intelligence. You are so much more than all that. And all these suits and mechanicy genius things-” “Pops. I’m fine. I know,” he smiled at his dad. “I just read in this parenting book that something smart or gifted kids can feel like th-” “Pops, you and dad are the best parents a kid could ask for. Stop worrying too much or you’ll turn grey like dad.” Captain America just smiled at his kid because he was the best. “Right. Good. Have fun.” “Will do.”

He messed with the design for the 100th millionth time but he couldn't get the vibrainim to synthesize with the web fluid. “Fri, get me another cup of coffee, please.” “For fuck sake, why isn’t this working,” he said to himself. He began to mess with the 3d hologram again. He typed in Mock 32 for the design and started trying again. “Pepper Potts is requesting access to the lab.” “Access granted,” he said to Fri. “Hey Pete, how’s it going?” “Badly, but it's fine. IS THAT COFFEE?” “White mocha latte, triple shot espresso,” She said, placing it down on the desk. “Ok..back up. What do you need?” “What, I can’t just bring my favorite stark a coffee?” “Aren’t you busy?” he asked skeptically. “Yes. Incredibly. So it is a peace offering. I allowed a tour access to this lab to look around, and see what a higher ups lab looks like in action. Fri will hide all of the classified things, and I thought you’d be at school. Tony just told me you weren’t so, here we are.” “He actually showed up to your meeting?” “Yes, and it wasn’t my meeting. He just needed to be there, and I didn't.” “I take your peace offering. It’s fine, I don’t care. So long as they don’t touch my shit.” “Good. Greet them, let them look around. Smile your cute smile. They’ll be up in five.” “FIVE MINUTES?” “Yep. Sorry, Hun, got to run. Thanks.” “You owe me one!”

As promised, the class showed up in five minutes. He was fine with the concept of a class showing up, he was not, however, good with his class showing up. “Is that Penis Parker?” He heard Flash. “Holy hell that is Park?” “IS THAT PETER?” “Did Peter break in?” “How is Peter here?” He couldn’t exactly kick them out. So, embracing his inner Tony Stark charm and Steve Rogers kindness, he opened the lab door, stepping into the corridor.

“EVERYONE PLEASE BACK UP AND BE QUIET!” The tour guild, Aliah, yelled. They were a kind person who Peter knew a bit. The classes quieted down.

“Hello, Aliah.” “Hi Peter,” they greeted, “Sorry, I hadn’t realized you’d be in today. I’ll just take them to our next stop.” “No, no it's fine. If it’s alright, I’ll give them a little tour sorta thing. I don’t mind, plus I kinda promised Pepper.” “That’d be really cool. Thanks.” “Yeah. Call ‘em over.” “Yeah. We’re just waiting on their teacher, he’s in the restroom.” “Course.”

Mr. Harrington showed up, questioning Aliah about the next stop. Then, he saw Peter. “Mr. Parker!” he exclaimed angrily, “How dare you show up here without a permission slip and claiming to be sick. What is this? We will be speaking with the principal and your parents about this! I am so sorry Aliah. Peter shot Aliah the “I got this” look. “Hi Mr. Harrington, I was unwell this morning, but I felt better so I came into work. Yes, I do have an internship here,” he said, loud enough for the class to hear. “The next stop on your tour,” they said, “is to Peter’s lab. He’s been so kind to give us a run-down.” Peter simply point at the door which read “Lab #55: Peter Parker.” “Right, uh, um, sorry Mr. Parker, please let us continue.” Peter smiled through his nerves. “Right, hello there class! I will be giving you a tour of my lab. I do some pretty important work, so I’m going to ask Friday to activate the ‘Guest Protocol’ to hide the classified stuff. It’s also very dangerous, so please do not touch anything.” There were nods from the class. “Right, Fri complete guest protocol and allow tour of Aliah to enter.” “Yes miniboss.” He re-entered his lab. “So, most of the time I work here,” he said, pointing to the biggest holograph table, “I work on designs, changes, and any mockups that need to happen. I then make them a reality. I can also run simulations on any formulas to see if they would be successful.” “Fri, please pull up the WFV project I was just working on for Spiderman.” “Right away mini-boss.” “So as you can see I’m trying to get the vibranium intertwine itself with Spiderman’s web fluid. This would allow the webs to be almost 47 times stronger, and also would allow them to conduct electricity, which has many uses. Anyone have any questions?” Ava raised her hand and Peter nodded at her, “Hey, so how did you learn all this? Like, it seems really complicated and you're in my chem class, so.” “I’ve worked a lot with both Mr. Stark and Bruce Banner, who’ve taught me most of what I know throughout the years. I also took a few online courses to solidify some subject matters I didn’t quite understand,” Peter, satisfied with his answer, asked if anyone else had inquired. “How did you get an internship here?” “Mr. Stark found me on the internet and took a liking to my projects. He met me and decided I’d fit right in here,” Peter explained simply. It was a lie of course, but it functioned as their cover story. “Anyone else? No. Cool, so moving onto some other sections in the lab. Over in that corner are the testing rooms. I have some more equipment scattered around for certain projects or just overall help on making things. Feel free to look around for 5-7 minutes and ask any questions you may have.” Some kid, Peter wasn’t sure of their name, raised his hand. “Why do you have cars in here? Are they yours?” “Some of the cars are mine, courtesy of Mr. Stark, who claims no lab is complete without some collection of cars. I can’t even drive them, to your point, but I guess I will when I’m eighteen. Some of the cars are Mr. Harley Keener’s, who I occasionally share my lab with. He doesn't do Avengers related projects, but he does love to tinker here and there. ‘Specially on the cars. See that red one, yeah he bought it for 5k and fixed it up. It’s actually an electric car, he just likes the old timers look. Guess that’s on him and da-Mr. Stark.”

No one seemed to have any other question, so he allowed them to look around. MJ nor Ned seemed to be in this class. He guessed they were in another group that wasn’t coming up here, or they went to a different location.

The tour went smoothly, and Flash seemed too shocked to say anything. “Peter! Peter!” Bucky came in yelling. Peter ran over to him. “Please keep it down uncle Buck.” “Oh shit your class is here!” “Yes now please don’t embarrass me.” “Won’t do! Just wanted to ask where Loki went.” “Asgard official business,” I said with a frown. “Really? He didn’t say a thing!” “I know.” “That little shit.” Peter laughed alongside Bucky. “Did you need anything else?” “Yeah, my arm's a little fucked up. Need a hand.” “Happy to give it a look. Dad in a meeting?” “To all our shock, yes.” “Ha. Give me a sec to get my class outta here.” Bucky nodded. “Right everyone, thanks for visiting. Please head towards the exit. The lovely Aliah will take you to your next location. They are awesome!” A murmur of “thanks Peter” and “is that the winter soldier” spread through the room. “See ya round,” Aliah said to him personally, “And thanks for this.” “Anytime. Bye!” They smiled a warm smile before leading the class out.

“What’s not working so well?” Peter asked. “Just some tightness in the finger motion. “Alright, okay. Fri, get me an update of the schematics, please.” “Yes, sir.” They appeared on the holographic table Peter was working at. “Right, can I please get a current scan of Uncle Bucky’s arm?” “Yes. Shall I place them next to the schematics?” “Yep. And highlight all differences.” “Yes miniboss.” “You gotta stop with that Fri.” “Name unable to be changed under the authority of Tony Stank, Badass Boss, God of Mischief, and Fiance.” “Glad the whole team is against me living a good life,” Peter remarked with an eye roll. “You drama queen.” “Thanks,” Peter smiled. “You know what’s wrong yet?” Peter opened up the schematics, looking at the highlighted section of the 3d arm model. He didn’t speak for a moment. “So I reckon, you fucked up the wiring and section T4’s minigears. None of the important tech is messed up, it’ll be fine. Maybe a half an hour fix. Max.” “Good, good. Thanks kid,” Bucky said with an appreciative smile. He nodded, disconnecting the arm carefully. He placed it onto his table next to the holographic model. He gave a skeptical look. “Something bad?” “No, no, I was just thinking. Thinking, hmn.” “Care to share with the class?” Buck said with a sense of humor lingering in his voice. “Well, you’re not on mission all that often, and this is quite a bulky arm. Ever think about getting one that’s your skin colour, lighter weight, more, I don’t know, arm like. Less hydra murdery vibes. Help get rid of that, that time.” “I have…” “So can I make it?” Peter said excitedly. “You mean it?” “Of course Uncle Buck! No clue why dad hasn’t offered before!” “Guess he never thought of it. Maybe thought I liked the scary metal thing,” he suggested weakly. “Well that’s stupid,” Peter said casually. Bucky never understood how the kid could be so compassionate so easily. “Thanks. Really.” “No worries. I’ve been looking for a new project to throw myself into. It'll be fun. And as much as I hate to admit it, I need to work on my smaller scale mechanical work.” All Bucky could do was smile his beaming smile. “Bucky!” the voice of the Black Widow shouted. “Hey Nat,” Buck replied. “Wanna train?” she asked. “As much as I want to,” he said, pointing towards the area his arm would have been. “Oh, what happened this time?” “Nothing to major, some gears and wires,” Peter filled it, “Give me twenty minutes I’ll be done.” He’d already opened the arm and gotten to the section where the wires were screwed up. “DAN-E get me the soldering kit, please,” he asked the robot, “Oh and some new T6YU wires. Red and purple.” The robot gave a vaguely human nod. “Right, I'll be waiting. Test the adjustments out on me?” She suggested. “Alright,” Buck said. “Oh and I’m in charge of ordering food. What do you want?” “Burgers?” “You boring, bland little boy,” Nat scolded. “Thai?” Buck requested. They looked over to Peter, “Sure, yeah.” Nat headed out, greeting Tony with a “Hey Stank” on the stairs out of his lab. “Yours is so much smarter than mine, why is yours so much smarter than mine,” Tony fake (real) whined. “I’m the superior mechanic, father, deal with it.” DAN-E, almosting proving his point, dropped the materials on his desk, and he continued to work. “I’m donating DUM-E,” Tony glared at him, “What happened to the arm Buck?” “Stiff fingers isall.” “Oh, ok. Pete, need a hand?” “Nah, I’m good. Not much to do. Some wires got fucked up, just replacing them now. Going to look at the minigears in the palm too, just to make sure the oil regulation and gear’s aren't broken. I think one of the gears is, but it's one of them that's easy to replace,” Peter replied, not looking up from his work. “Right, sounds good. Your pops and I are going out for the night. Be back around 12 let’s say.” “Cool. Can I borrow some vibranium from your lab?” “Sure thing kiddo. Call us if you need anything. Fri, give Peter access to vault B3 in my lab.” “Thanks,” Peter smiled. “Anytime. Good luck with ya know.” “Shouldn’t he ask you what you're going to do with a substance that costs 10,000$ a gram?” “Something about trusting me.” “Parents trust their kids with going out later or or doing their homework not fucking multimillions of dollars.” “Uncle Bucky, my parents are Iron Man and Captain America. There was never a shot at normal.” “Fair enough.”

Peter finished up the adjustment on the arm by changing a gear. “Thanks a lot kid.” “Of course. I’m going to work on your new arm now.” “Alrighty, I’ll get out of your way.” “Oh could you ask Auntie Nat what time she’s ordering dinner for? So I know when to head up, just get Fri to tell me.” “Will do.” “Thanks.”

So Peter was left to making some blueprints and drinking many red bulls. The red bull mini-fridge was actually a gift from Shuri, and his fathers had many words with him about it. He managed to convince them that he should keep it, god knows how. Well, he used the whole Princess of Wakanda and making peace and Stark Industries relationship with Wakandan products and companies as well as international relations and blah blah. It worked, who cares.

After a few hours he was called up for dinner, and he sat there and enjoyed the absolute chaos of his family.

Save/comment on A03 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/33320938

#peter parker field trip #peter parker #iron dad #stevetony #tony stark #Steve Rogers #natasha romanoff #Bucky Barnes #avengers fanfiction #avengers fanfic #found family #domestic avengers #ironfam #harley keener

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silvokrent · 4 years

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RWBY Character Analysis: Pietro and Penny Polendina

Up until now I’ve been keeping quiet about my opinions on the newest volume, in no small part because my personal life has been one absurd setback after another, and I haven’t had the energy to engage in fandom meta. If you do want to know what my current opinion of RWBY is, go over to @itsclydebitches blog, search through her #rwby-recaps tag, and read every single one. At this point, her metas are basically an itemized list of all my grievances with the show. I highly recommend you check ’em out.

Or, if you don’t feel like reading several hours’ worth of recaps, then go find a sheet of paper, give yourself a papercut, and then squeeze a lemon into it. That should give you an accurate impression of my feelings.

In truth, I have a lot to say about the show, particularly how I think CRWBY has mishandled the plot, characters, tone, and intended message of their series. And while I enjoy dissecting RWBY with what amounts to mad scientist levels of glee, I think plenty of other folks have already discussed V7′s and V8′s various issues in greater depth and with far more eloquence. Any contribution I could theoretically make at this point would be somewhat redundant.

That being said, I’d like to talk about something that’s been bothering me for a while, which (to my knowledge) no one else in the fandom has brought up. (And feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)

Today’s topic of concern is Pietro Polendina, and his relationship with Penny.

And because I’m absolutely certain this post is going to be controversial and summon anonymous armchair critics to fill my inbox with sweary claptrap, I may as well just come out and say it:

Pietro Polendina, as he’s currently portrayed in the show, is an inherently abusive parental figure.

Let me take a second to clarify that I don’t think it was RWBY’s intention to portray Pietro that way. Much like other aspects of the show, a lot of nuance is often lost when discussing the difference between intention versus implementation, or telling versus showing. It’s what happens when a writer tries to characterize a person one way, but in execution portrays them in an entirely different light. Compounding this problem is what feels like a series of rather myopic writing decisions that started as early as Volume 2, concerning Penny’s sense of agency, and how the canon would bear out the implications of an autonomous being grappling with her identity. It’s infuriating that the show has spent seven seasons staunchly refusing to ask any sort of ethical questions surrounding her existence, only to then—with minimal setup—give us Pietro’s “heartfelt” emotional breakdown when he has to choose between “saving” Penny or “sacrificing” her for the greater good.

Yeah, no thanks.

If we want to talk about why this moment read as hollow and insincere, we need to first make sure everyone’s on the same page.

Spoilers for V8.E5 - “Amity.” Let’s not waste any time.

In light of the newest episode and its—shall we say—questionable implications, I figured now was the best time to bring it up while the thoughts were still fresh in my mind. (Because nothing generates momentum quite like frothing-at-the-mouth rage.)

The first time we’re told anything about Pietro, it comes from an exchange between Penny and Ruby. From V2.E2 - “A Minor Hiccup.”

Penny: I've never been to another kingdom before. My father asked me not to venture out too far, but... You have to understand, my father loves me very much. He just worries a lot.

Ruby: Believe me, I know the feeling. But why not let us know you were okay?

Penny: I…was asked not to talk to you. Or Weiss. Or Blake. Or Yang. Anybody, really.

Ruby: Was your dad that upset?

Penny: No, it wasn’t my father.

The scene immediately diverts our attention to a public unveiling of the AK-200. A hologram of James Ironwood is presenting this newest model of Atlesian Knight to a crowd of enthusiastic spectators, along with the Atlesian Paladin, a piloted mech. During the demonstration, James informs his audience that Atlas’ military created them with the intent of removing people from the battlefield and mitigating casualties (presumably against Grimm).

Penny is quickly spotted by several soldiers, and flees. Ruby follows, and in the process the two are nearly hit by a truck. Penny’s display of strength draws a crowd and prompts her to retreat into an alley, where Ruby learns that Penny isn’t “a real girl.”

This scene continues in the next episode, “Painting the Town…”

Penny: Most girls are born, but I was made. I’m the world’s first synthetic person capable of generating an Aura. [Averts her gaze.] I’m not real…

After Ruby assures her that no, you don’t have to be organic in order to have personhood, Penny proceeds to hug her with slightly more force than necessary.

Ruby: [Muffled noise of pain.] I can see why your father would want to protect such a delicate flower!

Penny: [Releases Ruby.] Oh, he’s very sweet! My father’s the one that built me! I’m sure you would love him.

Ruby: Wow. He built you all by himself?

Penny: Well, almost! He had some help from Mr. Ironwood.

Ruby: The general? Wait, is that why those soldiers were after you?

Penny: They like to protect me, too!

Ruby: They don't think you can protect yourself?

Penny: They're not sure if I'm ready yet. One day, it will be my job to save the world, but I still have a lot left to learn. That's why my father let me come to the Vytal Festival. I want to see what it's like in the rest of the world, and test myself in the Tournament.

Their conversation is interrupted by the sound of the approaching soldiers from earlier. Despite Ruby’s protests, Penny proceeds to yeet her into the nearby dumpster, all while reassuring her that it’s to keep Ruby out of trouble, not her. When the soldiers arrive, they ask her if she’s okay, then proceed to lightly scold her for causing a scene. Penny’s told that her father “isn’t going to be happy about this,” and is then politely asked (not ordered; asked) to let them escort her back.

Let’s take a second to break down these events.

When these two episodes first aired, the wording and visuals (“No, it wasn’t my father,” followed by the cutaway to James unveiling the automatons) implied that James was the one forbidding her from interacting with other people. It’s supposed to make you think that James is being restrictive and harsh, while Pietro is meant as a foil—the sweet, but cautious father figure. But here’s the thing: both of these depictions are inaccurate, and frankly, Penny’s the one at fault here. Penny blew her cover within minutes of interacting with Ruby—a scenario that Penny was responsible for because she was sneaking off without permission. Penny is a classified, top-secret military project, as made clear by the fact that she begs Ruby to not say anything to anyone. Penny is in full acknowledgement that her existence, if made public, could cause massive issues for her (something that she’s clearly experienced before, if her line, “You’re taking this extraordinarily well,” is anything to go by).

But here’s the thing—keeping Penny on a short leash wasn’t a unilateral decision made by James. That was Pietro’s choice as well. “My father asked me not to venture out too far,” “Your father isn’t going to be happy about this”—as much as this scene is desperately trying to put the onus on James for Penny’s truant behavior, Pietro canonically shares that blame. And Penny (to some extent) is in recognition of the fact that she did something wrong.

Back in Volumes 1 – 3, before the series butchered James’ characterization, these moments were meant as pretty clever examples of foreshadowing and subverting the controlling-military-general trope. This scene is meant to illustrate that yes, Penny is craving social interaction outside of military personnel as a consequence of being hidden, but that hiding her is also a necessity. It’s a complicated situation with no easy answer, but it’s also something of a necessary evil (as Penny’s close call with the truck and her disclosing that intel to Ruby are anything to go by).

Let’s skip ahead to Volume 7, shortly after Watts tampered with the drone footage and framed her for several deaths. In V7.E7 - “Worst Case Scenario,” a newscaster informs us that people in Atlas and Mantle want Penny to be deactivated, despite James’ insistence that the footage was doctored and Penny didn’t go on a killing spree. The public’s unfavorable opinion of Penny—a sentiment that Jacques of all people embodies when he brings it up in V7.E8—reinforces V2’s assessment of why keeping her secret was necessary. Not only is her existence controversial because Aura research is still taboo, but people are afraid that a mechanical person with military-grade hardware could be hacked and weaponized against them. (Something which Volume 8 actually validates when James has Watts take control of her in the most recent episode.)

But I digress.

We’re taken to Pietro’s lab, where Penny is hooked up to some sort of recharge/docking station. Ruby, Weiss, and Maria look on in concern while the machine is uploading the visual data from her systems. There’s one part of their conversation I want to focus on in particular:

Pietro: When the general first challenged us to find the next breakthrough in defense technology, most of my colleagues pursued more obvious choices. I was one of the few who believed in looking inward for inspiration.

Ruby: You wanted a protector with a soul.

Pietro: I did. And when General Ironwood saw her, he did too. Much to my surprise, the Penny Project was chosen over all the other proposals.

Allow me to break down their conversation so we can fully appreciate what he’s actually saying.

The Penny Project was picked as the candidate for the next breakthrough in defense technology.

Pietro wanted a protector with a SOUL.

In RWBY, Aura and souls are one of the defining characteristics of personhood. Personhood is central to Penny’s identity and internal conflict (particularly when we consider that she’s based on Pinocchio). That’s why Penny accepts Ruby’s reassurances that she’s a real person. That’s why she wants to have emotional connections with others.

What makes that revelation disturbing is when you realize that Pietro knowingly created a child soldier.

Look, there’s no getting around this. Pietro fully admits that he wanted to create a person—a human being—a fucking child—as a "defense technology” to throw at the Grimm (and by extension, Salem). Everything, from the language he uses, to the mere fact that he entered Penny in the Vytal Tournament as a proving ground where she could “test [her]self,” tells us that he either didn’t consider or didn’t care about the implications behind his proposal.

When you break it all down, this is what we end up with:

“Hey, I have an idea: Why don’t we make a person, cram as many weapons as we can fit into that person, and then inform her every day for the rest of her life that she was built for the sole purpose of fighting monsters, just so we don’t have to risk the lives of others. Let’s then take away anything remotely resembling autonomy, minimize her interactions with people, and basically indoctrinate her into thinking that this is something she wants for herself. Oh, and in case she starts to raise objections, remind her that I donated part of my soul to her. If we make her feel guilty about this generous sacrifice I made so she could have the privilege of existing, she won’t question our motives. Next, let’s give her a taste of freedom by having her fight in a gladiatorial blood sport so that we can prove our child soldier is an effective killer. And then, after she’s brutally murdered on international television, we can rebuild her and assign her to protecting an entire city that’s inherently prejudiced against her, all while I brood in my lab about how sad I am.”

Holy fuck. Watts might be a morally bankrupt asshole, but at least his proposal didn’t hinge on manufacturing state-of-the-art living weapons. They should have just gone with his idea.

(Which, hilariously enough, they did. Watts is the inventor of the Paladins—Paladins which, I’ll remind you, were invented so the army could remove people from the battlefield. You know, people. Kind of like what Penny is.)

Do you see why this entire scene might have pissed me off? Even if the show didn’t intend for any of this to be the case, when you think critically about the circumstances there’s no denying the tacit implications.

To reiterate, V8.E5 is the episode where Pietro says, and I quote:

“I don’t care about the big picture! I care about my daughter! I lost you before. Are you asking me to go through that again? No. I want the chance to watch you live your life.”

Oh, yeah? And what life is that? The one where she’s supposed to kill Grimm and literally nothing else? You do realize that she died specifically because you made her for the purpose of fighting, right?

No one, literally no one, was holding a gun to Pietro’s head and telling him that he had to build a living weapon. That was his idea. He chose to do that.

Remember when Cinder said, “I don’t serve anyone! And you wouldn’t either, if you weren’t built that way.” She…basically has a point. Penny has never been given the option to explore the world in a capacity where she wasn’t charged with defending it by her father. We know she doesn’t have many friends, courtesy of Ironwood dissuading her against it in V7. But I’m left with the troubling realization that the show (and the fandom), in their crusade to vilify James, are ignoring the fact that Pietro is also complicit in this behavior by virtue of being her creator. If we condemn the man that prevents Penny from having relationships, then what will we do to the man who forced her into that existence in the first place?

Being her “father” has given him a free pass to overlook the ethics of having a child who was created with a pre-planned purpose. How the hell did the show intend for Pietro to reconcile “I want you to live your life” with “I created you so you’d spend your life defending the world”? It viscerally reminds me of the sort of narcissistic parents who have kids because they want to pass on the family name, or continue their bloodline, or have live-in caregivers when they get older, only on a larger and much more horrific scale. And that’s fucked up.

Now, I’m not saying I’m against having a conflict like this in the show. In fact, I’d love to have a character who has to grapple with her own humanity while questioning the environment she grew up in. Penny is a character who is extremely fascinating because of all the potential she represents—a young woman who through a chance encounter befriends a group of strangers, and over time, is exposed to freedoms and friendships she was previously denied. Slowly, she begins to unlearn the mindset she was indoctrinated with, and starts to petition for agency and autonomy. Pietro is forced to confront the fact that what he did was traumatic and cruel, and that his love for her doesn’t erase the harm he unintentionally subjected her to, nor does it change the fact that he knowingly burdened a person with a responsibility she never consented to. There’s a wealth of character growth and narrative payoff buried here, but like most things in RWBY, it was either underdeveloped or not thought through all the way.

The wholesome father-daughter relationship the show wants Pietro and Penny to have is fundamentally contradicted by the nature of her existence, and the fact that no one (besides the villains) calls attention to it. I’d love for them to have that sort of dynamic, but the show had to do more to earn it. Instead, it’ll forever be another item on RWBY’s ever-growing list of disappointments—

Because Pietro’s remorse is more artificial than Penny could ever hope to be.

#rwby #rwby volume 8 #rwby spoilers #rwby thought dump #my posts #i speak #rwby meta #pietro polendina #penny polendina #james ironwood #arthur watts #ruby rose #rwby worldbuilding #rwde

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curly-bangtan · 5 years

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A Drop of Heaven IV: Unravelling

[Series Masterlist]

Pairing: ot7 x reader // this chapter: Yoongi x reader, Seokjin x reader

Series summary: Seven vampires have secretly been roaming the darks of your world for millennia. Each brother selects a Feed who becomes supernaturally bound to him, whose blood will be fed on until their inevitable mortal death. They have spent their eternity hunting for the exorbitant rarity that is angel blood - the most heavenly of food for vampires that fuel them with desire, lust and satiety. So what happens when they all find you, the first angel-blooded being they’ve encountered in two centuries?

Genre: vampire au, poly au, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (e2l)

Warnings in this chapter: mentions of blood drinking, depression and suicidal thoughts, slightly gruesome, probably a lot of confusion, plot heavy chapter

Word count: 11.1k

A/N: I’m not sure if it’s just me but I feel like my writing style for this series has kind of shifted, so apologies if you don’t like the change. Thank you for being so patient with this update, I know it took forever, but I hope it was worth the wait! ❤︎

[prelude, i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, epilogue]

❦

They say that humans are immensely adaptable creatures. In the face of a drastic change, when thrust into a foreign environment, we possess a biological plasticity that allows us to mould into our novelle surroundings, no matter how alien. All for the purpose of survival. Humans are resilient. Humans survive.

You have survived, and you keep on surviving.

A week has passed. Almost in a flash, yet also agonisingly slowly. But in your memory, all the feeding has merged into a blur. Every time a pair of fangs sink into you, you’ve come to switch off your mind completely. You don’t recall where your consciousness has travelled to, you just remember floating in a cold darkness. Stagnant. Void.

On Thursday, broken and hanging on by a thread, you were tossed to Hoseok. The flash of craze in his eyes, despite your gaping wounds that took longer to heal than it should have, even after drinking Yoongi’s blood, managed to instill a droplet of fear in you. But only just.

Because after Yoongi, you no longer know fear.

Still, Hoseok’s insanity is something you’ve never seen before, a wildness exacerbated by the centuries he has lived.

Hoseok looks at you like a brand new toy. When he touches you, you can feel the tremble of excitement beneath his skin. Sometimes, you wonder if he is the worst one of them all, even worse than Yoongi. Because you at least know what the others are thinking. With Hoseok, he speaks to you as if you’ve been acquainted for years, asks how you fare as if he doesn’t know of your suffering. He smiles at you like he means it, and you know he is genuinely happy to see you, but not for the reason you hope for.

“You seem sad…” He had said, staring at you intently as he brushes the sweat-dampened hair out of your face. “Yoongi hurt you?”

Your eyes were transfixed on one spot of the colourful wallpaper of his Feed Room. Your head barely nodded.

You didn’t see his mouth quirk up in amusement, but you could sense it. Hoseok was prodding you, like a zoo animal. Testing your temperament, seeing how broken you are. And you were too tired, too drained to put on a show like the circus monkey he wanted.

“No worries, Y/N, it won’t hurt with me, I promise.” The ghost of his lips traced your shoulder. “We will have so much fun together.” His long fingers prickle your thighs as he pulls you onto his lap. “Just relax and smile for me.”

It had hurt, at least very briefly before you could shut it out. Out of everyone, Hoseok has the least control. He never knows when to stop. Though he wasn’t bleeding you dry just yet, it visibly took him his entire mental strength to cease his drinking. And once he stopped, he began laughing maniacally.

“Sweet Satan, we’re in for a ride.” He kissed around the puncture wound at your collarbone where blood was weeping out of you. You didn’t move or make a sound.

The sire bond hadn’t surfaced at all. But it didn’t need to in order for you to ignore the pain; you’ve grown so accustomed to it by now that you hardly even blink, sire bond or no. You’re afraid of yourself, the lifeless husk you’re becoming.

The scariest aspect of Hoseok is perhaps how quickly he changes his mood after feeding. His ability to act as if he hadn’t just ripped into you, taking your around the house and telling you stories of his adventurous life while you eat, is uncanny. And when you fail to put on a smile for him, because how could you, his eyes would darken, jaw tighten.

“Isn’t that just hilarious? Can you believe I did that back then?” He would ask, and you’re not sure why your entertainment brings him validation.

But for self-preservation, you have learnt to giggle like you’re enjoying yourself and say cheerily, “I know right! That sounds wild!”

And Hoseok would nod madly, giddy from your approval, acting blind to your ingenuity as if he hadn’t forced the response he wanted out of you.

That was your Thursday.

Jimin was a salve, a soothing balm over your hidden wounds.

You no longer care whether his affection towards you is genuine. Beggars can’t be choosers, you’ll take any kindness where it is doled. It’s funny because, amidst suffering, amidst torture, you are able to resist the floods of tears that should be completely justified in your predicament. Yet as soon as someone shows the remotest care towards you, you feel the ocean pushing against your brick walls, threatening to rupture the dam.

It wretched your heart how tender Jimin was with you. You had almost broken down in his arms when he brushed over the skin where Yoongi and Hoseok had torn into. Your wounds are invisible. Vampire blood hides your cuts under fresh new skin, but doesn’t truly heal them. Yet Jimin had managed to sense your scars nonetheless.

He kissed them softly. You knew he wanted to kiss your mouth too, yet he didn’t. Is this what respect feels like?

Thus, you were completely willing when he fed on you. His preferred feeding spot is the inside of your thighs. When his cold breath arrived there, you could have sworn you felt something flutter in your core.

You had wanted him. You’re embarrassed to admit but you want him. Completely on your own accord, as the sire bond had also failed to lock in place with him too. You wondered if it was the damage Yoongi had done…

But then Saturday came, and the moment Taehyung’s fangs touched your flesh, you were swept away.

At first, it felt like drowning, as you struggled against the formidable waves that would not let you resurface. But then you calmed, a serenity took hold of you, and you began floating in the most soothing, clear blue water. The water healed you, almost, as you just drifted there on your back, watching the star-splatted night sky.

Taehyung swam up beside you, those sharp fangs of his never withdrawn, a wolfish yet reassuring smile, telling you it’s okay, everything will be okay, I can make you feel good.

And he did make you feel good.

The one thing you crave the most in this world is affection, you’ve come to learn. With Yoongi, you had wanted to feel something so badly, something other the numb wreckage of your mind you had trapped yourself in. Except he had made you feel worse, worthless, self-loathing just like him. With Hoseok, you were a broken doll, smile when expected to, laughing when required. You weren’t a person. With Jimin, you had been too grateful for his tenderness to function, unable to comprehend how, for once in the longest time, someone is treating you as if they care about you.

With Taehyung, you grew desperate to cling onto this intimacy.

It was like a drug, flooding your mind with peace and euphoria, drinking him in as much as he is drinking you. His kisses felt unhealthily good, and they tricked you into thinking that you’re worthy of someone like Taehyung, someone so beautiful, so intoxicating. He fucked you like he was making love to you, but also not. It came as waves - his sweetness, then his ferality.

You couldn’t get enough of it. You know it’s no good to feel so attached, when he probably sees you as no more than an object, his meal, but you couldn’t help it. You were just so desperate for that feeling of being desired.

He promised to make you feel good, make you forget, and that he did.

You hadn’t known what to expect from Jungkook. As you sat, waiting, on the bed of his Feed Room on Sunday, you pondered Jin’s words of his past.

He was a bright star once, before this curse. And even after, he had fed on humans once. The curiosity gnawed at your brain, pleading to find out what had happened.

Jungkook never showed up.

And so you slept the day and night away, replenishing your health with soup that Seokjin delivered, until you woke up and the cycle continued once more.

You watch the round dewdrop roll off the viridescent green leaf, and splatter onto the cold white tile. The greenhouse has soon become one of your favourite places to pass time. The walls of that manor are suffocating.

The faint sound of a piano whispers into your ears. You shut your eyes, appreciating the beauty of the pieces as it plays flawlessly. You wonder who is pouring out their emotions to the ebony and ivory sisters.

The glass of the greenhouse is fogged by the dawn dew, shielding you from the world outside and those who wish to take from you. Almost smiling, you pace around the kingdom of plants, enjoying the tranquility. Today is Thursday; Hoseok allows you to do as you please after he feeds on you; though it could be of his genuine good intent, you suspect it’s to instill you with a false sense of freedom. Let the dog out of its cage, let her roam their land, so the bitch never seeks to leave the house.

The thought of escaping had crossed your mind a profusion of occurrences the past week. Though, at this very moment, you don’t think there is much purpose in leaving anymore. Here, you at least are provided food and shelter, and maybe one or two friends whose friendship comes with a price. It’s not living in here, you’re merely surviving. But you’re surviving nonetheless. Compared to out there, where you’d be left to fend for yourself, constantly fleeing from seven vampires who you’re eternally bonded to.

You’ve thought about killing yourself too. A coward’s way out, but hey, you’d rather be a coward than a blood bag for the rest of your life. But when you had snuck into the kitchen last night after Yoongi’s heartless torment and raised a knife to your chest, an invisible force had pushed against your arms, freezing them in place and preventing them from taking action.

The sireship is so cruel. It humanises the vampires who captured you, makes you empathise with them, and forbids you from harming yourself.

On deeper thought, you wouldn’t have been able to kill yourself that way anyway. The moment your blood is spilled, in a house full of vampires, at least one of them is bound to smell it right away. They would have healed you before the pain could kick in - their way of sweeping everything under the rug nowadays - and you would’ve been back to the start. Except worse, as they would then know of your intention.

You crouch down beside a rose bush, petting its velvet white petals between your fingers. Flowers are beautiful yet fickles things, but roses have thorns. They lure people in with their beauty, but if anyone tries to pluck them off and keep one for themselves, they get cut. Your fingers travel down its stem to where a thorn is staring enticingly back at you.

You push the pad of your finger into its prick, hard. You don’t feel a thing. Not even as a bead of crimson oozes from the cut. It’s chilling.

Then you sense a presence behind you. When you turn, your eyes meet with those of Namjoon. Watering pot in one hand, he watches you, brows furrowed at your previous act.

“What are you doing?” There’s a hesitancy in his voice, almost as if he doesn’t recognise you.

“Admiring the roses.”

You no longer speak to Namjoon in that defying tone of yours. He was right, there’s no use in challenging him, trying to topple his superiority complex. It only took a week to tame you into a docile creature. You’re ashamed.

“No, I mean why did you purposely touch the thorns like that?” Still frowning, he stomps over, water in his gardening can sloshing about. As he sinks down beside you, his air of intimidation infiltrates your peaceful bubble.

“I… I don’t know, I just wanted to know what it feels like.” You mumble. Setting the pot aside, Namjoon snatches your finger and brings it close to his face for examination.

“Well, it was obviously going to cut you.” He hisses. When his nostrils flare, you know the scent of your blood is vastly tempting him.

“I know.” You pull your finger away, not that you don’t trust his self control, but because his touch was beginning to scald. The bond was trying to take hold of you despite it not being the day where you belong to him, and you hate how drawn you are to him because of it.

Spinning away, you stand and begin pacing towards the door. Your moment of peace has been disturbed, there’s no point in staying here anymore. But then you hear him call after you, “W-Wait.” The vulnerable expression that greets you when you look back takes you by surprise. “Um… You spend an awful lot of time in here nowadays… How come?”

You hadn’t been aware that Namjoon notices your growing presence in the greenhouse, not since you have never come across him here before. “I like it in here, I feel safe. Why, am I not allowed?” Your question lacks the challenging impudence it should have, more like a young girl asking her father for permission. You’re disappointed in yourself at how quickly you’ve deflated, even at the obnoxious Namjoon. Yet, you’ve lost your drive at standing your ground, you’ve got no fight left.

“N-No!” He is quick to dispute, standing up from his crouch as well. “I just meant… Nevermind.” His voice trails weakly to a tense silence. You watch his eyes flicker up at yours rather nervously, trying to decipher his intention. Then he speaks again, “I’ve just seen you here quite a few times… I enjoy being here myself; I find tending to my plants right before the sun rises fully a therapeutic pastime.”

His admission strikes you. You would never imagine a man as demanding, efficient and severe as Namjoon to enjoy a hobby as mundane as gardening. You’re not sure what to make of it to be honest, nor can you understand why he’s speaking to you so… conversationally. Is this his attempt at making peace with you?

“Well, you’ve tended to them very well, they’re beautiful. I enjoy being here too.” You guess you should accept his decency. He had been rather distant on Monday, leaving you to your own devices, only feeding on you once and hardly speaking a word. His contrasting moods are confusing.

Namjoon’s lips purse, brows raise ever so slightly, as if surprised by your kind response. His eyes flicker to your finger again. The tiny cut has yet to dry, fresh blood still leaking from the open wound despite its miniscule size. You should probably have some food; your body is frail, especially after Yoongi yesterday.

“I’m going to leave you to it, sir.” You nod courteously, but freeze as the name you address him as slips out of you. No, it was drawn out of you from the bond. It doesn’t take a second for heat to rush to your face in embarrassment. Namjoon noticeably stiffens. Gulps.

The coil within you is starting to wind. It tightens around your chest like thorned vines, piercing into your heart the more you try to wriggle free.

You know he feels it too.

But before he can take a step towards you, as you sense he intends to, you’re turning around and speeding out of the greenhouse. And it’s not until you’re within the confines of Hoseok’s Feed Room that you feel the liberty to breathe again, Namjoon’s sire bond reluctantly waning into the background.

You could tell something was off about Hoseok straight away when he entered the room. There were multiple telltale signs.

One: He was stumbling over his feet, tripping over to the bed in a drunken manner as he navigated the room. His words were slurred, hardly coherent sentences at all. His wine red hair in disarray.

Two: He smelled noticeably different. Though you’ve not spent more than two days as his feed, Hoseok has a clear distinct smell, most notable from the other vampires. He smells clean, sweet even; it’s the one thing you can’t help but indulge in about him. Yet even to your human nose, he had a weird, doggish musk to him as he approached you.

Three: From his rogue smile dribbled drying blood. And no, it wasn’t a mere droplet of crimson, he was drenched in blood, chin to toes. Despite the gore you’ve witnessed, it was still a chilling sight.

And four: Though his eyes were half shut, you briefly saw the way they flashed beneath his lids. Only half conscious, the other half gone and crazed, though full of purpose - purpose to get to you.

You catch him in open arms as he falls onto you, the mattress dipping at the sudden crash of his weight. “Hoseok, what happened?” Your voice harbours more concern than you would like to show, and you don’t know why you care at all.

His face presses against the crook of your neck, his lips stretching into a smile at your presence, right over your pulse. His hands wander to your waist, pulling you into his embrace. You recoil from his forwardness, but with nowhere to back away to except further into the bed. You try to ignore how pleasant the tip of his nose feels as it rubs against your skin.

“Missed you…” Hoseok mumbles, still grinning widely, mouth travelling to your jaw where his warm breath tickles. His breath should be cold; the heat tells you that the feeding of whoever’s blood this was recent.

You can’t help but feel flustered at his sudden touchiness. Of all vampires here, save for Jungkook, you would say you’ve been the least… intimate with Hoseok. It has never been your dynamic. It was always him flinging you around like a puppy shredding its new stuffed toy then chewing on the spilled cotton. So this is… new.

“Why are you acting like this?” You ask again, trying to pry his arms off your torso but to no avail.

“Sweetness…” He mutters unintelligibly, and you shudder as his teeth grazes your ear, an involuntarily sensual tingle following.

“H-Hoseok…” Your breath hitches, his proximity growing more and more unignorable. So you grab his face, cheeks cupped in one hand, and shake him for good measure. His closing lids flash open like gradually awakening from slumber, yet still not recovered from his daze. “What happened to you?”

“Werewolves.”

An icy cold settles in your bones. Werewolves. There are such things as werewolves as well. Vampires, witches and werewolves. What other creatures of horror are plaguing your world that you don’t know of? That explains that muttish stench he carries. The blood he’s soaked in… Is it his or theirs? You think you feel slightly sick.

Brushing his hair out of his face, you point his drooping head at you again. “Tell me what happened.”

“Those stupid mutts… picking a fight… Taehyung, Jungkook and I had to put them in their place.” Hoseok begins peeling himself off you, and finally your body is no longer crushed under his. Your hands around him fall to your side idly as you watch him stumble off the bed and head towards the door, though he doesn’t make it two steps before tumbling onto his knees. You hurry after him to catch his upper body before he falls completely onto the ground.

His shoulders in your grip, you try to examine him for any wounds, and though there are some tears in his clothes, the skin underneath has been healed clean. So why? “Hoseok, look at me.” Your voice is urgent, authoritative, it almost has the life it once had to it. His eyes lock onto yours, this time permanently without closing. They’re blank, the amber green murky with an unreadable shroud. “What’s wrong with you? You need to tell me.”

So with obvious effort, he grunts out, “Werewolf blood makes us… It’s like… wine to us. Too much and our mind is” hiccup “inebriated.”

Oh. You let out a sigh of relief.

Hoseok is drunk on werewolf blood.

Though, you’re not sure why you’re relieved that he’s alright. Surely you should be wishing for the opposite.

With tremendous endeavour, you drag him up onto his feet and walk him to the ensuite bathroom, huffing as you sit him down on the edge of the lavish bathtub that every Feed bathroom contains but you have yet to use. Hoseok is uncooperative, trying for detours on the bed, attempting to hop onto the sink. With the knowledge of his intoxicated state now, he appears like a little child, an innocently fascinated smile constantly plastered on his face, too easily impressed by even his own reflection in the mirror. For you, it’s a contrasting sight. Though he has always possessed a child-like temperament in his playfulness and love to goof at silly things, his usual underlying insanity is nowhere to be found right now.

It makes his company more soothing knowing that his mind absolves of any ulterior motive.

You don’t know why you’ve taken it upon you to do so, but you rummage around to find a clean towel. Glancing at the mirror as you twist the faucet to dampen the towel, you try not to notice how you scarcely recognise yourself anymore.

Hoseok groans at the wet coldness you press onto his chin, the dried crusted blood once again watering into a river of rusty brown-red. His fingers fly up to catch yours, trying to pry the scrubbing towel off his face. “Mmmm.” He whines in protest, shut eyes frowning. You ignore his brewing tantrum, towel travelling down to absorb the red stains of his neck, though you clean with more gentleness now.

He isn’t so bad like this, you guess.

Still, the more you try to understand him, the more you lose yourself in the maze that is his psyche. The more you think you can predict him, the more he comes out with an unexpected complexity that adds another layer to his mask. Who is Hoseok? The entertainer, the mood maker, always seeking to please his guests? The little boy who wishes not to be tamed? The spoilt brat whose greed grows with the more he has? Who is he really?

You straighten and regard his state. Head drooping sluggishly, fingers fidgeting at anything in his reach, you realise a cold towel isn’t going to help him. You’re all too familiar from the nights your uncle stumbled back, the reek of alcohol finding you before he enters the room, to know that this state of inebriation needs to be conquered before he falls asleep, lest you wish to face an ill-tempered brute the next day.

“Hoseok.” You tap his jaw lightly, rousing him, and he looks at you with surprising focus that makes you cower a little. “You should shower.”

He blinks sleepily, and you think he doesn’t comprehend at first, but then he takes your hand in his and stands up. As he does, his face zooms dangerously close to yours, pointy tip of his nose a hair’s breadth away from brushing your lips. Your heart jumps. There’s a lag in your brain before you know to step back.

“Come with me, then.”

It’s evident that his whole demeanour has shifted. Gone is the childish giddiness he had. In its place: a solemn gravity, seemingly out of nowhere, his lips pressed into a taut line, jaw tense, a pinning glare possessing you unwaveringly. Even his voice has dropped deeper, forgoing its tangy cheer.

It takes more than a second for what he means to sink in. He wants you to join his shower.

“W-What? No!” You yank your hand from his, heat blooming across your cheeks.

At this point, you’re no prude, intimacy has been breached with several if not most of these vampires you share a roof with. Yet your dynamic and circumstance with each of them differs greatly. With Yoongi, it is a release of mutual resentment; Taehyung, it’s a seductive dance to pleasure you both; Namjoon, a reluctant magnetisation that you wish not to dwell on; Seokjin, a confusion of emotions and desperation; Jimin, a soft gentle healing. There has always been a sexual implication hinting at the back of your mind with these five, and with some, you’ve acted upon it. But never with Hoseok.

Because Hoseok has been too much of an enigma. Never once showing that type of attraction towards you, only a fascination that sits on the borderline of lunacy. Always just - ogling at you like you’re a show pony, marveling at the taste of your blood as if it’s a drug. And the confusion he inoculates when he acts as your friend, like he genuinely enjoys your company. Too baffling.

But right now, this very evening, something stirs in your stomach. A new sensation as another layer of him is peeled back to reveal yet another persona. A man desiring affection?

He looks at you for a while, as if he wants to say something. The absence of the smile that usually stalks his lips every moment of the day is throwing you off. You think he’s going to push further but he doesn’t, he simply tilts his head and says, “Suit yourself, sweetheart.”

Legs still rather wobbly, he makes his way, hand on the gold marble of the sink to balance his wavering weight, towards the shower. Standing there, stupefied at his sudden change, you don’t realise that he does not intend on waiting for you to leave before striping until he tears his blood-drenched shirt off crudely. Buttons fly towards the wall, scattering about in little clinks.

Faint scar-like marks dart across his back like a violent painting.

You’re transfixed. The light lines are not ridged, merely running smoothly on the surface of his skin. Some look like claw marks, some bite marks seemingly from an animal. Those werewolves he mentioned? Some look fresh, while others older.

But that doesn’t make sense. Why does he, a vampire with supernatural healing, have scars?

“So do you want to join or not?” He slurs, face half turned towards you, yet eyes trained low. His profile is striking.

“I- No. Um. I’m going to bed. Bye.” Your eyes immediately fall to the ground. Still incredibly flustered, you spin around and head back to your room, mentally trying to shake off the image of his scar-inflicted back.

At the door, you pause, back still facing him, and ask, “Will you be fine alone?”

You hear the whirl of his belt being pulled out, blood continuing to roar in your ears.

“I’ve been alone all these centuries - I think I’ll be fine.”

That’s not what you meant, but when you hear his zipper, you hurry to shut the door behind you, pondering the sourness of his reply.

His shower is quick, the water sounds stop not too long after you climb into bed. Though, Hoseok stays in the bathroom for a period of time before coming out. You debated going in to check in on him incase he has fallen unconscious or something of that sort, whatever werewolf blood does to vampires. But you weren’t sure if he would be dressed, so you stay tucked under the covers in a small huddle, quietly trying to dissect his character in your head.

The door eventually opens, though it doesn’t swing open as Hoseok normally does to announce his entry. He’s still in that odd sombre mood.

Lying on your side, curled up into a small lump, your back is facing him. Eyes shut yet wide awake, you hear a drop of water hit the floor every few seconds. You can’t resist the urge to look up, to see whether he has washed away the blood and intoxication.

But at the sight of his naked body, manhood only covered by the towel hanging loosely around his waist, you nearly roll off. Though his skin is mostly dry, there is still a lustre glossed over his unearthly sculpted body. The room is dark, his silhouette cast by the bathroom lights behind him. Despite the poor vision, you are mesmerised by the ridges of his abdomen, chiseled so perfectly that you wonder how they feel like beneath your touch. A defined V is carved on his pelvis, pointing down to a devilish place you’re glad the darkness doesn’t allow you to see.

You catch sight of his hand that is bunching up the towel loosen, just in time for you to swing back down into your foetal position away from him before you hear the cloth drop carelessly.

Is he purposely trying to tizzy you?

Your eyes close firmly as he paces to the dresser, and they stay that firmly closed while you hear him dress, hear the bathroom lights click off.

You jolt when you feel the pressure on the other side of that mattress, your knees curling up tighter, inconspicuously inching further away. To your relief, as he climbs into bed, he keeps his distance, doesn’t reach for you like you were scared he would.

The silence hums loudly, rhythmed by his shallow breaths. Is he finally sober?

No sound. Not a word. For Hoseok, that’s worrying.

Damn yourself, why do you care? “Are you feeling better?” You almost bite your tongue as you ask, cursing your inability to keep to yourself. At least you don’t turn to face him.

Silence, still. Steady breaths.

You begin to wonder if he fell asleep the second his back sunk onto the mattress. It wouldn’t be a surprise.

But then you hear the lightest sigh. “Feeling less drunk, but head still pounding. Dizzy.”

You’re unaccustomed to the deepness of his voice, wondering where its usual loud annoying cheeriness has strayed off to. You don’t want to say you miss it, you certainly don’t. You just… grew so used to it.

This version of Hoseok is too human. It’s uncanny.

Despite laying there in silence, it doesn’t feel silent at all. The tension is blaringly loud in the air, almost a physical pressure pushing up against you, goading you to do something. Turn around and face him. Let him feed on you to replenish. But no, he’s fed a lot today already. Your collar still feels sore. Find another vampire and ask them to cure him. But at this time of day, where the sun is already almost completely uncovered, they should all be asleep. Then at least talk to him, something, before he resumes back to his normal self that you have to cower from.

“What are those scars on your back?”

Your voice startles him. Though you can’t see well, you notice him jolt. Was that too much to ask? Too personal? And honestly, do you actually want to know the truth to your question or would you sleep much sounder without it?

He doesn’t answer.

Instant regret. You count your breaths, shut your eyes and try not to be hyper-aware of short the distance of an arm’s length actually is between your back and his side.

You shouldn’t have asked that. Of course it would be a sensitive topic. What else could explain the literal scars on his back that have failed to heal even with his supernatural abilities?

There is a line drawn between you and Hoseok. There are boundaries, though some particularly vague and hazy, between you and each vampire, but the line is especially distinct with him. You have to remember, you can’t act the same as you do with Seokjin or Taehyung with someone like Hoseok or Yoongi. He’s not your friend. None of them are your friends, really. Hoseok, one of the least of all.

Who knows what psychological trigger you’ve switched on by asking such question? Curiosity did kill the cat afterall.

“They…” It’s your turn to jounce, his response unexpected. “I don’t know, I guess there’s a limit to what my abilities can heal, and to be honest, I like the look of them anyway. I think there’s a word for it, but my mind isn’t working properly… M-something. Ma- You know, the opposite of sadism.”

You know.

“Masochism…?”

“Yeah, that. Masochism.”

The room goes quiet after he mutters the last syllable of a word you would never anticipate to be his answer. Hoseok is a masochist? He enjoys pain inflicted onto him? If it were even possible for your blood to go colder, you feel a chill spear through your veins.

Fuck, these vampires are dark. And you thought you were morbid…

“Why…?” So Hoseok is at the opposite of the spectrum from Yoongi. You vaguely understand Yoongi, how he lashes out due to self hatred. It’s a cycle of pushing people away due to fear of intimacy from his loneliness, and as a result feeling more alone. He likes to inflict pain because that way, he can convince himself that he’s an unlovable monster, and pretend that he is choosing to be alone. But with Hoseok, you cannot fathom how or why he enjoys pain. How could anyone? “If you don’t mind me asking…”

You’re tempted to turn, eye contact is human nature, but you don’t think you can stomach it. There is an inexplicable weight, an intensity bestowed. You feel as though you’re sinking in quicksand, a slow agonising submergence, swallowed up by the burden you’re seeking to know about but can’t resist.

“It’s so boring, living like this.” He mumbles. You hear him rustle around to get comfortable, or maybe to inch closer to you. “We’ve been alive for more than two thousand years. Life begins to get rather insipid, nothing really... stimulates me anymore. Yeah, fight with demons, get wasted on werewolf blood, sure, pretty fun.” Hiccup. “But after so many years, you start to not really feel anything anymore.”

Truthfully, you think you get it. You get his inertia, the lack of anything exciting him about life.

“Like yeah, I know how you see me. I’m this over-the-top, dramatic class clown caricature, so you probably won’t believe me when I tell you about how bored I actually am. But I am.” hiccup

“So pain is your remedy?”

“I guess, yeah, pain is my remedy. You know that feeling when your skin gets cut, that rush of cold that infiltrates you?” Unfortunately, all too well. “It’s pretty exciting. There’s no feeling like it.” hiccup “It’s just so refreshing, to be able to feel somewhat mortal. Get torn apart a little, because I know I’ll stitch back up together anyway. It’s the only thing that brings me thrill nowadays. Before we found you.”

“What if you don’t?” Vampires are immortal, but not invincible afterall.

“Then I guess I don’t.”

Hoseok says it with a finality, as if death is no big ordeal to him. If it happens, it happens. He’s not self-destructive perse, you know he isn’t actively looking to die. He just wants to feel something. Like you.

Yeah, you think you get it…

Despite the difference in the sufferings you’ve been exposed to, monotony breeds insensitivity to most stimulants of life. Food tastes blander, colours duller, sense of self starts to ebb away. Hoseok had been a cheerful man before becoming a vampire, one requiring extravaganza in his life, flamboyance, because his life was a show, the embodiment of entertainment. How long did that take to crumble? For him to grow out of parties and parades because he realised that they could no longer fill that void?

The fall from a life of exhilaration to one where you were only passing time is tragic. He puts on a show to convince himself that he’s having fun, imposes it on everyone around him.

You’re beginning to dissect the animus of Hoseok, what truly underlies his insanity.

It’s disconcerting, how much he’s opening up when he isn’t sober. He has kept this in for a while, you can guess.

“Hey…” He slurs sleepily, though you hear his purpose, a sort of determination to stay away and say one last thing. And finally, you turn.

In this darkness, you hardly see a thing more than the shadows cast around him. You can’t see his facial expression, and you think it’s perhaps a good thing; you don’t wish for it to confuse you more. What throws you off is the heat emitted from his body. Vampires are cold creatures, warmth absent in their touch. You try not to think about the werewolf blood still coursing through his veins to keep him warm, how it makes it feel as though a human lays beside you rather than the monster in actuality.

“Yes?”

Your reply falls flat. As your vision adjusts to the pitch black, you are hyper aware of the stillness of the night that encases you.

“I…”

He.

It’s silent. So silent you can hear the thrumming of your chest.

“Yes?” You repeat, egging him on. His hesitancy has a depressive tone to it, it is somehow so genuine, rather than for dramatic effect like one would expect from him.

“I’m sorry.”

Those two words shoot into you like bullets of chaos and disarray, their shells ricocheting. Your ear rings as if deafened by an explosion. Maybe this is a dream. You can’t tell these days anymore.

“I’m sorry for everything.” He sounds throaty, still dragging his words as he tries to grapple at sobriety but fails. He also sounds like he means what he’s saying, like he feels terribly guilty.

You don’t understand.

“What do you mean… Why…?” Your eyes drop to the distance between you, fixing on the shadow of a crease you can barely make out.

“I’m just-” Hoseok tosses onto his side to look at you. You stare at that shadow harder. “I’m sorry, okay?”

“But wh-”

“Every time I look at you, I just want to, I don’t know, shake you. No, not you. Shake myself, or my brothers. I want to shatter some glass, sprint at a wall, I don’t know. I don’t fucking know what I’m saying. But yeah, every time I look at you, I just feel so fucking bad, man. I’ve- I guess I’ve been pretty good at keeping the guilt at bay all these centuries - we kind of have to, or we wouldn’t have survived two thousand years. But like, when I look at you, I can’t forget how much you’ve suffered. That kind of damage scars you forever. I can fucking see that you’re a shell of a person.”

Your throat constricts. You hate this feeling. Not that people have ever pitied you before, seeing as there was no witness of your uncle’s abuse, there was no one to feel sorry for you. But right now, you get it. That wash of humiliation from the small satisfaction you gain from someone pitying you, someone acknowledging how bad you have it, all the shit you’ve been through. It makes you sick.

Yes, you’re damaged. Good that he knows. Good that it tears apart his conscience. You’re glad that it makes him feel horrible.

Then why? You want to ask him. But you know he’s not finished with his piece.

“I see that you try to hide how fucking empty you are when you’re with me, try to act like you’re enjoying my company and actually find my jokes funny. I guess that’s why I keep trying to make you laugh. I know I’m annoying as fuck. Hell, I would hate me if I were anyone but me. But, I don’t know, I just want to stir some reaction from you, make you feel less hollow. I know it fucking sucks for you here, and I want to make it suck less, you know?”

A shiver fires down your spine. You have never thought about it like that.

Drunk words, sober thoughts. Or so the saying goes.

All this time, you thought that Hoseok views you as some sort of dancing monkey, forcing you to perform tricks for him, smiling, laughing, stroking his ego.

But the truth is, he wants to spark some life back into you. His jokes, his stories, his antics. They have been for you, not him.

Your throat trembles.

“All that shit with your uncle, God, it was brutal, even for me. It was the fact that you couldn’t escape from it. You were living through hell for how many years? All because of us. And now you’re stuck here with us, have to continue to endure. It just doesn’t stop for you, does it? And I know it makes no sense coming from me. Especially from me, I guess. You know, I really wish I could control myself. But that sensation that overtakes our minds, I wish I could describe it to you, it’s fucking insane. Your blood tastes like a drug to me, I don’t know, heroin or something. Except it doesn’t kill me, it kills you.” His voice is drifting, quieter, duller, slower. Like he’s mumbling without knowing he’s speaking out loud. The words just keep tumbling out.

Glancing up, you see that his eyes are shut, chest rising heavily, on the brink of sleep. You want him to fall asleep. You don’t want to keep listening. Because it sickens you knowing that buried under all those masks is an emotionally empathetic person, hardly the maniac you thought him to be. Because it would be so much easier if he was that, so much easier to hate your tormentor and see him as a monster.

But actually, he isn’t. He senses your pain, holds remorse for his actions.

You hate it. You hate it.

Just let me believe that you’re pyschopathic.

“Anyway... what I was saying is that…” His head droops to the other side. Sleep will siege him soon, you’re glad to know. “I know I’m a hypocrite. Namjoon would give me hell if he heard me sympathising with the Feed, but I truly mean no malicious intent towards you... This is just the way things are for us…” His breathing slows, deepens. Words only just more than a slur of syllables. You lay there, clutching your fists, waiting for it to be over, but only for you to lie awake and ponder this revelation for hours. “I wish… I wish it didn’t have to be you... after all that you went through. But I guess you only went through that because of what you are… Hurting you was the only way to protect you...”

You don’t even hear it at first, silently contemplating his words. But then the last bit sinks in.

“Wait, wait, what?” You break your silence. Hoseok has stopped making sense, you shouldn’t expect more from a drunken vampire, but he had been making sense before. “What do you mean?”

“What do I mean what?” He mumbles and rolls away, but you grab his sleeve and prevent him from turning and entering a realm of dreams.

“What you said in the end. About how… I don’t know... I went through that shit because of what I am. What do you mean? And hurting me was the only way to protect me.” Your blood has gone icy. You don’t want to be left with nothing but those words and your endless imagination of what they could possibly mean for the next few hours.

“You know, the spell…”

Spell.

“What spell?” But his eyes are completely closed, hardly a stir at your question to indicate he heard you at all. His sleeve bunches up under your fist, you gently rattle his face. “Hoseok, what spell? What are you talking about?”

He tries to shake you off, frowning in annoyance at your disturbance. “You know. That spell, the one to keep you safe.”

“Keep talking about the spell, Hoseok. Please. Safe from what?” You continue to shake him, stomach tying into knots. What spell?

“Safe from us, whatever Creatures of the Night your blood attracts.” Vexed, he grabs your wrist, eyes half opening, and shoves them away. “The spell the angels put, remember?”

“I don’t remember. Tell me about the spell, what was it?” You hear the urgency, the degrading desperation in your voice, but you need to know. You need to. What fucking spell to keep you safe?

“It’s complicated. Some twisted magic? You know that car accident with your parents? That was some Hell’s magic, when the demons started to find you... Angel blood isn’t just valued by vampires. They would’ve taken you if the angels hadn’t been watching closely and intervened. Then they, the angels I mean, decided to shield your aura, you know, your angel aura. The thing that lets the supernatural know that you have angel blood? It’s a distinctive scent for us, and I’m guessing other creatures too. It attracts demons and whatnots and helps them hunt you. It’s like a beacon of light. So they had to suppress your aura. And the only way to suppress angel aura is to suppress the angel themselves. Make them suffer, endure tremendous pain, dull their virtues, make them lose the will to live, et cetera. That way you don’t ‘shine’ anymore, and we won’t be able to find you. So I guess they did some sort of spell, or whatever heavenly magic, on your uncle so that his mind was warped and unconsciously fixated on hurting you... It’s fucking dark and twisted, especially for angels... To protect you from demons by making you suffer so much that you lose the core of your being. To destroy you in order to save you from hell and the creatures from it. That’s what irks me... Don’t know why but it just makes me feel so fucking bad…”

Something churns violently in your stomach. And you would have thrown up if you had eaten much previously.

None of it makes sense. Or maybe it’s starting to make too much sense.

You can’t believe it. You fucking can’t believe it.

You let Hoseok drift off to sleep, the weight of his body falling limp. You let go of his face.

You just can’t. Fucking. Believe it.

There’s no way this is true. He’s drunk. He has made up some story in his head. There’s no way.

Because there’s simply no way that the past few years of your endless torture has been a gift from the angels, a path paved for you to endure. To shield you. To save you.

In what sick universe…

You scramble off the bed and rush into the bathroom, ignoring the loud pads of your feet against the cold wooden floor. Your fingers tremble as you turn the light switch on and slam the door behind you with your back. For a moment, all you hear is the ocean of your roaring blood.

That’s why that night your parent died had felt so strange, so off, your disagreement with your parents so out of the blue. That’s why there was a storm. That’s why a car drove into you and killed your parents. That’s why your grandmother died so shortly after despite normally having great health. That’s why there was a sudden change in your uncle’s demeanour, as if a switch had been flipped in him. That’s why he had locked you in the basement, broke your legs routinely to stop you from escaping, beat you and your sister without reason.

It was demons and Creatures of the Night and a so-called “protection” ploy from angels.

You want to scream. As your back slides down the door, you want to scream at the top of your lungs. The amalgamation of emotions is tearing you apart, piece by piece.

This is it, the tipping point, the loss of your sanity.

His words play over and over again in your head, a drunken confession that he probably did not realise the meaning of in his state.

To protect you from demons by making you suffer so much that you lose the core of your being. To destroy you in order to save you from hell and the creatures from it. To protect you from demons by making you suffer so much that you lose the core of your being. To destroy you in order to save you from hell and the creatures from it. To protect you from demons by making you suffer so much that you lose the core of your being. To destroy you in order to save you from hell and the creatures from it.

Like a prayer.

Panting hysterically, you feel your mind shattering into a million shards. You can’t comprehend it. You don’t want to. You don’t want to know that the pain you felt, day after day, for what felt like an eternity had been a plot. A fucking spell. You don’t want to know. You don’t want to. You don’t want. You don’t. You.

You. Can’t. Do. This.

01:01. The crash. The beatings. The death of your sister.

It’s possible that you are crying, shaking, but you’re not aware.

And after crumbling on the bathroom floor, for minutes, maybe hours, you make your decision.

You run.

The sun is still out.

That means they can’t come out yet. They can’t come after you. They’re probably still asleep, unbeknownst of your escape.

The house had been eerily quiet as you snuck out. And as soon as you stepped foot outside the front door, you had felt it.

The incredible weight holding you down. Like the manor itself was shackled to your ankles. Walking away felt like trudging through mud, dragging this boggling heaviness with you. Every sire bond that has formed was shrieking in your head, wailing, begging for you to stop leaving.

It was purely your willpower and determination that gave you the strength to overcome the supernatural ties that tethered you to those vampires. You had to ignore how much your limbs were aching, how much your heart was straining. You just had to run away. Keep going and don’t look back. It was melting your brain into a puddle, but your mind had been in ruins anyway.

You didn’t know where you were going, the forest faced every side of the house, but you just kept going, as far from them as possible. If you ran down one direction, you were bound to meet an end at some point, find civilisation.

There is no plan. No plan as you fled the walls of those wretched vampires. You just knew you couldn’t stay, couldn’t continue living like that with the knowledge that was spilled onto you. There’s no way you could have pretend not to know and face those vampires, let them drain your blood when they had been part of the reason behind all your suffering.

Fuck the Heavens and the Hells. Fuck the angels, the demons, the vampires, werewolves, witches, all the damnable fucking supernatural.

Angel blood in your veins. A fucking curse.

Every bone in your body is starting to hurt, lungs growing weaker every gasping breath. You keep running, ignoring the overbearing ache and faint voices in your head chanting sorrysorrysorry.

Sorry, child, we’re sorry.

The sun has set. It is dark. And you are still running through the forest, no inkling at all of how far you’ve gone and how far is left until you find your rescuer.

The night is eerie, enveloping you in a fog of oblivion, no perception of anything beyond this forest. Howling can be heard from a distance, or what you hope to be a distance. You’re hanging on by a thread, but only just. You don’t know how much longer you will last, you just know that you’ve passed the point of no return now. They would have been searching for you since the daylight began to dwindle. They are on their way.

There had been so many instances where you had just stopped, panting, and stared at your own two feet, wondering what the fuck you’re doing. Because where are you running to? Who is going to believe you when you tell them about the fucking vampires looking for you? Who is going to care about some crazy girl?

What is the point in running? Living, even?

But an instinct within you, the one sparked by this revelation, didn’t allow your legs to stop. The whole world is against you. The whole fucking world. Creatures of the Night are hunting you, the angels have abandoned you to a cruel spell, your family is rotting six feet under. No one is going to fight for you, except yourself.

You are a survivor.

Energy waning from the lack of food and the sparing gulps of water you had salvaged from a brooke, the only thing fuelling you is your adrenaline. At this time of night, your vision is no more than dark silhouettes of trees and rocks. Your limbs are numb. The only thing telling you that you haven’t stopped moving is the constant crunch of leaves beneath your feet, crisply ringing. Keep going. Just keep running.

Where are you?

You hear a voice, his voice. No, you don’t hear it, you sense it. You feel his worry, his fear.

Where did you go? Please.

They can’t possibly be near. Even with vampire speed, there’s no way that can catch up with you so quickly when you’ve been gone for hours.

Please.

The pleading makes your heart lurch. You stop, heaving over your knees.

Guilt. It’s the guilt. Why do you feel guilty for leaving? No, you don’t feel guilty, the bond is making you feel it. It’s trying to manipulate you.

I can’t lose you…

But that’s definitely his voice, his inner thoughts. Seokjin is afraid, panicked, in a frenzy to look for you. Genuine concern.

Maybe you should go back. What are you even doing anyway? Where are you going? There’s no purpose.

It also dawns on you that they will pick up on your scent right away. Even if they don’t find you tonight, everywhere you go, they will find you eventually. They had found you even though your aura had been muffled by your uncle’s abuse. They somehow found you. They are always going to find you.

Maybe you should give up. Just submit to them for the rest of your eternity. Either way, you would be suffering, the angels will see to that. Just give up.

Your fists tighten on your knees. It’s freezing cold; your clothes shredded by sharp grappling branches, the midnight breeze percolates pass the futile material and assails your skin. Thoughts racing at an uninterpretable speed, your lost purpose becomes blaringly apparent.

It’s not so bad in there.

Please be okay. Please come back. Don’t go.

They kind of care about you, in their own warped sense of what caring is. Right? They almost love you, some of them. Right? Right? Right? Right? Right?

I miss you. I’m coming for you. I love you.

Right?

Please be okay.

“SHUT UP!” You sob out loud. In the distance, your outburst scare away a flock of sleeping birds, their wings flapping in synchrony to your heartbeat. “Please just shut up.” As tears erupt like a dam, your slam your hands to your ears to shield you from the sound. But of course, it doesn’t stop. It isn’t a sound. It’s a feeling. It’s the sire bond telling your mind his emotions. “Shut up. Stop making this harder for me. Shut up.”

Falling onto your knees, you simply break. Every fibre of your mind is peeling away, your entity flaking into dust. The cold stings your damp cheeks, trickling down to your neck where you remember so vividly the feeling of their fangs.

They almost love you, some of them.

That’s good enough, right?

That’s better than… nothing.

More birds shriek into the silence of the night, so loud that you hear them clearly despite your covered ears.

Are they here? Already?

You keep crying, soil eating your crumpled frame.

And because of your sobs, your firmly shut eyes, your covered ears, you don’t hear the footsteps approach you until you sense a looming presence behind.

Here.

Which one is it?

Slowly, every inch of you trembling, you turn.

A shocked man stares at you in wide eyes. Some sort of camper or hiker judging by his attire.

Not here.

“Oh my god. Please help me. Please help me.” You crawl over to his feet, ignoring the protest of your exhaustion and your pitiful position. “Sir, please help.” Your luck has turned. Finally. You’re going to be okay. Finally. The tears fall harder.

“W-what happened? Are you hurt? Lost?” Gradually processing the dirt covered girl collapsed and crying at his feet, the man bends down and examines you in concern.

“Yes, please, just take me somewhere safe. Please, they’re going to find me.” The wash of relief almost overwhelms you to unconsciousness.

“You need to tell me what happened, little girl. You’re in shock. Who’s going to find you?”

In the dark, you can’t see well, but something in his eyes makes you trusting of him. It’s the genuine worry and care. What a normal man is supposed to look like. You’re saved. You’re finally saved.

“We have no time, just take me… take me to the police.” Your shaking hand grips at his fleece in desperation. You don’t know what you can tell him or the police, you don’t know anything more powerful than vampires than can protect you from them, but you can think about that later. You just need to go now.

“Okay, okay. Let me carry you.”

No. Child, no.

This time, it isn’t Seokjin’s voice. Someone else, like that faint chanting you occasionally hear.

“Thank you.” You shift into a position that better enables the man to reach under your legs. Behind him, you see a pack of black dogs, creeping warily towards you, sniffing. “Are those your dogs?”

“Yes, don’t worry, they are clever boys.”

When his palm touches the underside of your thigh, ice pierces into your skin.

No. Not him. Not safe.

You know that ice. You know that inhuman lack of body heat.

As he hoists you up, you nudge him away and roll back onto the ground. “Wait.” Moonlight illuminating part of his face, you survey his pale skin, his devilishly good looks. His brows pinch in confusion, but there’s a twinkle in his eye.

Not human.

You glance over at the dogs again. Sleek black coat, long sharp ears, crimson eyes. Where their legs should meet the ground are misty shadows, like ghosts.

Not dogs.

The man’s lips quirk up. His camper’s attire dissipates like dust to reveal a black suit underneath.

You run.

Twigs snap beneath your feet as you sprint as fast as your calves allow, away from whatever they are. Your chest aches from fatigue, ankles screaming for you to stop. As you run, you ignore the branches reaching out to scratch your cheek, your arms. You hardly even feel the cuts against the twisting feeling of dread in your gut.

Angel blood isn’t just valued by vampires.

Looking back, you see the man stood rooted where he is. He isn’t coming after you, but the smirk he wears is enough to tell you not to stop. But not long later, you realise why he isn’t chasing.

Growls, howls of excitement, absolute beastly noises erupt from left and right. The hounds are running at an astounding speed beside you, their pelts pitch black despite the moonlight that they should reflect. Jaws open, they pant at you wildly as they hunt you. Zigzagging between the trees to create a misleading path, you try to create as much distance from them as possible. But they’re quick things. Clever boys.

Soon, they are narrowing in on you, until the pack is an arrowhead surrounding you. The closest hound snaps his jaw at your ankle, barely missing you. The loud crunch from the collision of its canines as he shuts his jaw, you know your foot would have been gone if you had been one second slower. You don’t have time to yelp. You focus on running ahead, slipping between boulders and following your instinct for directions.

Where are you? You hear Seokjin once again.

I’m here! You try to scream down the bond. Save me.

You don’t know why. You don’t know why you are asking for help from the very ones you had been running from in the first place. But you just know that, whatever is hunting you, your fate would be much worse with them.

I’m coming. His utter distraught is gone, replaced by a calm composed determination instilled by the awaited reply from you at last. And you know at this moment that it was a mistake to flee. Seokjin at the very least, regardless of everyone else, would never harm you, would always look after you. Why did you leave? Why had you acted upon your deranged irrationality? We’re looking for you. Don’t worry.

Relief. Because that is a promise. And you trust him.

But now the guilt of fleeing from them kicks in. What the bond had made you feel every step you took, that ripping sensation as if you’re tearing apart something substantial, you can imagine being a mammoth’s weight worse for them with their heightened senses.

Something is chasing me. Please help me. I’m sorry.

His fear returns, this time a formidable wave wiping his away short-lived relief. What is chasing you?

Dogs, big black dogs. There was also this man.

Bloody hellhounds and a Drude demon. Shit.

You have no idea what those creatures are but you can tell by the explosion of terror in Seokjin that it’s some of the worse you could encounter.

Distracted by his disclosure, you misplace your foot on an uneven log and topple down, the bark you crash onto scraping fire against your skin. Pain explodes at the back of your skull where it hits something severe. You don’t see beyond a sea of pulsing black.

Then something rips into your leg. You don’t know if you are screaming.

You drift in and out of consciousness.

Tiny stars dance around the deep blue sky. They look pretty.

You think you hear something growling, whimpering maybe.

What is that leaking from you so briskly? Blood? Hmm.

Darkness.

You hear voices? Yes, voices. Unintelligibly arguing. But if you shut your eyes again and stop shifting on the ground, they could pass off as background music.

Then the volume grows. Fighting. Grunting. More Growling. More whimpering.

But you feel safe. You don’t know why but you feel safe. That’s how you know you’ve lost your mind for good. There are virtual flames burning around you, warmth licking at your broken body. Nothing can get past the flames. Nothing can hurt you. This phantom fire is shielding you.

You heart is burning too, fighting. Someone’s sireship is fuelling you, feeding you, forcing life back into you.

When you open your eyes, when a vaguely familiar face appears, hovering over you, obstructing your view of the towering treetops and wavering constellations. You can’t quite put of your finger on his name, but you know you’re safe.

His eyes are big, full of concern and trouble, his hair long, black, wavy but tucked behind his ears. A black liquid is splattered across him, some on his beautiful face that is taut in vexation.

You don’t protest when he carries you in strong sturdy arms, lifelessly flopping against his chest.

He is warm. Fire. Safe.

And then he is zooming past the trees, so fast the wind tickles at you violently, your limp body jostling. Though half unconscious, your eyes don’t leave him, studying his angular jaw, the round crook of his nose.

J…

A droplet of black liquid rolls off his chin and splats onto your arm. It tingles like weak acid, faintly sour, an unearthly sensation.

Your heavy lids seal you back into the darkness.

The first thing you notice when you wake is the softness around and under you. Arms from beneath you draw away, leaving your weight to sink into the bed. Your eyes stay shut.

Warmth is pressed onto your lips, gently, careful as if one hard prod would shatter you. Your throat knows to swallow the stream flowing into your mouth, its taste unfamiliar, but safe.

Warm. And safe.

Almost immediately, you feel its effects catapult into your system. Skin everywhere begins to sew back together, bones like toppled buildings building brick by brick, the chaos in your mind whispered to sleep. That protective fire around you blazing.

Still, you don’t open your eyes. You don’t want to. You can’t face them.

“Troublesome little shit.” He pushes the hair out of your face, touch possessing a surprising delicacy that contradicts his insult and completely entangles your preconceived conception of him. But his voice… So soothing like honey. Not what you expected.

You train your breath to be steadily slow, eyes to be unmoving under your closed lids, hoping to pass off as asleep. The silence creaks, followed by a rustle of bedding. Then you feel the heat of his breath stroke the tiny hairs on your forehead. You suppress a flinch. But he presses his lips onto your skin, so tenderly you almost open your eyes to see if it’s really Jungkook.

“Please don’t leave again.”

And then he’s gone.

❦

@taexxxiiaa @serendipity-secrets @killcomet @askingtheimportantthingshere@blackpanther4550 @comingjimin @unatempesta-dipensieri @dapppphhhhh @unatempesta-dipensieri @beach-bitch-bitch-beach @queerloser17 @linyi-lovbts @somewhereinthestarss @xxqueenwxtchxx @whitefeatheredwyvern @embrace-themagic @brokencrownqueen @i-dont-even-know-fck @bangtandimples @kalkeegan @beetaeass @confessionsofascientist @chimycthulhu @hisunshiine @shooklier @livetay84 @runlikeabuffalo @nanna022 @berryjam17 @thelouhvre @bluemooncnblue @enigmaticlove-03 @lanu-la @bangtanfancamp @brbkpop @jiminisnotavirginrecs @samariakeeper @goodnightbug @dont-touch-me-fwit @tastelessfoolsbts @queensavage1245 @laced-brds @ultraanonymousey @ashchats @godzillagirl-14 @lustremyg @animeshins @it-is-dana @itsavakent @strawberrym0chii @namchimtae @smoljams@brightenn @btsxdoll @d-noona @show-respect-to-your-queen @fyeebangtan@for-hobi @lx-leeta @thesoftuglies

❦

19/01/2020

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conaionaru · 4 years

Text

Honor and Blood (Ivar the Boneless)

Behold the Bleeding Star

Synopsis: Vanya meets with the Seer like Aslaug advised and her shares a moment with Ivar.

Warning: angst, fluff, Ivar, toxic family, prophecy, mentions of children, low self-esteem, mentions of pregnancy

Tagged

@shannygoatgruff @youbloodymadgenius @xbellaxcarolinax @heavenly1927 @lol-haha-joke @queenbeeta @didiintheblog

P.S. I will mostly be working on this story right now as HONOR AND BLOOD takes place a YEAR before Ragnar comes back. So any other story ideas (Ubbe x oc, WOMAN’S GAME and Hvitserk x oc) will be postponed till I catch up with season 4B.

I don't own the gifs. Also, thank you for your support. I really appreciate it.

The fire crackled softly, spreading its warmth through the silent chambers. Vanya sat in a chair before her mirror brushing her fiery red hair with tears in the corners of her eyes. She has been sitting there since Brynja left her room after her bath. The Saxon's lips trembled as she tried to hold the tears at bay. A solemn tear fell down her cheek; Vanya's body looked calm compared to how tangled her mind was.

Ivar would not return today as the Ragnarssons stayed at the hunting cabin. So she was left all alone in her sadness and anger. Vanya wanted to scream out of frustration with her state; she wanted to become stronger here. No longer a proper weak lady held down by her family. And yet the possibility of her future child being in danger by an enemy tore her apart from the inside. Especially when she had no idea who the enemy was. Was it an from her side of the family or Ivar's? Was it a foreign enemy? What if it was death?

How could she protect a child she didn't even have yet? Vanya wanted to barge into Aslaug's chambers and call her a liar, anything to deny the reality of her future. The Queen said the child would be strong, but the danger was still there. Even strong people died painful deaths. Vanya put down her brush and watched her tearstained face in the mirror. Her eyes were red, and her lips swollen from her biting into them to stifle her whimpers. Taking a deep breath, she wiped her face and walked to the door.

Vanya needed answers, and she would get none pitying the future. She craved a different opinion that would calm her down enough to form a plan. Everything in life is about strategy; you gain nothing in life by waiting for destiny to go its course. Always have a plan, and you will survive. That's what her father used to say, a philosophy he followed faithfully.

The ginger put on one of Ivar's cloaks; it was worn out, but it would work as a means to disguise herself. She didn't want anyone seeing her leave. So after checking if anyone was still out, did she sneak out of her and Ivar's chambers. Vanya hurried down a path Aslaug showed her the day she arrived. The Seer's hut.

Vanya walked inside the hut with slow steps as a cloaked figure, with his back turned to her, sat on the bed. "Behold the Bleeding Star. You are late, Princess." The voice spoke, causing her to jump in surprise.

"W-was I supposed to come after I got married? I wasn't told. I am sorry." She apologized, creeping closer towards the disfigured man who turned towards her.

"I prophesied your coming a long time ago. Now ask what you want to know." The ancient man ordered her as Vanya braced herself for what awaits her in the future.

She cupped her hands in her lap as if in prayer and looked at him with pleading eyes. "Queen Aslaug said I would have a child with Ivar, but the child will be in danger. I want to know if it's true? Who is the snake in its hand?"

The fire burned next to them, casting a red light over them as she pulled her hood down, knowing she was safe with the Seer. The former Christians red hair shone brightly as the flames while her eyes were the ocean, so full of life yet so uncertain. "The Serpent will sire many children. Each born of fire and blood. They will ride under a red sun painted with the blood of the Forest King."

Vanya sighed in frustration. "I wanted answers, not more questions! I don't understand these riddles at all." All that sneaking around and all she got out of it is a headache from unhelpful prophecies.

"The Gods speak in their own ways, all with be clear when the time comes. I can see great happiness and worry in your future. Yet your path has many deep pits you need to endure. Your husband, your kin, your people all will test you. And if you endure them all, you will be rewarded by the Gods."

The Saxon frowned at the answer and chastised herself from coming here. In England, people like him were burned for heresy and sorcery, yet here she sat asking him for advice that apparently came in hard to understand riddles that you wouldn't know until it was too late. What use were they to her then? All they would do is rob her of her sleep till she made sense of them, which would take a long time by the looks of it all. "Why would the Gods favor me? Why would anyone favor me at all?"

The Seer mentioned to the blazing fire with his hand and turned his disfigured face away from her. "The Gods chose people meant for greatness."

"But I am not Ragnar Lothbrok or Bjorn or any of them. I was a Christian not that long ago. So why chose me? What greatness could I have in my future?"

The ancient man sighed at her persisting questions. Vanya feared he would send her away for bothering him, but all he did was look at her with his nonexistent eyes. She felt as if he looked into her soul and read each of her thoughts. "The Bleeding Star will brake the night. She will bring the dawn. But the Gods demand a sacrifice in return. You will pay in blood for happiness."

"I will not spill the blood of my enemies for some possibility of glory. If they demand blood, then I don't want it." Vanya spat back her bright blue eyes as hard as ice and her face devoid of all curtesy. She would not kill to get something she obviously doesn't deserve. Princess Vanya of Slegia, daughter of the late king Osmond and Queen Siflæd, sister to king Silas, wife of Ivar the Boneless. All of her titles had no real meaning. She was nothing without them, no lands, no coin, nothing that mattered to the people. She never had faith in God; she didn't trust her new gods yet either. What was she worth other than a pretty face and a fertile womb?

"Not the blood of your enemies. Your blood. There is no use denying your claim. The prophecy is already in motion. You are with child."

Vanya felt as if her heart stopped beating in her chest. All this time, she was worried about her future child, yet the future was nearer than she knew. Vanya was with child - Ivar's child. Her mouth opened and closed in shock as she laid her palm against her stomach as if the babe would kick to confirm the news. She thanked the Seer and licked his hand as asked of her, fleeing the wretched hut that sent her mind into a spiral.

This time, Vanya didn't care if anyone saw her, she runs back to her chambers, slamming the door behind her and leaning her forehead against the door. She took deep breaths as sobs shook her body once again; if from happiness or sadness, she had no idea. Vanya braced herself against the door, praying to every God the Saxon knew for it all to be a dream. Vanya needed a plan to protect her child; she needed time to figure everything out first. She wasn't ready for the child to be born yet.

"Why are you crying?" The deep voice startled her from her misery, Vanya jerked upright an turned towards her and Ivar's bed to see her husband who returned late from his hunt. She sobbed pathetically and ran to his side, burrowing her face into his chest.

Uncertainly Ivar wrapped his arms around her shaking frame with a frown on his face. Vanya lifted her tearstained face and looked at the crippled Viking she married less than two weeks ago. "I met with the Seer because your mother had a vision." She whispered, her voice trembling in fear. Ivar demanded her to tell him everything, so she did.

He said nothing the whole time, listening to the prophecies and her worries with a blank face till he was sure she finished. "I am afraid. I know I am not supposed to be scared anymore, cause Vikings fear nothing. But I was born no Viking, and I am frightened. I am not worthy of any of it."

Ivar put his calloused hand on her cheek and made her look into his eyes. "You are worth more than anyone can give you. You deserve happiness, glory, and so much more. And it doesn't matter than you weren't born Viking, you are braver than most. You are my wife, and I will protect you and any child we might have. I swear to you, no one will hurt either of you."

"A child we have."

"What?"

Vanya took a deep breath and straightened before Ivar; she needed to be strong. She was to be a mother soon. "The Seer said I am already with child."

Ivar stiffened next to her and looked down at her flat stomach, not believing what his wife just revealed. It sounded too good to be true. Vanya is with child; he got her pregnant. He, Ivar the Boneless, The Cripple. He would be a father. Ivar laid a shaky hand against her stomach and looked at her with soft eyes.

"Then I swear no harm will come to you or this child. As long as I live, I will protect and cherish you both. I swear it on my arm ring and all the Norse Gods. Anyone who might harm you will die a painful death; whatever danger awaits this child, I will stop it. I will be a good husband to you and an even better father." Vanya smiled at the sincerity of his speech and hugged him sniffling into his neck with Ivar's arms circled her in a protective embrace. She felt safer than ever, Brynja was right. Ivar cared for her deeply and was different from the man she met on the docks two weeks ago. And she cared for him too. And this child was the proof of that, a sign of a bright future that held more children to come.

#vikings #ivar x oc #original female character #original character #ivar the boneless #ivar lothbrok

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mrsjosephmazzello · 5 years

Text

A Mother’s Day Surprise| Joe Mazzello x Reader

This was a @sohoneyspreadyourwings Secret Santa fic written for @enthusiastic-sarcastic. This is the first time I have ever written fanfiction so forgive me for it not being as amazing as some of the fanfiction that I’ve read on Tumblr. Either way, I hope that it brings you a little happiness and that your holiday season is wonderful!

Pairing: Joe Mazzello x Reader

Warnings: Pregnancy, morning sickness, past death

Word: 1603

Day eight. No day nine of waking up with your head in the toilet. When you had woken up over a week ago and had to rush out of Joe’s arms to get to the toilet to empty your stomach, you thought you had just caught a stomach bug or maybe food poisoning. Joe was filming in London for six weeks and you had flown over halfway through for a visit and just assumed you must have caught something while traveling. When you had flown home back to NYC, you had assured Joe that you were feeling somewhat better and you would be fine. While that was true at the time, you had greeted your toilet every morning since returning home. You had no idea what going on. While cooling your head on the porcelain, a thought popped in your head.

“Oh my god, I’m pregnant”, you thought to yourself. The daily sickness was an obvious symptom, but now that you had thought about it, it had been well over a month since you had your last period. With Joe leaving, your trip to London, and work, you hadn’t even noticed. You got off the floor and moved towards the cupboard. You were able to find a box of pregnancy tests towards the back that you and Joe had kept on hand the past year. You and Joe had decided last year that you were ready for a baby after being married for a year. The first few months of trying had been fun, but month after month of negative pregnancy tests had taken its toll. You and Joe had decided that maybe it would be best if you both stopped trying and just let things happen if it was supposed to happen.

You removed the stick from the box and peed on it. You then set it on the counter and started to nervously pace. You began to think of how excited Joe would be if you really were pregnant. This man was meant to be a father, and you could think of nothing to make him happier. Three minutes finally came, and it was time to see if you were going to make Joe’s dreams come. You took a deep breath and grabbed the stick. POSITIVE. It read positive! The tears started to stream down your face as you grasped the stick. While you wanted to call Joe right away, you wanted to confirm the pregnancy with a doctor’s appointment first. You called your doctor to set up an appointment, and a few days later, your doctor was able to confirm that you were indeed pregnant and were eight weeks along. Now you just had to find a way to surprise Joe when he got home in two weeks.

Joe had been home now for three weeks now, and you still hadn’t found the time to tell him. Work had picked up and Joe had had constant meetings trying to set up his next directing project. You had a put together a gift that you were going to use to surprise Joe. It was a Yankees onesie with Mazzello on the back. You had managed to hide your morning sickness, which had now faded that you were almost fourteen weeks, from him.

Luckily, it was finally the weekend. You woke up expecting to find Joe next to you, but his side was cold and empty. You put on one of Joe’s sweatshirt and went downstairs to find him. You found him on the couch watching something on his laptop. As you got closer, you could hear sniffles. “Sweetheart”, you said. “Are you okay?” “Mmhm” responded Joe. “I’m just really missing my dad today.” It was then you remembered that it was Joe’s dad’s birthday today. You took Joe into your arms and held him as he continued to watch home videos. While watching a video of Joe meeting his little brother, John, for the first time in the hospital, you realized that that this would be the perfect time to tell Joe your little secret.

After thirty minutes of holding Joe, you told him that you needed to use the restroom and that you would be right back. You went to upstairs to your bedroom closet and grabbed the gift. When you returned downstairs, Joe was still watching his laptop. You sat next to him and put the gift in his lap. He looked at you confused and asked, “Darling, what’s this?”. You replied, “It’s something to help you feel better, but also a thank you for being such an amazing person. I know I never met your dad, but I can only imagine how proud he would be of the person you are”. Joe hugged you tightly and then kissed your forward. “Thank you for being the best wife I could ask for”, Joe said as he started to open the gift bag. He slowly removed the tissue paper and then pulled out the onesie. He had a look of confusion on his face. “Turn it around” you told him. He did and on the back was Mazzello as well as a recent sonogram from your last appointment. “Are you serious?”, Joe whispered. “Yeah. I’m thirteen weeks pregnant. I found out when I got back from London”, you answered nervously since Joe was still very quiet. “I’ve been dying for the perfect time to tell you, and I just felt like I never got the chance” It was then Joe dropped the onesie and grabbed you and started crying. “I can’t believe I’m gonna be a dad. Y/N, you have made me the happiest man in the world. I love you so much!” “Are you really happy? I know we’ve wanted a baby, but it’s still a huge step”, you asked him. Then Joe pulled back and put his head against your stomach and said “Baby Mazzello, would you tell your mother that you and her are the greatest gifts I have ever received and that there is nothing else in the world I would rather do than to have a baby with her”. You pulled Joe back up and gave him kiss that conveyed all the happiness and excitement you felt. You and Joe were going to have a baby!!

Flashforward 8 weeks later

For the past weeks, you and Joe had been in baby heaven. You now had a small bump, which Joe could barely keep his hands off. Luckily, since you hadn’t told anyone yet, it could still be hidden with frumpy sweaters. Joe was an absolute dream of a husband with foot massages, going on late night runs to pick up tacos, which were a favorite bedtime craving, and he was at your side for everyone appointment. It was just last week, that you and Joe learned that you were having a little boy. You were going to tell Joe’s mom and siblings today. You were all coming together to celebrate Mother’s Day so the two of you thought this would be the perfect opportunity. To surprise his mother, you were going to give her an ornament that had Joseph Francis Mazzello IV written on it. All of the grandchildren had a special ornament for her Christmas tree, and this seemed like the perfect gift. While Joe insisted that you didn’t have to follow tradition, you were determined that your first son would be named after his father and grandfather.

When you arrived at Joe’s childhood home, both of his siblings and their families were already there. Hugs and greetings were exchanged, and everyone moved to the living room where you all caught up with each other. After a while, you all moved to the dining room to eat. Brunch was filled with funny stories about the Mazzello siblings growing up and how the grandchildren had a similar taste for getting into mischief. You discreetly rubbed your bump thinking of the trouble that the newest Mazzello would get into. Joe looked over at you as you did this reached for your hand and gave it a quick squeeze.

As brunch finished up, the grandkids brought Joe’s mom handmade gift that they had made at school. After a few more gifts were given, Joe brought his mom the gift box that contained the ornament. He placed it in front of her and took his seat back next to you. She opened the box and pulled out the ornament. Her eyes began to look glossy and she said, “This is incredibly sweet and thoughtful you two. I think this is the perfect way to remember your dad”. It was then you and Joe realized that she didn’t see the IV at the end. “Read it again, mom”, said Joe. She looked back at the ornament and then gasped. She got up and ran over to you to and hugged you both as tears streamed down her face. “What does it say?” Joe’s siblings asked as they grabbed the ornament from where your mom left it. “Oh my gosh!!! Are you guys having a baby!”, Joe’s sister screamed excitedly. “Yes, we’re pregnant!!! We’re having a baby boy in September!” Joe responded. Everyone got up and was hugging you and Joe. In the midst of all the congratulations and questions about the pregnancy and baby, you looked across to Joe and he was looking at you. You both smiled at each other and he mouthed I loved you. You mouthed I love you too. It was right then you were reminded that Baby Mazzello was already so loved and that you couldn’t have asked for a better husband and family.

#joe mazzello #joe mazzello fic #joe mazzello fanfiction #joe mazzello x reader #joe mazzello fanfic #sohoneyspreadyourwings #enthusiastic-sarcastic #secret santa

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whats-the-story-tc · 4 years

Text

9th-11th of September, 2020

"The One with the Fox Mask"

I did remember a couple things that happened in the past few days after all. And today? Whew. You are NOT ready. Here we go.

So on Wednesday, an hour after her class, we were talking about first impressions in another class. I said something like "I remember being afraid of people initially, but then being very positively disappointed when I got to know them." When my teacher asked who I'm talking about, I made it out to be about my friends (which is halfway true), but we all know here that all along, I was talking about V. The woman I knew as "The Fox" in my late middle school years, the woman whose eyes I recognised a part of myself in the year before I first had class with her, the woman I never thought I'd come to love as much as I do. She turned my life upside down, and you know what? I don't mind.

Thursday, we only met briefly, with half a corridor between us, but she had her gaze turned towards my class as she headed somewhere. I waved to her, but she didn't return it, even though she has to have seen me. Oh, well.

That day, afternoon, to be exact, I also met Miss A for a short while (you remember her, right?). She was looking at something, only turned towards me for a second or so, but instantly she smiled so wide when she spotted me that you can't NOT return it. I had training, children to teach, so I couldn't exactly run up to her and chat, but afterwards, I spent the way home thinking about how stark the contrast between A and V is, when it comes to their behaviour towards me.

(For those of you, who might be new here, A is not a teacher crush. She's a former teacher of mine, who I'm still very close to and regard as a mentor figure in regards of performing arts, but also positivity. She's the sweetest person you can imagine, and I really love her, but not the way I love V.)

Also Thursday, my mum offered to get me a new face mask, and when I saw the patterns, I immediately went with the one with foxes. Because... obviously. Yet, I was very nervous to wear it to school on Friday, which is today. I was nervous about what V might say when she sees it, since foxes are her branding, not mine. Still, it took some convincing, but I put it on this morning. And this is where shit hits the fan.

Another meeting from afar, another unreturned wave, though this time, I ran to P.E. before she had the chance to return it, so there's that. Then, like an hour later, it was announced she'd be subbing the class before my double class with her, meaning I'd spend three class periods together. Safe to say, I was over the moon.

Breaktime, I come out of the bathroom. V is at the other sink, washing her hands. I'm wearing my fox mask. All blood froze in my veins as I awkwardly waddled over to the other sink, blabbering an awkward greeting, when I heard: "Your mask is really cool." My face probably went really red under the foxes, but thankfully, I remembered to say thank you. And then I remembered to follow it up with: "I can get you one if you'd like." She asked me where I got it from, I awkwardly tried to explain it, she said she might pop over if I tell her exactly where. Then I got a little brave. I know she loves getting gifts and values them greatly, so I said: "As far as I remember, your birthday is in September, it could be a birthday gift, if you'll have it." (Though I'm not sure I actually said the last part or just wanted to.) She muttered something along the lines of "Another year closer to death" as we reached the classroom she was headed to. In one last desperate attempt to get more of her, I asked if she was really going to sub for us next period, and we spoke about it briefly, confirming a couple details, and that's where it ended.

No wonder I kept randomly bursting into smiles while working in the class I went to. I'm not sure now that she understood there and then that I offered to buy her something, but I was very excited. After all, it's not every day you get to give the Miss V something with a perfectly valid reason.

And the time came for her to sub. She spent the whole class talking to us, listening to our stories and sharing hers, talking gaming with those of us who are just about as experienced as her, and hearing everything. And when I say she heard everything, I meant she heard everything.

I told my friend a story from like three weeks ago, dramatically reenacted, and halfway through I just see V, eyes smiling, leaning forward and asking "What's the story?" (Roll credits.) She wasn't the only one who wanted to hear it, so I had to restart it. I was too nervous to watch her reactions, but probably she enjoyed it. Then, I told my friend another story from the same day (an eventful day spent reading in the park), and when I was finished, all I hear is "That one's good." Lo and behold, V was listening all along. And that wasn't the only time I felt her eyes on me in that class, even if I didn't look at her.

Another interesting thing was when my classmates teased me about being good at Literature, and I got flustered, turning my head towards V and asking: "Miss?" Her eyes were smiling again, but she ended up saying: "I'd rather not say anything right now." As somewhat of a teacher/coach/authority figure over younger children myself, now I understand why she said that. I know I'm good and so does she. But if you start praising one's abilities to the others, they might feel inferior. That's why praise is always one-on-one. And V is awesome at these things. As much as I crave her praise, I reminded myself: "Remember why you fell for her? Because she is always fair and honest. She knows her shit."

Other than these, me and my friend showed her memes, she told us about when our extracurriculars will be (Thursdays, when we wouldn't normally meet, so I'm satisfied), one time I avoided swearing by saying "I'm not gonna finish that here" and she countered it with "It's not like we don't know what you were going to say" and yeah. It was an interesting class, to say the least, but the most fun I've had in any class this year.

Double V class. First time around, we started with a promised test about a story we had to read for today. Once again, V was staring. She saw I was in trouble, and I noticed she was looking. We made eye contact, then she got up from the desk she took a seat on and announced "Don't overthink Question 5, guys, it's way simpler than you think." Thanks. Helpful. I wrote something in the end, but I'm not at all sure if it was right.

There are two things I noticed during this first period. One, the tattoos on her back. I've caught a glance of them before, though I'm not sure I ever told you the story, but I've never seen them so clearly. I won't tell you what they are, as I don't know exactly and I don't want to say something stupid, but it was a most pleasing moment. Two, no matter where in the classroom I might be sitting, she will look at me while talking. She's not talking to me, not directly, but when she turns her head towards the right half of the class, it's always in my direction. If I sit further from her, she'll look there. Now, that I sat closer, only two-three meters or so away from her, she turns her head more to the right, so she faces me again. Geez, V. Sunflower much?

We analysed poems, she made snarky comments, I made some unusual connections and she took the time to explain why a certain element is the way it is so I'll understand, it went like any other Literature class, to be honest. I even got another "I'm done with those boys, help" gaze.

Towards the end of the second (actually, third) class with her, we went into human behaviour, and saying things we don't mean. How people express their condolences, even if they don't actually feel sorry. V also basically explained how she rather doesn't say things she doesn't actually mean. As I said, very honest. Though her "I never did have a heart" comment wasn't true. We all know she does have one. And I think nobody in that class knows it more than me.

After class, we had this brief convo about keyboards and autocorrect as she waited for the bell to let us go, and... yeah. That was it.

I bought her the mask, it's on my desk with a post-it saying "[Last name]'s", so I don't confuse it with mine. And now I absolutely can't wait for Monday first period to give it to her. I can't wait to see those eyes.

Wear your masks, stay safe and remember: sometimes taking risks works out in your favour. It's worth a try.

~ S ♡

[Every story I share here, no matter how specific I get with my wording, depicts actual events from my own life.]

#tc #tcc #teacher crush community #female tc #female teacher crush

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hubbyseby · 5 years

Text

2- Pleasing You.

Mob! Sebastian Stan x Reader

Second part of "Nothing Without You" series.

Run-through: haven't understand what happened the night before, you were lost at school and couldn't focus. And you were discussing with your friends when you had something which leaves you suspicious.

Warnings: language.

Everything was so blur. You couldn't focus yourself in anything that was going on. All you could focus on was your friends: Samantha and Jessica. You didn't sleep last night, worrying too much for them. Did the man said the truth? Was everything really okay with your friends? You got up, and it was 5: 00 already, and almost time to go to school. But you didn't feel the strengh. You went to your backpack to verify what you had for the day, any homeworks or presentations to see if it was worth it to go to school. Taking your agenda, you run your long fingers through the pages and once you stopped to the day...

"Oh my God" you said, you had a test today. And you couldn't miss it, because it was important to improve your grade for the last few months before your graduation. You closed the agenda and went to downstairs to grab the phone of the house to call Samantha. It was ringing but you reached the voicemail. You were more troubled now. You did the same action for Jessica, nothing. Just the voicemail.

"I have to know if they are okay. I can't wait much longer." You said while you were entering the shower to take a quick one. Once done, you quickly dressed yourself and, not even taking time to eat breakfast, you got out the house already turning on the the car to leave. Your blood was boiling into your veins, couldn't think properly. You tried to stay calm, but you couldn't, obsviously. You felt something forming down your throat, but held it while you park you car before Samy's house. There were two cars, which means that her parents were still home. Reaching their door, you couldn't wait any longer and knocked in a hurry. A few minutes after, the door opens up to her mother, Sandra, who was smiling to you. You couldn't help but you were stressed and put a fake smile on your face.

"Good morning, sweetheart! How are you? Come in!" She said while making space for you to come in, what you did while looking around. No one's was there until her husband reached downstairs.

"Y/N! What a surprise to see you!" He said while kissing you on the cheek before going to the kitchen. It was weird, seems like her parents didn't know anything about last night. Knowing her, she couldn't because they are always talking to her to not go out late. Sometimes she was obedient, most of the time, not.

"Good morning!" You said while holding hardly to your backpack.

"I guess you're here for my daughter" Sandra said with a neutral gaze.

"Y-Yes" you said, nervous.

"Oh she should be upstairs. Try to check because I haven't seen her since yersterday afternoon." She let you know.

And your heart skipped a beat. And if she wasn't upstairs? And if something went wrong? And if the man lied to her? Telling her that everything was going to be okay and the only news you got at the end was the news of your friends... dead? You felt the tears making their way up to your eyes but kept them to not make her parents suspicious. How dumb I was to believe this man! You thought. I am a coward. I am selfish. I just saved myself and forgot my friends behind me. Will they forgive me? You thought while you were freezing in front of Samantha's parents.

"Y/N!" Said Sandra, seeing that you were far from here in your thoughts.

"Yes... y-yes I'm sorry... I'm going upstairs to reach her! Thank you, ma'am" you said in a hurry while making your ways to the stairs and in a blink of eyes you were in front of your friend's door. You was afraid that she wasn't there. You wanted to the bottom of your heart to see her asleep on the bed. You prefered this and to be late at school than not seeing her there. You slowly opened the door when you heard:

"Mommy?"

A voice that you were craving to hear. A voice you thought you would never have to hear again. A voice you thought you would never hear telling you:"you brat!" Or "I'll always have your back, Y/N". She was there. As soon as you saw her, you let your backpack slide down your side and run to her. In a rush hug, you were now crying and she was holding you tight while telling you that she was okay.

"You are here" you said, sobbing.

You heard her giggles and you didn't care that she was laughing at you because you were crying for her. While holding her, you feel a touch that you also thought you would never feel again. A touch that you knew too damn well while turning you around to tell you that you were absolutely beautiful. Opening your glossy eyes, you lay them on Jessica who was joining the hug.

"Oh my God" you said, relieved. Feeling alive again.

"I'm so sorry... I left you, I am a coward. I should never do this to you. I'm so sorry, forgive me, Samy... Jess please! Forgive me I'm so sorry I'm-"

"Shh... That's okay, Y/N. That's okay. We are here. And we have nothing to forgive you. You saved us." Samy cuts you off while taking a break from the hug while Jessica was smiling to you.

Confused, you were trying to put your ideas on track to think properly. Drying your tears, Jessica said:

"Thank you, Y/N, you're not a coward. You're a hero"

"Wait... what?" You could only asked, more confused than before.

"There were two men who found us in the crowd. After loosing contact with you, we were looking for you as well. But these two men reached us and leaded us out of the mess. We were afraid and we wouldn't leave without you, we asked for you. We weren't sure to tell them your name because they would not know, we just described how you were dressed and they remembered you. And they told us that you asked to save us. You ordered to save us, and you were just obeyed, and they saved us. And because of you, we are still alive." Samantha explained.

Speechless, you couldn't say a word of what you just heard a few seconds ago. The only question you were asking yourself in your mind was: "WHAT?".

Jessica couldn't contain a smile seeing your face. And they both started laughing at you. While they were laughing, you remembered the man who told you that they would be safe, and that he would get them out of the mess. He wasn't lying to you. He said the truth and he saved them. And instead giving himself the credits for saving them, he told them that you ordered to save them. You thought you had lost them and this, forever. However, you were happy they were here. Here in front of you. Talking to you. Smiling to you. Laughing at you. You didn't mind, all that matters was they were right in front of you.

"Oh..." you just said.

Before saying anything else, the door knocked out loud and Sandra made her way through the door before even having a answer from her daughter. She was going to talk but seeing Jessica behind us shut her up.

"Well! Good morning, Jessica! I didn't know I had a guest home, Samy" her mother sad, giving her a funny gaze that wasn't unnoticed and you all of your were laughing hard. It seems like you were laughing more of joy that you had the chance to be reunited once again and won against death than laughing at the mother.

"You have only 30min, girls. Go down, try to eat something and go to school" Sandra said.

"We'll not have the time mommy. We'll go now" Samy said while you were taking back your backpack from the floor.

"Okay! Me, I'm out because my husband just left a few minutes ago, and we are starting at the same hour! Baby, are you going to call the Uber as usual or Y/N is giving you a ride?" Sandra's asked

"Oh I'll bring them! Sure!" You said, excited.

"Alright! Kisses girl, hope to see you later! Bye and have a good day sweethearts!"

"Love you mommy!" Samy just said as she left the room and a minute or two, her car was disappearing in the corner of the street.

"Let's go!" You just said while you guys were running on the stairs to get down. Samy locked the entrance door and you went to school.

The test was easy, but it was quite hard to you because you couldn't focus properly. You were thinking of him. How he grabbed you the night before. You stroked your right hand, remembering his sweet hair under it. You closed your eyes while remembering his cologne and his body pressed against yours. His charming voice when he called you:"doll". When he protected you like it was depending on his own life. The way you felt his breath on your forehead.

"I'm not going to hurt you doll".

He didn't want to hurt you. He was saving you, and after saving your friends, making them believe it was your order. Like a boss. You smiled at this thought.

Doll.

You couldn't stop yourself thinking. It was the first time someone called you like that, and you felt suddenly attractive. You felt a electric thing running down your spine. You thought of his hand holding the door. The only sight that you had of him, right there in your head, your mind, and you couldn't think of something else than this hand stroking your body and holding you around your throat while-

"HOLY WATER! I need to purify my mind!" You thought while holding the pencil tight between your fingers.

"Ms Y/L/N, are you okay?" Professor Jones asked, seeing you frustrated on your chair while the other students were looking at you at the call of the professor.

You couldn't help but you blushed furiously. You looked like a tomato and they were laughing at you. Even Jessica was smiling. You stared Samantha and she was moving her hand on her desk, trying to tell you to calm down. And to relax. You catch the message, and you were relaxing.

"Yes, Professor. I am okay, thank you". You simply replied and you soon focused yourself on your paper. All you wanted was to leave the class.

"If you don't remember a thing, you should have studied though" he said and everyone was laughing, except you. You were ashamed and it wasn't your problem, not knowing your lessons, but it was him.

The man who couldn't stop calling her "doll". You chased him in your mind and focused yourself at the test that you finished almost the same time with the others. Everyone were done when the ringing bell make itself heard. It was the release, and you were relieved. The Professor leaved the class and your friends makes their way to you, on your chair.

"Are you feeling better?" Jessica asked.

You were the sweetest and the least experienced between you three.

"Yes, Jess"

Samy was going to talk when the girl who hated you make her way to you and your friends with her "team". You rolled your eyes up and pray God for her to leave you alone.

"Well... Well. You, bitch" she said to you while her silly friends were laughing at you while Jessica gave her a bad look.

"Would you leave her alone, Christina?" She said, angry after her.

"No, because she's a bitch. She does think she's acttractive! Do you think that, foolish girl? No, you dumb! You're not attractive than I am!" She said, keeping her eyes on yours, wanting to die in the moment.

You felt so bad. You wanted to disappear. Because she was talking louder, every student in the classroom was now looking at you. Some were laughing, some weren't happy to see this because they thought that she was so wrong to treat you like this. Connor, a guy in the class, who always thought you were beautiful, took your defense:

"Give it a rest, Christina and leave!" He said.

Samantha had enough hearing her, and she stood up.

"First of all you bitch, you're going to shut the hell up! Second, she is way better than you are, because you, you are a bitch that every men in this school know, but she is the quietest girl in this entire place. You are always doing things to make yourself remarked but she doesn't need to do a shit for everyone to see that she is beautiful! Even naturally, she's beating your damn flat ass bitch but you need to wear the entire Sephora's make up line to look not even at someone but looking like a weird thing! So you're going. To. Shut. The. Damn. Hell. Up. BITCH!" Samantha exploded.

Everyone was speechless after her words. You were speechless. You couldn't fight it anymore and your tears fell down your cheeks, looking at her. She saved you this time, because you were never answering when she was attacking you. Anytime she was bothering you, you just leave. Christina didn't find anything solid enough to say, and Connor crossed his arms on his chest with a smirk.

"Any motion now, Chris?" He said, still, with his smirk.

"SHE IS NOT BEAUTIFUL!" She yelled, ashamed.

While Jessica was about to interfere, someone opened the classroom's door to let someone else in with a big case in his hands. Suddenly, the classroom was full with a scent. A familiar scent.

Everyone was looking at the door and the two men who where crossing the classroom now.

"I'm sorry but who is Y/N"? One of them asked.

Your heart missed a beat. Everyone was looking at you, suspicious. What the hell was going on? You asked yourself.

"I-it's me" you said, shy.

Once they heard and saw you, they were approching you carefully while everyone was looking at what was happening. There was another man bringing some hearts balloons and a big white Teddy Bear with a "Beautiful" writing on it. You were blushing like a baby when they stood in front of you, Samy and Jess speechless. Also Christina. At least, she had her mouth shut.

"This delivery is yours ma'am" said the first one who has spoke one or two minutes earlier.

"For me?" You asked, shaking almost.

"Yes".

"Oh" was the only word which could crossed your lips.

Who the hell sent that to me? I have no boyfriend, I'm alone, not attractive, who would do this for me? You asked yourself while taking the big box and standing up. Samantha give a look to Jessica who was receptive. They both crossed their arms on their chest while looking at Christina and her girls, speechless, ashamed. You opened the big box and you saw a lot of roses! A lot! A lot! You put your hands over your mouth, couldn't believe it yet. All the students were like:

"Ouuuuhhhh"

They were speechless, as you were. Seeing your reaction, as you were crying, one the three men smiled and gave you the Teddy Bear that you were holding tight. There was a medium card which was in a little bag of satin, on the top of the flowers and you took it to open it with a shaking hand.

"Dear Y/N,

How are you, beautiful? I couldn't stop thinking about you, and how beautiful you are. Your eyes are so beautiful that I could lost myself just at looking at you. Looking at your soul. I hope we will see each other soon. I can't help but your face was scanned by my mind, and you couldn't leave it.

I hope you like your presents. I would like to tease you, just as I'm doing right now.

Have a nice day, beautiful.

S. S"

You read. You were speechless. Samantha who was right behind you and read at the same time with you. With a little smirk, she takes the card in your hands and looks at Christina right in her eyes.

"Let me read for you damn bitch" she said, amused.

She read the whole letter while she was taking her time saying each "beautiful" word with a smirk. Finishing, amused, she put the letter in front of her face:

"Who's laughing now, BITCH?" She asked, angry.

All the boys were laughing out loud at Christina and her squad. Connor, leaving and passing just close to Christina, put a hand on her shoulder by taping it and he says:

"Courage with your bitches, sweetheart" and they passed by them, still laughing out loud.

They didn't took much time and moved away too, and almost all the students were leaving the classroom, it was just a few, you and your friends. The three men has already taking a break from the tension of the class during the time you were reading the letter. Samantha turned around to look at you while Jessica was still speechless in front of your presents that even you couldn't understand.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT, Y/N?" Samantha asked, letting her suprising face taking the lead. She has all the time this amused face to prove to Christina that you had men, just like her, saying that you were beautiful. But now you were alone, she asked seriously.

"Who is this, Y/N?"

"I don't even know!" You answered.

"Liar". You heard your inner voice said.

You knew exactly who it was. It was him.

#mob!bucky #mob!au #sebstan #sebastianstan #sebbystan #sexyseabass #sebastian x reader #sebastian stan #dark!bucky x reader

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allofthesins · 5 years

Text

Under a Violet Moon

They had always had an on again off again tumultuous relationship. Sherlock both craved and bemoaned Mycroft's attention and as they grew up nothing changed. Except the feelings of one brother. Once again; Sherlock now in his third year of university, the two rarely spoke and when they did it was usually very short, very curt, addresses of the other when Mycroft would come to the campus to speak with the professors.

Having no interest in other people, Sherlock spent all of his time in the library. Today found him here as well, a stack of books partially obscuring his face from Mycroft when he sat across from him. Sherlock didn't look up from his book and Mycroft said nothing, reading the book in Sherlock's hand in the reflection of his reading glasses before the silence got to the younger Holmes.

"You know if you wanted to read it you could ask me to borrow it?"

He chuckled at this and folded his hands in front of his mouth to lean on the table. Sherlock was growing agitated and uncomfortable.

"What have you come for Mycroft? Stop staring like that, people will talk."

Finally with a breathy snort he spoke.

"To invite you to a party, brother mine..."

Sherlock put his book down with a huff.

"I don't do parties, you know that."

"Ah but this is a special party."

"I don't care if it's special. If it's one you're attending it will be lifeless high society snobs who will pretend I'm not even in the room."

Mycroft gave him a look with a heavy sigh. In most circumstances he would be correct, but he disliked having Sherlock at those functions anyway because he always found a way to get into trouble.

"No. This time it's for charity. There's a masked fundraising ball and it promises a murder mystery for guests to solve."

"Oh please, I'd ruin it for everyone in under thirty seconds."

"I thought you liked using your skills to undermine the upperclass. Everyone who's anyone is invited. Six hundred euros a head. I've already paid for you. "

Sherlock scowled at him.

"Fine, but there's something i want from you in return."

"Sherlock for the last time i will not supply your habbit. Certainly not in front of such important people. "

Sherlock huffed and looked away.

"I will not participate in any activities. I will not speak to anyone. I will stand against the wall and hack into everyone's phones for sport."

"Please stop being a belligerent child Sherlock, there's a reason I want you there and you'll thank me later, I promise. "

"So when is this snore market happening? I must take my good suit to the cleaners."

"Tomorrow at seven. I'll pick you up."

"You make it sound like a date...is there a woman involved? I told you I'm not interested in anything but my grades. There's plenty of time if i don't choose to be a bachelor the rest of my life."

Mycroft stood with a smile.

"No Sherlock, there is no woman. Be ready at six thirty and please be presentable, the royal family will be in attendance and i don't want them to think the Holmes family are slobs."

"Right, messy hair and an undone bowtie it is, see you at six forty five."

Wordlessly he went back to his book and Mycroft left.

As he suspected, Sherlock was bored out of his mind waiting for something to happen of interest. Mycroft had disappeared, leaving him to his own devices. He wandered around, annoyed at the itchy mask he had chosen, wishing it would already be midnight so he could take it off.

Finally he retreated to a balcony. The sun was just setting, giving the sky a vibrant purple hue as the full moon rose over the estate. For just a moment he let his guard down and never heard the footsteps behind him and he barely registered the needle enter his arm before everything went black.

He woke with a pounding headache and the distant sound of screaming from above him. He started to try to get up but heard the click of a pistol as the cold metal was placed to his head. The room was dark and he was tied to a chair. hot breath came across his cheek and he recoiled at the smell.

“You’re not going anywhere until it’s safe.” Sherlock frowned. “For you or your boyfriend? Really murder is not the best way to start a relationship.” The shock could be felt in the uncomfortable silence. “How would you know?” Sherlock took a deep breath. “i recognized the two of you upstairs earlier. the longing glances between you from across the room, your body language bespoke of a very deep attachment. I know it was you because i felt nauseous when i bumped into you. your breath smells of cheap denture cream and even cheaper whiskey. Something you drink a lot of based on your complexion and the way you stand slightly off kilter.” He grunted as the gun was pressed harder into his temple. “Stop it!” But Sherlock continued. “if you were going to shoot me you’d have done so by now. you don’t know how to properly use a gun after all, which is why you sought out your lover to kill your wife for you. you planed this entire function to disguise the death of your wife, but you didn’t realize Mycroft was already onto you.” “I SAID SHUT UP!” Sherlock chuckled. “no, you said stop it, but i already told you i know you won’t shoot me because you haven't got the balls frankly. it’s okay because i’m going to clue you in on a little secret. you invited all these people to a fun raiser for your wife’s favorite charity and tried to disguise her death as a mystery. you’d have an air tight alibi and you and your secret lover could run off together to, where was it? Argentina? Ah yes, a beautiful place, wonderful area to start a new life together. on your retirement you could live like kings. You made the mistake of leaving the tickets in the drawer in your study. at first i didn’t think much of it, as i was simply bored, but then my brother and your boyfriend disappeared, likely upstairs. the gunshot was barely audible over the din of the crowd.” The man angrily kicked Sherlock. “you don’t know anything! you have no idea what you’re talking about!” Sherlock looked up as the door opened and Mycroft entered. “See, wasn’t this a fun party Sherlock? you got to solve an attempted murder.” “Attempted?!” Sherlock pulled his hands free and the ropes fell away. he untied his legs and stood as Mycroft put the man in cuffs. “yes brother, you win this time, it ended up being quite entertaining. you see Mycroft and I may not always get along but we compliment each other quite well in our honing of different skills. I can deduce someones recent history, activity, and habits simply by observing them. your wife knew you were going to have her killed and that is why she invited Myscroft. in turn, invited me as a distraction. you’re as terrible at knot tyeing as you are shooting a gun. i was out of that before you had that gun to my head. it wasn’t loaded by the way.” He looked up at Mycroft. “go on, tell us the rest.” Mycroft gave a soft chuckle and nodded. “I knew my brother would be able to deduce important information. it was a test of his skills. i also needed him to be a distraction from you following me upstairs. i only wounded him, but it was i who shot your lover, saving your wife from her fate. the screaming was the shock of him running into the ballroom trying to escape me. Lestrade is waiting for you upstairs. are you okay Sherlock?” Sherlock nodded and followed Mycroft.

Mycroft took him back to his dorm and closed the door behind them. it was now or never. Sherlock was in a good mood. He always tried to get Sherlock to smile. his entire body lit up when he was happy. the clocked chimed midnight and Sherlock chuckled. “goodness, i was so wrapped up in that drama that i forgot about this damned thing.” he looked up to see Mycroft staring. “Brother mine...” The whisper was soft as he removed his mask and tossed it onto Sherlocks bed with the other. Sherlock immediately caught his body language as the older Holmes stepped closer. “Mycroft? what is this...?!” his eyes widened as he was cut off, Mycrofts lips tenderly caressing his own. instantly he was confused. he was in part repulsed. This was his brother. But this kiss made him feel things he’d never felt for anyone else and he found himself closing the gap further, grabbing Mycroft’s hand. Mycroft wrapped his other arm around Sherlock’s waist and deepened the kiss until they both had to break for air. Without another word he turned and left, leaving Sherlock stunned and confused.

#holmescest #oneshot #i'm in love i can't help it #pls gimme prompts

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breanime · 6 years

Text

Neighbors

Requested by @slytheringranger: Reader gets annoyed (and maybe slightly jealous) because her cat starts running away to her new neighbour who usually keeps to himself (and who happens to be the one and only Billy Russo). Some additional info - of course I have to ask for good version of Billy, who's also scarred(because I am having a lot of feelings) because he tried to help Frank; and that's why Reader doesn't see him a lot. If plot allows it I would like also some guest appearance of Karen, Frank and Curtis visiting Billy.

Thanks for the request, I hope you like it! (Fun fact: I hate the title)

*gif not mine* (I had to use this one, I loved this moment)

It had been three weeks since your new neighbor had moved in and you still hadn’t met him. Normally that wouldn’t have mattered to you—it’s not like you really cared who had moved in down the hall from you, it was just… The guy was so…mysterious. He hadn’t even come to check the place out—you knew that because you had been home nursing your cat, Basil, back to health around the time your neighbor had started inquiring about the empty apartment. Instead, he sent three uniquely gorgeous people to look at it for him. In the process of the guy deciding to take the place, you ended up meeting all three of them.

The first one you met was called Curtis. He was ridiculously charming, with warm eyes and a kind smile that had you trusting him immediately. You had run into him in the lobby when he was trying to get up toy your floor. The visitor’s access code to the elevator wasn’t working, so you just punched yours in for him. He asked you questions about the apartment: how’d you like living there, what were the tenants like, how reliable was maintenance—so you thought he was looking at the property at first.

“Oh, nah,” he had laughed, “I’m just checking it out for a friend. He couldn’t make it today, so I’m just doing the leg work.”

“Oh,” you tried to hide your disappointment—Curtis seemed like he’d make for a good neighbor, “well, it’s a great place, people mostly keep to themselves…”

“Not you, though? Right?” He smiled down at you.

You laughed back. “I mean, I’m not gonna lie and say I’m a social butterfly,” you shrugged, “but I’ve been trapped in a house with a fussy cat for the last few days, so I’m kind of craving human conversation.”

“Well, maybe don’t count on my guy for that. He’s…” Curtis gave a one-shouldered shrug, looking a little disheartened before giving you another dazzling grin. “…not nearly as charming as me.”

“I bet.” You two stepped out of the elevator at the same time. Curtis had told you that he was waiting for the leasing agent to let him into the apartment, so you made the decision to stick around and make small talk until then. “Hopefully he’ll like it; it’s a nice place to live.”

“Maybe. He’s…” Curtis chuckled. “…kind of like your cat: fussy. My guy, he’s not like me…”

“Tall, dark, and handsome?” You asked before you could stop yourself.

Your word vomit was rewarded with another deep chuckle from Curtis. “I mean, my own girlfriend thinks he’s better-looking then me, so…”

“Can I just say, even though I just met you, it sounds like your girlfriend is living her best life?”

Another laugh. He opened his mouth to say something to you, but the elevator dinged, and the leasing agent stepped out. “Looks like the show’s about to start,” he said.

“It was nice meeting you, Curtis,” you extended your hand, “I hope your friend likes the apartment.”

“Same here, Y/N,” he shook your hand, grinning as he turned to greet the agent, “The apartment’s still in question, but…I know he’s gonna like you.”

That encounter had birthed your first surge of interest in your potential new neighbor, and you ended up meeting the other two unnecessarily good-looking people a few days later.

You had been at work all day, and you knew Basil—who was feeling better—would be meowing angrily at you for the rest of the evening. He hated tardiness. The elevator had been making a weird noise for the last 48 hours, and your landlord said he’d have the mechanic take a look at it soon, but you took it anyway. You were too tired to take the stairs, and besides, it was rare that anything broke in your building. You were just about to press your floor number when a feminine voice called out “hold the elevator!”.

You pressed yourself to the wall as an unreasonably gorgeous woman with light hair floated into the elevator. She smiled, thanking you, and you made some kind of squealing noise in response. She did not look like a real person; she looked like someone who should be playing a real person on TV or something. She was wearing a simple, powder blue button-up shirt with a black skirt and she still looked too good to be true. Her companion, however, you had definitely seen on TV.

Frank Castle was a household name in New York, but this was your first time ever seeing him in person (obviously). You had followed his trial, his subsequent death, then his rebirth as the Punisher up to his recent exploits exposing a government conspiracy. This was the first time you’d seen him without blood all over him, and man… The Punisher was actually kind of cute, he reminded you of a well-trained human pitbull. He was wearing a gray baseball cap that did nothing to disguise himself, but he got an A for effort. You made an effort not to stare, and the three of you stood silently as the elevator churned and started moving… Until it made a kind of choking noise, complete with flickering lights.

“What the hell?” Frank said, his voice gruff. All three of you stared up at the ceiling of the elevator until the lights stopped flickering and died out.

“No no no no,” you sighed, “son of a bitch.”

“Does this happen often?” The woman asked you, brows furrowed.

You shook your head. “No, this is the first time since I’ve lived here.”

“You think it’s a blackout?” She asked the Punisher.

“Nah,” he answered.

“It��s the elevator,” you supplied, “it’s been making this creaking noise for the last few days, and they said the mechanic would be here to take a look at it tomorrow,” you sighed, “and now it’s stuck.”

“Have you lived here long?” The woman asked.

You nodded. “Yeah, I—I haven’t seen you before. You must be looking at the empty apartment on my floor.”

“We are,” she put a delicate hand on her chest, “I’m Karen,” she placed her hand on the Punisher’s broad shoulder, “and this is Frank.”

“Y/N,” you replied, “and—don’t get me wrong, I think it’d be badass to have the Punisher down the hall from me—but you guys know it’s just a single, right?”

Frank laughed. “Thought I was doin’ alright being incognito.”

“Yeah, you… You are not,” you gave a nervous chuckle, “would it be weird to say that I’m kind of a fan?”

“It absolutely would not,” Karen said enthusiastically.

“This place,” Frank turned to you, a small smile on his face, “you said it’s a single? Does it have a decent amount of space, though?”

“Mm hmm,” you nodded, “all the units on my floor are single. I mean, it’s enough for me and my cat-son, but it might be a little small for a couple.”

“Oh—” you could see a rush of heat go to Karen’s cheeks, even in the dark, “—no, we’re…we’re not a couple.”

“Just friends.” Frank said simply.

“Plus we’re not looking,” Karen explained, “we’re just checking it out for a friend. We’re the last test before he buys it.”

“Huh. This is the second time I’ve met someone doing something like that. Is that a thing now? I’m always the last one to know about things.” You said, remembering Curtis.

“No,” Karen laughed, “we’re just doing our friend a favor. Our other friend—actually, he might be the one you met—was here before us.”

“You got a cat,” Frank asked you before turning to Karen, “she might be the cat lady Curt was tellin’ us about.”

“I only have one cat! …Currently.”

Frank chuckled. “Right.” He looked up at the ceiling. “I’m gonna go check this out.” With a grunt, he jumped up and crawled out of the roof of the elevator.

Your jaw dropped open as you stared at the now open roof, but Karen was unfazed.

“So our friend,” she continued, ignoring the grunting and ripping noises that were now coming from the roof, “served with Frank and Curtis in the Marines. He played a big part in helping Frank with…with what he needed to deal with, and he got hurt.” She pushed some hair behind her ear. “He’s kind of become a recluse since then, so… If he does decide to get this place, maybe… if you don’t mind, maybe just make a point to say hi to him or something? Make him feel welcome?”

“Of course,” you agreed easily, “any friend of Curtis is a friend of mine.”

You heard Frank laugh above you, and just like that—the elevator started up again. You rode the rest of the way with Karen and Frank before it got to your floor.

“Well, I hope you guys like the place,” you said as you parted ways, “and if your friend does take it, tell him I’m right down the hall if he needs anything!”

That had been three weeks ago. Apparently, the apartment passed the test because a few days later, Curtis stopped by your place to tell/warn you his friend had bought the property. Frank and Curtis helped the guy move in, but they only came at night. Basil, nosy as ever, had been so curious about the noise that he spent half the night at the door, scratching and meowing, trying to see what was going on. You saw your neighbor’s back—once—as you were coming in late at night. You heard Curtis’ laugh from the apartment—the door was open, and Frank was trying to roll a table through it.

“Hey, Y/N!” Frank greeted you.

“Hi, Frank,” you called back, pushing Basil back with your foot, “Hey, Curtis!”

“Hey!” Curtis’ voice was a bit muffled, but still as warm as it had been the day you met.

You wanted to talk with them, but Basil was doing that cat-thing where his body stopped following the laws of physics, so you needed to close the door before he ran out. He was a frisky little bastard. But, just as you were closing the door, you turned one last time and saw a tall, thin figure in the hall next to Frank. He had a dark hoodie on with the hood up and cut a striking figure—but that was all you saw before you had to shut the door.

A few days later, you were tempted to let your curiosity get the better of you. So, in the act of being neighborly, you decided to officially welcome tall-dark-and hooded to your building. You opened the door, still formulating your welcome speech, when Basil ran past you and sped down the hall.

“Basil!” You cried out. “Get back here!”

He, naturally, ignored your request and instead ran right to your neighbor’s door where he promptly started meowing loudly and scratching at the wood.

“Shit,” you muttered, tiptoeing over, “Basil, stop that, c’mere…” You got to the door and leaned down to pick him up. Basil jumped out of your grasp and ran his nails on the door harder. “Oh my—stop being an asshole,” you clicked your tongue. Basil meowed back at you—he had never been afraid to talk back—and you reached for him again. Just then, as you were crouched down on the floor arguing with a cat, the door swung open.

You first stared at the pair of feet—clad in pristine white gym shoes—before your gaze slowly moved up. He was wearing grey sweatpants over his long legs, a white t-shirt over his tight chest (not as broad as Frank’s or Curtis’ but still inviting), and his face… He was extremely handsome. He had impossibly dark eyes, short, brown hair, and a frown on his face. There were scars—light and zigzagged—but they didn’t detract from his natural good looks, nor stop you from oogling him. Basil meowed happily, glad to have gotten his way.

Your neighbor cocked an eyebrow as he looked down at the two of you. “…Can I help you?” He had a New York accent that made you tingle just a little bit.

You reached out for Basil, eyes still on your neighbor. Basil, however, was also trying to get a better look at the man and was rubbing his face against his leg, making satisfied little noises. “I—hi. Hi,” you stammered, arms outstretched, “I’m Y/N, I live right down the hall. I was just, um,” you finally looked down and saw that Basil was walking around the man now, in and out of the doorway. “Basil!” You hissed. “Get over here!”

“Ah,” the man said, reaching down to stroke Basil’s head, “so this is the cat I’ve been hearing about,” Basil craned his neck to get more scratches, “I’m Billy.”

“Him” you said again, “Um, look, Billy, I was just going to come say hi and then Basil ran out—”

“—right. I should have…introduced myself before now.”

“No, it’s no problem,” you scooped up Basil, who meowed in protest as you stood up, “sorry to bother you.” You were suddenly flustered at seeing Billy—the hottest of his group of unnecessarily hot friends—and needed to get away as soon as possible. “Let me know if he damaged your door,” you called to Billy before you disappeared into your apartment. You slammed the door closed with your back and cursed to yourself. Of course he was hot. Of course. You hated that you had been so awkward, and you vowed, with an armful of cat, to be cool the next time you saw him.

You were never cool when you saw him. Billy worked a lot, which meant he was in and out of the apartment quite a bit. You ran into him—literally—while he was getting on the elevator and you were getting off. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except you were on your phone having a heated debate with Basil (who had learned how to video-call you using your laptop).

“I swear to God, Basil, if you chewed up my couch again, I’ll—” you were stopped short when you slammed into Billy. You would have fallen on your ass at the impact—the man had a solid chest—but Billy held you steady.

He glanced down at your phone and laughed when he saw Basil’s face in the camera. “Are you facetiming your cat?” He asked.

You had never heard his laugh before. It was melodic and deep and you liked it a lot. You felt your face heat up, but answered him anyway. “He hacks my computer and calls me sometimes,” you explained, “sorry about,” you gestured between you. His hands were still on your waist.

Billy let you go and took a step back. “No problem.”

You gave him a weak wave and ran off, keeping the memory of his laugh in your heart.

The next time you saw him was late at night. You had just taken the trash out and were coming back into your apartment as he was going out. Basil had memorized the sound of Billy’s footsteps and had gotten into the habit of trying to run out into the hall whenever he knew Billy was out there. You ended up running into Billy at least five times a week as you had to chase after Basil. However, you almost never saw Billy this late at night. You watched, hand on your doorknob, as Billy knelt down to pet Basil. Basil, who took a year to even allow himself to be in the same room as your ex, happily allowed the interaction.

“Hey,” Billy had greeted you.

“Hi,” you said back, “You know, he’s not usually this friendly.”

Billy smiled, and you found yourself grinning back. “Neither am I.” His dark eyes roamed over your body before he spoke again. “You shouldn’t go out so late at night.”

“Oh. I was just taking out the trash—”

“I can do that,” he stood up and Basil nuzzled his leg, “Just knock on my door next time you need the trash taken out. It’s not a problem,” he assured you.

“Okay,” you said slowly, unsure how to react to this random kindness. Basil had padded back over to you, meowed at you to get moving, and went back inside. “Okay, thanks…good night.”

You continued to run into Billy on and off for the next few weeks. You learned that he had been in the Marines for over eight years in the elevator and that he owned a company called Anvil. He really did start taking out your trash, so you made it a point to grab his mail from the front desk for him and personally deliver it—which is how you learned that Frank, Curtis, and Karen were like family to him in an interestingly open conversation. You found out that Billy was born and raised in New York during one of Basil’s escape attempts, and later told him about the time you almost drowned on a field trip during another one. Each time you wished that you could see him more, talk with him more, but you were usually awkwardly chasing your cat around or looking very uncool as you tried to carry a huge package to his door, so you never pushed for more. Finally, you decided that the next time you left your apartment you would look good, you would be cool…

…The next time you saw him you did not look cool at all. You looked…very uncool. You were so swamped at work that you had to take it home to finish. Which lead to you having to stay up all night buried under paperwork with chopsticks in your hair. Basil was not amused with the lack of attention you were giving him, meowing and complaining so loudly that you had to kick him out of your bedroom. At some point you remembered that you needed food to survive, so you ordered food, nearly ripped the food out of the delivery guy’s arms, scarfed it down in a rush of limbs and noodles, and got back to work. You were really making headway with your work, which was why you were in no mood for company when you heard a knock on your door.

You yanked the door open, a scowl on your face—and froze. Your neighbor Billy was standing there holding Basil in his arms. He was wearing a suit and tie while you had on your old Hamilton shirt, chopsticks keeping your messy hair up, and a pair of mismatched socks.

“Your cat broke into my place again.” Billy said, smirking at your attire.

Your eyes widened. “I am so sorry—wait, again? What? How did he even get out?”

“I think he snuck out when you answered the door earlier,” Billy said, Basil was purring in his hold, “And he breaks into my place every few days,” he shrugged, unbothered, “I think he gets in the air vents and army crawls back and forth.”

“I—I am so sorry, I had no idea! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Billy gave another shrug. “I think we work different hours, I can never catch you. I always make sure he’s fed and gets home safe, though.” Basil nudged Billy’s hand with his nose in an affectionate gesture. “He’s a cute cat.”

“I think he likes you more than he likes me,” you grumped. “Um, really, Billy, I really am sorry about this. I’m usually more perceptive than this.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. If I’m being honest, I kind of like seeing him so often.”

You gave a nervous laugh. “Wish I could say the same for you.” You watched as Billy’s eyes widened at your statement and swore Basil was smirking at your stupidity. Only you would have a cat who liked home invasions and only you would have such a case of chronic foot-in-mouth disease. “Ohmygod,” you muttered, unsure of what to say next.

“You… You want to see me more often?” Billy asked. You were certain Basil was cocking an eyebrow as he waited for your response.

“I… I… I would not be opposed to that,” you said carefully.

Billy put a large hand on Basil’s head, contemplating. “You… You want to see me?” He asked again. “Like this?”

“Like what? Tall and hot and cool when I’m the opposite of all that?” You shrugged, letting your nervous energy steer the ship. “Yeah, man.”

Billy chuckled. He stroked Basil’s head. “No, I mean,” he swallowed, “I mean like this…with the scars.”

“Oh.” You scanned his face, taking in the different scars. They really weren’t that bad, and even if they were, you liked Billy. The scars didn’t matter. “I almost forgot you have them. I don’t even notice them anymore.”

Billy blinked, looking like he was carefully processing the words you said. “Hm,” he looked down at Basil and then back up at you, “So the scars don’t bother you at all?” He asked.

“No,” you answered honestly, “I think they make you look kind of badass.”

He smiled then, ducking his head down. “Okay…So, if I asked you for your number…?”

You grinned. “You can have it.”

“How about a date?”

You nodded, and Basil meowed in his arms. “You can have that, too. Actually,” you took a step back into your apartment, “I was kind of getting cabin fever just now. Wanna take a walk with me?” You pressed home your advantage. “We can take Basil.”

“Take a cat for a walk in New York City, at night, with a beautiful woman?” Billy asked, his smile blinding. “I’d love to.”

Basil made a pleased sound and you couldn’t help but giggle. He knew exactly what he had done. “Let me just get his leash and some shoes,” you said, hurrying to grab those items. Billy waited patiently, asking about what kind of restaurant you liked best as he cradled Basil in his arms.

Man, you loved having a cat.

*********************************************************************************

TAGLIST: : @floralpeaceofmind @delicatelilyflower @doneobrien @ladyblablabla @banditthewriter @something-tofightfor @starsfragments @blackcoffeeandgreenteaforme @hisgirlwednesdayaddams@fictionwillneverdie @maria-beretta @sadnessxvodka @ymariejp @sunnycolors @moonlightsay @its-all-o-kay @damagelove @keyeluh @itsmylife98 @funerals-with-cake @littlemermaidprobz @teacuplotus @king4thesirens @mrsjaxtellerfan @thebabblingbook @tartelette-aux-fraises @madamrogers @charlylama @iaintnofurry @k-buggz2001

This was kind of long, wasn’t it? Comments always appreciated!

#billy russo #billy russo x reader #billy russo imagine #the punisher

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yzssie · 6 years

Text

OCEAN EYES Pt. 4

Characters: Loki/Reader(Y/N)

Chapters: 4/7

Warnings: smut and smut (dominant Loki), mentions of self-harm, a little angst (added some fluff to compensate it)

Short summary: You find yourself in the midst of another attack by Loki, but little did both of you knew that things will get complicated, a strange attraction to each other will change everything.

Words: 2.9k

Disclaimer: I DO NOT ROMANTICIZE OR ENCOURAGE SELF HARMING! Mental health problems are very serious and real. If you have any struggles and you want to talk with someone, I am right here and I truly wish to help you!

A/N:

Late Valentine’s gift! Though it’s a chapter more, domestic to call it like that, the next one will be smutty /smirks/. Sorry for the cliffhanger T_T Trouble coming up? What do you think?

Please do tell me if I mistakenly added you to the Loki/Tom tag instead of “FANFIC GONE... GOOD?” or if you meant to be added on the general tag and I misunderstood you want only for the teacher au. I said I have only a general tag list, but then I had a lot of tag requests only for “FANFIC GONE... GOOD?” so I am a little bit disorganized. Please mention which tag you prefer (the specific fanfiction or the general one for Loki and Tom), or if you want to be changed or removed from the list! SEND ME A MESSAGE OR COMMENT! Thank you and sorry darlings!

Also, we are going to have the next chapter for “Fanfic Gone... Good?” next week, stay tuned! I wanted to make it slightly longer so I am currently thinking of expanding it in 3 chapters, that’s why I couldn’t double gift you this week! Thank you everyone for all the support, it means a lot to me!! SENDING LOTS OF LOKI LOVE! ❤ ❤ ❤

*part 7 is out, check Masterlist*

You eye him while he takes his seat again and notice that the food was left exactly how it was before you threw your little fit. You get rid of that memory and aim for more basic and calm conversation in order to make up for whatever you two fought off.

“So… what is this?” you point to a plate which looked delicious.

“It's a rolled pastry with beef, vegetables, some you don’t know because they're Asgardian and cheese?” his eyebrows furrow at his explanation. “It sounds terribly normal but I have to keep it simple for your Midgardian tastes.”

“I'm fine with everything honestly. And I would like to know more about this one,” you take a bite of the roll and your eyes widen. “It's so goooood,” you throw your head back and Loki can't help but smile shortly at your overreaction.

“Ok, I would actually like to know about everything here,” your eyes scan the table and a hint of pride can be seen in Loki's glimpse. He feels pleased with your own satisfaction.

“There will be enough time.”

You look at him and can't help but feel content at his remark. This has to mean something, he wouldn't keep you with him just to toy with you, right?

“I recommend this,” his golden magic shoves a plate in front of you and you smile.

“It's beautiful.”

“The dish? Well, I wouldn't call it beautif…”

“Your magic.”

He raises an eyebrow and you cough.

“I mean, the colours and the way it works. Better than that blue thingy you have on your scepter.”

The Tesseract? Have you just assumed his magic is better than a cosmic box combined with an Infinity Stone? He shakes his head in amusement at your statement and continues eating his food. Sure, he worked intensely on developing his magic skills while he was “dead” and he reached a point where he can be called one of the best sorcerers in the nine realms, yet he also analyzed the Space Stone and he indeed grasped a better hold on its power. He took his time giving the fact that he was hidden from everyone over the assumption of being dead, but, even if he still needs time to comprehend them, he wanted to show off his new powers. And what wouldn't be a better target than the planet he almost owned and the race that caused his mother to sacrifice herself?

His hatred is paused by another satisfied sound escaping on your lips when you bring a piece of cake in your mouth.

“What did I tell you about…”

“I am sorry but I usually don't eat a lot. And since I wanted this cake so much I should refrain from eating much of a meal before it. You know, counting calories and macros, I bet you don't worry about getting weight and so on. Trivial things for a God right?”

“My strength requires a lot of replenishment.”

“Obviously,” you take another bite.

“I would much prefer you to be as replenished as I am than starving for such an idiotic human goal.”

You roll your eyes and take a bite from another cake.

“You know Loki, life on Earth is really hard. I mean, you underestimate the hardships a Midgardian goes through.”

“Is this why you hurt yourself?” he asks and you stop your fork from getting another piece of cake.

You're afraid to reach this subject with anyone, moreover with the God of Mischief.

“Let's make a deal,” his voice interrupts your thoughts but you still don't raise your head to meet his eyes, “You answer a question I ask and I will also answer one of yours.”

You finally look up at him and chew on your lip.

“I assure you that I can get all the information I need with only a touch, so you should be thankful that I am feeling a little bit… generous today.”

“Ok…” your fingers are starting to fiddle with the fabric of your robe and wait for him to start.

“Why did you self-harm?” the question sucks all the air from your chest and you gulp.

“Life,” the word barely escaped from your lips with a choke.

“You're testing my patience.”

“I'm sorry…” you whisper.

“What exactly in your life made you do that?”

Silence.

“Well, I did warn you,” his body vanishes and by the next second your back meets his chest, one hand wraps around your stomach and the other one sticks to your forehead. You feel a weird pressure trying to get in your head and you lean on Loki's shoulder when your memories start to project in your mind. From high school when comments about your appearance made you starve yourself, to college when you felt useless, stupid and hopeless, to your boring work life. The times your heart broke because of failed relationships, the times you felt your existence a failure to your parents and friends. Nights you barely slept, anxiety attacks, moments you let your blood flood the sink, scenarios on how you could just end your life… he watched everything. You pant when the memories stop and struggle to get away from his grasp.

“No…” a muffled sound meets his neck and he does something you both get surprised of: he hugs you tightly, warmness from his body taking over your, making you totally give in.

“Stop,” his voice is stern and you do as you're told. “I would have done it anyway, sooner or later.”

You lay in his hold absent-minded, realizing that he knows everything now. You are ashamed, embarrassed, you never told anyone details about your depression.

“I am… not exactly proud that I invaded your privacy in this forceful way and pained you by reminding of those…”

“You mean that you're sorry?” you would have laughed at his attempt to avoid this word if you weren't in the given situation.

“I do…” there's a long break and then a soft whisper, “Apologize.”

He would have never said that to a mere mortal. But he can almost feel all your misery radiating through your delicate frame. He now concluded how easily to break you are, not just physically but also mentally. There was a slight panic in his chest when he blood on your skin. He now has second thoughts on this whole matter. At first, he didn't mind breaking you, wrecking you, that was his plan, but now it’s different. Why? He keeps questioning his actions. Why? You're messing his plans, his… crave for power and domination.

“Well…” you shift awkwardly.

He clears his throat and let's go of you, even if the absence of your touch makes him sigh.

“I guess this didn't work as I wanted,” you sit back in your chair and drink a glass of wine to bear with another awkward exchange.

“Let's say I would prefer you not to drink a lot, it doesn't seem like you can handle alcohol,” his hand pushes the glass away. “I will answer some of your questions if you behave.”

You look at him standing to your left and search his eyes. God, how can someone have such a beautiful pair of eyes? The blue irises are like an unknown yet mysterious place that fascinates you, wishing you would never stop falling into their profoundness even if you know it’s dangerous.

“You're staring.”

“Oh, yes,” you break the eye contact. “So, we're in Asgard.”

He nods.

Great. You've been drifted to another realm, though it sounds tempting to explore.

“Probably somewhere pretty far from the palace you're supposed to be at.”

He nods again and sits on the chair near you, prepared for more nonverbal replies.

“What happened to you after the…” you pause, “Avengers crash and so on?”

“Nothing special. Imprisoned and then,” he takes his time to think the answer, “Freed by the oaf of my brother.”

“And what have you been up to?”

“Studying magic and getting stronger.”

“For?”

Good question. He wanted to attack Earth again, revenge his mother’s death but now everything seemed stupid in your company. But why? You are nothing but a mortal, as Thor's lover is. He somehow understands why his brother was so protective of Jane when the dark elves approached. But his mother… Did she also feel as Thor felt? As he still feels now? When she sacrificed herself for a mortal? Was it for Thor's happiness?

Of course, the mighty real son of Odin and Frigga.

No.

He wants to hit himself for a moment that he actually assumed his mother didn't care as much for him as she did for Thor. She was the only one, the only person in his life who truly loved him.

“You…” he snaps.

“For me?” your face contorts in bewilderment.

“No. What's it with you? Is this a trick? Are you sent by one of my enemies? By Father?” he jolts, hitting the chair on the floor and you yelp. “Tell me,” he grabs your chin threateningly.

“Loki… you took me here.”

“Yes, yes I did! Because there is something about you, something that attracts me. Did he cast some spell on you?”

“Loki please, calm down.”

“Calm down?! You dare to inflict me with your affection? Affection? For whom? For what reason?” he’s screaming now and you're shaking at his outburst.

“I'm…” your lip quivers but no words are coming out.

“You're what?” his fist pounds the table.

“Understanding you,” you finally manage to respond, making him frown.

“I know how you feel. You're misunderstood because of your actions. But those actions were simply a reflection of the pain you're going through.”

He laughs ironically, “Understand me? You?”

“I was in New York when you fought with the Avengers. And I saw… your eyes. It was for a couple of seconds while Thor evacuated the building. And I just… felt it… knew it from your eyes.”

“You're completely stupid.”

“Meeting you twice… I will not call it destiny, merely a chance to…”

“To?” his tone is low.

“Know your true self. I know it sounds crazy, who do I think I am? You're a God, I'm a very non-significant human, more non-significant as usual people are. I don't know, to be honest, I am also clueless about my actions towards you. They're just led by… my inexplicable feelings.”

“Feelings?” a strangled sound comes from his throat. “For someone who almost killed you? For a monster like me?” his pale skin changes to blue and the ocean you adore becomes crimson.

So that's how a Frost Giant looks. Nobody from Earth seems to be aware of Loki’s true identity except you. When you were hiding under an office for safety while Thor was fighting Loki, you overheard the small conversation between them, including Loki stating that he's a Frost Giant, a species which they both hated. Your eyes follow the lighter blue stripes on his face and can't help to trace them with your fingers.

Loki's eyes widen and for a moment he leans in to feel your touch but hastily grabs your wrists to stop you.

“I will freeze you.”

You chuckle. “In case you haven't observed, my body’s temperature is literally 15 Celsius degrees.”

He is not amused by your joke and your lips tighten.

“Ok… it was not appropriate for this mome…” your words stop when Loki's hands wrap around your waist and his head rest on your stomach, his Frost Giant form gradually disappears. Unsure about how your movements could push him away, you hesitantly bury your fingers into his hair and gently play with his long black curls.

Your scent is taunting him, you feel like… a place where he'll always be welcomed back whatever happens, a place that waits for him, longs for him... You feel like home.

“You are not to discuss about this moment,” his voice is muffled in your embrace and you smile.

“Of course I am not,” you roll your eyes. “What will happen to your enormously evil reputation if words are out about cuddling with such a weak Midgardian?” you massage his scalp and he hums in approval.

“Can you show me around?” you mumble while you're still stroking his hair.

“Why would you give up your life to accompany someone like me?” he ignores your question and you take some minutes to finally respond.

“Because I have pretty weird standards as you might have already noticed.”

“Indeed,” he agrees and lets go of you. His hand tangles in your hair and pushes your lips onto his, gently tugging on your lower one. His hands travel to your thighs, your muscles tense at his touch. He grabs and wraps them around his waist, jolting you up on the table. Your arms tug his leather blouse, while the kiss is getting sloppy, slow, as if he has to retrace a lost map. His tongue is looking for yours which gladly joins his dance for dominance. You thought this kiss will steal your soul, you have never been kissed like this before, needy but in the same time steady, passionate. His fingers brush your back and you shiver in his arms, moment which he breaks the kiss.

“It's not entirely safe to do so… but take a quick shower and I will show you around,” he grazes his fingers on your right thigh. “A quick one.”

You nod and storm for the bathroom while Loki grins stupidly at your excitement.

What did I get into?

After what lasted like 10 minutes you return to the dining room where Loki sits on the couch, reading a book.

“What are these clothes Loki? Renaissance times much?”

“Those are Asgardian clothes.” He takes a glimpse at your figure and his gaze drops on your revealing shoulders marked by his bites. You squirm uncomfortably under his stare and he stands up.

“You would have to stay near me and don't touch anything or speak to anyone, understood?”

You nod as he grabs your waist and your body feels weightless for some seconds before a weird sensation hits you and you hold onto his shoulders strongly. Your eyes shut close and your breath stops while his arms are now rubbing your back.

“We’re here,” he states and your legs go jelly but he holds you in place. “Breathe.”

He has just teleported the both of you in an Asgardian square but your body is not adjusting really well to his magic.

“I might throw up,” you gasp but a sudden warmth envelops your chest and you instantly feel better.

Did he just use his magic to make me feel better? Oh God, I'm starting to like him more than I already do.

“This is an Asgardian square, though it is not as fancy as it is in the center. We’re in a very reserved place in the mountains.”

You glance at him and gape at his changed appearance.

He rolls his eyes at your reaction, “I cannot be seen here, especially with someone like you.”

His features could be still seen slightly due to his blue haunting eyes which remained the same but he now he has shorter curly copper hair and a beard. His face is less visible from the black leather hood he wears.

“So are we shopping?” you smile widely while you take in the surroundings.

He grabs your hand and drags you back, almost sticking your body to his.

“There are some people here who can feel if someone is not Asgardian.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“They might be. My magic is covering your smell but I would prefer you close.”

You ignore his death stare and return your attention to the blue decorated stands with different objects. The sellers are wearing simple brown and beige clothes. You wouldn't know that they're Asgardians if you weren't on another planet.

“I actually do need some things like make-up? Skincare products? Comfy clothes?”

“I much prefer you naked, body and face.”

You roll his eyes and he tilts his head.

“Did you just…?”

“So if you can transport things,” you interrupt him, “Can't you like have a short trip to Earth and steal a Chanel make-up stand? Or a…”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I was just trying. I mean… since you would do this, at least let it be something expensive.”

“Choose whatever you want from here.”

“Loki… I have no idea what these are… what language is this?”

“Give her whatever she needs.” his gaze fixes the seller and a green glow flashes in her eyes.

“Of course, your majesty.”

Did he just cast a spell on her? Her mind-controlled gaze fixes on your face as she studies it. She quickly packs a few bottles in a box and she handles it to Loki.

“Let's leave.”

“Well if you can steal from a merchant in the square I assume you can do the same to a whole line of cosmetics which probably gains 100.000 times more than this woman.”

“Your tone pet, you better lower it and stop complaining,” he groans and grabs your waist to crash your body into his. For a moment you thought he would kiss you but it appears he’s sensing something and checks his surroundings from the underneath of his hood.

“Loki?”

“We’re getting out of here, now!”

Taglist opened (please mention which tag you prefer):

Loki/Tom Hiddleston tag: @drakesfiance , @cutiepotpie177 , @brokenthelovely , @heart-shaped-hell , @ultrailoveharrystylesblog, @mooncrow123 , @screw-real-life-i-pick-fandoms , @powerstrangerdacre , @darkprincessloki92 , @abrunettefangirlnerd , @little-moonbeam-666 , @youreawizardjulie , @writingmi , @lokislilslut , @abelstnbhd , @januarycalendargirl , @yuna-belikova @joyofbebbanburg , @timevortexheart , @captainrainbowpanda , @thesisterofthedevil , @unlikelytigerqueen , @loreleyfromouterspace , @bitchwhytho

*crossed username means I cannot tag you for some reason :( *

#loki fanfiction #loki odinson #loki laufeyson #loki x reader #loki fanfic #loki #loki fic #loki marvel #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fanfic #tom hiddleston fic #tom hiddleston fanfiction #marvel #thor #loki smut #loki imagine

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