#and i looked at her in that little cage. all raised hackles and curled lip and sad sad eyes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sourwolphs · 3 years

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Like an Animal - Bucky x Reader (6/8)

Read on Ao3 (for better interface + formatting)

Summary: Reader is an enhanced Omega kidnapped by Hydra and trapped in a cell with Alpha Bucky Barnes. Tags: A/B/O, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending Warnings: Rated M, Self-hating inner dialogue A/N: I ended up writing this chapter from both Reader's and Bucky's perspective because I couldn't choose between them, and had to puzzle piece my favorite parts together.

A few hours after Steve left, Bucky found himself dozing slightly on the couch in his dark living room. He’d long abandoned his book on the side table, leaving an old black and white rerun of The Lone Ranger on mute on the TV, flashing light across his stretched out form.

When he’d first come back to the compound, before Shuri had removed the words from his brain in Wakanda, he’d spend many nights outside of his body, doing nothing just like this— the sound of the TV too overstimulating, words on the page swimming away from comprehension, unable to focus on anyone or anything for long. Instead, he’d just sit and drift, letting his mind go blank. Sam had called it “disassociating”— whatever the fuck that means. He hadn’t been like this in a few years— this out of himself— not after Wakandan’s powerful therapies helped him escape some of the more acute terrors of his brain.

He was startled out of his state by a soft knock on the door. He felt a flash of irritation at Steve’s overprotectiveness, before his hackles raised as he scented Y/N of all people faintly through the door. He jumped up in a panic from the couch, his socked feet silent on the floor as his eyes took a rapid inventory of his apartment. There was a sweaty pile of gym clothes on the other side of the couch that he first hurled into his closet. Then, he flicked on the lamp and the soft kitchen light, quickly looped his fingers through a few mugs cluttering the coffee table, and dropped them in the sink before he approached the door.

Without allowing himself to think too hard about why she was here— Did she figure out the gifts? — or take a deep breath— he opened the door.

Despite his held breath, her scent hit him all at once— a rush of spicy-sweet peppermint, the crisp, clean smell of snowfall— strong enough with its source right in front of him that it burned his nose a bit on the inhale. Bucky swore his heart skipped several beats.

She was dressed in a cozy-looking, quarter zip pullover and a comfortable pair of black joggers, just like the kind that Nat wears— functional, clean lines, hugging her form in all the right places. Her hair was slightly mussed, as if she’d just gotten up from the couch after a nap. It was so cozy, so domestic, it made his heart ache with renewed want. But underneath her sweet peppermint smell lay the warm and familiar newspaper-ink scent of Steve. Paired with her cozy, slightly disheveled state, it was as if she had just extricated herself from his arms to show up at Bucky’s door.

Bucky’s inner Alpha fought between roaring in possessive rage and wilting in cowed rejection, but he forced his expression into careful neutrality.

They stared at each other for a moment, neither speaking. Her facial expression looked stricken, and Bucky realized how weird he was being. He’d puffed out his chest without noticing— all Alpha instinct and posturing at the whiff of Steve’s scent— and he quickly readjusted, folding his form into a more relaxed lean against the door.

What do you say to the gorgeous Omega you violated, avoided for a month, and then left creepy gifts to when she shows up at your door at 10pm? Before he could mumble out something to break the awkward silence, she interrupted the panicked swirl of his thoughts.

“Hi,” she said. Her voice was high and tight, like she was trying not to inhale. Even Steve had said his apartment smelled. He felt shame curl tight in his gut, and he had to stop himself from closing the door to shut himself and his depressing stench away. “I’m sorry, I came here to talk to you about something, but I’m feeling kind of— dizzy?” Y/N’s expression looked dazed, and she started to sway a little on her feet.

Bucky’s Alpha instincts immediately kicked into overdrive, urging him to scoop her into his arms, hold her tight, snuggle her into his den until she was healthy and clear-headed. But now that she was here, the rational part of his brain was much more terrified at the possibility of scaring her off. Act. Normal.

“Do you want to sit down?” he said, swallowing hard as he opened his door further. Inviting an unbonded Omega into an Alpha’s den was toeing the line of socially acceptable— at least when he was growing up in the 30s— but she didn’t seem fazed by the invitation, nodding and slipping inside. He gestured towards the couch, giving her a wide enough berth that she wouldn’t feel caged in— surrounded by his scent as she was— and she chose to sit in the same, still-warm spot where he’d just been lying, sinking back into the couch cushions. Bucky felt equally satisfied and pained at the thought that her smell would cling to his favorite spot for weeks. He plopped across from her in the armchair where Steve had been just hours before, aiming for nonchalance.

“Sorry,” she said again, waving her hand next to her head. “I think I’m just… overtired or something.” She yawned, kitten-like. His Alpha roared inside him, fingers twitching with the urge to reach out, to touch, but he held himself perfectly still.

“It’s okay,” he said. “So…” He trailed off, clearing his throat awkwardly. Bucky Barnes, ladies and gentleman. God, he was a fucking loser.

Y/N took a deep, steadying breath, bracing her hands on her thighs. “I came here to apologize.”

——-

After the movie ended and Sam finished showing us 6 deleted scenes and 10 YouTube interviews, I finally slipped quietly out of my new blanket nest and away from the steadying comfort of the Alpha-Omega sandwich. I paced for a bit in the hallway outside Bucky’s room, gearing myself up for what would likely be an awkward confrontation with a man I knew well intimately but hardly personally. As much as I’d like for him to sweep me off my feet and into the safety and comfort of his den, he’d probably tell me I was delusional and that he was avoiding me because he wanted to be left alone. That’s why I figured it was probably best to start with an apology.

What I did not prepare for during my anxious pacing was the overwhelming Alpha scent that washed over me the minute he opened the door. It was like getting hit in the face by a truck full off pheromones designed specifically to reduce me to a shivering, keening puddle on the floor. Every clever thing I planned to say flew right out the window as I swayed under the strength of his gaze and the delicious cedar wood and bonfire scent that curled around me.

Inside his apartment wasn’t any better. I should have asked to meet on neutral ground, I thought immediately after stepping through the door. Everywhere smelled like him. Even the couch underneath me was still warm from where he was probably curled up before I’d interrupted. It took all my strength to quiet the dizzying rush of hormones in my head, breathe in deeply through my mouth, and spit out what I came here to say.

“I came here to apologize,” I said, gulping down the ridiculous, submissive words my hindbrain wanted to follow up with. I’m so sorry, Alpha. It wasn’t my fault. I can be better for you.

Bucky looked… confused. “Apologize?”

“Yes. Apologize,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat up with embarrassment. “I know we… did what we had to do. When we were trapped. And I’m sorry that I… reacted the way I did. I know heats are really intense. For everyone. I know I made you uncomfortable, and you probably don’t want anything to do with me.” I paused again, biting hard on my lower lip as my stomach roiled with embarrassment. I looked down at my lap, where I was digging my fingers hard into my thighs, and forced out the last few words. “But I couldn’t help it. And I’m sorry I went into heat. I think it was the purring. I’ve… never felt that. Before.”

I didn’t look up from my lap at first, wincing internally. Bucky’s silence after my lousy attempt at an apology hurt worse than anything so far. The least he could do is acknowledge that it wasn’t my fault.

I took a shaky inhale, and felt a lump build up in my throat. Goddamnit. Don’t fucking cry. Not now.

“I— This was a mistake,” I said, sniffling hard and willing the tears rapidly welling up in my eyes not to fall. I finally looked up from my lap, bracing myself to stand and backtrack the hell out of here, when I simultaneously saw the look on Bucky’s face and caught the scent of absolutely devastatedAlpha.

“Don’t leave,” he said, voice deep and rough, on the edge of an Alpha command. I froze instantly, though it wasn’t because he’d compelled me to. Alpha commands only worked on their bonded Omegas and their offspring.

No, I froze because Bucky looked… heartbroken. It was the only time I’d seen an ounce of vulnerability on his face, besides that moment in the cell when he’d first realized he was falling into a chemically-induced rut. My eyes flicked down to where his metal hand was fisted so hard in the arm of his chair that the seams were starting to rip.

Before I could blink it away, I felt one unruly tear slip down my cheek, though my own shame and embarrassment had taken a backseat once I’d recognized Bucky’s distress.

“I— Fuck,” he said. Faster than I could register, Bucky heaved himself forward, sinking down onto his knees on the floor in front of me, hands clutching at the couch cushions on either side of my thighs. Our eyes locked, and I lost myself in twin pools of grey-blue. His scent burned on my next inhale, sharp and distressed, the sour stench of guilt that lingered in the corners of his apartment.

“Why are you apologizing?” Bucky’s voice was a breathy, raspy growl. It sent a thrill up my spine, and for a moment, I didn’t register that he’d asked me a question. This close, I could feel the heat of his skin, see the stubble on his jaw, scent that delicious smell of him— like snowmelt, like the wind on your face, like a deep inhale at the summit of a mountain…

Bucky broke his gaze first, growling low and dark in his chest. “I should be the one apologizing. I should have already. But I—“ He cut himself off, lip curling in disgust as he leaned away from me. I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my chest. Alpha doesn’t want you.

I inhaled hard, suppressing a sob, feeling more hot tears run down my cheeks.

I needed to leave. Now. I wasn’t in control of my emotions. This was embarrassing. “Clingy Omega sobs in disinterested Alpha’s apartment.” What would the pack think of me?

I moved to stand up again, but the low-grade growl in Bucky’s chest sharpened, and he lurched forward, crowding me back against the couch cushions.

Before I could even register the aggression in his action, or even think to be fearful of him, Bucky had already leaned back out of my space and silenced his growl.

“Fuck! Sorry— I’m. Sorry. Don’t leave yet. I won’t—“ He cut himself off again, shaking his head in frustration, before standing up to put more distance between us again, moving to lean on the back of the armchair across from me with his head in his hands. He took a deep, steadying breath before speaking again. “I should be the one apologizing. Because I… hurt you. I told you that you were safe. And you weren’t. Not from me.”

When he looked up to meet my gaze, his expression looked tortured, but his scent was worse— ashy and acidic, hatred and guilt. Guilt? Why was he…

I swiped hurriedly at the tears on my cheeks, feeling the lump in my throat clear as confusion and exasperation took over.

“What are you talking about? I’m perfectly fine,” I huffed. Well, as fine as one can be when they’re pining over an Alpha who can’t stand to be in the same room as them. Maybe he feels guilty about Hydra restraining me? That’s the only logical explanation I could think of.

“Tony got the cuffs off right when I got back here, it’s not like you could have removed them. They were Terrigen crystal.” I shook my head, and once again moved to stand and leave as the futility of this conversation dawned on me. “Whatever. I’ll just go.”

This time, I got in a few steps towards the door before that low growl started up again and he caught my wrist in his right hand.

I should have been terrified. I should have been running for my life. I should have frozen him into the floor. I was an unbonded Omega in a growling Alpha’s den, soaked in a combination of our distressed pheromones, held in his grasp and unable to leave.

But despite all the reasons I had to roll over and bare my throat in fearful submission, absolutely no part of me felt scared or unsafe.

Bucky’s hand on my wrist was gentle. Not holding me back, but pleading for me to stay. And the feel of his skin on mine made something hot, desperate and dark curl within me.

His voice was rough when he spoke again, my back still turned half away from him. “In that cell. I… forced myself on you. You trusted me enough to fall into a heat, and I took advantage. You shouldn’t be apologizing, because you should hate me.”

When I turned back around, the raw expression on his face made my stomach lurch. He looked… devastated. Ashamed. Vulnerable. Afraid.

Feeling hysterical, I couldn’t help a little nervous giggle from bubbling up in my throat.

All this time, this big, dumb, handsome, superhero Alpha had really thought he’d violated me in some way. Me. The Omega who had practically rubbed her entire body in his scent, who had stayed up for hours yearning for his Alpha purr, who’d had sex dreams about him dirty enough to make a pornstar shudder.

“Are you fucking with me?” I said.

Bucky frowned earnestly. “No… I—“

“So you’ve been leaving me secret gifts because you felt… guilty?” I said, knowing I was putting him on the spot. Something about being in his presence, in his den, was making me bold— finally giving in after a month of exasperation, of chest-aching pain.

Bucky’s eyes widened, and he had the sense to look a bit sheepish, dropping my wrist from where his hand still encircled it. “Uh. It wasn’t—I was just— I’ll stop if you—“ he said, stumbling over his words.

His nervousness, I noted absurdly, was charming.

That’s when I suddenly realized that here, surrounded by Bucky’s scent, close enough to touch, I felt lighter than I had in over a month. The dull ache in my chest had lifted, and in its place, all I felt was an incredible sense of rightness.

Comfort Alpha, my Omega murmured, crawling back up from the recesses of my brain where I’d shoved her away earlier.

And, well, I was tired of fighting her. Fuck it.

“Bucky,” I laughed, cutting off his sputtering. “You— You didn’t force anything on me. We were both out of our minds. Hell— I’m still out of my mind! I’ve been pining over you for a month. My fucking chest,” I said, reaching up to worry at my sternum where the pain had been centered.

“You— What?”

————

As soon as Y/N had settled into the couch, and Bucky’s inner Alpha had registered that she was within reach, soaked in his scent and looking gorgeous and vulnerable, he’d lost it a little.

First— confusingly— she had started apologizing. Then in just a few, rapidly devolving moments, he’d (1) made her scent spike with anger and sadness, (2) watched helplessly as tears clumped in her eyelashes and tracked down her smooth cheeks, and (3) acted like a territorial knotheadwhen she’d tried to leave— as if he hadn’t fucked things up enough.

And now she was… confessing her feelings for him?

That couldn’t be right.

“You— What?”

Bucky recognized that absolutely no part of this conversation had demonstrated his intelligence. He was actually starting to think maybe the serum had given him early onset dementia.

He took a step closer to her, knowing he was pushing it by crowding the Omega in his own territory, but too overwhelmed to care. “But… What about Steve?” he asked. Just being within feet of her, he could smell the newspaper ink scent of his best friend still lingering on her clothes.

Y/N quirked her head. “What about him?” She lifted her arm to take a sniff at her shoulder, seeming to scent what remained of him on her pullover.

Bucky bit hard on the inside of his cheek, fighting a scowl. He wasn’t that dumb. “You two are… you know,” he started, shrugging to hide the hurt. “Together.”

An amused smirk tugged at her lips. “What, did you think I was canoodling with Wanda and Sam as well? The whole pack? Because I smell like all of them, too.”

And, well, yes. This close, Bucky could pick up Wanda’s muted cinnamon smell, Sam’s citrus scent, and even a splash of rosewater from Nat.

Then, Bucky noticed that Y/N’s hand was still worrying at her sternum. In the very same spot where he’d practically rubbed holes in his own shirts over the past month. He matched the motion dazedly, reaching up to place his palm over his own chest. That same nagging thought that had dogged him for weeks in the Brooklyn apartment fought back to the forefront of his mind. Bond withdrawal.

“You feel it too?” he said, his words coming out softer than he’d intended, disbelief coloring his tone.

Bucky watched as her snarky expression melted away, eyes turning serious and contemplative. She took a step forward, now so close that they were breathing the same air, and nodded resolutely.“All day. Every day. Aching. And—” She paused, a fierce blush rising on her cheeks. “Your… purr. I feel like I nee—“

Before his higher functions could process the words coming from her lips, Bucky’s hindbrain took control of his body. He crowded Y/N back into the wall behind them, his arms on either side of her head as he leaned in to take a deep, desperate lungful right at the scent glands on her neck. She tipped her head back instantly, baring her throat to him and letting out a breathy moan that sent his head spinning, her sweet peppermint scent coursing through his veins like the best drug.

In the morning, maybe, he’d regret this.

But right here, right now? Omega really wants him. Fucking finally.

The sight of her bared throat made his Alpha wild with need— the same trusting submission he thought he had abused before, now presented to him without abandon. He replaced his nose on her neck with his lips and tongue, and her body arched against his, their hips lining up. She keened softly, and his cock thickened in his pants, forcing him to bite back a gratified growl as he ran his nose up and down the column of her throat. Her scent was changing, taking on an earthy, musky note, like fallen leaves and wet moss. Arousal. He felt his mouth water, and he could scent his own aroused pheromones filling the air, mixing with hers.

Was he dreaming? This couldn’t be real. He didn’t deserve this— her trust, her want, her body beneath him.

But Bucky’s inner Alpha was crowing. The feel of her against him, her scent lighting his body on fire from the inside out— it stirred up the deepest, darkest, most possessive Alpha instincts buried deep within. Not Steve’s. Mine. My Omega.

Y/N snaked a hand up his chest, pressing her cool palm to the side of his face and nudging his gaze up to meet hers. Her pupils were blown wide, plush lower lip pulled between her teeth— almost shy. The look shook Bucky out of his mindless Alpha stupor. He had to be sure. Because once he was…

He pulled back slightly so she could breathe. “Is this— Do you want this?” he asked, voice rough with need.

“Yes.”

———

The moment the word slipped from my lips, Bucky finally let go of the tight restraint holding himself back. I knew he was desperate before, when he had his nose buried in my neck. And I could smell the musky, warm flannel scent of his arousal in the air— feel the hard evidence of it against my hip.

But as soon as I’d finally, finally convinced this stupid, perfect, frustratingly dense Alpha that this was what I wanted— what I had wanted from the start— he let out a mind-numbing growl that made my knees go weak and shaky.

Though I was at first anticipating a rough and frenzied claiming— especially after a month of needless separation— I supposed that with Bucky’s extreme handle on his inner Alpha, it would be anything but. And I was right.

His lips were surprisingly gentle where they met mine, but insistent, commanding as he opened my mouth against his, stubble scraping at my cheek. I did my best to match his intensity, kissing back with everything I had, trying hard to communicate with more than words what he hadn’t let himself believe. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me closer to him, and before I could prepare myself, he scooped me up into his arms like I weighed nothing and headed towards the couch.

“No, bed,” I gasped, tearing my lips away from his for a moment. Bucky honest-to-god whined, changing course immediately to carry me further into his den, kicking his bedroom door closed behind him as we entered the space where his scent was thickest. In the low light, I could make out dark furniture and a large bed, which he settled me gently in the middle of, sheets and blankets a delicious, cedar-scented tangle around me. I could feel my heartbeat pick up, arousal thrumming through every nerve ending in my body, slick between my legs coming embarrassingly fast as my Omega prepared for the Alpha my body desperately craved.

He hesitated for a moment once I was settled, hovering his body above mine, and I could see the glint of his steely eyes tracing down my form. I knew I didn’t look the sexiest in my cozy clothes, and I squirmed uncomfortably underneath his scrutiny, letting out my own indignant whine.

He chuckled— a dark, Alpha sound, then sat back a bit on his haunches to free his hands so that he could trace them down the curve of my sides. He stopped at the hem of my pullover, eyes flicking to meet mine. I nodded, sitting up a bit to let him pull it over my head, taking my bra with it. Once it was off, he hurled it dramatically into the furthest corner of the room, taking the pack’s scent with it. I couldn’t help but laugh at his possessive posturing, before I caught the intense look on his face as his eyes roved over my bare chest and stomach, drinking me in like he was afraid to break the spell by touching.

Goosebumps pebbled the skin of my arms, though not from cold. I reached up to pull him down closer to me, and I could feel him trembling— still holding himself back.

“Bucky,” I pleaded, arching up my lower half to press my core against his leg. He remained still, flesh and metal hands holding my waist firmly in his grasp. “Alpha,” I tried.

That worked.

With a choked-out growl, Bucky surged up against me, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses from my mouth, down my neck, across my scent glands and to my chest, where he sucked and laved at my sensitive nipples.

“Fucking perfect, Omega,” he breathed, sounding pained. “Smell so good. Like you were made for me. Unbelievable.”

I whined in response, each inhale taking in more of his heady scent, making my head swim. He kissed a hot path from my chest down my belly, nosing at my hip and the waistband of my pants. “Didn’t think you wanted this, doll. Not with me,” he said, flesh hand gripping my side hard enough to bruise. My Omega thrilled at the idea of a mark left behind. Down, girl.

He hesitated at the drawstring of my joggers, his eyes flicking up to meet mine. “Can I make you feel good, Omega?” he panted, mouth slack and plush lips wet. I hitched in a breath at the sight of him, feeling punch-drunk and so overwhelmingly turned on I had to fight the urge to close my eyes. I nodded my consent, but reached out to tug at the shoulder of his shirt first, which he ripped over his head with one hand to reveal the sculpted, shadowy planes of chest. The hard lines of him looked like they were cut from steel. Jesus Christ.

“Please,” I pleaded again, canting up my hips, and he rumbled in response, dragging down my pants and underwear in one smooth glide down my legs. I tightened my thighs together reflexively— still wanting, but momentarily shy at being completely bare for him, and the the thought of the amount of slick he’d find between my legs.

“Perfect,” he practically purred, leaning in to kiss me softly, reassuringly, slotting his hips between my legs until I was spread wide beneath him. He kissed back down my body once my breathing slowed, his cold metal hand leaving goosebumps behind as it trailed down my side to behind my knee, where he lifted my leg to throw it over his shoulder. He paused at my navel, looking up at me one more time. “Okay, doll?”

I took in a shuddering breath, the need for him to touch me overpowering my nerves, before nodding. The corner of Bucky’s mouth turned up in a smirk, making my breath catch in my throat, before he dove between my legs with what could only be described as super soldier-like intensity. He sucked slowly, teasingly at the scent glands on my inner thighs before dragging his nose through my slick folds, lapping up my slick like a man starved. He found my bundle of nerves instantly, beginning a relentless tease with his tongue.

I’d never felt anything like it. A litany of uncontrollable whimpers and moans fell from my mouth as pleasure washed over me in waves.

“Taste so good, Omega,” he growled, throwing his metal arm across my hips to hold me down as I bucked up in need against his face. “Never tasted anything like you.”

My eyes rolled back in my head as I felt his flesh hand drag along the inside of my thigh before he pressed one thick finger slowly inside me. The sounds coming out of my mouth were sinful, and I pushed my face into the pillow beside my head to muffle them as I tightened around the digit.

“Alpha, please,” I begged, squirming as I teetered on the razor sharp edge of release. He carried on, increasing the intense assault with his tongue, before adding another finger next to his first, canting them both up towards my navel in a slow drag inside me. The fullness is what pushed me over the edge with a cry. He loosened his hold on my hips to let me ride it out against his mouth until I pulled away sharply with the sting of oversensitivity. He slipped his fingers from me drenched in slick, bringing heat to my cheeks, before licking his fingers clean with his gaze trained on mine.

“God,” I gasped out as my heart rate started to come down, feeling lightheaded and tingly all over from the best orgasm I’d ever had in my fucking life.

“Thanks, but you can call me Bucky.”

Did he— I barked out a disbelieving laugh at the absolute, shit-eating grin on his face— a carefree, pleased look I hadn’t seen before in the short time I’d known the Alpha.

He laughed with me, before moving back up the bed, pressing his burning hot chest to mine, and leaning in for a slow, lingering kiss. The waistband of his pants dug into my hip, along with the shockingly hard length of him.

“Oh, I didn’t—“ I broke away from his mouth, moving my fingers down to scrabble at the button of his pants, but he gently moved my hand away with one of his own.

“You don’t need to,” he said, his voice deep and rough— sounding just as fucked out as me, though I hadn’t even touched him.

I frowned. “But I want to. Do you not want me to—“

He cut me off with a kiss, before dropping his forehead to my chest. I could feel his breath fanning out across my skin, my nipples peaking in interest even though I felt thoroughly sated already.

“Jesus, doll. Of course I do.” He lifted his head up, meeting my gaze, and I could see his jaw clenching as he fought for the right words. When I’d first met him I’d chalked up his taciturn mannerism as a side effect of the rut, but now, I realized it was just another endearing facet of his personality. He liked to make every word he spoke count. Makes sense when you spent seventy years in a muzzle.

“I don’t want you to feel… pressured,” he finished.

This again? I leaned down, pulling a blanket up and over my frame to cover my naked lower half, and Bucky moved off me slightly.We probably should have talked more before Bucky decided to take me to the astral plane— but I certainly wasn’t complaining about the way things had progressed, and by the scent of proud Alpha that still lingered in the air, he hadn’t minded either.

“Bucky, I don’t blame you for anything that happened in that cell. Not even a little bit,” I began. He sighed, breaking eye contact to look down at his flesh hand, which he’d fanned out across my belly. I wasn’t a petite woman, but underneath his massive hand, I felt… small and safe in the best way. A way that made my Omega sing with pleasure at having found a match that could both provide and protect in the ways I needed him to. “It didn't even occur to me that I should blame you. If anything, I was grateful. You protected me and comforted me in a way that very few Alphas would have been able to while in rut.”

Bucky didn’t say anything, but his scent hadn’t sunk back into the sour distress of our earlier confrontation, so I knew he had heard me. He shifted to lie down on his back, lifting his flesh arm over my head to scoop me against his chest. I snuggled up to meet him, curling up against his side with my head pillowed on his massive bicep.

It felt… right— like two puzzle pieces finally joining— and I was suddenly reminded of the ache, or rather, the lack of it.

“You asked me earlier if I felt it too,” I whispered, the moment quiet and sacred in the muted light of Bucky’s den. I lifted my eyes to look at him to find he was already gazing down at me. “I know this is crazy for me to say, but this just feels so—“

“Right,” he said, finishing my sentence for me. “It feels right. And my chest doesn’t hurt anymore, now that you’re here.”

“It’s gone for me too. Bucky— god— I thought I was going crazy. I thought you hated me. I thought I was going to have to leave the pack,” I whined, feeling the low-level anxiety of the past few weeks rush back in one big wave. Bucky must have scented the intensity of my distress, because he shushed me softly, running a soothing hand up and down my back, before nudging my head onto his chest and starting up that painfully familiar rumble that I’d yearned for for weeks. His purr.

I instantly melted against him, feeling anxiety make way for comfort and bliss as every muscle in my body let go of the tension it was holding. I let out an involuntary moan of relief as I drowned in his purr and the cedar scent that surrounded me like a cocoon.

“’S fucking good,” I slurred, and I could feel Bucky’s laugh cut through the vibrations.

Reluctantly, I pulled my head away from his chest so that I could meet his eyes again. He was still staring, like I was a puzzle he couldn’t decipher. I shivered.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said. I immediately opened my mouth to protest, but he stopped me. “No, listen. I should have apologized to you as soon as we got back. But I was afraid.” He said it resolutely, unfalteringly. An Alpha admitting their fear was rare. But Bucky wasn’t a typical Alpha. “I was afraid of what I was feeling— of what you might be feeling. And when I saw you with Steve, I just thought—“ he paused, closing his eyes. “I thought I could move on. That you had made the right choice.”

Though my heart hurt to think of the turmoil that Bucky had put himself through over the past month, I had to smirk. Bucky might be different in other ways, but his jealousy over my imagined relationship with Steve was stereotypical Alpha.

“Is that why you started leaving me secret gifts?” I asked teasingly, feeling a smile curling across my lips. “Saw another Alpha swoop in and had to prove you could provide?”

Bucky flopped his head back against the pillow with a groan, scrunching up his eyes in embarrassment, and I laughed at his chagrin.

“I knew it was weird,” he said. “But it made it hurt less. To know I could… provide for you in some way. Sorry. I know I sound like a knothead.”

“Don’t apologize. That blanket will be perfect for our nest,” I said innocently, fluttering my eyelashes. Bucky stiffened under me immediately at the thought. I giggled, and the Alpha rolled back on top of me in a flash, letting out a teasing growl as his arms caged me in.

I squirmed underneath him as he pressed gentle kisses down my neck, tongue laving across my scent glands, sending a jolt of arousal through my thoroughly relaxed body.

“How do you smell so incredible?” he grumbled against my skin, inhaling deeply. I took the opportunity to move my hand down across his bare chest again, sneaking towards his waistband, but Bucky caught my hand again gently, lacing our fingers together. He stopped his ministrations against my glands, and lifted his face up to meet mine again.

“Not tonight,” he murmured. “But will you stay?”

I nodded then, feeling suddenly shy and exposed underneath him. I wiggled down off the bed to pull on my soft pants and pullover, leaving my bra and slick-soaked underwear on the floor, while Bucky tugged off his pants, leaving him in black boxer briefs that showed off the rippling muscles of his thighs. God. Damn.

As I curled up again next to him, pulling the blankets up and over the tangle of our legs, a bone-deep tiredness settled over me, my body finally feeling relaxed and safe enough to slip into sleep after weeks of insomnia. He pressed a lingering kiss to my forehead, before looping his arms around me firmly and starting up his Alpha purr once again.

Tomorrow, we’d finish talking. Tomorrow, we’d figure out what was up with our strange connection. And tomorrow, it was my turn to make Bucky feel just as good as I had.

But right now? I nuzzled my face into his chest, savoring the cent of cedar and bonfire, and knew—irrevocably— that I was finally home.

#my fic #like an animal #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky reader #bucky barnes reader #bucky reader insert #bucky smut #marvel fic #marvel smut

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lady-of-glass-and-bone · 4 years

Text

Lost or Lying

The original request: “Hi if you’re still taking requests, can I request a one shot with Bo thinking reader escaped and gets really angry with reader which leads into a screaming match between the two.”

Pairing: Bo Sinclair x Reader

Warnings: yelling/fighting(non-violent), language, angst and a little fluff

A/N: Sorry this took forever! I just re-watched House of Wax and it sparked the inspiration I needed to do this right. Hope it’s okay! Listened to Slow Down-Poolside // Devil in Paradise-Cruel Youth // A lot of Thom Yorke while finishing this up.

You had been wanting some time to yourself lately and the universe had decided to give it to you in spades.

A simple stroll down what had looked to be a well-worn trail had turned into an all day hike was now morphing into admitting to yourself that you were lost. And dead, if you ever found your way back to town.

Bo had been the last of the Sinclair brothers to trust you being out and about on your own and even then, he would not so subtly keep an eye on you. Like you might disappear if he even so much as blinked.

So this, being gone for hours, would probably land you in hot wax. Literally.

Stopping for the millionth time to try and recognize your surroundings, a thought popped into your head. What if you didn't go back? What if you just kept walking, you'd eventually either come to some road or wind back up in Ambrose.

The thought left a sour taste in your mouth.

Sure you and the boys had gotten off to a less than great start, Lester not included. You had liked him the instant he'd offered you a ride to the nearest town for help with your car dead on the side of the road.

He was a talker with not many people to listen to him, which you understood on some level, and now looking back on that first conversation it was almost obvious how clearly unsettled he was about letting you walk unawares into Ambrose.

Too little, too late and all that you guessed.

Sighing, you looked up, glancing through the leaves to watch heavy, dark clouds slowly spreading themselves across the sky. Great. Just what you needed, a storm.

You kept going, trying to leave signs that you'd been past a certain place with broken branches. It made you feel better for a while, until you ran into them, stomping by the snapped wood like it had personally offended you.

When it started to rain, you resorted to yelling. Hair dripping wet, clothes soaked through and shivering like a chihuahua as you were pelted by rain. You simply kept yourself from running into trees and screamed out Bo, Vincent, and Lester's names like a broken record.

Eventually that became difficult with the way your teeth were chattering, your lips feeling more numb by the minute. You must have stopped at some point because all you could hear was the far off roll of thunder and barking.

Barking? Barking meant dogs which meant-

"Mite!" the voice that left your throat made you wince, hoarse and hopeful at the same time.

The barking got louder, so you shouted again, planting your feet in the slippery ground and waiting for the little barrel of black and white fur to come shooting out of the underbrush as the barking got closer.

She nearly knocked you over when she appeared, paws muddy and looking as soaked as you felt. But her tail was wagging and you'd never been so happy to smell wet dog in your entire life.

"Let's go home! Go home Mite!" you told her and she just about herded you all the way back.

The streets were slightly flooded but the whole town was lit up. Like a lighthouse on the shore, a warning and a safe haven. The gas station was empty as you jogged past it, trying to keep an excited Mite in your view. The yellow tow truck was gone too. Shit.

The house was the same, all the lights on but no one home. Once inside Mite shook off, giving the walls a good spray of dog water before she pranced off in search of someone to show what she had found. The muddy paw prints she was tracking around were the least of your worries.

You peeled off your shoes before trekking over to the kitchen, leaving a trail of puddles in your wake. Still shivering, you wrung out your hair over the sink and pulled out what few rags you could find and went in search of Mite.

When you reached the foot of the stairs you heard an engine pull in the drive. You couldn't be sure who it belonged to with the noise of the storm so you braced yourself, shivering and no doubt looking like a drowned rat caught holding stolen food.

No amount of bracing would do you any good though, not when the door practically flew open to let in Bo.

You don't think he even saw you at first with the way his eyes darted around the room, ghosting right over you as he slammed the door shut behind him, pacing around like a caged animal. You wondered if you just stayed still enough, maybe he wouldn't notice you.

You had never been that lucky.

You knew it was bad when he didn't immediately begin yelling. He just stared at you, blue eyes burning a hole straight through you. Jaw clenched so tight you worried he might crack a tooth. It was a miracle you didn't run purely out of instinct.

"Where the hell have you been."

Oh yeah. This was a new level of mad. His low, even growl of a question sending goosebumps up your already chilled skin.

"I just g-"

"Where the fuck did you think you were gonna get to?" he crossed the space between you two in less than three steps, each one raising your hackles further.

"I wasn't going anywhere" you held your ground even as he came to a stop right in front of you, giving you no space.

"Bullshit! You were gone for hours, had all of us runnin' around lookin' for your ass! And you were off doing what?! Leaving!"

Ah, there was the yelling. You dug your heels in just a little deeper.

"No, I went out for a walk and got lost and it started raining and-"

"Don't you fucking lie to me, I knew the second we let you out you'd run. The second you got a chance! Gone!" Bo had stepped even closer, pushing you back until you could feel the sharp corner of the wall dig into your spine.

"I wasn't trying to run away! I took a trail, I got lost and Mite found me. That's it!"

"So I'm jus' supposed to believe you were out there, no one to keep you from running and you didn't huh? You just walked in circles 'til you realized you couldn't find your way out!"

"I got fucking lost! Okay?! I. Got. Lost!" you had properly lost all energy to stay calm, Bo wasn't, so why should you? "I've been locked up in this house or at the station for months! No time alone, like a fucking dog! Hell, the dog has more freedom than me! Can you blame me for wanting some time to myself?!"

"Freedom! You shoulda' been dead the second you set foot in this town!" you could feel the hot puff of his breath across your face, foreheads nearly touching.

"That's not my fault! You're the one in charge around here aren't you? Just kill me now and you won't have to worry about me anymore!"

You had barely gotten the last word out before you felt the sharp tug of Bo's hands tangling themselves in your stringy, wet hair. It almost felt tender, like he was cradling the base of your skull, about to kiss you. Except the hold was too tight, stinging where blunt nails scraped your scalp and held you in place with the pressure on the back of your neck.

The rags you had clutched in your hands dropped silently to the ground when you curled your hands around his forearms, not that you could pry him off you.

A small droplet of water fell onto your face from Bo's damp hair.

You thought he might take you up on the offer right then and there. The set of his shoulders, the way he could so easily shift his hands and wrap them around your throat. But you'd spent plenty of time around Bo Sinclair, enough to be able to see what he was hiding behind all the rage and yelling.

He was worried. Maybe even scared.

Lester had told you, albeit hesitantly, how nice it was to have you around, to have someone to talk with.

Vincent had taken longer to express the same to you, and not in so many words, but it was there all the same. You had a collection of small wax figurines to show for it.

Bo treated you like a kid that needed to be watched, like you were going to stick your hand on a hot stove if left alone too long. He complained when you asked too many questions about what he was working on when you were in the station with him but he usually answered you.

He was a lot of bark, with an equal amount of bite, when it came to taking care of this town. Even his brothers, in his own messed up way.

"You really think I'd leave?" the words finally manage their way out of your mouth, rasping and quiet in the wake of the shouting match.

"That's a stupid question" Bo snaps.

"Would you miss me?"

"No."

"Liar."

Bo gives no warning before pulling your face up to his and kisses you. It's not soft, it's angry and suffocating and you can feel it in your gut when he bites your bottom lip, tugging none to gently until you finally part your lips enough to get a taste of him.

He tastes like rain and cigarettes.

You lean into him, standing up on tiptoes, and hum at the way he tugs you back far enough for your lips to be a hairs breath apart.

"I should get lost more often" you say a bit breathless, trying not to smirk.

Bo simply glares at you for a moment before crushing his lips back to yours.

You weren't going anywhere for a while.

#bo sinclair #bo sinclair x reader #house of wax (2005)#house of wax #request #horror imagine #house of wax imagine #bo sinclair imagine #slasher x reader #slasher #duck did it #duck quacks

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hbosscreations · 5 years

Text

Here is my @redvsbluesecretsanta gift for @ bi-vampire this year! They asked for a Freelancer fic with vampires and some Carolina/York or North/York, I hope that they enjoy it!

Carolina bit back a snarl as she rattled the door of the cage she’d been unceremoniously shoved into by a blonde haired vampire with purple leather pants and a dark green tank top. Sure, Carolina was glad to not have been out and out murdered instead of being captured, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t absolutely livid about the situation.

The cage was small, leaving Carolina slightly hunched and unable to sit or even properly stretch her legs.The sound of jingling chains pulled Carolina’s attention back to her partner, the reason she was trapped in a cage in the first place.

“York.”

“Yes, Carolina?”

York’s chains clanked as he shifted toward her. Why she’d ended up in a go-go cage and he’d ended up chained to a chair was beyond her, but it was more than a little annoying.

It was a temporary situation at best, she knew, they that didn’t mean she was happy about the two of them being captured. They’d gotten out of tight situations before, but this was a bit much.

“Do you remember what you told me before we left?”

“Maaaybe?”

Carolina flicked the padlock on the cage, letting the heavy lock bounce off of the metal bars over and over again.

“About how you’d done your research? About how this was just a little nest that needed to be taken care of, and we totally didn’t need backup? About how we were going to be doing a stake and run and be back home for dinner?”

He at least looked embarrassed about his screwup, which was appropriate, but not entirely helpful given that they’d been captured and bound by the very vampires they’d come to clear out.

“Yeeeaaah?”

York twisted his hand and ran a nail over his wrist, scrapping it against the skin until a small flap lifted, slowly peeling it away to reveal a tiny lockpick set hidden against his skin. He flipped the tools into his hands and got to work on the padlock chaining his wrists together and attaching him firmly to the metal chair bolted to the floor.

“When we get out of here,” York looked up to Carolina with a grin, “I’m thinking Chinese food. Something with crispy tofu. You?”

“If we get out of here, I am going to retrain you. You are going to pray for death by the time I’m done with you.”

“Don’t tempt me with a good time, Carolina!”

He struggled with the padlock, twisting the tiny tools around, his smile going from cheerful and carefree to something sharp and distressed. Just as York thought he might be close to getting it right, one of the picks fell from his fingers and bounced out of reach.

York groaned as Carolina leveled a frustrated glare.

“If I die here my father is going to kill you. If I get turned, he will stake you himself.”

“We’re not going to die here, Carolina. I have a plan.”

The door creaked open and the two snapped their attention to it. The blonde vampire that captured them slipped through the door and crossed her arms as she leaned against the wall, watching the two trapped humans. York felt a shiver building in his spine and Carolina bared her teeth.

“Relax, hunter, no one is dying today. Tomorrow, maybe, but not today.”

She’d caught them scoping out the place just after sunset, and before Carolina could pull her stake, she’d been tossed into a cage and York was strapped into chains.

Neither hunter had expected a vampire that old, that capable. Carolina’s father had trained her to hunt vampires since she was a child and her mother was killed in a vampire attack. She didn’t get surprised. She just didn’t.

Until she did.

York blinked innocently at the vampire, hoping his charming smile would distract her from the pick on the floor and from Carolina trying to murder her with the heat of her glare alone.

“Um, miss vampire? Maybe this is a stupid question, but…well, is there a reason I’m chained up? Aside from the obvious?”

The vampire swaggered over, smirking, and ruffled York’s hair before patting his cheek with just enough strength to make his cheek sting.

“You mean aside from keeping you restrained so you can’t murder us? Consider yourself a present for my brother. He likes idiots, and he needs to know how easily his ‘impeccably maintained perimeter’ was broken.”

Carolina felt her hackles raise as the vampire circled York’s chair before she slowly sauntered to Carolina’s cage and leaned against the bars with a wide smile.

“It’s cute that you think you’re getting out of there by pulling on that lock.”

“It’s cute that you think that purple hair and leather look is still relevant.”

“Really? You’re going to be that kind of chick? You’re going to rag on my hair when I’m literally wearing Barney the Dinosaur shades of purple and green? I mean, that’s your choice, but there are plenty of other things to criticize. At least my dye job looks good, Red. You might want to touch up your roots, btdubs, they’re looking pretty sad.”

The door creaked open again, and York blinked hard.

Another vampire moved into the room, moving directly to the vamp nearly pressed against the cage, and tugged her back by her wrists.

“South, is there a reason you’ve got humans in chains?”

She spun around and pulled Carolina’s cell phone out of her pocket, waggling it in front of his face.

“We’ve got hunters, North. That ‘little problem’ you’ve been trying to handle has caught the attention of people looking to murder us. If you’d let me handle it-“

“Thank you, South. I’ll take care of it. Is there a reason you bolted a chair to the floor?”

“He seems like your type. Now, can we please figure out who’s encroaching on our territory and drawing attention to us before someone competent shows up and tries to stab us with pointy sticks.”

York had clearly missed something during his research, such as the fact that the vampires he’d seen in the area were probably not the vampires destroying the nearby town. After all, no intelligent vampire did the kind of destruction that York had been tracking.

It drew too much attention.

And now, thanks to York’s shoddy research, he and his girlfriend were about to die.

North stepped up close to York, tipping his chin up with a chilly hand, and smiled down on him.

“Did you really think you were going to come here and kill us? That I would allow you to kill my sister? Destroy my family? No. Not today, not ever. I don’t enjoy killing, but I will not hesitate to rip the two of you to shreds to keep my people safe.”

York’s Adams apple bobbed nervously as he swallowed.

“I’ve been tracking a group of vampires eating their way along the coast. The trail led here, so we decided to take a look. And by the way, we are competent, we’re fully registered vampire hunters, and we’re very professional.”

“York,” Carolina hissed through gritted teeth, “Shut up.”

What was he thinking? Carolina was sure that her half blind idiot was about to get their throats torn out by a pair of angry vampires.

“Hey, I’m just being honest, and if honestly has the potential of keeping us alive, I’m a fan.”

“You think being licensed vampire hunters makes this better?”

Carolina’s lips curled unpleasantly. She understood what he was trying now, and while she was sure it was an incredibly stupid plan, he’d started it. They were committed.

“It means we don’t kill indiscriminately, but we can and will kill should the need arise. It means we are very careful, and it means that if we do not check in soon, there are people who will come looking, and they won’t be armed with just a few measly stakes. They also aren’t going to wait for you to tell your side of the story.”

Both vampires looked unimpressed at Carolina’s declaration, but she didn’t need them impressed, she just needed them spooked enough to let her or York free long enough for one of them to deal with the situation.

She knew she could take both of the vamps, Carolina excelled at multi-enemy fighting. York was capable in his own right, but it might be more of a struggle for him alone. He just needed to get the keys from the vampires and free Carolina. The rest would be cake.

“Papa North?”

The room stilled as the door slid open again, revealing two children as they entered. The little one, another blond with bright red eyes and a purple top clung to the elder boy’s hand.

“Delta,” North’s voice had the gentlest hint of scolding to it, “Theta, this isn’t where you two are supposed to be, and you know that. What’s going on?”

“We’re hungry,” Theta whined.

“Aww! Carolina, look! Babies!”

York grinned and wiggled in his seat, looking excited to anyone who didn’t know him, and terrified to Carolina. Carolina’s gut twisted in horror as she realized exactly what they’d stumbled into, and despite his pleased tone she knew that York was doing everything he could to hold himself together.

Babies wasn’t the right phrase, one looked to be a teenager and the other looked about eight years old, but that wasn’t the worst part.

They weren’t turned. The bright glow to both sets of eyes gave them away as natural born vampire children. Purebloods. And where there were two, there would be a nest.

It was no longer a mystery why these two were so nervous, it was now more of a question as to why they hadn’t just killed their human captives outright.

The little one detached himself from Delta and climbed North’s leg all the way to his arms and curled up their.

“I’m hungry, North. Can we eat now?”

York shot a look at Carolina before gently rattling his chains, catching the attention of the green-eyed teenage vampire. He glanced between York and the tiny lockpick that rested between his feet.

“Not now, Theta, but in just a few minutes. Come on, you two, go back to the nursery. South, can you take care of this, please?”

“I am not a fucking babysitter, North.”

But she plucked the boy from her brother’s arms and as she led the two out of the room, Delta gently kicked the lockpick over to York’s chair nonchalantly before the door shut behind them.

North leaned over and picked up the piece, tucking it into his pocket.

“He thinks he’s so sneaky. I won’t tell him otherwise, or he might actually get creative enough to fool me. Now, let’s deal with this situation so I can feed a flock of very hungry fledlings.”

North smiled a little tighter and fished a key from his pocket.

“We are aware of what’s going on, and we’re working on it. No need for hunters, licensed or unlicensed to come in and threaten us.”

He moved over to York and started unlocking the padlocks on York’s chains, letting them fall to the floor in a heap.

York blinked.

“You’re unchaining me? Why are you unchaining me when you can rip out my throat so easily while I’m chained up?”

North smiled and pulled York to his feet, dusting off his shoulders and nudging him toward Carolina’s cage before he opened the padlock and swung the door open wide.

“You came here to find out what is killing people, and only an idiot would think we would draw that kind of attention on ourselves with little ones around. Do some more research before stumbling into nests, or you may end up eaten by those of our kind who are more interested in making a point than either I or my sister are.”

He shooed Carolina and York to the door, letting a hand stroke gently along York’s spine before going to the second door and shutting it behind himself.

Carolina and York shared a look.

“That was interesting.”

“What just happened?”

Carolina put her hand on York’s shoulder and turned him toward the door, hoping to god that this was real and they weren’t about to be surprised and devoured.

“Why?”

“They don’t want trouble any more than we do. Come on, if we hurry, we can pretend we were just on a date any my father never has to know that we were almost murdered.”

“I like that plan.”

South glared at her brother as he watched the two humans race out of the mansion on the security cameras. They were going to have to move again to make sure they didn’t get return with backup and kill the nest.

He turned and smiled gently at South, leaving her rolling her eyes and sighing in frustration.

“You let them go.”

“I did.”

“Are you high? Did you eat a human with drugs in their veins? Are you full of cocaine and marijuana right now? Do you need an intervention?”

He cradled Theta carefully as he stood, the little vampire playfully biting North’s shoulder to remind his caretaker that he was still hungry.

“No, South. I just don’t feel like keeping prisoners, especially when we have plenty of willing donors so close by.”

“And you thought the cyclops was too cute to eat.”

“And I thought York was cute.”

#redvsbluesecretsanta #bi-vampire #fanfiction

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bunny-lou · 5 years

Note

Can you do a jaylos with like an evil Carlos??

I couldn’t come up with much of a plot, so this is just kind of a drabble. I hope you still enjoy it :)

Warning for dark themes and violence references.

He can’t sleep right on a bed this size, sometimes. Even if it’s been years since his bed was under a shelf in Jafar’s shop, this space and comfort…it throws Jay off. He can’t get comfortable some nights.

It gets easier with the dogs though. The reason their bed is so huge and wide is to accompany the dogs that sleep with them. There’s Dude, of course, but their pack has expanded to Lilly and Lucky and Roxy and Sweet Pea and a dozen more.

A hundred dog beds and dog toys litter the floor of their giant bedroom, but there’s no place the dogs like better than on bed with Jay and Carlos.

“We have to show them that we’re a part of their pack,” Carlos had explained once, scrubbing blood out of… Dixie? Trixie? Well, someone ’s fur with vigor. Jay had been more concerned with the gore than the name of the dog at the time. “And that we provide for them. That way, they’ll never tear our throats out.”

Jay didn’t question it because he doesn’t question anything about Carlos. Yes, Carlos is an evil mastermind who commands a hoard of dogs and happily encourages their ravenous beasts to feast on human flesh, then welcomes the same dogs into their bed at night. But trying to find a reason or explanation for it all, Jay can’t begin that.

Their home is huge, nearly a mansion. People tend to not say ‘no’ to Carlos when he walks around with snarling dogs. Jay’s not used to it though, the space and the luxury.

Secretly, he thinks Carlos isn’t used to it either. He thinks Carlos has a huge house and fancy clothes and luxurious furniture just to rub it in Cruella’s face as she watches from her ‘room’.

Carlos doesn’t actually want anything, except for his mother to suffer. Or maybe for her to proud of him. Maybe Cruella being proud of her son is a form of torture for her. Maybe she hates to look at Carlos and see that he’s living a better life than she ever was.

Her room is little more than a cage in the dining room. So close to warm, fresh food, but just out of reach. She’s allowed one fur coat and scraps of their meals at night. There’s a small couch and a few books, but she’s locked inside cold, metal bars.

Jay thinks about asking when Carlos plans on letting her out. He’s not sure if Carlos plans on letting her out. He’s not sure what he would do with the information if he ever bothered to ask.

In fact, Jay’s uncertain about a lot of things now.

He can’t voice the uncertainty, can’t find the words or the courage to say something about it all to Carlos.

Mal’s in the same situation with Evie, Jay thinks. Mal doesn’t explicitly say anything either, but he sees her watch Evie as she screams at her personal dressmakers. At least, that’s what Evie calls them, ‘dressmakers’, people who can’t leave with Evie’s permission, can’t eat without her permission, can’t sleep without her permission.

There’s a better word for those people Evie rules over, something that’s not dressmakers, but Jay doesn’t want to think about that.

Evie and Carlos weren’t suppose to be this way when the barrier came down. They weren’t suppose to be mean and cruel and evil. They were meant to stay sweet and hopeful and pure while Jay and Mal dealt with all the bad.

Then they saw Auradon, the life they had been denied for so long for having done nothing wrong and…well, Jay never saw his Carlos again after that.

Jay wishes they had never left the Isle.

Luna snuggles up next to him, her head in the crook of his armpit, tail wagging eagerly. She had snarled and snapped when Carlos first brought her home, hackles raised and lips curled to reveal her teeth. She tried to attack everyone. She successfully attacked Cruella on several occasions.

And now she sleeps peacefully between Jay and Carlos at night, as cute and soft as any other dog in Auradon. Underneath her sweet face is a beast, willing to destroy the first threat in its way.

No wonder Carlos favors her above the others.

The door creaks open and Jay lifts his head.

“Hey, you’re still up?” Carlos whispers into the dark, barely silhouetted by the dim light of the hall.

“Yeah, couldn’t sleep.”

“Wanna cuddle?”

It’s not fair to ask that, to look so innocent and young and carefree when Jay knows what Carlos has done, what he was doing just minutes ago downstairs.

“Was that your mom?” Jay asks as Carlos slips under the covers.

Carlos look genuinely worried. “Did her screaming keep you up?” He groans and lays back, head on Jay’s chest. “I’ll gag her next time, I promise.”

“Okay,” Jay says, looking up at the ceiling. “Good night, Carlos.”

#jaylos #jay descendants #carlos de vil #carlos descendants #evil!Carlos #my writing #filled request #descendants #descendants fanfiction #sendmeprompts10

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katsitting · 6 years

Text

Black Mambo

Rating: M

Ships: Volmione/Tomione

Warnings: Alien Tom Riddle, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Researcher! Hermione, Referenced Murder, Brief Mentions of Mutilation, Choking

AO3 link (x)

A chair screeched in the room, but Hermione didn’t flinch. No harm would come to her here. Not when there were guards pressed alongside the walls of the perimeter, taking care to watch the resident held within its walls.

Hermione slung her leg over the other, crossing it at the knee, from underneath the table. Her eyes did not shift from the figure sitting at the center of the room, buried behind impact-glass and two feet of concrete.

It was a bit of overkill, in her honest opinion. But she could understand their concerns. There was no telling what the creature was capable of, after all.

Especially when it had somehow killed two orderlies in the span of 48 hours.

“Hermione--”

Her gaze did not waver from the hunched figure behind the glass, scrutinizing it for any sign of understanding--awareness-- of where it was. It didn’t so much as flinch when another chair was yanked back, the wood screeching against the floor to stop at Hermione’s side. A redheaded man sat to her right, but Hermione didn’t look at him. It wasn’t necessary. She knew who he was, and knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“Any ideas what this could be?”

There was a brief pause where Hermione said nothing, tracing the bumps in the creature’s spine, before she sighed.

“I’ve no bloody idea, Ronald.”

With a purse of her lips, she reached for her notepad and pen, dragging it onto her lap to write down precisely what she was seeing. This creature had similar features to that of a snake, but--

Brow furrowing, Hermione’s breath caught when it turned its head and a humanoid face stared back. Its eyes were a deep red, and even from where Hermione sat in her seat--which was not a short distance by any means--, it was not difficult to tell that it was noseless and hairless.

it had all the trappings of a human male, but its face was deformed. Its naked body was littered with snake scales that flashed and twinkled beneath the fluorescent lights of the cell.

The creature's eyes stared at them through the glass, and Hermione’s hold on her pen weakened, unnerved at the way it cocked its head. It was almost as if it could see them, but no--

That was silly. Anyone on Hermione’s side could see into the room, but there was no possibility that it could stare back. The glass they used was of the special variety. The same kind that officers used in their precincts when conducting an interrogation.

Calm down, Granger.

“I’ll have to run some tests. Maybe get a closer loo--”

“Absolutely not. You’re not going in there when that thing has already killed two people, ‘Mione.”

Hermione’s lip twitched before she whipped around on Ron, startling the poor bastard enough that he fell off the chair and onto his arse.

Serves him right.

“Don’t start with me, Ronald. I have a bloody job to do. I’m all this damn facility has got.”

Ron grumbled, the chair screeching beneath his weight when he propped all of his weight on it to get up. He threw a sour expression in her direction, knowing better than to argue with her on this. He knew she was right.

She was all they had until they can fly in more researchers. The few that hadn’t run with their tails tucked between their legs at the discovery of this creature, had outright refused to go near the thing. After the whole fiasco with the orderlies, it was in her best interest to follow their lead--

And yet--

Hermione began writing again, now noting down the way the creature cocked its head, its lipless mouth twisting into a parody of a smile. It raised the hackles in Hermione’s spine, but she didn’t dare look away, didn’t stop writing.

How could she stop when a real-life, flesh and blood alien was sitting just several layers of concrete away from her? This was the opportunity of a lifetime even if it was dangerous.

“Fine. But I don’t have to like it,” Ron shot, tearing her thoughts away from the creature. She tried not to scowl, shifting her attention back to her ex-boyfriend. “Just be careful. People have died, ‘Mione.”

The frustration bubbling in her chest melted at the genuine look of concern in his periwinkle blue eyes. They may have ended things in less than stellar terms, what with him losing his patience and her losing her temper, but she knew that he still cared. She did too, even if half the time she wanted to strangle him for hindering her work.

“I will, Ron. Don’t worry about me. I know what I’m doing.”

Ron's shoulders relaxed at her words, the color on his cheeks quickly returning.

Huh.

Hermione didn’t know when he’d gone pale. It wasn’t a surprise, but still, that was a rather extreme reaction nevertheless. One would think the monster was out of its cage, bearing its teeth straight at him.

“Now then, if you’ll excuse me. I have a specimen to examine.”

Ron swallowed at that, what little color he had regained, vanishing almost instantly. Hermione tried not to roll her eyes, a snarky remark sitting right on the tip of her tongue.

Honestly.

You would think she’d never observed a dangerous predator before.

After days of arguing with the heads of the department, Hermione was finally given the opportunity to inspect the creature in person.

She was positively glowing with pride, with joy, at the idea. No more did she have to sit behind the glass of the interrogation room, tucked away in the dark to catch a sight of its body slinking in the dark.

Now she could come closer, could press up to the glass and watch the way its ribcage contracted with each breath it took.

Ron had not been thrilled, having gone against her back to the heads to complain about the ‘suicidal’ decisions by Dr. Granger.

But no more. She had won her case when the alien had killed no more guards, remaining docile and well-behaved behind the glass after weeks of observation.

Anticipation curled in her stomach, a literal pep in her step when she got out of that hour-long interrogation.

Nothing would keep her away from this discovery. Not Ron, and most certainly not the department heads.

Hermione tried not to scowl at the fleet of armed men flanking her, her hold on her equipment and notes giving her no time at all to smack the lot of them in the back of the head.

She was more than aware that the creature was dangerous, but Christ, did they have to send half of the bloody army to guard her on the way there? She guessed that there were at least twenty of them, and that was being kind.

The only perk to all this was that she didn’t have to open any of the doors, what with her hands being otherwise occupied and all. But still, she walked with the echoes of their footsteps at her back, her annoyance mounting with each time she had to wait for the group to decide who would open the door next.

The relief when they finally reached their destination was almost palpable. Even if that relief was shortlived when the guards began to squabble in earnest now, no one wanting to be the first to open the door and scope the lab.

“Beckham already we--”

“Alright, enough of that,” Hermione snapped, shoving past two arguing guards while the rest of them hung back. Hermione tried not to roll her eyes at the way they squirmed where they stood, some even glancing mournfully down the hallway. You would think she was sentencing them to death. It wasn’t like they had to get up and personal with the fucking alien.

“Just open the godforsaken door and let me through. I don’t have all bloody day.”

They were quick to comply, swiping their key card before Hermione could swing the cases in her arms. They knew she would, more than aware of just how easily she lost her temper when tested. Her and Ron’s tumultuous relationship was more than evidence of that fact.

“Thank you,” Hermione said before trekking into the room, an army of guards in tow.

The icy chill of the room greeted her from the moment she took her first step into the room. It burrowed into the meat of her hands, curling through her white coat and the sweater she wore underneath.

With a shudder, Hermione ambled deeper into the room, eyeing the glass window that gave her a complete view of the creature’s prison from a whole new angle. The glass was just as fortified as the one at the opposite end of the building, but--

Something about being in this room, in particular, made things more intimate. Smaller and nestled. Almost like a nursery save for the fact that this room was not decorated with bright and cheerful colors nor adorned with comfortable furniture.

“You lot handle the controls. I’ll need to get a closer look if I am going to decipher just what sort of creature this is.”

There were some murmurs in the room, nervous and restless, but neither one chimed in to refuse her command. Several men made a beeline for the controls, already hard at work to get the second cage lowered.

“I’m going to ask that you all be prepared for anything. And I do mean anything. If something goes wrong in there, and I am still inside, you know what the protocol is.”

No one said a thing, even when Hermione’s eyes stared each of them in the eye, letting them all know that she wasn’t afraid. If shite hit the fan, she would be left in the room with no means of escape. It would be unsafe for the general public to have this creature unleashed.

Hermione was more than willing to sacrifice her life if it meant keeping that thing away from the outside world.

“Dr. Granger.”

Hermione spun around on her heel, dropping her equipment onto the floor. It was one of the men--Marcus? Hermione wasn’t sure, there were so damned many of them--she’d ordered to manage the controls who had spoken.

“It’s ready. The creature has been contained.”

Hermione nodded, satisfied.

“Alright then, boys,” Hermione hefted her things once again and took a step toward the door separating her from the creature lying in wait. “Let’s get to work.”

The days of observing the creature bled into one another, and Hermione hardly minded.

This was what she wanted. How could she complain when every morning she had the chance to observe a live alien and make observations about the creature?

No one else had been given this privilege. No one else was brave enough, had the nerve to sit back on a tiny metal chair and write down notes about the smallest detail.

She knew more about the creature than even the military that had found it, and that was something that made her heart swell with pride, that made her toes curl with pure delight.

This was her discovery, her mission. No one else would be nearly as humane, as kind as she was being to a creature that had murdered two men the moment it had arrived at the facility.

“Did you miss me?” Hermione asked when she entered the room, ignoring the worried glances from the guards standing by the doorway as she took her seat.

They thought her mad for talking to it.

Hermione didn’t care for it, for any of their opinions. She refused to treat the alien like it wasn’t a living, breathing thing. It deserved her kindness. To be spoken to, to be treated with as much respect as she could without arousing suspicion and discomfort in the people up top.

As much as she wanted to bathe, clothe, and give the alien space to do things in private--even if it didn’t seem like there was much going on behind its red eyes--Hermione was nothing but ethical.

She refused to test him, to do anything more invasive than watch, than scribble down some notes on the way it behaved when she entered the room, or when others, like Ron, perched up at her side and laid a hand on her shoulder.

Hermione wiped the sweat that had formed on her forehead, her curls escaping the tight bun she’d wrested them into. She’d been in the room for a little over an hour, observing the creature as it circled around in the tiny cage it’d been confined into.

It was fascinating, really. Watching it move and slink about; it was like watching the coils of a python furl and unfurl.

Her hand ached from scribbling down onto her clipboard, ink smearing along her thumb and the meat of her palms to get everything she saw down onto paper.

As she had noted previously, the creature did have all the trappings of a human male. It was shaped like a human man, down to the top of its head and to its feet. Its thighs were thick and its calves thin. The rest of it was muscled, too, littered with scales that were most concentrated on its face and abdomen.

They were a gorgeous shade of teal, the light catching on scales making it almost gleam blue or even green depending on the angle. She wanted to touch it, to feel it and learn if it was just like a snake, truly.

But that was for another day. She knew that. There were too many variables, too many dangers to trying to tranquilize it. There was no telling how the creature would react to the use of human barbiturates--it could either end terribly, with the creature having an outright adverse reaction or even worse still, where it did work, but the creature woke up too soon while she was in its cage. It was too risky to do something that rash now, so--

Hermione watched. For now.

She took in the smooth shape of its head, the red of its irises and the cat-like slits of its eyes. Her eyes missed nothing, noting with excruciating detail even the flap of skin between its legs, furled and wrinkled. It was uncanny, how, even after days of observation, she was still struck by how much its genitals resembled that of a human male’s.

“Dr. Granger.”

Hermione jumped, attention so consumed by the specimen in front of her that she didn’t notice when a guard had stopped beside her.

Pressing her hand to her chest to stop her heart from crawling up her esophagus, Hermione cast an annoyed glance at the man. He was dark-haired, with eyes such a pale green that they almost glowed.

Hermione, for the life of her, could not remember his name.

“Yes? Is there something I can help you with?” Hermione asked, masking her irritation as best as she could. There was no need to chew the man out. Lord knows how long she’d been in that room already, starting at the alien’s body. Anyone would be concerned about her mental health.

“We’ve been here for three hours, doctor. We understand how important your work is, but--”

Hermione lifted her hand up and the man stilled in his words instantly.

“You can relieve yourselves, if that’s what the fuss is all about. I can take care of things from here, as you can see.”

Hermione gestured to the creature safely contained behind a smaller glass cage, as if to prove that she had everything handled. The guard did not look convinced, however.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, ma’am.”

Hermione groaned, as if pained, her hand coming up to rub against her temples. Had she not made herself clear? She was not leaving. Nothing short of an actual nuclear disaster was getting her off this damned chair.

“I understand the concern, but as you see, there is still much to be done. The specimen has been well behaved--no one else has died save for the two men when we first transported it here. However, if you’re so worried about my wellbeing, you can leave one of your men behind to keep an eye on me.”

The guard opened his mouth as if to argue, but then he clicked it shut. Victory swelled in Hermione’s chest instantly. She had won, could tell in the way the guard lowered his shoulders and his lips pinched.

“Alright. We’ll leave someone outside who will manage the controls while you're still in here. If anything happens, and I do mean anything, they will come for you.”

Hermione nodded, eyes already making their way to the specimen that had stopped its pacing in the cell, its eyes now trained on the both of them.

Interesting.

She didn’t look away from it when the man excused himself, the sound of his footsteps disappearing and the door closing announcing his departure.

A grin spread along her lips, excitement bubbling up her belly.

Finally, they were completely alone.

Weeks passed, and Hermione found that the guards had become more amenable to leaving her alone with the creature.

She was grateful for that, happy to work without the scrutinizing gazes of the guards on her back as she sketched and diagrammed different areas of its body.

Although from a glance, the creature did look human in many ways, that was where their similarities ended.

When the creature had opened its mouth once, Hermione could not help but shudder at the row of sharp teeth inside. There were rows of them, not one but two, the back of them flat--similar to that of humans in that it mashed up whatever food it ate.

But those canines.

They were large and sharp enough to cut through meat, to break bone down. She almost wanted to test its jaw strength, to throw in a device that would test just how much strength it had.

She didn’t, though. It was enough to watch it eat, to see it chew and snarl through raw meet with a pearly white bone poking out from the flesh. The fact that it could tear through raw meat that easily, without making a mess of blood and flesh on the floor was telling of how powerful it was.

It was a good thing, indeed, that she was out there and the creature was in there.

Hermione had abandoned her chair in the midst of her observations, no longer satisfied with remaining in her seat when she could get a much better view of the way it breathed pressed close to the glass.

The creature had stopped its movements altogether, its eyes looking at her curiously--a hint of something Hermione could not define in its gaze. It was...amazing.

A real-life alien. She couldn’t contain her zeal, walking around the box, and reveling in her excitement with little reservations now that she was no longer under the careful eye of the guards.

The only one that remained was outside of those doors, and Hermione pressed her hands against the glass, eyes wide in wonder when the creature stood on its legs as a man would and placed its hands against the glass where her hands were.

Oh my--

Hermione was vibrating with energy, unable to tear her eyes away from where their hands were separated from the glass.

“Did you enjoy the view?”

All the air rushed out of her lungs, brows knitting together despite herself. Surely, the creature couldn’t possibly be speaking--

“Oh yes, I most definitely am.”

Hermione backed away from the glass as if burned, shock fueling her movements until she was standing right at the corner of the room.

The creature had not torn its eyes away from her, a glimmer of amusement and interest gleaming in its inhuman eyes. They were no longer dull with unawareness.

It was intelligent.

Hermione couldn’t quite decide whether to be terrified or awed.

The box was made for an unintelligent specimen. It wouldn’t be able to hold something that could think outside of eating, killing, and defecating.

“H-how long?” Hermione asked, eyes widening with horror when the creature cocked its head to one side and the glass cracked, splintering into millions of tiny fissures within moments.

Oh god.

“From the very start.”

She sprung from where her legs had been rooted on the floor, running to the door at the end of the room. She pounded on its surface, blood rushing up to her ears.

The door refused to move.

“Open the god damn door,” she shouted, hysteria making her words crack at the end, but still, the guard outside refused to open the door for her.

Was he even still out there?

“They won’t come for you, you know.”

Hermione trembled when the crack of glass shattering exploded behind her, shards of it sailing through the air and pelting her with the crystals. She didn’t turn around but continued to pound on the door, her heart lodged in her throat.

No. No. No.

The mutilated bodies of two men flashed behind her eyes, and Hermione thought she might be sick. She’d been personally there when the autopsy had been conducted, wanting a closer look at the extent of the damage to feel out the alien’s abilities.

“You and I both made certain of that.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, Hermione stopped banging against the door. It was useless. If what the creature said was true, then she wasn’t going to get out of this unscathed.

She’d just have to find another way out, then.

Hermione spun around, leveling the creature with the bravest look she could muster. There was nothing brave or strong about her emotions. They were messy and alive with hysteria, but she had to calm down.

Panicking would get her nowhere.

The creature was standing in the remains of the glass box, its eyes trained on hers. Hermione tried not to shrink underneath its scrutiny, wondering faintly if this was how the creature had felt when she’d been roaming over its body with her eyes.

“What have you done? How could you have done anything when in that cage?”

The creature cocked its head to one side, as if weighing whether to answer the question or not, before he stepped out of the glass box. The crunch of its bare feet stepping onto the glass made her wince.

“Now now, Dr. Granger, that would be telling.”

Her lips twisted into a grimace, hating the way its lips stretched into a delighted smile. It was fucking terrifying.

“Why should I answer your questions? Why should I indulge your curiosity? You have no power here.”

Anger bloomed in her chest, toxic and acidic. It made her see red, it made her want to lunge at the monster and do something foul.

Hermione bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood, in a pitiful attempt, she might add, to calm herself down.

It’s baiting me.

“I beg to differ. You’re not setting one foot out of this facility without my say so,” Hermione said through gritted teeth, hating the way the creature began to purr. Its eyes roved over her, from the top of her head and down to her feet and back. It was invasive, oddly probing. It was as if it were looking for something.

Hermione hoped it didn’t find what it was looking for.

“And what makes you think I could not have escaped already? That I am not here because I have elected to stay?”

All the breath rushed from her lungs, horror shooting through her insides at the thought.

Then, the creature began to move, its steps slow and sinuous despite the loud crunch of glass sliding along the floor. Squaring her shoulders, Hermione tried not to let her fear show, eyes whirling about the room for something she could snatch to defend herself.

A shard of glass winked at her from her left, and Hermione didn’t wait. She sprung from her perch against the door, screaming when the creature was suddenly on her, its hand snatching her coat.

With a roll of her shoulders, she forced it off of her before the creature could get a stronger hold, grunting when there was a loud tearing, the sound like nails to a chalkboard.

Hermione snatched the massive shard of glass and turned, pointing it out at the monster that now stood only a foot away, its massive height making her crane her neck to maintain a clear view of its face.

Her coat was in its grasp, and Hermione shuddered when it pressed the cloth nearer to its face, its eyes sealing shut to breathe in her scent from the fabric.

“You smell just delightful, Dr. Granger.”

Nausea wrenched her stomach, bile burning up her esophagus at the guttural sound and the way its eyes snapped open to pierce her with a look of total hunger. Hermione’s grip on the glass tightened, the corners cutting into her palms. She hardly felt the sting, not when there was pure adrenaline rushing through her veins.

"What do you want?” Hermione snapped, taking a step back when the creature lifted its head away from the fabric, eyes never leaving her face. There was something shrewd about the look it gave her. Cruel. As if it were toying with her, stringing her about like some puppet on display.

It made the teeth in Hermione’s mouth ache, her fear and anger coil like live eels in her stomach.

“Why are you here if you chose to be here?”

A high hissing sound rumbled from the creature’s throat, and Hermione stiffened, incensed. It was laughing at her.

“Come now, what fun is there in giving you all the answers? You’re far brighter than this, love.”

A chill swept through her, thoughts rushing a mile a minute. But no matter how hard she thought of this, of its intentions, it was like grasping at straws. She didn’t understand.

None of this made sense.

It was an alien from god knows where in the universe, and it spoke to her. In English, with a British accent no less--

“Still don’t understand? Would you like a hint?”

Gooseflesh rippled up her arms when the creature began to move toward her again, and Hermione lifted her weapon, pointing the shard of glass at him in the hopes that it’d stay away.

“Two human men have died. What is it that they have in common?”

For each step he took, Hermione took another, the corner of her eyes keeping an eye on where she moved, so as not to force herself into a corner. She’d seen enough bloody horror movies to not make that mistake.

What did they have in common?

Surprise hit her like a blow to her stomach. She wanted to be sick, to press her hand to her mouth to repress the nausea that overcame her, her lunch that afternoon threatening to climb up her esophagus and greet her shoes.

Both of their skulls had been cracked open like an egg and their brains scrambled. Salvaged for something.

“Oh g-god, you--”

The creature only smiled, a wicked glint in its eyes. It looked pleased, thrilled at the horrified expression on her face.

“Their minds were of little note, but it was enough to give me the tools I required to learn your pitiful language. You cannot imagine my frustration at being able to delve into your mind what with the language barrier--”

Hermione limbs had locked, her mouth opening and closing both in horror and fascination. The creature had eaten their brains, quite literally, to speak their language. And now--

Now it will eat yours too.

“Nonsense. I will do no such thing.”

Hermione was far from comforted by this fact.

Wait. Had the creature just replied directly to her thoughts?

“After all, I am here for you.”

All thoughts of the monster melted away when the creature crept closer, and she began to move again, eyeing the way its body slid and slunk like that of a coiled snake, ready to sink its fangs into its prey. Her mind was thinking a mile a minute, unable to make sense of what it was even saying.

For her?

The creature was there for her? No, that couldn’t be true. That would mean that two men died because of her. That two lives were lost, their brains utterly scrambled like bloody soup for her.

“No,” Hermione denied, a sharp sting spreading over her palms when the glass cut into her palms. She was clutching the shard so hard her knuckles went white, but the cut on both of her palms, the potential infection, was the least of her worries. “You’re lying. You couldn’t possibly--”

“But I can. I am.”

A scream ripped from her throat when the creature rushed her, moving so fast she couldn’t see its movements, and grabbed one of her wrists. It squeezed her hard enough to bruise, and Hermione cursed and kicked, dropping the shard from her shaking fingers from the pain.

“I will admit. I didn’t plan to play captor and captive for very long. It is rare for me to remain in such a state when I am used to taking what I want from inferior species.”

She kicked and clawed, her free hand raking it across its arm, shoulders, and chest. She was fighting with everything she had, but the creature wasn’t phased by the blows, in fact, its eyes were glowing with mirth, a stupid smirk gracing its lips.

“But your smell,” it rumbled, the purr of its voice making the hairs in the back of her neck stand on end.

Oh god. No, No. No--

“It is mouthwatering, Dr. Granger. I simply had to find the source, to see for myself just what human possessed such a delectable scent.”

Then, the creature was lifting her up by her wrist, the pain in her joints shooting up and down her arm like a shock of electricity. She cried out, toes barely touching the ground as she tried to struggle, but couldn’t find the leverage to do any damage.

“And to my surprise, I find a human girl and a researcher no less. How tempted I was to take you while you were tucked away in that little room, your little eyes fascinated by something as innocuous as my naked back. It would have been delightful to watch your eyes widen with fear as I tore that human male’s throat out before your eyes--”

Hermione flailed about, tears burning at the corners of her eyes from the agony. Her shoulder felt like it was about to be pulled out of its socket, but still, she refused to cry. She wouldn’t.

She wasn’t weak, damn it.

“But I refrained. I wanted to see what you’d do, Dr. Granger. The fascination in your eyes, the furious way you took notes of each painful detail that you could see, your knowledge: all of it had sealed your fate.”

Abruptly, the creature released her wrist and Hermione fell back with a loud cry, her back hitting the ground so hard that her teeth rattled in her mouth. The creature slinked over her, and Hermione couldn’t move, could scarcely breathe from the agony shooting up her back and the red eyes staring into her eyes.

“You wanted to know what made me tick, to understand my capabilities, to see for yourself just what I can do.”

The creature’s mouth parted into a wide grin, teeth gleaming beneath the lights above their heads. It pressed closer, until its forehead was against hers, the chill of its skin enough to spur her into action.

Her hands came to claw out its eyes, her feet kicking at its chins, squirming and punching at its body. The monster blocked her kick when she aimed it at the wrinkled flesh between its thighs, wanting--no, needing--to see if it would end in the same result as it would a human male.

The high-pitched laughter that escaped its throat was enough to make her snarl, to make her desperate, but the creature, as if being done with the theatrics, snatched her flailing hands in one of his own and slammed them above her head.

The bones in her wrist protested, a twinge of agony forcing a pained whimper from her throat.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck--

“Let me show you, Hermione, just what it is that I can do.”

Then, there was a shift, and the question sitting on her tongue, the one that urged her to demand how it knew her name, fell away. Lost to the wind when there was a faint sound, one that Hermione could have almost missed had she not been hyperaware of every twitch the creature made above her.

Its body began to contort, to ripple like millions of droplets on a placid lake. It was both fascinating and horrifying to watch, to see how its teeth began to recede into its mouth, how the slits of its pupils rounded into that of a human’s. It was transforming, becoming something else--someone else.

She was at a loss for words, frozen by both her mute terror and fascination, as hair began to grow from atop its head, the bald head replaced by a head of soft waves of dark hair. A nose began to grow from the flat part of its face, sharp and angled.

The rippling didn’t stop until it was a human face staring back at her. One that Hermione had never seen before, but would never forget.

Its eyes were still red, still a malignant shade of cruel, but it didn’t matter now. The monster had become the most beautiful human being she’d ever set her eyes on. It was as if the monster had taken the best features from a human male and took it for his own.

A hand pressed against her throat, human and warm, unlike the cold flesh that had touched her forehead, and Hermione swallowed, unable to speak when its fingers dug into the skin.

“At a loss for words?” The creature asked, a teasing note in its voice that made her stomach clench. It no longer spoke with a high and reedy tone, but masculine drawl. It was as rich as sin, and Hermione wanted to shrink into the floor and disappear.

This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening--

“Oh, but it is. I am just like you, Hermione. I can be anything if I wished it, could lift from your very mind the faces you’ve seen in the past and become them.”

Hermione wanted to vomit, eyes unable to tear away from the creature’s when those, too, began to change. Darkened.

The creature spoke on as if it didn’t mind that Hermione had yet to say a thing.

“You’ve been a wonderful host, Hermione. But I think I’ve overstayed my welcome in this facility, don’t you agree?”

Hermione swallowed through the lump in her throat, a wheeze escaping her when its fingers squeezed her throat, blocking her airways. It could strangle her if it wished. Snap her neck, if it so desired. The possibilities were limitless. Hermione shook her head furiously, in spite of that. Nothing would make her happier than to see the creature leave.

“But of course, I must take you with me. We have great need of a human with your skillset.”

No.

Its fingers tightened, and black began to creep over her vision, specks of color dancing along his face. She squirmed beneath him, moving to dislodge the hand curling over her neck while his thumb slowly trailed over her pulsing carotid artery.

Panic bloomed in her stomach at the look of malicious glee in its eyes, at the way its face glowed with satisfaction at her weak squirming.

“I cannot simply let you go. You know far too much about me, Hermione.”

The hand pressed onto the sides of her neck, careful not to dig into her trachea and snap her neck, and then--

She was floating, sailing through murky depths, unable to hold onto what remained of her consciousness no matter how hard her mind screamed for her to stay awake.

She fell, and fell, and fell--

Its laughter, the last thing she heard before she was swallowed by darkness.

#Volmione #Tomione #I did a thing #shit got real #always wanted to write a creature fic

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forestsstories · 5 years

Text

Misfortune

There were a number of factors that contributed to the chain of events which led to a small kitten lying dead on a cold cement floor that evening in December. The first factor came into play before it was even born, in the form of a decision made by someone who would never even know of its existence. A decision made not out of desperation but merely convenience, to leave their male cat unaltered. It’s hard to say how many kittens were the result of this outdoor roaming tom, but this one certainly was.

“Stop! Mom Mittens got out!” The cry echoed through the home of the child, only six. The mother hesitated as she heard her child’s call. It was late, and she needed to get her daughter to bed. Mittens was an indoor cat, and only six months old she would probably come back in a couple hours. “That’s ok honey, she’ll be back soon. She probably just wants to explore.” An anxious knot formed in her stomach, but what could she do? Go out in the dark to hunt for the kitten that would probably make it back home before they did, and throw off the girls sleep schedule for her trouble? Not to mention worry her. “It’ll be ok, she’ll be back when you get up tomorrow, now go brush your teeth okay?” But it was not okay. About three blocks away a cat yowled, and our story begins.

“Mommy look how big Mittens is getting! Do you think she’ll have the kittens soon?” The frazzled mother released the breath she’d been holding “I don’t know honey. Probably.” The girl was definitely right, the poor creature’s stomach was huge with babies and she was almost a baby herself. She chewed her lip as she ran over the options for vet care in her mind. How did something like this even happen? It was hard to imagine a kitten becoming pregnant, and yet here was the proof. What if there was a complication? If she lost the litter, or one got stuck, the vet bills could easily cripple them. Then what if there were no complications? The cat was huge, how on earth was she going to deal with a litter of kittens? She sank to the couch to weigh their options as her small daughter sang songs to the expecting kitten. Who knew something she had adopted to make her daughter happy could cause such a huge mess?

The delivery thankfully went off without a hitch. The little girl squealed with delight when she came home to five perfect squirming little bundles of joy. Grey like their mother and letting out the tiny mewls only newborn kittens are capable of the mother breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps they could handle this after all. She smiled when she gazed at her daughters beaming face. They were only kittens, she would find them homes when the time came. Who could possibly not want kittens?

The answer, as it turned out, was a lot of people. The other women in her mommy group, her sister in law, even the nice lady on the corner with the bowls of cat food beneath her front porch. Everyone she asked either didn’t want a kitten or had too many cats already. Six weeks. Eight weeks. Twelve. The kittens were tumbling around the house now, getting into anything not kept under lock and key. Her daughter was of course delighted by the mayhem but it was when she was finally at her wits end that the mother booted up her computer. It was time to return to just one cat, before she strayed any further down the rabbit hole of learning why crazy cat ladies are crazy.

“Free to a good home.” Words phrased with the best of intentions that none the less resulted in every last kitten’s demise. Two kittens were crushed beneath the tires of a truck at their new farm home. One perished from exposure when its new owner dragged it to the park and forgot to bring it home with them. Lastly, this one’s other sibling died at this one’s very first step on its tragically short journey. A nice little old lady stroked the baby’s head, smiling warmly as she assured the mother she would take good care of both kittens. A sigh of relief escaped the mother as she watched the box with the last two kittens vanish into her car. She would have no idea what became of the kittens. Was it her fault? I wouldn’t say so. How was she to know? She was just doing what she thought was best. What then, of the person who decided to skirt the vet costs of neutering their male? Certainly not the best decision, but who among us hasn’t put off something simply because it was inconvenient? It’s very hard to place blame, but the first home our kitten found itself in is certainly where I would lay the most.

Both kittens tensed from the moment the woman removed the box from her car. They had been wildly confused when six other kittens were picked up from various homes and added to the back seat, but now they were certain something was very wrong. Her brother mewled pitifully and curled into her as the box was handed over to a gruff looking man who slipped a crisp bill into the old woman’s hand. “Six? Looks good. I want another six next week okay?” A dull dread crept down the kitten’s back and it’s hackles raised as the stench it had smelled from outside got stronger. Loud growls and the clatter of chains upon the floor filled the air as the box was dropped roughly to the ground. The kitten gazed through a hole in the side of the box and couldn’t understand what the gruff man was saying to his colleague but stared intensely at the creature they were both praising.

Thick muscles bulged beneath skin that seemed stretched too thin over them. Flecks of drool sparkled on its chin as it gazed stupidly up at its masters. A slick sweat glistened on its thin fur and it’s yellowed teeth caught the light. Fearful mews erupted all around the kitten and it scooted to the back as the man stormed to the box. She flinched as the ground shifted beneath her from the force of his boot crushing in one side of their enclosure, and yet suddenly she saw her chance! A crack in the top of the box opened from the force of his boot, only for an instant but that instant was all she needed. Wings seemed to erupt from her spine and carry her to safety as she soared from the prison which had contained them and a panicked mewl was the last sound she would ever hear from any of her littermates.

Shouts filled the surrounding air and she froze momentarily. The animal which had previously looked docile and gentle exploded into a snarling beast. Its chain strained against the link which was attached to the wall and one of the humans calmly spoke while the other dove for her. Her panic took the form of flight and not a moment too soon as the chain was released by the calm human, and in an instant the eighty five pounds of pure muscle that made up the snarling beast was barrelling toward her. Breath came in short gasps as she made for her only hope of salvation. Her tiny muscles burned from fatigue as he gained on her with every step. Hot breath made her fur sticky and wet and yellowed teeth clamped down mere inches from her tail tip as she flung herself recklessly through a window and landed gracefully on the other side.

Her escape, though daring, left her with little idea of where to go next. She put as much distance as her legs would allow between herself and those yellowing teeth. Dusk was licking at the edges of buildings and casting an orange glow upon the scenery when she finally took stock of her surroundings. It was a posh place she’d found herself in, colourful flowers lined every path. Tall homes with perfectly manicured lawns stood proudly and the light of the setting sun reflected off the glittering cars which lined every driveway. A garden bed nearby looked particularly inviting, the dirt soft and fluffy from recent activity. An ashy and somewhat sour smell filled her nostrils as she sank her paws into the soil. The salty scent of the earth made her stomach growl uncomfortably as she relieved herself. She would desperately wish she had moved on mere moments later when an angry shriek reverberated around her.

The woman’s hands were a blur as she waved them erratically, a high pitched squeal directed at the animal that had befouled her precious garden. It is difficult to blame her if you have ever found an animal urinating on your hard work you may relate. The kitten’s breath was heavy by the time she had once again successfully outrun the current threat and her mouth felt like sandpaper. She dipped her muzzle into a small pool of stagnant water which would have been an unsightly eyesore in the last neighbourhood and had just gotten her first mouthful when an enticingly meaty aroma caught her attention. Her stomach growled again. Dinner was served.

She followed the scent to a small bowl which had been placed carefully inside of a steel box. Memories of tumbling playfully with her littermates in boxes warmed her heart as she crawled in, but this box was of course not like those ones. A loud clang erupted behind her and she whirled around. A door had closed, sealing both the box and her fate. She reached her tiny legs through the bars in a feeble attempt to escape but before an hour had passed resigned herself to her prison. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she was still hungry and she inhaled the small bowl of meaty paste. It tasted sweet and salty and she relaxed a bit, curling on the cold pavement and waiting for morning.

Morning came with a jolt, her eyes sprang open as the ground shifted beneath her. A human lifted the cage which was her new home into the air and before she could brace for the impact the cage was thrust roughly into a much less shimmery vehicle than the ones that had lines the other driveways. Her heart beat like a bongo drum as the combination of new sensations overwhelmed her. A cry escaped her in the form of a tiny yowl, which continued until the vehicle came to an abrupt halt. The next few minutes passed in a blur as she struggled to understand precisely what was happening.

Before she could fathom any of it the human had gone, taking their clanging metal box with them. The ground beneath her paws was cold and hard. The air was rank with a sour chemical scent, and another human stood watching her. Trembling slightly she took a few steps to explore her new surroundings, recoiling immediately when she felt a human hand brush the tip of her tail. Two humans mumbled something between themselves before leaving her in the empty sterile room.

The weeks that followed things began to look up, the humans in this place seemed to be kind, much like the people that owned her mother. It was not long before a rumbling purr shook her in pleasure when she felt their fingertips stroking her fur. It was mere days later that she began to meet other humans. Some were small with grubby fingers, and some were taller with piercing gazes. It was one of the small ones which ended up offering her a home, for which she was grateful.

Her nose twitched as the box in which she had been stuffed was opened and she found herself once more inside a house. The air here lacked the stale scents of the place she had been taught to be hospitable and instead were welcoming and warm. It was a wonderful place to spend a few days, sadly that is all she would be allowed to spend there as before the sun had set on the third she felt a chubby fist close upon her tail and a jolt of pain shot through her spine as it tugged. I would like to think you have never felt spinal pain but if you have you will immediately understand the kittens reaction, which involved a flash of claws and a crying child. This of course meant that our kitten found herself once more outside in the cold, and this time it was much colder indeed.

A chill wind ruffled her fur, causing it to stand on end as she watched a mouse rifling through trash. She had been several days on the street now and was beginning to become accustomed to it. Her hunting was not what it could be and she had been subsisting mostly on scraps dug from the large refuse cans the humans liked to use, but she was determined to try. Her focus was steely and her muscles taught as she waited for the mouse to come more into the open. Her attention was so strongly focused on the task at hand she didn’t see or smell the other cat until she was on top of her.

Teeth sank into her shoulder before she had an inclination of what was happening and she kicked off with her back feet. Her shoulder throbbed and a deep growl emanated from her throat to ward off this predator. The mouse of course had vanished and anger surged through her at the lost meal, propelling her forward and her teeth also met flesh while her claws tore frantically at the other cats fur. Her tail lashed back and forth as she felt a slice through the tender skin of her ear. A cry escaped her and she struggled to return fire. A yell from a nearby window shook both cats and they sprang apart as a large boot was suddenly between them. The adrenaline broken the kitten suddenly desperately wanted to flee, and managed to put several blocks between herself and her aggressor. The damage however was done, and a few short days later an empty stomach was the least of her concerns.

She had a hard time holding herself up when she found herself back on the hard examination table at the shelter where she’d been adopted. A kindly stranger had found her staggering and dropped her off there, she hadn’t even seen their face but started purring the moment they lifted her into their arms. Their touch had been gentle and they had spoken with a coo while they carried her. Her ear felt warm and she dug her claws into the strangers shirt wishing desperately they were here to take her home. But she was back here again, and while the people around her were kind, their voices sounded worried. She lay her head down, closed her eyes so she could no longer see the crust around them and waited.

A soft hand stroked her and she heard that same soothing tone to the person’s voice as she opened her eyes to gaze into their face. Their eyes were not red with tears, but were not untroubled either. “Shh…. It’s alright.” She didn’t understand the words, but they brought some comfort anyway. Her chest heaved and rattled with infection and she hardly flinched as a needle pinched its way into her vein. Moments later her eyes felt heavy and she allowed them once more the drift closed, not knowing that they would never again open. The last thing that reached her before she fell into the soothing abyss were two words that in that moment she actually did understand. “I’m sorry…”

Our kitten was one of many cats that lost their lives that evening, for various reasons. Whether they were too feral, or ill, or simply too old each one likely had a story similar to this one. In the end the world did not mourn for the loss of one small kitten, but it was a loss none the less, and no less tragic for the fact that the poor creature never experienced what it was to be truly, deeply, loved.

#sad #writing.creative writing #short stories #short story #shortstorysunday #short story sunday #depressing #3rd person #creative writing #wrting #cats #kittens

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sky-scribbles · 6 years

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The Shape of the Soul - II

Continuation of my Dragon Age daemon AU, this time for the DA2 companions (barring Varric, because in this AU, dwarves don’t have daemons.) Inspired by this post, which is incredible and should be read. For those of you who’ve already seen this on DeviantArt, I’ve done some rewriting because I wrote this a while ago and I felt like it could do with some tweaking.

Origins/Awakening version here.

Carver Hawke

They know him, the people of Lothering. Brianna makes them know him.

She refuses to take a form that isn’t fearless. Lion, great bear, boar, wolf, bronto – whatever his older sibling’s daemon becomes, Brianna becomes something larger and stronger, and Carver’s chest swells with pride. She’ll bring him out from his family’s shadow. She’ll become a creature no one could look away from, prove that he’s more than just the little Hawke.

When she lets him down, when she settles into the form of a black and gold Anderfels shepherd dog, he feels like pounding the walls of the world and screaming. She feels his resentment, and flattens her ears and bares her teeth. And Carver knows there’s something wrong if you’re fighting with your daemon, that you should never be angry with your own soul, but he is, he’s angry, so angry.

It’s not just pride. It’s not just that he hoped for a daemon who’d make sure he could never be overlooked. His anger isn’t because he thinks Brianna got it wrong. It’s because he’s afraid she got it right. Dogs are servants’ daemons. Dogs belong to footmen and farmers and labourers, people who slink in the shadows of others, and whenever he looks at Brianna he feels despair well up inside him because that can’t be his life.

So he refuses to be a dog. He marches away to Ostagar.

And there, in the soldiers’ camp, the knot of doubt and anguish in his stomach unravels. Because Brianna romps and play-tussles with the other soldiers’ daemons, and his comrades-in-arms grin as Carver thumps her flanks and ruffles her ears, saying he should be proud of her, that having a dog-daemon is a good sign. Smart, they say, loyal, Fereldan to the bone. That night, he sleeps with an arm draped over his daemon and a smile draped over his face. The resentment he felt when she settled feels so distant it might as well have never been. He's not little Hawke here. He’s Hawke, and Brianna is his daemon.

Then Loghain retreats when the beacon is lit, and everything is gone.

Kirkwall. Brianna slinks at Carver’s heels, not because she’s a servant’s daemon, but because of Bethany. She bristles now when anyone but Carver goes near her, raises her hackles and snaps, and he doesn’t try to calm her. He’s little Hawke again now, and he’s snarling on the inside too.

Then one day, he’s wearing armour again, just like he was at Ostagar, and there are brothers-in-arms around him whose daemons play-fight with Brianna until her barks and snarls turn into yapping laughs. He walks tall, proud of the emblem on his breastplate, and prouder still of Brianna, because dogs mean loyalty and Carver plans to give all the loyalty he has. First to his new order. Then to his sibling, when the city goes up in flames and he understands at last why his daemon is a dog.

Dogs aren’t about serving. They’re about helping. Years later, on the way to Weisshaupt to find his disaster of a sibling, he passes one of the Anders shepherds, and stops to ask him about his dogs. And the shepherd looks at Brianna, smiles with understanding. The Anderfels shepherd, he says, needs a purpose, or it’ll snap and snarl at everything. They won’t take to many, but the ones who raise them and stick with them, they’ll die to protect. Except they won’t die, because they know how to fight, and by the Maker, but do they fight hard.

‘Well,’ Brianna says, as they walk away. ‘Looks like I got it right after all.’

Carver stops walking, drops to his knees, and throws his arms around her.

Bethany Hawke

Night comes after day, dwarves don't dream, and mages’ daemons are birds. These are facts of life, things that no one can fight or change. Bethany thinks often about the Circles, about how their halls and passages must be like aviaries of caged birds, and her throat tightens. And yet they might be beautiful. All the bright feathers. 'And all the singing,' Eliron whispers, and Bethany smiles.

He doesn’t like to become a bird too often, though. It feels like tempting fate. He spends most of his time as deer, and Bethany prays to the maker to let him settle as one. Just let him not be a bird. Then that jeering boy from the neighbouring farm gets into a fight with Carver, and somehow she hurls him away from her brother and halfway across the street without laying a hand on him. They run home, Father shouts for them to pack their bags, the family runs again. And Eliron panics. He flickers through every bird Bethany knows and plenty she doesn’t, trying on shape after shape, refusing to take any form that doesn’t have wings and feathers.

Be an eagle, Carver tells him, be a swan or an albatross, but Bethany knows that’s not what Eliron’s going to be. Eliron knows it too, because he never listens to Carver. He favours small things, things with round black eyes and plain feathers, things that can become invisible just by staying still. He moves around the house in cautious hops and short bursts of flight - a wren, a dunnock, a treecreeper - until he realises that what he loves most, what they both love most of all, is to hear him fill the house with song. From then on, it’s nightingales and blackbirds, robins and larks.

At last, Eliron settles as a song thrush.

He’s plain to look at, if you don’t look closely, if you just take in the brown feathers and don’t notice the beautiful cream and dark flecks on his chest. He’s small enough that he can just about hide in a pocket if he’s afraid, and he often does, because the Templars stare long and hard at anyone with a bird-daemon. She could look at them wrong, and that would be all the excuse they’d need to cut her down, just because her soul has wings. Like hawks on a songbird.

She looks at the Gallows sometimes, from across the water. She looks at it and thinks about how people keep thrushes as pets. They can live in a cage. They’ll sing their hearts out, with bars between them and the hawks and cats. Maybe it would be easier, to let them clip her wings, so she can sing.

But after the expedition – when everything’s said and done and there’s no going back, no matter how much she and her sibling might hate it – she realises something. She and Eliron – they have a secret, and it’s the reason Eliron became the kind of thrush he did, not the plainer-feathered yet more beautiful-voiced cousin. A nightingale will sing to make you weep, but you’ll never see it, where it shrinks deep into the woods. A thrush, though… a thrush is something else.

A thrush learns. A thrush steps out into the open. A thrush knows how to crack a snail’s shell with just a few quick, hard strikes against stone. Bethany knows how to strike like that, when she’s got something worth fighting for, knows how to step out into the light of day with lightning at the tips of her fingers. Put her in a cage, and she’ll survive, but she was always meant to be free, because a thrush is more than a brown-and-cream bird with a pretty song, a thrush is a wild bird and a thrush has skill and smarts and pluck.

That’s Bethany’s secret.

Oh, she’s afraid. But she’s also a thrush. Which means that at heart, she is bold.

Aveline Vallen

Her father, of course, wanted her daemon to be a lion. Strong, proud, loyal, and, most importantly, Orlesian. He was about as determined for her to have a lion as Aveline and Audric were determined for her not to have one.

‘Too grand,’ Aveline complains, after her father raises the idea for the fiftieth time.

Audric, in the shape of a mabari just to prove a point, nods. ‘Too stately.’

‘Walking around Ferelden with some great golden cat beside me? That’d mark me out as foreign even more than my name.’

‘And they’re lazy, the males. Sleeping in the sun all day, taking first bite of whatever the females catch.’

Both their jaws clench. That’s injustice, that is, and they want no part in that.

So it’s with some relief that Aveline realises one day that he’s stopped changing. He’s loping at her side in the form of a stocky reddish-coloured bullmastiff and isn’t showing any signs of abandoning that form any time soon. ‘Perfect,’ Aveline says, and Audric gives his tail the tiniest wag. A bullmastiff is as Fereldan as a lion would have been Orlesian. Very tough, very straightforward, and very, very Aveline.

Even without the lion, her father gets her into the king’s service. It’s all right, they tell each other. Audric’s a more natural daemon for a knight than you might expect. A dog-daemon means loyalty, and it means respect from any true Ferelden. The lips that curl at the sound of her name tend to go still again when they see Audric, because he’s about as Fereldan as a lion would have been Orlesian. And it’s only right for her soul to be Fereldan – she speaks with its accent, knows its ways, falls in love with one of its men.

But then suddenly all of that is behind them, and Wesley is dead, and she’s in Kirkwall with a family of ragged refugees.

The guard becomes Aveline’s new pack, because a dog’s nothing without one. She knows some of her comrades-in-arms wonder why she’s always wandering off with Hawke, and why she challenges the Captain’s orders when the cost could be her career. She knows why they wouldn’t expect it, because Audric’s quiet for a dog. The guards never thought the woman whose soul is this watchful, stoic creature would be the one to raise her hackles or show her teeth.

You can’t give the same command again and again to a bullmastiff, though. Not unless you want it to stop listening and start looking for more. Aveline and Audric know that, and that’s why they question things, find the scent of corruption and follow the trail until they’ve flushed out the source.

That’s what marks them out. All dogs are loyal followers. But there are only a very few who can be leaders.

Anders

Anders wakes from his Harrowing with his mind aching and his heart pounding and his sheets cold and wet from sweat. He almost lashes out when something touches his shoulder, but it’s Karl, just Karl, thank the Maker, and without thinking twice about it - damn the consequences, just this once – pulls his lover to him and holds him close. And Karl smile against his shoulder, clings to him for a moment, then whispers, ‘I think you should take a look at Themis.’

So Anders does, his heart beating even faster. She’s been ridiculously late to settle - he likes to joke that it’s out of spite, that she refuses to take a shape while the Templars are trying to define what they are. But everyone knows that when a mage’s daemon settles late, it’ll often happen after the Harrowing. So he looks, and there she is, his Themis, his soul, perched on the end of his bed, bobbing her long tail up and down to show off its beautiful blue-green sheen.

He stares, then grins.

‘Maker,’ he says. ‘The senior enchanters are going to love this.’

He can’t count the number of times someone tuts or mutters ‘of course,’ when they see the shape she’s chosen, when they realise that the Circle’s resident troublemaker has a magpie for a daemon. Anders, though, has no complaints. All crows are clever, and Themis has his flair, his flash, his wit, his love of hoarding. Little trinkets, shiny things, useless things, any things that he can squirrel away beneath his bunk, just for the joy of having something in the world that belongs to him.

Then they take Karl away. So he starts testing his wings for the first time in years, desperate to break the cage, and he sees the darker side of a magpie-daemon. He doesn’t remember much about his home, no matter how stubbornly he clings to the images, but one flash of memory is of his father hurling a stone at a black-and-white bird. He can’t hear the voice in his mind, only remembers it saying that the bird would have got at the hens’ eggs, even the new-hatched chicks if it could. He remembers thinking that surely only a few magpies do that, and not very often. And it’s the same with mages who try to be free. They summon demons, people say. Only a few, Anders wants to scream. Not very often. And not me.

Magpies are hunted, hated. The whole world is against them.

It sank in long ago, the cruel irony of the rule that mages’ daemons are always birds. People love to cage birds, to watch them sit behind bars and sing, but a bird is a creature of the sky and that is where it belongs. You'll never hear a magpie sing for anyone. Anders certainly doesn't plan on doing so. So when Justice makes his offer, he says yes.

And after – after the world becomes as black and white as Themis's feathers – there’s an odd distance between them. He’s not the same man he was when Themis settled, and she doesn’t quite fit as she used to. He and Justice are one now, after all, and no spirit has a daemon. But Anders still loves her, of course he loves her, because he will always be a magpie at heart. You can tell it just to look at him – feathered shoulders and dark eyes that don’t miss a thing. He may hunt for escape routes and messages from the underground now, not for trinkets, but he’s still a scavenger.

He watches her sometimes, a lone magpie flashing around his clinic, and the old rhyme runs through his head. 'One for sorrow,' he says, and Themis shakes her head. 'You're me,' she says. 'You're a magpie too. It's two for joy.' She was always the bright-eyed part of him, the part that laughed and bobbed her tail. She's the part of him that hopes. So he allows himself to believe her. The thought that there might just be a chance at joy… it’s what keeps him fighting.

Fenris

‘Little wolf,’ Danarius called him, but Danarius was wrong.

A wolf is a creature of packs. A wolf is bright eyes and obedience. A wolf craves company and a wolf knows its place. Fenris is not a wolf. Fenris is power and pride, even if that pride is bruised and raw from its shackles, and anyone who looks at Tenebris can see it. He doesn’t know whether she settled before he got the brands or whether the lyrium changed her, somehow, just as it changed him. All he knows is that for as long as he can remember, she’s been like this, a sleek, beautiful, black-furred creature of the northern rainforests.

Danarius should have known they’d break free. No one could ever tame a panther.

He kept her on a chain, of course, and clasped a spiked collar around her neck. He made her clean his boots with her tongue, rested his feet on her back, stroked the glossy fur of her head whenever one of his rivals came to visit. Look, said that hand that buried itself in the black pelt. See what powerful beasts I have at my command.

His touch on her was like knives in Fenris’s gut. But he stood silent, still, head bowed. His master owned his body. His soul was held in his master’s hands.

Danarius would force them apart, make them sleep in separate rooms, forbid them to speak to each other, even touch. In his anger, he would beat them both, and Fenris would feel Tenebris’s pain jolt through his own body, and he’d think vaguely through a fog of anguish that it was wrong, seeing a creature of strength and grace cowed like this. The thought would flicker for a moment, and then be gone.

When they finally run, it’s the first time Fenris has ever felt close to his soul.

Living in Kirkwall is not only about learning to live with freedom. It’s about learning who he is. For the first time, Tenebris is not an oversized cat, she is a piece of the wild, and so is he. They spend long nights curled up beside the fire in the mansion, talking as they never have before. Fenris curses himself for never realising that he always had an ally in her, then stops and curses Danarius instead for forcing him to feel separate from her. Slowly, the barriers break down, and he’s willing to touch his own soul at last, to run his hands through her velvet fur, and she’s willing to lie alongside him at night with her pelt brushing his skin.

When the accursed mage starts up his ranting about freedom again, Fenris finds himself listening for once. Because the mage mentions Tranquility. About how no one deserves to have their daemon severed, their bond with their soul taken away.

Fenris glances down at Tenebris, at this creature who would always, eventually, slip or break any collar you placed around her neck, because she’s a panther, not a cat. He feels his heart swell, and for the first time in his life, he finds himself understanding what Anders means. 'No one will cage us,' Tenebris growls. 'No one will seperate us.' And she bares her teeth, teeth that can bite right through a man's skull, just as Fenris's hand can slam through a chest. He doesn't doubt that she is right.

Merrill

Merrill always did do things a little differently.

Many Dalish have jays as daemons, even those who aren’t mages, but they’re all the normal creamy-brown jays, creatures that can melt into the woods, go unseen if they want to. There’s no missing Belavahna. She’s so obviously foreign, her feathers vibrant, exotic, tropical, the blue of shallow waters in warm oceans. No Fereldan bird looks like she does.

The other Dalish frown and shake their heads at the sight. When your daemon stands out as much as her, it means you’re different in some way, and people are always ready to think that different means dangerous. But Belavahna – she’s not dangerous. Merrill knows she isn’t. A jay will give you a nice firm peck if you try to hurt it (and serve you right), but they aren't cruel. Jays are bright, inquisitive eyes, and cheerful voices that rarely still. Jays are curiosity and cleverness.

Jays like to keep things, too. They stash nuts and seeds away, keep them hidden, keep them safe. Merrill feels like she's doing the same, as she gathers the shards of the Eluvian, pieces it back together, and lugs it around with her everywhere she goes. ‘Like a magpie gathering things that glitter,’ the clan say, but Merrill bites her lip and carries on. Bela’s always been the bolder part of Merrill, though, the stronger part, so she looks their clanmates in the eye defiantly, and later, she presses her head against Merrill’s face, the brush of her feathers a soothing comfort.

‘You’re not keeping these things out of greed,’ she says. 'That’s not what jays do. Jays keep things because they’re too precious to be lost.'

They stand out even more in the Alienage than they did with the clan. A Dalish girl with a tattooed face and her vivid azure and cream bird-daemon will always attract stares and turn heads, nowhere more so than where everyone else’s daemons are so... faded. When Merrill looks at the other elves’ patchy-furred dogs and mice and squirrels, the only word that comes to mind is defeated.

She could never fit in with these people, when her soul is so very, very different to theirs. So she’s on her own, and that’s the hardest part, because jays really don’t like to be alone.

But there’s brightness in this life too. There’s Hawke. And there’s Varric and Isabela and the others, and card games in the Hawke estate and feeling like she’s not so alone after all. And there’s browsing the bookshelves in Hawke’s house, and stumbling on one about Free Marches birds. It’s the book that tells her that Bela’s a scrub jay. It’s the book that tell her a lot of things about her daemon and thus about herself.

She reads. She reads about how scrub jays pick the ticks and fleas from deer and cattle, helping them in ways so small they might not even notice. She reads about how they’re frowned on, called thieves. ‘Well, that’s a little unfair,’ Bela says. ‘They need to eat.’

Yes, they do. Just like Merrill needs to fix the Eluvian. You don’t stop doing something you need to do because other people have the wrong idea about it.

But the most important thing she learns is that scrub jays watch. They watch each other, and they remember. They don’t forget where they hide their stashes, not ever. They move their caches when another bird sees them hide it. They hold on to the past and they plan for the future, looking behind so they can find a way ahead, because behind those quick darting eyes and the cheerful chattering voices are minds that never, never forget.

And it’s a Keeper’s job – Merrill’s job – to remember. Even the dangerous things.

Isabela

Mages have birds. But they’re not the only ones. Isabela’s never shot lightning from her fingers her whole life, though she can think of plenty of circumstances in which it would be… interesting to be able to do so. She has a bird all the same, and it means something very different. It means freedom.

When Delmar settles, Isabela’s mother clenches her jaw and mutters something about even harder to get you married properly now. The birds-are-mages association isn’t too much of an obstacle, not in Rivain, but Delmar is… Delmar. He’s no sleek, beautiful creature, no elegant peacock to adorn a rich man’s house. He’s big and brown, webbed feet and a short beak ending in a little dagger-hook, and he doesn’t keep quiet when he’s got something to say. He fills the house with his sharp, laughing call, and of course, Luis hates him.

Zevran, however, finds him hilarious.

‘A skua for a daemon,’ he says, tossing her a knife. ‘That being the case, you should find skewering me fairly easy, no?’ And Isabela laughs for what feels like the first time since she set eyes on Luis, and as she matches Zevran’s blades with her blades and his puns with her puns, she finally feels like she deserves Delmar. Like her soul is winged for a reason.

When at last Isabela breaks free, she lets Delmar lead the way. They know where to go. The sea has always called them, because the skua is a migrant, a wanderer, travelling for thousands of miles over open water. Delmar’s webs and sail-like wings were made for voyages. So was Isabela. But not for her the tame merchant life, because the skua is marked out from the aimlessly squabbling gulls and the fragile terns and the stately albatrosses by one thing. It is not only a traveller, but a thief.

On days when the spray’s flung into her face by the wind and the ship’s skimming across the waves as if it’s as eager to meet the horizon as Isabela is, she loves nothing more than to watch Delmar taking to the sky, flying to the very edge of their bond. Sometimes there’ll be some hapless seabird, a gull or a gannet, that manages to grasp a fish in its bill only to have a huge brown bird with a bill like a knife descend like a thunderbolt, grasp its wing to make it stall and fall to the sea below, snatching the fish from it beak with vicious deftness. Isabela pities the other birds of the sea when there’s a skua in the air, just as she pities the poor merchant who sees the Siren’s Call descending, flags fluttering, the pirate captain standing grinning at the prow, her pirate daemon on her shoulder.

When the arrows start flying and the swords start swinging, Isabela knows her place – right in the thick of things, with blades at the ready. And Delmar circles above, dive-bombing the enemy, beating his wings in the face of the bandit (who misses the blow he aimed at Merrill) and pecking at the face of the Tal-Vashoth (who would have had Varric if Delmar hadn’t been there) and scratching and clawing and fighting, fighting, fighting.

Because here’s the thing: nothing takes on a skua. Nothing but an eagle or a killer whale will ever be bold enough. Go near its nest, threaten its fledglings, and it won’t stop fighting you until you’re fleeing or dead.

Hawke and the others are like a bunch of clueless fledglings much of the time, and Isabela and Delmar are in agreement that if anyone tries to harm them, they will gouge out their Maker-damned eyes.

#i spent so long researching this one it was ridiculous #feel free to ask if you want a particular choice of name or daemon explained!#dragon age #dragon age 2 #daemon au #carver hawke #bethany hawke #aveline vallen #anders #fenris #merrill #isabela #sky's writing #have i ever mentioned that i really love magpies? because they deserve more love.

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