#and now its all so distant and ofc that comes from just growing up but theres also such an edge to it

[sodrippy]

i love dnd for the "omg i want to be a cool guy and have cool friends and have cool adventures with my cool magic" of it all and how it fosters creativity and fun but unfortunately it does also tap into the inexorable escapist fantasy mindset i lived in as a kid and i have to separate the two out lest i become overcome a misplaced sadness from ten year old val who wants to have magic powers so so badly

[softguarnere]

Like A Girl (Like A Man)

Shifty Powers x OFC

Chapter 11: Gosvnoyi Dvninvi

Summary: Zenie’s throat is dry when she issues the challenge. “Flash!”

A/N: The moment we've been waiting for: D-Day

(I couldn't figure out the Cherokee translation for D-Day, so this chapter title translates to "tonight they are falling to the ground")

Warnings: guns, war, language

Taglist: @liebgotts-lovergirl @latibvles @mrs-murder-daddy @lieutenant-speirs

The skies, 1944

The equipment is weighing her down, slapping heavily against her in some places and rubbing her raw in others as she moves, always upward, upward, upward. No matter how many bends she rounds, thinking to herself that surely this will be the top, Currahee always reveals more of the trail that unravels ahead of her.

The trees are half bare, allowing her to catch glimpses of the blue mountains and sprawling town off to her left. She’s scrambling toward the top, but none of the scenery ever seems to get more distant.

I’ll meet you at the top, a voice in her head promises her.

Sometimes when they run the mountain, Zenie feels like if she could just move fast enough, she would be able to outrun something; to break free from it all. Now, she’s running alone, and it feels like something is after her – perhaps all the things that she’s trying to leave behind are catching up with her.

I’ll meet you at the top.

She rounds the last corner. She recognizes this one. There’s the rock outcropping at the top!

The trail is so steep and her equipment so heavy that Zenie is practically on her hands and knees as she scrabbles up the homestretch.

As promised, a figure is standing at the end of the trail. They’re facing away from her, hands on their hips as they stare out over the edge of the mountain. Even though Zenie is gasping for air and sending gravel spraying from beneath her boots, they never show any indication that they hear her coming. Or maybe they just don’t care.

A few more steps and she’s there. She made it! The top of Currahee welcomes her once again.

Instead of stopping, she pushes herself onward, hand outstretched to the figure in front of her. She’s not sure what comes over her. She grabs the person’s shoulder and turns them around to face her, only to see –

Herself.

She jolts awake. Around her, darkness. The engine of the C-47 roars as they tremble through the sky. Loud as it is, she thinks that she can sometimes hear the whispers of those around her as they cross themselves. Maybe she’s imagining it.

She could be imagining anything and everything. Ever since she took that pill, she’s felt unsteady and a little giddy. The cool night air from the doorway of the plane is refreshing. If she closes her eyes, it’s like being on their first nighttime practice jump.

Across from her, Bill catches her eye. He’s whispering something to himself. Methodically, he thumbs through the beads on his rosary. He nods to her but doesn’t stop. She nods back and leaves it at that.

Her eyes wander back to the doorway. The very doorway she’ll be throwing herself out of soon.

But at the moment, it looks like a portal to another world. Inky blackness forms the night sky, although every now and then there’s a flash of light, like heat lightning flickering over the mountains on summer nights back home. Every now and then she can hear popping, like gravel pinging off the sides of a truck. For a split second, all seems still as history holds its breath.

Everything after that moves quickly.

The red light by the door comes on. No sooner is it washing them in its glow then they hear the call.

“Get ready!”

Zenie still feels icky from the pill, but any giddy or dreamy feelings gained from it are quickly lost. She snaps into action, holding up the hook for her static line just like everyone else.

“Stand up!”

They’ve done this so many times that they don’t even jostle into each other when they stand.

“Hook up!”

All the flashing lights from outside the plane are growing more frequent, the sounds that accompany them becoming louder. The plane shudders as they follow the last instruction.

Hardly any time passes between the call for equipment check and the order to sound off for it. From behind, she can hear the rustlings of fabric on fabric as men pat each other down. She’s jostled as she receives her pat down followed by the cry of, “Seven okay!”

She feels the man in front of her, relying on touch to make sure that everything is where it’s supposed to be. When she yells “Six okay!” she practically screams it, just to make sure that she’s heard through the haze and the noise; she doesn’t want something going awry all thanks to her and her inability to speak up when it counts.   

When the last voice calls out, they all wait for the red light to turn green. The sounds of antiaircraft fire are becoming closer and more frequent. She can hear the telltale sounds of metal on metal as the planes are hit. Is the one she’s on taking too much fire?

The plane shudders in response and pitches to the left, causing all the paratroopers in the stick to stumble as they try to stay upright. The pilots manage to right them, sending them scrambling as they try to keep in line. Even with all the darkness outside, it’s evident that they’ve lost altitude.

A deep moaning sound fills the sky around them. Through the doorway, she catches a glimpse of the back half of a C-47 as it falls to the earth. It looks like a comet streaking through the night sky. The front half of the plane is nowhere to be seen.

“Christ, we gotta go!” Someone yells out.

“We ain’t high enough!”

“The light’s not green!”

If they keep losing altitude, they’ll never get to see the light turn green. They’ll never make it out of the plane. That seems like a worse fate than anything that awaits them in the air outside. Zenie’s heart races as she thinks about pushing past the others in the stick so she can just get this jump over with.

Green washes over them. It’s the moment they’ve anticipated, but for a second, everyone remains still, like they can’t believe it’s actually happening.

“Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!”

One by one, the paratroopers in front of her fling themselves out of the plane. Nothing but a silky stream is left behind them as their unopened parachutes slip out of their packs. A few people yell a triumphant Currahee! or Geronimo! as they go. Some of them just yell.

Laughter almost bubbles up in Zenie’s chest. She’s yelled Currahee! on all their practice jumps, just to take her mind off of what awaits her below. Her friends hardly ever seemed to echo the call. Shifty usually just let out a string a cuss words that always seemed so unlike him. But when you need something to yell, anything will do.

She’s next in line. Her Mae West popped back in England. She can only hope she doesn’t land in water. She can only hope that she makes it to the ground.

She’s in the doorway. “Holy shit,” she whispers as she approaches the precipice.

Before she can overthink it, she throws herself out of the plane, “Currahee!” on the edge of her lips. The night is so loud when she sails through the door that it gets lost in all the noise. She’s sure that she counts the faithful one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand! before her static line unhooks, but her words disappear into the night. A shock runs through her body as her parachute opens behind her, filling with air and slowing her descent into the madness that is taking place all around her.

Brightly colored tracers light up the night sky like an Independence Day celebration. Popping explosions sound off from every direction. She cringes, hoping they don’t get too close to her. Tugging on her parachute’s risers won’t do her any good if she doesn’t know which way they’re coming from.

A roar like a lion comes from overhead as a plane spirals down towards the earth. It meets the cold and unforgiving embrace of the ground below. An orange glow like a distant campfire lights up the ground below as the plane is engulfed in flames. It’s too far away for her to have to worry about, but Zenie pulls on her risers anyway. To think that only a few moments before she had been most worried about landing in water seems absurd now.

Knees and feet together, just like she was taught, Zenie still topples over when she hits the ground. She frees herself from her parachute before worrying with her weapon –

Which is gone. Her leg bag is no longer attached to her leg. Shit.

Staccatos from the distance grab her attention. Right, she’s got a job to do. But how to do it with no supplies . . .

Luckily, she didn’t land in water. Squinting through the darkness, she can make out the clearing that she’s in. A field of some sort, maybe. Trees and shrubs lie a few feet behind her. It’s too dark to tell if they lead into a denser wood or if they just denote a property line. Either way, they could provide cover, should she need it.

“Ha!” A few feet away, an oblong shape rests in the grass. Wasting no time, Zenie rushes to her bag and rips it open.

Except that it’s not her bag. Nothing inside is organized the way that she packed hers. In her rush, maybe she could convince herself that things got tossed around during the fall. But the rifle inside is distinctly not her M1 Garand – it looks like the Lee-Enfields that she’s seen the British carrying around back in England.

Okay, not her leg bag. But at least now she has a weapon and ammo.

There’s no time to feel bad about taking someone else’s leg bag. Ahead of her, through the darkness, a figure appears. Thanks to Sobel’s night marches, Zenie can usually make out any of the men from her company in the darkness.

None of this figure’s mannerisms are familiar, though. It moves slowly, like it hasn’t seen her yet – or like it’s hoping that she hasn’t seen it.

Zenie’s throat is dry when she issues the challenge. “Flash!”

The figure freezes. No response.

Maybe he didn’t hear her? She gulps before trying again, a little louder. “Flash!”

This time he definitely hears her. He starts moving forward, charging her.

There’s no time to think. Zenie lifts the rifle, aims, and pulls the trigger.

Bang! He stumbles backward. Bang! It’s like watching a puppet get its strings cut. The German soldier falls to the ground, dead. It’s as simple as that.

Zenie lowers her rifle and stares at the motionless figure on the ground. “Oh my – “

“Flash!”

On instinct, she raises the rifle again as she swings around to where the voice came from. In the foliage a few feet behind her, a figure is crouched down, watching her.

“Thunder!” She replies, hoping the night doesn’t swallow up her voice.

The figure in the tree line stands and takes a step forward.

“Shifty!” She starts toward him at the same time. They rush to each other. Euphoria at having found a familiar face in this fearsome and strange place washes over her. It doubles over the fact that it’s his face.

“You got him,” Shifty says. He places a hand on her arm. He’s so close when he whispers, “Are you okay?”

Zenie nods, stepping closer, closing what little space there is between them. Her heart is slamming against her ribcage as it tries to break free. She wonders if Shifty can hear it. She can’t answer over its pounding. And certainly not with the way that he’s looking at her, so full of concern.

Their eyes meet. Her breath hitches in her throat.

The next thing that she knows, they’re both leaning toward each other, her face angled slightly upward while Shifty bends down a little. There’s a second’s pause, like they’re asking each other for permission, and then her eyes are squeezed shut and her lips are crashing into his.

Shifty’s lips are slightly chapped. It doesn’t matter to her. And nothing about hers seems to matter to him. The only thing that matters is that for just a moment, the outside world comes to a grinding halt while they create their own little universe for just the two of them. Philosophers and scientists would marvel at the sweet isolation they’ve created in the midst of this chaos and call it heaven on earth.

When they part for air, they rest their foreheads against each other, even with their helmets in the way. Still, she can see into his eyes. See how they light up the darkness with his smile. He’s smiling – at her! The thought fills her with such giddiness that something between a giggle and a sigh of relief bubbles up in her chest. For so long, looking at Shifty felt like trying to catch a glimpse of the sun; something that could only be done in quick glances. Now, as they look into each other’s eyes, it feels like she’s looking at the moon – something that is possible and familiar and lovely.

“Did we really just do that?” Zenie gasps.

“Lord have mercy,” Shifty breathes.

Privately, Zenie thinks maybe He already has. What, short of a real-life miracle, could have allowed someone as good and as kind as Shifty Powers to look at her in this way?

Are you okay? he had asked her. She didn’t answer his question. What could she have said after having just killed a man? Now, though, she feels more than okay. With him here –

Him. Shifty. Here.

Zenie pulls away and breaks the boundaries of their little bliss and regrets it immediately. But she has to know, to get her bearings. Because if Shifty, from third platoon, is here with her, from second –

“Zena?”

“Oh my God,” she whispers in disbelief as she glances around the dark field. “I’m in the wrong goddamn Drop Zone.”

“Oh.” Shifty looks around, his face falling a bit. “Or maybe I am?”

Despite it all, Zenie finds herself smiling. “Maybe we both are.”

If she has to be lost, she’s glad it’s with Shifty.

“Maybe so.” He smiles back at her. His hand lingers near her elbow and her hand still rests on his chest. He seems reluctant to part from the remnants of their privacy when he suggests, “We should probably get movin’. Try to find some others.”

In the distance, the scattered staccatos of gun fire pop off in the night. The war – the very thing that brought them together – is being waged all around them. It’s ever present and inescapable. They’ve had their moment of peace within it. Now it’s time to get back to reality . . . and to hope it won't tear them apart.

Before they do, Zenie leans in – deliberately this time, to give him warning in case he wants to stop – and kisses him again. It’s quicker this time, and she can feel him smiling into it. When they’re done, she grabs the British leg bag she found, intent on carrying it with them, since its owner clearly won’t be using it. She gives Shifty a nod to signal that she’s ready.

He returns the gesture. Then they walk into the darkness – into the unpredictability of war – side by side.

Together.

[grimescum-2]

i haven't talked about her here have i... well now im gunna

her name iss frenzy. that's not her legal name of course, it's her chosen one and part of her usual username. nobody really knows her birth name outside of her family

she's a trans woman! when she was younger, she was often extremely jealous of the girls in her class and felt the urge to compete with them for the attention of her crush. none of her peers liked her too much because of it, though her crush tolerated it because he felt bad for her. he stuck around because he knew her home life was ass and could tell she wasn't all there in the head, and not receiving that kind of compassion from anyone else, she grew attached

as her mental health deteriorated, she became fiercely dependent and possessive of her crush, making him uncomfortable and driving his friends away in the process. he eventually decided to cut off their friendship for his sake, something she didn't take kindly to. in a mental break, she gouged out her own eye and gave it to him as some sort of desperate attempt to keep him with her. this surprisingly did not work and resulted in her being sent to the hospital

her parents weren't overtly abusive, more neglectful, distant and unprepared than anything physical.

of course they didn't take her hospitalization well, either. after many disputes, her mother left her entirely in the care of her father, who hardly does the bare minimum in order to save money (hence why she's underweight and has trouble w basic hygiene). she spends most of her days in her room post-hospitalization

as a person, she's very childish and emotionally immature, but comes off as friendly because of the surprising amount of energy she has and her want to meet more people. she isn't all too good at showing empathy but she's a good friend in spite of how clingy and insensitive she can be at times. also a huge weirdo; doesn't really know how to socialize or converse like a normal human being. she gets bored easily n will do whatever the fuck she wants

she likes anime (slice of life, shoujo and moe), horror movies (anything with a lot of gore. kind of an outlet for her anger and jealousy), creepypasta, cute boys, bunnies and anything pink.

a few fun facts :o3

- her name was inspired by a character from the spookys house of jumpscares dollhouse dlc. i wanted her online username to be "frenziedtorment", taken from the character's death screen, but that sounded too emo so um blehh

- she was inspired by a lot of characters!! most notably naoko kirino (pumpkin night), himiko toga (bnha ew), bridget (guilty gear), baby (house of 1000 corpses), ebisu (dorohedoro), midari ikishima (kakegurui) and monaca towa, junko enoshima, hiyoko saionji (danganronpa ew)

- def one of my favorite ocs, if not just my favorite. her backstory is representative of my struggles w social anxiety and bpd, though to a much more exaggerated extent

- she normally speaks in third person, inspired by ibuki mioda (danganronpa)

- she's 21, but looks younger due to severe nutritional deficiency growing up

- her hair is dyed. its actually black

here's her spotify playlist that i need to fix up sometime aaand here's a ref i made for her fashion sense !!

ofc none of the images are mine, all were found on pinterest and are only used here as means of demonstration

THANK U FOR READING THIS!! i love talking abourt her gheyhe

OK!!!!!! this is a draft for her finalized design but it might end up as the finished product, need to think about it a little more

[fandom-puff]

Four Years

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Reader

Requested by: anon ‘heey i love ur work! would you mind writing some smutty fic for tommy shelby? something like he comes back home from france and its the first time hes sleeping with his wife after such a long time so shes a bit insecure + he's changed (more rough and distant). but ofc they both like it :) if not then its okay <3G’

YHC= your hair colour

Warnings: rough sex, mentions of war

Gif creds to owner

“This is odd,” you whispered.

“Why?” He mumbled, arms around your middle.

“I don’t know... I feel like a stranger. I’ve forgotten how to be your wife,” Tommy looked up from your chest, pulling up and sitting up. “It’s different now. We’re adults- proper adults. Mature, I mean. Well, you are at least. A-and I don’t want to grow apart. I missed you while you were in France. But now that you’re back I feel...”

“Like you’re in limbo?” Tommy finished your sentence and you nodded.

“Mmhmm,” you nodded, cupping his cheek gently. “I love you, Tom, you know that right? Even while you were away, I thought about you every day, how I missed you. I found all of our pictures and tickets and... memories. Put them in a book...” you trailed off as tommy gathered you in his arms.

As you cuddled, you felt his lips press soft kisses to your neck, and when you moaned and tilted your head to the side, he grunted, his kisses becoming more insistent, hot and open mouthed against the sensitive flesh of your neck that had been untouched for four years.

“Tom...” you whispered, eyes searching his icy blue ones, blown wide with lust.

“I know,” he replied, teeth grazing your neck as he began lifting your nightdress up. You whimpered; even after all this time he remembered your most sensitive spots. Letting him remove your nighty, you bore your bare chest to him, nipples tightening in the cold, goosebumps spreading over your breasts. Tommy groaned softly, ducking his head down to lick at your exposed flesh, drawing your nipple into his mouth and sucking, holding you close to him as you reached down and tugged at his own shirt. He practically tore it off, moving to his pants as his lips returned to yours.

“While we were in France,” he growled against your mouth. “They brought a few whores to us,” you felt your stomach begin to sink before he continued. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t go near her. She had YHC, just like yours, but as soon as she walked in, I had to leave. I couldn’t bare to think of any woman but you,”

You moaned softly, kissing back with renewed frenzy, teeth and tongue clashing with his, so unlike the sweet, tearful kiss you had shared earlier at the train station. “Please Tommy,” you whispered, nails grazing his scalp. “Fuck me, make me yours all over again,” you begged.

“You’re always mine, YN, no matter how far apart we are,” he said, shoving his boxers down just enough so that his hardened cock sprung free, slapping his stomach. “Come here, love... lay down for me,”

“On my hands and knees?” You asked; before the war, when you and Tommy did it rough, he’d have you on your hands and knees, grasping and slapping your arse.

He shook his head. “No. I need to see your face, see your eyes. It’s been too long, and I want my eyes on yours,”

You nodded, biting your lip hard as you lay back, spreading your legs, already wet from his earlier touches. Tommy pumped his cock a few times, before lining up with your entrance. Tipping your head back and squeezing your eyes shut, you prepared yourself for the inevitable bit of discomfort that would come as you tried to re-familiarise yourself with his cock. “YN, look at me,” tommy rasped, and just as your eyes locked with his, he began to ease himself in, hissing at your slick tightness. You gasped, mouth falling open as you spread your legs wider to accommodate his hips, drawing your knees up slightly so you could feel him penetrate you deeper.

“Fucking beautiful,” he groaned, bottoming out. You whimpered softly, arms wrapping around his neck as you adjusted, before you began to rock your hips.

It was messy and imperfect, an emotional blend of passionate lovemaking and desperate fucking. The room was filled with the sounds of skin slapping together, Tommy’s deep grunts and groans, your own cries of pleasure as you scraped your nails down his back, biting bruises onto his pale shoulders, claiming him once more as yours. He praised you endlessly, telling you how tight and wet you were for him, how perfect your body was, how you were made just for him...

You felt your orgasm building, and tommy recognised your tells; the rhythmic tightening of your cunt, the high cries dissolving into more guttural moans, the way you clung desperately to his body.

“Come, YN,” he groaned, reaching between you to grace his thumb over your clit, his own orgasm crashing over him as you convulsed and called his name.

Jolting, you panted, moaning as tommy pulled out of you, tears streaming down your face from the immensity of your release. Tommy immediately returned to your side, gathering you into his arms- you noticed the muscle that had built from tears of tunnelling- and kissing the top of your head.

“I love you, YN,” he said, and you could feel his thudding heart. “And I always will,”

Tags: @liliputbahn @lilymurphy03 @imareallygrumpyme @acciosiriusblack @shelundeadxxxx @peakyswritings @lazyotakujen

[waybrights]

the long awaited (not rlly ahdbajd) lore post about how the band's dynamic and relationships fluctuate throughout the eight (?) years the fic follows!!!

(so, i realise that in the show, they're 13 in 2019/20 but i kinda forgot abt that when i was making this au so the band starts blowing up in 2013 when, canonically they would've been like 5 so i accidentally aged them all up and now they're 20)

2013 - they're 13 and very close to falling apart as a group. the only thing keeping them together is the fact that they wouldn't rlly have anyone else to go to. the leader is clearly sasha and the other two kinda do what she says. ofc anne argues w her a lot, because she's fed up with the way her and marcy are treated and how all their ideas are chucked out the window. eventually, i think sasha crosses a line (maybe smth like in the show, she keeps anne out instead of letting her go home to her bday party) and anne decides that it's time for them to go their separate ways.

however, they get thrown into fame and suddenly there is no chance of them breaking up the band and going their separate ways. so they're practically forced to stay together and have to pretend to get along for the public. ofc sash and anne rlly don't like it, but they try. though, it usually ends up in arguments or snide remarks that get under the other's skin and marcy having to come between them and settle it. leading to even more strain on their friendship.

2014 - somehow, it's got worse. anne and sasha weren't on talking terms for half the year due to a falling out over costumes that got a bit heated. marcy was constantly flitting between the two, trying desperately to make amends because people were starting to notice the tension when they did interviews. ofc they tried to keep up the 'we're besties' thing, but even that was quickly falling apart. it doesn't help that the entire time, sasha has been trying to control everything the band does from songs, to how they stand on stage.

both of them kept asking for the band to break up, w sasha saying she would rather go solo than perform w anne, but the idea got shot down p early on due to them being one of the biggest teen bands in the world, so they kinda just, force themselves to make up. and it's awkward for a while, but at least they aren't arguing over every single thing and marcy doesn't have to chose who she's going to hang out w that day. but then that all goes down the drain when sasha has a major falling out w their manager (hop pop) over smth p trivial but ofc it ends up blowing up and everyone ends up taking sides creating a split between both the band and the bts team.

2015 - i think this is when they reach their breaking point and the band goes on an unexplained 'hiatus' for a year, all their concerts get cancelled and they don't produce any music and it seems none of the girls are w eachother (via social media). they go through an unofficial break up. it had actually been initiated by marcy because she simply couldn't deal w the stress of trying to hold the band together anymore and decided it was a good idea for them to split (it also helped that she was closest to the head of their label so she managed to convince him to let them go)

the three hardly talk during their break, i think they're all angry at eachother (marcy w both of them and anne and sasha w each other) so they just decided to steer clear of having to talk to them. during this time sasha does release a solo album and it actually gets quite big because its very obviously her own thoughts and feelings and everyone can tell she worked hard on it, but (and sasha also admits it) it feels like its not as good as it could've been if she was w the other two.

and i feel like that's kinda what spurs her to maybe start getting her act together! like obviously she doesn't 'change' but i think she accepts that marcy and anne are their own people and know what they want. so she ends up trying to get them back together, and it doesn't actually take the other two much convincing (they missed being together a lot more than they care to admit)

2016 - slowly, they're starting to grow closer again. they start hanging out a trio, even when they're alone. anne and sasha hardly argue and they actually think abt each other's ideas. marcy is a lot more relaxed because they don't have to mediate every convo the group has and she doesn't have to worry abt the other two saying something too serious to the other.

ofc they still fight, but they aren't as often and certainly not as messy. they wouldn't consider each other best friends, but they are friends again. i like to think they're both closer to marcy than each other, but they're getting somehwere.

however, no actual apologies were ever said (mainly from sasha ngl) and although anne and marcy like to pretend they're over it, they would still be slightly upset abt it.

2017 - this is the year of sasha's Character Development (TM) according to marcy. idk yet what makes her realise (maybe someone asking her why she's always so distant and awful to the other two, or maybe a question abt why they split up), but it's this year that it clicks for her that she's not been a great friend. so she definitely spends a long time trying to grow and work to fix her mistakes.

i feel like it's around this time she would also kinda step down from her role as the 'leader' of the band, now officially giving all three of them the same amount of control about what they make and how they do it (although, they still don't have much because of the label, but anne and marcy now have more than they did). so now they're all on equal ground and are making amends. she also stops trying to take control of eveything, esp things that are out of her hands (like where they tour and what interviews they do)

not that there aren't still arguments, there are but they never get to the point that they don't talk to each other. there is a pretty big argument between sasha and marcy, but it gets resolved quite fast!

2018 - 2019 - honestly, everything seems to be going smoothly for them. sasha and anne are growing closer (and they're both trying to ignore that weird feeling they get in their stomachs when they get too close in rehearsals/concerts), all three of them are hanging out almost all the time, if one of them is around the other two are close by.

i think they also start opening up to each other around this time, not that they didn't before, but with the amount of problems they had, it wasn't exactly easy to talk abt super personal stuff. but they start, and i think it was anne that started it, she's always been the most open w her emotions and it just increases the closer they get. she also manages to get both marcy and sasha to open up a bit!

2020 - by this time, i think they pretty much consider each other best friends again (well, more for sasha and anne, but they haven't exactly realised they like each other yet. marcy has though and they're tired of the pining at this point).

and i dont want to say anything else because this is where the fic pics up!!! it was super fun trying to work all this stuff out sbsbbssh, it isn't all like 100% set in stone, some stuff is liable to change but pls feel free to ask any questions!!! thank u all for reading this far and i hope u enjoyed some sats au lore <3

[one-rosy-sock]

Cold Hands, Warm Heart | Chapter 2

{Link}

Fandom: Hitman A03

Rating: M

Ship: Agent 47/OFC

Co-Written with: QClueingForLooksQ

———

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

47’s brow twitched.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

47’s reflexes finally came to life as ice-cold powder began scrubbing against his face. Jerking awake, he made to move around only to find his entire world confined to where he was.

Scratch, scratch, scratch, came the noise again. 47 found he couldn’t tell if his fingers or toes were moving. He couldn’t feel his fingers or toes. Moving his limbs was next to impossible, and it would diminish energy he knew he couldn’t afford to lose.

So far, he could only come to one conclusion.

He was buried alive.

Not the way he personally wanted to go, but fitting he’d get a slow and agonizing death. The scratching could be someone shoveling more dirt or snow over him. Ah--snow? Wait. That’s right. He was caught in an avalanche. Then what was that noise?

The scratching grew closer yet. He could hear something pant heavily, pausing only to sniff with interest. Though numb with cold, frozen stiff, he could feel living weight shifting over him, scratching at the snow. He could hear a concerned distant voice calling for someone from afar.

Perhaps today was not his last. He got lucky.

Light finally shone through the chunks of snow, exposing him to a sharp wind. Something clawed at his face, making him wince. Opening his eyes, he saw a wet black nose fill his vision. Humid dog breath fogged over his face before a long tongue came to replace. “Hey,” he rasped, attempting to move his head away.

The dog, some kind of Japanese breed with a face like a red-panda, pulled its head back and barked before continuing to dig him out.

Snow crunched nearby. Someone was running closer, the owner he assumed. Panting, gasping, the person, a woman, exclaimed something in Japanese. Relief crashed over him like warm water.

A woman swathed in winter attire fell to her knees beside him, bringing herself into his limited line of vision. Confused gray eyes came to focus on his own, soon growing concerned as realization dawned on her. Pulling back a fur-lined hood, ruddy, pale face revealed, she exclaimed, ���なんてこっ. お客様...？サー、聞こえますか？心配しないでね私はあなたをそこから連れ出します. もう少し待ってください.” (*)

He wracked his brain to translate her words, but he was so tired and her voice was so fast he couldn’t keep up. Without waiting for a reply, the woman acted fast as she and the dog worked to dig him out of the snow. 47 could not recall the last time he was in such a compromising position. He was hypothermic and injured and utterly reliant on this woman’s mercy. Even as she relentlessly scraped armfuls of snow off his chest, panting from exertion, she could be an enemy sent to track him down and kill him. Or more likely, she could be a spy ordered to hold him captive and try to torture information out of him. If she did want him dead, she wouldn’t have bothered helping. Nonetheless, he didn’t like having no way to defend himself...

The woman asked him another question, voice lilting. He huffed some and just managed out a, “English.”

“American?” She asked breathlessly, hovering above him again. He supposed what nationality he was didn’t really matter so long as she spoke English, so he just nodded. Her pale skin was now beginning to grow pink, cheeks getting red along with her lips. She must live nearby, or have a car, to only just now be getting cold.

“My name is Celina,” she introduced in surprisingly fine English with an accent he couldn’t quite place. It was...mixed, it seemed. “I am going to get you out. Ok?”

“Thank you,” he grunted. A hundred needles jabbed all over his body.

“No need for thanks. You’re ‘urt- I would not be a very decent ‘uman being if I left you to rot,” she tutted.

There it was again. French? He pushed such assumptions aside as she hovered over him once again and dug her hands behind his shoulders. Pain shot up his right side. Grunting, he let her sit him up. Snow slid off his bare head, hitting his ears. It felt as if someone had just clipped them off.

“Okay. I am going to get you up now. Zeh quicker we get back zeh better. Zere is a fire and warm water, and food, bandages--”

He nodded mutely listening to her, situating his arms around her as she squatted beside him. Clumsily, and quite painfully, they fumbled around before they were finally upright. The woman was just a head shorter than him, but her puffy winter coat, reflective and pink, made her seem bigger than she likely was. She waddled from her heavy winter uniform, but held him tight and supported some of his weight.

The dog barked and ran ahead. It turned back to watch them a moment before bounding forward again. Its tightly curled tail wagged relentlessly.

“I am so glad Yoshi found you, mister. I would not ‘ave.”

“Mmph.”

“I was trying to close up zeh ‘ouse to save ‘eat, yes? Zis storm is awful. Zen I let Yoshi out to potty, but he ran off and found you. Avalanche?”

“Yes,” he grimaced as they shuffled slowly but surely forward, 47 trying his best to stay upright without leaning on her too much. Under her puffy coat, he could feel she was fairly thin. She shivered with him. He couldn’t tell whose teeth were chattering more.

In the distance, from what he could see through the growing winds and gray snowfall, was the outline of a large wooden house with a tall sloped roof. There was a wall surrounding it, and a gate standing wide open. Excellent. Shelter and heat. And a plethora of weapons at his disposal.

The girl, Celina he recalls, slumped under his arm but did her best to help him to the house. It felt like they had walked an eternity, though it had only been a few yards.

Once the doors slid open, both of them stumbled inside. The heat should have felt good, but all it did was spark pins and needles in his skin as if he himself was melting under the brunt of it. There was a fire going in a sunken pit in the middle of the room. It was nice. Cozy. The dog was warming itself by the fire. The furniture smelled sweet from the tatami mats, and the air was heady with the aroma of a home cooked meal bubbling over the fire. A teapot hung beside it. He heard the door slide shut behind him.

As much as he wanted to collapse, he had to stay on his feet. He didn’t know this woman. She could be from Providence for all he knew. Without Diana in his ear assuring him otherwise, it was best to stay vigilant.

Unwilling to keep his back to her, 47 turned away from the fire to face her.

There was something off about the woman. He watched her yank off her gloves and unzip her coat, then take off her beanie. Long hair fell past her shoulders. Boots came off next. Under her heavy winter attire, the young woman wore a brightly-colored flower-printed fleece shirt and thermal leggings. She wore orange wool socks on her feet, and he noticed her wiggle them most likely to get some blood circulating again.

When she looked up at him, it took him a second or two to realize what was wrong. Now that her face wasn’t hidden by shadow, he saw she was so very... white. Her hair was solid white. Eyebrows and lashes too. Her skin was void of color besides the pinch of pink in her cheeks.

For a moment, he felt more out of place than he had suffering the avalanche. She looked too pale, too white, that she might as well have been formed from the snow itself. An animated snow angel sent to drag him from the clutches of hell. His work was not done yet, he reminded himself. Did God have a purpose for him yet? Is that why this messenger had come to his aid?

It was foolish. This was far from any biblical angelic figure. If there were such things, they surely wouldn’t wear such gaudy socks and bright pink coats. 47 tossed the ridiculous notion into the back of his mind. He needs to rest. His mind was playing tricks on him. This was just a girl with a rare genetic disorder. A lack of melanin. Albinism.

Her brows knitted together as she went to a trunk in the corner of the room. “Please, do not stand any longer! Sit and get warm. Take off your coat and shoes.” Celina took out an armful of blankets and handed them over.

“...Thank you,” he responded lowly, keeping his eyes on her even as he did as she bid, settling on a pillow by the fire pit. She’d taken his things, leaving him in his black turtleneck and hiking pants, and one of the throw blankets wrapped tightly around his shoulders. Shivering still, he put his hands out to the flames. The food smelled good. He’d appreciate getting some energy in him.

Luck in his favor again, she all but read his mind and knelt beside him with mugs. She poured from the tea kettle and served him. He cupped it in both hands, savoring the warmth.

“Thank you,” he said again. Good a phrase as any. What else was he to say? Knowing he needed to warm his core, but only waiting to sip from it until she served herself, he drank deeply from the mug. It was a strong green tea.

Silence followed them. Neither making any attempt to hide their interest in the other, they openly studied each other over the rims of their mugs. Getting warm was more of a priority than small talk.

She did look at him. Tilted her head, stared at his mouth. His bald head. Several times she met his gaze and looked as if she’d speak, but bit it back each time. He made no attempt to prompt her, preferring the silence as he studied her as well. He studied the room. The dog. He wondered what was in the steaming pot over the irori. Wondered how an albino Caucasian came to live in the Hokkaido wilderness alone.

Celina did not hold eye contact with him for long, politely averting gaze. He once again thought about her accent. Her Japanese was flawless, yet her accent, even her features, were not oriental. Her eyes were somewhat slanted but large, irises pale gray and pink. Her facial structure was mostly Caucasian. Symmetrical yet abnormal.

She is the first to lower her mug and speak.

“What were you doing out zere?”

“Hiking,” he responded automatically. “Thank you for your help, miss.”

She waved her hand in dismissal. “It was nothing. It was Yoshi who found you.”

The dog, Yoshi, lifted his head at the sound of his name. A quiet ruff left the dog.

“Thank you, Yoshi,” he deadpanned. Yoshi snorted and laid his head back on his paws.

“‘e is a good boy.”

“Yes. You are French?”

She did a double take on him, mouth parting at the abrupt question. He watched her cooly. “Wha--Oh, oui. I am ‘alf French, ‘alf Japanese. And ‘alf convinced you are crazy,” she grinned a bit. “‘Iking? In zis weather?”

“The blizzard did not cause the avalanche. It was my own carelessness.”

“Mm... Oh, excuse me—I never asked you your name...?”

“Tobias Rieper.”

“Ah,” she nodded, smiling some. “My name is Celina Hirano. Welcome to my ‘ome, Monsieur Rieper. What’s mine is yours!”

They shook hands. It made him think of Diana’s, her hand small and weak in comparison to his. Women’s hands tended to be, but Celina’s white hand clasped in his felt like he was shaking hands with a skeleton. He wondered how easily she would break if he squeezed hard enough. If she was an ally, best to be on her good side. If not, well, no one would find the body. Though someone surely is aware of her out here. Family, friends. Employer?

At this point, with the crackling fire, and the tea warming his insides, they had stopped shivering. Celina stood up, her own rumpled blanket sliding off her shoulders. The tatami mats and wooden planks creak gently under her weight. “Are you very ‘urt?”

47 hadn’t considered his own injuries since earlier, but after a moment of consideration he nodded. He’d been banged up pretty rough during the fall, but nothing felt broken. He had all fingers and toes. The side of his head throbbed, and most of the right side of his body. His shoulder was especially smarting.

He glanced up at his rescuer. Celina had proved to be harmless enough by this point. She was slender and thin wristed and, though physically graceful, she had handled the teapot a bit awkwardly. She wasn’t a fighter in the slightest. Still, if she tried to do anything funny, he’d already found various ways to...take care of her.

A trip over the stone frame of the irori would be bad. The metal hook holding the pot over the fire or small iron grill would be useful. The teapot itself would be a fatal enough blow. One of these pillows, held over her face. There were bound to be knives somewhere. The only issue was the dog, but that wasn’t a major roadblock if he had to defend himself.

She looked at him expectantly, completely unaware of the scenes playing in his mind. Rubbing his sore shoulder, he asked, “Can I use your phone?”

She frowned. “Uh... I am very sorry. Zere’s no phone reception out ‘ere. I ‘ave internet but zeh power is going in and out. You message on media?”

“No,” he sighed. Too risky to contact the ICA that way. In an emergency, he knew a secure number to call to connect him to his handler, but without any proper phone line he was shit out of luck. At least he was alive. “How far is town?”

“Almost two kilometers. I would be ‘appy to drive you, but zeh snow…”

47 sighed.

“I will be ‘onest with you, cherie. We will be stuck ‘ere a while.”

“I’ll handle whatever may come.”

“Would you like a ‘ot bath? May I see to your wounds?”

“Very well...” With a bit of effort due to his shoulder, he pulled his turtleneck off.

Celina gasped.

Said shoulder bore a large red welp of swollen tissue. Various black and blue marks littered his chest, back, and sides. Likely on his head too. Recovery was always quick with 47, but he wouldn’t be at his best for at least another day or two. To be cut off from his handler, wounded, was not his idea of a break. At least he was alive and safe.

“Oh my—“

He went still when he felt her fingers suddenly prob his neck, timid as if she was trying not to burst a bubble. “Nothing is broken,” he assured her, watching her from the corner of his eye.

“Are you certain?” She tutted worriedly.

“Yes.”

“Alright…” she responded reluctantly and straightened. “Can I ‘elp you into the bath? Zeh nabe should be done soon.”

47 licked the back of his teeth as he thought. The tartness of the green tea made him feel a little more alert. He had no problem receiving help when it was needed, and letting a second party assist him in a bath would be ideal. Trying to wash himself while risking further unnecessary damage to his muscles could be avoided here. He looked her over, rubbing the back of his head. Miss Hirano was harmelss. Or she was a phenomenally good spy. Even bruised, he knew she’d have no easy time trying to drown him or do something without him noticing. He wasn’t comatose.

47 nodded, standing up with a grunt. “That would be helpful, Miss Hirano,” he responded calmly. “I’m in your hands.”

~~~

(*) “Oh gods. Sir...? Sir, can you hear me? Don't worry, alright? I'll get you out of there. Just hang on a bit longer.”

[ficsnroses]

Breeding Kink Headcanons - John Wick x Reader

❧ Summary : Your husband John really wants to get you pregnant.

✽ Word Count : 1.9K

✽ Prompt : Breeding Kink. Requested by the main @fanficsrusz​​​ xoxo 

✽ Warning : pregnancy, oral sex, unprotected sex, cockwarming, fluff, John going AT it 

Headcanons because I couldn’t possibly fit all my ideas into a “drabble” :)

Having a child together was always something John and you knew would happen for you. Brushed lightly on the subject, you clearly remember the way John’s eyes would light up when you’d mentioned earlier in your relationship, that you wanted children.

Now, married in bliss with your second anniversary approaching, John had started to get a little impatient. You both knew you wanted to get pregnant eventually, but hadn’t quite decided concretely exactly when just yet.

For John, a family always seemed a distant dream. However, when you’d walked into his life, he knew he wanted it with you.

In the beginning of your relationship, you used condoms during sex. It worked at the time, but eventually, after a conversation together, you decided you’d get yourself on birth control. John and you were pretty serious, had a solid foundation for your relationship and knew you wanted to be together for the rest of your lives,

And part of you wanted to take that step in your relationship; no matter how minor it may be. Sex was already something so intimate between you two, but to remove the barrier of a condom and really feel each other closer? It felt natural. Felt like something you trusted each other with.

Little did you know, that decision would spark a little something in your man…

For John, the first time you’d had sex using birth control, he swore he fell a little further for you [if it was even possible]. To know you trusted him to cum inside, that you weren’t scared, or fearful of anything going wrong meant so much to him.

Often during sex, he’d find himself thinking how much power his seed really had. On birth control, his cum buried deep inside your cunt meant nothing more than the mutual trust you two shared, a symbol of how deep your relationship had gotten.

But if you were off birth control? If the sex was unprotected?

John’s cum held great power. He could put a baby in you. Your baby, that you made with the embodiment of love your bodies yield to each other. The thought alone made John shiver each time, shuddering with a tingle of anticipation when he’d spill his hot loads inside you each night.

“John?” You’d asked one night, after a steamy quickie before bed. You rested your head on his bare chest as he heaves down from his high, a heavy palm rested to the bare skin of your exposed back.

“Yeah, baby?” He returns, kissing the top of your tousled hair softly. His palms are gently soothing over your bare hips, the same hips that would someday, hopefully carry the live of your child.

And that same night, the conversation happened. You’re both ready for a baby, you both want a baby with each other.

John is ecstatic, can’t wait to watch your pregnant belly grow as he showers his love on you, taking care of you each step of the way. John is already the perfect husband, and you best bet that it would heighten tenfold when you’re pregnant.

You have sex every single day now, sometimes multiple times a day. Sex with John was always fantastic, always had you practically on the verge of tears to how well he’d fuck you when he needed to, how well he’d make love to you when he needed to. If anyone knows how to strike the perfect balance, it’s Jonathan Wick.

“You gonna give me a baby, kitten?” John rasps, hastily pounding into your needy cunt from above. His biceps rest on either side of you and they look massive this way, a dark, almost primal darkness in his eyes on some nights like this. You’ve been trying for about a month now, and John is growing impatient. Part of him fears deep inside that as always, something will go wrong; deprive him from the life he wants with you. You make sure to assure him, however. Assure him that it’ll happen for you.

“Ye-yes baby, put a baby in me John…” You whimper, begging underneath him, soft legs tightly wrapped around his waist to give him optimal access to your deepest parts. John’s cock twitches inside you, and you know he’s close. Every single time, you shake and shudder to the feel of being rawed by him, the way his creamy, succulent cum fills up inside you to the brim.

It baffles you the amount of cum the man carries, how much he spills after each fuck. You can definitely feel him fill you up and it turns you on so fucking bad as you desperately pull him close, peppering needy kisses all over his face as he makes you cum as well.

“They say the more orgasms you have, the better the chances of getting pregnant.” John whispers, slowly delving between your drenched thighs. He licks a long stride up your aching pussy before circling sloppy, wet circles to your clit. You’re not sure if John’s theory is 100% accurate. Nonetheless, you know John thrives off making you feel good, he wants you to enjoy the process more than him. After all, you are the one who’s going to be carrying your baby for months on end, bearing all the pain and discomforts that come your way.

It does pull at your heartstrings how much John cares, how desperate he is fulfilling the deed of getting you pregnant.

If on your bed, before sex, John puts a pillow under your hips to angle them up slightly while he pumps in and out. “Can’t have any drip out,” He smirks, pressing a wet kiss to your lips as his throbbing cock stays positioned inside you, cocooned by your warm, pulsing walls after release.

Cockwarming has become almost a daily occurrence. After he’s came inside you, John keeps his girthy member inside your cunt for a couple of minutes as you both come down from your highs. He’ll rest his head in the haven of your breasts, arms wrapping around you as you pull him close, kissing his head to happy dreams of this wonderful, loving man fathering your children someday.

John insists that you have sex a couple times a day, and you fear he’ll eventually get sick of having you if you don’t slow down a little

“I’ll never get sick of you,” He whispers into your neck, softly kissing the skin as his arms hold you so dearly tight. “I love you, you know that, right?”

“I do.” You whisper, cupping his cheek. John is the sweetest man you know, and you best believe he’s only gotten sweeter since you’ve started trying.

Sometimes, when lounging next to each other, or when he’d come up behind you in a tender hug as you cook breakfast, John rests his hands on your belly; dreaming of how heartfelt it would be the day your baby would be in there,

“You’re gonna look so beautiful sweetheart, carrying our baby.” His deep baritone would soothe in your ears as he slams into you, your breasts bouncing to his pace as his hips snap into you hard, senselessly. His balls slam your core so hard each time, and the sounds of skin slapping skin fill the house very often nowadays. “Gonna show you off to the entire world,” He moans, cupping your breasts & kneading them with a firm force, yet cautious not to hurt you, as his mind drifts to the thought of how full they’d look, swollen holding milk

John and you have possibly tried every sex position there is at this point. Doggy style? John fucks into like a rabbit from behind, cock grinding your cervix to the deepest parts before slipping out entirely, only to plummet back in

Your legs on his shoulders as he fucks into you relentlessly? It’s one of his “trying to conceive” favourites, allows his sperm to take advantage of gravity

Face to face laying beside each other? John practically melts each time you do this one. The entry of his cock is so deep this way as you hold each other’s gazes, your leg draped over his waist as his arms pull you closer, rosy skin flushed together with a thin layer of sweat

From behind as you lay on your stomach? John’s eyes roll to the back of his head in this one. He enters you from behind, pounding in as he grinds your g-spot repeatedly, almost always giving you two orgasm before he cums deep, deep inside.

Did I mention how loud John is when he cums?

He moans, throaty groans fleeing his lips as he practically growls in your ear. The way you clench around him is too much, your pussy is too tight; too warm and he’s far too in love with your body (and all of you, ofc). Far too drunk on thoughts of pounding you pregnant for him

Sometimes John can get so dirty while fucking you

It surprises you sometimes that your sweet, loving, wholesome husband can say such sinful things

“Gonna make a baby come out of that tight little pussy.” He drips, biting small love marks into your skin as he thrusts, marking your body as his breeding ground

I mean he is a literal assassin so you do get that he can be a bit brutal sometimes

He tracks your periods and the days you’re most fertile (not that it matters too much since he fucks you into oblivion each day haha) but on days where you’ve ovulating he makes sure to go deeper, harder, and get in multiple rounds for optimal chances of conceiving

John cumming inside is so special now. You can’t help but shiver each time you feel him explode deep within you, knowing that that load might be the one to do the trick

You’re an advocating member of the “Make John a daddy 2021” campaign haha

And when your period is late…you tell John with beaming eyes and swear you’d seen a glistening glow in that chocolate gaze, unlike anything you’d ever seen before

You buy multiple tests together, John’s hand holding yours the entire time. The thought that your baby might be growing inside you, right now, this second as you stand at the check out counter has his smiling like a goofy idiot.

Your goofy idiot, of course :)

You take the tests together in the master bathroom of your bedroom. John is on edge and you have to hold his hand to reassure him, explaining to him that if its only a false alarm, you’ll keep trying because you want this with him. You need this with him.

You want a family and it’s never going to change.

But when all the tests come back positive, John is on the brink of tears.

You both are, holding each other tighter than ever as you both cry into each other’s necks, kneeling in a bundle of cuddles on the bathroom floor. John kisses each inch of your face, peppers delicate kisses to your tousled hair, offering squeezes to your hand when you let out a soft sniffle at the sheer happiness.

This is a moment that will forever be engrained in your minds.

It was finally happening; you made a baby.

You’ve never seen John this happy before, feeling as if everything in his life has finally fallen into place. This is what all the pain, all the hurt, all the sin that lingers in the shadows of his past had been leading up to. A family with you, free of evil, free of any grim that lingers.

A life where the only John Wick that the world knows, is the John who loves and is loved by his wife, and the John who is a father.

The most loving, caring, amazing father he could ever be.

➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴

My taglist will be posted in reblogs, let me know if you want to be added or removed! :)

[deathonyourtongue]

Sanguine Nocturnus | 1

Summary: Even after 2000 years, the world can still surprise you. Pairing: AU!Henry Cavill x OFC Word Count: 2K Warnings: It’s a vampire fic. Death. Blood. Gore. Sex. Horror. Not for the kiddies or the squeamish. I mean it. A/N : I know I said I’d wait. But y’all have been clamoring...

Death has a way of manipulating time. Moments meant to go slowly end in a blink, while junctures that ought to speed past, linger like dew on the vine...

Carla Montanari stared at her mother’s corpse, waiting for her to move. Waiting for the only family she’d ever had to open her eyes and say it was all a joke. Her mother had always had a cutting sense of humor; no topic was off-limits, and as she aged, death was a favored punchline. Now, it seemed, her mother had pulled off the ultimate prank, though Carla failed to see the humor in it.

The mortician had done an excellent job all things considered, but Carla could still pick out the differences between the body that lay at the altar of Saint Vincent’s and the one she had grown up with. A jaw that had been given too much lift, makeup that was a shade or two darker than what her mother normally wore, wrinkles that had disappeared when her face had been sewn back together. She’d been told she was lucky to get an open-casket service at all, given how much trauma her mother had suffered, as if it were some sort of consolation prize.

Looking behind her, Carla did a headcount of those in attendance, smiling softly when she saw that her mother’s bingo group were all in attendance, each woman donning their Sunday best in order to pay their respects. What her mother lacked in family, she’d more than made up for in friends who were all cut from the same cloth. Good, salt-of-the-earth people. Carla had always envied how easily her mother made friends, how she could chat up anyone, no matter how different their background and find something in common. It was a skill she hadn’t passed down, leaving her daughter to carve out a small handful of friends who were more acquaintances than anything else. 

Crossing herself, Carla took a deep breath, looked down at her mother once more, and finally leaned down to kiss the cold, clammy skin of her forehead, doing her best to ignore the faint waft of formaldehyde that filled the casket. A solitary white rose tucked beneath her mother’s hands was Carla’s final act before turning away. 

Time blinked, and she found herself seated across from her mother’s lawyer, a slab of mahogany separating them, the coffee she’d been offered growing cold as the AC hit it from overhead.

“I suppose we can do away with formality, since it’s just you,” the older man said, his smile tight and distant. Carla nodded, feeling as though the man wanted to be done so he could attend to other, more important, matters. 

“Your mother left all her possessions and accounts to you, no surprise there. She gifted her friends each an item from her apparently extensive purse collection, so we’ll facilitate that for you. The accounts are all in order, and what isn’t used to pay off her final bills, will be transferred to your account by the end of the month. Lastly, there’s the matter of the inheritance. This may be news to you, but your grandmother set up an inheritance in your name when you were born. Initially, it was meant to pay for college, but when you got your full ride, your mother decided to keep it going until her passing. Her hope was to give you a nice nest egg for retirement, or your first house...something to that effect.” 

Carla looked down at the document, counting and recounting the total in disbelief. Her mother had always been terrible at keeping secrets, having given away things to her friends that had mortified Carla when she was younger. 

Guess you were better at it than I thought.

Inhaling deeply, Carla sat back in her chair, hoping the meeting was over. The quicker she could get out into the fresh air, the better off she’d be. 

“There’s one more thing,” her mother’s lawyer said, keeping Carla rooted to her seat even as the muscles in her legs twitched in readiness to stand up. “Your mother wanted to ensure you were aware of the fact that you have legal claim to Italian citizenship, if you should ever choose to take it. They call it Jure Sanguinis; Right of Blood. The process can be expedited, given that you’re only second generation American. Sign here and we can get it in motion for you.” 

Carla signed blindly, eyes unblinking as she tried to process the information. Her mother had always been a planner, but had never once mentioned so much as a will to Carla. Now, seeing everything packaged up so neatly, her mind spun wildly.

“Think you know a person…” She muttered mostly to herself, the lawyer giving her another one of his performative smiles, his eyes going to his watch for what must have been the tenth time in as many minutes. 

Leaving the office with a folder and the untouched coffee, Carla couldn’t help but feel time begin to crawl, reinforcing the feelings of numbness and solitude that would haunt her for weeks to come.

Working steps from Wall Street had its perks. Tips were usually far more generous than in other parts of town, fights were rare, and drunk girls crying over their shitty boyfriends were nonexistent. None of that made it any easier, however. Frat boys turned into day traders, socialites grew even more entitled as their brunches turned into botox appointments, and there was never a shortage of patronizing stares for those that had to actually work for a living. For Carla, navigating the catcalls, one-liners, and straight-up sexual misconduct was easy enough; it was the entitlement that never failed to get under her skin. 

“Um, hello? Waitress? This is wrong. I asked for a Negroni.” Looking up, Carla swept her long black hair over her shoulder as she processed the words that were spoken. Having decided to keep living life as though things hadn’t irrevocably changed, Carla was doing her best to ignore the stress that had been slowly creeping higher and higher each day. Busy nights at the bar were proving the worst, with Carla coming through the door at the end of her shift ready to rant about the night to her mother, only to find the place pin-drop silent and utterly empty. 

Looking down at the drink, Carla gazed back up at the woman with the blond, news anchor hair and cocked her head to the side in confusion. 

“That is a Negroni.” 

“Uh,” the woman snorted in disbelief, “no it’s not. Remake it, and do it right this time.” 

“This is a Negroni. One part gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari each, with a peel of lemon.” The woman laughed condescendingly and Carla could feel her patience start to disappear. 

“No, a Negroni, if you knew anything about bartending--which you clearly don’t--is made with Rye and dry vermouth.”

“Lady, I make at least ten of these a night. I work six nights a week. You’re the first, and only, person to ever tell me it’s wrong. You’re thinking of an Old Pal, and I’d be more than happy to make that for you, but this? This is a Negroni, which is what you asked for.”

“Fine, we’ll see about that.” The woman huffed, her manicured hand slicing through the air in a dismissive motion. 

“That’ll be $10.99.”

“Absolutely NOT! I’m not paying for your mistake. Make it again, make it right, and make it now!” The woman crowed, her hair imobile as she shook her head, looking for all the world like Carla had slapped her.

“It’s a different drink. You paid for a Negroni, you got a Negroni. You want an Old Pal, you pay for an Old Pal.” Carla replied, crossing her arms over her chest as she waited for the woman to make up her mind. 

The alcohol burned Carla’s eyes and she stumbled back in shock, moving towards the large sink she knew was behind her on pure instinct. Washing her face to get as much of the cocktail off as she could, she knew she’d reached her breaking point. 

Any other time and she’d have brushed it off, had security kick the woman out and gone about her night. Now? She’d had enough. Moving slowly to the back, Carla took off her apron, hung it up next to her coworkers’ and slipped out the back door. 

Nearly sprinting the whole way home, it was only as she stepped through the door of her apartment that the tears came unbidden. Sliding down the wall, Carla cried for the first time since her mother’s passing. 

The next morning, after calling in her notice, Carla allowed herself a day to simply be. To scream, to cry, to let out all the emotions that had befallen her since answering the phone that fateful night and hearing that her mother had died in such a vicious and preventable way. She let rage fill every vein as she thought about how the person who hit her hadn’t even bothered to stay at the scene. She lamented every missed moment, every fight, every what-if. Finally, she curled up in her mother’s robe, and cried herself to sleep.

Knowing she couldn’t handle another day at a bar like the one on Wall Street, catering to bratty adults who’d never been told no a day in their lives, Carla began leaning more and more towards escaping it all. Her now-empty apartment, her routine assortment of familiar faces (none of whom had even bothered to call and offer condolences), and more than anything, the city itself; all of it seemed worthless and foreign without her mother’s smiling face. As she sat and scrolled through picture after picture on her phone, the promise of a new life in Italy seemed more feasible, and more and more necessary.

On day three, after a day spent mostly in bed, dreaming about the possibilities of what life could bring now that she was committed to leaving, Carla put in a call to the lawyer, vaguely remembering the document she’d signed. There was nothing but relief when she was told they were simply waiting for a few more documents to finalize it all. 

With the foundation for her new life in place, Carla began to flesh out the bones, focusing her research on where to live, and who was hiring. Though the inheritance was enough to live comfortably for several years, Carla didn’t want to squander it. Moreover, she still wanted to work and feel useful in some way; early retirement could wait.

While she was spoilt for choice when it came to renting, a job was harder to come by. Carla started her search with the lofty goal of finding something where she could put her history degree to good use; a research assistant, a curator, hell, a tour guide. When it became clear that her lack of experience was a hurdle she wouldn’t be able to cross so easily, Carla reluctantly turned to what she knew. 

Weeks went by like thick molasses as she looked at bar after bar, finding that they either weren’t hiring, or looked like the kind of place people went into and never came out of. Her options were narrow to start with, since Carla had her heart set on Rome, the need to entrench herself in one of the world’s oldest cities, one she couldn’t possibly ignore. With each day that passed, she felt her dream beginning to slip away. Carla was nothing if not tenacious, one of the few traits she’d shared with her mother, and despite feeling discouraged at her prospects, she kept looking.

Finally, as the clock nearly ran out on her deadline to provide proof of employment, Carla found the perfect spot. Though the bar catered to a higher-end clientele, gone were the stockbrokers and lawyers, and in their place, a younger, cooler set. Attracted to the dark, almost feral, atmosphere the bar promised in its advertising, Carla applied, crossing her fingers in the hopes that they’d call. 

She was still browsing the site when her phone rang and the owner greeted her in a thick, Italian accent. Breezing through the interview questions, Carla’s eyes roved over the pictures of all the beautiful people that frequented the night spot, pulled in by how effortlessly cool each of them looked. With the promise to call her by the end of the week to confirm the position, the owner ended the call, and it was all Carla could do not to jump for joy. 

Flopping back on the bed, she couldn’t help but let herself feel true happiness, happiness which she’d unconsciously been denying herself while she mourned her mother’s death. Though she’d been dealt a life-changing blow, Carla felt as though, slowly but surely, time was going back to its usual pace, and her life was taking a turn for the better. 

With a smile from ear to ear, she sat back up and emailed the lawyer, confirming she’d gotten a job, an apartment, and a plane ticket to Rome. As the message zipped away and the window closed, Carla found her eyes drawn back to the website, and her new place of employment. 

Romulus

[goatpaste]

WC design/headcannon/ect masterlist- Part B

another chunk of all the headcanos/AU’s/design notes/warrior names for kits and leaders never given a canon one/ect for all the wario cats!

this one is for all the B named cats!

info under the cut

Badgerfang

badgerfang i think a lot of us have a big ol soft spot for, but ought i really care him and his family i think it needs more than jusT the badgerfang death like for real

one of the biggest reasons i wanna learn to animate is because i wanna make a badgerfang and flintfang amv! it would be sdkg more about flintfang because i think he’s a neat character who has a lot of potential for development 

like mAN you ever stop and think about not only was flintfang sad over badgerfangs death because it was sad, bUT also because badgerfang was his sisters kit AND to the thought of blackstar is flintfangs brother. flintfang had to deal with playing a hand in badgerfangs death then watch his brother loyally follow brokenstar, then tigerstar 🥺

Baypaw

baypaw was the first of his lil chunk of family i design, i didnt have a sorrelstripe design made yet so i ultimately decided to base his design on his grandpa Lionblaze. smaller fluffy lionblaze.

I know we should be coming up to baypaw getting their warrior name soon

i think a name like Baysong or Baygale

Beech Tail

the only thing i have  to say is dgjksh when i designed the ‘beech’ prefix designs it was late and i totally went ‘beech... the beach’ and noT beech the tree sdjkgh. so i designed beech tail like that of a penguin sdjkgh

Beechfur

beechfur , riverclan warrior under mistystar’s leadership

i imagine beechfur is be EXTREMely accident prone, from the first instant of getting sick and healed by leafpool all the way up till the end. He is in and out of the medicine cats den constantly. and through this formed a big ol crush on the pretty medicine cat apprentice Willowshine who has had to full on decline his feelings. he is not the only one who has had this treatment, many a riverclan cats have found themself charmed by willowshine

Beechpaw

Beechpaw, a apprentice of ancient skyclan who were forced to leave the forest territory.  i imagine beechpaw was of the few cats who did everything he could to keep the others in good spirit while they tried to find their home, which often came to the annoyance of all his distraught clanmates. he never stopped doing all he could to put a smile on their face until he died.

he was the last apprentice cloudstar named a warrior and only lived a few moons after becoming one.

warrior names i like for him are like Beechshed or Beechshine

Beenose

slight update to my beenose design because i want her to fit my newer darktail group clown aesthetic 

another design note is her and her siblings all are themed after a diff color of the rainbow, beenose is yellow. their mom snowbird has a pale rainbow pattern and each other her kits is a diff color of the rainbow

Beetlewhisker

Beetlewhisker is another one of my quiet favorites i have, and it is because of the error of him being alive for SO many books after he died.

like !!! bitch had a HUGE major death and went on to live for a long time aND be listed as a cats mentor (which i think that has been changed now)

i love the idea of in a way beetlewhisker WAS with the clans that long after his death. that due to his death was in a way locked in the dark forest, his soul stuck there. but because of the ways of the dark forest cat’s he was chased out, and unable to enter starclan having died in the dark forest, now cursed to live in limbo.

He walks to the grounds of riverclan watching over his clanmates while they rest hoping that no one else is to be preyed upon by the dark forest like he was ever again. 

theres ghost stories of riverclan cats seeing the shape of a cat shining brightly when hit by moonlight. a peaceful spirit of the past who protects them.

and in design 100% his design was made to look like that of a smeleton bones lol

Bellaleaf

the erin team will have to pry bellaleaf and firestar being siblings from my cold dead hands!!

you can’t say they look basically exactly alike and their not related i wont take it sdjkg. i DIE for the idea oh whore jake managing to have so many kids that get into the clans. like the over saturation of jake dna through the clans ruining them absolutely kills me sdjkg

i also imagine ravenpaw having like deja vu of firestar when he looks at bella, cats who knew firestar look at her and can’t help feel she reminds them of someone. 

Berryheart

another one of the designfor snowbirds kits, berryheart is the red themed sibling.

she also got a slight design change to be more clowny to fit her time in darktail’s group

Berrynose

i just love berrynose, i think hes very terrible and i love him a lot

i think the books are cowards and i think berrystar woulda been the fUNniest outcome oR like

imagine the powermove if berrynose lived and squirrelflight fucking made berrynose her deputy likE

also berrynose is a lil gay brat, he has a thick country accent and everyone find him weirdly charming. many hate him but cant help but find him alluring. 

he actually is a very good warrior, he stays on top of his task and brings in the prey. his biggest problem is his ego and his need to get in others faces all the time

i love when he’s paired with lionblaze because their stupid rivarly is so good i really wish it was more plot important and lasted longer i LIVE for best friend rivals lion and berry

buT i also love him with jayfeather for the simple dynamic of the one cat who would probably hate him more than anyone else but oops he’s in love to

or him and breezepelt because they could be lil shitheads togeather

Birchface

the biggest thing i can say about birchface is 100% birchface watched over mapleshade’s kits, doesnt let appledusk or his own family hurt them. He treats them like his own.

in AU’s where birchface lives i defiantly can see him having a HUGE crush on mapleshade and being much like thrushpelt was to bluefur. being as a surrogate dad for her kits and keeping the secret.

in my main AU with mapleshade dieing and getting a redemption its mostly the same except they become a sweet happy family together in starclan.

he’s a big goofy dad type and his father had hoped he would become leader one day, but worried that he was too lax with the code and not as driven to fight as others and began to think he would have to rely on frecklewish instead. then they both died and he ended up turning to his youngest son pinefur

Blade

this is just a one time ghost cat buT  i like the design i made for her.

im all here for dark forest cats having this black oozing mark from where they died, starclan gets being covered in stardust and maybe having from pretty plats or glow or other representative stuff on their death. but ghost cats are loUD with their mark of death. its a nagging weight they carry around based on their inability to move on to their respective afterlives. For blade its giant bright red tire marks that slowly circle around her body.

Blazefire

just a lil boy

i imagine he kinda constantly has crushes on cats from other clans which while some might tell him to hush when he shares his thoughts on the pretty cat from riverclan he gets some loving teasing from dovewing and antfur

Blazefire is also miss nearly all of his tail

Blizzardstar and Blizzardwing

not much here but to say 100% i designed blizzardwing in mind of being that of a grandson or great grandson to blizzardstar

Blossomfall

shrug idk a lot to say about her beyond, i know she’s a asshole character but i remember liking her, i think she’s mean but its kinda fun in a way

i think i also just have this soft spot for millies kits because their millie’s

also i just like my blossomfall design i think she’s v fun

Blossomkit

another shadowclan kit who died under brokenstar’s ruling.

i think as sad as it is, i can imagine blossomkit to be badgerfang’s sister, just another sad thing to think about for fernshade’s litter. the potential idea of all her kit’s dying because of brokenstar

a warrior name for her that would been cute woulda been like Blossomglaze or blossomsprout

Bluebellkit

bluebellkit sure disappeared from the books. she’s one of those kits that like, she already had a mouth full of a name and i wish i coulda seen what they woulda named her as a warrior

but she’s another one of snowbird’s rainbow themed kids, her ofc being the blue one.

i think a cute warrior name for her could been Bluebellwhistle or bluebellfoot

Blouder

i lobe boulder i think he is very under appreciated!! 

i think it be very fun to get a novella or something in this POV,,

he’s just hangin out back there yknow,,,

Bouncefire

(bit of an art change from here as i took a break between these two and switched programs)

idk a lot about actual bouncefire, i think the only books with any real characterization in it was ones i havent read

buT id really like to imagine growing up he saw his mentor patchfoot as a father figure and was ultimately the reason patchfoot and his mom got together. and bouncefire being absolutely ecstatic about it. thinking patchfoot is the coolest guy

bouncefire gets along good with his half siblings

gay cat and wanna be emo but just is kinda angy

Brackenfur

my biggest brackenfur AU is my medicat brackenfur which i have info of here

https://goatpaste.tumblr.com/post/631020627780911104/au-where-insteed-of-fireheart-picking-up

and

https://goatpaste.tumblr.com/post/632972589046890496/mmm-writing-out-like-big-plot-point-changes-in-my

the other thing vaguely mention in these but would probably be more prominent in his og story

but brackenfur is quietly the biggest mess in the family. Being on pare with confidence and energy as cinderpelt when they were young, after her accident somethin changed for him. he loved his sister but is a big distant. but its hardly noticeable between the two as they worked very separate jobs in the clan

then his other sister, brightpaw has her accident and brackenfur begins to question something

but when he his the last to leave in the thunderclan group to their new home he stops and looks back at his mother frostfur who is old and frail look, though she wasnt young the damage of the forest hit her hard. 

this when brackenfur decides starclan has it out for his family, especially the mollies. they were cursed he was sure.

moons later he is expecting his kits with sorreltail, letting his mind rest on the idea, the crazy notion that some greater force wanted the she-cats in his family dead. 

then the day his kits arrive cinderpelt dies to the badgers. he pushes down these feelings down again it was the time. But he couldn’t help but think that, if leafpool was there, if starclan had given them a sign of the badgers, anything. maybe cinderpelt might have lived. but he pushes it back down and tells himself it was a warriors death

and then his daughter, cinderpaw is struck by the tree and the stirring in his mind grows stronger. why has starclan done this to his family

then honeyfern gets bit by the snake. how could starclan be so cruel, their always so young.

then his sweet sorreltail fought strongly for her two young daughters future

and on his own, forced to watch seedpaw drown and lilypaw be haunted by what happened.

the women in brackenfurs family is cursed and he bears the burden of relizing it, of living and watching each of them suffer until the end

to the ones that lived and are happy still, with no burdens in their lives he watches happily making sure NOTHING bad comes their way. he would fight starclan themselves to make sure his family is safe and happy

Breezepelt

in design Breezepelt has a p average length tail. which for him is a huge disappointment. His father crowfeather has a long slender windclan tail, a trait that is held to high standards in his family. a trait passed all the way down from windstar herself who had the longest and most beautifully windy tail. 

Breezepelt has a angry spot about this because he feels lacking and especially disconnected to his father. BUT double this with jayfeather having only half windclan blood has a tail even longer than crowfeathers 

i also would NOT put breezepelt with heathertail, i dont see any reason for it. like first off this bitch gay, id love for him to have a boyfriend and it think it should be berrynose because one, their both terrible i think it be funny and i also think its funny to ship berrynose with lionblaze or jayfeather so im like, whats another brother (to be clear not shipped all together, this is separately) and two, the idea heathertail and poppyfrost lesbian could exist

then the big BIg thing is, i would take breezepelts character and gut what happened in crowfeathers trial out of both him and crowfeather

i talk about it a bit here, but i think ill re talk about it in full when i get to crowfeather https://goatpaste.tumblr.com/post/190544981670/breezepelt

Briarlight

miss briarlight i love you!!

very sweetgirl

i based her design off sakuras and bleed heart doves. idk what possessed me but when i went to design her i knEW she was gonna be pink she needed to be she deserved it

briarlight buff as shit in her forlegs she loves trying to rope leafpool and jayfeather into lil strength contest she always wins (sometimes she will let leafpool win on days she needs it) 

her and jayfeather are wlw/mlm best friends. jayfeather calls her pidge which started as a mean nickname that she simply loved and embraced fully

also in my AU with medicat lionblaze i can very much see briarlight and lionblaze being very sweet friends. like big strong lionblaze who is actually docile and compassionate about his work and briarlight loud and rooting him on

Brick

swear to god until i got back into warrior cats this year i had always thought brick was a lady and her and bone were suppous to be scourges like adoptive bad parents jkdg

anyways im still with that, she/her agender brick who adopts their terrible son scourge and is in a monogamous partnership with bone’s. strictly business defiantly not married, they just have a son together. 

Brindlewing

idk a ton about her, but from her wiki it dsjkgh doesnt look like theirs  alot

but i’d like to imagine she’s a very anxious girl and struggles in crowds especially around cat she doesn't know. she feels more comfortable when one of her sisters is with her or her grandmother nightcloud. Nightcloud has always been a source of self confidence for her and they love each very much.

Brindlewing also inherited crowfeather’s family long tail that skipped breezepelt. Brindlewing holds the tail in her mouth as a means of helping her anxiety.

Bristlefrost

a biG design overhaul for my bristlefrost design, i really didnt like the old design i made her. wanted her to be a lil darker colored and in general have a cuter design

i gave her diff color eyes to mark her double agent status one eye green like her fathers and the other sharing the same blue i use for ashfur’s eye color

i kept her with the one white paw which i give to any descendent of jake, just because canonically she is ivy and ferns kid.

but in my rewrite their not togeather. Fernsong was a kittypet or a loner who had lost their mate and home and was found by ivypool caring for his three kittens alone. this is more fernsong headcanon, but bristlefrost is there

bristle and all the kits love ivypool they look up to her big time and all wished she was their mentor when they became apprentices. 

bristlefrost often confides in her father when feeling guilty or unsure of herself and he is always there for her

Bristlekit

half brother to tallstar

i imagine woolytail’s family seems to have a high mortality rate with their kids with only one maybe two usually making it to adulthood. bristlekit would die before becoming an apprentice and spent time in starclan with finchkit and later rabbitkit waiting for wrenflight and tallstar.

if bristlekit made it to being a warrior id like to think he was named Bristlefeather or Bristlefoot

Brook where small fish swim

teeny update to my brook design to give her small white fish dots matching her brothers spots

her general design is mean to be loosely based on a mountain lion. 

she got strong powerful mountain climbing body

i also wish her romance was better developed and wasnt like based in a lot of white savior romance plots given to native and native coded characters

in general the tribe really shoulda just been written better

Brownpaw

brownpaw, brother to littlecloud killed mosspaw as a kit on accident and was apprenticed for it by brokenstar

i imagine him and his brother wetfoot killing mosspaw effect them both deeply. for wetfoot it shook him to the core and made his doubt his own claws

for brownpaw it set him down the path of destruction. brokenstar rewarding him for what happened with mosspaw was the biggest enabler

brownpaw would go on to be a blood thirsty apprentice who would throw his young life away under brokenstars order of attack.

had he been made a warrior i think brokenstar woulda named him Brownmoss claiming he had earned the name when he took it from mosspaw.

Bug

design for bug because i think the book she was in didnt exist when i originally started drawing every warrior cat

love her!

bumblestripe

bumblestripe’s character makes me sad

im SUCH a millie stan and for one of her kids to be disabled then treated like garbage to the end of her life and written super ablest and then her other two kids are total shit heads? makes me sad

i wish at lEAST millie and graystripe had a second little, maybe just one total sweetheart

and its been forever since i read the books. but i remember bumblestripe being a real nobody characters just very generic personality until romance plot for dovewing came into play. and now he super sucks!

i wish he coulda just been a good character who loved dovewing, is sad and kinda jealous of her feelings for tigerheart but in the end respects her decisions and even admires her courage to follow her heart even if it led her over the borders.

Buster/Rippletail

slight buster redesign to fit more in the circus clown look from when he was in the kin

also design note, he’s got an orange themed design to go along with his rainbow themed siblings

Buzzardkit

windclan kit who showed up once in the sight crying and being comforted by a queen

mm i think some good warrior names for them woulda been like

buzzardface, Buzzardshriek or buzzardwhistle

[67impalaandwhisky]

Destiny Is Heaven Sent

Summary: Knowing Dean Winchester since you were fifteen, you’ve always been pulled in his direction. Always wanting to open up the rattled and broken cage your heart lives in. But when the child you’ve been raising together dies, you find yourself closing up the cage of your heart again. And if destiny has one thing for you, it’s to break you down before bringing you back up.

Characters: Dean x You, Sam, Castiel, Bobby, OFC’s, OMC’s, (Ongoing)

This Series Is Set Through Seasons 1-6 With Knowledge That The Bunker Exists

Rating: 18+

Warnings (Ongoing and Will Be Updated): Grieving, Mentions of Rape and Defilement (As Per A Case), Show Level Violence, Swearing, Smut, Impreg Kink, Blood, Fighting, Drinking, Dean Being Dean, Fluff, Angst, Dom!Dean, Sub!Reader

Warnings For This Chapter: Sexual Thoughts, Sexual Tension (!), A Break In The Case 

Chapter 3.

The slam on the door jolts you awake first thing in the morning.

With a whine, you hold your head before looking at Dean who's curled around you like a snake as he continues to sleep.

"Hey!" Sam yells through the door.

You hear the small tinkering in the lock before the door comes opening up with him crouched down right before it. He gives a nervous chuckle as you raise an eyebrow at him.

"Lock picking so early in the morning, Samuel?"

"We got a new body. Prostitute just like our first victim." He says before looking down at Dean as he buries his face into your bare side.

"Me and Dean will go. Let me just get him up." You say before giving his younger brother a weak smile.

Sam shakes his head, a smile widening over his face as he closes the door shut.

You look down to your left as you blink, trying to clear your mind of all the alcohol sluggishness you feel. He looks so peaceful when he's sleeping. No hardened eyes or worry lines on his forehead.

His lips are gently parted, the famous Dean stubble gracing his sleeping face. 

You want to open up the cage that surrounds your heart and that's exactly why you can't. 

You shouldn't want to do anything. And, maybe that's the harsh negativity in your brain but you can't see any other way around it. 

Letting him in would mean you would be vulnerable. Would he be the one to protect you? He would be the one to comfort you? 

He shouldn't have to.

Fuck that destiny stuff. Fuck that soulmate stuff.

But, you're frightened that there will be a time when you need him over anything else.

And it's slowly coming to that time. The time to just let out your demons and accept that you're not safe and sound if it isn't with Dean. 

"Dean?" You whisper softly as you nudge him.

He groans at the call of his name, nudging his hips closer to yours and you can feel his morning erection digging into your thigh as he sniffles gently.

You've felt it before, you've felt his hips snap and jolt against you looking for the heat of your body to get him off in his sleep throughout the years.

You can feel the fresh wave of arousal washing over you like waves. Your vision tunnels as you look down at his briefs.

He must have taken his pants off after you fell asleep.

His thighs are toned and taut as they flex beneath the thin black fabric of his underwear.

Subconsciously, you lick your lips as the outline of his cock protrudes through the fabric. 

You've always heard praise and moans through thin motel walls from the women he's fucked. Always moaning about how big his cock is and how it fills them so full. You always thought it was a show until now. He was packing something serious in those denim jeans of his.

You haven't been fucked in a long time. Too long if you're being honest. 

You can only imagine how his perfect pink lips would feel as they drift down your body. His calloused hands rough and urgent against your warm, soft skin. How his stubble would tickle you and make your skin only that much more sensitive for him.

Your hand cards through his hair and you lose yourself for a second as you watch him.

"Like what you see?" You hear him murmur, his voice laden with sleep.

Your eyes widen, your heart begins to pick up speed at the embarrassment of getting caught. 

Your hands react first, shoving him hard and fast away from you. He rolls off the bed and groans loudly as his body collides with the floor.

"Jesus Christ!" He whines as he sits up.

His eyes snap open, evergreen irises finding yours before he's rubbing the bleariness away with his fists.

"Let me give you a little lesson-," he cringes standing up before walking over to the counter and grabbing water, "if you see a hard cock, you touch it. You don't fling the person into the void." He grumbles before sipping the water.

You narrow your eyes at him, pulling the sheets over your half naked body, "Eat a dick, hot shot." You counter and he just simply smiles at the motel room floor before walking towards the bathroom.

"Relax, Candy girl. I like waking up next to you. Starts my day off right." There was no flirtatious tone to his voice, no wink. Nothing that would signify him trying to get into your pants. It brings a blush to your cheeks and neck. 

You find yourself grimacing as he shuts the door.

Wearily, you get up and grab your clothes before staring at the bathroom door.

Maybe if you crack the cage of your heart open only a little bit, it might suffice. Maybe if you just let him in a little then it would take away your pain.

"We have a new body." You call to him through the bathroom door.

He swings the door wide open as he steps out and you shield your body with your clothes as he leans against the door jamb.

"Let's get ready to gank this bitch then." 

You roll your eyes before shooing him away but you don't miss as his eyes drift over your almost bare legs that your clothes can't seem to cover.

His eyes flicker with mischief before retreating back into the bathroom with a sly smirk on his face.

God, if there was one thing that Dean knew it was that he was way more into you then you were into him.

Opening the passenger door to the Impala, he waits for you to step out of the hotel room. 

It's very rare to see you in a pencil skirt but the times that you do have it on, it's an experience for Dean. 

Your legs look so soft, your toned thighs are hidden and teasing underneath the constraining fabric, nevermind how pert and perky the globes of your ass look. 

He can't help the laugh he gives as you pull down the skirt uncomfortably, trying to make it go past your knees.

Everything you do is so endearing to him.

It's almost incredible to him that you've been the person you are since he met you and growing up he tried to get into people that were so absolutely different from you.

You were sexy and confident, not overly sexual and not flirtatious at all. You were focused and did your job to the best of your ability.

He admired everything about you in your entirety so when we looked for women, he looked for everything opposite of you. No one could ever be you nor would he want them to be.

"I feel so fucking restricted, this is horrible." You complain as you climb into the car.

"You look good." He comments simply.

You watch him walk around the car, his fingers tapping rhythmically against Baby's hood. He fixes his tie and you can feel your palms become sweaty at the sight of him in the rented suit.

You decided that you would start to open your cage, just a bit. Healing starts with you, it wouldn't just get better on its own.

Dean climbs into the car before turning to you. Without a second thought, you fix his tie even better than he could have done minutes earlier.

His breath stutters as you wipe off the shoulders of his suit jacket. Eyes widening a fraction as he looks down at you.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" He murmurs as he starts the engine.

"Nothing." You reply as his hand purchases behind your chair.

What is it about Dean Winchester reversing a car that's so hot? The way he angles his body towards yours, you can smell all of his scents plus the citrusy bar of soap the motel provides.

He hums to himself as he begins to back up the car. You begin to count the freckles on his face before his eyes snap to yours.

"You are really weird today." He mumbles before pushing your hair off of your shoulder and squeezing it lightly.

"Marsh wouldn't want us to fight. He loved us being together." You say certainly as you look out the window.

Dean stops the car before turning to look at you fully. His eyes were roaming over your face. Your voice seemed peaceful. Were you letting him in again? Were you making the time to open your heart up for him once more?

"Yeah...he did love us being together." He replies as he tilts his head.

You give a small smile towards the window, watching him stare at you through the glass.

"Marsh would be mad at us if he saw how we've been acting." You say as you lower the window.

The man beside you stares ahead as he clears his throat.

You were opening up. He can feel his mood lifting into something on the sweet side of happiness. 

Maybe dreary clouds and terrible fights were on their way out. Maybe, you could start to be his life partner once more.

He smirks to himself as he stops at the light. 

"I'm glad you see it that way. I agree." He whispers before turning up the music.

On the way to the morgue, the car ride is filled with singing and laughs. Something that's been so distant in both of your lives for quite some time.

"Can you not touch that?" Dean asks as you throw your legs up onto the dashboard.

"What's got your panties in a twist, De? I want to listen to Kansas." You whine holding up the cassette. 

His evergreen irises flicker to you as he drives down the highway. You give him a wide smile, showing him your pearly whites and he smirks before grabbing the cassette.

"Fine just don't tell Sam I'm letting you pick the music." He mumbles before blasting the music as he lowers all your windows.

"WOO!" You cheer, the Indiana breeze blowing through your hair as you start to play the air guitar.

You can hear his hearty chuckle beside you as he speeds up the car. 

"You're the only girl I know that is me in the female form!" Dean yells above the music as he turns the car along the highways curves.

"Maybe that's why we make such a great team!" You call back as the melody of voices carries through the air.

"We're the perfect team, Candy girl! All I need is you, me, Sammy and a six pack of El Sol!" He yells as the engine revs loudly.

Sitting in the motel room by his lonesome, Sam taps his cell phone against his temple as he scrolls through his laptop.

What kind of pissed off spirit has the mojo to do this? There's not a single haunting as far as the eye can s-

"Hello Sam." He jumps in his chair before turning to the voice of Cas as he stands before the small kitchenette of the room.

"Hi Cas. Jesus." He mumbles before carding his fingers through his long hair.

Castiel stands quietly as Sam shuts his laptop.

"Uhhh Cas? Did you come for a reason?" The taller man asks as he grabs his cup of coffee.

"Yes." The angel replies and Sam nods slowly before raising his eyebrows.

"Okay. So. Why're you here?" He asks aloud as Cas sits down at the small table.

"We have to make Dean and Y/N fall in love with each other." Sam groans loudly at his words before sipping his coffee.

"Cas, I told you. I've tried but Dean just doesn't want to hear it. He's been hearing it since he was sixteen from our dad." The taller man notifies as he rests his elbow on the table.

"We should tell Y/N." Sam narrows his eyes at the angel before laughing.

"Yeah? Do you think she would take it better than Dean?" 

Cas ponders on the thought for a second before humming uneasily, "No. In fact, I think she might try to hit me for suggesting it and break her own hand in the process." 

Sam gives him a thumbs up before rolling his eyes. 

"They already love each other. They just have to get over the whole initial terror of being actual people with one another." He mumbles as Cas stares at him.

"Yes. But they need to do the act of love for destiny. God sent everyone a direct message, and they are just not heeding it." Sam leans forward at his admission.

"God wants Y/N and Dean together?" Sam asks loudly.

"Oh yes. It's been aware to all angels for quite some time. Right after you went into the cage." 

"Well why didn't you say that before? That's kind of a big deal, Cas!" Narrowing his eyes at the vessel of Lucifer, he stands back up.

"It isn't as big of a deal as it should be, apparently. They aren't even taking this seriously." He deadpans, his voice getting dangerously low.

Sam scoffs before looking down at his phone.

"I don't know what to say. They just have to figure it out on their own." He mumbles.

"Useless." Cas says before vanishing from sight.

Sam lets out a groan before opening up his laptop once more.

"You're useless." He whispers under his breath before continuing his research.

Pulling at your skirt, you shove the doors open exiting the morgue with your best friend by your side.

"They both were pulled from the same corner, both were aspiring models that wanted to just make some extra cash to live." Dean says as he takes off his tie.

You frown before giving up at the uncomfortable fabric and groaning loudly. 

"Would you stop? You look like your diggin' up your ass to find gold." He whispers as people walk by you into the building.

"Yeah well, this skirt fucking sucks! I feel trapped in a cocoon!" You bark back as you walk towards Baby.

"Your butt looks good though." He compliments calmly as he walks around the car.

"Shut up!" You admonish as he opens the door for you.

"Look! I can't even move my legs!" You complain as you try to stretch your legs, the fabric only giving way about four inches before you find your legs trying to close from the tightness of the fabric.

Rolling his eyes he unbuttons the top button of his dress shirt.

"Yeah, alright. I hear you. Let's go back and change. God, you whiner." He says, leaving your door open as he rounds the car to open his own.

Throwing your body into the car, you unzip the back of your skirt before sighing happily.

Dean looks over before his eyes widen and he grips the steering wheel tightly.

He can see the revealing skin beneath the open zipper, the gentle parting of your asscheeks below the tight fabric.

"Are you kidding me?" He complains as he turns on the engine.

"I don't feel as suffocated, leave me alone." You mutter out as you unbutton a few buttons on your blouse.

You were used to tight tank tops, loose jeans and combat boots. 

His eyes falter to the soft looking skin in his peripheral again, his tongue tracing over his bottom lip before clearing his throat.

"Just wear suit pants next time. Jesus." He says as he pulls out of the parking lot.

"Let's go change and get a beer. I'm thirsty." You tell him as you lower your window.

His head turns to watch you while he stops at a stoplight as you angle yourself out the window. The globes of your ass press tightly together as you fix yourself comfortably in the seat.

Running his large hand over his face, his bottom lip tucks between his teeth. 

You don't even know how sexy you are. You don't even care. That's what gets him so hot and bothered when he's alone.

"Light's green." You comment as you look at the autumnal leaves on the trees. 

God, what if he could just wrap his big hand around your waist and tug you into his lap. Pull you over the middle console of Baby and grip those sexy cheeks between his fingers.

So fucking pert and per-

"The light's green, idiot." You tell him as a car honks behind him. 

Sticking up his middle finger, he abandons his wildly horny thoughts to drive down the road.

"So are we getting beers?" You ask as you sit properly in the passenger's seat.

"Oh yeah. I need a drink." He murmurs, turning up the music loud.

"Yeah well we need to be quick about this. Another victim seems to be coming up." You say as you sit down in the booth of the dive bar with your two best friends by your side.

Throwing your legs over Dean's lap, you watch as his hands immediately grip them tugging you closer to his body on instinct as he sips his beer.

"There's not a single haunting in this town of Missouri." Sam whispers as the waitress comes over.

"Hey guys! Can I get you another round?" She asks, her eyes immediately wavering to the older brother as she pushes some hair behind her ear.

It doesn't quite bother you as much as you would think. Dean's been getting pussy since you both met. 

"What do you want?" He asks you, his thumb drifting over the leather of your thigh high combat boots as he ignores the waitress.

"Whisky and coke." You say as you look through the documents Sam has printed from a nearby Staples.

Dean leans closer to you and you freeze, your eyes flitting to Sam. You can feel your heart begin to beat faster, can feel your breath stuttering in your throat.

"You have an eyelash." He mumbles as he picks the lash off of your cheek.

Pulling back he holds the eyelash on his index finger in front of your face before turning to the waitress.

"I'll have what she's having. Sammy?" 

"Same." He murmurs suppressing his smile as you narrow your eyes at the younger brothers.

The waitress smiles, "Three whisky and cokes coming up. You want your drink extra strong, handsome?" 

Dean clears his throat as he pushes his empty beer bottle farther away from himself.

"Whatever you're giving my girl is good enough for me." He says calmly.

You wish that things would just fall into place, for the pain to go away and for your heart to be soothed and open once more.

You blow the eyelash off of his finger before leaning back in the booth. 

"She's your girlfriend?" The waitress asks, pointing at you with her pen.

You don't dignify a response as you stare at the pages of information on the victims. You're used to Dean turning the flirting into his nightly pleasure within a few minutes. 

"My wife, actually." Dean says before he finishes off your beer and grabs some papers on the case you're working.

Sam smiles widely before finishing his beer and you roll your eyes, suppressing the smirk your face just naturally wants to give. 

Her smile falters as she grabs the empty beer bottles before nodding.

"Lucky girl." She says and you snort before looking up at her.

"You don't know the half of it." You deadpan, earning a loud laugh from the younger best friend on your right.

Dean doesn't even watch her walk away, he plays with the laces of your boots as you continue to rifle through the papers.

"She was pretty." You comment as you turn your attention to him.

He looks up from your boots just to shrug, "Not in the mood." 

His brother lets off a low whistle as he leans his shoulder against yours, "Dean Winchester isn't in the mood? Has the world ended?" 

You giggle at his joke while his older brother grimaces. 

"Shut up." He mutters.

"Here you go. Three whisky and cokes." The waitress says as she begins to take them off the tray.

"Thank you swee-" He stops himself short before looking at Sam, who gives him a teasing smile as you put down the two photos of the victims on the table.

"Oh my Gosh. Those are the victims, aren't they?" The waitress whispers quietly as she leans against the booth.

"You know them?" Sam asks as he pushes his hair back.

"Of course. We haven't had murders or prostitutes for a long time around here." You sit up straighter, pulling your legs from Dean's lap.

"A long time? Online it says you never had any." You ask, tilting your head.

Dean sips his drink, staring at you instead of the waitress.

It's cute when you become interested in information, the way your shoulders straighten and your neck sticks out just a tad.

"Well yeah. The mayor probably doesn't want people to know that his grandmother was actually a prostitute. Or so they say." You hum intrigued as you pick up your drink.

She notices how keen you are and continues to speak, angling her body towards you.

"Apparently back in the early nineteen hundreds, there were prostitutes on that very corner. The mayor's grandmother being one of them. There was a guy named Morley Rosmund that had sex with one of the women from the corner behind his wife's back and she got pregnant. When he told her to get rid of it, she ended up killing him. She had sex with him first and then put his body through a woodchipper. Only up to his pelvis though and then she left him. Since then, all prostitutes have been disappearing on that corner for years." You nod at the story, your eyes flickering to Dean as he shakes his head with a wry chuckle.

"And no one talks about this?" Sam asks as she stands back up.

"You just need to talk to people that do know the tale, I guess." She says with a shrug before nodding to a group of people that call her from the other side of the bar.

"Well I'll be damned." Dean lifting his glass.

"Cheers." You say before clinking glasses with the both of them.

"Guess I'm putting on a dress tomorrow." You mutter as you write down the dead man's name.

"Can't wait to see how uncomfortable you get with that." Dean jeers with a laugh as he picks your legs back up and puts them on his lap.

Raising an eyebrow, you watch as he strokes the leather of your boots.

"It's comforting." He mumbles before finishing his drink with one large gulp.

Yeah, it is comforting.

Forever Dean Tags: @akshi8278​

[chaoticspacefam]

6.  “How do you think this will all end?” for D'leah, please <3

Pinky once again picking THE juiciest possible combo of prompt + characters, everybody go thank her bc I had a blast with this 👀 I’ve been wanting to write a oneshot for this part of the story for a while and this is the perfect excuse mwahaha 

@palepinkycat here you go! Sorry this one took a little while, I haven’t had time to sit and write it out till now, but hopefully it’s a decent enough length to make it up to you! 👀

I have more to say about the body language I described in here (namely the significance of the “under chin” snuggles & also why D’leah Yelled At Abe When He Tried To Do It To Her At The End), but I have a Worldbuilding tag somewhere in my mentions so I’mma save it for that basically. More Tomato Lore gonna drop sometime in the next week or two once I’m done with the drawings skshsks I tried to do one for this one too but it was not coming out right so maybe some other time XD

I’ve seen a lot of fics explore what it’s like to have a Force bond and communicate with it but I’ve seen very few that deal with the “what if it breaks when one of them dies” side of it, so this is my take on what happens and how it probably feels for the “surviving” party; I usually describe my Force bonds as a sort of ethereal “thread” type thing that then connects their emotions/souls/however you want to see it and yadda yadda, so...you can’t tell me that snapping that thread wouldn’t fucking hurt ;-; For extra heart hurty, the song quotes were the main two songs I listened to while working on each “part” of this fic, so you can use them for ambience if you want ;)

As always I use the Coruscant Translator for (most of) my High Sith, translations are included on the bottom however :) (since the quote from the prompt is said in Sith, they’re gonna talk in High Sith sometimes being well...Sith :3)

Abaron is the best brother-in-law, I do not make the rules. D’leah you need to apologise to this man immediately 😂 she does, immediately after this (not shown) dw, I swear

Timeline/Setting: 3729 BBY (roughly/according to the still-holey timeline I’ve been working on since the “canon” one was released) Immediately post-Valkoriate takeover. As in, literally just happened slash is happening as this occurs.

Warnings: Character Death mention (Kissai), Breaking Force Bonds, Plenty of angst (it was from an “angsty” prompt list, after all! 😬) , possible slight gore (?) in the form of description of a former  injury from a concussion grenade (just to be safe lol), and ofc some Cuss Words (™) 

^^ these are ur warnings, click past this cut at ur own risk and I am not responsible for how you react bc you chose to pass the warning k thanks ^^

“Don’t care if he’s guilty, don’t care if he’s not. He’s good and he’s bad and he’s all that I’ve got. Oh lord, oh lord, I’m begging you please...don’t take that sinner from me -” ~ The Civil Wars, “Devil’s Backbone”

It all happened so fast, they had to react fast if they were going to save the twins, and D’leah knew that. She’d tried so desperately to help her husband, pouring as much of her Force energy as she could through the bond they shared. It had always worked before, why wasn’t it working NOW?! D’leah didn’t know, but she could feel him growing weaker and weaker by the second. 

D’leah - his voice was so distant and faint, she almost didn’t want to acknowledge the reality of it. No, no no, he wasn’t dying he couldn’t be dying, no no no…. D-Don’t do this. Sai… her grip on the control cluster tightened until her knuckles turned pale, they were already in the air. It would be easy to do what she knew he was about to ask...but it would mean leaving him to his fate. Could she do that?

Dimly, D’leah could hear Abaron chattering to the girls behind her as he made sure they stayed in their seats, but she couldn’t hear the words any of them were saying, there was just him and that horrible, ominous weakness bleeding from her husband’s end of the bond. 

You need to run… Kissai urged her. PROMISE me. The girls-

I can’t...not without you! her mind-voice caught as if the words were difficult to form, she felt him slip further away and frantically tried to bolster his strength up again, but somehow, she couldn’t put her finger on how, it only seemed to make the other Pureblood weaker. Sai, snichi… she pleaded, and she could feel the barest attempt at a smile from her husband as he gave her his final farewell, 

Nu aki j’us, D’leah. RUN. For me...

His words were far weaker now, more forced, as if even Kissai knew he was running out of time to convey his plea. D’leah realised with a growing sense of horror that they really didn’t have another option, she had to protect their daughters. She reached towards the navcomputer to punch in the quickest hyperspace code she could think of that would get them as far away from Imperial Space as possible, but never managed to get there. 

The pain hit her so fast that D’leah had no time to prepare for it even if in reality, she’d known it was coming. First, came the white-hot metal rod of pain that jammed right down the center of her spine. Every nerve ending felt like it was on fire and it was this that was enough to cause her to cry out in pain and lose her grip on the ship’s controls as the Pureblood was thrown sideways in her seat. She managed to fall with just enough grace to get herself out of Abaron’s way and as she hit the floor and the pain kept coming, she faintly heard the man curse in High Sith as he lunged across to take her place in the pilot’s seat before they nose-dived into Force-only-knows what, out here in open space like they were. 

Then she felt the thread of Force energy between herself and her husband straining, threatening to snap, and before long, it did. D’leah knew logically there was nothing she could do to stop it, and that trying would make it hurt more, but she was desperate and on reflex she could not help but try. Frantically, she reached out with her own Force energy and clasped for each thread as it tore away from her, bit by bit, as if clutching at the strings would somehow, futilely, keep him here. Would let him live. But still, the pain came again, and again, and she fancied that the sinews of flesh being ripped from bone when she lost part of her face to that concussion grenade had been less painful than this. “No...no no no no please...please! NO!!!” Everything else was so faint and far-away in comparison that D’leah didn’t realise that her scream had been out loud this time, her fingers fumbling for her heart, though she couldn’t rightly tell if that was where the pain was truly coming from and it was simply a reflexive reaction. 

For a long while she clenched her teeth through wave after wave of pain, and while it didn’t stop, it became easier with every breath for D’leah to push it into the background. Slowly, the Pureblood’s blurry vision cleared and she realised the twins were staring down at her, wide-eyed in horror. 

She needed to get up. She needed to go to them, she needed to be strong. For them.

Saarai reached for her first, but she scooped both of them up into her arms as best as she was able, all but falling into the seat where the twins had been huddled moments before. The girls both clamored to settle themselves as close to her as they could without pushing the other out of her grasp too. D’leah held onto them as tightly as she could, only vaguely aware of Saarai’s voice as she chattered a question up at her, catching every second word or so. “Moooom!” as she reached up towards her again, and “Dad...gonna find us...right?” 

Their mother shushed them softly, adjusting her grip to fit both of the twins, as best she was able, beneath her chin. Safe. They were safe there.

“Shhh, shh-shh, my little one.” she croaked shakily, a tremor passing through her frame as she tried to keep her voice steady and convincing through the lie. “He’ll catch up later, don’t you worry.” 

They sat in silence, D’leah clutching them against her chest as if they, too, might disappear if she let them go for even one second, and Abaron took over piloting the ship so that she didn’t have to. He’d practically done all the work already, anyway. She risked a glance down at her daughters, and caught the wary glint in Saarai’s golden eyes, the sideward glance at her sister, and she knew that they knew it was a lie. But she had not the heart to tell them that yet. Not now, through the tears that had begun to stream from her eyes despite her attempts to hold them at bay. She did not mean to cry, but what else could she do??

Saarai’s tiny fingers reached up shakily, when she realised what they were, to brush the liquid tracks from her chin and the spurs on her jaw. It only made her cry more and hold them tighter.

“Nunchi woiunoks, oi ai utja…” she breathed soothingly, hoping it was convincing enough for the twins. “Mom’s got you...nothing is ever going to hurt you while I’m here.” She held them like that right until they landed.

“The daughter of a lawyer, told the fallen priest “it’s a cold, cold place in the arms of a thief”, And tapping at the arrow in her heel, she said “LEAVE ME ALONE! ...but just don’t leave me here, alright?” Alright..” ~ Iron & Wine, “Arms of a Thief” 

By the time they arrived at their destination, some planet called “Rishii” that she doesn’t ever recall knowing of before - but perhaps that’s a good thing - and Abaron managed to find them a place to stay, the pain she had felt had dulled to more of a phantom throbbing than anything else. But her consciousness felt vulnerable and empty without Kissai’s own Force presence winding around hers, she felt alone, even though physically she was not. D’leah had sung and rocked the twins to sleep, with some effort, and glanced down at them as they slept, Ni’kasi’s arms curled around her sister as she burrowed under her chin for comfort beneath the blanket their mother had tucked around them.

The pain was gone, and in its wake came the FURY. It bubbled to the surface all too quickly, and D’leah began to tremble again, a growl rumbling deep in her throat as she realised that first, the girls were theoretically out of danger, and secondly, she still had a ship. She could go back. 

“I’m going to kill that fucker.” the Pureblood wheeled for the door, only to find it blocked by Abaron, who seemed to have pre-empted her outburst. She stopped short, a hiss slipping past her teeth as her lip curled back to show her fangs briefly. “Abe. Move.” she snarled, resisting the urge to shout so as to not wake Saarai and Ni’kasi from their slumber. The tips of Abaron’s jaw spurs shook as, for once in his life, he declined to follow her order. 

“No. My Lord, I can’t let you do that.”

It took every ounce of her self control not to do worse, but as it was, D’leah tried to lunge for him so she could force her way past, he might not have been taller than her but he was stronger, and heavier too. The man reacted just as quickly, his own hands closing around her wrists to push back and keep her in place, his own feet firmly rooted in the doorway as he grunted. “D’leah! Listen to me, please!” 

The tears threatened to come to the surface again, her eyes burning hot, though this time the matriarch forced them down, though her voice still quivered as she spat, each word punctuated with a quiver in her voice.

“You have no idea how I am feeling right now!”

“Not wholly, no.” Abaron argued, releasing her arms as she dropped them back to her sides, her remaining spurs still rattling softly in agitation. “But I know that going back there now is foolish, my Lord!” 

“Get. Out. Of. My. Way!” D’leah hissed, though she didn’t have the strength left after the manic dash away from Kaas to call the lightning to her fingertips and lend to the threat she was trying to punctuate. “H-He is sitting there, on our homeworld, w-with our people’s blood on his hands!” she tried to shove him again, but her fist connected dully with the plated armour on the other Pureblood’s chest and didn’t make much of an impact on him. “They’re all dead and y-you just want me to -!!” 

“I’m trying to protect you, my Lord!” his teeth flashed back at her, yet another thing she would not have stood for if she was half as lucid as usual. He continued on further, his voice a low, agitated growl as he lowered his face to hers as if to punctuate his point. “That is my charge, it’s what you bid me to do and I will not have you risking your life for such a foolish venture, you’re not thinking straight! We are the only ones left! It’s my duty to make sure that all three of you stay alive!” 

She flinched at the reminder. Them, and Vowrawn, perhaps...if he was sneaky enough. But Abaron was right, going back would put him at risk, too. His eyes searched hers frantically, and his hands remained raised as if Abaron wasn’t completely sure he wouldn’t need to hold her back again. D’leah was in half a mind about it herself, she wasn’t sure how to react now. And what her brother-in-law said next put the nail in the coffin, so to speak: 

“Dias dari j'us minti pa saû iki wisa qorit?” he urged, the words a muttered whisper.

The Pureblood matriarch felt her anger fizzle out almost instantly as the realization sank in. The girls....they were only children. They were far too young for this. Too young, they were too young for this talk of death and loss and grief; too young to have to understand if she left them here and did not come back either. Their father’s passing would weigh heavily on them for the rest of their lives, they didn’t deserve to have to lose their mother, and on the same day, too...

She deflated, her shoulders sagging in defeat, and another tremor wracked her frame as she dropped her own gaze to the floor for the moment. “Abe...I-” 

“I know.” he sighed, relaxing as he stepped up to draw her against his chest sympathetically. She almost didn’t react, until she felt his chin brush the top of her head and she realized what he was trying to do. Despite his attempt at the gesture being comforting, D’leah jerked herself away from him to growl warningly. “Dari nindz.”

He looked momentarily taken aback, holding his hands up amicably as he apologised. “I was just...I thought you needed-” “Nu sûa nindz zo ardira!” she snapped at him, but mercifully, turned away from the door and stalked further inside once more.

____________________________________________________

Sith translations, in order:

Snichi... - please... 

Nu aki j’us. - I (romantic) love you.

Nunchi woiunoks, oi ai utja. - Sweet little one, it’s alright.

Dias dari j'us minti pa saû iki wisa qorit? - How do you think this will all end? 

Dari nindz - Don’t.

Nu sûa nindz zo ardira! - I’m not a child!

[cafeinthemoon]

To Where the Water Take Me - Chapter I

Title:  To Where the Water Take Me

Genre: Fanfiction | Fantasy!AU

Pairing: Tobirama Senju x Yua (Ofc)

Rating: Teen | up

Word count: 2298

Chapter (s): 1/?

Warnings: mentions to injuries

Symbols: ⭕ | ➕ | 💛 | ▶▶

Read this story on my AO3

Summary: Yua lives on a small town by the coast where stories about the people of the sea and their altercations with humans were common. One morning, during her usual walking by the beach, she spots something lying ahead, right where the sand and the water meet. She approaches it believing it is an animal, just to be proven wrong: that was the body of a male from the people of the sea.

N. A.: This is the Fantasy!AU I mentioned here before! I don’t know when I will finish it or how much chapters it will have, but I want it to be short and simple. I’m also posting it here to “clean” my draft list, so please don’t expect constant updates on this story XD

Chapter 1 - Morning Walk

“A thousand miles out to the sea bed

Found a place to rest my head”

(Florence and the Machine, Never Let Me Go)

Spring was on its second week in that land and the days of Winter winds and violent storms coming from the sea were over. It was easy to become used to the warm sunlight and the calm waves on the coast that came after them every year, and that was the reason why Yua started to rethink her decision of leaving the house to take her usual walk that particular morning: she reached the sand and haven’t walked more than a few meters when a cold breeze reached her, making her ask herself if she should have brought a coat. Maybe yes, but now that she was already there with her feet buried in sand and her hair soaked in salt air, she was not going back home; she came to take her morning walk, and she was not leaving without doing it.

However, the sea had experience with tenacious people, and that time it was determined to test her persistence. Little by little, the warm sun disappeared behind a thick layer of gray clouds slowly pushed by the wind, which was sending more and more shivers down her body at each step. Soon, the amount of sand carried by it started to interfere in her sight, and it was hard to see what was ahead. Yua felt the irritation growing inside her: what happened to the weather that day?

She was now convinced that going back home was the wisest thing to do in such conditions. Accepting her defeat with a sigh, she tied her hair to not have it on her eyes while walking with the wind on her back and crossed her arms around herself, preparing to leave.

It was when she saw it.

Not so far from her spot, there was a dark, large stain upon the white sand, right where the land met the waves. Yua narrowed her eyes, trying to understand what she was seeing. Was it a piece of a wrecked ship? Or a living creature? Maybe the waters became so agitated with that terrible wind that they threw it there, giving it no chance to go back.

She took a few steps towards it and confirmed that it was a creature. Was it a dolphin? A seal? Well, if it was an animal, it must be too heavy for her to take it back to the water all by herself. She could seek for help in the city. But were they going to help her? She couldn’t be sure.

Whatever the case, the creature wasn’t moving, which increased the possibility of it being hurt. Standing there would only lead it to death, if it hasn’t happened already, so the girl walked toward it with determination, if not to do something for it, at least to try and understand what happened.

As she approached it, she start to think that the animal was too big to be a dolphin, and to slim to be a seal. What was it, then? She would have to look closer to find out. Now the curiosity has overcome her plans of leaving the beach, and she found herself almost running to reach the being.

And then her path ended up in an abrupt way: she was just a few steps apart from the creature and held her breath when she looked closer at it.

It wasn’t an animal as she first supposed. It was a person. Not a human, though – a person from the people of the sea.

For the appearance of their upper bodies carried a reasonable resemblance with the human figure, it was safe to say that the creature was a male. He was lying on his belly, his arms stretched up his head; in his hand he held tight some black stripes that showed to be a species of seaweed that she never saw before – he must have found it in the depths of the ocean.

His skin was pale even when compared to the white sand upon which he was lying, but all over his arms and ribs he had reddish marks spreading on a stern pattern; at first, Yua thought they were scratches, but a careful examination revealed that they were natural marks. Not that it would be a big problem for him if they were real injuries, for his muscles and general aspect implied an amount of resistance that would surpass the human limits: it wasn’t hard to imagine that he had enough strength to kill Yua in seconds even if he didn’t use everything he got against her. This detail served as warning for her in her next actions.

If the creature’s skin seemed pale to her, his hair was indeed white; it was short, disposed in shaggy, thick strands. On his head he was wearing some sort of silver ornament that covered his forehead and part of his cheeks, but the sharp points on its upper side created a resemblance with the forehead protector of the human shinobi from distant lands. Was he a warrior among his people?

She wasn’t sure if it was an illusion, but both his skin and hair seemed to reflect a subtle, bluish shade when touched by the light. Perhaps it was the influence of the aquatic aspects of his anatomy: over the outer side of his arms, starting on his elbows and reaching his fists, as well as on his lower back, grew a layer of scales that shone with a soft shade of blue that got darker as they extended in flexible fins. Of an even darker tone of blue was his tail, spreading for at least three meters among the waves: it started right at what would be his waist if he was human, but in this case the transition between the pale skin and the scales was less subtle, as to let no doubts about his non human nature.

For she was born in that city, Yua heard about the people of the sea since she was a child, from the stories her mother told her to the talking all around the city, when fishermen and travelers would complain about accidents and shipwrecks caused by those wild sea-men. However, she never expected to find one of them by herself. She was scared, that was true, but her fascination overcame her fears, and she bent down beside the seaman and stretched her hand to touch him.

She touched his right shoulder at first with her fingertips, ready to move away if he woke and attack her. It was warm – he was alive, then. And that part of the stories that claimed that their skin was as cold as the deep ocean was a lie. He showed no reaction to her touch, so she put her palm over his skin.

This time he started to move.

He clenched his fists and leaned on them using all his strength. In a second, he was able to look ahead, and that was what he did once he opened his eyes. Yua got stunned when he did: his pupils were not but two tiny black dots surrounded by globes as red as human blood, and the narrow shape of his eyes seeming to be painted with black ink, as well the red marks he had upon his cheeks and chin which were of the same pattern as the others on his body, deepened her impression of being in front of a predator.

They soon spotted the girl staring at him and widened, if with anger or fear, she didn’t have the time to find out. It was easy to suppose that he hid fangs behind his mouth while he kept it shut, so when he hissed and showed them, Yua was not surprised, but the sudden movement he made to throw himself toward her made her jump and fall on her back, containing a scream.

However, instead of a growl or any other sound of attack, she heard a moan that seem to be caused by pain. When she sat and looked again, she noticed that the sand underneath his spot was soaked in a fluid of a deep blue tone that was close to black; she then saw him trying to cover a dark stain upon his chest, from which dripped the same fluid. She didn’t need to know much about seamen to understand that it was blood.

Forgetting about what just happened, she leaned toward him.

- Let me help you!

The man stopped at these words and stared at her. The suffering was visible on his face, on which side there was blood falling, probably from a hidden injury. However, his silence was so long that she started to wonder if he could understand the human speech.

She tried again, more cautious.

- Do you understand what I say? – she pointed the injury – You’re hurt. You need help. Let me take care of this for you.

He kept staring at her for a few seconds before relaxing his position as sign of permission for her to approach. She came to bend closer to him and without touching the injury, started to examine it. It was an ugly thing he got there: a deep cut on his right side, apparently made with some sharp, metallic instrument like a big knife or a spear, that spread from his scapula to the center of his chest, almost reaching his left ribs. What was she going to do?

The first thing was to clean that blood as much as she could. She had nothing to do that but an apron she used to put upon her dresses to walk in case she found a shell she wanted to keep; she took it off and soaked it in the water to clean the bruise, and then folded it, using it to contain the bleeding.

- Please, hold it tight – she made the gesture of holding the fabric against the injury and touched his hand to tell him to imitate her.

He did it with his empty hand and, when she started to look around, trying to decide what to do next, he offered her the seaweed he was holding. She raised her eyes to him and he nodded; she immediately understood and took it from his hand.

The seaweed, when pressed and rubbed between the palms, formed a thick, creamy substance that glued to the skin with little effort and didn’t melt with the mere contact with water; it wasn’t so easy to spread, so the girl would need to be careful if she wanted that quantity to be enough for a large cut like that. When the salve was ready, she removed the apron from the cut and started to press the seaweed upon it.

It was indeed a strong medicine: as soon as it touched the bruise, he hissed, probably because it burned the sensitive skin. Yua stopped at it, but got back to her task when he seem to feel better.

She slowed her pace and softened the pressure she was applying, but it didn’t seem to help with the burning sensation because he kept hissing during the whole process.

- I’m sorry – she whispered, trying to calm him down as she worked – It will be over soon, I promise... It’s almost finished… Just a little bit…

As the treatment advanced, the seaman seemed to get used to the unpleasing sensation caused by the medicine: the hisses were less frequent now, and the tension on his muscles diminished. Maybe it was the medicine in action, or the certainty that Yua was not going to harm him – because whatever have happened to him moments before that encounter, he had his reasons to be on guard and afraid.

And after some minutes, everything was finally over. The seaman was visibly relieved; the burn must have stopped at that point. Yua washed her hands on the water, but kept what remained from the seaweed on her lap.

She observed him with more attention, not ignoring the blood on his face.

- Is this the only injury you got? – she questioned him and indicated the water plant – There’s still some seaweed we could use in this case.

At these words, he had a strange reaction. His looked away, as if trying to hide the blood and find a way to escape the conversation. But what could be so embarrassing that he didn’t want to tell her? Was it the fact that he just got help from a human being? Or didn’t he understand her language and didn’t know how to explain it? She tried to question him to find out, but he seemed to become nervous, and she was afraid to push him too far: having a potentially dangerous creature close to you and irritating him was not the best idea one could have.

The girl stretched her hand toward him, but closed it and moved it back to her lap. If he was a human, she could touch his shoulder or his hand to assure him about her good intentions, but in the present case she couldn’t be sure of how he was going to react to her gesture. The best way to proceed was, after all, continuing to speak.

- Listen… I don’t know if can understand what I’m saying, but I just want to help you, right? So, if you have a problem, you can show me, and I will do my best. You don’t need to be afraid.

And for the second time, she held back a scream: for the first time, the seaman spoke.

[underoossss]

Fire and Trust - Chapter 1 - H.O.

Prince AU

Prologue

Pairing: Harrison Osterfield x OFC

Warnings: none, just maybe some typos oops.

AN: this took me so long to publish but I really wanted this to be perfect so thank you for your patience. I love this story, I love these characters and I hope you do too. Let me know what you think. Feedback is always great! 

———

CHAPTER 1

The sound of something bubbling in a cauldron and a strong smell fill the small room. There’s a physician tending to what could be assumed to be a potion, his face is focused and partly covered by long grey hair that is starting to grow whiter at the top. He is humming to himself, unaware of the young woman watching him from the open window. Waiting for him to leave before she gets caught, not that she ever gets caught, but one can ever be too careful. She’s not there for the potion brewing on top of the fire, no, her sight is on the yellow liquid inside tiny vials on the other side of the room. The antidote to a new flu that’s starting to spread around different kingdoms. The main villages, the big ones near the castles, have no problem dealing with it. Their physicians have access to the herbs and other ingredients necessary for the antidote, all of them provided by their kings who order them from far off lands. Smaller villages that are often overlooked by their rulers, don’t have the same privilege.

So here Emersyn is, stealing some vials from King Salazar’s physician to take to with her to the village of Westbelle. It was the village where she grew up in, the one that welcomed her every time she came back and the one that wasn’t wealthy enough to afford a cure for the flu. There haven’t been many affected by it, only 5 people so far but with the virus spreading so fast she wanted to get the vials to Westbelle’s physician, Milton, as soon as she could. A few of them would be enough, he was talented when it came to rationing ingredients as one has to be when things are so scarce.

The physician Emersyn had been spying on stops humming which makes her focus on him once more. He’s putting on green cloth gloves and taking the cauldron out of the fire, setting it aside and extinguishing the flames with a bucket of water. As he puts the bucket back by the barrel of water next to the door, there’s a knock. “Lyon? His Royal Highness is calling for you.”

“I’ll be right there.” Lyon says to the guard who had stepped inside the room, making Emersyn duck her head just enough to see but still avoid being seen.

The guard nods and stands by the door as Lyon stirs the potion a couple of times and adds some herbs. “That should do it. Let’s go, it needs to rest for two hours anyways.” Lyon opens the door and the guard follows, closing the door behind him and giving Emersyn the chance, she was hoping for.

She waits a couple of minutes before climbing in through the window, quiet as a mouse and her steps careful around the many cauldrons the physician has lying around as well as the jars on the shelves. She moves towards the yellow vials, reaching for one but noticing they aren’t sealed, so she walks to a nearby desk to look for cork stoppers. “Seriously Lyon, organize your desk.” Emersyn mutters to herself, opening drawers, moving papers and opening boxes to find what she was looking for. “Aha!”

In the last drawer there’s a clear jar full of cork stoppers, so maybe Lyon wasn’t that disorganized. She takes 8 vials, sealing them shut and double checking they won’t leak on her way back before carefully placing them in her backpack. Bells ring outside, from the chapel probably, and startle Emersyn who takes a step back and knocks down an empty cauldron. She turns around and is glad that the cauldron barely made any noise, that is until it starts to roll away towards a shelf full jars with ingredients. Emersyn flinches as five jars fall to the floor and break making a racket, then the door bursts open. With a deep breath, Emersyn turns towards the guards by the door and smiles.

“Good morning, boys.” She crosses her arms behind her back.

“Let us see your hands, thief! Return whatever it is you stole, immediately!” The guard on the right demands, pointing his sword towards her. He’s tall and blond, his eyes are dark brown and determined. The guard by his side though, looks like he’s about to pass out by the nervous look in his eyes.

Emersyn puts her hands up, leaving them close to her bow and arrows. “Come on, no need to make a scene. It’s such a nice day outside.”

“We don’t care, now, put t-that bow on the floor and h-hand over the backpack.” The nervous guard manages to get out which makes the thief smile.

“No can do, boys. Like I said, the weather is lovely outside, so I might just enjoy the outdoors.” Emersyn takes her bow and arrow, shooting one at the tall ceiling in the physician’s office, just above the window. There’s a rope tied at the end of it which she uses to climb towards the window, at a speed that’s helped her escape in many occasions. How her arrows hold her weight? Emersyn doesn’t know, an old lady in her village says they’re probably cursed but Emersyn doesn’t mind if it gets her out of situations like these.

“Stop that thief!” She hears the guards yell but pays them no mind as she climbs out of the window and uses two arrows to climb towards the roof. The red roof tiles have lost some of their color from the sun and crack slightly as Emersyn steps on them and starts to run.

The kingdom’s alarm goes off and she hears guards start to follow her. Turning her head to look back, she sees that there was a door near a watch tower which the guards had used to get on the roof. “Where was that door when I needed it?” She rolls her eyes and picks up the pace, scanning her surroundings, thinking about her next move. To her left the roof forms an L shape but there is another watchtower with a door. Emersyn assumes more guards will come out of it any moment now, so the left side is not an option. She looks straight ahead and smiles as she spots a tall tree. It would be a big jump, she thinks, but I might make it. Grabbing the arrow and the rope, Emersyn takes aim as she nears the end of the roof jumping as far from it as she can manage before shooting her arrow at the tree she had spotted. She holds on tightly to the rope, yelling at the strain of being pulled by it and cursing at the splinters she’s getting from the trees branches as she sinks halfway on them.

“Follow her!” The same blond guard from before yells after her. “Now!”

“Good luck.” Emersyn smirks, climbing down the tree and starting to run west.

She’s weaving through the trees left and right to use them as cover, and she manages to get a little more than a mile between her and her pursuers before she hears the distant sound of horses galloping behind her. She scans her surroundings, the river still flows on her far right, so she makes so sure to avoid it in case the guards decided to chase her using their boats as well. Instead, Emersyn decides to move closer to the mountains knowing the high ground will give her an advantage against the guards and their horses. Just as she finds a path towards the uneven rocks at the base of the mountain though, a low growling reaches her ears, this sound closer than the horses in her pursuit.

“No, not them again.” Emersyn mutters, picking up her pace knowing that the other party chasing her were much faster than horses.

Here’s the thing, ever since Emersyn had to fend for herself on her own, some strange creatures stared chasing her. They had the body of wolves and the head of a lion, their fur was grey and green and their fangs looked incredibly sharp. Most importantly, they always managed to find Emersyn no matter where she went. They could lose her trail for a couple of days before they were on her tail once more. Lately though, they were getting even better at finding her, managing to do so in at least a day and sometimes in less than twelve hours.

A glance backwards confirms her fears and she forces herself to run even faster when the creatures jump over some hedges and get close to her. Emersyn is breathless but she has to get to those rocks and try to get away, she also doesn’t want to shoot any arrows at them because they look like huge kittens and she doesn’t want to hurt them. The creatures, however, seem to have no qualms about hurting her. Once Emersyn gets close enough to the rocks at the base of the mountain, she decides to shoot an arrow as high up as she can with the rope attached to it so she can use it as support to climb. The creatures catch up though and are fast enough to jump on the rocks leading up to where she’s hanging in the air. Emersyn stops mid climb and swings towards a nearby pine tree, knowing that it would be harder for the creatures to follow her that way. She curses at the splinters she gets on her fingers but wastes no time while climbing higher up, the creatures growling and jumping below her as they try to reach her. Trying to come up with a plan as fast as possible, Emersyn scans her surroundings and smiles when she spots a path up a very steep and rocky hill to her right. Taking a deep breath, she takes another arrow and shoots it towards the path. She makes sure the arrow is secure and she ties the end of yet another rope on a branch before using her backpack to get from the tree to the mountain once more, grunting when the rope gives out and she almost falls down towards the creatures. Taking the arrow and the rope with her, she starts to climb up the steep path thankful for the creatures not being able to reach it. One glance back makes her unaware of a downward slope at the top of the path and she slips towards a dark cave, which’s dark tunnel leads out to the middle of two big mountains.

There is a tall tower next to a lake and surrounded by several apple and orange tress. The tower is grey, with vines and wildflowers growing on the bottom and slowly making their way towards the top. Its roof is light blue and easily lost in the color of the sky and several golden details around the windows look like they have faded throughout the years. Emersyn hears the creatures snarl again in the distance and that is enough to get her running once more. She makes her way to the tower, grabbing onto the vines to climb and reach the open window on the easter side of the tower. There is a faint smell of roasted vegetables in the air as Emersyn gets closer to it before gracefully jumping in. She turns around and glances out of the window to see if she had been followed but there is no one out there except for her, and a beautiful view. Emersyn can see hints of the sea to her left beyond the mountain, the sun which is starting to get lower, gleams on the water like diamonds. Emersyn has little time to appreciate the view though, because suddenly there is a sharp pain on the side of her head, and everything turns into darkness.

--

Four voices speak up from their place in the tower’s kitchen.

“Is she the one that matches your heart Harrison?” That is Jeffrey the pitcher, his tone is excited as he sees the only other person he’s ever encountered since his time in the tower.

“Will she get you out of here?” Daria the oven speaks up next, the oven door squeaking the tiniest bit as it moves with each word.

“But he doesn’t know how to control his powers yet! He never uses them.” The grumpy voice of the clock, Martin, matches its reprimand towards the prince. Although he is fairly annoying with its need to follow rules, he has taught many life lessons to the prince as grew up during the last few years.

“Hush!” Stephen, the stool that is usually by the window, interrupts Martin before he can lecture the prince further, getting them all back to the matter at hand. “Harrison, why did you hit her?!”

“I panicked okay!” The prince says. “It’s been 6 years since I’ve seen another human and I am paranoid.”

Harrison had hit the girl that jumped through his window with a pot. Guilt fills his heart, but she had startled him and seeing as he had been making dinner, the pot was the closest object he could use to defend himself. His friends though, are more interested in knowing if she is the person his fairy godmother had said would rescue him, than on the fright she had given him. The prince had been humming to himself as he put more vegetables into his stew, the cozy atmosphere of the kitchen keeping him at ease and more cheered up than he usually is. It had taken him months before getting used to living in the tower and making the place feel like a home, but deep down he knows nothing will compare to the warmth and love that has filled his kingdom.

The prince gently moves the girl so sits on a chair, he also puts her backpack as well as her bow and arrow out of reach from her so that she doesn’t put an arrow through him when she wakes up. He keeps the pot on one hand as the other moves the hair that had fallen over her unconscious face away from her eyes and- “Wow.” Harrison breathes out. The prince is sure he has never seen someone so beautiful.

He feels a nudge on his leg as his dog Chip sits on his side also assessing the intruder. The chocolate Labrador nudes his leg again, as if urging him to wake her up but Harrison pays him no mind. He isn’t sure what to say when she does wake, or what she’ll do when she figures out she knocked her out with a pot.

“She’s beautiful.” Stephen says, to which the rest of Harrison’s friends agree.

The prince nods in a daze as his eyes scan the intruder’s face. She has thick dark waves, her skinned is beautifully tanned and kind of freckly, he assumes she spends a lot of time in the sun. There is a line that’s starting to form between her eyebrows, like she furrows them a lot and her eyelashes are both long and dark and fan out above her cheeks. Just as the prince leans closer to her face, the girl wakes up with a start which startles him and makes him drop the pot while his hands catch fire for a second.

Harrison’s mind short-circuits for a moment. Purple eyes. She has purple eyes, and now she’s speaking, what is she saying?

She is furrowing her eyebrows at him. Harrison makes a mental note that he was right before about that as tilts her head in a questioning manner. Her gaze shifts from him to his hands. “Wow you must have hit me really hard on the head or did your hands really just catch fire?” She shakes her head soon after her question and scans her surrounding as she stands up. “You know what? I don’t have time for that. Thank you for hitting me in the head with your pot but I have something very important to do.”

She’s wearing dark green pants, a long shirt black and a wide brown belt that has small pockets here and there. Her clothes are mended in several places and her black boots are covered in so much mud they are practically brown. There are scrapes on her hands as well as multiple cuts and splinters, but Harrison can’t stare any longer because she’s side stepping him and heading for the kitchen.

He sees her spot her backpack where he had place it before, on the floor by the kitchen table and near Clemence to look after. “No, you can’t leave!” Harrison says trying to stop her, running to stand in front of the window.  “You have to help me.”

She looks over her shoulder at the prince, an amused smile appearing on her face before she speaks. “Not off to a good start with the whole asking for help thing. You did hit me in the head. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” As she reaches out for her backpack and arrows, Chip grabs them both and runs to the other side of the room. Daria then moves to stand in front of the open window to the right of the intruder.

“We can’t excuse you just yet, not until you’ve agreed to help him.” The oven says in its calm voice, trying to keep any conflict form escalating and hoping to convince the girl.

The intruder is confused for a second, but she shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly. “Surprisingly that’s not the strangest thing that’s happened to me,” She looks at Harrison. “Please tell the oven to move.”

“Her name is Daria.” The prince says approaching her.

The girl sighs in exasperation, rolling her eyes. “Okay Daria please move, I really need to get going, and dog give me back my backpack.” Her eyes land on Chip who is lounging comfortably on her belongings. Chip merely tilts his head at her in question, starting a staring contest of his own until Harrison speaks up once more and takes the stranger’s gaze away from his dog.

“His name is Chip, and I’m Harrison.” He extends his hand out at the girl for her to shake but she only nods in greeting and doesn’t disclose her name. His heartbeat picks up and there’s a feeling of dread swirling in his stomach. This is his only chance of getting out of the tower, of seeing his family again. He feels his eyes water at the thought of them, are they doing alright? Are they safe? And do they miss him just as much as he misses them?

“Please just hear me out, it’s kind of a long story but I’ll keep it short.” Harrison takes a step towards the stranger, knowing nothing about them but not caring. He feels something deep within him and it makes him trust her, he knows she’s who his fairy godmother meant when she told him someone would rescue him. This intruder with purple eyes might be his only hope.

Something changes in those purple eyes when she scans his face and her features soften the slightest bit. Her foot taps impatiently on the floor and she looks around as if assessing her options before huffing and nodding, She walks back to the chair where she was previously sitting and crosses her arms across her chest. “You’ve got 5 minutes.”

——

Tagging: @sunflowerspidey @hollandharrison @soft-haz @dameronstyles 💖

[xbellaxcarolinax]

Forging A Heart (Ivar the Boneless) 15- York

Pairing: Ivar x Artemis (OFC)

Word Count: 3422

Warnings: Minor violence

14- Propositions

...

Crete was an island of fame in the Greek world.

It is said that Zeus, king of the gods, was conceived and raised there, on an obscure mountain, in an obscure cave. It is said that the fiercest warriors were bred there, fiercer than any Spartan or Athenian. It is said that Crete was the first Greek island that bore civilization in the Mediterranean. They were proud islanders, and yet, it had produced such a stupid woman.

The islands of gods and heroes, of myths and legends, could not have helped such a sorry soul. Such a pity, to have a woman named after a powerful goddess, only to be caught in the web of a heathen from of the North.

She was sure she'd never see her home again.

There was a strained silence despite all the noise they were surrounded by. When Ivar spares her a glance, she tenses at his expression.

"Surely you have an explanation for your actions, hm?" He grits out through clenched teeth.

"I-"

"I haven't given you permission to speak." He spits. Obviously displeased, his brows twitch in irritation and his pink lips were pulled back into a snarl like an angry dog.

"You gave me your word that you would not do this," His rage continued to build up behind his words, "I've given you privilege above all slaves, yet you attempt to betray me?" Artemis's face collided with the side of the chariot when they pass over a particular stone across the road. She groans, clutching her head to soothe the pain.

"You are foolish." She hears the last part of his mutterings, remaining silent as he kept on with his berating. As he steadly rambled on his grievances, Artemis buries a hand within her wild mane, hissing when she touches the tender spot on her scalp. There were traces of dried blood on her fingertips.

"Bjorn must have fed you such pretty little words, hm?" Ivar barks down at her, "You danced right into his grasp." She goes on staring at her stained fingertips, only coming back to focus when Ivar tugs at a strand of her hair.

"I'm talking to you, Artemis." He seethes.

"He offered to take me home." She says with fluttering eyes. Small dots danced across her vision.

"For a price, I'm sure."

"He needed a translator."

"So he gifts, only to take back." Ivar scoffs, worrying his lip out of habit.

"He said he wanted to right his wrongs." She repeats Bjorn's words sadly.

"You want your freedom. You want to go back to your little island. I understand," Ivar's tone was anything but understanding, yet he continued, "But it will be done when I say." She hears him without processing his words. Instead, she lays her head against the side of the chariot, her knees tucked under her chin. Her eyes began to flutter as sleep tried to claim her. She was far too tired and disoriented to fear whatever consequences she may face.

"Hey!" Ivar yells, pinching her cheek a few times, "Stay awake. You are no use to anyone dead." He jerks the chariot to a stop with a tight pull of the reigns, grabbing at her collar to secure her before she could meet the ground.

"Hvitserk!" Ivar barks, "Help her up. She needs to walk the sleep off, no thanks to you."

"You could not bare to live without her, could you Ivar?" Hvitserk jokes, quickly going over to help her up so that the procession may continue. Ivar doesn't grace his brother with an answer, keeping his eyes focused on the passing meadows and the road ahead.

Artemis stumbled into Hvitserk before catching her own footing.

"I hope I did not hurt you too bad." He tells her, waving his axe about by the blunt end. His lopsided grin sent a fury in her bones, and her hands balled into weak fists.

"You struck me?" It came out so much weaker than she intended it.

"I was only following Ivar's orders." He says with hands up in surrender, his smirk not faltering.

"Since when do you follow orders?" She mutters.

"Since I became the leader of our Great Army." Ivar reeks of confidence, his gloating words reaching Ubbe's ears. The older brother was silent up until that point.

"You mean we are the leaders, little brother. It is not you alone who commands the army." The look on Ubbe's tired face said it all. He was beyond annoyed, exhausted of the bickering between his brothers, and especially tired of Ivar.

"We shall see once we get to York." There was a smug look on Ivar's face that made her want to strike him.

And their journey continued.

They stopped along the way, a chance to relieve themselves and rest their horses. Artemis laid out on a patch of grass, fighting to keep her eyes open. She stares up at the passing clouds, the shy sun finally showing itself. The warmth felt nice, yet had her feeling empty. It wasn't the same heat of the sun that rose in the east.

"Artemis!" Ivar's voice was always so loud, enough to be heard over the wild chatter of the warriors, "I told you not to sleep! Come here!" He commands. She sighs, sitting up slowly before walking over to the chariot. Her eyes were unfocused, but not so much as before.

"If you sleep," He reminds her, "There is a chance you will not wake up." He offers her his waterskin, watching her drink before beckoning her forward.

"Are you not curious to know who disclosed your plan?"

"I have my suspicions."

Ivar chuckles. Whatever ounce of affection she had for the blacksmith was surely gone now.

Artemis searches for Arvid in the crowd of men, easily spotting him. She glares when he brings his eyes to hers and it took all her strength to not run over there and punch him. Ivar grabs her attention by tossing her the cloak again.

"We must keep moving. Hvitserk leads the army. Go walk with Ubbe." Putting on the cloak despite the warm air, she catches up to Ubbe. They walk in comfortable silence for a majority of the way, until he decides to speak.

"Ivar will not let you out of his sight." He comments, looking over his shoulder to see his little brother with his eyes trained on them.

"I am aware."

"I understand your reasons for attempting to flee. I have freed Margrathe so that she may have a better life, but perhaps the timing was not in your favor."

"It was the only chance I had." Ubbe gives her a sad smile.

"I know. But I consider you lucky."

"You would not be the first to say it."

"It seems the gods are having their fun with you."

"If there is any truth to that, then I pray they grow tired of me." He chuckles.

"If only it were that simple." He agrees, pushing the short pieces of his hair away from his face. "As fickle as Ivar is, he has grown a fondness for you. With Sigurd dead and Floki gone, I fear for him."

"I cannot mend his pride, nor his heart."

"And you cannot pretend that you haven't grown a fondness for him either," Ubbe counters with a shrug.

"Why should it matter?"

Ubbe looks up towards skies, watching the sun disappear behind the clouds before meeting the storm in her eyes with the calming waves of his own.

"Perhaps the gods have a plan for you."

...

There was no sun in York. Only gray skies and equally gray clouds, just like the rest of England.

Its walls were tall and its wooden gate massive, but one look at the perimeter as a whole, and one knew it was a city of prominence, but in most cases, good things come to an end, and surely this would be the end of York.

Artemis sits against the wall of the church, her hands pressed over her ears in a weak attempt to drown out the screams. She pants, her heart picking up speed and her eyes watered.

She curls tighter into herself, her cloak a useless barrier between a futile safe haven and the violence surrounding her. The stomping of the warriors grew louder as they pass. The screams were shrill, loud enough to wake the dead, suddenly cut short by a slash to the stomach or a hit to the skull.

Animals ran free, goats, sheep and chickens. Dogs barked in the distance, some searching for their owners, others feasting upon the bodies of the slain left to rot.

"You Christian's are all weak, even if you do not all look the same." Artemis lifts her head from her knees, glaring at the brown haired girl without a name. "You look stupid, cowering the way you do." The young shieldmaiden beside her joked, swinging a small axe in her hand with a taunting smile.

"You look stupid, watching over a slave when the real warriors fight." Artemis snarks back, and the girl immediately growls, lifting her axe as if to swing it.

"I told you to watch her, not kill her," Ivar interrupts, his bloodied hands gripping into the dirt, "But with the way you grip that axe, I doubt you would. Leave." The girl scurries off while Ivar plants himself at a decent distant away from Artemis.

"Do you want to die? Is that it?" He questions, fixing his legs. He rubs the dirt from his hands over the sides of his already dirty trousers, waiting for an answer. She doesn't reply, nor does she look at him.

"Do not mind her," Ivar sighs, "She's decent."

"You had her watching over me."

"As a precaution, you see. You are quite cunning." Whatever he was worried about her doing didn't matter anymore. She had no means of escape.

"Your expression is not at all pleasant." Ivar nudges her shoulder with the flat side of his axe and she flinches, turning to watch him wipe the blood from his face.

"We are not surrounded by pleasant things."

"Veikr," Ivar says with a roll of his eyes, "You cannot handle such things, baby bird." His anger seemed at bay for now. Keeping silent, she leans her head back against the wall, closing her eyes.

"Come now, I hate that look," He tells her, "It almost makes me feel quite terrible." Ivar sighs. He follows her lead, leaning his head against the wall. "You grieve these people." He states, his eyes scanning over the town. His army was still wreaking havoc.

"I do." She answers truthfully.

"Then do what you must and...what is it that you Christian's do? Pray for their souls?" They both turn to look at each other, their eyes intensely fighting a silent war.

"Why did you leave?" He finally whispers. She could have sworn there was a sadness in his tone.

"It was an opportunity I could not refuse." She answers just as quietly, dragging a finger to draw circles into the damp earth.

"That was not your decision to make." Ivar grunts.

"I realize that now." He expected her to sound bitter, but all his ears picked up was exhuastion. They sat in silence after that, comfortably quiet in each other's company.

"I am still angry with you." Ivar begins.

"I know."

"And you do not deserve my forgiveness." He pouts in the most childish way, banishing all seriousness with that one look. "But perhaps you can earn it," She looks at him curiously, waiting for him to continue.

"Get familiar with the forge," He says, "I have a special task I want you to complete."

...

Ivar declared his plan quite vividly: he wanted legs of iron.

He wanted a contraption that would help him navigate on his legs. He was tired of being pathetic, having to drag his legs along with the strength of his arms.

The process began immediately with the measurements of Ivar's frail legs. It was a challenge. He would flinch, getting upset whenever her small hands would graze the fabric of his trousers. She was not inflicting pain, but he was incredibly nervous, as the only outsider that gazed at his malformed limbs was Margrethe. Artemis made him immensely uncomfortable, but she was infuriatingly patient, as if she'd done this many times before.

It was only until Ivar finally loosened his pride and felt comfortable did she take the measuring rod to probe and record the length and width of his thighs and calves. The measurements were quite small.

Having her kneel before him in such a state gave him an odd pleasure. She was in such concentration, so absorbed in her work that he was sure nothing could distract her, not even their close proximity.

He wanted so much to reach out and touch her face, to feel how smooth her skin felt under his calloused fingers. He refrains from doing so, silently cursing his dilemma to the gods if they'd hear him.

He should be furious with her, and he was...at first. He couldn't explain why or how, but he knew he was growing a certain affection for her. It was strange.

And she was just as angry with him as he had been with her. Ivar knew her decision was rational, who wouldn't escape back home if given the chance? Ivar wasn't stupid, but he was selfish, and Artemis was his property by northern law.

He knew Arvid only warned him of her plans for his own selfish desire of her, but Ivar was grateful nonetheless, because he only realised at the point that he wanted her with him, maybe even needed her, and perhaps, in the very back of his mind, that is why he had not considered freeing her. She would leave as soon as she was given chance.

He didn't want that. He was indeed selfish.

So he feigned anger and annoyance with her becuase it was easy for him. The growing affection he felt towards her was foreign, but the anger was familiar, and that was what he reflected.

Her anger would pass with the winds as his anger slowly did, he knew. For now, he would continue on as is and enjoy in the conquering of his new city. Once his iron legs are complete, he would be a man.

...

Fighting was inevitable, as King Ecbert's son, Athelwulf, who was now king, attacked York with his 2 sons and an army. They posed a great threat at first, for they were formidable fighters, but Ivar was always a step ahead of them. The crippled bastard had a natural talent for strategies and seemed to be far more superior in matters of war than Ubbe and Hvitserk. The men began to look at the youngest for direction.

The menial task that she was once spared of were given to her once more, added on top of her forging duties.

It was punishment for her failed escape, but she didn't mind it. It stimulated her mind, and kept her distracted. She occasionally prepared baths for Ivar, a task he never dared to give her until recently.

That is when she would hear him talk.

He would talk of his future plans, often pulling out an image of York's settlement drawn out on old parchment found within the churches archives. There were a system of underground passage ways from the days of Roman occupation, and Ivar intended to use them in case of attack. He was right of course, but he rarely revealed his plans to his brothers, causing much tension them. But as expected, Ivar did not care much for their opinions.

The Saxon's wished to take back their Christian city, but failed in the attempt, ultimately retreating. The rain beat on them fiercely, much like it always did since they arrived to England.

Artemis had never seen the likes of war. In fact, she was innocent towards violence for most of her young life, until she faced Bjorn and his men almost a year prior. She watched from the cracks within the walls of the forgery, men slaughtered on both sides, swords and axes clashing in a dance to the death. Swords and axes she herself had welded and repaired.

Alfhild was with her, as well as other women who did not part take in the battle. Alfhild began to worry, staring through the cracks as best she could while biting her already short nails, pulling at her yellow hair. Arvid was nowhere in sight, lost among the sea of men. He was an excellent warrior as most men of Kattegat were, and Artemis reminded Alfhild of this.

She didn't know why, but she prayed. She prayed for her own safety, and the safety of the women. Despite what he'd done, she prayed for Arvid, wishing him no harm. She even prayed for Ivar, wondering if he was among the dead. She told herself it was more for her own protection than for genuine worry, but that might have been a lie.

Ivar was last seen on his chariot charging through the crowd, but he disappeared after that, and for all she knew, dead.

Hvitserk fought well, talented in the skills of a warrior, cutting down any man that came his way. Ubbe held an air of command, his rope like hair plastering on his face with every swing of his bloody sword. The fighting raged on when suddenly she heard a mighty scream that seemed to stop the world in its track.

"You cannot kill me! I am Ivar the Boneless!"

Well, he was definitely not dead.

...

Artemis knelt over the small stairway that led to the makeshift throne. She was made to wash the steps, suds of soap floating about in the air. Some of the men watched her, causing her great discomfort, but they knew better than to do much more than look. When Ivar appeared, they scattered like rats in daylight.

"Why must you mope about, hmm? You should rejoice in our victory," Ivar calls out to her from the doorway, his voice bouncing off the church walls. The men cheered for their leader, filling him with immense pride for their success against the Saxon's.

Artemis looks to him after realizing he was speaking to her. The darkness in the church made him appear as nothing more than a shadow. A standing shadow.

"I've no reason to celebrate." She responds, dipping the brush into the soapy water, continuing her relentless scrubbing over the stone floor.

"Of course there is! I have defeated the army of Wessex!" The scraping of iron against the stone floor catches her attention.

Ivar was finally wearing his iron braces. He looked so much more confident, the missing piece of himself he'd been wanting his whole life. Being around him now for some time, she recognized the pain he was in, though he did well to mask it. Even with his iron braces he still suffered from aches and pains, even more so now than before, but it wasn't enough to deter him from his new image.

She assumed Ivar would be tall, but he seemed massive, as tall as a tree, walking with the aid of the crutch she made for him. He takes cautious steps, being careful not to make any sudden movements that would imbalance him. He looked so childlike, so proud of himself, and it almost brought a smile to her lips.

She too felt pride. She had never created something of the sort before, and the iron braces were no easy task. She had worked on it for days, and like her other tasks, it helped to alleviate her mind. Hammer against iron was always a welcomed distraction.

There were warriors the trailed behind him, holding onto a rough looking man bound in chains. The man was dirty from battle, covered from head to toe in dirt, blood smeared across his face and over his leather armor. His dark hair was cropped messily, and his eyes were a calculating blue.

Ivar motions for her to stand, snd she complies, wiping her hands down before facing him. He smirks, finally satisfied to be looking down at her instead of the other way around.

"Meet the new prisoner." Ivar says, pointing at the man,"Come now, we do not bite." He beckons the man in the Saxon tongue, laughing when one of his warriors pushes him forward.

"This is Bishop Heahmund."

...

@heavenly1927 @didiintheblog @rastakami23

[lov3nerdstuff]

Echo

*Tom Hiddleston x OFC*

~Part 2~

Part: 1 / 2

Words: 3.4k

Warnings: don't be scared by the ofc :) you'll be fine, I promise. Also, deep thoughts

Request: Could you do a story of a woman who is in a relationship with someone who doesn’t have their relationship as a priority and when they are at a cafe or bar, Tom notices her and how beautiful she is and strikes up a conversation while her boyfriend went outside to answer his call from work. Not sure how you want to end it but I’ll leave that up to you! :) By @fkmaldonado

Summary: Tom rescues a young woman from an abusive relationship by doing nothing more and nothing less than falling in love with her.

A.N.: This is the first part of two 💗✨ prepare for some deep thoughts, big questions and fluff to make it all better 💚 enjoy!

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It is odd, really… how you go about your day, mindless, a creature of habit. How you pass people, look at faces, hear voices and turn strangers into acquaintances and into strangers yet again. And all that really stays is the dull ache of isolation, the feeling of being utterly alone in a crowded world. But sometimes, rare times, there will be moments when you wake up. You remember. You remember a time when you were inherently curious, fascinated by the wonders of the world for the very first time. And suddenly you see the world through the eyes of a creature lost from the moment we were doomed to grow up. You experience the world with a sudden intensity, the intensity it has always held but we have grown too numb to notice. The intensity of the calm after a storm. The first smile after tearful moments of despair. The silence when great music ends. And finally, you come alive.

_______________

Tom walked down the street with long steps, in no hurry. His hands dug deep into the pockets of his coat, his lips a straight line, his eyebrows a gentle frown. The cold November weather coloured London a deep shade of grey, a wet concrete jungle that slowly fell into darkness as the afternoon light vanished. Tom sighed. The haste, the dreadful speed of life around him… It was always the same.

He was heading towards his favorite coffee shop, both looking for some liquid warmth and some background noise for a little casual reading. Or maybe he would just sit down with a cup of steaming brew and watch the people around him, how they stressed about everything, hurried to nowhere and talked about nothing. Watching people was delightful usually, and most definitely always interesting.

Just when he was about to reach out to open the heavy glass door, it was pushed towards him forcefully, almost hitting him straight in the chest. A bulky man with slicked back brown hair, holding a phone to his ear with an annoyed frown, came walking out, bumping into Tom's shoulder hard and glaring at him immediately.

"Watch out where you walk!" He hissed at Tom, before turning back to his call with a roll of his eyes. The cheap suit he wore was a size too large, creasing in all the wrong places while the wrinkles from previous days of wearing left dark shadows on the fabric, so obvious to Tom's watchful eye that he didn't even need to look closely.

"I'm sorry." Tom replied quietly, even though he knew that it hadn't been his fault at all. And honestly, he wasn't as much apologizing as feeling honestly sorry for whatever had made this man into what he was now. A stressed, impolite shadow of a shallow man who deemed it necessary to find an outlet for his however inflicted anger in a stranger. A sad figure, really.

Tom let it go as soon as the breath of warm air met his chilled skin once he stepped into the coffee shop, door closing behind him with a gentle thud. The atmospheric chattering that mingled with the soft tunes of whatever songs were currently in the charts created a music of its own kind, a perfect soundtrack to the busyness of everyday life.

Sighing softly, Tom opened his jacket as he lined up to order, patiently awaiting his turn with a gentle smile. He asked for a tea for now, intending to warm up a little from the inside before moving on to the intended coffee. But there was something about a nice cup of tea, a crispness in its taste and a delicacy in the flavors that no coffee he's had could compare to. Maybe he simply hadn't tried the right coffee yet. After thanking the barista, he took his large, white porcelain cup over to a free window seat, placing his jacket over the backrest of his chair and his book onto the table. Outside, it was starting to rain in gentle pebbles of water, then in larger droplets and finally increasing to turn into a wall of rain that blurred the city lights in their contrasting sharpness. Yes, Tom was glad to be sitting inside now. Having a warm place to protect oneself against the pouring rain was a luxury, if one really thought about it.

As he lifted the porcelain to his chilled lips, he took a small sip of his steaming tea and inevitably had to smile at the liquid comfort.

Quietly, he let his eyes wander over the many people at the other tables, watching how most of them stared at their laptops or tablets instead of talking to each other. What had become of conversations? Of deep thoughts and opinions?

Sighing, Tom looked back to his tea for a moment, then let his eyes wander over the world that lay outside of the protective glass barrier he was situated behind. The man who had bumped into him was standing under a small roof on the opposite side of the street, still talking on his phone. It was hard to see him through the blur of the rain, yet Tom couldn't help but watch him rambling angrily for a moment.

However once the man looked back into his direction, Tom quickly looked back towards his tea with a deep frown. He didn't specifically like getting caught while observing, but he liked his own reaction of backing away even less.

Taking another sip of his tea, he went back to studying the people in the room around him, letting his eyes trail over their faces, their hands, their mindless actions… only to yet again come to the conclusion that human nature was truly ineffable. At that very thought, his gaze fell upon a young woman, sitting in an armchair close to a fireplace in the back of the shop. For a moment he wondered what had caught his eye, what had made him halt… Because her striking differentness, the intriguing intricacy of her features, only caught his eye now the he was staring already.

What had made Tom's eyes stay with her in the first place was her actions, he realized. How she sat in that big armchair with her legs crossed, a newspaper on the table in front of her and a ballpoint pen in her hand, drawing on the page while looking at the people in the room with an intent intensity from time to time, just like Tom was. His lips curled into a small smile as he leaned back in his chair, watching her with a growing sense of curiosity. What was she drawing, and why did she look at the people like he was?

He had to admit that he observed her for quite some time, sipping on his tea as his only interest remained to find out what this mysterious woman was doing. And for reasons beyond him, he felt like both her and him were living in a different world that existed solemnly within the walls of this cafe. She was living, and alive, just like him, while everyone else, to Tom, seemed stuck in a blur of time and space, a place between reality and virtuality. They were living, but not alive.

Her gaze met his as he resurfaced from his thoughts, drawn out of his mind by her eyes that seemed to swallow his soul. Tom blushed as a cold bolt of lightning struck him, and she smiled. The spatial distance between them that couldn't have been larger seemed to shrink out of existence in an interchanged gaze of curious consideration.

She smiled at him, biting her bottom lip for a short moment before motioning towards the armchair across from her, a signal for Tom to come over. Subtle and inviting, yet not flirtatious or foul natured. He found himself rising to his feet as he carried his jacket over his arm, the book under it and the saucer between three slender fingers of his right hand.

"May I?" He asked politely as he stood in front of her table, motioning towards the armchair.

"You may." She replied gently, with a smile that could've broken down barricades. Maybe it had indeed.

Tom placed the book on the table and the cup on the book, himself in the armchair and the jacket over his lap. "You asked me to come over…?" He smiled softly, wondering to himself why usually beautiful creatures disappointed the upclose spectator while enchanting the distant one. And why she was doing it the other way round.

"You were watching me." She smiled a little more widely, as her voice reminded him of his tea. A crispness in its sound, a delicacy in its tone.

"And you were watching everyone else." Tom replied smoothly, causing her to smirk ever so slightly.

"Touche." She chuckled. "It is rare to find people truly conscious of their surroundings. Curious about it even."

"It is indeed." His smile widened as his initial curiosity turned to fascination. "What are you drawing?"

"What are you reading?" She asked right back, intrigued, but not demanding. With a smile, Tom lifted the cup off the book and handed it to her, while she held out the newspaper to him.

He took it out of her hand, looking down at the immensely detailed drawing that was well visible above the black printed letters with a smile and a frown. It was an accurate representation of the coffee shop, perfect in perspective and light, while yet every drawn person was faceless. Their clothing was deeply textured as it was for real, the furniture so realistic it left Tom impressed. But no faces, not even on the person supposed to be himself.

"Your name is Thomas?" She asked gently, pulling him out of his thoughts yet again with her words, as she placed the book back on the table in front of him.

"Yes, but most people simply call me Tom." He replied once he had found his own voice, his own words. "I assume you read that on the first page of the book? And who are you, if I may ask in return?"

"I did indeed." She smiled brightly and Tom's heart skipped a beat, reminding him that he was most definitely alive, present in this very moment. "My name is Echo."

Tom's face showed his surprise before he could will his body to perform a less honest reaction, but he was relieved that his being was stronger in its honesty than his social habitus in its appropriateness. "I'm truly delighted to meet you." He finally smiled as his eyes searched for hers once more. "I love your name, really… I assume it found its origin in Greek mythology?"

"You assume a lot of things, Thomas." She smiled in amusement, as the small leaps of the fire's flames reflected in her eyes.

"Please, just call me Tom." He replied in the same amusement. "And I'm sorry if I overstepped my boundaries."

"Oh, you really didn't." She laughed, taking her newspaper out of his hands. "My name does come from Greek mythology indeed. But most people wouldn't know that."

"Most people wouldn't leave out the faces in such a detailed drawing." He replied quickly, watching her reaction intently.

"Correct yet again." She smirked ever so slightly, studying his face as if evaluating him on something he didn't know about. "I don't think they deserve to have faces. They don't intrigue me."

"They don't seem to be alive at all, do they?"

"In my drawing or in reality?"

"Exactly." He returned the same small smirk that was currently playing on Echo's lips.

"You are quite a peculiar one, Thomas…" She grinned at him, twisting her pen between her fingers elegantly. It looked like it had turned liquid, softly wrapping around her slender digits like a black band of silk.

"Will you keep calling me that?" He laughed.

"Only until I know who you are." She mused. "Are you worth getting to know?"

"Everyone is worth getting to know, but only few are worth to remember."

"I could not agree more." Echo smiled, taking a sip of her coffee. "What brought you here today?"

"I like the atmosphere. All the haste and vanity around me reminds me to value things. To take the time to live." He sighed. Honesty was always a good way to go, the only way… the deepest form of intimacy.

"You seem like someone who spends a lot of time thinking. Contemplating…"

"Don't you?"

"Oh, I most definitely do. But most people are repelled by depth. A good life today means a shallow life. No one reads a Shakespearean tragedy when they can have the newest gossip in colourful pictures."

"I read Shakespeare."

"I can see that." Echo motioned to the book on the table with a small smile. "What draws you to his works?"

"His way of showing the complexity of the human mind and society as a whole. He does it remarkably well, so does Ballard, or Pinter…" Tom shrugged a little, smiling to himself.

"And yet everyone in this room seems to hold the complexity of a mere tabloid." Echo sighed dramatically, and Tom had to chuckle a little.

"Indifference is the inherent enemy of knowledge."

"Indifference is the inherent enemy of the curious." Echo returned, rising an eyebrow at Tom. "Knowledge is their tool."

"A tool to what?"

"A tool to everything. To depth, to meaning… to intensity and to passion. To come alive." She shrugged with a smile. "Isn't that what we all want?"

"In a way, I believe it is." He smiled, looking down at his almost empty tea. "But I'm afraid intensity and passion aren't always appreciated."

"Care to elaborate?" Echo asked curiously, eyes fixed on Tom so intently that his skin started tingling. He knew that she knew what he was saying, but it intrigued him that she wanted him to talk on.

"Haven't you ever been told to talk less about something, to care less, or to just let it go?"

"Oh I most definitely have. People complain that I talk to much all the time, and that I talk about things they don't understand."

"See, and that's entirely their problem. You can't simply let go of something you're passionate about and people who expect it of you have absolutely no right to. They don't understand your passion, and they can't handle your intensity."

"Can they handle yours?" She asked softly, still looking like she was able to see right through him.

"Not remotely." He laughed. "You know, I think people are wrong about one essential thing. They think intimacy is entirely about the body. But really, the deepest level of intimacy you can reach is raw honesty of the mind. It's being your truest self with someone."

"And are you your truest self right now, Thomas?" She smiled, eyes sparkling as she took another sip of her coffee while Tom's throat dried up in return.

"I believe I am." He smiled, slightly flustered, but yet certain about his answer.

"Yeah… me too." She smirked. "Most people would be repelled by honesty, you know."

"Most people would be repelled by the idea of having a casual conversation about the meaning of life."

"Well, what are they doing with their time then?" Echo smirked at Tom and his heart skipped yet another beat. "What do you like best about this place?"

"The tea." He replied immediately and without having to think much about the question.

"You go to a coffee shop to drink tea?"

"Anything wrong with that?"

"Not at all." She laughed, shaking her head to herself. "I might have ordered tea if I'd had a choice."

"You didn't get to choose what you want to drink?" He frowned, leaning his head to the side.

"Unfortunately not." She returned a sad smile, and Tom's heart dropped immediately. He didn't want to see her sad. Ever.

"May I get you some tea now?" He inquired carefully, offering her a half smile in return.

"I would love that, but I'm afraid it might not be entirely possible." She replied quietly, looking down at the newspaper on the table. Then her whole posture changed, she uncrossed her legs, sat up straight and scooted her armchair closer to the table.

"Is… Is everything alright?" Tom asked with a deep frown, sitting up straight in return. "Echo?"

She nodded ever so slightly, a second before heavy footsteps approached her table.

"Hey babe." A scratchy male voice made Tom frown a little and look at the new arrival, the intruder in their little world. How could it be any different, it was the cheap suit. Tom's heart sank even more.

"What's that guy doing here?!" Cheap suit snapped, looking at Echo who was back to doodling quietly on her newspaper. "I am talking to you!"

Tom jumped at the sudden loudness of the man's voice, and so did Echo.

"This is Thomas. He's a friend." She replied quietly, nothing of the sparkle left in her eyes and nothing of the light that seemed to have radiated off her only moments before. Nothing of the intensity that had drawn Tom in so incredibly much that he missed it now with a gaping ache.

"Well, tell him to fuck off or I will. We gotta go. I have a meeting tonight and you need to look presentable by eight. Might land me a job if they see you in that one skimpy dress." He sighed, looking first at his phone and then at the newspaper on the table, groaning. "Did you ruin my newspaper like that? God, babe, why can't you just sit still for a moment without ruining my day?!"

"Sorry." She replied quietly, setting her pen down only after adding another few strokes to the drawing.

Tom wanted to say something, wanted to tell this man to fuck off in return… to leave Echo alone. But it wasn't his place, and it wouldn't have been appropriate, even if it felt like a punch in the stomach to hear him talk to her like this. He was her boyfriend, or maybe her husband even, and Tom had no right to intervene in their relationship. Even if he wanted to, very much so right now.

"Echo?" He asked quietly, uncertain of what to do or even what to say. The last thing he wanted was to get her into trouble.

"Geez, I hate that name." The man groaned with a roll of his eyes. "Why can't you have a normal name, like Lisa or Anna maybe? Would that have been too much to ask for?"

Now Tom felt straight out angry, inappropriately protective over something that wasn't his to protect. Yet… But he wouldn't dare to act on it. "I'm sorry if I caused you trouble." He finally said to Echo, giving her a small half smile.

"Don't worry about it." She replied in a breath, rising to her feet with a not unexpected elegance while picking up her bag.

Tom rose to his feet too, if only to show her the very much due respect nobody else was giving her. She gave him a small but grateful smile in return, allowing him to quickly help her into her jacket while her boyfriend rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Dude, keep your hands to yourself, alright?" He sighed, glaring at Tom in pure hostility.

Tom took a quick step backwards, holding his hands up in defeat. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be disrespectful." Yet, everything within him screamed to do something about this… to make something right that clearly wasn't on its own. He didn't know just how bad this really was, and he wasn't sure if he was ready to find out.

"Yeah, whatever. Babe…" Cheap suit sighed, motioning for Echo to get going.

"Your newspaper…?" Tom asked, picking up the folded pages and holding them out to Echo.

"Keep it, man…" The guy sighed before Echo could reply. "She ruined the sports part anyway."

"Goodbye Tom. It was a true pleasure." She smiled at him as brightly as the situation would allow, a small spark of fire back in her gaze. But everything else just broke Tom's heart.

"Goodbye..." He could only give a small wave in return, a second before the cheap suit ushered her out of the coffee shop and into the dark, cold world behind the heavy glass door.

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General Tags:

@its-remy-not-ratatouille @wegingerangelica @thidls12333 @tomstoobeautiful @dreary-skies-stuff @averyhill4445 @wiczer @lotus-eyedindiangoddess @theweirdlunatic @caretheunicorn @kthemarsian @lady-of-lies @sadly-falling-through-wonderland @strawberrysandcream @noplacelikehome77 @theoneanna

If you'd like to be tagged in the next part OR be added to the general tag list, tell me in the comments 💗✨ hope everyone enjoys! (Especially dearest @beenthroughalot and @kthemarsian​)

[scruffyssketchbook]

what are the relationships between each of the pairs of twins? as in, John to Dawn, Daisy to Roger, Chiki to Al, etc and viceversa. Aka, how do they feel about each other?

Author chan: hmm, well Vay and Blizz- Blizz loves Vay and has a strong brotherly attachment to him and his well being, and openly shows this. Tends to use the “tough love” approach, which, tbh, annoys the heck out of Vay. Meanwhile, Vay is usually cold and distant to Blizz, but deep down, unknowist to him, has a huge soft spot for him. Blizz: What I feel about Vay? *smiles brightly* He’s my bro! I love em! He has some issues he needs to work on, and has been through a lot, and I just wanna support em and see him grow! Vay: ...Blizz? *Vay Pauses, thinking* ...He’s always nagging at me to do things like talk to the all the evil eevees in our brotherhood (Vay thinks all Icedrops are evil) and is never around when I need someone. He only approaches me when he is bored and is a massive idiot. *he turns away, annoyed* ... I just. keep having flashbacks to how things were before he lost his memory. I want that Blizz back.

John and Dawn- They were close as kits, along with Oliver, but as time went on, they drifted apart. John is not exactly the most interesting vee, and both of them are always busy. She has a closer relationship to Oliver at this point, but doesn't notice. John: How.. I feel about Dawn? .... I wish she’d talk to me more, I guess. But I understand that she doesn’t have time for me... *he sighs, sadly.* Dawn: John? Oh! Me and him are thick as thieves, haven't seen him in a while, I wonder how he is doing.

LKD- Kevin is usually the one who cares about both of his brothers openly. Levin doesn't see how much he needs both of them,and tends to take them for granted. Devin has a very wild and sporadic imagination, and that tends to make the other two shut his ideas and thoughts down, a lot. So, despite liking his bothers, he usually feels inferior around them.

Levin: Kevin’s fine, I guess. Devin’s also fine, I guess. Dunno what else you want me to say ‘bout ‘em. Kevin: ...Levin.. seems distant. I cant have a decent conversations about emotions with him. And Devin kinda seems like he doesn’t want to do the things we do. *sighs* I worry about them both. Devin: ... Kevin is nice. He l-listens to me an’ stuff... AN’... Levin... *his ears droop* I dunno, I have a feelin’ he thinks I’m n-n-n *pauses and scrunches his face* NOT a big part of the team *he sighs in frustration*

Daisy and Rodger- Daisy and Rodger have a really close relationship. It wasn’t always as close as it is now, due to Daisy always going off with the bad crowd as kits, but after events happened, she started staying with him more.  Ofc, their relationship isn’t perfect. Despite how bland he might look, Rodger has ambitions. He wants to be involved in the politics of the Eevee box more, and do something about the current very bad, terribly awful situation that the eevee box is in that I cant say, but. Dusk dismisses him, in favor of Daisy. And this makes him kind of super Jealous and does affect their relationship, tho, he doesn’t realize it. Daisy does realize it tho, cause its pretty obvious to everyone but him, and tries keeping him in the loop of the things that she does.

Daisy: Rodger... has helped me a lot recently... Like... he is the one who suggested I’d make a routine! and he has supported me a lot!! Despite me always worrying him... I! ...I... I always want to show my gratitude for him.. but I dunno how...  Rodger: I... worry about her... a lot. One day, she walked up to me with this... haunted look in her eyes, with blood stains on her fur, and collapsed, saying that it was her fault over and over again... She hasn’t been the same after that, and wont tell me what happened... I know about the spy missions she went on, I know about the night her powers manifested, I know that she is Dusk’s favorite, but... I dunno... *he puts his head in his paws sighs* ... I’ll just try helping her the best that I can. She is my sister, you know? I want her to be happy. But, it kinda is clear that she was happiest before she evolved.

Mac and Jack- You know those super close twins that constantly impersonate and act like each other for fun? yeah, that’s them lol Mac: How I feel about Jack? Jack: Why do you want to know? Mac: Do you want a snack? Jack: Or play in a big show? Mac: Maybe if we talk Jack: it’ll be a bit clearer Mac: But that would mean Jack: You’d have to come a bit nearer

Mike and Tike- They are really, REALLY close. The two have been through a lot, despite appearances, and Mike does everything for Tike to be happy. They are like best friends, it seems one sided on the outside, because Tike is always the one jabbering to Mike with bearly any reply, but when they are alone, they both talk sa whole bunch to each other. Their care for each other rivals the care Blizz has for Vay and Eve tbh. Mike: ... Tike: Eh? How I feel ‘bould ol’ Mike? He’s da best bro evah! Don’t take his silence as a bad thin’, Yo He iz just not uh talker, well shiiit, dude talks ta me, just not everybody else. Mike iz strong, he beats up those mad stupid greenpaw wimps wif nahh questions asked tight like. ah bet you'd wants uh bomb bro like him cause he iz just dat tight dude. Like when he wuz getting picked on fo' his teef, guess what? Bof o' us beat up all dem asses! naw-BODY gonna pick on ma mckin' bro! n' dude be da one Who the fuck thought o' da bodyguard scam! like, awww, sho, we's cant "hit" eevees normally, but if we provided protection n' they couldn't pay us, then yeah biatch! We's gots free reign ta muq dem up! plus, Plus, we's can muq up dem fools beating down on our clients too. Mike also gots us into being bomb buds wif LKD! We be so tight now!

Chiki and Al- Barely have a relationship. Their personalities are so opposite from each other and they never formed a bond with each other as kits due to their opposing natures. They treat each other as just litermmates, and to their knowledge, that is what they are. Not twins, just littermates.

Chiki: Al...? Ah! He’ my littermate! We worked together as nurses for a while, but we are not close. ^^ Al: ... She’s nice enough... I guess. 

Noriko and Dario- Still in development...

Ren, Gwen, and Ben- Still in development, BUT! Are very, VERY close.