#and resentment and doubt and longing and... - watches him DIE in FRONT OF THEM

[benevolenterrancy]

May your hardened heart be woken By the soft and distant song Of all you left here unspoken All the shards we keep stepping on - Take this body home Take this body home Call the wind, and let her know Take this life outgrown Take this broken soul Call the stars, call them all And take it high, take it far, take it home

[voraciousvore]

In the Belly of the Giant (36/39)

***Contains violence***

Chapter 36

Trent decided he didn’t have to honor his promise to leave the two prisoners alone for the rest of the day, because technically Joey had not swallowed another cockroach. He had eaten Eren instead, and she didn’t count, especially since she tasted so good. He figured he ought to give the pair a short break, so they’d all be fresh for round two. He needed to think about what he wanted to do next. He felt in the mood for some really bloody violence. Joey was the perfect target for him to take his anger out on, since he wasn’t as delicate as Eren. He could take a beating. Trent was still bitter about the police breaking up his gang, so he wanted to take his anger out on the police officer. 

Joey sat in the chair like a useless lump, utterly drained both physically and emotionally. He was not doing well managing the strain, and to make matters worse he was still covered in his own barf and chunks of cockroaches. He wished he could have a drink of water to wash the revolting taste of vomit and roaches out of his mouth. He was thoroughly disgusted with himself. Even if the act was unintentional, he had almost killed Eren. He couldn’t believe he had ingested her twice now. She probably wouldn’t be able to stand being around him anymore. He hated to think that his tiny girlfriend might come to fear or resent him due to his role in her torment, however unwilling he may have been to participate. 

Joey’s fears were unfounded, for Eren of course still loved him dearly, more than ever. He was her one comfort in this darkest pit of hell, even if he had been forced to eat her twice. Being swallowed without the pills had been terrifying, since she was afraid to die, but the first time had been worse for her giant boyfriend than for her. She feared most that Trent’s sadism would escalate to the obvious conclusion, and nobody would be able to intervene. She doubted she could count on the rest of the police force to miraculously show up at the last second to save Joey’s life, if they hadn’t been able to track her down up to this point. She didn’t see any way out, except for painful, gory death. Nevertheless, as long as Joey was still alive, she was determined to fight to her last breath. 

Trent turned on the TV and chain-smoked a few cigarettes. He was feeling great. Some crime show was on about a serial killer and he watched with morbid interest. He liked how the giant killed his prey in creative ways, especially one human that he found and tortured to death, chopping his poor victim up with a meat cleaver. The show was giving him some great ideas. He didn’t like the ending though. The cops found and arrested the killer, then locked him up for life. Trent knew, if that were him, he’d be too smart to get caught. 

He finished his cigarette, casting the butt into an empty can on his nightstand, and clicked off the TV. Joey and Eren both tensed up. Trent hesitated, then walked with purpose over to Eren’s enclosure and retrieved her. She trembled in his palm, terrified of what torture he had planned next.  

“I’m going to give you a front row seat to the show, so you can watch close up,” Trent remarked. He carried her over to Joey and dropped her on the armrest of the chair. For a brief moment, Eren was tempted to make a run for it, but the chair was too high up for her to jump to the ground without breaking bones. Plus, she was afraid of what would happen to Joey if she tried to escape or ended up leaving him behind. She huddled on the armrest in terror. 

Trent loomed over the two of them with menace. His face was deathly serious, full of rage, more frightening to Eren than his usual smug smirk. He cranked his arm back and punched Joey savagely in the stomach. Joey doubled over with a choked groan. If he hadn’t already vomited, he definitely would have done so as a result of that punch. Trent pummeled the defenseless man with his fists, all over his body. Eren screeched at Trent to stop, crying and wailing. He ignored her.  

Finally, he ran out of breath and pulled back, wiping the sweat off his forehead. Eren was sobbing and pleading by this point. Joey was barely conscious, full of pain, and covered in darkening bruises. Trent stared at Joey’s mangled body, thinking to himself, then went to grab his trusty automatic switchblade and extended the stiff blade out. 

“No, Trent! You’re taking this too far! Stop!” Eren begged. 

Trent pointed the giant knife close to Eren’s neck, making her stiffen. “Shut up!” Trent yelled. “I’m going to carve this motherfucker up like a Thanksgiving turkey, and there’s nothing you can do about it!” He slashed the keen edge of his blade through the fabric of Joey’s puke-stained uniform, exposing his bare chest. “Say goodbye to your stupid boyfriend! Lament that he was too weak to do anything to save you!” Eren screamed as the knife, thirsty for blood, approached Joey’s tender, bruised flesh. 

Just then, the front door busted in with an enormous crash and several cops swarmed in, guns raised. “Police! Put your hands up!” Trent was startled by the interruption, but instead of complying surged forward and attempted to plunge his stiletto knife into the abdomen of the nearest officer, who barely dodged the assault. The policemen acted swiftly and worked together to tackle Trent to the ground and cuff him. He cursed and shouted, his face red with anger. Eren was stunned. 

Ray rushed over to Joey and began to untie him from the chair. “Joey! Are you alright?” he exclaimed. Joey coughed and mumbled an incoherent response. Ray didn’t even notice Eren at first, with how small she was. When he finally spotted her, he raised his eyebrows with surprise. “Eren!” He had met her once before, a while back, so he recognized her. When he saw she was naked, he blushed and politely averted his eyes. “S-sorry…” 

“It’s alright,” Eren replied softly. She didn’t care if she was naked at the moment; she was too worried about Joey. She hadn’t worn clothes for days anyways, so she was used to it. She jumped down onto Joey’s expansive lap and ducked under his shredded shirt, burying herself in the plush softness of his warm belly. Now that his arms were untied, Joey gently scooped her up and held her against the bare skin of his torso, livid with bruises. His hands were shaking with emotion. 

“Eren…” he croaked in a husky voice, “I’m so sorry…” He started to cry. “I’m so, so sorry… I wasn’t able to protect you…” He felt deep shame at his failure. 

“It’s okay, Joey. I’m just glad you’re safe. We’re safe now,” Eren reassured him, tears of joy flowing down her face. “I love you so much! I missed you so badly!” Ray stood back to give the couple some space as they embraced.  

“I love you too, Eren.” Joey sat for a minute, gazing down at the tiny woman nestled against his body, sitting in his hand. He had regained the light in his life. Although he was happy to have her back, his heart was shattered from seeing the terrible abuse she had suffered at the hands of Trent. Her frail little body was thin, weak, run ragged with stress and physical torment. Seeing her cry made him upset. An uncontrollable rage boiled over inside him. Trent needed to pay dearly for his crimes. 

Joey stumbled to his feet, cradling Eren defensively against his chest. Fortunately, none of Trent’s punches had seriously damaged him beyond the aching purple bruises. He looked down with the upmost contempt at the criminal giant cuffed and pinned on the floor by another giant police officer. He stared intently at the scene before him before he made a rash decision. As briskly as he could with his wounded body, he reached down and snagged the cop’s gun out of his holster. The cop exclaimed in shock as Joey turned off the safety, cocked the pistol, and pointed the muzzle at the back of Trent’s skull, his finger on the trigger. 

“Whoa, Joey! Stop!” Ray hollered, running over and grabbing his arm. “What are you doing?!” 

“What’s it look like I’m doing?! I’m going to shoot this bastard and make him pay for what he’s done!” Joey yelled tearfully. “He doesn’t deserve to live!” 

“Joey, you can’t do that!” Ray shouted. He wrestled with Joey, attempting to pry the gun out of his stubborn hand, but was afraid Joey’s itchy trigger finger would set the gun off. “I know you’re upset, but you need to chill out! Trent’s been arrested and we have all the evidence we need to put him away for a long time! He’s not going to get away with it!” 

“That’s not good enough!” Joey bawled. “You don’t know all the horrors he committed! He’s the spawn of demons! No earthly justice can compensate for that!” 

Eren intervened, screaming shrilly at the top of her lungs, “Joey!” He stopped; her voice was the only one that seemed to reach him. “Joey, I know how you feel. I do. I want Trent dead as much as you do. But I can’t have you throw your life away over it! He’s not worth it. I need you!” Joey’s angry expression softened as he gazed down at her small, tearful face, looking up at him from inside his hand. “Please, Joey… I need you. Put the gun down.” 

His death grip on the pistol loosened and he removed his finger from the trigger. Ray seized the opportunity and ripped the gun out of his hands, returning it to the other officer. Ray looked at Joey with exasperation but also sympathy. He put his hand on his shoulder. Joey continued to stare down tenderly at Eren, stroking her softly with his thumb. 

“Let’s get you both home,” Ray asserted, guiding Joey firmly out the apartment door to get him separated from his adversary. Joey allowed himself to be nudged along, until they were back inside their police cruiser. The other cops came out with Trent and some evidence they had collected of his crimes, including his drugs and weapons. Trent was clearly fuming, still incredulous at the fact that he had been caught. The cops shoved him into the back of one of the police cars and slammed the door. Trent glowered at the cops and glared ferociously at Joey, like a wild beast in a hunter’s snare. Joey smiled back and waved. Ray pulled out and began driving Joey back to his apartment. 

“By the way, Ray… how did you find us?” Joey asked. “I know we didn’t have any leads on Trent, so how did you know where we were?” 

“Oh, I got lucky,” Ray answered. “I went to Mr. Henderson’s house to see if you were there. As it turns out, somehow you had Eren’s watch on your person. Mr. Henderson was aware of it prior when he checked his tracker app and saw the watch going to the police station and other locations. So it was a simple manner of getting the manpower and collecting you.” 

Joey reached up and touched his breast pocket. Sure enough, he felt through the fabric the miniscule lump of Eren’s watch inside, along with the engagement ring. His throat tightened. He still wanted to propose to her at some point, but now was obviously not the time.  

“We got lucky,” he choked. “I’ve been neglecting my personal hygiene lately, since I’ve been so overworked and stressed. If I had washed this shirt or worn a different one, we would've been lost.” He went quiet. “I really do believe Trent was going to kill me with that knife.” 

Eren shuddered. Joey held her securely against his chest. He would never let anything like that happen to her again. 

Chapter 37

Chapter 1

[softspaceboibrian]

He would never admit it || Druig

Pairing: Druig x fellow Eternal || I used she/her pronouns, but there is no actual description, so the pronouns can be switched with whatever anyone wants!

Summary: Druig has developed feelings for his fellow Eternal, but does not have the courage to admit it. But then things change.

Warnings: SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE!! || except for some harsh words and mentions of war, nothing. it's pretty fluffy, i would say.

Wc: 4495 (I know, what!?)

A/N: okay, so, this is the first time I publish something for Marvel characters. If you like it, let me know! I could try and write something else (you can even send requests!!)

1521 AD, TENOCHTITLAN

He would never admit it, but he had got used to recognising her figure laying across the room from him whenever he woke up in the middle of the night; so much so that when it didn’t happen, he felt disappointed.

That hadn’t been a great day for them, for the family. Especially not after Ajak had broken the news.

“It is what Arishem has instructed. It is part of his great plan, and we are not supposed to doubt it or interfere. No matter what.” Ajak’s voice was calm, decisive, and no one would have usually complained. But this time was different, and Druig knew it, he felt it.

It was only after a few seconds of silence that she had risen from her seat. Everyone’s eyes were on her, worried, unaware of all the pent-up resentment and anger that had filled her heart and mind for the last decades, possibly even centuries. But Druig knew. Not that she had told him, but because he had observed her, all her disgusted expressions whenever she was told to “let the humans be” whenever battles were happening in front of them, whenever they were organising violent riots, whenever tyrants filled a position of power. He would never admit it, but he had watched her, year after year, century after century, discovering each time a little part of her that she kept concealed from the other Eternals. He would never admit it, but he had grown fond of the way she spent all her free time with the humans, learning their ways, their language. Yes, Sersi did that too. But with her, there was a different kind of care. She would sit with them and do as they did, learn about their belief, part-took in their religious rituals. She hadn’t just learned their ways, but she had made them hers. He would never admit it, but he had noticed how much happier she was whenever she spent time with them, as one of them, without the pressure of “Arishem’s great plan”. So, it didn’t come as a surprise to him what happened next.

“So, we’re just supposed to sit here and watch these people that we have cared for for the last century die. We’re just supposed to do nothing as an entire population, an entire culture goes extinct because someone said so?” She didn’t really ask, it was all rhetorical, and even the dumbest person on the planet would have caught the slight crack in her voice.

At that point Ikaris stood up, wanting to take control of the situation, clearly wanting to ‘put her back in her place'. And Druig wanted to stand up too, walk up to him and punch him right in the face, he wanted to break his nose. “That someone you’re talking about is Arishem, and you should respect his pla-”

“Oh, shut up! You and Arishem!” Her voice was now louder, her face harder, so much so that even Ikaris took a step back, not sure of how to react. “I am not willing to let other people die as we stand and watch. That’s not right!”

“I know, dear. But if this is what Arishem wants…” Ajak talked sweetly, obviously trying to calm her down.

“I don’t care what Arishem wants.” Her answer was cold, direct. Sersi’s mouth was left agape, Sprite could not believe the words that were leaving her mouth, Phastos was wondering how long she had felt like that. Everyone was surprised by her reaction. She had always kept quiet, kept her thoughts and opinions for herself, preferring to spend her time reading the humans’ new literary pieces, learning something new, rather than having to deal with their real job. But now something had changed, now she was raising her voice, not caring whether that would bother anyone. “I’m not going to stand to the side, I simply cannot watch them die.” She turned around and started walking towards the door.

“You’re too emotionally involved with them now” Ikaris spoke, breaking the silence. “I always said you were not fit for this.” No one dared to say anything, no one did anything, they just stood there, waiting for her to do something, to reply. But she did not. She just left.

At that point During was fuming with rage, he wanted to launch himself on Ikaris, put his hands around his throat. But Kingo spoke, suggesting everyone should just rest before that night’s party.

Right. The party. How could they think about celebrating when they knew those people were going to die the following day? How could they eat and sing with them, how could they dance and laugh as if everything was absolutely, completely fine when they perfectly knew it was the exact opposite? How could they?

Nevertheless, Druig forced himself to go, even just for a few moments. He would never admit it, but deep down he had hoped that he would find her there, enjoying her last night with them. But she wasn’t there, obviously. She never showed up, not even for dinner. What did he expect? That she would just act as if it were nothing?

When, eventually, Druig managed to excuse himself, saying that he was tired and wanted to go to bed, he walked all the way to the Domo, thinking she would have gone there, to stay away from all the sounds, from the music, from the cheerfulness. But she was not there. So, he walked back to the palace, thinking he would find her there, maybe in the library, where she usually spent most of her time. But she wasn’t there either. He would never admit it, but he wanted to find her, to see if she was okay. Useless to say, at this point, that he was disappointed when he didn’t find her in her bed when he finally reached the common room. He wanted to know if she was alright. But he knew better than to go and look for her, especially given that she obviously didn’t want to be found.

It was around two in the morning when Kingo, Thena and Gilgamesh entered the room. Druig’s heart jumped a bit at the idea of seeing her walk through the door, but he had immediately recognised the other eternals’ voices, so his high hopes quickly sank. He pretended to be sleeping, laying on his side, his face towards the wall, breathing calmly, hoping they wouldn’t realise he was actually awake.

Half an hour passed, and the three had finally settled into their beds. Silence had fallen once again on the room, and no more sound of music came from outside. The party must be over, he thought between himself. The party was officially over and she was still not there. He tried to reassure himself, thinking that she had simply gone for a walk and that now she was sleeping in her bed in the Domo. He wanted to believe it so much. But he had noticed how she would avoid going to the Domo whenever she could, possibly because she preferred the fresh, open air of the town because she enjoyed being woken up by the sound of children’s laughter coming from the street, but he had noticed it. He would never admit it, but that was the reason why he had started to sleep there as well, in the common room, even though the bed was a rock compared to the one in his room back in the Domo, even though he hated the loud chirping of birds in the middle of the night. He would never admit it, but seeing her lay there, across the room from him, was all he needed whenever he woke up, no matter what terrible dream he had dreamt, no matter how badly he had slept. She was worth it.

If Kingo and Phastos could hear him, they would laugh so much, so loudly, that they would need to hold onto something. If Sprite could hear the force with which his heart beat whenever she was around, she would make so much fun of him, that he could never show his face again for at least three centuries. If Makkari knew, she would give him one of her ‘I told you so’ looks. And that is why he would never admit it. That is why he acted detached whenever she was around. That’s why he never really talked to her about anything other than job and missions. Not that he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t know how to. How does one talk to some they would give up their heart for as if everything was normal? He didn’t know what to do with those feelings he had been feeling, so he shoved them deep inside of him, thinking they would go away. But they didn’t. They never did. They grew, like a tree, taking shape, taking up space. And now, once again, he didn’t know what to do. But now he knew, he felt like there was no going back. He was stuck with those feelings.

Another hour went by and she still hadn’t come back. He pushed himself off the bed and snuck out of the room. The corridors were dark and quiet. Good, he thought, they’re all asleep. He started roaming around the palace, peeking inside every room, around every corner, ready to lie to whomever he might come across.

After a while he had searched the entire palace, gardens included, and she was still no one to be found. Not ready yet to go back to bed and lay wide awake listening to Kingo’s loud snoring, he headed for the terrace, convinced that some fresh air would help him calm his nerves. But when he stepped outside, he notice a figure sitting near the edge.

He needn’t move closer to know it was her. She had her eyes on the horizon, and she was holding her legs to her chest. He took a few steps towards her but wasn’t sure if he should announce himself if he should just clear his throat to let her know he was there.

“You can sit next to me, Druig.” Her voice was so soft that he almost didn’t hear her speak. How did she know it was him? “I won’t attack you like I did with Ikaris and Ajak this afternoon. I promise.” A smile crept on his lips, but he immediately shook it away, not sure how he should act. Was she angry? Sad, maybe? The only thing he knew was that she was okay with him being there.

He took a seat next to her, not too close so that he could still respect her personal space. “We missed you tonight at the party.” He was sincere, and she could feel it.

“You did. Maybe Makkari and Thena. Gilgamesh too. Possibly Phastos.” She sighed, and he looked at her. Had she been crying? She looked like it. “I’m fairly sure that Ikaris was more than happy not to have me around, and that Sprite was okay with it too, so she didn’t have to hold up with my whining about how unfair it is.”

“Who cares about Ikaris and Sprite. They are arse lickers. The former is licking Ajak’s arse, the latter is licking the other’s arse.” Pride took over him as soon as he saw the corners of her mouth rise slightly. He was glad to know he could make her smile, even if for just a few moments. “Ajak asked for you.”

“Ajak always asks for you whenever you have any sort of argument with her. It’s in her nature, to act like a mother. It’s nice. Even though I wish she would actually apologise, at least once in a while. Understand that we have feelings.” He would never admit it, but he wanted to wrap his arms around her, to pull her close to his chest, work his fingers through her hair, put his chin on top of her head, as if to tell her that they would figure it out, they would find a way. But he didn’t. He just looked at her, shifting slightly so that he could look at her better.

They stayed like that for a while, in silence, her looking at the horizon, him looking at her. And in that exact moment he felt as if all those stupid clichés were true, the ones he had overheard from Sersi, Ajak, Thena, Makkari, even the people from the towns they had stayed at over the centuries. Sitting there with her, he felt as if time stopped. If an asteroid were to fall to Earth at that moment, he would be okay with it, because he was there with her, and she had smiled because of him.

“Why did Arishem give us a heart and feelings? If all we are supposed to do is blindly follow his orders, then why did he give us a conscience? Why did he give us the ability to make choices and to follow beliefs, if we cannot follow through with them?” Silence followed. Druig had no idea how to answer those questions, questions he too had asked himself from time to time. But he obviously took too long to formulate any kind of answer, and she sighed. “I don’t know why I’m burdening you with all my problems, you don’t even like me.”

“That’s not true.” This time his answer was quick, much quicker than she expected, apparently, because she remained silent for a few moments, a confused expression on her face. “That’s not true. I do like you.”

“You never talk to me; you never engage in any kind of conversation if I’m involved.”

“It’s… I know how it may look, but that’s not because I don’t like you. Quite the opposite, actually.” That was possibly the closest he would come to tell her everything, to tell her how he felt about her, how hard it was for him to talk with her because he feared he might say something wrong and offend her, push her away even before they ever had any sort of relation. How could he tell her that he was happy whenever she was around, or that he missed her presence and the sound of her voice any time she wasn’t there? How could he tell her all of that, how could confess all of his feelings without sounding like a creep?

No one said anything for a few minutes. And that silence wasn’t as embarrassing as Druig expected it to be. It was warm, understanding. No one did anything, no one moved, like one of those stories when, after one confesses their feelings, the other runs into their arms and kisses them. That did not happen. They just stayed quiet, enjoying each other’s company.

“I would support you; you know?” Druig’s voice was soft. She turned her face towards him. “If you wanted to go against Arishem’s plan, against Ajak and the others. I would stand by your side. And not because I…” He stopped, unsure if he should actually say the words if he should actually expose his feelings, but something about her, something in her eyes told him she already knew, or at least she understood. “I share your belief.” Stupid, Druig! That’s too cold, too diplomatic. Try again. “I mean if Arishem wanted us to simply comply with his commands then he shouldn’t have made us the way we are. He shouldn’t have let us live among them if he didn’t want us to learn from them just as much as we are supposed to teach them. They look at us and they see people that they can trust, that have helped them. And then what? We’re just supposed to abandon them? No way.” Her eyes stayed on him the entire time, a soft smile forming on her lips. For once she felt understood. Finally, she felt as if she wasn’t on her own, she knew there was someone she could trust, someone she could rely on. She might have never guessed that someone would have been him. But he was, and she was far more than content. “If you want to leave right now, if you want to help them escape their fate while the others are sleeping, and you want someone to do this with you, then you can count me in. If you want to stand up again to Ajak and the others, just know that I will be standing by your side.”

In a moment of pure confidence, he reached out for her hand. As soon as he commenced the act, he immediately regretted it. No, Druig, you idiot! Why would you do something like that? But it was too late, it would have been too embarrassing to retract his hand at that point, so he followed through with it, and a moment later his hand was on hers. Druig held his breath, not sure what to expect. But then, her hand moved, it turned beneath his. The next thing he knew, their fingers were intertwined, and she was leaning towards him, placing her head on his shoulder.

“Thank you.” Her voice came out more like a whisper, but he heard it, and in response, his heart fluttered.

“I’m here for you”.

Druig was glad he had come out and looked for her.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The war was happening right before their eyes, and Druig could not take it.

She had been sent with a few other Eternals to fight the last Deviants, the only ones left, and then their mission would be complete.

But in that exact moment, Druig wished she hadn’t gone.

“It’s the reason why I’m here, to protect the humans. I’ll do it and then I’m out.” Her voice was resolved. She didn’t want to have anything else to do with them, and she had made it very clear. Well, not all of them.

“I understand, and I thank you for this last effort.” Ajak was kind, as always, and that slightly irritated Druig.

The scene in front of them broke Druig’s heart, and he could only imagine how she would feel if she were there. I cannot let them just kill each other like that, he thought, taking a step forward. In his eyes, that familiar golden glow started to appear, but Ajak immediately stopped him.

“We don’t interfere with their wars.” Once again, Ajak was calm, gentle.

“This isn’t war, this is genocide.” Druig’s response, on the other hand, was far harsher. “Their weapons have become too advanced. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to help them advance, Phastos.” He was too angry, too anxious, she wasn’t back yet, and he had to take it out on someone.

“Technology is a part of their evolution process, Druig. It’s not something that I can stop.”

Phastos was right, and Druig knew it. But his own principles were more important than whatever plan Arishem had drawn out for them. “No, but I can!”

“It’s too late.” Thena’s voice was low, but it nonetheless caught everyone’s attention. “Everyone is going to die.” Everyone looked at her, but she wasn’t there. Her body was, but it seemed as if something had taken over her mind and her will. Without any warning, she summoned one of her weapons and attacked Sersi and Phastos. Makkari quickly charged against her, dragging her far from the others, but Thena was a trained warrior, and her response was quick: she stabbed Makkari in her abdomen, leaving everyone speechless. No one really understood what was going on with her and no one really knew what they could do. She was Thena, after all, and hurting her was not exactly in their minds, even if she was the one attacking them in the first place.

Thena was about to strike again, but Ajak stopped her. The way she used her powers on her was, it was almost as if she had taken a hold of her mind. “Don’t listen to your head, listen to my voice. You are safe. You are loved. You are Thena.” For a small, brief moment, Thena came back to her senses. She looked lost. But that only lasted a few seconds. That something took over her once again. Thankfully for everyone, Gilgamesh arrived. Druig knew how much he cared for her, and could only imagine how hard it was for him to fight her, but he had to if they wanted to stop her.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

“I thought it was a myth” Ajak had just broken the news to everyone. Druig’s heart sank at the idea of this thing, this something he had thought only to be a legend, not only being true but having affected one of them.

Phastos spoke. “There is no cure, so no one never really talks about it.” That did not help.

Druig looked to his side. She was standing there, leaning against the wall, a scratch on her chin, probably a result of the fight. The good news was that the Deviants were all gone. But that wasn’t enough to cheer the Eternals up after what had happened with Thena. Druig got lost for a while, looking at her, thinking how he wanted to move closer to her, to take her hand in his and tell her that things were going to get better. But he knew he couldn’t, he had no idea if they actually would or even could get better.

His eyes were fixed on her, but no one noticed, because their attention was caught by Thena waking up. Druig mindlessly listened to Ajak’s recap to Thena of that evening’s events. It wasn’t until he noticed her eyes becoming glossy and a heavy breath leaving her lips that he moved his gaze back to Ajak. “I will have to erase you so that you can start over.”

Everyone couldn’t believe what was happening. The idea of losing one of them to Mahd Wy-ry was already bad enough, but even just the mere thought of her losing all of her memories was far worse.

But then she would no longer be Thena, Makkari signed exactly what everyone was thinking.

“What if it happens again? She could have killed all of us.” Kingo was not wrong to worry, but she was still family. How could he be so selfish in a moment like that?

Druig didn’t know what to do, how to react. He quickly glanced at her and noticed she was slowly becoming smaller, her shoulders were low, her head was reclined forward, her eyes were closed. She was about to cry. He knew it and wanted to do something, but Thena’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “Please. Please, I want to remember my life.” Her voice broke.

“Thena, I love you, but listen to me.” Ajak moved closer to her. “it’s not important if you remember or not. Your spirit will remain. You will always be Thena deep inside. Trust me.”

That was it. That was enough. Druig couldn’t take any more of Ajak’s bullshits. “Why should she trust you?” The seriousness and the harshness of his own voice startled him. “You’re asking her to let you erase who she is.”

Ajak was looking at him with her usual maternal expression on her face. “Druig, I know you’re upset, but-”

“Upset!?” He shouted. “We trusted you for 7000 years and look where you’ve gotten us.” He could feel everyone’s eyes on him. “We’ve watched humans destroy each other when I could stop it all in a heartbeat. Do you know what that does to someone after centuries?!” Her image popped into his mind. Was it possible that what she had told him the night before had given him the courage to do that, to speak up, to pour out all his discontent? “Could our mission have been a mistake? Are we really helping these people build a better world, uh?” He turned and looked at the people below, still fighting, still killing each other. “Look at all the soldiers. Pawns to their leaders. Blinded by loyalty. It ends now.” That familiar golden glare appeared in his eyes and soldiers stopped in their tracks. They all dropped their weapons and turned towards Druig. But Ikaris immediately took him by his shoulder and slammed him into the wall.

She had been looking at that scene in silence, on the side, not wanting to get more involved. She had already said she was going to leave them, and she could have already done that, she could have followed through with her initial idea, and not come back from the mission. She would have simply walked away, without saying any goodbye. But as she was about to do so, Druig came to her mind. Was she really ready to leave him? Then Gilgamesh called out for her and she just couldn’t bring herself to tell them to go, that she would not be going with them. Druig had the right to know she wasn’t leaving because of him, and that if he wanted to go with her, she would very much enjoy the company. His company.

But now Ikaris had just slammed him into a wall, and all she wanted to do was to go up to him and punch him so hard, even Ajak’s power would not be able to fix him right away. “Let them go.” The man’s voice was low, direct.

But Druig’s response came quickly. “You will have to make me.”

“Stop.” Ajak’s voice caught immediately Ikaris’ attention, who looked at her for a few moments, before stepping away.

At that point, Druig turned his head to look at the woman standing next to him. “If you want to stop me, you will have to kill me.” That was all he said. And maybe he said it directly to Ajak because he knew that she could never allow anyone to kill any of them, or maybe it was because she was after all their leader. No matter what that was meant to be, Druig was sure about what he was doing. He was not going to back away from that.

Still standing on the side, he looked at him turn around and walk away, walk towards the humans, and at that moment something in her heart told her that that was the right thing to do. So, without thinking any further, she called out his name. “Druig, wait!” Immediately, everyone was looking at her.

“What are you doing?” Sprite grabbed her arm.

But she didn’t answer. She freed herself from her grip and ran up to Druig. “I’m coming with you.” She took his hand in hers, squeezing it tightly.

“Are you sure?”

“Never been surer in my entire life.”

He would never admit it, but he was glad she was how she was.

He would never admit it, but he was glad she was with him.

Thank you for reading!

[nopelleen]

Perish, Pretty Please (1/5)

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: Rick Flag was known to be a pretty good leader, it was the reason why he had been chosen to lead a squad of infamously reckless and idiotic criminals, however it was a lot harder to maintain his authority when one member of the team despised his guts for seemingly no reason.

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: Rick Flag x Reader

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 2.8k

ɴᴏᴛᴇ: i haven’t written in so long but i’m a sucker for the new version of Rick Flag and i just couldn’t help myself, enjoy my attempt at a short enemies to lovers!

There was something peculiar about jail, something you had been told to expect.

Before being thrown into this dark, moist secluded space they had the audacity to call a cell, you had been the most apologetic, polite person, always so caring about people’s feelings and enjoying this status of people pleaser – enjoying the way people always responded so nicely to your bright smiles. Now, it felt so strange to think back about this small thing you used to be, so weary about appearing disrespectful that you’d bow down and stoop as low as you could to take the least space possible, making yourself smaller and smaller each day. Now, you wouldn’t be caught dead bowing down. Not since you had met him.

Being thrown into jail had been a riveting experience, if not a living nightmare that had chipped away at your soul days after days until you were nothing but a crumbling mess barely held together by a sizzling resentment. The change within you had been slow at first, almost imperceptible. It had taken a few months for you to let go of your old ways, a few months for them to break you. At first, you had been respectful towards the guard in front of your cell. It had apparently been your first mistake, and he had taken this as a challenge to reach into your soul and crush every last bit of goodness in you.

His name was Griggs. He had been the one guarding your cell for the better part of months now and he was without a shadow of a doubt the most repulsive person you had ever met.

They had put a collar on you, had thrown you into a dark and moist secluded cell, and if all of that wasn’t enough to reduce you to nothing, they had put you under his care. Him, who was known for his rough ways around prisoners, who had tortured Harley and somehow managed to chip away a bit more at her sanity. With more cowardice than you’d like to admit, you had told yourself that maybe the woman had fought back a bit too much, maybe if you behaved well enough you’d get out of this experience with as much dignity as possible.

Wishful thinking. Sad, pathetic wishful thinking.

Words, spit, needles, buckets of cold water, there wasn’t any mean of humiliation he hadn’t used on you, and the more you responded, the more you got. If at first you bared your teeth at the slightest attack, as time went on your strength started to fail you and every word you yearned to spit in his face remained unsaid, held back inside of you under the form of a bubbling resentment to which you offered no outlet. It was almost its own form of torture, watching Griggs bark laughter as you shook on the ground, soaked wet from the bucket of used water he had just thrown at you. The others always watched. They never said anything, never even did as much as wince at your treatment, and for that you found completely incapable of holding even just an ounce of respect towards any person of power there. You despised them all so much that it hurt; your entire body constantly ached from the need to yell yourself hoarse, yell your hot hatred towards them for hours on end. They were all the same and you craved to see them die from the most excruciating pain.

This was partly why you had known things wouldn’t go smoothly as soon as Rick had stepped into your cell. In his neatly ironed uniform and squaring up his shoulders behind Waller as if being the crooked woman’s shadow was the peak of his career, the man seemed to stand for everything you had grown to loath over these last years. You saw his eyes flicker from the ground to your bed, acknowledging the state of the cell as he took in the puddles and the dirty torn-up sheet. You saw a hint of worry etched over his features, barely perceptible under his mask of professionalism, and you had to keep yourself from laughing in his face for this ridiculous play-pretend, acting all offended on your account as if he didn’t know how things worked down here. His attention was brought back upon you when Waller made a quick presentation of who you were and what you were capable of, and his eyes barely had time to go over the collar tightly snapped around your neck before his glance was drawn to your dark stare, conveying as much disgust as you could towards him in one glare. If he was a bit taken aback by your hostility, he didn’t show it, and this neutral expression permanently stamped on his face only managed to aggravate you even further.

“Take off her collar. I believe she’s smart enough not to try anything.”

You only responded with a dark look, knowing there was nothing you could say back to this that would make you look good. Waller had a way of choosing her words carefully as to make her interlocutor feel inferior no matter what they tried to answer. Knowing there was no prospect of ending this discussion and feeling good about yourself, you stayed silent, doing your best not to flinch as another worker walked into the cell and approached you with a digital card. You did your best not to let any emotion seep through, however as soon as his hand got close to your neck you could not help but take the tiniest step back. From the corner of your eye, you noticed Flag shifting a bit, as if his first instinct was trying to push him into stepping in, however one pointed dark look sharply directed towards him quickly dissuaded the colonel from helping.

If he ever wanted to get even just a foot near you, he would have to wait for you to give out your last breath – given where you were currently going, he probably wouldn’t have to wait that long anyway.

---

“The people you are going to be attached at the hip to for the next few days are already in,” Rick Flag announced as you both marched up to the aircraft.

You cast an apprehensive look towards the small stepladder leading up to it which looked way too unsteady, rocked by the vibrations of the helicopter it was attached to. Just wanting to make sure you weren’t about to faceplant in front of the people you were probably about to die with, you took a second in front of the stepladder to readjust your heavy bag onto your shoulder, letting the colonel go in before you. Then, when you looked up again, the strap of your bag now firmly readjusted and perfectly balanced on your shoulder, your eyes landed upon a hand extended towards you. Your gaze traced back the arm until falling upon its owner’s face and you had to fight off the desire to harshly swat the hand away.

“Yeah, no,” you declined coldly, dismissively ignoring his offer as you stepped in alone, proud when you barely vacillated once your two feet were hauled onto the edge of the aircraft.

“Outburst! Didn’t expect to see you there,” Blackguard gushed as soon as you entered his vision. “I feel much safer now knowing that our enemies are gonna be crying before I shoot them.”

Instead of the bitter smile you usually would’ve given to anyone else, you let out a genuine chuckle, greeting him back with a friendly dig at his dyed hair. Rick watched with an incredulous look as you comfortably plopped down on the seat across from the blond man with a beaming smile, not minding the fact that your knees were touching despite the fact that you had just walked past the colonel while leaving as much space as possible between the two of you.

“Outburst?” a man from a few seats away asked – Captain Boomerang, if you recalled right.

“I didn’t choose the name.”

“No, like – what’s your thing?”

“She makes people cry,” Blackguard repeated with a shrug, filling in instead of you.

You pursed your lips and gave a brief half-shrug, finding yourself unexpectedly pleased with the reductive and quite honestly insulting description. It wasn’t like you hadn’t heard worst from Blackguard anyway, you had once met him during a transfer from one cell to another and the guards transporting you had been forced to leave you alone two minutes to break out a fight that had erupted in the men’s cafeteria – these two minutes had been largely enough for Blackguard to ask about the collar and make fun of your ability.

“So, are you happy to be going on a mission with me?”

Blackguard’s lips started to stretch into his usual lazy, wide grin, when a flicker of realization flashed in his eyes and his smile completely fell off his face in an instant. It was as if a switch had been flipped; his eyes flickered to the side, fleeing away from your steady eyes. He looked hesitant for a fleeting moment, but then before you could even start to wonder what this was all about, the bleach-haired man had regained his composure, dragging his attention back onto you with schooled features and mischief coloring his eyes to match yours.

“Oh yeah dude, I can't wait to see you make people laugh until they shit themselves.”

You instantly winced at the expression. “Please never talk about my ability again.”

“I won’t if you show me how to buckle myself in; this shit is confusing.”

Rick watched the scene from afar, quite disconcerted by what he was witnessing. You were currently interacting with one of the most – if not the most – disrespectful member of the squad and smiling at him as if he were a long-lost friend, whilst the colonel had been nothing but courteous to you and had earned in return nothing but cold glowers. It had been quite hard not to notice the way you had very noticeably bit your tongue in an attempt not to swear at him when he had done as much as welcome you to the team.

It hadn’t been much of a surprise when you hadn’t responded well to his small talk on your way to the aircraft either.

“Remember you’re not there to act as a casualty, the other members of the squad are there to protect you and you’re expected to do the same.”

“As long as I don’t have to protect you, I’m good.”

“Well, I am considered a living member of the team so you are expected to have my back.”

“Fantastic.”

He usually wouldn’t have tolerated this talk-back in any situation, but this equation was an entanglement of many factors that needed to be taken into consideration: first, none of you were in any shape or form even close to a soldier, secondly he had been warned by Waller that out of all recruits you would show the most behavioral issues, and finally, when he had walked into your cell, he had expected something entirely different from your frail figure refusing to maintain eye contact with Waller for more than ten seconds and backing up as much as possible like a wounded prey.

It had quickly become obvious to him that the behavioral issues came from fear and not defiance – there was therefore no point in scolding you. Doing as much as raising his voice at you would never play out in his favor, whether it was at the moment or later on the battle grounds. He did not know the extent of your abilities yet, but in a mission carried out by a team infamously labelled as the suicide squad, keeping the odds in his favor was a luxury he could not pass up on.

---

Turned out there was one thing his superior truly hadn’t exaggerated when he had assigned Rick to his first mission – if you’re relying on odds for the success of your mission, you might as well go on the battlefield with your eyes closed and your hands tied behind your back. This advice wasn’t a detail that slipped out of his mind nor something he particularly disagreed with – it was simply some words he had consciously chosen to ignore for his own peace of mind since it did not bode well for the team he was leading at all. After all, what was the Task X Force if not purely a matter of odds.

As he watched a shouting Blackguard walk onto the beach with his arms lifted up in the air, Rick couldn’t help but think he would’ve probably had more chances of survival lumbering up this beach with his eyes closed and hands tied than with the group of idiots he was accompanying.

“Blackguard get back into your position!”

You watched with wide, bewildered eyes as the bleach-haired man waded out the water and directly engaged onto the beach, his arms up in the air with all the innocence of a man who had just signed his teammates’ death warrant. While everyone else remained speechless as they witnessed the mission go awry barely minutes after it had begun, Flag had been quick to react, barking orders at the stone-deaf traitor who kept walking forward.

Blackguard showed no sign of slowing down and the fact that he wasn’t even acknowledging Rick’s words couldn’t help but make you wonder for a second if he was hearing him. With a low, focusing breath, you fixated your eyes on Blackguard and sent an anxious wave towards him, hoping to make him turn around and abandon whatever he had in mind. Frustration started to build at the pit of your stomach as you were forced to see him keep on walking on, not even looking like he had been affected by your attempt. You weren’t close enough.

Before you could try again, beams of light suddenly switched on at the edge of the rainforest, effectively outlining Blackguard’s silhouette and causing his steps to falter a bit. Despite the hesitation that seemed to overcome him, he still made no move to get back in position or at least duck to safety and one look towards Rick indicated you that no one was about to at least try to physically make him back down. Biting the inside of your cheek, you bounced on the balls of your feet from where you were squatting down behind a rock, mentally preparing yourself before suddenly jumping to your feet.

“Outburst!” you heard Rick bellow as you quickly scurried towards a rock closer to Blackguard, maintaining yourself as low as you could. Once in safety again, you started over, trying to focus as well as you could on your own emotions and muster up enough fear to send him a wave that’d stress him enough to finally back down. “Outburst, stand down!” a voice barked once again directly into your earpiece, jolting you out of your focus.

“Eat shit!” you bit back under your breath, too focused on the task at hand to lend him more than one ear and answer with more than two colorful words. You didn’t really expect your earpiece to pick up on the grumble anyway – you were wrong.

“Oh we can curse?? I didn’t know we could curse!” Harley whined from behind her rock, shooting an accusatory look towards Rick who was too busy trying to keep the team in line to pay attention to her complaint. “Flag!”

Your ears suddenly picked up on the sound of a chopper hovering above the beach and covering even more Blackguard’s words despite his voice getting louder with desperation. Now that you were hiding behind a rock way closer to the enemies than you’d like it to be, the surge of adrenaline rushing through your body was fierce and, as if pushed by anxiety alone, you found yourself jumping to your feet as you sent one last gush of panic towards Blackguard.

The relief when you saw him physically recoil at the sensation was short-lived, swept away by an excruciating pain that knocked you off your feet. As you landed into the sand, your hand automatically came up to brush against the patch of skin where the pain had erupted in, and you felt your stomach drop at the feeling of torn up tissue right below your chest. You could hear shouts coming from your earpiece but paid them no mind, knowing that they probably did not concern you anyway – it was the Task X Force after all, no matter what Flag had told you, there were bound to be casualties. You were just glad you had at least tried to help Blackguard. You hadn’t been like those soulless guards back at Belle Reve. You had done something; you had helped.

Those were the thoughts you held close to your heart as you felt your last thread of consciousness slip away from your fingers, the only thing you focused on as darkness seeped at the edges of your vision, and the last words that echoed through your mind as Blackguard’s faceless body collapsed right beside yours merely seconds before you passed out.

PART 2

[titanicsimp]

Rising star

Pairing: Enji Todoroki x Female!Reader

Genres: Smut

Warnings: Sexual content including; vaginal and anal sex, creampies, degrading talk, general rough sex, manhandling, name calling, slight voyeurism, thigh riding.

Summary: You have been rising through the pro hero ranks like a rocket, and you can’t help but tease the new number one about it.

A/N: I’m a Enji fucker and I’m proud! 🗣

“And now, the pro hero ranked as number four this year is...”

“Ironheart!”

You could barely believe it as you jumped up from your seat. You made it into the top five!

You waved at the crowd, a big smile on your face as you joined the others on stage. The bright lights and camera flashes were a little overwhelming, but you could get used to it.

God did you feel good. You could take on the world in that moment, basking in the cheers of your fans. Last year you had been ranked twentieth, so this leap was huge.

As the announcer went back to announcing the list, you peaked over at the current number one hero. Endeavor was standing stone faced as always, but you caught him glancing at you from the side.

You smirked. You could practically smell the resentment from here. How thrilling, you would have to pay the flame hero a visit later.

-

Getting into Endeavor’s VIP room at the event had been a doozy. The guard had been too starstruck, only asking you to give him an autograph. You had cringed at the picture he had made you sign. It was one from the shoot the hero agency made you do, which had been done to market on your sex appeal. But you had pushed aside your agitation and walked right into Endeavor’s room.

The space they gave him is excessive really. The room is extremely spacious even though it’s equipted with two full sized couches, a long coffee table, and a bar with barstools and all.

Endeavor is sitting on the couch that faces the door, busy signing pictures of himself which he’ll be giving out later.

It takes only a second for him to notice you, and when he does he immediately puts on his flames. You chuckle under you breath. Really, who is he keeping the appearance up for?

“Long time no see, Endeavor.” You purr as you stride over to him.

He looks annoyed, so nothing new. “Get out.”

You scoff. “Not even a congratulations? I think I’m rising through the ranks faster than you ever have.”

You notice his eyebrow twitch at your comment. He’s so predictable.

“Number four is still a long way from number one.”

You touch his knee, stroking your hand up his leg gingerly. “Yet I’m standing so close to it.”

He regards you calculatingly with those blue eyes of his. “What do you want?”

You pull back your hand with a bright smile. “Well, I thought we could get to know each other better. Us being colleagues... or perhaps rivals, as some may call it.”

Endeavor crosses his arms. “I doubt anyone would regard us as rivals. You’re too far behind me.”

“Hhmm, you say that but I saw that little glance when we were up on the stage. Seems I’ve been on your mind, Endeavor.” You tell him.

You walk around the couch and go to stand behind him. Most people would back up from his flames, but you had nothing to worry about. The metal wristbands you wear start shifting under the influence of your quirk, quickly ungulfing your arms and hands so the metal fits around them like a glove.

You put your arms over Endeavor’s shoulders without care. He grunts disapprovingly, but does nothing to stop it.

“Your flames feel slightly hotter than last time, good job!” You giggle.

He sighs your name, not your hero name, but your real name. “Stop wasting my time.”

His flames die down and it seems like he really is done playing with you. You retract the metal around you back to look like simple wristbands.

You jump over the couch and sit down next to him, giving him sad eyes. “Who thought a flame hero could be so cold?”

“Especially after our little bathroom adventure last year...”

You feel Enji stiffen beside you. “Or do you do that with all upcoming heroes?”

You throw your legs over his lap, grinning at him. Yeah, that’s what you thought, he hasn’t forgotten.

Though he tries to keep his face straight, you can see it starting to crack. “You still don’t know what’s good for you.”

“I felt pretty good last time.” You quip back, and he finally snaps.

Enji throws your legs off of his lap and grabs your face, his big hand engulfing your chin and cheeks. “You need to be put in your place.”

You bat your eyelashes at him. “Why don’t you help me with that, number one?”

His free hand forces your legs open and cups your core through your herosuit. You both groan when his thick fingers rub over your slit, pushing the tight fabric and your panties against it.

“How do you even fight in this thing.” Enji says disapprovingly.

You roll your eyes. It’s not like you are the only hero in this room with a skin tight suit, and he seems to be enjoying it well enough.

A loud ripping sounds throughout the room and you gasp in shock at the hole he has created in your suit, exposing your panties.

You try to move to stop him before he can ruin that fabric as well, but within the seconds it takes you to react it’s too late. “Bastard!”

Enji chuckles. “Can’t afford to replace them?”

He knows damn well you can. You might not be ultra rich like him, but your hero career sure has payed off.

Sliding his fingers through your wetness testingly, he gives you a mocking grin. You buck up into his touch without embarrassment, he’s doing exactly what you want after all.

Enji’s grabs you and drags you onto his lap without a word. When you go to grind against his bulge, he stops you. He corrects you to sit on one of his thighs, giving you a pointed look.

You smirk at him. “How dirty of you, Enji.”

“Shut up and grind.” He growls in response.

Happily obliging, you sway your hips, dragging your wetness across his thigh. The fabric of his suit is a bit rough, but it only adds to the friction.

Enji brings his hand to your throat, squeezing it lightly as you ride his thigh. You smile at him, softly moaning under your breath.

“Look at you, getting off on rubbing yourself against me like a bitch in heat.” He says with a condescending tone, but his body tells a different story.

You can see the large tent in his pants, making his excitement quite obvious.

A whimper leaves your mouth when his fingers squeeze tighter and a rush of wetness slicks your thighs.

Enji’s gaze turns darker with lust the longer he watches you slide yourself up and down his thigh. Getting an idea, you lean forward and lick across the length of his neck, causing him to shiver under you.

Maintaining a tight grip on your neck, he moves you off of him and then throws you onto the coffee table in front of the couch.

A oof leaves your mouth as you hit the wood, the slam having slightly taken your breath. When Enji looms over you, you shoot him a grin. Would’ve been a real smacker if your skin wasn’t infused with minuscule metal pieces.

The corners of his mouth turn upwards at seeing your reaction. Being able to throw you around without consequence turns him on to no end.

Enji flips you over, propping your ass up. You grab onto the end of the table. If it will be anything like last time, you’ll need something to hold onto.

You bite your lip when he drags his cock through your wetness. God, it’s your favorite part of him without a doubt.

“Are you ready?” Enji asks from behind you, but as you open your mouth to answer, he slams his cock all the way inside of you in a swift thrust.

You scream loudly at the feeling of his thick length stretching you out. It stings a bit, but in all the ways you like.

His big hands grab onto your ass as he starts fucking into you, groaning loudly.

His thrusts are so hard and his pace changes constantly, making you grab onto the table so hard your fingers turn white.

“A slut like you will never outrank me.” Enji growls, his grip on you tightening.

You mewl at his statement. Him talking down to you only makes your walls clench around his cock.

He lifts one hand off of your ass, only to bring it down in a hard slap. Noises and cries escape your lips without stopping as he spanks your ass and continues to ram him himself into you.

“That useless guard is still outside, I wonder if he’s hearing you cry out for my cock.” He pants out.

“I bet he’s enjoying it.” You get interrupted multiple times by Enji’s thrusts, but you get your sentence out eventually.

“Ah Endeavor!” You scream out extra loudly on purpose.

You feel his cock twitch inside you. “Giving him a show?”

You giggle breathlessly. “Come now, don’t be jealous.”

With a rip, Enji tears your suit up further, exposing your asshole as well. You hear him spit on his hand before he presses one finger into your ass. Your back arches at the new sensation and your cunt twitches in pleasure.

“Scream then.” He commands, slowing his pace just slightly so he can finger your ass.

As soon as he feels you relax, he adds a second, and your eyes tear up at the fullness. You start feeling so hot, and you have no doubt that it’s radiating from Enji.

When he rubs his fingers against your wall where he feels his cock, you cum suddenly. Your vision goes blank for a second as your orgasm washes over you, your legs shaking violently.

With a loud groan, Enji follows suit and empties himself inside of your cunt. His pace doesn’t slow down for quite a bit, fucking his cum into you.

When he’s finished, he pulls out of you suddenly, letting his cum drip out onto his cock. He fists his length, lubing it up with your mixed juices.

You can sense what’s coming next, Enji’s fingers still in your ass.

“Tell him what I’m about to do.” He tells you.

It takes you a moment to even remember the guard, but when you do you smirk. Seems like it gets Enji’s fire going, so why not.

“Please Endeavor, fuck my ass!” You yell out.

He removes his fingers and presses the head of his cock against your tight hole. “I’m going to have you walking around with cum dripping from your holes like the dirty slut you are.”

With that promise, he presses forward into you. He goes slower when entering your ass, but you still struggle to keep up.

When fully seated inside you, he gives your ass a loud slap, causing you to yelp out. As soon as he starts thrusting, you both know that neither of you is going to last long.

Enji’s fingers find your clit, rubbing and pinching at it as he fucks into you.

By this point you’re a sweating, drooling mess, and when you approach another orgasm, you whine desperately. “Fuck Endeavor, ruin me!”

His low chuckle makes a shiver run over your spine. “As you wish.”

He starts slamming himself into you, not holding back in the slightest. Your chest pushes against the table aggressively as he fucks you into it.

You cry out his name as with a last rub at your clit, you cum again. The table is a blessing as your legs give out, keeping your body up.

Enji uses your body till he’s cumming again as well. Your body already feels so hot, and his cum filling you ass too doesn’t help. You whimper and flex your sore fingers from grabbing on when he pulls out.

Your ass, cunt and thighs are absolutely drenched in his cum, his thick loads still leaking out of you.

Too tired to move for now, you watch as Enji grabs a marker from the table. He scribbles something onto your asscheek, giving it a final slap afterwards.

He comes into vision after he has adjusted his suit, his figure showing no trace of what the two of you just did.

“Let’s do this again, hero.” He tells you as he throws the marker at you, the last word clearly mocking.

Later, when you go to clean up, you spot what he wrote in the mirror. You smirk as you look at the phone number that he wrote onto your asscheek. Snapping a quick picture of your cum covered ass, you send it to his number with the message ‘I knew you’d warm up to me ♥️’.

[dothwrites]

13 and 20

13. and 20.--Detective AU and Teacher AU

---

Castiel represses a sigh as he stands up straight. His spine pops as he subtly stretches out the kinks in his aching body.

He'd thought that he was a reasonably fit man, but bending over and scrubbing at filthy floors and tables every day is playing hell with his lower back.

The bell rings, and Castiel curses under his breath as he moves back against the wall. Less than thirty seconds later, all of the doors near him burst open and a flood of teenagers courses into the hallway.

Castiel's had a lot of unpleasant assignments in his life, but going undercover at Carver Edlund High School is among the worst. He thought that he'd seen some of the worst that humanity had to offer: murderers who cared nothing for the pain of their victims, kidnappers who plunged families into turmoil for years, robbers who were willing to kill just in order to get a few quick bucks. But upon seeing the horror show of the cafeteria after a group of freshmen finished lunch, Castiel has to start reevaluating his list of atrocities.

The tardy bell rings, and Castiel sighs as he steps out in the hall. He rolls his eyes at the debris that the students have left behind and grabs his push broom to start clearing it away.

Going undercover at Carver Edlund wasn't Castiel's first choice of assignments, but with several students ending up in the hospital due to drug overdoses, something drastic had to be done. Castiel's job is simple: gather as much intelligence as he can about where the drugs are coming from. If possible, he's to find the dealer and shut the whole production down.

In theory, it's a good assignment. Success here would mean a potential commendation, maybe a promotion if the operation is big enough. But the reality of the situation is much different. Castiel's been masquerading as a member of the maintenance team for a little over a week, and he's no closer to finding the source of the drugs than he was when he started.

His captain had ultimately decided to send him in as a member of the janitorial staff for access reasons: as a janitor, he has keys to every door. Not even lockers are safe from him. There's no place in the school off-limits to him. Unfortunately, it also means that his opportunities for questioning potential suspects are limited: no high school student wants to have long conversations with the janitor. He's reduced to sweeping around gaggles of kids, hoping that they'll just so happen to let something slip.

His plan hasn't worked. So far, he's learned about the latest TikTok challenge, who's rumored to have slept with who, and who on the football team is getting suspended, but drugs? Either these kids are savvier than he gives them credit for, or they don't know anything.

"Oh, sorry, 'scue me... Oh. Hi, Steve."

It takes Castiel just a second too long to respond to the name. Part of that is because he's still not used to answering to his cover name, and part of that is because he's still not sure how to act around Dean Smith.

He braces himself before he turns around, but that still doesn't prepare him for the sight of Dean Smith leaning against the wall. Looking at him is like looking into the sun, if the sun was in a dingy hallway with flickering florescent lights and questionable stains on the floor. Even with those inauspicious surroundings, however, Dean Smith, with his sandy hair, vibrant eyes, freckles, and bright, crooked grin, stands out.

"Hello, Dean." Castiel allows the hint of a smile to cross his face. He'd called Dean 'Mr. Smith' exactly once before Dean had put a stop to it.

"Oh, no," he said, grimacing in distaste, "I get enough of that from the kids. Just Dean, man." Castiel hadn't argued, and the slightly stuffy Mr. Smith became Dean.

"Another beautiful day cleaning up the debris of the world?" Dean gestures towards the small pile of dirt and dust that Castiel has managed to collect.

"It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it," Castiel answers.

No doubt his superiors would be screaming if they could see him right now. Zachariah, his Captain, would sneer, You're there to catch drug dealers, Novak, not to play nice with pretty boy teachers, but Zachariah isn't here right now. Plus, it's not like Castiel's making any headway on the drug dealers, so he might as well indulge his crush with a guy who's miles out of his league.

Dean is the kind of good-looking that gets noticed by modeling companies in the line at the cafe. Castiel has found himself wondering, more than once, what a guy like him is doing substitute teaching. It's obvious that Dean is smart, and he doesn't doubt that he could have a job doing whatever he wanted. Still, Dean's being a substitute teacher works out well for him, so he doesn't complain. Not if it means that he can be just a little closer to him.

Maybe if Castiel wasn't undercover and wearing an unflattering jumpsuit with the name 'Steve' stitched across the front pocket. Maybe if he were dressed in his customary suit and had a badge and gun to flash around. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

"Don't talk to me about dirty jobs," Dean says, his voice entirely too low and insinuating for the circumstances. Heat blooms underneath Castiel's collar.

"Well, I'm not sure what else to talk to you about," he confesses. He resents the broom handle in his hands.

Dean shrugs. His smile is still carefree, but there's something else in his eyes when he says, "What about any books that you've read lately? TV shows that you've watched?" His eyes flash to Castiel's, and his tongue flirts with his lower lip as he asks, "Restaurants that you'd like to go to?"

Castiel's heart stutters. For a second, it sounded like... But that can't be right. Dean can't be inviting him out. Guys like Castiel don't go out with guys like Dean. That's just the way the world works. Maybe if he was Detective Castiel Novak, but now when he's Janitor Steve.

He takes a second too long to answer. By the time that he's managed to figure out that Dean is serious, Dean's expression has shuttered. He flashes a painfully fake smile at Castiel. "Hey, man, don't worry about it. I'll catch you later, okay?"

He's turning to go, and fear grabs at Castiel. He knows that if he lets Dean walk away, then everything will change between them. No more jokes, no more stolen conversations in the hallways. They'll become nothing more than vague, uneasy colleagues, at least until Castiel's assignment ends and he disappears forever from Dean's life.

The indignity of his assignment and the frustration of his ineptitude rises in Castiel, and bursts out of him in a quick call. "Dean!"

Dean turns around. Hope flickers in his eyes before he hides it. "Yeah?" he asks. The carefully blank tone in his voice is like a knife twisting in Castiel's chest.

"I like Italian food," Castiel answers. He offers a hesitant smile towards Dean, hoping against hope that Dean will accept his overture.

After a second, Dean's smile spreads slowly across his face, as bright as the sunrise. "Yeah," he says, nodding slowly, "yeah, I think we could do that."

---

Dean's heart dances in his chest as he walks away from Steve.

He did it. After weeks of ogling and tentatively flirting, he finally asked out the hot janitor.

Steve is a lot more than a pair of pretty blue eyes and a five o'clock shadow that makes Dean's lip yearn for stubble burn, though. (Though Steve does fill out a jumpsuit better than anyone Dean's ever seen. One day, he was lifting a desk onto the dolly so that it could be moved, and Dean thought his eyes were about to pop out of his skull. Between the thick thighs attempting to pop the seams on his pants, and the biceps rippling, Dean hadn't known where to look.) Steve has a wicked sense of humor, an innate sense of kindness, and he's caught every single one of Dean's literary references (the pop culture ones, not so much. Seriously, who's never seen Indiana Jones?). There's more to Steve than meets the eye, and Dean's itching to peel back the dozens of layers.

He ignores the tiny voice in the back of his head (which sounds like an alarming mix of Sam and Bobby) saying Don't get too involved. This is a temporary thing. Dean frowns and tries to tell the voice to shut the fuck up.

He's only here for as long as it takes him to figure out who's bringing drugs into the school. At the first viable lead, he'll be yanked out, and Dean Smith, substitute teacher, will die, to be replaced by Agent Dean Winchester of the DEA.

Because of the environment, there are multiple law enforcement agencies working on this case. There's state police, the DEA, and maybe even a few FBI agents sniffing around. It's naive to believe that there aren't other agents working in the school, but he hasn't come across any yet that he knows of. He's not entirely sure; he lets Bobby deal with all of the inter-agency bullshit. He has his mission and his cover, and Bobby, as his handler, can navigate every other pitfall.

Beyond small talk and leading conversations, Dean hasn't tried to get close with anyone. Every smiling face could conceal an undercover agent or a dealer. With suspicion everywhere, it's best not to succumb to temptation.

Which makes his attraction to Steve all the more intriguing.

Just thinking of the other man sets off a series of fireworks in the pit of Dean's belly.

This is probably a terrible idea, doomed to failure, but Dean is going to enjoy the ride while it lasts.

Whistling, he goes back to the classroom and prepares for his next class.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

How do you think the Cullen's would have turned out if they lived their natural human lives and not forever frozen at an age / the state they were in? For example I think Carlisle would always be kind and tame but perhaps not as idealistic. Rose might grow bitter of the world since even if Royce didn't assault her I can't imagine he would be the loving husband she wanted. Edward, who watched his parents die and was dying himself, might not be as moody and miserable. Who knows about Jasper and Alice and Esme. Emmett would probably stay the same. Bella, if she never met the supernatural, probably would just be a quiet old soul but otherwise not mal adjusted. I can't even guess about Renesmee haha since she has no personality next to being ~inhumanly special.

I mean, sadly, we know the answer: they wouldn't be around very long and would have died miserably. There's no such thing as a natural human life, well, I suppose you can die of old age, but the fate of the Cullens didn't have that in store.

But let's get into it just the same.

Alice

Had James not come across Alice, she likely still would have been turned at some point by her maker, who seems to have been very fond of her. It was just a matter of time. The difference being that, instead of being a newborn completely on her own, her maker would have been there. This is an Alice very unlikely to see Jasper or the Cullens in her future, though who knows, Carlisle and her maker might very well cross paths someday due to the similarity of their work.

But I doubt Alice would ever end up on the diet.

For Alice to remain human, she can never have been sent to that asylum. In which case we have two options a) she's not sent to an asylum b) she's sent to a different asylum.

In the first case, Alice is more than likely murdered by her father. This is what got her sent off in the first place: she was running around town claiming that her father had murdered her mother and now planned to murder her. To shut the hysterical woman up, her father sent her to an insane asylum. Which effectively got her out of his life just as he wished.

If that didn't occur to him, then yes, Alice likely falls gravely ill or has some unfortunate accident that she cannot prevent.

Otherwise, Alice is sent to some other insane asylum, likely still loses all her memories due to electroshock therapy, and probably dies very young due to poor health conditions. The life she does live is utterly miserable.

Bella

Bella dies in a parking lot, she's hit by a truck out of control. Otherwise, Bella dies in Port Angeles, she's raped and her body abandoned in a dumpster. Otherwise, Bella is eaten by a vampire.

And if Bella miraculously survives all of that, I imagine her struggle with depression continues throughout high school and into college. In college, she may meet someone who catches her interest, in which case she becomes completely codependent on them for a sense of validation (as she did Edward and Jacob in canon).

The relationship is a toxic mess, ends in a very messy breakup, and Bella goes through her New Moon phase a bit later. She might finally get therapy and survive this very dangerous phase in her life, at which point, she finally starts the slow recovery from depression.

I imagine Bella will be struggling with depression though for all of her life and, if left untreated, it might very well kill her.

Carlisle

Had Carlisle not been turned this means the vampire likely drained him. Carlisle dies at the head of the mob, this sentences the other Cullens to death as well as now no one will turn them.

Let's say Carlisle wasn't as fast that day. He had a leg cramp, or something. Not being well in front of the others, he's not hit by the vampire first. This increases his chances of death, as the vampire seems to have killed the rest he took a bite of, but he could survive.

Carlisle lives with the haunting guilt that the one time he tracks down a true demon he brought death to his parish. Several died due to his actions, the demon got away, and now there's no sign of it. Carlisle completely and utterly failed.

This is probably the final straw for Carlisle. Demons exist, but they are beyond his capacity to hunt, this is a job for God and not mere mortal men. He stops the demon hunts, stops the witch hunts, and focuses himself strictly on helping the community and preaching.

He lives knowing his father would have continued to be sorely disappointed in everything he does.

Carlisle likely marries within a few years, now that his father is dead and he's the established head of the parish. He may or may not like his wife all that much, but he has a responsibility, and having a wife and children is one of those. I imagine that they either are somewhat fond of each other or quietly tolerate one another.

If Carlisle has a son, the son is trained as a priest, sent to seminary as he was, and set to inherit the parish. If he has only daughters, then it will be her husband who will inherit the parish.

When Carlisle dies he is likely remembered very fondly by the parish for the good he did for the community. No one talks about the demon hunting disaster. He's buried next to his father.

Edward

Edward dies of the Spanish Influenza in 1918.

Had he never caught it, and thus never come across Carlisle, I imagine he lives a somewhat ordinary life. He goes to university somewhere very well established, perhaps even one of the Ivy League schools, I can see him training to become a lawyer. He either joins his father's law firm or, if his father's not a lawyer, some law firm in Chicago where he does quite well for himself.

He probably courts then marries some affluent, well to do, woman who hits all the checkmarks he expects from society. They probably get on quite well.

The market then crashes in 1929, when Edward's only 29 years old, and Edward gets to live through the depression. Edward may be lucky enough to retain his wealthy, however, he very well could not have been. Edward is now unemployed, destitute, and miserable just like the rest of the country.

I imagine this is very hard on him, he becomes very bitter and resentful, and as he desperately tires to find work it just gets worse. Edward becomes mired in cynicism.

Then the war hits, Edward is now 41, and he's too old to enlist in the army. He feels a sense of nostalgic bitterness that, once again, he can't go fight the good fight and has to cheer from the sidelines. Nonetheless, the economy starts to recover thanks to the war, Edward recovers with it and things get better.

Edward lives his ordinary human life and, perhaps, lives to sometime in the 1990's.

Emmett

Emmett is eaten by bears.

Had he not happened to be in the mountains that day then, likely, some other unfortunate accident would have befallen him. He's a mountain man, that's a dangerous life.

He gets eaten by bears, eaten by mountain lions, injured somehow and then dies, hit by a tree that he cut down, there are so many possibilities.

If he does live to an older age then he becomes the gruff mountain man stereotype that we all know. I imagine he remains a very friendly, cheerful, man, probably marries some local girl and has a very large family.

Esme

Esme kills herself. With the death of her child, that was the path she chose, and had she not been turned she would have been successful.

However, had her child lived, I imagine her life would have continued on the path it was on. She would have been a single mother, working as a teacher, and raising her child.

They would have been poor, but Esme seemed determined to make this work, and was doing an excellent job at it.

Perhaps, in time, she would meet the right man and remarry. However, I think that would take a lot of time as the whole issue was that she was hung up on the ideal of Dr. Carlisle Cullen who she met when she was sixteen and never saw again.

Regardless, she's far more of a real person grounded in reality than Esme the vampire ever was.

Jasper

Had Jasper not come across Maria, he likely would have died in the war. Many, many, people died in the civil war, and Jasper would be far from alone in that.

If not, he would have returned to the ravaged south, and likely found himself facing unemployment and very difficult times for wherever he came from.

Jasper would likely pull through, we know he has lived through hell in canon and pulled through there, though changed for life by the horrors of the civil war that will now never quite leave him.

Renesmee

Renesmee is never born. Her father is a demon a hundred years older than her mother. There is no chance that Bella becomes pregnant with Edward's human child, let alone his vampire child.

If Bella does become pregnant with a vampire child, she's likely been raped by Joham. Bella dies in confusion and agony, Renesmee is born into this world utterly alone, is picked up by Serena, and becomes yet another sister of Nahuel's.

Renesmee lives the miserable life that all of Nahuel's siblings do.

Rosalie

Rosalie is gang raped to death by Royce and his friends and dies in agony in an alley. Had she not come across Royce that night then likely, after they marry, he at some point rapes her to death and murders her.

The likelihood of Rosalie, with her parent's ambitions and her looks, of not marrying Royce is very small.

Even then, Royce is in town in general, that means all she needed was one bad night. Which, in canon, she had.

However, let's say she lives and Royce wasn't interested in her hand, she marries option number two. As you note, her marriage still likely isn't fulfilling. Rosalie is there to be beautiful and poised, to have tea with the ladies in society, and watch as a governess raises her children.

This is the world she lives in, and she accepts that, but over time she becomes increasingly bitter and resentful of this thing we call life.

TL;DR Remember, there's no escape from the pit of despair we call Twilight

[missfangirll]

If im not too late, I'd request anything for Beiyuan/Wu Xi. There are so few works out there for them :c

So, I wanted to write some XiYuan fluff and somehow ended up writing Dad!Beiyuan bonding with Chengling, Beiyuan thirsting after his husband and a sort-of-fix-it for WoH episode 36?? 😅

The plot follows the show, after episode 36, but their shared past in the novel (Qi Ye) did happen, if that makes sense? 😅 Sorry for the confusion.. The title is a Chinese poem called 蝶恋花 by Liu Yong.

Anyway, here's some XiYuan fluff/dad!Beiyuan/WoH fix-it? 😂😂

- - - - -

Fandom: Qi Ye, Word of Honor Rating: General Relationship: Wu Xi/Jing Beiyuan, Jing Beiyuan & Zhang Chengling Tags: Fluff, Bonding, Beiyuan thirsting after his husband, Fix-it of sorts Words: 2565 Summary: In an inn, Jing Beiyuan and Wu Xi, together with Zhang Chengling, await the return of Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing, who have run off to die on a mountain. Beiyuan has to care for Zishu's disciple, while being distracted by his husband.

Read on AO3

- - - - -

Butterflies in Love with Flowers

Jing Beiyuan has plenty of practice waiting.

He has waited for sixty years at the Three-Life Stone, has waited for Helian Yi for six lifetimes. Has waited in the Imperial City for his schemes and machinations to bear fruit, has waited for Wu Xi. He has plenty of practice.

Which doesn’t mean, however, that he is a patient man.

Jing Beiyuan paces the inn room he shares with his husband, deliberately walking closely past Wu Xi who is sitting cross-legged at the low table reading, looking entirely unperturbed. Much to Jing Beiyuan’s dismay, that is to say, so he brushes Wu Xi’s back with the seam of his sleeve every time he walks by.

Wu Xi doesn’t react for a while, but after the sixth turn, without saying a word, he casually grabs Jing Beiyuan’s sleeve and, turning slightly, pulls him down in his lap, effectively trapping him there with both arms tightly around him.

Jing Beiyuan is a lot of things, but he's not an idiot, and he would never let an opportunity pass to cuddle his husband. With a deep sigh, he settles into the other’s embrace, leaning his head on Wu Xi’s broad chest.

“I am worried,” he admits eventually.

Stroking his hair soothingly, Wu Xi just hums in quiet understanding.

"I'm worried about the two idiots on the mountain," he adds, as if that wasn't obvious, and Wu Xi, as expected, doesn't reply. Jing Beiyuan continues, unbothered by his husband's lack of reaction. "I keep telling the little idiot," here he pauses to marvel at the fact that he distinguishes his companions merely by the grade of their idiocy, then sighs inwardly, "that his shifu and shishu are fine, that he should focus on his training in order to have something to show his shifu upon his return, but sometimes I…." He trails off, snuggling closer into the other's neck.

Zhang Chengling isn't coping well with the fact that both his mentors left with the intention to die on that mountain, albeit with different purposes in mind, and Jing Beiyuan has had to forcefully stop him from climbing that mountain himself, twice by now. For now he seems to have begrudgingly accepted his fate, although Jing Beiyuan can see his outbursts of anger for the fear they are.

He inhales deeply, willing his thoughts to calm down. All they have to do now is wait, wait for Zishu and his little maniac to return safely, and return they will, he has no doubts about it. He can’t, for Chengling’s sake.

A knock on the door interrupts the silent moment and with a groan, Jing Beiyuan clambers out of his husband’s lap to open the door, while said husband reaches for his abandoned book. The elderly innkeeper in front of him doesn’t spare a glance at Jing Beiyuan’s slightly ruffled hair, fiddling with the cap in his hands. At the other’s raised eyebrow, he bows so deep his forehead seems to touch his knees, and Jing Beiyuan has to bite back a grin.

“Yes?”, he asks magnanimously. The man shifts uncomfortably. “Your highness,” he begins, but Jing Beiyuan interrupts him with a hand on his shoulder. “I am certainly not worthy of such a noble title, my good man, just call me Lord Seventh, and speak freely. What bothers you?”

The other man bows again, not as low as before, but it still looks uncomfortable. “Your lordship,” he begins, and Jing Beiyuan sighs, hearing a slight huff of laughter from behind. Wu Xi knows of his resentment against his past life and the decorum it entailed. “Your lordship,” the man repeats, sounding increasingly desperate. “Your, umm.. The young master… He… The courtyard…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, but Jing Beiyuan has a vague idea of what he is trying to say, so he just nods and breezes past the innkeeper, who hastily shuts the door and scrambles to follow him.

From the inn’s inner courtyard he can already hear a dull thudding noise that grows louder as he approaches. In the yard, next to a small wooden shack, he finds the source of the noise: Zhang Chengling, gracelessly hitting the timber wall with a training sword, his face and back sweaty, his hair in disarray, his mouth a thin line. Jing Beiyuan nods to the innkeeper, who retreats to another building, then slowly approaches the boy, keeping his distance from the sword. Leaning on the wooden wall, he stays silent, observing Zishu’s disciple. The boy has grown a finger’s breadth over the last weeks, his body starting to stretch, his face about to lose the softness of childhood. He has seen a lot these past months, Jing Beiyuan muses, and feels infinite fondness for the little idiot.

Zhang Chengling has seen him, of course, but doesn’t make any move to stop his grim assault on the shack, so Jing Beiyuan says after a while, “You might want to use a real sword when you intend to put a hole in that thing.” His teasing doesn’t gain a reaction, however, the boy still hacking away at the wood. “Chengling,” he says after a while, softly, gently, “they will return.”

“I know,” comes the strained reply, but the beating doesn’t stop. The hits seem to grow less forceful, though, and Jing Beiyuan inches closer. “If Tian Chuang had succeeded,” he adds quietly, “we would know.” He looks directly at Chengling who stubbornly avoids his gaze, but his movements slow further, until he swings the sword like a flag bearer his banner in a parade. Jing Beiyuan carefully closes the distance, intercepting the last swing with his hand, gripping the wooden sword. He notices its shaking, and it’s only a heartbeat before Chengling collapses into his arms, letting go of the sword and wrapping both arms around him in a desperate embrace. Jing Beiyuan lowers the sword, then enfolds the boy in his arms, a hand on the back of his head, and lets him sob quietly into his shoulder.

“I miss them,” the boy snuffles into his robes, his face hidden. “Sometimes I dream about them, dead and cold, buried under all that snow and I…” He hiccups, then starts sobbing again. Jing Beiyuan breathes slowly. A few days after Zishu, and then the Ghost Valley Master, ascended the mountain, there had been news of an immense avalanche that had buried a large group of people, presumably the joined forces of the Window of Heaven and the Scorpion King. But nothing had reached them since, and all of them had grown restless, even Wu Xi, even though he would never admit to it.

A hand on the boy’s back, Jing Beiyuan rubs soothing circles. “Come with me,” he says at last, “Let’s go inside and have some tea, hm?” A nod, then Chengling takes a step back, sheepishly rubbing his red eyes. “‘m sorry,” he mumbles, but Jing Beiyuan just huffs. “Never be sorry for how you feel,” he admonishes gently, putting an arm around the boy’s shoulder, subtly scooping the wooden sword up with the other hand. “Let’s have some tea and sweets, what do you say?” Chengling sniffs again, then says with the hint of a smile, “Didn’t the Great Shaman explicitly forbid us to eat sweets before dinner?” Jing Beiyuan makes a carefree gesture, then, lowering his voice, adds in a conspiratorial tone, “We have to hide it, then,” which finally makes Chengling laugh. A lighter air around them, they stroll back to the room. (Wu Xi gives them a stern look as Jing Beiyuan retrieves a bag of sweets from his sleeve, but says nothing when they share some over tea, which Jing Beiyuan secretly finds endlessly endearing.)

⚘⚘

The next morning finds Jing Beiyuan on a bench in that same courtyard, at the other side this time, half hidden under a canopy hung with ivy. In the middle of the courtyard, illuminated by the rising sun, Wu Xi is practicing his martial arts.

Jing Beiyuan admires everything about his little venom. His honesty, his loyalty, his unrestrained emotions, but watching the other train always leaves him breathless and with a dry mouth. Wu Xi, in his usual black robes, is a sight to behold: Even under layers of cloth his broad shoulders are visible, his long black braids with the silver hairpiece, the moon mirrored in a clear lake at night. Wu Xi in his robes is a force to be reckoned with. Wu Xi without his robes, in just some black pants, is… Well. Enticing enough to make Jing Beiyuan leave the bed before sunrise and watch him train, even after being together for years and having seen his husband naked plenty of times. Still, watching him move through the forms is different. His skin glistens with sweat, making the light catch on his collarbones, his abs. His movements show a raw power, a graceful intensity that always reminds Jing Beiyuan of a large tiger. He moves silently, with deadly precision, as if he wanted to sneak up on a hidden assassin. He doesn’t use a weapon, but Jing Beiyuan knows how strong he is, how fast, and is pretty sure that a sword would only slow him down.

Distractedly petting the sable that is curled contentedly in his lap, Jing Beiyuan marvels at his husband, until Wu Xi ends his performance with a graceful vault, landing on his hands and feet like a large cat. His hair, tied back only with a simple black leather cord, falls over his face with the movement, his eyes like glimmering coals behind the black curtain. It reminds Jing Beiyuan of their early days, of the time Wu Xi wore a veil, and he himself a mask of another kind. Trying to hide the slight shiver, he smiles at his sweaty husband who now approaches him. Before he can say anything, Wu Xi steps between his knees, carefully scooping up the sable, then reaching down to cup the nape of Jing Beiyuan’s neck. With a hint of restrained power, he pulls him up and into a searing kiss. Smiling against his lips, Wu Xi whispers, “Room,” and Jing Beiyuan lets himself be pulled.

It’s still early enough in the morning that they don’t have to be overly cautious, so when they shed their respective robes - and pets, Wu Xi’s tiny green snake gets set in its cage, while the sable leaps nimbly away from the commotion - Jing Beiyuan can’t suppress a giggle at his husband’s eagerness.

“What brought this on?”, he asks, a little breathless, as the other’s teeth close over his pulse point. Wu Xi stills for a heartbeat, then bites down harder, licking over the spot, which elicits a shiver.

“You,” is the answer, and Jing Beiyuan pulls away a fraction to look at his husband with a raised eyebrow. “I can’t remember doing anything out of the ordinary,” he smirks, “whereas you were--”

“You watched,” Wu Xi breathes into his neck, leaning back in. With another giggle, Jing Beiyuan lets himself be pulled to the bed.

Later, when they lay under scrunched up covers, sated and sweaty and content, Jing Beiyuan nuzzles into Wu Xi’s chest, inhaling his sharp scent.

“Would you do that,” he asks eventually, his voice quiet. “Sacrifice your life, I mean. For me.”

“Yes,” is all Wu Xi answers, firm and without hesitation. “I would. I will. Everything.” His arms tighten around Jing Beiyuan. After a long silence, the latter says softly, “But what if I didn’t want that?” He turns slightly to look up. “What if I didn’t want a life that’s bought with yours?”

Wu Xi doesn’t meet his gaze as he replies, “I still would. I couldn’t bear the thought of being without you, Beiyuan. I’m a coward, but I couldn’t. I thought I’d lost you once, and I..” His voice breaks, and Jing Beiyuan reaches up to cup his face. “You’re not. I would like to say that I would react differently, but…” He shrugs with a wry smile. “I wouldn’t. If I could save your life by giving up mine, I would. I would, and then wait for you again at the Three-Life Stone, until you came to meet me. And maybe this time, you would be the one with white hair.” Snuggling closer, he trails a finger over the other’s chest, then places his hand on his sternum, feeling the unrestrained energy underneath. Wu Xi turns his head, then cups Jing Beiyuan’s cheek, meeting him in a slow, languid kiss.

“I love you,” he breathes against the other’s lips, “I have loved you for all your lifetimes and I will continue to love you in all that follow. Where you go, I’m going, Beiyuan.”

⚘⚘

It takes almost another month until Zishu and his little-, no, his giant idiot return. On a sunny afternoon, as if they had just been out for a stroll, they saunter casually into the inn’s dining room, and Jing Beiyuan almost drops his teacup, staring in disbelief. Before he can say anything, Zishu grins - he grins! - at him and plops down into the bench opposite him, Wen Kexing at his side. Jing Beiyuan notices in utter shock that the latter’s hair has gone completely white.

“Wha--,” he starts, but now the waiter has spotted them, hurrying over. Giving their, admittedly quite ragged, appearance a cautious once-over, he clears his throat, but Jing Beiyuan hurries to assuage him. “Whatever these gentlemen desire to eat,” he declares, probably with more grandeur than necessary, “they will receive.” The waiter hurries to nod his head like a turtle, but Zishu just shakes his head. “Just cold water,” he says, much to Jing Beiyuan’s and the waiter’s astonishment, but the latter immediately scrambles off to bring them their order.

Jing Beiyuan looks scrutinizingly at both of them, then says slowly, “Welcome back.” Zishu nods solemnly, taking Wen Kexing’s hand under the table. “Sorry it took so long,” he says quietly. Jing Beiyuan snorts. “You don’t have to apologise to me,” he gestures into the general direction of the inner courtyard, “but to your silly little disciple.” Zishu at least has the decency to flinch, looking uncomfortable. But it is Wen Kexing who speaks first. “How is he?”, he asks, and Jing Beiyuan notices the cautious fondness in his voice. Shrugging, he admits, “There are good days and bad.” After a pause, he adds, more quietly, “And good nights and bad.” Zishu nods, as if in agreement, and Jing Beiyuan’s curiosity wins over. “What happened?”, he asks animatedly, gesturing to the state of their robes, then Wen Kexing’s hair. “You were gone almost two months, and--”

Zishu interrupts him, sounding incredulous. “Two months?” He casts an uncertain glance at his companion who looks equally stunned. “Oh.” Inhaling slowly, he adds, “Well, I’d prefer to tell the story only once, so where is that useless disciple of mine?” Grinning, Jing Beiyuan gestures again to the inner courtyard. “Training.” Zishu gives him a skeptical look, then gets to his feet. Ignoring the waiter who just arrived with their order, he heads for the inner courtyard. Jing Beiyuan tilts his head a fraction, looking at Wen Kexing, both smiling slightly. Then, from outside, “SHIFU!”, and a dull thud, followed by another muffled “Shishu!”.

Smiling into his teacup, Jing Beiyuan closes his eyes. Some stories seem to have a happy ending after all.

[pilmik]

No better way to start a writing blog than by writing something completely self indulgent lmao college students this might hit too close to home but in my defense the new sem started and I'm. Mess

Gen: angst ig???some fluff? hurt/comfort? Quite literally just me writing what I want to hear

CW: insecurities, negative thoughts

Wakatoshi loves volleyball

Everyone knows this

Ever since he was little, he's lived and breathed for the sport

There's nothing better to him than the feeling of the ball hitting his hand, the adrenaline rush of a scored point, the satisfaction of a game well won

He didn't get this far on enjoyment alone though

As his s/o, you know this better than anyone, save for his coaches and teammates of course

You know the effort he's put in, you know that for every second he shines on the court in front he's spent hours practicing alone or with his teammates

And he shines on the court

Watching him play will never fail to make your heart stutter and your lungs feel like they're not getting enough air

After being with him as long as you have, you know enough about volleyball to know that Wakatoshi is something special

His speed, his strength, his reliability

No matter how many times you see that spike, the sound of the ball hitting the floor stays deafening

Wakatoshi was made to play Volleyball. It's an objective fact. Sometimes you think that the sport loves him just as much as he loves it

Sometimes, you get so jealous you could scream

one of the perks of being the volleyball captain's s/o is that you always get the best seats

You watch front row as your boyfriend leads his team to victory, and he always leads them to victory.

You watch, time and time again, as he scores the match point, that sharp wham of the ball hitting the court that sings triumph

Wakatoshi isn't the most expressive person. When his team wins a game, most people would write off his impassive face as nonchalance or as vanity, thinking maybe he's won so many times it doesn't feel like anything for him anymore

But you know him. You know that if you look hard enough at the end of a game, you can see a gleam in his eyes. A gleam that somehow means both satisfaction and hunger

Because while at the end of every game means victory, the end of every game also means the start of a new one, a new challenge, a new opportunity to be on the court. He loves every second of it

You know you're probably the worst person on the world for feeling this way about someone you love, but every time you see that gleam in his eyes, any pride and happiness you feel on his behalf is stained with resentment and an envy so bitter it stays on your tongue for days

You've never had that gleam in your eyes. You've never loved something so entirely, so completely as Wakatoshi loves volleyball

You honestly doubt you ever will

It's not like you're talentless or you don't have hobbies, you have the things you're good at and you have the things you like to do but it's not the same

You want so desperately to know what he feels like, to be doing something and to think, I could do this for the rest of my life and die happy

on your worst days, you wonder why he stays by your side at all

You watch him play, surrounded by his court and his team (no the court or the team, his.) And you wonder what he could get from you that he couldn't get from the sting of the ball on his palm, or the squeak of his shoes on hardwood

He's brilliant, wherever he goes be burns so brightly you swear he leaves scorch marks. What could a forest fire possibly want from a candle?

You watch them play a game against some college team, they win straight sets and Wakatoshi dominated the court, scoring a majority of the points. you're quiet on your way home, and he asks if you were bored by the game

You immediately tell him no, because on most days you love seeing him play, and you try and explain how you feel

He doesn't understand what you're talking about, obviously

Contrary to what most people think, your boyfriend isn't stupid or dense. He has trouble understanding different social cues and conceptualizing some of the more complicated emotions other people feel, but he's not an idiot

But these specific insecurities are something he's never had to face. For him, it's been volleyball since the start. His earliest memories are of his father in the yard, tossing a blue and yellow ball into the air while he sits on the engawa, chubby hands holding tight to a pink vabo-chan plush

It doesn't make sense to him, if you don't have anything like that, then all you need to do is find something you're good at, correct? Then you'll be happy

He tells you this, in his usual matter-of-fact way. (you can imagine how that went)

He doesn't understand why your eyes go glassy, or why you tell him you'll be fine walking by yourself for the rest of the way

But he does understand that he's made you upset, and he knows that he never wants to look into your eyes and see tears that he's put there

As he walks back to his dorm, he's wracking his brain trying to make sense of how you told him you felt, and what he said in response

He's still thinking as he enters the doorway, ignoring Tendou's greeting as he neatly removes his runners and puts them away

This, of course, alerts his redheaded friend, knowing Wakatoshi was taught to mind his manners

He leaves whatever he was doing to see him at the entrance, taking in his pinched expression. He knows that Wakatoshi walks you home after every game, and it doesn't take a genius to connect the dots

He quickly presses the pad of his thumb between Wakatoshi's furrowed eyebrows, smoothing the lines there

"trouble in paradise, Wakatoshi-kun? You can't keep frowning like that you know, you'll get wrinkles! Everyone already thinks you're an old man"

Wakatoshi trusts his best friend, even if he teases him constantly. Besides you, Tendou is his main confidant

He explains what happened much like someone would explain a mission report, in perfect unbiased detail. He tell him what you said, how he thought and responded and your reaction. Tendou is always patient with him, giving him his full attention.

After he finishes his story, his friend sits on his haunches in the middle of the hallway for a few minutes, pointer finger to his chin, head cocked and eyes to the ceiling, hmmmmmming thoughtfully

Wakatoshi waits at the entrance of their dorm room until Tendou snaps his eyes away from the ceiling and onto him

"Wakatoshi kun, I'm going to need you to imagine something for me"

His eyebrows pinch together again, but he nods

"Imagine you never played volleyball, you're exactly the same in every way, except your dad never showed you so you never learned how to play. Try and imagine who you'd be"

Wakatoshi tries his best to imagine, he replaces the blue and yellow ball in his memory with a red one, the bouncy kind they sell in bins at the grocery store. He replaces vabo-chan with some kind of stuffed animal wearing a bow

He thinks about school, about going straight home after class is over, and going to the gym only on weekends

He finds he's skipping parts of his life in large gaps, empty spaces he doesn't know what to do with, his future completely blank. It's terrifying.

Tendou must see the dawning horror on his face because he jumps up quickly with a flourish, clapping his hands together once to draw Wakatoshi out of his daydream

Tendou looks at him, smiling and says "y/n-chan doesn't have their volleyball. Most people aren't as lucky as you, finding your volleyball so early Wakatoshi-kun. Some people never find their's at all"

He stands at the entrance quietly for awhile after Tendou returns to his room, thinking about how scary it felt to imagine, even for a few minutes, his life full of the blanks that his sport filled

He wonders how it would be like to have those blanks empty all the time, with not even a clue how to complete them

Swallowing his pride, Wakatoshi realizes he wouldn't be able to live like that. Wouldn't be able to go forward into such unknowable territory, under such impossible odds

He thinks about you waking up every day, seeing your life full of blanks, and still pushing forwards despite it

He doesn't get much sleep that night.

You wake up in the morning to Wakatoshi's text ringtone

7:10am Toshi <3: Call in sick for first period.

7:10am Toshi <3: I am going to pick you up at 8.

7:13am Toshi <3: I will bring you breakfast.

7:27am Toshi <3: Wear a light jacket, it's chilly.

The half of you that's still hurt over yesterday wants to tell him to shove breakfast up his ass, but then you realise something

You stare at your phone, deeply confused

Doesn't he have volleyball practice before school?

You get ready quickly, and sure enough, when you walk out of your door at exactly 8:00, Wakatoshi is there.

He's wearing his tracksuit and runners, and he hands you a paper bag from the conbini. There's an apple, a bag of grapes and onigiri. In his other hand he's holding a warm drink, written on the lid is your favourite, exactly how you like it

"I am taking you to the park."

You tilt your head up at him, confused

"don't you have volleyball practice?"

"I'm skipping. We are going to feed the ducks."

The idea of Ushijima Wakatoshi skipping volleyball practice stuns you into silence, and you simply follow his lead to the direction of the park, you walking and him doing some sort of ridiculous exercise thing that looks like it'd make you puke

When you get there, you're happy to find that your usual bench is empty.

Wakatoshi pulls a water bottle out of his ridiculously-deep men's tracksuit pockets while you take the bunch of grapes out of the bag, neatly dividing it in half. You decide to take the big half of the grape bunch for once, because he was being a jerk yesterday and you deserve to feed the ducks more than he does. You give him his half and you both start feeding the ducks in silence

After awhile, he decides to speak

"Tendou made me imagine something yesterday"

You turn to face him, but he's still looking at the ducks

"he told me to imagine my life if I'd never played volleyball"

He frowns

"he said to imagine everything about me was the same, except I never started playing. I found that it was difficult"

"there were many things I found I couldn't fill in, both in my life and in myself"

"but the worst part was imagining the future. I couldn't imagine a single thing to put in it"

"I wouldn't be able to live like that. To live every day and see blank spaces and uncertainties. It sounds terrible"

He pauses for a moment and you're like :/ wow king thanks for the pep talk

But he takes a deep breath and he continues

"I think, for a person to face that uncertainty and keep pushing forward, they would have to be exceptional"

Your head snaps to look at him so fast you almost get whiplash

Exceptional

There's a word that you've never used to describe yourself

"I think, that if I knew someone like that, I would tell them that they are strong in a way that I doubt I will ever be"

He finally turns to look at you, and you try your best to see him through the tears distorting your vision

"after awhile of thinking, I finally thought of something that I could put in that blank future. Would you like to know what it was?"

You just nod, not trusting your words. His big hands gently engulf your own and for a moment you're absolutely certain Ushijima Wakatoshi will be the death of you

"if I didn't have Volleyball, if I didn't have a single clue of what I could do with my future, if I still had you by my side, I think I would be alright"

One hit K.O.

He keeps going though, as if he didn't just kill you

"if you would have me, I'd like to be in your blank future. For as long as it takes for you to find your volleyball, I'll be there. If it's months or years or decades,"

"if decades pass and you never find your volleyball, I would still like to stay by your side. Maybe your volleyball is looking for volleyball?"

His face contorts in consideration of the idea, and you can't help but laugh wetly, your tears soaking into his jacket as you bury your face into his arm

He presses a soft kiss to your head

"I apologize for what I said last night. I didn't understand"

You only shake your head

You two sit in companionable silence for a little longer so you can eat your breakfast, then you both walk to second period hand in hand

It's only in the boredom of your math class that you realize the gravity of what your boyfriend had said to you in the park

11:08 you: Tendou

11:08 you: was I tripping

11:08 you: or did Wakatoshi /propose/ to me in the park today

Tendou is typing......

A/N: I've never posted this kind of stuff before so comments would really be appreciated! Like if there's something I could do to make my stuff easier to read or whatever I wanna hear it! Even if it's mean I promise I'll only cry a little

[kaiparker-avengerssmut]

Their Doll 6

Righteous and Condescending

B.Barnes x Reader, S.Rogers x Stark!Reader

series synopsis:  y/n Stark, all records of her non existent, and yet Hydra still find her. When she is kidnapped by a certain super-soldier and no one believes her, she finds herself searching for unexpected familiarity in her not-so-distant past.

Series Warnings: smut, violence, torture, swearing

Chapter Summary: Tony and Steve are dicks

Warnings: angst (I think), swearing

A/n: The timeline in this has been altered, as there I things I wanted to include but I also wanted this fic to follow the storyline/timeline of Winter Soldier and Civil war.So for purposes of this fanfic, Peter Parker was discovered by Tony at a much younger age - when he was bitten - and has been an intern with him since, almost like a protégée.(For the purposes of this story Peter was bitten much younger too - more like when he was 9 or ten rather than 14/15)

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

"You're kidding, right?" Tony drawled, chewing obnoxiously on another blueberry. When Bruce didn't respond, Tony frowned slightly, turning to Steve. "He is kidding, right? I mean, she doesn't even look like Lily!" Tony said harshly, but Steve wonky sighed heavily before closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them he passed Tony the sheet of paper that held all of his answers.

Tony snatched the piece of paper from Steve's hand, eyes running over the black ink cynically over and over until he finally looked back up at the table of avengers. Bruce and Steve had hard expressions, whilst Thor and Clint looked genuinely amused with the situation, and y/n had a resentful glint in her eye.

Now that she met him again, seen him up close, she couldn't help her bitter tone as she snapped.

"How's Peter?" Her eyes were cold - colder than ice as she glared at Tony, hand balling into fists in her lap. Tony gulped, eyes darting around the room and avoiding her's.

"At school," he said slowly, "and living with his aunt May." Y/n scoffed, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms.

"I'm surprised you even let that kid out of your sight. I mean come on, Dad, we're to too busy pampering your little protege to even spare a week to come and find me? Do I mean that little to you?" Y/n asked, a glint of tears now in her eyes. Tony made a face, as if he'd been wrongly accused, and held his hands out in defence.

"Come on, kiddo, that's hardly fair - he was only young, and struggling at that." Y/n gasped at her father.

"And I wasn't? After years of loving me you just decided he needed more than me? It hurt, dad, and I tried to tell you that but you didn't listen!" Y/n's voice broke on the last word, a tart finally slipping from her welling eyes.

"Maybe you should take this to another room?" Bruce asked weakly but his comment was lost the second Tony began talking.

"You think that kid didn't need my love too? His parents died, y/n! It's not like I just picked him up from the streets and discover he had superpowers!" Tony almost shouted, his raise in voice making y/n flinch. Her eyes blew wide at his statement and the man seemed to realise what he'd said the second her reaction was seen.

"I-I didn't mean to-"

"Mean to what, dad? Didn't mean to abandon me? Didn't mean to let HYDRA torture me, force me to kill for them?" Y/n interrupted, completely ignoring the bulging eyes glued on her and Tony as they bickered.

"Y/n, I-"

"You what? Are you sorry, dad? Do you feel bad?" She snapped, pushing harshly from her chair and standing inches in front of him. "Well fuck you, because you were so wrapped up with your little Spider-man project that you forgot me. And I deserve better than that." Y/n stormed away, fists clenched at her side as she tried not to punch her dad or anyone else in her fit of rage.

"Y/n!" Steve called after her, but the girl was already gone. Steve was out of his seat a second later, charging after the girl who he considered completely out of line. "Y/n!" Steve snapped, wrapping his nimble yet thick fingers around her bicep and spinning the girl to face him when he caught up to y/n.

"What the do you want, Rogers?" Y/n seethed, face burning with anger.

"You're completely out of line, cut it out." Steve grit through his teeth, grip on her arm only tightening as he pulled y/n closer to him. It was like they were sharing the same air, with how close he was now standing to her.

"So you're telling me that if you saw the man who left you to die - or worse - for the first time in years, you wouldn't be angry too?" Y/n demanded.

"Yeah, but unlike you, I wouldn't react so brashly." Steve countered. Y/n raised her brows.

"Oh, really?" She challenged.

"Really." Steve confirmed, jaw clenching and unclenching. "If you want to remain here, without rotting in a cell, I suggest you straighten out your attitude."

"Oh yeah? And what're you gonna do about it? I hardly doubt Natasha would approve, and Thor seemed very fond of me." Y/n smirked, crossing her arms over her chest. Steve's jaw clenched again and he quickly pushed her backwards.

Y/n made a 'hmph' noise as her back collided with the wall, air rushing from her lungs rather unpleasantly.

"I'd watch your mouth if I were you, little one." Steve was now the one seething, whilst y/n had become rather amused at his little 'lecture'. "I'm the one pulling the strings around here, so you better watch it." He continued, before pushing away from her and turning to walk down the hall. Before he was out of range, he called over his shoulder, "I want you down in the gym and ready to train in ten. Don't be late."

...

"Harder." He demanded, arms crossed as he watched y/n punch the bag. "I said harder, y/n, not faster." Steve scolded, frowning as the girl seemed to think speed was much better than technique.

Y/n's knuckles were sore from punching the bag repeatedly, the wraps that once acted as a thin barrier between her skin and the bag long gone as they'd unraveled after the relentless punching. Steve had scolded her about that, of course, remarking scornfully about how if she'd wrapped them better it wouldn't be an issue. He had done nothing but criticise her - from the way y/n wrapped her fists down the the damn way that her fist hit the bag.

She could do nothing right, in his eyes, and it was infuriating. They had been at it for three hours, and Steve had only allowed two drinks breaks over the whole course of that time. They started on hand-to-hand combat, and when Steve decided she couldn't even punch him right, he had taken it upon himself to teach her. And now here they were, two hours in and Steve was still making the same criticisms. It was hard to tell whether y/n just wasn't listening to him or if Steve just didn't like her.

It was most probably both.

"That's enough." Steve finally said and y/n came to a halt, breathing so heavily it was as if she'd been exercising for hours with no break-

Oh wait. She had.

"Let's take a look at your aim." Steve decided, already walking towards the target practice.    Y/n finally caught her breath, striding over to join the super Soldier and picking up a belt from the rack on the nearby wall - one filled with an array of throwing knives that she'd been itching to use once she'd gotten in there.

Despite wanting to use them, y/n couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness - tinged with nostalgia - when she eyes the knives, the silver, glimmering blades only reminding her of The Soldier, and how he'd been left behind. Not that she figured he minded, after all, he never seemed to mind being HYDRA's assassin as long as he got fed.

"C'mon, Stark, let's hope your aim is much better than your punch. For your sake." Y/n clenched her teeth. Did he not remember she was a trained killer and assassin by HYDRA? Or was he just that self-righteous and condescending? The question was swiftly answered, and in the following moments y/n chose the latter option.

Y/n set herself up, pulling her shoulders back she made sure her stance was correct - just like the soldier taught her - and her wrist was loose - just like the soldier taught her - and threw. The knife pierced just to the right of the minuscule centre point, y/n's breathing steady and yet still heavy.

"Almost. Fix your stance."

[ichitora]

「 Birth 」

:: Because this day is not only about his birthday

» with Chifuyu Matsuno and Toman founding members

《Content Warning - Canon divergent - AU, third POV, Comfort, just characters interacting with each other, platonic relationship, tr dvd booklet 1 minor spoilers》

【 notes - Happy birthday to my one and only, Kazutora! 】

The traffic light turned red.

The road was heavily busy for an unknown reason to which Kazutora paid no heed. His eyes were on the vehicle before them. A classical music played, filling the silence of what seemed to be an empty shell of a car and somehow isolating them to the noisy businesses that surrounded them. It didn’t disturbed him. Not when it’s his friend, Chifuyu who’s maneuvering, eyes stuck on the road as well.

A smoke made its appearance not too far from them, probably just a few cars away. It looked raging mad by the way its darkness occupies the sky. Kazutora raised his eyebrows.

“Huh? What was that?” Chifuyu mumbled under his breath. He propped his arm on the door and leaned his head on his fist. Kazutora did the same on the opposite side, hoping to take a glimpse of what’s going on outside.

“Damn these kids!” They overheard an annoyed old man on the neighboring vehicle. It was so loud that not even the music could cover it. Kazutora tilted his head more.

It was a small car on fire. Barely recognizable as the firemen did their best to put it off. The only thing that’s left was its bones, scrap materials no one would use.

So, that’s why the traffic became heavier.

Kazutora tucked his yellow side bangs on his ear, smirking as he squinted his eyes for a bit.

“What a lame ass.” Another person said, neither Chifuyu nor Kazutora made an effort to respond. Kazutora glanced at Chifuyu, watching the raven haired man with a tiny smile on his lips. For that moment it was as if they shared one brain cell. One brain cell that provides a huge impact straight down to their hearts.

It was some kids’ doing they say?

Of course, it only reminds them of a certain person.

Both of them didn’t have the guts to bring it up though. Their heads are connected under one idea, yet they prefer to keep it to themselves, putting it as a way of telepathic communication. It didn’t have to be talked about.

It wasn’t as if it’s a sensitive subject for Kazutora and Chifuyu, in fact the memories of the past with 𝘩𝘪𝘮 stood to be the teas they share when they have nothing else to do in the pet shop.

And how funny it could be that 𝘩𝘦 is the reason why both of them are settled in the car at the moment.

It didn’t take too long before they arrived, taking the items they brought with them until they halted in a specific family grave.

Now, the air feels like chunks of solids that are heavy to breathe on. The wind passed by from time to time, the leaves reminding them to remain reverent within their stay. Chifuyu sat like what he usually does, not minding his slacks attracting some dirt. He took a few foods out of the plastic bag, not missing the iconic peyoung yakisoba he and Baji used to share. Alongside it was a small cake and a few cans of drinks.

Kazutora, with his hair resting on his nape and shoulders, followed, going down like a frog to take another yakisoba with him. His eyes scanned the engraved characters on the marbled tombstone that didn’t look like one to him. For him, the characters before his eyes just morphed into a person he also had been longing to see for a long time.

Oh lord, he wanted to hug him so bad.

If the deities would grant him permission to see and embrace him again, he will not hesitate to do so and not let go.

“Oi, Baji.” He greeted. Chifuyu said nothing, preparing to split the yakisoba to offer it to Baji. Kazutora was certain he had something to say. He has thought of it multiple times on their way here as if he’s memorizing a script, however the way his heart clenches made him lose all the words he knew. “I...”

“... I saw a car on fire a while back.” That caught Chifuyu’s attention. He gazed at Kazutora. The wind blows, allowing him to see how his sandy eyes shone upon his words.

Within Kazutora’s smile, it reminded him of the first best birthday he ever had in his entire childhood. The memory that stayed with him after his brain forced to control, alt, delete the existence of his traumatic past.

The vehicle was burning so bright in their eyes. Just the same way it ignited their friendship the same day. Before Kazutora could even gather himself, he already had a friend who would dedicate himself to stay by his side.

September 16. It wasn’t a bad day at all, he just got the best gift he would treasure to this very day.

It aches.

Time flies as some would say, but the memories don't. The memories that can contain different emotions every second just stays. It knows how to keep up.

The longer Kazutora envisions Baji sitting in front of them, the more he wanted to tear up.

But he can’t.

His tears are too shy to show their existence. He does not intend this day to go down like that.

“I’d always share my birthday with you, you know that.” Kazutora’s voice almost wavered. Chifuyu bit his lower lip, looking down. There weren’t many words, yet the feeling felt too overwhelming to take in, it naturally oozes out from them without them knowing.

Kazutora sighed. His heart feels like it's dropping every second. He’s breathing under the water and every inhale stings.

“We used to eat peyoung yakisoba together,” Kazutora whispered, just enough for Chifuyu to hear. “One for you, and one for me.” His hand was trembling a bit as he opened the food. “But I guess this time you have to split it with this dude beside me, huh.”

Chifuyu smirked. He raised his noodle like a glass of wine. “Happy birthday.”

The containers collide. “Cheers.”

Perhaps it wasn’t just his birthday the two of them are celebrating.

Kazutora would rather like to put it as the birth of his and Baji’s precious friendship.

“Baji and I exchanged punches the very first time we met,” Kazutora stated just a little while as he and Chifuyu alternatively told Baji some stories of how their lives went. The grave stood there like a diary, both hoping for their words to reach the deceased wherever he will be. There then the older lad tilted his head, emitting a jingling sound from his earring. “He pierced my ear the same day.”

—

Chifuyu chuckled. “Well, that’s Baji-san for you.” He smiled. “I remember Mikey-kun telling me a story one time where Baji-san used to name himself Edward while he was named Michael— Mikey for short, just when they were still kids.”

Kazutora stood in disbelief. He beamed, averting his eyes to the Baji family grave. “Really? What a lame-ass. I never have heard of that.”

“I couldn’t believe it as well. I tried imagining myself calling him Edward-san instead of Baji and I just couldn’t take it seriously from there.”

They snickered.

“Edward,” Kazutora mumbled, both of them laughing again. “Who the fuck would name themselves as Edward?”

“You know, if Baji-san hears us right now he’ll be annoyed.”

“Oh, what is he gonna do? Rise from his grave? Because if the answer is yes then I wouldn’t stop calling him Edward.”

It was a simple conversation, yet it lifted up some of the unspoken woes they do their best to keep within themselves. It became like this. It was as if Baji was just with them. This place had become their comfort zone that they are a few steps away from committing weird shit right in front of his innocent tombstone.

Kazutora sighed, their chuckles fading out. He placed his hands in his pockets. “... Mikey.”

He didn’t know why the name slipped out of his mouth, hence the name also brings him back some memories, rather reminding him of one of the reasons why things have ended up like this.

And as if he was a summoning expert, he felt a presence on his back.

Kazutora didn’t move.

Chifuyu’s eyes widened for a split second with the newly arrived person’s appearance, still in his casual black tees and checkered coat, paired with black pants. His hair that is as dark as night, danced to the chilly breeze of the wind.

The light atmosphere they built up had been adulterated. None of them said a word. Kazutora didn’t have to look back at who it was. Just the aura was enough to be aware of who’s with them without a doubt.

Mikey stood with hands in a praying position, shutting his eyes with his silent prayers for a few moments before straightening his posture. All of them were like statues, waiting for someone to try to break the silence. The yellow-eyed lad breathed slowly, feeling his heart slowing down in heartbeat.

Manjiro Sano.

Kazutora wouldn’t deny how awkward they are currently. Mikey forgave him and they ended on good terms. yet the graze in their friendship can no longer be mended. They’re now left as two individuals who pay respect to each other, without resentment and without regret as to how they want to put it.

“I—“

“It’s been a while, Baji,” Mikey said. His voice never ceased to strangle Kazutora in his words while Chifuyu was just there, paying witness to what can unfold next. “I hope you’re happy.”

Kazutora smiled. A genuine one. “... He is.”

Chifuyu, Kazutora, Mikey— seeing the three of them together all fine with each other would surely give relief to Baji wherever he may be, that’s what Kazutora would like to think. At least that thought comforts the weight he always carry with him since the beginning.

He didn’t die in vain.

They all looked at the grave with their sincere eyes, as if it was telling Baji that he could always be at peace. It was mixed with emotions of missing a loved one with a glint of happiness no word can describe. It felt like a story ending where one way or another they have to bid their farewell and go on.

“The others... they’re waiting.”

Chifuyu and Kazutora glanced at him, faces painted with confusion. There then they noticed a group of people not too far away from them. The latter’s doe eyes thought he was looking at something unreal, chest rose and fell— puzzled. The edges of his lips stretched involuntarily all the way towards his ears. He couldn’t believe he’d be seeing them all at once today. Not when he hadn't seen them together for years.

Pah chin, Draken, Mitsuya—

It’s the rest of the Toman founding members.

What he heard next was another surprise.

𝘔𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘺…

“Kazutora, happy birthday.”

Thus, the rest of the day was Chifuyu tagging along with Tokyo Manji Gang’s founding members for Kazutora’s birthday that also served as a small, unexpected reunion.

“I already ordered some food on UberEats. Thank you very much, Kazutora!”

The gang cackled.

“O-oi! Mikey— I didn’t even bring my wallet! Chifuyu!”

“Doesn’t sound like a me-problem at all. That’s on you, you bastard.”

“Don’t worry too much, Kazutora. Pah Chin got us!” says Mitsuya in his gentle voice.

“Oi, why am I even dragged into this?!”

Perhaps, Kazutora's day could still get better without him knowing.

[mothergayselle]

Mark Of A Demon // Obey Me! // MC x Lucifer (ft. everyone)

rating: M words: 10k summary: during her first year in the devildom, the brothers notice that freya's beginning to look different. frightened by this, both the demons and angels work together to figure it out. (spoilers for the end of season 1)

(this is so long, pls read on ao3 lol)

xxxxxx

They first noticed something had changed after Leviathan. To start, it’d been so minute an observation, a thing in passing only.

“Hey, Freya. I think you got something in your eye.”

The glow of Levi’s television illuminated the space directly in front of her and Mammon. They sat cross-legged beside the otaku, who studied the screen with an intensity that was absolutely unparalleled. 

He cried out at it every so often, always startling the two out of the haze which had oozed into their atmosphere. The liquid-y drunkenness of the hours just before dawn had seeped their way into them. 

This was despite the relentless, blue glare of the television setup in Levi’s room, which bleached away all of the color from their faces. And like Levi, the television also screamed. More specifically, at the three people in front of it.

Mammon’s lids were heavy, battling the ferocity of fatigue as he watched Freya begin to rub at her eye. He’d pointed to the left one, and Freya grumbled out noises of discontent when repeatedly asking: Is it gone? – only to have Mammon shake his head once more, snow-white hair obscuring the defeated bridge of his brow.

“Whatever,” she moaned, burying her face in her knees. “I’m so tired. I’m going to die.”

Mammon mumbled in agreement. “Same. But Levi’s never gonna let us go to sleep now. He’s too close to the end of the game.” A scowl brimming with resentment slackened his features.

“We’ll just have to kill him then,” Freya replied. The sound was muffled, but upon lifting her head, she saw that Mammon was already grinning down at her.

“Cool. I’ll get him first.”

xx

After that night, Freya would sometimes catch one of the brothers staring at her. True to form, much of it felt like a game and so Freya would pretend not to notice. If the brother in question wasn’t Lucifer or Asmodeus, it was always assumed she was oblivious. Stupid demons. 

Those two, however, knew of such a game – made for wily, mischievous vixens such as she – and would cease their scrutinization upon perceiving the exact moment she’d returned the attention. 

The brunt of these exchanges relied on nonverbal communication. This left room for doubt, and Freya wasn’t always certain on what was trying to be inferred. If she wasn’t so convinced of her safety, one may have suspected trouble of some sort. 

But Freya felt it too. Something… different about her. The sentiment wasn’t off-putting, and she didn’t feel wrong, but every check in the mirror stirred her spirit, as if it was trying to tell her just exactly what was going on. 

This was the true reason why she allowed the brothers to stare as they did. Her faith in the brothers dwelled in the liminal spaces between each joint, where her intrinsic being had been harmoniously knit together from birth. Their rubbernecking, the bewilderment always present… They were searching for something. 

And if she couldn’t find it, if she couldn’t discern what the thing inside her was, the thing people reacted to… 

Would they?

read on AO3

[rein-ette]

A cleaner version of my previous ask 😅

Engport, babysitting (catsitting, plantsitting etc) or fire, please?

Oooookayyyy, so. I wrote...something. It's for the engport + fire prompt, but if I'm going to be completely honest it doesn't have anything that much to do with fire, though I swear I did come up with it because I was thinking about things related to fire. And this first part of it doesn't have much engport either, though there's certainly a lot of Port. It does have a cute small animal in it, if that's any consolation.

I do also have another idea for plantsitting, so I might write that at some point, but I didn't want to keep you waiting much longer so -- please accept my apologies and this fic that I can almost guarantee is not what you thought it was going to be.

Warnings: abuse of Greek mythology and one scene from Spirited Away. Also skulls. One skull. And I guess, death? But not really.

The realm of the dead was turning out to be a lot less crowded than Gabriel had expected. Since many mortals died every day, he had imagined that the banks of the river Styx would be crowded with souls, screaming or writhing or whatever spirits did in agony as they waited for their passage to the Underworld. Instead, Gabriel stood alone on what appeared to be a train platform, in the middle of a river so still he could easily see his own reflection in it, and so wide it might as well have been an ocean. Gabriel only knew it was a river because he could sense that the water was drawn to him like a curious child to pretty flower, responding to his immortal parentage. Unconsciously, Gabriel flexed his fingers and wondered if the steaming waters of the Styx would listen to him if he tried to command it. Probably not, and seeing as he was going to be knocking on the door of her master momentarily, Gabriel did not want to be introduced as that nephew who had angered the Goddess of Hatred the moment he had woken up in the Underworld.

Fat lot of good his powers had done him anyways, since he had died at sea.

Hadn't mother always told him the Oceanids were bad shit?

Sighing, Gabriel looked around again at his surroundings. He realized with no small amount of surprise that, while he had just been alone, now several shadowy figures stood with him on the platform, the edges of their figures melting in and out in the thick fog that rose from the waters around them. He tried to examine their faces to see if any of them were the spirits of his crewmates, but whenever he thought he could make out a feature their faces dissolved back into the fog. Exasperated, Gabriel glanced back at the river, noting with another jolt of surprise that now he could see the dark outline of a set of train tracks beside the platform, about half a meter underwater and stretching away into the blackness. Not long after he registered that, he heard the rumble of a train in the distance.

I suppose that's my ride, he thought to himself. The old myths said that Chiron ferried people on a boat across the Styx, but apparently the Industrial Revolution had come to the Underworld as well. Snorting at the thought, he dug in his pocket for his gold coin, which any good sailor always kept in case the ever-capricious ocean claimed them — even semi-immortal sons of river goddesses. Clearly, this was a good habit, because being semi-immortal had not saved Gabriel from that torpedo, which had reduced his poor ship to a lump of floating scrap metal before Gabriel could call up enough power to fill a water bottle, and, oh, all those poor soldier boys who would now never get a chance to die in a gruesome war and fulfill their heroic fates —

Gabriel could not find his coin. Frowning, he searched the front pockets of his admiral's tunic as well, even though he knew he had not kept it there. When that yielded nothing, he moved on to his back pant pockets, then his boots. For the first time since he had drowned in the icy cold Atlantic (which, admittedly, was not that long ago), Gabriel felt a shiver of true panic run through him. How would he board the train without his coin? How would he enter the Underworld? How would he join the ranks of the heroes in the Elysian Fields, where he belonged? Had he perhaps lost his coin when he had rushed to the railings to survey the damage on deck and was promptly dropped into the roaring Atlantic when a stray bit of flak from the exploding engine room tore clean through his right leg?

Now that he thought about it, that seemed likely.

At least he’d gotten his leg back.

The train slid to a rippling stop into front of him. With a soft swoosh, the doors opened, and Gabriel found himself staring at a man who, despite his smart train conductors uniform, could not have been anyone but Chiron, given that his face was a gleaming skull and his eyes literally balls of hellfire. It seemed the god had tried to update his aesthetic for the 20th century as well.

Chiron proffered to him a small wooden box, in which Gabriel could see several gold coins. Desperately digging through his pockets one last time, he finally shook his head. "I’m sorry, I don’t have the fare, I —"

The doors slid closed in his face, and immediately the train began to pull away.

Muttering a few choice curses, Gabriel stumbled a step away from the edge of the platform and watched as the train picked up speed and swooped away into the darkness.

Somehow, he doubted it would be returning to this station.

In the ensueing silence, Gabriel weighed his options. He could sit on this platform and mope, possibly for eternity. He could jump in the river and hope that his aunt either saved him or tore his soul into shreds from the agony. He could try walking along the rails in the direction the train had left, also possibly for the rest of eternity, in the hopes of reaching the entrance to the Underworld eventually.

Gabriel took off his shoes and chose the last option, despite feeling that sulking for the rest of eternity held a certain amount of appeal. He was very good at sulking. Nevertheless, he waded into the water at the end of the platform and found immediately that Hatred was lukewarm, not freezing cold like he had imagined — a nasty, suffocating lukewarm which swirled thickly around his thighs with the collected resentment, broken promises, lurid thoughts and heavens knew what else of millions of miserable souls.

He had feared the water might send him immediately into convulsions of unbearable pain or suck his consciousness right out of him, but as he continued along the track nothing remarkable occured. Perhaps the Styx had sensed his godly parentage and was protecting its kin. Or perhaps Gabriel had collected so much resentment in his long life that the river didn't even recognize him as a foreign body. Whatever the case, Gabriel held his shoes gingerly in one hand and sloshed on.

Quickly, he lost all sense of time, distance, or direction. It felt like he had barely taken two steps before the platform he left was swallowed by the fog, and the tracks underneath his feet curved and meandered like a small stream itself, without rhyme or reason. Gabriel realized that even if the water had not immediately destroyed him, he could not walk forever, and when he finally collapsed from exhaustion he would either be eaten by whatever dwelled in this wretched river or drown over and over in its depths until it dissolved him like a piece of wet toilet paper.

Still, he could not turn back. There was no hope even if he managed to return to the platform, and while a lesser man might have cowered in fear on dry land anyways, Gabriel had spent most of his twenty one centuries of life fighting and wandering across the oceans anyways. Wading through an infernal river until even his immortal soul crumbled into the waves — it seemed somehow like a fitting end.

To distract himself from his happy thoughts, he began to sing. At times it was just a wordless tune, but when he felt inspiration hit he added lyrics. He sang of his birth on the sun-kissed banks of the Douro, the eldest son of its beautiful immortal gaurdian and a local Roman nobleman. He sang of his siblings, not all of whom had inherited his mother's immortality, and he sang in particular of the one brother who did and accompanied him through the aching, bittersweet years that followed. He sang of the lands he had travelled, some bursting with life and colour, others stunning in their harsh, barren beauty. He sang of his lovers, the princes and the ladies, the soldiers and the nymphs and the humble farmhands whom he had courted, bed, and occasionally wed — but never to last, for mortal lives were but a flicker in the endless night and even the immortal ones could not tether down his heart for long. The stars called him, the waves called him, and Gabriel always, always answered.

He suppposed now, though, he had finally found his last resting place.

This thought was immediately followed by a less melancholic one: I didn't know polecats could swim.

Gabriel stopped singing and instead stood and watched as the little furry animal approached, paws paddling furiously as it slipped through the water. It stopped when it neared him and splashed around for a bit, before lifting its snout and looking pointedly at Gabriel, its dark eyes gleaming and intelligent.

Gabriel hadn't known that polecats could give pointed looks, either.

He cupped his hands and extended them to the animal, which immediately scrambled on and promptly snuggled up in his palms, curling into a little content ball. Unable to hold back a smile, he stroked its slick, midnight fur with a thumb, marvelling at how soft and warm it was and how docile it seemed.

Well, he thought, at least I still sing well enough to seduce a polecat.

"You've seduced more than just a polecat, that's for sure," someone muttered.

-- part 2 is here --

[wish-that-i-was-buckys-girl]

hey! could i possibly request a blaine one shot where the reader is another girl working on the ski patrol with blaine and they absolutely hate each other, but one day they get stuck in a snowstorm during work and end up lost for a few days? and during those few days they just get more and more lied up with each other until they just end up hate-fucking our in the open? it can end however, but i’ve been dying for some blaine action🥰🥰thank you💕

Thank you so much nonnie! I enjoyed writing this so much. I hope you enjoy it too!

Warnings: Fat Shaming, smut, slight bullying.

If there are any misspellings I’m sorry! I wrote this all on tumblr and didn’t get a time to proofread it in a different document.

Ice, Ice, Baby.

_______________________________________________

You walked to the cafe for hot chocolate at seven o’clock in the morning to prepare for your shift. It wasn’t easy being on ski patrol, that’s for sure.

Dads always tried hitting on you while you were trying to watch their wives kids struggle to learn the most basic of skiing. You just nodded in agreement and smiled a little to get through the conversations. Wouldn’t wanna get written up for being “rude” to a paying member of the resort. It wasn’t always so bad, some of the dads were kind of cute, and they always tipped well if you just did the bare minimum of looking good and reacting to their advances. You weren’t even supposed to get tipped, but that didn’t stop them. However, you didn’t enjoy watching their wives glare at you around dinner time. You could always feel their eyes burning into the back of your head.

Although you absolutely loathed the attention from the dad’s (besides the occasional tip), there was one reason why you absolutely dreaded going to work every day.

Blaine. You could say he was the Blaine of your existence. Shitty dad jokes always crept into your head due to how much time you end up spending with them.

You had tried being nice the first couple of weeks into the job, only to be met with incredible amounts of misogyny and downright assholeishness. God, you hated him. It was so unlike you to hate anyone, but the kid was ruthless.

He always made nasty remarks about the way you look, whether it was your facial features or your weight, he had it covered. Even though he always tried to get his friends to join in on the action, they never did. Everyone else liked you at the resort. Blaine was the only problem.

You made your way up to your snowmobile, tredging in the deep snow with your backpack and snow shoes on. You secured your hot chocolate and your backpack before riding it all the way up to your post. The post wasn’t too bad by itself. It was close to a nearby cabin in case of emergencies, stocked with food, with working water and electricity to last for up to a month. Even longer if it was less than 4 people.

You finally arrived at your post, hoping Blaine wouldn’t be there yet.

He was.

Fuck.

“You’re looking plump today y/n, more than usual. Must be from all the hot chocolate you’ve been drinking” he said laughing to Chaz. Chaz just rolled his eyes under his sunglasses. You could tell.

“Ha ha Blaine, you’re so original. It’s not like I’ve heard that one before yesterday. Or the day before that. Or the day before that.”

“Yeah, well I think saying it everyday is a good reminder. Maybe I’ll see you in the resort gym one day because of it.”

“Why? Is it cause ya wanna see my tits bounce in a sports bra? Get ya all hot and bothered?”

Blaine just gritted his teeth in response. You could tell he wanted to say something, but didn’t cause he didn’t want to give you the wrong idea. Or the right idea.

Blaine always had a pretty girl on his arm. You doubt he was attracted to you, but you say those things because it shuts him up every time.

You bundled up extra today. The news said there was a possibility of a snow storm, but it was highly unlikely. Still, the wind chill was extremely cold today, making you double up on the clothes underneath your snow suit. You wore a beanie, mittens, and a scarf too, just in case.

You and Chaz chatted for a while, Blaine giving you resentful side glances and a few eye rolls here and there to show his detest towards your interaction. God, what was his fucking problem?

At about noon, Chaz took his lunch, leaving you and Blaine alone for at least a half an hour.

Silence filled the mountains. Barely anyone was out on the slopes due to the potential storm coming, but that didn’t stop your job from making you go out anyways.

The silence was broken with a call from the walkie talkies. It was your manager, Janice.

“Get off the slopes, news just confirmed one of the worst snow storms to hit this side of the mountain in three years. I repeat ge-“

The walkie talkies went silent. The wind began to pick up, starling both you and Blaine. You acted quickly, knowing this could be a life or death situation. You both hopped on your snowmobiles to get to the cabin nearby. Unfortunately, Blaines wasn’t working. You quickly shouted “Get on!” Reluctantly, Blaine hopped on the back of your snowmobile. Thank god it was his snowmobile that wasn’t working. You’re not so sure Blaine would’ve rescued you if it was your snowmobile that died and not his.

You reached the cabin just in time, the snow finally picking up with the wind. You quickly grabbed the keys from your snowmobile and stuck them in the front door.

“Hurry! Jesus Christ we’ll die at this rate!”

“I’m trying asshole! Stop yelling at me!”

The door finally swung open. You and Blaine rushed inside, aggressively slamming the door behind you and locking it.

Both catching your breath while clutching onto your things, you made eye contact.

Of course you thought.

Of course I’m stuck with the one goddamn person who hates me in the middle of one of the biggest snowstorms of the decade.

Blaine didn’t hold back what he was thinking.

“Great, I’m stuck with Fat Albert with minimal supplies. We’ll be out of food by tomorrow.”

You scowled at him snd stood up.

“THAT’S IT. First of all, I’m not fat. Second off, even if I was, that is none of your goddamn business to make comments on it. I have fat on my body. Just because I’m not the twink of the century like you doesn’t mean I should be degraded for it. We are stuck here for god only knows how long. If you just shut up I’m sure we can make it through this. But you’ve got to stop being such a fucking asshole to me all the time.”

Blaine just stood there and rolled his eyes again at your response. At least he didn’t open his loud mouth.

Such a fucking drama queen.

_______________________________________________

As the sun began to set, your stomach started to growl, loudly. You resisted eating all day due to Blaines comments, but you knew you had to eat at some point.

You gathered the courage to make your way into the kitchen to look around.

Thank god they keep this up to date regularly.

There were tons of cans of different soups, ravioli, spaghetti, fruits and vegetables, and non-perishables that would keep you sustained for a long time. Especially with only two people being in the cabin.

You decided to microwave some of the ravioli. Just as you opened the microwave door, it shut again with a hand directly planted on the glass.

“Well well well, what do we have here? Is two ton Tony looking for a little snack?” Blaine said in a mocking tone.

“Fuck off Blaine. It’s dinner time, I’m hungry and I know you are too. You just haven’t eaten yet to prove a damn point and humiliate me. Now if you don’t shut up I will eat all the food and make sure you starve to death.”

He grimaced at your response and walked to a cupboard to look for food of his own. Thank god. You swore you were five seconds away from giving him a swift punch to the face.

You both ate your dinners in separate rooms. You didn’t want to interact with each other more than you had to.

After a few more hours of existing in separate rooms, you decided you wanted to fall asleep for the night. You casually walked into the bedroom, having absolutely no pajamas to change into, you figured you would either sleep with the clothes you had on or just sleep in your underwear. There were enough blankets to keep you warm if you did end up choosing the latter. As you walked into the room you noticed something horrible.

There was only one bed.

How could this even be possible? There were supposed to be four, as most times three to four people were on ski patrol.

Then you remembered three out of the four beds were taken out two months ago, as they were desperately disgusting. The shipments for the new beds hadn’t come in yet, figuring a situation like this wouldn’t even happen at all.

Go figure.

You decided since you got to the bedroom first, you’d have the bed. Fuck Blaine, he’d been an asshole to you the entire time you’ve known him, he can sleep on the damn couch.

You began to strip, thinking it was wise not to smell up the two sets of clothes you had to last you for god only knows how long.

You ended up sleeping in a bra and underwear. Normally you wouldn’t have even worn the bra, but considering Blaine was in the building and you couldn’t lock the bedroom door, you figured it was the safest bet.

As you crawled into bed you heard footsteps heading towards the bedroom.

Here we go.

Blaine entered, looking just as bewildered as you did when you found out there was only one bed.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

You ignored his comment, simply rolling over under the covers.

He stormed over to the bed and ripped the blanket off, revealing your half-naked body in the process.

You became infuriated.

“Hey!!! Do you fucking mind!” You said screaming and grabbing for the blanket.

Blaine stood there in a daze for several seconds, not expecting to see as much as he was planning on seeing.

Thank god I had my bra on.

You expected Blaine to have a comeback to seeing your body. Something about a beached whale ending up in the bed, or anything along those lines. Surprisingly, he didn’t. He had nothing to say at all. He just turned around and slammed the door behind him.

What the fuck was his issue? Whatever it was, he better fix it fast. Your patience was running thin, and it was only day one.

_______________________________________________

Several days had gone by, and the snowstorm wasn’t slowing down at all.

Blaine had ignored you at all costs. If he had to interact with you, he always made some snide comment under his breath. This somehow pissed you off even more. At least before you didn’t have to guess what he was thinking, he said it directly to your face. Now, you had no clue what he was saying about you. God it made your blood boil.

It was around lunchtime again when you saw him. You had chosen to eat chicken noodle soup that day, as you had been colder that day compared to most others.

On your way out of the kitchen, you bumped into Blaine.

You heard him make a comment under his breath again, something alone the lines of “.......fucking bitch.......where you’re goin.”

You had had enough.

“What the fuck did you just say?”

He was taken aback by your abrasiveness. Nonetheless, he still had a response to your question.

“I said, watch where the hell you’re going you fucking bitch.” He enunciated slowly, in a condescending manner.

You were done.

“I’ve had enough of this fucking bullshit Blaine. Why the hell do you hate me so much? What the hell did I ever do to you?”

“Your looks have insulted me from the day I met you. I learned all that I needed to know by just looking at you.”

Out of no where, you decided to shove him. You shoved him so hard he hit the wall behind him.

He looked confused and offended.

“Did you just shove me?”

“I don’t know, did I just shove you? Or did you trip over your enormous fucking ego?”

Blaine stood up tall and pinned you to the wall.

He looked you dead in the face, his eyes piercing into you with anger and something else...

You returned his stare, hopefully having the same effect on him that he was having on you.

After staring at each other for what seemed like an eternity, Blaine kissed you, hard.

You resisted, you resisted so much but your head didn’t have anywhere to go. After a few seconds you gave into the kiss, slowly moving your lips with his. You hated to admit it, but his lips were so soft. It was like kissing clouds surrounding the gates to heaven.

Finally, Blaine pulled back and began staring into your eyes once more. Again, you lept at each other. You grabbed his hair and the side of his face, while he grabbed your hair and your ass to hike up your leg against his hip. Your lips were on each other in no time, sucking and pulling on both his lips and his tongue.

God you were so turned on.

You hated that he made you feel this way but fuck if he wasn’t good. He felt so goddamn good.

He hoisted you up against the wall, your legs wrapping around his hips as you continued to aggressively make out like the two horny twenty-one-year-olds you were. After kissing for five minutes straight, Blaine put you down so you could both remove your pants.

You spoke first “We don’t tell anyone about this.”

Blaine just nodded in agreement, eager to put his cock inside of you.

He hoisted you up against the wall for a second time, wasting no time shoving his cock into your pussy.

“Ohhhh fuck Blaine... go slow go slow...”

You also hated to admit it, but he wasn’t lacking in at least one department.

He smirked, knowing it was too much for you in such a short amount of time.

“What’s wrong y/l/n, can’t get fucked right either?”

“Maybe if you fucked me better I wouldn’t have to complain so much.”

All the talking had allowed time for your pussy to become soaked. Blaine could feel how wet you were. He also noticed how tight you were.

“Fuck, your pussy has been this tight the entire time and you never told me?”

“Oh Jesus Christ just shut up and fuck me before I change my mind Blaine.”

That’s all he needed to hear. He also took it upon himself to take that as the cue to go as fast as he needed to.

He started pumping in and out of you at a rapid pace, making absurdly loud slapping noises in the process.

You couldn’t help but moan into his neck, his name on your lips every ten seconds.

“Fuck, fuck , fuck Blaine don’t stop! Oh god don’t fucking stop.”

He loved hearing his name come out of your mouth like that. In all honesty, Blaine has wanted to fuck you since the day he met you. He suppressed that lust with crude comments, hoping the feelings would subside. Guess that didn’t work out too well.

“Yeah you like that baby? Huh? Like that I’m fucking your pretty pussy?”

“Oh god yes Blaine! Fuck me harder!”

He wasted no time, pounding into you as fast and as hard as he could. You couldn’t help but let your eyes roll in the back of your head as he fucked you so good you thought you were about to see God himself.

Blaine loved seeing you like this, drained by him fucking you relentlessly. In fact, he loved it so much he felt the need to repress his feelings once again, which would be his last effort in trying to do so.

“I still fucking hate you, oh god, oh fuck.”

You looked at him, dead in the eyes, and said “Bold words coming from a man who’s cock is in me.”

All he could do was smile, going in for another kiss while he continued to plow you.

Both of your moans filled the cabin, screaming with no shame, knowing for a fact no one would hear you.

You felt a tight coil forming in your lower stomach, causing you to hold onto Blaine’s shoulders tighter.

“Oh fuck Blaine, I’m gonna cum, oh god I’m gonna cum.”

Blaine took it upon himself to whisper more comments in your ear as you reached your climax together.

“Goddamn right you’re gonna cum on my cock. This is my pussy. No one else gets to touch it, just me. Cum for me baby, you can do it.”

You both screamed as you came, Blaine unintentionally spilling his seed into you. Thank god you remembered to bring your birth control pill.

Just as you two were coming down from your high, you noticed something out of the corner of your eye.

Not something, but someone.

It was Chaz.

You hadn’t noticed while you were fucking, but the snow had cleared up enough just for a one person rescue party. Chaz had come in just moments ago. However, he didn’t say anything. He really didn’t have anything to say. He was stunned.

As you both stared at Chaz, you were the first to speak.

“Well, fuck.”

[rocking-space-dragon]

Alrighty, so.

Philza, Phliza, Philza. Philza Minecraft.

What to make of you?

To start, I think it's important to talk about Phliza's first major appearance on the server - at the end of November 16th.

It's important to think about this Canonically, as it's incredibly impactful to his character.

Now, Phliza, from what we can gather, raised Wilbur and Tommy - Alongside his best friend/surrogate kid, Techno. They're best friends and not related, sure, but you're not gonna tell me Philza didn't raise Techno and Wilbur like they were both his kids.

I guarantee Techno accidentally called Phliza dad at some point, but we're getting off-topic.

What's we do know is that, at some point, everyone left. They went off to do their own things, and this is, to me, incredibly important. I wish we had a timeline of how long it's been since everyone left, because that would help, but the reason why I think this is so important is because I believe it contributes majorly to The way Phliza acts in regards to his kids - but I'll get to that later.

:readmore:

Back to the topic at hand - Philza shows up to find what?

One of his sons is broken down and losing his mind, ready to blow up a city he helped found. The other two are fighting to the death, both utterly convinced they're in the right - and before he can convince his first son to do the right thing, he blows everything up and forces him to kill him.

IMMEDIATELY after that, he's got to help fight off the monsters one of his sons summoned, in the ruins of this town.

It's been less than two months since that day. No wonder Philza says that governments take genuinely nice, kind-hearted people and turn them against each other with power and corruption. He's not just talking about Tubbo and Tommy.

He's talking about Tommy and Techno.

He's talking about Wilbur and Schlatt.

All that Phliza relates L'Manburg to is pain. He doesn't have memories like Tommy and the others do. To him, L'Manburg is the place which drove his first son to madness and eventually led to his death, exiled the second, trapped him under house arrest and tried to execute his best friend right in front of him.

Can you blame him for wanting it gone?

I can't. I genuinely can't think of a single good memory Phil had in that place - apart from a few with Ghostbur and Fundy, but I kinda doubt memories made with the ghost of your son and his son would help lessen the resentment you feel towards the town that killed one and orphaned the other.

Now, I want to move on from L'Manburg and toward Phliza's feelings toward his kids.

See, people say Phliza is a bad father, and I think they're... Not exactly right. Philza isn't so much a bad father as he is an absent one. Let me explain.

I mentioned earlier that Phliza, in canon, had his kids leave, and this is important because it's a show of independence. Sure, they're still young, but that's not the point - the point is that they'd already gone and proven to Philza that they were fine on their own, that they were ready to head out and make their own decisions.

And Philza respects that. He says, very plainly, that if Tommy wants his help he'll come get it.

Philza has the utmost faith in his kids that they'll come to him if they need him, but the issue, I believe, is that this faith has given way to a sense of ignorance. He's so confident that his kids are alright without him, that he's hesitant to make sure they're okay most of the time. Not all of the time - remember, this is the man who left house arrest and went all the way to Techno's base to make sure him and Tommy were okay without them knowing.

It's obvious Phliza still -cares- but he's been gone so long and he's given his children so much freedom that he's practically fallen out of touch with them, and doesn't really know how to fix it. People talk a lot about him not going to Tommy when he was in exile, but what was he supposed to do?

Not only did the majority of the server have no idea what was happening in Exile, he -knows- Tommy. He knows that if he'd shown up and tried to be all fatherly and comforting, Tommy would have most likely taken it as an insult, or as pity.

This brings me, tangentially, onto Ranboo - because Ranboo was someone who needed help, and Philza was happy to help him. He saw Ranboo wasn't okay, so did what he could to help him, after asking if he wanted it - if that's not a fatherly instinct, what is?

It's similar for Technoblade. Techno allies himself with Phil, spends time with Phil, talks to Phil; it's little wonder that he has preference to Techno. This doesn't mean he doesn't love his kids, but you're probably going to spend more time and be more inclined to side with a friend you've known all your life, who's still around, rather than your kids who left on their own journeys.

And it only makes sense you'd hate the people who tried to kill said friend - even if they were members of a town your son loved, and one was your grandchild.

See, I get the feeling that if Tommy or Wilbur went to Philza and told him they wanted help, or that they needed reassurance, he'd give it. He'd be there for them as their father - but the problem is, people treat Phliza like he's a father who's been living in the same house as them this entire time and ignoring his kids in the next room as everything burns down.

In reality, Phliza is a father who's kids have left home already, gone out and carved their own paths. They're young, sure, but they're stubborn, strong willed, independent. He's got faith that, if they need him, they'll come to him and he'll be there.

Fundy is actually a good example of this - when he came to Philza, talking about the adoption, asking for help, Philza let him live with him. He took him fishing. He spent an entire day with his Grandson because he needed it. But Fundy's also independent - Phil isn't the type to check in on him any time he's around because he has faith in them.

Most of all, I believe Philza thinks he's doing the right thing. I believe he thinks that blowing up L'Manburg helped his sons, because to him, all that town ever did was hurt them... Regardless of what the outcome might have been.

Is this due, in part, to the fact that he's likely still grieving over Wilbur? Most likely.

After all, It's only been two months.

At the end of the day, I don't think Philza is a bad father. I think he's a father who watched his kids leave, watched them carve out their own path in life together, and then had to watch one die in front of him. He's a father who cares deeply about his children, but respects who they are and their own independence and has faith they'll come to him if they need him.

The issue is that sometimes, that faith leads to him failing to see when his kids truly do need him - but don't have the words to say it.

[futurewriter2000]

Heartless - pt. 9

XX

You didn’t know where you were. You didn’t even know who you were at the moment when you finally started to realise dirt under your nails and fingers. Questions and memories came rushing back, piece my piece- like a slow puzzle. 

You opened your eyes, feeling a stabbing pain in your eyes but as soon as you did open your eyes, you saw a pair of shiny, pointy shoes in front of you. 

“James?” you asked weakly, feeling your stomach twist inside of you. It felt like there was a constant press on it, causing it’s insides to come up your throat. 

You haven’t felt good. Everything hurt and all you wanted to do was lay there and fall back asleep- then you remembered; you already did that before, didn’t you? Woke up for a moment, before falling back into darkness from so much pain. It was a constant cycle of suffering. 

You pressed your ear on the ground and let your eyelids close again. You could almost see your wand in the distant, the core of it only. The second half of your wand must be somewhere in the woods, broken from the road down. 

You felt the figure in front of you move, kneel down to you... feel the tip of his wand press on your neck. “Are you in pain, child?” he asked but his voice felt cold- like a breeze in the winter- and it sounded like a hiss, echoing in your ears. 

The tip of his wand travelled up your neck to your jaw, your cheek where it removed some of your hair. You let out a whimper, tears falling down your cheeks because you couldn’t move and you couldn’t feel anything but pain. Everything hurt so much to the point you didn’t know what to do. You thought of James and your family. You thought of Marcus and Sirius.... You left everybody behind, arguing with them, leaving them because you were upset and now you might die from pain and nobody is here to save you. You’d die alone. 

“Yes.” you cried, letting your lips tremble.... your voice catch in your last breaths. 

“Do you want me to save you?” he asked, his voice forever imprinted in your head. 

“Yes.” you said without any other thought, without any doubts. You want to be saved. You don’t want to die like this. 

The man’s lips twitched in a pleasing smirk as he took his wand away and placed his hand on top of your cheek. For some odd reason, it felt warm. It was warm and soft. His touch sent tingles through your body- a safe, comforting feeling. 

“I save you, (y/n) and you’ll be in debt to me.” he kept caressing your cheek as you let out sobs- sobs of pain, whimpers of loneliness, breaths of death. “Shh. I’ll save you.” he kept brushing his hand over your cheek. “You just sleep...” 

And his voice suddenly changed it’s tone into softness and tenderness, guiding you into a peaceful sleep. 

---

James woke up and after another horrible night of nightmares and twisted dreams. His stomach was like a hole- he felt it and he knew that it was because of you...

He wanted to worry but he was so furious at you. It was as if his gut was telling him one thing but his angry, prideful mind was doing the opposite. He woke up alone. Sirius wasn’t in his bed and the light was barely visible in the sky. He mustn’t had slept as well. 

With his thoughts on you- on your fight, your words- everything. 

‘ I cried every bloody night for a year because I hated my life and YOU WEREN’T THERE! YOU WEREN’T THERE JAMES BECAUSE YOU WERE TOO SELFISH BEING YOU!’ 

He shut his eyes and squeezed it, trying to brush those thoughts away. 

He opened his eyes again, this time softly and not as fast as he shut them. He could feel something spiking his eyes, something travelling up his throat as he continued to see your face just before you left- when you threw those pills at him. How could he forget that? But you were with Nina and you were safe. You had to be safe. 

He sat on the edge of the bed and put his bare feet on the rug. He dug his toes in the softness of it, clawing the rug as if it’s the only good thing in his life right now. 

Today was the third day since you were gone. He missed you. He missed the presence of you. It was as if half of him was empty because of you and that half started to spread into a whole. He threw his head into his palms, rubbing his hands up and down his face, down his hair. He ruffled them and looked to the side, finding his eyes on the framed photo of the two of you. 

“You’re just everywhere but not here.” he said, reaching up for the photo and looking at the two of you as happy children. “You have to be stubborn.. stubborn and dramatic...” he kept looking at your smile, where the front baby tooth was missing. He smiled at the thought of you, of the small utopia that formed in his head when the memories of your childhood came rushing back but then realised the reality of everything and stopped smiling. He rubbed his thumbs against the frame of the photo and put it face down on the bed. 

He stood up and made his way downstairs, where everybody was sitting in silence. 

There really was something missing in this family. It showed pretty clearly that everybody needed you here. There was a unique energy you brought to this house. There was a cup of coffee in your mother’s hands. She kept holding on to it and looking through the window as if you were about to come. 

And James knew that she missed you dearly after three days spent at Nina’s. He felt as if she resented him because of your argument. He felt as if his own mother couldn’t look at him because he chased you away. For three whole days. 

But when he appeared, she looked at him softly and smiled. “Morning, honey.” 

“Morning, mum.” he came to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. 

He rarely did that but since he knew that she was worried about you, he thought she needed it. 

He didn’t want to ask if maybe you called or wrote them a letter. He was afraid to do so becuase he didn’t know how they would react... 

“I think I’ll call Nina to check up on her.” he said and walked to the phone. He typed in the number and waited for the phone to ring. One, two, three times, maybe the fourth time he really wanted to give up but there was a sound of a laughing voice. 

It sort of gave him relief. Good, Nina was laughing, which meant you were laughing too. 

“Hey, Nina. It’s James.”

“James?” she laughed in disbelief on the other side of the phone line. “What brings you to call?”

“I- uh. I wanted to check up on (y/n).” he spoke softly, remorsefuly.

“(Y/n)?” there was a questioning tone in her voice, causing James’ heart rate to rise up. “What do you mean to check up on her?”

“Well, isn’t she with you?” 

“No. Should she be?”

“Nina, it’s not funny. She said she’s going to your place.”

“Did the two of you have a row?” she asked. “Again?”

“You’re acting as if you don’t know.”

“I don’t, James. Honestly, I just came home from Cuba last night.”

“Cuba?” 

“(y/n) knew this. She probably went to Marcus’ place anyway.”

“Yeah... probably.” James said doubtfully, glancing at his family, who all of them watched him with eyes as wide as a house elf. All they were missing was a pair of long ears. 

“And James?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Marcus is a great guy. You shouldn’t be against their relationship. They’re actually quite adorable together.” she giggled meanwhile James felt his eyebrows furrow.

“Relationship?” 

“Well, it was probably what the fight was about. She finally told you about them? She said she would on Friday.”

“She said she had a date with him? Nothing about a relationship.” he started to get frustrated. 

“Oh...” was all that came from the other side of the phone. 

“How long was that relationship, Nina?” he asked impatiently.

“I think I said enough.”

“Nina!” he warned her and only heard a sigh in return.

“A few weeks... months maybe. Almost whole summer.” 

“What?” James said in disbelief. “And she didn’t tell me?” 

“Why would she James? You never cared.”

“Why does everybody keep saying that?”

“James... you just stopped hanging around all of a sudden. You found your own group of friends in Hogwarts but we always kept in contact. Marcus really cared for her. He cared for all of us when you left.” 

“We were kids, Nina.”

“Yeah, but we were friends. Friends don’t leave and you did a shitty thing by leaving us- especially for Marcus. The two of you were best friends. He was broken when you didn’t even call. ” 

“I’m sorry, Nina. I didn’t know...”

“Sorry doesn’t take it with us, James. You had a life before Hogwarts. You had friends before those friends.” she started to get agitated, as if she was holding this for a long time. “I don’t know where, (y/n) but I wouldn’t blame her for leaving you. You were always an asshole to her. I think she’s at Marcus’ but how would you know when you never bothered to call him.” 

“Nina, I-”

“Goodbye, James.” she cut him off and threw the phone down. 

James kept the phone up to his ear. Nina really didn’t hold back, did she? 

He leaned on the wall, holding the phone in his hand as the line was cut. He took a deep breath in and felt a lump in his throat. He wanted to cry. Merlin, he would just want to curl up into a ball and cry. 

Did he really do you so much wrong? 

He looked at the phone and straightened his posture, taking a deep angry breath in and calling Marcus. He couldn’t believe he could still remember their house number- after so many years, Marcus’ house number just got stuck in his head. 

He picked up sooner than Nina did. Two rings.

“Hello?” 

“Hey, Markisha.” he put on a big smile, trying to lighten the mood and not make Marcus as upset as he did with Nina. “It’s James.”

“James?” there was a surprised tone in his voice. “Haven’t heard from you in a long time, mate. Except the time I called (y/n).”

“For a date?” James asked on purpose, knowing what he knows now. 

“Uh- yeah.” Marcus cleared his throat but tried to keep his cool.

“Heard the two of you were a thing- how did the first date go?” 

“Not good, if I’m honest with you mate.” Marcus took a deep breath in. “Got into our first massive fight.” 

“Makes two of us.” James added as a comment, then let his brain process the words again. “What was the fight about?”

“Your best mate, Sirius as I recall.” there was a bit of jealousy in his tone as James glanced at Sirius, then felt an uncomfortable feeling wash over him.

“She told you what happened?”

“She wanted to be honest with me. She promised it wouldn’t happen again but I was too pissed off.”

“But she’s with you, isn’t she?”

Marcus on the other line laughed with his usual voice that let James remember all those childhood days spent together. Guilt after guilt... “It’d be a miracle if she would after we said those nasty things to one another.” 

“Marcus...” James trailed off, feeling paranoia enter his stomach, fill that empty hole that he had. “... she’s not home for three days.”

There was silence on the other line for quite a long time. It let James wander if he threw the phone on him. 

“Marcus?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” he let out  breath. “What do you mean she wasn’t home in three days?”

“As in she said she was going to Nina’s place-”

“Nina was in Cuba.”

“I know that now. I thought she went to you.”

“She’s not with me, James!” Marcus snapped on the other side.

“Thanks for the clarification, Marcus!” James started to get furious as well. 

“What the fuck did you do, James?! What did you tell her?!”

“Me!? You’re the one she got in the-”

“But we figure it out, James! You don’t. You never apologise to her, you just piss her off and belittle her- you’re never there for her! You’ve always caused her nothing but pain!”

“Why is everybody on her side all the time!?”

“Because you’re the one that always fucks up and she’s the one that always ends up cleaning after you!”

“That isn’t true!”

“You’re a liar, James! Now, excuse me as I go look for her!”

“Marcus!” James tried to shout back but the line was already dead. 

James threw the phone into the wall and wanted to storm off to his room. He would if it wasn’t for his father, who grabbed his arm tightly and looked sternly into James’ eyes.

“What is it, boy?”

“She’s not at Nina’s. And she’ not at Marcus’.” he said, avoiding his mother’s gaze, ignoring her gasp. 

“Then where is she?” your father asked.

James shuffled his feet, took a few deep breaths until the guilt overflowed his body. He looked up at his father with shame in his eyes, just before he answered: “I don’t know, dad. I don’t know.”