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xmint-conditionx · 4 years

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⊹ lava cake ⊹ birthday sex | myg

✜ pairing: yoongi x reader; yoongi x fem!reader; dom!yoongi x brat!reader ✜ word count: 3.4K ✜ summary: your friend dragged you to this huge house birthday party for some guy you don’t even know, and she disappears with her boyfriend, leaving you alone in the crowd. while trying to find her, you lock eyes with a handsome stranger across the room who looks like he could use some company. ✜ warnings: 18+ only, light slapping, casual sex, orgasm denial, overstimulation, sex w/ a stranger, unprotected sex (pls be safe y’all), rough dom, slight public sex?? (idk y’all are behind closed doors but at a party so?????), oral (f), slight degradation. ✜ a/n: hiya! bringing this gem back a day late for the best boy's birthday! wrote this for his birthday a year ago, and one day it will get the sequel it deserves. yoongi w mint hair is my inspiration for my name, so this holds a special place in my heart.

i really hope you like it! thanks, luvs, enjoy!

<3 minty ✧

The crunch of ice in your mouth from your now empty drink is a welcome distraction from the overall din of the loud party guests and even louder music. You scan the large open living room of the house again for your friend and her boyfriend, but they’re nowhere to be found. “Wait right here, we’ll be back in a minute” Micha had said as Taehyung took her over to another part of the house, presumably to meet with another friend of his. That was half an hour ago. You impatiently begin searching the room once more for any sign of Micha’s bright pink hair, furrowing your brows in frustration as you come up with nothing.

As your eyes are rapidly moving from face to face, your search is halted by a minty haired man who is staring directly at you from the other side of the room.

He’s nestled in by the foot of the staircase, back leaning against the railing, red solo cup in his hand. The ends of his hair caress his tiny ears, which are decorated with long and dangly silver earrings, alive in the colored lights of the party. By the time you’ve assessed the man in full and return to his eyes, his eyes are still locked on yours. Unwavering, like a challenge.

You hold his gaze almost threateningly, but he doesn’t flinch away from your heavy eyes. While maintaining eye contact, he gently sips out of the red solo cup before brazenly eyeing you up and down and raising one of his brows in response. After he finishes his sip, he again makes deliberate eye contact with you and runs his tongue over his bottom lip, collecting the drops of drink that was left there.

Your friend is nowhere to be found, so you might as well go and make a new one.

You break away from his lingering stare to fill your cup, and then you make your way through the crowd to the challenger on the other side of the room. You expect him to be looking at you when you return into his line of sight, but are shocked to discover the opposite.

Where his gaze was full of intention, it is now lackluster. Where it had been on you, it now seems to be looking at nothing at all. The empty space in the middle of the room. You walk up and say the only thing you can think of that will get a conversation going.

“Lame party, huh?” you say, taking a sip of your drink and leaning into his direction.

“Yeah,” he says, still looking out into the distance, “I’m not really enjoying it either.”

“I don’t really know anyone here. I’ll be honest with you; I don’t even know the birthday boy. My friend’s boyfriend is a friend of his or something and she dragged me along so she ‘wouldn’t have to go alone’ or whatever.”

“Why aren’t you with her, then? You’d probably be having more fun.” he says as he finishes another sip.

“If she hadn’t disappeared on me an hour ago, I would be! This place is huge and I don’t want to go wandering around some strange man’s house. You’d think with all the money he has he’d at least be able to have better taste,” you say as you point to a bookshelf by the fireplace. “I mean look at that lava lamp! The 80’s called and want their aesthetic back, right?”

The man next to you just shrugs, “I don’t know. Some people like them I guess.”

You move your pointer finger to another corner of the room next to the bar. “That piano too? It looks so beat up! It doesn’t make sense with the rest of the decor at all. I wonder if this guy is alright. His head can’t be right.” you say and the man next to you snickers a little. You turn to him and meet his gaze again. It’s playful and a little dark; it makes you want to continue. “He could literally just buy a much better looking piano.”

His expression darkens further to a playfully scrutinizing one. “You’re awfully bold, insulting the host while you’re still at his party. If I were you, I’d watch that pretty little mouth before it gets you into trouble.”

This is going to be good.

“Oh yeah? And what if I don’t?” you fire back, staring up at him through your lashes. “Doesn’t seem like anyone is trying to stop me.”

He lets out a drawn out sigh and scratches the back of his neck, “Yeah, you’re right. And what a shame that is. I’ve got about a million ideas about what you could be doing instead of running that mouth. More… productive things.”

You raise your eyebrow at him. “Who says I’d actually take you up on your little ideas, hmm?” you tease.

His eyes darken further, and you know you’ve got him.

“Well, it would be your loss,” he says.

You dramatically roll your eyes for maximum sass, “Yeah right, I’m sure.”

“Is that a challenge, little miss?” he asks, his gaze narrowing and his body closing in on you, trapping you against the railing of the staircase. You begin to feel like prey, a sensation that only dampens your panties further. At this close distance, you can just begin to smell his aftershave. His free hand brushes up your exposed thigh and starts to slowly ascend up past the hem of your short skirt. Your heart begins to pound and your legs start to tingle as you hesitantly meet his gaze again. He leans in closer.

“Aww, cat got your tongue?” he sings in your ear, making you bite your lip. You can feel the heat flushing your cheeks. He can likely feel the warmth that is spreading to other places, because his hand stops just outside of the cloth of your underwear.

“Mmm, let’s see if you can stay this quiet when my tongue is in your slit. Now, be a good girl and follow me.” he says, suddenly backing off and walking up the stairs. You wince slightly at the lack of warmth, but don’t hesitate to grab his hand as he leads you up.

He brings you to a set of double doors to the immediate right of the top of the stairs. The light is already on and you can see that the ensuite bathroom’s lights are on as well. He turns back to shut both of the doors and you hear the faint click of the lock.

“Is this the master?” you ask, taking in the details of the room. “I don’t think the birthday boy will want people fucking in his bedroom.”

He’s back on you in an instant, arm around your waist, pulling you up against his chest. “I guess you had better keep quiet then.”

Your lips are suddenly being pressed against his. He immediately deepens the kiss, receiving your tongue into his mouth with sloppy enthusiasm. He starts backing you up towards the side of the bed. Once you get there, you’re shoved down onto the mattress, bouncing slightly as you recover from his kiss. You watch dumbly as he deftly strips off his leather jacket and yanks off his plain t-shirt. Once his stomach is exposed, you find your mouth open and watering at the sight of the little happy trail under his abdominal muscles. You don’t have time to process any of it though, because in another instant he’s on top of you, straddling your hips.

He hooks his thumb into your gawking mouth, holding it open and says, “I’m going to rip you to shreds, little girl. If it becomes too much, say genius. Do you understand me?”

You nod sheepishly and swallow hard.

“Let’s hear you say it then.” he demands, removing his thumb from your mouth.

“Genius?” you say in almost a whisper and he begins to grin.

“Good girl. Remember, stay quiet. We wouldn’t want to disturb the party,” he says, removing his weight from on top of you while shifting you up the bed so that he can situate your hips under his face. He doesn’t bother taking off your skirt; he just forces the fabric up, exposing your already soaked panties.

“All this for me? I haven’t even touched you yet,” he teases.

You huff in frustration. “Yeah, you should probably get to that already.”

He responds with a smart little smack on your still covered clit. You clench and moan at the sensation, looking down at him with your best puppy dog eyes. He is unimpressed.

“What did I say about watching your mouth, brat?” he says as he hovers right over your heat, just close enough that you can feel his breath when he speaks.

“I’m sorry,” you groan out as your legs begin wiggling in hopes of getting his lips to make contact.

“That’s better,” he says, teasing your entrance outside of your panties with his thumb, sending sparks up your spine. “I just don’t know if you want it badly enough, princess.”

“Ugh,” you scoff, “I don’t know what else I can do! Pleeeeease?”

“Please, what?” he asks with a smirk, sending you a look that is filled with fire. “What is it that you want me to do?”

“Please taste me,” you beg with fistfulls of the comforter, and in that instant, he rips off your panties and is busy sucking on your clit. You let out a silent scream at the new sensation, hands pulling even harder on the blanket. He licks down your slit and then into it, sending another wave of pleasure through you. You’re already so wound up that you’re close to the brink, almost teetering over the edge when you grab his hair and start to buck your hips into his mouth, chasing your release.

He pulls away, much to your distaste, earning a whimper from you.

“Whyyyyy did you stooooppppp?” you whine, and he shoots you another dark look right before he slaps your clit again, this time much harder. You let out a yipe as you involuntarily clench around nothing. “I was about to come…” you say in the most adorable voice you can muster, poking out your bottom lip for full effect.

“Who says you get to come?” the man replies, your slick coating his lips. He plunges two fingers into you and starts a slow, teasing rhythm.

“Please, move faster, I–” your voice is cut off when he starts flicking his tongue on your clit, bringing you dangerously close. You know better than to tell on yourself, and you clench in anticipation of your orgasm… but he quickly stops everything and leaves you to come back down slowly, agonizingly.

You’re desperate and dizzy with desire, on the verge of tears with how badly you want to come. He’s kissing your inner thighs, leaving little marks here and there where he sucks and bites. It’s like he’s comforting you through the torture, by somehow making it worse.

“Ple– Please just let me come. I’ve tried to be good,” you plead, consumed with want.

He stops his little kisses and looks up at you. He says, “One more, you can do one more. I know you can. Then I’ll give you what you want. I think you might have learned your lesson.”

He takes the fingers that were just inside of you and puts them in his mouth, drinking up every bit of your wetness that he can. There’s no resistance when he reinserts them. He sets a menacing pace, curling up his fingers to hit that sweet spot, his lips fixed on your clit and his clouded gaze fixed on you. Before long, your release starts to build again, and you try to hold it back as best as you can. He comes off your clit with a wet popping sound and says, “Not yet. Don’t you dare come,” his fingers still pushing you ever closer.

His gravelly command makes you clench and that does it. You’re rocketing through your high and he fingerfucks you all the way through it. He pulls his fingers out and gets off the bed, leaving you to come down from your climax with closed eyes and labored breath.

Before you’ve fully recovered, you’re suddenly being hoisted up. He’s got your back up against the headboard, that much you can tell. When you open your eyes, you can’t believe what’s in front of you.

The mint haired man’s lips are mere inches away from yours, and he has pinned your arms down at your sides. You’re straddling his lap, which is now only covered by a pair of black boxer briefs that aren’t doing much to hide his erection. The outline of his dick with it’s tiny wet spot at the head makes you swallow, hard.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, I told you not to come, princess,” he teases. “It seems you need a different approach to learning your lesson. Since you wanted to come so bad, you’re not leaving this room until you’ve done it three more times.”

Your mouth hangs open; your eyebrows shoot up. You don’t even know if that’ll be possible.

“But this time,” he says lowly in your ear, “you’re going to come on my cock.”

He takes your hands and puts them on his waistband, indicating for you to remove them. As you do and his cock springs free, you can’t help but to lick your lips at how utterly delicious it looks. If he didn’t have other plans, you would have gladly taken it in your mouth that instant.

He takes his member in his own hand and teases your entrance with the head, mixing his precum with your leftover wetness from before. Just that touch has you ready to go again. You take matters into your own hands, literally, by taking his shaft and lining him up with you. As you sink down onto his cock, his breath hitches and you’re glad that you’re not the only one who is being tortured tonight.

His hands are tight on your hips, your skirt having rode all the way up a long time ago. His eyebrows are knitted together in concentration, and before he allows you to start, you see his eyes dart to your cleavage and back up.

“Take off your shirt for me,” he says.

“Why should I?” you snark back.

He quickly pulls out and thrusts all the way up into you, filling you completely up, sending a cry past your lips that was likely too loud. You’re suddenly more keenly aware of the ongoing party right outside those doors. You comply with his request, and he seems pleased that you weren’t wearing a bra underneath your blouse.

“Number one,” he says and unleashes a cruel pace. The lewd sounds of your bodies slapping together only heighten your arousal, and you’re not surprised when you get close to your next orgasm. Sensing this, he grabs your jaw in his hand and directs your gaze to meet his.

“I’m– I’m gonna–”

“Come for me, brat.”

Your second one of the evening shoots fireworks all throughout your body and you clench all over, relishing in being able to fully ride it out. You can’t hold all of your noise in this time, but neither of you seem to mind. As you come down from this one, you notice that he hasn’t slowed his pace at all. What was once the most pleasurable thing has now crossed over into being a little too much, but in a good way. Your sensitivity was almost painful, but this new sensation had enraptured you. You were ready to try for another.

There’s a banging at the door, and you both freeze. A voice comes through the other side.

“Yoongi, was that you in there? We’re about to light your cake. Come out so we can sing to you!” the voice says over the din.

“Give me 5 more minutes, Namjoon-ah! I’m in the middle of something,” the man, apparently named Yoongi, apparently the birthday boy, apparently the one who you’ve been insulting all night, yells back.

You stare up at him in shock, and try to figure out what to say to apologize. He wants none of it, because he covers your mouth with his hand and flips you down onto the mattress. He resumes his unrelenting pace this time with more force behind his thrusts, all while his hand is fast against your mouth.

“That lava lamp,” Yoongi said, “that was the first thing my mother bought when she got her first apartment. She passed it down to me when I got mine.”

You’re moaning against his hand, the embarrassment you feel fueling your arousal even more. He really was out to punish you.

“Number two.”

He grabs your hip with his free hand and digs his fingers into you so firmly, you’ll know there will be bruises there the next day. Yoongi is glistening with sweat, his eyes staring straight through you. All it takes to send you over the edge again is for a smart nip on your nipple.

You scream out into his hand, thankful you can at least be a little more vocal. He still has kept up his pace, and as you come down, it starts to become too much. You’re so wet and sensitive that it’s borderline unbearable. You start to tear up at the feeling, and he removes his hand from your mouth. Without stopping, he leans into your ear and tells you how beautiful you look taking his cock. He tells you how good you’ve been for him, and how he loves the way you taste. He tells you about how he knew he had to have you when he saw you across the room, looking like sin in that short skirt and revealing top. He says he knows you can take one more, because after all, it’s his birthday.

“This time, I want to hear you say my name,” Yoongi says sweetly before taking his thumb and pressing it against your overly sensitive bud. You cry out and then stop yourself, afraid of who can hear.

“Don’t hold back on me; be as loud as you need to,” he says, “this is my fucking house.”

You begin to let yourself whine out, the overstimulation reaching a breaking point. Your mascara is definitely a mess, but the way he was looking at you made you not care.

“Number three. Last one. You can do it.”

He increases the pressure on your clit and deepens his thrusts. He takes his hand from your hip and traces your bottom lip with the thumb before he plants a kiss. The kiss deepens and you allow him to lightly graze his tongue over yours, which he follows up with a little bite on your lower lip. You’re groaning up into him, feeling your next release sneak up. He locks eyes with you, and you can tell he’s holding himself back from his own release.

“Come, beautiful. So I can fill you up.”

At that, the coil snaps and you’re sent reeling into easily the most intense orgasm you’ve ever had. As his name spills from your lips, he too meets his own end and you both ride out your climaxes together.

_____________

After you’ve cleaned yourself up a little in the ensuite, you deem it safe to return back downstairs. It’s been long enough that you’ve just heard them sing, so you’ll likely go unnoticed with all eyes on Yoongi as he blows out his candles. You walk down the stairs towards the crowd of people surrounding the birthday boy and his giant chocolate cake. He’s smiling and hugging some of his friends who are encouraging him to cut it open. Once he does, chocolate sauce oozes out and everyone cheers. It’s a lava cake.

He laughs and hugs one of his tall friends wearing an apron, whose laugh sounds like windshield wipers. Yoongi scans the crowd and meets your gaze. He scoops up a bit of chocolate sauce on the two fingers that had been inside you only moments ago and smirks at you as he licks them clean.

Why do you feel like he isn’t done with you yet?

#bts smut #yoongi smut #yoongi x reader #yoongi x you #bts fanfiction #yoongi fanfiction #min yoongi #min yoongi smut #min yoongi x you #min yoongi x reader #dom!yoongi #brat!reader #fem!reader #happy birthday yoongi!#xmint-conditionx #bts imagines #bts scenarios #emperor!yoongi

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lilyofthesword-writes · 4 years

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The Intern (Loki Oneshot)

Summary: Loki takes an interest in the latest of a long line of Stark’s interns.

Pairing: Loki x Reader (Can be read as platonic, if preferred)

Word Count: 2,809

Disclaimers/Warnings: None. Just a bit of fluff.

A/N: This wound up turning into something entirely different from the original concept. Just kinda went with what felt right. Also trying desperately to remember working with an Arduino board to make this at least semi-accurate.

Masterlist

Loki traipsed aimlessly through the Tower, his overly-friendly insomnia having kept him up past four in the morning again. Nothing seemed to help him sleep and he constantly grew bored laying around in his room waiting for exhaustion to overtake him. Wandering about seemed as good as anything. Sometimes he would come across something interesting. It seems now would be that time.

He rounded the corner and found himself gazing through the wall-length windows of Tony Stark’s lab. The armor-less Iron Man was passed out in a chair, head haphazardly lolling on a table. Usually, he was still working and would be until at least seven a.m. before Pepper would literally drag him to bed.

Movement at the other end of the room caught his eye. There you were, pulling a blanket out of the cupboard. You crossed the lab and placed the well-used cloth over Stark’s shoulders before returning to your work. Sliding your safety glasses on, you put all your focus into soldering some wires to a board.

What in the nine realms were you doing here at this hour? The sun hadn’t even reached the horizon yet. None of his previous interns ever started their days before nine. Albeit, they had barely lasted a week while you broke a record at just over a month, but the point still stood. Why were you here?

“Are you just going to stand there like a creeper, Loki, or are you going to come in and hang out?” you called out, not even bothering to tear your eyes away from the wiring.

Well, this excursion could prove to be interesting. Loki slithered through the doorway to stand opposite of you at your table.

“So what are you doing up this early?” you murmured. If it weren’t for you glancing up at him, someone may have thought it was more of a question for yourself.

Loki huffed a laugh. “I could ask you the same question.”

That elicited a quirky smile from you. “Woke up way before my alarm and couldn’t fall back asleep. Figured I’d start my day early.” You gestured toward Stark with the soldering iron. “This one over here is pretty lenient on the hours.”

“I would hope so,” Loki chuckled, “considering his own schedule.”

“A schedule that consists of planned energy drink breaks. Definitely one of the more interesting employers out there.”

“I suppose you could say that,” he mumbled, leaning heavily on his forearms propped on the table.

You set down the soldering iron in its stand and shut if off. “So I answered your question. How about you?”

“I simply could not sleep,” he nonchalantly replied.

“Hmm...” you hummed. “Lemme guess. A member of Insomniacs Anonymous?”

His chuckle reverberated through the room. This was probably one of the reasons Stark kept you around. You certainly had a particular snarky confident air about you.

Yet the corners of your mouth suddenly hung low and your brow scrunched together. “It’s more than that, isn’t it?”

“Pardon?” He was confused at your change in demeanor.

“It’s not as simple as you couldn’t sleep. There’s more to it.”

Loki’s lips parted in astonishment. Here you were in your first true encounter with him and you read him like an open book. What had you been told?

“I won’t make you say anything.” You held your hands up in a placating manner. “You probably don’t want to, and that’s okay. However.” You grabbed the notepad next to you and scribbled something on it, ripping off the paper and sliding it towards him. “If you’re ever bored and I’m not here, you can text me. I’ll probably answer.”

He reluctantly took the note that had your number written on it. “I cannot say I am very adept with these cellular devices.”

“Pretty sure you’re clever enough to figure it out,” you grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “But seriously, no pressure. The offer is always out there.”

“Wha?!” Stark snorted himself awake, his eyes shooting around wildly. “Rudolf? What’re you doing here?” He eyed Loki suspiciously. “You’re not going to scare away my intern, are you? That’s my job.”

You laughed, keeping Loki from spitting a venomous retort. “Good luck with that. You’ll have to try a lot harder if that’s what you’re going for, Stark.”

“Obviously. You haven’t run off yet. I’m surprised.” He took the blanket that was wrapped around him and began folding it. “Pleasantly surprised.”

“Sure, sure!” You waved him off.

Stark looked at his watch and swiped a hand through his purposely messy bed head. “It’s that time already. I better get breakfast before Pepper finds me... Alright!” He clapped. “Both of you, let’s go! Time for grub!”

Loki’s eyebrows shot up across his forehead. Was Stark actually having him join the two of you for breakfast?

“Yes, you too, Reindeer Games! One, I don’t want you in the lab alone.” That earned him Loki’s scowl. “Two, you seem to be behaving, so why not have you eat with us.”

You nudged Stark’s arm while shooting Loki an inconspicuous wink. “Awww, look at you! Already getting into Dad Mode and little Morgan hasn’t even entered the world yet.”

He nudged you back. “Yeah, yeah, yeah! Now come on. I’m starving!”

You continued to tease him as you followed him out of the lab with Loki close behind.

Loki lay in bed a few nights later, lost in thought. He could not get you out of his head. You had spoken with him like you would anyone else, deflected and stood up for him despite hardly knowing him. In the few years since he had been thrown to Midgard as punishment, Thor was the only one to show him a sliver of kindness, but even he held some hesitation. You did not. Your earlier interaction was genuine. He wasn’t sure what to make of it all.

In his perpetual deliberation, he had avoided the lab since that morning. Not that he didn’t like you. It was the uncertainty that kept him away, but that wouldn’t last much longer.

His phone settled lax in his hand, your name illuminating the screen. You had been right about him being able to learn how to text. Now it was a matter of completing the action. Tossing the phone to his other hand, he glared at the bright screen. His message had already been written. All he had to do was select “Send”. The clock at the top of the screen read two a.m. Surely, you would be asleep... But what if you weren’t?

With a huff, he pinched his eyes shut and hit the button, the swooshing sound seemingly echoing off the walls. The following silence was deafening. Luckily for him, the reply swoosh fell inline shortly after.

You: Hey, Loki. Can’t sleep?

Loki: How did you know who this was without me saying?

You: I can’t think of anyone else who would text me at this hour. ;)

Loki: I apologize if I woke you.

You: Nah. Already up. Trouble staying asleep. So what’re you up to?

Loki: Texting you.

You: Other than that, Mischief

Loki: Thinking.

You: Yeah? About what?

Loki: Possibly meandering through the Tower, again.

You: Liar ;)

Loki: Pardon?

You: You were obviously thinking about me.

Loki: What makes you say that?

You: You had to be. At least in the context that it would be better to text me than exploring.

Loki: Fair enough. Now, how do you know I am not planning to choose both?

You: You got me there.

—

Loki met you at the lab later that morning. The familiar sight of Stark was passed out, snuggling his face to a countertop, greeted you both.

Shaking your head, you huffed a laugh as you passed through the doorway. “Can’t really reprimand him when my sleep schedule is just as bad.”

Loki’s lips curled into a light smirk but didn’t speak a word lest Stark awaken and force him to leave. Despite your two hour texting session, he had been looking forward to joining you here.

“Thanks for meeting me here, by the way,” you called out to him as still stood just at the edge of the lab. “A little company while working is kind of nice. Gets too quiet when Stark finally shuts down.”

Taking a seat across from you, Loki quirks an eyebrow. “Would that not be considered a blessing?”

You stifled a chuckle as you flipped on the soldering iron and pulled out what roughly looked like a vambrace. The board you had been working on previously was molded to the shape. “If that happened by the end of my workday, yes. This early in the morning? Not so much. It’s boring if not a little eerie.”

“I see... So I am only here for your entertainment,” he feigned offense.

You gasped dramatically, “Me? Never!”

Laughing with you, Loki made himself a bit more comfortable as he watched you work. At the moment, you were adding tiny capacitors and securing them into place.

“If I may, what are you trying to accomplish?”

“Well,” you started, glancing up at him. “It’s a new piece of armor. Other than that, I technically shouldn’t say much else.”

“Right... Classified information?”

There was a twinkle of mischief in your eyes as you looked at him again. “It is a secret, but nothing quite as official as that.”

Loki leaned across the tabletop, supporting his chin in his hand. “So there is no harm in you revealing your project,” he tested.

“Harm? No. However, there will be disappointment on my end if you figure it out.”

“I accept this challenge,” he grinned playfully.

You smirked back,“As you wish, Mischief. I won’t make this easy for you.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Darling.”

The next several weeks chaotically blurred together. At first, you allowed Loki to observe your project as you worked on it. Once the vambrace began to take on a more unique form, you were hiding it in the mornings, opting to take on a different assignment when he was in the room. The design was strikingly Asgardian, leading him to believe the new armor was for Thor. He just needed to figure out what it did. He spoke with his brother on multiple occasions but was unable to glean anything from him. Either he had no clue or suddenly learned to lie well enough to fool Loki, the latter highly doubtful.

Apart from politely harassing you via text, Loki took to locating your hiding spots, something that proved difficult when the lab was almost always occupied by you, Stark or Banner at varying times. Stark was helping you keep this little secret, a sparkle in his eyes whenever he shooed Loki from the room when he was caught investigating. Even Banner was in on it, albeit reluctantly.

Then there was that Doctor Strange who was showing up every few days, joining you all in the lab much to Loki’s chagrin. By that point, Stark had banned him from the entire floor. The project must have been coming to a close if you all were trying to cover it up so desperately. But why Strange? Was he imbuing the vambrace with magic to protect Thor better? (Not that he really needed it.) His curiosity was certainly getting the better of him, going so far as to shape-shift as one of you three when Strange wasn’t around to get into the room. Somehow, Friday always knew and alerted the lab’s occupants who would send him back to the elevator.

It was early one morning as he was perusing the contents of the shared kitchen that you initiated contact with him. He was surprised since he had been the one to text you first lately to see if you would spill your secret.

You: Hey. Can you stop by the lab?

Loki: Oh? I thought I was banned.

You: Lifted as of a few minutes ago. So?

Loki: I suppose I might be able to grace you with my presence.

You: So kind of you, my King ;)

His heart skipped a beat at you calling him “your King”. You only used it in a teasing fashion when he was acting high and mighty. Even then, it still flustered him.

Loki made his way to the elevator, deeming it a bit devious to take the long way to the lab. You had made him wait all this time. It was your turn.

The doors reopened on the lab floor, revealing that his ploy to annoy had worked. You were leaned against the wall next to the elevator, waiting for his arrival.

“Finally! Come on!”

You audaciously grabbed his wrist and dragged him into the room with an impatient grin. Stopping him near your normal workstation, you demanded he close his eyes.

“Excuse me?” he responded incredulously, ripping his arm from your grasp.

“Please, Loki...” Your pleading eyes grew larger as you pouted at him.

Stark groaned, “Just do it, Reindeer Games, or I’ll cover them for you.”

Loki’s lips reared into a snarl as he glared at the billionaire before relenting and clenching his eyelids shut. Norns, how he hated those nicknames.

“Okay!” Excitement laced your voice. “Would you hold up your dominant hand?”

“Making more demands, Darling?”

“I did ask nicely this time.”

“That you did,” he chuckled a complied, holding out a hand.

“Perfect!”

He felt a metallic weight placed on his forearm before it was clasped together with a comfortable tightness.

“Okay. You can look now!”

The sight of the vambrace on his arm left Loki’s mouth agape. The main black of the piece was lined with gold Asgardian knot designs with runes placed in a handful of the empty spaces. Near his wrist, an artificial emerald was embedded in the armor. If he had to be completely honest, the aesthetics could rival much of the armor back home.

“Well, Kid. It looks like you rendered him speechless.” Stark nudged your arm.

Loki’s gaze shot up to the two of you. Stark was leaning against the workstation while you had hoisted yourself to sit atop it, nothing but grins on either of your faces.

“What is this-”

You cut him off, “It’s for you. We noticed after some of your missions where you had to use your seiðr more than usual, you’d end up exhausted before getting back to the Quinjet. The new armor should help with that. It’s supposed to amplify your magic without draining you.”

Stark shoved you lightheartedly, again. “The kid noticed. Told ‘em if they could come up with something that could work, I’d give whatever resources needed for the project.”

“So what do you think? I mean we still need to undergo more testing and calibrations before you can use it in the field, but-”

“You made this?” Loki locked barely tearing eyes with you. “For me?”

“Yup! Kid designed the whole thing!” Stark kept you from answering. “Minus the bits we had to bring Strange in for the wizard-y things, this was a solo run. Did a pretty good job. Not sure I could have done much better.”

“Stark...” you grumbled, clearly not used to the praise.

“This is...” Loki tore his gaze away back to the vambrace. “I don’t... I don’t know what to say.” His voice was just loud enough for you to hear.

“A ‘thank you’ would be a good start. Now maybe this little intern will get more sleep,” Stark blundered before checking his watch. “Well, it’s about time for my morning scolding. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me!”

With that he whisked himself out of the room and to the elevator, leaving you and Loki in a terribly awkward silence.

“Hey...” you started. “If you don’t like it, we can scrap the design. It’s not a big deal-”

“Thank you.” His pupils were filled with a sincere gratefulness that few had ever seen before. “This is... This is simply splendid.”

“Really? You’re not just saying that?”

Loki spun on his heel to fully face you, his hands coming to rest on the countertop on either side of you. “I mean it, Darling. This... No one has ever done something like this for me before. I would be honored to be your test subject,” he ended with a smirk.

“Well, if that’s the case,” you grinned right back at him, “I’d say let’s get some breakfast first. There will be plenty of time to optimize the vambrace later.”

Pulling back enough to release you from his cage of arms, he gestured for you to lead the way. “After you,” he breathed.

Hopping down from the table, you held out a hand for him. Hesitantly, Loki took it while running a thumb over your knuckles as you pulled him to the elevator with you.

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moldisgoodforyou · 4 years

Text

insufferable

warning: it’s just smut. like a tiny hint of plot. but tiny.

because I reblogged this and was inspired:

______

“I’m not letting you pay for it, and that’s final.” Sophie stated, turning her back on Rafe.

They’d been arguing for a good half hour over breakfast after Rafe casually offered to pay for both the tickets for her sorority formal. It was expensive, admittedly, as her sorority sprung for the fancier venue at the botanical gardens downtown, along with hotel rooms and a stacked bar.

(‘Offered’ might be a generous way to put it - he had just handed her a signed, blank check, and told her to write in how much it turned out to be, along with the cost of her dress. Entirely caught off guard, she ripped it up and handed the shreds back to him.)

When they started drawing looks from their hissed arguing, Sophie abruptly changed the subject, refusing to talk about it when he tried to bring it up again in the restaurant. The rest of the meal was fairly tense, but they both did their best to keep it civil.

He’d driven her home, only for them to argue more in the car and again when he tried walking her to the door. “Sophie.” Rafe huffed, calling after her. “Sophie! Come on!”

She didn’t respond, just stalked off and let the side door of her sorority house slam shut behind her. She had to laugh, however, when her phone immediately chimed with a text from Rafe.

Rafe: Am I still coming over before we go out tonight

Sophie: As long as you don’t try to sugar daddy me again

Rafe: Don’t start

Sophie: I’ll see you at nine

The argument stuck like a stubborn thorn in the back of both of their minds all day, but they didn’t text each other and bring it up again, knowing it was useless. He kept his promise and came over exactly at nine, drinks in hand and ready to go meet her roommates at a house party. She wasn’t ready yet - running late, like always - and had him come up to her room instead. He sat on her bed as she changed, drinking a White Claw while he waited.

Rafe grumbled, seeing her outfit. “You’re gonna wear that?”

She wore a sheer black square-necked top with a black bra underneath, not hiding much. She paired it with a black leather skirt that flared out a little, just under her ass. Sophie paused, looking at herself in the mirror, then unclipped the bra and shimmied out of it, keeping her top on. “No, you’re right, this is better.”

He shut his eyes, taking a slow, dramatic inhale. “Sophie Flint.”

She put both hands on her hips and turned to face him. “What.”

He glared at her, knowing she was just trying to test his limits. “Put the damn bra back on.”

“No. I look good.” She walked over to him, stepping in between his legs.

Rafe shook his head as he looked up at her, setting his drink aside. “You’re insufferable.”

She quirked her brow, holding back a smirk. “Haven’t heard that one in a while.”

He reached up and palmed her breast, satisfied when her eyes fluttered shut as he brushed his thumb over her nipple. “You did this on purpose.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “Oh, look, we have a fucking genius here.”

That was enough to set him over the edge and he grabbed her around the waist, swiftly pulling her down to his lap. Their lips crashed together and she straddled him right away, rolling her hips over him. He cursed and bit her bottom lip, not being gentle in the slightest.

She gasped, her hands finding her way to the hem of his shirt right away and she tugged up. “Off, I want this off.”

“Demanding.” Rafe quipped, but pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor. He flipped them over easily and caught both her wrists in one hand, pinning them above her head. “Will you be good?”

A little caught off guard by his commanding nature, Sophie blinked up at him with wide eyes. “You’re gonna leave a mark.” She murmured.

He immediately loosened his grip on her, sitting up a little to give her some space. “Shoot, sorry, am I hurting you?”

“No, um. You don’t have to be gentle all the time.” She pressed her hips up into his and shook her head quickly, cheeks burning red as she clarified. “I like it.”

“Fuck, Soph.” He cursed and leaned back down to kiss her hard, bruising. “You’re gonna be the death of me.” She moaned quietly as he kissed along her jawline and down her neck, keeping her wrists pinned in place. “You can’t die, I don’t like fighting with anyone else.”

“That’s all I’m good for?” He nipped at her collarbone, enjoying when she squirmed under him. “Sometimes I like you better when you’re moaning.”

“I like you better when your mouth is occupied.” She snapped back, pushing her hips against him again to try and find any friction. He let go of her wrists, only to fiddle with the clasp of her skirt. Sophie reached to pull off her top, but he knocked her hands away. “Keep this sad excuse of a shirt on.”

She lifted her hips for him to tug her skirt down her legs. “Thought you didn’t like it.”

“I like it just fine, I don’t want other people seeing you in it.”

Her next sassy response died in her throat as he grabbed her panties in both hands and ripped them clean in half. He kissed up her thighs, using one forearm across her hips to pin her in place.

“You’re buying me a new pair.” She breathed out, only a little delayed.

“Oh, so now you’ll let me buy you things?” He kissed everywhere but where she wanted it, feather-light, and she whined, trying to move her hips toward him. “A ten-dollar pair of underwear is not the same thing as what you were trying to do.” When he nipped teasingly at her hipbone, her shirt now pushed all the way up her stomach, she huffed. “Rafe, please.”

“Patience, angel.” He admonished, but brought two fingers up to her anyway, teasingly stroking around her entrance. She let her head fall back when he slipped them inside of her and he reached up and grabbed her chin with his free hand, ultra commanding. “Eyes on me.”

She nodded quickly and bit her lip hard to stifle her next moan, trying her hardest not to let her eyes flutter shut at the pleasure.

“I want to hear you.” Rafe pressed his thumb against her clit, smirking when she gasped. “Can’t. You’re not - fuck - not allowed up here.” She bit out, having trouble speaking with the way he was moving his fingers against her. When he withdrew his fingers just as she was on the edge, she whined, reaching for him. “Wait, no, I was close.”

“Always so fucking whiny for me.” He grinned and pressed his fingers to her lips. She opened obediently, sucking on them until they were clean. “Good girl.”

“I want you.” Sophie told him meaningfully, reaching for his belt buckle. He stood just long enough to kick his pants to the floor while she reached over and grabbed a condom from the nightstand, handing it to him. He wasted no time in rolling it on and nudging her back to lie down. “You okay?”

“Yes, fine, shut up.”

He laughed, lining his hips up against hers. “That’s no way to talk to someone you love.”

“Had to remind myself I’m still mad at you.” She informed him, but gasped sharply anyways as he pushed into her unexpectedly. He waited for her nod to start thrusting into her, gripping her hips hard enough to leave a mark. “Just let me pay for my half. At least.”

“You’re not seriously - ohh.” She breathed out, letting her head fall back. “This isn’t fair.”

He stopped abruptly, though it pained him a little. “I can quit and we can keep arguing.”

“No, no, please don’t stop.” She whimpered, wrapping an arm around his back to pull him closer to her. He nodded and kept going, bringing one hand in between them to play with her clit. “My half and your dress.”

“Rafe, fuck, please.”

“All of it, then.” He groaned, trying his best to keep himself fairly quiet (though her creaky bed was a dead giveaway).

“Just half.” She bit back a moan, squirming under him. “You’re evil for bringing this up now.”

“Devil to my angel.” He smirked.

“Don’t stop.” Sophie mumbled against his shoulder, arching her back as he hit the perfect spot. “Shh, shh.” He soothed. When she finally came, biting against his shoulder to keep herself quiet, he came shortly after, hips stuttering against hers. The two lay in silence for a moment, breathing heavily against each other.

“I think we’re late to the party.” Rafe quipped.

She laughed, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “We’re not going to the fucking party. We both need a shower.”

He whined, letting his head fall to her shoulder. “But I can’t shower here.”

“No, you’ll have to go home.” She agreed, combing her fingers through his long, floppy hair. “Wanna sleep with you.” He mumbled, always extra cuddly after sex. “Maybe you don’t deserve to sleep with me, trying to sabotage me in a fight.” She pointed out.

He lifted his head quickly, kissing her cheek. “No, c’mon. Not fair, let me stay.”

She laughed at his near-whiny tone. “I’ll shower here, you go home and shower, then I’ll come over and stay with you. Deal?”

“So inconvenient.” He grumbled, but reluctantly stood, pulling on his clothes. “Promise you’ll come over right away?”

“Promise.” Sophie smiled, leaning over to meet him in a quick kiss. “Get out of here.”

“Wait, Soph.” He paused just at the door, giving her a goofy grin. “Will you bring that soft blanket?”

She raised her eyebrows. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“You just fucked me like that and now you're asking me to bring over a blanket for you to sleep with?”

He grinned, sheepish. “Exactly. See you soon, love you!” He waved quickly before leaving, sneaking out of the house. He had barely left before seeing a text from Sophie -

better not fall asleep before I’m there. love you too.

#i did not edit #not one bit #and i know it's late but i'm posting and running #like didn't even proofread #maybe i will reblog later #rafe cameron #rafe cameron fanfic #rafe cameron smut #obx smut #outer banks fanfic #outer banks smut #college rafe #frat rafe #rafe x sophie #mine

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solarwonux · 4 years

Text

10. “I still remember the way you taste.”

31. “Why haven’t you kissed me yet?”

villain!wonwoo x superhero!f!reader

w.c: 2.6k (it was mistake okay I got carried away we should know this by now)

warnings: fluff, talks of death, ghosts, torture if you squint, graveyards, digging up graves (don’t do that yall), angst a little, it’s hinted that the reader can communicate with ghosts. (if you’re uncomfortable with any of these themes this one is not for you)

note: I CAN EXPLAIN OKAY I KNOW YOU WANTED JOKER WONWOO BUT LIKE IT STARTED OFF THAT WAY AND THEN I GOT SOFT. Enjoy let know your thoughts please, they mean so much to me.

Also i will answer asks at some point, school is just keeping me super busy, BUT IM NOT IGNORING THEM THEY MAKE ME SMILE EVERY TIME I SEE THEM.

masterlist || drabble game

Wonwoo wiped the sweat off of his brow with the back of his hand, panting slightly as he stared down at the empty grave. “Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Vernon asked, digging his shovel into the ground with the heel of his boot. He rested his forearm against the handle looking at Wonwoo through his sweaty bangs.

“There is no reason, I was just bored.” Wonwoo shrugged, his cheeks were dusted with dirt and his white dress shirt was anything but white. The truth was he had a reason, he needed a way to meet you halfway and causing chaos was the only way to get you out of that shiny tower in the middle of the city where all the heroes resided. But his reasoning would never be voiced out loud, especially not to Vernon and so he lied like it was second nature to him.

Wonwoo missed you, He missed getting under your skin with his snarky remarks and idiotic plans to take over the world. Or at least the city. The world was his end goal, but in order to do that he needed to succeed at taking over the city first and so far he had failed. Mainly, do to you and your teammates interrupting his plans. Though along the way something unexpected happened. He had undoubtedly fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with you. It had annoyed him at first, his mind was constantly enveloped with thoughts of you. Interrupting everything he spent years working on.

It took him months to come to terms with his unwanted feelings and if he hadn’t snuck into the masked ball held every year at the tower; he probably wouldn’t have. But the second he saw you come down the grand staircase of the ballroom wearing a dress so blue, it put the night sky to shame; he kissed you before he could stop himself. Despite the mask he was wearing you had spotted him in the crowd and led him down an empty hallway when his urges got the best of him causing him to sin. When he pulled away he was shocked just as you were, but he was definitely floored when you had cut his apology short and kissed him again.

“So you decided to dig up an empty grave for fun?” Vernon pushed his dirt stained hand through his hand, leaving behind little specks of dirt in its wake. “How did you even know this grave would be empty?”

“It’s mine...well used to be mine. Obviously I’m not dead.” Wonwoo’s nonchalant tone sent shivers up Vernon’s back. Once again he found himself wondering why the hell he always found himself going along with Wonwoo’s schemes. He knew there was a reason. Wonwoo never did anything without calculating all his moves beforehand, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the true reason, more so if he was going to find out soon anyway. His suspicions were confirmed when he caught sight of you. He should’ve known that this was just another one of Wonwoo’s ways to get to you.

Vernon didn’t understand your relationship with Wonwoo, scientifically it didn’t make sense. In simple terms Wonwoo was hated by everyone and you on the other hand were not. But the two of you had snuck around for years up until the accident five months ago. Ever since then Wonwoo’s spirits were low and he was going mad. If he wasn’t holed up in his tiny room at the apartment he was bent over a desk mumbling to himself, trying to come up with ways in which he could see you again. All of Wonwoo’s attempts before this one had failed and to say he wasn’t surprised to see you sit down, legs hanging over the edge of the grave while looking down at Wonwoo lovingly, he would be lying. Though, he supposed it had to do with the fact that Wonwoo’s grave was dug up.

“You guys having fun there?” Wonwoo jumped. He rapidly smoothed down his shirt, leaving behind streaks of dirt, and fixed his hair before turning around. A smug smile adorning his features. Vernon shook his head and rolled his eyes. Sometimes he missed the days in which Wonwoo wasn’t in love.

“Princess what brings you here?” He winked. His clammy hands grew more wet as he leaned against the shovel, before it failed underneath his weight causing him to trip. Seeing you again was like a breath of fresh air, the pictures he kept of you and looked at every night did you no justice. For you shined brighter than the stars in the night sky and it always made Wonwoo’s heart skip a beat.

“Cut the shit Wonwoo, I know you’ve been turning this city upside down at least once a week to get under my skin.”

“Well, what was I supposed to do? You haven’t been answering my calls, texts or emails.” Wonwoo threw his hands up in disbelief and you rolled your eyes at his ignorance.

“Apologize, that’s all you had to do and you wouldn’t be here digging your own grave...literally.” You huffed crossing your arms in front of you, ripping your eyes away from his. Suddenly the memory of the accident came lingering back. You knew, given his nature, Wonwoo was calculated. He used his powers to affiliate pain on his victims without moving a muscle to get what he wanted. Though, he had never used it on you, until that night.

He had been blinded by rage and pain and you had never seen him use so much power in your years of knowing him. It scared you and when you had tried to coax him out of whatever state he was in. He did the one thing he promised he would never do.

He used his abilities on you.

Wonwoo sighed before hosting himself out of the hole and taking the empty seat next you. “I wanted to do it in person, but you never showed up.” He looked down at his hands playing with his fingers, twirling the ring on his pinky. His body was consumed with guilt as your screams of agony replayed in his head. Just like they did every night. He had never once felt anything but satisfaction and bliss whenever he used his powers on someone. In fact he loved the way his victims begged him to stop, that was until you were on the receiving end of his torture.

“You know where I live. It’s a big shiny tower in the center of town. Pretty hard to miss honestly.” The airy playfulness of your voice made his stomach swirl. He truly missed you and not just on nights when the two of you gently explored each other's bodies, but just in general.

“I know but you know how much I hate the others, especially Joshua. He always has to stick his nose into matters that don’t concern him.” He huffed, flicking a tiny spec of dirt off of his trousers. “And I was scared.” He confessed lowly, shocking Vernon who had now taken it upon himself to sit on the soil filled ground to watch the spectacle in front of him. Wonwoo never admitted his fears and though Vernon sometimes could feel them radiating off him. It was different hearing it come from his friend's mouth.

“Of Joshua? Dude’s only got super strength and-”

“No of you. I was scared to see you suffer and to turn me away. I was scared that if I did show up putting aside indifference for your friends just to hear you say that you didn’t love me anymore.” Wonwoo let out a deep sigh at the ending of his words. He dropped his shoulders feeling the weight being lifted off them. He felt your body shake next to him and it confused him greatly, even more so when it was followed by your laugh. Though he loved it and missed it greatly. He couldn’t deny the anger he felt towards you as you laughed at his vulnerability.

Slowly, he felt his heart close up again and brought himself up to his feet faster than he could blink. His feet moved faster than the doubt racing through his veins and your laughter came to a stop.

He now remembered why he swore to never love again all those years ago.

“Wonwoo, wait come back.” You hurried to your feet, smoothing down the creases on your leggings. Vernon copied your movements. He could sense the fear coming from your body, and it overwhelmed his senses. Behind his soft eyes he quietly told you to hurry before Wonwoo did something he wasn’t supposed to. Even though Wonwoo always did without planning ahead of time, there were a few instances where he didn’t care and acted carelessly. And he found himself fearing more for your heart rather than his friend's safety.

You sighed tugging on the sleeves of your sweatshirt before turning around and ran after the only man you had ever loved. You passed many tombstones, silently paying your respects until you stopped in the middle of a small clearing, home to one familiar tombstone and Wonwoo. His hands in his pocket, eyebrows furrowed and his teeth chewing down on his teeth.

“After she died, I promised her I wouldn’t love anyone again.” He whispered, “but then you came along and ruined it.” He turned his head, his eyes glossy with wanted tears. “Do you know how much I beat myself up every day for what I did to her. For what I did to you. I hate myself for it, I hate that I can inflict pain on everyone else but myself because I’m not one that should be suffering, not everyone else.”

By now he had finally let his tears go. They raced down his cheeks rapidly and it shattered your heart.

“It hurts me that you think that way about yourself. She didn’t die because of you, you tried to save her and-”

“I was too late.” Wonwoo snorted and rolled his eyes. He stared intently at the tombstone in front of him, reading his little sister’s name over and over again, letting it burn feverishly inside his mind. He missed her dearly and sometimes he wondered why you never told him anything about the conversations you would have with her whenever she visited you. But you had told him that it was a family secret between the two of you and he never questioned you again because you had used the word family and it made him feel all giddy inside.

“Let me talk Wonwoo.” You said closing the gap between you and Wonwoo. You grabbed his face in your hands and wiped away his tears with the pad of your thumb. He had always been there to comfort you on your lowest days. His sweet words and warmth grounded you back onto the Earth, but you had never gotten the opportunity to do the same to him. He always kept himself closed off and reserved. It had taken almost a year into your secret, not so secret relationship for him to tell you about his sister’s unfortunate death and a few more months after that for him to say that he loved you. Despite all those small passing moments of vulnerability he had never once cried in front of you.

“I love you and you’re stupid for thinking that I would love you any less because of what happ-”

“I hurt you though,” Wonwoo cut you off, earning a ground shattering glare from you that sent shivers up his spine. “Sorry you can continue.” He whispered.

“Thank you.” You smirked and wrapped your arms around his neck, making him freeze. You were the strangest person he had ever had the pleasure in knowing because normal people would never be as comfortable as you were in his presence. “I know the kind of person you are Wonwoo, through this cold exterior there is the most loving and sensible person I have ever known. I mean, baby, you spent a whole day sulking because you forgot to water your plant.”

“You gave me that plant for my birthday, therefore he’s our child.”

“This is exactly my point, you have the biggest of anyone I have ever known. Unfortunately, you have been dealt a bad hand in life and I really don’t understand your obsession with taking over the world. But you’re not a monster.”

“I hurt people though, sometimes for fun.” He whispered against your skin. In the midst of your speech he had given in and circled his arms around your waist before burying his face into the crook of your neck. Leaving the two of you in an awkward and uncomfortable position.

“And who are those people?”

“Bad people.”

“Exactly baby, they’re the scum of the Earth and you have helped stop them.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t make me a hero. I’m just doing what you guys can’t do. On top of that Joshua’s super strength is useless, he only gets praised because he’s hot.” Wonwoo finished and raised his head, smirking. He sent you a playful wink, tears long forgotten, causing you to roll your eyes.

“Mingyu takes forever to get ready, but that’s besides the point. You’re not a monster so stop treating yourself like one.”

“Does that mean you forgive me?” He pouted batting his eyelashes at you.

“Yes you big idiot.”

“Then...why haven’t you kissed me yet?” He puckered his lips and made kissing noises, making you laugh. “Hey I’m waiting and you know I’m impatient.” He spoke through pouted lips as he leaned in closer, his lips hovered over yours teasingly until you finally caved and kissed him. He sighed happily against your mouth and deepened the kiss. He had spent five months without the feeling of your touch and it scared him that he would forget how it felt. Yet, now as he kissed you with everything in him he realized he hadn’t and it overjoyed him to the point in which he accidentally let out a moan; making you pull away quickly and eyeing him down.

“Control yourself, your sister, her friends and Vernon are here.” You scolded making him pout.

“I’m sorry, i just...I still remember the way you taste, and I got excited.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Before he could plant his lips on yours again he was met with your hand pushing him away. He whined as you tore his arms away from your waist, his body growing cold. “Nooo, one more kiss.” He reached out making grabby hands at you like a child. Instead of giving into what he wanted you turned and started walking away, “Wait, where are you going?” He stumbled against his own feet before following you.

“Home.” You looked over at him and stuffed your hands into the front pocket of your hoodie. “You have a grave to cover up with Vernon.”

“But I haven’t seen you in five months, just give me five more minutes please.”

“Wonwoo you just didn’t look hard enough baby.” You said giving him a knowing smirk before leaning over, giving him a chaste kiss on his cheek. He felt his eyes grow in realization as everything started to click in his head. If what you had hinted was the truth and you had shown up to every single sight he had caused trouble in, then he had to give it to you. You were a lot more clever than you led on. “Don’t think about it too hard, I’ll leave my window open for you.” You smiled widely giving his cheek a pat and disappeared through the trees.

“You live on the twenty fourth floor.” He yelled after you, his hands falling down at his side in defeat. He heard someone snort next to him and suddenly he remembered that Vernon was there silently observing everything, just like always did.

“Figure it out baby, you always do.”

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thecarrieonokay · 4 years

Text

Post 5x10 Drabble CONTINUED!

So. That little drabble I started yesterday? I felt bad for leaving it hanging... So I wrote a bit more...

The continuation happens after the cut for those who’ve already seen part 1.

I’ve used a few indulgent tropes that I’ve used in my other fic. I’m not sorry ;)

When their solo mission goes awry, Mac challenges Riley about what she said that night at her door.

Riley ploughed through the woods, Mac close on her heels as they sprinted away from the commotion in their wake. For the moment, it didn’t sound like anyone was following but Riley didn’t dare stop to check for even a moment. If anyone so much as saw them they’d be dead.

Branches crackled underfoot as they wove through tree roots and over slick rocks. Riley tried desperately to concentrate on where she was stepping and avoided thinking about how they’d landed in this mess.

Her heel twisted on something slick and she stumbled, almost ramming headfirst into a massive tree. Mac reached out to grab her but she managed to right herself before he could so much as brush his fingers against her jacket. Avoiding his gaze, she pushed on, slowing down only slightly to avoid another tumble.

“So you’re just lying to me now?” Mac shouted from behind her.

She paused for a moment and grabbed onto the nearest tree for support, not daring to look back and face him. This was exactly the conversation she was trying to avoid. It was her fault that the op failed, and he knew it.

The sound of a stream rushed by somewhere to their left and she gazed through the branches towards the water. She drew in a few heavy breaths. “I didn’t lie!” she called out. “I told you I thought that we were being watched and-”

A branch snapped directly behind her as Mac reached the tree and reached out, spinning her around on the spot. She stared at his hand wrapped around her arm.

He stared her down as he breathed, “just like you lied to me the other night.” It wasn’t a question.

All the air left her lungs in a rush of feeling that punched her deep in the gut. Riley froze under his heavy gaze. “What are you talking about?” she whispered. She wanted to deny it forever.

Mac let go of her arm and raked the hand through his hair. “Riles,” he sighed. He looked impossibly sad. “You think that after all these years I don’t know when you’re lying to me?”

She huffed bitterly at the irony. There were a lot of things about her that Mac had failed to notice over the years. But this? Why did he have to notice this?

“Mac-“

“I get it okay. I get why you lied. But Riley, that night I needed you to tell me the truth.”

Riley drew herself to her highest height. “No, Mac. No you didn’t,” she spat. “You needed me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You needed to know that I didn’t feel anything for you.” She shook her head, searching through her pain for the right words. “You needed to know that you were free to go off and marry Desi and be happy without feeling guilty or… or like you could be hurting me because I know you Mac!” her voice quivered. “You just don’t want to hurt anyone and that’s just not how this works!”

“Riley,” Mac grabbed her upper arms and held her there, forcing her to look into his eyes as he said, “what in the hell makes you think that’s what I wanted to hear?”

His brows were knitted together and his eyes were like round pools of light. Riley swam in them as she stood with her mouth open, trying in vain to absorb his words.

A man called out from somewhere behind them. Riley’s vision ripped from Mac‘s heavy gaze and focused on the terrain over his shoulder. There was a tiny flurry of movement behind some brush about two hundred yards away. The militia had found them.

She barely had time to huff in another breath before Mac had her pinned behind the tree, legs entwined, their feet tucked between broad roots and her backpack pressing into her spine. His face was inches from hers, his eyes narrow as he scanned the branches beyond their position for any trace of their pursuers. All Riley could do was stare helplessly up at him. She was barely breathing. All she could hear was the rush of the river and the pounding of her heart in her ears as she strained to listen for more.

All of a sudden, Mac tensed and pressed himself harder against her, as if he could merge them both with the bark itself. The last of Riley’s conscious thought flew from her head as a branch snapped mere yards from them. Adrenaline coursed through her veins and her eyes widened and locked onto Mac’s steely blues. Another snap, this time from slightly further away.

How many? she mouthed.

He blinked three times in quick succession.

Another gruff voice called out and there was a bleep as a walkie connected. Murmuring echoed through the speaker and grew steadily more distant. Crackling footsteps moved away as Riley continued to hold her breath. After what felt like an age, the only noise was the sound of the rushing river and Mac’s heavy breath.

She should’ve let herself relax but she couldn’t. Mac still had her locked in his gaze, an arm on the tree either side of her. She couldn’t move. She didn’t want to move.

Then his lashes fluttered as his eyes became unfocussed and dipped to her lips. It was like an electric jolt pierced her, breaking the spell and cutting swiftly through the moment.

All she could think was, ‘No’. She blinked rapidly and pressed against his body with both hands. He gave way easily and took three generous steps backwards. His chest was rising and falling at a rapid pace. So was hers.

“There could be more.” Riley whispered. She searched the ground at her feet, deftly avoiding the magnetic pull of his eyes. “We can talk about all this when we get the hell out of here,” she added furiously.

He shook his head at her. “No, Riles,” he murmured in gravelly tones. “We’re having this conversation now. It’s killing me.”

“Fine,” she snarled, finally finding the courage to lift her head. “You wanted me to tell you that I still have feelings for you?” There was no use denying it any longer.

“Do you?”

“Of course I do!” she worked hard to keep her voice low as a fissure cracked through her heart. “Because burying feelings never works! Tell, me. How is it working out for you, Mac?” she crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows in challenge.

“What are you talking about?”

“The hurt? The fear? The grief?” she pressed. “Mac, you bury your feelings better than anyone else I’ve ever met!” She huffed. “Except for maybe Desi.”

He took a step back as though she’d slapped him. Riley sighed. She didn’t want to hurt him but the truth was, this conversation was always going to hurt. And he needed to feel it. Maybe they both did.

“Mac,” Riley drew closer to him and he stared into her face like a rabbit in headlights. She stood her ground. “You need to work some things out for yourself. Like, what the hell does it mean that you were ready to propose to you girlfriend one minute and at my door the next?”

He huffed a quiet, sardonic laugh. “Whatever else it means, I’m definitely an idiot.”

“I don’t disagree,” she smirked. He reached gingerly for her hand and she gave it without a second thought.

“Thank you,” he squeezed her fingers.

“For what?”

“Telling me the truth.”

She huffed. “Yeah.” There it was again; the undeniable lure of his gaze. If she weren’t very, very careful, she would find herself one day drowning in his eyes.

Mac stared at her for another moment before releasing her hand. He heaved a breath in and out a few times and raked his hand through his hair. “Ok. We should get the hell out of here…” The shrewd look returned to his face as the wheels turned behind his eyes and he began to plot their continued path through the trees.

“Yeah,” was all she said.

She trailed after him through the woods, one foot at a time, towards exfil and the Phoenix jet, and perhaps some happier times to come. She dared to hope.

#macgyver #riley davis #macriley #drabble #macgyver 5x10 #drabble continuation #I kept going y'all!

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redhawtriot · 5 years

Text

Mirror Images (Bakugou x Reader)

Tip Jar ☕- Not expected but always appreciated💞

Warning: mentions of stillbirth

This was a complete shift from what I write about recently...

HnM💕

“Let’s do this over again” “the sight of you makes me sick I never want to see you again”

💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

The scene played distantly in front of your empty eyes: hundreds of pathetic, broken bodies staring sadly back at you through the sparkling shards of mirror. The legion of women in front of you seemed close to familiar, yet there was a far-off state of woe in their expressions that you had never seen before.

Your hand throbbed.

How dare they fucking look at you like that. Your eyes danced from their heartbroken expressions down to the small, diminishing lump on each of their stomachs. You watched the women’s cheeks become wet before your eyesight eventually succumbed to a stinging cloud of tears. How dare they be so weak-- so inept-- so useless.

Another sharp sting shot up your hand, toward your arm, as your shredded fists once again came into harsh contact with the mirror in front of you, “Fuck you!” the shriek tore from your chest. The anguished scream that followed as you allowed your body to fall limply onto the bathroom floor sounded more like a confused and terrified animal in a slaughterhouse than a human being.

You laid with your eyes clenched shut as your hand came up to grip at your chest, as if you could rip the defective, broken heart straight out of you. You lurched against your twisted hands with painful sobs when suddenly, you heard a loud bang against the door. Next, you felt the bone-piercing chill of your hollow home creep into the small, humid area, “What the fuck are you doing!?” The bellowing words completely flew over your head as your eyes slowly pried opened to stare at the tile beside your face.

The chill left you wondering-- did a tiny ghost creep in with that draft?

Could you feel him with you just one more time?

Suddenly you felt your body being yanked up into a sitting position, “Y/N, snap out of it! Look at me!” The voice sounded so far away as you felt warm breath brush against your cheeks.

You felt a pair of hot and rough hands grab your head on both sides and closely lead you to an obscured face. A blurred mess of blonde and red came into your vision, but you couldn’t make sense of it. You couldn’t make sense of anything. You could only feel your bleeding hand and a dense fog weighing down on you and gripping tightly at your chest.

Your hand throbbed.

You absentmindedly wiped your tears away with the back of your hand, slicing a bit of your cheek with the spikes of glass embedded in your knuckles. You felt your hands being snatched away from your face as you attempted to speak, “I… I wanna die…” your choked voice came out as a gargled breath and couldn’t even find it’s way to Bakugou’s ears.

“…What?” The words hardly registered in the man; however, he could read your lips well and after years of being with you, your expression even better, “What did you just fucking say?!” fighting the urge to violently shake you in his hands, he suddenly released you from his grip-- leaving your heavy body to return to the tiled floors with a ‘smack.’

He stared at you as you sobbed uncontrollably on the ground.

What the fuck should he do? He feels like he’s tried everything.

You had been in this position for days. For days he’s been trying to keep you from completely falling apart, but it was like trying to plug a dam with sticky notes. He didn’t know if he could fix you.

He stared at your bloodied expression. He didn't know what to fucking do.

“Leave me alone…” your meek voice softly shook Bakugou out of his thoughts, looking up to reveal your hazy, red eyes, “Please.” You weakly begged, stirring up feelings within the blond. The bounty of emotions, which had been simply simmering until this point, finally erupted toward his throat. It burned.

Fuck! He was useless!

He knew that nothing he said would make you feel better. He couldn’t reverse what had already happened, and he sure as hell wasn’t the type of person that could magically erase your sadness with a few soft spoken words.

There really was nothing else he could do.

The feeling of helplessness was the final emotion to crack the dam that he himself had been trying so fucking hard to keep erect for the past few days. Tears began to well up in his eyes.

No fuck that. He wasn’t going to give up. He was gonna plug your dam no matter what. He couldn’t break. He was gonna put you back together, even if it killed him.

“I’m not fucking leaving, you idiot,” he leaned down to gather you up into his arms. You felt your limp body mold again this own as he tried to hold you tightly, as if he was afraid that you would fall apart otherwise.

He was probably right, but dammit! Maybe you needed to fall apart. Maybe this misery was deserving for a no good, useless, fuck up like you.

“Just Go!” You screamed as you shoved him away from you, “I-I cant look at you, Katsuki!” You blinked away your hot tears to meet with his horrified expression. You had actually never seen him so scared in your entire time of knowing him, but you couldn’t think about that in that moment. No. The only thing that your brain could think of when you saw him was your baby boy’s face, “The sight of you makes… it makes me sick!”

Bakugou’s heart lurched and twisted at your words. The man’s face also contorted as a glare found its way back home to his expression. That face was the only thing holding his tears from falling freely down his face as you continued, “God I am so sick with myself. I can’t do any fucking thing right. I let e-everyone down. You, our families, our friends. They were all so happy for us and I fucking ruined it! I just! I c-can’t… I killed him, Katsuki!” as the final chunk of your rant flew out, it was as if your last bout of strength flew out alongside it. Your body crumpled to the floor once again, “I never want to feel like this again. I never want to see you again-- anyone again! I-I… I want to die!” you twisted your face deeply into the tiles to release another succession of sobs.

You laid crying for a few moments in silence before you felt a warm body curl up next to you— their strong presence wrapping themselves around you before pulling you closely, “This isn’t the end. Not the end of you, and sure as hell not the end of us,” the gruff words smoothed out a piece of your soul and left you feeling a sense of comfort that you hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever. He continued with a harsher tone, “So fucking get that through your head right now and stop talking so damn crazy. It’s wasn’t your fault,” he finished strongly, but you knew it wasn't the full truth.

“I see how you look at me now.” you looked up at him just in time to see his eyebrows lift toward his forehead, “You have to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you. It wasn’t just your kid, you know. I’m fucking hurting too,” his brows plummeted once more as a stern expression settled onto his face. He stared at you as if he was daring you to deny him.

You accepted his dare, “You don’t show it…”

“Well, FUCK, Y/N!” he boomed, causing your body to jolt a little at the sudden noise, “I have to be strong for your ass. There’s no one to pick you up if I’m a mess!” his voice cracked in just about every other syllable, alarming you and incentivizing you to turn your entire body towards his chest. You clearly saw the first tear drop from his face—fat and heavy as if it was preparing for forever for this moment, “But I am a mess okay? I can’t go two seconds without thinking about him, dammit. I sit in his nursery and I think about how I am never gonna be there for him. It tears me up!” he was now sobbing just as you had been a few minutes ago, his chest thudding against your own, “But I still have you. I still have you to be there for, so don’t give up on me... please.” His voice fell with every word he spoke so that the last one was only just audible.

You’d never seen him so destroyed. Defeated.

God, were you really so inconsiderate?

Bakugou had been strong for you as always, but did it really take for him shattering right in front of you to make you realize that the loss affected more than just you? The two of you should have been there for each other, but instead, as your life slipped through your fingers, you had unknowingly been sucking up the life out of him to compensate.

That wouldn’t fucking do.

He is your rock-- your strength, and he deserves someone who can do the same for him.

Your hand throbbed.

It yearned for contact as you reached out to the man laying beside you, “You still have me too. I’m here, baby,” as you gathered up into his crying form it was as if the cloud had been lifted from your hazy mind. The man in front of you was so clearly broken. Even with fog in your brain, you couldn’t believe how you didn’t see it before, “God, I am so sorry,” you breathed out as you planted a kiss onto his forehead. You wiped his tears away and attempted a weak smile at him, “Let’s do this over again. We can both be there for each other this time, okay? I love you so much.”

“Love you too,” he finished before pulling you as close as he could to him on the tiled floor.

#Bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bakugou #katsuki bakugou #katsuki bakugou x reader #bakugou imagines #bakugou imagine #bakugou x reader #bakugou angst #bnha x reader #mha x reader #mha imagines #mha imagine #bnha imagines #bnha imagine #writing prompts #dialogue promtps

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clareguilty · 4 years

Text

Little Bear Time

Charles Smith/Reader (Reader is neutral) Rating: Explicit | No Warnings Word Count: ~2200

Your back was beginning to ache already, despite it not even being noon yet. You grimaced as you grabbed another fish from the bucket and began cutting into it. It was bloody, smelly work, but it had to be done. Javier had left before sunrise and returned a few hours later with a few basses for the pot. He had grinned as he plopped the bucket at your feet. “You should have come with me, osito. They were biting like crazy!”

You had shaken your head. “I’m not much of a fisherman, and I’m even less of one in the morning.”

Javier had been able to help you for all of five minutes before Dutch called to him. He was all apologies as he left you to the work, off to see what van der Linde needed. You stared into the dead eyes of the fish you were filleting. He didn’t have any wisdom for you.

Up to your elbows in fish scales and bones, surrounded by knives, anyone should have known better than to give you trouble.

Micah Bell was not anyone.

“Hey there, Tiny!” he crowed, leaning on a barrel and grabbing an apple off the side of the wagon. The loud crunch of the fruit made your eye twitch.

“Bell. What can I do for you?” you sighed.

“Just came to see what’s cooking. Looks like you’re very busy.”

“Yes, Micah. I am busy.” You ripped a fillet clean from the skin and slammed it on the table. “Looks like you’ve got a lot of free time on your hands.” You traded your smaller knife for something larger, with a little more cleaving power.

“Aw naw,” Micah drawled. “I’ve got a lot going on. Plans in the works for Dutch. You know how it is.” He took another bite of his apple, unbothered.

“I’m afraid I don’t know how it is.” You brought your cleaver down, chopping off the head of the bass you had just finished. Micah’s eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t move. You dumped all of your scraps into the bin.

“You know what I think?” Micah smoothed his mustache. You didn’t want to know what Micah thought, but you knew you were about to get an earful anyway. “I think you need to learn how to take it easy, Tiny. Even better, I think I could be just the one to show you a good time. Much better than that boulder you usually hang out with. What do you say?”

You grimaced. Micah was all but leering at you, eyebrow raised. “I have a name,” you said.

“You still need to grow into it,” Micah shrugged. “Quit being such a runt, and I’ll quit calling you Tiny. Now, what do you say? You ditch that dullard Smith and go out riding with me some time?”

“Who’s a dullard?” a low voice chimed in. Charles rounded the wagon, a sack of feed hoisted over his shoulder. Micah dropped his apple.

“Micah here was just offering to show me how to ‘take it easy,’” you raised your eyebrows at him.

Charles dropped the feed sack. You and Micah both jumped at the loud sound. “Is that so?” He brushed his hands off. “Does that sound like something you’re interested in, Little Bear?”

You gestured to the pile of fish meat in front of you. “As you can see, Charles, I’m a little busy.”

“Oh, so he can call you ‘little bear’ but I can’t call you ‘tiny’? Wha-” Micah was interrupted by Charles grabbing the front of his shirt with both hands, lifting him to his toes.

“Look, Bell,” Charles growled, leaning in close. “I think it would be best if you kept to yourself for a little while. Why don’t you go and ‘take it easy’ somewhere else?” He released Micah with a scoff, dropping him into the damp dirt. You watched him scurry away with his tail between his legs.

“Thank you,” you smiled softly at Charles. You wanted to kiss him, but you were covered in fish guts.

“He’s gonna get himself hurt.” Charles pried your fingers from the handle of the knife. You didn’t even notice how white your knuckles had been.

He nudged you a few steps aside with his hip, grabbing the next fish and making a quick cut. “Let me help.”

Between the two of you, you made quick work of the fish. Charles even showed you some new ways to salt them and rub them down with fat and spices. You knew they would smell delicious over the fire.

You washed up in the stream and, realizing you were out of view of the camp, decided to sit in the shade for just a little bit. Charles undid the first few buttons of his shirt and settled in next to you. You tried to keep your gaze from lingering on the few inches of exposed skin.

“Would you ever go with Micah?” Charles asked out of nowhere. He was watching you with furrowed brows.

“Go where?” you asked, caught off guard. “Actually, I wouldn’t go anywhere with him. He’s too much trouble no matter what it is.” You shook your head at the mere thought.

Charles hummed in consideration.

“Are you… jealous?” you asked, incredulous.

“Not particularly, no,” Charles answered. “I guess I’m just worried that I’m not enough for you. You could be with someone else.”

“Of course I could be with someone else,” you rolled your eyes, “but I don’t want to. You make me happy.” You scooted closer so you could lean into Charles’ side. You finally gave in and let your fingers trail over his bare chest. “I’ve got to say, watching you threaten Micah earlier, it did something to me. I like knowing that you’re looking out for me.”

“I was trying to save him from getting gutted by you. You looked close to stabbing him, and I don’t think Dutch would have liked that very much.” He ran a hand over your hair.

“He called you a dullard,” you frowned.

“I’ve been called worse,” Charles chuckled. “But I appreciate you standing up for me, Little Bear.”

"Want to go out tonight? Find a nice spot with a good view of the water?" You pressed in even closer, nuzzling your cheek to his shoulder. You could feel the low rumble in his chest as he considered the offer.

"Just the two of us?" he asked. You knew exactly what he was thinking.

"Just the two of us." You threw one of your legs over his thighs, pressing your lips to the stubble on his jaw.

The smell of spices drifted to where you were resting. This fish was nearly done cooking. "We should leave right after we eat," Charles squeezed your hips lightly.

You ate with Tilly and Javier, laughing along as Javier recounted a wild job he had been on with John. Charles pulled you into his lap once you cleared your plates, already excited about your evening together. Javier teased you when he found out you were leaving camp.

"What? You don't feel like getting it on right under everyone's noses? Take a page out of MacGuire's book! He certainly doesn't mind if everyone knows what he's up to."

You laughed and rolled your eyes. "Feeling left out, Escuella?"

Javier grinned, all teeth and charm. "Is that an invitation, osito?" He backed down as soon as the words had left his lips, and you could only imagine the look Charles must have given him. "Ay, brother, I was just teasing." He raised his hands in surrender.

You frowned at Charles, disapproval in your gaze. "Sorry, Javier. We had a bout with Micah earlier, and he's still cooling off."

Charles was still tense beneath you, so you pressed a kiss to his temple. "What do you say we head out?" you offered. He squeezed your hip and you knew he wanted nothing more.

You quickly gathered your things and led Peanut over to where Charles was brushing Taima. "Good to go," you kissed the corner of his mouth.

The two of you rode out in easy silence. You could see Charles thinking, but you knew he would talk if he wanted.

The spot you picked was up the hill from the lake shore, out of sight from the road. You pitched a tent and built a fire, setting out your bedrolls before collapsing into each other's embrace. The sun was beginning to set, casting the sky in brilliant oranges and reds and purples. The lake was inky black with fiery ripples dancing over its surface.

“I need you,” Charles whispered. He pressed you into the ground. His weight was a comfort, settling over you completely. Lips brushed over your skin. Your hands trailed over his chest, feeling the broadness of him.

“What do you need?” You raised a suggestive eyebrow.

“Anything you’ll give me.”

You smiled at the answer. He could be so silly sometimes.

He continued to take his fill of you, working you out of your clothes as he ground his hips to yours and marked the skin across your chest. It was breathtaking. Every touch lit over your skin. Raced through you. Charles hadn’t been able to have you like this in so long.

“Can you prep me?” you asked, a breathless whisper.

His eyes lit up, as though you were giving him the world. Large hands pressed your thighs apart. You bit back a moan when he pressed a finger into you, slowly, carefully. “You’re gorgeous.”

It was as gentle and meticulous as everything Charles did. You were desperate and whining long before he was done, ready to take him right then.

“Please, Charles,” you gasped, “I want to ride you.”

He stilled. “You can’t just say things like that.” His voice was low, nearly broken.

“I need it,” you rocked your hips, sinking farther on his fingers.

He pulled back as if he had been struck, pulling his shirt over his head and working at the fasten of his pants. You pushed yourself up to your elbows and then your knees and reached for Charles as he set his clothes aside. He pulled you into his arms, expertly managing to kiss you while also arranging the two of you perfectly. You straddled his hips.

“I don’t deserve you,” he stared up at you.

You rolled your eyes. “Silly bear,” you tickled him lightly. He retaliated, and the two of you fell into a fit of laughter and light fingers. Once you felt the mood had lightened enough you wrapped your fingers around Charles’ cock and kissed him deeply. A low moan escaped him.

Lifting your hips, you sank onto his cock. It was a stretch, and you didn’t get very far. “Ah,” you gasped. “You always feel so good.”

Charles gripped the quilt beneath you, gritting his teeth as he tried to keep still. You wiggled your hips a little, sinking down another half an inch. “So big…” you moaned and leaned forward to brace yourself better.

It was so much. Almost too much. The stretch, the fullness. Charles couldn’t keep from bucking just a little beneath you, and you cried out. He laced his fingers with yours, whispering apologies as you shook and whimpered.

Your hips met his. A few moments of stillness. Charles panted against your skin, you could feel his heart thudding. “Can I move?” He asked.

You nodded, trying to rock your own hips against him. He responded by bucking up into you, hands flying to your thighs to hold you tightly to him. Your nails raked over his chest, it was just too much. You and Charles hardly ever got the chance to have each other like this. But now, he was all yours, and you let yourself come apart on his cock.

Charles reached down to stroke you gently as he continued to rock his hips. You did your best to grind down against him, trying to bring him with you as you hurtled towards release. You wouldn't last long, not with his cock buried in you and his fingers stroking you slow and determined.

“Charles,” you panted, “I love you. I love you. I never want to be parted from you.” You hardly even realized what you were saying, just that he needed to know.

“I know,” he gasped. His fingers increased their pace and you came so hard and so suddenly that you nearly toppled over. Large hands steadied you as you shook, making a mess over Charles’s stomach and clenching around his cock.

“Oh, my love -- I’m close,” he groaned. “Can I?”

“Please,” you begged. You were already fucked out and nearing overstimulation, but you needed to feel Charles come.

He pulled you against his chest and carefully rolled so that you were on your back. A few powerful thrusts and you felt him finish inside you, a growl escaping his lips. You fell limp against the quilt, Charles nearly collapsing on top of you as well.

The sun had dipped below the mountain peaks, and the sky was now a wonderful indigo. Charles moved just enough to wipe you both clean before curling into your back, holding you close to him.

“You mean everything to me,” he said softly.

“You’re all I could ever want,” you whispered back, drifting off to the sound of the wind rushing over the meadows.

#smut #lemons #Charles Smith #charles smith/reader #charles smith x reader #rdr2 fanfic #rdr2 #little bear #little bear time

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heartsofbeskar · 3 years

Text

from the ashes

chapter 7 | read on AO3

din djarin x oc

WARNINGS: violence, blood, mild torture, swearing, mentions of gambling

WORDS: 5.2K

EXCERPT: Knives had always been his last choice, a last resort when his firearms failed him or were no longer an option. They were inefficient in his brutish hands, often requiring close contact and were never a guarantee to kill. But in hers … they were more than just knives, they were instruments, that she played effortlessly to sing a serenade of violence.

He wondered if the Force had anything to do with it, or if she just had that many years of practice.

“You and that casino operator seemed close,” he continued musing into the silent space between them. There were no indications she had heard him, but he knew she had. Maker knew why, Din decided to push his luck. “Did you fuck her?”

MASTERLIST | SERIES MASTERLIST

PREV | NEXT

Din’s mind whirled faster than light speed as they ran back to her ship.

I am not a Jedi.

The words echoed over and over again. But she had to be … right? Or at least some kind of trainee, like Grogu was. He let his mind dwell on the small foundling. How he’d been able to lift impossible weights for his tiny body, how he’d healed terminal injuries— how he’d choked Cara just as Ten had choked the security officer who’d held a blaster to her head.

But there was no pretending Ten was some helpless creature that just happened to be overloaded with this weird power. She was a grown woman, a trained fighter. She wielded it with precision. She had to have learned how to do that somewhere, somehow.

I am not a Jedi.

The Empire … they chased me too.

If she wasn’t a Jedi, why would the Empire pursue her?

I never knew why—I still don’t.

Had she just lied to him? His skin felt like it was on fire. He didn’t know why the prospect of that bothered him so much. Many people had lied to him before, and he in turn had told many lies. His whole identity was built around an air of secrecy, but … it had felt like an intimate capsule of time, back on that asteroid. Where a barrier had slipped, for the both of them. Din didn’t want to consider it had all been false.

I am not a Jedi.

The ship entered his view, the distance closing much faster than before. Ten didn’t look back at him as she opened the hold and headed directly into the cockpit. He didn’t follow her in.

He sat on the nearest crate, shedding his gloves. He pressed the palms of his hands into his helmet, as if it were skin. A part of him … hoped she was Jedi. That she could get in contact with the ones who had taken Grogu. That he could see him again. Maybe even…

Din shook his head forcefully as he felt the ship jump to hyperspace. It was stupid and wishful for him to dwell on those things.

Ten emerged from the cockpit, avoiding his eyes. She was still wearing her cloak as she hurried into the refresher, and then towards where he sat, holding a small metal box now. He straightened.

“You’re bleeding,” she pointed out. She sat down next to him and rifled through the box. Her thigh pressed against his, and Din had the inexplicable urge to jerk away, which he ignored. He furrowed his brow beneath his helmet, turning to examine himself and — ah. A blaster graze was indeed on his arm, the fabric torn away just below the pauldron. Blood slowly dripped down onto the sleeve.

Setting the box on the ground, she slowly brought her hands up to grip the edges of his pauldron. They stilled there, her eyes lifting to his. Asking for permission. He nodded.

She pried the metal off his arm, and he groaned. He could feel the sting now, the frayed nerves hit by blaster fire. She ripped the fabric further up his arm, exposing the burn and his tanned skin.

“It’s not too bad, just partially got past the beskar,” she muttered, running her fingers over the surrounding area. They were cold, Din noticed. She touched him with a gentleness that didn’t suit her face.

As she began to wipe grime off the area, she said quietly, “Aren’t you going to ask?”

Din turned his face to look in hers, but her eyes were down, staying focused on the burn. Her brows were furrowed. He didn’t even know what the question would be. He settled for silence as she finished cleaning his arm, then reached for a small can of bacta spray.

“This’ll sting.” She began to spray the area. It did sting, but Din registered it only in some far away portion of his mind. He wanted to take the opportunity she’d opened, but his mind was still grasping at the formulation of a thought that didn’t sound … well, stupid.

As she placed a patch on the now scarring burn, he gave up.

“How can you do that if you’re not a Jedi?”

Her eyes finally flickered back up to meet his. “The Jedi do not have nor have they ever had exclusive control over the Force.”

“The Force … that’s where those … powers come from, right?”

She straightened from where she’d been rearranging the first aid box and gave a small laugh. Din … wasn’t sure he’d heard that sound from her before. Not like this.

“Powers, that’s…” she shook her head. “That’s cute, Mandalorian. Yes, the Force is what enables me to do the things most can’t. But it’s all a matter of someone’s connection.”

Ten stood, heading back to the refresher. Din couldn’t help but follow. The questions seemed to be falling out of his mouth now. Grogu had never been able to tell him anything about his powers. It felt as if by learning more he could be closer to him, somehow. Understand his son and the extraordinary life he had lived.

“Connection? What does that mean?”

She half turned towards him, shrugging off her cloak and then her jacket. Wraps encased her forearms, as Din had always seen. She raised an eyebrow at him.

“You’re more curious about this than I thought you would be,” she remarked. Facing the mirror, she turned on the tap.

“You just incapacitated someone without even touching them.”

“A blaster can do that as well,” she said, leaning down and splashing water onto her face. The edges of her hair brushed the sink ledge, the dark strands wetting slightly. Din scoffed.

“A blaster doesn’t—” he stopped. He rubbed a hand along the edge of his helmet, realizing his gloves were still off. “Why did you lie to me before? About the Empire?”

Ten spun quickly to face him, water droplets still dripping down the planes of her face. She narrowed her eyes. “I never lied to you. That armour, your helmet, that’s your Creed. This is mine. Hiding my connection from the Force is the only way I’ve lived all these years. If you were anyone else … I would’ve killed you already.”

Her eyes stayed locked on his helmet, not even blinking. He believed her. And he knew, he could tell, it was something she’d done before. He understood, so he nodded, slowly.

As she passed, he placed a hand on her arm. “I wouldn’t betray you to the Empire.”

She placed a hand on top of his. Din was acutely aware of their bare skin touching. He could feel the texture of her skin. It was softer than he had expected. Was everything about her softer than it appeared?

“People I’ve known for years have sold me out to the Empire. I’ve only known you for less than a month.”

—

Her vision was muddied with the blood that had erupted from her face. It clung to her lashes, falling into her eye, and she tried to rapidly blink it away. Ten spit it out when it accumulated into her mouth. She was afraid to touch her face, afraid of what she would find there.

Good morning, beautiful. Antilles had greeted her that way nearly every morning for as long as she’d known him. Beautiful. She supposed she probably wasn’t, not anymore. Quell had seen to that.

The troopers took turns shoving her with their rifles to move her along. Her ankle screamed its objections, and Ten couldn’t even tell through the blood and sweat if there were tears.

She cried out as she tripped over something hard, falling forward and landing on her forearms. A metal surface. This must be their ship, she realized. A shudder went through her. She tried desperately to reach out to the Force, to feel its steady rhythm beneath her own breathing, but it felt too far away. Pushed down by her own panic.

Someone grabbed her by the collar of her shirt now, pulling her along beside them. She felt them ascending a ramp and then she was unceremoniously thrown towards the floor. Panting, she rested the uncut half of her face on the cool surface under her. Voices filtered through the ship to her ears.

“The asset is secure. We should prepare to leave immediately. You—” A snapping noise. Quell’s voice. “Clean this up, dispose of this waste.”

A different voice responded. “Sir, if I may, it was specified that the asset be delivered unharmed.”

Quell barked a laugh. “The bitch is fine. Surface level, nothing more. It’ll heal and she’ll be just as useful to the Empire as before.”

Ten felt her eyes burning, and she knew now there were undoubtedly tears. She couldn’t muster the effort to be ashamed. Some of the blood cleared from her eye. She focused on the crate that sat directly in front of her, counting the letters of the logo stamped to the side. Footsteps echoed off the metal, louder as they drew closer to her.

“We’re about to have some fun.”

With a small gasp, Ten’s eyes flew open. The hammock she lay in was gently swaying with the movements of the ship. She slowly ran a hand over her cheek. Dry.

She was alone in the ship’s hold. The engines were humming softly. She flexed her hand in front of her; it was still a little sore. One of the wraps on her arm had slipped down as she’d slept. Ten absentmindedly rubbed the tattooed “10” on her forearm. Years ago, she used to rub the skin until it was raw, sometimes on the verge of bleeding. But the ink always remained buried beneath.

Swinging her legs over the side of the hammock, she signed, rubbing the back of her neck. She hadn’t had an outburst like that with the Force in … well, she didn’t like to dwell on the last time it had happened. At least this time hadn’t been disastrous. Maybe she really was in more control, had somehow mastered the connections with no guidance. Or she was just simply fooling herself. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Mando’s footsteps filtered to her as they came down the short hallway. Ten hurriedly rewrapped her arm as he came into view. He’d put his pauldron back on, but not bothered yet to change his shirt — she could still see some of the bare skin around where he’d been burned. The feeling of it under her fingers echoed in her mind.

As he walked towards her, she was hit with the sudden realization of him knowing … and being a Mandalorian, at that. She remembered laying under the stars, Silya’s warm arm wrapped around her. Telling her tales of the ancient days of Mandalore, of their clashes with the Jedi. The enemies of all Mandalorians. Is that how he would view her now? Did she care? She was annoyed that the first response in her mind wasn’t no, of course not.

It felt like she was being laid bare in front of him.

“I went over the communication logs we downloaded.” His helmet was downturned, looking at the holopad in front of him. “The Empire usually slingshots its transmissions around Corellia, Issiluu, and Shih, in specific patterns. I don’t see any of that in here.”

Ten rubbed a hand over her face. “That would make sense, given the levels of security. The Empire would never leave their conspirator without at least a few troopers on the property.”

“We should choose who to check out next so we can get going,” he said, fingers moving quickly over the holopad screen. She rose from the hammock, muscles protesting. He’d put his gloves back on, she noticed. She followed him into the cockpit.

Settling into the co-pilot seat, he pulled up the holographic display which began listing Karga’s associates. He tapped his finger in the corner and it began scrolling through their details.

“I still think we should focus on those who were known to deal in weapons or adjacent industries during the height of the Empire,” Mando’s voice hummed in the background as Ten watched the names go by, along with the imagery of their various business pursuits. They were beginning to blur together and Ten sighed when— she saw it.

“Stop,” she demanded harshly. The screen had already moved forward. Mando’s helmet jerked in her direction. “Go back one. Another one. There— stop it here.”

Ten leaned forward, examining the information. It was the profile of Doman Tosche. He looked mild mannered enough, round face slightly reddened in the display picture. He owned a myriad of businesses in the Core, primarily food and household goods, which he’d recently been exporting further out. The only known connection to the Empire, based on their combined records and knowledge, was a second cousin who’d enlisted decades prior.

None of that was what had grabbed her attention.

There, next to one of his agricultural businesses, Mal’s Production Incorporated. A logo. One she’d seen before.

Blood was dripping down her brow. Her body was wracked with shivers against the cold metal floor. Quell’s voice was in the background, arrogant and spiteful. The crate. The crate sat right in front of her. A logo painted onto the side. She counted the letters. Mal’s Production Incorporated.

She’d seen it before. On Quell’s ship. Years ago.

“He’s working with the Empire,” she said. She didn’t look at Mando. “He always has been.”

“You’re sure?” Ten looked at him now. He had leaned in, just slightly, and his fingers twitched like they wanted to reach. They didn’t. She nodded. “Okay.”

Taking a deep breath, she motioned to the display. “Looks like he has no centralized office, but he was in Canto Bight … two days ago, according to the shipyard logs. We should head there.”

Mando nodded, settling back in his seat, flexing his fingers. He seemed uneasy as she set in their new course. Clearing his throat, he asked, “Is this … is this a Force thing?”

“No,” she said. Her fingers tightened around the handle of the controls. “It’s a memory thing.”

—

“We should try to be back before the sun rises, in case there’s any New Republic officers patrolling.” Ten had her back turned to him, adjusting her weapons. The muscles in her shoulders flexed, and a strangely linear burn scar covered her left shoulder blade. Din’s eyes followed the line of her arm down to where her wrappings covered her skin. He felt a pang of guilt thinking about the glimpse he’d accidentally stolen of the skin underneath earlier. Of the tattoo he guessed she was hiding, though he couldn’t even begin to understand why. But he knew what it was to feel safe in cover, to need to block off physical parts of one’s self. He wouldn’t tell her he’d seen. She continued speaking as she turned around to face him, fastening her cloak at her neck. “I can blend in a crowd, but the beskar’s not exactly … inconspicuous.”

“You’d be surprised,” he muttered. “But I agree, we should be careful. How much do you trust this contact you have here?”

She laughed at that. “Not at all, Mando.”

As they made their way past the bright casino lights, Din could tell the reflections off his armour made her uncomfortable as they moved amongst the city’s tourists. In his experience, the reflections often had the opposite effect she feared — he was like a mirror, where the surroundings drew all the attention, and he became nothing but a neutral piece of the structure.

Ten led him down a narrower side alley, offset from the main casino attractions, which seemed to help her relax a touch, despite its much seedier nature. A few shadowy figures lingered in doorways and Din’s hand came up to rest on his blaster, even though the woman in front of him seemed unbothered by their presence.

A dirty hand lunged out from an alcove as they passed by, grabbing tightly onto Ten’s arm and yanking. With the surprise leverage, the hand — attached to a man with a face equally dirty — pushed her down into the gravel. Din pulled his blaster from his belt but as he pointed it at the man, he had already his own blaster pressed into her temple.

“Go ahead Tin Can, shoot me,” he snarled. “By the time it reaches me I’ll have pulled the trigger on your friend here.”

As if to illustrate his point, he pushed the blaster harder into her temple. His other hand rested on the back of her head, and he pressed her face into the ground. Her hands were pinned beneath his knees. Din felt the blood rushing in his ears, his adrenaline spiking.

“You fucking idiot,” he heard Ten swear at him, her voice muffled.

“Oh, I’m the fucking idiot, eh?” he responded, turning his eyes down to her. Din dropped his free arm beneath his cloak. “You cost us a right lot of credits last time you were here, bitch. Fucked over our whole operation, ya did.”

“Your operation had the constitution of a burlap sack, you absolute—” The rest of her sentence was cut off as Din launched forward, propelled by the phoenix. He slammed his body into the other man, sending them into the opposite wall, and his body protested. The small space filled with smoke and Din pulled the vibroblade from his arm as it cleared. Bringing it down in a swift stroke, he plunged it into the direction of the man’s neck. As it sunk in and blood sprayed onto his chest plate he knew he’d hit the mark.

As the man slumped to the ground, he turned to where Ten had been. She was coughing lightly through the smoke, lifting herself on her elbows. He stepped towards her.

“Are you alright?” He extended a gloved hand down towards her. She ignored it.

“Shit,” she cursed again. Din watched as she slowly rose to her feet, brushing gravel off the front of her body. There was a red mark at her temple where the blaster had been, but he let out a breath when she seemed otherwise fine. Her eyes locked onto his. “I didn’t need your help.”

“Yeah, seemed like you had it all under control,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.

Some gravel still clung to the smooth skin of her face. Before he could stop himself, his hand reached up and began to gingerly wipe it away.

Her hand darted up to grab him by the wrist. It gripped him like a vice, and neither of them moved. It felt like there was some inflexible string tying them together in that moment, constricting each of them separately. The expression in her eyes was unreadable. It was as if she had her own beskar helmet to cover her outward expression. Din wasn’t even sure they were breathing.

He had no idea how long it had been — seconds? minutes? hours? — when the grip on his wrist finally released. His hand lowered.

“I didn’t need your help,” she said, tone softer than before. Ripping her eyes from him, she resumed their previous path down the alley.

—

Ten clenched her fists, tight enough to hurt, beneath her cloak. If she didn’t, she knew she would shake.

Not from the attempt on her life. No, that was a pretty standard day. And she’d met that man before, when he’d helped run a ring of backdoor casinos, scalping off the legitimate casino profits. The legitimate casinos had, unsurprisingly, hired her to flush out all the information on their counterparts.

No, Ten was shaking because … well, she couldn’t really say why. Was she humiliated? Maybe. Was she annoyed? Most definitely. She wanted to turn on her Mandalorian counterpart and give him the brunt of it, about how she was no damsel in distress for him to save and protect.

It wasn’t completely logical, she knew. They were partners, and someone had her on the ground with a blaster to her head. The second time in so many days. But she bristled all the same.

And the way his hand had brushed off the dirt from her face … what the fuck? Her nerves felt frayed, as if her very skin had been peeled open and set alight.

She didn’t look back at him again as they made their way to the end of the alley. A large metal door was inset in the wall that marked the end. There was no handle of any kind, but a small window at eye level which was shut.

Approaching, she motioned to Mando to stand back behind her. She banged one, two, three times exactly on the door. With a squeak, the metal cover on the small window slid open. It was just large enough to view the eyes of the person on the other side. Their brow was furrowed.

“You have a fathier for today’s race?” a gruff voice asked.

“Yes, he’s being tended to in the thirteenth stable.”

The metal window covering snapped shut abruptly. A moment later the entire door gave a low moan, opening just wide enough for a person to fit through. Ten entered, gesturing for the Mandalorian to follow.

The small room reeked of smoke, more sour and concentrated than the smoke in the alley had been. A large green Trandoshan sat on a stool and leaned against the dirty wall, picking at their teeth. The Devaronian who let them in gave them a short grunt, which she knew to interpret as wait here. He disappeared down another short hallway, which quickly faded to blackness.

Rather than make eye contact with the Trandoshan, Ten turned herself back towards Mando. The single bulb that lit the room reflected off the top corner of his breastplate. His helmet tilted down to look at her.

“A waiting room?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. Experimentally, she clenched and unclenched her fist beside her. The shaking had subsided.

“They don’t allow weapons inside their main casino.” She nodded down the hallway. “And I don’t allow myself anywhere without weapons.”

“I take it this isn’t the operation you fucked over, then,” he said, helmet turning to look back at the entrance. Ten swore she could hear a smirk in his voice.

“I was paid by the big boys to profile everything I could find on illegitimate operations in the city,” she shrugged. “Kirana paid me even more to remain … discrete.”

Before he could say anything in response, a human woman emerged from the hallway with the Devaronian hovering just over her shoulder. She was conspicuously dressed, a bright red gown draped over her body, with a significant dip into her cleavage, opening the expanse of skin. Her red lips turned up into a smile when she entered the room with them.

“My dear nameless friend,” she cooed, embracing Ten’s upper arms. She placed a kiss on each of her cheeks. “How lovely of you to grace us with your presence in Canto Bight!”

“Kirana, you’re looking lovely as ever,” Ten gestured beside her. “This is the Mandalorian, he’s helping me with a job.”

“A nameless associate, how very on brand,” Kirana flashed them a dazzling smile. “Tell me, what can I do for my favourite devious double agent, hmm?”

“Doman Tosche,” she spat the name out at no one in particular. “We tapped shipyard logs and apparently he was here just a few days ago. He runs some businesses from the Core, but we— I— think he’s been dealing with Imps since the Empire days.”

Kirana raised a delicate eyebrow. Ten struggled to read the expression in her eyes.

“Not many reputable Core businessmen visit my establishments, I’m afraid.”

“There’s also not many people at all who enter and leave this city that you don’t know about.” With this, the well dressed woman broke into a lilting laugh that echoed off the metal walls. She ran her hands higher up Tens arms, grasping her near her shoulders, and smiled at her.

“Now that you’re right about,” she sighed. “I do know a certain Mr. Tosche was here, he likes to frequent certain girls who work by the betting tracks. However, he left after one night on a passenger caravan. Obviously under a false name if it’s not in the logs.”

Ten gritted her teeth hearing that he was already gone. She turned her head ever so slightly, looking at the Mandalorian from the corner of her eye, before focusing back on Kirana.

“I don’t suppose there’s a chance you know where that ship was headed?”

Kirana shook her head, looking rueful. “Even if I did, they usually make a number of unlogged stops, especially if they’re well paid,” she muttered. Gently, she lifted a hand to cup Ten’s cheek— the same one the Mandalorian had touched, Ten registered, somewhere in a corner of her mind. She pushed it even further back. “But, I do know that he didn’t arrive here alone. A business associate, some sort of manager, perhaps. He stayed on world and has spent the last many hours inside my humble establishment.”

“He’s in there now?” Ten asked, eyes darting to the dark hallway. “Kirana, you have to let me in to get him.”

The Trandoshan stirred now, leaning in her direction, a low growl in its throat. Ten saw the glint of beskar moving beside her.

“Now, now, there’s no reason for any sort of violence here,” Kirana turned her eyes onto Mando, narrowing them. “But you know my rules, dear. No weapons inside my premises. That includes these lovely hands of yours. However, once someone leaves…”

Mando spoke up for the first time since Kirana had appeared. “We’ll be waiting then.”

—

For once, their timing seemed to work out favourably. The man Kirana said worked for Tosche — Hamal Hearns — took less than an hour to stumble out of the back alley casino, yawning and scratching at the stubble that had grown out on his face.

Subduing him was too easy to even be fun, Din lamented. He spent a large portion of the walk back to the Ursa, through the still dark streets of Canto Bight then the deserts of the surrounding area, grovelling and talking about ransoms, about the powerful men he worked for, how they would pay for him, however much they needed. Ten rewarded him with a sharp punch to the nose, after which he fell silent.

She threw him unceremoniously into the storage room Din had adopted as his sleeping quarters. Din could hear him softly crying through the door.

“He shouldn’t need much pushing,” he commented, leaning against the corner of the wall. Ten was in her weapons compartment, seemingly picking out her favourite. He once again found himself marvelling at the sheer number of blades. And the single blaster he knew she carried at her left hip.

Knives had always been his last choice, a last resort when his firearms failed him or were no longer an option. They were inefficient in his brutish hands, often requiring close contact and were never a guarantee to kill. But in hers … they were more than just knives, they were instruments, that she played effortlessly to sing a serenade of violence.

He wondered if the Force had anything to do with it, or if she just had that many years of practice.

That got her attention. Her hand snapped to his direction. She picked out a large knife, its blade slightly curved, and began walking slowly towards him. He wondered if she finally was going to stab him.

“Not that it’s any of your business, Mandalorian,” she came to a stop beside him, her shoulder brushing his. “But yes … I did.”

For another moment, neither of them moved, staring at the other. It seemed to stretch from that second into infinity, and then it ended as quickly as it began. Ten continued down the small hallway to the room where their guest was. Taking a deep breath, Din followed.

Hamal Hearns was on his knees, hands still cuffed behind his back. His face was covered in snot and sweat and tears and a small trickle of blood out of his nose from when Ten had hit him. His eyes brimmed with more tears as she held his chin in one of her hands.

“I have a very simple question for you, Mr. Hearns,” she murmured, her tone much gentler than Din expected. He crossed his arms over his chest, not missing the way the man’s eyes flitted back and forth between them. Ten’s hand on his face tightened.

“Is your boss working for the Empire?”

His eyes widened, tears spilling over, lips trembling.

“Please, please, miss, we wouldn’t do anything like that I promise—”

“Shhh,” Ten cooed. “I’m afraid you misunderstood. You see, I know the answer already, I was just hoping … you could be honest with me.”

She was kneeling in front of him now, and brought her other hand up to the cheek she hadn’t already been holding. He widened his eyes as they stayed locked on her face.

Din had expected some violence, perhaps Ten’s favourite flavour of physical torture, to get the skittish man to tell them what he knew.

But the silence only deepened, and as Ten and Hearns maintained eye contact, he watched the latter’s body begin to shake. He tried to shake his head back and forth, but she held it steady. Blood began to seep from his eyes, falling like tears, then out of his ears, and mouth.

“Please,” he whimpered. He coughed and gasped around the blood in his mouth. “I’ll—” Another cough. “I’ll tell you everything I know! He’s been selling to the Empire for years! P-please just stop!”

Ten leaned back, stretching her hands out. “Good. I knew you’d do the right thing. You’re going to tell my Mandalorian friend everything useful you know. Or I’ll be back.”

He nodded vigorously, not even attempting to cover the sobs that racked his body. Blood still covered his face, but no longer seemed to be freshly flowing.

What had she done to him?

She stood, and Din didn’t miss the shaking in her legs. As she turned, he saw the bags under her eyes that he swore weren’t there when they had entered the room. She laid a hand on his breastplate.

“Take it from here, please, Mando.”

#*writes a chapter twice as long as average*#ummm anyway im v happy w this i hope ppl like it #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian x oc #the mandalorian x original character #the mandalorian #din djain #din djarin x oc #din djarin x original character #din djarin fanfiction #star wars fanfic #star wars fanfiction #star wars #mywriting

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capnjay21 · 4 years

Text

Brink 6/?

But this woman was neither mermaid nor Brave, radiant but fierce — and the cool touch of steel to his skin reminded him of the sword she had pointed at his throat.

“My name is Emma Swan,” she said, in answer to the question he had yet to give voice to, “and I’m here for my son.”

Season 2 Canon Divergence; Hook never escaped Neverland, and once the curse breaks Pan comes to collect the loneliest lost boy of them all - the one in possession of the Heart of the Truest Believer.

one | two | three | four | five | ao3

A/N: and here is chapter six! this one goes out to @carpedzem because she is amazing and sweet and lovely and has been INCREDIBLY patient in me getting this out :D a fair warning to all - Hook gets a little dark in this chapter, but bear with him. as we all know, he’s turning it around! Rating: T

my teeny tiny lovely taglist: @carpedzem @superchocovian @optomisticgirl @phiralovesloki

If anyone else wants to be tagged with updates for this fic (which could be helpful, given how sporadically I drop them I’M SO SORRY) then just let me know!

***

It was a simple enough plan; the difficulty had been in laying it in near total silence, so as not to alert the boys sitting at camp of any unusual rustling nearby. One of the nets Starkey often used for hunting was easily, conveniently, wide enough to cover the form of a boy – and given the look he and Hook had shared one he’d given the thought a voice, Emma chose not to think too closely about what its previous uses might have included. The idea was to tie it aloft in the dark canopy, then lure one of the boys away from the camp and trap him underneath it. All, ideally, without him alerting the others to his predicament.

Her heart hammered against her ribcage at a steady pace, a symptom of the near constant state of anxiety she had been in since Henry had walked out of her arms and disappeared back into the trees, but adrenaline coursed through her with a nervous energy. The bravado of her intent aside, it didn’t change the fact that she was gearing up to kidnap a child.

Even after everything Hook had told her about the Lost Boys, and after meeting Pan himself, it was difficult to see them as anything except that – boys. If monsters were all they were, surely Henry would not have believed he could make a home with them. She trusted his judgement above all else. It didn’t sit well in her gut, but there wasn’t much she could do about it now.

The trap was just about set. At the side of the clearing stood Hook (no, Killian – damn, it was hard to try and disassociate) readying himself to creep as close to the camp as he dared, before figuring out a way to split one of them away from the pack. Emma was just searching for her own hiding place, when their plans were entirely derailed.

Out of the undergrowth stumbled a boy, a head or so larger than Henry, staring at his shoes as he went, clearly not paying any attention to where he was going. Starkey and Noodler immediately darted into the brush, and Hook gesticulated wildly for Emma to do the same, but she reacted a second too slowly.

The boy looked up, clapping eyes on her instantly. He froze where he stood, his eyes growing wide as saucers, lips parting in confusion. He was thin and lanky, in the way that boys in the early teens often were, and an angry, scarlet scar had been drawn across his right cheek – and it looked like it was still fresh. As he stared, Emma stared right back, frantically wracking her brains for a way out. She couldn’t spare a glance at Hook or his men without giving away their position, but one cry from this boy would draw the entire hoard towards them. Emma made to grab for her sword, but something stopped her.

He didn’t seem – well, he certainly didn’t look threatening. If anything he appeared fascinated by her, blinking as if he were sure in a split second she might vanish from sight. He took a halting step toward her—

There was a heavy thunk, and he collapsed down into the dirt. Hook stood over his motionless form, brandishing the hilt of his cutlass aloft.

Once Emma recovered from the shock, she gaped. “What the hell are you playing at?” She felt an urgent sort of indignance at the bump she was sure would begin to form on the back of the boy’s head.

Hook (shoot, Killian) merely arched an eyebrow.

“Did you want the boy or not?”

Starkey quickly set about dismantling the trap while Noodler hauled the boy over his shoulder, and their troupe scarpered before their good fortune had the chance to change its mind.

Hook led them a few miles east at a punishing pace, wanting to put as much distance between them and the Lost Boys’ camp as possible. It wouldn’t do them any good to begin questioning the boy somewhere near enough to the rest of his number to allow them a rescue of some kind – although Hook assured her that without Pan’s direction, they almost certainly couldn’t coordinate well enough to pull off such an attempt. Given Pan’s penchant for omnipotence, Emma didn’t find that exactly reassuring.

Pan was connected to every living thing on the island, or so Hook had told her, and it wasn’t hard to believe. She had felt… something, from the moment she got here. It yearned for his touch, breathed for his blessing; they were the trespassers here. Even the trees themselves appeared bent towards each other, the rustle of leaves now the harshest of whispers eager to give them away.

Shit, she had been on this island way too long. She was starting to sound like H—Killian.

Killian. Killian Jones.

She just couldn’t see it.

They settled in a small clearing, tying the still unconscious boy tightly to a tree so his head lolled down onto his chest. There was little else to do except wait for him to come to, but even those few moments of stillness began to make Emma restless. It was the first move on the offensive she had made since she arrived on the island – but it was about time she stopped reacting and started acting.

At their captain’s instruction, Starkey and Noodler disappeared into the undergrowth, panning out in different directions, just to make sure they hadn’t either been followed or accidentally stopped a little too close to something far worse.

“So,” Hook mused, shirking off his duster and folding it carefully atop a rock. At this time of day the heat was at its most oppressive, and Emma could spot the sweat glistening from his brow. She herself was doing her best to stop her hair from sticking to the back of her neck. “Now you have a Lost Boy. What exactly are you planning to do next?”

Truthfully, Emma hadn’t exactly thought this far ahead. She had a vague idea of what she wanted from this, but the means hadn’t come to her as quickly as she’d hoped they would. To be perfectly honest, she was surprised to not have met with any resistance from Hook before now.

She let out a long breath, and decided to be honest. They’d agreed to trust each other, hadn’t they?

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Get him to talk? Take us to Henry, maybe?”

Hook – Killian – did not look convinced. “Sooner the sun would rise in the west, I expect.”

“I can be persuasive.”

He gave her an appraising look, one that lasted a beat too long and, if she wasn’t mistaken, lingered rather indelicately on some of her assets she knew men found particularly persuasive. She only realised the incidental dual meaning in her statement a few seconds too late.

To her surprise, he didn’t take the bait.

To her greater surprise, that almost irked her a little.

“I’m sure you can,” he continued brusquely, turning to glare at their captive against the tree. “But these aren’t ordinary boys.”

Emma followed his gaze. For a split second, she thought of the boy’s wide eyes as he took her in for the first time. He’d seemed almost – curious.

“He doesn’t have to be our enemy,” Emma pointed out. “Pan’s a monster, right? And he’s still a kid. Maybe he’s been waiting for an opportunity like this.”

Hook eyed her closely, tilting his head to one side.

“You hesitated.”

Emma blinked. “What?”

“Before, when the boy came across us. You went for your sword but you hesitated.” He peered at her carefully. “Why?”

Her lips parted – had she? She didn’t really remember, it had all happened so fast. He’d tumbled out of the brush almost right in front of her, freezing in place once he saw her. All she could really recall was thinking how – just how –

How young he looked.

How nothing like she’d imagined a Lost Boy would look up close, after everything Hook and his crew had told her. He was just a kid.

And she’d been a kid like that, once.

She was spared from fumbling through a response first by a loud sniff, and then a groan from the opposite side of the clearing. Both she and Hook immediately turned to look at their captive, the boy beginning to stir against his bindings.

“He’s coming to.”

“Alright, just leave this to me,” Emma said, injecting far more confidence into her tone that she felt. Gripping the hilt of David’s longsword, but keeping it in its sheath, she started in the direction of the boy.

“I’d never have pegged you for such an optimist,” Hook muttered, but kept his distance all the same. Emma chose to ignore him. Seeing as the pirates and the Lost Boys were apparently brutal enemies, it was probably for the best that he stayed out of the way.

The boy lifted his head, blinking blearily against the light and made to move his shoulders, before realising with alarm that they were trapped at his side by the rope. He immediately began to struggle, attempting to rip himself free but the knots held fast – then his gaze shot up to his surroundings. His wide eyes flickered first to Hook, then Emma, and his expression crumpled in fear.

“H—help!” he hollered, perhaps hoping to draw the attention of any nearby allies, “Help me, help! Peter!”

“Hey, chill out!” Emma hissed.

“Help, anyone – they’ve got me, I’m here!”

Trying to think of something to shut him up, Emma reached for the buckle of her scabbard and scrambled to take it off. Once she held the sword in her hand, certain she had his attention, she dropped it onto the ground and lifted her arms in an open gesture. Perhaps if he didn’t think of her as a threat, she could at least get him to stop crying out. The last thing they wanted was to draw any additional unwanted attention.

“Look – I’m not armed. Just calm down, alright?”

It had something of the desired effect, and he momentarily stopped struggling to survey her warily.

“I’m sorry about that bump on your head too, that’s gotta kill. What’s your name?” The boy’s lips tightened, as if he were reluctant to talk to her. “I’m Emma.”

“Are you a pirate?”

The boy’s gaze flickered down to the sword lying on the ground, so Emma nudged it a little farther away with her boot.

“No, I’m not a pirate. I’m just looking for my son.”

“Your – your son?” The boy’s mouth dropped open, agape. “You’re a mother?”

Given everybody had one, Emma was beginning to find this fascination that mothers could exist from the inhabitants of Neverland pretty damn irritating.

“Yeah, I am. I’m Henry’s mom. Henry?” Recognition flashed in the boys eyes, but he quickly tried to suppress it, schooling his features into something a little more neutral. Emma didn’t buy it for a second. “You know him, right? Can’t be that many new kids on the island.”

The boy kept his lips pressed together in a thin line.

“You’ve got a terrible poker face, kid,” Emma pointed out, “so you might as well just tell me. Where is Pan keeping him?”

“Pan doesn’t keep any of us,” the boy spat. “We want to stay. We want to be here.” With a force Emma would not have attributed to him, he suddenly lunged as far forward as he could, the rope tightening and groaning in protest. “And when I get out of this I’ll make sure you know why.”

“Look, I’m not your enemy.”

“Oh no?” The boy’s eyes were wide, his lips trembling as his pupils darted back and forth between her and Hook. “Then what’s he doing here?”

Clearly referring to Hook, Emma spared him a glance. His mouth was set in a grim line and he stood a little straighter, shoulders squared. For a moment she considered sending him away, if only for a few minutes so she could get this boy onside – the bad blood between the pirates on the Lost Boys was clearly very, very mutual. After a beat she dismissed the idea. She had nothing to be ashamed of, especially not working with Hook. He was putting himself more at risk with every moment he spent helping her. He’d given her weapons, food, allies; and she wasn’t even sure if he’d be able to see what she had promised him in return, let alone use it.

She was the dishonest one here, not Hook.

“Hook is my –” She stumbled on the word. Would ally alienate this boy completely? In her moment of hesitation, Hook’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “He’s helping me. And so will you, if you know what’s good for you.”

The boy threw back his head and howled – fully, howled – with laughter.

“And why the hell would I do that?” he wheezed out between breaths, but his jovial demeanour was not enough to make her forget just how much the boy was straining against his bonds. His wrists were turning white with the effort. Emma had always heard talk about the strength of a sailor’s knot, and she hoped it would hold up here against the brat stood before her.

“You want to be on the right side of this when it all goes down,” she said, far sharper than she had been intending to be with him.

The whole point of this, her entire angle was that he was just a kid – and she couldn’t believe that a kid was capable of all the wrongdoing Hook had laid at their feet without a shred of remorse, without even the smallest desire for things to be different. She would know. She was a kid like that, once. And her lonely heart had yearned for a better life, even as she convinced herself it would never be possible.

But then Henry had found her. And now she was determined to grab that life by two hands, and fight to get it back.

“And, look – I know you must have had a family once, and maybe one day you stopped believing you could get back to them. But I’m here, I’m here for Henry but I can help you too. All of you. I can help you get home – if you help me get my son back.”

Even before she’d finished speaking the boy was shaking his head, lips curled in disbelief. Emma tried not to let her heart sink at the vehemence with which he immediately rejected the idea out of hand.

“Don’t you get it?” he spat. “I’m here because I don’t want to go home. None of us do.”

Emma let out a noise of frustration. “But Pan’s a sadist – just look at what he did to you.” She gestured vaguely at the scarlet scratch underneath his right eye.

The boy’s expression lit up with a savage delight, and Emma had to force herself not to take a wary step back.

“Oh, Pan didn’t do this. Henry did.”

***

“Oh, Pan didn’t do this. Henry did.”

Emma didn’t move a muscle. Even from where he stood a few paces away, Hook could practically see the cogs whirring behind the jade of her eyes – weighing up the odds of truth against a lie, that her boy had been the one to scar the Lost One in front of them.

Hook would put his wager on truth. Pan didn’t lure them onto the island to stay nice little boys, and he’d yet to meet one that wouldn’t immediately stab one of his comrades if he thought it might elevate himself in the eyes of their leader. That was why only the nastiest, the most vicious, took their places close to Pan. Felix, Rufio – they had bloodied their hands more times than he could count with not just his men, but those within their own ranks as well. And there was no doubt about it; this Henry was a special favourite to Pan, no matter how little time he had spent in Neverland.

But then, he didn’t know the lad. Emma seemed perpetually convinced of his innocence, of his goodness. Perhaps he couldn’t be so easily persuaded. After all, there had once been another boy who had resisted Pan’s influence.

Well, most children think they’ve found paradise when they lay their eyes on Neverland’s magic. Why else leave home in the first place?

I came so a family I loved could live.

The memory rose, unbidden, from the crust of his weary heart. For the first time, he realised the startling parallels between when he had first met Baelfire, and Emma and Henry’s brief but devastating reunion those days ago.

I have to give you your best chance.

Perhaps there was a chance her lad was made of sturdier stuff – the courage that had carried Baelfire, too.

“You’re lying.”

Emma’s rebuttal cut sharply across his musings. She still hadn’t moved an inch, but he spotted the hand clenched into a fist at her side, the stiffness of her jaw. It wasn’t exactly news to him that she couldn’t always maintain a tight lid on her temper, and Hook was wary of the results it might wrought.

“I don’t need to!” the boy laughed maniacally, clearly delighting in the effect his words were having on her. “He’s a Lost Boy now, he’s one of us! Henry is one of the most vicious recruits we’ve had in ages!”

He spotted Emma flinch, with every word so carelessly flung at her causing more damage than the last, and a swell of anger began to rise in Hook’s chest. The brat probably was lying, just because Emma was giving him everything he wanted. She was playing right into his hands, was allowing herself to get smaller and smaller as the boy’s arrogance and amusement grew, and he couldn’t believe – frankly, he was irritated – that she was giving up on her lad so fast. That she was so quick to believe the drivel this boy was spewing.

In the wake of the inerrable faith he had endured from her for days, he wanted to shake her by the shoulders and tell her no, her Henry was better than that, he had to be. It was ridiculous to believe anything to the contrary.

It couldn’t all be for nothing. It just couldn’t. Not after she’d come so far.

And then the boy spat in her face.

The movement was sudden, unexpected, like a snake suddenly recoiling and striking harshly, and Emma stumbled back in surprise.

It only took a second for her to recover.

Letting out a strangled cry, she flung herself at the boy who, for all his straining against his bonds a moment earlier, was now shrinking back into the tree trunk attempting to get away from her. Hook was at her side in a flash, his right arm around her waist hauling her back from doing any real damage.

Emma struggled against him, sharp nails and fury, but Hook held fast.

“Stop! Swan, stop.”

“What are you doing?” she spat, but he was asking himself the same question.

Why did it matter to him if Emma hurt the boy? He cared not a whit for him. It was her stupid idea in the first place to take one as a hostage when he’d much rather gut them for all the injury they had caused him and his crew. He’d been acting purely on instinct when he lunged for her, but for some reason – for all he’d like to see that boy with his eyes gauged out, the idea of Emma Swan doing the gauging was just – it was just –

You went for your sword but you hesitated. Why?

Hook already knew the answer to that.

And, he realised, he couldn’t bear to see her forget it. Not like he had.

“Let me talk to him,” Hook said harshly, after feeling her slow against him. He loosened his arm. “Let me do it.”

Please, let me. Let me do it. I couldn’t bear it if you did it.

Emma stopped struggling, breathing heavily as her eyes met his head on. “Do… what?”

He could tell from her hollow tone. She already knew.

He was a survivor. This was how he had survived.

He could feel Emma’s eyes on him, but he pushed her from his mind. She was nothing to him, and no one. He thrust it all into quiet, all thoughts of her, of Henry, of Bae.

Calmly, but with the familiar ache of old bones, he touched every angry part of him, every dark night or hallowed breath, every ugly thought or thoughtless act; he let it all flood his senses until there was nothing else left. When the alternative was to feel helpless, he chose this, he always had, and he probably always would. He would rather be darkness, he would rather be the fury that roiled within him, the Neverbird’s mournful wail and the storm at the centre of the harsh sun above. He was Milah’s dying gasp and Rumplestiltskin’s hoarse cackle. Pan’s sinister fury. Silver’s blithely tossed coin and Brennan’s promise of courage before the last light went out.

He was all of it and he was nothing pure.

This boy was not a boy. He was a Lost One. And he had just spat in Emma’s face.

“What’s your name, boy?”

His approach was slow, delicate. His boots crunched on dead leaves underfoot. All the bravado the boy had boasted evaporated in the space of a few seconds, and he tried to make himself as small as possible. The trunk at his back prevented him from shrinking any further, and his gaze dropped fearfully to the hook that swung dangerously at his side.

“N – Nibs.”

Stupid fucking name for a boy.

“Nibs?” The boy nodded quickly, huffing out a panicked breath. “Now tell me, Nibs, do you remember Rufio?”

Rufio had been the cruellest. Rufio had split his crew apart in a raid in the dead of night, had sent an arrow through Jukes’ throat, had carved his name into Bones’ shoulder with his teeth. After Noodler had grabbed him from behind, Rufio had sheared off his hands and laughed while he did so, a terrible and piercing thing. Hook hadn’t heard worse from men twice his age.

“Do you remember what I did to Rufio? No?” The boy didn’t move, only kept his eyes fixed squarely on Hook as he reached him, trying almost desperately not to breathe. “Well, let me take the opportunity to remind you. You see this hook?” To illustrate the point, Hook lifted it to Nibs’ cheek, letting the round curve of the tip brush against the boy’s cheek, who flinched as its cool touch made contact. “I shook his hand with it.”

He brought it down the side of his face, letting the sharp point linger on his neck.

“And then I plunged it into his gut and ripped him open until his eyes wept tears of crimson.”

Rufio had screamed, and Pan had ended the game there – had called the first truce. Had grudgingly accepted the losses on both sides to be fair, but not before he had hauled Noodler, weeping from his place on the ground, and reattached his hands while the man screeched in agony. It was a warning, for them both. Pan had never let his boredom run away from him again, nor had he tried to provoke Hook in such a way since.

Nibs’ breathing had turned heavy, and scared.

“The lady would like to know where her son is. I intend for her to discover it. Now,” Hook reached his hand into the boy’s hair and squeezed tightly. Nibs gasped loudly. “Think carefully before you answer; how helpful would you like to be?”

Nibs kept his eyes shut as he gaped through an answer.

“I – I can’t.”

Hook pulled a little tighter. “That is not a helpful answer.”

“I don’t know!”

“Hook.” Emma’s voice drifted distantly from behind him, but he ignored her.

“I don’t believe you,” he hissed.

The boy babbled quietly between whimpers. “It doesn’t… it doesn’t…”

“Speak clearly.”

“It d-doesn’t matter,” Nibs whimpered, “it doesn’t matter w-what you promise, or what you c-could do to me…” His eyes finally opened, and Hook could see them shining with unshed tears. “It’s n-nothing compared to – to what He w-would do to me, if – if I –”

“Hook, stop. Stop!”

He didn’t realise when she had approached, but both of Emma’s hands were suddenly on his right arm, one at his elbow and the other wrenching his hand free from the back of the boy’s head. In surprise, he let go – and then realised her face was coloured a deep scarlet, and she was trembling. Nibs sobbed with relief.

“He’s just a kid!” she cried, and the wave of Hook’s fury crested into indignation.

She had let him do this. Had wanted to do it herself, in fact, and would have if he hadn’t bloody stopped her. Only now was she remembering her saintly act, wanting to hurl some holier-than-thous about the true meaning of innocence when she didn’t know a damn thing about it. Emma Swan had been in Neverland for a matter of days. Hook had lived there for over two-hundred years. It had taken so much more from him than her, and he had never let himself be ashamed of the measures he took for survival.

But one glance from her was like shining a light on all its ugliness.

Hook quailed under that kind of exposure.

“Do you want your son back, or don’t you?”

“I –”

“This, Swan – this is the only language they understand!” he thundered, and he couldn’t work out why he was so angry with her. But he was. He was vibrating with fury.

For Noodler, for Bones, for Jukes, for Mullins and Kits and Carter and Clyde, for Skylights. For Baelfire.

For Liam.

“I am tired of watching you flail about aimlessly, making this up as you go along – either you buck up and realise what needs to be done or you can forget about saving your boy!”

Hook wrenched his arm free from her grip, and started walking.

He didn’t care which direction, he didn’t care how far. He hated the island, hated the trees and the mist and the dirt and the magic, even the sea – he hated all of it.

Bust most of all, he hated the way Emma Swan was looking at him.

***

The sun had long since dipped below the treeline by the time Emma acknowledged this might have all been for nothing. The early evening was rapidly approaching, and they were no closer to getting any answers out of Nibs at all. In fact, after Hook’s outburst, he had completely clammed up and refused to speak a word to her no matter how she tried to cajole him. She was starting to consider whether it might be worth just letting him go. They were losing light, and time, not to mention Hook was being no help whatsoever.

He had stormed out into the forest for a while, but he’d had enough of a head on his shoulders not to go far, and once he had returned he had focused his attention on reviewing their supplies and checking the perimeter. Once that was done, he had sat down against a large rock at the centre of the clearing, and had taken to tossing stones out into the brush.

It was almost childish, a behaviour which Emma found particularly difficult to marry up to what she had seen earlier.

I plunged it into his gut and ripped him open until his eyes wept tears of crimson.

Had he really done that? To a boy?

He’d warned her that he wasn’t a good man – often enough, in fact. And the way he spoke about the Lost Boys suggested blood had probably been spilled on both sides. It was a conflict she knew nothing about, that had been going on for longer than she’d been alive, probably. She’d told Hook that she wanted to start trusting him, and she believed him when he told her the Lost Boys were dangerous. The way that kid had talked about Henry – it made her fucking blood boil, and without Hook she was sure she would’ve ripped Nibs a new one and not felt a twinge of remorse. She’d even been prepared to let Hook wrest the information she wanted out of him by any means necessary.

But when Hook had his fist clenched in that boy’s hair, she just couldn’t stop imagining it was Henry instead.

These kids weren’t responsible for the way Pan had twisted them all up into knots, were they? And he had already started doing it to Henry.

Mom, I’m going to save magic.

She couldn’t let herself believe that the only way to get out of all this was to resort to torturing kids, not least because her son might never forgive her for it. He wanted her to be good. It had just taken one trembling boy that reminded her too much of Henry for her to remember that. Still, she was disappointed it had driven an even greater wedge between her and Hook.

He sat with his back to her, and flung another stone out into the undergrowth. With a thwack it hit its mark, whatever Hook had been intending to throw it at, and his hand rummaged around in the grass for another one.

Emma decided it was completely ridiculous that they were sat apart, stewing like two kids who had gotten into a fight at recess. He hadn’t just straight up and left her, no matter how tired he claimed to be of her, and that had to mean something. So it was about time they talked.

Leaving Nibs to be watched over by Starkey, Emma crossed the clearing until she stood beside him. From the way his shoulders tensed, she knew he could tell she was there.

“So,” she started, scuffing her boot in the dirt. “You kinda lost it a bit there.”

“I’m not going to apologise if that’s what you’re after.”

Emma resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Please, I’m not in eighth grade. I’m not going to fall apart because you raised your voice.”

Although, come to think of it, it was perhaps the first time she had heard him do so.

Hook finally turned, angling his body so he could look over his shoulder to where Nibs was standing, eyes downcast and motionless. “Is he talking?”

“Hasn’t said a word.” With a sigh, Emma dropped down onto the ground in front of him, so she could still see the boy in her line of sight. “Whatever Pan’s threatened him with, he must be terrified.”

Hook grunted in agreement, before turning his attention to his hook. Over and over, he ran the forefinger of his right hand across its curve, and it gleamed dangerously even this late in the day. Emma had never really thought much on it until now, but he must be able to cause a great deal of damage with it, and although she had witnessed quite a few practical uses for it over the last few days when it came to putting up camp or starting fires, its primary function still had to be as a weapon.

In the stories she’d heard as a child it was almost a comedic device – the character’s name was Captain Hook, so of course he had a hook for a hand. There was no point thinking anymore about it.

Except he had told her his name was Killian Jones.

“Why’d you pick a hook?”

The question was out of her mouth before she’d really had a chance to think about it. Killian’s eyes shot up to meet hers, looking perplexed so she hastened to continue.

“If there’s anything I’ve learnt so far, it’s that all these fairy tales… they started off as ordinary people.” Before anything else, Mary Margaret Blanchard had been a person to Emma, who breathed and cried and made mistakes, just like her. In the end, all Regina Mills had really wanted to be was Henry’s mother, no matter how grotesque the way she chose to go about it. “The Evil Queen, Captain Hook… you said your name was Killian Jones.”

Hook clicked his tongue. He looked as if regretted telling her already. “I haven’t been Killian Jones in a long time.”

“Well, you told me that was your actual name, so it’s more recent than you think,” she pointed out drily. Otherwise why would he have bothered mentioning it? “And I’m asking him. Of all the things, after you lost your hand – why a hook? And not a… I don’t know, a fake hand. Or a dagger.” He lived in a world with magic for God’s sake – maybe he could’ve grown it back?

He looked as if he wouldn’t answer her, and for a long time he was silent. His stare merely drilled a hole into the ground between them, and not for the first time Emma wondered what it really was he was thinking about. Then, after a long moment, his lips parted.

“The Dark One, he…” He gritted his teeth, like it was hard to get the words out. “It was the first thing I had to hand. A hook. I was desperate, I stuck it into his chest – right where his heart should be. And he laughed.” Hook scowled, his expression dark and furious. “I never wanted to forget that feeling. How helpless, how weak I was. I was so small next to him. I wanted to pierce his skin one more time with that hook, but for it to make him bleed – to show him I’d never be that weak again.” He raised his eyes skyward, letting out a long breath. “It’s a reminder – and my penance. The price of true strength.”

“Violence isn’t strength.”

Hook finally looked at her, arching an eyebrow. “Isn’t it?”

Perhaps if he’d asked her a year ago she might have agreed. Back then, strength felt like putting on her red leather jacket and punching back at the world. Emma couldn’t speak for the hook, but the way he talked about it made it sound like his own armour.

“Believe me, I used to think the way you do,” she began. A lifetime ago. Before Storybrooke. “I thought I was strong. Then Henry found me and I learnt – I learnt what real strength is. It’s perseverance, it’s belief. It’s seeing the best in people even when it’s hard. And I couldn’t just give up, revert back to my old habits, not after he’d given me this second chance, you know?”

She’d given up on Henry once, before she’d even held him; but he had never, never given up on her.

“He wanted better for me and he kept believing, kept telling me to open my eyes and take it no matter how many times I told him I didn’t want it anymore, that I didn’t need it.”

When you went through the wardrobe you appeared on the side of the street. Your parents were trying to save you from the curse!

Sure they were, kid.

To her surprise, she felt a familiar sting behind her nose and her face began to flush, so she tried to hurry through the rest of what she was stumbling out as quickly as possible. Thinking about Henry like this – it made him feel so close, even though she knew he was so far away.

She laughed bitterly. “He’s still doing it now. Hell, he actually wants to live in a place like this because it’s what he truly believes will make me happiest. That,” she finished emphatically, “is strength.”

Just in case the sudden tide of emotion gave her away, she resolutely did not look at Hook even though she could feel his stare on the side of her face, instead choosing to pick up a stick and stab lines into the dirt. Perhaps he was trying to discern if she was speaking any word of a lie, or perhaps he was about to laugh in her face. It didn’t matter, she didn’t care. She just didn’t want this strangeness between them anymore. Even if he was furious, even if he was scared – if he hated the Lost Boys it was fine, she wasn’t there to judge him. She didn’t want him to think she was ashamed to be near him.

He was just there to help her get Henry back. That was the most important thing of all.

Finally, he looked away.

“I can’t remember how that feels,” he admitted quietly. “To want to – for another person, I mean.”

And all of a sudden, something became startlingly clear to her. So much so, that she was almost annoyed she hadn’t realised it before.

“Gold took more than your hand from you, didn’t he?”

Hook met her gaze, and Emma was struck by just how wretched he looked. It was perhaps the most open she had ever seen his expression, his every thought was written into the downward curve of his mouth, his eyes wide and sorrowful. Of course. Of course Gold had taken something far more valuable. It should have been enough just knowing the kind of man Gold was to realise that.

Now, she decided. Right this second. Without the bravado, without the careless grin. None of the performance he put on from the start of the day. Now he looked more like a Killian Jones.

He stood abruptly, surprising her. Three paces away his duster sat on the rock where he had placed it when they arrived, and he began rummaging through the pockets. For a moment, Emma’s memory flashed back to the drawing she had found tucked carefully between two books in his cabin, and she was sure he was about to pull it out and show her exactly what Gold had taken from him.

Killian did pull out a piece of parchment, but it was one far more familiar than the one she had been thinking of. After he walked back over, this time he perched atop the rock he had been leaning against, and let the parchment fall to the ground between them. Dust and blades of grass blew outwards from where it landed, and Emma felt a spike of irritation rise at the sight of it.

It was Pan’s map.

“What are you doing with that?” She’d left it behind for a reason.

“This is how you’ll find your son,” Killian insisted, pointing firmly at the map. “Not that.” He didn’t need to tilt his head in the direction of Nibs tied to the tree, but his meaning was implicit. “Think about what you just told me. You’re already making progress.”

Emma scowled. “I told you, I don’t want to play Pan’s game.”

“Why not? Henry is.” At Emma’s shocked expression, he barrelled on. “I believe he did scar that boy’s cheek, and what’s more I believe he did it with a longsword.”

Henry is one of the most vicious new recruits we’ve had in ages!

“Stop it.”

“You said it yourself, he’s building a life here. And what is that, really? A scratch?” Killian shook his head. “It’s nothing at all. I’ve seen an alley cat deliver worse. He is doing the minimum of what’s required while he finds his feet here, spilling a little blood so he doesn’t have to spill more.” Either way, Emma did not like the direction of his thoughts, and if Killian sensed her pending denial then he became more emphatic to combat it. “You must realise it. Pan controls everything on this island – what he asks for, he has to receive. And until you acknowledge that you are beyond even my help.”

She didn’t want to. She avoided Killian’s gaze because she knew it would ruin her resolve to not think of things so helplessly. It didn’t seem smart to start playing a game while simultaneously accepting that the result had already been decided – to her mind, it was probably why nothing had changed in Neverland for however many centuries. If Pan controlled everything and everyone then there was no way she could win this. She was as ineffective as a gnat against his skin, and she may as well be one of the gaunt mothers they had seen turning the corners of the Maze of Regrets, wishing and crying out, never to realise they were trapped in a place that never changed, that never could change.

The pirates, the Lost Boys, Tiger Lily and the native tribe. They were all just chasing each other round and round the clock, waiting for the gears to run down but knowing they never would. It was violent and infinite and fuck she just wanted the temperature to cool down for just a second so she could think.

Only she was the rogue element here. Which just proved…

“He doesn’t control everything on the island,” she realised. Pan couldn’t control her, but he could control Henry, making him come to her and beg her to leave him behind. He also gave her that map because he wanted it to show her something painful. “Sometimes he can only control what you see.”

Pan wanted to get rid of her, that much was abundantly clear – and that meant she had to represent something more.

“What are you talking about?” Killian asked, likely exasperated that she was ignoring his advice once again.

“The Maze,” Emma was rushing the words out, her heart beginning to thump rapidly against her ribcage as her excitement grew. “They’re mothers, you said, looking for their kids. You said they’re left there because the boys don’t want to go to them, but what if that’s not it all? What if they don’t know?”

Killian’s eyebrows knitted together. “What’re you getting at?” She stood, unable to sit there waiting for a second longer. “Swan?”

Emma turned to stare at Nibs, still staring at his boots and scuffing them in the dirt.

“I’m going to give him what every lost kid wants,” she said firmly, beginning to march over to him. “A mother.”

Nibs instinctively looked up when she approached, but quickly lowered his eyes, such had been the standard since Killian’s outburst a little while ago. The boy had been determined to stay silent, perhaps hoping they would deem him worthless enough to merit just letting go. Emma was determined to not let it all go to waste.

“Nibs,” she said blithely, “that’s a funny name. You had it all your life?” As expected, the boy did not reply. “Don’t suppose it’s short for anything… like Nabil?”

She’d heard it at the Maze – every sound that had come from there, every pained cry and plea, had remained etched into her memory afterwards. It was good, she’d decided. Good to have a reminder of what she was working for, and what she might become if she gave up. She was going out on a limb here, praying for a miracle and that there was some connection between a name she had heard scattered on the wind, and the little lost boy in front of her.

From the way he looked up at her, gaping with wide eyes, she felt she might’ve hit her mark.

“Wh – where did you hear that?” he asked hoarsely.

Triumphant, Emma smiled. “From your Mom.”

“My… mother?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t understand.”

Emma tried to think of the best way to convey what she knew. She cast her mind back to Starkey’s maps of Neverland. “You ever seen that big structure, the one at the mouth of the river that comes down from the mountain? The pirates call it Misery Bay.”

Only later had she realised why.

Nibs’ eyes flickered fearfully. His tongue darted out to his dry lips. “We… we don’t go there. That’s where the witches are.”

“Witches?”

“Witches,” he affirmed. “They eat children. At night they cry, thinking about all the meals they can never have. Peter traps them in the Maze of Witches so they’ll never catch us.”

It was such a bald-faced lie that it made Emma furious. Those mothers could have been there for centuries, trapped, and all along their sons had never known that they were there – had in fact been afraid of their grief, as it were a weapon that would cause them harm. Every day the boys got a little more lost, and the mothers lost a little more hope that they would ever find their wayward children; and through it all Pan watched, and laughed, and let everyone around him fall into even greater misery.

“You’re wrong,” she replied gently, “they’re mothers, Nibs. Pan doesn’t want you to know, but moms come back for their kids all the time – I’m just the latest in a long line.” Somehow she’d escaped the Maze’s magic, and although she had no idea why she was grateful. “He wants you to stay lost so you can be soldiers in his war.”

The struggle Nibs was facing in digesting what she was telling him was written all across his features, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. The scarlet scar under his cheek appeared to wink up at her, whispering Henry in a way that made her feel queasy.

“Peter, he… wouldn’t.”

It wasn’t easy to start doubting the person you believed in most – she had enough experience of that.

“I’m here for my son. I love him so much, I want to take him home. But Pan wants him to forget all about me.” Even giving the errant thought a voice was frightening. “Your Mom’s in that maze, Nibs. I’m sure of it.”

“Not – not my mother,” Nibs frowned. “She… she was only ever interested in money. She wouldn’t come for me.”

“Sometimes we need to lose what’s most important to us before we realise how much we treasure it. I won’t leave Henry again.”

Determined, Emma circled the tree and began tugging at the knots that kept the boy in place. Starkey let out a noise of alarm, and she could hear Killian scrambling to his feet and reaching for his cutlass in the background.

Even Nibs seemed startled at the development. “What are you doing?”

“I’m letting you go,” she muttered, huffing at the effort of tugging the rope free. Damn those sailor knots and how goddamn tight they were. “Now you can either go back to Pan, tell him where we are and get us killed, or you can go to that maze and find your Mom.”

The last knot loosened and Nibs sprang forward, wincing and rubbing at his wrists. With more than a little guilt, Emma noticed the angry red lines circling them from where he had pulled at the bonds. It only strengthened her resolve, even as the boy stared at her warily. It looked like he didn’t quite believe he was really being released. Killian was the one who had said it – only Lost Boys could enter the Maze. It stood to reason that Nibs would be able to get in there and confirm what she had said for himself.

“Find your Mom,” Emma repeated, “then come back here and help me get Henry back too.”

Please, she begged silently, please, help us.

The boy looked first at her, then over his shoulder where Killian stood, hand poised and ready on his cutlass. Then Nibs stared back at her, expression completely neutral, before he tore off into the forest without a word.

No sooner had his shadow touched the treeline before the boy vanished from sight. Emma couldn’t even hear him moving through the undergrowth, as if he were a ghost or had taken to the air – maybe this was the gift of the true inhabitants of Neverland. They knew how to bend the forest around them like an old friend, they didn’t have to fight against it the way she did.

Dusk kissed the trees now, and the light was rapidly fading. What had once been clear twenty feet away now blurred and ran between each other, and she almost didn’t notice Killian stepping up beside her, staring out at where Nibs had vanished.

He made an uneasy noise. “Now what?”

Emma bit her lip, placing her hands on her hips. “We wait.”

“You’re taking a big risk here, Swan.”

“I know,” she muttered. It was probably a big ask, making Killian put his trust in one of his greatest enemies – but something on the chessboard needed to change. Perhaps she could make this knight a turncoat. “He’ll come back, don’t worry.”

She spoke with far more assurance than she felt, and they both knew it.

Please come back, she begged silently into the sky.

He had to come back.

***

Hook didn’t like it one bit.

Staying in one place for so long was bad enough – he had learnt, through years of skirmishes with the Lost Ones and the natives, that doing so only left you an easy target for an ambush – but the idea of entrusting their fate to one of Pan’s minions was borderline repellent. Emma, unfortunately, could not be persuaded to the contrary. She had insisted on their setting up camp exactly where the boy had left them, and waiting on his return. Hook would merit a lot of shortcomings to Emma Swan since he had met her, but blind faith and gullibility had not been among them. The boy hadn’t even said he would return. He had simply run off into the woods without a single word either way.

Still, despite his misgivings, Hook did as he was bid.

Starkey and Noodler had set about laying the bones of their camp, pulling the canvas sheet out in order to provide shelter. Hook could taste it in the air, rain was coming. Much like the day before he had met Emma Swan, they were due a storm of the like he preferred to endure at sea, as safe as could be weathered aboard the deck of the Jolly Roger. It might not come tonight, but by the end of tomorrow, he was certain. The breeze was thick and moist as it lured the evening closer, and Hook started a fire.

They roasted a hare they had caught for supper and split it four ways, adding a helping of nuts in order to try and assuage any further rumbles of hunger, and Hook had cast a doubtful look at their remaining supplies. They had enough for another day or two, but they would soon need to replenish their load from the Jolly Rogers’ stores if they were to remain inland. Even this many years after claiming her, his spirits rose at the prospect of returning to his ship, for however short a time. It did not suit him to be so far from her bow.

Convince Emma Swan to leave Neverland and I’ll give you what you want most.

It felt as if the longer he spent with Emma Swan, the less he wanted her to fail.

She had impressed him today. Even if she insisted on ignoring Pan’s map, Hook had never once considered that the Lost Ones had no idea the Maze of Regrets existed – not in its true form. Witches. If he had ever wanted further proof of Pan’s wickedness, the fact that the Lost Ones were unknowingly being kept from their mothers was more than enough. Hook hadn’t doubted for a second that it was the ferocity of the boys that kept that Maze alive with sorrow.

Emma, however, had seen right through it for what it was.

I learnt what real strength is. It’s perseverance, it’s belief. It’s seeing the best in people even when it’s hard.

Had he ever been that way? He couldn’t remember now. For so long all he knew how to be was this. The only person he thought to look out for was himself. Hook would have made that boy suffer as much as needed until they got what they wanted – but Emma had pulled apart Nibs’ arrogant veneer, exposed the child underneath and found another way.

He wants you to stay lost so you can be soldiers in his war.

Seeing the best in people, even the Lost Ones. How, he could only wonder. How did she do it?

Gold took more than your hand from you, didn’t he?

Hook’s heart thumped heavily in his chest when he thought back to that moment. It was too much, too soon. He’d wanted to give her something, make her focus on unlocking the map, but he had opened up too far. He should never have told her his name. Even so, when her tongue curled around it, and her mouth let it fall like the gentle droplets of early rain, something fluttered in the pit of his stomach.

Killian.

He took a steadying breath.

Too close.

He was handing her over to Pan, anyway. None of it mattered.

Was he?

Something snapped in the bushes to his right, and Hook’s eyes were drawn immediately to the sound. In the dark he couldn’t make anything out, but rose cautiously to his feet anyway. A glance back at the fire showed Starkey and Emma speaking in low voices. Noodler stood at the opposite end of the clearing, one of his palms flat against a pine. He often did so when he was deep in thought. Nobody else had heard.

It could’ve been an animal, or the wind shaking something loose from the branches of a tree. It could be nothing at all.

It could be Nibs.

Something stuttered to life in his chest at the thought.

Emma’s optimism was wickedly contagious.

No sooner had he reached the edge of the clearing, than his eyes landed on the source of the sound.

A boy, grey eyes sullen, face smeared with dirt, was crouched amongst the brush. In his hands he held a spear with a sharp, inky black point Hook knew must be dreamshade, and he doubted he was alone. The boy stared back at Hook, defiantly, the corner of his mouth curling upwards.

Fuck Nibs.

Before Hook could raise the alarm, a shout came from behind him.

“Captain!”

From the other end of the clearing, a wall of three Lost Ones had emerged, brandishing wooden swords and bows, arrows already notched in place. When Hook turned back to the boy he had seen, he realised four more had lifted themselves up from the ground, fierce spectres of youth and darkness. A glance all around confirmed that which he’d already suspected.

They were surrounded.

“I expected this from you, Emma, you’re new here. But I’m especially disappointed in you, Captain.”

Pan’s voice was positively dripping with malice, stepping out of the dark until his expression was illuminated by the firelight, his eyes black and dancing with amusement. Hook let out a long, aggressive string of expletives.

Noodler and Starkey were standing with their swords raised, trying to work out which boy to settle on as their target – but Emma’s blade was pointed squarely at Pan. As the boys in front of Hook advanced, he allowed himself to be herded back over to join the others.

Pan shook his head in disappointment. “You know better than to ignore my rules.”

Hook said nothing, merely glared back at him.

“It’s – wait, what is that expression you’re so fond of? No, wait, don’t tell me,” Pan affected an expression of concentration. “It’s on the tip of my tongue.”

One of the overeager Lost Ones loosed a black-tipped arrow, and it sang just past the skin of Hook’s cheek before clattering to a stop on a trunk behind him.

“Oh, that’s it.”

Pan smiled, but his eyes were dark and hollow.

“Bad form.”

#jay writes #brink #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan #canon divergence #cs au #killian jones #emma swan #neverland #cs au week #I hope you guys like this!

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sleephyjhs · 4 years

Text

forget-me-not | pjm

pairing: jimin x original character

genre: angst, ex-lovers AU

summary: breaking his heart the first time around ripped you to shreds, having to do it for the second time was close enough to unbearable. out of everybody he could’ve remembered, it just had to be you.

wc: 2.3k

song rec: miss missing you - fall out boy

m.list

tw: mentions of accidents, hospital setting, amnesia

“No, he only wants you. He’s got you on the brain.” The phonecall that kickstarted your Sunday morning was nothing short of overwhelming. Even your sounding alarm would have been a more welcoming alert to waken to, “You have to come and see him.”

Exhaling down the phone, you raked your fingers through your knotted bed hair and sank back into your warmed pillows, “Why do you need me? We haven’t spoken in months, it’s just unnecessary.”

His name lived constantly in your mind; it hadn’t left since the night he did. The time that had passed between the breakup and that Sunday morning was time you could’ve spent wondering about something other than what you did so wrong to come back to his tapes boxes and stuffed suitcases. Reuniting with Jimin after so long was a can of worms you were unprepared to pry open.

“Haewon, he doesn’t know who the fuck any of us are. Do you really think if he knew who we were he’d be asking for you?” It was relieving to see that time hadn’t shrunk his ego. Initially, there were many things you came to miss about Jimin but his friendship group could never have been one of them. With conceit as strong as theirs, their related influence on Jimin was never noticeable; that much you appreciated.

Still, the draining compulsion to punch them returned to you as strong as ever, “What ward is he in?”

“R6, south wing. Hurry up, the nurses can’t get anything out of him, you’re the only hope we’ve got.” As Jimin’s friend hung up the phone, remains of guilt and anger drowned you. Everything that you’d thought you’d managed to suppress was now swallowing you whole; the guilt of knowing you did something to make him up and leave, and the anger of never knowing what it could’ve been.

The process of making yourself look somewhat presentable took even more effort than usual; the unusual circumstances you’d awoken into needed to render before you could even begin to believe what had happened. Considering the rush of a city in the early morning, you skipped the makeup routine and accepted the mean comments that were bound to be hurled at you. Last night’s jeans and tee would have to do; it wasn’t as though you had anyone to impress anyway.

Even the radio was unable to draw your thoughts away from Jimin. Receiving a call from Jimin’s best friend could only mean trouble, and you wanted none of the mess that had been created overnight. It had been mere weeks since you gave your peace on the end of your relationship, yet here you were, willingly ripping open the stitches that now bound your heart together.

Maybe you appeared strange in the elevator - flushing all shades of pink - but you couldn’t seem to help it. Not only was your situation unprecedented, but you had no idea what sight you’d be greeted with. Jimin’s friend wouldn’t let up how bad the accident was, and despite the pain he’d given you, never could you wish for him to receive it back.

R6, south wing; it was further away than you’d remembered. It was always strikingly obvious that you’d wandered away from the commotion of a hospital when the bustling visitors exchanged with surgeons and nurses, coated in their same minty scrubs. The lack of casual clothing in the corridors haunted you; it only seemed as though you were edging further from civilisation with each step.

Buzzing the security intercom increased the building pressure in your lungs. As you cleansed your hands with provided gel, any predictions of what might be waiting for you behind the doors suddenly evacuated. Although he may have, your attachment to Jimin has never truly abandoned you; once upon a time, he was your best friend.

Ambulating down the sapphire linoleum, you counted the enclosures of hospital beds. Fourth from the right was your intended destination. One; empty. The landscape of empty beds inside was almost as depressing as a full room. Two; full. Silence fell upon 4 conscious patients who all stared into the same space. Three; weeping family. Expecting anything less from a trauma unit would have been foolish even for you, but the extremes of human emotion were perhaps all too much for a Sunday morning.

And then, you came to four. Through the moderately open shutters, you stole the first glimpse of Jimin you’d had in months. Your view was blocked by his crowded friends; the worst of it was approaching.

“Excuse me?” A voice from behind introduced. Startled, you turned to meet conversation, not expecting to be greeted by a nurse, “Are you Ms. Haewon?”

You nodded politely, remaining unsure what to expect. The nurse returned her eyes to the clipboard she cradled and shrewdly, you copied, “Thank you for coming at such short notice, you seem to be the only person he can name.”

“What happened? To him, I mean.”

“A car accident. He’s lucky to say the least. I’m glad I caught you before you entered.” Her abrupt statements couldn’t calm your ever-trembling hands; coming here was surely a mistake, ”I’m sure you’ve gathered that what you’re about to walk into isn’t going to be easy. Whatever he says to you is his own version of reality, no matter how far from the truth it really is. I’d like to advise you against correcting him for the time being, it’s better for the recovery process if he is allowed time to adjust.”

You flattened your lips, finally coming to realise how serious Jimin’s accident actually had been. Being left to only remember your time together must’ve been more pain than he knew, but he didn’t.

After thanking the nurse, you brushed your hands on your jeans to dry the accumulated sweat on your palms and exhaled breath you didn’t know you were holding. Not a single word of preparation scrolled through your mind as you turned the corner into the room.

All eyes fell upon you, including Jimin’s. Arrangements of purple and mouldy yellow bloomed from his brow to jaw, following a delicate manoeuvre down his cheek. Clear tubes were strung from the back of his hand to several bags of various liquids. To say the resemblance to a marionette doll was uncanny would have been an understatement, “Haewon!”

Conjuring the equal amount of enthusiasm to see Jimin pointlessly unachievable. Even seeing your worst enemy in such a bad state wouldn’t have changed the torment struggling inside your mind.

Softening your eyes, you fixed upon his sable eyes and released a gentle smile, “Hi, Jimin.”

The simple greeting was all you could muster. It was pathetic, but it would have to do. By the window, one of Jimin’s friends pulled faces to his own reflection. Usually distracted by small aggravations, all of your attention remained devoted to Jimin. You were here for him, no one else.

“I managed to end up in hospital. Do you know why?” The tails of his eyebrows sunk into his temples. Dancing around topics in fear of confusing him more was risky. Following his own lead in conversation was the only way to avoid slipping up; all you could hope is that what you were doing was the best for him.

The rolling eyes of his cornered friend enraged you. Assuming he would have any feelings of compassion was ridiculous, “I know.” You places your bag gently on the floor and perched on one of the plastic meeting chairs beside the bed, “Do you know why..?”

Before your question had finished, the monotonous shaking of his head swung against his pillow, “There’s strange people here, they won’t go away.”

At the sound of his words, Jimin’s friend turned away from the window to watch his injured friend. You hated him with your whole being, but watching him be shut out by Jimin was unfair. Of course, there was nothing that could be helped, but an overhanging guilt began to overshadow you, “They’re here to help you, Jimin. You were in a car accident, and you can’t get better by yourself. They’ll help you as much as they can.”

Soft smiles were all you could offer for comfort. Embracing him in any kind of way was sure enough to damage him further. Porcelain would have appeared stronger than Jimin; another crack in his dainty exterior guaranteed him to shatter.

Fiddling with your fingernails allowed you to witness Jimin’s hand creep down the bed. The transparent tubes stretched to follow his roaming digits; his palm blossomed and tiny cuts, most likely made by broken glass, scattered over his calluses. Holding his hand was not a task you had signed up for, but then, Jimin never asked to remember you.

Slipping your hand against Jimin’s was strange to say the least. His familiar warmth was once soothing, now it was more like an icy slate. Whatever you could do to help him recover, you would; you’d assured yourself that much.

“Am I going to be alright?” Jimin whimpered, caressing your thumb with his. Immense pity was simply inevitable. How badly damaged was he? So much so, Jimin wasn’t sure if he was even going to make it.

“Of course you are.” You resumed your amiable smile, knowing very well you may have just lied to him. Considering the state you found him in, surely it wasn’t certain?

As Jimin groaned while he hesitantly adjusted himself, the same nurse from earlier returned to the room. She pushed a small cart equipped with medical appliances, bandages and capsules of all different colours, “I need to change Jimin’s drips. For sanitary reasons, you both need to wait outside.”

Your eyes met with those of Jimin’s friend, and you led the walk outside of the room. The door closed behind you, and the awkward silence began. Even when your relationship with Jimin was active, you’d never found much in comin with his friends. In fact, the more you came to understand Jimin, you couldn’t understand what attracted him to them either.

Before you’d gotten the chance, the man sat in the only seat outside of the room. Chivalry was no expectation when it came to Jimin’s acquaintances. As expected, nothing much had changed.

Even when deep in silence, you couldn’t bring yourself to dawdle on your phone. Nail-biting was the only appropriate way to pass time as well as take out your pent up anxieties. He looked up from behind his screen, and thrusted it deep into his jacket pocket, eyeing you from head to toe with a grimaced face. You shared his sentiments.

“It’s better he forgets you. You never bother with him, what an unfortunate coincidence he only remembers you.” His breath exalted ignorance. You were here for Jimin, not to argue over the past.

But still, it was too much bait to simply avoid, “What do you mean I never bother with him? Conversations work two ways; if he wanted me to check up on him, he’d check up on me too.”

“He’s been a mess since you stopped dating. You were the best thing that ever happened to him.”

His confession was perhaps the most sincerity you thought possible to get out of him, yet that wouldn’t fog your version of events, “That’s his own fault. I never wanted us to end.”

He scoffed, smirking as he shook his head, “There’s no compassion with you, is there?”

“Your best friend could have died, and you’re still taking jabs at me. I didn’t have to come but I did. Instead of being concerned for Jimin’s wellbeing, I reckon you asked me here just to make your points.” His sly smirk soon faded into his flushing cheeks.

Perhaps it was true that if he knew any better, Jimin wouldn’t want you there. But he didn’t know any better, at least not now. How you were supposed to help, you were unsure of. Were you even prepared to be present when he realised? Realising your beloved was no longer yours must hurt more for the second time, there could be no doubt about it.

“Visit hours are over in five minutes. Go, and don’t come back. At least for a while. At least give him a chance to remember someone other than you. I only asked you here to lessen the blow anyway.”

For someone who should no longer concern you, the motion of avoiding Jimin was strangely painful. He was vulnerable, anybody could see that. Abandoning him as the only person he could openly recognise felt immoral, disgusting almost. But what authority did you have?

The nurse soon allowed you back into the room for the final goodbye before the cue to leave. Jimin beamed as you timidly approached the plastic chair beside him. It must’ve stung him to smile with such cheer. It was a lie. His happiness was a lie. Soon, he’d know the truth.

“I’m going to have to leave soon. I’m sorry I can’t stay longer.” Although your romance wasn’t, your remorse was real. The pity you empathised from being stuck with his ignorant friend was also very much real.

“You’ll come back for me, right?”

So much you were yet to decide. A sleepless night dwelling upon the events of the day was due, “Of course I will.”

With all your endurance, you avoided the eyes of his lingering friend. He was better off invisible for now, “You promise to keep well, Jimin. We’ll get through this together.”

Sending Jimin your last smile of the day, he reflected your sentiments and watched you approached the door, “Haewon?” You turned around with a raised eyebrow, “I love you.”

And there it was. The dreaded three words that held no meaning to you, at least not from him. Did they even hold any meaning to him? You were the only person he recognised; if there was only one person you knew, you’d feel compelled to live them at some point.

“I know you do.”

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worryinglyinnocent · 3 years

Text

Fic: Forged Through Fire (4/13)

Summary: Amestris. Once democratic, now a military dictatorship. Prohibition is strict; personal freedoms curtailed. All alchemists must be state-licensed or face imprisonment. Foreigners are met with suspicion. It’s a grim place and a grim time, but there are some people able to bring a little light to the world. Behind an innocent-looking bookshop, speakeasy proprietor Chris Mustang has formed an unlikely alliance with unlicensed alchemist Van Hohenheim to provide alcohol to those who want it and medical care to those who need it. When Riza’s newly complete tattoo becomes infected, Roy brings her into this underworld, little knowing the way it will change their lives in the future – uncovering the secrets of the mythical Philosopher’s Stone and the schemes of a Fuhrer hell-bent on achieving immortality, all whilst navigating what they mean to each other.

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Rated: T

[One] [Two] [Three] [AO3]

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Content warning for this chapter: Discussion of parent-on-child domestic abuse and parental neglect.

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Forged Through Fire

Four

Roy didn’t really know what to expect when he knocked on the Hawkeye residence’s door the next day – well, later in the same day, since he hadn’t left until after midnight. Riza looked tired and withdrawn when she answered, but she gave a weak smile when she saw him.

“Hey Roy. Come in.”

He stepped inside, hanging up his coat on the hook that had always been his when he had been coming over to learn under Berthold.

“How are you today?”

“I’m ok. Still sore, and the burned skin pulls weirdly sometimes, it’s going to take some time to get used to it. But the pain’s getting better.”

“That’s good.” It wasn’t exactly what he’d asked, and he wondered if Riza was dodging the subject intentionally. “How are you feeling today?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to vocalise it. I’m not used to this.”

“What aren’t you used to?”

He followed her into the kitchen, getting cups out of the cupboard as she put the kettle on.

“This.” She gave a long sigh. “I’m not used to having people care about me and care how I’m feeling. The last person who ever cared about my feelings was my mom. And now there’s you, and Trisha, and Hohenheim, and your aunt, and you all care, and you all know about this.” She gestured to her back. “And I trust you with it, don’t get me wrong. But it’s overwhelming. I don’t know how to be vulnerable, Roy. I don’t know how to deal with people caring about me.”

“That’s ok.” Roy chanced to reach across and touch her hand where it was resting on the counter as she waited for the kettle to come to the boil. “We’ll still be here whilst you’re figuring it out.”

No more was said as the kettle boiled and tea was made, and they sat down at the kitchen table.

Presently, Riza looked through the kitchen door to the door of her father’s study opposite.

“I should go in and sort everything out. I haven’t been in there since he died. I don’t have the energy. I can’t think of anything that I want to do less than go through all his research. Part of me says I shouldn’t bother. He loved alchemy more than he ever loved me and I don’t see why I should have to have anything to do with it now. But then there’s the other part of me that says I should continue being a dutiful daughter and go through all his stuff. It caused me so much pain and it’s all still there and I have to do something with it.”

“I don’t see any reason why you should,” Roy said “Just destroy it all. Hell, just torch the entire room, you don’t even need to take anything out of it.”

Riza raised an eyebrow. “Having a burned out husk of a room in the middle of the house might make it hard to sell. Also the risk of it bringing the entire house down is just a bit too great. Not that I don’t trust you to have excellent control over your fire, but this is a very old and flammable building. Makes me wonder how it never burned down before, actually.”

“OK. Take everything out of it and dump it in the garden and have a bonfire, then. You don’t owe him anything, Riza. I think you need the catharsis. You can’t get rid of the marks he left on you, but you can get rid of all of the other traces of his legacy. I think it would be fitting for it all to go up in smoke.”

Riza nodded. “I just want it gone,” she said quietly. “The tattoo will never be gone. But everything else can be gone. Just… erase him from the world and never have to deal with him again. Never have him cause me any pain again.”

She finished her tea and stood up suddenly, the scrape of the chair legs against the kitchen floor jerking Roy into action too.

“Let’s do it.”

She threw the study door open, as if she was trying not to second-guess herself, and Roy looked around. It looked exactly the same as it had done when he had last been in there a couple of years prior – books and papers everywhere, no rhyme or reason to anything, no order that made sense to anyone except Berthold.

“I hate this room so much,” Riza said. Her tone was almost conversational, but Roy could see the anger in her eyes, now bright and fiery instead of the haunted look she’d been wearing for the past couple of days.

It took them a while to get everything out of the study into the garden and pile it up, but it was worth it to see the look of satisfaction in Riza’s face as she stood in the empty room. They’d even ripped down the curtains and pulled out the built-in bookshelves. If they were going to do it, then they would do it properly. Everything had to go. The sun was beginning to go down by the time they were finished, and Roy looked over at Riza.

“Are you ready?”

She nodded.

“Light it up.”

Roy shook his head and handed her a lighter; always paid to have one handy in case the spark cloth got wet. “No. This is your moment; you need to do this.”

Riza took the lighter and flicked it, watching the tiny flame stuttering in the breeze for a while before she threw it onto the pile of papers and furniture. It took a few moments for it to catch properly, but soon the blaze was burning high, Berthold Hawkeye’s legacy going up in smoke in the most poetic end for his research there could be.

For a long time, they just watched the blaze together in silence, and Roy looked sideways at Riza, the shadows from the bright flame dancing in front of his eyes. Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself, like she was trying to physically hold herself together, and he startled when she suddenly crumpled down onto her knees.

He crouched beside her.

“Riza?”

Riza howled, a heartrending scream of pain, anger, frustration and grief all letting rip. Roy couldn’t say he was surprised, nor could he say she didn’t need it after everything. Tears were streaming down her face, and Roy realised he hadn’t seen her cry like this at all since her father’s death. Not at the funeral and not even the previous day when she’d been in so much pain. She had wept, but nothing like this raw outpouring of emotion.

Riza had always been stoic, more stoic than Roy thought he could ever hope to be, and even though it was completely understandable, and he had been the one to say that she could not keep her stoicism forever, it was alarming to see her in so much distress. He hovered next to her, hand an inch from her shoulder, wanting to give a comforting touch but not sure whether or not it would be welcome.

In the end he chanced it, rubbing her arm gently. Riza gave no indication that she could even feel him, continuing to sob, and Roy settled down on the damp grass beside her.

Eventually, she cried herself out, falling silent again, the roaring flame from the bonfire still going strong beside them, the light sparkling on Riza’s wet cheeks as she kept staring at it.

“Can I get you anything?” Roy asked.

Riza shook her head.

“No. Just don’t leave, please.”

Roy would quite happily have stayed there for as long as she wanted, until the fire burned down to nothing. He shifted, putting an arm around Riza’s shoulders as she flopped against him, exhausted by the much needed emotional release.

After a few more minutes of silence, Roy ventured to speak again.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been through a washing machine. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel so I’m feeling it all at once.”

“That’s ok. Just let it all out.”

Riza didn’t respond, and Roy could see that she was crying again; silent and sorrowful.

“You’ll be ok. I promise.” He couldn’t hope to understand what she was feeling, and he was grateful that he had never been in the position where he would be able to claim he knew what she was going through, but he could understand that she was undergoing a massive upheaval, and all he could hope to do was help her through the other side.

He watched the smoke rising from the fire, sending the ashes of her childhood flying off into the night sky, away into the ether where they could never harm her again.

They stayed out in the garden until the fire began to die back - Roy would admit if asked that he had helped its intensity along at various points to keep it steady and bright - and by the time they went back inside, stiff and cold from sitting on the grass for so long, but neither of them complaining at it, Riza seemed to have found a modicum of peace again.

Of all the things that Riza thought she was going to have to worry about when she started working the front for the speakeasy, having someone come into the bookshop who actually wanted to use it as a bookshop wasn’t one of them. It was such an obscure and out of the way little place, hardly anyone ever came in looking for books, and most people who did come in saw the state of the shelves and everything packed in haphazard and turned straight back around again.

The woman who had just walked in and started browsing, however, had determination if nothing else. She’d been going through the shelves for a good fifteen minutes before she finally poked her head around the end of one of the stacks and looked at Riza with her brow furrowed.

“Do you have a history section?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. I’ve only been here three months. I think everything’s organised by what colour the cover is rather than anything else.”

The woman laughed. “Oh well. I’ll just keep looking. I don’t have anywhere else to be, after all.”

It was the middle of the afternoon and whilst the bar was open, Riza wasn’t expecting any patrons to come through the door any time soon, so there was no need to get the woman out of the shop lest she find out about the rather more illegal practices going on downstairs.

“I can help you look if you want.” She got up and came out from behind the counter. “Are you looking for something specific?”

“Not really, more just anything that I can get my hands on about local history. I mean, you know what it’s like trying to find out anything about the time before the current regime started up. I’ve got as much access to the governmental archives as they allow, which is…” The woman tailed off, and Riza knew exactly why. Even in a place as out of the way as the bookshop, there were eyes and ears everywhere.

“You get through the front door and they give you what they want you to see?” Riza suggested. She wasn’t sure how to let the woman know that the space here was safe, and at the same time there was always the risk that she herself was here for nefarious purposes, trying to scent out what was going on behind the scenes.

The woman nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”

They continued to work through the shelves for a while but going book by book was going to take them till next Tuesday, and their conversation turned to other things – the weather, the latest news, other neutral small talk topics. Names were exchanged, and finally Riza brought the conversation back around to their current mission; subtly trying to get more information to see how much of a threat this Rebecca Catalina might be.

“So, how come you have access to the governmental archives?”

“I’m a journalist with the Central Herald.” Rebecca sighed. “At least, I attempt to be a journalist.”

“Attempt?” Riza was intrigued now; the Central Herald was known for getting on the wrong side of the government just enough to annoy them without being enough to get itself closed down. There was no free press in Amestris and there hadn’t been for a long time, but the Herald was the closest they got to it. She was steering towards thinking that Rebecca probably wasn’t a secret police informant. Either that or she was in deep undercover.

“All the newspapers have state-sponsored overseers. I think they’d all much rather that I stuck to just reporting on weddings and funerals and what colour hat Lady Bradley’s wearing on any given day, but we do our best.”

Riza had to smile at that.

“So, what’s the latest scoop?”

“Nothing concrete yet. I’ve just got a feeling. There’s some dilapidated old buildings on the far side of town, by the Narrows. They’ve been closed off as condemned for years, but they’ve never been knocked down, and there are always cars with government plates hanging around in the vicinity.”

“Well, in this country I wouldn’t put anything past anybody.”

They continued searching for a while, pulling up a few promising old books, until the bell above the shop door jangled again and Riza immediately went into secret keeper mode, going to see who had entered her domain. The bookshop was a strange liminal space in that sense, more of a portal to another world than a place in its own right.

It was only Roy.

“Hi. I just thought I’d come by to see how you were doing.”

“I’m ok.” She nodded discreetly in Rebecca’s direction to indicate that they weren’t alone and couldn’t discuss bar business. “How are you?”

“Fine. Hughes is driving me round the bend but that’s not exactly new…” He trailed off, and Riza glanced to the side to see that Rebecca was doing a very poor job of pretending that she wasn’t watching them, surreptitiously sneaking peeks over the top of the book she absolutely wasn’t reading. Looking back at Roy, she saw that he’d gone rather pink around the edges, and the sight of him so flustered made her smile.

“Well, I, erm, I’ll see you later.”

He left the shop as suddenly as he’d entered it, and Rebecca gave a giggle from behind her book.

“Boyfriend?” she asked.

“No, no. He’s just an old friend.”

Rebecca raised an eyebrow. “Are you absolutely sure about that?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She really didn’t want to think about it.

Rebecca seemed to notice her consternation and immediately changed the subject. The two of them continued to talk about books for a while, and although Riza was as guarded as she ever was around strangers, there was something about Rebecca that was easy to get along with. Riza found herself wondering what the catch was. Her upbringing had made her cynical in a way, always wondering what it was that people wanted from her. After spending so long with Roy as the only person she could really consider to be a friend, finding new friendly people was somewhat daunting.

For a moment, Riza’s anger against her father flared again, knowing that he was at the root of her troubles and lamenting the ordinary childhood and teenage years that she’d never got to have. She tried to push it down and focus on what Rebecca was saying.

“Well, I have to go now, but I’d like to come back and take a look at the shelves I didn’t get to today.”

“Sure. We’re always open.” That was pretty much true. Operating as the front for the speakeasy meant that they did keep much longer hours than most ordinary second-hand bookshops would.

“Great! Well, it was nice to meet you Riza. I’ll see you soon.”

Riza found herself looking forward to it in spite of herself.

Roy came back into the shop a few minutes after Rebecca left, and Riza had to laugh.

“Were you literally just hiding around the corner until she went away?”

“No! Well. Maybe.”

Riza snorted. “There’s no need, I’m fairly sure she’s harmless. She’s a journalist for the Herald.”

“Journalists are in no way harmless, Riza.”

“You know what I mean. Harmless to you physically. She’s not going to bite you, and from our conversation, I’m sure she’s safe for this place as well.”

“The sixth sense wasn’t tingling then?”

“You know me, Roy. I’m naturally suspicious of everyone. But I think Rebecca could be a friend to us.”

“That’s good.” Roy looked at her. “Do you think she could be a friend to you?”

Riza didn’t reply straight away, mulling everything over in her mind. The idea of having friends who weren’t linked to the speakeasy or didn’t come through Roy was a nice one, despite the voice in the back of her mind that kept telling her that she didn’t deserve nice things like that.

“I… I think so. I don’t know. I would like that.”

“Go for it and see where it takes you. It’ll be good for you to get out of here once in a while and have some friends who aren’t here for the alcohol.”

“I know. I was thinking the same thing. The trouble is that I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“It’s still early days yet. Maybe there isn’t another shoe. We live in a world of mistrust and subterfuge and paranoia, but there are still decent people out there.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Riza leaned back in her chair. “Optimism hasn’t always been the best colour on me. It feels weird.”

“I agree that sometimes optimism can be dangerous in the circumstances we’re in. But it can be exhausting to be cynical all the time, and you deserve some normality in your life.”

“Hmm.” Riza continued to ponder his words for a while, until Roy just left her alone with her thoughts, giving her an understanding pat on the shoulder as he went past her into the bar.

Maybe it wasn’t too late to start having friends and getting some semblance of normality into her life after all.

#FMA Fanfiction #FMA Brotherhood #Royai #Riza Hawkeye #Roy Mustang #Fic: Forged Through Fire

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hunnybadgerv · 3 years

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Punching Above Your Weight | The Wayhaven Chronicles | Det. Joel Lange x Adam du Mortain

Summary: Joel loves a good fight, almost as much as he loves a good grind.

a/n: Okay, so I saw a gif. And this character said he really needed this to happen. NSFT

Read on AO3

Punching Above Your Weight

In his mind, the music was Joel’s advantage. It didn’t matter that Adam had supernatural strength or speed, not when the detective had footwork that could rival James Brown. He smirked from behind his wrapped knuckles and bounced lithely on the balls of his feet.

When Adam swung wide, Joel ducked under the whirling right hook and jabbed the unit commander in the kidney. Joel didn’t pull his punches, not with any of Unit Bravo. It wasn’t like sparring with anyone else. And in the moment it never dawned on him that the 900-year-old vampire might just be toying with him. Joel’s ego wouldn’t allow that thought to enter his mind, even when Adam just chuckled in response to the punch the detective had thrown.

The detective kept his hands up and bobbed one way before weaving another way. Of course, it wasn’t exactly easy to keep his mind on the fight, not with that light sheen of sweat glistening over Adam’s broad bare shoulders. Joel gave his own cheek a quick slap and shook his head.

Nope. No distractions.Even if the next time he danced around Adam, his eyes followed the curve of the thick muscles in his back, the ones that edged his spine like the walls of a canyon.

The elbow to the jaw, brought Joel back to his senses. It made him reel back a step or two. Adam snatched out and grabbed Joel by the forearm, pulling him against his firm chest. Fucking sturdy bastard, Joel thought as he focused on those light green eyes. His jaw tightened and he swallowed the lump trying to form in his throat.

“Good?”

“Of course,” Joel replied as if he hadn’t seen any stars at all from the hit.

Adam smirked at him knowingly, and gave his head a shake.

“You?” the taller man asked. It might only be about an inch and a half, but it was an inch and a half, and Joel lorded in it.

The laughter made the vampire’s eyes sparkle. “Yeah.”

“Not even a little winded are you?”

The smile widened. “Not even a little.”

“Fucking vampires. I swear.” Joel reached out and slipped his hand behind Adam’s neck, bringing their foreheads together. “I know how to make you breathless.” Before the vampire could answer, Joel fitted his lips against Adam’s.

With the permission of a deepening kiss, Adam slipped his arm around Joel’s trim waist and pulled him against his chest. Then his hand dropped a hair and fisted in the loose cloth of Joel’s sweatpants, right there at the small of his back. The detective didn’t know why Adam’s hand right there put him in a tither, but the barest weight of Adam’s hand at the small of his back went right to Joel’s head, and his libido.

As if answering an unasked question, Joel pressed his hips against Adam’s. Adam stood solid, immovable, which just spurred Joel onward. He couldn’t help but groan when Adam sighed into his mouth.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “Do it again.”

Playing the brat was rare for Adam, but he stared right into Joel’s icy blue eyes when he replied, “Make me.”

That taunt bolted right to the center of Joel’s soul. A hum hung in his chest as he put a little space between them, enough to tug his shirt off by the neck in one smooth stroke. He swiped his forehead, biting his bottom lip as he moved toward Adam, who mirrored every step. It kept the minimum of distance between them. Gave them both the chance to let their eyes rake over the other’s body. Joel, always one to put his best foot forward, couldn’t help but flex when he noticed Adam’s gaze burn across his arms, then his chest. He’d make the prettiest damn picture Adam could imagine at any given moment.

When those jade green eyes flicked downward, so did one of the detective’s hands. His arousal was completely obvious, but he decided to accentuate any way.

“See something you like?” the detective asked with a smirk.

Adam didn’t say anything. Just moved toward him. In a flash, Joel found his back on the mat and Adam looming over him with his body just barely close enough for the human to sense the feeling of his skin.

Joel let his fingertips do the dancing this time, tickling and teasing light touches over Adam’s rips and his stomach. Then he pressed his hand flat against the front of the vampire’s combat trousers. That stoic hover collapsed when Adam kissed him. He wrapped his other arm around Adam’s back and held him close. Leaving his other hand in place, he stroked at Adam’s thickening cock.

“Fucking want you,” Joel mumbled into his lover’s mouth.

Adam just grumbled something incoherent.

The detective didn’t even care that they were laid out in the middle of the gym. When he shifted his weight, Adam went with him. Sex had become a dance they both knew the steps of, how to lead and follow. Joel grabbed Adam’s hand and leaned over him, grinding his hips against him. He loved that look on Adam, blushing on his broad shoulders and his bottom lip between his teeth.

He couldn’t resist it. He needed to taste that lip, needed to get his own bite. Joel dove for it, and Adam knotted his fingers in Joel’s white blonde hair. Low moans echoed in the curve of Joel’s neck and off the hard surfaces of the gym. They moved against one another like frenzied teenagers on their parent’s basement sofa. When Adam, shifted beneath him, parting his legs, Joel knew the man was close.

It just spurred Joel onward. He needed this, needed to be the reason Adam came apart. So damned put together and in charge, except for right then. Sweat glistened on that stoic brow. Piercing green eyes with pupils blown wide with need. His strong hands held against the mat and laced in Joel’s.

Adam always tried to keep it quiet. Reserved. But Joel didn’t want him all composed. He dropped his head and sucked a hard kiss against Adam’s neck. A smile crossed his lips with the shiver beneath him. Working his hips against Adam’s, he turned towards the collarbone this time. His teeth scraped over the thin skin there, and Adam let go of a wanton groan.

One hand raised a few inches, before Adam let Joel pin him back down. The detective leaned over him, staring down into those green eyes that didn’t move from his own. A quick lick at his bottom lip gave way to a sultry smirk of realization. Adam wanted him to watch, wanted to make a spectacle for Joel.

“You’re gorgeous,” he groaned. He was close too, but he wasn’t going to stop before Adam shattered. “Show me. Show me how good it feels.” His voice, thick with need, came out gentle and encouraging. Joel would happily be the agent’s audience if that’s what he wanted, what he needed.

Adam’s eyes slipped closed for a second.

“Damn I want to see you.” His hands flexed in Adam’s. “You want me to see you?”

The sharp curt nod from Adam pulled a low moan from Joel.

Fuck. He breathed hard, no way was he going to take his eyes off this. “I got you,” Joel swore. He meant it; right then and there, and everywhere else. It was as close as he’d been able to get to the words that captured just what he felt for Adam.

Maybe the vampire knew the real meaning, maybe he didn’t. But it seemed to be exactly what he needed in the moment. Adam’s body tensed beneath him, the tightness flexed in his jaw. Joel leaned closer to Adam, the tip of his nose brushing against his. When the deep moan shook through the room, Joel pressed a kiss to Adam’s raised chin. In the next moment, their lips met with the muffled clack of teeth. Neither of them took much notice of the quick painful jolt, instead they dove into the kiss.

Joel ground against Adam as his hips twitched with his release. The closer he got, the more he needed to touch him. One of Joel’s hands held the side of Adam’s neck as his tongue thrust into his mouth. Encouraging the detective, Adam grabbed his ass and squeezed.

“Adam,” he growled, pulling back from the kiss only to press his forehead against his lover’s. His eyes slipped closed against his will as his hips snapped forwards with pulse of his orgasm.

His chest heaved as he blinked his eyes open to find Adam staring back at him. I could get used to this, Joel thought. A goofy smile played across his lips, then parted in a groan when Adam’s hand tightened on the back of his neck. It was a comforting sensation, one that sent a tingle down his spine.

“At least I winded you,” Joel chided, his own breathing heavy.

Adam laughed. “That you did.”

Joel would take it. His tiny victory for the afternoon. Holding Adam’s cheeks in his hands, he kissed him—soft and slow. Cool hands pressed up the length of his bare back before tickling back down to the waistband of his sweats.

Eventually, their kisses slowed and Joel rolled onto his back next to Adam. When the stoic man sat up, Joel let his eyes shift over Adam.

“Um. Next time we spar, you might want to wear the black trousers,” he said, wholly unable to hold back a wide grin.

Adam’s gaze shot to the front of his pants with a laugh of his own.

Joel folded his hands behind his head and gave Adam a cocky grin. “Though I’m pretty sure the whole house knows whose at fault.”

The blush that raced across Adam’s cheeks and ears was too damn adorable. Joel sat up. “Want mine?” he asked with a upward tick of his eyebrows.

“Not sure which is worse. Walking through the halls with this or you walking the halls butt naked.”

“Now, see,” Joel closed the distance between them, letting his nose tease against Adam’s. “What you should have said is that was the best option you could imagine.”

Adam kissed him hard. “I knew you were trouble the first time we met.”

“You’re not wrong. Question remains.” Joel licked his lips and grinned at Adam. “Do you want to get into my pants, Commanding Agent du Mortain.”

“Incorrigible.”

“Such a strange way to pronounce chivalrous. Must be the accent.” Joel hopped to his feet and stood there looking down at Adam as he tucked his thumbs in his waistband, which inched it a little lower on his hips.

Adam made an almost convincing play at wincing. “Should probably keep those on. I don’t know if I could resist the temptation.”

“Why for?” Joel stepped closer, letting his fingers twirl at the tips of his short blonde hair. “I’m always a sure thing for you.”

“I swear, Joel.”

“Eventually, you will.”

Adam was on his feet in a heartbeat. He grabbed Joel’s neck and sealed his lips against the detective’s. That suddenly became his newest goal—getting Adam to loosen his tongue in bed. Joel was near damn certain he’d probably orgasm on the spot if he ever heard Adam moan ‘fuck’ in that needy way he did when he was on the edge.

“I need a shower,” Joel said as they parted. The invitation laced into every word in that statement. Adam just gave him a nod, then Joel moved to grab his shirt.

#TWC fanfiction #adam du mortain #Detective Joel Alan Lange #NSFT #NS*W #Smut and Feels #Teasing #Fools Catching Feelings #Joel loves to push Adam's buttons

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insomniac-dot-ink · 4 years

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The Long Bus Ride

Genre: supernatural horror

Words: 5.6k

Summary: When her late night bus stops in the middle of a rolling fog cloud Frieda starts to worry. Then she starts seeing words being written in the condensation on her window and she truly gets unnerved.

A group of strangers must now try to get through the night as something seems to be outside.

content warning: body horror

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The bus was mostly empty that evening. That was typical with rising fares and the fact most people would have tried to be home hours ago. It was too early for the late night party crowd and too late for the normal working crowd.

The bus driver was a big guy named Ted, I knew him by his portly size and baby-smooth clean shaven face. He had youthful thick brown hair grown a little long probably for vanity’s sake and a large pot belly that sagged over the shiny tight black belt around his waist.

He always nodded at me when I got on and always stopped for people when they were running to catch the 431. He wasn’t always on time like the other bus driver-- Nory, but he also honked his horn a little less than him too.

I flashed my bus pass at Ted that evening with our usual nod and a lingering achy bitterness settling in my core. Deirdre’s daughter had come to visit again that afternoon and there was always too much nasty energy in the house on those days. I liked to keep things neat, both personally and professionally. I kept my purse organized into tiny pockets and my clothes sorted in bins by season and I never mentioned anything personal at my job.

Everything had its place, but it was harder to be politely indifferent to the household when they were throwing barbed words at each and asking my opinion. It bothered me to have to be anything other than “day nurse Frieda” to them. It blurred our relationship when they turned to me and said “tell my mother she needs to finalize her will” and so on.

Of course, Deirdre should and did need to finalize her will, but expressing that broke far too many boundaries in a messy way.

I was ready to be home an hour ago by the time I walked to the bus stop with the sun already carefully nestled behind the city skyline. The purple of a gloomy summer night was heavy across the horizon and I didn’t even both to check my phone watch. I knew my Friday night was almost already over.

My feet ached as I turned to walk down the aisle of the 431 bus headed to Oakland. My chin was sinking toward my chest like a balloon tug insistently downward by a toddler. An older man sat near the front.

He was a skinny, wiry man with a thick mustache and clothes with spots of what I hoped was motor oil on his patterned button-up and workman pants. He wore heavy boots and watched me with small eyes under enormous eyebrows that could have probably watched me as well for the sheer size of them. He had no bags or anything with him and he sat like there was a drill sergeant ready to bark at him if he so much as slouched a little.

No one else sat in the seats near the front designated for the elderly and pregnant. The seats themselves were blue and yellow with party designs on them like you might see at a tacky bowling alley. It was an older bus that hadn’t even been upgraded to “green” standards yet and rumbled like a thunder storm wherever it went.

In the middle seats was a mother and child. She was a middle-aged black woman with long beaded braids tied back in a ponytail and wore a bright pink shirt and a slouchy pair of comfortable looking jeans. Her daughter looked around 9 or 10 and had her hair pulled back in a tight bun at the top of her head. She wore a hoodie over what looked like leggings and carried a sports bag with her.

The mother was probably picking her up from something like ballet practice. The daughter was leaning on the mom while she absently stroked her head and looked out the window. Something about the easy intimacy of it made me look away quickly.

One seat up and across from the mother and daughter was a gently snoring man. He had a wild beard, knit cap, and fingerless gloves. I could tell by the smell alone that he was homeless and had probably been sleeping on the bus for hours now. However, I had smelled worse and his jacket and jeans weren’t as grungy or disheveled as they could have been.

Two other people sat in the back, but luckily neither of them had claimed the final spot in the corner of the bus near the window. A young woman was one chair ahead of my seat, a short white girl who looked around college age. I wrinkled my nose at her because she was holding a paper cup with what I assumed was coffee and her hands were shaking.

She had on a long skirt with mud splotches at the bottom and a pale blue shirt with a mustard stain on the front. Her long auburn hair was tied back into a ratty knot at the back of her neck. She had on huge glasses dangerously close to the edge of her nose and she was staring out the window with the look of someone trying to count the yellow street lines and failing.

Across from her in the other corner of the bus was a high-school aged looking young man with a huge bag blocking the seat next to him. He was Asian with ink-black hair that he had spiked, and wore all black with dark ripped jeans and a band t-shirt. His ears were covered by silver earrings draped over the lobes like angry criss-crossing Christmas decorations.

He had a tattoo of what appeared to be a wing on his neck and smeared eyeliner around his indifferent gaze. He was wearing small earbuds and listening to something with an audible thrumming base.

I ignored both the messy girl and the punk boy as I took my seat and got out my book for the forty minute ride home. It was another pirate romance story-- which my sister recommended because she assumed she knew my taste. The action scenes were fine, but the actual tension between the main couple was blase at best.

I had to make sure no one sat behind me during my bus rides home though because I didn’t need anyone looking over my shoulder and finding the words “he touched my wet throbbing womanhood.” To say the least, the erotic parts of the novels were not that good either.

It was better than scrolling my phone right then though. I hated work emails more than I hated mud trailed onto the carpet in my house or slow-walkers on the sidewalk.

I peeked out the windows sometimes to get a look at the city as the street lights and building lights and headlights erupted one by one in a pale cascade. We were getting closer to the Oakland Bay bridge and the lights threaded along the beams like spiderwebs of frantic energy all captured and blooming at once. I had an affection for the city despite being trapped there.

I hadn’t actually come to California to be a geriatric nurse again. I already spent ten years working as one in Louisiana when an old college friend had called me up and asked if I wanted to join his startup. It sounded like a fairy tale: join an up and coming tech company and watch as you get boosted past “middle class” into something glamorous and decadent. Kitt knew me and knew I was good with people and offered to let me run the PR department.

Of course, I hadn’t joined for the money or the fact I was that interested in PR. I had been working in a nursing home for almost a decade by then and it had started to wear on me. I liked listening to people, especially people who were made of stories, and the job had originally suited me fine. But there was this… shadow over it all that started to eat at me.

A shadow of loss, of empty words, empty places where a sharp mind used to be, empty reassurances that meant nothing, brief glimpses of grief so intense that it split people in two. That shadow loomed larger and larger the longer I stayed. It chased me as my favorite grandma’s hands started to shake and my favorite patient stopped being able to play piano. I saw it in how some of them stopped meeting my eyes when the months dragged on and their time was coming. I saw in the way they stopped remembering my name or their own.

No. I didn’t want to work as an elderly care nurse any longer.

Of course, I was also 33 and single, and a change sounded good. So I moved all the way across the country, got the smallest apartment I had ever lived in, and dared to be a little bold. I wore brighter colors, spoke out more in meetings, cooked spicier foods, I went on dates with women for the first time.

But all good things come to an end. Most startups don’t make it, no matter how many twitter algorithms you try to “hack.”

I looked out the window and ignored my phone as it buzzed. There were other reasons I didn’t check my phone on the bus as well. Cynthia still wanted to meet now and then-- to see if we could make it work after all. I ignored the buzz.

I was lost to the erotic adventures of a very loud and very incompetent heroine when I heard a soft gasp come from in front of me. I usually had a rule of ignoring everyone else on public transport, but there was something about the sharp surprised sound that made me look up.

We were on the bridge now and it was damp and dark out. I blinked a couple times as I noticed a thick cloud seeming to descend. Fog was all but normal in San Francisco so I decided to go back to reading my book.

A small murmur passed between the daughter and mother in the middle of the bus, “it’s alright…”

I looked up again and the cloud was quickly eating up the view and making the road ahead look shrouded and strange. Cars around us had already turned on their headlights and I could almost feel the bus slowing down as visibility ahead quickly disappeared.

I wrinkled my brow. I didn’t know much about weather, but we usually only saw fog like this in the mornings. I looked to the other side of the road and noticed that I didn’t see any cars coming toward us.

“Look mom,” I heard a small voice say and the little girl was pointing out toward the ocean. I tried to look out the window and make out the sea too, but only saw that same thick white. It was dense and shapeless around us and the bus was slowing down further.

“Where are the lights?” I snapped my head around and the punk kid had taken his earbuds out. His face was even more stony than before and his eyes were narrowed toward where the bridge would be.

I set my jaw as I realized I didn’t see any of the glowing yellow lights that should be at least breaking through parts of the fog. Even worse, I checked ahead of us and behind, I had never known the Oakland bridge to ever be empty.

There were no more cars on either side of us.

I gulped. The bus was almost at a standstill.

“Hey!” The messy college girl holding the coffee called up from the back. “What’s going on?”

“Yeah, what’s the meaning of this? We’ve all got places to be.” The working class man stood up at the front.

Ted the driver didn’t turn around and there was something about his figure that sat wrong.

“Where the fuck are the lights?” The punk kid was standing up now and craning his neck to look outside.

“Excuse me, sir, is there a problem?” The mother had dragged her daughter into her lap and the little girl was looking directly out the window at something with the utmost focus.

I shifted uncomfortably in place and watched the scene unfold. Something cold was trailing down my spine. I liked to keep things neat, and this felt like it was about to pick up my wardrobe and dump it outside onto my muddy lawn.

A couple voices kept demanding to know why we had stopped, and the homeless man somehow kept dozing. “Ooh,” the little girl touched the window and suddenly my eyes were drawn back to my own window.

The fog was dense to the point of nothingness, and beyond the fog seemed to be an even thicker night. I furrowed my brow and drew back into myself. Condensation was gathering on the other side of the window-- the type you might see when your warm breath touches glass.

A thin layer of white was spreading across the window and then I saw what the young girl was “oohing” at.

“Everyone, step back from the windows.” I heard myself saying, reasonably, in as a controlled manner as I could.

Little droplets had now formed on the other side of the glass and the white haze was thick and tangible. That’s not why I jumped back though. A perfectly formed fingerprint was pressed into the condensation there. A clear oval that was dragging down, down, down the window and creating one long, straight line.

There was nothing behind that finger. There was no body or hand or anything attached at all. Only the imprint that was meticulously drawing downward.

“What the fuck?!” The punk kid scrambled back from his window as well.

“What’s going on?” The college student said in a panic as more little finger tips pressed against the glass. Hands, but not hands. My heart squeezed in my chest and a flurry of possibilities went through my head: I was in a coma, I was asleep, I was asleep in a coma. I was dead.

I was dead and hell is a bus ride.

“Ah!” I jerked my head around again and saw the old man in heavy work pants standing by the front with his mouth wide and eyes as round as silver dollars. He was staring at the bus driver in the way one stares at their parents declaring a divorce.

“Ted��” I muttered and forced myself forward. I wrapped my hands around the bus poles with each step and the metal was almost freezing at each touch. I stumbled across the long space.

“Mommy, what is it?” The window next to the little ballerina was absolutely covered in those floating strokes carefully applied by invisible fingers. They were drawing spirals and zig-zags and something that I dearly hoped wasn’t a letter of the alphabet.

I made my way past the sleeping homeless man who still managed not to wake and all the way to the front of the bus where the old man was staring at Ted.

“He’s-He’s--” He stuttered at me and fell back against a metal pole next to the door.

“It’s alright, I’m a nurse.” I took a deep steadying breath. I had seen corpses plenty of times in my life and I knew how to keep myself focused on the tasks in front of me. Ted was slumped over and unmoving.

I reached for his arm first and picked up his limp wrist. I exhaled the second I reached his pulse and felt a faint thrum there. His skin was clammy and far too cold, but he was breathing. “Don’t look at the eyes.” The old man grabbed my shoulder. “Don’t look!”

I was never very good at averting my eyes when facing car crashes or jump scares in horror movies. He had a pulse. I needed to check for head injuries. I glanced at his face. Something was dripping down his cheeks in a steady flow.

I reached and tipped his chin up. I swallowed my scream before it could escape. His eyes were gummed shut with something black and bubbling. It was like tar that held both of his eyelids clamped closed and water was leaking out of the seams.

Droplets beaded down his cheeks and when I let his head fall again it leaked like rain down upon his lap. I stopped myself from heaving at the sight and looked downward. His foot was still on the gas, but we weren’t moving forward.

“Let’s go.” I ushered the old man away from Ted’s body. Something told me we shouldn’t touch it or be too close to it. We retreated back toward the other seats.

“E,” the little girl was tracing a letter in the condensation. Something outside was writing the letter E and then another letter next to it. “N.”

I walked down the center of the bus in a daze and the others looked at me. The disheveled college student stumbled toward us. “Is the driver alright?” I just shook my head and couldn’t find the words to explain that one of us was surely dreaming up a nightmare.

The punk kid was sitting in the center of the back seats clutching his bag to his chest and his earbuds were back in.

“Little girl.” A voice barked. I turned and suddenly I noticed that the homeless man had sat up and his clear blue eyes were darting around the space frantically. “Don’t touch the windows.” His voice was deep and smoke-beaten. “Again, again, again.” He repeated, “Don’t touch. Again.”

I looked back to the shapes being drawn in the window panes.

They were impossibly strange, but no sounds came from the drag of their fingers. In fact, I didn’t pick up any noises from the city at all: no honking, no sirens, no hums of life. I groped for the right words to try to make sense of this.

“Little girl!” The homeless man said sharply and he looked toward the closest window. “Don’t.” “Sheryl…” Her mother warned, but the little girl, Sheryl, kept tracing the letters the Things were drawing.

I watched in a trance, “T.” She said softly. “E.” I was watching the tip of her finger move when I caught the first glimpse.

My whole body froze like a jolt of ice pouring down my spine. Just beyond the invisible hand was a face submerged in the fog-- faint and shifting. It was hard to make out, but two black eyes drooped like runny eggs down it’s sunken cheeks and a mouth grotesquely frozen in a scream took shape for just a moment.

I grabbed for the mother, “everyone!” I found the energy to fill my words with urgency, “get away from the windows!” They all looked to me and I mustered every bit of my authority, “NOW!”

Reluctant shuffling followed. “Wait!” Sheryl protested as her mom picked her up and carried her to the center of the bus. “Wait!” She repeated, “it wasn’t finished.”

The fingers outside became more frantic as we retreated into the center of the bus as far away from the windows as we could get. They clawed and dragged and I could make out more and more faces, some with three fingers and some with seven. Faint outlines of the hands and faces morphed and danced just out in the darkness.

They never stood still or seemed to stop shifting and twisting as if unnaturally alive.

A shudder went through the small group as we huddled together like penguins being accosted by the arctic breeze. The punk boy was the last to reach us as he clung to his huge bag and entered the loose circle we created.

The old man was shifty-eyed and looked the most on edge. I kept an eye on him, as well as the homeless man who was hunched over into himself. “Again,” he muttered to himself. “Again.” The moments after we gathered were long and strained before anyone dared to speak and break the ghastly immense silence. “Something was wrong with the driver,” the old man finally announced as he looked to the fingers, “something is wrong here.” “Very wrong.” The college student echoed.

“Duh,” The pink kid said back with his teeth clenched.

“Perhaps it will be over soon.” I added softly, mostly speaking to myself.

“What’s everyone’s names?” I looked up as the homeless man finally broke himself upright again.

“What? Why?” The old man practically growled.

“Everyone here has got to have a name.” The homeless man’s blue eyes were still frantic and traveling faster than I thought they should back and forth across the space. “Got to have a name.”

“How do we know that will--” “Angela.” The mother spoke up. “And this is Sheryl. Have you seen this before?” She looked to him as if he must often see buses descend into hell before.

“I’m Rick.” He said without hesitating, “Angela, Sheryl,” he pointed to the college student as if to pose a question.

“Laura.” She said softly. Her hands were still shaking, but probably for different reasons now.

“Angela, Sheryl, Laura,” Rick almost sang and then prompted the old man to speak.

“I’m Drew.” The old man said hesitantly after a moment.

“And I’m Frieda.” I added as the punk kid spoke as well.

“I’m Jinu.”

A silence spread and I didnt know what I expected to happen from swapping names with a group of strangers. Sheryl was frowning deeply. She whispered, “We shouldn’t have left where they can see us.”

That made me look back to the people I was stuck with and I opened my mouth to ask Sheryl if she was alright.

Bring

We jumped as one when a sudden and angry sound crackled and shook the space.

Bring, bring

It was like the sound of an old phone back from the 90s. A classic, angry noise that ate up the whole area with its loud buzzing undertone.

Bring!

I felt my pocket and felt something vibrating there.

“It’s our phones…” Jinu said in a hush.

My phone was ringing. And I knew we were being hailed.

Bring, bring, bring

I felt sick.

Laura was the first to dig out her phone from her bright yellow purse and hold it in her hands.

Bring, bring

The iphone vibrated and almost shook its way out of her hands. It’s screen was completely black and something, something was making it ring. “What’s,” I couldn’t contain the question any longer. “What’s causing this?” No one answered me. Drew took out his phone next, a first generation android it looked like with a cracked screen that was just as black as the last one. Slowly, everyone except for Rick, extracted our phones and watched as they made the same cry together over and over again: bring, bring, bring, bring, bring.

I stared into the shiny black surface of mine. It was perfectly smooth and almost… too dark. A dark I had never seen before and reflected nothing back. It felt like it was eating the light up.

“Maybe,” Laura spoke up. “Maybe we could call the police.”

“It’s a little late for that honey.” Angela said with a forlorn sigh.

“Why are they ringing?” I asked dumbly.

“We shouldn’t answer.” Jinu growled and tossed his phone all the way to the other side of the bus.

Rick nodded, “Do. Not. Answer.” “But…” I frowned deeply. “We can’t stay here.” “We can’t answer either.” Rick said in his same husky, withered tone. Drew nodded and threw his phone away, I followed suit mostly to stop looking at the shiny blackness of the screen. Angela seemed to almost break hers as she chucked it away as well, and Laura was the last one. She gripped it tightly and looked up.

“What do you think those are?” She finally voiced our fears and looked back to the fingers and morphed faces. “Are they… are they what’s calling us?” I shrugged, “does it matter?” I glared, “we can’t risk it. Throw it away.” “What happened to the driver?” Laura whispered and I just shook my head. She threw her phone away.

We all looked at each other carefully, and then we waited.

--------

Time ticked by with an anonymous meaningless face. On some level I think most of us expected to wake up soon, or for the sun to rise or to have God yelled “pranked!” from somewhere up in the sky. At least, that’s what I was waiting for.

The bus was still, just as cold and faceless as before, immobile as it had ever been. Alone in the middle of the bridge and alone in no place at all. I had a switch knife I carried around that I now held in my clenched fists and the world stood still.

Empty, except for the constant, unending sound of the phones: bring, bring, bring. They chorused and buzzed on the other side of the bus as we huddled in the center. It was endless. People did what they could to distract themselves from their impossible voices.

Jinu put his headphones back in and turned them all the way up. Laura covered her ears with both hands and rocked back and forth in a ball. Rick gazed unseeingly up at the ceiling with a deep frown on his face. Drew was drawing something on his palm as if doing math equations on his skin.

I distracted myself by talking to the mother and daughter. “You want to be a prima ballerina when you grow up?” I asked softly as I watched Sheryl’s small face. Angela was still stroking her daughter’s head and holding her close as the minutes ticked by.

Bring, bring

“I want to dance in The Swan Lake,” she said factually. “I’m not good enough yet, but I will be.” I beamed. “I believe you.”

Bring, bring

“What do you do?” Angela asked and there was something forced about it.

“Nurse.” I said simply. “Though I came here for an app startup of all things.”

“Oh?”

Bring, bring, bring I wasn’t usually one for idle-chit-chat, but a damp coldness was working its way through my chest. I had already noticed that Laura was shivering fiercely.

“Yeah, we were going to change the world or something he said,” I rolled my eyes, “but it didn’t turn out that way of course.”

“What kind of app was it?” Sheryl was still looking to her window, but she seemed present enough.

“Oh, a ride sharing one. It was supposed to be a public minded service called ‘Democracy Bus.’ It was meant to help people get to the polls on voting days for free or get to civil rally's or debate parties,” I shook my head. “It never got off the ground.” Angela opened her mouth to respond, but seemed to be drained of some force within her.

Bring, bring

“That settles it.” Drew stood up with a hardened look on his face. “If I run I might make it to the other side of the bridge in a few minutes.” He nodded, “we were more than halfway to the other side by the time we stopped.”

We openly stared at the old man. Jinu took his headphones out, and Laura uncurled herself. Rick kept looking at the ceiling.

Bring, bring, bring

My mouth became a hard line, “We don’t want to let any of those things in here…” I whispered.

Drew dusted himself off, “I only need someone to pull the door open for a second. And beside,” his lips curled up, “we can’t exactly stay here and starve.” My skin prickled and I didn’t mention the fact I hadn’t felt hungry since the moment we stopped. I hadn’t felt thirsty either, or anything at all. Just cold. And damp.

“We’re not going out there.” Angela hissed first. “It’s too much of a risk.” She held her daughter tighter to her.

“Does anyone else have any ideas then?” Drew seethed. We were quiet.

Bring, bring

“Maybe we should answer one.” Laura said again, “just to see what happens.” She cocked her head to the side, “maybe they’ll let us go.”

“That sounds like an even worse idea than his.” Jinu said flatly.

“Don’t. Answer. The. Phones.” Rick finally joined the conversation and haltingly declared.

“Why not?” Drew narrowed his eyes icily, “What do you know?” Rick looked back up to the ceiling and set his jaw. Drew took a menacing step toward him, “What does he know?!”

“Oh,” Sheryl pointed, “Look. They’re trying again... E.” I looked up just in time to see the fingers all in one motion write the letter “E” over and over again on each window. I swallowed thickly. “We should all cover our eyes.” I announced, “We need to wait this out.”

Bring, bring, bring! Drew shook his head. “We just gotta open the door for a moment. I’ll go get help.” Angela looked like she was ready to pounce on him. “I told you! It’s too risky, there’s children aboard.”

“A child who keeps trying to communicate with them!”

The fingers were now writing “N” over and over again on every surface of the windows that there were. “N” She read softly.

“Guys,” I repeated and my voice rose, “I think we should cover our eyes.” “T,” Sheryl muttered and I dove for her first.

“Cover your eyes!” I screeched and slapped a hand over her gaze so that she couldn’t read it anymore.

Bring, bring!

“This is crazy!” Jinu started stumbling backward away from the group.

“Don’t leave us!” I reached for him as well.

“No!” Rick shouted, “I told you not to!”

I turned just on time to see Laura crawling toward her phone. She pressed on the screen with one finger and brought it to her face, “hello?” “E.” Sheryl said as my fingers slipped and the whole world came crashing down around us.

“Get back! Get away from her!” Rick pushed the three of us he could reach toward the back of the bus. Jinu let out a wordless scream and Drew reached for Laura.

“Young lady?” Laura’s face was completely contorted as she stood up. Her mouth opened in a grotesque snarl as her jaw jutted out awkwardly to the side. Her eyes were lifeless and started to leak drips of water down her cheeks.

She moved all at once-- like strings were unevenly tied to her knees. She took one jerky, tin step forward and then another.

“Drew,” I hissed and reached for him. “Get back.” “She’s so young,” he muttered. “She’s so young. Can you hear me?” The water was running down Laura’s cheeks like a faucet now and I couldn’t look away as her eyes sunk into their sockets. The white disappeared first into some unseen blackness. I pulled Drew back with all my physical strength and Laura took another step forward.

Could we fight her? Could we fight these things?

I took my knife out and slashed the air in front of us as she took her unpleasant, rigid steps forward. Her eyes had all but sunken into her head and her hanging mouth was now dripping water that smelled of something like mold and damp earth.

“Stay back,” I hissed and slashed the air again. “I’ll kill you.” To my surprise she turned. She faced one of the windows, the one that Sheryl has been sitting at only hours before back in the sunlight world. She touched the glass tentatively and the fingers repeated their last letter over and over again. Sheryl said a final ringing letter, “R.” ENTER.

I hugged myself and held my breath, bracing for the worst.

The windows did not break open though and the distorted faces did not slither inward. Laura got up onto the seat and started pressing into the window. Her eyes were completely gone and her ears and mouth and eyes were all steadily running over with streams of water.

It was wrong. It was hard to watch as she hands pressed gradually through the glass in an impossible manner.

It was a slow and painful process as she joined the mist. Hands grabbed her and pulled at her, her hair came loose and fell down her shoulders, and one of the people beside me started sobbing.

“It’s taking her…”

Someone started humming, Jinu I think. It was a sad and reluctant song that carried soberingly through the space. He hummed a funeral march just as she was tugged through the window and off into the white expanse with no name.

Our phones stopped ringing all at once and the fog began to lift as if in a dream. The next procession was mechanical and done in complete silence. We picked up our cracked phones and returned to our seats.

I didn’t know what compelled us, but I knew it had to be done. I knew we had to return to our exact same spots.

I took my seat at the back of the bus with my head bowed downward and Jinu sat across from me with his eyes focused on the skyline. Angela and Sheryl sat close and fixed in place. Rick went back to sleep. Drew sat closest to the driver and watched Ted sit up again.

Lights appeared beside us. Sounds of cars and bikers and voices reappeared. Headlights blinked on the other side of the road. Ted started the engine again. And we drove.

The bus rumbled onward through the beautiful dark night and city.

The only sign that we had ever been trapped in some place beyond here was the fact that my face was wet with tears and that there was an empty seat in front of me. I couldn’t remember her name though.

I looked down at my phone and I had 127 missed calls from “UNKNOWN” and a very brief text message from the same number. All it read was “again” and “enter.”

I closed my eyes and figured maybe it was time to move back home.

#writeblr #horror #writers on tumblr #supernatural #short story #original story #my work #creepy story #cw: body horror

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