#brute forced under leveled

[brutermonger]

til next time Lighter.. 🫡..😔

[zaynes-left-chesticle]

After just beating two trial levels that I've been stuck on all week with ease, I can say the Foreseer is no joke😳

Also, I could rewatch his freaking Ardent Oath animation like 18,000 times and still need more, lol.

[shartfinz]

I'm babysitting so I'm playing SMB Wii instead of studying but now I'm trying to beat the world record speed run for bowsers castle which is 2 mins and like 50 something seconds and I'm at 3 mins 4 seconds I want to be the best at this

[eviesaurusrex]

ᴄʜᴏꜱᴇɴ ᴡɪꜱᴇʟʏ | ʙ. ʙᴀʀɴᴇꜱ

Mobster!Bucky Barnes x Reader

summary: 5 incidents in which Bucky gets proven how lucky he is to have found you.

word count: 6.7k

warnings: MDNI, fluff, mobster typical themes, illusions to violence, more fluff, cursing, talks of marriage, starting a family etc., pregnancy, phantom pain, allusions to smutty time, slight dirty talk, my Google Translator skills for all things Russian, children, not perfetly proof-read

author’s note: Am I in my mobster era now? (Please don't try to strangle me when I butchered the Russian parts. I had only Google Translator as my trusty helper ;_; Dividers are made by @enchanthings-a and @strangergraphics!

Russian translations:

малышка (malyshka)—baby

милая (milaya)—darling

“Every day I wake up next to you, I pray to the gods and thank them for the love you give me. Every day I spend with you is more than I deserve. Every day I call myself lucky that you love me back, my dear. I love you more than anything in the world, more than the world, more than life itself. You are my everything. Thank you for making me the happiest man on this planet.”

“Should I stop telling you how good you feel around me? How good you take me? How perfect you look, all filled up with my cock and already pregnant with my baby?”

Привет, папочка (Privet, papochka)—Hello daddy

Привет, солнышко (Privet, solnyshko)—Hello sunshine

The first incident that proved him to have chosen wisely when following his heart for the first time in his life was when James Buchanan Barnes—fearsome crime lord, bratva leader, king of New York City’s underworld—found himself in the aftermath of a crossfire after a deal gone south. His doctor had just arrived to check out the gunshot wounds littering his arm and shoulder, and in his opinion, everyone made too much of a fuss about it.

He was fine. He made it out with barely any scratches.

“Nine gunshots, only one bullet I have to remove. This is a new record, Mr. Barnes.”

… a few scratches; he had to give him that.

On the other hand, his entire left arm had been reduced to nothing but a pile of scrap metal, so perhaps Bucky had been hit rather badly if he took that into account. He wouldn’t because he had to be okay, invincible even. The world he was born into was a cruel one that reprimanded one’s weakness with downfall and despair, and he had to uphold the legacy that had been bestowed upon him the moment his father took his last dying breath in the same car crash that had taken his arm. He had people to protect—his associates, partners, workers, everyone that he considered friends or even family.

Topped by only one person, one woman, who sat above them all on a throne he had created for her right next to his. Not beneath him, not a step below—right fucking next to him.

Speaking of which… The commotion outside their bedroom sounded a lot like the whirlwind he deemed to be the love of his existence, and cursing above his breath, his eyes moved a second from the slightly opened door toward the doctor holding the single bullet between a pair of forceps.

“Don’t you dare step in my way.”

Her voice rushed like opium through his veins, making the mobster forget about the burning pain of holes inside his body.

“I can’t let you in there. Not now. The doctor is with him, you don’t want to see that,” Steve’s voice echoed through the hallway, probably stacked with high-towering security men. Just as high-towering as the blond was, and still, his girl did not show fear. No, not her. Never her.

A scoff was heard, and the physician beside him chuckled under his breath as he started to clean the wounds meticulously. Even Bucky showed a rare hint of emotion around other people than her when a grin parted his lips for a moment. “You’re his second. He is his doctor. I am his girlfriend. Think again if you want to continue standing in my way, Steve. I’m not above using brute force to get to him.”

Hearing that from a woman stopping not even close to all their eye levels would be laughable with any other person, but her? Everyone knew she would move heaven and hell in order to get wherever he was. He had learned this the hard way and would never dare leave her behind again, not when she demanded to tag along.

She really is a wonder.

Bucky wasn’t sure if he had spoken those words out loud, his mind starting to struggle with the blood loss and pain seeping deeper than necessary into him.

Shuffling before the door made the brunet open his eyes again. “Fucking hell, woman…” The hardwood door opened, and he could see the woman ruling his world without even starting to grasp the extent of her power over him, turning toward his second in command. “I hope you don’t kiss your mother with that mouth, Rogers,” she spoke sweetly before she finally turned, her eyes immediately finding him on their shared bed.

Worry creased her forehead, brows deeply furrowed, eyes jumping from his shoulder to his injured arm, then right to the one missing. Without another heartbeat, she rushed through the grand but still cozy room, showcasing her taste because Bucky had let her redecorate this entire fucking house as soon as she had agreed to move in with him—after much persuasion on his part. He wouldn’t have given a fuck if she would’ve decided to paint every single wall a screaming yellow if it would’ve made her happy.

“Hey, милая.” His raspy voice from all the shouting broke a bit at the signature endearment for her, and he wished to reach a hand out to her, but the lack of his arm was jarringly apparent. So all he could do was watch her carefully settling down onto her side of the bed, scooting over the mattress, a warm, soft hand cupping his cheek while the pad of her thumb started to caress his cheekbone. “Hey, love,” she returned the greeting with a smile, worried gaze flicking to Dr. Strange. “How bad is it? And don’t you dare try to sugarcoat me like Sam bloody tried on our way here. I do possess eyes, you see that, right?”

Dr. Strange nodded while preparing the stitching material. “I have removed one bullet from his shoulder. Nine shots in total. I’ve cleaned them and will stitch them as soon as the anesthetic takes effect.” Bucky could see her nodding at the doctor’s explanation and tried to nuzzle closer into the palm of her hand. “Milaya?” She finally looked down on him. “I’m okay, ‘promise. They busted m’arm, though.”

His words turned slurred, slowly but steadily, and he focused on her soft smile that was always entirely reserved for him and baby kittens. He could live with that sort of competition.

“We will talk later, but I promise I’ll take a look at your arm, and in case there isn’t anything left to save, I’ll make you a new one, James.” She pressed a gentle, loving kiss to his sweat-covered forehead. “Now relax, my love. I’ll be here when you wake up.” Her voice echoed in his ears when the drugs finally kicked in, clinging to the sound of her.

Yes, he had been smart enough to ignore his stupid rule of not letting anyone get closer than necessary. She proved him right every damn time.

The second incident that proved him to have chosen wisely when following his heart for the first time in his life was on a regular day in December. Snow fell softly outside the grand brownstone they had chosen to spend the holidays at rather than the house outside the city. His girl had wanted to finally spend Christmas in the buzzing city again, and he had ordered their things packed and moved within a blink of an eye.

Now, everyone enjoyed their little piece of heaven surrounded by their families. Yelena and Natasha had returned to Russia for the holidays, Steve spent time with his own wife, while Sam had decided to go south to see his parents and check in with a few associates while he was already there.

Meanwhile, the feared bratva mobster, leader of the darkest pits of New York’s underworld, watched his girlfriend-soon-to-be-fiancée add a few more pieces they had picked up at Tiffany’s today to their Christmas tree, humming to the soft tunes of an old record wafting through the living room. His blue eyes, usually so menacing and threatening, rested with a loving expression on the woman he had sworn to protect with his life, one arm thrown over the back of the comfy couch he had spent a fortune on—but his queen fell in love with it at first sight and couldn’t find anything better suiting. Not that she had to. The shining black Centurion Card had been pulled out of the inside pocket of his black suit jacket the second Bucky had seen that look on her face.

He would buy her anything in this world, spoiling her rotten until she’d drown in pretty things.

“I think we need more lights,” she stated in a mumble, almost to herself, before turning toward him. “Don’t we? We need more lights, yes.” And so it was decided, and he smiled at her turning back when she started to roam through the red holiday box to find the last remaining string of colorful fairy lights. “No, wait.” Lifting a dark brow, the man watched her reach for the small package he had eyed since they’ve returned instead, all wrapped prettily and neatly.

Scooting across the soft carpet toward where he sat, his girl smiled up at him, holding the small present out to him before folding her hands over his muscular thigh, waiting patiently. “It’s not your Christmas present, but I saw it and… and I needed to do this. To have something for our tree.”

Their first real tree as a couple. The past three years, they had been too busy during the holiday season, barely being at home, not to mention the little time they would’ve had to go out, find a tree, and decorate it, so it would be appreciated as it deserved. This year, however, Bucky craved the comforts of their home, and he wanted to start collecting memories like this.

He bent over to her, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead, hand cupping her cheek tenderly, the little gift almost vanishing in the vastness of his hands. “Thank you, моя милая.” How in all the hells had he become so lucky in finding this woman who now grinned up at him with unabashed happiness? “Open it! Open it already!” And he obliged, feeling giddy himself as she almost bounced on her knees, unwrapping the small box and opening the lid to reveal a perfectly crafted snowflake ornament, a picture of them together in Central Park during the worst snowstorm the city had witnessed in over a decade placed inside the clear crystal. Their smiling faces, almost hidden behind scarves and beanies, angled to one another, her lips pressing a snow-filled kiss to the corner of his smiling lips.

It was perfect.

She was perfect.

Gods be damned, but in that moment, when his eyes found hers again, he felt the overwhelming urge to drop down on his knees and ask for a lifetime together. But he wouldn’t. He had it all planned out, and he used to stick to his plans. He was patient beyond compare, but not when it involved this woman before him. So instead of caving to this sensation, Bucky carefully placed the crystal snowflake onto the coffee table in front of him and pulled his girl up into his lap in one smooth motion, wrapping her in his strong arms, fingers—both flesh and metal—tangling in soft strands of hair or gripping the soft black fabric of the hoodie she wore which once belonged to him.

“Каждый день я просыпаюсь рядом с тобой, молюсь богам и благодарю их за любовь, которую ты мне даришь. Каждый день, который я провожу с тобой, больше, чем я заслуживаю. Каждый день я называю себя счастливчиком, что ты любишь меня в ответ, моя дорогая. Я люблю тебя больше всего на свете, больше мира, больше самой жизни. Ты — мое все. Спасибо, что сделал меня самым счастливым человеком на этой планете, малышка,” Bucky rasped in Russian with his forehead pressed to hers and eyes intimately locked, watching the shy smile he loved so dearly spreading on her lips and making her eyes twinkle.

“I don’t know if you have insulted me just now, proclaimed your undying love for humble me, or started the dirty talk earlier than usual, but either way, I don’t mind.” Her fingers wrapped around his chin to pull his face closer to hers, lips touching when she added in a breathless whisper, “It sounded hot, so keep talking dirty to me, love.”

Giggling, his girl accepted the tender kisses of chapped lips to her cheeks, her nose, her forehead, her lips. He felt the uncomfortable pull on his skin again when Bucky smiled at her, his split lip still not entirely healed after a punch he couldn’t dodge in time. Under her care, it will have vanished until next week when the photographer planned to take a few pictures for their first Christmas postcards.

Bucky still struggled to grasp how his life had turned in that particular manner. He never thought he’d be one for domesticity and familiar bliss, but with her?

He was all in.

The third incident that proved him to have chosen wisely when following his heart for the first time in his life was when James Buchanan Barnes, invincible mob boss, returned home in the dead of night in a frantic temper, his entourage strolling behind him, accepting his orders with grave faces and solemn nods.

“Don’t let him out of your fucking sight. Track him as soon as he leaves his godforsaken home, track him inside his own walls, hell, track when he takes a piss. I don’t fucking care!” His booming voice echoed through the foyer, and with another deep growl, he handed his weapons to Sam; two remained in the holster, hugging his broad shoulders. He wouldn’t take them off, not until the threat was decimated under his foot. “We’ll do a 24/7 surveillance on him, boss. He won’t come near her,” Steve promised, knowing damn well what would happen to all of their heads if they couldn’t protect her.

Bucky bared his teeth in disgust. “You better not fuck this up, Steve.” This would be his first and only warning, and the blond knew that, so he nodded and retreated into his office, knowing damn well that sleep would be nothing but a pleasant memory for a while—he wouldn’t be alone, though. Everyone knew how their boss got when his queen was threatened by others. Those threats had already started to grow in numbers as soon as the underworld learned of their engagement, and outsiders trying everything to get in and on good graces with certain families smelled a quick victory.

How wrong they were in those foolish assumptions.

Sam watched his boss almost anxiously while he desperately tried to cool off, fists pressed against the pretty surface of a pretty sideboard she had most definitely chosen.

“I will kill him. I’ll kill them all if I have to.”

At Bucky’s deep rumble, Sam could only hum in agreement. He would be right at his back, killing all who wanted to harm anyone he cared for, especially those inside this building.

“I could reach out to our associates in Louisiana, get some more backup and gunpower. There’s this kid who’s a marvel with tech. Maybe he can come up with a discreet solution for the in-house surveillance,” Sam suggested, knowing damn well how excited Parker would be when he finally allowed him to tag along, currently bored out of his brilliant mind at college. Bucky looked up and over his shoulder, icy blue eyes resting on one of his best men—and friend. But the creaking above their heads let him pause in his answer, and both men stared up the stairs, knowing who eavesdropped at the railing.

Bucky sighed deeply. “We need to work on your stealth skills, малышка,” he spoke up and waited for her steps to pick up and for her to shuffle down the stairs. She did in a pair of cozy yoga pants, a large hoodie hanging on her form—the one he had worn before changing into his suit this morning—and fluffy socks with reindeer and candy canes printed all over them, her hair wrapped in a messy bun on the top of her head, strands framing her face. In her arms throned a king amongst pets, and white fur littered the soft fabric of his hoodie where she held Alpine close to her chest.

His heart ached at the sight of her in the best possible way.

Her eyes wide with worry—not for herself, but for him and all his men—jumped between Sam and himself as she reached the second to last step and waited there.

“I didn’t mean to, but… I heard voices and thought you’d come home, but then I heard everyone talking and it was kind of too late to go back to bed anyway, so I figured I could… learn a bit.” Bucky started softly shaking his head, his outgrowing hair tickling his cheeks. “You meant eavesdropping, малышка. That’s the word you’re looking for here,” he deadpanned, and one corner of his mouth slightly lifted at the sound of her quiet laugh, her fingers comfortingly petting the white fluff ball currently purring at the attention and headbutting her hand for more.

With another sigh, he stepped up to the stairs, raising his gaze to his all-ruling queen, and he felt the tension in his shoulders slightly disappear when her hand came up to his neck and rested there comfortingly, fingers playing with the soft strands of his dark hair. “I’ll be alright, James,” she whispered, and he wasn’t sure how she could say that with such certainty when not even he felt so sure. “We’ll be alright, I just know it. Nothing and no one will keep me from you, from becoming your wife and living a very happy life with the man I love more than anything in this world, giving him the cutest fur babies and children the world has ever seen.” Bucky sucked in a breath, and after gently putting down Alpine, he pulled his soon-to-be wife in a bone-crushing hug, wrapping her legs around his hips with ease. “We will live until we turn old and grey and can look back at all the memories we made along the way, annoying our children and grandkids with endless, embarrassing stories,” she continued to whisper against the soft, tattooed skin of his neck and yes, he could see all that and more, too.

It was easy with her to picture this picture-perfect life—and he would do anything to make it a reality. He wouldn’t stop at murder and anarchy, not when it came to her.

So when he slightly turned to Sam with his woman in his arms, ready to put her back to bed, he only needed to mouth the words, and it was done.

Do it.

The fourth incident that proved him to have chosen wisely when following his heart for the first time in his life was during one of those forsaken nights.

He woke with a startle and a groan escaping him involuntarily, the dark bedroom embracing him, a soft, warm body tucked into the expanse of his back, slow breathing fanning across his heated skin. His hand shot up with another groan leaving him, cupping the stump where once had been an arm, feeling the same agonizing pain he had felt in that car all those years ago, almost bleeding to death after a rivaling family had tried to kill them all off.

Unfortunately, he had survived—and the revenge had been brutal the moment he had recovered enough to go on a killing spree.

Trying to breathe through the crashing sensations, Bucky tried to move as quietly and carefully as possible, not wanting to wake the woman sleeping peacefully beside him because she needed all the rest she could humanely get. But the pain was blinding, the feeling of warm blood flowing down his skin so real, he could’ve sworn there was still an arm to lose, and his fucking legs were still tangled in the damn blanket!

With a frustrated huff, the mobster tried to just roll out of bed in a desperate attempt, not minding falling face-first to the floor, but the blanket didn’t budge, and suddenly, an arm snaked across his waist, and a warm hand rested on his muscular abdomen.

“D’not go…”

The sleepy mumble pierced through the agony, and usually, Bucky always obliged to his wife’s every demand, but not now. Not this time. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t crumble in front of her. She needed him to be strong and capable. He had to protect her and the little plum. He couldn’t show weakness, not even in the comforts of their own home. Word would get out, the pit of New York City would smell blood, they would come and kill her in front of his very eyes, make him watch when the life would vanish from her breathtaking eyes, taunting him, before they would end his life as well, releasing him into the bliss of afterlife where he would search for her, and—….

“Bucky? What’s wrong?”

Her voice, now sounding more awake and aware, startled and pulled him out of his spiraling thoughts, and he could feel the mattress dip and move when she sat up and scooted closer to him. “Hey…” A soothing hand started to rub over his back. “Talk to me, love. C’mon, handsome, I can only help when I know what’s bothering you to such an unholy hour.” Her teasing made him almost smile—almost. But the pain returned in full force, and his hand gripped his shoulder even tighter.

“Phantom pain. It’s nothing I can’t handle, malyshka. Go back to sleep, you need it,” he rumbled quietly, his legs finally escaping the trap that was their blanket, and the man sat up, feet hitting the floor. He attempted to get up in order to leave her to the quietness of their room, but his wife had nothing the like on her mind. She held him back and scooted off the bed. “Stay. I’ll be right back.” Blinking into the dim light of her bedside table, he reached for her and tried to get up. “I’m fine, sweetheart. Go back to—”

She shushed him gently and pressed a finger to his lips. “I said Stay. I mean it.” With that, his woman granted him a serious glance before she patted into the adjacent bathroom, one hand cradling her already quite prominent bump, and all Bucky could hear was rummaging sounds in their cabinets and a quiet mumbling.

“Your papa is a handful sometimes, little one. Prepare yourself because I need you in my corner, okay? Okay.”

Smiling through the irritating pain, the mobster waited for her to return and watched her closely when she finally left the bathroom and patted back to their bed, a bottle of lotion in her hand. “You think you need the mirror, love?” Bucky glanced at the full-length mirror in their walk-in closet shrouded in darkness and decided with a soft shake of his head. “Maybe later if it’s not getting any better,” he mumbled in defeat, accepting the loving kisses pressed to his right temple and lips. “Just let me know, yeah?” He nodded at her request, and blue eyes watched her like a hawk when she settled right next to him, on the side of his missing arm, a squirt of lotion already between her soft hands warming it up.

“I told you to wake me up if it’s happening again,” his wife scolded him quietly, her incredible hands massaging the hurting stump of his shoulder. At first, it hurt like hell, but the more she kneaded and caressed, the more bearable it got. “You need your rest, milaya,” he returned with a lingering glance down her form, eyes equally heavy with worry and love when they settled on the little bump he had grown to love so dearly, it almost hurt.

Bucky felt her eyes on him in return and opened his arm when she stopped what she was doing to climb into his inviting lap, straddling him comfortably. Taking his hand into hers, she pushed the warm skin of her husband under his shirt she wore to sleep and placed his palm right on top of the soft curve before continuing.

“Not more than you need it, too. You’re running the mob empire, not me.” Her voice reminded him softly, and he let his forehead fall onto her shoulder, eyes closed, thumb caressing the warm skin of her bump, hoping, praying, he would feel something, anything. But according to all the books he had read so far, it would take a few more weeks until he could feel the slight movements their child did inside his wife. “And you’re growing a whole fucking human,” Bucky returned and got shushed again. “Watch your language, Barnes. I don’t want their first word to be anything obscene.”

But she couldn’t fool him. He heard her smile in the scolding.

A comfortable silence settled between them, then, reminding Bucky yet again why he had felt so good around her the second she had walked into that room in the hospital, only raising a brow at the sight of six buffed men clad in black suits, armed with more guns than one human could possibly need, and him sitting in the middle of it all—disheveled, still hurting, ice cold. She had smiled, wearing those ridiculous blue scrubs, and he had spotted a splash of blood on her light grey sneakers when she had come closer, pointing it out in almost something resembling disgust. Still, she only had rolled her pretty eyes at the pitiful attempt of an insult.

She hadn’t given a single fuck about those intimidating men—including him—all towering multiple heads above her, tattooed, guns always visible, the rough Russian language floating through the room occasionally. And he had respected her for that, even though he didn’t bother to be nice at first. In hindsight, Bucky would’ve earned a beating from his mother if she had been still alive. She had raised him better than treating a beautiful, kind, intelligent, and compassionate woman like he had initially treated her. But after a while, Bucky had felt how she had snaked her way into his thoughts, catching himself repeatedly thinking about her over the course of his day, starting to anticipate the next appointment to get his prosthetic measured, built, and adjusted, always looking forward to seeing her face.

She hadn’t given a flying fuck either when he finally revealed who he was and what he did, only cocking her head to the side in question and asking him, “Will you or one of your guys kill me after our time is over?” And when he had shook his head, denying those thoughts, she had smiled brightly, before turning back to the prosthetic arm she had crafted for him. “Then we don’t have a problem. Everyone has to earn their money somehow, James.” That was also the first time anyone had called him by that name since his parents had died, and he had fallen for her right then and there, ready to kneel at her feet and surer as hell that he would make her his queen.

“Don’t count on that, malyshka. Everyone around here is using filthy language, and do I need to remind you of certain… situations where the little plum currently has to listen in? Or do you want me to stop? Мне перестать говорить тебе, как хорошо ты себя чувствуешь рядом со мной? Как хорошо ты меня принимаешь? Как идеально ты выглядишь, вся заполненная моим членом и уже беременная моим ребенком?” He felt the pain slowly but steadily subside under her knowing and well-versed hands, feeling them stop in their magic as the huskily whispered Russian words flowed effortlessly over his lips, feeling her squirm in his lap.

Leaning slightly back in order to have a better look at his face, his wife bit her lower lip, making now the feared bratva leader squirm underneath her, his hand protectively pressed into her lower back, not daring to let her fall off of him. “You are a very evil man, James Barnes,” she hummed with almost a purring edge to her voice, making him grin as cocky as possible. “You married the worst of the bunch, malyshka—and you like it. You can’t hide it, not from me, never from me. Not when I’m balls-deep it that deliciously tight…—” Her lips pressing against his made him moan deep in his throat and stop taking altogether. Forgotten was the pain of the past. It still bothered him, somewhere in the back of his mind, but her scent, her taste, the feeling of his wife against him made him forget about it.

The past was the past, and now, only the present and the future held importance to him.

Lifting her with one arm with ease, the mobster carefully moved her to the middle of their bed, hovering above her and watching her pretty face with a loving gaze. “You’re my everything,” he dared to whisper. “You both are.” He felt her hands cupping his face tenderly as if he wasn’t the killer everyone feared across the East Coast as if he was something precious even though he was broken beyond repair. “And you are ours, Bucky.” She kissed his cheeks, the tip of his nose, his lips, and his left shoulder without disgust, without apprehension, but with deeply felt love.

As if he was perfect the way he was.

The fifth incident that proved him to have chosen wisely when following his heart for the first time in his life was after a business trip to Sicily that had taken too long for his liking, even though the business was good and the newly knitted connections invaluable. But it had made him leave his family for far too long than humanly tolerable, not even the many FaceTime calls had eased the sting in his heart.

“Make sure Enzo receives the gift for his wife and put a little something for him inside as well. Perhaps the Yamazaki Single Malt?” The 55-year-old whisky sure would make a fine gift for the young leader of the Sicilian Mafia, remembering an evening here and there when both men had shared a glass of scotch.

Steve walked beside him as they left the car and made their way over the sidewalk and behind the gate of the old brownstone in the best area in New York City. The cherry trees along the road were in full bloom, and the spring breeze was pleasant enough that the Barnes considered taking them all out for a day in Central Park. Work could wait after two weeks away from them. “Sure thing, Buck. I’ll call Stark to get a bottle,” the blond nodded and opened the door for his boss after walking up the stairs before entering the family home as well, happy sounds wafting through the air already.

Bucky visibly relaxed when he heard his family without a phone between them and handed Steve the concealed guns. They had made a rule for the house, and everyone obliged happily because everyone had been wrapped around their little fingers since the day they were born.

And no one would dare to go against Mrs. Barnes.

“I don’t want to be disturbed for the next couple of weeks, so handle everything and only bother me with situations that need my explicit attention,” was the last order the mobster could get out before the sound of small feet erupted from the living room and barreling toward the foyer.

“Papa!”

“Dada! No, waits for meeee! Annie, pwease! Mommyyyy!”

Bucky laughed as his eldest rounded the corner in full sprint, her little legs carrying her as fast they could, and the tall brunet crouched down to catch her little body. The little girl, resembling so much his wife, looked at his face with bright eyes, hands pressing against his cheeks and squishing them with an adorable chuckle.

“Привет, папочка,” she greeted him shyly, stumbling over her sounds and pronunciations, but Bucky kissed her little cheeks with such enthusiasm that her insecurities vanished in an instant. “Привет, солнышко,” the father returned with a kiss to her forehead and watched the questioning expression morphing onto his daughter’s face. Her tongue poked out between her lips, eyes wandering to the ceiling, brows drawn together in concentration—just like his wife. But then, she looked at him again, leaning closer as if she wanted to conspire with him. “What does that mean, papa? Yelena didn’t teach me that word yet,” she whispered, and Bucky laughed again, feeling almost crushed by the happiness he felt at that moment. “It means sunshine, my sunshine.” It made her smile as brightly as the sun outside the windows before she waved at Steve. “Hi, Uncle Stevie. You can go now. Papa is mine; you can have him back in… a long time.”

Nodding to underline her case, the almost six-year-old looked expectantly at his second in command, and Bucky turned with her still in his arms, looking just as expectantly as her. “You heard the little lady, Steve. Off you go,” he teased, and the blond shook his head with a smile, bowing before them. “As you wish, Princess Anastasia.” The girl huffed and showed the blond giant her tongue. “It’s Anya, Uncle Stevie! You always forget!” Chuckling, Steve took her hand and shook it apologetically. “You are right; my apologies, princess. Enjoy your time with your father.”

And with that, he left for his office, leaving the two in the foyer when they heard another set of steps.

“Anya, next time, wait for your brother, please,” Mrs. Barnes scolded the little girl gently, a smile on her lips and the little boy on her arm. His son nodded, holding his stuffed bunny at its long ears. “Yesh, waits for me, Annie! Dada!” More excitement echoed through the home as the small boy started to wiggle in her arms, and Bucky rushed over to her, catching Elijah before he could plop out of her embrace. “Careful, little troublemaker,” he laughed and held him with his other arm, hearing Anya scoff quietly. He threw his wife a questioning look, and in return, she only rolled her eyes at their children, softly shaking her head and taking Anya to her.

“They had a… falling out earlier.” Anya scoffed again as if her mother understated the entire ordeal, wanting to be put back on her feet, and hugged her mother’s hips closely. Elijah leaned his head against Bucky’s shoulder, bunny pressed tightly into his chest, watching his sister. “He ruined my homework! Miss Pepper said she’s suuuuuper excited for my solar system model, and then, papa, Eli just banged his stupid bunny on it!” Angry tears gathered in her eyes, almost rolling down her pretty face. His youngest looked positively undisturbed as he watched his sister unraveling over her homework, and Bucky sighed.

“Bunny s’not shtupid. Annie’s plant-… plants-… planets! Annie’s planets looks ugly, dada. Not pretty like mommy,” Elijah stated with confidence, making the tears finally spill over Anya’s cheeks. “I hate you! You’re not my little brother anymore!” And with that, the little girl pulled away from the soothing hands of her mother, almost tumbling over the stairs as she ran upstairs, a loud bang echoing through the house when she closed her door with force.

Another sigh escaped Bucky and his wife alike, both parents looking down at their little boy who started to chew on his bunny’s ear. “Honey, that wasn’t very nice to say,” she reprimanded her son and took him from Bucky when he stretched his little chubby arms toward his mother, keeping a hand on his little back. “Annie is sads?” She nodded and kissed the dark mob of hair her son had inherited from his father, just like the blue of his eyes. “She’s upset, baby, yes. We will give her a moment to calm down before we’re going upstairs to apologize, yes?”

Elijah nodded with tears in his eyes, and the father couldn’t hold back, so he gently cupped his youngest head and pressed a lingering kiss onto the wild dark curls. “Can me and bunny asks Miss Melina fors cookies?” Smiling, she pressed a kiss to his cheek before putting him onto his small feet. “But only one, baby!” He was already on his way, chanting for cookies.

In an instant, Bucky pulled his wife into his arms, capturing her lips with his, a rumbling moan escaping him at the taste and feel of her. “Two fucking weeks are too long, malyshka,” he stated with another lingering kiss, fingers tangled in her hair. “Tell me about it. Try to manage two kids who switch between being the bestes of friends and each other’s enemy number one multiple times a day.” Taking her in more closely, Bucky could see the dark circles under her eyes and the tight muscles around her lips. His thumb swept across the dark circles, and his lips followed to kiss them better. “I’m so sorry, milaya,” he murmured with another kiss to her forehead and felt her hand hitting him against the back of his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. You had to be there, and we had to stay here with school for Anya and Eli’s first day at kindergarten. We managed. I wouldn’t mind if you take over bedtime duty for a while, though.”

Bucky grinned happily at the prospect of spending time with his kids, feeling the love only a father could feel coursing through his body. “Of course, love. We’ll get you something nice on our stroll over Fifth and let the kids play in Central Park while you enjoy a book, alright? I’ll pick up a few new bedtime stories as well, so you will not even be remotely needed and can enjoy bath after bath. Would that make my wife happy?” Sighing, she leaned heavily against him, gathering strength through his strong body supporting the weight resting on her shoulders during the worst and most exhausting days—which they have had many in the past two weeks. “Sounds lovely. But don’t you dare spend a fortune on me again!” Her warning was unnecessary because Bucky would spend a fortune on his wonderful wife, and she knew that as well. “Please,” he chuckled and pressed another heated kiss to her lips, his fingers cupping her chin tenderly. “I’ll buy whatever you want, milaya. Perhaps we could even get something for us.”

He loved his wife in pretty clothes, but he loved her especially dearly in pretty lingerie he had no qualm of ripping off her gorgeous body the second she’d appear before him, reducing the masterfully crafted pieces to lacy shreds on their bedroom floor. The first time he did that, he hadn’t gotten the opportunity to pull her to bed, receiving a scolding he had gotten the last time, probably as a boy. She had been royally pissed at his antics, mourning the pretty set she had bought for their first night together. The next day, she received a delivery of all the pieces she had eyed at the shops and saved online, making her closet filled with more lingerie than a regular woman would need in her entire life.

Only that she wasn’t a regular woman with a regular man. He could buy her anything and in any quantity possible, so he wasn’t one to hold back when the urge to see this goddess of a woman naked made him growl and impatient—and even a tad jealous of the fabric touching her skin instead of his hands and lips.

“You are the worst of the bunch, Barnes. Seriously.” Exasperated, she looked up at him, her cheeks warming under his touch, and Bucky nodded with a serious expression. “I am insatiable when it comes to you, malyshka. And you thrive on the power you have over me.” Eye-rolling, she shook her head again, winding out of his arms and smacking his ass with a teasing smile. “Stop being a seventeen year old horndog and move your sexy backside up to your daughter. She’ll listen to you more than me after two weeks filled with my constant presence. I’ll see what I can save from her project, and stopping Elijah from munching on too many cookies…”

The last part was barely a mumble, already distracted by whatever thought wandered through her beautiful mind, and Bucky watched her retreating back with a smile before shrugging out of his suit jacket. Throwing it over the stair railing, he made his way to his eldest’s room, softly knocking at the door littered with pictures and posters of her favorite animals and characters—he could even see the remnants of a glitter pen—and knew how lucky he could count himself when he was allowed to enter his sunshine’s room.

He had the perfect wife, two healthy, wonderful children, and had found happiness despite the way his life had taken.

He had indeed chosen wisely.

author's note: Tysm for reading my silly little writing. As usual: likes, reblogs, and comments are so much appreciated! I love to read your thoughts <3

[your-highnessmarvel]

Insatiable

AN: No one asked for this but the Butcher brain rot is crazy and i can't stop myself. Alas, I couldn't resist so welcome to the madness. Anyway, I went insane and absolutely wrote a devoted piece to this man. Jesus help me.

Warnings: dub-con (use of sex pollen-ish mind control), smut, fingering, language, and Butcher is a warning in and of itself.

MINORS DNI Below the cut

"I'm not wearing any underwear."

The admonition echoed in the habitat of Butcher's Cadillac like a bird's call. Even the sound of leather on leather, as the man sitting beside you slowly turned to examine you, wasn't loud enough to get the stupid ringing out of your head.

This had all started off like a bad scab you thought was healed but wasn't, and now it was bleeding all over your favorite pink pull.

Hughie and MM had uncovered a rightful piece of Temp V hideout; a Supe's mansion on the Upper East Side who, just happened, to be throwing one of his renowned "XXXchange" parties for Supes and their pets (this was how it was described on the e-vite MM hacked).

This Supe, still unknown to everyone because he kept the mansion under a random woman's name, was supposedly a Seven-in-the-making, as Hughie put it. If he could prove himself, he was next in line for a comfy beige seat in the Tower. So hence, him keeping and distributing Temp V to teens and young adults who didn't know any better.

So what had been Hughie's grand ol' plan? Bring you in. As the newest Supe member of The Boys, no one had yet seen your face. No one even knew of you. You were a low-level "barely considerable" Supe...as Butcher had put it the first time he blew the hinges off your front door.

Your power wasn't really a - well, a power at all. It was mostly an advancement, an intellectual add-on, or a sixth sense. You could read lies. More coherently, because someone with a beard and a giant stick up his ass didn't understand correctly--you could tell when someone was lying.

You weren't really an attribute to the team when it came to brute force. You left that up to Annie and Kimiko. But you had your perks, and since you were still under Vought's radar, you could slip through the cracks and get intel for the Boys.

Now why was Butcher with you, the most notorious Boys' member? Well, one might say he was eager to see your 2-hour fight training in practice, but really, it was because he "didn't trust a dumb twat with highly sensitive information and tech". His words.

So he'd garnished a Tommy Bahama blouse with pink flamingoes and palm trees and a matching set of swim shorts, sunglasses, and a stupid bright pink bucket hat that was way too small for his big ass head.

And now here both of y'all were, headed to the Upper East Side, dressed like a hooker and a pimp. Annie had insisted on this get up, a tiny, tiny pink skirt, a white bikini top, and a pink cover up with flip flops to finish off this fucking look. Because apparently, no one would let you in if you weren't A) a Supe and B) not dressed like a House Bunny.

"So you're tellin' me," Butcher drawled as the New York skyline darkened, "that your bare pussy is suction-cupping my leather seats?"

You crossed your arms. "I'm sitting at an angle."

Butcher slapped the wheel. "You should've told me earlier!" he laughed. You frowned in return when he swivelled that giant head of his towards you. "Come now, if you're not wearing panties, why should I, eh?"

"You wear panties?"

He hummed, regaining control of the road as the car slipped passed the last townhouse to enter Mansion Ville.

"I like you, little Truthteller," he mumbled to himself. "Thought you were a bit worthless at first, but you might just prove yourself tonight!"

You didn't dare answer the last bit, instead focusing on the details Annie and Hughie gave you before you flip-flopped your way into Butcher's passenger seat (and did absolutely not suction-cup his leather seats).

The idea was to go in and place a few bugs in and around the mansion in key locations. You could try to figure out who the Supe was or even find out where he stashed his V, but it didn't matter. The Boys would find out over the bugs.

The mansion Butcher parked the Caddie in front of was like a cookie-cutter version of the 90s PlayBoy mansion.

"Alright, love," Butcher sighed, killing the engine and stepping out, rounding the nose of the car to open the door for you. "Give 'em a nice peek of that minge, eh?"

You blushed from head to toe, a torment of fire assaulting your skin until Butcher caught on and chuckled low in his chest, helping you step out the car with his hand.

You still hadn't gotten used to the crass words that could tumble out of his mouth like vomit.

He guided you to the entrance, where a man dressed in black boxers and a black neck tie asked for your invite number, which you recited from the one Hughie gave you.

Then he asked, "And which is Supe and which is pet?"

You blushed even hotter. "Um." Your throat got sticky and dry all at once. "I'm the Supe and he's my... um, he's my-"

"Her pet," Butcher interrupted with a wide smile, the sunglasses hiding the glint in his eye that was surely showing. That ridiculous bucket hat made him look almost two heads taller than you as he bent down to whisper in your ear, "bark, bark."

You groaned inwardly as you lead him into the foyer, where a sprawling staircase lead to a mezzanine and a mahogany banister and a wide archway gave way to a mess of bodies in the living room.

"Oh my God," you mumbled, turning away from the onslaught of legs and arms and slithering bodies like a pile of snakes.

"Oh, nuh-uh," Butcher chuckled, grabbing you by the shoulders, steering you right into the mass of party-goers, moaning and groaning and thrusting into one another or bouncing on top of each other like mad dogs. "If you want to play the part, you have to look the part." His mouth was right next to your ear, and for some reason, the breath caressing your skin sent a slowly gliding shiver down your spine.

Why was this happening?

You felt the flesh melt where his fingers lay, clutching at your shoulders, pulling your coverup off of you.

"Butcher," you said, stopping his hand.

He shook his head. "Show them what you got, mama," he whispered again, the rough of his beard tracing against your cheek. He scooped the coverup off your shoulders and threw it across the room, leaving you in your bikini top.

Butcher had never seen you so exposed before. You'd always worn pants and t-shirts around the safe house, so watching all that bare skin available to his hungry eyes flipped a switch in his head.

A woman, tall and elegant, cream skin and sultry black eyes, approached you before Butcher could do something stupid. He straightened up, lifting the sunglasses from his nose.

"Miss, look at you," he cooed.

Miss was naked. Someone had left a bite mark on her right breast, just above her peaked nipple. She was so long-limbed and beautiful, and the sight of her naked body made you turn away instinctively.

"I like you," she said, voice low and husky, like a purr.

"I like you too, sweetheart," Butcher answered, the heat of his body completely leaving you as he zeroed in all his attention on the naked, wanting lady before you.

She huffed. "You're great too," she answered, and when you turned, her lascivious brown eyes were settled on you. "But it's her that I want."

Butcher gasped and then erupted in laughter, taking the bucket hat off his head and putting it to his heart. "Woah, I never imagined I'd see this in my lifetime."

The other woman smiled slowly and you gulped. She was pretty, but she was also not part of the mission.

So you back-peddled.

You put a delicate hand to Butcher's arm, digging your nails into his skin, and put on a lovely, sweet smile for the offering girl. "That's nice of you," you said, voice sultry like a wet candy cane. "But we're more interested in watching." As you said this, you dropped into your act as best you could, mustering up the strength not to blush but to play the part of the sex-obsessed Supe.

She brightened up at this, gesturing to Butcher. "Well I could fuck him while you watch," she suggested.

Butcher's body tensed up against you and he turned to you. "Please say yes," he mumbled.

You smiled, throwing him a glance. "Both of us are watchers," you corrected, watching as she bowed her head, a lustrous gleam in her eye.

"It would've been a pleasure," she said before walking away.

When she was climbing onto another woman's lap, Butcher grabbed your bicep and brought you into a corner, sheltered in the dim lighting of the room, smothered under the moans and groans and the sloppy sounds of...intercourse.

"You were this close to fulfilling a fantasy of mine," he groaned, and when you looked up, he looked more angry than turned on.

"We're not here so I can watch you have sex with a woman, asshole!" you gritted between your teeth. ''We're here to plant bugs and find some V."

He huffed, rearranging his Tommy Bahama. "I'm obeying just because you're wearing this outfit," he grumbled, following you as you led them into the next room.

A kitchen, stock full with boxes of canned beverages and food platters.

"Okay, here." You pointed to the dinner table in the adjacent room, a teakwood marvel that surely housed a few meetings or two.

Butcher expertly placed a bug under the table.

You meandered safely through the house, planting bugs in various living rooms, meeting rooms, and spare bedrooms. Whenever some couple or lone masturbator dedicated their attention to you both, you pretended to watch, Butcher enlacing you in his arms.

It's only then you noticed how tall, how big this man was. He was easily dwarfing you by just standing there, your head against his chest, his fingers drawing lazy circles against your exposed spine.

When the onlookers would pass, he'd chuckle as you pushed him away like he was a booger wall.

But the more you traveled in the house, the more people seemed to stare, wanting, questioning. So you ended up holding Butcher's hand, at his command: "Wouldn't want the lovely ladies stealing you away, eh?"

And hand holding turned into his arm around your shoulders, the tip of his very long fingers ghosting your breast.

"Let's go upstairs," he whispered in your ear once he'd bugged up the toilet.

"Ew, no."

He sucked his teeth. "I mean," he gritted, pushing you up against a wall when a man with a considerably large strap on made his way towards you. Butcher bent down, squeezing the breath from your lungs as he grazed his mouth on your bare shoulder. He pressed a featherlight kiss, all while observing the passing man, dragging his lips up to your ear. "We should go bug up the rooms, eh? Maybe see if we can find this cunt's V supply?"

You nodded, a wicked shiver pebbling your flesh.

Butcher blew cold breath onto the thin line of saliva he'd left on your skin. "Cold?"

You swallowed hard. "Let's just go."

He chuckled as you grabebd his hand and led him back to the stairs, galloping up to the second floor.

Truth is, you'd never imagined Butcher like this. He was so arrogant and he loved to make people jump out of their skins by how uncomfortable they were with him, but you'd chopped it up to the old chip on the block; Butcher pushing people away to keep himself safe.

So when the Boys had initiated you, you'd figured it'd be best to steer clear from this tyrant of a man. He was way older than you anyway, and he was always calling you every name in the book except your government given one. And he was always dismissing your ideas, so you'd always assumed he had an image of an immature little girl in his head.

But he'd dreamed of you more times than he cared to count. The messed up parts of his brain, where most of it was left behind in his old life, conjured up hauntings of you every night. Of those soft, plump lips whenever you'd eat cherries. Of your legs in your pajama shorts and your giggle when Kimiko signed something stupid. Of that perfect little body of yours.

"Okay, in here." You interrupted his chain of thought, the one that was going to crash into a puddle brains that would eventually leak out of his ear.

You lead him into a room, which turned out to be some kind of antechamber with a hearth and a giant portrait of a small, bald man.

"He looks like a mouse," you muttered.

But Butcher froze, tearing his hand away from yours. "Oh, fuck me," he groaned, putting his sunglasses and hat onto the low table. "That's the fucking Seducer."

Your skin crawled. You turned, examined Butcher's expression as he leaned against the far wall. "This cum guzzler is the one trafficking V?" he thought to himself, just as you asked, "who's the Seducer?"

Butcher turned to examine you across the room, lit by a few lights in the sconces. "He's the world's number 1 date raper," he answered, frowning. "This guy can intoxicate the female species into a mad heat, like dogs."

"What?" You frowned.

Butcher walked a bit closer, turning his head to watch you out of one eye, like a bird. "Yeah, he secrets this hormone on a whim and boom, bitches go mad for his dick."

"Oh." You swallowed, turned to push the handle of another door, leading to a darkened room fit for a king. "I think this is his room."

Butcher muttered behind you, "Lucky guy if you ask me."

"Trouble getting women, Butcher?" you asked absentmindedly as you entered the dark room, lights from the lawn outside filtering milky-white through the windows, illuminating your path like a trail of snow.

Butcher followed, closing the door behind you. "Not really," he answered, immediately pulling cubbards and drawers open. "The ladies love me."

"Oh, yeah I bet," you muttered, pulling open the wardrobe. A loose floorboard creaked loudly and you froze, turning to meet Butcher's eye.

He scrambled to where you stood, pressing on the floor and repeating the awful creaking sound.

"Pants jizzer must be keeping the V under his floor," he mumbled, pressing until at least 6 floorboards rose from the ground on one end, a whole door to the underside of the Seducer's floor.

"Bingo," you giggled, helping Butcher pull the damn thing open. But there was nothing there, only an empty black space that could've fit maybe two people, gaping at you like a dark maw. "He must have transfered them," you whispered.

"Or he's trafficking other things," Butcher replied darkly.

Just as you were about to close the floorboards, a loud thud rang out in the antechamber. You froze, listening, until a feminine giggle made you and Butcher lock eyes.

"Get in," he whispered, motioning to the black pit under your knees.

"In here!?" you whispered tightly.

Whoever was on the other side was making their way towards the room, painstakingly, and this was not the place you and Butcher needed to be found.

"Yes, fuck, get in," he insisted, and your heart thudded so loudly, so harshly against your throat you thought it would burst right out through your chest.

Shaking, you got into the little space, falling onto your back because you couldn't see where this thing ended. As soon as you got your hair out of your eyes, Butcher was tumbling onto you, closing the floorboards a millisecond before the bedroom door burst open.

Sound was immediately muffled, like being underwater, and the only thing you could hear was your breathing. Butcher's breathing over you. Your heart in your throat, nauseating you, the adrenaline rushing like a flood in your veins.

Butcher's chest heaving against yours, the entire length of him pressed up on you like a heavy blanket.

"Get off," you whispered, feeling the heat of his forearm next to your head.

"There's no space," he grumbled, his voice catching on your cheek, your neck, as he tried to maneuver himself every which way that meant he wasn't pressed up on you, but he was just so damn big, like hiding with a grizzly bear, that whenever he tried to move, he just ended up being half on and half off you.

"Fuck it," he grumbled, pressing one hand under your thigh, wrenching a gasp from your throat as he placed himself comfortably between your legs.

The pressure of him on your bare bottom half made you freeze, heart hammering like an angry drum against your ribcage. The way you were positioned, thighs wide open, knees bent each side of his waist, made the skimpy little skirt bundle up onto your tummy, leaving you completely bare.

"Hush up, little thing," Butcher whispered in your ear, holding himself up on his forearms as not to crush the breath out of you. But his voice was wretched, pulled and tight, no doubt reacting to the heat he could feel through the thin fabric of his swim shorts.

The noise overhead intensified; a moan, a few garbled words, thudding.

"They're going to do it while he lie here," you whispered, hands balled up by your sides.

Butcher chuckled silently, breath fanning your neck. "So we really are voyeurs."

You smiled, holding back a giggle until a heavy thud caught your attention and the voices suddenly got a bit clearer. They were right over you.

A woman's voice floated through. "How ever I can serve you, Seducer."

The last word made your insides coil in fear. It looked like this woman was answering a command from the Seducer himself, the man who owned this house, who trafficked all the V and worked with Vought.

"Fuck," Butcher muttered. "This is worse than I thought."

"Why?" you asked silently, your fingers trembling against your thighs.

You felt him bend forward, his body tight like a rod. "This is going to hurt, love."

And just as you were about to ask what he was about to do, a soft pang echoed in your lower belly, like someone had tied a rope to your bellybutton and pulled. You squirmed, the thudding overhead leading back to the bed.

The pulling again, making you heave in a breath, squeeze your eyes shut. "No, no, no," you muttered, feeling an ache build between your legs, a force pull through your veins like molten honey.

The Seducer was using his power. And it wasn't just affecting the woman he was with... it was starting to affect you.

You felt yourself clench on nothing but air when the ache throbbed against your clit, like an invisible vacuum seal had closed over it, and you lifted your hips off the floor slightly.

Butcher immediately grabbed your hip, bringing you back down forcibly, sending a new wave of heat, of ache, of hurt through your body just at the touch of his bare fingers on your bare hip.

"Don't," he breathed, his word clipped. "Don't do that."

He could feel the heat of you through his shorts, just how impossibly hot you were, probably dripping from the Seducer's power, and the little control he exhibited around you was pulling quite taut.

"It hurts, Butcher," you gritted through your teeth, hands settling on his shoulders for support as another wave of need, of painful, painful need, throbbed through your body like a pulsing nuclear explosion. Your legs tightened around his waist, nails digging into the fabric of his Tommy Bahama. "Make it stop," you pleaded, heaving, throwing your head back, bucking your hips to get the pain to stop. Just stop.

Butcher huffed, cradling your face, his insides in turmoil with his brain. God had given him such a gift right now, a chance to take you, mark you as his, finally fuck that perfect little body--and he didn't know if he was man enough to stop himself.

You groaned in pain, subconsciously grinding your bare pussy against his thigh, searching for any kind of friction, of relief. Your skin was so hot, sweat beading your forehead as you braced through another wave of this unknown ache, throbbing relentlessly against your clit, deep inside you, just grazing your g-spot.

Your fingers balled into fists against his shirt, your face finding his chest, and you sobbed, "Make it stop, Butcher, please, it hurts."

You weren't aware that your hips had started grinding against his thigh, the knee he'd placed between your legs for leverage. And just the fact that he could feel his shorts getting soaked had him straining against the stitches of his sanity.

"There's only one way," he breathed against your ear. You sobbed, heaving, breathing raggedly, grinding so hard on his knee it was almost pathetic. "Are you sure you want to try?" he asked, voice trembling.

You sniffed, hung onto his neck for dear life. "Please, anything, this is--ah--this is unbearable."

He bent his head, mumbled for God to forgive him, and then pressed a deep, hard kiss on your lips, pressing you back into the floor completely. Somewhere above him, he heard a woman moan loudly, but the only thing that registered to him was the way you clung to him like a pawing animal.

A strangled moan, quiet and restrained, left your throat, caught behind your teeth as he ravaged your mouth.

"N-no," you mumbled. "No."

He pulled away, kissing your jaw, your neck until your were humping his thigh like a woman gone mad.

"This the only way, little Truthteller," he murmured in your ear, dragging his knee away and feeling your entire body go stiff against him.

A whine, like delicious music, lifted to his ear and he groaned inwardly. He had to convince himself he was doing it for you, but half of him was delighted at the idea of finally having you. Like a meal he'd been mouth-watering over for some time, and now it was fresh and warm right in front of him.

"I need," you muttered, groaning through another wave of the Seducer's power, your hips bucking into nothing. "I need..."

"You need to cum, little dove," Butcher whispered, caressing the side of your face and you shook your head.

"No."

"Yes, love," he muttered, tracing the line of your neck, down your chest until he softly cupped your breast.

A quiet moan rippled along your throat like a symphony to his ears. He played with your hard nipple through the fabric until he pushed it aside and replaced his thumb with the warmth of his mouth.

"Fuck," you whispered, pushing against his shoulders. "This is wrong." Your voice was so thin.

Butcher lapped at your nipple like an ice cream cone. "Want me to do this to your pretty little pussy?" he mumbled, and the crass words sent a hot wave of need pulsing painfully between your legs.

His other hand skimmed down your side, over the swell of your hip, and down to where you needed him most.

When he swiped a slow finger across your soaked folds, the grunt that left him was purely predatory. "You're so fucking wet," he whispered, to the accompanying sound of your panting. He brushed his thumb across your clit, holding you down as you jolted, flicking his tongue against your nipple.

"Butcher, please," you begged.

"Billy, love," he whispered, raising his head to kiss the corner of your mouth, brushing his thumb against your clit once more to capture your gasp in his kiss. "Call me Billy."

You gripped onto his shoulders, feeling the wide, powerful muscle of his right hand playing with you.

He pressed three fingers flat against you and you bucked, searching for more, as he circled slowly, starting you off.

"Say it," he commanded quietly, circling your clit faster.

"Billy," it came out as a whine and he groaned lowly, capturing your lips and kissing down your throat. The way his fingers played you like a harp wrenched a pornographic moan from your throat and immediately, Billy put a hand over your mouth, the skin between his thumb and forefinger snug under your nose.

"Quiet for me, little Truthteller," he whispered.

He moved his fingers to your entrance and slipped one in so easily it was almost embarrassing. He cooed at you, gliding his finger in and out so slowly it was almost arrogant. "So fucking wet, this perfect little hole."

You keened, squeezing your eyes shut at his crude words, searching for more friction until the heel of his hand pressed snuggly against your clit.

Your hips moved on their own, bucking against his hand as he pumped his finger, faster and faster until your pants turned into hyperventilating and your legs started to close around his hips.

"Got my whole hand drenched, pretty love," he whispered. "That perfect little cunt can handle another finger?"

You preened against his hand, your sounds muffled against his large, meaty palm and he chuckled at you.

The second finger was a tighter fit, his thick digits spreading you and squelching into you slowly.

"Ah, there's my girl," he moaned in your ear. "Fucking my fingers like a good girl."

You wanted to tell him to quit teasing, to bring you to orgasm as quickly as possible because the heat stirring under your skin was insatiable, but you didn't understand how much Billy was enjoying himself. He didn't know when he'd get a chance to have you so willingly spread open for him again, or if he'd ever get the chance again. So he savored this moment like a dying man's last meal.

He let you adjust to his fingers, fucking them into you, palming your clit before he thrust in another finger, opening you wide to him. You gurgled against his hand, muffled moans and pleas stuck behind his palm.

He didn't miss just how tight you were around his fingers, how snug and warm. "So tight, my little love," he cooed, thrusting his fingers in and out slowly, enjoying the way your hips bucked.

The sloppy sounds of your cunt sucking on his fingers drove you mad and a hot, painful knot formed in your belly, pulling and tugging at your insides.

He felt you trembling, your orgasm on the horizon, and he lifted his hand off your mouth, capturing your lips in a warm, sloppy kiss.

"Want you to cum with my name in your mouth," he mumbled, almost incoherent in his chase for your climax. He pressed his thumb to your mouth, opening it, listening to your panting, your quiet moans as he fucked his fingers into your cunt, pressing down on your clit, rubbing it with his palm.

"Billy," you breathed. "Billy. Billy." Like a mantra, a prayer.

"That's it, my pretty girl," he whispered, thumb on your tongue, fingers fucking your pussy until that knot in your bely tightened impossibly and your legs went numb. "Cum my pretty dove, gush all over my hand, come on now."

He grunted against you, and somehow, that guttural, manly sound made stars explode in your belly and you came, shuddering his name quietly, over and over and over until the pleasure had seeped out of your veins and you crumbled back to the floor. You felt his fingers slip out of you, his wet hand pull your knee apart, press against the meat of your thigh, spreading you wide, wide open.

He slithered down your body like a snake, pushing you up against the confines of this box until you felt the warm breath of him against your clit. When he lapped at you, humming around your hole like a satiated man, you mumbled his name, searching with your hands until you grabbed onto the thick strands of his hair. Panting, you mumbled his name again.

"Just having a taste, love," he mumbled, sucking on your over-sensitive clit until the heat came blasting through you again, all over, like you were under the Seducer's spell again.

"Fuck," you gritted, biting your lip, caging in the awfully loud, guttural moan that wanted to spring free.

Billy grabbed onto your hips, holding them down, his forearm over your belly like an anchor.

"One more, little Truthteller," he mumbled, flicking your clit with his tongue, his beard scraping on the inside of your sensitive thighs.

"Billy, please," you whined softly.

"Always wanted a taste," he said. Not a lie. "Always wanted to tongue-fuck this perfect hole." Not a lie.

He pressed his tongue flat to your clit, sucked and nibbled on it until he pressed his tongue right into your cunt, fucking you with his tongue like he'd promised. The mix of his hot breath, his tongue inside your walls, his thumb working on your clit made all your senses flush full of adrenaline. Bucking against his face, you rode his mouth until another flash burst through you and you came all over his face, grinding down on his nose until the last waves of your orgasm had left you.

When he climbed back over, kissing your belly, your nipple, covering you with his warmth, you were just a numb shell of the girl you were when you walked in here.

Billy kissed your jaw, your neck, stroking your hair as you regained your senses.

Whoever had been overhead had gone. It was completely silent. And it left you wondering if that last wave of need had been the Seducer's spell or Billy's.

"We should go, love," he whispered. "Before I stuff you full of my cock and have you cumming on it for the third time."

His filthy mouth brought you back to your body, cold and sweaty and oh so comfortable with two orgasm singing in your veins.

"Yeah," you whispered as Billy pushed the trap door open, peaking out to make sure the coast was clear, and then hopping out. He helped you out with his hand, gentle and calm, smoothing down your hair, covering your nipple, patting down your two-inch skirt.

"I've made a real good mess of you, love, eh?" he chuckled, standing and taking your hand. "Was I a good pet?"

[silenthilllz]

wHICH CHARACTER IS GOOD FOR DEFEATING THE MINI BOSS IN STAGE 19-3????

i saw a video where someone had shadow armor x and they just cracked his armor until it broke but idk which of my characters has that ability to crack it??? Do i need a better weapon bc im using the Muramasa and the blue buster (who's name i forgot at the moment) and ive maxed those two out only </3 

Ive been using forte.exe for all my things since he’s one of my most powerful characters i have, and ive upped his stats more than anyone else! 

[heritageposts]

In his seminal The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon could be writing about Gaza when he said: “In all armed struggles, there exists what we might call the point of no return. Almost always it is marked off by a huge and all-inclusive repression which engulfs all sectors of the colonial people.�� In Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, that point has arrived. From Gaza to the Red Sea, on all fronts the West is now unmasked as a lawless killing machine in terror of losing control. Genocide, starvation and war, defended with Olympic-level diplomatic double-speak, are its only answers to the fact that the Global South, and the nations of the Middle East (if not their leaders) no longer wish to live under US hegemony. Jean-Paul Sartre, in his preface to Fanon's work, wrote of western colonialism: “Our Machiavellianism has little purchase on this wide-awake world that has run our falsehoods to earth one after the other. The settler has only recourse to one thing: brute force… the native has only one choice, between servitude and supremacy.” Fanon was a revolutionary thinker and a practising psychiatrist of colonial racism and its psychic impact on the colonised, and the coloniser. He and Sartre were writing about France’s imminent defeat in Algeria after seven years of brutal war. [...] Western powers are involved in conflicts thousands of miles from home, as they were in Fanon's time in Algeria, Congo and Indochina. Today the western political class has united behind Ukraine and Israel, but for millions of people it is no longer clear that the wars are worth fighting.  As Yemen’s spokesman, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, put it: “The war today is between Yemen which is struggling to stop the crimes of genocide, and the American and British coalition [who] support its perpetrators. Every party or individual in this world has two choices that have no thirds… who do you stand with as you watch these crimes?” Fanon, writing 63 years ago, agrees: “The colonial world is a Manichaean world… at times this Manichaeism goes to its logical conclusion and dehumanises the native, or to speak plainly, it turns him into an animal. The native is declared insensible to ethics; he represents not only the absence of values, but the negation of values… he is the enemy of values, and in this sense he is the absolute evil. “The native knows all this, and laughs to himself every time he spots an allusion to the animal world in the other’s words. For he knows he is not an animal, and it is precisely at the moment he realises his humanity that he begins to sharpen the weapons with which he will secure victory.”

. . . full article on MEE (1 Feb 2024)

You can also find a free copy of Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth on the Internet Archive (available as a PDF, EPUB etc.)

[contentloadingandstuff]

A Little Relief - Mualani x Male!Warrior!Reader

A/N: The MO for this one was "write, don't think". Hope you enjoy! CW: Vanilla smut.

The recent Abyss crisis meant the People of the Springs needed to always be on guard. Mualani wasn’t very happy with this state of things, but the situation did have an undeniable advantage - she got to see you fight. 

In the heat of combat, you were a sight to behold - more impressive than each man she saw battling in her life. Each monster that approached you was served with a flurry of efficient, but brutal strikes from your claymore. Your muscles, drenched in sweat and blood, flexed smoothly under the weapon’s weight as you smashed it down. Despite this you were deceptively quick, able to doge the claws of a Rifthound before cleaving it in half with a primal warcry on your lips. It wasn’t uncommon for the beasts to freeze at the power of your voice, even if just for a moment. They feared you, as subtle as it was - their Abyss handlers had to force them to attack you. Even if they managed to land a hit, you would just grit your teeth, growling in anger as you retaliate.

After each fight she would see you at the tavern, downing whole cups of beer with your brothers in arms, roaring with laughter and comparing kills. But you weren’t just a brute, far from it. Mualani watched countless times as you helped the wounded and the elderly, fighting without hesitation to ensure their safety. You care for those around you, rarely letting any of the warriors under your command fall during battle, and when they did, you mourned with their families. You frequented any festivals there were and weren’t ever afraid to dance your heart out on stage. And you were good with kids, shamelessly going along with their games and making sure they were safe while at it. The sight of the little ones climbing on top of you was as heartwarming as it was… exciting. 

Mualani couldn’t tear her eyes off of you, off your scarred, powerful body. She couldn’t get enough of you telling her to stay back before charging into the fray, or wordlessly commanding your saurian with your eyes alone. You were a hunter, a warrior, a force of nature, a man. A man that poked the buttons in her brain, absorbing her attention and filled her body with a dull, restless tingle. You talked, you got along, you went out together, but her body needed you. Mualani wanted to feel your hands sink beneath the hem of her bottoms, she wanted you to wrap your big, warm hands around her boobs and pin her small hands to the bed as you fuck her dumb. 

She talked to you, but never told you about the heat pooling between her legs every time you spoke, groaned or placed your hand around her shoulders. Was it too early? She could only hope to alleviate the urge at night, moaning into the pillow and desperately thrusting her fingers into her wanting pussy in a pitiful attempt to simulate the feeling of a real cock inside her - your cock. Her mind wandered to your shirtless form, imagining the bulge forming in your pants before you would pull them down and nestle yourself inside her, using her as a relief for your masculine urges; the orgasm from grinding her wet slit disappointing.

One day she couldn’t take it anymore. When you rode off on your saurian for a regular shore patrol, she followed suit, catching you near a small sandy island.

“Hey…” she said, touching your stomach; the hard muscle wet with seawater. “How about a break?”

You shook your head, but before you could reply, Mualani looked up at you with a knowing smile and a blush on her face. Her hand went down, resting over the belt. Her finger tugged at the clip keeping it in place. “Need a hole, brave warrior~?”

Your lips crash against her, you having to lean down to reach her level. Mualani smiles against you, holding onto you with her hands on your shoulders. Her tongue is quickly overpowered by yours as your hands roam over her tanned body, as if checking her to see if it would suffice. 

Mualani doesn’t resist as she feels your hands pull her down by the waist. Her blue eyes stare at you, her lips curling into a smile as she unbuckles the belts and releases your dick from its confines. Her hand wraps around the shaft right away and she brings it to her face, giving your swollen head a long lick. The taste is hot, heavenly in her mouth as she sinks her head down, engulfing your length with her warm throat. 

Groaning, you watch as she bobs up and down, drooling over your dick as her tongue grinds against your frenulum, creating delicious friction that makes your knees tremble. She doesn’t bother to muffle the slurping, as she worships you. She hums to herself - such a strong man, and yet he trembles under her-

“Mngh-!” Her thoughts are interrupted as you shove your dick all the way inside her. Mualani gags around it and her hands latch onto your calves for support as you fuck yourself with her throat. Her drool mixed with precum leaks from her mouth and splatters onto the sand below with each powerful thrust. 

She feels you throb in her mouth. You pull her by the hair to look at you. There are tears in her eyes from your rough treatment, but her hand is working hard between her legs as she feels you reach your peak. “Mualani…” you moan weakly, speeding up as your body tenses up. With a groan of satisfaction, you sheathe your cock for the last time and unload inside her warm throat. Her eyes never leave your face as she audibly gulps down your essence, one hand gently massaging your sack to coax more out. 

After pulling your cock out with a pop!, Mualani stands up on shaky legs, leaning against you for support as she gets her breath back. 

“Uh, you have no idea how much I needed this, Y/N.” She chuckles, wiping her mouth with her forearm. Mualani catches your hand by the wrist and brings it to rest on her clothed breast.

“How about we finish things up here and go home for more~?”

Thanks for reading!

[knight-a3]

Humanformers: Decepticons

Megatron: Victor Morrigan

Lugnut: Logan Graves

Shockwave: Shaun Whaley

Longarm: Aaron Langford or Liam Armstead?

Blitzwing: Gunther Arnold Kriegsler (aka Blitz or Blitzer)

Notes under the cut

Yes, Megatron's human design was inspired by the villain from Disney's Atlantis.

TFA Megatron is more level-headed than other iterations (I'm looking at you and your drugs tfp). While others rely on brute force, tfa Megatron is calculating and collected, but still has the strength to back up his authority. It's my favorite interpretation of his character.

So he gave me mob boss vibes. He'd dress nice, smoke cigars, and drink wine.

Lugnut has a semi-official human design. It was made by the art director for the show, the late Derrick J Wyatt. But because Lugnut technically has more eyes than most of the other characters, I didn't like the eyepatch he had. So I tweaked the design a bit. I really wanted to emphasize his sheer bulk.

For Shockwave, I wasn't sure how supernatural I wanted to go. So I opted not to just give him shape-shifting powers, and instead used the costuming to alter his appearance. As Longarm, he's more nerdy and his loose clothing hides his body and helps him look smaller and less threatening. As Shockwave, his clothes are more form fitting and helps emphasize his height so he can loom over others.

I've shared Blitzwing's before, but I didn't want to leave him out of this, so here he is again.

[captainamericasmotercycle]

secretary

pairing: aaron hotchner x reader

warnings: smut, MINORS DNI, 18+, kind of dark!hotch, cheating themes, boss/secretary, p in v sex, cursing, office sex, semi-public sex, female reader (afab reader), dark themes

wc: 1.7k

a/n: if you do not like reading a boss/secretary relationship or cheating - DO NOT READ. i put warnings for a reason so please, if you know you’re not going to enjoy it, save yourself the time and skip over it. my writing is not for everyone. also I DO NOT CONDONE CHEATING. just because i write about it does not mean i condone it in real life - all of my works are purely fictional for entertainment.

*smut under the cut

You began working as Aaron Hotchner’s secretary about 8 months ago.

When you first started at the BAU, it was an understatement to say you were intimidated, but as you broke down the emotional walls of your boss, everything became better.

You didn’t travel with the team, but you waited for their return from every case. But mostly Aaron’s return.

Anyone in a 10 mile radius could see the tension between you two, though you denied your crush on him, and him, you.

He would never admit his attraction to you, he was married for God’s sake! But his marriage was failing and everyone knew. While he suppressed his feelings for you, they only grew stronger, with every waking day.

But in your case, who wouldn’t fall for the strong, head-strong, tall, damaged, father?

Both of you kept your relationship professional, albeit, tonight in particular seemed different. Aaron was locked in his office as normal, and you worked at your desk in the bullpen, silently.

Except, you were the only two left on your floor. The clock on your computer shifted to 11:26 as you yawned. Scanning the room, you looked up to Aaron’s office, still seeing him hunched over his work.

Stalking up the stairs to the higher level of offices, you knocked softly on the door. A low, come in, followed.

You entered the room, he didn’t look up at you, but God, did he look hot.

“You need to go home, Agent Hotchner. It’s almost 11:30, I’m sure your wife and son are waiting for you,” he finally looked up from his papers.

“Jack’s at a friend’s tonight and Haley is out of town. I’m fine, go ahead and head out.”

You knew it was wrong but you felt bolder tonight, something took over you. You walked behind his desk, looming behind his chair, you set your hands on his shoulders, moving them slowly in a massaging manner, “You’re too tense, Agent Hotchner. You need to go home, too.”

He froze in his chair, is this some fantasy he’s hallucinating? Are you really here or is he just exhausted?

You lowered you hands to his pecs, leaning over his shoulder, “Come on, Agent, it’s late.”

This feels real, but is it?

He says your name firmly, but you don’t stop. You lightly kiss his cheek, feeling his stubble on your lips.

He knows it’s wrong, but he deserves this. He leans back into your touch as you kiss down his neck.

He pulls away from you and stands up. Grabbing your waist, he pulls your lips to his, harshly. Your hands rest on his torso as one of his rests behinds your head and the other on your ass.

As he deepens the kiss, he moves both hands to your ass, squeezing tightly, under your short skirt.

Picking you up with his brute strength, he sets you on his clean, organized desk. He pulls from your lips and gets down on his knees at the edge of the desk.

Yanking down your skirt and underwear, he shoves his head between your thighs, licking a rough stripe from your asshole to your clit.

He maneuvers his tongue between your folds at a rapid pace, provoking a roaring moan. Your clit throbs as he circles it with his tongue and sucks at it. You keep a firm grip on his hair, driving his face deeper into you.

He pushes you to an orgasm quicker than you’d like, you don’t want this to end. As you cum, your legs shake over his shoulders with pleasure.

He rises from your sex and presses a hard kiss to your lips. He forces off your blouse and bra, taking a breast into his mouth. He moans at the feeling, you feel the vibrations in your chest. Pulling away, he lightly grazes your nipple with his teeth.

Fiddling with his belt, he finally gets it off and nearly jumps out of his pants. He pumps his erection a couple of times before pushing it into you.

He grabs you hips, pulling you closer to him. Your hips slam into his. As he begins to thrust into you, he presses both his large hands to your tits, using them as a grip to move quicker.

Neither of you can barely contain your moans, screaming out into the empty office.

Your back arches off the desk, “Oh my fuck,” you shiver with arousal.

The quiet office, now becoming loud, would most have definitely caused an uproar if the office had been full.

He thrusts hard, hitting his pelvis to yours, which is most definitely going to bruise. As you approach another orgasm, he pulls out of you, making you gasp at the sudden loss of contact.

He flips you over and has you bent at the waist over his desk. He pulls his hand back and lands a firm, rough slap to your ass, leaving a red handprint. He smacks you another time and you moan out.

Aaron bends down to whisper in your ear, “Do you know how long I’ve waited for something like this.”

He shoves his cock into your cunt, creating a fast, but steady pace. He holds down your hips on the desk.

He lands another slap on your ass, “This is what you deserve, after walking around in your short skirts, teasing me during meetings, and getting me hard during work.”

Tears rolls down your cheeks, “I don’t regret any of it, Aaron,”

“We’re on first name basis, now, are we?”

You shivered at his gravelly voice, “No, sir,” stuttering out, he spanked you again.

“Good girl.”

As he continued to move, you felt his pace falter, he pulled out of you and finished himself over your red, handprint stained ass.

“Fuck,” he breathed out heavily, leaving back in his chair.

You stood from your position and rubbed your sore ass.

You stalked over to him, straddling yourself over his bare lap, you grab his tie, pulling yourself to his face. You kiss him gently on the mouth.

He wants to pull away but he just can’t. As you move in for another kiss he turns his head, “This is wrong, Y/N.”

“I know,”

“We shouldn’t be doing this, I’m married,”

“I know,”

“I need to stop,”

“Mhm,” you hummed as you placed soft kisses along his jawline.

You shifted your body over him, making him hard once again.

“Fuck it,” he lifted you from his lap onto his cock.

Holding your hips, he bounced you up and down his shaft. You kept your arms over his shoulders as you breathlessly rode him.

You rolled your hips over his and he whimpered. Fucking whimpered.

You kept going as he let out obscene sounds. As he was about to cum again, he pushed you off and stood up.

You stood vulnerably in front of him, fully nude, watching as he finished himself off over some blank paper. You watched his seed drench something that wasn’t you.

Why wouldn’t he just cum in you?

“Aaron, you don’t have to do that,” he came closer to you, his eyes dark.

“I do. I’m not trying to get my fucking secretary fucking pregnant,” you rolled your eyes at him and went for another kiss, he hesitantly reciprocated.

God, this is so wrong.

He picked you up, shoving your back against the wall. He had you pinned between him and the wall, your legs around his waist. Nipping at your neck, you arched your back. He teased your entrance with his tip, just grazing over the sensitive areas.

He did this until you begged him to get inside of you, “Please, Aar-, Sir, I need you,”

“Again?” Letting out a strangled moan, his voice got heavy, “Use your words,”

“Yes, fuck, I need you,”

He slowly let you drift onto his cock. Keeping you up against the wall, he was practically fucking you into the wall, his hips moved at a rapid pace.

Your tits sprung up and down, forcing a tugging feeling on your torso, only adding to you pleasure.

You watched Aaron’s face as he fucked you. You watched the sweat bead on his forehead and the rough ridges between his furrowed brows. You watched as his focus on your tits only grew.

It was like a scene right out of a porno.

Your walls clenched around his hard cock, and he pulled out once again. He dropped you down from the wall and pushed you down to your knees.

You stared as his impressive endowment before taking it into your mouth quickly. He watched from above as you looked up at him.

He watched your eyes flutter and your pretty little mouth around him. He watched as you worked up and down his shaft, only growing closer to an orgasm.

He felt a knot in his stomach, knowing he was about to cum again. With your mouth still on him, he let go, his cum shooting into you, hitting the back of your throat. He watched as you pulled back at the contact and swallowed.

You pulled away from him and quietly gathered your things and got dressed. Before walking out of his office he landed another slap on your ass.

You stopped at the door and turned to him, “Call me, if you ever get bored of your wife.”

Walking down from his office and across the bullpen, Aaron watched you sway to the elevators from his window.

As you stepped out of the elevators, you said goodbye to the night time security guards on the way to the parking garage. They did not miss your completely disheveled look and slight limp in your walk.

“Are you okay, ma’am?”

“I’m perfect,” you smiled at them as you left.

The next morning, you walked into work, with a smile on your face and the tightest skirt you could manage.

Aaron peered through his office window, watching you flirt with Spencer. As Spencer looked away from you with a blush, you looked up to Aaron’s office.

He wanted to take you right there. He craved you. And he was so fucked.

[kneelingshadowsalome]

A Brute, An Angel... (König x F!OC)

Summary: König gets an order to make a female SpecGru sniper talk, but König doesn't want to hurt women.

Category: Smut 🔞, angst, fluff

Tags & warnings: Explicit mature content +18 audiences only, strangers to lovers (slight enemies to lovers), dubious consent, threats of rape, virgin!König, size kink, size difference, p in v, multiple orgasms, cunnilingus, squirting, hugs and cuddles, super fluffy ending. König will be named in later chapters. 

A/N: KorTac and SpecGru are rivaling military contractors, Conor is König's superior (and a huge villain), and I just wanted to write angsty smut featuring our favourite Austrian boi. 

Part 1/3 of Valkyrie

Read on Ao3

A Brute, An Angel...

"You're always yappin' about how ya can make prisoners talk. Now here's ya chance."

König tried his best to stand tall while Conor spat at him with a gruff accent he couldn't quite place. He could tell the man got off on this: getting a chance to order him around and making him uncomfortable. He concentrated on looking down at him — knowing perfectly well that it only pissed Conor off when he did that. As if König could will himself to be shorter.

"But she's a… She's a girl. Sir."

"She is an enemy, and we need that intel."

I highly doubt that, sir.

"What do you want me to do with her?"

"Make the captive talk. Ya don't have to do the usual. If y'know what I mean."

"Are you suggesting that I rape her, Conor?"

The fact that he used the Lieutenant's name to appeal to him on a more personal level should've spoken volumes. But it had little effect on the man everybody in the KorTac was more or less scared of.

"I'm not suggesting anything. I'm giving you an order."

If Calisto or Stiletto were here, Conor would be on the ground by now, begging for mercy. König found himself thinking what stopped him from gutting the man right then and there.

"Does the team leader know about this?"

“Never ya mind about that."

"Permission to speak, sir," Zero pushed in.

"Go on."

"This goes against the protocol-"

"Did ya give two shits about the bloody protocol when we were in Adal?"

The abrupt outburst almost made König flinch. Almost.

Zero didn't turn the slightly disgusted gaze away, but snapped his mouth shut.

"I - I can't do it," König muttered.

"You sayin' you refuse to obey an order?"

König straightened upon hearing the word 'order' but otherwise remained in confused silence.

"I suggest you carry on unless ya wanna get demoted to a fuckin' desk job. It's your call."

And with that, Conor turned and marched off. Zero followed suit, sparing a pitiful glance at König as he went.

He was left alone in the bunker hallway, illuminated by a lamp that produced an unnerving buzz.

Conor was only doing this because he liked to bully him. Somehow, somewhere, Lt had lost his humanity, but it wasn't supposed to be his problem. Not until Conor made it his problem.

Something in him made the Lieutenant tick. König didn't know whether it was because he was a relatively fresh recruit or whether it was the fact that he was a foreigner. Hell, maybe it was the mask, how could he know?

"Fuckin' jerry."

And he wasn't even; he was Austrian, but Conor didn't care, which meant that it was something else about him that got under his skin. The man had vehemently decided to hate him, and he could do nothing about it.

König turned to the door leading to the interrogation room, grabbed the doorknob, inhaled deeply, and went in.

The girl was tied to the ceiling with a grey paracord that bit into her wrists as she hung there, barely able to stand. The bastard had bound her unreasonably tight. An ugly sight, that.

But she wasn't.

The thick braid was messy, her arms were more or less bruised, and her face had dirt on it, but she was, by far, one of the loveliest beings he had ever seen. She looked like heaven and hell, an angel of war who had fought for days against overwhelming forces and only wanted to sleep.

He swallowed, glad of the hood making the blob of his Adam’s apple invisible. She stirred and looked up, eyes dark with the burned out wrath of a cornered wild thing. She looked dog-tired, and scared. Beaten. And no one had even struck her yet. Not that he knew of, at least.

She pulled herself to her feet by the rope, although it was long enough to allow her to stand, and raised her chin.

"So you're the one they sent to break me."

-----

It was him.

The man that had gotten her in this situation in the first place.

She had been stupid enough to freeze for a few moments, the crucial little moments that meant the difference between life and death, escape and capture. And for what? To watch how this beast raged on the battlefield like it was his playground, to watch how he plowed through her mates while bullets showered around him. Seemed to evade him even though he was the largest possible target in the whole damn skirmish.

It didn't really help that his gear was gone. He was still one of the biggest men she had ever seen. If not the biggest.

The black hood was still in place, though, making him look like an inquisitor. Or an executioner.

She suspected he was here to make her talk. He could probably make anyone talk... But there was a particular threat present here. She was a woman in a helpless state, and she had a hunch that this mountain of a man wouldn't shy away from any methods that would humiliate and destroy her. He probably enjoyed it: getting a little treat after a nice day in the field.

The man strode to her, and it seemed that the only thing that moved as he walked was his hips. But the sound of his weight, the sheer mass that met the floor through combat boots, made her draw back in a futile attempt to disappear somewhere between her raised arms.

He stopped a generous few feet away, crossed his arms over his chest, then unraveled them again to his sides. He was all corded muscle beneath that black shirt, the fabric barely concealing the curves of a well-built chest. The poor textile stretched from the swell of his shoulders.

She didn't say anything. She expected a punch in the face, a knee to the stomach. Something to get things started.

He walked behind her, much more slowly, the thumps against the cold, hard cement causing the hair on her neck to stand on end. He stepped close, so close that she could feel his body heat against her back.

"Listen to me." She flinched at his voice, far more high-pitched than she would've suspected from such a beast of a man.

"I'm going to help you. But you have to assist me here."

The 'here' sounded more like german for 'hier'. Through her terror sweat and confusion, she found herself wondering how odd it was that the KorTac had some German guy working for them.

"We have to…" he cleared his throat from the falsetto his voice was climbing to.

And she only now realized that he was nervous.

The soldier was fucking nervous.

"We have to have intercourse," he continued, his accent bleeding thick through her senses like some goddamn ASMR she used to calm herself with. A guilty pleasure she succumbed to when she tried to reach sleep after a mission.

Only after she got past the fact that the enemy soldier's voice made her feel tingly, she understood what he had said exactly. What he was proposing.

She knew that nerves and adrenaline were a fucked up thing. You could get turned on during the most absurd situations when the survival instinct kicked in. Those situations could include getting a target on sight and pulling the trigger, or getting hit and receiving care under fire.

Turned out that it could include the prospect of getting tortured by a 6 feet something enemy merc who whispered in her ear with a thick German accent, gently like a lover.

Perhaps this whole set-up was just another kind of torture. A good cop, bad cop routine, in which he was both of the cops. He tried to tear her walls down and make her trust him, and when she refused to tell him anything, he would get to work. Tear her nails off, dislocate joints, rape her bloody.

"I'm not going to speak."

She announced it with a far less stern voice than she would’ve preferred, and heard him swallow. Either he was damn good at acting, or he was the most socially anxious soldier she had ever seen.

He rounded her and stopped only an inch or two from her face. Which only reached the man’s chest, broad and lean, covered in that black shirt and smelling of battlefield along with his sweat - the combination hitting her nostrils as an undiluted, masculine scent. He reached a gloved hand to prop her chin up, to force her to look at him.

It was her turn to swallow, and the angle he forced her neck caused the sound of her gulp to echo in the bunker. The tactical glove had cut-proof padding on the knuckles, and it scratched the delicate facial skin, even though his touch was more of a coax than a yank. But that wasn’t what caught her attention so vividly that it nearly made her knees buckle.

It was his ice-blue stare. The eyes stood out from the holes of his mask, from among the heavily applied black facial paint like two beacons. And they were gentle. Bordering on puppy eyes. The thought alone nearly made her laugh hysterically.

Even with her faltering knowledge of human character, she could’ve bet all in that this man would not hurt her. That he was far from a torturer.

And the knowledge made her even more confused. If he wasn’t the torturer, then who was he? What the hell did he want?

“You have to co-operate.” His voice was strained with something akin to despair.

“I can only help you escape if you co-operate,” he whispered, his voice so low it went straight between her legs.

Jesus, this was not okay.

He released her chin, but she didn’t turn her gaze away. Her eyes roamed his face, or rather, the black hood that covered it. She wondered why he wore it when other soldiers didn’t bother to hide their identities. The only other man she had seen wearing a mask was Lt, with the top of a human skull attached to his balaclava. And even he wasn’t this big. Albeit menacing and shrouded in mystery that came from all things danger, death, and pain, the man before her now intrigued her far more than even Ghost did.

Why did he hide his face? Why was he so… jittery?

And why did he try to escape her gaze?

He looked like the whole situation was too much for him. To say that the man was distraught when she merely looked him straight in the eyes when he told her that they needed to fuck, would be an understatement.

If she were to choose a man to torture someone with his dick, this would be her last choice.

“What’s the escape plan, then?” She asked, still not believing for a second that he would help her, even if he didn’t strike her as intimidating anymore.

"I, uh…"

"You don't have a plan?"

"Well, not yet."

"Why am I not surprised," she murmured into the stale, dusty air of the chamber. "Why would you even want to help me?"

"I don't hurt women," he said and took a step back as if to confirm that statement.

This was so fucking ridiculous. He was a mercenary in a filthy bunker with a bound prisoner, assuring that he was a gentleman. Was she on candid camera or something?

She had never been in a situation like this. She had never imagined being in a situation even remotely close to this. She would have laughed over the absurdity of the whole thing but couldn't, because her lower lip started to tremble.

He noticed it and instantly shifted weight from one leg to the other. He tried to direct his anxiety into the leisurely movement, and it caused his hips to sway from one side to the other, making her think of all kinds of stupid associations, such as lapdance and snake hips.

With those rather tight khaki pants, it was impossible to prevent her eyes from darting to the bulging thighs and the evident package he was delivering between them.

Jesus fucking Christ, pull your shit together…

"I'm going to get you out of here," he promised.

"That's cute of you," she tiredly threw in, getting far too much satisfaction out of the reaction her words managed to pull out of him. He blinked a few times, and the colossal chest heaved as if the man was trying to catch his breath. "Funny that you need to fuck me to be able to do so."

Another switch from side to side, a sway of those goddamn khaki-covered hips.

"I'm almost positive that the only surveillance they have on this room is that camera over there. The screen is in another room," he told her, sounding stupidly proud of his debatable skills in spying. She pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. "But the guys there are usually watching tv," he hurried to add.

"I doubt they will today if your orders are to rape me." Again, he looked abashed, eyes darting to the floor and back to her. Was this guy thick in the head or something? "Probably got their beers popped and their pants down by now…" she said, and the man let out something close to a squeal.

"That is exactly why we have to… provide them with something until I come up with a plan."

She looked at him and almost smiled. Like one would smile at a daft dog that was far too eager to please.

"You just said you don't hurt women," she said.

"That is why I very much wish you would co-operate," he answered.

"You are the weirdest torturer ever."

"I - I am not a torturer. I'm just a soldier," he tried to assure her with that climbing voice. He was shitty at concealing his uneasiness. The man was completely flustered.

"Then why did they assign you with this… task," she demanded to know. It was yet again laughable: as if he was the one being grilled here. He wouldn't answer, and she cocked her head to the side.

"Ever interrogated with your dick before?" She blurted.

His hands were trembling. Slightly, but they were.

"Negative," he said, voice tight.

Was this guy….

Was he a virgin?

The twisted concept of some romantic chivalry, the nervousness, the respectful distance he kept, and the fact that his hands started shaking when she said a dirty word, all pointed to the possibility that he very much might be.

She thought he was picked because he was big, because his obvious blessings in the crotch department also held a promise of pain. But this guy certainly didn't know what the heck he was doing. And not only because he wasn't a torturer or because he didn't want to hurt a lady. She could almost swear, hand on Bible, that this man had never been with a woman. Not much further than the first base, anyway.

"Well, get on with it then."

She told herself it was only because it was useless to postpone the suffering that would eventually come anyway.

She told herself it was not because she was trying to break a Guinness world record of developing Stockholm Syndrome to this guy and his adorableness. She told herself it was definitely not because she kinda sorta wanted to see how he would act when he had to actually pull that cock out and touch her with it.

He stared at her, eyes wide beneath that oversized hood, and she could swear it was his heart, not hers, that made that thumping sound.

"I am going to touch you," he informed her. Like the dumbest moron.

If she ever got out of here, and if she ever, ever told this story to someone, they wouldn't be able to believe it.

He took his gloves off - why would he even bother to do that? - and let them drop to the ground.

His fingers were long, the fingernails meticulously cut. There were a few scrapes and scratches here and there on his palm, indicating his lack of coordination. Clumsy boy.

When he reached for her, she assumed he would go for her tits, or her waist, or grope her ass. But he didn't. Fingers cupped her face, trembling still, before they slid over her neck and grabbed her throat, not to choke, but to revel. Like she was a sculpture or something, and he wanted to know how the material felt. How soft she was.

She looked into his eyes, because eyes told everything; they would betray a flash of sadism or whatever else she still expected from this strange man. They roamed all over her, darted across her face, every now and then to her eyes, but mostly avoided her stare like the plague. He wouldn’t hold a gaze for much longer than a glimpse of a second. And there was still no sign of lust for inflicting pain. Only perplexed wonderment.

Her hands and arms were numb because of the position she was in, hands tied above her head, blood flow inhibited. But she paid it no mind as his hand traveled down her neck, caressed her collarbones, and then stopped right before he reached the gap between her breasts, free game in the white tank top she had been left with, along with her cargo pants and boots.

“Can I… May I kiss you?” He asked, his voice muffled and so thick that it was difficult to untangle what he had said.

It was such an odd request that her words left her, and she could only produce a whimpering sound at the back of her throat. He took it as a yes, and raised his hood, only enough to reveal a pair of thin lips among a light brown stubble. His mouth opened slightly, then closed, then opened again, as if he didn’t know how to proceed.

He bent down like the giant he was, not hinging at the hips but hunching over towards her, probably trying to appear smaller but ending up looking like there was a tower falling on her. The smell of gasoline and sweat hit her as his lips met hers, parted, and a shy flick of tongue swept across her bottom lip. She tried to remember how to breathe and ignore the rush of wetness that told her she would have no problem whatsoever with him parting her nether lips too. He captured her lip, sucked, then opened his mouth wider and hers with it.

She answered his kiss - just a little bit, and he instantly deepened it and moaned into her mouth. She fluttered her eyes open and saw that his were squeezed shut. He pressed a hand against her back and pulled her against his overwhelming body. All she could feel was muscle… and then some more. He was hard, the thick erection colliding with her stomach all but seductively. She went completely stiff, eyes wide and lips tight.

The man went even more rigid, if possible. He released her mouth with a grunt and buried his head in her neck.

"I can't -... I can't do this, I'm gonna go and tell him they need to find somebody else," he said in a strained voice, riddled with pain.

No. No.

The fuck he would.

If he would be replaced by somebody else, some crazy, blood-drunk soldier with cold eyes and a knife, some jerk-off who hadn't had a go with a woman since their last leave, she would fucking die.

"Please don't," she hushed and swallowed against him, the place where his hood and the collar of his shirt revealed skin.

"I want it to be you," she continued to whisper in his ear, meaning to say If it has to be somebody, let it be you, but choosing to deliver a sentence as persuasive as possible. As inviting as possible.

So that he wouldn't leave her in the hands of someone with no mercy.

"Scheiße…" The hot air brushed against her skin, even through that hood.

"If only I could touch you too," she said, regretting it immediately. She was acting a little too enthusiastic in the midst of her panic. Trying desperately to prevent him from leaving.

But the hand on her back moved down a bit, and long fingers splayed over the small of her back, pressing gently.

"Don't tease me," he huffed, panting although they were both quite still.

Jesus Christ… at this rate, the KorTac could hire her to do the interrogations.

She wondered whether the surveillance team was looking at the scene, which was far too intimate and loving to be an interrogation. What kind of a man would try to pry information out of someone by embracing them gently? Kissing them hesitantly?

In a way, this was torture: she didn't know what would happen to her after… whatever this was. She didn't know what procedures would follow when the others found out he had no intel for them to tell.

Let's get this fucking over with.

"What's your name?" She asked, hoping that the puppy boy wasn't naive enough to tell her his actual name.

"They call me König."

King in german...

"König…-"

She meant to ask him to touch her so that this horrible, awkward mess would come to at least some sort of an end, but couldn't find the words. His name on her tongue seemed to do the trick, though. He ground his hips against her, and had she not been tied to the ceiling, the movement would have toppled her. The hand on her back went behind her knee and raised it to his hip. Then another hand slid down to do the same to her other knee, pulling her from the ground like she weighed nothing at all.

The strain on her arms was released, and the relief was heavenly. For that alone, she could've let him do whatever he wanted to her.

"You're so klein… small," he commented with her raised to straddle his lap and her face finally on the same level as his. "Small people make good snipers," he declared with a hint of longing in his voice.

She had a terrible urge to sling the bundle of hands over his head. And not for self-defense reasons.

"I'm not that small, you're just big," she said, like a beauty to the beast, like it was a cute scene in a movie where everybody was nice to each other. Her gut feeling of the man being a virgin only increased by the minute. He was so… blameless. It was downright unintelligible that he was a soldier.

But she had seen how brutal he was on the field, how he had struck holes in her teammate with a combat knife like he was playing tag and didn't quite know the rules. Didn't know that one stab in a well-picked spot would have sufficed.

She had seen him haul a grown man with 100 extra pounds of tactical gear on him up like the poor man was a barbell, and bring them down over his knee. The sound of a breaking spine would probably haunt her dreams for the rest of her life. She had simply gawked at the display of utter, brutal violence before her. Normal men, even soldiers of a special forces tactical unit, simply didn't do stuff like that. Hands-on, down in the mud, barbarian kind of stuff from medieval times.

And now the same man was fondling her like she was his sweetheart. Like he was about to carry her in the bedroom full of roses and other syrupy valentines shit.

"And what do they call you?"

The accent was really doing things to her, along with the few german words tossed here and there, absentmindedly like candy. He was an enigma with his colossal body, croaking voice, and gentleness that surpassed even the violence.

"Valkyrie."

"You've got to be kidding me," he said, astonished.

"My team found out I used to do fencing, and I'm blonde, so…"

It was silly and the swords weren't even that big. One could hardly call them swords at all, the pointy little things they were.

But the situation indeed had taken a turn into a sick fairytale. Like, come on. Valkyrie and König? Some stupid hippie would've loved that: how it was meant to be, destined, even, that the two of them had met. That she was a damsel in distress, and he was here to save her from the ring of fire.

She stifled the urge to shake her head, to snap out of where this was spiraling into.

Affection.

They barely even knew each other's codenames. She was in a modern version of a dungeon, lit by a single light bulb, about to get raped by some edgy, mentally unstable goliath, she reminded herself. While perhaps psychologically interesting, he was not okay. This was not okay. She had been trained for situations like this.

Except that she wasn't. She was trained to withstand torture, battering, spending days in a cell where the lights never went out. She knew methods to draw the mind away from constant pain. But she hadn't received instructions on what to do in a situation where she wasn't even being questioned. Not even on the sly. Her call sign wasn't much of a secret. They probably knew who she was before they brought her to this room.

"There are many stories of valkyries in my Heimat," he prattled on enthusiastically.

"Yeah, I know the Nibelung saga," she said.

"Very heroic, very German tale."

"You ought to know."

"No no, I'm not German, I'm Austrian," he said.

This was turning into an odd conversation.

"König." She said in an attempt to bring his attention to the present moment. He fluttered his eyes, long lashes batting over that innocent-looking stare.

"Don't. Just… don't," she tried not to stutter.

He had lied to her about not being a torturer. Chatting with her like they were on their first date, discovering that they were actually intrigued about one another... It was insufferable. Although she was the one who had started it by asking his name…

"Right. Getting on with it," he said like he had been given an order. Her heart stung. Tears were welling up from the absurdity of this whole situation, from his silliness, from her having felt rather comfortable and safe in his hold. Fucking safe.

She should quit the army when she got out of here. If she got out of here. She wasn't right in the head to continue with this job.

"I've been an idiot," he told her.

You're damn right.

An idiot she could imagine herself falling in love with in another situation, but an idiot nonetheless.

"You should put on more of a fight, and…" he trailed off.

And you should be rough, you dumdum, she thought. Again, in another situation, she would've probably loved him to be rough.

"Roger," she said to him and heard him chuckle, saw how a few wrinkles appeared in the corners of his eyes. He lowered her down to the ground, and she hissed when her arms extended against the rope again. He let her go, gently, like it was his fault that she was attached to the roof.

"I would help you, but -"

"It's ok." She gave him a weighted look that told him to stop speaking. To get on with the action so that she wouldn't get attached even more than she already was.

He grabbed her by the throat again, doing a shitty job at trying to make it look like he was manhandling her. His eyes landed on her chest, and she could almost hear the wheels turning in his head, thinking about whether he should tear her top. Apparently deciding against it, he went for his trousers instead, pulling the belt buckle open with a click.

It had been a while, what with all the stress and the sleep deprivation not being an ideal combo to get her juices flowing. But nothing could prepare her for the surge of wet heat when the front of those light brown pants practically gave way for what must’ve been the largest bulge she had ever seen. It was almost vulgar, even more so when the fabric of his boxer shorts stretched at the sudden throb.

She realized her mouth was hanging slightly open, and she closed it carefully, but her lips parted again when he continued to shove both of those pants down. He didn’t even bother to take them off, and they were left somewhere mid-thigh, with belt buckle dangling in the air.

And God, he was huge.

It wouldn’t even stand up properly, even though there was no doubt that he had a full-on erection. It jerked between them like a threat, or a dare, but mostly it was just a long, thick, veined baulk that couldn’t support itself because it was just so goddamn big. He was uncut, but the foreskin had drawn back from the arousal, and the tip of his slit glistened with precum.

And he was flustered again, misinterpreting her stare as a sign of fear instead of awe.

"I promise I'll be quick," he whispered, and the first thing that her mind chirped back was Please don't. And not because it would probably be painful. But because she desperately wanted him to slide that monster in inch by inch and take his beautiful time with it.

"Uh-huh," she managed to say before the man codenamed King stretched his fingers toward her pants.

With trembling digits, he opened them and started tearing them down before realizing she could not spread her legs without him taking the pants off. And then he realized he couldn't take them off without taking her boots off.

So what happened was that her panties and pants were halfway down, and the Austrian hulk kneeled in front of her with his hooded face in level with her pussy. He turned his head to the side and leaned a bit on her thigh to unlace her boots, but she was pretty sure he did it mainly because he was embarrassed to look straight at her cunt.

She helped him as much as she could, raising her feet one by one for him to take the combat boots off. He tossed them somewhere to the side and tore her pants down, all the way down, and over her feet, leaving her in her tank top and socks.

He rose, his cock brushed her thigh, and she jerked like she had been scraped by some sharp object. It bounced at the contact, bumping against her again, sweeping a wet streak over her skin.

"Sorry," he mumbled like it was somehow worse than what he was about to do next. When he would shove… that thing inside her.

He picked her up again, almost in a hurry. Her heart was ramming against her ribcage and her mouth was dry as her feet left the ground. He was hard against her belly, flesh hot and throbbing and slick with precum that pushed out from the tip and left wet stains on her top.

This time she did raise her hands over his head and let the arms come down to rest on his shoulders. Her intuition told her she would soon need the support.

He moved her around like she was a doll, letting the erection drop between them to position himself against her slit. Her folds parted without effort as he slid against them, once, twice, before halting.

Don't comment about it, don't…

"You're wet," he grunted with delighted surprise.

"Yeah?" She said like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Just fucking do it, she yelled in her mind, lips drawn into a straight line so that even a dumbass like he could see that this was not the moment for hesitation.

And he didn't hesitate.

He searched, adjusted himself, adjusted her, spread his stance, grunted…

And it was pretty clear by now that he didn't know what he was doing. Her nipples brushed against his chest as he searched for the right spot with her in his arms, and she hoped he would've taken his shirt off so she could feel skin instead of cotton.

"There," she helped him with a whisper as he hit the right spot. He returned, probed, and she guided him. "Now up…", and he bent his knees while raising her slightly. The angle was right, and he finally drove in, slowly but surely.

The stretch was phenomenal. It hurt more than a bit after he had passed the entrance, and the delicious feeling turned into a burning sensation.

"Wait.." she begged, and he stopped immediately, panting like a runner.

"Back up a bit."

He did, pulling out almost completely before she bucked her hips to let him know he could push back in. And when he did, she gasped, and he moaned, so tight and so glorious that the sound that erupted from him was laced with pure need.

"Ach, you're tight.. soft…"

She clenched around him at his shameless commentary, and he let out another broken sigh.

Of course it's tight when you're so big..

He wouldn't go fully in, and she doubted whether he ever even could. She had never been this filled. But more was coming.

He withdrew again before thrusting back inside, deeper still.

"Oh Jesus," she gasped, "yes, just like that.." the words escaped her lips and she noticed his eyes were directed at her, drunk and half-lidded.

"Yeah…" he echoed, his voice shivering like a leaf. "Das gut?"

If her hands were free, she would've torn that hood away, buried her fingers in his hair, and pulled until he would expose his fucking throat for her to kiss and lick.

He began thrusting with a steady pace, shallow but intense, going deeper every now and then when he slipped. His hands shifted, one by one, to grab her by her butt to glide her up and down his length. It was fucking hot that he didn't need his hips to fuck her, that he could just move her around with his hands and slam her against it if he wanted to. Her ankles hooked around his waist on reflex, and her fingers flexed in the ties, trying to grasp onto something but finding only air.

"You feel so good," the short, agonized 'good' coming out more like 'gut'; and her pussy tightened, pulled, and sucked him like he was the best thing ever.

"Sch…shit," he breathed laboriously, taking a moment and thrusting even deeper, eyes closing like he was on the brink of losing consciousness..

He hit a spot that was both familiar and unfamiliar, and she was pretty sure that if someone was looking at the surveillance material, they couldn't tell whether the look on her face was of pain or pleasure. She couldn't keep herself in check, couldn't seize control anymore. She was so soaked at this point that the evidence of her arousal was heavy and loud. So audible that it made her cheeks hot.

"I wonder what you taste like," he mused, his hood shaking in sync with his thrusts. "Honey and raindrops, eh?"

"Mh," she sobbed, her thighs quivering. She wanted to spread them more, to let him see her and have a taste, to present herself for him to do as he pleased. But she couldn't move much in his grasp. It was like she had been propped up on a machine, buckled to a seat reserved just for her.

He took a wider stance as if hearing her thoughts on wanting even more of what he had to offer, and she held on to him as he shifted like the continental plates beneath her. He proceeded to fuck her while leaning his head against the side of hers, and she held on to him as he breathed into her neck. The occasional moan sounded more like a sob as his cock slid in and out, in and out, slick with her wetness.

"You're what they sing about in Rheingold," he kept talking that romantic bullshit in her ear while stuffing her with that long Austrian cock that would make most women squirt if he kept at it long enough. "Und Walküre…"

It was so good she wanted to cry. She thought about letting a tear or two slip and saying it was just for the show if he asked. Virgin or not, König was doing a pretty decent job in making her a writhing, weak mess. He was not too quick, not too slow, but set just the right, rigorous pace that would send her into oblivion. He became the fountain stone, the buoy in the storm. He was the man that would send her over the brink and the man to hold her unwaveringly as she fell.

"Not much longer," he informed her light-heartedly, like he was in the middle of a mission about to be completed. Completed to the fucking full.

She couldn't even begin to tell him that she was already there, because everything suddenly coiled and burst, and she was arching her back, making him reach even deeper, almost fully inside her, the heavy balls slapping against her ass as her toes curled and her body went completely rigid…

The sound that broke out was not a yell, nor a scream, it was a violation of her vocal cords. She had never sounded like this — like someone falling and meeting the ground with a strained, lewd groan. Like someone who had the orgasm of their life.

He startled, almost quailed from her. Not because of the screaming, nor the sounds she made after… but because she came, hard, while he was banging her like a battering ram.

"Genau so…" König rasped, taken aback but trying his all to cover it. He slowed down on instinct, letting her greedy pussy suck on him like it was giving him a blowjob, telling him he was a good, good boy… because her words had left her.

He moved a little, and she could see the flash of those eyes from within the darkness of the hood, knew that he was watching her intently as she swam in ecstasy with an open mouth and pinched nose and eyes that wouldn't focus.

"Schön," he continued, sounding fragile. Weak. Vulnerable…

She couldn't for the life of her look at him, look in those eyes that must've told her things she wasn't strong enough to deal with at the very moment.

Her head dropped and her thighs went slack, but König held her, steadfast like the most gallant knight. He resumed his earlier pace with caution and care, breathing distinctly with his mouth open under that black mask. She was limp in his arms, trying to hold on as best she could while listening how the cock drove into her again with moist, sloppy sounds.

The moans that followed didn’t suit a man of his build at all. She had expected brute strength and hoarse grunts, not pinched, needy sobs and a head softly pressed against her. Forehead against fucking forehead. And he probably didn't even know what it was doing to her because he was such a stupid, adorable little — ugh, big dumbass.

She wanted to grasp his shoulders, slide her hands under his mask and raise it, kiss those moans straight from his lips, and run her fingers all over his stubble, the chiseled jawline she had seen only once. She wanted to feel him, all of him, not just his hands and his cock, even though they were good. Or fucking best. It almost made her cry; the post-orgasm need to cuddle for a bit but not being able to do so because her hands were bound to the fucking ceiling of a fucking dull grey bunker.

"Can I… cum..?"

Was he asking her permission to…

"Can I cum inside… Please, I'm close," he panted.

"Yeah… Yes.."

He slowed down the pace as he drew out his own upcoming release, relishing the last thrusts like he was sampling the finest cuisine. She finally dared to look at him and saw that his eyes were open and full of naked, helpless adoration. Devotion, even.

She must have been imagining: they were only the eyes of a man who was about to nut good. But damn if that fevered, helpless stare didn’t succeed in touching her very soul. To her horror, he wasn't shy this time, but held her gaze, held it, held it — until his lashes fluttered and he went over the brink with a cry.

It echoed from the damp concrete walls, just a single, prolonged wail that eventually broke and ended in miserable panting.

She could feel his cock throbbing, shooting the load inside, emptying the whole magazine in her. How the seed welled up, unable to go anywhere before he would decide to pull out.

König laid his head on her shoulder and pulled her against him, and she was not suspended only in rope but in time and space as well. His shoulders moved up and down with the heavy breaths, and she pulled her tied hands to awkwardly brush his neck as he came down from heaven.

He was shaking. Shaking, and let out a whimper against her skin, and for a fleeting moment, she was sure he was crying or on the verge of doing so.

"König?"

He shuddered a sigh, taking a moment to himself.

She felt hollow. Not raped, not assaulted, not abused. Just hollow, knowing what had happened between them would not be a recurring thing. That there was no 'them', not really. Not in the real, actual world.

"You can let go of me now," she whispered, although that was the last thing she wanted him to do.

But he did as she proposed, lowering her down and sliding out of her only after her feet had met solid ground. He pulled out carefully, gently, like he was leaving his beloved. Warm fluid descended down her left thigh in a streak, indicating that it had been a while for him.

Her head was full of dumb thoughts, such as whether he had a girl waiting for him somewhere back home. In Germany perhaps — no, in Austria. And if he had, just how lucky that person was.

She wondered if he had found someone here, and if they were in the military or not.

She wondered if there was no one, if he was alone, and if he curled up in a fetal position every night before he fell asleep in some bed that was too small for him.

And whether he would get into trouble for violating orders.

"You were," he started, eyes directed to the ground, "magnificent."

Was I your first, King?

"You weren't that bad yourself," she complimented him back, and he huffed.

"You liked it?" He asked in a way that made her heart squeeze tightly in her chest.

"Wasn't it obvious?" She couldn't help but smile. Couldn't… Wouldn't.

"Ja," he chuckled while looking down at his boots with an interest that was totally born from shyness. "I'm glad I could please you," he said before tucking himself demurely back into his trousers.

She wondered if he was as aware as she was of the fact that neither of them had played out the part they were supposed to. It had all gone out the window the moment he had touched her again. Practically thrown out, as if they were defying death itself together.

He gathered her boots and helped her step first inside her panties and then the cargo pants. He had to go around her back and reach from behind to zip her up and put her belt on, and it was such a mundane, cute act that she thought that this was indeed the cruelest form of torture she had ever witnessed. He hovered over her after he was done, and stole a brief caress of her waist before crouching to lace up her boots.

He rose, and came back in front of her, and the silence between them stretched to a short eternity. There were so many things she wanted to say, things he probably wanted to say, thoughts buzzing in both of their heads like bees as his seed cooled down on her thigh and made her pants stick to her skin here and there.

She thought about thanking him for being gentle, but what was she really thanking him for? Raping her tenderly? With the attentiveness and passion of a lover?

Was it rape if she had enjoyed it? If she had had one of the most powerful orgasms of her life?

He was… she had no words for him. The way he had unraveled her in mere minutes was shocking. Devastating, to say the least.

"I will find a way," he promised for the thousandth time. "I will not let them hurt you."

She nodded slowly, continued to do so while looking at him, her eyes welling with tears.

“Hey, kleine Süße, don't worry.” He brushed her cheek with his knuckles, soft and sweet. "I will be your Siegfried."

She didn't have the heart to remind him that both Siegfried and the valkyrie died in that story.

Part 2:

[georgiapeach30513]

Trying to Save Me, Part 2

Summary: What is Bucky hiding?

Pairings: Dark King!Bucky Barnes X Reader

Rating: mature

Warnings:  explicit language, explicit detailing of living out in the wild, dark!Bucky, taunting, continued feeling of ownership, touching over the clothes without consent, 18+ ONLY

Word Count: 6.1K

Previous

Series Masterlist

*dividers created by @firefly-graphics

You groan, trying to straighten your back up a bit more. There is nothing comfortable about this — this cage. He is a monster. Humiliated you. Inspected you, in front of people. And then if that wasn’t enough, he threw you in this cage right outside his sleeping quarters. Although, he hadn’t been doing much sleeping. You didn’t see anyone go in his room, so you’re led to believe they sat there, and waited. Waited on him.

Waited on some vile human to go into that room, and into his bed, while they serviced him. Periodically throughout the night the grunts, slaps, screams, moans, and gods know what else drifted under his door. You have heard people carry on and have sex many times. In a world where you have been a nomad, and lived in poorly insulated villages, it just went with the territory. But this is different.

No, you aren’t jealous. But — if you are destined to be with him, how can he be so cruel as to make you listen as he beds other women? All night long. A line of whores. Concubines. All for him. You would not be given the same opportunity. You were looked at as his incubator. You couldn’t be sullied with another man’s cock or their seed. Only the king can have that part of you.

Oh great, the grand finale commences, and you try and remove yourself from here. All your time alone, running away had all been in vain. You promised to stay away from the castle, and then was led directly to the beast within. You didn’t know the reason why you had to stay away then, but judging on the brute’s words to you, you could guess some of it. Your mom wanted more of a choice for you. Not one that you were forced into.

You’d rather hear the exact prophecy, and how you fit into it before you let this whirlwind suck you up. It would be easy to go into despair here. Easy to think that all you were meant for is one let him take you, and fill you up. You were in a fucking cage wearing a metal mask, and only seem to be here for his every tortured whim. His pet. He’s disgusting. He has you caged up like an animal. Nothing more than a common beast.

His door creaks open, and you scurry towards the back of the cage. Trying to hide in the shadows, but the pig knows you're in here. Where else is there for you to go? The early morning light catches on his pale white skin, and shines over his ample body. If he wasn’t such a foul human, he’d almost be beautiful. As naked as the day he was born, and carved by the cruel gods. His body looks like a work of art, and the lighting makes him almost look silvery. Frozen by the everlasting winter.

He takes tentative steps closer, watching as your eyes dip below his waist, and you stare at his rock hard length. How the hell did someone have that much energy? He had already finished, and spilled his seed on or in whatever whores he had in there, and now he’s swollen again. Bucky smirks at you as he turns to the side, giving you a different angle to show just how massive he was, but you turn away, pointing your head up into the air. You wouldn’t let him see you break.

“Like what you see?”

“A small little prick?” You didn’t care if he interpreted that as himself or his cock. The only large thing you saw was his gigantic ego.

“I may be a prick, but you and I both know there’s nothing little about me. You think your sweet little cunt can handle me?” You want to hurl. It isn’t uncommon for women in this world to just be with a man so she had a certain level of living. Being with the king would give you a rich life, but it wouldn’t be good.

“You have a sharp little tongue for a stupid girl that still ended up on my web. I would devour you, Lumi,” you roll your eyes over to him, and he bends at the knees, squatting. Both his hands are on your cage and you glare at him. “You don’t know your words, little one? You were a bastard in the snow. Lumi is perfect for you.”

“I have a name.”

“Are you going to tell me what it is?”

“No,” names held power. You didn’t have much left, but you wouldn’t give him this. Whatever you had left to keep from him, you would. He didn’t need to know all your secrets.

“Lumi it is then, winter wolf,” you keep your face neutral, trying not to stare at him wrapping his hand around his cock. He gives the rod a long slow stroke, while watching you intently. “You really aren’t looking. I don’t spill in them, that’ll be left just for you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Maybe not now, but you will,” he stands quickly. Going down the hall. Completely naked, and you hear him chuckle. Moments later three women come out of his bedroom looking ragged, but satiated. You didn’t understand what the big deal with sex was. All it meant was the possibility you could bring a child into this cold world. Bucky came out here just to annoy you. He didn’t need anything, he just wanted you to see him fully naked. You wouldn’t break easily, if at all.

You roll your eyes as he starts moaning again. There was still at least one woman in there, and he puts on a show for you. He’s vocal. More vocal than most men that try and stifle their sounds. Bucky left everything on full display. If he is trying to make you jealous, it isn't working. It pisses you off.

He goes harder and faster than he had most of the night. Could hear his skin slapping on hers. Pounding in her. Ruthless. Shameless. And then he ends with the most put on sound from the previous ones. And just as soon as it started, it ends. She even walks of the bedroom. Staring at you trapped in front of him before she wipes under her eyes, and leaves you be.

Relaxing your back, you slump down into the cage. Maybe now that they are gone, you could get some sleep. You didn’t have to hear all those cries of painful pleasure. You wouldn’t have to hear Bucky’s grunts, and — you couldn’t think about some of those sounds. The way they had made you feel. And the questions you had rushing through your mind.

Settling back, you get a lick to your hand, and you jerk it away. Turning to peer at that stupid mutt with his silvery eyes, “You traitor. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here,” the beast wines as he lays on his belly. Inching his body closer to nudge his nose on you.

“How do you even get in here?” Stupid animal almost looks apologetic, staring at you with his human-like eyes. “You led me to my prison. I’m to be a broodmare for an animal. Eww,” you wipe your hands on your jeans after the wolf sneezes on you. “That’s rude, ya know?”

Sighing, you finally give him a few head scratches, and he gives his approval with low rumbling growls. You don’t know where this beast came from, or what his interest in you is. “Get out of here. Get!” You jump to your feet, glowering at the man that brought you to this hellscape. You hold a hand over the wolf’s head, and he bares his teeth to the blonde man, growling.

“We’ll, aren’t you two just cute? What are you going to do about this, girly?” His mouth turns up into an evil sneer. “You’re in a physical cage.”

“Obviously, you psycho. What does that even mean?” He snaps his fingers, and motions his head to the side. The wolf’s growls soften, but he starts to leave your cage, keeping his eyes on blondie. Getting to a different hallway of the castle, he runs off, leaving you only with him. “You reek.”

“The accommodations in my cage didn’t really allow me to bathe.”

“I suppose your stench repelled most men away from you out there, hmm?” You didn’t have to answer his questions. It’s not like baths were readily available out there. Not when you’re a loner. He goes towards the lock of the cage, and you’re scrambling back into a corner like a scared mouse again. “What is wrong with you?”

“Don’t touch me, I’ll tell your king!”

“Princess, I have no plans of touching you. However, I am taking you to Wanda. She’s going to do something about your smell. You’ll have dinner with the king tonight, and he doesn't particularly care for his future queen to look and smell like a wildling. I promise you no harm will come to you. Unless you choose not to bathe; the king will be furious about you joining his court looking and smelling like you do. Remember last night? Having yourself so exposed? He’ll do that and more. Come now.”

He doesn’t offer you a hand, or any assistance, just stands with the door to your cage open. “I’m not a babysitter,” huffing, you walk towards him, “My god, what is that you reek of?”

You scowl as you walk past him, “Your incredible accommodations here. I was in the dungeon with a wolf keeping me warm, and then I was in the cage. Even though I’m a wildling, I know how to keep myself clean.”

“Why?” If it wasn’t for his expression, you’d think he was making fun of you again, but there’s a sense of sincerity. “I mean…”

“Don’t sound so apologetic, soldier, you’ve told me I smelled bad in five different ways. While you’d think a smell would repulse a man, if they’re hard up for a woman, it won’t stop them,” the man looks down at the floor as you walk, “Not to mention I hunted for my food, if I smelled, the animals would know I was coming,” the two of you walk in silence. The castle laid out nearly like a maze, or maybe it’s because you’re used to the open. Walls and hallways confused you.

“My name is Steve by the way,” curtly you nod. “Things aren’t always what they seem, we’re quite appreciative of you being here with us.”

“It shows in your hospitality,” he lets out the most unattractive snort you could ever imagine. “If you want me to believe you’re appreciative here, you have an odd way of showing it.”

“Let me ask you this,” he stops just before a grand door that you could only assume is where Wanda will be cleaning you, and making you presentable to the king. “If you were to just sleep in the king’s bed, would you flee?”

“I’d rather gnaw my own arm off than lay next to him.”

“So maybe our hospitality is your fault, and not ours,” he opens the door, and sure enough a woman with beautiful red hair is mulling about preparing a tub for you. Of all the audacity. That it’s your fault that they have treated you like a prisoner. Are you supposed to be grateful for being dragged here, bound, thrown in a dungeon with this fucking mask, and then forced on your knees while everyone stared at your body?

“And maybe it’s your pompous king’s fault for exposing my cunt to everyone,” Wanda gasps, dramatically throwing her hand over her mouth. “And you, you dragged me in here. I have been taught to fear the heart of the kingdoms, and to stay away from your king, and you wonder why I’m sour?”

“Kingdom. The fall of your father was when they were combined. There are no kingdoms anymore, and because of prophecy, we’re in an eternal winter. Only until,” he raises his hand, but Wanda shouts his name. “I’ll be just outside the door to collect you when you’re finished.”

You’re never going to be left alone again. It’s something you just know in your gut that the king will have you fully watched. He’d probably be mounting you like an animal while these people watched. To him you were nothing more than a way to break the curse and give him sons.

“We’re not here to harm you,” the red headed woman says walking up to you. She doesn’t make comments about your scent, just starts undoing your clothes. “I’m here to bathe you,” she responds as you jerk away.

“I am capable of doing that myself,” she smiles. It’s calming, and gentle, and makes you extremely uncomfortable and confused. You didn’t have kindness in this place. You had fear and embarrassment.

“You are the future queen, the one that will take this infernal winter away from us,” everyone keeps saying this, and you are but a normal human. “You can undress yourself if it’ll make you feel better. It’s just us in here. The tub is full of hot water, it’ll feel nice.”

Wanda steps away from you, walking over to a chair, while you turn your back on her, and remove your wildings clothes. There is nothing ladylike about these clothes, especially not now. Trousers and shirts would be a thing of the past, if you were to become the queen, even though you didn’t want to. You wouldn’t give up trying to escape.

“What exactly is this prophecy?” Turning around, you place your arms around your body to walk to the tub. Out there, you weren’t given such luxuries as a bath. Slipping into the water, you sink into the warmth, sighing at just how amazing it feels. Heat wraps around your soreness, and for the first time, you actually feel warm. The chill to your core evaporated.

“The simplified version is the princess from the west, and the prince from the mountains will join together.”

“That doesn’t explain the winter.”

She hums a low tune, one you recognize that your mother sang to you, and your eyes start to close. Being in here is so much better than your cage. “Did you know the day you were born was the day that the snow started?”

You had heard that before. “You also know that the man that paraded around as the king wasn’t your father and he also wasn’t the king?”

Turning around, you glare at her, “Malik was my father. He was the king, not Jarrod. I don’t know who told that vicious lie,” even as the words exit your mouth, you don’t fully believe them. Wanda sighs again, beginning that same song. “I didn’t know they knew that song in the mountains.”

“They don’t,” still gazing at her, you look up and down her body. “You’re staring at one of Malik’s many bastards. He was a pig of a king, it’s why so many of us fled to the mountain. He stole the throne from your real father. Made people believe he was the king in your father’s absence. And when Jarrod returned, he found his betrothed married to him. He told Malik to keep the throne, and the wife as long as he didn’t touch her. He could fuck whatever woman he wanted as long as he didn’t touch her. He failed of course, and some would believe that you belonged to him. Except those feline-like eyes. The eyes of Jarrod.”

You turn back and stare blankly at the hot water. Your eyes are the only reason you had ever doubted your lineage. Malik could play he loved your mother, but you often thought it was for his people to believe it. “So Jarrod remained by the king’s side for what? Why not take my mother away?”

“I assumed it was because he thought he was no longer king, and having a daughter wouldn’t start our nightmare of a winter. Clearly he thought wrong because here we are, and there you are getting cleaned up to bow before your king, and future husband,” she can’t see your face, but you roll your eyes. You are a prisoner. A joke. “Would you like the mask removed?”

“I was told that the mask keeps others from touching me.”

“There’s other ways that the king can mark you as his,” that sounds repulsive.

“Walking around with a swollen belly?” Wanda’s laugh is almost evil, and you turn back around to her. “What?”

“Pregnancy takes too long. No, if you’re being difficult even with a pregnancy he’ll make you wear the mask. You could have another man’s baby in your belly. Marriage wouldn’t be a strong enough bond, your mother was sleeping with Jarrod while married to Malik.”

“I don’t want to know. Sounds like some cruel backwards way of claiming a woman for the mountain people.”

She shrugs, and you know it’s true. An outward mark that would make you Bucky’s, so no one would touch you. And yet, she’s missing a mark, “Where’s your claim?”

“I’m not the one that will be mated to the White Wolf,” you sit up straighter in the tub, forgetting your modesty as you look over her, “What?”

“The white wolf?”

“It’s the king’s nickname. We are mountain people, as you say. His crest is a white wolf. They’re uncommon, but every once in a blue moon they happen. The white wolf is respected in the mountains, and not to be hunted, lest you become the prey. Here,” she stands, and walks towards you. Her hands go around your head, and with a few clicks, she removes the mask from your face, and you moan. Finally getting to look at the damned mask; a wolf.

“There’s worse things than your king.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“The winter is cruel, even more so when you feel the cold in your heart,” someone beats on the door, and you hear Steve clear his throat. “It’s time to get dressed, princess. And time that you accept that Jarrod was your father,” you let modesty disappear as you stand up. Letting Wanda assist you out of the bath, and dry you off. You might not like it here, but you could get used to baths.

She carefully makes you slip into skirt upon skirt. Dressing you up like a doll. You haven’t seen dresses this fine your entire life. Outside of the mountain city, you just survived. Clothing such as this is frivolous. She pulls a dress of fine silk over your head before reaching for a necklace. She wraps the golden chain around your neck before slipping a wicked looking point through the hole. “There. Now, let me do something about your hair.”

She walks you over to a chair, forcing you to stare at your reflection as she pulls and tugs your hair into place. You look ridiculous. “Am I to be nothing more than his frilly doll?”

“What more are you supposed to be?” His equal. You keep your mouth closed because you doubt she’s going to see things your way. In this world you are the savior, but most importantly, you are his.

“And here I am, and still, it’s winter,” Wanda bows as she walks to the door, holding it open for you, and Steve’s eyes wander over her body, but she gives him a coy smile in return. She didn’t care.

Steve motions for you to follow him. Like you have any choice in the matter. “I see you traded the mask for the — necklace. Bucky will much rather look over your face than that creepy thing,” Bucky was the one that ordered you to wear it. “There are people who don’t want Bucky to come into his true — potential.”

The way he speaks, careful with his words. Withholding information, or lying all together. You’re in the waiting part of the hunt. Listen, pay attention, and know your surroundings. “The castle is set up this way to distort people. There’s been people who wander around for hours and never find where they’re going. You having someone with you isn’t just to keep you from escaping, it’s to keep you from being lost.”

There’s so many twists and turning hallways, but there has to be a pattern to it. There has to be a way that people didn’t go insane trying to find their way around, but insanity to you is already happening. Your situation is looking more and more dire. “There’s hallways that lead to nowhere, and doors that open up into a hole. I suggest you not walk too quickly through a door.”

To prove his point, he opens one, and there’s a black pit of nothingness. “Each has varying degrees of depth. But, even the smaller drops will kill you. There’s a reason why the people of the mountain are feared, just getting in the castle doesn’t guarantee you’ll find and overtake the king. It guarantees your demise.”

“You’re so sure of yourself.”

Steve stops beside an opening, and you gasp. Eyes wide as you take the greenery in. “Your father, Jarrod, is the only one that made it in the castle and out of the castle. He was let go, but bore an evil curse to be released. And that’s why we’re here.”

You can’t take your eyes off this place. You’ve never seen this. “So I must bear the weight of what someone else has done, and I wasn’t even born.”

He leans down beside you, his mouth right at your ear, “He wasn’t born either,” turning, you scowl at him. Did he want you to feel sorry for Bucky? Absurd. He wasn’t a prisoner. “He’s just as stuck as you are.”

“How so?”

“You don’t know what it’s like to rule a kingdom. But how far would you go to protect your people?” You didn’t have people.

“He’s trapped me in a castle maze, and exposed me to his court.”

“There’s things you just don’t understand,” rolling your eyes, you start to pull up your skirts, and begin to crawl through the window. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Is it glamoured and I’ll fall to my death?” You pause, looking at him, and he shakes his head no, “I’ve never seen grass before. I want to touch it.”

“You can. With the king. It’s sacred, and only for him and who he invites. You could become poisoned for touching it without his permission.”

“Could?” He shrugs. He’s bluffing. Nothing is going to happen. But then you look again, what if he isn’t lying? What if something worse happens? Everything is untouched. It’s freely open for whoever walks by, and it’s pristine. “Has Bucky?”

“No, the king has not. It’s sacred. Shall we?” Releasing a guffaw, you follow him. More winding hallways, and silence. Having no choice but to trust him completely. “You really know nothing?”

“My parents — Malik, and my mother, told me to stay away from the castle. To keep moving, don’t stay in one location long, don’t fall in love, don’t let a man touch me because men only bring you problems. What else is there to know?” You’re met with silence again. Like the castle, everything is a riddle. Wanda gave more information than most. “Earlier when you knocked on the door, were you interrupting me and Wanda?”

“Why would I do that?” This is the way it’ll be; questions met with a question. You’d rather be quiet and observe the castle, and the people within. “Eventually you get used to it here. The paths.”

“Does the kingdom live here?”

“Some moved here once the snow started to fall and kept growing. Some remain out in the mountains, wild and building cities within. This was the safest place though. Most won’t venture out into the winter. There’s very little daylight, and night time here is cruel,” you would know. You spent many years alone, and unable to sleep at night. Constantly looking over your shoulder, the animals were the least of your worries. “It’s amazing you survived.”

“Is that a compliment, soldier?”

“No. And my name is Steve.”

Just before dinner Steve came back to the twittering room of females you were in. They were obnoxious. Giggling and asking you about the king’s cock. You didn’t want that thing anywhere near you. You sit motionless while they work on their stupid little crafts of embroidery. Things like that seem so pointless when the world outside was a frozen hell, and yet, they still remain fragile, and need a man to protect them.

You stayed in your same gown, surprisingly. You didn’t have to see Wanda again. “Steve?”

“Hmm?”

“That cage is quite uncomfortable,” he snorts, looking at you. “I’m sure with a sleeping gown, it’ll be unbearably cold.”

“You know what’s not uncomfortable and cold? The king’s bed,” your nose goes into the air so fast. Everyone pushed you into the bed with your king, and you knew absolutely fuck all about him, and he should immediately stick you with his prick?

“Enjoy your audience, princess,” the dining hall must be separate from the people that lived here. It is quite large, with tapestries and pennants of the coat of arms, but the table of people is small. Wanda sat on the other end from where Steve leads you. Directly beside Bucky. You thought he may stand behind you, and instead Steve sits opposite of you.

“Lumi, come sit in my lap, princess,” Bucky’s voice is laced in poison. Nothing is ever that sweet. Always an ulterior motive. Always cunning and out to trick you.

“I’d rather not,” he leans forward, causing every eye at the table to turn towards you. His teeth gleam with an evil snarl, before his fingers tease at your necklace. Inching onto your skin before he too gently wraps his fingers around your neck, and then moves back to caressing the necklace.

“Please,” you hear a gasp. Not at all surprised that he didn’t have manners normally, and that one word shocked the dinner table.

“No,” his fingers wrap around your necklace, and he sneers. He twists the chain around his finger a few times, and you dare to turn away from him.

“I won’t ask again.”

“Then don’t,” he tightens his fingers, pulling the necklace taut up against your neck, and you choke. Your eyes fire to life, and you look down at the bauble before he yanks the metal chain. Completely cutting off air to your lungs, while Bucky pulls you into him, and forcing you onto his knee. A fucking leash! He is treating you like a common animal.

“You asshole!”

“Shut up, my pet. You want me to treat you like the animal, I’ll show you exactly what an animal you are, princess. You are mine, and what I say goes. I asked nicely to sit on my fucking lap, and if you don’t know how to respond in a well behaved manner, I’ll put you on your knees, and shove my cock so deep in your throat, until you shut up. Everyone will watch as you cockwarm me the rest of dinner. Now have I made myself clear?” You bore holes into his skull, wishing you had powers that could oblerdiate him. No wonder your parents wanted you away from the castle, and away from him. Spoiled brat.

“Do I make myself clear?” Still you don’t respond, but you don’t look away. Steve kicks your leg under the table, and you nod at Bucky. “With words.”

“You’ve made your point.”

“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” It is humiliating, and worse, he’s reduced you to a plaything. No, not even that, his pet. Someone that had to be kept on a leash and paraded around. Everyone at the table gawks at you. They’re all bastards. People in the mountains are an odd bunch. They allowed this behavior for far too long.

“Why is it that you didn’t have to remain pure?” The king chuckles, holding up a leg of some animal up for you, and you try not to devour it, but it’s delectable. You’re so unladylike as you take bite after bite, barely chewing your food before taking another. You are starved.. How were they able to get such meat?

“Well, for one I wasn’t hiding in the forest, and running away from my duty. Did you ever think you were saving yourself just for me? All these years, and you remained loyal to a man you didn’t even know,” snorting, you look at him shaking your head. You didn’t even know about him. Instead of eating himself, he curiously watches you. You could swear he’s even counting how many times you chew before you reach for something else on the plate. He didn’t have one.

“What did you eat out there?” there’s a softness to his voice that confuses you, and you turn to meet his gaze. “You are nothing more than skin and bones. It wasn’t much.”

“Yeah, but I did it myself. I didn’t have servants that hunted, gathered, prepared, and served my food for me. You just learn to survive.”

“Why not learn to live?” Your piercing green eyes roll up to meet his silvery blue ones, and for once, he seems human. Not the foul animal that you first met. Chattering at the table is distant, muffled, and you watch his hand rise up your skirts. Unlike the many men that tried to touch you, his isn't calloused. They are boiling hot, however.

He drifts his hand higher. Higher more, and you gulp. Thankfully his hand is under the table, but you fear that someone will see. That they will watch him slowly claim every inch of your body. What his plans are, you’re unsure, so you keep eating. Gorging yourself in the delicious meal, and trying to ignore him. It’s clear he’s going to take whatever he wants.

“Why are you so hot, Lumi?” Don’t answer him. It might have something to do with his heated hands on your skin. Or the tingly you feel when he’s right at the apex of your thighs, but you’re too interested in the food. “I think you like me touching you just here,” his hand barely grazes over your core, and you jerk your head towards him, and glare. “I like your fight. Don’t forget that.”

You may glower at him, but the face he gives you in return is humored. A smile creeps on his face, and everything else in this room ceases to exist. It’s weird. You could see why women would throw themselves at him. He’s beautiful. But so was ice and snow, and it killed many.

“Your highness,” Bucky nods in the direction of some man, but his eyes still capture your own. You start counting the different hues of blue and silver warped in his eyes. It was like a snowstorm on a starry night. “Your highness, it’s getting late.”

He stands too abruptly, forgetting you’ve settled on him, and you too lost in whatever is happening between the two of you, fall completely to the floor. Pulling the tablecloth and some of the food and wine with you, and the room erupts in joyous laughter. Bucky’s scowl looks to every person in this fucking hall, and he extends his too hot hand for you to take, and you stand up on your own. Refusing his help.

Something in him shifts when you refuse his hand, and he tugs on your stupid leash, pulling you out of the hall. His long strides make it impossible for you to keep up, so your left gagging as the leash constricts your neck. If you could draw what cruelty was, it would be this king. This disgusting animal. He reaches your cage, and he pushes you into it, slamming the door. Without another word, he struts into his bedroom, and another door slams.

You’re covered in filth. And for what? What did this get you? Mere seconds of him acting like a human, but still it was a burning — weirdness. You can’t even think of the word that pops into your mind, because it’s too absurd to even fathom. To think that you liked it. You can’t help it that your body responded to his touch. No. You didn’t like it. You loathed it.

Bucky strolls out of his bedroom, and shoves something in between your bars, and you kick it back, “Change your fucking close. You’re a mess.”

“Ask nicely.”

“I don’t do nice,” your eyebrow cocks up at him, and he sighs, “Change your clothes. Please,” you bend over, picking up the nightgowns, and you blink at him. “They’re new, and never been worn. No bodily fluids.”

“I need help with — my corset. Unless you don’t know how to undo them.”

“Princess, I have done many things with a corset. Spin around,” you do as he asks. His lithe fingers pull and tug at your laces before he drops his hand to his side, and you look at him over his shoulder. Rolling your eyes up to meet his, and something silent, but primal passes between the two of you. You hate it. You don’t think much of this man that cages you up like a wild beast, but you swear his breath catches in his throat. “What?”

“Can you turn around?”

“Why?” He sounds like a clueless child.

“Because no man has ever seen me,” he bows his head, and turns around. You’re so out in the open. A cage placed right in front of the king’s bedroom. Such nonsense. Such impotence. You wish you could make him wait, but the idea of someone else walking up on you has you going faster than expected.

“I’m trying to be nice,” you snort. When has he been nice? “I could be worse.”

“Worse than the dog you are now?”

“I could have you tied up in my bed, and sprawled out. Leaving you wide open and ready to take my seed, until you’re swollen with my fucking heir. That’s how cruel I can be,” he has a point. But you snort.

He could do all of that, but he’s missing something very important. “You need to learn your place. Know exactly what you birthing our child could mean for the kingdom. For the world,” oh he thought so highly of himself. Alas, he was a fool.

He turns around, and sees you grinning maniacally. Tilting his head to the side, he even looks like a dog. “Oh, your highness. You can fuck me until I’m black and blue, but I’ll never bare a child for you or any man. You see, I’ve never bled. My body is as useless to you as any other man that wants to breed me.”

“You fucking liar.”

“What? Are you suggesting you check my panties? You can wait and wait and wait, it’ll never,” Bucky takes a deep breath, watching as you sit on the new mattress that lays on the floor. You’ll probably thank Steve or Wanda, not knowing it is him that took pity on you, and decided to make things a bit more comfortable.

“Now go away, or release me.”

“Wanda!” Wanda emerges out a door on the opposite side. Gliding up to the king before bowing. “What do you know about her, and the ability she has to have children?”

“Nothing, sire.”

“This — she claims she’s never bled,” Wanda looks over at you, and returns to Bucky with a regretful smile. “And?”

“It’s not uncommon to hear that about the wildlings,” What? You knew that having a child was rare, but you assumed it was because people didn’t want to damn their child to an eternal winter. “They’re malnourished out there. Give it a few months here, and she’ll grow thicker. She won’t be a shaking bird, but a woman with curves that can handle you and your child. But you have to remember…”

“I know!” Bucky’s nostrils flare, and he storms off. Leaving Wanda to look at you instead of her king.

“What?” You ask, annoyed with everything. Being trapped. Being here. Being nothing more than a broodmare for him!

“There’s worse men than Bucky. There’s so much that you don’t know. That you can’t know, but you need to accept it,” she whispers, spinning to return from where she was.

“And who could be worse?” Sighing, Wanda rolls up her sleeves. Her fingers trace around wicked scars at her wrist that gleam in the moonlight. Lifting her skirt, she reveals matching scars on her ankles. She’d been bound. “Like a cage is so much better.”

“In a cage where you’re alone. You weren’t tied up, and stretched out, available to whoever wanted to feast on your soul. Be thankful that my king is merciful, and he’s trying. It’s overtaking him.”

“What is?” Wanda doesn’t respond. She walks the hall and back into her bedroom. There was no screaming and moaning of women, and there wouldn’t be tonight.

Next

Masterlist

Taglist: @tis-thedamn-season @marveloustaylortot @pono-pura-vida @peaches1958 @seitmai

@smile1318 @andydrysdalerogers @cjand10 @midnightramyeoncravings @kmc1989

@pandaxnienke @rogersbarber @theinheriteddutchess @buckybarnesisdaddy

@jesevans @alexakeyloveloki @bean-bean2000 @sebastians-love

[princeoftheeternalbog]

Helloooo, I’m not sure if you still do requests on One Piece characters or anything- but if you do I have a scenario in mind. I was wondering if you could do one specifically with Traflagar Law who has a S/O which gets injured and refuses his help. The S/O has a problem with accepting help and has trouble being vulnerable in front of others- only seeing it as weakness. This could also work for the other more colder One Piece characters…cause idk they just have a special place in my heart. (Though if you can’t that’s okay, but I thought I’d ask)

ALSO I read lots of your posts and absolutely love your scenarios and head-cannons, you literally portray all the characters so well and it’s amazing.

This is the cutest ask and thank you omg😭

I hope this is good🫶

And little trigger warning for descriptions of injury and blood at the beginning, I'll put a line so you know where to skip to if you don't want to read that bit.

I totally accidentally posted this so now I'm writing as it's up, forgive me😞 OKAY IT'S IN A FINISHED STATE I MAY ADD MORE AFTER I FORCE MY FRIEND TO READ OVER IT🕺🏻🕺🏻

I don't know if I'm happy with the length either i kinda feel it should be longer.

-

The soft, shlick of a blade through flesh rings in your ears. The adrenaline rushing through your body swallows any pain in an instant, but you can feel the pressure as it drags into your side and you wince anyway.

But you can't stop.

If you stop he's going to get past, he's going to hurt the people you call a family and so you can't stop.

His frame is hulking, freakishly tall and looming over you. The level of brute force he's exerting has your heart stuttering in fear, the staccato rhythm making you feel light headed. Though that could be the blood that's dripping from your side.

You hit his sternum, hard, and feel a crack. He stumbles, dazed, your fist comes up to head height and your aim is killer as it slams into the side of the man's head.

He's out cold.

The sigh of relief that exits your body almost overshadows the sudden pain resonating throughout your torso. Without an oncoming threat, you're able to take the time to lift your shirt and look at the damage. It's mostly mottled bruising but just under your lowest left rib is a long but shallow cut. Not life threatening in any way but still inconvenient.

It hurts to breathe and you're not sure if your rib bones are fully intact either, not with the way he was hitting.

The adrenaline is fading quickly, you needed to get him inside.

He'd crumpled into a very ungraceful pile when you knocked him out and it's difficult to tie him securely. But you do. And then you take a deep breath and haul him up over your shoulders in a botched fireman's lift.

Your captain would want to find out who decided it would be a good idea to send someone after the heart pirates.

Your captain would...

The last thing you think about before you hit the deck face first is him.

-

He's silent as he works.

It's almost unnerving actually, how quiet he can be when he wants to.

"Law-"

The look he shoots you is so intense that you physically shrink back, mouth closing as you drop your gaze to the floor.

He lets out a heavy sigh as he finishes disinfecting the last of his tools before he turns to you.

"What is wrong with you."

He's angry, you can feel it radiating off him, it digs into the soft underbelly of your emotions and you bristle at his words.

"I was just doing my job" Your tone is sharp but he doesn't flinch.

"Your job does not involved getting killed you idiot."

"Well I didn't get killed so it's not that big of a deal"

He looks like he's about to blow a gasket, the vein in his forehead pulsing with the renewed blood flow.

"Not a big deal? Not a big deal?"

You have the distinct feeling that you might've fucked up a little. That still doesn't stop you from digging a deeper hole to be buried in.

"I'm fine just let me deal with my own problems"

His eye actually twitches but you keep talking.

"It's barely a scratch, I don't need help- especially not yours."

The thunderous anger on his face is now accompanied by hurt, but his voice is soft when he says,

"Let me help you"

"I just said I don't need help"

"I don't think that you know what you need"

That stings. To know he doesn't trust your judgement after everything you've been through. There's a pressure at the back of your throat now and it's so uncomfortable, you need to leave.

But as you go to move, Law is much quicker as he grabs you by your upper arm, pulling you into his space.

"Where are you going"

You don't look at him.

He sighs before his other arm comes around your waist and he lifts, walking across the room to set you down onto a table.

"Why don't you understand that I care about you"

The emotion in his voice unsettles you, makes your chest feel tight and you really don't want to deal with this.

He's gentle as he gets to work on your injuries, easily cleaning and stitching up your side before moving to bind your ribs.

"I need you to remove your shirt"

Your hands are shaking, he hasn't really seen the full extent and you're sure he's not going to respond well. It's hard to get the buttons of your shirt undone so when a second pair of hands come up, you don't push them away. But him being closer means you hear the exact moment he realises how bad it is, his inhale is sharp and he says something in a language you don't know.

"Why didn't you call for backup?"

You take a while to respond, trying to squash down any emotion in your voice,

"I didn't need it"

"Did you want it?"

The question makes you squirm with discomfort, your eyes water.

"It doesn't matter because I didn't need it"

He sighs again. That's all you seem to be making him do today.

And then his arms are coming up around you, pulling you closer to the edge of the table and closer to him. One of his hands rests on your back and the other pushes your head into the crook of his shoulder, allowing you a semblance of privacy in such an intimate moment.

"You need to understand that not letting us help you is counterintuitive to being part of a crew"

The statement makes you flinch and you try to push away from him but that fight took a lot of your strength. His grip tightens anyways.

"Do you think I find it easy to be vulnerable?"

"...No"

"Do you think I would want you to die?"

You don't respond this time, chest heaving as you tremble.

"It's not easy to see you like this. You are not a human shield."

"I know" Your voice is quiet and thick with tears but he seems to relax slightly at your agreement.

The hand on your back is moving in gentle shapes, but his grip is still firm, as if he's trying to affirm that you're here and alive.

"I can't have a crew member that doesn't trust anyone"

You tense.

"I can't have a partner that won't be vulnerable with me"

Guilt and dread roll through your stomach. Surely he doesn't mean-

"I can't trust that you won't die because you feel can't rely on others so you're benched until we work through it"

Oh. You actually feel a bit relieved, you thought he was going in a much different direction. You lean back out of his hold so you can look at his face through wet eyes.

His expression is soft but he looks tired and the guilt rears it's head again.

"I'm sorry"

Somehow his expression gets even softer,

"I know"

He kisses you then. It's grounding, brings you back to a semblance of calm and you almost wonder why you were so apprehensive in the first place. He's gentle and warm and you feel slightly self conscious that your lips might be puffy from crying but you don't pull away.

It's reverent, like he worships you.

You think you could learn to let him take care of you.

You think you would let him do anything.

If it feels like this.

[callimara]

Breath of the Wild!Jelsa AU (Analysis & Parallels)

Yes yes I know I’m at it again but dear reader, I ask that you once again HEAR ME OUT and LET ME COOK.

At some point in the middle of the day today as I am cleaning the house, the idea came to me like a vision and the more I thought about it, the more the lines started CONNECTING and MAKING SENSE.

In part I am writing this as I have a deep love for both The Legend of Zelda franchise (and Breath of the Wild IN PARTICULAR as my first Zelda game) AND Rise of the Guardians (I do not feel particularly strongly about Frozen aside from Elsa as a character, but I DO feel EXTREMELY strongly for Jelsa, which is NECESSARY for this AU and comparison to work!!!) and another part an attempt to get my very good, very intelligent, extremely GIFTED friend and favorite fic writer @therentyoupay into ANOTHER ship I am deeply passionate about: ZeLink.

So perhaps this analysis post can be best summed up as "Explaining ZeLink through the lens of Jelsa" or vise versa.

In fact, ZeLink is another ship I am already planning a video on, but for now, this particular AU calls to me and demands to be elaborated on and perhaps illustrated at some point 👀

Who is Who?

For this post, I will be focusing on the Three Bearers of the Triforce:

Ganon/Ganondorf (Triforce of Power),

Zelda (Triforce of Wisdom), and

Link (Triforce of Courage),

who are always being reborn and fated meet, and the central characters of every LOZ story (but we'll get to the Champions in the next post)

As the prevailing bearer of the Triforce of Power, Ganon or Ganondorf (his human form) is the archnemesis of Link and Zelda.

With titles such as The Prince of Darkness and The Demon King, it's only right that this role is given to Pitch Black.

Power

Unlike Link or Zelda whom, among their many incarnations, may not be in possession of their respective Triforces, Ganon is always the bearer of the Triforce of Power due to his sheer desire for ruling the world with an iron fist. This is the same desire expressed by Pitch Black in both the movies and books, as his ambition is to cover the world in darkness and fear: completely under his control. Their powers are similar in nature, it corrupts and leaves a stain (malice) on the wider environment. They share a love of conquest and destruction and delight in seeing those around them suffer.

Scheming

Though both Ganon and Pitch are undoubtedly capable of taking what they want with sheer brute force, both characters possess a penchant for scheming and tactical strategy. They conquer not only on the battlefield, but in the court of politics, where necessary. Though we don't see this demonstrated in BOTW, we do see his political savvy and the extend of his scheming in Tears of the Kingdom when he still possessed his human form. They are incredibly dangerous tacticians that is often one step ahead of the heroes, thus able to out-maneuver them and gain the upper hand.

Hubris

As is often their undoing, their confidence in being ahead causes them to lose their composure. Power corrupts, and this weakness of mind causes them to make fatal, self-destructive mistakes that create an opening for the Hero to seize.

A Hero Destined to Rise Against Him

In both of Ganon/Ganondorf and Pitch's cases, they are destined to be ultimately defeated by a Chosen Hero who wields a Weapon that can seal their Darkness.

Which segways us perfectly to our next character, our Chosen Hero!

Unsurprisingly, Jack Frost fits Link's role as the Hero of the Wild in the story perfectly.

Chosen for A Big Destiny

Although unlike Link, Jack was not personally aware of the "why" for his existence and recruitment into the Guardians until much much later, he was indeed, nevertheless chosen. The reasons for his choosing, in broad strokes, are similar to Link's circumstances. Both of them demonstrated high levels of relevant proficiency and prowess in their respective roles (Guardian/Royal Knight) which led to them being chosen for their respective titles. Link as the Princess' Appointed Knight and Legendary Hero Who Wields The Sword That Seals the Darkness, and Jack as the Immortal Spirit of Winter and later, Guardian of Fun Destined to Save the Guardians and Defeat Pitch Black.

Rebirth

A striking resemblance between Jack and BOTW Link is perhaps their theme of "the end becomes the beginning" in which both experience Death After a Great Sacrifice and are Reborn Anew. Both of these fairy boys died protecting someone they cared about, regardless of cost or consequence, and upon being brought to life from the brink of death, they are forever changed as people.

For Jack, this comes in the form of new powers, new domains, and the new experience in being a Spirit. For Link, it's a bit more literal, as he seemingly adopts a much more open, lively, carefree personality in the absence of his former duties, burdens, and responsibilities that (in canon) brings him to resemble Jack Frost better than his former persona as a royal knight.

Loss of Memory

Another striking resemblance between Jack and Link is the circumstances of their rebirth, which came at the cost of their memories and their former identities. Not knowing who they were or what their purpose was, they wandered the land aimlessly in search of meaning, until destiny eventually guides them to their Reason for Existing.

In fact, both of their rebirths also involve being lifted from pools of water

But even though both Jack and Link recover some semblance of their memories and identities Before, it is unclear just how much left remained lost.

Past Lives

Let’s be real here, Pre-Calamity Link is NOTHING like Pre-Spirit Jack. While Pre-Calamity Link is serious, focused, stoic and Silent, Jack has pretty much always been the same person before and after his Rebirth. But, Jack was also a simple peasant boy who Definitely Had No Ambition To Become A Knight. But in this AU, let’s say he did. Let’s say he was determined to follow in his father’s footsteps to become a royal knight. Let’s say he finds the Legendary Weapon That Seals The Darkness, and that seals his fate.

Certainly, he’ll never be as serious and stoic or Silent as Pre-Calamity Link was, no matter how much pressure he’s in. But perhaps, it makes him just a bit more Intense and Guarded.

Lone Wolf But Stronger in a Pack

Obviously we know that Jack Frost flew solo for pretty much his entire life as a spirit, and he gained quite a renown for himself in doing so, and it it s indisputable that while he was Strong On His Own, he was Much Stronger With The Guardians. Despite never working in a team before, teamwork came naturally to Jack, and it only served to amplify his strengths while covering his weaknesses.

Now, what about Link? For the majority of BOTW, Link travels alone, and while he is completely Lethal and Unstoppable as is, similarly to Jack, he only really grows stronger through reconnecting with the Ghosts of his deceased friends, who each lend him their Power and Support in a more literal sense. Once you resolve each quest in the Four Regions of Hyrule, your friends will make the final battle against Calamity Ganon much easier than if you were to head straight there by yourself.

And of course, Link would not have been able to defeat Calamity Ganon at all if it hadn’t been for Princess Zelda, and the reverse is also true. They must work together to Seal Calamity Ganon for the next 10,000 years.

Devoted

Both Link and Jack are deeply dedicated to those they have formed attachments to. If you played BOTW and/or TOTK, you know just how deeply devoted and dutiful Link was to Zelda, willing to let the entire Kingdom of Hyrule fall to keep her safe, choosing to stay with her and help her escape the kingdom (abandoning his Duty, abandoning his Destiny) and just as willing to lay his life down to spare hers.

Jack is similarly dedicated as we see from his interactions and protectiveness of Baby Tooth and Jamie Bennett, and how he charged straight into the eye of the storm of Pitch’s sand vortex to save Sandy. Those who give love to him, he gives love readily back.

Wild

This one is quite self-explanatory, but I will explain anyway!

As the titular Hero of the Wild, Link is every bit a woodsman and outdoor survivalist as his name implies. He is an unstoppable force of nature that can and will survive anything nature throw at him (be it lightning strikes, monsters, or Laser-Blasting-Malice-Possessed Guardians [no, not THOSE Guardians]). Link thrives in the wilderness, just him and the elements, and perhaps the occasional pot lid and soup ladle (if he’s really strapped for weapons, a mop will also do). Really, it speaks to his resourcefulness and resilience, his independence and self-sufficiency. Though perhaps, at the cost of certain things like manners, propriety, and respect for public and/or private property (of course he had to break all those clay pots, what if there was something inside? Of course he had to jump into the garden pond and grab fish with his bare hands, how else is he going to get protein for his seafood meunière? of course—). Much like Jack Frost.

If there was one word to describe the Winter Spirit, it was certainly, and similarly, ‘Wild.’ After all, he is undoubtedly the most unpredictable spirit to become a guardian, and even before then, he had made a name for himself for being quite formidable and intimidatingly ferocious when he wants to be. He does as he pleases with no fear or shame of what others may think. And similarly, this often lands both Blond Fairy Boys a fierce scolding from many people, not that it deters their behaviour in any way shape or form.

They will learn absolutely nothing from these scoldings and will 100% do it again. But stealthier, craftier, perhaps.

Unless, of course, the scolding comes from a Particular Wise and Beautiful Princess. Only then they will consider. And it is only this Wise and Beautiful Princess who is capable of tempering their wildness just enough to be a functioning member of the community.

Fearless

As the Triforce of Courage, it is perhaps a given that its bearer will readily face down any challenge or adversary without hesitation. No matter how big, no matter how impossible, no matter what. Jack and Link are always ready for a fight, for action; their heart pumps for the thrill of adventure and the unknown, new experiences, meeting new people. The two are travelers who prefer to take the scenic—read: deeply unconventional and unsafe—route, taking as many detours as possible. And if they land in trouble, then it’s all the more Fun.

Jack and Link are Fearless in every way one could be. For Link, it is simply in his immortal, undying nature. For Jack, as Fear’s archenemy, he cannot afford to harbor it within him, and that is precisely how he navigated his way through immortality: with Fun and Light and Hope. Diving headfirst from a giant waterfall? Bring it on! Taking on an entire hoard of ferocious monsters alone with nothing but a pot lid and soup ladle? Challenge accepted. Jumping on the backs of Animals You Definitely Shouldn’t Use as Mounts and riding them anyway? Give them five minutes.

Notoriously Good-Looking

To keep it short and sweet, both Link and Jack have been described in their respective media (by various characters) to be notably handsome, and they themselves are aware of this fact and Very Confident About It. They are very comfortable in their own skin (perhaps too comfortable) though their handsomeness does not always shine through, in great part due to their Erratic Behaviour and Strange Fashion Choices (“look, it made perfect sense at the time.”).

Jack-of-all-Trades

Both Jack and Link are undoubtedly masters at their signature weapons (Jack with his Shepherd’s Crook and Link with the Master Sword and Hylian Shield), though Link has a more diverse skill set than Jack as per the ROTG movie. Link excels with any kind of weapon (or even household objects) he can get his hands on: short swords and clubs, two-handed weapons (including but not limited to: great swords, axes, and bats), spears, wands, and arguably his strongest weapon, the bow and arrow, with which he is able to shoot up to five arrows at once in a spread and enter Bullet Time when he is in the air. And he can also do all this on horseback, of course. It makes him an incredibly versatile fighter and well-equipped for survival in the wild.

While Jack is limited to his Shepherd’s Crook in the movie, he does not exclusively wield it as such. In the action scenes of the movie, we see Jack wield his staff to cast magic like a wand, attack with the slicing motion of a sword, the stabbing of a spear, and even the swing of a bat. In the books, 5 years after the movie’s release, William Joyce has also written Jack to be able to shapeshift his staff into a bow and arrow, giving him a more Hunter-like appearance

He is also apparently fluent in squirrel and chipmunk speak. I did not know this.

Something I did in “more than you know” (my collab fic with therentyoupay) was push this ability a bit further to allow Jack to shapeshift his staff into a variety of weapons, not just a bow and arrow, such as an ice sword or axe. We can apply the same idea here, to better reconcile the skillsets of Jack and Link.

But a shared key trait that already exists is that without any weapons (barehanded) Jack and Link cannot fight (unlike their Princesses, who are stronger with their magic as opposed to any physical weapon).

Snowboarding/Shield-Surfing

Fun is an essential component of Jack’s character. It is his CORE, what makes him WHO HE IS. However, it is also an important part of Link’s character, particularly post-Calamity. Aside from frolicking in—read: terrrorizing—the wilderness, campfire-cooking, and completing Korok puzzles, a favorite pastime of Link’s is an activity called shield-surfing, which is exactly what it sounds like: using his shield to sled down hills of grass, deserts, and snowy mountains. And he’s quite good at it too! Canonically, he holds several records in shield-surfing from the snowy peaks of Hebra to the vast Gerudo Desert, and even incorporates it into his fighting.

And who else would be particularly terrific at snowboarding other than Jack Frost himself? It was actually stated in the DVD Featurette for Rise of the Guardians that Jack’s entire concept was inspired by skateboarders, and that they wanted him to glide in the wind with the skill of an Olympic snowboarder (hey anyone wanna make an AU with Olympic Snowboarder Jack?), which we do see him doing with his staff at several points in the movie!

Clearly, this is a perfect parallel. A mirror even. If you will.

Smart Mouth

One of my (and I’m sure many others) favorite things about Jack is his quick-with and sharp tongue. He’s always ready with a sassy remark or a snide comment and I think that’s one of the things that make him so Fun! Now, for a comparison with Link, you’re probably thinking this should be a major difference as Link is well known to be The Silent Protagonist Ever, but as many players of BOTW and TOTK have noticed and accurately pointed out, Link is given dialogue options for the players to choose from when interacting with NPCs, which in itself implies that that is Link speaking and responding to NPCs questions.

I am of the opinion that these are Link’s own words rather than the “player’s” responses being spoken through Link, and the reason I think this is because these options show off some degree of personality rather than remaining neutral to allow players to project onto them, and often times more or less reiterate the same message, just in different words (hinting that IC, Link will ONLY agree or disagree to those things).

some of my favorite examples of Link’s dialogue options:

Making seal puns while renting sand seals:

The one below is exemplary because the only two options are either to flirt shamelessly or ruin her day.

This is also not including the fact Eiji Aonuma (the creator of The Legend of Zelda) himself has said that all Links are “bastards” in their own unique ways and indeed, the persistent inclusion of his jerky and sassy dialogue options across all LOZ games is further evidence of this.

So of course, who better to keep this sassy lost child in check than The Wisest Person in the Land?

Zelda Hyrule, the Triforce of Wisdom is the perfect role for someone like Elsa Arendelle.

There are many parallels between this iteration of Zelda (as opposed to other Zelda’s of the different games) and Elsa.

Wisdom

As the bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom, all incarnations of Zelda are blessed with superior intelligence and wisdom, traits that are also prevalent in Elsa. The Triforce of Wisdom doesn't JUST impart divine wisdom upon its holder, it also grants the holder untold mystical abilities (see: Elsa's ice powers and ability to create sentient life), and the ability to heal others (see: Elsa thawing Anna and the Fjord). The Triforce of Wisdom leads its holder to make the right decisions, making them wiser than any mortal. Elsa is much the same, though hers is a result of her own temperament and upbringing.

As the Triforce of Wisdom, Zelda is a constant presence of guidance and support for Link in many of her game iterations (including this one), and she has always stood side by side with him to defeat Ganon.

Duty-Bound

Both Elsa and Zelda have momentous weights on their shoulders as the Crown Princesses of their respective kingdoms, and this is a responsibility that both Princess-turned-Queens take very seriously. Though this position brings them no joy—if not, in fact the complete opposite—they are deeply devoted to their cause, their kingdom, their families, and as a result, they continue to strive to excel in it and meet seemingly impossible expectations. They force themselves to fit the mold of this role, even at the cost of who they are as a person and their personal wants or desires.

Hiding their true selves

This is a very large proponent of both Elsa and Zelda's struggle in their respective stories:

Elsa has had to hide her ice powers for the majority of her life. But her ice powers are something that is inextricably a large part of who she is, something she cannot change or be rid of, and yet it is something she was made to never express or show or hone. Instead, she has had to suppress and neglect them to pass as "normal." She had been raised to associate her powers with fear, with danger, with solation. She was made to see them as useless, something to be ashamed of, and something to never be given a second glance.

Zelda is a scholar and a researcher, she is a curious person with a passion for studying the world around her. She wants to learn, to study, to educate, but instead this goal is considered "frivolous" and "unimportant" by her father. It is stamped as a distraction, and blamed as the reason Zelda has yet to awaken her Sealing powers, despite the fact her passion and determination for research was fueled by her shortcomings as The Princess with the Blood of the Goddess. It was her way of contributing to the coalition's preparations against The Calamity, even without her powers.

Additionally both Elsa and Zelda have a mask for who they believe they should be: a regal, elegant, level-headed royal who is mature and Above Silly Games when in reality, they are vivacious young women who would have loved to engage in said Silly Games, and have more love to give than what they were allowed.

Grand Destinies

Another similarity that is shared between Elsa and Zelda are the grand destinies that awaited them, and were expected to fulfill. There are slight divergences in both, but the broad strokes remain the same:

Both royals possess a unique and unstoppable power that drives the narratives of both stories forward

They are both fated to be the Key in preventing a Great Calamity (Zelda was destined to seal away Calamity Ganon, a force of hatred and malice that arose every 10,000 years with her Sealing Powers, and Elsa was destined to become the Bridge between the Spirits and the Humans in the Enchanted Forest as the Fifth Spirit, which allowed her to prevent Arendelle's destruction)

Both their powers are mysterious and unknowable, and its growth and behavior eludes the both of them

Their respective powers brought them great distress (for completely opposite reasons, mind, but we'll get to that) and is a constant source of struggle in their stories.

Loss

Both queens lost their parents at a young age. The absence of their parents caused a deep trauma that affected their ability to regulate or control their powers in some way. Zelda losing her mother so young meant she never got the chance to learn to use her powers. This lack of guidance would later indirectly result in her losing her father due to her not being able to awaken her powers in time.

For Elsa, it is much the same. The lack of guidance in her life only further widened the ridge not only between herself and her sister, but also the wider community. It prevented her from being able to form connections as well as she could have.

Adored

Despite her Shortcomings, Failures, and Insecurities, both Zelda and Elsa are always surrounded by love and people who adore them. These people see them for them, who they are as people as opposed to their powers, their position, and their destinies. These people see how hard she works and appreciate her dedication, and they are always ready to offer comfort and reassurance to assuage their Negative Thoughts. They may not always remember or be aware of this, but they are always the apple of many’s eyes.

Shared Personality Traits

A quick list of similar key personality traits between Zelda and Elsa that make Elsa a great stand-in for Zelda because there is Just So Much

Withdrawn, hesitant, unsure of herself (AT FIRST)

TERRIFIED of the destiny that awaited them (Fulfilling a prophecy, ruling a kingdom and potentially destroying it)

Isolated and made to keep to herself

Studious, intelligent, diligent

Resourceful and determined

So full of fear, yet fearless nonetheless

Awe-inspiring leaders

Well-mannered and conducts herself well (except where Certain Blond Men are involved)

Slow to warm up to people, especially when it comes to Certain Blond Men That Follow Them Around Everywhere

Has a hard time talking about or expressing their feelings until it's All Just Too Much and Entirely Too Late

But deep down are very warm and kind

Patient and understanding, usually. But Certain Blond Men tend to test their limits. (at least, at first)

Differences

Of course, there are also differences that may potentially be Game Breaking, so let's discuss a few of them and how they could be accommodated

The Fear of their Power

Where Elsa feared her power due to its strength and her inability to pacify or control it, Zelda's fear comes from the fact she may not even have the powers she was supposed to have, compounded by the fact that the Kingdom's survival entirely hinges on Zelda mastering her powers and using it.

Where Elsa fears using her powers, Zelda fears not being able to use hers in time. Though the fear itself is a common thread, the cause is very much opposite and paramount to the driving force between their respective stories.

Failure

A big component of Zelda's story that Elsa lacks in hers. When Elsa fails or makes a mistake, she is able to undo all the damage she caused with minimal consequences to herself and the wider environment (resurrects Anna, thaws the fjord, discovers the secrets of her family's past, reconnects the spirits to humans, saves Arendelle from a tidal wave).

When Zelda fails, the consequences are permanent and lasting. Failing to awaken her powers in time—despite spending hours for multiple days on end praying before the Goddess statues for guidance in nothing but ceremonial robes, and occasionally in freezing cold waters until she collapsed—she was unable to stop the destruction of her kingdom, the deaths of her friends and family (who went to battle for her, on her behalf), and even (for a time) the person she loved, who refused to leave her side until the bitter end. Zelda would never see her friends and father again, her champion had lost a majority of his memories (save for the ones he had of her) and may never be the person she once knew, and the Kingdom of Hyrule as it was will never return. The damage has been done, and she can only pick up the pieces of What Remained and start anew.

This fear and burden of failure is a pervasive theme in Zelda's story. She is perceived as a failure by her own father, and even the wider kingdom court due to her inability to awaken and wield the power that had been passed down from generation to generation. This is an aspect lacking in Elsa's story, who was the first in her name to wield ANY sort of magical ability.

Resentment

Due to her inability to awaken her powers, Zelda developed a resentment towards Link, who had already found and been chosen by the Master Sword and stepped into his Destiny as The Hero Who Wields The Sword That Seals The Darkness. She saw his accomplishments, his skill and readiness as a slight against her own shortcomings, and the presence of the legendary sword on his back served as a constant reminder of her failures. She projected her insecurities onto him, believing that he too thought she was a failure, that he looked down on her or was disappointed in Who She Was despite her supposedly being the Princess With The Blood Of The Goddess even though he adored her from the start, since the first time they met, and it only furthered their divide. At least, In The Beginning.

unfortunately, we live in a reality where Jack and Elsa have never met in any official media, and so, we cannot say if Elsa and Jack would absolutely react in a similar way to each other under the same circumstances, but this gives us plenty of room to work with!

Reconciliation

As this is a BOTW AU for Jelsa first and foremost, we will be applying aspects of Zelda's story into Elsa's to blend her better in the world, and if you've read my collaborative Jelsa project with Kris (more than you know) you may see that some of these aspects have already been implemented and work very well to create a compelling story.

Elsa, instead of struggling with Too Much Power she Fears and Cannot Control, is unable to summon them from inside of her, despite the Kingdom's safety entirely hinging on her mastery of it. This fills her with great distress and self-loathing, causing her to doubt herself and her own self-worth in relation to her powers (or lack thereof) in a similar way to her original portrayal, just for differing reasons, and she finds herself projecting these feelings onto Jack due to the pressure and stress of it all.

However, they do reconcile. She learns the error of her ways, apologizes for her mistake, and they start over with a clean slate. Finally, they begin to develop a bond, growing closer than they thought they would.

And of course, it wouldn't be BOTW without devastation and great loss, and so Elsa (like Zelda did IC), was unable to save her kingdom from The Great Calamity, losing everyone she cared about in the process. Including her beloved sister Anna.

And on the verge of losing Jack too, her desire to protect him—her Love—finally awakens the dormant power inside of her. To save his life, she places him in the Shrine of Resurrection while she goes to face the calamity alone… and would go on to contain it for the next 100 years.

However, she continues to hold on to hope that The Chosen Hero, her Appointed Knight, will Rise again one day, and finish what they started.

[aimzicr]

Hunter The Parenting plot thoughts (because I love mysteries and roleplaying and I keep waking up at 2am Thinking About This Plot).

Things that seem important (in various nonspecific order, though somewhat from timeline of video):

Giles is a better fighter than his mates, actually showing some skill (compared to Simon's existence as a wet towel and Brok's brute force)

Harry's focus on Highland Legend seems a bit at odds with his muscles being 'just for lifting things', given the link in pop culture with Highlanders being warriors who fight to be the only one. Still, there's more to study beyond the Hollywood thoughts, and I'm very curious to see what Scottish myths get brought up (if any). He also has access to Storage and Security.

Followup thought: if all the characters are in the World of Darkness (specifically The Reckoning/Vigil), then perhaps each staff and student's respective areas of study reference specifically to one of the games. Fatigue with The Apocalypse/Forsaken, Elise with The Dreaming/Lost (Lost seeming more appropriate because 'I haven't found a single fairy'), and so on. Horse's prophecy referenced 'kine, kindred, garou, milklings, elohim', so that's Hunter, Vampire, Werewolf, Changeling and Demons specifically mentioned. Would Harry's 'highlander studies' be on Mages or Prometheans? Will we see Wraiths/Geists, now or in the future?

Elise does not have access to Storage and Security. Also, I will respect her pronouns at all costs.

The Doctor - Scholar of Psychotronic Studies - the has taken at least two bumps over the course of the night (visible residue on her face at Occam's collapse and just before Brok kicks the door down). You can't show any withdrawal symptoms if you're high on something else (though as Chapman mentioned, even high-level drugs 'don't even compare', but it might take the edge off for a while). Considering her academic focus, she might have been able to make herself a Very Powerful Cocaine. (Actually no 'psychotronic' refers to low-budget movies so WHAT??)

Lord Fatigue - of Lycantropy (not Lycanthropy? A typo, or something else?) - I saw someone posting about him being quickest to recognise the symptoms of someone going through a change, and I highly agree. He's also a lovely old man ('toffee pud', wreathed in golden light from the Archives, etc) so maybe he just doesn't want to see anyone suffer? Kindness often gets punished in WoD games.

Brok is sitting on a different chair. His mother's chair follows him everywhere he goes, does it?

I'm calling it, Chekov's M60s Mounted On A Bus. BUT. Not for this particular arc.

If there are keys to steal, in order to get into the Archives, they would be taken from Occam, Blacklaw, Dr Waters, or Lord Fatigue.

There are no other entryways to the Archives but there may be passages around, beneath, or above the Archives. Walls thin enough to use Vampire Magic through?

Giles knows that Spit is out of Ritalin, which serves as an explanation for Spit's symptoms and proof that the guys keep an eye out for each other.

Spit seems to be the biggest red herring. Something is very wrong with him but it isn't being Ghouled (and it isn't just something that can be managed with Ritalin). Still, when he gives his blood sample, he doesn't give two drops: he hides out of sight and only delivers a blood-smeared chalice. We don't see him giving blood, and the sample is darker than the rest. Older blood? Stored and poured?

It's Elise that pickpockets Giles of all his worldly possessions (while Spit is being consoled by Fatigue). She even takes one of the smokes for herself, having it in her mouth at the top of the stairs and then as she descends. So, then, she handed the smokes over to Olivia at some point. Maybe when Elise was 'looking for Grimal at the time'. A gift? A trade?

At some point after the 'I said FOLLOW MY LEAD' fight, Blacklaw and Brok work to get the Cold Tessellation out of the wall. Where the hell did D go (and why is it under the stairs, digging through old newpapers). How did he get out of that fight?

Grimal is in the Security Room, crying, when Occam is attacked. Could she have seen who attacked Occam, or did she miss it because of her tears? ('Noises of insecurity' in the Security room is pretty funny, I'm sorry.) HOWEVER. Grimal does NOT have access to Security, according to her chapter card... but Elise did steal Giles' keys, so perhaps Elise let Grimal into the Security room? Now the question is, was the door locked behind her? Did Elise leave other doors unlocked as well?

Spit says he knows where Giles' things are. How? A good nose for it? Or just an excuse to get out of the room (where a lot of dead animals are)? He then goes... downstairs, to the Music room. Lord Fatigue says he will go look for Spit, but goes upstairs to the Staff Break Room instead, diagonally above Occam. The minimap shows Spit stressed, Occam tense/in pain, and Fatigue with... the same facial expression. Is Giles doing something to the blood? Is Fatigue doing something to the blood? Is there some direct line of connection between the three? Is there really only one way into the Archives, or is there a way up from below, or down from above? The placement of Spit and Fatigue on the minimap feels incredibly important to figuring out who attacked Occam (even if that doesn't have anything to do with the ghoul).

Elise is in the middle of taking her ponytail out when Kitten returns from his pacing and fuming and brief stop in the kitchen. As a ponytail haver, the decision to NOT undo the hair after starting to do so is significant. But then again, maybe giving her a different animation model wasn't in the cards for the episode. (She's hot enough already idk).

There are large claw marks on a lot of walls and doors in the Chapter House…

There are 15 people in the Chapter House, but 16 cups are strewn about when Occam is found. All 16 cups are bloody. Someone else is present? Someone left an extra cup, some extra blood?

Kitten is focusing on 'who could have attacked Occam as we were leaving' but is that really the timing of the attack?

'Your papa could never take a punch like that' says the man who has been fighting Blacklaw all evening. Playfighting? They've been playfighting this whole time? Yet the man can handle a bottle being thrown at him by Marckus, so he at least has some grit.

"Look. It's the same. Indisputable." So if Blacklaw cannot tell the difference between 'a bleak British man and a middle-eastern meat-slab', either his eyesight is shitty and thus he cannot be trusted to give any trustworthy visual evidence, OR, he hasn't looked at D in actual decades because D is the Devil and must not be observed directly. Which is kinda countered by how often they face off and glare at each other, so.

Other things that might be of note and/or are things I noticed:

Amanda's blue gloves - does she have a latex allergy? Or does the Arcanum not provide boxes of disposable gloves for the staff and they have to just make do with one set each? As someone who worked back of house in hospitality, this seems... bad.

Both Blacklaw and D have yellow and black as a major colour to their outfits, but inverse to each other (jacket and tank top vs jacket and vest). IDK maybe that's something worth noting, or it shows how more alike than they like to admit.

Hardcore Kitten steadying inhale in front of the portrait of the dead knight made me think to how TTS ended... Then again, the man out here killed a vampire with a shove and an iron fence while being badly hurt so like. Man's badass enough on his own.

Git works with the Lady Regent's favourite daughter. Could Poly have slipped him something, made him a ghoul without his knowledge? Man can reverse-drink a beer but his favourite food being available at his place of work could lend itself to some Manager-induced tampering of the safety seals.

Kevin was invited to the 'funny phrenology library' but decided to stay in the basement. He might have recognised the ghoul right away. He also might have gotten D's family Blood Hunted AND targetted by the Coalition, if that were the case. For reasons of safety first, comedy second and plot third, Kevin stays at home.

Hey uh what's the Penis Explosion Room on the mini map and why is it Elite Access and also why is it there and why is there no doorway to it and also what

Harry being able to get dressed very quickly between listening in at the door and then D showing up with the keys. I know he doesn't really do Anime but I feel like that must have been a magical girl transformation somehow (/j)

Guy Chapman might be the most dangerous ghoul at the moment: 'sharpened senses, inhuman strength, even the power to bend minds' He did drink the blood of Kevin, a Vampire Wizard. I'm thinking about Marckus' night pubbing, and how Chapman heard the beginning of the vampire talk, as well as the fact that Brok's first and second knife broke dramatically. The cop did it, with his new vampire magic.

The portrait on the wall (when Elise is doing D's hair) - baby Occam is adorable, I'm sorry his mother is a Blacklaw but she seems far more hinged than Remold, is baby Brok okay, is Brok's mother the blonde woman from the interrogation room - if so who is the woman standing with Blacklaw? And the slacker behind her? A Blacklaw Family Drama photo, I'm very pleased.

'Amanda never sweats, she's lower class' I've never seen a Rich Bastard in media who thinks this, this is fascinating. Normally it's 'sweating is for the lower classes' but here we are in the reverse. Does Blacklaw think the 'lower class' are literal automatons or

Fatigue dies in the room where his younger Hunter self is immortalised in a portrait on the wall. Taller, younger, still with the same glasses, nose, and ears. Just how old is he?

Side note: 'did anyone find out if Mummies are real yet' - yes, Marckus, they did, in The Resurrection/Curse. You were right.

[argisthebulwark]

TES Summer Fest Day Seven: Companion/Fallen

summary: Tired of being held to unattainable expectations, the Dragonborn turns their back on everyone to be with Miraak. gn reader/Miraak, no gendered pronouns or y/n used. warnings: none! a/n: bit of a continuation from day one :) @tes-summer-fest TES Summerfest Masterlist

"Humanity's greatest warrior has abandoned us!" A sharp voice tinged with fear rings through the marketplace, much to the dismay of its shoppers and merchants. "Mankind will fall to the threat of dragons once more if we do not turn our eyes to the true power of Tamriel - the gods!"

"Mankind should turn their eyes to us, not those useless old men on their mountain." Miraak snorts in your ear, earning a sharp elbow in the ribs. He huffs out a laugh at the rushed way you tug the cowl tighter around your face.

"Don't draw attention." You hiss, shoving likely too many coins into the woman's outstretched hand. Too many alarms are sounding in your mind - there isn't time to worry about counting change. Your singular focus remains on escaping the large city without encountering any trouble.

"The Last Dragonborn has turned against humanity - fallen from grace!" The man's shrieks grate against your last nerve.

Miraak's cavalier attitude does little to help. Adventurous fingers clamber under your cloak and hook into your trousers, dragging you closer until his lips find your ear.

"What worries you, my dragon?" He murmurs, the silky voice doing little to calm your nerves. "I will level this city if anyone upsets you - we could do it together. You shouldn't concern yourself with mankind's useless opinions."

"We've discussed this." You grumble and grasp his wrist, intent on dragging him out of the city's claustrophobic walls. Miraak hurries after you, apparently content to let you boss him around.

"I know, I know - humanity is worth saving, you've said that." He recounts with an especially dramatic sigh. "I'm not allowed to destroy cities or you'll leave me."

"Correct." Even as you voice it, you doubt your conviction; you've already turned your back on the Greybeards, the Blades, and every Jarl across the continent to be with him - is there anything he could do to sever your connection?

"What exactly is your plan, my love? I have no doubt in you, of course - but you must know that I will not be welcomed into Sovngarde."

"If those spirits want Alduin to fall they will make an exception." You grumble, praying that your words will convince the countless heroes waiting in the afterlife - brute force isn't a viable option against the legions that surely await you there.

They must. There is no other option. Regardless of the waves of useless propaganda spreading across Skyrim you refuse to let Alduin lay waste to your home. While the Jarls bicker among themselves and the Greybeards waste time fretting over your lack of mindless obedience you intend to solve the problem, even if they disagree with your methods.

"You will be there with me." You assure Miraak, breath coming a bit easier with each step you take away from the crowded city. His hand slips into yours, calloused fingers a comfort when they squeeze yours.

"That is not what the prophecies have foretold, Mal Dov." He reminds you, voice shakier than expected. When you whip toward him you find those harsh eyes staring straight back at you. "Perhaps I do not deserve the redemption you offer me."

Afternoon slips into an uneasy night, your brain clouded with worry about what the next morning will hold. Your stomach churns as shaky fingers comb over the perfectly arranged weapons and stash of potions - will it be enough? Would an entire calvary be enough to take down the World Eater?

"It is not redemption." You finally utter the words that have rattled around your mind all day. Miraak pauses at your side without speaking but you feel the unmistakable weight of his eyes on you. "I do not intend to bring you to Sovngarde and back to redeem your soul."

"Oh, is it a punishment you seek?" He chuckles but you catch the uneasiness in his voice.

"It is selfish." You whirl to him, suddenly so desperate for him to see how utterly awful you are. Tears claw at your throat when Miraak pauses his actions.

"My love, what do you mean?"

"I cannot do this without you." You swallow back the fucking lump in your throat but tears still sting. "I - I'm not who they wanted me to be, none of them. I'm evil, fallen from grace as that fucking preacher said."

"You are not evil." Leather gloves are cool when Miraak cups your cheeks. "I am evil, yet you chose to let me live - you've let me into your heart, given me a reason to keep breathing." His honeyed words soothe the erratic beating of your heart, face warming when his nose brushes yours. "If you have fallen from grace, I cannot imagine the things they would say of me."