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writingfics-passingtime · 3 years ago

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Real Pain

I received a prompt from a lovely anon who asked for a story in which the reader has a toxic dad and Bucky comforts her. This kind of snowballed into a long story and not entirely what I intended it to be, but I’m glad it turned out different than what I‘d planned. This was hard to write, so I hope the sweet anon and others out there find some comfort in the narrative 💜

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x female reader (platonic)

Word count: ~12,400

CWs: toxic dad, sexism, violence (fighting, knives, guns, blood, etc), death, bad family dynamics, swearing, injuries

Bucky Barnes was a liar.

Because as much as he said he wanted a nice, quiet life in the aftermath of decades laden with combat, he couldn’t stay away.

Sam knew that. Sam vocalised that, a lot, which only made Bucky feel pestered and annoyed. Now, though, after all they’d been through together Bucky begrudgingly trusted the new Cap’s judgement. That’s how he ended up in a very off-grid repurposed hanger, standing next to Nick Fury, looking out over a room alive with the hunger and grit of fresh young agents.

“You know what a side hustle is?” Fury tried his hand at engaging Barnes in some kind of modern wit, but the sergeant shook his head. “Well, this is like my special little project. SHIELD’s grown out of needing me to oversee it. Dare I say, it’s been watered down,” he clasped his hands behind his back as he watched two agents expertly avoid each other’s training knives. “Hence, I had to get a new thing going.”

They approached a small firing range where a slew of agents of all shapes and sizes demonstrated their expert precision. Fury kept talking as his guest observed.

“A smaller collection of agents. More elite. The best of the best. You can imagine my relief when you said you were open to more work in this field.”

“Open to it, yeah,” Bucky crossed his arms and watched a short red-haired male group his bullets impressively. “Depends what you’re asking for.”

“I’m asking for a contractor,” Fury answered perfectly. “Every mission is your choice- I will not tell you what you have to do,” he turned his head and Bucky met his one-eyed stare. “What’s more, I won’t even tell you how to do it. As long as it gets done.”

Bucky stuck his tongue against the inside of his cheek and pondered the scenario that sounded too good to be true. He knew he was an asset, a valuable one at that, so of course any potential job would come with perks. If he was being honest with himself, it’s not as if he could just go train to do something else. This - the fighting, the weapons, the reconnaissance - this was his life now. May as well live it on his own terms.

Sensing his further openness, Fury dropped the other shoe. “You’d need a partner.”

“Why?”

“Because a lot of work requires backup. You can always leave them at home if you don’t need them, but it’s better to have one you can stick to.”

“So that’s why we‘re here.”

“Why we’re here,” Fury nodded. “Take all the time you need. Pick whoever you want.”

Fury took a call and left Bucky to his observations. Surely he wouldn’t expect him to make a decision today, so Bucky decided he didn’t have to. Today, he could just get a lay of the land and scope out the recruits.

The training area was large, spanning multiple rooms with state-of-the-art equipment and technology. He watched a middle-aged Chinese man decimate a group of holographic attackers, before a beautiful olive-skinned person with a buzzcut climbed a rope with terrifying ease, hitting a button at the top and clock their time. A young girl, couldn’t be more than eighteen, wore her hair in two platinum blonde braids that whipped around her face as she threw the knives and hit four major arteries on her target dummy. There was a lot going on.

Anyone he’d seen would’ve made a great partner in the field but there was something intangible he needed to find, and something in him thought he might find it over at a boxing ring, alive with commotion, where several agents were watching on.

He subtly pushed past to watch the scene unfold between the fighters. There were two people in the ring: the one standing was a tall, slender brunette with striking green eyes and a poorly-concealed smirk. The one on her hands and knees, was you. He saw your chest heave, he saw blood trickling from your nose as you lifted your head and stood back up.

“Tap out,” the other girl clicked her tongue and looked at you with pity. “Know when you’re beat.”

You laughed sharply and raised your wrapped fists in front of your face. Without your stare leaving hers, you ducked your head to the side and took a deep breath in. “I could do this all day.”

Bucky then watched as she landed blow after blow against you, kicking you while you were down just to scoff when you’d get back up again. You managed a few good hits against her, and Bucky could see the precision you’d clearly honed. In fact, there was a mountain of untapped potential to marry with the power evident in your near-perfect stance, the accuracy of your aim and the tenacity cutting through your words and breath as you refused to give up. Then, when your opponent landed a harsh blow that drew winces from the crowd, you spun once and fell hard to the mat.

She called you crazy, declared the fight done, and stepped out of the ring. The other agents slowly dispersed while Bucky watched on. Now, beaten and bruised, you still got back to your feet and called after her to come back. She didn’t listen. She just gave you a wary look and walked away, so you dropped your fists and let yourself fall back down to sit and catch your breath more completely.

“You’re losing power in your stance,” Bucky took a few more steps forward and picked up a water bottle, then slid it across the mat to you.

“How so?” You nodded your thanks for the water and eyed him skeptically as he stepped up, between the ropes and into the ring. You stood before he had to motion for you to stand, and you tossed the bottle down. “This was how I was taught,” you explained, getting into that same fighting stance.

“Drop your shoulders.”

“But my neck-”

“You’re wasting muscle tension,” he took a step forwards and nodded at your shoulders, so you dropped them down. “Better. And the best way to protect your neck is to land blows first.”

“I have more of a defensive combat background,” you said. Bucky bumped his eyebrows then took a swing at you. Your arm whipped up to defend yourself and stopped his swipe in its tracks. He could see the difference in your block when his forearm crashed against yours. He could see the surprise in your eyes when you felt the extra strength you’d already unlocked by following his advice. You looked up at him, still with blood caked against your nose. You were hungry. Eager. You looked excited as you asked, “What else?”

“Of all the highly qualified people in this building you somehow seek out the least experienced agent,” Fury sighed as he and Bucky watched from a distance while you assessed your injuries from the fight before. “She’s been here a month. You can’t choose someone else?”

“No.”

“You super-people always giving me headaches.”

“Where’d you find her?”

“Top of her class at Quantico.”

“Why’d you recruit her?”

They watched on as someone else limped up and you immediately vacated the bench you were sitting on, then turned to pass them them a fresh bottle of water.

“I know who you see in her,” Fury spoke solemnly. “Maybe I did too. That doesn’t change the fact that she’s not trained.”

Bucky watched on as, even as you wiped the blood from your nose and lips, you practised your battle stance. The one he’d taught you. You weren’t wasting a second to improve. A smile pulled at one side of his lips. “Even better,” he said. “I’ll train her myself.”

At first it was hard to believe. Really hard, considering how inexperienced you were compared to all the other agents, but you didn’t dare question Fury or give Sergeant Barnes a reason to second guess his choice. It was the highest honour imaginable, that someone who fought alongside the greatest heroes in the universe had seen something in you that he wanted to foster. To work with.

Then again, you’d been the worst in the room by far, so maybe he just likes the little guy.

Even still, as you got to training you swore to yourself you’d never burden him with your self-doubt. Even on the days it took you an embarrassingly long time to get the hang of something, you didn’t vocalise your insecurity or seek out his validation. As the weeks and months passed, it became more clear why he’d chosen you.

One of the reasons had to be that he wanted to train his own partner, not attempt to re-train someone else. Your time at Quantico had made you physically fit and mentally tough, and you were just fresh enough in your career that some of the things you’d been taught could be erased and/or improved. New dog, new tricks and all that. Often when he’d be showing you a technique he’d allude to the way the Americans did it, or the British method of training special forces, then he’d show you the way he did it. And he’d been, mostly, trained by Germans and Russians. They had a different way of doing things, so Bucky did too.

By the first time you went into the field together, he’d taught you dozens of tactics and manoeuvres, holds and hits, codes and communications, and you felt confident. It was a success, and it felt almost too easy. You’d had half a mind to ask him if it had been a test, but the hard drive you delivered to Fury the following day and the relief on his face told you it had been real.

The paperwork was certainly real and you were the one of the pair who always got stuck filling out reports. But since that was the most buerocracy you’d have to deal with being partnered with Bucky Barnes, you decided to take it in stride and try to enjoy it. Over time, you learned little ways to turn it into a game. Like asking your partner if he’d describe his final blow to an enemy as a “strike” or a “smackdown” as you sat typing from your seat on the jet. He’d crack a smile, provide a much more exciting adjective, and then stare out the window.

It was a fine line, being around him, of not too much but not nothing. So you just tried your best and gave him lots of space.

Over even more time, more missions, more late night stakeouts and slapdash dinners in safe houses, something more genuine blossomed up between you two. You didn’t when or how it had happened. Maybe it had occurred between the moment you’d wordlessly handed him a coffee when he’d walk into the kitchen of a safe house in Beirut, and the moment he’d gotten up and started the fire when you‘d reached for another blanket at the house in Anchorage. There was a genuine desire to look out for one another, and not just in the field. You didn’t need to name it for it to be real, and you got the sense that trying to name it would just make both of you feel awkward. That’s the last thing you wanted because even after all this time, it had never felt awkward.

Even when you had to hold his hand or kiss him to keep cover, or had to share a bed when there was only one, or he had to rip your clothes off and lower you into a bathtub in your underwear because you’d been shot or stabbed and it was just cleaner that way.

Even during those times, when you felt light-headed from blood loss and pain seared through your skin as he went in search of the slugs embedded in your shoulder or your thigh, you still couldn’t bring yourself to vocalise your doubt. Be it in yourself, or his ability to stop the bleeding, you‘d make some lame one-liner and backseat drive his stitching skills until he was rolling his eyes and you could see the concern in him alleviate.

Then, the most incredible thing started happening. Whether in the field or the training room, on the jets or in the cars… Bucky started getting sarcastic with you. Sassy, almost. He’d always been a bit stoic and professional and guarded, but after months and months of the two of you spending far too much time together, working, cooking, eating, training, he finally opened up a bit more. Not in a pour-his-heart-out way, but in a way where maybe he felt confident enough in how well he’d trained you to give you a bit of a friendly ribbing now and then. And you… well, you took it and ran with it.

Not too far, of course. Never too far. But the banter became undeniably good and only served to deepen the connection which aided you so well on missions. Now, not only could you give him a glance from across the room and know he’d understand you were heading behind the bar to spike a mark’s drink, but you could also catch his eye and share his humour when something funny happened. You could laugh at how he’d roll his eyes when Sam Wilson was on TV and Bucky would call him a “clown,” but he wouldn’t change the channel and he’d watch the interview in full while he pretending like he wasn’t watching.

Before you knew it, it’d been over a year and you grew accustomed to your “days off” being interrupted by a call to your work phone.

There you were, reaching for the bag to measure the protein powder for your pre-workout shake, when that familiar subtle ringing brought your attention to one of the two phones on the kitchen bench. The tune told you it was Bucky, so you put the bag down and answered the phone. “Hey.”

“Ireland.”

When it was a mission, he always greeted you the same way - by telling you where you were going. It always made you smile, even after all this time, because it was just too much fun travelling the world in the pursuit of justice.

“Good morning to you too,” you chuckled. “What do I need?”

“Stealth pack. No disguises. Safe house is kitted with clothes so pack light. It’s a nice house. You’ll like it.”

“Flatscreen and a wine cellar?”

“Overlooking the ocean,” he confirmed with a smile in his voice. “I’ve picked up our weapons packs and I’m on my way to your apartment.

“ETA?”

“Ten minutes.”

“See you soon.”

Protein shake abandoned, you made haste to your closet to throw on your standard black flight clothes, throw the covers over your recently-left bed, slip into some sneakers and head over to the bookshelf on the wall. You ran your finger along the spines of the volumes until it landed on Ulysses and you pulled it to trigger the panel on the ground beside you, the one disguised as floorboards, to unlock and shift enough for you to slip your fingers under and lift up.

Looking between the different packs and cases of weapons, your eyes settled on the sleek black backpack with an piece of masking tape on it which said STEALTH. You ripped the tape off, stuck it to another pack for now, picked up the bag and shut the panel. Three minutes later, you were leaving your building and sliding straight into the backseat of a armoured car.

“You’re early,” you mentioned.

“By one minute.”

“Still early. What’s the brief?”

Bucky ran you through the details as you were driven to the airfield. Fairly simple objective: download the contents of a pharmacy executive’s computer. Why you two were called in, AKA the catch: it was in his private residence in Dublin, the guards were armed, the security was tight. It would be better to not be detected, but not the end of the world if you were.

The flight felt brief. You studied the floor plans, ate a nice protein-rich meal prepared by the private jet’s crew and made sure both you and Bucky had a device to copy the files and also a key to the getaway car that was marked on the map as being left on a nearby street. By the time you were descending over Ireland, you were testing your comms and making sure all your stealth gear was in place. You both wore sleek, black, fitted clothing with several concealed pockets for the various bits and pieces you needed, be it guns, comms, knives or other high-tech gadgets and gizmos. Today, you kept it light.

The mansion was located in a nice suburb just outside the city centre on the east coast of Ireland. You were breaking in just before two in the afternoon, which you’d usually never do unless under the cover of nightfall, but the intelligence brief stated the homeowner wouldn’t be home and security did their changeover at two, so it was the best time to attempt to be undetected.

The house was blocky and minimalist from the outside, covered in windows, dark greys contrasted it from the outside shrubbery and chrome accents glinted in the sun from the windowsills and various metal bits. It certainly gave the impression that someone was trying to make it look like a supervillain lair. Though, you were pretty sure, there was no secret cave underneath housing weapons of mass destruction. No, all that was here was a man who used legal pharmaceutical shipments to disguise trafficking dangerous and illegal drugs around the world. And the evidence, said a whistleblower who reached out to US Intelligence, was on his personal computer in his office at home.

Bucky signalled to you, and you two started making your way towards the fence. You eyed the cameras, then shot a small radio frequency at it which would freeze the picture in place on the other end - leaving whoever watching none the wiser that someone had passed through. The jamming only lasted fifteen seconds so they wouldn’t get suspicious. Once it was frozen, you two hopped the fence. Immediately freezing three other cameras, you and Bucky ducked behind a large garden statue, he looked at his watch, remembering the guard formations, then nodded. You ran towards a serviceperson door, freezing the camera there before running into its view. The door required an RFID tag, so Bucky held up his RFID descrambler. The lock clicked open. You slipped inside, Bucky right behind you.

There were far fewer cameras inside so you replaced the device in your pocket and listened out for footsteps. Memory told you this area was relatively free of guards. Perhaps a wayward gardener or housekeeper would stumble across you but they were easier to put to sleep and hide without much fuss. You crept down the hallway towards the main stairwell. Bucky’s hand met your shoulder. You stepped once to the side. He stepped in front with his gun raised; his spacial awareness was spiked with the serum so it made sense for him to be at the front when you didn’t know what you were approaching. You saw him flinch, and then step off course into a doorway. You followed, hiding yourself flat against the fibreglass door as a security guard walked past the end of the hallway you were on.

“Changeover,” you whispered. Bucky nodded. You waited. Two minutes went past, another guard, a different guard, walked the other way after they’d changed posts. You looked up at Bucky, he gave a single nod.

Seamlessly, expertly, you and your partner dodged people and cameras and wrong turns until you finally reached the private office of the homeowner. The biometric lock was state of the art, but nothing really stood a chance against the technology Fury had ordered to be developed. Less than five seconds after your descrambler was set to biometrics and held against the unit, the door slid open. You both shot inside, Bucky then hit the button to close the door. No way in hell would there be a camera in here.

Without wasting any time, you hurried over to the slick computer sitting at the desk and turned it on. Even as it was still booting up, you stuck the drive into the USB port and let the technology within the thumb-sized device work its magic, then you stepped out of view of the large window.

Whether it was two seconds too late or too early, you didn’t know, but a large-caliber bullet broke through the window right where you’d just been standing and embedded in the ceiling. You swore loudly as the glass splintered and fractured and then was completely busted open when another round entered it.

Someone outside, on the ground, had seen you.

You looked at Bucky. He was loading his gun so you did the same; they shot first using deadly force, so you’d have to respond in kind.

Just barely peeking out from behind the curtain, you aimed at who’d shot at you, pulled the trigger, and watched as the man dropped his rifle, clutched the shoulder of his shooting arm, and fell to his knees. It was all on.

A loud alarm sounded throughout the property and the lights all became that much brighter, not that it made much difference in the day, but you supposed they’d want to take away any shadows from night-time intruders.

Casting a glance to the drive in the machine, you saw the first of five tiny lights flick on, meaning the data was beginning to be copied. “Hunker down,” you nodded to the drive and saw Bucky’s jaw tense, then he loaded another gun and gave you a solemn look.

“There are more coming to take aim from outside. You take them, I’ll hold them off from coming in here.”

“Copy. How many mags you got?”

“Six.”

Knowing how many guards were on duty, you gave him a wry smile and a tilt of your head. “Don’t miss.”

Then, you two entered a flurry of firefight. Bullets splattered the ceiling through the now-vacant windowsill. These were clearly trigger-happy guards who didn’t get to use their toys much - not serious threats - and so you took your chance to make precise shots as they reloaded for another spray. Always preferring to maim rather than to take a life, you aimed for shoulders, knees, feet and hands, taking down guard after guard and they ran outside to join. Someone on the back perimeter of the fence looked to be calling for backup, so you looked to Bucky, but he’d since become distracted with guards trying to enter the room.

It had been a few minutes. Three out of five clicks on the drive.

With a grunt of discomfort, you reloaded your last magazine into your handgun and fired off three shots at two guards. One was a warning shot. They didn’t move. So the next two caught a quadricep and a bicep, respectively.

You looked back. Still three out of five clicks and only five bullets left in your supply. Stealing another glance at Bucky, you could see he was engaged less in firefight and was now trying to render his attackers unconscious. Or… maybe you were the attackers? No, these were the bad guys- four out of five clicks!

Not wanting to waste your bullets just in case, you slid the gun back into your ankle holster and fixed your focus on that lone guard by the back perimeter. You had several blades in a pocket on the back of your thigh, so you slid your hand in and took one between two of your fingers. Hesitating as you aimed, you held your breath and wondered if it was fair to distract him by throwing a knife at his shin, he only-

“Ughf!” You whipped your head around as you head the breath get knocked from Bucky’s chest and he stumbled backwards. The door opened more fully and a tall, brute-looking guard entered with a blade clutched tightly in a reverse grip. The second he lifted his arm to swipe at your partner, your arm had whipped around, your blade was in his ribcage, and your footsteps were pounding towards him. He growled in pain but used his other meaty hand to make a close-fisted hit towards you, which you ducked and then used the momentum of your upper body going down to brace one hand on the floor and connect your heel to the underside of his chin. He froze, then crumpled in unconsciousness.

“Nice one,” Bucky coughed and stood. “Where’s the data?”

“Almost done,” you panted, then felt around for your knife supply. “How many more are coming?”

“Two more I can hear,” he said after a brief listen, then a nervous look. “Get cover,” he whispered.

He pulled you both into a small nook close to door, so someone walking in would have their back to you for at least one or two seconds. It was a quick move you’d had to make, so you ended up pressed snugly front-to-front with Bucky. It was tight, and not entirely physically comfortable, but you didn’t dare complain as human silence shrouded the area. They‘d turned the alarm off. They were listening. Waiting.

You looked up at Bucky, who gave a somewhat nervous look which wasn’t exactly reassuring. He braved mouthing, “automatic weapons,” and bumped his eyebrows when you mouthed back, “fuck.” Automatic weapons were a different breed of killing machine. Squeeze the trigger once, hold it down, and spray your target with… for something hand-held, about three hundred bullets a minute. You were fast, Bucky was strong, but not impervious.

The steps outside came closer, slowly, intentionally. You could hear the shift and click of metal machinery, of rows of bullets clanking together. Daring to turn your head, you could see the drive had lit up five out of five clicks. The data was complete. They stepped into the room.

In a move you didn’t anticipate, Bucky‘s hand swiftly slid down the side of your hip and then around to the back of your thigh. You figured out rather quickly that he was going for your knives, but that didn’t stop the crazy ticklish feeling of his fingertips grazing down the back of your leg and worming into a pocket. Thankfully, the lights in the room were sparking and cracking from being shot at, so they covered most of the sound of a small breathy giggle bursting through your lips as your leg flinched away from his touch. The other thing that concealed your noise was Bucky’s free hand suddenly clamping over your mouth. He set his jaw and gave you a look that said, “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.” A look that said, “This would be funny if we weren’t in so much danger right now.” You widened your eyes, then shut them tight when Bucky slipped two knives between two fingers out of your pocket and suddenly threw them with deadly precision.

Each blade hit a major artery in the two machine gun-wielding guards’ necks so fast, they didn’t have time to pull the trigger from instinct before their hands flew to the knives and they dropped to their knees, then one to his side and the other to his front. Bucky listened closely, then narrowed his eyes at you with his hand still stuck over your mouth.

“Keep your weapons somewhere else if you’re too ticklish,” he said with snark.

You scowled and shook his hand off your face, feeling yourself blush as he smirked. “How ‘bout you keep your hands off my knives. What happened to six mags?”

“They were coming too fast to reload,” he grunted and pulled you both out of the space. “Download complete. Let’s get out of here.”

You pulled the thumb drive from the computer and then opened some random files on the desktop to make it look like you’d been snooping or looking for something. While you were leaned over, you suddenly spluttered and an embarrassing squeak came out when Bucky’s hand was in and out of that back pocket in half a second. You whipped around just in time to see him hurl the knife across the lawn at that guard you’d seen lurking by the perimeter. This time he’d been aiming a gun at you, but Bucky’s throw caught him in the hip and his shot fired into the ground as he fell in pain.

Bucky gave you another look, more amused this time, and then pulled out the thin grappling wire from his belt. He shot the clamp towards the ground and winked, “We’ve really gotta work on that.” Then, he jumped backwards out the window. With a roll of your eyes, you pocketed the drive and followed suit.

Navigating out of the compound was relatively easy, which made the hair on the back of your neck stand up just a little bit. Still, you ran alongside Bucky, both of you remembering where the getaway car was parked. Only, you discovered when you got there, it wasn’t a car.

“I’m driving,” you chuckled, pulling out the key from the concealed pocket by your wrist.

“You know the rules,” Bucky plucked the key from your hand and smirked a grin as he strode over to the motorcycle. “You drove last time.”

“Why do you always get the cool rides,” you muttered as you settled on behind him. “Let’s just get out of here before they regroup and chase after us.”

He turned the engine on and revved it in agreement, so you tightened your grip around his waist and braced as he peeled off from the corner, leaving burnt rubber stuck to the road as your final trace on the scene.

As the wind whipped past and Bucky mazed through the streets of Dublin to lose any potential tail, you thought of that guard by the wall. You thought about the gun you didn’t see, the knife you didn’t throw. He’d just looked… you didn’t know, maybe young. Or scared. Which seemed a foolish assumption to make about someone who did private security for a man who furnished his guards with automatic weapons.

Bucky brought the bike to a stop behind a warehouse on the outskirts of town after nearly twenty minutes of evading. “I think we lost ‘em. What’s your read?”

“Me too,” you stretched for a second, then resettled. “How far to the safe house?”

“Two hours.”

“Can I drive?”

He chuckled and revved the engine again. You rolled your eyes. He took off, out of the city, and down the country roads.

You passed rolling fields of farmlands and livestock, humble abodes, cars, a school bus or two before you got too far out from the city. Making sure to analyse your surroundings, after about forty-five minutes of driving above the speed limit, you were sure you weren’t being followed. As you whipped past a scene of who you assumed to be a father and son throwing a ball beside their house, your mind returned to that guard. Maybe he had a family. A reason he was making money like that. Or maybe he liked it.

The data in your pocket felt heavier. Then, you remembered the report of gang violence borne from the narcotics the homeowner was trafficking, and the countless families and lives destroyed by the added ingredient which amplified addiction and fatality rates. Families like the father and son throwing a ball. Or the ones you’d seen in other country homes or small towns Bucky bypassed on the way to the other coast of Ireland. So you tried to relax and enjoy the fun of the ride.

Just as the sky began to turn golden, Bucky slowed the bike and turned up a long driveway. You could taste the sea salt in the air as it roared past your head, and once he reached the peak of the hill you caught your first glimpse of the beautiful coastline of towering stacked cliffs. A few houses were dotted here and there along near the edge, including one stunning building you were heading straight towards. It was a large one-story house, you could practically feel the high ceilings from the outside and from the glimpses in the windows. The architecture was modern and angular, polished wooden panels slatted together to create a sense of homeliness, yet elegance. In all honesty, your thoughts turned to how amazing the shower was going to feel as Bucky brought the bike to a full stop outside.

“It’s getting chilly,” you commented as you two walked to the front door and scanned in your biometrics. It clicked open with a welcoming chime and you stepped inside. It was warm and inviting, and your bags had been dropped in the entryway. When you two were fully inside, the door shut and locked itself. Based on past experiences in these houses, Fury would soon be notified that you’d checked in.

“Damn,” you whistled. You‘d switched on the lights and you two were met with a large open-plan kitchen and living area. “This place is nice.”

The ceiling-height windows, which were large because the ceiling was indeed quite high, were an unusual feature for a safe house but not unheard of. You saw straight through the wooden-floored area and right out over the grassy cliff and to the ocean. There was a hallway to your right which, you guessed, would lead to bedrooms and bathrooms. It was large, nicer than a lot of places you’d stayed before.

Eager to get something to eat, you immediately headed to the kitchen. Bucky followed you over while you shrugged off your jacket and draped it over one of the stools partially nestled beneath the marbled countertop. “Glad we made it here alive, considering we almost got shot because you can’t hold in a little laughter.”

“Are you still on that?” You gave him a look, then turned to open the fridge. It was stocked. You shut the door and turned back, placing your hands on the counter opposite him. He gave you an unimpressed glance, but you knew Bucky enough to know when he was actually annoyed. “It’s a normal human reaction. You shouldn’t give me shit for being ticklish. You wanna make pizza for dinner?”

“I’ll definitely be giving you shit for it. Are there olives?”

“I think so,” you turned around and cracked the fridge, then nodded. “Yeah, but they’re stuffed with something.” You looked over your shoulder. “And you can’t give me shit. That would make you a hypocrite.”

“A hypocrite?”

“You’re really gonna act like you’re not ticklish too?”

“I need to be able to rely on my partner,” he argued, ignoring your call-out, a smirk forming across his lips. “For anything. Including being able to supply me with weapons.”

“You can rely on me,” you argued back, shut the fridge and turned with your arms folded and your cheeks warming up as you mumbled “You just caught me off guard.”

“Really?”

“Really,” you set your jaw, then decided you had to try proving it. “Come, I’ll prove it. I have a knife in the other pocket,” you nodded to your left leg. “Take it.”

Bucky smirked wider and shrugged, taking steps to approach you. You rolled your eyes and turned around, then bit the side of your tongue and readied for his touch. He burst into a snarky chuckle. “I have never seen you so tense.” His hands met your shoulders to push them away from your ears and you growled in annoyance. “Very convincing.”

“Take the damn knife.”

“Fine,” he whispered loudly. You gritted your teeth and tried your hardest to not flinch when his fingers met the opening of the well-concealed pocket. He was being deliberately light and messy with his touch, but knowing that didn’t make it any less ticklish. Then, his fingers finally broke into the opening slit and all four scraped down the back of your fabric-covered leg in a motion that was far too sensitive to bear. Unprofessional giggles burst through your lips as you jump-shuffled away from him and then groaned.

“Okay, whatever!” You whipped around and glared at where he was laughing with his arms crossed. “What you want me to do about it, huh?” You challenged, taking steps towards him. “It’s not like you can hold it in. I’ll show y-”

You’d made a lunge to grab at his sides but hands were around your outstretched arms in an instant. He looked down at you with something dangerous and playful in his eyes. You met his gaze, your own eyes narrowed. One wrong move, and you’d start something that he’d probably be the one to finish. But Bucky was ticklish, and that was far too funny to ignore.

“Aww,” you pouted, then smirked. “Super-soldier afraid of a little tickling?”

He scoffed, and his smirk returned. “You’re gonna regret that,” he promised.

Bucky had trained you very well, specifically to work with him. Over the past year and a half you’d learned his moves and methods inside and out. The serum meant it could never be a fair fight, but Bucky’s instructions and your will to improve at all costs meant sometimes you could gain the upper hand. It would be hard, now, with your wrists already in his grasp, but you started grappling anyway.

Pulling your feet from underneath yourself, you let the surprise of your drop pull Bucky forward and off-balance enough to twist your wrist away from his metal fist. He’d always been afraid of accidentally crushing your bones, so he always had a weaker hold with the vibranium hand. Using the leverage of your downwards swing, you slotted around behind him and wrapped your legs around his ankles, sending him even further forward. He had to let go of your other wrist to break his fall without breaking your arm. He landed on his front with a grunt and you flew forwards, your digging fingers finding his ribs with terrifying speed. Because, hell, this was probably the only shot you’d get.

Much to your delight, Bucky jolted and fell more into the ground as his arms clamped against his sides and he failed to hide his breathy laughter. You giggled and jeered for the several seconds you managed to attack while he composed himself to fight. Then, his leg came up and knocked you sideways. A grunt of battle left your lips as you reached up to continue your torment, only barely squeezing at his hip before he barked out a laugh and pushed himself out of reach. You sat, partially propped up, and laughed in triumph as Bucky caught his breath and then turned to you with a menacing stare. It made your blood run cold but you couldn’t show him that. He’d taught you to never show fear to an opponent.

He laughed once, then twice, then chuckled as he brought himself to his hands and knees and looked at the floor, mustering the strength and energy he had to ready himself to take you down swiftly.

Maybe it was the nail in your own coffin to say it, but you gave it a shot: “So should I pre-heat the oven, or-” You cut yourself off with a suppressed gasp and a mighty shove backwards to slide along the smooth floor and out of reach of the swipe he’d made for you. You got to your feet and ran the only way you could - further into the living room, further trapping you. There were a few boxy minimalist couches that looked comfortable enough, and a very large sheepskin rug between them. You casted a glance up to the ceiling and saw the rafters looked especially nice for hanging from.

“That’s a stupid plan,” Bucky clicked his tongue. “You’ll never get up there in time.” He took a step forwards, you took one back.

“So what’s the play here?” You jutted out your chin, challenging him. “If you were in my shoes, how would you get out of this?”

“Brute strength.”

“If you didn’t have that,” you narrowed your eyes, stepping behind one of the couches as Bucky slowly advanced. “What would you do?”

He shrugged and then picked up his pace.

“You’d go for the rafters, you jerk,” you scoffed a laugh and darted out of his reach.

“No I wouldn’t.”

“Then wha-HAT would you do?” You repeated, narrowly avoiding him by side-stepping another swipe. It was futile, you knew that, so it came as no surprise when his hand finally closed around your upper arm and pulled you back against him.

You turned to fight but he swept your ankles, bringing you crashing down to your side on the sheepskin rug. Twisting and kicking did nothing as he expertly took your blows against his forearm, then used your own momentum to flip you firmly onto your front. Feeling your desperation mount with the reality of how screwed you were settling in, you tried pulling a leg up to crawl away. Bucky grabbed your ankles and yanked you backwards before straddling your knees, pinning your legs firmly to the floor. With a grunt, you tried to turn. Bucky had already started grabbing for your wrists. In less than five more seconds, he was hovered over you with your hands trapped in his metal fist, fixed to your lower back.

It was a very immobilising position, which made your breath pick up and a small whimper slip out. You turned and grimaced when you saw the backs of your thighs completely open and vulnerable to him.

“Who’s afraid now?” Bucky leered, metal fingers twitching around your wrists. You rolled your eyes and tried to stop your blush.

“Get it over with so we can make pizza.”

“Get what over with?”

You huffed. “Your payback.”

“This isn’t payback,” Bucky said. You flinched when his fingers once again met the pocket. “This is training.”

You pressed your lips together and squealed into your mouth, burst of air breaking through as his fingers worked their way into that same damn place. He stopped and pulled away. You let out your breath.

“Payback comes later,” he promised. “First, we’re gonna do this until you can control it.”

You felt your mouth go dry, your eyes widen, your cheeks go up in flames as you stared at the sheepskin inches from your face. “What?!” You tugged on the way he held you, finding it, of course, unwavering. “You can’t be serious.”

“Control it, and we’re done,” he said matter-of-factly. There was an infuriating smile in his voice.

“Oh, get on with it then!” You seethed and pressed your face into the soft wool. Your composure was short-lived because Bucky didn’t even try to be delicate next time he slotted his fingers into the pocket. Laughter burst out of you and your feet kicked as much as they could with his seat pinning your knees to the floor. You twisted for the few seconds it took for him to touch the handle of the small hidden blade, but then he retracted his hand once again. You caught your breath and turned your head to rest more comfortably against the carpet. “Cahan’t we just change where the pohocket is?”

“Again,” Bucky told you, ignoring your perfectly reasonable question.

But again, you immediately fell into hysterics and tugged on your wrists when his searching fingers wormed into the pocket. Part of you suspected he was making it unbearable on purpose, but you really didn’t have a way to defy him. He pulled away to reset and you giggled nervously, giving a whine. “We’re gonna be he-here all nihight,” you said, glancing up to see him far too amused.

He shrugged. “If that’s what it takes.”

“Mmmmno!” You whined once more but cut yourself off with a shriek when Bucky’s fingers wiggled more harshly against the back of your thigh, as if the space he was trying to enter was difficult and fortified. He was definitely doing this on purpose. “BUHUCK!” You jolted and thrashed once or twice before he stopped. You gasped for breath. His hand was still in the pocket.

“Wow,” he let out a low hum. “Is it really that bad?” He answered his own question when he ripped his hand away from inside your clothing and then lightly scratched at the back of your other leg. You exploded in squealing laughter, fighting hard against him as he scratched at the hyper-sensitive spot like one might lovingly scratch a pet’s furry coat. After you’d given a tiny scream, he pulled away completely.

“I’m huhungry!” You protested, slamming a foot against the ground. “Cut it out- this isn’t helping!”

“Fine, training’s over,” he released your wrists and you sighed in relief. It was short-lived, because you remembered what he’d said the second before he shot forward and straddled your hips. “Time for payback.”

“Nuh-no-NAHAHA!” You shrieked and squirmed when five squeezing fingers met each side of your rib cage. Bursting in ticklish helplessness, you tried whatever your panicked mind could muster the tactical reasoning to do.

Planting your feet against the floor to push didn’t help, neither did trying to squirm out from under his seat, and pushing at his hands was the worst idea of all because it gave him the opening to shoot his fingers up and slot them into the open spaces underneath your arms. “N-” was all you got out before falling into silent laughter with your arms clamped tight at your sides. The breath could barely leave your lungs, only in gasps, as Bucky chuckled over you and dug his fingers in even deeper. When he did, something broke and you let rip a long, loud, sustained scream.

Whether it was the shock or the sympathy, something made Bucky pull away and burst into his own laughter. He sat back and you saw him clutch his chest from the corner of your eye as you coughed, whined, and then laughed at the pure humour of how loud your scream was. As Bucky kept laughing, so did you, just at the hilarity of it all. It felt nice to laugh with him. It always did.

“You’ve got a problem,” he taunted, and pinched at one of your hips. You jumped again, which made him laugh. “It’s not safe to be this ticklish.” He then took to drilling his fingers at both of your hips, as if he had no idea it wouldn’t be immensely, horrifically, ticklish. Loud and deep laughter once again resounded through the living room as you grabbed at his hands and thrashed underneath him.

“BUCK PLEHEHEASE!” You shouted into the carpet, feet scrambling behind you, try to not kick him since that would only egg him on. Bucky just laughed, gave a fake menacing growl, and kneaded his fingers even faster. You shrieked and then flipped with all your might, trying to throw him off. Instead, he pushed himself up onto his knees as you violently turned and then settled back down to pin you again. You gasped and moved to fight but his hands were already clawing at your stomach, so all you could do was grab his wrists and press your head hard into the carpet as you erupted into giggles.

“We really shoulda put you through some training for this,” Bucky called to you over the noise of your laughter and your struggle. You kneed him hard in the back, which made him scoff a laugh and then hook his fingers around the sides of your lower ribs. There was nothing you could really do except lay there and take it, so you switched your focus to trying to block it out. Maybe he was onto something with the training f-

“AHH!”

Nope.

You screeched and sat up underneath him when his fingers found the place where your sides became your back, just below the centre of your ribcage. Knowing it was futile, you still shoved at his chest. He brought his hands up to grab yours but you evaded, landing a blow at his own ribs causing him to flinch. He narrowed his eyes and you gritted your teeth as you swiped and dodged and landed sharp but controlled blows to each other. After Bucky missed the chance to subdue you one too many times, he suddenly threw his weight forward and sent your upper body crashing back down to the carpet with his near full weight pinning you there.

Squirming and laughing nervously, you strained to pull your arms into your control to fight him off. Bucky’s face sat just above your shoulder, his eyes flitting up to catch yours and give you a provoking stare. He was challenging you to get out of this, to fight back, but he knew he’d win.

Distracting you with his look, he shot a hand out and wrangled your wrist into his hold before starting to drag it along the carpet up over your head. “You’re right,” he chuckled as he handled you with ease. “I would’ve taken the rafters.”

“Oh, you’re such a- ugh!” You gave a valiant effort pulling against him, but ultimately winced and tugged to no avail. Just as he went for your other hand, you heard it.

Your stomach dropped.

That specific ringtone resounded from the kitchen and you recognised it instantly. It was hard not to. It was loud and abrasive and one you’d chosen specifically for him because it was hard to ignore, and missing his calls always just lead to more drama.

Bucky saw your face go a bit grey in a stark contrast from the warm golden laughs he’d just pulled from you. He felt your wrist tense against his, and saw the way your tongue went a little heavy in your mouth.

“That’s my personal phone,” you said, not meeting his eye. “I need to get that.”

There was some hesitance in your tone, so he dug a little further. “Are you faking a call to get out of-”

“I-It’s my dad I need to pick up,” you fumbled out and lost all enjoyment in your eyes. He pushed himself off of you before you had to struggle again, and you quickly got to your feet to dash over and answer the phone. “Hey, Dad,” you sounded a little breathless as you held the phone to your ear and walked down the hallway. “Woah, hang on, can you please-” was all Bucky heard before he made a conscious effort to not listen in.

He brought himself to his feet and dusted some of the wool from the carpet off his knees as he wracked his brain and realised you’d never talked about your family. Or, families. Either of you. Which was strange because Bucky felt like you knew each other pretty well. He thought about it more as he opened the fridge and started pulling out the stuff to make pizzas.

You knew each other’s favourite sports teams, meals, genres of movies to watch. He knew you hated red wine and you knew he loved cherry pie but hated peach cobbler - which you insisted was weird because they were like “dessert cousins.” Yeah… you’d said something like that and he’d laughed and rolled his eyes and pushed the plate of cobbler over to you as you sat undercover in some filthy diner.

Maybe you’d never talked about your family because you didn’t want to make him feel like he needed to talk about his. Not that he’d mind, there wasn’t much to tell, but you‘d never been one to pry into his past. Forget the Winter Soldier eras - you’d never asked one question about his experiences with the Avengers, or in World War II, or in Wakanda. The most you’d asked about his past was seeing a news report of Wilson at a press conference and asking if he knew what Bucky was up to. Thinking about that time, the soldier couldn’t honestly recall that he’d reacted badly… no, he definitely didn’t do anything to ward you off asking questions. Still, he was quietly thankful that you always seemed far more interested in knowing Bucky now than Bucky then.

The kitchen was large but laid out and stocked with common sense. Bucky found cutting boards and knives with ease after taking out the relevant ingredients and splaying them across the counter. There was some champagne ham he thought would go rather nicely on his pizza, so he started slicing it into smaller pieces before getting to work on the rest of it.

Just before he’d finished prepping all the ingredients, he heard a door slam. Slinging the kitchen towel over his shoulder, he wiped the pineapple juice against it and called your name. You didn’t answer. He tossed the towel down and started walking towards the hallway. That’s when, from the corner of his eye, he saw you. Through the massive panes of glass which overlooked a small wooden deck, then the grassy embankment before the cliff dropped down to the rocks and the sea, he saw you looking out over the water with your arms wrapped around yourself. There must have been another door in a bedroom. He watched for a minute, then picked up your jacket and mustered the courage he knew he’d one day need; you couldn’t build a closeness like yours without the inevitability of an encounter like this.

He didn’t know when or how it had happened. Maybe it started when you’d traded your carrot cake for his berry tart at that cafe in Paris, knowing he’d like yours more. Maybe sometime from then, or maybe when he’d let you drive the JetSki in Bali for no other reason than he’d seen the way you looked at it, he’d decided that the inevitability of this kind of conversation was worth the friendship you could have. So he let you in. And you ran with it.

Still, this felt entirely unfamiliar. You were the partner who made sassy quips to hide the searing pain as he dug bullets from your skin, who joked about his lack of skill in administering stitches and said it would be his fault if a potential hook-up got put off by your jagged scars. Each time, he'd playfully glare and remind you that anyone deterred by such a thing certainly couldn't handle you.

This was different than those times. Or the times he'd place your beaten body in the safe-house bathtub and help you strip off the clothing, assessing your injuries as you made attempts at humour. He'd scoff a laugh every time, sometimes roll his eyes to distract you from the concern welling up in him each time you'd smile and he'd see some blood frame the insides of your lips.

He'd never seen you cry. Something, he was sure, you were proud of. After all, agents didn't cry over physical pain and that was the only kind of pain he'd ever seen you endure. Until now. There was a heaviness in your hunched shoulders that showed someone carrying the weight of an imploding world. He fidgeted his fingers around your jacket, and wondered if his presence would do more harm than good.

Since coming off the ice, there'd been countless times he'd felt out of his depth. The cultural differences were getting easier to navigate, as was the access to information, then the workings-through of everything he'd done as a bystander in his own body - it was obviously overwhelming at times. No one could blame him for that. For the hundreds of dead bodies - sure, if they wanted to. But not for feeling in over his head.

Back then, in his time, they didn't talk about feelings. Sometimes Steve could pull something from Bucky's heart, but the formerly-taller man liked to keep it light. With the war and everything, it was best to keep it light. Him and Steve talking about being overwhelmed, about coping, grief, guilt - those were conversations borne of the twenty-first century. Bucky hadn't had nearly enough of them before Steve left. It felt too hard now. But there you were, standing close to the edge, gazing into the churning sea, and a conversation needed to be had.

So he walked across the living room with your jacket in his hands, opened the sliding glass door, and stepped outside.

Bucky nearly held his breath as he approached. Your arms were still around yourself. You didn't look at him as he stood next to you, so he didn't look at you either. From his peripherals, it didn't seem like you'd been crying. He held out your jacket on the tip of one finger. You turned to him, looked at it, looked at him, and then took it.

"When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

The question surprised Bucky and he answered: "I don't remember." It wasn't a lie.

"I wanted to be a cop," you scoffed a laugh, settling the jacket and pulling your long sleeves out from where they’d bunched up inside. "Then, when I found out what a detective was, I wanted to be that. Solve crimes, take down bad guys." You paused, looked at your feet and then over at Bucky. "Do you think I'm suited to this life? Am I… good at the job?"

He looked at you with a stare which conveyed confusion; how on earth could you be asking him this question? "Uh, yeah," he nodded warily, you smiled a bit. "You're scarily good at the job." You laughed once or twice and turned back to the sea, giving a one-shouldered shrug.

"That's good to know. I've always felt drawn to the work, but that's good to know."

It fell silent again and Bucky didn't know how to respond. Should he put a hand on your shoulder? He stood by your right side so it would be the metal hand and that could be not super comforting, but maybe the gesture was enough and-

"I think I just got disowned."

That made Bucky almost scoff out loud. What? He turned his body to face yours but you stayed stone-faced towards the ocean. "What?"

“My father believes life should be done a certain way. You grow up, you get a job, you get married, if you’re a woman you stay home with the kids, you take them to church, you cook and clean and look after your family. That’s how it’s done.” Bucky saw the tears well up in your eyes, finally. “I’ve never wanted that,” you whispered. “But that’s the only thing he wants from me. Anything else is failure.”

Twenty-first century Bucky said something 1940’s Bucky would probably be shocked by.

“That’s bullshit.”

“I know,” you scoffed. “Just now on the phone he said there was a nice young man excited to meet me at my cousin’s wedding next month and I should remember to put some effort in.” You shoved your hands into the pockets of the jacket. “And I know what kind of man he’d want for me - someone just like him - so told him I wasn’t interested and it became this whole thing, I don’t know…” You trailed off. “At least I have this job. This is something.”

“This is good,” he said. It felt insufficient, and confused, but it was a lot of what he could muster through how his heart ached for you. “You’re making a difference.”

“They don’t care,” you smiled, clearly trying to hold back your tears in front of him. “He’s over it. He said “don’t come home until you quit” and apparently he means it this time. I thought after everything… he’d changed, he’d… whatever,” you whispered. “Fuck him. I don’t need him.”

Bucky opened his mouth, hoping something useful would come out, but a fear of saying the entirely wrong thing gripped his throat. Also the guilt, the shame, of a time when he felt the same way your father had about who did what, how lives should be lived. He couldn’t blame HYDRA for the way he used to think, back before the war. He could only blame his time, his lack of understanding, his era. He didn’t know what to say.

It wouldn’t be fair to you to insist your blood came first, because it shouldn’t. Not if it didn’t respect you, your autonomy, your life choices. Especially not choices as noble as yours. He also couldn’t give a “fuck him” of camaraderie, because he doubted stirring your anger would be useful right now. If there was something Bucky Barnes knew about the power of emotions, it’s that anger was a useful distraction from pain.

With the bravery of a humble foot soldier, he let his desire for eloquence fall to the wayside. “He’s wrong to not be proud of you,” he said, hoping the words that came out made sense in the way he wanted them to. “You don’t… owe him the life he wants you to live. You don’t owe him a big wedding, or grandkids in stupid matching outfits, or-or Christmas cards. And if he’s gonna kick you out until you comply, you don’t owe him a daughter.”

Bucky didn’t know if he said the wrong thing, or exactly the right thing but you sniffed harder, and started to cry.

The tears began to fall and you covered your face with your hands. Bucky took a step closer and instinctively put his hand on your forearm, pressing gently to guide you to the safety of the ground away from the ledge. You let him move you, taking a few steps backwards as you sniffed and spluttered. And before he gave himself room to doubt, Bucky's other hand met your shoulder and he stepped closer.

At first, you shook your head and pressed your elbows against him. When he stopped pulling on you, you didn't step away or tell him to piss off, you just kept breathing fast and heavy between coughs and stuttered cries. So he tried again, and you removed a hand to press at his chest. Your flattened palm shoved, then went still, then curled into a desperate grip around the fabric over his heart. Bravely, you looked up at him with tears spilling down your cheeks.

There was so much in your eyes that Bucky could feel tugging at his heart. He could see this internal storm brewing as you looked to the person who so often patched you up. Dark clouds fell across your glance as you let yourself accept Bucky could not fix this. This was no bullet wound, no busted lip, no cracked rib. This was real pain.

Bucky had to let himself accept that he couldn’t shelter you from the impending hurricane. He did, however, have the strength to weather it with you. He could only hope it would be enough, as his hand at your shoulder met the base of your neck, and again pulled you in. This time, you stepped into him, and buried your face against his chest as you cried.

The icy late afternoon wind pushed against him as he held you close, and he turned just a few inches so his back would bear the brunt of it. He held you against his warm body and rested his chin on top of your head. You cried hard, and would sometimes shake your head and half-heartedly push him away, but you’d always stop trying to leave his comfort the second you felt how his hold didn’t waver.

So there you stood with his arms around you, his right hand ever so often squeezing your shoulder where it had landed. You stopped fighting him when you were sure he wasn’t looking for any excuse to let you go. Still, it was hard to accept. He’d seen so much of you, your body, your mind and your desire for life, but he’d never seen you like this. No one had ever seen you like this. Any sort of emotional response was never tolerated in your house growing up. It was never beaten out of you, you were never yelled at to stop crying, but there would be comments. Snide remarks about how this is why women can’t be in charge, when you got teary over your family pet needing to be put down. Scoffs and sarcastic jokes when you were six years old and asked your dad how the game he was watching was played. If you had a clear memory of that specific time, you’d know it was the Super Bowl and you weren’t supposed to be in the room - you were supposed to be helping your mother in the kitchen and then sitting with the ladies outside. But you didn’t have a specific memory of that time, just how it all made you feel.

Bucky’s hand laced through the hair at the nape of your neck. His heartbeat was strong and steady. He sheltered you from the dusk wind.

Around the time you became a teenager your father’s over-protectiveness started manifesting in derogatory comments on the clothes you’d wear or the sports you’d played or the careers you expressed interest in. It was about this time, also, that you started going toe-to-toe with him. You refused to go to church, so he took your phone away. The phone you’d paid for with money you’d earned cleaning yards. You wouldn’t call him “sir,” so he took your bedroom door. You’d beg your mother to reason with him, but she’d chosen this life and she didn’t understand why you couldn’t just go along with it. She’d tell you that your father bought her anything she needed, and most of what she wanted, he was a provider, he’d provide for you too if you weren’t so hell-bent on defying him.

Bucky’s hand slid to your waist and pulled you in closer when a stronger gust hit. The icy wind nipped at your ears. He pulled your hood up, then held you tighter.

Around the time you were seventeen you moved out for good. You’d kept receipts of all the clothes you’d ever bought, which came in handy when your father stood in your doorway as you packed and snarked that you better not take anything he paid for. You pulled out the folder of the copies of the receipts, itemised with photos of the clothing next to it, threw it at his feet and told him you wouldn’t leave with any of his property. When you saw the look in his eye, you could tell he knew you chose the word “property” for a reason; you were leaving, so you were not his.

You felt your breath slow, the tears slow, your mind slow, as the gentle pressure of his hand in your hair pulled you to the present. Still you felt far away. Helpless. Bucky didn’t say anything, thank God for him.

Your father only started changing his tune when you hadn’t come home for two years and it made your mother cry to talk about you. Then, he started being kinder with his words. He asked you how your studies were going on family calls. You’d tell him you were top of your class, but you knew that didn’t matter because a degree in Political Science didn’t make you any more or less qualified to serve beer and hot wings on Super Bowl Sunday. You knew he talked to you for her. For your mother.

Then, you turned to dust.

When you reemerged into life it had been five years and you found out your mother had disintegrated too, and your brother. Your father was left with no one except his aging mother. Your grandmother passed away in those years between the universe being torn apart then stitched back together. She went quietly, in her sleep, and then your father was truly alone. He never told you how he felt, if he thought about moving on, if he had hope, all you knew is that when you drove fourteen hours straight and ran into their front door, everyone cried. All four of you. You stayed for a week and it had been perfect.

After he’d filled you in on what he could manage, there wasn’t a lot to catch up with. The world had changed and was still grieving but was about to change again so the past felt unimportant. So you laughed and baked pies with your mother and kicked a soccer ball with your little brother and talked to your father about the World War II book he was reading. He seemed pleasantly surprised by your engagement in the content, and you laughed and said you did an entire semester on it, it was fascinating. He’d gotten an e-reader while you were gone but was kind of useless at it, so you showed him how to navigate it and downloaded some books on the war you knew he’d love. It had been good. But that was nearly two years ago now and everyone was desperate for life to get back to normal.

You could’ve sworn your heartbeat fell into rhythm with his as you sensed the sky darken around you. Your eyes were still shut, but the night was strong and obvious and demanded to be seen. You started to feel guilty, for keeping Bucky out here with you. He must be hungry. He must think you were-

“Don’t you dare feel bad about this,” Bucky commanded in a low voice when he felt you start to wither away. “I’m here for you, you understand?”

There was no fight left in you but you didn’t need it - you had all the trust in the world to know you were safe here. So you nodded, and started pulling away. The night air hit your face which felt tight and puffy from crying. The tears had dried but your head ached with the pressure and the release of stress. Drowsiness pulled at your mind.

“C’mere,” he whispered, wrapped an arm around your shoulder and walked back to the house with you. It was nice from the back too. The wooden minimalist architecture shaped perfectly around the feature windows. You could see the ingredients on the kitchen counter and fought the urge to apologise for leaving him to prepare dinner by himself. Instead, you swore to yourself you’d do the dishes and not take no for an answer.

“I’m gonna just-” you motioned to your face and he understood, going back to the kitchen to turn on the oven.

After splashing some cold water on your face and not thinking too hard about your post-crying puffiness, you went in search of that wine cellar he’d mentioned on the phone. It wasn’t hidden, and you found a bottle of white you know you’d both enjoy, returning to find him at the kitchen island with the kitchen towel draped over his shoulder. You chuckled and set the bottle down.

“Domestic life suits you,” you half-grinned, then pulled two wine glasses from the glass-fronted cabinet.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever have a standard domestic life,” he smiled shyly back. “I’m not sure if I used to want that, or if it’s just what everyone did,” he offered up, popping an olive in his mouth before turning and putting the first pizza in the over. “After everything happened,” he started over his shoulder, then turned back. “I dunno, I guess it seemed… unimportant.”

“How so?”

“Well I’ve got this arm which, you’d be surprised to know, doesn’t exactly make women swoon.”

“Swoon?”

“Give me a break, I was born in 1917,” he held a hand up with a firm glare, then used it to sprinkle cheese on the second pizza. You grinned. “Yeah, you know, I was actually something of a playboy in the forties.”

“Oho, were you now?”

“As much as a guy can be while dragging their twerp of a friend along,” he muttered, and gave you a look. “I was an excellent wingman. Steve just always had his head somewhere else.”

You smiled at the mention of his best friend. “Where else?”

“With the world. With an urge to stand up and fight…” Bucky said. There was something else at the tip of his tongue, so you didn’t prod. Instead, you let him decide if he wanted to say it or not. Then, he did. After he turned and put a chopping board in the sink, he wiped his hands on the towel and slowly came back to face you. “You remind me of him. In a lot of ways. Sam, y’know, he’s Cap now and I don’t doubt him the way I used to. He’s the Captain America the world needs right now.” Bucky half-smiled at some distant fond memory, looking down at the bench. “But I realised a while ago that you don’t have to be Captain America to make a difference.” He looked back up. ��The world will always need people like Steve Rogers. People like you.”

“And you.”

“I’m no hero,” Bucky smiled sincerely, a little sadly. “I thought I should keep away from everyone. Buy a little cabin in the woods in, catch up on books and music until I die, that sort of thing, but Steve… he, uh… he asked me to stay. To make sure the new Cap got settled in.”

Braving it, you asked, “Where is he now? Steve.” It was the first time you’d dared to ask a question about Steve Rogers and boy, was it a doozy.

Bucky didn’t seem phased, instead he smiled and slid the pizza on a tray to add to the one in the oven. “Did I ever tell you how they did it? How they brought everyone back?”

You shook your head and reached for the wine bottle, “I only know the official narrative. The same as the rest of the world.”

“You’re not stupid. You know there’s more to it.”

“Everyone does.”

“Well,” Bucky slid his glass over. “One bottle isn’t going to be nearly enough, but settle in,” he nodded with something serious in his eye, but something real and open. You smiled shyly before filling his glass, and then your own.

Say what you want about Bucky Barnes, what he’d done, how his life turned out, his choices now… whether or not you agree with his quasi-reintegration into modern society, there was one thing that wasn’t up for debate:

“Did you know raccoons can talk?”

He had a hell of a way to start a story.

#bucky barnes #marvel fluff #Bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x you #ticklish!reader #ticklish!bucky #ler!bucky #ler!bucky x lee!reader #Bucky x female reader #Bucky fic platonic #platonic x reader #best friend!bucky

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after-witch · 4 years ago

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In Sickness [Yandere Sesshoumaru x Reader]

Title: In Sickness [Yandere Sesshoumaru x Reader]

Synopsis: You were not often alone with the demon lord who took you captive. Then again, you were not often touched by the demon lord who took you captive, either.

Word Count: 2029

notes: yandere, kidnapped reader, mentions of illness

You were not often alone with the demon lord who took you captive.

Then again, you were not often touched by the demon lord who took you captive. Yet here he was, bent over you, hands wringing out a rag he’d just dipped in a pail of river water. You barely register his fingers glancing against your skin, the slight sharpness of his nail edges, as he lays the damp rag on your forehead.

You can’t help it. At the touch of the damp rag, you sigh, soft and pleased. The coolness is blissful, a brief respite from the fever that has been wearing you down for days.

“You are a nuisance,” he mumbles, grimacing at droplets of river water that dribbled their way onto the elevated mat he’d set you on. To keep you away from the cold ground, you supposed, but you hadn’t the ability to care about his unusual generosity.

Once it had become clear that your illness was no minor trifle, he��d sent Rin away with Jaken as unwilling, grumpy but admittedly loyal protector. Where they were, you didn’t know and truthfully, you didn’t have the strength to care. It was hard enough to muster up the energy to care about your own self, drenched with sweat yet wracked with bouts of shivers that alternated with fevers that made your dreams terribly real.

It had started small. A tickle in your throat, a bit of weariness. You were tired, more so than usual, more so than you expected. But it wasn’t until the fever came and refused to leave, until your legs became red and swollen and could no longer carry you, until you started to become delirious, that Sesshoumaru had taken direct action. Jaken and Rin were gone, and you were taken somewhere. A cave? It was a shelter, at least, something more permanent than the campfires and group sleeps you were used to in recent months.

And Sesshoumaru had tended to you, quietly, without much in the way of conversation. You slept most of the time, half-awakening to hear him grinding medicine and waiting until it was placed on your swollen legs, or in your mouth mixed with hot water, to fall back into a listless sleep. You wonder how long you will be able to recall the feeling of his hands on you, the unusual way he sometimes bent over you and stared, checking your breathing, feeling your forehead.

It was intimate and uncomfortable, but you couldn’t be bothered to fight it.

You were just so sick. You were just so tired.

Yet you weren’t exactly a stranger to fatigue, to stress, particularly since the day you’d been forced to go with the demon. Stress dragged you down, often making you wish you could sleep for days, a luxury that was not afforded due to the frequently traveling nature of your captor.

That day that came back to you so often in your dreams, and was now a memory that ebbed and flowed with your fevers.

Did you talk about that day, in your feverish ramblings? Sesshoumaru acknowledged what you said sometimes only with passive noises, either uncaring or not wanting to encourage your incoherent words, intent on making you better and resuming the original course.

You really were a nuisance. So why did he keep you? You’d never asked him this out of fear. You’d certainly never questioned his decision to keep you alive, much less questioned why he wanted you in the first place. Why he agreed to the wild offering thrown before him.

Your village elders had begged the passing demon lord Sesshoumaru to lay waste to a band of lesser demons that plagued the village for years. Men, women, children, even animals--taken and slaughtered in unspeakable ways. Sometimes even killed in their homes, partially eaten. It was not unusual to wake in the morning to piercing cries from mothers finding their children mangled in their beds, or hear husbands wail in agony at the loss of much-beloved wives on the way home from fetching water.

You remember the day so clearly. Like the rest of the people in the village, you were watching from your home, peering out the door like a child, as the elders got down on their knees and begged for assistance from a demon who’d passed along the outskirts of the village.

You remember the shock of his long white hair, his luxurious clothing, his imposing presence that seemed strong enough to make you shake even from behind the safety of the doorway.

He didn’t even bother saying no. He’d simply glared at them as if they were dirt and began to walk away. Then one of the elders pivoted on his knees, spitting out words that would turn out to seal your fate: “We will give you one of our women as an offering! Please, o great lord!”

Still, he did not stop, and the elder let out a shaky cry. Then the elder stood on wobbling knees and looked wildly around the village until his eyes landed on your half-open door, your face barely peeking out of it. He was a man who’d witnessed your birth, a man who’d once given you a special treat for free when you tripped and skin your knee as a child, a man who had serious conversations with you in recent weeks about finding a husband as surely someone so dutiful and kind did not wish to remain with her parents forever.

He was also a man who’d run to your home, quick as you’d ever seen him, and yanked you out of the doorway until you fumbled and fell over on the ground. His hands were sweaty with fear yet they clamped around your wrist like a weight.

“This one will make an excellent servant! She can cook and clean and embroider! Or you may have her--or, or kill her! Whatever you wish! Please, please,” he’d begged again, bowing low while keeping an iron grip on your wrist.

You remember the sound of wind in your ears. You remember the feeling of pain in your knees, in your elbow, where you’d fallen hard. You remember the soft scratch of the door opening, the way your neck twisted around to see your parents and brother hiding behind one another, simply watching you. You remember the look on their faces, confused and scared yet saying nothing. Why didn’t they pull you back in?

And then you remember the sound of footsteps approaching. It was the demon. You looked up and he loomed over you, staring impassively at your form. He didn’t bother glancing at the elder, who was now trembling as much as you.

“Very well,” he said quietly, yet with a tone that was unmistakably firm. “She is mine. In exchange, I will kill some vermin for you.”

A sound rushed through the villagers from behind their doors. Sometimes when the wind blows just right, you’re reminded of it. It was a murmur, a gasp, a collective sound that was relief and sadness all at once. They would be saved from the demons at the expense of one of their own. A sacrifice.

You remember pulling on your arm, crying out something. Did you cry for your mother or your father? You can’t remember now. It didn’t matter. They had already shut the door, and the sound of your sister crying from behind it was the only noise that came through.

Someone tied a rope around your wrists. You kicked, and the rope was jerked until you were standing on numb legs. You had no choice but to walk, to be dragged, as the demon held onto the other end and simply left the village without another word. You cried, you begged, you feverishly cried out to the people watching from behind the doors, to the elders who clutched their hands but watched you leave all the same.

He took you. But he didn’t kill you, or have you, or even make you a tireless servant to his demonic whims. He simply expected you to pull your weight, or at least, that’s what the green imp--Jaken, you’d learned--told you was the expectation. So you helped to cook, you helped to mend clothes, you minded Rin. Nothing more or less than the others were expected to do.

You were kept bound when not doing your chores for a few weeks. When he’d taken the rope off, you’d waited for the moment and run--not that you got far or got anything than a few more weeks with the rope for your troubles.

You hadn’t tried to run for a while. It did no good. And the areas you’d traveled through were sometimes riddled with demons or wild animals that would surely kill someone such as yourself with little effort, should you try to make it on your own.

With Sesshoumaru, you were fed. You got enough rest. You were protected. Not that you didn’t wish every day to return home, to sit with your family for meals, to chase your sister around and tease her to get her to laugh when she felt blue. Not that you didn’t hate being sometimes treated like a pest, like a dog, when it wasn’t your choice to be here in the first place. But at least you were still alive, still able to hope you would see your family again some day.

A sigh from lips that weren’t your own draws you out of your memories, sweeping away the memory of that day and every day of captivity since like dirt being beaten out o f fabric.

You open your eyes, grateful for the soft light in the cave, and see Sesshoumaru sitting across from you, his back up against the stone wall. Your head feels clearer, less foggy, less hot, thanks to the rag and you decide to sit up a bit. Laying down all the time makes you feel dizzy. He watches with no change in expression as you wiggle yourself into a higher position, wiggling yourself back on the mat until you’re resting against the wonderfully cool stone.

You stare at each other for a few moments. The sound of the fire he’d set up further in the cave is low, crackling. You try to imagine him gathering wood, crouching low to do the mundane work that you and Rin and Jaken often did, and it seems ridiculous.

You try to imagine these things in order to avoid asking a question that has been on your mind since the moment the ropes had chafed your wrists, the moment you’d been forced to stumble after him.

But you can’t avoid it forever, and finally, you speak.

“Why did you take me?”

You would never dare to ask this question if the others were here, if Sesshoumaru hadn’t been tending to you, intimate and up close, for days. But the fever and the strangeness of the situation has made you feel clearheaded in a bold, perhaps too much so, way.

He simply stares at you for a few moments, and you think that he will choose to ignore you until his gaze shifts almost imperceptibly to the side.

“You were offered to me.”

It is your turn to offer a passive noise. The answer he gives is is nothing. At least nothing that makes sense to you, makes sense of your situation.

“Why didn’t you kill me, then?” Surely there was a reason, since he didn’t make you a hapless servant, either. “I was supposed to be a sacrifice.” Or you were meant to be. Instead he’s made you something altogether in-between. You weren’t worked to the bone or treated terribly, but you couldn’t leave. You weren’t killed, but you weren’t any more useful than his willing companions, either.

You don’t get the answer you wanted. Or any answer at all. Instead, he merely scoffs, and stands up to leave the cave. He pauses at the entrance, waiting until you turn towards him to speak.

“I will not take long.” He gestures towards the mat with one hand. “Go to sleep. And refrain from asking such stupid questions when you wake up.”

#yandere sesshoumaru #yandere sesshomaru #sesshomaru x reader #yandere inu yasha #afterwitch writes #you were right 'non in the inbox!

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stardusttkachuk · 5 years ago

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Need A Hand?

Pairing: JJ Maybank x Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

Genre: smut

Warnings: swearing, masturbation, fingering, oral (female receiving), some voyerism, little bit of dom/sub tendencies

Summary: @maybanktho posted a list of JJ concepts they’re too lazy to write so I took it upon myself to write walking in on JJ 🤜🏼🥩 & helping him out. So that’s what this is.

Taglist at bottom of fic. If you’d like to be tagged in any of my fics please send me an ask or a message!

Waking up with morning wood was nothing new to JJ. Usually he’ll lie in bed for a few minutes and check his notifications and that’ll make it go down. And if that doesn’t work, he’ll jump in the shower and it’ll go away when the cold water hits him. Neither of those things worked today so there he was, lying on John B’s spare bed thinking about anything he could to make his boner disappear.

It refused.

Even when John B rapped hard on his door and scared the crap out of him, it was still present, still straining against his boxers and shorts that he had messily stuffed himself into after his shower.

“Yo!” John B yells and knocks again.

“Bro, it’s unlocked,” JJ yells back.

John B turns the handle and pushes the door open, finding JJ curled up in bed and under the covers still. He squints, trying to figure out why he’s still in bed.

“Not feeling good,” JJ lies. Really he’s just in bed and under the covers until this stupid fucking boner goes away and he can get on with his life.

“Ah. Well, Sarah’s parents are at work so I’m leaving.”

And JJ swears his heart skips a beat. John B is leaving which means he’s here all by himself. He could cry at the thought of being able to get himself off and get rid of his morning wood, if you could even call it that anymore as it was well past when he originally had woken up.

“How long are you gonna be gone?”

“I dunno,” John B sounds annoyed at the question. “Just lock up if you go anywhere and I’m not back.”

“Okay. Hey! Use protection,” JJ yells after him as John B walks out. He doesn’t close the door all the way and JJ gets a middle finger on the way out, but he doesn’t pay any attention to it, the middle finger or the slightly ajar door.

He’s already throbbing, thinking about how he can’t wait to touch himself, how good it’s gonna feel to get off. He waits until the screen door slams shut and he can hear John B’s van start up and pull off the dirt lot.

JJ kicks the covers off himself, overheating under them. He lets himself moan as he palms himself through his shorts. He pulls his t-shirt up and bites down on the hem of it as his hands work over his cock, still in its confines.

He lets his thoughts go. And he knows he really shouldn’t let them go to where they are, but soon he’s picturing you kneeling on the bed with him. The smirk in your lips as you watch him as he touches himself, speaking words of encouragement to him. He imagines his hands are yours, soft and gentle compared to his own callused ones. He’s leaking into his boxers at the thought, precum dripping out of the tip of his cock.

He knows he shouldn’t think about you like this. You’re his best friend, have been for years now. And while JJ always thought you were cute, when puberty hit you both JJ went from seeing you as the cute kid in his friend group to this beautiful girl that he pictured himself dating for a while now.

If he only had the guts to make a move.

Instead, he let his thoughts wander to you quite often. Not always in situations like the one he’s in now, sometimes he thinks about taking you to a drive in movie for a date or being able to put his arm around you and kiss you in front of his friends and brag about you being his. But he does think about what it’d be like to have sex with you.

You beneath him as he fucks into you and listens to you beg for more. You riding him with his hands on your hips, aiding in you bouncing on his cock. 69ing with you, his mouth on your pussy and your mouth on his cock, challenging each other to a game of who can last longer.

He can’t wait any more, can’t tease himself and edge himself like he wants to. He lifts his hips enough to get his shorts and boxers off, kicking them down by the end of the bed.

He lets out another loud moan when he fully grasps himself in his hand. He wraps his fingers out the base of his cock with one hand, the other twisting and gliding along his length. His eyes are closed tightly and his head is thrown back as he pictures you.

You kneeling in front of him, mouth open and licking at his tip, collecting the precum that is just leaking out of him like a faucet.

He uses his thumb to collect it, spreading it down his cock as lubrication as he continues his movements, although now he can’t stop picturing your tongue on his dick and how fucking good it’d feel to be buried in your mouth.

His moans are muffled with the t-shirt clenched between his teeth, but he’s still fairly loud.

He doesn’t mean to, but he moans out your name.

And you stop dead in your tracks outside the bedroom door, hearing it.

John B knew about your little crush on JJ. He also knew about JJ’s crush on you, but he wouldn’t tell either of you that the other person liked them, wanting to see if either of you would catch on to each other’s (poor) advances. He texted you when he left, asking you to check up on JJ as he wasn’t feeling well.

And that’s what you were here to do. Except now you can see he clearly is feeling fine. Sexually frustrated, but definitely not sick and you can’t help but stare as he bucks his hips into his fist. You know it’s wrong and that you were absolutely not supposed to walk into this, but there he was, masturbating and moaning your name.

Your face is red but your core is loving the idea and you press your thighs together as your arousal becomes more apparent.

Everything in you screams to walk out the door again and come back later. But how were you going to face him later, knowing what he was doing right now?

You listen to the string of curses he lets out, mixed in with his lewd moans. He’s clearly trying so hard, chasing his orgasm.

“Y/N, fuck. Please,” you hear him beg and the sound goes right to your heat, the dampness in your panties becoming just slightly uncomfortable.

There’s no way he’s seen you. You can’t even see his face, just his lower half. But he’s made it clear he’s thinking about you.

You debate going in there. It’s totally wrong to do so, but it’s probably equally as wrong to stay out here and just listen to him. You almost turn away and run right out of the house but JJ lets out a frustrated huff and you can’t help but peak in on him once again.

He’s still achingly hard. You can see the angry red tip of his dick. His hands are by his sides, fisted in the already messed up sheets.

He’s so desperate and clearly he’s not reaching his release.

“JJ?”

He knows it’s you. He could blindly pick your voice out of a lineup if he had to. His head whips in the direction of the door, now realizing that John B must’ve left it open. He still can’t see you, but he knows you’re out there. His teeth release his t-shirt, but it’s still bunched up at his chest.

“Shit. Fuck. Dammit. How long have you been here?” He’s panting.

You lean your shoulder against the wall, still looking in on him. “Long enough,” you laugh. “I heard you moan my name.”

Your words cause JJ to let out a long groan. He’s frustrated and embarrassed, ready to spill out a thousand apologies.

“I kinda liked it,” you add.

His breath hitches and you can see his cock twitch, and you grin.

“Touch yourself, JJ.”

He moans at your words and you watch his hands find his cock again. He strokes his thumb over the head of his cock and glides his hand all the way down the base and back up again.

“Tell me what you were thinking about.”

“You,” he inhales sharply, closing his eyes tight as he starts to think about it again. “Your mouth. You taking me in your mouth.” He drags his hand down and squeezes the base of his cock before moving up again in a twisting motion. “Your hands. H-How good they’d feel. Soft.”

“Uh huh,” you say, acknowledging that you’re listening to him.

“Fuck,” he moans. “Thought about fucking you. My dick buried in that tight pussy. Fuck, Y/N.” His hips lift off the bed slightly as he bucks into his hand.

“What, JJ?” you respond.

“Please come in here,” he begs. “Wanna see your face.”

You grin wide as you step through the slightly ajar door. You close it behind you for good measure.

Your eyes meet JJ’s blue ones. His face is red, you’re not sure from embarrassment or his arousal, and his hair is matted to his forehead. He’s covered in sweat and you wonder how long he’s been at this.

“That all you wanted JJ? Just to see me?” You tease.

He shakes his head quickly and swallows hard. “I want you to touch me.”

You walk the few steps to the bed, climbing onto it. JJ moves his hands and you quickly replace where they were.

A sinful moan spills from his lips and he leans into your touch. His hands grip the sheets once again and your name is a praise on his lips.

It only takes a few strokes before he’s cumming, hot, white ropes spilling onto your hand and his stomach. It’s the hardest he’s cum in a long time and he swears he sees stars.

He can barely catch his breath after.

“Fuck. Thank you,” he says through pants.

You sit beside him until he comes down from his high. You think maybe you’ll talk about what you just walked in on, but instead JJ asks, “Can I return the favor?”

You nod quickly and JJ sits himself up and lays you down in his place. He takes your shorts off and he can already see how soaking wet you are through your panties.

“You must’ve really liked watching me,” he teases as his fingers glide over the wet fabric.

He pushes your panties to the side, running one finger through your wet folds and grinning to himself.

“I thought about how good you probably taste. How much I would love to get my mouth on you,” he says.

He easily slips two fingers into your hole, prodding that sensitive spot inside you. His thumb rubs circles on your clit, and he relishes in the moans escaping your lips.

“Please,” you whimper.

That’s all he needs.

He keeps his fingers inside you, thrusting them and crooking them into you, as he mouth joins them. His lips wrap around your clit, tongue flicking at it, swirling it, anything he can do to stimulate the sensitive bud.

You’re a mess above him, moaning his name, hands fisted in his blond locks. Watching him fuck himself to the thought of you had you a lot closer to the edge than you thought.

You feel JJ’s tongue prod your hole a few times, joining his fingers.

You’re right there, ready to cum. JJ’s lips move back to your clit and you can feel his tongue against it again, but it’s not moving in the circular motion it once was.

No. The fucker was drawing two J’s on your clit and an apostrophe S. He was claiming it.

Your release takes you by surprise, walls clenching around JJ’s fingers are you cum, the thought of him marking you as his sending you over the edge.

You’re both a mess.

JJ peels his shirt off, using it to wipe off his face, hands and stomach. He uses a clean part of it to clean you up as well before throwing it on the chair by the door, where he’s been putting all his dirty laundry.

JJ clears his throat and breaks the silence that’s fallen between you both. “So uh, what happens now?” He asks.

“Well, what do you want to happen now?”

“I think we should shower. And we should shower together to, ya know, save water.”

You laugh at his words and sit up. He surprises you by leaning forward and capturing your lips in a gentle kiss that you don’t hesitate to return.

“And then after, maybe we could cuddle and I can tell you about how I’ve liked you since before third grade.”

You giggle at him, cupping your hand around his cheek and kissing him again. “I like that idea.”

Taglist: @ilovejjmaybank @unholy-habits @hmsjiara @void-sadie @rudyypankow @freefallinintofandoms-n-fiction

if there’s a strikethrough on your name, it means I can’t tag you! Go here to fix it!

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stressy-enby · 4 years ago

Note

Hello! So here's my request:

The 1-A girls including reader are having a girls night in one of their dorms playing Minecraft (teaching Momo how to play for the first time), giving out study tips, eating snacks and watching movies, etc... When their in a topic about their crushes and reader shyly tells them it is Tenya Iida... While the girls are shocked and ask a lot of questions why iida much to reader whos not really liking the questions, the girls decided to help reader out by setting both iida and reader on a date by grabbing readers phone and texting iida, much to readers protest and what the girls don't know is that the boys are having a boy night at the common room too and doing the exact same thing, helping iida out to finally ask reader on a date.

so yeah, haha that's all and you can add your own ideas there and can this be a oneshot? I also want to see the perspective of iida if that't possible? I hope this is okay? thank you!! ☺

Took a few liberties, included some personal touches, I’m really happy with how this came out and I hope you are too!

Risks

Masterlist

Weekend nights in Heights Alliance were arguably the best.

Mr. Aizawa was more flexible about curfew on Friday and Saturday nights, so the class took those nights as opportunities to have slumber parties and late night get-togethers.

This was one such night. You, Ochaco, Tsu, Momo, Toru and Kyoka had gone to Mina’s dorm room with snacks and games in hand. Your hostess had offered up her wide selection of video games and her Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ accounts. Toru had even come through with an impressive assortment of face masks, nail polish, and hair accessories. Needless to say, everyone was more than set for a night of careless fun.

“Wait, how do I craft something?” Mom held her controller out to Kyoka, brows pinched together.

“This button, here,” she took the controller, demonstrating by crafting an axe.

Upon realization that Momo had next to no knowledge of Minecraft, the party had abandoned its Super Smash Bros. tournament in favor of showing her the ropes. You’d vowed to help her make a simple house by the end of the night.

“Pro tip: make sure you collect all the same type of wood.” You suggested, eyes focused on the white stripes you were attempting to paint onto Tsuyu’s light green nails with some success.

“Yeah, unless it’s on purpose, like if you use a different wood for the roof or floor, it’s just gonna look like you hobbled it together in less than a minute.” Mina agreed, before promptly shoving a handful of popcorn into her mouth.

Ochaco gasped playfully, swiping the bowl away. “Don’t eat all of it!”

“I’ll eat whatever I damn well please!” Mina retorted, making a grab for the snack as Ochaco floated it over to Toru.

“Okay guys, I can’t take it anymore.” The invisible girl grabbed the bowl out of the air. “We’re all together, hanging out with zero stress for the first time in months! Does anyone have anything juicy to share? Someone’s gotta have something!”

Kyoka rolled her eyes. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I didn’t come to gossip.”

“This class is a pretty tight-knit group, ribbit. Nothing really happens that we don’t all know about.” Tsu pointed out.

“Okay then. Crushes.” Mina prompted.

“What about them?” Momo asked.

“Who’s got ‘em?”

There was a moment of silence. You noticed how a few pairs of eyes flicked to Ochaco, who had gonna very red and very quiet. You sighed, musing to yourself about the things you did for friendship.

“I, uh, I kinda like Iida?”

You hated how you phrased it like a question. You hated how you mitigated the confession with the word “kinda”. You hated that silly, totally inadequate word “like”. Your feelings for Iida went beyond a simple crush. You’d had them for him for months now, you were long past the “like” phase. You were head-over-heels in love.

Toru gasped dramatically. “Really? Iida?”

Ochaco smiled at you, gratitude evident in her eyes. “You two would make a sweet couple.”

“What do you like about him?” Mina asked excitedly. “When did you fall for him? Are you gonna confess?”

“Take it easy,” Kyoka chuckled lightly.

You also laughed, albeit uneasily. You were beginning to regret not keeping your mouth shut. “Okay, I’ll take those one at a time. He’s kind and attentive, and he’s very loyal. I think I realized that I liked him a few weeks after the sports fest, and absolutely not.”

“Why don’t you want to tell him?” Momo asked, pursing her lips. “I think he’d appreciate the honesty.”

“Be that as it may, I don’t wanna make things weird between us or potentially ruin our friendship.” You explained “I don’t wanna jeopardize what we have now by confessing.”

“Plus, Iida doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’s want to date someone, ribbit.” Tsu put in, examining her newly painted nails. “He’s very serious. He’d probably see it as a distraction, these are really pretty, (Y/N), thank you.”

You smiled weakly at your frog-like friend as Toru threw a piece of popcorn at her head. “Tsu!”

“No, she’s right.” You sighed heavily, motioning for the popcorn bowl, intending to drown your sorrows and maybe yourself in it.

“I’m sorry, (Y/N).” Momo patted your back sympathetically as she passed the bowl down. “I can’t imagine how frustrating it is.”

You hummed in agreement as you shoveled the snack into your mouth. “Whatever. It sucks, bur I’ll get over it.”

“Like hell you will!” Mina snapped “Ochaco: our romantically challenged friend’s phone, if you please?”

Ochaco dutifully and bemusedly took your phone from Mina’s bedside table and handed it over to her.

“What are you doing?” You questioned, suddenly on high alert.

You were ignored. Mina instead took your hand, and placed your thumb over the home button on your phone, unlocking it.

“Seriously, what are you doing?” Kyoka asked.

“Texting Iida.”

It took you a few seconds to process her words and what they meant. Once you had, though, you made a sudden grab for the phone. “Oh no you’re not!”

“Chillax, I’m not gonna send him anything embarrassing.” Mina swatted your hand away as she scooted safely out of your reach. “I’m just gonna suggest that you two go out sometime and heavily imply that it’ll be a date.”

“Now hold on,” Momo cut in, setting down her controller. “We shouldn’t be interfering. This is between (Y/N) and Iida.”

“Yeah, if (Y/N) wants to ask him out, they’ll do it themselves, ribbit.” Tsu chimed in.

Mina sighed, slumping. “I know you’re both right, but I can’t just let them wallow! Iida really likes you, (Y/N)!”

“Oh yeah?” You raised both eyebrows.

“Yeah! He’s a lot softer with you then with anyone else!”

“He does tend to let you get away with things,” Kyoka admitted. “Remember the other day when you were sitting on your desk? The guy didn’t even bat an eye.”

“He also seems like he talks to you more than he does the rest of us!” Toru pointed out.

“Plus he worries about you more than the rest of us!” Ochaco added on.

“He looks more relaxed around you.” Tsuyu threw in.

“Sometimes when we have class representative meetings, he’ll offhandedly mention you.” Momo reported thoughtfully. “He’ll tell me about something you said or did that he found funny or endearing. It’s actually pretty adorable the way he talks about you. It’s like his whole face lights up.”

You were quiet for a very long moment. It was too good to be true. You liked playing it safe. You kept your cards close to your chest until you were absolutely sure you had the wining hand. And if you’d learnt anything in your hero education, it was that sometimes you needed to take a risk.

“Can I have my phone, please?”

Mina tossed it to you. Without another word, you navigated to your messages, and typed something out quickly. Before you could reconsider, you took a risk.

You hit send.

. . .

This isn’t actually all that bad.

When Kirishima and Kaminari had suggested a “boys’ night”, Tenya had been apprehensive at best. He was all for class bonding activities, but what was the point if it was only a fraction of their group?

“(L/N) and the girls are having a sleepover, so we may as well something ourselves.” Sero had pointed out.

Despite his skepticism, Tenya found himself thoroughly enjoying himself. After admitting he’d never seen a Marvel movie, Midoriya had immediately logged the common room TV into his Disney+ account and began the first ever 1-A Marvel movie marathon.

“Ugh, does this mean we have to watch Age of Ultron?” Ojiro groaned “That one sucks.”

“Yeah, but at some point I’m going to make Iida watch Wandavision.” Midoriya replied “Ultron is important to understanding it, sucky as it may be.”

“That’s not gonna be for a while if we’re watching every single Marvel movie, though.” Sato chuckled.

“Yeah, we’re definitely gonna need more than one night for this shit,” Kaminari chortled “Wandavision not withstanding.”

Tenya smiled, not quite following but listening all the same. He suddenly felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

(L/N): Random question. Want to go out and get dinner tomorrow, just the two of us?

It was indeed a random question. He had no qualms about spending time with (L/N) though. Even if it was just the two us them. Especially if it’s just the two of us. Tenya quickly shook the thought away though, feeling he’s cheeks flare.

Me: That would be great! Do you have a time and place in mind?

(L/N): Would 6 be ok? As for the place… would you be up for a surprise?

Tenya hesitated. Usually he’s say no. He liked everything to be perfectly planed to a T. But something about (L/N) made him want to be spontaneous. They made him want to take risks. So he decided to do precisely that. He threw caution into the wind as he sent his response.

Me: 6 is more than ok, and I’m always up for a surprise if it’s with you.

Tenya cringed immediately after hitting send. The instant regret was crushing and depressing. He wished he could be honest about his feelings, about (L/N) without overthinking every move he made.

Oh well. What’s done is done. He slipped his phone back into his pocket, praying you wouldn’t respond. However, his plea went ignored a minute later when he felt his phone vibrate yet again.

Biting back a groan, Tenya opened his texts, inwardly bracing himself.

(L/N): Awesome! I’ll meet you at 6 in the common room tomorrow, then. Can’t wait! ❤️

He gaped. That tiny red emoji wormed not his brain and burned itself behind his eyes until that was all he could see. He barely even registered the rest of the message.

“Whatcha lookin’ at, Iida?” Kaminari, never one to understand personal space, leaned over to glance at the class rep’s phone phone before he could angle it away. “You sly little- IIDA HAS A DATE!”

“No I- that’s not- Kaminari!” Tenya sputtered incoherently, arms flailing. “That was entirely inappropriate. You shouldn’t look at other people’s devices without their permission. It’s rude, demeaning, and an invasion of privacy!”

“Forget that, what’s this about a date?” Sero leaned in on Kaminari’s other side.

“Iida and (L/N) were texting,” Kaminari announced “They asked him out to dinner, he said yes, and they send a heart emoji.”

“What color?” Aoyama demanded, squinting.

“Red.”

“Oh my,” Aoyama leaned back in his seat, a coy smirk playing across his lips.

Sero chuckled, leaning across Kaminari’s lap to pat Tenya on the arm. “You lucky bastard.”

The blue haired boy brushed his hand away, bristling. “Not that my personal activities are any of your concern, but it’s not a date. We’re just going to get something to eat.”

“I’m not an expert or anything, but I don’t think many people go out one-on-one for dinner if it’s platonic.” Midoriya pointed out.

“Yeah, plus, that emoji says a lot.” Kirishima added “(L/N) clearly means this to be a date. If you don’t feel the same way about them, you need to tell them.”

“You don’t want to go on a date with (L/N)?” Todoroki asked, raising an eyebrow “I would’ve thought you’d be happy for an opportunity like that.”

“See! Even Todoroki can see you’ve got it bad for them!” Sato exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at the confused heterochromic boy.

Tenya ignored his overly-excited classmates. He flipped back through his conversation with (L/N), staring at every text until he’d inadvertently memorized them all.

Me: Is this a date?

. . .

“So much for subtly, I guess.” Kyoka remarked.

“Subtly gets you nowhere with Iida!” Ochaco insisted “You have to be upfront with him!”

“But I sent him a heart,” You groaned for the fourth time.

“Well, there’s no sense in bemoaning it now.” Momo reasoned.

“It was a calculated risk.” Toru admitted, an undercut of worry in her voice.

“A risk, huh?” You chuckled humorlessly “I seem to be taking a lot of those tonight.”

Ding!

Seven pairs of eyes darted to your overturned phone at the same moment. No one moved an inch.

“Well,” Tsu nudged you “are you going to look at it?”

You gulped, shakily taking the device. The girl’s gathered around you. As you opened your text messages.

Iida: Is this a date?

“No backing down now!” Ochaco squealed, gripping your shoulders tightly and shaking you.

“Go, go, go, go, go!” Mina bounced on her knees like it was a sporting event.

You took a deep breath, then texted back.

. . .

(L/N): That was the idea, lol. It doesn’t have to be if you don’t want it to be, tho

Tenya pursed his lips, showing the response to Midoriya.

“C’mon, Iida.” His friend chuckled lightly “Just tell them the truth.”

The truth. He did want it to be a date, but a simple “I want to go on a date with you” didn’t seem sufficient. It wouldn’t do justice to how he really felt.

Tenya had already taken a risk tonight, so what was one more? But knowing what he now knew about your feelings, it didn’t seem quite so scary anymore.

Me: I’d love nothing more than to go on a date with you, (L/N). Truth be told, I’ve wanted to for a while now, I just haven’t had the courage to ask you myself. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. ❤️

#mha #bnha #iida #tenya #tenya iida #iida x reader #tenya x reader #tenya iida x reader #mha x reader #bnha x reader

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yandere-wishes · 5 years ago

Text

Sacrificial Bride Part 1//Twisted Wonderland X Reader//

Alright well, that's enough writing for the next few days if you excuse me I'm going to go sulk in my corner. Huge thanks to @softyswork who’s story about reader being sent to Malleus as a bride inspired this series. Also, I REALLY want to make some sort of modern-day Frankenstein it would be an amazing scientific breakthrough! You'll understand what I mean when you get to Idia's part lol.

💚🐉Malleus Draconia🐉💚

It was a common rumor around your village that ever since the death of the sleeping princess your settlement had never been the same. For you, this was nothing more than a fairy tale meant to spark a scrap of hope in the hearts of naive, suffering children who were still too young to fully understand why their fathers never returned from their hunting trips or why there was barely anything to eat for dinner.

Every time you heard this dreaded tail, you couldn't help but scuff. For as long as you've been alive your town had been in utter disarray and chaos. Monsters from the woods -what the town's folk called "fae"- attacked the village daily. Stealing jewels, destroying homes, sometimes even swallowing children or sucking the blood of the dormant. There was also the looming threat of the green flames. Blazing emerald fires who couldn't be subdued by neither water nor dirt. They advanced further into the territory of the village by each full cycle of the moon. Leaving behind in their trail, thick impenetrable thorn bushes that had taken the homes of many and the lives of many more.

Awful, dreaded creatures those fae where...

But alas you did not yet know just how cruel they could be.

On another periodic morning, your younger sister jolted you awake, dragging you to the town center before you got a chance to change out of your nightgown.

In the center of the square was short man..no...not a man you noticed his pointed drawn back ears. "Fae" you gasped under your breath. But unlike the monstrous fairies that ravished your town taking on the appearances of trees and woodland creatures, this one resembled a boy of 15. The young-looking male began to speak, his voice was clear like crystals, and to his tone bats began to flock overhead. "Truly dreadful, these fairy folk are" your sister uttered in terror as she buried her face in your side.

"Heed my words, mortals. The young prince of thorns has decided to take a wife. By the setting of the sun a full day from today, two of his guards will come to collect your offering. If you chose to disregard this Wa-- friendly advice, then what is left of your town will be decimated before the end of summer. Your children eaten, wives imprisoned and husbands killed!" An unsteady hush rippled through the crowd. Some hothead youths began to throw rocks at the stranger only for the bats hovering above to shield him from the stones. Mothers hugged their children close begging for the man to "just leave".

"If" the man's voice rose once more like a cadaver emerging from the grave " my young master is pleased with your sacrifice than we shall reward you! Bring good health and prosperity to your otherwise sick and decaying village." His last words melted into the open air before he vanished in a cloud of squealing bats and ebony smoke.

The town's folk erupted in screeches, cursing at their deities while simultaneously praying to any god that would listen.

"Help us!"

"save us!"

"Don't let them take our daughters!"

The screams escalated to the point where you had to cover your ears with your shaking hands. Your eyes scanning each of the villager's faces, a pathetic lot they were, you thought to yourself. Scared by the words of a young magician. In a flash, your heart sped up, adrenaline pumping through your veins, as you marched to the center square where the boy had been mere moments ago. You stood tall, cupping your hands over your mouth.

"Listen well you disquiet, mindless lot!"

All eyes turned to you. Some holding looks of confusion, whilst others harbored glances of hope.

"This fae is lying! No way will they be satisfied with just one measly girl! No matter who we sacrifice to their so-called master, they'll still come after us! They'll still destroy our village! Let's not be stupid! Let's find a way to barricade the city instead of arguing over who to sacrifice!"

For an endless second all was quite. It was like the world had stopped turning, frozen in its place in the universe trying to decide what to do.

Then it happened,

Chants reverberating through the air

"Sacrifice her!" "Sacrifice her!"

"Sacrifice her!"........................

WHAT!

NO!

DID THOSE MORONS NOT LISTEN TO A SINGLE WORD YOU SAID!

The crowd started advancing. Eyes locked on your figure like those of a leopard on its prey. Their mouths were all a gap, chanting the words "sacrifice" over and over again. From behind the mob, your eyes locked with your sister's. You could practically feel the despair rolling off her figure as she covered her eyes and fell to her knees, her whole body rattling with a sort of distant rage...

A full day....it's funny how time passes all so quickly no matter what you do. Day in and day out nothing changes, pain is still pain, laughter is still laughter. Time just keeps slipping from between your fingers like sand. Even in the direst of times, Time doesn't show mercy, never once does it cease. It just ticks and ticks away until the inevitable moment arrives.

Your sister and aunt -the only two relatives that you hadn't lost to the fae- were in charge of preparing you for your so-called "wedding". Since your town was poor and isolated from other civilizations there wasn't much they could do to enhance your beauty. Smashing some berries to add color to your lips -and fervently ravishing the remains- using some coal to add shade behind your eyes, as well as around them and patting the dust of rose petals against your cheek. By the end, you hardly recognized the person staring back from the mirror. Sure the adjustments were minor but this was the most stunning you'd ever looked. "Is it almost time" your voice quivered, failing to hide the tears that began to fall. "Please don't cry sweetheart, we don't have any more coal to fix your eyes with." Your aunt's tone was monotone almost bordering on heartless. You couldn't really blame her, she'd gotten so used to having her loved ones plucked from her. One more would be no different. Sniffing as to keep the tears at bay, you nodded slowly. Your glossy eyes locked with your aunt's you could see the same fear and exhaustion in her fading irises as the night her son was slaughtered in front of her.

"Just a few reminders" your sister's voice was cheery like the chirping of early morning birds, but her face mimicked that of a kicked puppies. "Remember when the prince...fae...when he..you know...Oh, Lord please tell me he won't" She was shivering again. Her face twisted in horror. You knew what she was thinking, she was imagining you laying in the bed of that...that thing. She was imagining him entering you, kissing up and down your neck. Leaving patches of red skin over smooth flesh, bruises wherever his clawed hands touched you. She was imagining what was no doubt going to happen to you tonight...

the mere thought made bile rise to your throat.

"Darling, just keep saying how much you like it. It's all any man wants to hear." again your aunt or rather her lackluster form of speech was the rope binding you to your sanity.

"Do fae even have...those parts like humans do?" Your sister asked, only to be met with a glare from your aunt. "Stop wasting time on pointless questions! Hurry up and see if this dress fits your sister."

Sure enough, as you were escorted to where the thorn bushes met the village, two men, one standing tall and proud, whilst the other looked like he may topple over from fatigue at any moment, were awaiting you.

The green-haired man let out a haughty laugh, his blazing eyes scanning you from head to toe. "She's hardly worthy of the young master!" His dreadful voice was like the booming of thunder clouds. "It doesn't matter, Malleus-sama needs to be wedded off quickly so he can produce an heir. None of us are getting any younger by standing here debating the "worthiness" of yet another measly human" the silver-haired male's voice was the exact opposite of his comrades, his voice was soft and breathy like light drizzle after a storm.

The green-haired man looked ready to argue once more, but before he could open his mouth, his violet-eyed counterpart waved something thin in the air casing a pathway to open between the hedges.

It was dark between the brambles. The air was thick, stuffy, every breath was a struggle. Although it seemed neither of your traveling buddies minded the discomfort. Did fae even need air to survive?

After what could have been no less than a couple of hours, your small group made it to a large clearing where only a few rays of the sun leaked through the thick smoky clouds. Miss matched flowers in shades of grey littered the rocky barren ground. Maybe at some point, this place had been beautiful, stunning even...but whenever that time had been it was long gone now.

As you ventured farther into this monochrome land of loss and sorrow, the three of you approached a castle. It towered over everything else, grim in all its glory. "Young master Malleus is awaiting you inside..." The green-haired male's voice trailed off as his speech was interrupted by the deafening creaking of the doors parting open. Without another word the two men dragged you inside, pushing you through spiral staircases and long bleak passageways. Until you arrived at a lavish-looking room, a large throne sitting smugly in the front of the room. It's black, spiked appearance was enough to make you gasp in horror, you didn't desire to meet the monster that perched atop that throne. "Don't be so afraid." the silver-haired man whispers, his head is almost resting on your shoulder. "Malleus-sama is kind and fair. He is sure to love you better than any human ever could." you catch a hint of nostalgic sadness in the last part, like a long lost part of the lavender eyed boy's past caught in his throat like a glass shard.

Trumpets roared through the room blaring as two men, one short and fickle whilst the other tall and brooding walked in. "Malleus~" The short one sang as they both stopped in front of you "Say hello to your lovely new wife." the tall man's emerald eyes landed on you. His lips parted in a threatening smile...or maybe it was a smirk? He didn't seem to be too good at displaying emotions. Slowly he descended onto one knee, slipping your hand into his and kissing the top lightly.

"Hello, my darling little wife."

🧡🦁Leona Kingscholar🦁🧡

The After Glow Savanna was an absolute hell to be born in if your family did not belong to some royal inner court class. The endless days spent scavenging for scraps of food, walking miles for a simple glass of water, had become a sort of broken, habit beaten into the residents of the smaller less fortunate districts.

Eventually, you too would follow in your parent's footsteps, working odd jobs around the neighborhood, getting married to some guy, having kids, and giving them the same dreary life your parents had given you. It was simple -miserable- but simple never the less. In an odd way, you found a sort of comfort in how everything was set in stone. How you'd suffer through a few years then die of starvation or some disease in your husband's arms.

But little did you know that the only comfort you had in your horrible life was also going to be swiped from you.

When Ruggie, a dear childhood friend of yours returned from his prestigious school for the winter holidays you were overjoyed! A week with your best friend was the greatest gift you could ask for! But that excitement soon dulled when he announced to the neighborhood what the royal family had planned for the underdeveloped parts of the country.

"They want to demolish the homes and build parks and shopping strips instead"

The people of your tiny community gasped, shock and hopelessness mixing over their dirty, worn out faces. Some older siblings shielded the ears of their younger kin, some mothers hugged their children closer to their chests. "They can't do that to us!" Your voice was like a beacon through the thick fog of confusion. "We can't let them!" You turned to Ruggie who was seated next to you. His blue-grey eyes held a foreign sadness that you had never seen before. He was hiding something...something so grim that he was forced to shove it into the depths of his soul, locking it up and throwing away the key.

"There is a way..."

For such a hopeful phrase, Ruggie's tone harbored no happiness. You could practically see the tears that were clouding his beautiful eyes. "Tell us" someone from the crowd demanded, others soon joined in with their own chants. For a long moment, Ruggie said nothing, the shouts of despair falling on deaf ears.

"If.." his voice trailed off, as his gaze grew distant.

"If someone from the neighborhood were to marry the second prince..." Gasps of fear filled the air. Even the mere mention of the second prince's name was enough to send chills down people's spins.

"Then they could, as the newly appointed princess, convince the royal family and counsel to scrap this monstrous plan." No one uttered another word. No one was brave enough to face the man who could destroy anything with a simple touch.

But the sake of these people, people who had nothing but their families and a muddy roof over their head was on the line.

Do something, a tiny voice in your head screamed, save them, it begged. You shifted your head so to get a glimpse of Ruggie's face. "I-" you began but were cut off before you could even finish.

"I know you would say that."

His voice broke over every syllable. He knew you would give up your depressing nostalgia for the sake of others. Life in the castle would be hell, being married to that monster would be something worst than the dwellings of the devil.

It was a speedy arrangement, so fast that your head didn't have time to process anything. In the end, it almost seemed like the royal family was desperate to find a spouse for their youngest son.

Just marry him! Was what all the absentee looks told you.

Early that morning, Ruggie had dragged you to the castle, all tears, and grumbles. The palace guards let him in with no restrain, it almost felt like he'd been here before. Your childhood friend led you to a room in the further corner of a grand hall. He told you to stay outside as he went in to chat with the prince. Moments later the newly appointed king and queen came to usher you into a privet room and discuss the marriage. Not an hour later your fate had been sealed, you'd be married off to prince Leona tomorrow at sunrise. For "historical purposes" your neighborhood would be preserved and even taken care of. 'Historical purposes' you thought 'more the like a bribe to get you to marry this beast.

that night you were dragged this way and that by the queen herself. Taken for fitting after fitting. Trying on hundreds of wedding dresses who's prices could feed every mouth in your neighborhood for months! "Leona isn't very classy" the queen sighed in disappear. "He would probably prefer you to be in something laxer, shorter if you will" the tailors ran around trying to find something that would fit her vague description, as you stood facing her royal highness.

"What's he like?" you asked soullessly

"Spoiled, although not as heartless as the rumors make him out to be" She didn't seem to like giving straight answers

"will he harm me? It was an honest question, although the lack of thinking it took before the queen replied made your heart skipped a beat.

"Quite possibly, he is rather...aggressive at times. Just don't let his degrading comments get to you. He's not used to being around people"

The more she described the second-born prince the more it seemed she was actually speaking of some feral dog that had raised in isolation.

Oh, how doomed you were.

The wedding was even faster than the preparation. Ruggie walked you down an aisle of flowers, walking over the petals, killing them once and for all, ending their pointless existence. You stood by your self at the altar awaiting your husband to be. It took a rather long time before the doors were flung open and the king waltzed in carrying his struggling brother under his arm. "No need to worry, Leona was taking one of his catnaps again and forgot about today's events" the king announced, in what could only be described as a mock lively tone.

How on earth does someone forget their wedding! This prince really wasn't a typical human...heck you where beginning to think that the feral dog would have made a better groom.

snap, snap

A few magazine pictures here, a couple of family photos there...

Everything was so bright and loud...

right before you and the second prince were thrown into the darkness of his room. In the obscurity, you could ONLY make out the glowing of his emerald eyes.

You could feel him shifting closer, all the while you took shaking steps backwards. " I thought wives were supposed to leap into the arms of their husbands? Tell me little herbivore do I frighten you?"

Your voice refused to leave your throat, too afraid to come into contact with the prince.

"What's the matter? Did they not teach you to speak in on the streets you grew up on. Poor thing~"

Leona pounced across the room, tackling you to the ground. His sheer weight pinning you to the carpeted floor. The sound of fabric tearing echoed through the silence.

How careless these royal were was the only intelligible thought that came to your frenzied brain.

Goosebumps littered your skin as Leona's claws cut into your flesh. His lips kissed over each wound as he made his way up to your cherry painted lips.

"You look so cute, you know, like a little mouse about to get devoured by a starving lion."

💙💀Idia Shroud💀💙

The rhythm of his heartbeat was slowing down, it felt like the patter of ants atop one's flesh. He was dying...this was an irreversible fact. The love of your life was dying and there was nothing you could do but sit idly by and watch the life fade from his pale bruised face. Your thumb ran over his knuckles in robotic-like strokes. Hours had passed, you'd shed all the tears that you had. He was gone...that was all there was to it.

For a hopeless second, you flicked your eyes to the open window on the opposite side of the room, There was never any sun on the island of lamination but regardless today seemed brighter than any other day. "How cruel" you muttered in a deadpan voice. Outside something...or better yet...someone was running through the fields, chasing what looked like a butterfly. The young child had blazing blue hair a symbol of the Shroud family...

THE SHROUD FAMILY

Your breath hitch in your lungs, your heart began to pound furiously in your chest. They could help you though hopefully. There family where distant relatives of the god of the underworld and a few years back -to your regulation- the hair of the family had been able to semi revive his younger brother. If he was able to bring back a child from the dead than surly they would have no problem returning your lost lover to you.

Your eyes waltz over his dormant face one last time before you got up and ran for the door.

"This is all for you my love, all of this is for you"

The Shroud family mansion was located at the top of one of the many hills that plagued the island. It was a dark grisly building that resembled the castles from old tales, where monsters laid dormant. Rumors spiraled around the rural civilization, some saying that the family was cursed by the lord of the dead, whilst others claimed that the shroud family were the long lost descendants of the lord of the dead and the maiden of spring. The curse had been placed on the family by the temperamental mother of the maiden of spring, anathematizing the family to be plagued with death and disappear for the rest of eternity.

Regardless of what their misfortune was, they may very well be the last people on earth who could help you. Surely if the family had brought back their youngest than they could bring back your lover!

You knuckles tapped furiously at the old metal doors of the frightful residence. The rhythm was unkept, unsteady, it's mere sound radiated urgency.

"PLEASE HELP ME"

Your throat burned as you screamed out those three lousy words.

After what felt like forever, the doors cracked open, revealing a tall man obscured by the shadows. Any light that touched the interior of the house seemed to die acidity, making peering inside nearly impossible.

"What business do you have?" The man's voice was croaky as if his vocal cords hadn't been used in years. For a split second, you closed your eyes, trying to organize the thoughts in your head. "My...my...h-hus...lover, my lover is d-dead...o-or rather he is dying....probably fully gone by now..." despite the mess of stuttered letters and mixed-up words, the man seemed to understand your situation. With a long sigh, he pulled you into the somber house.

Fingers still wrapped tightly around your wrist he pulled you around, guiding you through the darkness until you reached a large room lit only by the mysterious blue flames of the fireplace. Sitting by the warmth was a...well it was hard to tell, her face -despite it displaying every bone of her visage coupled with dark sunken eyes- resembled that of a woman no older than thirty, whilst her body resembled a decaying skeleton. What was she? Was she the lady of the residence or yet another monster this bizarre family had created.

"My, love" the man began to speak, his voice was somehow cleared like it had been given some sort of jolt. "This young lady needs Idia's help, she wants to bring back her lover from the dead."

The woman said nothing, her eyes staring ahead, burning a hole in the wall right by your head. "What will she give him in return" despite her "deteriorating" appearance her voice was like soft silk on one's skin, melodious and fair.

"Why herself!" This time the man's voice boomed across the house, echoing through the hallways and falling on you like a cave in.

"M-myself! What the hell do you mean!"

"It sounds fair" the women agreed "my darling sweet son saves your lover and instead you agree to marry him! Oh how wonderful, just like in the tales about grandfather Hades!"

She seemed too thrilled about this, her snow-white eyes gleaming with a sort of delusional passion.

"Idia! Idia honey! Come down your father has a surprise for you!"

The hollow sound of footsteps soon filled the quiet air. Followed by another soft blue glow.

Was there no normal fire in this house?

But it wasn't fire, not exactly. When your eyes fell on the heir of the Shroud family, you suddenly felt a nervous wave crash over you. There was something -even more- unsettling about him, he looked nothing like his charming little brother. For one his hair wasn't...well hair! Sure you'd expect a small batch of blazes heading upwards but this was something else entirely! It resembled a large bonfire that floated towards the ground, rouge sparks falling in every which direction, sizzling and then dying abandoned on the floor. And his eyes, Miosis like pupils floating around in a pool of lemon yellow.

But all the physical appearances aside, the most unsettling thing about him was the gloomy aura that leaked off him, suffocating anyone in his presence. Nervously you took a step back only to be yanked forward again by the taller man.

"Idia baby!" His mother ran over to him, cradling his hands in hers "This cute young lady has agreed to marry you if you can save her lover, just like in that old tale about your great grandfather! Oh, my this is all so romantic!"

It seemed like no one here understood that you were in love WITH SOMEONE ELSE! Or maybe they did and chose to disregard it. Instead, using the bits they retained as kindling to feed their raw excitement. You shifted your gaze back to Idia's face. To your utter terror, he was...smiling? Could that...look...even be called a smile? It seemed more like the way a shark would bare its teeth at a defenseless seal! Oh, gods please don't let this...thing...be your future husband!

"It should be easy enough," His golden gaze landed on you "W-when did...did he die?" it took a few moments before you register that he was talking to you or technically asking you something. "A...A few..." your voice cracked, tears streaming down your eyes.

"So recently...okay that shouldn't be a p-problem." He turned on his heels and walked back into the seclusion of the halls "I'll grab some things and meet you by the front door"

A few things ended up being a pile of wires and bolts. Something that looked like a light blue ball of energy and so many tools whose names seemed to go over your head.

Idia was kneeling by your lover's bed, pulling apart the skin and fusing metal in its place. Your darling's chest was cracked open, his ribs poking out towards the sky as if praying for life from the lord of the sky. Every once in awhile Idia would pull out a long tool with smoke floating from the top. He'd lay it on an organ watching as the tissue fiber sizzled away under the heat. He would then tie wires and small circular batteries inside.

"His heart stopped working, I'm guessing from some sort of shock"

You just hummed in response, too caught up in how the man you loved was beginning to look like a modern-day Frankenstein rather than a human being.

The sun had long since faded when Idia finally got up from his spot. His bones cracked and screeched at the sudden change, his muscles giving out halfway leaving him to rely on the wall for support to stand. Your lover's chest had been sewn back and covered with a silver piece of metal. His neck was wrapped in the same sort of alloy. His left arm had been cut open so Idia could shove the energy ball inside than cover it, leaving a small enough gap for wires that stretched from his chest to weld into the ball.

"He just needs a boost" Idia murmured that shark-like grin overtaking his pale face once more. From the side table, he plucked up to jumper cables and clipped them on either side of his neck. Jolts and crackles filled the room and sparks flew in every direction, the once-dead body shuffled around, arms and legs moving at random. You shrieked and duck behind Idia.

Only then did he pry the clips from his neck.

Nothing

for too long nothing happened... then there was a slight wiggle in one finger, then another. His eyes slowly began to prey open, looking over his surroundings. The moment his confused gaze feel onto you. Idia turned you around to face him, clumsily smashing his blue chapped lips onto yours.

From the corner of his eyes, Idia watched as the other man began to understand what was happening...even if he was just resurrected there was still agony at the sight of his lover kissing another...

Good! That should show him who you belonged to now!

2K notes · View notes

reinerispretty · 4 years ago

Text

reminiscence. (? x f!reader) pt10

hello!!!!!! we r back with another edition of this fic hehe. thank u all for ur support, i appreciate u so much! it’s also five am and i am not even tired so rip.

also!! who do u think reader should end up with? i have it decided but i’m willing to hear reasoning and perhaps be persuaded ;)

pt1

pt9

pt11

“So, where do we find this Iroh guy?” Mako asked.

“You think he has any relation to General Iroh?” Bolin questioned. “I mean, how many Iroh’s can there really be, y’know?”

“He’s Iroh as in, Zuko and Iroh,” Korra informed them, and Bolin let out a shocked gasp. While she was nervous about getting her memories back, (Y/N) would definitely be grateful not to be absolutely lost when things were discussed.

A Republic City winter was nothing compared to a South Pole winter. (Y/N) was cold while she slept, cold while she moved, cold while she stood still! Korra’s mom had her wrapped up in so many different coats, furs, and blankets that she waddled while she walked. “How are you okay right now?” She asked Korra as they walked to breakfast together. “I feel like my nose is going to fall off.”

Korra looked back and flashed her a smile. “It’s all I’ve ever known! You just kind of get used to it.” (Y/N) frowned. She couldn’t imagine ever getting used to weather like this.

As they sat and ate their breakfast--(Y/N) tried to eat, but the layers made it hard to bend her elbows--they discussed their plan for the day. Led by Tonraq, they would travel by snowmobile to the Spirit World Portal. It was a long trip, so they would have to camp for the night, but the next day they would be trekking through the Spirit World looking for answers. “It’s warm there,” Korra said, nudging (Y/N) with her elbow. She smiled gratefully.

She decided to ride on the back of Korra’s snowmobile. Bolin would be on the back of Asami’s and while Mako also had his own, (Y/N) wasn’t sure if she wanted to have her arms wrapped around him for the entire trip, especially when they hadn’t discussed the things that happened between them. Her and Mako hadn’t discussed things at all, really. She knew they were on better terms since the first time they met, but he was so guarded and she was so scared that anything Mako had to say to her, she might not want to hear.

So, she waddled over to Korra’s snowmobile. “Mind if I ride with you?” She asked as Korra secured their supplies.

“Not at all!” Korra said, her face lighting up. Then she cleared her throat and turned her eyes back to tying knots. “Just be sure you hold on tight, okay?” (Y/N) nodded, managing a joking salute.

She wrapped her arms around Korra’s middle as tightly as she could, but it must not have been enough because as soon as Korra hit the gas, (Y/N) was flung off, landing on her back in the snow. She let out a shout of surprise, followed by a groan as she opened her eyes and saw Korra staring down at her. She wore a humored smile on her face. “I told you to hold on tight!”

“I was!” (Y/N) insisted as Korra helped her get back to her feet. She pulled some rope from their side pouch and wrapped it around (Y/N’s) waist, then tied it to her own.

“We do this for little kids sometimes, so they don’t get lost in the snow.” (Y/N) narrowed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at her. Korra laughed at the childishness and helped her get back on the snowmobile. Then they were off, (Y/N) much more secured this time around.

As they rode through the snowy hills, (Y/N) leaned her head on Korra’s back, taking in the sights of the Southern Water Tribe. Far out where the sea was, icy glaciers poked through the inky waters, shimmering against the sunlight. Everything was rather sparkly; if (Y/N) looked at the snow for too long her eyes felt sore. She turned her head and waved a gloved hand at Bolin, who gave her a thumbs up from his position behind Asami.

Sometimes, when she looked at Bolin, it physically hurt her heart. She knew it was some sort of physical reaction, something her body remembered that her head didn’t. The feeling increased when he had referred to them as being friends. There was nothing wrong with being friends, in fact she supposed that was better than any other alternative, but even now she had always thought there was something more between them. Perhaps she had interpreted everything wrong. There was a giant piece of her memory missing, after all, and all she knew was that she had really messed up Bolin when she had left. It was probably better if they were just friends. Bolin was great and she didn’t want to lose him a second time.

Their ride was so long that (Y/N) had eventually fallen asleep against Korra’s back, only to be awoken by the snowmobile coming to a jolted stop. She awoke and squeaked in fear, gripping on tighter to Korra.

“Sorry!” She said. “I’ve never been really good at breaking.”

“You’re going to tell me that after I spent hours on a giant metal deathtrap with you?” (Y/N) huffed.

“It wasn’t that bad considering you were snoring into my back,” Korra quipped, quickly turning herself around so she could untie them. “You sounded like a lion turtle.”

“I don’t even know what that is, but I’m sure you’re wrong.” (Y/N) slid off the snowmobile and began untying the packs.

“Lion turtles used to carry cities on their backs and bestow the gift of bending to humans occasionally.”

“Think we’ll find one in the Spirit World to grant me some powers?” (Y/N) asked. “What element do you think I’d bend? I think fire’s pretty cool but-”

“Oh, you’d be an airbender for sure,” Korra said as she hoisted two packs onto her back. (Y/N’s) face lit up.

“Really! Why do you think that? Is it because of my calm and collected nature?”

“It’s because you talk so much,” Korra explained. “You’re constantly bending air with your mouth.” She booped (Y/N) on the nose before making her way to the rest of the group.

“You’re hilarious! (Y/N) called after her, gathering her own packs onto her back. “Why don’t you stop being the Avatar and become a comedian instead!”

They set up their tents and made fire, which was easy work considering two out of the six people in the party were firebenders. As soon as (Y/N) finished her tasks she sat in front of the fire. She was probably too close, but she didn’t care. It’s warmth, albeit small, made her feel just a smidge less cold than she had been, and she’d take it. The rest of their group soon joined her, Asami sitting on one side and Korra sitting on the other. She appreciated the girls protecting her from any awkwardness that could potentially ensue from being near the boys.

“I’m thinking when we get to the Spirit World, we’ll try our luck at finding Iroh,” Korra explained. “He’s always got spirits around him, maybe one of them will know who took (Y/N’s) memories.”

“And if they don’t?” Mako questioned. “We can’t just wander around the Spirit World hoping for some clue.”

“Maybe I’ll start remembering again,” (Y/N) suggested. “Like when Bolin took me to the spot where we met. I got that memory back.”

“You also threw up and passed out from that,” Asami reminded her. (Y/N) pursed her lips.

“I can handle it,” (Y/N) reassured them. “At this point, I’ll do whatever it takes to get my memories back.”

“The Spirit World is magnificent, but it’s also dangerous,” Tonraq said. Night had fallen, and his face was illuminated only by the fire. “They might not be happy to see humans there, especially after what happened last time.”

“I’m the Avatar,” Korra said. “They have to at least listen to me.”

“I just want you all to be careful. Whatever took (Y/N’s) memories has to be powerful. Maybe dangerous.”

“We’ll be careful, Dad,” Korra reassured her father. Tonraq trusted his daughter’s abilities, that was obvious, but the worry he held for her was still evident on his features. (Y/N) swallowed, her mouth feeling dry. She hadn’t really considered that this could be a dangerous mission. If she was being honest, she had never really thought this far ahead. She had spent every day maneuvering around the different dynamics of the four friends, making sure that she didn’t overstep her boundaries or create unnecessary problems. She hadn’t considered what would be waiting for them on the other side of the Spirit Portal, or that the people she had grown to cherish would be put in danger for her sake.

Asami passed around their food and (Y/N) ate silently, considering this information. Her friends talked around her, but she was so distracted that their comments went in one ear and out the other. Once she finally zoned back in, it was just her, Korra, and Mako sitting around the fire.

Korra let out a big yawn, stretching her arms. “I’m absolutely beat,” She said. “I think I’m gonna turn in. You coming?” (Y/N) shook her head.

“I think I’ll stay near the warmth just a little longer.” Korra nodded and gave them a sloppy salute as she waded through the snow and to the tent she shared with Asami and (Y/N). It was just her and Mako now.

She stared at the flames of the fire and how they danced in the cold night air. Should she say something to Mako? This was the first time they had been alone together and neither of them had immediately made up somewhere else they needed to be. They’d be heading to the Spirit World tomorrow, so if there was any time for them to communicate, it should be now.

(Y/N) adjusted her coat, huddling further inside it. “Want me to make it bigger?” Mako asked, and (Y/N) nearly jumped, surprised to hear him talking to her. She looked at him, eyes wide and not quite understanding what he was talking about. “The fire, you want me to make it bigger?”

“Oh, no, that’s okay,” She said. Mako stared at her for a moment before making the fire larger and while she had said she hadn’t wanted that, (Y/N) was grateful. It was so hard to be straightforward with Mako sometimes, because of the way he jumbled her brain. It was like she didn’t even recognize herself when she was around him anymore. Before, only one emotion accompanied being around Mako, and that was anger. Now, (Y/N) felt a whole range of emotions when she looked at his amber eyes. “I think we should talk,” She said finally, wincing at how small her voice sounded.

“I think so too,” And he gave her a half smile. (Y/N) nodded, but both of them remained silent. How should she start? How did people even communicate properly? Perhaps the thing (Y/N) was most excited about getting her memories back was how to talk to people normally. She felt so awkward!

“Why’d you kiss me?” She asked suddenly, her face heating from embarrassment. Mako’s eyebrows shot to the top of his forehead.

“Oh,” He coughed. “I mean, well, it’s a little--it’s like--” (Y/N) couldn’t help giggling. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing!” She insisted, biting down her smile. “You just...you seem so tough and confident and aloof sometimes that it’s funny to see you act so...”

“Embarrassing?” He guessed. (Y/N) shook her head.

“Normal?” She tilted her head and shrugged. “You don’t always have to wear this tough guy act, you know.”

“It’s not an act,” Mako insisted, but he and (Y/N) exchanged a look that had them both stifling back their laughter. “Maybe sometimes. People believe you’re tough if you act like it. Keeps you from getting your stuff stolen when you’re sleeping in a gutter.”

“You grew up on the streets?” (Y/N) guessed. Mako nodded.

“Sometimes I forget what you know and what you don’t.”

“Me too, if we’re being honest.” They paused into a silence that wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable, just full of anticipation. “They teach you how to dodge questions on the streets, too?”

Mako sighed, running a hand through his black hair. “It’s not easy for me to explain stuff like this. Bolin’s the one that can talk about emotions and feelings.”

(Y/N) smiled. “Bolin can talk about anything.”

“When we were arguing on that balcony, I wasn’t just angry at you for being here. You hurt Bolin a long time ago, but watching you be with my brother and knowing that I could never be with you...that hurt, too. You were so close to me that night and something inside of me said I should kiss you and once the idea popped into my head, I couldn’t get it out. I think I hoped that once I did it, it’d be some sort of release. Like a way to get it all out so I’d stop feeling like that.”

“Was it?”

Mako looked directly into her eyes. Normally, his gaze would make (Y/N) feel weird and she would have to look away. She couldn’t bring herself to do that tonight.

“Not at all,” He admitted. “I thought I had gotten over you once you disappeared, but once you came back it all hit me full force.”

(Y/N) thought for a moment about what she wanted to say. Then, she took a deep breath. “I don’t have any memories to base my feelings off of. But there are certain things, feelings, that I remember that I can’t place. They’re just there.” She placed a hand over her heart. “It happens when I look at Bolin. I remember feelings, like sadness and regret, but I don’t know why. It’s overwhelming sometimes, discerning emotions. The things that I feel for Bolin, they’re like past feelings that I’m remembering. Kind of.” She squinted her eyes shut. She wasn’t sure if she was explaining this right, but she was trying her best. “But when I look at you, now that the anger has subsided, I feel things now. Being around you feels nice and when you talk to me, I feel very...light and relieved. I can barely hold your gaze without blushing, and--and I think about you. A lot more than a friend should, I think.”

“But,” She continued. “I don’t have all of my memories back. I don’t know how or why I left and I don’t know if things will change once I do.”

“I get it,” Mako said. “As much as someone with memories can.” (Y/N) gave him a small smile. “And I don’t want to confuse you even more, because I’m sure being around Bolin is confusing enough as it is.”

“You have no idea,” (Y/N) breathed.

“I’m glad I told you. Almost two years and I finally admitted to my brother’s ex-girlfriend that I had a crush on her the whole time. This is a big day for me.”

“The whole time?” (Y/N) questioned. “When did you realize that you liked me?”

“I think Kya told us that we couldn’t share too much about the past with you, or else you might lose your memories forever?” (Y/N) pouted. “Fine, but if you can’t get your memories back, don’t blame me.” The wind picked up over them and he scooted closer to her so that he wouldn’t have to shout over it.

“Aye-aye, Captain,” (Y/N) said, giving a small salute. She rested her chin in the palm of her glove in order to pay attention.

“There was this one time when you got to our place. Bolin wasn’t there yet, I think he was out performing tricks with Pabu. It was cold outside, one of the coldest days Republic City had had in a while. You came in and you were like an icicle. You were shaking and had forgotten your coat and decided to walk halfway across the city to our place. I gave you a blanket and one of Bolin’s coats, but your hands were still like ice, so I used a little firebending to warm them up.” Mako remembered the feeling of your hands completely encased in his. “I held your hands for a while, until they were warm enough. I got up to leave for work and you grabbed my hand and pulled me back down onto the couch. You said, ‘Stay, Mako! I love having you around.’ So, I stayed. We talked all day until Bolin got home, and I ended up losing that job, but spending that time with you made it all worth it.”

(Y/N) sat silently for a long while before saying, “I’m sorry for making you lose your job.”

Mako laughed. “It’s cool,” He said. “I wasn’t a very good delivery boy anyway.”

(Y/N) pulled off her gloves, exposing her hands to the cold winter air. “Do you think you could...?” She offered her hands to Mako. He gave her a small smile and nodded, removing his own gloves and taking her hands in his. (Y/N) let out a happy sigh of relief at the feeling of warmth that emanated from his skin.

“I’m sorry for being so mean to you at first,” Mako said. “I just didn’t want Bolin to get hurt again.”

“I understand,” She said quietly. “I’d probably do the same if I were you.” Cautiously, she leaned her head on Mako’s shoulder. They sat like that for a long while, staring at the fire as Mako held her hands in his. While she was probably even more confused about her emotions than before, part of her hoped that whatever happened in the Spirit World wouldn’t change how she was feeling right now. She wanted to see where this could go.

---

Once the cold became too much for either of them to bear, Mako and (Y/N) parted ways. Korra and Asami were fast asleep when she entered their tent and slid into her sleeping bag. She fell asleep quickly, her hands still warm, but it felt like she was asleep for only moments when Korra shook her awake in the morning.

“One more hour,” (Y/N) grumbled, rolling over to avoid Korra’s gaze. The Avatar scoffed.

“I already let you sleep in as late as possible!” She gently kicked (Y/N’s) butt. “Up! Spirit World today, woohoo!” A very groggy (Y/N) reluctantly left the warmth of her sleeping bag. The early morning sun was absolutely blinding as she walked out of the tent. (Y/N) let out an unhappy grumble.

“Tea?” Asami offered, handing (Y/N) a thermos. (Y/N) smiled gratefully at her and took a long sip of the beverage, feeling it warm her from the inside out.

“Thank you so much!” (Y/N) said. “I needed that.”

“You were up pretty late,” Asami said, giving her a knowing smile. “Any particular reason?” (Y/N) shrugged playfully as she loaded her sleeping bag onto Korra’s snowmobile.

“Mako and I finally talked.”

“And? How’d that go?” Asami glanced over at Mako’s who sleepily nodded at whatever Bolin was excitedly saying to him. (Y/N) lightly slapped her friend’s arm.

“Don’t stare!” She laughed. “It went fine. We talked about our feelings, actually.” Asami’s eyes widened in excitement and she opened her mouth to say something, but (Y/N) cut her off. “And while there are some feelings there, I told him how until I got my memories back, nothing could be certain.”

Asami hummed in approval. “Seems like a good resolution.”

“What’s a good resolution?” Korra came over to tie her own belongings to the snowmobile.

“Mako and (Y/N) finally talked about their kiss.”

“Woah!” Korra exclaimed. “Are you guys dating now?”

“I’m missing like seventy-five percent of my memories and you think we’d be dating?” (Y/N) snipped. Korra shrugged.

“I don’t know what goes on in your head!”

“Like I told Asami, it was a good conversation. We talked about our feelings but I said that until I got my memories back, nothing could be done. I mean, what if I get them back and there was actually a non-Spirit World reason for why I was so awful to Bolin?” (Y/N) shook her head. “I was honest about how I felt and I think that’s good progress.”

“You know Korra,” Asami started. “Weren’t you telling me yesterday how much your bag hurt from having (Y/N) hold onto you?”

“What? No?” Korra said, furrowing her dark brows. Asami elbowed her sharply in the side.

“Remember? You said she held on too tight? Don’t you think that today you should ride on the snowmobile by yourself, since you’ll need to be at your best Avatar abilities in the Spirit World?”

“I know what you guys are doing and I’m having absolutely none of it!” (Y/N) insisted. “I’m riding with Korra, end of story.”

“Oh, I see what’s happening here,” Korra said. She placed her hands on her lower back. “Oh, yep, there’s definitely a tough knot there and it’s all (Y/N’s) fault. I don’t think I can ride on a snowmobile with you anymore.”

“I thought the Avatar was supposed to bring peace, but all you’re causing is chaos,” (Y/N) hissed.

“Hey, Mako!” Asami called out. Mako looked over to them, raising a questioning eyebrow as (Y/N) banged her head against the snowmobile. “Do you think (Y/N) can ride with you for today? Korra’s back is absolutely killing her.”

“Ow~!” Korra drawled dramatically.

“Uh, sure?” Mako questioned. He walked over to Korra’s vehicle and untied (Y/N’s) pack from it. “I think Tonraq said we were leaving in a few minutes, so I’ll be over there.”

“Sounds great, she’ll be right there,” Asami said.

“I’m not going,” (Y/N) said with a shake of her head.

“I thought you said it was a good conversation?” Korra questioned.

“You guys are so lucky I’m not a bender and I’m not very good at hand-to-hand combat because--” She shook her fist at both of them. “You’d be getting it!” She stomped over to Mako, a frown etched on her face.

“Everything alright?” He asked. She let the frown fade from her face.

“Everything’s fine,” She said with a sigh. “Korra and Asami are just being big pains.”

“Don’t I know it.” Mako strapped his helmet and placed (Y/N’s) on top of her head, buckling it underneath her chin. He then tied a rope that connected the two of them, as Korra had done yesterday. “Safety first,” He said with a smile. (Y/N) felt her face flush as he helped her onto the snowmobile. Shyly, she wrapped her arms around his middle, and then they were off toward the Spirit World Portal.

This trip was much shorter than the previous day’s. The portal was only an hour or two away from where they had camped. While (Y/N) was surprised that they had arrived so soon, there was no doubt that they were there, as the portal was a beam of warm yellow light that shot into the sky. It lay in the middle of the woods, only accessible by foot.

They parked their snowmobiles on the outskirts of the woods. Tonraq began setting up his tent; they had agreed that someone should stay behind with a radio just in case anything went wrong and they needed backup. But to (Y/N’s) surprise, Asami was setting up her own tent as well.

“You’re not coming with us?” She asked. Asami raised an eyebrow and shook her head.

“We agreed before you woke up this morning that someone else should stay behind with Korra’s dad to help keep watch. You obviously need to go, as does Korra, and I knew Bolin and Mako would be absolutely horrible if they had no idea what was going on inside. So, I decided to stay.”

(Y/N) frowned. While the reasoning was sound, it still made her sad that Asami wouldn’t be accompanying them on their journey. She and (Y/N) had developed a real friendship over the last few weeks. They had spent nearly all of their time together. It would be strange, not having her around.

“Be safe, okay?” (Y/N) asked, throwing her arms around Asami and squeezing her into a hug.

“You’re going into a completely new dimension and you’re telling me to be safe?” Asami laughed, but she wrapped her arms around (Y/N’s) frame and hugged tightly. “I can’t wait to hear all about your memories.” The two friends parted and (Y/N) lifted her pack onto her back.

“Ready?” Korra asked, and she, Bolin, and Mako nodded. Their group said their goodbyes to Tonraq and Asami before Korra led them into the woods.

“The last time I was here, I was frozen into a block of ice by an ex-girlfriend,” Bolin said. (Y/N) raised an eyebrow at him. “It wasn’t you! It was Korra’s cousin from the Northern Water Tribe.”

“The one with the evil dad?” (Y/N) asked.

“That’s the one!” Bolin nodded.

“This is it,” Korra said as they stopped in front of the Spirit World Portal. (Y/N) could feel its energy radiating from outside the forest, but now it was even more prominent. “Next stop, Spirit World.” She turned around to look at (Y/N), whose face looked as if she had seen a ghost. “Everything alright?”

(Y/N) nodded, gulping. “I’m okay,” She nodded again, trying to convince herself that she was speaking the truth. What if getting her memories back wasn’t necessarily a good thing? Something had blocked them out. Perhaps they had done it for her own benefit. But they had come this far, so she remained silent as she stepped through the threshold and into the Spirit World.

It was an odd feeling, transitioning between two planes. It felt like each particle of (Y/N’s) body was buzzing, until suddenly she was on the other side and staring at so many colors, some that she was sure she had never seen before. She released the breath she had been holding as she stepped through.

Indescribable beings flew overhead, cawing and cooing at them. Korra had been right: the Spirit World was significantly warmer than the South Pole. The group removed their jackets as (Y/N) took in her surroundings. Currently, they stood in the middle of a rocky wasteland, but patches of flowers and grass popped up here and there. In the middle stood a gnarled tree with a hollowed out middle.

“That’s the Tree of Time,” Korra explained. “That’s where the first Avatar had imprisoned Vaatu, the dark spirit that I defeated a month ago. His energy made this part of the Spirit World a wasteland, but it’s healing.”

“It’s beautiful,” (Y/N) breathed, and Korra smiled. Their group walked across the barren land to the greener parts of the Spirit World. Butterfly-like animals flittered around them as they walked and Korra explained her many trips to this place. Mako and Bolin had been here as well, although they had never been further than the Tree of Time. That helped (Y/N) feel less out of place.

“So, where do we find this Iroh guy?” Mako asked.

“You think he has any relation to General Iroh?” Bolin questioned. “I mean, how many Iroh’s can there really be, y’know?”

“There it is!” Korra exclaimed, and then she started running. The others dashed behind her, not quite sure of where she was going, until a small house appeared seemingly out of nowhere and they were right in front of it. A small tea party of spirits and one human sat at a table in the garden.

“Korra!” The old man exclaimed. “Welcome back! We were just about to start afternoon tea.” He peaked behind her at her friends. “And you brought company! The more the better, I think I have some extra teacups in the house.”

“Hi, Iroh,” Korra said. “We really appreciate it, but we don’t really have time--” But the old man was already headed inside his house. When he returned, he held four additional teacups and a bright smile on his face.

“Sit, sit,” He insisted. Korra looked to (Y/N), who shrugged, and dropped her backpack to the ground and took a seat. If having tea was what she needed to do in order to get her memories back, then she would do it. “You!” Iroh said as he placed (Y/N’s) teacup in front of her. “I’ve heard many things about you. Welcome back.”

“Back?” (Y/N) questioned, looking at her friends. “I’ve been here before?”

“You are (Y/N), yes?” She nodded. “When Korra first visited me to ask about you, I did not know much.” He placed a hand to the side of his mouth. “Spirits are horrible gossips sometimes, and I did not want to lead the Avatar on a path different from the one you must take. But I have asked many a visitor about you and they have all said the same thing: you were here, not too long ago, but you were here for a while.”

“Why was she here?” Mako questioned before (Y/N) could. Iroh sighed as he poured their tea.

“Whatever the reason, it was not good. Many of my friends say they saw her enter the dark part of our realm and she did not leave for a long time.”

“It’s true!” One of the spirits interjected, an oddly blue wolf. “I saw you months ago with my own four eyes. You looked nothing like you do now. You came through the portals, yeah? Last time, someone brought you here the other way.”

“You mean through meditation?” Korra asked. The spirit nodded.

“Whatever it was, something powerful had to do it. I couldn’t do nothing like that.”

“So, powerful spirit in the dark parts of the Spirit World. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t sound like something a good spirit would do.” (Y/N) looked to Iroh to confirm her suspicions.

“Spirits are neither good nor bad, unless we are discussing Vaatu and Raava. But there are some spirits whose motives become skewed.”

(Y/N) deflated in her seat. The spirit who had taken her memories was powerful and most likely dangerous. And if they found it, she would be leading her friends right to them.

They finished their tea with Iroh before continuing on their journey. Bolin had talked excitedly with him about his adventures with Avatar Aang and Fire Lord Zuko, whoever those people were, and Iroh gave him a Jasmine Dragon teacup to take back to the mortal realm. The entire time that they talked, (Y/N) was incredibly distracted by what Iroh had told them.

“We should go back,” (Y/N) said suddenly. All three of her friends stopped and looked at her as if she were insane.

“But, you need to get your memories back,” Bolin said.

“I’ll just start over,” She insisted. “I can start fresh. Whatever this spirit is, it isn’t good, and I don’t want to hand you guys to it on a silver platter. We’ll go back and I’ll just learn to live without my memories.”

“There are pieces of you you’ll never get back. Important memories that might have meant a lot to you. You deserve answers, (Y/N), for everything that’s happened to you.” Bolin grabbed her hands and she felt that same shock of electricity run through her body every time he touched her.

“It’s not worth it if it means you guys will get hurt.”

“Stop trying to play hero,” Mako said suddenly, his voice much harsher than it had been the night before. “If we didn’t want to be here to help you, we wouldn’t be.”

“You shouldn’t be helping me. You guys fight every day for the greater good, for the people of the world. I’m one person. You can’t get yourselves hurt over one person. This,” She gestured to the entirety of the Spirit World, but referred to their mission. “Isn’t as important than whatever is going on back in the mortal world.”

“But you’re important,” Korra said suddenly. “You’re important to Bolin and Mako and you’ve become important to Asami and I. The Avatar fights for the greater good, but as your friend, I’ll do whatever it takes so that you can feel like yourself again.”

(Y/N) felt her eyes watering. Why weren’t they getting it? “If anything happened to you guys while we’re here, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.”

“And if we gave up on you, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself,” Bolin said. She looked up at him through watery eyes. “No matter what we’ve been through, we care about you. I care about you. And we’re going to get that dumb spirit to give your memories back.”

(Y/N) looked from him to Korra to Mako, whose head immediately turned as soon as her eyes landed on him. “Okay,” she said. “But I think this is a horrible idea.”

“I find that horrible ideas make the best stories,” Bolin said with a smile.

---

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#lok #legend of korra #korra x reader #asami x reader #mako x reader #bolin x reader #avatar #the last airbender #writing #fanfiction #korra #mako #bolin #asami

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thegreatestofheck · 5 years ago

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Heck’s Masterlist

OBX Masterlist

Since some of my fics are getting long, here’s a masterlist of everything I’ve made so far in relation to Outer Banks! It will continually be updated as more fics, blurbs, and requests are added!

Also, my requests are open! I don’t generally do smut, but I’m open to mostly anything else!

JJ Maybank

Requests:

Jump - You are John B’s sister and you’ve been following him around your whole life. After deciding to make your own path, you find yourself caught up with a boy who is no good and JJ is the only one who can get you out of it.

Wedding Dress - JJ makes a promise to himself that he’s now not sure he can keep.

Run - You’re John B’s sister and after sending him off on the Phantom, it’s up to you to cover for him. But Ward Cameron is still your legal guardian and he comes to collect his property.

Ransom - John B’s sister is taken by the square groupers. In exchange for her life, they ask for the compass and a heavy ransom price. It’s a race of time as the Pogues, with the help of Sheriff Peterkin, journey into the marsh to save her life before the clock runs out.

Not So Unrequited - in the middle of an argument with your best friend, he says something to you that you had never wanted to hear.

i love you - your relationship with JJ had always been rocky, built on a mutual desire for affection. that doesn’t mean he would never break your heart.

fill the void - she always felt alone, so when he needed her most, she couldn’t resist.

promises, promises - You and JJ have an unspoken thing, passed only though stolen glances and half serious flirting. But the day after he takes the fall for Pope, you find yourself standing at a crossroads; do you step in to protect him from his dad, or do you stay out of it?

Series:

Ocean and Alcohol - (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, Epilogue, Rafe’s POV) You’re a kook, but your life is less than ideal. After a fight with some of the other kooks, you let slip a little about your home life to one JJ Maybank, who is more than intrigued. (reader insert with a name, tw: abuse, canon content)

Tempest and Gin - (1, 2) The gold is gone, but Elma’s problems are just beginning. With her dad in police custody and her mom once again AWOL and refusing to pay for legal council, Elma and Ms. Lana struggle to get through the trial with a court appointed lawyer. At the end of her rope, Elma finds herself juggling friends, family, rivals, and enemies as she struggles to keep her wits about her and do the one thing she’s always done; protect Kid.

Girl With No Heartbeat - (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) After a near death experience, JJ is saved by a girl in the water. When he and the Pogues find her washed ashore the next day, they are more than surprised to discover that she isn’t your everyday girl. (mermaid/siren au, canon divergence)

Imagines:

Sweet as Honey, Hard as Steel - JJ’s girlfriend is the complete opposite of everything one would expect. A straight A student with big life goals, Elena has never been the drinking, smoking, fighting type. And JJ wouldn’t have it any other way.

Coward - Your mom just passed and your absentee father has come to collect you. But that means leaving the life you knew and loved, including your best friend (and a little more), JJ Maybank. But he isn’t ready to hear what you have to say on your last night together.

Rafe Cameron

Series:

Fire and Storm - Rafe Cameron had always wanted her. He wanted to be hers and he wanted her to be his. But she wasn’t and he was slowly beginning to realize that he never would be. (this is Rafe’s POV for a bit of another series, Ocean and Alcohol)

Requests:

Better - Secretly dating Rafe as JJ Maybank’s sister isn’t the easiest thing, especially when your brother finally learns the truth.

Imagines:

Meant to Be Yours - Rafe Cameron, your boyfriend, was more broken than you realized. He wants more from you than you can give. (based on the song “Meant to Be Yours” from Heathers the Musical)

John B

Imagines:

Girl Crush - You spent years yearning after John B, your best friend. You just didn’t realize it until he fell in love with the most beautiful girl on the island...and it wasn’t you. After that, only Sarah Cameron was on your mind. (based on the song “Girl Crush”)

Tethered - (routledge!reader, John B’s little sister) Surfing the surge was a Pogue rite of passage. You had been waiting for the next big storm to show your older brother that you were ready to be one of them. But the storm was stronger than you or your brother could have imagined.

Just Come Home - (routledge!reader, John B’s little sister) You come home one day to find your brother bearing harsh news.

Series:

By Dawn - (1, 2, 3) John B meets a mysterious girl at his court ordered group therapy. After spending weeks trying to get to know her, he slowly realizes that she’s a tough nut to crack. But then one day, she leaves him a cryptic message...the night before she goes missing. With the disappearance of his father still so raw in his mind, John B refuses to lose anyone else. And he will stop at nothing until he finds her.

Sarah Cameron

Imagines:

Kie Carrera

Imagines:

For Forever - When you’re parents find out that you’ve been secretly dating your best friend, Kie, they go off on you. Afterward, she comforts you, reminding you that blood doesn’t mean family. (tw: homophobia, found family to the max)

she - As a Pogue, having a crush on Kie Carrera was almost a prerequisite. You knew that all the boys were crushing on her, at least a little bit, but accepting your own feelings for her is a different matter. (reader has a crush on Kie but isn’t really ready to admit her feelings)

Requests:

Nothing More - You’re secretly dating one of the Pogues and your brother is starting to become suspicious. The only problem; he’s fixated on the wrong friend.

Pope Heyward

Imagines:

Nothing to Prove - Pope helps you with some relationship problems. Later, while hanging out with your boyfriend, you realize that running from your fears got you nowhere and the only place you wanted to be was with Pope. (very soft)

Delivery Boy - With an absent mother and a distant father, you’ve always felt alone living in your empty house. But a certain delivery boy might be the one thing that makes running an estate worth it.

Seires:

Bare Bones - (Preview, Theory 1, Theory 2, Theory 3) Pippa Cantu has always been a little…strange. With a knack for knowing everything there is to know about every conspiracy, every mystery, and every weird happening, she doesn’t have much time (or desire) for friends. But when her chemistry lab partner asks her to join him and his friends on a hunt for the Royal Merchant, she just can’t say no.

Kelce

Series:

Simple Melancholy - (2) Jemma “Little J” Maybank finds herself a little over her head when she accidentally falls for a boy from Figure Eight. Between her overly protective brother and Kelce’s incredibly rude friends, neither of them are sure how they’re going to make it, but they’re determined to.

General (Everybody)

Imagines:

Do Not Stand - One of the Pogues passes away and leaves a message for her friends. Each of them take it in a different way.

Series:

Little Village - (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Finale) As the oldest of the Pogues and John B’s big sister, June always acted as their mother. She helped with assignments and studying, helped pay bills when it was needed, made dinner, reminded them about hygiene. But then she got pregnant and her boyfriend left and suddenly she found herself unable to do all those things she was once able to. When they say it takes a village, she wasn’t entirely sure they meant a bunch of teenagers. (post-canon, I haven’t decided who the love interest will be or if there will be one at all, so that’s why its here)

Requests:

Homeward Bound - After spending years abroad at a boarding school, Kie’s sister returns to the Outer Banks. The Pogues quickly realize that, despite her cold exterior, there is a free spirit inside her just longing to break free.

A Bunch of Love Stories Masterlist - A series of fics based on Taylor Swift’s album “Fearless”.

Outerbanks Playlist - This is just a list of songs that remind of the Pogues and other characters in the show. A few of the songs are connected to some of my fics as well!

ATLA Masterlist

Zuko

The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars - She is a non-bender from the Southern Water Tribe who somehow found herself smack in the middle of Fire Nation central, where a young prince is fighting an internal battle she hopes to help him win.

Harry Potter Masterlist

Fred Weasley

warm - you and your husband survive the second wizarding war, but so do some of Voldemort’s old followers, and they are hell bent on revenge.

Severus Snape

The Other Her - Severus Snape had two friends while he was at school. One, every body knew as Lily Evans. The other was you, an unknown student who wanted nothing more than to be noticed by your friend. You couldn’t help but compare yourself to the Gryffindor heartthrob every time he mentioned her name.

Only One - You return to Hogwarts years later to watch your son’s Quidditch match, only to find yourself a little bit in over your head.

Criminal Minds Masterlist

Derek Morgan

breathe again - he saved her life and now she has to deal with the aftermath. he’s there to help her every step of the way.

Aaron Hotchner

dark of the night - an agent gets taken in the middle of an investigation. in a race against time, the team at the bau must find her by diving into her deepest secrets. when a video tape arrives with horrible images of the state of their friends, aaron hotchner realizes just how terrified he is of losing her.

The Musketeers (BBC) Masterlist

Porthos

enough for you - the wife of a musketeer reflects on her relationship with her husband while Porthos watches from the sidelines.

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aritany · 4 years ago

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When Magic Died

Once upon a time, in a land far beyond the western horizon, there was an apprentice who was very bored. She lived in a fine palace, and was studying magic, her greatest passion, but her master was an inept and bumbling old man who couldn't tell one end of a wand from the other, and so she grew terribly disinterested with her daily duties, which included tending to the last bit of live magic in the kingdom and arguing with her greatest enemy, the young and pompous palace academic.

On one such day, shut up in the magician's tower and feeding the magic, the academic came knocking, thoroughly spoiling an otherwise pleasant morning. The two engaged in particularly feisty banter, this time about whether or not the academic should pursue a courtship with a maiden of the town, as his parents had suggested. This was, unfortunately, an ongoing discussion—the apprentice always asked about the progress of the courtship in order to poke holes in his unfaltering ego, and his retort tended to be that at least he had prospects—but on this day the argument went too far. Upon his suggestion that her general prickliness would subject her to a long and lonely life of her own doing, the apprentice quickly stood, furious, accidentally knocking over the cage in which the magic resided, and when the cage door flung open, the magic within was extinguished.

The apprentice and the academic looked at each other, horrified. Then the academic said, "Not it," and disappeared down the spiral staircase. Coward that he was.

The general uproar in the court over the matter lasted several days and nights, in which the apprentice bit her fingernails and hoped for a swift and painless death. However, the truth eventually came out: that it had been an accident, and that the apprentice and academic were to blame—much to the chagrin of the academic, who claimed innocence.

Punishment, it was determined, was only fair, and so the apprentice and the academic were turned away from the castle and sent on a quest to discover a new source of magic. (After all, a kingdom without magic is sure to crumble to ruin.) They were given provisions for two fortnights, and a protector to ensure their safety on the journey, who, incidentally, was a total stud, though he refused to speak at all, and so the two enemies set out on their journey in smouldering silence. Neither the apprentice or the academic had ever set foot outside the borders of the kingdom, and so both were begrudgingly impressed by the beauty the land had to offer, and they travelled through the day and well into the evening before coming to a stop.

On the first night, the apprentice was troubled by a dream where she stood in a gulley with powerful waterfalls crashing down around her, coloured hazy purples and dreamy blues. She was certain she had been there before, and it was upon waking that she realized the substance of the falls was not water, but magic.

"You know everything, don't you?" She asked of the academic once they were on the road for the day.

"Well," replied the academic, "no, not really. My specialties are in the history of the land, in strategy, and in speculative sciences."

"Cool," said she. "So you know everything."

He grimaced.

"Do you know of a place with many waterfalls?" she asked. "Preferably close by."

The academic thought for a moment, then pulled out a book—as he was wont to do—and rifled through the pages until he found an illustration of the very same gulley the apprentice had dreamed of, located, according to the book, two weeks travel to the south.

She explained her dream, and though the academic was skeptical, it seemed as good of a lead as any, and so they set off to the south, the academic muttering about dreams and psychic premonitions the whole way.

"I used to be a psychic," said the protector, speaking for the first time, and then, when the apprentice and academic looked up in surprise, refused to say anything more.

The journey went without a hitch for three days and three nights, until the three travellers came to a deep valley carved into the countryside, with steep walls impossible to climb down.

"You're a magician," said the academic to the apprentice, "magic us over."

"I'm not a magician," said the apprentice, "I'm an apprentice. And there's no magic, anyway. We killed it."

"You killed it."

"We killed it together."

And so the two engaged in one of their usual squabbles, until the protector grew weary of their bickering and held up a hand. "We'll rappel."

They looked up at him.

"I used to be a rope maker," he explained.

"I thought you used to be a psychic," the academic retorted.

The protector refused to say anything more.

And so, using the fibers of nearby crops, the protector instructed the academic and apprentice on how to make rope, and by nightfall, they had length enough to rappel down into the ravine, where they found a twisty river.

They walked south along the bank of the river, and after a day of their presence, naiads emerged in the water, startling the apprentice.

They grinned their watery grins, and when she had recovered her composure, she said, "We're looking for magic. Do you know where the magic is?"

The naiads grinned, said nothing, and disappeared.

"Bold of you to assume they speak the language." said the academic.

"I didn't hear you coming up with any clever solutions."

The academic launched into a lengthy speech about the history of naiads, which only the protector listened to.

After another day and night, the ravine twisted to the west, and so the group was able to climb up the side of the gulley without much difficulty, emerging into a barren wasteland.

"Oh my," said the apprentice.

"This looks homey." said the academic.

The protector bent over and rubbed dirt between his fingers. "There was a drought."

The academic raised an eyebrow.

"What?" the protector straightened. "I used to work in agriculture."

As they picked their way across the desolate arena, the academic needled the protector with a thousand questions about his elusive past, and the protector refused to say anything at all.

Eventually, the foothills rose up in front of them, and as they turned the corner, their first hint of danger leapt out from behind a rock, snarling and spitting, fur black as night, eyes red as blood.

The apprentice yanked the academic out of the way, and the protector knocked the beast with his staff, and when it came back, yowling and furious, he threw a dart at it, and it collapsed.

There was a moment of silence.

"Well," said the academic to the apprentice, shaken, "you've saved my life."

"Yes," replied the apprentice. "I imagine you would have done the same thing."

So they shook hands and decided to be friends moving forward, and the protector rolled his eyes and set to work hacking the beast to bits. An hour later, he'd built a fire and was roasting the animal, much to the surprise of the others.

"What?" said the protector. "I used to be a butcher."

The academic and the apprentice exchanged a bemused smile.

The meat was good, and the three went to bed that night sated for the first time in many days.

That night, the apprentice dreamt again of the waterfalls and woke with a burning against her ribs, and they pressed onwards into the hills, encountering more beasts, who mostly left them alone, keening from the shadows.

The further they got from the kingdom, the more jumpy the protector became, much to the amusement of the apprentice and alarm of the academic.

“What is magic, anyway?” the academic asked, “and how will we know we’ve found it?”

The apprentice considered. She said, “we’ll know when we’ve found it. Magic feels like being alive.”

The academic wrinkled his nose. “That makes no sense.”

She turned, one eyebrow raised. “Is it supposed to make sense?”

The academic opened his mouth as if to argue, but then remembered their newfound friendship, and closed it promptly.

The protector noticed this. “Why,” he asked, “did you both fight so passionately? Is it due to some secret love?”

The apprentice wrinkled her nose. “Gross. No. I would rather spend my days locked in a tower alone.” Then, at the stunned expression from the academic, hastily added, “No offence, but I do not think I was built for romantic love.”

“None taken,” he said, then added, “aren’t you technically studying to be locked in a tower alone?”

“By choice.” she said primly.

“The chemical formula for love is very complicated, anyway.” said the protector. “I would think one would be better off without it, as it does tend to interfere with many things.”

“How do you know about the chemical formula for love?” asked the apprentice, as her studies in magic had covered the concept and she knew it to be difficult.

"I used to be an alchemist," said the protector, to which the apprentice and academic said nothing, because at this point, what even.

The apprentice lagged behind the two, mulling over her recent confession. It was not one she had ever spoken aloud, but now that she had, she was quite pleased with it.

Ahead, as they walked, the protector glanced over at the academic.

"Wanna see my darts?" he asked.

The academic stared.

"They're my most deadly weapons."

The academic said, "Sure."

And so the protector unrolled a leather scroll, which nested thirteen beautiful poisoned darts.

"Thirteen is a strange number," said the academic, to which the protector replied, "There used to be fourteen."

"Fourteen is a strange number," said the academic, to which the protector replied, "harrumph."

On their tenth day of travel, they encountered a toll bridge, but whatever had once haunted it had long since absconded and taken the water with it, the ground left cracked and dusty.

The apprentice began to worry that an area so barren could not possibly host such a collection of waterfalls as she had dreamed of.

Creatures circled their campsite at night, eyes in the dark, but the protector kept them away with the glint of his blade clearly visible, which made the academic avert his eyes.

On their eleventh day, they encountered the remains of an abandoned village, and they were able to enclose themselves in what had once been a tavern to shelter from the wind and discuss their plans around a handmade fire.

“What happens if we never find the magic?” The apprentice asked.

The academic glanced at the protector and then away. “I think the instructions were clear. We stay away until we find it.”

“Tough deal for you.” The apprentice said to the protector. “You did nothing wrong and you still had to leave everything behind when there’s no guarantee of return.”

The protector made eye contact with the crackling flames and cleared his throat. “I had nothing to leave behind.”

“I would argue that I also did nothing wrong.” said the academic, without much conviction.

The apprentice raised her eyebrows. “You provoked me.”

“Why was there so little magic left, anyway?” asked the protector.

“Magicians used to be able to conjure magic themselves.” the academic replied. “But that’s a lost art.”

“I wish it wasn’t.” The apprentice looked glumly down at her shoes. “That way I wouldn’t be training to be a hired recluse.”

“I’ve heard the king would have been happy to announce the death of magic.” The academic sighed. “It was the council that suggested this quest.”

The protector’s expression shifted slightly.

“Really?” The apprentice, who did not notice this, straightened. “What sort of king wouldn’t want magic?”

The protector continued to stare into the fire and said nothing at all. The academic watched him very carefully.

“Well,” said the apprentice, “at least we have each other, so we won’t be lonely.”

So on they travelled, the apprentice ever plagued by the same dream of rushing waterfalls. She was troubled by an increasingly sharp pain in her chest, just behind her sternum, and grew worried that they would never find the magic they were in search of.

On their fifteenth day of travel, their water supply began to run short. The academic consulted his book and consulted the maps, and declared that they would arrive at the waterfalls the very next day.

The apprentice looked at the dust on the ground, and worried.

That night, the academic could not sleep, and so he stood under a large tree that spread out wide towards the stars and thought about death.

The protector woke, too, and joined him.

“I am worried,” said the academic, after some minutes of companionable silence, “that we will not find what we are looking for.”

“I swear on my sword that I will help you find it.” Said the protector, watching the academic carefully. “Your success will be my greatest joy.”

“That’s very interesting,” said the academic, “considering you’re planning on killing us both.”

There was a moment of stunned silence in which the protector looked far up into the night sky. Then he said, “you really do know everything.”

“No,” said the academic, “it just wasn’t that hard to figure out. Why would someone with such a wide range of skills and backgrounds be sent on an impossible quest with two nobodies? I mean, fourteen darts? The standard number for anything is a dozen.”

The protector said, “I liked thinking that you know everything better.”

The academic said, “Why haven’t you done it yet?”

“It would seem,” said the protector, drawing a dagger—the academic did not flinch—“that my orders do not align with my heart.”

Then he knelt and set the dagger at the academic’s feet.

“Though,” he said, his expression unreadable, “you have probably figured that out, too.”

The academic looked at the protector for a very long time. Then he said, “I had hoped.”

Then he knelt too, picked up the dagger, and held it back towards the protector, who was really the assassin.

The assassin said, “I do not want to.”

The academic said, “I know.”

The assassin took the dagger and sheathed it.

“When you do it,” said the academic, “because we both know you have to, use the darts. They seem a little more dignified.”

Then he kissed the assassin, turned, and went back to the campsite to sleep.

The assassin stood under the large tree that spread out wide towards the stars and thought about death.

The next morning, he took up the role of protector again, and neither he nor the academic said a word about it.

The ride through the mountain pass was tense for other reasons, as the apprentice grew more and more fearful that there would be no magic.

They arrived at the gulley, but the apprentice knew that something was wrong before they even turned the corner, because there was no sound of rushing water. No sound of rushing water, nor the familiar hum of the magic she had spent so long tending to and had killed. The sound in the gulley was the same as the sound in the cage in the moment after the magic had been snuffed out: eerie, silent, empty.

They rounded the corner.

Sure enough, the gulley was empty, and though the apprentice recognized the space from her dreams, the magic was nowhere to be found.

“Well,” said the academic, holding his arms out, voice echoing in the vast cavern, “now seems as good a time as any.”

The protector shook his head. “I will not do it.”

“Then you will die,” the academic said, “and since we will die out here anyway, one of us might as well live.”

“Hang on,” said the apprentice, catching on, “who’s dying?”

The protector shook his head again. “No one.”

“You were sent by the king to kill us.” The academic said. “So that there was no chance we’d bring magic back to the kingdom.”

The protector, who was really the assassin, said nothing.

“Wow,” said the apprentice, “that’s unfortunate.”

“I won’t do it.” The assassin said. “I have been a lot of things in my life, but a killer of friends is not one of them.”

The three stood watching each other warily for several long minutes, and when it became clear that no solution was going to present itself, the apprentice sighed. “What are our options?”

“We can’t go back without magic,” said the academic, “so we can’t go back at all. I suppose you could go back without us and pretend you’ve done the job.”

The assassin and the academic made very pointed eye contact, and the assassin said, “You don’t usually say foolish things. I will not leave you.”

It did seem rather grim, all things considered. If only, thought the apprentice, if only magic was anywhere to be found.

The pain in the apprentice’s chest worsened quite suddenly, and she staggered forward, clutching her heart.

The academic and the assassin rushed to her aide. The academic pressed a hand to her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

Bones, she thought, aren’t supposed to feel so alive. Her heart beat, the pain itself a presence large and unyielding and begging to be released, and a bubble of laughter trapped itself in her throat. She gasped, “there is no source of magic.”

The academic said, “I thought we’d already come to that conclusion.”

“No,” she said, and she stood, leaning against them both. “There never was. Magic isn’t something to be found.”

All around them, the air shimmered, the very ground beneath them buzzing a distinctly familiar hum. The apprentice staggered back, shut her eyes, and released the burden in her chest.

“What are you doing?” asked the academic, with an air of extreme skepticism.

The apprentice let her arms rise from her sides. “Magic, I think.”

And magic it was.

The academic knew it, and the assassin knew it, and the apprentice, who really wasn’t an apprentice any longer, threw her head back and laughed in delight. The sound echoed through the gulley, bright and high and beautiful, and once it reached the top, the water that was really magic burst forth, falling from the very highest point in torrential currents of dizzying blues and purples, just like her dreams.

“Well,” said the academic, once he had recovered his tongue, “I suppose you’re a magician now.”

“Yes,” the magician replied. “I think that suits me.”

On the way back, transformation was already underway. The barren wasteland was coming to life all around them bit by bit, and rains tore through the hardened earth, and the magician knew in her heart that magic had never really died, just been forgotten.

Their arrival back in the kingdom was only momentarily hindered by fear. The king was not thrilled to see the three of them back in his court, but after all, he was just a very grumpy figurehead, and besides that, the damage was already done. All around them, the colours were brighter, the air crisper, and the whole kingdom seemed to sing with an energy that none of them remembered having ever felt before. The assassin was not killed, because to do so would have been to reveal that the king had intended that two of his own die at his hand, and so they remained safe, if wary, at first, and as time passed, they relaxed, and the flow of magic never let up.

They didn’t live happily ever after, because happily-ever-afters are highly improbable, but they did lead happy lives, and the kingdom flourished under the influence of the first real magician in centuries, and the king died of gout, and the ex-assassin-turned-palace-fencing-instructor-slash-baker-slash-jack-of-all-trades never got tired of listening to the academic ramble about niche topics, particularly late at night when he had to be dragged away from his books to their shared living quarters in the west wing of the castle. And none of them ever forgot their journey, or the bond of friendship that had brought them back together in one piece.

The end.

#writing #writers #original writing #original fiction #fiction #fairy tale #short story #prose #short fiction #magic

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prettywarriors · 4 years ago

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Ok ill bite whats the worst mg series

alright, whats the worst magical girl series in your opinion?

Thanks you two for letting me do some yelling. The obvious guess would likely be one of the recent edgelord shows right? Magical Girl Site or something similar? But nay I say, for while MGS and Day Break Illusion and such and what not generally tell you what to expect right away. Don't like super violence and suffering? Watch something else is the clear message from the get go. One of the bait and switch series then like Madoka or maybe Yuki Yuna? For what faults they may or may not have, at least these series do something and are interesting, even if you're not huge on what goes down in the series. A parody then? They range from affectionate to banned in New Zealand but regardless of quality and their feelings for MGs, it's a parody. It's a joke and shouldn't be taken seriously (plus they're usually short so you can just forget about them forever).

So what makes a series terrible then, I am sure you are asking. IMO? Setting expectations for an interesting and enjoyable series, and then dashing them to hell.

Come with me below the cut, as I talk about Key Princess Story: Kagihime Eternal Alice Rondo!

Spoilers abound so if you care about those for a 15 year old series, click away.

Background: Kagihime was a 4 volume manga that ran from 2004-2006 that was picked up for a 13 episode anime adaptation near the end of its run. The manga is created by a pair (Kaishaku) who you may know for making Magical Nyan Nyan Taruto. Kannazuki no Miko, and Steel Angel Kurumi, and the anime had a script written by the same writer (Mamiko Ikeda) for Tenshi Ni Narumon who also did some script writing for Princess Tutu and Seven of Seven. The anime also had 6 character music videos which are fairly simple but a nice addition to the series for the main girls. Discotek has been publishing the anime in the states in recent years, and the manga was brought over by *squints at book spine* Dr Master Publications.

The Premise: Girls transform and enter weird outside of reality spaces to fight each other with giant keys to take each other’s stories to create a third Alice In Wonderland story.

Well, an off-brand Alice story written by Alternate L. Takion, rather than Lewis Carroll/Charles Dodgson, that while the series uses all the aesthetic hallmarks of the tradition Alice, the little we see of the in universe Alice story is clearly different. Which is fine, at the end of the day, it’s still about someone who loves the Alice stories and wishes there was more, and even makes his own fanfiction version. His? Oh yeah, while the girls do all the fighting, the main character is Aruto, a teen boy who loves Alice, and for reasons we don’t know till late game, can enter the liminal spaces that the ‘Alice Users’ fight in. He chases a girl who looks like the Alice he sees in his story, who is named Arisu, and gets roped into this fanfic battle royale. He is also the older brother of the very needy Kirihara, who also ends up being and Alice User. As does Kirihara’s bff Kisa. To round out the group of enemies-turned-friends-who-will-work-together-to-collect-the-Eternal-Alice-without-having-to-fight-eachother group is a young genius researcher Kirika who wants to know more about Aruto’s connection that allows him to enter the spaces where the girls fight.

Then there’s all the other girls, some of whom still have real importance to the story and some who have a few panels or 2 scenes total. But with a whole bunch of girls to design, the creators reached out to a whole lot of other people to have them create designs! Eventually the battle gets down to the last few girls, there’s a confrontation with the guy running the whole thing, and while the anime and manga vary quite a bit the whole time, in both version Aruto ends up with Kirihara. Oh and Arisu was created by Aruto’s super imagination powers.

The Promise: Here on is subjective, particularly with what I personally saw as potential from this series. because I need you to understand how much I want to like this series.

~Alice in Wonderland themed: I know some people aren’t alice fans and that’s fine you do you but as a big alice fan this is great. We have a few alice episodes and themed characters amongst series like CCS and MGRP, and even Alice themes in other series like Tweeny Witches and Alice 19th. But damn it I am down for Alice series.

~Giant Keyyyyyyyys: Yeah yeah Kingdom Hearts but these keys are much more staff like for a lot of the characters which ads and air of elegance rather than the KH ones that for me at least feel well designed for big ol props rather than actual weapons. We also get...

~Weapon variety: It counts as a key if it’s a thorn whip that can be shaped like a key right? How about a giant pocket knife? Crossbows can also be keys. Hush. And we have this variety because

~Guest Artists: For magical girl series where we have a variety of outfits designed by different people, we have Kagihime, Uta~Kata, and uhh I guess Magia Record? But that’s a mobile game with a hella number of characters and with how mobile game works I wouldn’t count it just because it’s less the intent of the series to have variety and more the nature of having lots of girls. (Precure doesn’t count because unless I missed a memo each season’s set is still by one designer). If a series isn’t about a team and therefore doesn’t need cohesion, bringing in other artists is a great way for variety and new looks.

~The long term goal: Fighting with other people who love the same piece of media you do in hopes of creating new material that will be viewed as official? That’s just fandom nowadays. But it’s a legitimate interesting concept, and opens up so many doors for a message for the series, be it ‘what you create is no less valuable than the canon work’ or ‘it’s hard to let go when something you love doesn’t have more to it but you can still love it for what it is’ or ‘bond with the people who like the thing you like ya idiot instead of fighting about it’. The concept is interesting and there are so many narrative ways you can take this.

~Gays: Between the anime and manga, we have at least 5 wlw. Is it a magical girl series without some gays? (side note- the manga had a short thing where the MC wears a girl’s uniform and is pretty comfortable in it and while there is no way this was the intent, between that and the emphasis on the stories that live in girls and how the fight zones have no men, I’m just saying, Trans girl Aruto.)

~Greater Fairy Tale Premise: We meet a Little Match Girl based MG who is obsessed with Andersen rather than the Alice books, and touch on a Sleeping Beauty character in the manga. The manga at least implies that classic stories and fairy tale authors uh. Live on in a liminal space as immortals with world warping powers within that world and there could be opportunities for other girls in the real world to fight for Little Mermaid 2: Electric Boogaloo.

The Good: Everything has positive points, no matter how bad it is.

~Character Designs: Some of those looks slap. As do most of their weapons.

~Backgrounds: I have a strong opinion on backgrounds in anime that can be easily boiled down to old watercolor backgrounds good, modern filtered photos as background bad, and as a 2006 series, this might not be Memole nice but they’re quite attractive.

~Splash Pages: Easily my favorite thing after the designs, each chapter’s title page for the manga just has a character standing in a setting. Which is not everyone’s thing I’m sure but it’s a nice simplistic way to let the characters breathe imo. Even if at least some of the settings were deffo traced. But that’s how backgrounds work to some extent? If I ever get to the Met again, I am tracking down this exact photo, but here is a likely candidate for an example.

~Different Versions: I do not understand the need to make an adaptation that tries to be a 1:1. Kagihime had the same ideas and characters and did some of the same beats but very much had a different finale story and a lot of changes in the middle (like the Alice cops in the manga). Again, not something everyone probably wants I’m sure, but I very appreciate this, especially since the Anime kept good pace with the number of Manga chapters (reading the manga again while watching the anime at 3.8x speed just now was very interesting to see the different interpretations of events in a different medium.)

The ‘Fine’: Yeah.

~Anime Visuals: Look 2006 was still early enough into digipaint that I will give it a total pass on these. The colors are too bright but in a very bland way, the lineart is nothing interesting, and the faces are. Iffy. But it’s not total garbage to look at (probably helped by backgrounds and character designs...) it just came out in an era where not enough people knew how to stylize things to account for the weakness of the tools of the time. (It was 4 years earlier but I feel Kagihime is the polar opposite of Chobits with its painfully bland color palette while still being just. Flat. Sorry for the drive by Chii.)

~Music?: There sure were songs. Obviously, they are nothing to me.

The Bad: CW for.... somehow all the big things to an extent.

~Fanservice: Look, I am fine with fanservice, especially for a series that’s, ya know, not targeted at kids, big Mai Hime fan here even if I would recommend skipping the panty thief episode. And honestly the series generally isn’t fanservicey, at least by the modern standards of having the camera choosing under the skirt rather than an over the shoulder shot like I’ve seen plenty in other shows. Even the sexier outfits like the rose whip dominatrix aren’t bad BUT. When the girls fight. One takes her phallic key and drives it into another girls chest between the boobs while the loser cries in pain and then her book comes out and when the victor rips out pages, the loser’s clothes also rip. It is very SuperS Amazon Trio assault metaphor-y. There’s also a bit of fanservice with the sister becauseeeee....

~Incest: If you read the premise up there, first wow good job because I’m sure not re-reading that, you might have noticed I said MC ends up with his sister. As someone who is a big mythology fan and watches plenty of anime, I have a decent tolerance for your obligatory ‘oh we’re siblings but actually cousins so our feelings are okay’ or whatever the fuck Citrus has going on I don’t know that series and I don’t vibe BUT. I have limits and boy did this series go beyond that because multiple episodes are dedicated to the sister being in love with the brother? And the brother returns her feelings but knows that they are wrong so he put everything he likes in his sister into his version of Alice who, of course, physically manifests as Arisu who he creates accidentally with his uh. Magic imagination powers. But again in both versions MC still ends up with his sister. Hey, at least the manga eventually said the boy was adopted when the sister was like, 3, so if nothing else no blood relations? The anime did not ad this. -_-

~Under Utilized Characters: Arisu’s gradual revelation that she has no childhood memories because she isn’t a real person is so interesting and they don’t do nothing with it but also? That’s the kind of thing I personally would love to dig into and Kagihime, while touching on this world shattering revelation, easily loops back to So Anyway She Should Fight For The Man and to hell with developing a life or personality outside of what has been written for her. The rest of the main 5 were 2 note characters which. Could be worse? The most interesting character ends up being the child genius who accidentally murdered her childhood bestie (and/or lover? depending on version) and her coming to terms with that (the friend is alive but the version changes how and why she thinks she’s dead). Then the villain has the motivation of ‘i lost my creativity and now have become an immortal living outside of normal space and am getting girls to fight each other because that’s like a story so I’m still relevant right?’. But shoutout to the anime for then taking death of the author literally. The numerous other girls are canon fodder outside of like. The manga version of the dead gf and the little match girl.

~Battle Royale: This is not a thing I have an issue with generally. Again, but Mai Hime fan, I need to read MGRP 11, BUT by not developing the non-main girls there is no emotional connection which makes them just canon fodder and that’s boring as sin for a royale system. The initial main character fights revolve so much around the MC guy being there that they fall flat, and the 2 or 3 final battles in both versions still feel without any stakes. Also for a royale thing most of the characters don’t actually die, which cool! Neat! Except when they do? Some nobodies and a somebody are murdered (at least in the manga) and the tone never feels like it’s supposed to be upping the stakes, it’s just. Some people are dead now. And do you want to guess which of the main characters died?

~Gays: Oh boy the best friend of the brother-complex sister is in love with her and (in the manga) dies. She does apparently get better for the last chapter but the death itself is only felt by the rest of the cast for a page or two before we go back to feeling sad big brother wants to kiss his mentally generated sister clone rather than his actual sister u_u. Bury your gays is nothing new, but I wonder if it was also intended to be justified because Guess Who Is Creepy and a bit Perverted? Oh look the lesbian keeps the used swimsuit of her beloved and manipulates events to get an indirect kiss and when she sees the sister trying to strange Arisu for a moment she decides to do it for the sister? It’s not good. You want bad gay rep in a magical girl series, well here ya go. We also had a nobody in the first(second?) episode whose story pages reveal her having a kiss with a girl, and then we also have the prodigy again and- in the manga- her. Uh. childhood lover who she thought she killed but the girl has been wiping her mind over and over so prodigy remembers ‘killing’ the friend and not the she’s alive so she can keep? fucking with her? Toxic!

~Sexual Content: But wait you say, you already covered fanservice! Ah but that is sexual content for titilation. This is sexual content for dramatic backstory! The red riding hood character was sexually assaulted, another character was manipulated into sex first as a teen and then more often to ‘get into the publishing industry’, and the same writer forces some aggressive kisses on the MC. None of it is gratuitous which is nice, but also, was it necessary? Not making a new point for this but read riding hood’s dog was also murdered so unnecessary animal death gets tossed on in there.

~Male Lead: You can have a male, non magical character as the main character surrounded by magical girls. This is not how to do it. If I can make a vicious and hopefully not understood reference, Aruto is basically Tate from the Mai Hime Manga. If you understood that, I am so sorry. If you didn’t, congrats! Don’t read the manga. Or do and send me asks about the iconic final page of the first volume (18+). Anyway, this dude is boring, everything revolves around him, BUT I’ll be generous and say at least this isn’t a harem series? It looks like it out of context but it’s just a triangle with a fun attached scientist and token lesbian.

~Premise: They didn’t make good use of it. The initial goals of ‘take other girls pages from their soul books because if we get enough we unlock a third alice book’ is good! And then we add the twist that that was never going to happen and either if we get all the pages we can grant a wish, or these fights are just happening for the amusement of and asshole. Either way, yeah okay I guess. But at no point do we ever achieve this forbidden wish granting book and the asshole just. Lives. Nothing happens to him. His peers don’t even dunk on him. The only real changes from the beginning and the end of the series are: the siblings are now chill with dating, and the scientist lady won’t turn into a child in magical spaces. Oh. Yeah.

~Why did we make this adult a child sometimes?: I think we know why. Stop trying to get those types of folks to watch your already meh series. I also could have sworn at points in the past looking up images for this series I’ve seen extra art for Yuuri the Thumbelina-y Alice User that seemed like it would fit alongside anything by POP. You know, the Moetan guy. If you don’t know, god I wish that were me.

Wrap Up: I have definitely forgotten some points and am well within my rights to ad to this whenever I remember more points but uh. Yeah.

Listen you want an alice themed battle royale with nice outfits? Rozen maiden is right there. Battle Royale magical girl series that’s good with fanservice? Mai Hime. Series with different outfits while being based on a classic story? Pretear.

Hope anyone who read all of this at least got what I was saying, even if they don’t agree with it. And thanks for reading because whoops.

#why do ya'll let me write so damn many words #thanks ya'll for letting me write so many words #kagihime eternal alice rondo #long post #text #not fashion #whoops 3k words

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noenvyy · 3 years ago

Text

“Bring Me Tomorrow/Stay With Me,” Chapter Two: Reunion

"It hadn’t taken long for the word to make its way around the cultivation world. Wei Wuxian, the Yiling patriarch, the dark individual who had cast a shadow over the collective peace of mind of all the clans had been defeated.

It was true.

Captured, beaten, stripped of his legendary weapon, Chenqing, and currently held in the dungeons of Lotus pier, the very place that he used to call his home, it seemed his reign of terror was finally coming to a close."

An AU where Wei Wuxian is captured shortly after Jin Zixuan's death. Hearing his beloved sentenced to death Lan Wangji finally has the impetus to bear his heart and confess his true feelings to Wei Ying. But what happens when new love has no time? When everything you've held precious is shattered and scattered to the winds, how do you find the will to keep going? How do you even begin to conceive of tomorrow?

**TRIGGER WARNING- FOR THIS CHAPTER---Before reading please know that this chapter contains an explicit sex scene with some non-con elements.

This text, and author in no way commend lack of consent in any way and remind the reader that any sort of physical intimacy without both partys' explicit consent is sexual assault plain and simple.

This chapter is not meant to be didactic but rather an exploration of these two characters' canonical kinks **wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more** which if any reader decides to explore in real life, should be done with clear consent and the proper safety measures.**

Reunion

“You have exactly one hour with him.” Jiang Cheng instructed as he and a group of Jiang guards walked Lan Wangji down a hallway leading to the Lotus Pier dungeons.

It was difficult imagining a place as idyllic as Lotus Pier even having the need for dungeons.

But the war had changed a lot of things.

Since the burning of his original home at the age of sixteen, at the hands of the Wen clan, Jiang Cheng had worked tirelessly to rebuild the grounds and surrounding buildings that had been destroyed. It was not surprising that he had added extra buildings and security measures in the process.

After a few more twists and turns in the hallway, Jiang Cheng finally brought them to a stop in front of a set of heavy-looking wooden doors, guarded on each side by a pair of Jiang cultivators.

The two stepped aside at Jiang Cheng’s approach. Jiang Cheng turned once more towards Lan Wangji before opening the doors.

“Do what you will to make him talk, but know this, I am at my wit’s end.” Jian Cheng’s expression was grim yet resolved.

“Before you came today I had just about reached my decision and contained the Jin clan. If you can’t get him to give up any information then I wash my hands of him. He’ll be delivered to the Jin clan today and they can do what they want with him.”

The slight crease between Lan Wangji’s brow deepened at these words. He knew that Jiang Cheng was serious. He also knew that nothing the Jin clan would do to Wei Ying would be anything short of torturous execution. He nodded at Jiang Cheng.

“I will do my best.”

Seeming decided yet unsatisfied, Jiang Cheng finally opened the doors. Lan Wangji stepped inside and heard them close behind him.

The cell was stuffy and humid, with the hot Yunmeng climate. It contained no windows. Lan Wangji had to wait for his eyes to fully adjust to the darkness of the space. For a moment he only stood by the door, gaze scanning the dim quarters before finally falling upon a grey, curled shadow in the corner of the room.

Wei Ying sat upon the floor, slumped half-consciously against one wall. He was bound brutally, his wrists twisted upwards and lashed behind his back, ropes crisscrossing over his bare chest.

No, not ropes.

The restraints encircling him let out a dull violet glow, the same color as a length of Jiang Cheng’s Zidian. Lan Wangji knew he wouldn’t be able to remove them even if he tried.

Wei Ying’s dark hair was loose, and hung in a curtain about his face, nearly obscuring it from view. Even from this distance, in the dimness, Lan Zhan could see the patterns of cuts and bruises adorning the whole of Wei Ying’s upper torso along with whip burns from where Jiang Cheng’s Zidian had wrapped itself along the edges of Wei Ying’s back. Lan Wangji felt himself sway.

He had known of Jiang Cheng’s resentment.

He could even force himself to understand some of Jiang Cheng’s blame.

But never, in a million centuries could he have imagined this havoc Jiang Cheng would allow himself to lay upon his brother. If he had bothered to take breakfast, Lan Wangji was sure he would be in the middle of spilling its contents upon the floor.

Quickly he crossed the room and kneeled in front of Wei Ying. Gingerly, he maneuvered Wei Ying away from the wall, turning him slightly so that he lay cradled with his head upon Lan Wangji’s chest. With one fair, slender hand, he smoothed the hair away from Wei Ying’s face, revealing a fading black eye and split lip.

“Wei Ying.” He whispered softly, giving him a small shake, “Wei Ying?”

For a moment Wei Ying’s head only lolled against his chest, breath worryingly shallow. Lan Wangji could feel his heart thud with dim panic. Surely they had injured him far too much. They had pushed him past what was reasonable and now could he even wake up?

But just as he began to contemplate rising and pounding on the door, Wei Ying’s eyelids fluttered. With a soft moan, Wei Ying blinked them open before gazing unsteadily up at him. Eyes clouded with delirium and pain. “Lan Zhan?….”

“Yes.”

“Lan Zhan….is that really you…?”

“I am here, Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying’s voice could barely be registered above a dry rasp. Lan Zhan had to cradle him closer to be able to hear him.

“What are you doing here?”

Lan Wangji had thought long about how to respond to this question. There was so much that had gone unsaid between the pair of them. You could fill valleys with the years of withheld statements, form mountains with the silences of sentiments left unspoken.

But words had never come as easily to Lan Wangji as they had to Wei Ying.

In the end, he’d always end up relying on simplicity. Simplicity and the hope that his true feelings would be glimpsed in the delivery of the message; in the look he held in his eyes.

“I came here for you.”

To his despair, Wei Ying only issued a bitter scoff in response. “So they finally picked one of you to come end me. I’m surprised Jiang Cheng’s allowing you the privilege. What did you all do, draw lots out of a hat or something?”

“N-no.” Lan Wangji stammered, but Wei Ying continued. Gaze turned firmly away as he rambled hoarsely.

“You need me to get to my feet? Are we going outside? I imagine most people probably wanted this public. I’m not so sure I can stand but I’ll try or you could just have the guards drag me out. There’s no need to pretend to give me any last dignity.”

“Wei Ying, I did not come here to kill you.”

Wei Ying paused in his speech before finally turning back to Lan Wangji’s face, his eyes searching.

“Then why?”

Lan Zhan held his gaze determinedly. He repeated the phrase once more, enunciating, one word at a time.

“I came here for you.”

For a moment Wei Ying’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. His throat fluttered as he swallowed hard, shadows crossing over his face. In the dim light, Lan Zhan watched in concern as his eyes dampened then threatened to spill over. Yet when he spoke, the bitter edge from earlier still coated his voice.

“For me? Huh. Why even bother?”

And with that admission, one by one the tears finally did begin to slide down his face.

In the darkness, in Lan Wangji’s arms, Wei Ying wept quietly.

Growing up, he had taught himself to always weep quietly.

Years of mistreatment at the hands of Madame Yu, had made him stubborn, unwilling to let her hear his cries although she may have gone easier on him if she had. Furthermore, he’d always witnessed Jiang Cheng’s inability to cry, in spite of the pained expression he often got at his father’s lack of warmth and their parents' constant fights.

Somehow, allowing himself the release of weeping openly when Jiang Cheng couldn’t had always stuck Wei Ying as selfish.

Especially when he knew, he was not entirely blameless in the causes of his brother’s pain growing up.

Lan Wangji let him weep, slowly wiping away each tear with the back of a knuckle or the pad of his thumb as they trickled steadily over the contours of Wei Ying’s face, leaving clear streaks in the blood and grime. At one point Lan Wangji looked around them and spotted an earthen jar and bowl near their sitting space. The jar was full of water, but with Wei Ying’s bound hands it equated to more of a cruel taunt than a kindness. Getting to the contents would have required knocking the entire thing over and lapping it from the floor like a dog.

With his free hand, Lan Wangji poured a measure of the water into the bowl beside it. Digging around in his robe, he pulled forth a folded white handkerchief which he proceeded to dip in the bowl. With firm but tender strokes, Lan Wangji ran the kerchief over Wei Ying’s battered face, wiping gently at the dried blood near his lip, the sweat dotting his brow, and the coating of dirt covering his face.

Wei Ying closed his eyes and submitted to the treatment, the tears flowing more intensely for a moment as Lan Wangji began. After a while, though, their trickle finally ceased. Wei Ying shifted briefly in Lan Wangji’s arms, a momentary grimace twisting his face as something pained him with the movement.

Lan Wangji eyed the Zidian binds with deep reproach.

“Do they hurt?”

“Not more than anything else. Lan Zhan, please, could I have some water?”

Lan Wangji set the kerchief down and reached for the earthen jar, holding it up to Wei Ying’s lips.

“Go slow,” he instructed, propping up Wei Ying’s head and tilting the jar so the water could reach his mouth. Wei Ying drank slowly but deeply, a look of overwhelming relief crossing his face as the cool water ran down his parched throat. After a minute Lan Zhan had to pull the jar away.

“ Enough for now. More in a few moments.”

Wei Ying signed resignedly and Lan Zhan wiped droplets from his chin and the corners of his mouth. For a few brief instances, neither of them said anything. Finally, Lan Zhan spoke.

“Wei Ying. What happened at Qiongqi pass?”

His words held no accusation. No judgment. Just an honest and open inquiry.

For his part, Wei Ying did not avert his gaze when responding. “You were right all along, Lan Zhan. I messed up. I was arrogant. I lost control.”

Lan Zhan gave him space to process the memory. Waiting patiently as Wei Ying’s eyes took on a distant look. “I had Chenqing with me but...I suppose at some point I lost track of the melody. The melody was strange, it was almost like I heard…almost as if I wasn’t the only...” but he stopped himself and shook his head. “Wen Ning was fighting with the other cultivators while I argued with Jin Zixuan. He was only trying to calm me down but at that point I was too far gone. I didn’t care about him, it was his cousin that set the ambush but he was in the way. I think I may have wished him gone and what else could Wen Ning do but obey me? You know he died trying to tell me about how Yan Li was waiting at home. He was trying to remind me not to mess things up for her sake. Then that night….”

A squeeze of Wei Ying’s eyes sends a few more tears out of their corners, his voice dull.

“Why did she have to step in front of that sword? Oh, Lan Zhan... how could I have ruined everything so completely? What am I supposed to do about the things that I’ve done?”

Wei Ying lapsed into fraught silence. Eyes staring unseeingly at the ceiling of the enclosed space.

“I should have died that first time in the Burial Mounds. I should have just let Wen Chao kill me,” he whispered.

Lan Zhan gazed into the face of his beloved. The quiet anguish, the burning grief carved upon those features, once so full of light, reflected itself on his heart.

There is a special type of agony reserved for these moments when we find the ones we love in the blackened pit. Our words do not reach them, our offered comforts impotent.

We call and call and receive only echoes.

We rail at the gods to allow us to take their pain as our own, to give us the words to heal them but only succeed in providing the heavens with mild amusement; children in the midst of a tantrum---and besides why would any gods ease the suffering of one when allowing it would gain them double the amount?

Screams of despair make for such dainty offerings after all.

But as mentioned earlier, Lan Wangji rarely ever bothered with words.

Reaching out his hand, he ran his fingers over the side of Wei Ying’s face, careful when brushing past his black eye. Wei Ying turned away from him, feeling undeserving and as such unwilling to accept such a painfully gentle touch. Lan Zhan gripped his chin, tilting his face back in his direction.

For once, Lan Zhan felt no hesitation. Pausing briefly, he allowed himself to take in Wei Ying completely before tipping his chin upwards and leaning in.

At the brush of Lan Zhan’s lips over his own, Wei Ying’s eyes shot open.

The kiss was light, barely more than a finger’s caress and yet the feel of it stirred something in Wei Ying. A memory, hazy with the fog of time and recent pain pulled at the edges of his mind; the distant call of a sun-warmed day, and the rasp of bark underneath his back. Even the feeling of being restrained felt familiar as he recalled that intoxicating sensation of helplessness; a firm body pressing against his own, pinning him down, hands locked like manacles around his wrists, eyes blinded by the cloth he had wrapped around them to show off.

Any lingering doubt he may have felt was whisked away with the next kiss.

Lan Zhan’s lips brushed over his again, this time lingering a little longer. They rubbed delicately over his own in soft small circles, soothing, coaxing Wei Wuxian’s lips to part. When they did, Lan Zhan’s teeth grazed lightly over his bottom lip, sucking slightly.

Wei Ying released a small breath. “Was it really you all this time?”

Lan Zhan’s gaze was soft as he looked at Wei Ying.

“It has been me all along.”

Wei Ying felt the distinct click of something falling into place; a puzzle, years in the making, finally together and whole. He raked his eyes over Lan Wangji’s face, searching for some surety, desperate for confirmation. As if guessing what he was searching for Lan Zhan responded by leaning in yet again. This time Wei Ying parted his lips, fully allowing Lan Zhan to deepen the kiss.

The sensation was like that of the rest of the world falling away.

For a few heartbeats there was only stillness; no cell, no bruised and broken body, no memories of mistakes unable to be taken back. Wei Ying felt himself awash in a deep and healing peace. He felt the way he had when he was young on mornings, slept in, the day’s silken light filtering grayly through his windows and shut eyelids, the warmth of his covers shielding him against the still chill air.

Separating briefly from Lan Zhan’s lips, his nostrils caught a whiff of a cold, alluring aroma and he was reminded of springtime in Gusu and afternoons spent playing among the sandalwood trees surrounding Cloud Recesses.

Leaning forward as best he could in his restraints, he nuzzled his face along Lan Zhan’s, grazing his teeth over his lower jaw and burrowing his nose into the hollow behind his ear. The sandalwood scent here was strong, and he breathed it in, letting it fill his lungs as he inhaled deeply, feeling drunk off of the fragrance. Parting his lips he nibbled along the shell of Lan Zhan’s ear, sucking lightly on the earlobe. He felt Lan Zhan shudder underneath him as the bites sent tiny electric pulses running up and down the length of his spine.

Lan Zhan submitted to the bites, holding himself back from further action, through the tightening of his fingers around Wei Ying’s shoulders told him he yearned to do much more.

Finally, when he could stand it no longer he pulled Wei Ying away from him; His fingers digging underneath his hair and then tightening in a firm grip. Wei Ying felt his head pulled down and back, his neck arched and exposed. The slight pain he felt at the tightening of his hair around his scalp made him gasp. Looking up at Lan Zhan he was suddenly, acutely aware of his vulnerability; hands still wrenched up and tied behind his back, body locked away in a cell, head immovable from the fist of hair in Lan Zhan’s grasp.

“Lan Zhan,” he breathed, “Please…” and as he spoke the words, he was not entirely sure what sort of mercy he begged for.

With the ease of someone carrying a much lighter load, Lan Zhan suddenly swung him around so that he was lying upon the floor, the Lan disciple looming forebodingly above him. Suddenly frightened, Wei Wuxian tried to scramble away, his legs struggling to find footholds to push himself back. Lan Zhan merely took hold of the binds looping across his chest, holding him steadily in place. With his other hand, he slid out of his upper robes then began to undo Wei Ying’s trousers.

Involuntarily, Wei Ying began to struggle, legs failing desperately given his inability to defend himself with his hands. Lan Wangji paid his movements no mind, fingers deftly sliding the roughspun cloth down and over Wei Ying’s hips until he was completely naked and exposed. Looking down, Wei Ying found his member standing hard and erect despite the terror slowly coursing through his veins.

He had never done this before.

Oh, he had played the part of the braggart well, but contrary to the rumors of the multitude of virgins he had kidnapped and defiled, very few people knew that the Yiling Patriarch was as green at the age of twenty as he had been at fifteen back in Cloud Recesses.

Lan Zhan, on the other hand, seemed to hold no hesitation. Each movement was sure and practiced as if he had performed the act countless times. Even in his terror, Wei Ying had the presence of mind to be a little impressed.

“Lan Zhan,” he rasped, as the latter caressed one hip and then slid his hand down into the space right between his legs, “You’ve done this before?”

He swore he saw the Lan disciple quirk a brow, as he looked at him.

“No,” he replied before wetting a finger with his lips and then sliding the digit into the spot right between Wei Wuxian’s cheeks.

The moan Wei Ying let out was deep and throaty. He had never felt such a sensation before. The discomfort it brought, offset by the intoxicating feeling of being wanted, of being taken.

“Lan Zhan…” Wei Wuxian groaned, “No….please...not like this…”

Lan Zhan’s finger was in, several knuckles deep, but beyond it, Wei Ying could also feel the slight pressure of something larger, something warm and hard beginning to slip in after it. Suddenly the object was completely inside of him. Wei Wuxin felt his back arch, head tilting towards the opposite wall as the thick, stiff blade began to rhythmically thrust itself in and out of him with eager, thirsty pulses.

Wei Ying had endured pain over the course of the past few days.

He had been beaten, cut, whipped, starved, and berated.

He had been pushed to the brink, enduring moments where he’d hardly even remembered his own name for the cloud of suffering that enveloped him.

None of that even came close to the excruciation he felt as Lan Zhan’s member drove through him.

Yet pain was hardly the only word to describe the overwhelming feeling.

With every thrust, Wei Ying’s nerve endings seemed to ignite. At the same time, he was aware of a dull heat blossoming somewhere below his midsection, the warmth building in a slow and tantalizing pressure, the feeling of a cloth twisted and creaking from the strain of being tightened by a pair of firm hands.

“Laaaaan Zhaaannn…..” Wei Ying moaned pitifully, his voice low, resounding deep in the back of his throat, the vowels of his lover’s name stretched long. “Pleeease….don’t…”

The Lan clan disciple did not reply, but kept up his movements; eyes closed, lips parted a small furrow between his brows.

“Go slow at least.” Wei Ying rasped, “Go slow. Lan Zhan please, please, please, Lan Zhan, please, I’ve never done this, please, Gege…”

For a moment Lan Zhan did slow and Wei Ying could feel a slight bit of the pressure ease. Opening his eyes, he could see Lan Zhan staring down at him, expression indecipherable.

Reaching out a hand he ran his fingers through Wei Wuxian’s hair, causing his scalp to prickle. The hand trailed down the back of Wei Ying’s head, briefly cupping the curve of his neck. With a thumb, Lan Zhan, traced the lines of Wei Ying’s collarbone, gently allowing his nails to rake little lines along Wei Ying’s chest until they came to a tender, triangular spot right along the swell of his left pectoral muscle. A brand mark with the garish design of the Wen clan’s sun emblem stood in stark relief against Wei Ying’s skin. An old wound, but one that still tingled to the touch despite the years of healing.

A reminder of an earlier time Wei Ying had intercepted someone else’s pain.

The sight of it sent a ripple of darkness through Lan Zhan’s expression and for an instant his movements ceased completely.

Something about the look on his face made the hairs on the back of Wei Wuxian’s neck stand on end. He felt the trickle of something cold drip down his spine.

“What is it?” he gasped, “Why are you--urck!”

Wei Ying’s breath was cut off as Lan Wangji’s slender, strong hand closed around his throat. He tried once more to struggle but found the attempt even more futile than before as Lan Zhan leaned his weight forward onto him, completely pinning him in place.

Black dots formed and swam before his eyes as he fought to take in even a whisper of breath.

“No talking now,” spoke Lan Zhan into his ear, the command staunch, unbending, heavy with the threat of retribution if broken.

Momentarily, the crushing weight on Wei Ying lifted as Lan Zhan shifted off of him and released his throat. Wei Wuxian drew in a gulp of air then immediately began to cough. Chest heaving with relief, but his reprieve did not last.

Grabbing hold of the ropes across his chest once more, Lan Zhan deftly flipped Wei Wuxian over onto his side. Wei Wuxian felt his body enveloped in Lan Zhan’s embrace as the Lan disciple suddenly lay on the ground next to him, embracing him from behind, one arm looping underneath and around his neck, securing him firmly against his chest. With his other hand. Lan Zhan once more began to maneuver his member between Wei Ying’s buttocks.

“No, no, no wait!----”

Wei Ying’s pleas were cut short in a sharp cry as he felt himself run through once more. Yet again he felt himself ignite, the undulations from behind causing his body to become racked with bone-rattling shudders. He was suddenly aware of the flutter of Lan Zhan’s breath against his ear, the inhales sharp and ragged.

“You should have listened.” he breathed hoarsely, exhales tickling the sensitive contour of Wei Ying’s ear, “You never listen.”

“Lan Zhan, I’m sorry---” he tried to say, but the sob that escaped his lips was stopped yet again as Lan Zhan’s arm moved to restrict his available airflow, nestling the curve of Wei Ying’s throat in a confining chokehold. The maneuver sent its message loud and clear; Lan Zhan wasn’t interested in pithy apologies, what he was demanding was penance.

Wei Ying felt feverish. Even in the midst of his ravagment he could discern the threads of Lan Zhan’s meaning and felt no reproach.

Why couldn’t he listen?

All those arguments between the two of them during the war came flooding back in a swell of memory. The number of times Lan Zhan had condemned his use of Chenqing, his persistence that Wei Ying return with him to Gusu. How could he have been so blind?

At the time, Wei Ying had been so consumed with his own damned arrogance and combined self-loathing that he assumed Lan Zhan’s disapproval had only come from a place of inflexible, righteousness.

Of course, someone as skilled, as moral, as beautiful, as overwhelmingly pure as Lan Wangji would take one look at what he’d become and recoil.

After all, weren’t there those in life who became the monsters lurking in the basements of all that was good and those who tasked themselves with cleansing the world of their scourge; between the pair of them, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, it was clear who others would label as who.

But now, caught up in this furious, punishing embrace, Wei Ying could finally read the grey shadows overlying Lan Wangji’s past insistences.

“Do not use Chenquin”

I am afraid of what it’ll force you to become.

“Return to Gusu with me.”

Let me protect you. Let me be near you.

During those years, countless others had felt frightened of him. Wei Ying now realized Lan Wangji was one of few who had felt frightened for him. While others had praised his power, Lan Wangji had seen the lost, defenseless soul underneath.

He had never once thought of him as a monster.

Holding this new knowledge, Wei Wuxian took Lan Zhan’s punishment, feeling close to swooning as his breath caught and he was plunged through again and again. He had said it before on that night he had fled with the Wen clan refugees and the sentiment still held true.

If he had to die by anyone’s hands he’d prefer it be Lan Wangji’s.

Just as he felt himself slipping off into the grayness, however, the arm around his throat released. Wei Wuxian lurched forward breath coming in deep, raw respires. He sobbed with relief, practically groveling on the ground when he felt himself shifted once more; flipped so he was lying completely on his stomach, face pressed into the cold, unyielding floor. He felt Lan Zhan’s hands grip his waist and tug it upwards, felt his ass stuck straight in the air, and felt the accompanying sense of panic.

This was the way wild animals mated.

“Please, no…”

His body reacted instinctively in defense, and he lurched forward, straining to break out of Lan Wangji’s grasp but to no avail. The Lan disciple’s strength was formidable and Wei Ying was next to helpless, bound, and already in a weakened state from the days of mistreatment. He breathed sharply, inhaling and exhaling through his nose, attempting to steal himself with a clench of his jaw. You don’t get a choice. He told himself. You deserve this. You owe him. Still, when he felt Lan Zhan position himself directly behind him, he couldn’t help but let out a pitiful whimper.

As if sensing his fear, Lan Zhan’s handling of his body became less rough. The frustration, the anger at Wei Wuxian’s past foolishness hadn’t dissipated. He still yearned to instruct Wei Ying in the ways of obedience. To rein in that wild, untamed spirit that had so captured him back in those days in Gusu, but which ultimately only ever caused his beloved to sacrifice himself for the sake of others--- Yet he also knew that Wei Ying had already suffered more than most would ever be able to endure.

“Shhhhh….” he soothed, as eased himself once more into Wei Ying, running his hands down the length of Wei Ying’s back. “Good boy…”

He felt the latter shiver underneath his touch and then issued a small jolt forward with his first full-hearted thrust.

“Ahah.”

Lan Wangji curled his hands over the sides of Wei Ying’s slender hips, as he pushed against him; the feeling of entering and withdrawing making his head swim. He had spent years imagining in his secret heart of hearts what this would be like; Longing for it ever since that bright day back in the quarters of the Cloud Recesses library.

He sharply recalled the spasm of shock and the accompanying pang of deep humiliation felt upon seeing the pornography pamphlet Wei Ying had slipped into his book as a joke. He remembered being more furious than he had ever been in his fifteen years, and had finally understood what people meant by the phrase “seeing red” as he drove Wei Ying away from the library.

The confusion had set in the moment the anger finally began to ebb.

Try as he might, to distract himself with cultivation practice, meditation and study, he couldn’t get the images of the book out of his head; the crude illustration of a man penetrating a woman from behind—---only every time the sight wafted up, uninvited, in his memory, he hadn’t pictured a woman.

That was around the time Wangji also started having the dream.

He had awoken the morning after the library incident with damp sheets and a distinct stain marking the front of his trousers, lingering visions of tangled limbs on the library floor, a bare chest and wrists wrapped securely in his headband, still drifting through his mind..

The act of dealing with Wei Ying—--which had never been easy before, suddenly became next to insufferable.

Every laugh, every knowing look, the way’s his eyes turned upward, setting his face aglow when he smiled, sent Lan Wangji reeling, the tips of his ears always coloring a bright crimson.

Lan Wangji had lived in a state of constant flux, feeling himself pulled helplessly, magnetically to Wei Ying’s side while simultaneous fearing his very presence, constantly convinced that the words steadily hammering inside his heart were written clearly on his face for all to see; be mine and let me be yours.

Back then, despite his attraction, he had felt the safest recourse was simply to avoid as much contact with Wei Ying as possible. If he entered a room through the front door, Lan Wangji would escape out the back. If he waved to Lan Wangji from across the courtyard, Lan Wangji would simply pretend not to notice and walk in the opposite direction.

It should have all been easy.

It should have been.

Except for the distinct fact that no matter the amount of rebukes or slights Lan Wangji gave him, Wei Ying would just not leave him the hell alone.

And when it wasn’t Wei Ying pestering Lan Wangji on his own, it always felt like others were intent on throwing them together; Xichen inviting Wei Ying and his brother on a mission to a nearby village, his uncle yelling at him to go and discipline Wei Ying for yet another one of his pranks.

Try as he might, Lan Wangji could not rid himself of Wei Ying.

Not during his days and increasingly, even less in his nighttime dreams.

And then all of a sudden Wei Ying was gone. Instructed to travel back to Lotus Pier with his father after having broken into a fight with Jin Zixuan.

Lan Wangji felt his absence should have been a relief.

Instead, it was only what it was; an absence.

His days, no longer entangled in that exhilarating crest and swell of desire, chagrin, and terror suddenly felt exhaustingly empty, like all the candles in an otherwise blackened room abruptly blown out.

And when he’d seen Wei Ying next, had everything gone smoothly? Had everything fallen easily and seamlessly back into place? Of course not.

Weeks of Wen clan indoctrination, one giant tortoise fight, and several days spent trapped inside a cave had convinced Lan Wangji of two things;

One, Wei Ying was the one thing he could count on to incessantly and consistently turn his life upside down.

And two, he was deeply, unavoidably, punch drunk, most devastatingly in love with Wei Ying.

Now as he kneeled behind Wei Ying, Lan Zhan could feel this knowledge ringing through his very being, reverberating from the top of his head to the bottoms of his feet.

He loved him. Had always loved him.

If others tried to rip them apart, if anyone even dared to take Wei Ying away from him, he would ensure they soon wish they had never walked the paths of earth.

He would go to the grave for the love of him.

With this thought he suddenly drove himself deeper, hitting, as he did so, a plushy, distinctive spot along Wei Wuxian’s inner wall.

The low that escaped Wei Ying’s lips was dark and deep---purely animal and sensual. Lan Zhan tried to hit the spot again.

Wei Ying felt like he was being destroyed, falling apart into a million little pieces. It was like being submerged in an almost too warm bath after suffering the cold of the day. It was like holding a hand numbingly cool drink in the heat of spring. He was crawling through the heights of heaven and soaring through the depths of hell. He felt that pressure from before begin to build once more, felt his guts rearranged and pulsed through with bright, tingling currents.

Suddenly the currents running through him seemed to intensify, building like someone had turned a dial-in his head, the notes of a symphony reaching a fevered pitch. He felt that spot inside of him hit again and again by Lan Zhan’s member, even shifting his own hips back and up to accommodate each eager thrust. The sounds of skin striking skin increased, the pounding coming faster and faster, Wei Ying trembling with the pleasure of it until he could bear it no further.

“LAN ZHAN Ah---”

For an instant, it was as if the whole world went white.

A field of snow coated Wei Ying’s vision and for a few moments he was simply lost, pulled out to sea by the gentle tug of the tide.

Little by little things came filtering back into his body and line of sight. The floor before his eyes, the dampness of his skin, the feeling of wetness below his midsection. Suddenly he felt himself tugged upwards as he was slowly lifted from the floor and his trousers replaced. Lan Wangji once more nestled them against the nearby wall, Wei Ying resting on his chest.

Wei Ying burrowed his head into the hollow of Lan Zhan’s neck and listened to the still rapid thumping of his heart, steadily beginning to slow along with his breath. He felt himself being tugged once more into grayness, slowly spirited away into the land of sleep.

He felt as if he could sleep for centuries in Lan Zhan’s arms and never again feel fear or pain or worry. Whatever gods there might exist in the world, he felt thankful that they had allowed him such a reprieve…….. even if it could only be once.

Because, of course, was there truly anything in this world that one could say lasted forever?

As if their thoughts were almost in sync, Wei Ying felt a distinct shift in Lan Zhan’s posture underneath him as the afterglow of their lovemaking began to fade. He knew what was coming next but selfishly did not want to be the one to break this last semblance of peace. So he waited until finally, reluctantly, Lan Zhan spoke.

“Wei Ying.”

“Mmmnn?”

“The Stygian Tiger Amulet….”

Wei Ying sighed.

“.....perhaps if you told them….”

“You know why I can’t do that.”

“................”

“I should have never made it in the first place. And besides,” He shifted to look up at Lan Zhan, whose face was bowed, obscured in shadow. “You know as well as I do that telling them wouldn’t make a single difference.”

“..................”

“If I thought there might be if I thought there was a chance…. or even if I just trusted one of them, I would tell. I swear. I would do it for us.”

Lan Wangji finally raised his head. His demeanor, stoney.

“Then we run.”

Wei Ying let out a disheartened chuckle.

“Then we run.”

Wei Ying looked into Lan Zhan’s eyes, took in the urgency, the determination, and underneath it all, the fear in them. He did his best to keep the sadness out of his smile as he leaned forward and took Lan Zhan’s lips into his own. The Lan disciple cupped his face in his hand and kissed him back fiercely.

Just as it had the first time, Wei Ying felt his breath taken away with the gesture. The peculiar feeling of suddenly free falling.

They were both breathing hard as they drew apart. Wei Ying shifted his aching wrists, resenting his restraints more than ever.

“I wish I could have just gotten to hold you at least once.”

“Wei Ying----”

“I wish I hadn’t been such an idiot and that I had kissed you back in Gusu. If I had, maybe…”

They both froze. Echoing down the hallway outside the cell, drawing ever and ever closer was the distinct and ominous sound of several pairs of footsteps.

Wei Ying felt Lan Zhan’s grip tighten around him. Despite his expressed feelings of resignation, Wei Ying still felt his entire being ice over at the steadily approaching sounds.

He swallowed, feeling his mouth go dry, his heart a caged bird beating itself senseless against the bars as the memories of pain from the past few days threatened to come flooding back.

He felt his traitorous body begin to tremble. Then he turned and looked at Lan Zhan.

The Lan Clan disciple’s eyes were wide and burrowed underneath desperate brows. Their gaze flicked back and forth as if looking for some recourse, some way to prevent the inevitable. Wei Wuxian stilled, suddenly submerged in a wave of calm at the sight.

He couldn’t afford to lose himself. Not now, not in front of him.

“It's okay Lan Zhan.”

Lan Zhan whipped his head to face him, his gaze petrified, stubborn and furious. He clenched his jaw.

“Wei Ying----”

“Lan Zhan…” he whispered, holding his gaze, ”it's okay.”

Lan Zhan stared at him.

Wei Wuxian grinned.

The door swung open.

This story started off as basically smut and then it somehow acquired a plot. I did not mean to write more past this chapter but hey, if your smut wants to run, let it run!

Thanks as always to those of you who’re willing to read this odd little piece, part smut, part character study, part exploration on the nature of grief. Thanks for giving it and this new writer some time. All my love to you all!

If you want to read the other chapters, check out this story on AO3 at:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34668886/chapters/86313907

#Bringmetomorrow/Staywithme #first fic #fanfiction #the untamed #mdzs #the untamed fanfiction #the untamed fanart #mdzsfic #mdzs fanart #lanzhan/weiwuxian #wangxian #jiang cheng #angst with a happy ending #lan wangji/wei wuxian #lanzhan/weiying

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lancearcherinrippedjeans · 4 years ago

Text

Eternity

**********

I know some of you are probably like "What happened to ICBTE bro?" It's in the fanfic cemetery never to be spoken of again <3

But WELCOME to the new multi part fic Eternity where we follow OC's Veronica Rodriguez, Sawyer Holden and Nova Jay throughout their AEW career

**********

Starring - Tony Khan, Kenny Omega, WARHORSE and of course, the OCs (also a small appearance from Madi Wrenkowski )

Word Count - 2,385

Category - Fluff, friendship, mentions of past romance

Part 1/?

Summary - Sawyer, Veronica and Nova wanted nothing more than to "make it". When they have a chance to main event with TK and Kenny Omega sitting front row, how will it go?

other author's notes - keep in mind, me and @adriii-omega wrote this in a day. there might be spelling mistakes, it might not make sense, trust the process <3 and YES a good portion of this is the ACTUAL match.

**********

“Yes Bullet Club is for life, but we’re Eternity.”

“Nova, Veronica, Sawyer you’re on in 10!” The producer yelled, knocking on the door of the dressing room. Though it wasn’t a dressing room, more like a closet. “We’ll be there in a second, damn!” Yelled Sawyer, trying to get her gear on in the tiny corner.

“It would be nice if they gave us an actual dressing room like the guys or something.” Veronica mumbled, pulling on her gear pants. Nova and Sawyer agreed. There could be thousands of dressing rooms, but they always got stuck in a janitor’s closet. “Could you imagine all three of us in our own private dressing rooms?” Nova fantasized as she tied her left boot.

The group of three had always had dreams, as small as a dressing room, to as big as being on the greatest stage of them all. But for now, a janitor’s closet, a couple bucks a night, and a high school gym would satisfy them.

“I got extra tips at the diner today so we can go out to eat after the show this time.” Sawyer announced, smiling towards Veronica, who had just told Sawyer about her craving for a milkshake earlier that day. “Oh thank God, the family I babysat for today only paid nine bucks for FIVE hours.” Nova complained, touching up her makeup.

“Nine?!” “Yeah, spoiled little white kids, AGAIN.”

Veronica and Sawyer chuckled, walking out the janitor’s closet, Nova following close behind.

The three friends had so much in common, but were so different. Like Sawyer for example, the tallest of the three and by far the smartest. She wasn’t afraid to take a bump in front of 10 people or 10,000. She would do whatever it took to make sure she ended up as one of the best professional wrestlers of all time.

Veronica, one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet. Most people would call her a submission specialist, but making someone tap was just all in a day's work for her. She’ll do anything to put on the most entertaining match anyone in the crowd has ever seen, even if it’s acting like she almost died.

Nova however, was definitely a person who was ready to put on a show, taunts, hyping up the crowd and “OMG” moments were her specialty. She has gotten injured doing those special moves, many times, but she always got back up and showed out to put on the best performance.

All three of them had a purpose and decided they would stick together to reach it.

The whole roster was fond of how close they were. Others envied their success on the independent scene - except one of their closest friends, Warhorse. He was going to be on Dynamite tomorrow` to challenge Cody for his TNT Championship, but tonight, he was at the show, watching the trio wrestle.

They were walking closer to the “stage”, when he stopped them. “You will not believe who’s here!” Sawyer groaned, “Jake you know I hate guessing games so can you jus-”

“Tony Khan and Kenny Omega.” Their jaws dropped. “THE owner and EVP OF AEW?” Nova questioned. Veronica’s palms started to get sweaty. “Why are they here? I don’t even want to be here; there is no way the ACTUAL Kenny Omega and Tony Khan are sitting in a high school gym.” She wiped her hands on her pants and crossed them over her chest. “You don’t believe me? Well you guys will see in about an hour or so.” Warhorse smirked.

“We’re going out now, dipshit.” Sawyer insulted. Nova and Veronica laughed, but Warhorse had more to say, “Didn’t you hear? You guys have been bumped to the main event since the rich guys are out there.”

Suddenly calm, cool and collected Sawyer had her jaw to the floor. “Sawyer?” Nova whispered, shaking her friend's shoulder. “I can’t fly high and be energetic for the last 30 minutes of the show! I’ll break something or pass out!”

Veronica giggled at her friend’s nonsense, “You’ll be fine. C’mon, let's go watch the matches.”

Nova, Veronica and Sawyer sat by a monitor, watching the last few matches before their main event match. They were enjoying some of the two newer wrestlers face off when a hand slammed down on a table. They looked up and saw Madi Wrenkowski, fuming.

“They CUT my match so you guys could have your dumb main event.”

Sawyer held back laughter while Veronica spoke up, “Well it’s not our fault, we didn’t find out till five minutes ag-” “You think you’ll be big cause of a few matches? No way. Just stick to the janitor’s closet.” Madi scoffed, storming off.

“A few 5 star matches to be fair!” Nova called out, receiving a high five from her friends. It had been like this for a while, Madi going off on how she was “better”, but mean girls were SO high school.

They all took a deep breath, knowing it was their time to main event.

When the three reached the gorilla position. They saw Warhorse standing by the curtain waiting for them. Everyone was pretty happy that they got the opportunity to perform for someone like Kenny Omega, but deep down inside Veronica, Sawyer, and Nova knew that they deserved to be in the main event spot a long time ago.

“You three are going to kill it.” Warhorse smiled at his friends. He wondered how cool it would be to see them all in AEW at one time. “Thanks Jake.” Nova said. Sawyer was standing at the curtain, waiting for her cue.

“Say, bitch, I don’t wanna talk.”

Realer by Megan Thee Stallion blasted off the gym walls. The couple hundred of fans there jumped out of their seats to show their love for Sawyer, though she wasn’t supposed to be having such a loud reaction. She walked down the entrance way stopping at a young child who had their hand out for a high five. Sawyer went over to make it seem like she was about to, but smoothly pushed her hair back instead- flipping off the parents as well. As she got in the ring she took a quick scan to look for Kenny and Tony. She spotted them front and center in the front row she gave a sly smirk and went to one of the corners of the ring.

“TOOONIGHTTTTT-“

Nova shot out of the curtain while 24K Magic by Bruno Mars played in the gym. The crowd was also feeling the song as they got up and grooved. Even Tony Khan was bobbing his head along. Nova walked down to the ring, pep in her step. She gave people in the crowd high fives and hugs. She entered the ring and tried to get Sawyer to dance along, but backed away when Sawyer stood over her, glaring and clenching her fists. She walked over to her corner, climbing up to the second turnbuckle, waving at the whole crowd.

“I fly with the stars in the skies…”

Veronica pushed her black shades on as she smoothly walked through the curtain as “Moment 4 Life” by Nick Minaj came on the speakers. It was a perfect song to describe how she felt as she took the audience in at the top of the ramp. Her swagger was untouched but when she stepped in front of Kenny Omega, she felt his eyes never leave her which made her confidence blast through the roof. She used the stairs to get in and leaned on the ropes and waved to the other people that were there.

The three stared each other down, “this is awesome” chants from the crowd already starting. The ref asked all of them if they were ready, then called for the bell to ring. They all circled around the ring, the crowd wondering who was gonna hit first. Nova started taunting the two, planning to get the crowd on her side early in the match.

Sawyer had enough and tackled Nova to the ground, throwing punches, keeping away from the head. Veronica pulled Sawyer off, Sawyer widened her eyes, Veronica irish whipped Sawyer into the ropes, clotheslining her as soon as she came back. Veronica turned at the crowd, cheering along with them, not paying attention that Sawyer just did a kip-up behind her.

Veronica turned around just to be met with a kick to the face. Veronica turned around once, swaying side to side before falling to the ground, selling coming in clutch.

Nova came up from behind Sawyer, drop kicking her and making her fall to the mat. They planned to live to the phrase “fight forever”. Nova walked towards Veronica, dragging her up. Veronica started to gain her consciousness back, kicking Nova in the legs and Nova dodging as many as she could.

While they weren’t paying attention, Sawyer crawled towards the corner, climbing up the top rope, getting in position for a frog splash. It wasn’t till the crowd started screaming till Veronica and Nova looked towards the corner, Sawyer jumping off and crashing into both of them.

She stood up, hyping herself up, looking towards TK and Kenny, smirking.

*match skip*

Sawyer, Veronica, and Nova all struggled to get to their feet trying to use each other for balance. It had at least been 25 minutes of non stop action, and everyone was on the edge of their seat. Sawyer threw a punch in Veronica’s direction , but she attempted to counter it with an arm bar bringing her down to the mat. Nova saw the opportunity as she started to climb to one of the top turnbuckles. With Sawyer’s strength she manages to deliver a powerbomb to Veronica getting out of the arm bar. She crouched in the corner as Nova hit a devastating Macho Man like elbow drop.

1…

2…

But Sawyer broke up the pin by pulling Nova’s leg. Nova slapped Sawyer making Sawyer deliver a right hand back but harder, making her roll out the ring and on the apron. Veronica was slowly getting back up and Sawyer noticed as she charged towards her, making Veronica pull the top rope making her land on the outside. Veronica made her way to the apron where Nova was at; her back turned to Veronica not seeing her jump and wrap her legs around her neck for a reverse hurricanrana. With a loud thud, both of them rolled onto the floor in pain.

Sawyer crawled over , throwing Veronica in the ring and seeing Nova began to stir. Sawyer climbed to the top turnbuckle with her back turned to deliver a perfect moonsault, making the crowd gasp, and Tony and Kenny to stand up. Sawyer held her side, and rolled into the ring ready to finish the match. She stood in the ring, waiting for Veronica to get in position for her finishing move. Veronica stood and it was too late, and she tucked her chin ready for the impact of Sawyer’s devastating Canadian Destroyer.

1…

2…

Sawyer stood up, referee raising her arm in the air. She tried to bite back her smile but simply couldn’t. She watched as Veronica and Nova started to walk backstage, exiting the ring, breaking out of character as soon as she was behind the curtain.

Veronica, Nova and Sawyer started talking about the match, complimenting each other. “Excuse me ladies?” They looked over, and saw Tony Khan and Kenny Omega walking towards them. Nova spun around and almost caused Sawyer and Veronica to fall over. “Really impressive match out there. You know I didn’t think you guys would have met my expectations but I was way wrong.” Kenny admitted, and Tony agreed. “Yea , we would really love for you guys to come over to our company for a bit. Not on Dynamite yet, but some Dark matches maybe?” Tony suggested. They were beyond excited. Sawyer started imagining all of the memories she could create at AEW, and seeing some people she hadn’t seen in a while - until a certain person popped into her head. “I would love to wrestle for you guys, but does Wardlow know? Or is he even okay with this- “ Veronica gave Sawyer the death stare and Nova let out a laugh. “Wardlow? He’s the one that brought you guys up. He said you were all really talented, and since we’re looking for more women wrestlers you were the right people. Is there something going on between…” “NO.” Sawyer interrupted Tony.

“It’s complicated. I just wanted to make sure he was okay with working with me again.” Nova couldn’t believe Sawyer’s actions and it was making it extremely hard not to burst out of laughter on the spot. Veronica stood in between her friends listening closely to what Khan was saying. She felt eyes on her so she looked up and was met with Kenny’s soft stare. He smiled and looked away making her do the same.

“Yea, so tomorrow I was thinking you guys could get to Jacksonville and see Dynamite, then wrestle after the show?” Tony said. “That works fine with us.” Nova said, smiling wide

“Great!” Kenny said, smiling at Veronica. “Sawyer, Veronica?”

Sawyer and Veronica looked at each other, they could tell what they both were thinking just by the looks on their face. Veronica nodded, Sawyer spoke up, “Let’s do this.” “That’s great, the flight leaves at 11 tonight, so get there as fast as you can,” Tony said, looking at his phone, “Oh and Sawyer?”

Sawyer looked up, “Don’t interrupt me again.”

Nova couldn’t keep in her laughter anymore, not even when Veronica punched her arm and told her to shush. Tony and Kenny left the building, leaving the friends beaming and damn near tears. “Veronica and Kenny sitting in a tree!” Nova and Sawyer started to sing, making Veronica roll her eyes, “Yeah I’ll remember that when we see Wardlow tomorrow.”

Sawyer huffed. “But remember we promised if things ever ended up like this, we would stay together no matter what happens between any of us.” Nova brought up, talking about the promise they all made years before.

“Friends, no matter what.” They all said in unison, knowing in the back of their heads they would be friends for eternity.

thank you for reading! part 2 coming soon!

#tony khan #kenny omega #kenny omega x reader #kenny omega x oc #aew #aew fanfiction #aew x reader #all elite wrestling #warhorse #wardlow #wrestling fanfiction

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