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sageywritings · 2 years ago

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Watchpoint Chapter 1: The Soldier and the Bartender

How do you expect war to go in a world with all-powerful mages, blood-craving assassins, insane battle tank brawlers and the like to go? No, we need something else. Welcome to the Watchpoint League.

And in a world like this, how’s one girl with a rifle supposed to keep up with it all for the sake of her home?

Something new, hope you like! ~Sage

Saya was laid out on the backseat of the off-road truck. She was leaned against the door, feeling every soft bump of the lone road that cut through the Kassif Desert leading to the coast. Her eyes glanced down from the view of her imprisonment, away from the dunes outside the window and toward the sniper rifle tossed into the footwell. Then, to the shawl her legs were currently rested on top of, a beautifully hand woven blending of earth tones currently in a bundled heap. And finally, to the blood soaked gauze that was hastily wrapped around her left bicep. The wound underneath was probably still coated in sand, but at least the bleeding had stopped. The car’s air conditioning was causing every pore of her skin to cry in gratitude, despite it doing little to numb the pain of the newly acquired gash. It was doing less, however, for her mental state.

“Another failed mission. Another emergency call to Beatrice. And another village forced to deal with the Farmhouse,” Saya thought to herself on loop.

“I’m glad that was all the damage they did to you. It could’ve been a lot worse.” All Saya could see from the driver’s seat from her point of view was a head of black hair tied back into a ponytail. Her words sounded relieved. But, it still barely drew a reaction from Saya, nothing more than an exasperated sigh. Beatrice tried to go on, “Who was there?”

“Usual suspects. The German shepherd that yips like a chihuahua, and the gator and the hawk," Saya said.

"Farmhouse," Beatrice muttered. Just the mention of Auran’s toughest, most thuggish, and - in Saya’s opinion - most annoying squad was enough for her to groan. And it was being mentioned more and more often, as skirmishes in the outskirts of Kassif-En were becoming far too frequent for liking.

“Yeah. There was someone else, too. Someone in a hood, I couldn’t get a good look at their face. I had my shot lined up and… I waited too long. The hawk got me in the back. Knocked me off the roof and got me in the arm with his talons. I got him in the ankle with a knife and got away before they were able to surround me.”

“Well, it’s a good thing those guys aren’t even half the fighter you are,” Beatrice responded in an attempt to try and lift Saya’s spirits.

“I’m still just one soldier, Bea. I can only do so much against their numbers game.” Beatrice frowned.

“Then why do you keep going in alone?”

“Because someone has to! I can’t just leave these villages out here to rot!” Saya’s burst of anger dissipated as quickly as it came once the pain shot through her arm after clenching her fists. She sighed once more. “The government thinks they can just ignore us, ignore thousands of years of history and culture. They just wanna focus on their shiny new toy, their bright little tourist trap. But these sands are my home. They’ve made me. They’ve made this whole kingdom. Kassif-En wouldn’t exist today without these villages and these people. And I haven’t been able to stop fighting for them since I was 14.” Beatrice couldn’t really argue any of what Saya was saying. Still, she thought repeated attacks from a foreign invader would warrant at least some kind of action.

“What does Auran even want anyways?” she wondered..

“I don’t know. Probably just looking to rob some defenseless people and make their lives miserable. They strike me as the type,” Saya shrugged. The exhaustion made her too tired to care about the reason, and it was evident in her voice.

“What about the Watchpoint League? Isn’t the whole point of the League to stop conflicts like this? Shouldn’t the Observers be stepping in?”

The Watchpoint League. What the nations of the world tout as their greatest achievement. In order to avoid all-out war and the destruction that comes with it, any conflicts of interests are settled a different way. A year-long fighting circuit where each kingdom can send teams of their best warriors to battle in arena combat. The best brawlers, swordsmen, mages, and marksmen, in front of huge audiences, fight for large prize pools and to bring glory and influence to their home. Organizing it all at the top is an impartial group appointed by the world's leaders, an enigmatic group known as the Observers.

"You know as well as I do they only care about your kingdom when your team is toward the top of the standings. Or when they can spin an interesting story out of it," Saya said.

"You could get a team started. An actual team, not-"

"After what happened last time? No thanks. Don’t need to be reminded of that," the sniper interrupted. No response from the driver’s seat.

“That makes two of us…” thought Beatrice. The sting of embarrassment was just as prevalent reliving the memories as they were first experiencing them. All that could come out was a soft “I’m sorry”. The words were barely loud enough to pass the threshold of noise. She wasn’t even sure what she was apologizing for entirely. “I just wish you didn’t have to be a one woman army. I wish I could’ve helped then. I wish I can help more now. But I’m not you.”

“Huh? What for, Bea?” Beatrice was amazed Saya even heard her, as if she could have sworn she only mouthed it. She mentally scrambled for a reply but could come up with nothing. “If anything, I should be the one who’s sorry for making you come out here and putting you in harm’s way. Again.” Beatrice now wished she could just have the words to articulate how it wasn’t a hassle and she would never leave her hanging like that. But, before either of them could go any further, the first change of scenery for dozens of miles began to come into view through the windshield over the horizon.

Jutting above the highway was an impressive city skyline, a couple skyscrapers serving as the centerpiece amidst of other high rises with no doubt of bustling streets below. D’marya. In their more immediate future, however, right where the outskirts of the capital unofficially began, stood an unassuming building just off the main road. It was nothing spectacular from the outside - two stories made with a combination of wood and sandstone. A quaint porch made way for the front door, and upstairs there was a balcony on the right wall just big enough for a pair of chairs and a small coffee table. Next to it all rested a school bus that had long since rusted over and been reclaimed by the elements. Nobody, not even the ones who called this region home for decades, could explain where it came from. As Beatrice parked next to the decrepit heap, she peered through the front window to see a party of three jovially conversing over drinks. Standard affair for the Dune Rat, the tavern which Saya and Beatrice both called home.

It took a moment for Saya to psych herself up enough to get out of the car. With her rifle slung across her back and her shawl in hand, she trudged up the front steps. It might as well have been hiking up a mountain for her sore legs. Their entrance into the establishment went hardly noticed, except for a couple polite hellos from some regulars. That was, until one patron sat by himself towards the back of the bar, decided to make their - and his - presence known.

“There she is! Look everyone, it’s our hero! The savior of Kassif-En! The Desert Spider!” The man’s over the top sarcasm came through a horrible drunken slur, and his arm wobbled as he lifted his drink for a mocking cheers. Saya openly scowled at him throwing the moniker some of the villages gifted her, but never bothered to even look his direction.

“Fuck off, Zephyr,” she grumbled before slumping onto a barstool and laying her head down at the bar. She couldn’t even be worried with coming up with a more spirited response. Beatrice took her usual place behind the bar and began polishing a pair of glasses, all the while eyeing the loud drunkard.

“At least you got fuckin’ smart and decided to just lead yourself off the cliff instead of takin’ the rest with ya!” Zephyr half stood up from his chair and half stumbled out of it and started walking towards Saya. Each of his heavy, clumsy footsteps grew louder as he got closer. But, Saya didn’t flinch. She just sat there, head down, hoping he would try something.

Click.

The small sound of Beatrice pulling the hammer back on her trusty revolver was all Zephyr needed to hear to sober up fast. He glared right down the freshly shined barrel. Engravings of blossoms ran up the length of it, glistening softly in what light the Dune Rat could provide. All of the regulars, including Zephyr, knew she kept it stashed under the bar in case of a too rowdy customer. No one was sure if she had the guts to pull the trigger. No one dared to find out.

“Zephyr, you know the rules. No fighting in my bar. If you wanna brawl so bad, why not train for another shot at the League. Otherwise, I suggest you sit down,” Beatrice said. After a brief staredown, Zephyr slinked back to his spot, muttering things only his drunken wisdom could decipher.

“I used to be a fuckin’ legend back in Wendjo,” he said before plopping back into his chair.

“Thanks. You know I woulda handled him though,” Saya said, finally lifting her head just enough to glance at the bartender.

“I know, but you’ve had a long enough day. You shouldn’t have to deal with him. He’s got two brain cells and they’re both fighting for third place,” she whispered softly enough for Zephyr to not hear so they didn’t reignite the whole situation all over again. Saya attempted to suppress a laugh, resulting in only a snort that hurt her insides trying to contain it. It was the first moment of the day that she didn’t want to completely forget. When she looked over, she was halfway wishing a glass of whiskey on the rocks was awaiting her. Anything to forget today. Instead, after stowing the firearm away, Beatrice sat a tall glass of cold water on the countertop before her. It might not be what she wanted, but Saya recognized it was exactly what her body needed.

Smiling softly at Saya making quick work of making her full glass of water a memory, Beatrice once again returned to her task at hand of wiping down. As she dusted past a pair of decorative bottles of aged wine, she noticed an unfamiliar glimmer from something she unknowingly pushed aside. With two fingers, she retrieved an envelope. It was crisp and clean, with slight gold trim on the edges. It was sealed shut with a sticker with a logo she had never seen before on it - a silhouette of a person running outlined in pink. On the other side was only a stencil drawing of a spider.

“Anybody know what this is about?” Beatrice said to the crowd, only getting a few shrugs and indistinct “dunno” noises from the ones that actually heard her. A bit more perked up and with a now empty glass, Saya cocked an eyebrow as she eyed the envelope.

“What is that?”

“For you.”

“For me?” The slight intrigue turned into bewilderment as Beatrice flipped the envelope around to reveal the spider insignia. Before reaching for it, her attention slowly fell to the spider tattoo on her right hand. Her famed calling card. With her face clearly displaying distrust, she took it and flipped it back and forth between each side a few times. When she could not make any further sense of it, she carefully tore into it with one finger, almost as if she was expecting to self-destruct in her hands. But, she pulled out a letter and unfolded it with little fanfare as opposed to the spy movie scene she was anticipating.

“What’s it say?” Beatrice asked, too curious to be content with just watching Saya silently scan through it. Saya cleared her throat and began to read word for word from the beginning.

“To the Desert Spider,

We hope you are doing well and we hope this letter finds you in good spirits. We must say we have been very impressed with the skills you have shown. Both your performance in the Watchpoint League and your heroics to protect the people of Kassif-En are inspirational. I especially value the determination and grit it takes to believe in a cause when no one else will. But, I am not naïve. I know Kassif-En struggled on the “big stage”, and I know one woman cannot defend an entire kingdom, no matter how adept they are at their craft.

That is why we want to help. I see talent, passion, and drive in you. You have all that in spades. But, I know better than anyone that no one can do it alone. That is why I started the Runaway Academy. To not only excel in Watchpoint arenas as warriors, but to improve the world as people outside of it. I am sending two of my newest graduates to meet with you. They may be “rookies”, but they are two of the best I have ever trained. Please take care of them. My academy and my graduates are my second family. They have asked if you could meet them this Saturday at Club Fuse. I assume you know where that is. I haven’t a clue, all I know is one of them was adamant to go there.

I sincerely hope you accept this offer. I hope to hear from you soon.

Signed, The Runner”

Saya lowered the letter back down to the counter. Neither her nor Beatrice could formulate anything to say. They were both left to merely stir in a silence that palpably hung in the air Then, with focus still cast downward, Saya’s grip tightened on the letter, crumpling the pristine paper before tossing it aside.

“What a load of shit,” she said. She pressed her fingers to her temples. Her head pounded, even more so now than when she was in the desert heat. She craved that whiskey even more desperately before.

“Well wait hang on,” Beatrice said, scurrying to recover and unfurl the letter to read it herself. Maybe the answers lied on the page still and they just had to read it one more time. “Runaway Academy…”

“Oh c’mon Bea you can’t seriously believe this! It’s probably just someone having a laugh kicking the ‘weak’ kingdom while they’re down.” Saya made sure to emphasize the air quotes on the word “weak”, even if she was the only person who currently wholeheartedly believed it. “Or worse, it’s a trap set up by Auran or whoever!”

“There’s no way it’s a trap. They wouldn’t pick a crowded nightclub smack in a bustling district of the capital during their busiest hours for a trap. And it seems really elaborate for a hoax, don’t you think? Like what would be the point of making you go to a club if it was just all for nothing?” The bartender spoke softly, gently trying to coax Saya out of her mind running around in paranoia fueled circles. But still, Saya didn’t seem receptive. “Maybe they’re good, maybe you can trust them.”

“Really? Cause I’ve heard things while at the League. I heard that’s where Vangryth got their team from, and those guys are a bunch of bloodthirsty killing machines,” Saya asserted.

“Ok one, I don’t think bloodthirsty part is true. And two, I don’t think somebody who willingly trains brutal killers sends a letter like this, Saya.” Saya groaned and rose from her chair. She had decided she was tired of waiting for her whiskey and decided to walk around the bar to fix it herself. But before she could make it to the booze shelves, Beatrice blocked her path. All she had to do was put her arms out and suddenly Saya felt powerless. Despite being several inches taller and stronger than the Dune Rat’s resident mixologist, she couldn’t move her. She could hardly even meet her soft gaze. The concern from Beatrice’s blue eyes. It hurt Saya.

“You can’t keep going in alone like this. And I can’t keep rescuing you. I know you’re a soldier and all and supposedly you’re prepared for this but-”. Her words trailed off. Her mouth was trying to catch up with her reeling mind. Saya’s crimson eyes were looking away, inadvertently toward the bloody bandage around her arm. As gingerly as humanly possible, Beatrice began undoing the knot that held it together. Saya still winced at the touch. As the wrappings fell to the floor, Beatrice couldn’t help but think how today could’ve gone a lot worse. Any of these days could’ve been worse. It could be worse the next time. “But, if you keep this up, one day you’re not gonna come back. And while you might be ready, the people in your life aren’t.” It was a slight sidestep from what she wanted to originally say: “I’m not.”

“Fine. I’ll go,” Saya said after a long sigh. A comforting hand from Beatrice came to rest on her shoulder, drawing her eye back up from her sand-coated boots. The smile she gave her was genuine yet fleeting, partially because of her uneasiness of the situation, and partially because of what Beatrice had gotten from under the bar with her other hand.

“Thank you. Now let’s get you cleaned up,” Beatrice said, holding a small cloth and a bottle of antiseptic.

“Ah crap,” the marksman said under her breath.

“And while we do that, we can work on getting you an outfit ready for Saturday,” she continued.

“What’s wrong with what I hav-ow!” The burn of antiseptic cut her protest short.

“Hold still!” Beatrice directed, wetting the cloth once more. “Saya, your shawls aren’t exactly fit for clubbing. And besides them all you wear is tactical gear. Last thing you need is to show up looking like the bouncer. Except better armed.”

“I am not looking forward to this,” Saya thought. Now only if she knew what that thought was toward more, this Saturday or the disinfectant irritating her arm.

#writing #writblr #watchpoint #watchpoint league #original story #saya hirashika #beatrice quinn #writeblr

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teslacoils-and-hubris · 1 year ago

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finally managed to finish that angsty drabble of the first time Butch said I love you! under the cut cause its long and also warning for general emotional angst and like. mild gore mention? nothing too graphic but you know, be aware and all that

oh also theres some context for the situation in the tags if you're interested in that kinda thing

The sickly green fluorescent lights had been on the verge of death for as long as Bug had been waking up sewn back together on the cold metal table. They’d gotten used to the flickering, buzzing annoyance over the years but never quite managed to tune it out. Across the room, the crrk fwoosh of the faucet signaled their saviour washing their blood off his hands.

It wasn’t the first time they’d been brought back to life in the shady backroom of a butcher shop (they had the scars to prove it), and it certainly wouldn’t be the last with the luck they’d been having. Fuck, her head was pounding.

“We can’t keep doing this.” The voice was harsh and painful in their ears; their headphones must have been lost during whatever skirmish got them killed this time. “Reanimation don’t work forever, Ant, you know that.”

Like it was their fault. Like it was ever their fault. Bug simply huffed and rolled over the best their sore body could manage. The metal embalming table had started to warm up slightly now that her heart was beating, but it was still cool enough to soothe her aches. Whoever jumped him really did a number. Ow fuck. Maybe rolling over was a bad idea.

"No, come on," was the buzzing always this loud? "You don't get to ignore me, Bug!"

Bugs eyes shot over to Butch. He never called them that. This was wrong. Everything was wrong. They wanted to throw up. The fucking lights never stopped flickering.

"If you're mad about me not paying the last couple of times, I can." Their voice was hoarse. It always was after revival. "Name your price."

"Name my- you think this is about money?!" Butch was shouting now. It hurt. He waved his hands as he spoke, passing in front of the already flickering lights in ways that made Bug's aching head spin. "I found you cut in half- fucking bisected! On the side of the road!"

Bug was currently trying to cover both their eyes and ears at the same time and wasn't all that interested in the state Butch found their corpse. "Don't you eat people?" It was barely louder than a very annoyed whisper. "Shouldn't you be used to gnarly corpses?" That wasn't the right thing to say. They knew it as soon as it left their lips. This was why they were always ending up in Butch's revival shop. They never fucking think before running their stupid fucking mouth.

"Are you listening to a fucking word I've said!" It wasn't a question. "I can't keep doing this! You have to be careful!"

If Bug had had a clearer head, they might have picked up on the desperation in Butch's voice. Instead, the shouting drilled into their brain like an ice pick, making their face flush and their heart race. They growled, ignoring the pain to lug themself upright to glare at the brick wall of a man and the current source of all their problems. Her tail writhed against the quickly warming table.

"You don't get to control my life just cause we've fucked Butch," they spat, and the way Butch jolted away like the words burnt him hurt worse than every death they’d gone through combined. They just had to keep digging, did they? Why can't they ever stop digging?

Bug was always very aware of Butch's size. The man was massive and completely shameless about taking up space. It was a constant teasing point in their friendship how much shorter Bug was. But they'd never felt the full weight of his size until this moment. Even sitting on the raised table (customized for Butch's height), the man towered over Bug, and as he leaned closer, Bug started to panic.

"I'm not trying to control your life," Their heart was racing- close, too close! "I'm trying to keep you alive!" Bug's small wings puffed up as much as they could to make him look bigger to the perceived threat. Something smelled like blood, it made Bug want to retch. They wanted to scratch and bite and protect themself, but all they could do was add more fuel to the fire.

"What do you care if I'm alive?"

At those words, Butch closed the distance, slamming his hands on the table with a BANG! Fuck shit- they'd done it again! They finally went too far and run their stupid fucking mouth again and now the one person they-

"BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, YOU STUPID FUCKING ASSHOLE!"

Time froze. The admission hung heavy in the air as the pair processed what just happened. Butch seemed to realize his position and instantly backed away from the table. He tried to make himself look small, hunching over himself. Bug didn't notice.

Every muscle in their body was tensed, screaming out to bolt. They needed to run, needed to hide away, and be anywhere but here. Their limbs refused to move. When did they start hyperventilating?

When Butch next spoke, it was quiet and full of regret. "Bug I-" but the sound broke Bug out of their frozen state. Faster than their healing body should allow, they were gone, slamming the heavy metal door behind them. The fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered, then all at once burnt out into dark silence.

#my ocs #my writing #bug&butch #for context bug is having a pretty gnarly sensory overload in the wake of being brought back to life #they don't realize it though and generally don't have the emotional intelligence to communicate their needs #and butch is having a fucking crisis realizing just how close he came to actually loosing bug for real #also bug is technically a nickname since they always introduce themselves by different insect names #and butch was pretty much the one person who was always on top on remembering what insect bug wants to be called at any given time #and people who generally dont like bug call them bug cause quote they bug people #so hearing butch call them that really hurt #they make up later and eventually start dating so its fine #but ouch! was this fun to write

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babybluesquid · 1 year ago

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Session 4, Immolation and Charity

Our Players this Week:

Hog 112, they/them, Weapon Thaumaturge, skirmisher warforged, the leader of the inquisitives agency and founding member, tends toward practicality and following a command structure.

Forward, he/him, Champion Paladin, infantry warforged, Hog’s second in command and founding member, follower of the Legionnaire Creed sect of the Sovereign Host and idealist.

Vestige, they/them, Bones Oracle, warforged placed into a human body, a healer and the agency’s fleshborn face, remains on the periphery with an individualistic streak.

Strategy, it/its, Empiricist Investigator, officer warforged, an old model who’s seen much action and uses the tactics they learned back during the war now under Sharn.

Samanta, she/they, Swashbuckler Fencer, skirmisher warforged, a spotter during the war who turned to spying for one of Sharn’s criminal families before joining the inquisitives agency.

——————

The vile construct of Jack-in-Irons’ design! It is cobbled of iron and flesh, livewood and bone, stone and skin, alchemical fluid and blood. It has Hog caught in its wicked grip! They struggle against it, then break free. It lunges to catch Forward, but the attempt is defeated. The inquisitives attack, but its armor is strong. Strategy gets a lucky shot, and its armor is penetrated. “It’s defenses are broken! Hit it there now!” Samanta thrusts a rapier right into the core of the thing. Fluid gushes from the deep wound. Hog hacks off the thing’s flesh and bone arm, then splashes acid and cleaves off the smaller metal one as well. The construct’s crystal eyes dim, then go dark. It collapses to the ground, deanimated.

Strategy locates a small bottle on the shelves, filled with red liquid. It’s a familiar and a welcome sight, a C1. It takes it to administer to Vestige. Thankfully, it works. Vestige wakes up with a loud cough and possibly broken bones, and they set to magically mending themselves. Meanwhile, Samanta searches for a way to open the secret door. She finds it, a switch low to the ground, hidden beneath a table. The figure must’ve kicked it in order to open the door as they fled. She triggers the switch and it opens up to a stairway. She and Hog head up to the street. It opens to the street. Tain Foundry workers are milling about, and two orcs are set to shouting. Samanta approaches the arguers, “did you see a cloaked figure run past?” They did, and were discussing whether to leave their posts and pursue, and point Samanta in the direction. Forward heads up, and Hog tells him to search the nearby alleys as they and Samanta follow the directed pointed by the guards. He finds nothing, and returns downstairs.

Meanwhile, Strategy searches the workshop. It locates a bag of holding, more of the gold chain links, an enchanted Cannith dagger coaked in alchemical fluids, two more C1s, and various artificer tools, some mundane, and some made of a strange chitinous material.

Hog and Samanta come to a dead end. The two take a closer look, asking people and feeling their way through the alleys. Samanta’s hand goes through the back wall of one. It’s an illusion. The continued cobbles ahead are strewn with ash. There’s footprints in the ash, footprints that match the killer’s. Hog and Samanta rush to follow. The street ahead is choked with pedestrians, but one elven man stands in clear shock. Samanta rushes up to him, “is something the matter? You seem bewildered.” “I’m not sure what I saw sir, or ma’am,” the guard replies. “It is of no matter. What did you see?” “I saw a cloaked figure, half his face was burned and the other half looked like a warforged. Never seen anything like that. There was a strange look in his biological eye.” He points out the direction. Samanta thanks him and runs unward. Ahead is a lift to Lower Dura, the only way to go from here, lowering.

The two head over to intercept the kobold lift operator, who readily confirms the cloaked figure had been on the trip up, got off on the next stop up. Hog asks to be brought up quickly, and the kobold holds out his hand expectantly. Hog drops a sovereign into his palm. The kobold grins and engages the lift. It takes off with a jolt and a whoosh, rattling on ascent. It’s clearly going too safe to be fast. At the top, it lurches to a sudden stop as the kobold engages the break. Hog and Samanta both stumble but keep on their feet. Hog slips the kobold a second sovereign and the guy points out the street the figure’d run down.

Soon enough, there’s an intersection. One way is a bridge up, the other way continues straight. There’s a watch officer, oddly enough. Samanta approaches and learns that someone had fired a wand from a building. She’s writing a report on the issue, but the guy bolted off up the bridge. Samanta races on, but Hog’s beginning to lag behind. No time to let them catch up. Samanta spies the black cloaked figure from the workshop! There’s a glint off a crystal eye as he turns. Samanta chases, weaving their way through the thick crowd. The killer leaps to a lower bridge, engaging slow fall magics, and runs on. Samanta hurriedly secures her grappling hook and rope to the side of the bridge and swings down after him. She slams into the rail below, but does not slow. A watch officer, warforged, comes up right in front of her. “What seems to be the problem, citizen?” “I’m chasing a criminal, after him!” “What crime did they commit?” “Suspected serial killer. He’s wanted for the missing Cannith heir.” “Trista-” the watch officer begins to give chase as well.

Meanwhile, the killer’s rounded a bend into a mercantile area. Samanta follows the sound of a doorbell into an inn, already losing the watch officer. Inside, there’s a stained glass window on the opposite wall, just broken. The innkeeper’s yelling. “I’ll get them for you!” Samanta shouts before she leaps through. Below is the roof of another building. The figure leaps off and shoots a sticky filament from their hand. It anchors onto another building sixteen feet across the way and they climb over. Samanta runs out onto a flagpole and uses it to spring across the gap. The killer turns to face Samanta on the rooftop. She draws her swords. The killer gazes at her with their ghastly biological and crystal eyes, drawing a wand and a sword made of bony chitin. The sword ignites in angry fire and incomprehensible screaming. The guard catches up but, unable to make it across the gap, shouts, “good luck!” They proceed to hit the bricks, perhaps to get help.

“You were a fool to follow me. You don’t know the power I have been given,” the killer says, then hurls a flame at Samanta. She avoids the worst of it and comes in with a feint, but they’re able to see through her deception and block her strike. The killer then slashes her. It’s damage is nominal against her armor. Then, she takes a flame right to the face. Her vision goes dark.

Hog arrives at the scene, seeing Samanta inactive on the roof. Hurriedly, they shoot the grappling hook across the way and begin to climb across. Their hands slip! They fall, but barely manage to grasp onto a balcony. Battered, Hog climbs up and tries again, knowing every second they waste could prove fatal. Reaching the roof, the killer’s nowhere to be found. No ambush. They truly did run off after dispatching Samanta. Hog retrieves her repair kit and hurriedly begins patching her up, manages to stem the flow of draining alchemical fluid. She seems to be inert, but hopefully still alive. They set to dragging her back to the agency.

In the meantime, Strategy’s set to searching the workshop for anything it mighta missed. Fruitful, it finds an obsidian stone. It picks it up and hears faint whispers. It recalls there’s a Daelkyr, called The Blaze that Whispers and Screams, The King of All Burning, Karsaal’lyc. “Does anyone want this Daelkyr-infused stone?” Strategy asks. “No,” Vestige replies. “Okay. Into the bag of holding it goes.” Strategy’s able to do more figuring. The strange artifice equipment was likely for melding the flesh, livewood, adn steel. It resembles Mror symbiote manufacturer, if Mror symbiote manufacture was ten times more terrifying and jury-rigged. One especially curious device is hooked up to a barrel of ash, which stinks of Daelkyr magic. It determines the ash mixed into the amalgam’s blood was from this device, perhaps this ash was the animating force even. Vestige’s taking a closer look at the body. It’s anatomy doesn’t make any sense, but they are able to differentiate the parts and match them to particular victims of Jack-in-Irons. Well, the warforged parts at least.

Enter Forward, bring Ash with him. She takes a look at the room and is struck by horror. “What happened?” Her gaze falls over Copper, “no…” “The killer was here,” Strategy confirms, “stabbed Copper to death. That thing rose and nearly killed us. I already deduced some of what this equipment is and who the killer was. Are you familiar with this equipment?” Ash shakes her head, “it looks like some of these are repurposed warforged repair tools, but I don’t recognize these other machines.” “Ash,” Forward cuts in, “I need you to bring some of your trusted people. We need to transfer and keep the monster, and bury Copper.” “Are we gonna tell the Watch about this?” She asks. “We can’t let Cannith get their hands on this,” Forward reasons. “The Blackened Book has to know about this,” she insists. “Can’t we do this in our own circles?” “I think we’re in over our heads.” “I don’t trust outside sources.”

“I agree with Forward,” Vestige offers, “Cannith’s trying to keep this covered up.” “You think Cannith is using this artifice?” Strategy asks. “I didn’t say that, but they know something.” “I see, we should keep this to ourselves then,” Strategy agrees. It then pulls some crucial parts out of the eldritch machine, rendering it inoperable. Forward decides he oughta stay and guard the place, meanwhile Ash can get her own and Vestige and Strategy can head back to the agency to fetch Molric.

Hog makes it back, tugging unconscious Samanta behind them. Heading instead, there’s a visitor talking to Jhaala. She turns, revealing the Mark of Detection on her throat. The Medani heir comes up to Hog, glancing at the inert Samanta as well. Jhaala comes to help move her as the Medani speaks, “hello. My name is Charity d’Medani. I came to see you inquisitives, but you were out on business.” Her voice is soft, but the sort of authoritative soft that emerges from having no need to raise one’s voice. It’s a disconcerting effect. “We were pursuing a suspect,” Hog replies, “what’s your business Lord? Uh, Lady?” She pays the slip no mind, “I am pursuing the trail of Tristano d’Cannith. I believe he is alive. I pursued him down here to the Cogs. Do you know anything as the local inquisitives?” “Alive? How do you figure?” “The arson was meant to cover up a kidnapping,” she explains, “the kidnapper was trailed down here.” Hog considers, then nods, “we found a lead on a Cannith heir on a case we’ve been investigating. You should wait here until my compatriots arrive.” Charity nods as well, “this is acceptable.”

When Vestige arrives, Ventra pulls them aside to deliver some news. She’d been attempting to secure the bodies from Lord Slogar d’Cannith, but now he’s reported the bodies stolen from the Forgehold. Concerned, Vestige wonders if the Cannith is lying. Vestige and Strategy then go to meet with Hog and Charity. “So, could you let me in on the details of your lead concerning Tristano d’Cannith?” Charity asks. When it does not respond, Hog prompts, “Strategy, care to explain?” “The Cannith’s dead,” Strategy says bluntly, “not only dead, mutilated and transformed. We found the body, signet ring and papers.” Charity has no reaction to the news whatsoever, and continues in her same low tone, “can I examine the body?” “We can retrieve it for you,” Hog offers. “I would like to examine the crime scene myself.” “Alright. I’ll take you to the scene. Just don’t cut us out of this case.” “We have a suspicion the killer in both cases was the same, so cooperation would be ideal,” Strategy adds.

Vestige sneaks a whisper to Hog, “I don’t like this. Medani’s gonna come out on Cannith’s side.” “Not much we can do,” they reply, “we’re in it to protect the Cogs. Can’t do that if we become suspects in our own right.” “Understood.” Vestige goes over to grant Samanta magical healing, and she wakes. Hog, meanwhile, fetches Molric. With that being settled, it’s back down to the workshop of Jack-in-Irons.

Molric’s able to turn the Foundry guards away from the secret workshop. Heading down, Charity takes stock of the place while Samanta describes the killer. She remembers they’d had half a warforged face and half a burned human face. One of their arms was forged, modded with four fingers and two thumbs, as well as both their legs. They still had one human hand though. The killer had a chitinous sword and favored fire magic. Charity thinks on the information, “they’re likely a Daelkyr cultist following the King of All Burning.” “We’ve already come to that same conclusion,” Strategy says, “good to have it confirmed.” “But why Tristano,” the Medani muses. “We do not know. This machine is beyond our understanding.” “House Medani has contacts who know the Daelkyr.”

“Tristano’s the killer,” Vestige cuts in. Charity’s finally surprised, “what? We found his disembodied arm fused to this machine, as well as the Mark of Making.” “The killer’s left side was warforged, and we found Tristano’s left arm here,” Samanta realizes. “That’s very circumstantial evidence,” Charity says. “Excoriate a mark and it’ll reappear elsewhere,” Vestige puts out. “True, but why would someone excoriate their own mark and cut off their own arm” Hog shrugs, “cultists of the Dragon Below do many things for their own reasons.” Charity backsteps, “this is a theory, but I doubt Tristano would. I met the man on several occasion.” “Tristano went missing a month ago,” Vestige observes, “and that’s also when the serial killing started.” “You think Tristano’s responsible for the murders the Watch failed to look into?” “Absolutely.”

Charity’s words strike Hog different though, how she immediately knew what serial killings Vestige was referring to, “you know about this?” “Yes, but I wasn’t hired to look into it,” she says dismissively, “now, you said the killer was going through Kalastan?” “Yes,” Samanta confirms. “This is a very high profile case. Once I bring this back to Medani, it’s likely Cannith and the Blackened Book will get involved. I’ll see what I can do to keep you on. I understand the killer targeted your people. You may contact me by letter to the Medani enclave in Dragon Towers.” With that, Charity’s off.

That being settled, Hog, Vestige, and Strategy head back to the Agency. On the way, Hog speaks some words to Vestige, “don’t think I’ve forgotten about that situation with Molric. Forward has seniority. You should follow his lead no matter what you think of that. Is that clear?” “Clear.” “I’m glad you survived the encounter with that thing. THis whole operation was a lot closer than I would’ve liked.” “I don’t plan on dying anytime soon,” Vestige offers. “None of us do. Let’s go talk to the gnoll.” Mognyr’s ready to share what information he knows. His friends have gathered the bodies from where they lay, brought them to one place in Khyber’s Gate. Also, he knows exactly where they were slain. As the group heads down, he makes a fuss about Hog cutting his ear. Hog replies coldly, “Znir, you owe me a life debt. I wanted to make sure you didn’t forget it.” Mognyr grumbles, “you could’ve just said that.”

The location’s an old Dhakaani storehouse. Two of the bodies are uncovered, the other two are draped with sackcloth. The stench is overwhelming, even to warforged senses. Vestige and Strategy set to inspecting the bodies. The ogre’s been killed by lacerations, with the carved symbols of the Rage of War and Breland being added after death. The gnoll was killed by a single swipe to the neck, then the fellow’s arm was torn off, by jaws, Strategy realizes. Inspecting the older two bodies, a gnoll and a bugbear, they also have similar cuts and some punctures from teeth, but they’re too decayed to determine much else.

With that, Mognyr leads the sleuths to the recent crime scenes. Where the ogre was done in, there’s a cipher scrawled on the wall. Strategy copies it down into a notebook. A glint of silver catches its eye, and it spies an ancient sovereign. One side bears a curved sword, the other a profile of Malleon the Reaver. It pockets the thing. At the location of the gnoll’s demise, there’s another sovereign left in the grime. It also finds a trail of old blood, which leads off to a nearby building. There’s where the gnoll’s missing arm was deposited.

——————

Notables:

Mystery Figure/Jack-in-Irons/Tristano d’Cannith?, he/him?, he’s an amalgam of warforged parts and human flesh, Samanta gave chase, but was defeated.

Ash, she/her, the proprietor of the Red Hammer, she’s helping cool the Jack-in-Irons case down.

Charity d’Medani, she/her, some Medani inquisitive come after Tristano d’Cannith, not a fan of Vestige’s theory that Tristano is Jack-in-Irons.

Mognyr, he/him, the Znir assassin, now somehow both in the agency’s employ, and the agency’s employer in the case of the Malleon Murders.

#pf2e #pathfinder campaign #pathfinder story #my post #my writing #hf&a llc #eberron #ttrpg story #ttrpg recap #session 4 #dnd campaign #vestige #hog 112 #forward #strategy #samanta #warforged #steel shadows

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ravencrow83 · 2 years ago

Text

Again I own nothing *pouty face*

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hey Little Girl Is Your Daddy Home?

Did He Go And Leave You All Alone?

I Got A Bad Desire

Oh, Oh, Oh, I’m On Fire

…..Bruce Springsteen (I’m On Fire)

Chapter 2

“Earn your kutte prospect! Hit’em yeh little shite!”

Chibs was stomping up and down on the corner of the boxing ring, his voice barely audible over the screams from the crowd around him. Half sacks opponent had already been the first to draw blood and the prospect was beginning to throw lazy punches. Amid the sweat, blood and adrenaline, he found his eyes drifting over to Ra coming out from the clubhouse. Her footing was a little unsteady and her cheeks looked flushed. She maneuvered sloppily through the restless natives, a beer bottle dangling loosely from her hand.

Lightweight

He shook his head dismissively and went back to the fight. Hopefully one of his brothers was remotely sober enough to keep an eye on her. Her father’s chop shop business getting busted had taken quite a chunk of money away from the club and the garage and he had money riding on this fight. He couldn’t afford distraction. Still, call it devotion to the club or morbid curiosity, he couldn’t stop his eyes from wondering to find her.

Ra’s head felt fuzzy. Good fuzzy. The kind of fuzzy that distorted her rational thoughts and it felt good to lose the unwanted clarity. The vibration from the motorcycles coming in and out of the lot and the screams from the fired up bikers provided the perfect white noise. She circled the ring, her brows drawing tighter as she tried to concentrate on the fight. The skirmish, no matter how animated, looked as if it were playing out in slow motion Perhaps she had drank more than she thought.

“Pretty awesome right?”

She nearly lost her footing when an overly enthusiastic Juice snuck up behind her and slapped her on the back. Had the liquor not been doing its job she was sure the gesture would have bordered on painful “Ya..Yeah. Pretty awesome” She was beginning to slur, but figured Juice wouldn’t have noticed over the noise around them “This an every night kinda thing?”

“God I wish” Juice paused to throw his hands up in the air as the crowd broke in to a mixture of boos and excited cheers when one of the men fighting hit the mat “Now the parties..those are a whole other story.” He grinned wickedly.

Ra smiled and nodded. How she was ever going to get sleep in this place was beyond her. Through the haze of people she could see the Scotsman staring down at her from the corner of the boxing ring. She looked away quickly hoping he wasn’t gauging her sobriety considering he was the one that had initiated the drinking to begin with. “Come on” She grabbed Juice by the arm and started pushing passed people to head towards the clubhouse “I need another drink.”

The moment they entered she wanted to turn around and walk back out, feeling as if she had just walked in on some very private party. There were girls on poles wearing nothing but thin lace thongs and men drinking and watching intensely through blood shot eyes. The darkest corner of the room was a blur of skin and moans of pleasure and Ra found herself blushing uncontrollably. Juice wasn’t phased by any of it. He didn’t even spare a second glance as he reached over and grabbed two shots and two beers off the bar. He followed her gaze to where her attention was occupied and saw Tig with a croweater between his legs, his head resting back on the couch.

“Hope you’re not squeamish” He tapped her arm with the glass of whiskey and regained her wondering eyes “We’re not fans of censorship when it comes to..well…anything.”

“Obviously” Ra slurred, downing her shot in one gulp and chasing it with her beer “Didn’t think you guys were a roaming pack of Catholic priests or anything.”

“Oiy! Juicy boy! The prospect pulled it off!” Chibs came up from behind Juice and handed him what looked like a wad of hundred dollar bills “I think tha’ deserves a bit of celebratin’” he motioned for the bartender who dropped what she was doing to quickly shuffle over to them. The blonde leaned over the bar and giggled when Chibs brushed the hair back behind her ear and whispered something only the two of them could hear. When she came back she had a bottle of Patron in her hand and a wide smile on her face.

“Piney’s secret stash eh?” Juice checked the bottle the way a sommelier would check a vintage of wine.

“Ahhh. Fuck‘em. Ol’man don’t do ’nothin but drink. It’s a celebration! Chibs grabbed the bottle and began pouring, stopping when he got to Ra’s empty shot glass “Yeh do tequila there girl or yeh already off yeh face?”

Ra eyed the bottle and openly winced. Last time she did tequila was the night she had gotten arrested for disorderly conduct and kicked out the window of a cop car. However, that was during a time in her life she was actually happy. How could having a couple shots now be any worse than that? She tapped her glass with the tip of her nail and smiled at the Scotsman arrogantly “I’m not oot my face” She mocked “And I can handle anything you throw at me Scotty.”

Chibs poured a shot into her empty glass and winked “Yeh shouldn’t tempt me with such an offer lass.”

The next couple hours were a jumbled blur of liquor and loud music. She could remember bad jokes, friendly insults, and laughing. For the first time in a long time, she could remember laughing. It was probably the best time Ra had had in a long time and judging by the way her head swam and her body swayed, it was a shame she probably wasn’t going to remember it in the morning. Ra pulled her forehead off the bar and stubbed out her umpteenth cigarette.

“I think I have to go to bed.”

She hadn’t been speaking to anyone in particular and the longer the night had gone on the more people had been dropping out to partake in other activities. Those activities were going on in plain sight behind her. The music had died down to a whisperer and was replaced with the sounds of random couples mid coitis. Ra slid off the bar stool and quickly caught herself as her legs wobbled unstably.

“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. I gotcha girl.” A pair of arms wrapped around her and Ra’s hands clamped down on leather clad shoulders. Her head lolled back till she was looking up at a pair of hooded brown eyes. Chibs smiled back at her, all the booze seeming to have no effect on him whatsoever “We’re gonna have ta getcha’ tolerance up if yeh gonna be hangin’ round with the boys.”

Ra scrunched her face up “I have tol..toleran..” She giggled as she tried to form the words, but her tongue felt suddenly numb

“Sure yeh do darlin‘. Sure yeh do.”

Chibs threw her arm over his shoulder and wrapped his around her waist while trying to move her down the hall to her room. Ra’s feet dragged lazily on the floor and her head rocked side to side as they walked. The room was spinning now and her stomach flip flopped relentlessly. He opened the door and hit the light switch causing her to moan in annoyance.

“Too bright” She groaned, covering her eyes.

“Okay. Hold yeh horses drunky” Chibs turned the light off and released his grip on her waist to turn on the light in the bathroom and crack the door, leaving a sliver of light through the room “Better?”

“Mmmm” she hummed.

“Figured yeh be needin’ to know where the bathroom is pretty soon.”

Had her body not been weighed down with alcohol, Ra would have attempted a scowl. Instead, she swayed back and forth in the middle of the room. Chibs couldn’t help the smile threatening to spread across his face as he watched her struggle to find the end of the bed. She sat down hard, her head bouncing on impact before her back hit the mattress. Her legs still dangled off the end of the bed and she gave an annoyed grunt that echoed through the room. Chibs glanced towards the door in the hopes that the rest of the guys were too wrapped up in Croweaters to hear her and think his intentions had been anything but noble. Then again, he himself had been questioning his intentions all night. He couldn’t blame it on the booze. She was beautiful, witty and even if all her drinking had caused her present situation, she had lasted longer drinking with the guys than a lot of other women had. Clays words repeated in his head. She was a job. A payoff. A bargaining chip to be played if they needed it. Nothing more. He shook away the thoughts and walked over to the bed.

“Alright Girl. Let’s get yeh all tucked in.”

He wrapped an arm around her waist again and pulled her up towards the pillow, making her whine again in irritation. Ra rolled over on her side and curled up while Chibs pulled to get the covers out from under her.

“How did you get those scars?”

His hands went idle for a moment before he scoffed and flipped the sheet over her “I got them a long time ago.”

“That’s not an answer” She muttered.

“Aye. It’s also no’ a good story ta tell a little girl before she goes ta bed.” He teased “Now, get some sleep.” Chibs checked his handy work. It had been a long time since he tucked someone in to bed. Satisfied, he turned to walk out of the room when he heard her stir again.

“I think you’re still sexy.”

He froze in his steps, one foot still held out in front of him when he glanced over his shoulder at the woman laying in the bed. Her small frame was a mere bump under the covers, eyes shut tightly and pink lips parted while releasing steady breaths. He chuckled, shaking his head as he continued down the hall.

“Aye. Yeh ain’t so bad yourself girl.”

XXXXXXXXXX

The moment her head lifted off the pillow, Ra’s stomach immediately rebelled with itself and she barely made it into the bathroom before emptying it’s contents. She fell back against the wall while she tried to catch her breath. The taste and smell of liquor made her stomach lurch painfully. She rested her head back against the peeling wallpaper, clicking her tongue off the roof of her mouth with a shudder. The overpowering flavor of tobacco in her mouth and the heaviness in her chest were reminders of why she had stopped smoking to begin with. “Never. Drinking. Again.” She mumbled another string of curses under her breath while trying to piece last night together. No memory played all the way through. Everything was choppy and distorted. Getting up on her hands and knees, she crawled on the tiled floor to the shower and turned the knob. Maybe cold water would jog her memory. Her hands gripped the sink as she pulled herself up unsteadily and looked in the mirror. Her make up was smeared down her face and she was still in her clothes from the night before. That was at least a good sign. She undressed and climbed into the tub, sitting down on the narrow back ledge while letting the lukewarm water cover her.

“Fuckin’ tequila” She whispered out loud.

Ra exited the bathroom in a towel and tossed one of her bags on the bed. She pulled out a pair of torn up jeans and a gray form fitting shirt. She thought if she was going to have to show up in the garage in this condition, she might as well obey Gemma’s bullshit appointed dress code. Her long black hair went up into a high messy bun, making it loose enough to not pull at her already throbbing head. She opened up the medicine cabinet in the hopes of finding eye drops and aspirin but found only condoms and some first aid bandages. Her shoulders dropped in defeat. This was going to be the worst day ever.

She exited the bedroom carefully, peaking out down the hall to see if there was any movement yet in the clubhouse. She cringed when the smell of smoke and booze slapped her in the face, the very source of her self inflicted ailments. But there was another aroma that caught her attention.

Coffee.

She tip toed down the corridor till she came to bar area and went slack jawed at the sight in front of her. It looked like something out of an ancient Roman orgy. Half naked men and women sprawled out over every inch of the clubhouse, snoring contently wrapped around one another the way they passed out. She was just about to head into the kitchen when she noticed one of the couples lying on the same couch remembered Tig on the night before. Chibs lay on his side, his belt and pants undone and one arm wrapped around the blonde bartender from last night. She was in nothing but a black and red g-string and her chest was flush against the Scottish biker. Ra felt an odd stirring in her chest. A baseless sense of jealousy she supposed. She dismissed it as anger towards the bartender for dishing out the booze that was causing the pounding in her head.

“Mornin’ birdie. Sleep alright?”

Ra jumped at the sound of Gemma’s voice coming from the small room off to the side of the hall. She entered, taken aback at how put together Gemma looked this early in the morning. She sat perched on a stool like a queen on a throne, a cigarette dangling loosely between her fingers. She smiled smugly at the unmistakably hungover girl in front of her.

“Coffee’s done.” she said, raising her own glass to her lips “Food too. Aspirin in the cabinet if you need it.”

Ra didn’t hesitate to spin around and open up the cabinet above her. A giant bottle of Tylenol, among other prescription bottles, looked down on her like a glowing beacon of hope.

“Had a good time last night?”

Ra scoffed as she poured a cup of coffee “Yeah. It won’t have any effect on my work.”

Gemma’s brows tensed for a moment before she let out a breathy laugh “If I didn’t allow the boys to come to work because they were hungover I wouldn’t be in business. Long as you get your job done.” She draped a arm over the back of her chair and took a long drag off her cigarette “You and our resident Scotty looked close last night. Something going on there?”

The simple observation made last night come rushing back to Ra. Nothing happened as far as she remembered. Chibs had been within arms length of her all night and helped her to her room when the liquor had finally taken full effect, but nothing more than that. Ra bobbed her head in the direction of the occupied couch and leaned back against the counter “You tell me.”

Gemma peered around the corner and grinned “Oh sweetheart. Those are just one of the services those girls offer. It’s just pussy.”

“You allow Clay to..”

“No.” Gemma interrupted, already knowing the question “I locked that down a long time ago. The girls in here know Clay is off limits. And if they don’t..” she straightened up dramatically and put a hand on her hip “I rip their tits off.”

Ra smirked and nodded. She didn’t doubt it. If this was Gemma being nice she hated to see how the MC queen reacted when she was crossed. “Well, Chibs can do what he wants. Christ, it was a night of drinking and harmless flirting, not some Jane Austen romance novel. I know nothing about the guy other than the fact he‘s Scottish, loves alcohol and curses like a sailor. Oh and he apparently has a thing for blondes which I am not.” She hesitated, sucking in a breath when she realized that may have come out with a little more bitterness than intended “I just know I have a drinking buddy when I need one. Nothing romantic.”

Gemma eyed her suspiciously, gauging her sincerity while she studied her face. Not getting any reaction, she gave a resigned smile and smacked her butt as they walked out of the room “Alright birdie. Let‘s get to work.”

XXXXXXXXX

I’m being punished. That was all Ra could think when she first got out to the garage. The first time all season the temperature had gone in to the upper nineties had to be on the day of the worst hangover of her life. She struggled through it though, catching amused looks from Gemma through the blinds of her air conditioned office. She may have seemed apathetic earlier, but now she was making a point to make sure it didn’t happen again. It was only herself and a strange sort of man named Lowell. He was shy and awkward, but a wiz mechanic. It was almost noon when the guys stumbled out of the clubhouse like a pack of vampires cowering from the sun. Some already had beer bottles in their hands.

“Must be quite the life” she whispered out loud.

Clay pulled his bike into the parking lot, smiling as he dismounted and pulled the leather gloves from his hands “How are things going sweetheart? Finding your way around okay?”

“Fine. Nothing I can’t handle.” Ra called back.

“Good. Good.” Clay paused, shaking his head repeatedly but remaining relatively still as he surveyed the car she had been working on. He looked deep in thought till he noticed her staring “I’m gonna go talk to Gem. Keep up the good work.” He slapped her gently on the shoulder and disappeared into the office. The odd exchange had Ra suddenly worried that perhaps something was going on he wasn’t making her privy too.

Ra glanced back over her shoulder at the guys out on the balcony of the clubhouse. She was sure had Gemma been watching she would have seen the blush rise up in her cheeks when Chibs stepped outside. He slid his sunglasses on and adjusted his kutte before lighting up a cigarette. Blowing the smoke out slowly, he dipped his frames down to the end of his nose and looked back at her as if he could sense her watching him. Ra turned around quickly to the open hood of the SUV she had been working on and tried to remember what she had been doing. Faint footsteps on the pavement grew louder and she squeezed her eyes shut in the hopes maybe that would somehow make her invisible.

“Alive and well I see.” came a Scottish inflection from behind her.

“Alive�� Ra grumbled.

Chibs couldn’t help but stare as she leaned over the car she was working on. The bartender from last night had been an attempt to get rid of any suppressed sexual tension he had been feeling and where it had been good, it apparently wasn’t good enough. Ra was the first thing he thought of when he woke up this morning. He knew Gemma would have her ass if she still sleeping it off, so after he dismissed the bartender, he made his way to her room. Finding it empty only brought on a new wave of urgency. She had gotten up before him and had to of seen him with the blonde whose name he hadn’t even taken the time to know. There was a stirring of irritation in him at the fact he even cared what she thought. Christ she hadn’t even been here twenty four hours. He had watched her for awhile through the window of the clubhouse. The engine grease smudged on her cheek and the oversized Teller-Morrow smock only adding more to her forbidden appeal. If she had just been like any other piece of ass that walked through this clubhouse, it would have been so much easier. He could have fucked her brains out, gotten it over with and let everything go back to business as usual. Standing outside with her now, under the weight of her narrowed gaze and the heat of the sun, he felt the need to explain himself but was rendered mute.

“Thanks by the way.” Ra finally fractured the silence between them, looking rather annoyed at having to voice her gratitude.

Chibs quirked a brow in surprise “For?”

“Ya know..” She fidgeted with the wrench in her hand timidly “Getting me in to bed and all.” She mentally slapped herself at her choice of words. More so when a crooked smile appeared on Chibs’ face, making his dimples deepen.

“Don’t mention it. Yeh pretty charmin’ when yeh off your face.”

He peered over his sunglasses and wagged his eyebrows up and down before turning on his heel to head back towards the clubhouse. Ra stood dumbfounded. Had something happened last night that she really didn’t remember? “Wait a minute!”

Chibs kept his back to her as she approached. It was the only thing he could do to keep her from seeing the smirk on his face.

“Did somethin…” Glancing over his shoulder, Ra noticed Tig, Juice, Bobby, and Opie staring at them curiously from the picnic tables and she lowered her voice to a whispered hiss “Did something happen last night?”

Chibs cocked his head to the side and attempted to look hurt “Aye. A lot of things happened last night. Prospect won us money, we went through two bottles of Piney’s Patron, yeh danced with some of the girls. Yeh very good at tha’ yeh know.”

Ra winced. She didn’t remember dancing but that wasn’t what she was getting at and he knew it “You know what I mean Chibs. Did something happen with you and I?”

He pulled another cigarette out and lit it slowly, purposely taking his time to make her even more flustered. She raised her brows in annoyance and he finally caved “No. Nothing happened last night. Yeh were very ladylike. Even when yeh passed out on the bed. Barely any droolin‘.”

Her body relaxed and her pursed lips twisted up into a smile “Good to know.” She turned to walk away and Chibs couldn’t waste the opportunity to tease her again.

“Yeh think I’m sexy though huh?”

Ra came to a quick halt and twisted back around “huh?”

“Last night” He repeated “Yeh said yeh thought I was sexy.”

“I did?”

Chibs nodded, his grin turning cocky when he noticed the slack jawed look on her face. He was toying with her. Probably making a point to make her feel more foolish than she did last night. Ra straightened up and narrowed her eyes “I said sexy?”

“Devastatingly sexy. Unbearably sexy.” He lied.

“Hmm.” She hummed playfully “Guess I was a lot more drunk than I thought.”

She winked at him and continued back to the garage, overemphasizing the sway of her hips. When she glanced over her shoulder at him, Chibs was still watching her intently, his lips set in the shape of an “O” in mock offense.

XXXXXXXX

Two sets of eyes watched the pairs exchanged from behind opened blinds.

“What do ya make of that?” Clay asked his queen, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind.

“It is what it is. The girl’s not so bad. I kinda like her.” She leaned her head back against his shoulder and rubbed his sore hands “Seeing him curled up next to a croweater this morning probably put her off.”

“Yeah well that’s where he needs to be. I told the guys already I don’t want them getting involved with the kid. In case something happens with her dad, I don’t need things getting complicated.”

“When’s the last time you saw Chibs choose pussy over the club? I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Might as well let them have fun.” Gemma twisted around in his grasp and wrapped her arms around his neck “What are you gonna do with her if her old man rats anyway?”

Clay rested his forehead against hers and sighed. The last thing he wanted was to do any harm to the girl, but after finding out from Unser that the ATF were investigating the MC, he had to have some kind of leverage to protect the club “I hope it don’t get to that point Gem. I really do.”

XXXXXXXX

#chibs telford #chibs telford fanfic #soa fanfiction #tommy flanagan

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banditcoyote · 1 year ago

Text

"I really enjoyed it." Coyote said answering Frick's question and blushing slightly, but he'd probably enjoy it even more since it was Frick. Still he wasn't about to do that here while the ship was full of the crew, and he did want to enjoy this moment without pushing it too far.

The three of them fell into a soft silence for a while, picking at the food and finishing the bottle of wine until Coyote asked "Did you marry Ezra to become King Pirate?"

Frick chuckled softly at the sudden question "No...we were married before that..." Coyote was clearly surprised at this and looked to Frick for more information. "I found him floating after a skirmish...I was going to kill him. But he looked pathetic, and he is pretty even if you shot off half his face. His father had turned on him, so we made plans to work together. We fell in love, got married, then I killed his father and took over the ship and title.....now you're back. Happily ever after."

Coyote's hand found Sasuga's and gave it a squeeze. "I can't stay Frick."

For the first time Frick sounded vulnerable "why." He asked with a soft voice.

"Ezra hates me, your husband, and I have a life that I need to get back to, it's not this life anymore..." He held his breath waiting for Frick to respond. "But...I can come visit?" He added hopefully. He hadn't discussed it with Sasuga, but surely they could work things out, between her lover and him cutting back at the ranch, surely they could make time. "Right Darlin'?"

What a Pirate Desires

It was early in the morning when she jerked awake, throwing the covers off and pulling away from the bed completely. She stumbled on her feet for a moment, eyes wide and shivering from head to toe despite the fact that Coyote had dressed her in her nice warm flannels. Big blues darted around the room as Coyote sat up and assessed the situation. She took a shaky breath, tears burning the corners of her eyes. "I hate it..." she breathed and even looked to see if she could see her breath which she couldn't of course. She started to waver and in an instant strong arms were holding her up and she let them. "I'm so cold, Coyote... Can you make more tea? Can we sit by the fire downstairs? Can I wear your robe for a while?" making several requests which she knew he would allow and would help her feel better.

@banditcoyote

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distracteddegenerate · 4 years ago

Text

Carnation

Yuta x Fem!reader

Warnings: period sex, lots of blood mentions, yandere undertones for Yuuta, TW.Dubcon if you squint I just want to be safe lol, unprotected sex, smut

Got super carried away with this one which is why it’s so long lol. I decided to combine the asks since I have got a lot for Yuta. Second anon if you’re uncomfortable with this fic which is understandable lol just shoot me another ask and I can do something else for you.

You lay curled in your bed, the sheets and pillows a mess around you, a fluffy hot water bottle cradled tightly to your front. The side of your body you laid on was beginning to ache from pressure, and you felt flush from heat, but you dared not move. You dreaded the intensifying of the stabbing pains your own body was wretchedly subjecting you to. Of course today would be the heaviest of your period, the day you had scheduled for a study session with Yuta. He was due to come over in about half an hour, and your pains were yet to ease up at all, despite the painkillers you had recently downed. You could cancel, yet, this was the first ever study session you had set up with your handsome friend, and you were loath to cancel it over something that would clear itself up eventually.

You closed your eyes, and pulled the hot water bottle you gripped like a lifeline closer to the source of your suffering.

~~~

*knock knock*

Fuuuuck. Was it that time already? You groggily sat up, releasing your water bottle and in replacement lightly pressing your hand against the throbbing pain that was starting to surge more strongly in the pit of your belly. You gently placed your feet on the ground off the side of your bed, and rose onto the balls of them just as delicately. You began your gloomy shuffle towards the entrance of your room, fixing your ruffled hair into place.

You pulled the door open on yourself slowly, croaking as Yuta’s tired but docile face materialised into view.

“Good evening, (Name)-chan.” Yuta had his hands in his pockets and wore a kindly smile, the only thing betraying his pleasant demeanour being those familiar dark circles dusking the underside of his eyes. Dreary though they appeared, you could swear you saw a specular shimmer dance across his irises when he registered your form.

“Ah good evening to you too, Yuta! Come in and make yourself at home, I have some stuff set up on the coffee table.” You tried your best to look as perfectly in humour as you could, to not draw any attention to your current pain stricken condition. Must have been good enough, as Yuta had nodded in response and was now making his way over to nestle himself onto one of the pillows you had placed next to your make-shift study station.

You yourself was headed to the kitchenette, about to ask what Yuta wanted to drink when a sharp stab erupted from your core. You threw your hand onto a countertop and visibly winced, when you noticed Yuta’s widened eyes had been following you.

“(Name)! Are you okay?!” Yuta’s expression was alarmed, prepared to pounce up from his seating.

“Uh- I er uh- tripped over! Nothing to worry about!” You were blushing slightly, but righted yourself regardless and tried to stand as straight as you could. Yuta seemed slightly confused, and whilst he opened his mouth to speak you interrupted him with a casual “So what would you like to drink?”

“Er.. I’m fine actually, I had something before I left home... actually I think you should come sit down, er, carefully.” He still looked a little concerned. You nodded your head and made your way over to his side. Settling yourself down, you could feel more pain pulsating within you, a low rumble threatening another great stab like you had experienced just. You drew your legs to your chest in an attempt to alleviate it slightly, and picked up your copy of “a comprehensive guide to the relation of curses and the law”; holding it open in front of you.

You could feel Yuta’s gaze still trained on you.

~~~

“So, although the police would have to intervene if someone was hurt or killed in the incident, sorcerers still have the right to- er - (Name)?”

Crap. You were too focused on the waves of torture oscillating in your guts to keep your attention on Yuta explaining the info that went over your head in class to you again. And he noticed. You looked up at him softly, and offered a subdued “sorry.” You didn’t really have energy to maintain your act of being fine anymore. His eyes looked concerned. You turned your head to the floor and fiddled with your hands.

“Hey, (Name).” You heard him shift and alter the positioning of his legs. “Is it that time of the month?”

What?! Who asks that like this?!

You threw your head back up to look at him, your face red and mouth agape. He threw his hands up defensively.

“Sorry, sorry!” He hurriedly turned his gaze into the distance and rubbed the back of his neck. “I just.. I have a little sister, so I’m used to this sort of thing, or at least I know a bit more about it than other guys.” He looked back to you. “It seems like the pains at least are distracting you from your studies, if you need painkillers or something.. I can go get them for you.”

“I er...I already tried that… doesn’t work out that well for me.” Was your meek, barely audible reply. You played with the tassel of the pillow you were sat on. Yuta looked pained on your behalf.

“Y’know… I read online somewhere that there’s always something you can try out failing all else.” He caught your gaze, and held it intently.

It must be too good to be true, how would Yuta know some hidden method that you (as someone who experienced periods) didn’t know about for dealing with the pains?! Your eager look betrayed itself when a switch flicked in your head and your expression turned into one of astonishment. There’s no way he’s gonna suggest…

“Org*sms.”

You’d known Yuta for awhile now, but you had no idea just how… artless he was. Where was his tact?! Your cheeks burned from embarrassment. You felt like your face was about to explode.

Looking at him though, he was practically unfazed! As if you were going about some matter-of-a-fact order of business. What was this situation!

“I-is.. that a joke Yuta?” Your hands were curling into tight balls.

“Of course not, (Name). You look like you’re in so much pain. I just want to help alleviate it.”

What the hell did he mean by that? Like you will just hop up right now and go jerk yourself in the bathroom as casually as using the toilet.. Or.. could he have meant..

You felt Yuta’s hand settle on your thigh, as he leant down further towards you. “I can help you out (Name)-chan.”

You couldn’t deny, you’d always found Yuta handsome, but for things to move along this quickly… and of all times! Surely his level of straight-forwardness defied all social conventions, and yet, it was working. The feel of his hand resting on you, his hungry stare, the way he loomed over you, chest rising and falling intently. You could feel a different kind of ache emanating from your lower parts.

His hand drifted further up your body, coming to stop just below your belly button. “I want to help you… (Name)-chan.” You looked into his dark eyes. They were intense, hungry. You could swear he was salivating.

“B-but Yuta.. I-I’m.. You know! Isn’t that.. Gross? For you?” He shot you a sheepish grin, hiding his eyes in an evasive fashion. His hand travelled downwards once more, snaking up the inside of your loose-fitting shorts and looping his fingers over the sides of your panties. He toyed with them, rolling the cloth over your skin and lightly pulling at them. “I don’t think any part of you is gross, (Name)-chan.” His eyes flicked open again, drawing you back into his intensity. “I think every part of you is beautiful, even.” You could sense his earnestness, and it made your cheeks burn. You went to throw your hands up to them, but he quickly caught them in his. “So, what’s your answer?” He planted a kiss in your palm. “Do you want my help? (Name)-chan.”

Fuck.. the way he looked at you. Those ferocious, hooded eyes. Those calloused hands, usually wrapped around a katana, wrapped around yours right now. The burning you felt between your legs. God yes. God, you wanted it.

The alleviation of pain (and studying) was an afterthought.

~~~

Yuta had returned back to your living space with a towel from the bathroom. What? you didn’t want to get the floor messy. You could see an erection straining tightly against his black pants.

Fuck, you were really gonna do this. He set it down flat on the floor, and invited you to come situate yourself on it.

~~~

After removing his shirt (It was white, after all), Yuta knelt himself down in front of you. He had a certain glint in his eyes, almost conflicting the harmless smile that he also wore, as if he wasn’t about to blissfully pound your bloody c*nt into oblivion. He undid the front buckle of his pants, a bulge emerging, the explicitness of his bare dick concealed by gray underwear. He began palming at the protuberance. You eyed the display curiously, when you had a sudden realisation.

“Y-Yuta, w-what about… protection?” you asked, uneasily.

“Hm? (Name)-chan, you’re on your period, remember? You won’t get pregnant.”

“B-but..”

He cut you off. “I don’t have anything. Trust me.”

You nodded and grunted in acknowledgement. Yuta was always a trustworthy figure for you. Your strong, reliable friend who you could always depend on. He always took care of you, even during skirmishes with curses, arriving at your side before things even had the chance to get particularly hairy.

You watch Yuta as he tilts his keeling body forward, his hands landing on your ankles before travelling upwards, spreading your legs open in the process. You feel yourself blushing once again, tossing your head to the side. You can feel the front of your damp p*nties being touched, jumping in slight surprise at the abrupt action before Yuta starts rubbing at your cl*t through the fabric. He notices your breathing falter.

“Do you like it, (Name)-chan? Do you like how it feels when I rub you there?”

You mumble a small “yes.”

He’s applying more pressure to his administrations now. “Do you want me to take your p*nties off? So I can touch you properly?”

You answer yes again, this time more hastily.

With that, he curls his fingers over the sides of your p*nties, dragging your legs into the air as he twists his body appropriately in order to shimmy the restrictive fabric off of you. He casts them to the side, before pulling your trembling limbs back into their previous position. Once he settled them back down, he kept his hands on your thighs as he drank in the glory of your exposed c*nt quivering before him, the string of your tampon peaking out in a taunting manner.

You heard him cooing at you quietly. “Beautiful.”

You cringed, wondering if he’d still be thinking that when he’s stained with blood. Even so, you couldn’t help but melt under the feeling of his fingertips tracing circles into your inner thighs. The way you felt a thumb flick over your n*ked sex.

“Is your stomach still hurting you?” The sudden question snapped you out of your stupor.

Truth be told, you’d almost completely forgotten about your pains you were so caught up in the moment, but something held you back from saying so. As if Yuta would stop touching you if you let him know the “reason” for the two of you doing this was almost completely resolved. And, you were relishing in the tenderness of his comforting too much for it to stop.

“Y-Yes..”

Yuta bent further over you, his head looming over your core. He sunk down, his face leaning into the space of your skin where your tummy and pelvis met. He planted a light kiss there.

“Well, I’m gonna make you feel better.”

His grip on your thighs tightened as his head lifted, his presence shadowing over you once again as he held himself higher. Your heart pounded. He leaned further on your left thigh and removed his hand from the other, as you felt fingers poking at your aching heat again.

Could you feel… pulling?

You felt a horrible, obscene slick escape you suddenly when Yuta yanked out your tampon. He pinched it limply in fingers, observing it slightly before placing it on the towel you shared.

“Yuta?!” You whelped. It was ironic. The two of you were sharing an intimate moment with each other, almost completely exposed. But this? It felt somewhat... invasive.

You could sense Yuta shrugging. “It needed to come out.” Before you even had a chance to respond, you could feel him caressing your folds. He was circling his thumb over them, the peak of the eclipse swiping over your cl*t. “Don’t worry, (Name)-chan you look beautiful.”

You looked to him, but he didn’t return the gaze. His stare was boring into your most private parts, hungrily eating up the view. The calloused hand still wrapped around your leg was gripping on tightly, as you felt Yuta dip a finger into your sopping c*nt.

“Fuck.. it’s so.. wet.”

Well, that was a given you supposed. But you knew a lot of what was down there was also probably your usual feminine slick, with the way he was making you ache. He continued pumping his finger in and out, the motion becoming deeper and rougher, him gaining confidence in what you were willing to take in. You could feel your muscles strain around it.

“That’s three.”

“Wait, w-what?!”

“Three fingers, (Name)-chan. You’re drenched down here.” You felt him remove his digits, Spreading them out across your lips. You then felt him draw a line across your inner thighs that intersected your p*ssy in the middle. Was he… playing in it? You decided not to question, you were too caught up in a wanton haze, hips bucking upwards, begging for his touch to return to your most sensitive parts.

“Y-yuta..”

He looked at you and smiled sincerely. “-just need to make sure you’re nice and loose for me, (Name)-chan.” Before you could react, plunging fingers speared your weeping c*nt, pumping with violent pace. You yelped and crumpled in on yourself when you felt his fingers curl against your velvety walls, yielding against the pressure. You squirmed underneath him even more when he began spreading them, parting your insides. You hummed, laying your hand over the top of his head, entwining yourself in the strands of his hair.

He shifted into your touch. “God, love this. So fucking beautiful.”

He peered at you from beneath those dark lashes. “You think you’re ready?”

“Hm?”

“For my cock.”

At that, you nodded, releasing your grasp on his hair and trailing your hand down his chest as he straightened himself, looping his fingers over the sides of his boxers, staining it with blood. He tugged them down, his painfully erect dick springing out into open air. You found yourself surprised at the length. Yet, He was focused on you. Pointing at your top half he asked you, “Can you take all of this off?”

You nodded and complied hurriedly.

When you were done Yuta was quick, grabbing your knees to hold you in place, leaning over to plant yet another doting kiss on your body, This time in the space between your bare breasts. You felt him begin to push into you. He managed the entirety of his length, before pulling himself almost all the way out again. You noticed how he looked down, admiring the sheen of your blood now coating his member. He quickly snapped his hips back into you again, and began assuming a steady pace of rutting. Your legs found themselves wrapping around him, your ankles cross sectioning across his taught upper back. You wanted to tell him it felt good, but the most you could manage was a weak moan.

That seemed to set something off within him. He lunged over you, enveloping your entire body with his own. He planted one hand on the towel beneath you, firmly beside your head. The other found itself groping a t*t, clawing over it to pinch your hard nipple, surrounding the ar*ola with petals of red. His pace was raw and piercing, but the slight discomfort you felt was laced with a more intense pleasure.

You heard him groan. “-god.. You feel so good. Fucking you like this.. It’s just so.. primal.” He was lightly scraping his nails against you, tracing trails of scarlet down your body. You understood what he meant by that perfectly. The way he was looking down at you, almost slavering at the lips at your vulnerable form, like some wild animal lost in it’s lust.

The feeling of it, the sounds of it. It was also so expl*cit. Yet so gratifying.

You lost yourself, allowing Yuta to abuse your lower half as he pleased, even matching your hips to his punishing motions. The l*wd squelching noises as he fucked into your excessive wetness, the way he played with your sensitive nipple at the same time, your entire being yearning into his ministrations.

“I-I’ve always dreamt of this, (Name)-chan” You were too lost in a fucked out haze to really respond, humming lightly as you stroked the arm gripping your breast. His pace got even quicker then, rougher. His form that was already entirely draped over yours weighed down on you with even more pressure, the slap of his bucking hips against your buttox resounding loudly. It’s all too much, your legs weak when you cream his c*ck, a wave of release gushing out of you as your heat throbs wildly.

Your limbs go weak as you reel from the org*sm, your walls spasming around Yuta as he continued his bucking.

Yuta’s gaze rests on your dazed expression, his dark eyes settling over you. “You needed my c*ck didn't you?” He moves the hand that was on your bre*st to caress over your face. “Desperately. I know you did.”

You felt Yuta’s pace get rougher, losing it’s steady tempo as he chases closer to his climax. He thrusts into you heartily a final time before his release spills into you, closing his eyes as he rides out his orgasm out slowly and tenderly. He remains inside for sometime after, rubbing your hips with his thumb as he admires the mixture of c*m and blood streaming out of your hole and cascading down his dick.

“Beautiful.”

He looks to your face now, smiling gently.

“So, do you feel better now, (Name)?”

#jjk #yuta okkotsu #yuta okkotsu x reader #jujutsu kaisen #okkotsu yuta x reader #reader x jjk #jjk x reader #dark jjk #period sex #okkotsu yuta #okkotsu yuuta #yuuta okkotsu x reader #okkotsu yuuta x reader #tw.yandere #tw.blood #tw.periods #tw.dubcon #smut #jjk smut

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persephones-wren · 3 years ago

Note

Could you write a Kaz Brekker request where the reader and Kaz are more than friends but not lovers and the reader is a Crow and therefore, can handle things for herself so she doesn't tell Kaz when a friend's ex is threatening her but Kaz ultimately finds out when the ex comes to the Crow Club and Kaz handles it since as much as he knows she capable, he is still protective of her and it leads to them finally becoming official?

Protective (Kaz Brekker x Reader)

I'm sorry about the ending, I couldn't find a great way to finish it- but maybe I'll fix that when I can think of something. Besides that, I hope you like it! :)

Warnings: depicted abuse, mentions of sedatives, misogynistic language (please let me know if there's any more)

Genre: not fluff

Word Count: 2705

You had a confusing relationship with Kaz.

It was an odd “more than friends, less than dating” relationship. It made sense, considering in the Barrel, women were more property than anything else. Besides, leverage was a thing everyone wanted on Kaz, even his closest allies. He wasn’t going to put himself in a position that made him anyone’s puppet. You didn’t exactly need him to declare you untouchable, anyway; you were usually more than okay with skirmishing with the Dime Lions and others that happened to be in your way.

You had never expected him to help you handle things that you could do alone.

It had been one of your wealthier friends, who helped get you out of the Menagerie. She had dated Zachariah Alix, a man with power and influence. She had usually dealt with his off-putting advances and abuse, but even you, who couldn’t see her often, could tell she wasn’t happy.

“Break up with him, then.” Your voice echoed in her private chambers as she sighed, multiple emotions running through her expression.

“Y/N, I just, I can’t. We’re already supposed to be married soon. Criminals in the Barrel are lucky in the way that you’re allowed to love who you please,” and damn your head for immediately thinking Kaz, “but merchers, well, it’s not that simple.”

“You callin’ me a criminal?”

“Yes,” she muttered, and you laughed, “but that’s not the point.”

“Are your parents forcing you to marry him?”

“Not exactly, but there’s going to be a lot more pressure if I break up with him.”

“Alright, well...from the list of merchers we’ve stolen from-'' she shot you a look, “sorry, sorry. It’s true though. I’m sure there’s someone on the list that’s for you.”

“I’ve got someone in mind already.”

“Well, that makes things easier, doesn’t it? Break up with him and get with the other guy. No parental pressure. Why do you need my advice, then? I get caught here and I’m as good as dead.”

“Okay, okay! It’s not parental pressure,” she lowered her voice, guilt painted across her face. “He’s going to stalk me if we break up. He might kill me. I don’t know what to do.”

“Alright,” you mulled it over. “That’s different. What can I do for you, then?”

“Can you be there when we break up? Moral support? And perhaps, well...if it wouldn’t trouble you, maybe do a little something to get him to leave me alone.”

“Like beat him up. It won’t trouble me,” you had answered. “Sure, I’ll do it.”

“Thank you,” she sighed in relief. “You’re the best, Y/N.”

“It’s nothing.”

…

“I don’t think we should continue on like this.”

There was a tension-filled silence, before Alix spoke again. “Why not, sweetheart?” He advanced towards her, and you had to prevent yourself from physically cringing. You were mostly moral support, and there to defend your friend if she got into deep shit, but, well...hopefully it wouldn’t come to revealing yourself.

“You- get off of me,” she pushed him away harshly. “You don’t get to talk me into forgiving you again. You are a child. You hit me and scream and throw tantrums. I want to be with someone who loves me, not someone who treats me like his mother. So that’s it. Get out of my house. We’re breaking up.”

There was another silence, before he spoke up again. “You little bitch,” he snarled, and grabbed at her dress, “you think you can just break up with me? No one’s ever going to be there for you. I’ll kill you and blame it on some Barrel thug. Check yourself, you’d be nobody without me.”

His hand closed in on her neck, and she looked to you, panicked. You put a finger to your lips before you snuck behind him, flicking off the safety and putting the pistol to his head.

He froze.

“Drop her.”

He did, and she slid down against the wall, tears streaming down her face. You had never intended to let it get that far, and it hurt your heart- but you had to deal with him first.

You knocked the gun into his head and used your elbow to knock him to the ground, putting a foot on his chest.

He looked up at you, terrified. What a coward.

“Too bad your daddy never taught you how to use guns,” you taunted, and grinned. “You leave her alone. She’s broken up with you. Get out of her house.”

“You’re Brekker’s whore, aren’t you?”

Your grin grows incredulous. You apply pressure to his chest steadily, and he wheezes, but he still continues.

“Yeah, look at you.You’re all upset, aren’t you, girl? Bet you’re sold out to half of the Barrel by him. Brekker likes his Kruge.” His eyes scan from underneath you. “Can’t say I’d blame him if he wanted to keep you as his personal pet, though.”

You scoff. “Careful what you say, I’m the one with a gun,” you remark, and you click a bullet into place for show, before taking your foot off. “Get out. If you touch her again, it’ll be more than me you’ll deal with.”

He scrambles upwards and disappears, and you hear the front door open and shut. You sigh.

“I’m sorry, I never intended for him to get that far. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” your friend sighs, hands lightly touching the bruises on her neck. “I think I’ll be okay. Thank you. What about you? You’re not-”

“I’m not with Kaz.” You help her up, and she smothers out her dress. “If Alix ever bothers you again, let me know.”

“Of course. I doubt he will. Thank you again, Y/N.”

…

He never did bother her again, but you- you were a different story. Every day, now, Kaz would offer you a note with some vague taunt on it.

“I’ll kill you.”

“Brekker’s slut! Slept your way to the top!”

“Let’s fight without a gun next time. I’ll have you pinned underneath me.”

“I’ll sedate and have my way with you. You still know some things from the Menagerie, don’t you?”

You had brushed off most of the taunts and threats, but they might’ve been starting to impact you, just a bit. You had assumed that Kaz had never read the threats. Each time, he would hand you the note with no expression.

Today’s note was a bit different.

“Y/N. Another note came in for you today.” He set the note on the table.

“Huh? Oh, thanks.”

You picked it up and unfolded the note, shielding the back of the paper with one hand. Kaz was clever, one of the many things you liked about him. You were sure that he’d try and read the back of the note if he could.

“Let’s meet on your territory. Crow Club at eight, in the alleyway.”

“Got yourself a boy, Y/N? These notes have started coming in every day,” Jesper whistled next to you, eyes scanning over the note. You look up, and Kaz is gone, watching from more of a distance. They’ve got it completely wrong.

You glance back down, and fail to notice how Kaz’s fingers tighten on his cane. Your laugh is dry, and you shake your head. “Nothing of the sort.”

Jesper ignores your denial. “Well, whoever he is, he seems awfully persistent. He wants to meet at the Crow Club, in the alleyway? Kinda sweet he wants to meet on your land, but why won’t he come in? He afraid of us, or somethin’?”

“Something like that,” you affirm.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to meet in here, either,” Inej says.

“Especially not with him here,” Jesper adds.

Your eyes meet Kaz’s across the room, and you both stare for a moment before he turns and looks away.

“Maybe.” Your answers are ambiguous, and you’re sure both Inej and Jesper want to know more, but you need to prepare for tonight.

“Sorry, guys. Excuse me.”

…

You have three throwable knives strapped into your boots, a small handgun holstered in your coat, and a syringe full of clozapine tucked up your sleeve. You’re prepared to take Alix down easily. You don’t exactly intend to shoot him, if only to make sure that the Crows don’t have a bigger target on their back from getting involved with the wealthy, but- well, you can’t deny it’s good to be ready in dire circumstances.

It’s 7:58 by the time you’re heading out to the back of the alley. You’re hiding behind the wall, just about to step over, but there’s already voices conversing there.

Did he bring backup? You grimace. You hadn’t considered that he might not fight fairly.

“Did she send her boyfriend after me ‘cause she was too much of a pussy to show?”

“I’d be careful what you say about Y/N.”

That’s Alix, and Kaz.

You’re not sure what you’re supposed to feel. He never did these kinds of things for you, never declared you his, but- you could handle this yourself. You didn’t need his protection, and you didn’t need him going out to deal with things because of one creepy ex.

Or, your thoughts betray you, you’re worried for him, because this could be a trap.

He glances over at the wall, where he seems to know you’re standing. It’s a warning glance, one to be quiet and let him deal with it.

“Aw, Brekker, you sweet on her? And here I thought it was a one-sided thing. Too bad I’m gonna ruin that pretty face of yours.”

Alix comes swinging. Kaz doesn’t say anything in reply, and instead jabs his cane forward, right into his stomach. He stumbles backward, and Kaz is still poised, waiting.

“I thought you were going to be more of a challenge than this. Even a fool knows not to attack first.”

“I’m no fool, Brekker. Don’t make any more sudden moves, or you’ll be shot. Do you know how easy it is to hire hitmen?”

There’s a faint look of surprise in Kaz’s expression before it smooths back into calm. “Well, to be honest,” he smiles pleasantly, “I thought merchers were above such methods.”

He’s glancing at you again, before his eyes move over two guard towers.

He’s pointing out to you where they are. Shit, what do you do? You’re no Inej, who can scale the walls and take them down silently. You’re no Jesper, who can shoot them with precision. You’re not going to be able to take out both snipers quickly enough. If you kill Alix and Kaz doesn’t dive behind the wall in time, he’ll get shot.

You let out a silent sigh. If only you could get both Kaz and Alix behind the wall, then you can get rid of the problem at its source, and then fuck the hitmen. They’re not going to kill Kaz if they can’t get paid.

“The rich are never above any methods. The only thing the rich care about is eradicating the criminals that roam the streets. I thought I was gonna get Y/N, and I could take her back to Tante Heleen,” he grinned, “But you’ll be worth a lot more. Wonder who’ll lay claim to you first.”

Kaz doesn’t say anything, just puts his hands behind his back, as if he’s waiting to be cuffed. But he gives quick signals to you, right before Alix steps around to secure the bonds- a quick countdown. He’s expecting you to shoot.

“No plans up your sleeves this time, Dirtyhands?”

You suddenly fire at Alix’s shoulder, a scream tearing through his throat as the cuffs drop to the ground. Kaz dives towards the wall, grabbing his cane along the way and breathing hard next to you.

Somehow, your aim remains true, and when you peek over the corner, you see Alix desperately trying to grasp at his wound. A grim sort of satisfaction greets your expression.

“Should’ve shot him in the head,” Kaz looks on with you.

“I’m trying not to paint a bigger target on our backs,” you explain, before you remember you’re supposed to be mad at him. Damn him for taking the fall for you. Did he know it was going to be a trap?

“Why the hell would you confront him alone? I had it handled, Kaz.”

“Not now..” His stare is directed at the shadows. And before you can get another word out, both of you are headed to his office.

The brisk walk is silent, and the tension could be cut through with a knife. At last, you reach his office, and he shuts the door, and sits down at his desk. You stand in front of him.

“Care to explain why you decided to confront Alix by yourself?” “I read the notes. I knew it was a trap.”

This doesn’t make you feel any better. “So you read the notes, where he called me a whore, a slut, your personal toy, and you don’t decide to tell me? You let it continuously happen, and then when the note comes today, you decide to go and white-knight for me because protecting me is a better idea than consulting me, huh?” you scoff. “That’s bullshit. You know I can handle myself. There’s a reason you chose me to be a part of the Crows, is there not? Or is what Alix said true? Did I sell myself to get to the top? Become your bitch?”

“I knew you could handle yourself just fine,” Kaz says calmly. “I didn’t want you to get hurt, because you didn’t consider the fact it was a trap. You could’ve died.”

“I would’ve been fine alone. Just because you’re the one who accounts for everything doesn’t mean I don’t use my head.” You know you’re being unfair, he’s right about the fact that you thought the fight was legitimate, but you could’ve saved yourself all the same.

“I’m not saying you don’t use your head, I’m saying that the probability of you dying if you went alone were much higher. I wanted to help you, save your ass back there,” he refutes.

“I would’ve died. So what? Deaths happen all the time in the Barrel! I die, and what?”

He doesn’t say anything.

You give a sardonic laugh. “I’m just an investment to you. I do what you want, with no question or hesitation, because I put my faith in you. My death just means the loss of a good soldier. I’m replaceable, though. My opinions are invaluable, so you don’t talk to me before you do shit. I’m always going to be underneath you, just a pawn.”

“You’re assuming things.”

“Like what, then?”

“Have you considered the fact that I was there because I wanted to help you? Because you’re a part of my Crows, and I don’t take anyone threatening us too kindly?”

His admission has you pausing, but he continues. “You die, and what? Forget what I may feel. What about Inej and Jesper? What about Nina, Wylan? I don’t want you to be underneath me. I see you as an equal.”

“I-”

“That’s why I was there. Because I-” love you, he nearly says, but he stops himself. “I protect the people I love.”

“And I’m someone you love,” you state quietly.

“Yes.”

You’re not sure how much you must have pissed him off to make him an honest man, but you can’t help smiling a little. “Saints, Kaz, at least ask a girl to be yours before you tell her you love her.”

“Fine. Y/N, will you be my girlfriend?”

“Who the hell are you and what have you done with Kaz Brekker?” You grin.

“Stop dodging the question,” he bites out.

“Yeah, I will,” you sigh. “But don’t get yourself killed, and especially not over me, please.”

“Well, darling, I think it’s fair of me to ask the same thing for you- don’t be reckless. People die far too easily in the Barrel,” he responds.

There’s another small silence, before you speak up again.

“Kaz. Thank you.”

He’s slightly surprised at the genuine warmth in your eyes, quickly replacing the anger that was in them before. He shrugs a little.

“It’s what lovers do, right?”

“Yeah,” you answer. “Lovers.”

Lovers, indeed.

#shadow and bone #six of crows #grishaverse #six of crows x reader #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #kaz brekker imagine #kaz brekker x reader #soc kaz #soc x reader #kaz x reader #kaz brekker #thank you anon #might edit later #request

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liz-allyn · 3 years ago

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shudder, part 3/6 [agent mobius x gn!reader]

You're undercover on a mission with the team, and Mobius' affinity for cowboy culture is making things unexpectedly difficult.

Part 1 | Part 2

Series Summary: Pre-Loki series. You are one of the most dangerous variants the TVA has ever recovered, but Mobius knows what makes you tick. Five times he made you shudder, and the one time you returned the favor.

Words: 1.6k

Chapter Warnings/Tags: Language, period/canon-typical gun violence, cowboy!Mobius (valid as a warning), mutual pining, flirting, fluffy and fun, at least one naughty thought.

A/N: let me know how you feel about longer chapters!

III.

The next time it happened, it was 1881, and you looked ridiculous.

Your clothes were too tight and the leather smelled like the cattle you were wearing was still alive. You didn’t get to pick your uniform for this mission, and since you were supposed to be deep undercover in an active timeline scenario where reset charges were not permitted, wearing a TVA-issued “Variant” jacket wasn’t going to work.

So now here you were, sweating your ass off in what would one-day become the Las Vegas desert, with your partner wearing a giant 10 gallon hat holding a revolver to your back. He definitely looked ridiculous, and you let him know that. But to be fair, it was almost... cute. Sort of.

Variant T-3051 was the target, this stagecoach robbery at gunpoint was the trap, a Skrull artifact locked in a safe was the bait. And you were technically also bait, disguised as the hapless hostage.

Mobius laid it on extra thick for this one; you were pretty sure he was enjoying himself.

“Easy does it, fellas,” he said in a honeyed voice. “Everyone move nice and slow.” With one hand on your shoulder and one hand on the gun trained on your back, he urged you forward with a gentle double-squeeze near your collarbone. It was a little secret communication between you two. “Keep your hands up where I can see ‘em, sweet thing.”

You struggled not to overtly roll your eyes as you lifted your hands slightly higher. You were 99% sure that Mobius had never held a revolver in his life and probably didn’t know how to fire one. The man’s idea of excitement is debating top historical time periods at lunch with you or fantasizing about jet skis. Or whatever he fantasizes about.

You glanced at the team around you, a mix of Minutemen led by B-15 - on a giant ass horse holding a rifle steady with only her eyes visible behind a black bandana, and a band of outlaw civilians who were T-minus 9 minutes from their destined massacre. The mission, simply, was that one of these people was not like the others.

U-91, also dressed as a Frontierland cast member, barked an order to hand over the chest or else. While he was monologuing on about whatever “else” was, you were scanning the group carefully waiting for the Skrull variant to reveal himself. Or you were, until—

“Hey,” you heard Mobius softly whisper behind you. You glanced to the side without turning around as he leaned closer to you. “Nice work infiltrating the gang.”

You could feel the heat of his breath on the side of your neck, and your stomach was doing something odd because of it.

“Okay,” you whispered back, trying not to move your lips. “Now is an inappropriate time to—”

“Where did you learn to ride a horse like that?” he exclaimed under his breath. “That was incredible.”

You weren’t sure if it was the anxiety of the situation, the harsh sun off the surrounding mountain range, or his praise that was making your skin flush.

“Um,” you softly replied, taken aback that he was actually impressed, “I mean- my aunt used to have this pony ride business. They’d do birthday parties—”

U-91 snapped at you, the talkative hostage, “Hey! I said shut up!”

Mobius reared back his grip on your shoulder and suddenly you crashed back into his chest. You cried out as he wrapped his arms like a vise around you.

“That’s right, I said shut your trap!” he hissed at you, playing to the audience around him.

It wasn’t often that he got to play the bad guy, but he gave it a valiant effort. You could feel the (hopefully) unloaded barrel against your back. He brought his other hand up to your throat, firmly squeezing, pulling a gasp from you.

He leaned into your body, pulling you tightly against him, as he dripped sugar-coated poison in your ear. “Not another peep outta you, ya hear?”

The first thought that sprang through your head was remembering your kink for authoritative bad boys.

Uh-oh, was the second, third, and fourth thought in your mind.

Your core was tight and you realized how heavily you were breathing when his grip loosened slightly from your throat, slipping down just a tad. You felt the warmth of his hand and resting on the skin of your chest. B-15 was already giving orders, but your brain wasn’t following the conversation anymore.

“Are you okay?” Mobius breathed in your ear. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

You slowly exhaled the heat of your breath, shaking your head ‘no’ and ‘yes’ for some reason. You could feel your pulse thrumming in your neck and you knew he could feel it too.

“Did I scare you?” he asked, inquisitively. You could hear the edge of a grin in his voice.

Your brow furrowed. “What?”

“Did I scare you just now?” Your eyes darted back to the group of outlaws as B-15 began to round them up. You were definitely supposed to be paying attention to the mission, but all you could think about was how heavy his hand was on your chest. He could curl you into himself if he wanted to.

If he wanted to, and if you wanted him to, he could keep playing cowboy outlaws. He could steal you away from your bed in the middle of the night. Or maybe he could turn you in for a bounty and visit you while you’re locked in a jail cell, making you do favors for him in exchange for freedom…

Uh-oh.

He leaned in a little closer. You could feel the shadow of his lips at the nape of your neck. “I felt you shudder just now... Did you get scared?”

“No!” You replied, almost too loudly.

“Oh. Are you cold?”

“What? Why?”

“I mean, if you’re trembling and it’s not because you’re cold, and it’s not because you’re frightened, there must be some kind of reason, right?”

Your face was burning. You’re pretty sure it’s the sun. Heat stroke. You’re dying, probably, definitely, maybe.

You gritted your teeth. “Why. Are. We. Talking about this?!”

“It’s not me, is it?” he replied coolly, like taking a sip of bourbon and lemonade on a hot day. You could hear the smirk on his lips. “You’re not intimidated by me, are you?” His cast his eyes over your rosy cheek with a satisfied gaze. “Maybe I make you a little... nervous?”

“WHA’THUH HELL—?” A terrified twang rang out and you both were snatched out of the clouds. You looked up to see a green-faced cowboy, cow-Skrull? Skrull-boy? - hostile variant reach into the the side holster of one of his outlaw posse. As soon as the Skrull had his hands on his “partner’s” weapon, he shot his partner through the back, killing him (just a few minutes before his time).

Variant T-3051 was fast. As B-15 fired her rifle, he was already pulling another stunned outlaw in front of him as a shield. T-3051 raised his gun towards B-15 and fired towards her horse. The animal raised up on its hind legs, bucking her off.

“Take cover!” Mobius ordered, pulling you down with him, but there wasn’t much around.

T-3051 fired a shot blindly, striking U-91 in the arm. He dropped to the ground and crawled in a one-arm dash for cover.

In the chaotic confusion and fear, the other outlaws drew their weapons and began to fire on the TVA team and each other.

The horse that B-15 was riding began to trot off, trampling a fleeing outlaw. B-15 struggled to grab her weapon off of the ground, but T-3051’s boot dropped down on the rifle, pinning it beneath his foot. She looked up to see the barrel of T-3051’s gun pointed at her, sights trained.

You had already grabbed the single-action revolver out of Mobius’ hand. He reached for you, but you leapt out of hiding with his gun raised high.

You shot the gun out of the variant’s hand before he could fire. Stunned, T-3051 dropped backwards onto the ground as the other handful of living outlaws turned their attention towards you. With one hand rapidly pulling back the hammer as the other hand steadied your aim and squeezed the trigger, you knocked them down like bowling pins.

A few shots later and it was over. T-3051 attempted to crawl towards the stagecoach, but B-15 leapt on his back and collared him. With a push of the button, he was frozen in time.

“Target acquired,” she stated into a radio, winded from the skirmish.

Mobius jogged towards U-91 as he pulled himself to his feet. He deftly inspected the Minuteman’s injury. “U-91 is injured,” he reported into his own communications device. “Alert the infirmary. B-15?”

“All clear,” she nodded.

Mobius’ eyes searched the area frantically until they rested on you. You walked up to the safe as B-15 retrieved the alien artifact - a twisty, metallic, (oddly) phallic-shaped thing.

You snorted. “This is the bomb that could rip a planet in half?” you asked incredulously.

If you didn’t know any better, you thought you saw the tiniest smile on B-15’s lips. She radioed in, “Artifact is secure.”

Grinning with an amused chuckle, you glanced over and spotted Mobius gazing at you proudly, watching the sun rise and set in your smile. You felt your cheeks flush, dropping your eyes to the ground and biting your lip. God, this was bad. He could not look at you like that.

“Incredible,” you heard him breathe.

Part 4

A/N: Did you like it? Reblog & let me know! Also seriously, I feel like my chapters are getting long. If that’s a bummer for anyone, please say so.

@aloyssia @generalhugzzz

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calaofnoldor · 4 years ago

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Sixth Time’s the Charm [4]

(GIF credit: @teamfreewill-imagine)

Characters: Sam x F!Reader, Dean

Words: 6,107

Series Summary: All the times Dean has tried to get Sam to admit his feelings for you. (Each chapter can be read as a stand-alone.)

Chapter Summary: You offer yourself as bait for a shapeshifter hunt. Things do not go as planned.

Warnings: canon level violence, language, idiots in love, mutual pining, huffy!sam, protective!sam, slight angst?, slow burn, fluff

A/N: i am SO sorry for the wait (story of my life) but to make up for it, look, 6k words! (yeah i’m sorry about that too, i don’t know what happened there.) written for @tvdspngirl314‘s birthday writing event with the prompt “You ever feel like that? Like you were just destined for someone?” which is bolded in the fic. this also fills a square for @spnfluffbingo!

Square Filled: Rescue Mission

← BACK UP | MASTERLIST | SERIES MASTERLIST

The fourth time was all you. Dean barely had to lift a finger. The result, however, was far more traumatic than he had planned and rather emphatically revealed the magnitude of his brother’s feelings toward you.

Much like the previous attempts, there was a case: a shapeshifter going after women who conveniently happened to fit your description. The strategy was obvious, and you’d leaped at the opportunity to both make yourself useful and hopefully take the place of what would have otherwise been the next innocent civilian victim. But of course, Sam resisted at first.

“No. Absolutely not! We don’t know enough about this guy for you to just jump into his waiting arms, Y/N!” The fervent indignation in his tone and body language was palpable. Sam was rarely one to raise his voice or sport much of a temper at all really, but lately these heated outbursts seemed to be occurring more frequently, and frankly you were getting sick of it. The false hope they momentarily granted you through the notion that perhaps he cared about you as more than a friend was one thing. What’s more, the way his voice lowered half an octave combined with the sight of his flared nostrils, puffed chest, and straining jaw always seemed to have a sideways effect on you, in that it was impossible to keep your attention on his words alone. But boy did you try.

“Sam, how many times do we have to go through this? I’m a big girl; I can take care of myself. And your wrist is still healing so it’s not like you can call the shots on this one anyway. Besides, I’m not going in alone. You and Dean will be there for backup the whole time, right?”

“’Course we will, eh Sammy?” In a strange turn of events, Dean often appeared to be the one with a more jovial outlook recently.

Sam merely nodded and continued his heavy breathing. He glared down at his bandaged left wrist, the result of skirmish with a couple of wraiths, as if it were the root of all his problems. Then he looked up and through densely drawn brows, those magnetizing multicolored eyes pierced yours, his countenance bearing a charged and sullen expression of pensive exasperation as his jaw visibly tightened. You swallowed and could not for the life of you find the will to look away.

“So it’s settled then,” Dean proclaimed jubilantly, “Unless… you’ve got another reason you don’t want Y/N playing bait, hmm Sam? Maybe something you wanna share with the class? Or, you know, I could leave…”

“Dean, stop it. You’re not helping,” you quickly admonished before steadying your gaze back on the taller Winchester, “Look, Sam, have I ever let you down?”

“No. Never.”

“And do you still trust me?”

“Of course,” he responded immediately in a ‘what-kind-of-a-question-is-that’ tone, at which you simply raised your eyebrow to send him a reciprocating ‘then-what’s-the-problem?’ look.

“OK fine,” Sam huffed out a big breath, “But you’re not taking any risks! Anything seems off at all, just… promise me you’ll wait for me and Dean and keep us in the loop?”

His pleading eyes were so earnest and you’d truly never been able to say no to the giant puppy before, so you offered him a little smile and said, “Cross my heart.”

Sighing, Sam rubbed his face, looking lost in thought for a moment until he spoke up again, much more reserved and hesitant this time, “Do you still have that uh… ring from… that time?” Dean muffled a snort at his brother’s expense but you both ignored him, completely accustomed to his nonsensical teasing by now.

“Uh yeah, I- I think so.” The uncertainty in your voice was a lie. Of course you still had the ring you’d once used to pretend to be married to Sam Winchester. You may or may not have tucked it away in a special place for safekeeping.

“Good,” Sam nodded curtly, “I want you to wear it. It’s silver. I’ll wear mine too and Dean already has his. That’s how we’ll know that we’re still… ourselves.”

“OK, yeah that’s a good idea,” you agreed, trying your hardest not to linger on the memories.

“Well look at you two! Getting hitched again so soon-“

“Shut up, Dean,” you and Sam cut him off together.

When the meeting was adjourned and you were about to part ways to prepare for the upcoming hunt, something inside you forced you to call out his name, “Oh and Sam!” He turned around at once, questioning gaze somewhat urgently searching yours for a sign of what might come next. You stuttered though, feeling suddenly self conscious, so the next words you uttered were not much louder than a whisper, “Be careful with your wrist.”

Sam smiled, his dimples making your fingers twitch with the need to caress them. “I’ll be fine. You just look out for yourself. Remember, we’ll be right behind you.”

Somehow you both didn’t hear the groan Dean emitted as he rolled his eyes to the ceiling and prayed to whoever was listening, ‘Good lord, someone give me the strength to survive another day with these imbeciles.’

There was only one diner in the tiny Pennsylvanian town, and seeing as you were starving by the time you got there, the three of you were forced to make do with soggy fries and questionable milkshakes. As you ate, you went through your game plan once more, which essentially consisted of waiting until nightfall to visit the bar from where the previous girls had gone missing, while Sam and Dean shadowed you covertly.

Before you left, you took a quick trip to the loo and when you returned, Sam was stood outside alone, a broad smile upon his face.

“Where’s Dean?” you asked as you began to walk out the diner, expecting to find the older brother waiting impatiently in the parking lot by his precious car, but the Impala was gone.

“He went back to the motel, said he had something to take care of and that we should go scope the place out first.”

“But I thought we agreed to-“

“Yeah, well change of plans, you know how it is,” Sam replied casually with a shrug.

Little red flags started fluttering in your head, urging your eyes downward to locate the silver band on his finger. You frowned when you found it there untouched on his right hand; Sam almost never interrupted you, not even when he was absorbed in the foulest of moods.

Apparently sensing your hesitation, he added, “I mean, he made a good point. Maybe if you familiarize yourself with the surroundings first, you’ll be able to take the guy out faster.”

Sam was still smiling at you, but it felt all wrong. You couldn’t explain it, but there was something missing from his rainbow eyes. The colors were all there, but they lacked luster and warmth, a delicate twinkle that you’d learned to associate with the beautiful, heroic yet self-doubting giant of a man. Never had you seen that breathtaking magic replicated elsewhere, nor had you ever seen Sam without it, which was why you were almost completely certain that the man before you was not the real Sam Winchester.

But weaving within you was a thread of doubt, insisting that you couldn’t just pull a gun on your best friend because of something as trivial as… a feeling? No, you needed to test your theory. And so, bracing yourself with a deep breath, you slowly reached out your silver-equipped hand to do something you’d grown accustomed to resentfully abstaining from: touching Sam’s bare skin. You aimed for the large target of his hand, deeming it the most inconspicuous of places (given that he was wearing his hunters’ uniform and the only other visible option would’ve been his face or neck), but Sam was faster. Just before you were able to graze his skin with your ring, he caught your wrist in his much bigger hand and pulled it away, twisting your arm until it was locked painfully behind you.

“You think you’re smart, huh?” the shifter snarled with a flash of its eyes, moving in real close as he used Sam’s immense size and his own superhuman strength to easily constrain you.

Even so, you stared up at him defiantly, unafraid, “Sam and Dean will be back.”

“That’s the plan.”

Sam’s sneering face and threatening voice were the last things you saw or heard.

You had no way of determining how much time had passed when you unceremoniously came to in what looked and smelled to be an underground sewer. As your senses sharpened and your muddled brain began to size up your current plight, you nearly scoffed at the clichéd style of your captor. Sat on a peeling wooden chair, manila rope bound your wrists together behind your back and tethered your ankles securely to each of the seat’s front legs.

Ignoring the ache in your head, you set about strategically testing the knots and the integrity of the wood. If only you could reach the silver blade in your boot. But your attempts were interrupted by the reappearance of the shifter, whose shoe hit something as he stepped before you. A metallic clang echoed through the confined space as a result and you followed the sound to find your coveted knife on the ground, far beyond your reach.

“Fucking hunters, always think they’re so clever, always one step ahead because it’s their game. Sure, we might be the monsters but you’re the predators! So let’s see how you like being the prey for once.” Shifter Sam’s upper lip curled up in a way that seemed so foreign to you as he leaned forward to rest his hands on either arm of your chair, caging you in.

The malicious glint in his eye left you with no qualms about affronting this being who, for all intents and purposes, appeared identical to the man you’d recently discovered you were in love with. Lifting your chin, you glared up at him brazenly, “If you’re so keen on being the predator then why am I still alive? What are you waiting for?”

“Why your knight in shining armor of course!” he exclaimed, backing up as he stood to his full height and gestured to himself with both hands. “You think it was a coincidence that all those women looked like you?”

The shifter’s narrowed eyes were alight with amusement and a ripple of fear surged through your body. You were in much deeper than you or the boys had anticipated, though years of practice helped you keep your voice steady and bold, “What did you do to them?”

“Oh, I gave them a fairly painless death, don’t you worry. They were just stepping stones on my way to you. See, the Winchesters owe me a girlfriend, so I figured I’d take the closest thing to theirs. But imagine my joyous surprise when I got into this big lug’s head and discovered that he’s in love with you! No, actually it’s more than that. He’s obsessed with you; you never leave his brain! Every other thought and memory is about you... Well, it’s either you or his brother, but oh, it’s gonna kill him to see you die before his eyes. I might’ve been able to replace my dead girlfriend, but I don’t think Sam here will ever come back from losing you.”

Stunned into silence, the stupid influx of misguided hormones pumping through your veins forced you to focus on maintaining a neutral expression as he rattled on.

“And you feel the same way, don’t you? So this really will be a double kill. It’s OK, you can let it all out. I might be a monster but I’m not one to deny the dying their chance for some last words. Besides, you can say it all while looking into the eyes of the man you love.”

“Fuck you,” were the only words you could trust yourself to spit out at him.

‘Sam’ laughed, but it was nothing like the laughs you normally pulled from him. It didn’t radiate like sunshine or replenish your soul with glee. Rather, it was chilling and conniving and despite the mimicry of Sam’s beautiful voice, you immediately decided that you never wanted to hear it again.

“Not feeling too talkative, huh? Or maybe you’d rather wait until he gets here in the flesh to make that anticlimactic confession of love? That’s alright, I can just tell you more about this dumbass’s feelings for you.” The shifter chuckled with delight, as if every word brought him nothing but pure joy. “Man, he loves you so much, it’s insane. I’ve never been inside the skin of someone so in love. And I thought I really loved my ex. Afterall, this whole revenge thing is for her. But I gotta tell ya, I’ve got nothing on Sam Winchester. Did you know he thinks you were made specifically for him? You ever feel like that? Like you were just destined for someone? Cause Sam does. That’s how he feels about you.”

“Why should I believe you?” you challenged, growing tired of the inadvertent response his words were eliciting. Your heart was pounding in your neck, core trembling at the mere possibility of Sam genuinely feeling the way he’d described. But you knew better than to trust a monster, and one who was in pursuit of maximal vengeance no less. Still, those rose-colored thoughts resonated within you, and you stumbled to dismiss them as they bubbled up, one after another like a game of emotional whack-a-mole.

Shifter Sam smirked, “Yeah, you’re a cynical one, aren’t you? You know everything he said in that marriage counseling session was true. You kinda hurt his feelings when you just brushed it all off. Even big brother Dean’s been trying to get him to confess his love for you. You must’ve heard them arguing about it at some point? They weren’t exactly being discreet.”

Choosing not to respond, you simply scowled at him.

“No? Still in denial? Perhaps you need details… You ever notice how he always sits across from you whenever you’re doing research? It’s because he thinks you’re gorgeous when you’re focused, and it gives him an opportunity to admire you without getting caught. And why do you think he lets you call him Sammy, huh? Yeah, he might not let it on but he fucking loves it when you do, makes him feel all tingly inside. And you remember that cop who hit on you? Captain Anderson, was it? Sam wanted to break the guy’s nose just for touching you. Oh and why do you think he asked you to move into the bedroom closest to his? It’s so he can keep track of your nightmares. He likes to keep you close because it makes him feel like he can protect you better when you need it.”

By now, your ‘neutral expression’ must have surely mutated to betray your shock, and you couldn’t have answered if you tried. The shifter didn’t seem to mind either way. In fact, he appeared to be having the time of his life.

“And it’s not all pure thoughts, let me tell you! Oh man, buddy boy here has dreamed up plenty of X-rated scenes with you, ranging from obnoxiously romantic to just plain obscene. You name a position and he’s imagined it, in high-definition detail,” he embellished, tapping an index finger against his temple, “His mind is like a library of pornos starring the two of you, although he’ll never get to live out any of his fantasies, will he? It’s a shame really; some of these are really hot... Ooh, I’ll have to borrow that one,” he said with closed eyes, as if a figment of Sam’s imagination was playing through his head in that very moment, “Maybe my girl and I can re-enact it while we’re still in your skins-”

“Shut up, just shut up!” you finally bellowed in protest.

Sam watched the bathroom door attentively after you’d disappeared through it, unable to contain the upward jerk of his lips when he saw you walking back out of it. Heartwarming relief had become his body’s intrinsic response to seeing you safe and sound.

“You ready?” he questioned when you made it to his side.

“Yeah, I’m good.” God, even the sound of your voice made him happy.

Once you got back to the motel, Dean plopped down onto one of the full-size beds, exhausted from the drive. Within a matter of seconds, snores began to fill the room, and Sam chuckled under his breath as he sat down around a wobbly table with you to continue your research on the shifter’s victims, hoping to find something else that linked them together or a clue as to where they might’ve been taken.

It wasn’t long before you inhaled a revelatory gasp and abruptly clutched Sam’s wrist to show him what you’d found. But your grip was harsh, causing him to hiss in pain and do something he’d never before done: recoil from your touch.

“Oh, I’m sorry, does it still hurt?” you asked nonchalantly, smiling up at him innocently.

Worse than the pain in his fractured wrist was what felt like sirens blaring in his head. You were always hyper-cognizant of his injuries and exceedingly careful around them, sometimes even more so than himself. Sam looked you over subtly, eyes landing on the silver ring still upon your finger. Perhaps his mind had been playing tricks on him and all that tender attention he thought you’d shown him was simply a mirage of his own wishful thinking?

“It’s fine, I just wasn’t expecting it.” Sam sent you a tight smile, to which you responded with a dazzling one of your own. It was beautiful but something about it felt off. In the past, you apologized profusely if ever you found yourself the accidental cause of his discomfort, no matter how indirect or insignificant the case, but right now there wasn’t a single speck of concern in your eyes. Indeed, the more he looked into them, the more he struggled to recognize the person staring back at him.

In a flash, Sam had you up against the wall, a silver blade held against your neck. He looked down to see the metal sizzling there, burning your flesh, and cursed himself for failing to notice sooner.

The noise woke Dean from his slumber and what he saw when he opened his eyes was equal parts shocking and amusing. “Whoa! At least wait till I’m out of the room! And isn’t that a little kinky for your first time?”

“Dean, it’s not her. She’s not Y/N,” Sam grit out, “She’s wearing the ring but she’s not Y/N.”

His brother’s brows knit together as he rubbed the sleep from his emerald greens. “Wha- How did you know?”

“She was acting… weird.”

Dean scrambled off the bed, making a quick call on his phone to ensure you really were missing. He paled when a robotic voice over the line told him the number he was trying to reach was no longer in service.

It was then the shifter decided to speak up, “You know, the real Y/N would have liked this, you pressing her up against a wall?” she murmured suggestively.

“Shut up. Where is she?!” Sam slammed her body against the flimsy motel wall once more and dug the knife in a little deeper. In his panic-stricken state, he barely registered her remark, being driven entirely by a one-track mind at present.

Shifter Y/N grimaced slightly, glancing down at the knife, “Maybe if you stop cutting into me with that, I might consider telling you.”

“How did you get the ring?”

“Oh, this little thing? You like it? It’s imitation silver, but otherwise nearly identical to the one on the real Y/N’s finger. You see, we’ve been following you for a while now.”

“Who’s we? Where did you take Y/N?!” he demanded incessantly.

“My boyfriend’s got her, but don’t worry, he looks just like you so I’m sure she’ll find her accommodations to her liking,” she retorted with a smirk.

Sam’s heart lunged in his chest and his mind began whirring with endless possibilities of escalating dread. Had you been deceived and captured by a shifter pretending to be him? Were you being hurt or tortured by someone who looked exactly like him? How would you ever be able to look at him the same way again? Of course, you’d know it wasn’t Sam but the damage would still be done. You would forever remember his face as that of someone who once hurt you, who tried to kill you. That is, if Sam could make it to you in time.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get to see her one last time. That’s actually why I’m here, to take you to her when the time is right,” the shifter added casually.

“I will end your miserable fucking life! Tell me where she is right now!” Sam roared before pressing the blade further into her neck, the veins in his forearms ready to burst through his skin.

“Hey, hey! Sammy, ease up! We need her alive, alright?” Dean bounded over to his brother and after quite the struggle, managed to assuage him enough to release his vice grip and replace it with silver chains that shackled her to a chair.

“Sam, maybe we should also be asking ‘why’,” Dean mused as he fastened the end of a chain against one of the beds.

With a shake of his head, Sam avowed through grinding teeth, “I don’t fucking care. I have to get to her.”

“And what if it’s a trap?”

“Then I’ll find her myself.”

Dean scoffed in disbelief as he turned to his usually wise and level-headed little brother, “Oh yeah, and how’re you gonna do that? Where would you even start?”

“I don’t know!” Sam exclaimed in exasperation. Then, after a pause of desperate deliberation alleged, “Shifters like to make their lairs in sewers, right?”

Taking a step closer, Dean maintained his challenging tone, “So what are you gonna do, just wade through the entire town’s shit and piss until you find her?!”

“If that's what it takes, then yes!” Sam looked like he was about to eat his brother alive.

“Aww, that’s so sweet,” shifter Y/N interfered from her seated position before them, raising her chin to meet Sam’s eyes, “Don’t worry, handsome, I can tell you she feels the same way. But unfortunately, by the time you get to her, I don’t think she’ll be able to tell you herself. In fact, you’ll probably hardly recognize her anymore… so you might want to keep me around, if only as a souvenir of your soon-to-be-dead girlfriend.”

Sam couldn’t contain himself anymore. Despite looking like a carbon copy of you, the evil gleam in the shifter’s eyes made her easily differentiable, and so Sam held back nothing when he lunged across the distance, knife in hand ready to do some real damage. However, Dean pounced with him, having predicted his brother’s violent eruption and felt his shaking wrath, knowing a little too well just how rash he could be when it came to you. Still, it took all of Dean’s strength to pull Sam back, sending him a stern but knowing look once he did.

“Sam, stop!” His low voice rumbled as he went into authoritative big brother mode, “Listen to me, you wanna save Y/N? Well so do I, but this is not how we do it! Now I know it’s hard, but I need you to calm down, alright?”

Sam’s massive chest was practically at his chin as he heaved ginormous breaths. Though his body language was still offensive, his hazel eyes were filled with fear and devastation when they looked toward his brother, “Dean, if I don't get to her in time, I’ll...” Clenching his jaw, Sam made a fruitless attempt to calm his tremoring frame and quell his tumultuous emotions. What would he do? Sam wasn’t even sure himself. All he knew was that every cell in his being was currently screaming at him to get to you, to make sure you were safe and soothe away any of your pain. There was nothing he wouldn’t give in that moment to simply know you were alright and to hold you in his arms. He knew you could look after yourself, but for once he had a terrifying feeling that even you were in over your head, that you might actually need him this time, and he’d be fucking damned if he let you down.

“Woah! Hey, hey! Sammy, look at me! That ain’t gonna happen, alright? We’re gonna find Y/N and we’re gonna bring her home in one piece, you hear me? We’re the Winchesters, man! We’ve faced the end of the world. What’s a couple of shifters got on us?”

‘You,’ Sam thought, ‘They’ve got you.’ But he appreciated Dean’s pep talk nonetheless and nodded in response as a fresh surge of determination swelled within him.

“Alright then,” Dean nodded as well, “Why don’t you let me give her a go?”

As Dean’s silver blade cut into the detained shapeshifter, Sam flinched with every moan and howl of agony. He knew it wasn’t you, but she still had your voice and your perfect face. Yet not a second was wasted on the feeling of relief when they finally managed to get a location out of her. Sam nearly tripped over himself in his haste as he snatched the Impala’s keys and his gun before flying out of the room with a jumbled order for Dean to stay with the monster.

“Well, if you’re not gonna admit your feelings for the giant lumberjack, I guess you’re right. Maybe I should stop yapping and get to prettying you up for that first and last date of yours, huh?” Shifter Sam prodded your cheek with a switchblade.

You said nothing. At this point, you had a sneaking suspicion that physical pain might be more bearable than the psychological torment your imprisoner had been so keen on. It was one thing for you to torture yourself by entertaining the slim possibility that Sam might return your feelings for him, but to hear such outrageous perceptions from a creature who could read the inside of his mind like a paperback novel, and conveyed with such tantalizing conviction… well, it just about broke you.

And knowing that the shifter was yearning to coax a confession out of you simply to cause Sam as much anguish as possible made you more resolute about your refusal to submit, beyond the need to protect your own sanity.

One shiner and a slash to the thigh later, however, you heard a loud clash. Shifter Sam paused his handiwork and began to turn around, “Could your knight be here ahead of schedule?”

‘Dammit,’ you thought. The Winchesters were usually capable of being stealthy when necessary but in case it really was the sound of them making a blunder or encountering some other form of resistance, you figured you’d buy them a distraction.

“Wait, wait! You’re right, OK? Maybe I do feel something for Sam, but even if I told him, I think you’re forgetting… This is Sam fucking Winchester we’re talking about here. He’s been tortured by the devil himself. You really think killing me is going do much damage?”

Your abductor had now given you his full attention, leering at you with a sly smile, so you continued, “Besides, you picked a fight with the Winchesters; don't expect to live to see tomorrow.”

Right on cue, a hulking blur of hair and plaid came barreling in, growling ferally as he grabbed the shifter and threw more than one brutal punch against what appeared to be his own face. The silver ring on Sam’s hand made contact with skin and his shifter counterpart groaned in pain.

You nearly forgot about your ceaseless work of untying the rope that cuffed your wrists together as your looked on in shock. Why Sam hadn’t just shot him with a silver bullet was beyond you. He was smarter than this. There was no need to drag out a monster’s death if a more efficient option existed. But as he continued to engage his clone in hand-to-hand combat, it appeared almost as if he was venting his frustrations on the shifter, as if he drank up every ounce of hurt he was able to inflict. But his high only lasted so long and shifter Sam soon regained his balance, making use of his supernatural invulnerability and superior strength.

“Sam!” you screamed as the shifter threw him across the room.

He tumbled up just in time as the shifter meandered over, “So nice of you to join us, Sam. You know, Y/N here was just telling me about-“

Sam didn’t wait for him to finish, choosing instead to tackle him to the floor with a loud grunt. While they wrestled on the ground, you worked furiously at the knots behind you, wincing with every hit Sam took though it was becoming hard to tell them apart.

When Sam finally drew his gun, the shifter was able to divert its barrel and a shot rang out futilely. Catching a subsequent elbow to the ribs had Sam falling to his knees and you watched in horror as shifter Sam once again gained the upper hand, sending the gun flying out of Sam’s grasp. The binding around your wrists was just about undone when Sam seized a stray rusty pipe and swung it against his counterfeit. Shifter Sam was incapacitated for a brief instant but quickly returned to form with some vicious hooks and a couple of well-placed knees.

With your hands finally free of their restraints, you staggered over to the gun, the chair still attached at your ankles. As you took aim, you shouted, “Sam, get down!” before you shot his mirror image through the heart.

Sighing, you slumped to your hands and knees whilst the real Sam sat up with his back against a wall, gaping at you with a look of awe. Yet before he even caught his breath, he was up and gliding toward you, cradling his left wrist at an awkward angle.

“Sam, your wrist!”

“It’s fine, are you OK?” he swiftly dismissed your concern, cupping your face with his good hand as he examined the darkening bruise around your eye.

You ignored the palpitations in your chest and placed a hand upon his wrist, “Yeah, I’m fine. He wasted more time playing mind games than anything. You know villains and their monologues,” you joked, trying to ease his tension and the deluded self-imposed guilt you knew he must’ve been brewing in.

As if to prove your point, Sam lamented, “God, I’m so sorry. I should have known. I should have gotten here sooner.”

“What? No! They were miles ahead of us, Sam. The whole thing was a set up; this was their hunt. How could you have known?”

Rather than replying, he released a breath and busied himself trying to help you out of your binding.

Back at the motel, after icing your eye and stitching up your thigh, you insisted on re-wrapping Sam’s wrist while Dean took care of shifter Y/N’s remains. But when the older Winchester returned and spied you and his brother sitting together on a bed through a crack in the door, he couldn’t resist the chance to exercise his espionage skills.

“How did you know she wasn’t me anyway?” you asked as you gently wound the ace bandage around Sam’s swollen forearm.

“I just…” He looked down at your nimble fingers upon his skin and smiled unwittingly at their tender touch, “had a feeling.”

Sam’s sunflower gaze locked onto yours for a frozen instant and something about his soft expression made you forget what words were, until he cleared his throat, “Did you um- did you know he wasn’t me?”

“Yeah,” you confirmed, smiling for some strange reason. Perhaps you were just glad to see his trademark twinkle return to those otherworldly eyes. “Pretty soon after actually. I… had a feeling too.”

Sam’s dimples made every ache in your body disappear as that twinkle glistened in full force, “And how’d you know which one to shoot?”

Well, that dampened your mood and brought you back to the task at hand, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you kept grimacing every time you used your left wrist?” Although your words had a bitter force behind them, the pressure beneath your fingertips never increased and Sam had almost completely forgotten about his pain.

You, on the other hand, were reminded of your struggle to reconcile with what had happened since his question prompted a restored and growing frustration.

It had been bugging you the whole time and you felt compelled to confront him about it because storming in alone with a bad wrist, ready to throw hands with an out-of-his-league monster was really not Sam’s style. Something must’ve gotten into him and with everything the shifter had told you, you couldn’t help but wonder. Nevertheless, you were a little afraid of how he might answer, so Dean had to lean in closer to hear your next words.

“Why didn’t you just shoot him?”

“W-what do you mean?” Sam stammered out after a pause.

“Sam, you have a broken wrist, but instead of sending Dean or using your gun from the get-go, you came in like a madman and went after him with your fists!” Your voice was full of incredulity though it also carried an undertone of anger.

As Sam picked up on that reproachful tone, you could almost feel the telltale signs of his puppy dog eyes coming on. “He used my face to deceive you, to hurt you. They manipulated us. I had to- ...I mean, he killed those women just to get us here. He had it coming!”

Your hopes plummeted. Of course, Sam was ever the righteous man. Why would you assume his brashness had been purely born out of a need to avenge you? Though regardless of his reason, you were still upset about his self-destructing behavior, “Yeah, but you had to have realized you were in no position to be the one to give it to him, right? I mean, you might’ve looked the same but he was juiced up on monster superpowers, Sam… which meant he was stronger and faster, not to mention uninjured, in his own territory, and apparently the only one with a sound plan.”

A breath of laughter left Sam’s lips though there was no smile on his face. Here he’d been on a mission to save you, but you were the one who’d ended up saving him, again. You must’ve thought he was comically stupid and pathetically useless. How could he possibly think he was worthy of you? “I guess I should thank you for saving my ass again, huh?”

“What?! No! That’s not what I mean. Sam, you’re the one who saved me! And I’m beyond grateful for it, really I am. I just wish you didn’t hurt yourself more in the process.” You finally finished up with his wrist wrap, securing the final ends with a clip, and letting your hands linger on his for longer than necessary, momentarily distracted by the disparity of size between them. Sam didn’t appear uncomfortable though, as his fingers twitched closer to yours and he made no move to pull away.

He couldn’t help but smile again when he noticed the sincere concern in your eyes that was previously absent in the shifter’s. “Yeah well, what was it you once said to me? ‘Your ass will always be worth it’?”

“And if I remember correctly, you once told me you don’t do things on hunts that make your injuries worse,�� you quoted him back with an arched brow.

“Yeah well, I guess this is payback. Now you know how I felt.” A playful grin made his dimples deepen and you clenched your jaw to refrain from gushing over the ridiculous cuteness of this ‘giant lumberjack’.

“You’re an idiot.”

“As long as you’re OK,” Sam answered assuredly, and you nearly melted when his free hand caressed your cheek for the second time that day, big thumb tracing a feather-light path below the purpled skin.

‘You’re both fucking idiots,’ Dean groaned internally from the other side of the door. He knew he had no choice but to up his game.

thanks so much for reading! feedback is greatly appreciated!

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naruto-scenarios-plus-akatsuki · 3 years ago

Note

Are you going to make a part 3 for the Neji one where he has a crush on the branch member and ten ten and Lee find out. You don’t have to but I really enjoy it!😁

Well it took me a lot longer than expected but I say that about all my work now, lol. Sorry everyone I’m a slow writer. But I hope you all enjoy the final piece to this fic.

Part I Part II

Welp! The secret is out, Neji: Part III

The look in Neji’s eyes of pure unfiltered irritation was a look that Tenten would never forget. The minute that you stepped out of the room, Neji had quickly fixed his glare on the two of them. His voice left a chill in the air as he told them to get out with the most even tone. Lee began to apologize, fumbling over his words in his stark surprise.

Tenten’s eyes had snapped way from the cup of tea Neji knocked over in Lee’s hands purposely while your back was turned. She couldn’t believe her eyes and her head was still trying to wrap around the events that transpired. She had to grab Lee to leave when she saw Neji’s fists tighten while he closed his eyes. She knew in that moment that Neji did not want any apologies. He was holding back his anger, so she made a quick getaway towing Lee with her, even while he was still apologizing.

Tenten could only hope that Neji would find it in his heart to forgive Lee for spilling the beans. She knew how private of an individual Neji was; especially, when it came to expressing feelings. She was afraid that this might be the last time he would trust them with his secrets. She sighed, knowing this was a delicate situation.

Lee was currently wailing about his woes while they waited in the training fields for Neji and their sensei.

“I can’t believe I spoke so carelessly.”

“It’s alright Lee,” Tenten tried to console, half-heartedly. “I’m sure Y/N didn’t catch on” at least Tenten hoped and she hoped Neji wouldn’t hold a grudge for too long about the incident either.

“How will Neji ever forgive me?” Lee continued to whine, but then jumped up at an idea. “I know! I’ll offer to do his laundry, or I could buy him some tea.”

“I don’t think Neji’s going to let you touch his laundry.” Tenten shot down, knowing Neji probably had a precise way of doing it and who’s to say if he would really let his whites be washed by Lee. “And… I don’t think tea would be a good gift after what just happened,” she mentioned thoughtfully.

Lee slapped his forehead and exclaimed, “Of course! Not tea! That would definitely remind him of my transgressions. But what can I give then? What can I do?”

“Well…” Tenten started but she was a little lost too.

Neji wasn’t much into sweets, nor was he really into gifts of any kind. Tenten had placed her hands on her hips and was continuing to think of what could appease Neji when he appeared on the training field. Both team members were surprised.

“Neji!” they both exclaimed but Tenten was the first to stutter out a response.

“You’re back so soon.” That had her worried. They barely rushed out thirty minutes ago.

“Yes.” Neji’s tone was flat.

“Is everything okay?” Lee asked, concerned.

“Perfectly,” He spoke shortly. His eyes sharp, but his expression was blank. “Lee shall we get started?”

Neji spoke so coolly that Tenten felt a chill run up the back of her neck. Lee easily agreed to start sparring with Neji; wanting to do anything to please him at that moment. However, Tenten could easily see that Neji was not at all at peace. His strikes were fierce against Lee. It was obvious that Neji wanted to pacify his anger and direct it at Lee. Training was the perfect guise for that.

Lee took everything that Neji had. He would block hits and strike with his own but there was a lack of effort on Lee’s part. He fell to the ground many times but kept getting back up to take what Neji had in store for him.

During their skirmish, Gai arrived and stood beside Tenten. He spectated his pupils with interest and noticed right away something was off.

“My intuition is telling me something is off between the two of them.”

“Your intuition is not wrong,” Tenten replied. Her brows were furrowed down in concentration. Her teammates were typically rough with each other, which is why she had little concern, but she was worried about Neji holding a grudge over them for a long time.

“Say you wouldn’t happen to know what this is about, do ya?” Gai questioned. “Neji’s attacks seems to be very targeted at Lee with blunt force and normally, Lee holds a better stance than that and seems to be putting in less effort as if he’s conflicted.” He reasoned, his voice calm.

Tenten sighed. “You’re not off point. Lee accidently confessed to Neji’s crush that he liked them. I don’t think Neji was ready to tell them yet.”

“Ah, yes. A young man’s love can often stir up the fire in his being,” Gai nodded to himself for a moment, stroking his chin. Then once he came to a decision, he patted Tenten on the shoulder and gave her a thumbs up. “I got this.”

She sweat dropped, not sure if her sensei would make things worse, but before she could say anything Gai was already breaking up Neji and Lee’s sparring session.

“Alright that’s enough. Lee why don’t you continue training with Tenten. Neji, come and walk with me,” Gai directed. He put a hand on Neji’s shoulder briefly to signal for him to follow, leaving Lee and Tenten to their own devices.

Neji followed out of respect. He was still feeling grim and annoyed on the inside. When the two of them were far enough away from his teammates, that’s when Gai addressed the issue.

“So, I hear Lee had spilled the beans to the one who has your affections”

“I think Tenten should not be repeating Lee’s mistake and learn to keep her mouth shut.” Neji’s eyes narrowed and his voice was cold once more. He knew exactly who had informed Gai about the situation and it annoyed him further.

“Tell me about the one that ignites the fire inside your being,” Gai prompted, not at all bother by Neji’s display.

“I rather much not talk about it. Especially after today's events,” Neji mumbled, his cheeks tinting slightly red. This was something he did not want to talk about with his sensei of all people.

Gai nodded, understanding Neji’s hesitancy and ignoring it. He understood how Neji operated after three years of training him and he doubt his other students meant to cause such trouble for him. Their intentions probably meant well but a small slip of the tongue probably left Neji in a very unwanted situation. Gai knew that the Hyuga clan which Neji belonged to highly respected privacy and lacked open affection.

His face was serious and did not scold or reprimand him in tone when he continued.

“When I was a young man, I found one such as you did that ignited the fire within my loins. They were beautiful and caught my eye. Not only was my eye caught, but others as well stared at their beauty. I wanted so badly to catch their attention like they caught mine, but alias, my rival had won them over before I could. Yet! I knew to not give up the chase and at least make my affections known.”

“And?” Neji asked simply, not sure where his sensei was going with this. “Did they return your affections?”

“No,” Gai answered and Neji deadpanned.

“Then what is the point of your story?” Neji asked a bit impatient due to feeling uncomfortable.

“That you never know how someone feels unless you try. The one who caught my affections never carried the same affection for me, but their affections were also not returned by Kakashi either. My courage in telling them (despite how they had felt about me) gave them courage to make known their own affections. One just has to come forward in order for any two to be together. You see what I mean Neji?”

“Yes…” He admitted.

“If you like this person, there will never be nothing more if you never tell them how you feel. You’re young and with the life we live, you never know when your last day is coming. It’s better to say all that is on your heart now, than to have it on your mind during your last breath,” Gai mentioned somber.

He stepped forward towards Neji and patted him on the shoulder, giving him an encouraging smile.

“Now why don’t you skedaddle and take a moment to reflect. Come back when you have settled what is in your heart. And try to forgive Lee and Tenten.”

With that Gai took his leave and vanished into the trees.

Neji took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He was still slightly annoyed but not so much anymore. He knew Lee didn’t mean to say what he had on purpose and he knew Tenten only wanted to help and make peace of the situation. His teammates were cavalier at times, but they were good and honest friends of his. What had really annoyed him was himself for not telling Y/N how he felt sooner and not knowing if you even felt the same.

He hated to admit it but Gai was right. He had no way of knowing how you felt unless he were to confess his own feelings first. He wouldn’t have been so bothered if he didn’t let the fear of the unknown keep him from revealing himself. He could never be with you, if he kept his feelings locked inside unless he had the courage, or you did.

With that, Neji took a slow walk back to the Hyuga compound. He was stalling as he was mauling over what to say to you. He wanted to make things right for earlier as well. He had upped and dashed. He caused a spill you had to clean up. He felt guilty and rude for doing so.

He passed by some wildflowers on his way and picked a few white and yellow daises. He twirled them in his hand, wondering if that was sufficient as his mind ran. When he got to the Hyuga compound, he headed towards his personal corridors and went to his kitchen, looking for something meaningful. He grabbed a tray and started preparing an array of snacks on said tray. He then took an extra step to start squeezing some lemons to make lemonade for you since he knew you did not care for tea. Lemonade was your favorite drink. He grabbed two cups to place on the tray next to the pitcher and the flowers he picked for you neatly placed along the snacks.

When he was ready, he took the tray and headed to your quarters. He knew exactly where you resided. He braced himself as he stood in front of your door. He knocked, trying to steel himself.

When you opened the door, you took his breath away. You weren’t dressed up, but your natural beauty and lovely lavender eyes made him lose himself slightly. You had appeared in your normal attire that you were wearing before he left, your curse seal left uncovered. Your hair was down and cascaded round you.

“Neji?” You questioned, surprised to see him at your door holding a tray out to you. “What is this?”

“An apology for earlier.”

“Oh, you didn’t have to.”

“I do, because I had created the mess earlier when my teammates were here,”

Your eyes grew wide and your mouth formed an o-shape.

“But that’s not all,” Neji continued. “I wanted to do this for you because I like you.”

“I…” You were stunned and felt your heart flutter at the confession. “I like you too, Neji.”

“Would you like to have refreshments with me?” Neji asked more confidently, but there were still butterflies flying around in his stomach.

You smiled in awe at his gesture and were overwhelmed with joy. “Yes.”

With that you followed Neji out into the courtyard, where you two sat and got to know one another better and enjoyed the fresh lemonade he made especially for you. You were finally happy to have gotten answers, that the one you always admired had you written in his heart. Both you and Neji being grateful to his teammates for letting the secret out.

#neji #neji hyuga #neji scenario #neji imagine #Neji Hyuuga #Neji Hyūga #neji x y/n #neji x reader #welp secrets out #rock lee #tenten #branch member #gai

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mrskurono · 4 years ago

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a/n: this is the first installment(?) of the Nori brain rot from ages ago w/a Studio Ghibli vibe, idk man this just happened word count: 2.2k tags: post!Shibuya arc, possible spoilers, blood, violence, cursing(?), heavily Hoizer inspired, kinda edited character(s): Noritoshi Kamo, fem!sorcerer reader pt ll

Curses stank.

In a metaphorical sense yes. But also in a literal sense for you.

These twisted beings permeated your senses like a rot that you could never rid. Unless exorcised they stuck around in your nostril for days. Each one a different smell but all of them stuck in your craw all the same.

Beasts of rancid nature in behaviors and looks. Nothing more than to be exorcised by sorcerers. You learned quickly that exorcising the curses was no different than taking out week old trash.

What you hadn’t planned on was someone doing more than dumping trash on the world. Whatever had happened. Suddenly you were faced with more than just dutiful tasks of keeping non sorcerers safe. A monsoon of trash had been dumped not only on you. But every human in this world.

Your nostrils burned. And you couldn’t be rid of these things quick enough. Each one you exorcised only meant two or three popped up in their place. Never ending. You couldn’t stomach this smell though. It wouldn’t kill you before you got a breath of fresh air.

Glancing around you take a deep breath. Mountain air on the outskirts of Kyoto during this time of year always meant a refreshing break from the city stank. What you smelled wasn’t refreshing. It was that same vile smell you could clearly recall.

A curse. One that was close too.

To thread carefully was to perhaps save your life. Every aspect of daily life ripped from you. As well of millions of others. You had done your part to try and protect those around you. Soon finding it in slight vain as you sought out some place to find your own breath of fresh air in this madness.

‘It’s close....I feel like I’m gonna hurl.’ Thoughts toying with where the curse might have hidden itself. You keep a firm grip on your hilt with every intent to draw it the second the creature made the mistake of slipping up.

Where you could smell it lurking. There was something else. Almost metallic in scent. You ignored it though. Nothing over powered the scent of a curse. You longed for just the sight of these things. Told over and over again how handy it was to have more than one sense open to curses. Each and every time you took a whiff of one, it made you wish nothing more than to just be able to see these creatures instead of smell them as well.

‘Wait-’ Every alarm in your body went off. Snapping around you couldn’t smell the rancid putridness of the curse anymore. That same metallic scent hung around though. You couldn’t identify it. It was something you’d never smelt before but also so familiar.

Each hair on the back of your neck rose. This was an old deserted Buddhist temple. No one should have been here except you and the curse ransacking the place. A safe haven or so you thought. When your instinct told you to step behind one of the structural beams. You were suddenly glad you did.

Mere inches from your face, the gust of an arrow whistled past you. Weapons were not used by curses. Now you understood. That smell was human.

Quick to defend yourself, with sword drawn, you didn’t expect the same arrow to make a hard one eighty back in the direction you were. No wooden pillar to save you now. You raise your sword just quick enough to sheer the object in half. Rendering what ever power it was imbued with useless. As it had sped past you though the faint smell of iron suddenly became strong. Whatever it was from had a source. Likely human.

Not ready to give up your ideal hiding place to some interloper. You take only a second to focus on the unfamiliar smell. Faint. And not like a curse. There was something towards the back of the temple though that hinted that they were lurking where you couldn’t see them.

With an idea of where the attack would come from. When another arrow came flying by you from a faceless source, you were ready. Smacking it down before the enchanted weapon could turn on you like the first had. This time though you’d seen what angle the projectile was fired from.

‘Gotcha,’ No shortage of ways around a deteriorated temple like this. You duck down through a few broken beams and make your way up to where the attack came from.

Expecting to have but a lowly sniper sitting with no way to guard themselves. You find no one. But the scent lingered. Scrutinizing it closer you decided maybe to use a different sense, “...Hey, I know you’re not a curse! Neither am I! Maybe if you just-” Words cut off by another arrow whizzing past you. There was nothing ruder than being interrupted. Glowering in the direction that the arrow came from now you tightened you grip on your sword, “Ok! I get it- Strangers we might not-”

Another arrow. This time too close to your head for comfort. You lost your patience with the third one.

Recklessly charging towards the assailant was clearly enough to throw their game off track. Swinging your weapon before seeing what it was to lie before you. It was a surprise when your blade met with the dull thud of the wooden limb of a bow.

“What the-” You attack deflected for the moment being. Your first instinct is to jump back from whoever deflected your attack. In close enough range you thought you had the upper hand to avoid the bow. But that was purely lazy thinking on your part as the cause of the stank of iron became clear.

“Slicing exorcism!” This nobody who reeked of iron shot what looked to be a shuriken made of blood at you.

No time to be disgusted. An overwhelming scent of blood made it apparent what you’d been smelling. It wasn’t a simple metal. It was blood.

“Oh- Oh!” You raise your blade up in the nick of time to just get the splatter of cold liquid on your cheeks. Disgusted in passing you have no time to dwell as the stranger before you makes to dart away. With their head of dark hair in your line of sight, you weren’t ready to try and re-find them once again in this maze of debris.

Lurching forward you feel the upper hand stall when they stopped your attack once more with the brute of their bow. Clear view of them now. The man who’d clearly fired the arrows was all but composed when shaking off your attack. No way to not suspect another sorcerer caught up in this giant trash heap of curse attacks. You still have no time to play nice when they hurl another blood conjured weapon at you.

In such suddenness you are less lucky than you have been. This one catching your cheek and causing a sting to spread throughout the skin of your face. Fed up with this game you don’t care if he’s a sorcerer or not. This was a one for all situation now that you intended to win.

Firm foot hold found. You realize the man has cornered himself at this point. Range attacks out of the question. Undoubtedly giving you the upper hand now. With a hefty swing of your sword and the first time you’d channeled any energy into at all. You bring it down like a guillotine. Ready to strike flesh. Instead the snap of the bow is your first sign of an upper hand.

All but trash the man throws it aside but too slowly. You’re on him before the range attacker can pull that weird blood trick again. Slight intent to kill as if he were a curse. You swipe your foot down and knock him down to the temple floor with a hard thud.

You waste no time between the moment his head hit the ground and your above him. Tip of your blade pressed to his neck. One breath too deep from him and the sharp tip would pierce his pale skin. Eyes fixated down on him you realize in the moments after your adrenaline fades that he’s staring right up at you.

Sharp tongue your words come out curt only to be interruped right away, “Who are-”

“Another sorcerer-” His eyes open from the slits they’d remained in the skirmish, “What are you doing here? How did you-”

“I get to ask the questions!” You snarl, jabbing his throat with your sword just enough to watch a crimson bead peak from under the tip of your weapon, “You attacked me, what are you doing up here? Why were you-”

“...you’re so pretty-” Suddenly his eyes open wide realizing what he said, “Wait I didn’t-”

“Shut up or I’ll cut your throat out!” Your sword pressing uncomfortably into the side of his neck now, “I asked you a question! Why are you up here!?”

“Kamo-”

“What? What are you-”

“Kamo family!” He quickly sputtered, “Head of the Kamo family!”

The name rang a bell somewhere in your frazzled brain.

“I’m the head-” He suddenly registered really the blade to his neck, “I’m looking for stragglers-”

“In an abandoned temple?” You weren’t buying it.

“My people live just down the hill,” He spoke earnestly, “I had to keep the stragglers safe when the curses released from their seals in the keep. Some where up here but-”

“I killed them,” You glared down at him, “I killed all but the one you shot. How long were you up here? Were you following me?”

A shake of his head even as he stared at the glimmer of your sword, “No. I was looking for anyone who came up here. I didn’t expect to find another sorcerer. I felt your cursed energy and assumed you were a curse.”

Eyes narrowing you didn’t like the sound of something so simple to this pretty face, “...I don’t believe you. Give me a reason I shouldn’t kill you right now or else-”

“Noritoshi-” He blurted out, “Noritoshi Kamo. Head of the Kamo family. I can give you some place safe to stay. I don’t understand what’s going on but-”

You lift the blade from his throat. Something about the diligent tone in his voice. Like he’d introduced himself like that a million times. You could kill him but it seemed a waste. Weapon retracted but no offer to help him up. You stand above him with a confounded glare, “...do you know what’s happening?”

His head shook and your stomach dropped. Noritoshi didn’t get up. Only propping himself up slightly when he realized the back of his head was thumping from the impact, “....A special grade curse released a powerful seal in Shibuya about two weeks ago...I saw but....” His face became somber and he shook his head once again, “...I don’t know what’s been going on. I just know things are in disarray and it’s my duty to protect my people.”

Once more you were skeptical but with how little rest you’d gotten in the past few days due to the tremendous increase in curses. This man’s words seemed as solid as any other theory you’d heard. More so than the plea of non sorcerer’s you listened to day in and day out about the end of times.

“...Has the Jujutsu elders said anything?” You step off him completely. If he was speaking the truth maybe he knew what was going on as an actual heir to one of the clans.

Noritoshi looked up at you a moment longer, “No...there’s been a wide emergency notice to do what you can but our numbers....” He grew quiet, “...as many sorcerers seem to be dying as the rest of Japan.”

Perhaps the end of times were coming. You grip your sword hilt tight and take a deep breath, “....seems a angel of death is coming then whether we like it or not.”

“You’re a sorcerer.” He began to get to his feet, “Please, come with me. If anything to stay away from here. There is a grave yard on the other side of the thicket. More curses will come. No one should be here even as a sorcerer yourself.”

First hand you’d seen the influx he spoke of. From every direction. While out of the city provided some safety you knew that this place left you as vulnerable as any other if you stayed alone. With no words to be spoken of from the elders. And an age of curses threatening to crowd out humans. Like a trash pile reaching it’s capacity. You didn’t see much choice in this one.

“...I will kill you if I find out you’re lying to me.” Voice firm without breaking eye contact with him as you sheath your sword, “I smell one curse in this safe space of yours and I’ll-”

“Kill me, yes,” Noritoshi nodded with both busted ends of his bow in his hands as he looked on at you, “I am not lying but if you see fit, I’ll accept you as my angel of death then.”

a/n: I have one wine cooler in me as I finish this. This might be a multi part if the inspiration finds me. Anyways, um, yeah! This is an old idea coming so pls let me know if you liked it!

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #kamo noritoshi #noritoshi x reader #noritoshi kamo x reader #jjk noritoshi #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader

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eyayah-oya · 3 years ago

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I never knew what I was missing

Cloneship Week Day 2 - Soulmates - @cloneshipweek

Jesse/Kix

Rating: T

Canon typical violence, major character injury (I don’t go into graphic detail of the injury, though)

Ao3 link

Since the moment Jesse was decanted, there was an ache in the back of his mind, as though he was missing something important, but could function without it. He’d heard whispers from other cadets that they felt the same. They all had to be careful to not let the Kaminoans or the Cuy’val Dar know about this strange emptiness in the back of their minds for fear of what would happen to them. Surely, this deep-seated need for something was some kind of defect the longnecks hadn’t expected.

As Jesse got older, he began to hear even quieter rumors, basically legends, that said some of the clones found something to fill that aching emptiness. According to those rumors, it wasn’t something that helped, but someone. But it wasn’t until Jesse was eight that he learned about soulmates.

The Alpha class somehow managed to get access to the holonet, and they found the information on soulmates and what it means to have one. The Alphas then passed that information down to the CCs, who passed it down to the CTs, always careful to not let any of the trainers or Kaminoans come across the information.

A soulmate is the term used for someone that they couldn’t live without, who, once they met, would complete each other in a way that no one else was able to. Soulmates could be platonic, familial, or romantic, but they were supposed to be the one a being could always rely on. There weren’t any particular abilities or tactical advantages that came from finding and connecting to your soulmate, but Jesse found he rather liked the idea of having someone that was meant for him specifically. Clones weren’t allowed much in the universe. They weren’t even allowed to have names, though most clones gave themselves one just to prove that they were people, too. But Jesse’s soulmate was his, whoever they were. And that meant everything.

Jesse first watched a brother find a soulmate just before all the battle-ready clones were sent out to Geonosis with General Yoda, Grandmaster of the Jedi Order. He’d stepped foot inside a gunship along with his squad and a squad of brothers he didn’t know. His batchmate was pulled across the gunship until they were standing face to face with another clone, helmets off so they could see each other. The pure joy radiating from them bolstered everyone’s spirits even higher than they already were. After all, the Jedi had finally come, and they would be able to finally fulfill their purpose.

Two hours later, he watched his batchmate get shot in the face by a Geonosian and the newly found soulmate nearly break down from grief and pain. Less than a minute later, and the other clone met his own end.

So many clones died on Geonosis. So many who had never found their soulmates. So many that had, and were now separated by death itself. And there were many who followed their soulmates quickly into death, rather than survive and live a life without the other.

Following that battle, Jesse found himself fearing that void in the back of his mind where his soulmate was supposed to be. Had they died before they’d even met? How did he know that his soulmate was gone if they’d never found each other? Was it an awful pain like he’d seen with his new squad in the 501st? Would he ever be able to find out, or would Jesse be stuck in an endless ignorance?

There were no answers. Fellow clones, vod’e, couldn’t answer him, and nat-borns had rarely had to worry about that kind of thing until the war broke out. Sure, there was probably someone, somewhere who might know the answer, but there was no way to scientifically prove anything as no one knew their soulmate until they met.

As the war progressed, Jesse did his best to ignore everything about soulmates. As soldiers, they were supposed to be the best fighters, defending the Republic against the Separatist droid armies. Worrying about his soulmate would only distract him and put everyone else in danger. He’d seen vod’e self-destruct after their batchmate or cyare were killed, and Jesse could admit that he never wanted to deal with anything like that.

It wasn’t until a difficult battle on some Outer Rim planet that was mostly marshes that he was abruptly confronted with the idea of soulmates again.

“Get down! Get down!” Jesse shouted at the group of shinies he had been put in charge of. The blast of a cannon from one of those octo-droids nearly blew the head off of a kid who was cackling madly as he shot the incoming droids with his Z6. Jesse managed to pull him behind shelter just in time, practically flattening the kid to keep him safe.

“What the kark do you think you were doing?” Jesse ground out. He pulled the shiny up enough for them to crawl away from their current position to try to find someplace a bit more defensible. He’d already lost two members of his squad in this skirmish and he didn’t want to lose any more. The shiny just scrambled after his squadmates, pausing every few feet to take out the droids that were getting too close to their position.

Christophsis was a nightmare. They’d taken the city easily enough the first time, but with the spy that had taken out their weapons depot, the Separatists were winning against both General Skywalker and General Kenobi. Too many men in both companies were dying, and from what Jesse understood, no one was answering their plea for reinforcements.

New orders came through over Jesse’s HUD, and he quickly turned to gather the eight shinies he had left. “Retreat and regroup with the main army. Keep your heads down and blasters up.”

“Yes, sir!” they chorused.

The extra shooty shiny cackled wildly. “Let’s get these clankers!” he shouted and popped up to mow down a row of clankers with his Z6, completely disregarding the blaster bolts headed his way.

Jesse tugged the shiny back down and glared extra hard at him, hoping that he would be able to feel the glare despite the bucket. “Keep your damn head down or you’re going to get it blown off. Stick with your squad and head back to the base,” Jesse ordered angrily.

With a sheepish salute, the shiny turned and followed his squadmates as they ran back to the base. Jesse covered their flanks as they ran, taking out as many B-1s and SBDs as he could as he followed a minute later. The whine of a cannon sent Jesse diving into cover. He gulped in lungfuls of air as desperately as he could while he had a second of respite until the droids would reach his position and he’d be forced to move again. At least his shinies made it back to base safely.

The giant crystal Jesse hid behind glowed a brilliant blue-green and he had only a second to think “Oh shit,” before the world around him exploded.

He lost time, though he wasn’t sure how much. There was a sharp pain in his chest that hurt with every breath he took, but especially when he coughed. Something metallic lingered in his mouth, making him gag from the awful flavor, but there was nowhere to spit it out. Protocol had been drilled into his head from the time he was decanted: Never remove your helmet in an active battle. The last thing he wanted was to have nasty tasting spit inside his bucket.

Blaster bolts flashed overhead, blue and red striking against the green crystal the city was built of. It was strangely beautiful, the danger adding to the beauty in a way that Jesse couldn’t describe. Soothing. Reality warped a little, and Jesse began to drift. Drift far away, following his brothers who had marched on.

Something deep in the back of his mind snapped into place, filling the empty space that had always existed. Jesse jolted as if he had been shocked, and let out an awful sob at the pain coursing through his chest. His immediate instinct was to curl in away from the pain, but something was holding him down, keeping him from moving. Somehow, that was more terrifying than anything else he had experienced since he’d first been deployed to Geonosis.

“Stop moving! I need a stretcher, stat! Massive bleeding from the chest cavity, but I have a pulse and I plan to make sure he has a pulse by the end of the day.”

Jesse relaxed as he recognized a brother’s voice. A helmet appeared in his visual range as something pressed against his chest. A scream wrenched from the depths of his chest in response, heaving sobs making the pain worse with every breath and every slight shift in movement. It was worse than anything else he had ever experienced in his life.

And yet . . .

The hole in his mind had been filled. Jesse, sometime between long moments lost to agony, realized that meant he had met his soulmate. It took long minutes later, when the medic managed to get him onto a makeshift stretcher for transport back to the base, that he realized the medic was his soulmate. His other half. The one that was supposed to complete him in every way.

A feeling pulsed from the area that Jesse knew his soulmate now occupied, though it was barely noticeable with all the pain signals firing in his brain. It was a warm, soothing feeling, almost like a hug, or praise from the Captain or the Commander. Warm like the rare sunny day on Kamino and warm like the jungle sims they trained on. Warm like batchmates piling together in the same tube for comfort. It was as comforting as a hug from his batchmates, though all of them had been killed on Geonosis. In the middle of treating his life-threatening wounds, his soulmate was making sure Jesse felt safe and cared for. Whoever this medic was, Jesse thought that maybe, just maybe, he could fall in love with them.

Well, at least I know I’m in good hands, Jesse thought deliriously. The medic would do everything he could to make sure Jesse lived to see the end of the day.

Every step of the way back to base jolted his injury further, and distantly, Jesse wondered what, exactly, had put him in this condition. Blaster wounds didn’t usually bleed since they instantly cauterized the wound. Maybe shrapnel? Definitely something sharp and definitely something poking his lungs. Jesse did not recommend lungs being poked. Universe, kindly kark off and never let something like that happen to him again, please and thank you.

“Move! Out of the way, soldier!” the medic snapped and Jesse could hear a mad scramble as whichever brothers were in his way scampered off to the side.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Jesse recognized the voice of his shooty shiny, though how he managed to do that while delirious with pain escaped him. Maybe it was the number of times the shiny seemed to put himself in danger during the last few days.

“I will do everything I can to make sure he is,” the medic responded, very carefully not promising anything. Good vod. It’s a bad idea to give false hope, just as it’s a bad idea to promise something he wouldn’t have much control over. Jesse would die when his time was up, and until then, he would fight to stay alive every second.

-------

“You’re lucky you survived,” the medic said later, after the battle was saved and both the Resolute and the Negotiator were headed to their next mission. Jesse didn’t know the details, and he didn’t care to, either. What he did care about was the fact that his soulmate was sitting beside his bed and had saved his life and Jesse still didn’t know his name.

“I had a good medic,” Jesse quipped. He groaned as he began to test the mobility of his extremities. Chest wounds were awful, and he desperately hoped he would never have to live through one again.

“It was a close thing. You had to be put in a bacta tank for two days before you were healed enough to be put in a bed. A few more minutes out there and you would have bled out.”

From what Jesse remembered, that made sense. “What impaled me?” he decided to ask.

The medic grabbed something from the tray beside his bed. A green crystal shard from Christophsis the size of his thumb lay innocently on the medic’s palm. It glinted innocently in the harsh lights of the medbay, ethereal and stunning. And yet, that thing had nearly killed him on the battlefield of Christophsis.

“Guess the most beautiful things really are the most dangerous,” Jesse said.

The medic snorted and turned to fill out some forms on his datapad. Jesse shamelessly used this opportunity to study his soulmate. The vod had intricate designs cut into his hair, which was cut down to a buzz. He had sharper cheekbones and a thinner face than most other clones, though for any nat-born the difference wouldn’t be noticeable. There was also a tattoo on the side of his head that read “The only good droid is a dead one.” Jesse agreed completely. Mostly. The mousedroids and the General’s R2 unit weren’t bad. Any Seppie droid though? Yeah, they were only good when they were reduced to scrap. The medic’s hands were slimmer than Jesse’s, the way most medics’ hands were. It was easier to treat delicate injuries if you didn’t have to worry about thick fingers getting in the way. Some brothers called medics delicate, but Jesse had never thought that way. Medics were stronger than the average clone, simply because they had to pick up and haul brothers far from the battle while they were in their armor. Plus, they had to deal with the deaths of thousands of brothers without breaking themselves. Medics were the strongest vod’e.

“Have you finished your staring?”

Jesse smirked. “Nope. But I would like your name.”

The medic answered with a sharp grin. He leaned forward, his elbow on Jesse’s bed and his chin propped up on his fist. “What makes you think you should have it?”

“I’d like to know who my savior is,” Jesse answered. He felt a flicker of amusement coming from the space in his mind where the medic had taken root. “You and I are gonna be close, I can tell.”

“Those lines don’t work on me,” the medic said, his smile still razor-sharp. “I only give my name to a di’kutla runi that doesn’t end up in my medbay bleeding from their chest.”

Jesse’s heart fluttered in his chest, broadcasted to the whole medbay by the karking machine monitoring his vitals. The medic had called him “runi”. Soul. The Alphas had overheard that word from some of the trainers on Kamino when they talked about families left behind or marching ahead. The medic really was his soulmate.

Said medic was a karking bastard though and should definitely stop smirking like that every time Jesse’s heart literally skipped a beat. That smirk was doing dangerous things to his mind, and he hated that he was stuck in a bed in the medbay for the foreseeable future. At least he’d be able to talk to his soulmate and get to know him. If said soulmate would karking cooperate.

“Kix,” the medic said after a few minutes of Jesse trying to tamp down his blush and get his wayward heart to stop betraying him.

“Huh?” Jesse said intelligently.

“My name. Kix. With an x.”

Kix. Jesse rolled the name around in his head for a few seconds before he decided that the name suited his soulmate. “I’m Jesse. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“You too.” The smirk shifted into a softer smile. One that reminded Jesse of the warmth he had felt when their connection had snapped into place and Kix tried to comfort him while treating his shrapnel wound. The warmth that delirious Jesse had decided he could easily fall in love with.

With a clap of his hands, Kix turned away from Jesse’s bed, who immediately ached to reach out and keep. He didn’t want to be alone and he certainly didn’t want his soulmate to leave.

“Now that you’re awake, I have a pack of shinies that I am officially making your problem.” Kix opened the medbay doors and waved to someone down the hall. He turned and flashed that same dangerous smile. “Good luck. You’re gonna need it.”

Jesse decided that he would deal with a hundred shooty shinies if it meant he could hear Kix’s laugh again when the reckless one (who promptly declared that his name was Hardcase, given to him by Captain Rex himself) started talking a minute at Jesse without getting a single breath between sentences.

It would definitely be worth it. After all, the Mandalorian wedding vows (stolen off the holonet in a Mando’a learning module) mention raising warriors together. Who better than the shinies of the 501st?

#clone/clone #jessix #jesse/kix #clone trooper kix #clone trooper jesse #clone trooper hardcase #look a wild hardcase appeared #haha how did he get there #soulmate au #cloneshipweek2021 #day 2 | soulmates #cloneshipping

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fatefulfaerie · 3 years ago

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Once Upon A Time

Long one shot under the cut. Every once in a while I obsess over Gelato (Roman x Neo) so...yeah...

Spoilers for RWBY: Roman Holiday (read it if you haven’t it’s so good!!)

He didn’t know how to treat it like anything but a heist.

Roman had definitely kissed a girl before, Bleu Berry at the orphanage when he was twelve, Crimsen Blank when he was fifteen, Verd Webster when he was seventeen, and then of course the off and on thing with Chameleon while he worked for Lil’ Miss.

But something about kissing Neo was special, something not to be messed up or done lightly like every other young woman he had kissed. He had to do it right.

It had seemed like a lifetime ago since Roman had planned a heist without Neo, and he found himself at a loss because of it. She really was the brains of their partnership...and the brawn…

Why was he even here?

Neo gave him a distinct look. She snapped her fingers in front of his face.

“Sorry.”

He was staring again, at her instead of the television. His cover story was that he stared into space when he was really tired.

Lie.

It was really him taking glances from under her nose, like pickpocketing a stranger’s wallet.

Steal.

Cheat.

Survive

Love.

When did that get in there?

Normally when they sat down together to watch the large, holographic screen that emitted from Neo’s facedown scroll -- Roman still hadn’t gotten his hands on a new scroll. He was perfectly able to steal one of course, especially since the Vale City Mall had the most pathetic security. He just kept straight up forgetting -- they were watching themselves on TV, laughing about the coverage of their recent ridiculous robbery and eating spicy hot wings from the Cuckoo Crazy Chicken Shack.

This was the first time that Roman was thinking about someone else while watching his own name flash across the screen.

He was catching feelings for her, and there was no doubt about it. He had been catching feelings ever since she saved his life in the alley where she first showed off her semblance, and then more and more as they spent time together.

Roman pinpointed the moment she showed him the fabulous outfit she had made for him as that oh moment that you read about in romance novels.

Not that he read. He accidentally stole a book once. Once. Neo was the reader. He could hardly summon the patience. When Neo gave him a book to read, he skipped to the end. Roman didn’t see the point in all the rest.

But for some reason with this conundrum, this real-life conundrum, he couldn’t bring himself to skip to the end, to just kiss her like it meant just as much as any other kiss.

He tried to plan it like a heist, watching Neo, memorizing her routine, figuring the best moment of the day to perform the act, but it didn’t work. Neo was too unpredictable. She wasn’t like a bank or a warehouse that had their security guards on the same schedule every day. Her chaos was part of her charm, always doing the unexpected, but Roman was absolutely lost as to when he should make his move, if at all. They had a good thing going here, after all, and for all he knew he could kiss her one second and be knocked out cold the next.

Roman felt a slap on his shoulder and he looked over.

What the hell?

Neo was mute yet Roman could hear her say it. She must have been doing airplane arms before she slapped him.

She pointed at him and then her right ear, her forehead creased with inquisition.

“No, I am not going deaf,” Roman said.

She must have been clapping and snapping to get his attention.

“I’m just thinking,” he explained, the words spilling out just as he realized he might have to come up with an answer for what he was thinking.

But Neo nodded in understanding. What a wonderful human being. She mimed sleep, resting her head on hands that touched palms.

“Yeah,” Roman agreed. “Sleep. Good idea.”

Since his fancy condo was ambushed by Lil’ Miss, the two partners in crime had settled in an abandoned building that had gone from being a restaurant to a convenience store to a nail salon in the span of three months, before being abandoned for a year now. This street was a terrible place for an above-board business and even the Vale Government had let it rot, too small and inconsequential to be made into a factory or a warehouse of any sort.

Neo and Roman found it a week after the skirmish at the Vanille mansion. It was dilapidated and falling apart but it was only as broken as each of them were before they found each other. They quickly saw it as home.

So Roman stood up in order to head towards his bedroll in the corner. Neo watched him with a suspicious eye.

“Now that we’ve done as much damage as we could with the information from Mr. Vanille’s computer…”

Neo had already noticed that Roman never referred to the late Jimmy Vanille as her dad. Biologically he was her dad but he never treated her like a daughter.

“We may as well start on this dust business,” he continued. “Dust Till Dawn seems like the easiest target to me but I’d rather start bigger, something more fun.”

He turned around in case Neo had anything to add but she only stood up and paced towards him, using her semblance to change into Roman Torchwick himself. Roman looked at the mirrored version of himself as Neo made fun of the way he had been acting, staring with a blank expression, losing his train of thought. She then changed back into herself and shrugged her shoulders with her hands up as if to ask him why.

“I…I don’t know.”

He stammered. He rarely stammered.

She crossed her hands over her heart, then offered her hands to him. He knew what that meant.

Can I help?

She was always so thoughtful.

“It, umm…”

He had to be confident about this, he absolutely had to. He was Roman Torchwick, after all, the fabulous, the famous. He was fearless. He was clever and could get any girl he wanted, even the best of the best that stood in front of him. He could do this.

“Roman Torchwick this is the VPD,” a voice bellowed. Roman closed and opened his eyes.

“Why is it never you?” He asked Neo quietly, who was smirking. She stuck out her tongue.

“Come out with your hands up,” the loud voice continued. “We’ve got you surrounded.”

Neo turned back into Roman.

“Meet you at Forever Fall?” He asked.

Neo nodded and ran off to get caught by the police. Roman pocketed Neo’s scroll and grabbed Melodic Cudger and Hush, the two hooks of which clinked in his grasp.

“Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Torchwick,” he heard as he was halfway out the window in the back. Roman froze and listened. He dared to let his vanity doom him. “But I’m afraid it doesn’t do you justice.”

Roman turned his head.

What was that supposed to mean?

He could see the scene barely, through a gap in one of the distant boarded windows. Neo, in his image of course, stood with her hands in surrender.

“A volatile jokester,” the policeman continued, circling around Neo. “Always has something to remark. Doesn’t seem to want to shut up.” He stopped his spherical pacing and turned on his heel. “Do you know where I got these phrases?”

Neo shook her head.

“Vale Police Department records,” he said. “It’s how they describe you, and it’s how I know you aren’t really in front of me right now, are you Torchwick?”

He felt the panic in his heart, he tried to slip out the window but his forehead met a gun as it cocked with a click.

Their strategy had worked twice already, a disguised Neo getting arrested as Roman fled to a rendezvous location. Neo would use her semblance to escape captivity easily and they would have cheated the system. But it seems the police caught on.

Roman was almost impressed as he bumped shoulders with Neo in the back of the cop car, their weapons confiscated and Neo’s scroll slammed in half by the heel of one of the officers. Their hands were literally tied and Roman might have found a way to fight his way out of this but hey, he had never seen the interior of the Vale Police Department before. He figured it was time for a grand tour of the rathole’s rat hole.

“What’s that?” were the next words out of his mouth twenty minutes later. The VPD building was disappointing. Roman regretted wanting a look inside within a couple steps.

“Semblance inhibitor,” the officer replied, latching a second pair of handcuffs onto Neo’s wrists and only Neo’s wrists. “New tech from Atlas. It drains aura.”

Neo looked at Roman with a flash of panic in her eyes. She was always so confident in her chaos that it was a rare sight to see her scared.

“It’s okay,” he managed softly.

“We’re submitting her for questioning,” the officer continued, nearly interrupted as if Roman hadn’t said anything. “And we’re sending you back to Mistral. Lil’ Miss will be elated to learn that you are alive.”

They began to pull them away along two different hallways.

“No,” Roman said, struggling. “No!”

He lurched for Neo with all his might and caught her lips. That one moment of vulnerability where she tried to keep him with her cost him his better sense as he was very nearly yanked away, only seeing Neo’s face in shock.

“She’s mute, you idiots!” Neo heard Roman exclaim. “She couldn’t answer even if she wanted to. You lay a hand on her and so help me gods I’ll--”

A door slammed shut. Neo didn’t get to hear that last bit.

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

Trivia Vanille a.k.a. “Neopolitan”

Height: 4’10”

Age: 19

Prisoner ID Number: 827338

It was the first time in several years that she genuinely smiled in a picture, and it was a mugshot. Although she could see in her file the name that was dead to her, they referred to her verbally only as Neopolitan. The respect made Neo over the moon with happiness, made her almost forget her concern to get out of this without her semblance. The lock on her normal handcuffs were simple enough to pick once she was left alone but the one that shone blue and drained her energy even now would take a bit more creativity.

Roman Torchwick

Height: 5’11”

Age: 27

Prisoner ID Number: 827299

How many times did he have to tell them? He was six foot three. Six. Feet. Three. Inches. They never listened to him and it bothered him that it was on his permanent record that he didn’t measure up to at least six feet. For goodness sake, he was a celebrity. Any dunce on the street knows that he has orange hair, a white jacket, a grey scarf tied around his neck, and dashing emerald eyes. Everyone knows that he gave himself the birthday of October 31st (the mother who abandoned him at the orphanage didn’t care to specify the day that he had an excuse to steal cake) and that he was six foot three. It was on his mugshot and everything. He pleaded until he had two hands on the bars of his temporary holding cell. He was on his knees.

“Lights out.”

He sighed.

“Fine.”

He heard a foot stomp behind him. His cellmate was standing against the barred window that let in only streaks of moonlight, only fractions of nightlife and remnants of an already crumbled world.

He was a quite heavyset man and Roman’s heart skipped a beat. Roman was good in a fight but he wasn’t sure about these odds as he slowly stood up. This guy looked to have the strength of ten men and his arms were crossed.

Descending pink triangles dispelled the illusion and Roman choked a sigh of relief when the burly man turned into the small silhouette of Neo herself. Her hip cocked to the side and Roman knew, although he couldn’t see it, that she was smirking.

Roman rushed forth and hugged her, embraced her desperately like he never had before. He must have really thought they weren’t getting out of this one together.

“How?” he asked when they separated, his eyes searching her moonlit face.

Neo mimed picking a lock but then shook her head. She then mimed smashing her heel into an invisible pair of handcuffs between her two wrists and gave Roman a thumbs up.

“Good to know Atlas technology goes so fancy on design that brute force is the solution to breaking it. Would you like to pick the cell lock or shall I?”

Neo nodded and skipped to do just that, as if that were the easy part. Neo plucked pins from her mess of brown and pink hair and got to work kneeling before the lock and snaking her arms around the other side of the bars. Roman leaned on the bedpost and ignored his actual cellmate, the actual burly, wideset man who was knocked out on the bottom bunk and had a gnarly bruise the resembled Neo’s heeled boots across his face.

“About earlier, I…” Roman hesitated. “I guess I just wanted to apologize if I took you by surprise. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do, don’t get me wrong, I just…”

After several clicks, the door swung open and Neo turned around to face Roman, approaching him. Roman wondered if she had even heard him until she grasped his tied gray scarf and pulled him into her lips. It was all the answer Roman needed as they explored each other’s mouths, Neo slowly backing up and Roman chasing her, walking forward. When she let loose his lips they were out of the cell. She smiled. Roman was absolutely smitten.

She turned into a security guard, one they had seen earlier and she took his hand, Roman giggling under his breath as they fled from the Vale Police Department and into the wild night they had claimed as their own.

The memory became foggy, as it always did. It turned into a million other nights of chaos with him, all melding into a single lifetime that was now deceased. Trivia Vanille once died in the burning rubble of the Vanille Estate and left Neopolitan in her stead, but the moment Neo saw a blinding “X” over Roman’s aura gage a different Neopolitan had emerged. This one wasn’t languishing in her new sense of identity, wasn’t happy beyond belief in her friendship with this Torchwick guy. No, this Neopolitan was in pain, deep soulful, cutthroat, bleeding pain. When she threw a parasol and made her dad bleed she felt nothing. When her parents died because of the dust her dad harbored, she felt free. But when Roman died, she felt grief for the very first time, felt loss and lost in this world that didn’t understand her, would never understand her like he did.

Neo blinked her eyes open.

She liked when her dreams dipped into her memories up until the point where she woke up, where reality reminded her what was past and what was present.

It smelled like blood here. Neo had started to wonder if this is what it was like to be in the womb, gestating, trapped, waiting to be reborn in Salem’s image. The thought made Neo gag. This was the last place she wanted to be, seen as a mere chess piece in Salem’s game. She grew up as a chess piece that had been discarded, then used, then discarded again, like a dirty towel her parents kept forgetting about. What once liberated her was her newfound knowledge that her decisions could be her own but now she was CInder’s helper? beneficiary?

She would have to stomach it until Cinder upheld her end of the deal and got her to Ruby Rose.

Neo pushed against the bed she was assigned and sat up, although she would use the term bed extremely loosely. It was a hunk of red rock and the small room looked like the maw of a Grimm more than anything else. Neo would quantify it to a torture chamber if there wasn’t a small young man literally being tortured a few rooms over. She at least had it better off than him, but that didn’t say much.

Neo steadied her breath and closed her eyes. She thought of him, not the boy who screamed in anguish down the hallway but him. Roman. She thought of his brown, leather slip-on shoes and how much he hated the hassle of tying laces. She thought of his dark grey pants and how they collected around his ankles. She thought of his white coat and remembered tailoring it to his size, remembered thinking of the moment she would surprise him with it. She remembered his gloves and how it felt to be held by those hands. She remember his grey scarf and tried not to think about how it was on her neck instead of his. She tried to think of his piercing green eyes and his pumpkin orange hair, his bowler hat that had a red ribbon and a grey feather. She tried to remember his voice.

She opened her eyes and stood up slowly, pacing towards the illusion she had created, feeling tears sting in her eyes, feeling her heart beat with relief she tried to subdue.

“Neo,” he said softly.

She bawled, tears streaming down her face. She took the hat off her head and put it on her doll. She cupped his face with her hands and found herself missing having to go on her tippy toes like this.

Neo thought she could hold the illusion long enough to at least hug him, to at least derive some comfort from her memories and what her semblance was able to do with them. Yet, the illusion just as soon shattered, crumbling into shards of glass. Neo’s gasp was shaky as she looked down into her palms. Her breaths matched no rhythm and her soul bled as if she had lost him all over again. She looked up.

Cinder.

Her lip quivered. Neo couldn’t help it. Her brow furrowed in anger despite her sadness. The pink and the brown were like flames. And yet Cinder couldn’t even see her hate. No one could see anything of her.

“Salem wants everyone on the bridge,” Cinder said. “Welcome to reality.”

She walked off without a care and Neo fell to her knees, gathering the glass shards. She seethed with anger as she held them delicately in her hands. Her panting increased as balled her hands into fists, not caring in the slightest the sharp pain in her palms or the blood staining her white gloves.

She made a silent promise to Roman then, not to live for herself like she once did but to survive long enough to give Ruby Rose everything she deserved.

#gelato #neo x roman #roman holiday #rwby roman holiday #rwby #rwby fanfiction #roman torchwick #neopolitan #trivia vanille #neo my beloved #am I ec Myers yet?

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insomniamamma · 3 years ago

Text

Rain: Ezra X F!Reader w/Cee

A/N: Prickle ‘verse. Takes place after Prickle but before Clean Dirt. Can be read as a one shot. Reader is established crew with Ezra and Cee. This was written for @autumnleaves1991-blog ‘s Writer Wednesday. I am woefully behind. I legit don’t understand how some of you write fics so fast!

Warnings: Mentions of war, a little bit of angst, but mostly gentle fluff. Feelings.

"Hey, Ez," Ezra is engrossed in grading the latest haul, testing for clarity and hardness. The surface of CJ's World is cut through with oxbow rivers, fantastic hoodoos of striated sandstone slashed with valleys deeper than any found in Sol system. You're digging for fossils. These rusty carved out plateaus were once the bed of an ancient ocean. Through some trickery of mineralization and chemistry the fossils of CJ's world shine like the fire opals of Old Terra. Big or small, they all have value. "Ezra," says Cee, "She's doing it again." "Doing what, birdie?" Ezra takes off the loupe and rubs at his eyes. Rain pelts on the tent, even sheltered the humidity soaks through. "Look." Ezra draws open the tent flap and sees you, standing in the rain, your head tilted up, no gentle shower this, rain that pelts down hard, turns the view across the sharp-cut canyons to silver curtains. Your clothes are plastered to you like a second skin. The rain actually aids your cause, washing away loose sediment, making the fossils easier to get to. You bow your head and let the stinging rain hit the back of your neck, let it fall on your closed eyes, your outspread arms. You laugh at the sky.

"What do you know about Falnost?" Cee's eyes go distant for a beat. She has a memory to rival Central computers.

"Hmmm..about two thirds standard grav, class C5, would've rated lower if not for it's primary. Dustball." "Mmm-hmm." "She's not used to real weather," says Cee. "Observant as ever," says Ezra. The rain is not gentle. It is chilly and hits your skin like handfuls of flung sand, but is so different from anything you've known, so new that you can't help but stand there with a huge, dumb grin plastered on your face, even as your teeth chatter with the cold. Ezra comes and gets you. "C'mon, Artichoke, while the rain does feel slinky and delicious it is not worth hypothermia." "Sorry, Ez," you say and allow him to take your hand and lead you back to shelter. This has become something of a habit. Many worlds in the fringe are dustballs like the one you fled, algae and fungus growing on every bit of pipe that condensation beads on. On Falnost they had a deal with the ice-miners, discounted accommodations on world or on station in exchange for chunks of ice from your primary's lush rings de-orbited, burning and evaporating as they fell. The idea was that, eventually, there would be moisture enough in the atmosphere to trigger rains. Someday Falnost will have an ocean, but you won't be there for it, half your life spent harvesting rills of water from sail-traps, careful irrigation channels covered over with plastic sheeting, calorie vs water consumption ratios discussed every planting season. How many credits do we net vs wha† we have to spend? You got fucking sick of dreaming of an ocean your great grandchildren might paddle in. You skimmed enough to buy your way off world and since then you have seen things that you never would have believed as a child. The first time you heard thunder was on a world called Ingwy. Your first thought was artillery. Ingwy was a contested world, Karoclan and Lussia Collective skirmishing over land rights, while small stakes droppers like you and Ez and Cee swooped in to reap the spoils while the big corps and clans fought each other. It was the middle of the night and you were on your feet instantly, railgun in hand, screaming that there was incoming, to take cover. Someone had flicked on a utility light hanging from a cord that swung, illuminating the inside of the tent in sickening arcs, and there's another explosion, this one so loud you feel the pressure change in your ears, hear your own voice crying out in tandem, white hot light even through the thick weave of the tent. "It's just thunder," Ezra yells over the sound of rain slamming against the tent. "That was an explosion!" He presses gently on your arm until you lower the rails. "It's just loud," says Ezra, "It can't hurt us. We're safe here. Put the gun down." You set on the edge of your cot and put your face in your hands. "Kevva. You must think I'm the dumbest dirt-farmer this side of the Great Arm." The cot dips as Ezra sits beside you. "Not at all," he says, squeezes your shoulder, "I come from a backwater as well. First time I ever saw a proper ocean I nearly lost my breakfast right there on the beach." Thunder peals again and you flinch, shrink against him slightly. "Static electricity," says Ezra, "That's all it is. Builds up in the clouds and discharges into the ground." He keeps his hand on you as he speaks, fingers gently squeezing the juncture of your neck and shoulder, "The sound you hear is the air in the path of the lightning instantly heating and expanding. It makes a sonic shock wave, like any explosion." "Like the boom when ships lift," you say. "Just like that, Artichoke," he says, "Storm's already moving off, see?" The rain pelting the tent has settled into a steady drone. Thunder grumbles, a low, almost soft sound, not the air-rending explosion that shocked you out of sleep. "We should try to rest," says Ezra, gives your shoulder one more firm squeeze and a little shake, and when you look up, he's smiling, dimple just beginning to sink into his cheek. "Yeah," you say, "Okay." He kills the utility light and settles into his cot. You can hear the music from Cee's headphones, the tinny, fast pop she favors, threaded through the white noise of the falling rain. She slept through the whole thing.

The ancient life of CJ's world favored heptagonal symmetry, long-dead mollusks like seven-sided shields shine out of the rusty ground, the smallest the size of a fingernail, the largest the size of dinner plates. This is a good deposit. The small ones are fashioned into jewelry and buttons. "They take these great big ones and slice them micron thin," says Ezra, "Use them for window-glass in the temples of the Ephrate. They say it is like standing inside Kevva's very beating heart." "I can see why," says Cee, and so do you. The minerals that limn the shells shine translucent red with brilliant streaks of orange, yellow and even thin threads of green and blue. "They say that Kevva's first heart-beat ignited the explosion that became the universe," says Ezra. "You really believe that?" Asks Cee. "I don't know if believe is the right word," says Ezra, "We all grew up with these stories, why my grandmother..." You smile and tune him out. The back and forth banter between Cee and Ezra is a pulse that underlies every harvest. Cee has grown more talkative with each drop. Their relationship has a growing ease to it. You don't know exactly what happened between them before you joined up, but Cee's initial skittishness and Ezra's new healed scars tell a story you can guess the shape of. You let their conversation fade into the background, focus on the work of your hands, the meticulous scrape of soft sediment away from the hard glitter of the fossil, working around the seven sided edge, loosen enough up to get your fingers under the shell and you can pry it out, focus on the sounds of the world around you, no birds on CJ's world, but there is a range of bug-music, hidden in crevasses in the midday heat, all metallic clicks and creaks. Your rail-gun rests within easy reach, as always. You worm your fingers under the edge of the shell, wiggling it like a loose tooth, pops out of the sediment suddenly and you plop on your ass in the sandy dirt. "You all right there, Artichoke?" Ezra grins at you. "I'll recover." You dust yourself off and take your prize over to the tub that sits in the shadow of the pod. Further cleaning and grading can be done after dark. Nights are long at this latitude. You stretch in the sunlight. This job is a milk-run compared to other drops, but hunkering in the dirt still hurts your knees and you feel every bit of it when you stand. There's a familiar sound, like a rumbling stomach, thunder, you think and glance up. "Ezra!" Your voice is urgent and sharp and he's scrabbling up in a heartbeat, hand on the thrower at his hip, but when he stands there is only you pointing out across the vast expanse of sharp-carved valleys and hoodoos, lined in sharply delineated shadows and rusted cliffs where the light catches. The rainbow swoops skyward into grey cloud-bellies, a luminous curtain against the grey clouds, distant rain falling across the canyons.

"Ezra, look!" Ezra exhales, tension leaching out of his shoulders. His hand drops away from the thrower. "Oh, hey, a rainbow," says Cee. You lower your arm and just stare, transfixed at the glowing phantasm, brightening and dimming with the movement of clouds between it and the sun. "It's beautiful," says Ezra. But he's not looking at the rainbow. He's looking at you. Your eyes are wide, lit up with wonder, an unconscious smile creeping across your face, crinkling the corners of your eyes. The stiff professionalism that you wear as close as your body armor momentarily set down, forgotten. Ezra's heart squeezes. There you are, he thinks. He can count on his one hand the number of times he's seen you smile like this, open and carefree, rare and precious as the gems the three of you pull from the ground. Part of him wants to kiss you, but he suspects he would end up on his back in the dust with the barrel of your railgun jammed beneath his sternum, so instead he brushes his hand against yours and your fingers find his and squeeze hard. "I've never seen one before," you say, barely aware of Ezra's hand linked with yours, "I mean, I know what a rainbow is, but I've never seen one. Not in the real, just in vids." "They don't have rainbows on Falnost?" Says Cee. "They don't have rain on Falnost," you say, "Get's a little hazy sometimes after the ice-haulers make a drop, but that's about it." You shake your head as if just waking, the rainbow still shimmers, a bit duller now, and you are suddenly aware of Ezra's hand clasped with yours, the gentle pressure of his grasp. "Sorry," you drop your eyes, "I got distracted. We got work to do." Ezra gives your hand a squeeze and then lets you go. "Not to worry, Artichoke, rainbows are fleeting things. You look your fill while you can." And so you do. So does he.

#writers wednesday #ezra x reader #ezra x f!reader #ezra prospect x f!reader #ezra (prospect) x f!reader #ezra and cee

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