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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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What are your thoughts on Jekyll/Hyde and his archetype of the human periodically changing into a monster ?

Jekyll & Hyde was the 2nd horror story I read following Frankenstein, I got it off the same library and it always stuck very strongly with me even before I got into horror in general. I even dressed up as Jekyll/Hyde as a kid for a school fair by shredding a lab coat on one side and asking my sister to make-up claw gashes on my exposed arm and paint half of my face, although in hindsight I think I ended up looking more like Doctor Two-Face than Jekyll/Hyde, but I was 12 and didn't have any Victorian clothing to use so I had to make do. The first film project I tried doing at film school was intended to be a modern take on Jekyll & Hyde, and I didn't get much farther than a couple of discarded scripts

Much like Frankenstein, Mr Hyde as a character and a story is something that's kind of baked into everything I do artistically. And it's not just me, as even in pop culture itself, none of us can escape Mr Hyde. I would go so far as to argue Mr Hyde may be the single most significant character created by victorian fiction, if only by the sheer impact and legacy the character's had.

(Fan-art by guilhermefranco)

Part of what makes Mr Hyde such a powerful and lasting icon of pop culture is that the very premise of the book invites a personal reading that's gonna vary from person to person. Because everyone's familiar with the basic twist of the story, that it's a conflict of duality, of the good and evil sides, but everyone has a more personal idea of what those entail. Some people make the story more about class. A lot of readings laser-focus on sex and lust as the driving force, and there's also a lot of readings of Mr Hyde that tackle it to explore a more gendered perspective, and so forth.

I don't particularly take much notice of the Jekyll & Hyde adaptations partially because the novel's premise and themes have become baked so throughly into pop culture and explored in so many different and interesting ways, that I'm not particularly starving for good Jekyll & Hyde adaptations the way I am for Dracula and Frankenstein. The Fredric March film in particular is one that orbits my head less because of the film itself (although I do recommend it), but because of one specific scene, and that's when Jekyll first transforms into Hyde on screen.

Out of all the things they could have shown him doing right that second, they instead took the time to show him enjoying the rain.

Just Hyde taking off his hat and letting it all cascade on his face with this sheer enthusiasm like he's never been to the rain before, never enjoyed it before, and now that he's free from being Jekyll, he gets to enjoy life like he never has before. It's such an oddly humanizing moment to put amidst a horror movie, in the scene where you're ostensibly introducing the monster to the audience, and it makes such a stark contrast to the rest of the film where Hyde is completely irredeemable, but I think it's that contrast that makes the film's take on Hyde work so well even with it's diverging from the source material, even if I don't particularly like in general interpretations of Hyde that are focused on a sexual aspect.

Because one, it understands that Jekyll was fundamentally a self-serving coward and not a paragon of goodness, and two, it also understands one of the things that makes Hyde scary: He wants what all of us want, to live and be happy. He's happy when he leaves the lab and dances around in the rain like a giddy child, he's happy when he goes to places Jekyll couldn't dream of showing up, he's happy as a showgirl-abusing sexual predator. Hyde is all wants, all the time, and there's not that much difference between his wants, his domineering possessiveness, and the likes exhibited by Muriel's father and Jekyll's own within the very same film, which also works to emphasize one of the other ideas of the original story, that Edward Hyde doesn't come from nowhere. That no monster is closer to humanity than Mr Hyde, because he is us. He is the thing that Jekyll refused to take responsability for until it was too late.

(Art by LorenzoMastroianni)

While many of the ideas that defined Mr Hyde had already been explored in pop culture beforehand, Hyde popularized and redefined many of them in particular by modernizing the idea. He was the werewolf, the doppelganger, The Player On The Other Side, except he came from within. He was not transformed by circumstance, he made himself that way, and the elixir merely brought out something already inside his soul. To acknowledge that he's there is to acknowledge that he is you, and to not do that is to either lose to him, or perish. Hyde was there to address both the rot settling in Victorian society as well as grappling concerns over Darwinian heritage, of the realization that man has always had the beast inside of him (it's no accident that Hyde's main method of murder is by clubbing people to death with his cane like a caveman).

I've already argued on my post about Tarzan that the Wild Man archetype, beginning with Enkidu of The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the in-between man and beast, between superhero and monster, and that Mr Hyde is an essential component of the superhero's trajectory, as the creature split in between. That stories about dual personalities, doppelgangers, the duality of the soul, the hero with a day job and an after dark career, you can pinpoint Hyde as a turning point in how all of these solidified gradually in pop culture. And I've argued otherwise that The Punisher, for all that his image and narrative points otherwise, is ultimately just as much of a superhero as the rest of them, even if no one wants to admit it, drawing a parallel between The Punisher and Mr Hyde. And he's far from the only modern character that can invite this kind of parallel.

The idea of a regular person periodically or permanently transforming into, or revealing itself to be, something extraordinary and fantastic and scary, grappling with the divide it causes in their soul, and questions whether it's a new development or merely the truest parts of themselves coming to light at last, and the effects this transformation has for good and bad alike. The idea of a potent, dangerous, unpredictable enemy who ultimately is you, or at least a facet of you and what you can do. That these are bound to destroy each other if not reconciled with or overcome.

You know what are my thoughts on the archetype of "human periodically changing into a monster" are? Look around you and you're gonna see the myriad ways The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde's themes have manifested in the century and a half since the story's release. Why it shouldn't be any surprise whatsoever that Mr Hyde has become such an integral part of pop culture, in it's heroes and monsters alike. Why we can never escape Mr Hyde, just as Jekyll never could.

It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde.

He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close… - Hunter S. Thompson

There is a scene in the movie Pulp Fiction that explains almost every terrible thing happening in the news today. And it's not the scene where Ving Rhames shoots that guy's dick off. It's the part where the hit man played by John Travolta is talking about how somebody vandalized his car, and says this:

"Boy, I wish I could've caught him doing it. I'd have given anything to catch that asshole doing it. It'd been worth him doing it, just so I could've caught him doing it."

That last sentence is something everyone should understand about mankind. After all, the statement is completely illogical -- revenge is supposed to be about righting a wrong. But he wants to be wronged, specifically so he'll have an excuse to get revenge. We all do.

Why else would we love a good revenge movie? We sit in a theater and watch Liam Neeson's daughter get kidnapped. We're not sad about it, because we know he's a badass and he finally has permission to be awesome. Not a single person in that theater was rooting for it to all be an innocent misunderstanding. We wanted Liam to be wronged, because we wanted to see him kick ass. It's why so many people walk around with vigilante fantasies in their heads.

Long, long ago, the people in charge figured out that the easiest and most reliable way to bind a society together was by controlling and channeling our hate addiction. That's the reason why seeing hurricane wreckage on the news makes us mumble "That's sad" and maybe donate a few bucks to the Red Cross hurricane fund, while 9/11 sends us into a decade-long trillion-dollar rage that leaves the Middle East in flames.

The former was caused by wind; the latter was caused by monsters. The former makes us kind of bummed out; the latter gets us high.

It's easy to blame the news media for pumping us full of stories of mass shootings and kidnapped children, but that's stopping one step short of the answer: The media just gives us what we want. And what we want is to think we're beset on all sides by monsters.

The really popular stories will always feature monsters that are as different from us as possible. Think about Star Wars -- what real shithead has ever referred to himself as being on "the dark side"? In Harry Potter and countless fantasy universes, you have wizards working in "black magic" and the "dark arts." Can you imagine a scientist developing some technology for chemical weapons or invasive advertising openly thinking of what he does as "dark science"? Can you imagine a real world leader naming his headquarters "The Death Star" or "Mount Doom"?

Of course not. But we need to believe that evil people know they're evil, or else that would open the door to the fact that we might be evil without knowing it. I mean, sure, maybe we've bought chocolate that was made using child slaves or driven cars that poisoned the air, but we didn't do it to be evil -- we were simply doing whatever we felt like and ignoring the consequences. Not like Hitler and the bankers who ruined the economy and those people who burned the kittens -- they wake up every day intentionally dreaming up new evils to create. It's not like Hitler actually thought he was saving the world.

So no matter how many times you vote to cut food stamps and then use the money to buy a boat, you could still be way worse. You could, after all, be one of those murdering / lazy / ignorant / greedy / oppressive monsters that you know the world is full of, and that only your awesome moral code prevents you from turning into at any moment. And those monsters are out there.

They have to be. Because otherwise, we're the monsters - 5 Reasons Humanity Desperately Wants Monsters To Be Real, by Jason Pargin

(Two-Face sequence comes from the end of Batman Annual #14: Eye of the Beholder)

For good or bad, Hyde has become omnipresent. He's a part of our superheroes, he's a part of our supervillains, he's in our monsters. He lives and prattles in our ears, sometimes we need him to survive, and sometimes we become Hyde even when we don't need to, because our survival instincts or base cruelties or desperation brings out the worst in us. Sometimes we can beat him, and sometimes he's not that bad. Sometimes we do need to appease him and listen to what he says, about us and the world around us. And sometimes we need to do so specifically to prove him wrong and beat him again.

But he never, ever goes away, as he so accurately declares in the musical

Do you really think That I would ever let you go...

Do you think I'd ever set you free?

If you do, I'm sad to say It simply isn't so

You will never get away FROM MEEEEEE

(Art by Akreon on Artstation)

#tw: injury #tw: blood #tw: disfigurement #replies tag #dr jekyll and mr hyde #the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde #robert louis stevenson #two-face #batman #monster tag #universal monsters #horror tag

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rogueonestan · 4 years

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wopc: chapter 4 - the rescue

pairing: the mandalorian x f!reader/ ofc

word count: 7.6k (sorry she’s a long one)

warnings: canon-type violence, ~some softness~ (maybe some sh*ulder touching, a confession or two)

summary: after successfully retrieving and bringing back the asset to the Empire's hands, both you and the Mandalorian question whether it's best to move on or if you just made the biggest mistake of your life.

previous part | when our paths cross masterlist | main masterlist | next part

“Come on up, little guy.” You say to the baby that’s currently tugging at the end of your pants as Mando prepares for the Crest to leave Arvala-7’s atmosphere. As soon as he’s secured in the crook of your arms, the little one lets out a happy coo. Laughter fills the room as you gently bounce the baby in your arms. You can’t help but laugh as well. You know that your time with the strange little baby is coming to an end very soon, but you can’t help but give in to his demands of getting attention from you. It’ll break your heart to say goodbye after knowing him for such a short amount of time.

But right now isn’t the time for sadness- it can wait when you two part ways for good.

Instead, you let the baby’s natural behavior lift your spirits. He continues to giggle in response when you tickle his stomach with a free hand. Your actions don't go unnoticed though, because once the ship takes off, Mando turns around in his chair and witnesses the interaction. When you break your attention away from the baby, you see Mando’s visor is tilting at you.

“I know what you’re going to say, but how could you say no to him?” You say as you lift the baby from your arms and show him off to the stoic man in front of you, letting the baby work his magic. The baby lets out a small coo as he reaches out towards the man in front of him, who doesn’t move in response.

One major habit that you’ve developed since joining the Guild is to never grow an attachment to a target, but when his owl-like eyes look into yours, you can’t help but feel that you need to protect him at all costs- like it’s your duty to do so. You tell yourself that of course you need to, it’s part of the job, but another part of you, the one that feels a connection to him, tells you that it’s so much more than that.

Separation at this point is inevitable, but there’s also that shadow of doubt that what if you didn’t have to. What if you were able to protect the baby from any threats. What if you could find him a safe place to live like the settlement you found on Arvala-7? What if you could bring some good into this galaxy instead of giving into the bad?

“You know that you can’t grow attached to it.” You hear Mando’s voice say as he brings you out of your thoughts.

“I know,” You whisper, “but there’s just something about him...” You trail off.

Your eyes glance down at the now sleeping baby in your arms as you smile fondly at him. Even asleep, you’re mesmerized by the child in your arms.

The light snores that escape his lips brings you a feeling of peace. You can’t help but have the worries that were once running a mile a minute take a backseat as you admire the baby in your arms.

With all of your attention solely on the child that’s tightly secured in your arms, you don’t take notice of how Mando’s helmet begins to tilts to the side as he admires the interaction before him. Ever since he entered that room with you back on Nevarro and saw the four stormtroopers guarding the older man, he knew immediately that something was off about all of this. Not only did the big reward raise his eyebrows, but the vague information that was provided did as well. In all of the years of being a bounty hunter, Mando’s had his fair share of vague and mysterious bounties but he knew that something was wrong about all this. Even seeing how nervous you were in that room just confirmed his suspicions.

And seeing the baby for the first time was the final confirmation that he needed. He doesn’t know for what reason the Empire is so desperate for having this child in their hands, but nothing good can come from it. Who knows for what reasons they would want a young child in their custody. But there’s nothing that he can do about it. He already agreed to bring the kid back. Plus, he needs the reward in order to continue providing you properly as he has ever since he took you on as a crew member.

If he didn’t keep his word, his reputation of being the most feared bounty hunter in the entire parsec would be tarnished. Not that he really cares about that anyway, no, but he would no longer be a man of honor. Something that he takes very seriously since it’s one of the most important aspects of the code that he lives by- by the way he was raised. It’s not like he wants to be responsible for bringing an innocent child into the arms of the Empire, he doesn’t, but he also doesn’t really have any other choice.

Guilt pangs at his chest as he sees how happy the baby has made you ever since you two met.

Ever since you first glanced your eyes in the pram, your behavior has been different- more carefree. In all of the months that Mando has been working with you, he’s never seen you this content before. Usually, he only sees you smile or hears you laugh for a moment when you made some offhand comment about something- never about something that he said or done.

Even though he’s only known you for a short period of time, there’s something about you that’s different. When he first met you during a job for the Guild, he just knew that he could trust you. He didn’t want to believe it at first, but after seeing you in action a few times, he knew that he could trust you. He’s grateful that you accepted his offer to be partners.

Because without you, he wouldn’t have been able to find some sort of purpose. Before you, his days were beginning to mush together- receive a bounty puck, travel to some planet, bring back the bounty, and repeat. But with you around, you help his days seem more lively. The offhand comments that you’ve made into a habit always brightens up his day. He may not visibly show it, but he appreciates the way that you’ve been getting more comfortable in his presence- not holding back what you want to say or how you feel.

As he sees the fond smile on your face, he’s determined to melt your smile like that one day- maybe even show you the covert sometime. But first, he needs to get you three to Nevarro.

The loud monitor beeping is what wakes Mando up after he accidentally fell asleep. With how quiet it got in the cockpit, it was easy for him to begin to drift off. As he messes with a few buttons on the consoles to prepare for landing the Crest, you’re now beginning to stir awake. Like Mando, you don’t even remember drifting off. The last thing you remember is holding the baby in your arms as you watched him drift off to sleep. But as you glance out the window to your right, the familiar sighting of Nevarro enters your plain of view. As you glance down at the bundle in your arms, the baby is still blissfully asleep, unaware of what will happen to him within the next couple of minutes.

As much as you hate to admit it, the time has come to parts ways with the baby. A heavy feeling resides in your chest as the feeling of the Crest beginning to land is felt throughout the entire ship. The last thing that you want to do is to give an innocent child into the hands of the Empire but you have no choice- when you agreed to be Mando’s business partner, you agreed to stand by side no matter what. There have been times where you didn’t agree with Mando’s actions, like this one, but you’re still loyal to him. You know that in the end, he knows best.

“We’re here.” Mando says as he gets up from his seat to make his way to the hull, but not before he grabs his pulse rifle that’s to his immediate left when he exits the cockpit.

“It’s time to go, little one.” You say with sadness in your voice. It’s so weird to think that you’ve gotten attached to another being in such a short amount of time. It only makes it that much harder to say goodbye and that’s exactly why you follow a strict rule of not getting close to those you just met, but with this little one, it’s so hard not to. With the way he coos at you affectionately or the way his big, brown eyes look at you, it’s hard for your heart not to melt at the spot.

As you stand up to put him back in his pram, his little hands reach out towards the clear crystal that’s resting on your chest, the same response he had when you both shared a connection of your past memories last night. You still don’t know what happened when his hand touched your arm, or even why it happened, but you do know that for some reason, the baby has some sort of pull towards the object. Maybe it’s the reason why you first felt a pull towards him when you first met on Arvala-7.

When you gently place the baby inside the pram, guilt immediately fills your system. ‘There’s no turning back now,’ you tell yourself as you begin to descend to the lower level of the ship, with the pram following closely behind.

“You ready to go?” You hear a modulated voice ask you as your feet hit the metal ground beneath you.

Nodding your head in response, you grab your bag and blaster that’s currently residing on the floor when you placed them there after fully repairing the Crest when the Jawas stripped the ship clean. Pressing the button that releases the hatch door, both you and Mando begin to make your way into the town that you’ve familiarized yourself with for the past year or so.

The familiar scents of food that are being cooked in the center of the town don’t even put your nerves at ease. Usually arriving back to Nevarro means that you can feel safe, at home, but for some reason, you don’t feel that way. You feel out of place, like you don’t belong here. You can’t put the feeling into words but something seems different about this trip. Maybe it’s the guilt eating at you. Maybe it's a warning sign that the tide of an upcoming wave is about to come crashing down. You just don’t realize how on the nose you are during the moment.

As you make your way past the market that’s in the middle of town and further away from everyone, the more your gut tells you to turn back- like before. You knew at first that accepting this job was bad news and you feel it more now than ever. There’s no turning back now.

It’s not long after that you arrive back at the building that you dread- where the baby will part ways from you. As Mando knocks on the heavy door and waits for reentry, you hear a soft coo next to you. The baby’s ears are dropped lower than you’ve ever seen them before. So he feels the same way.

You’re about to protest about how maybe this isn’t such a great idea after all when two stormtroopers greet you. You didn’t think the knot in your stomach could get any tighter, but it feels as if someone has a rope around you and their grip only gets tighter with each passing second. The uneasiness you feel only increases as the two troopers escort you and Mando back to the room where everything began.

As you begin to walk down the short hallway, the knot in your stomach seems to get impossibly tighter. You walk close to your partner’s side in a vain attempt to try to ease your nerves before the meeting occurs and Mando seems to take notice because whenever his visor isn’t focused on the pram next to him, he’s glancing over his shoulder to make sure you’re alright. His visor meeting your gaze brings a small comfort to you when you see how close one of the troopers is to the child.

Entering the same room where it all began doesn’t help to ease either yours or Mando’s nerves. The same two men as before approach the pram to take vital signs, confirming that the baby is indeed healthy and alive. The knot in your stomach as tight as it ever has been.

When the camtono of beskar opens up, your partner is already intrigued by it, immediately leaving your side as you stayed behind.

“Such a large bounty for such a small package.” The older man says as the younger one begins to bring the pram into a separate room. The moment the door shuts behind the pram, you feel your heartstrings beginning to pull at you. A deep sigh heaving out of your lips. It pains you to see the little one go but you remind yourself that it’s part of the job. There’s nothing you can do about it.

“What are your plans for it?” Your attention is suddenly brought back to your partner as he asks the question that’s been on your mind for days but you didn’t dare to ask it out loud- as it is one of the most important rules of the Guild. Never ask questions.

In all of the months that you’ve known Mando, he’s never been one to break any of the rules that are mandated by your boss, especially one as important as to never ask questions. Every time you ask questions, it’s in the comfort of the Crest as you depart for another bounty, never in the face of authority.

Rather than answering the question, the man retaliates by mentioning the slaughter of his people, “finding a Mandalorian in these trying times is more difficult than finding the steel.” With one of his fists balled up at his side, his entire body stiff, the older man hit a sensitive spot within the Mandalorian- a subject he shouldn’t be so willing to talk about, but mentions its willingly in front of the beskar-cladded warrior.

Without saying anything in response, Mando turns away from the older man, motioning for you to follow him with a wave of his hand as you both exit out of the safehouse. You’ve never felt so relieved to get out of anywhere sooner.

“As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right about one thing,” you begin as Mando tilts his helmet at you, “the beskar does belong back in the hands of the Mandalorians.”

“You deserve some of it as well,” You shake your head in disagreement, “you helped capture the bounty, it’s only fair-“

“It’s been far too long since it’s been back in the hands of your people. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”

With a nod of his head, Mando lets out a choked ‘thank you’ as you’re unaware of how true your words ring.

“Your people would benefit from it much more than I ever could have.” Mando only nods back at you again, “I’ll meet up with you later at the cantina.” You say as you leave Mando alone with his camtono of beskar.

Watching you leave, Mando is still speechless. In all of his years of roaming the galaxy, he’s never heard an outsider speak so highly of his people. Every time someone speaks of his people, it’s almost always of ill intent, never warmly. He got used to people seeing Mandalorians as ruthless warriors- never more. With how you spoke, you recognize the importance armor has in Mandalorian culture but it’s also so much more than that. Your knowledge of Mandalorian society may be limited but you’re always willing to learn more about it, and that is evident by how you’re always asking Mando about his creed. Never with ill intentions, but just curiosity.

As he makes his way back into town, the only thought that’s on his mind is the amount of respect you have not only for him but for his people as well. Those who he passed may not be able to see it, but a big smile is on his face as he heads in the direction of the hidden covert.

As he enters the halls of the covert, your words continue to ring through his head. Maybe he could bring you down here one day and introduce you to his fellow Mandalorians. He was afraid to in the past, but now he knows the high regard you put his people in.

As he gets further into the covert, he doesn’t take notice of the attention he’s gathering because your words are still playing on a loop in his head. As always, the other Mandalorians that remain in the covert are polishing their weapons or conversing with one another, but as Mando passes them with a camtono in his hand, they begin to lurk behind him, curious as to what he’s provided for them this time.

Unlike before, the Armorer is already waiting patiently for him at the table when he enters the room. Without saying anything, Mando shows her what’s inside the container: a plethora of beskar. The woman in front of him is surprised at what she’s seeing right before her eyes. It’s been so long since she’s seen such a great amount of beskar, even if it was a gift from the Empire. The gold-helmeted warrior admires the steel as she picks up a handful.

The beskar doesn’t only catch her attention but others as well as a few Mandalorians make their way into the armory.

The woman states how she can create another suit of armor as his original has suffered through immense damage and how the new armor will draw many eyes, as it has already gained the attention of several other Mandalorians as he passed the halls moments ago.

One Mandalorian in particular, a heavy infantry, notices where the beskar has come from and scolds Mando for associating himself with the people responsible for the slaughter of their people- calling him a coward for accepting a job from them and accepting the reward. The bigger man even tries to provoke him, successfully at that, as the two spar with the vibroknives they have at their disposal. With both of their knives at each other’s throats, the Armorer is the one to make peace between them, stating how no matter where the beskar came from, it is right that it has returned to its rightful owners. The rest of the Mandalorians agree, saying their motto, ‘this is the Way,’ as both men put down their weapons.

It’s not long after the altercation that the Armorer begins crafting Mando’s new suit of armor. Like before, every time there’s a loud bang from the armor being crafted, Mando is vividly reminded of his traumatic beginnings. The sounds of his village being attacked, the screamings coming from all around him as everyone panics. Unlike how he was that day, Mando sits perfectly still as he waits for his armor to be fully crafted. The horrid screams echo inside his head as the room he’s actually sitting in is quiet, minus from the loud BANGS that come from completing one piece of his armor. It would be easier for Mando to wait in another room as the Armorer does her job, but Mando never leaves. He doesn’t leave because it’s his responsibility to stay and watch the creation of his armor- even if it brings back the memories that still haunt him at night. The recollection of past memories is only temporary.

While this is all happening, you’re slowly making your way towards the cantina, just like you told Mando you would. Usually, scrolling past the merchants would bring you joy, but not this time. Ever since landing on Nevarro, the knot in your stomach has never faded away, only becoming more and more prominent the longer you’re here. You thought arriving back on Nevarro made you feel sick to your stomach because you were bringing in an innocent child, but the sick feeling has never gone away. You thought being in town would help ease your nerves, but it hasn’t. A few items at various boutiques have interested you but not enough to get your mind off of the baby. His big eyes bore themselves into your mind. The sound of his coos replaying in your head like a broken record. Even being departed from him for a short while, the little one has managed to eat up your thoughts. You just hope that this feeling goes away soon.

You eventually make your way into the cantina where every bounty hunter’s eyes are on you. It’s not unusual for you to gain attention whenever you return back with Mando for another job, but everyone stops what they’re doing to get a glimpse at you. As you tightly grasp at the bag strap that resides on your side, you take in a deep breath as you approach the table that Greef Karga is sitting at.

Once he sees you, he quickly dismisses the hunter that he was previously engaging with as he lets out a belly laugh, “one of my favorite hunters has returned!” He exclaims as everyone else in the cantina continues on with their business, “please, have a seat! Let us celebrate!” He says as you take your usual spot, leaving enough room for when your partner returns, “what will you be having?”

You begin to decline, insisting that he doesn’t have to buy a drink, but Karga immediately shuts down your words, “come on, you deserve it after helping Mando capture the biggest bounty in this parsec. What're you having?”

You stutter out a few words out as you glance at the colorful liquid that’s behind the counter, “whatever you’re having.” Karga hollers at the bartender for another splash of something that you can’t pronounce as he gives you his undivided attention.

“What are you going to do with your half?” He asks you as he pulls out a sliver of beskar from underneath his vest, “I’m rich as well.”

“Oh, I didn’t keep any-“

“Why not?”

“Because I thought Mando would get more use out of it. I wouldn’t even know what to do with all of that beskar if I kept it. Plus, it belongs back with his people after everything they’ve been through.”

“Huh.” Karga lets out as someone brings a cup full of the colorful liquid.

When you pick up your cup to take a sip of it, suddenly the cantina doors open themselves up as another person enters the place. Similar to the reaction you got earlier, everyone drops what they’re doing to look at the person who just entered. Just as you turn around to see who’s gaining so much attention, you feel your heart getting caught in your throat as you see your partner strutting in with his new armor: newly crafted by the reward you received earlier that day.

“How many of them had tracking fobs?” Mando asks the ex-magistrate, the second time today he has broken the Guild code by asking questions about the bounty you just turned in.

The man doesn’t seem that surprised by his question, only letting out a scoff, and telling Mando that only his two best hunters would be able to complete this job, saying, “ I always knew that you could do it.”

The man shows the same polite gesture as he showed you, asking Mando how he can show his gratitude, only for Mando to say plainly how he wants his next job- very persistently. For as long as you’ve known him, Mando has never been the type to take a break or to just sit around- always on the move. Maybe that’s the warrior side of him. Maybe he doesn’t want to stay in one place for too long because that’s when his thoughts begin to consume him. You don’t know why, but he’s never been the one to relax for as long as you’ve known him.

Karga eventually gives in, letting the pair of you choose your next bounty, which happens to be just another bail jumper. At least it’ll keep your mind off of things for a little bit. When Mando presses the button to reveal your next target, his visor glances at you, seeking your approval, like he always does. With the nod of your head, Mando quickly pockets the puck as he stands up waiting for you to follow suit. One thing you’ve always admired Mando as a partner is that even though he may not be the easiest person to work with at times, he always seeks your approval whenever you work together.

As you stand up to follow him out of the cantina, Mando breaks the Code for the third time today by asking what the Imperials are going to do with the baby, only for Karga to avoid the question, yet again, stating that asking questions is against the Guild Code. With a deep sigh, Mando motions that it’s time for you guys to leave. Saying a quick farewell, you follow closely behind your partner as you make your way back to the ship, with the kid still on your mind.

Pressing the button to close the hatch door behind you, you let out a deep sigh that you didn’t know that you were holding in. Today has definitely been one of the longer ones you’ve experienced in a long time. You drop your bag on the floor in its usual spot as you make your way to the cockpit, sitting in your usual seat, waiting to get away for a little bit of time on a planet far, far away.

With Mando manning the control, beginning his routine of starting up the ship, one thought that hasn’t been able to stop repeating itself in your mind, “did we do the right thing?” Mando’s movements immediately halt as you continue, “I mean- I know it’s the Guild Code and everything, but was it right? There’s definitely something more going on in that place than we were told. If there’s one Imperial officer, then who knows how many more that are involved.” As you look over at him, you see how Mando’s visor is now looking at you, slightly tilted as always, “oh, I’m sorry. I’m fine. Continue.” You say as you gesture at the buttons that his fingers are hovering over.

If it wasn’t so quiet, you wouldn’t have been able to hear the quiet, ‘you’re right,’ that comes from his modulator, almost as if he’s admitting it to himself for the first time, “there is something more that’s happening.” And with that, Mando rapidly gets up from his seat as he immediately heads downstairs with you following closely behind.

When you descend from the ladder, you find him already loading himself up with more weapons, “what are you doing? Are we going to do something about it?”

“We aren’t doing anything. You don’t have to do this with me. You can back out.”

You quickly decline this out, shaking your head at him, “when I agreed to be your partner, I meant all the way- not just for bounties. I’m with you ‘til the very end, no matter what.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear you say that.”

As you see him continuing to reload, you ask him what the plan is, “I’m gonna go get the kid back while you stay back and guard the ship.”

You can’t help but let out a groan, “why am I always the one guarding the ship?”

“It’s too dangerous for the both of us to go, so I need you to stay here in case something bad happens. Plus, I need to make sure you’re safe and the ship is the safest place.”

A set of butterflies fly in your stomach at his confession. In all of the time you’ve worked together, he’s never admitted any sort of feelings or attachment towards you before, going beyond a relationship that’s solely a professional one. You can think about this later, the two of you need to make a plan and quick.

“And if something does?”

“You take the ship and leave.”

“I’m not leaving you behind.”

“This is the Way.” He responds as you groan at him, as he’s making his way towards the hatch door.

“Wouldn’t it be less noticeable if we both went into town? I could be a lookout if something goes wrong.”

“And we’ll both be caught. Guard the ship.” He says as he leaves no room for argument, descending down the ramp as you watch him walk back into the town.

Once he leaves, the familiar knot in your stomach returns. You can’t help but feel as if something bad is on the horizon. You know Mando is more than capable of handling himself, but this is something so much bigger than him. If there’s an ex-Imperial officer involved, who knows how far up this goes. As much as you want to follow Mando’s footsteps and aid in the rescue, you know that this is something he needs to do on his own. You can’t imagine the hell that he’s been through in his life. Maybe this can be the first step towards making things right for one person. Instead of taking their life, he can help save one.

So, you wait for his return. Sliding down against the wall that you’re leaning against, you glance out the hatch door that’s still ajar, waiting for your partner to return.

As Mando makes his way back to the safehouse, making sure there aren’t any prying eyes on him by looking over his shoulder every now and again, the conversation he had with you earlier rings through his head. Your questions of doubt repeat in his head. If there’s one Imperial officer, who knows how many more rank above him? And what would they want to do with a baby that small and young? What’s so important about that baby that they had every Guild hunter looking for him? Thoughts like these are what accompany Mando as he stands in front of the door where it all began.

These concerns of yours from the very beginning turned out to be quite valid because as Mando eavesdrops on the conversation between the two men from earlier, their conversation seems to prove your concerns to be correct. Mando doesn’t know how far this goes up, but their conversation is just proof that they have a more sinister intention that they led him to believe. The extremely high price on the baby’s head shows how much danger the green baby is in the longer he’s in their hands. With that in mind, Mando begins to make his way to where everything began.

Standing in front of the door where he first presented the chit card with you by his side, Mando begins his attack by luring out the two troopers that first greeted you two by creating a distraction. Placing one of the charges from his belt onto the side of the building, he waits for the denotation to finally go off, using the explosive as his disguise as he enters the facility. Alarms immediately become activated as the rest of the troops inside gather to begin their protocol, investigating what could be the source of the sudden attack.

With each room Mando comes across, there are always at least two stormtroopers patrolling the area, but it isn’t anything that he can’t handle. Mando makes his way deeper and deeper into the facility with ease, none of the troopers posing a threat. However, Mando only gets more aggressive with his attacks as leaves a room. At first, he would only shoot them in the back and move on to the next room, but now, his tactics are more violent: he’ll push a trooper into some boxes, electrocuting another with his rifle, or even shooting them again even though they’re already dead. Seeing the abundance of security only makes Mando even more determined to rescue the kid and return back to you safely.

Entering the room where they’re holding the baby was easier than Mando thought. With only one guard standing in front of the door and one inside, it was surprisingly easy to confront the man who was performing some sort of test on the baby as he lays unconscious.

Mando barks out, “what did you do to it?!?!” as the scientist cowers in the corner. The man only insists that he did the baby no harm and that he would be dead if it weren’t for him. As the scientist looks down in fear, pleading for his life over and over, Mando swipes the kid and leaves the room without saying another word.

Returning to the exit was a bit tougher than when he first entered the premises. With the child secured in his arms, Mando was able to successfully make his way towards the exit until four stormtroopers ambushed him in the room where the transaction occurred. The same four troopers that were present for the meeting have now surrounded him. But before either of them are able to make the first move, Mando fakes a surrender as he crouches to the floor, placing his blaster and the bundled child next to him. A trooper commands Mando to stand up in surrender. He doesn’t. Instead, he activates the whistling birds on the vambrace that was given to him earlier and shoots down the four men instantly.

With that, Mando is now out of the safehouse and on his way to town, where he can depart in the ship with you and the three of you can be safe for the moment.

Unknownst to you, the moment that Mando leaves the safehouse is the same moment where every tracking fob on Nevarro becomes activated by an unknown source. As you continue sitting in the hull, something feels off. You’re not sure what but something just doesn’t seem right to you. Making sure that your blaster is still secured in your holster, you walk down the ramp to see if you can notice anything weird happening in town.

From a distance, you can see multiple figures are huddling into town but it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary. That is, until you hear a faint noise coming from inside the ship. When you make your way towards where you've been sitting for a while now, you rummage through your bag to find the source: the tracking fob. Your heart drops to your stomach as you fear for the worst. You don’t even know where Mando is at this point, if he’s even alive or if he was successful in his rescue mission, but you fear for the worst.

Without thinking clearly, you quickly pull out your comm that’s also in your bag and frantically tell your partner to return, “I think they’re onto us.”

As Mando checks his surroundings, he finds that there’s an unusual amount of hunters in town as they begin to follow him as he gets closer and closer to the ship. He can see the outline of the Crest. With the comlink in his hand, he quickly says, “I’ll be there soon” before he quickly puts his comm back in his pocket.

When his visor glances from his feet to in front of him, his former boss greets him, bellowing out, “welcome back, Mando! Where’s your partner?”

“Safe.”

From the ship, you can hear a slight shout, but you’re unsure as to what it is. You trust Mando but if the whole Guild is hunting both you and him, you’re not sure if this is a fight he can win on his own. As much as it pains you, you don’t want to go against his wishes of you aiding him. Even with you by his side, you guys don’t have a fighting chance of making out an altercation alive.

Hesitating, you’re about to make your way down the ramp and head towards town when the shooting begins. Your worst fears appear in your head. Unsure of what’s happening, you begin to make your way out of the ship as you see flashes of red in the distance and as you pick up your pace, the shooting suddenly stops.

You can feel the adrenaline making its way through your blood. Out of haste, you comm your partner for a second time, “what’s going on out there?”

“Stay put!” He demands quickly as his comm is shut off. The sudden lash from him surprises you at first, as he’s never used that tone of voice at you before, even when you’re on a job, but you quickly brush it off as he’s probably in the most stressful and fearful situation he’s ever been in. You make your way back to the ship and just wait.

As soon as he shuts off his comm, a hunter has already made their way towards Mando, where he kicks them with great force as another ambush takes place. He uses all of the weapons that he has on him: his pulse rifle, his blaster, his flamethrower. He’s able to hold them off temporarily, but once the fire stops comes to a halt, that’s when the hunters continue to close in on him.

Sighing in defeat, Mando no longer fights back as he shields the child with his body- in case any upcoming blaster fire comes anywhere coming near the young one. As he looks down at the baby, the only thing he could focus on is his eyes. The oncoming blaster fire is toned out as Mando sees how he failed not only the child but you as well. After everything he’s done in his life, after all of the blood that’s on his hands, Mando was hoping that finding a safe place for the kid could be the one thing that he could do. That maybe helping one child could be the beginning of cleaning his hands. But the galaxy has never been kind to him, so why should it start now? ‘So this is how it ends.’ Mando thinks to himself as the blaster fire only increases as the hunters get in closer proximity to him.

But before all of his hope is stripped from him, the same saviors that helped him the day his village was destroyed, come to help him now when he needs them more than ever. Heavy blaster fire from above rains the town. Dust is in the air as his fellow Mandalorians join in on the fight. How they even got word of it Mando doesn’t know, but he’s grateful that they’ve come to help him.

As he looks to his left, Mando sees one of the heavy infantries landing on the ground as they shoot out heavy blaster fire, telling Mando to make a run for it as the rest of the covert handles the rest. Both men part ways by saying ‘this is the Way’ to each other as Mando finally makes his way back to you.

Just when Mando thought the fighting was over and would be able to seek refuge in the ship, a familiar voice stopped him in his tracks. The fight is short-lived as he uses his surroundings to his advantage. Mando is able to shoot his ex-boss where the piece of beskar metal lives. Letting out a deep sigh, he feels like he can finally breathe for the first time since he left you alone on the ship.

Blaster fire coming from the lower levels of the ship is what makes you get up on your feet and rush from the cockpit to the hull. With your blaster already in your hand, you find that your partner is safe with your new passenger in his arms.

It’s now your turn to sigh as relief fills your body, “what happened? Are you hurt? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, but we need to go.” He says as he offers you the bundle in his arms wordlessly. Gladly accepting it, you follow your partner back up to the cockpit where you find him beginning his routine to get the three out you out of here.

“What are we gonna do now?”

“I’m not sure yet, but we need to get out of this system.”

Nodding your head in agreement, you take a seat behind the pilot’s seat as you wait for take-off. The familiar sensation of the Crest lifting up in the air fills your body with a little bit of relief. The fight is far from over but it’s a start.

“I’m just glad you’re okay.” You say quietly, mainly to yourself to remind yourself that you’ve both lived another day, glancing down at the baby in your arms.

“Me too.” Mando says as he glances over his shoulder to look at you, only to find you completely infatuated at the bundle of joy in your arms. Your eyes filled with a tenderness that he’s never seen before. The smile on your face wider than he’s seen. It’s a look that he hopes to see more often by the child’s presence.

As you look up, Mando’s visor immediately turns back to look at the sky in front of him, but something out of the corner of your eye makes you immediately turn your attention there. A gasp leaves your lips. Gently putting the baby down to avoid waking him, you find a Mandalorian is flying next to the ship as he salutes Mando, immediately flying away.

Looking over at your partner, your lips parted in surprise, “was that a Mandalorian?” Not realizing that one of your hands has placed itself onto Mando’s shoulder as you glance out the window.

The sensation of your warm hand fills warmth throughout his entire body. He can’t remember the last time he had someone touch him that didn’t involve a fight or was a part of some business chatter. A casual touch. It’s been so long since he had human contact with someone as a friend, someone he can trust. With you looking into his visor, waiting for an answer, he shakes his head as he focuses on flying, “yeah, there is- was, a Mandalorian covert on Nevarro.”

“That’s how you escaped- the Mandalorians saved you.” He nods his helmet at you, “and that’s how you got the new armor.”

If you weren’t listening so closely, you wouldn’t have been able to hear the soft ‘yeah’ that came from his modulator.

“Is that where you go after each bounty?”

“Yeah.”

I always thought you were visiting someone special or something.”

“Like a riduur?” He asks as he looks over at you, only to find your head is tilted to the side with your brows furrowed, wrinkles on your nose as you scrunch up your face at the term, “it’s a Mandalorian term for a spouse.”

“Oh.” You finally realize that your hand is on his shoulder when the feeling of his hand on top of yours is felt throughout your entire body. The smile on your face from earlier begins to make its return as he keeps his hand there, “no, I don’t have a riduur.”

The feeling of his hand on top of you distracts you from the effect he has on you, muttering out a, ‘yeah, me neither’ as you make your way back to your seat, taking the baby back in your arms.

You don’t want to look too deep into Mando’s actions. It’s just the adrenaline running through his body after everything he went through today you tell yourself, unknowing of the effects that your actions had on him just moments before.

The events of the day have taken a heavy toll on you as it becomes difficult to stay awake as the three of you travel in silence. Every once in a while, the baby in your arms will let out a quiet snore. Although the sight itself is absolutely adorable, it doesn’t make it any easier to stay awake.

“What’s our next plan?” You ask as a yawn manages to escape from your lips. If you weren’t so damn tired, you would’ve been able to catch the chuckle that came from your partner, but all of your energy is focused on not passing out in your seat.

“We’ll just travel sublight and seek shelter at a neighboring system and go on from there.”

“Okay, and what’s the-“

“Don’t worry about it.” He says as his seats swerves around to face you, “just go get some sleep.”

“But-“

“Go sleep. I’ll watch the kid.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s a baby, not a cure for some terminal disease.” His comment brings out a small chuckle from you even in your dazed state. It’s the first time that your partner seems looser around you. In all of the time you’ve known him, he’s been strictly professional, never speaking unless it was necessary. You can get used to seeing this side of him.

As soon as you leave him alone with the baby in the cockpit, Mando lets out a deep breath that he was apparently holding in. He wasn’t aware of the effect you’ve managed to begin to have on him. Glancing at the baby that’s sleeping where you were just sitting, Mando can’t help but feel like this is the beginning of something good happening.

taglist (let me know if you wanna be tagged): @unstoppableforcce @remmysbounty @ayamenimthiriel @randomness501 @itspauvr @sarahjkl82-blog @mostclevermiss

#hello she's a long one but i think we're finally getting into it #i wanted to focus more on din (and failed) but here u go #my writing #wopc #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x f!reader #the mandalorian x ofc #star wars #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x oc #din djarin x female reader #din djarin x f!reader #din djarin x ofc

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rpf-bat · 4 years

Text

Rocking Out Just For The Dead

Pairing: Frank Iero x Male!Reader

Genre: Romance, Drama

Summary: Requested by @kpopchangedmylifesstuff. You’re playing Download Festival 2007 with your band, Paramore. My Chemical Romance are headlining the festival. After your set, Frank invites you onto his tour bus, for a friendly battle of Guitar Hero 2. But, when the hanging out turns into something more, your bandmate, Josh Farro, threatens to destroy whatever you and Frank have.

You found yourself in Donington, England, playing your band’s brand new single, “Misery Business.” Okay - technically, Paramore wasn’t your band. You’d had no part in composing their new album, which would be dropping at the end of the week. But, their rhythm guitarist, Hunter, had recently quit, to go get married. Your longtime friend, Hayley, had called you up, and asked you to fill in for him, and you had jumped at the chance.

You had done this once before. Paramore’s bassist, Jeremy, had randomly quit in 2005 - right before the start of Warped Tour. You weren’t sure what had caused him to leave, but you played bass and guitar equally well, so Hayley had asked you to join her and the Farro brothers on tour. You had the time of your life that summer. You had been eighteen then, and had felt more than a little star-struck, when you met people in “bigger” bands.

Now twenty, you thought yourself older and wiser. You were determined to be a professional this time around. No petty fights with your bandmates. No acting like a fanboy around the guys playing the Main Stage. Download Festival - the final stop on their Europe tour - was going to go off without a hitch, dammit!

Jeremy, now back in the band, stood to the left of you on the stage. Josh, the guitarist, was on your right. You tried your best to keep your guitar playing in sync with them, as Hayley belted out the final chorus:

Whoa, I never meant to brag

But I got him where I want him now.

Whoa, it was never my intention to brag

To steal it all away from you now.

But God does it feel so good,

'Cause I got him where I want him now.

And if you could then you know you would.

'Cause God it just feels so...

It just feels so good…

Zach played the final drum beat, bringing the song to a close. The crowd cheered. You took Hayley’s hand, and took a bow. She grinned at you, before addressing the crowd.

“THANK YOU, DONINGTON!” she bellowed into the mic. “YOU’VE BEEN AN AMAZING CROWD! GOOD NIGHT!”

“It’s not really ‘night’ yet, you know,” you laughed, as you and the rest of the band walked off the stage. The sun hadn’t even set yet.

“Yeah, I know,” Hayley sighed. “They put us on this super early time slot.”

“Because nobody knows who we are,” Josh pointed out.

“Yeah, the headliners get the later time slots, because they’re more famous,” Jeremy nodded.

“Well, I think the crowd loved us,” Zach smiled optimistically.

“He’s right,” you agreed. “Hal, I think you really killed it out there!”

“Thanks,” your friend smiled, brushing her sweat-soaked orange hair out of her eyes. “I really appreciate you coming on this tour with us, Y/N. I know it was really short notice.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” you smiled back.

“I thought your guitar playing was great tonight, man,” Jeremy complimented you. “A perfect grand finale.”

“Thanks, dude,” you beamed, as you grabbed a water bottle. These summer shows were way too humid.

“I don’t know about that,” Josh mumbled, as he wiped his face with a towel.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” you frowned, setting your water bottle down.

“I thought your timing was off during ‘Emergency’,” Josh said critically.

“Oh….I’m sorry,” you frowned. “I tried to keep up with you…..”

“You should’ve tried harder,” Josh snapped, walking away from you, back towards the bus.

Wow, you blinked. What’s his deal?

The elder Farro brother had been needlessly rude to you, since the tour began. You honestly had no idea what you had done to get under his skin. But, you knew better, than to pick a fight with him. Zach was his brother, and Hayley was his girlfriend. You were just an outsider - a temporary, touring member of the band.

“Are you coming back to the bus with us, dude?” Zach asked, snapping you out of the thoughts you had gotten lost in.

“.....Nah,” you shook your head. “I think I’m gonna, um, walk around for a bit.”

“Oh,” Hayley frowned. “Okay. See you later, Y/N.”

You were pretty sure that she hadn’t heard what Josh had said. You saw no reason to tell her. It would just be starting drama.

She seemed oblivious to a lot of the tension between you and Josh. He was always on his best behavior, when he knew she was paying attention. But, if it came down to it, you doubted she would side with her guy friend, over her boyfriend.

It doesn’t even matter, you told yourself. This is the last show of the tour. On Monday, I’ll be heading home to Nashville. He won’t be my problem anymore.

You began wandering aimlessly around the festival grounds, with no real destination in mind.

‘Hey!” a voice called out to you.

You looked up, and saw a face you recognized - Frank Iero.

You had met him on Warped Tour, two years ago. His band, My Chemical Romance, had been headliners, playing the main stage. Tonight, they were headlining this festival, too. His band had gotten even more famous after the release of The Black Parade.

“Hey!” you greeted.

“Remember me?” Frank grinned. “I know it’s been a while.”

“How could I forget?” you chuckled. Your heart had been racing the first time you met him backstage, but he had just shook hands with you, like the difference between your bands, was no big deal. You’d had to remind yourself that you were there to play a gig, not ask for an autograph.

“How have you been, Frank?”, you asked, trying to play it cool.

“I’ve been good, Y/N,” Frank smiled. “How about you?”

Oh my god, you gulped. He remembers my name.

“I-I’ve been great,” you stammered, hoping he couldn’t tell you were blushing.

“I watched your set earlier,” Frank said cheerfully. “You were really good, dude.”

“I-I was?!” you gasped. “You don’t think I was playing too slow, or….?”

“Huh?” Frank blinked, confused. “No, you were amazing, bro. Your whole band was.”

Ha, you thought. Suck it, Josh.

“Thank you,” you said politely. “I’m probably going to go check out your band’s set, later, too.”

“We’ve still got a couple hours before we go onstage,” Frank shrugged. “Since your band already played, you’re free for the rest of the day, right?”

“Um, yeah,” you nodded, willing yourself to stop thinking gay thoughts about his new haircut. How did he get even better-looking after Revenge era? This is not even fair.

“We have a PlayStation on our bus,” Frank revealed. “I was wondering if you’d like to play some video games with Mikey and I, for a little while?”

“Oh, sure!” you accepted his offer, trying not to sound too eager. You remembered playing a Donkey Kong bongos game with Mikey a couple years back. You’d lost pretty quickly, and he’d gone to find Zach, hoping that the drummer of the group would give him more of a challenge. You were determined to look less lame this time.

You followed Frank to My Chemical Romance’s tour bus. He opened the door for you, and you followed him in. Mikey sat on the couch, holding a game controller.

“Hey, Mikey,” Frank greeted. “You remember Y/N, right? From Paramore?”

“Oh, hi, Y/N,” Mikey smiled. “Long time, no see, man!”

“No kidding,” you laughed. “How have you been, dude?”

“Pretty good,” Mikey replied. “The new record’s doing pretty well.”

This was perhaps the understatement of the year. The Black Parade had sold more copies in its first week, than Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, had sold in two years. You weren’t sure if your own band would ever have that level of success.

“I bought a copy,” you confessed. “The day it came out.”

“Aw, thanks, bro, we appreciate the support,” Mikey smiled, sounding shockingly humble.

“When’s the new Paramore record coming out?’ Frank asked.

“June 12th,” you replied.

“Oh, wow, so in four days,” Frank realized.

“Yeah,” you nodded. “But, um, I didn’t help compose it.” You were just a touring member - not a full part of the band, as he was in his.

“I’m still gonna buy it,” Frank shrugged.

“Thanks,” you said awkwardly.

“So,” Mikey cleared his throat, “you’re gonna play Guitar Hero 2 with us, right, Y/N?”

“He just finished playing half an hour of guitar onstage,” Frank laughed. “You think he wants to play more?”

“I don’t mind sharpening my skills some more,” you shrugged.

“Whoa, you’re dedicated,” Mikey said, impressed.

Nah, you thought. I just wanna prove that Josh is wrong about my playing being shitty.

“Here,” Frank said, handing you the guitar-shaped controller. He pulled up the game menu, with the full list of songs. “We can do any track you want.”

“You’re going to play against me, in two-player mode?” you realized.

“Yeah,” Frank smirked. “What’s the matter? You scared of a little challenge?”

“No way,” you smiled slyly. “I bet I can take you.”

“Oh, wanna bet?” Frank raised an eyebrow. “Name the song. I’ll show you what I’ve got.”

“How about this one?” you decided, making a selection on the screen.

“Um, Y/N…..” Mikey’s eyes widened. “That’s ‘Dead’.”

“So what?” you smirked.

“So, that’s our song,” Mikey pointed out.

“I know what it is,” you said certainly.

“Wait, Y/N, are you serious?” Frank stared, mouth open in shock. “Of all the songs in the game, you want to challenge me with that one? The one I fucking wrote?”

“What’s the matter?” you asked, staring boldly into his hazel eyes. “You scared I’ll beat you at your own game?”

“As if,” Frank snorted. “I’ll tell you what, Y/N. If you can actually play ‘Dead’, better than the guy who plays it for a living, I’ll give you one of my fuckin’ guitars.”

“Seriously?” Mikey gaped. “You’d give one of those away?”

“He’s not gonna win, dude,” Frank said, with an air of certainty.

“You wanna bet?” you challenged.

“Okay, it’s a bet,” Frank decided.

“If I lose, you can have my guitar,” you wagered. Unlike him, you only had one. But, the tour was over, you considered. It wasn’t like you were going to need it again in the immediate future.

“It’s a deal,” Frank nodded, extending his hand to you. You shook on it.

“Well, this is going to be interesting,” Mikey said warily, as he handed Frank the second controller.

“What level do you want to play on?” Frank asked.

“Expert, of course,” you grinned. “We’re professionals.”

“Alright,” Frank grinned. “Just don’t come crying to me when you lose.”

“You’ll be the one crying when you have to give up your guitar, Iero,” you bantered, feeling cocky. You played Guitar Hero with Jeremy and Josh all the time, and you never lost. It always seemed to drive Josh fucking crazy.

He hit START, and an animated guitarist in a top hat waddled onto the screen. You heard Gerard’s vocals begin the song with a scream.

And if your heart stops beating

I'll be here wondering

Did you get what you deserve?

The ending of your life

And if you get to heaven

I'll be here waiting, babe

Did you get what you deserve?

You focused on the fret buttons on your controller. Your Rock Meter started at yellow, but the dial quickly went up to green. You didn’t miss any notes, but, of course, neither did Frank.

And if your life won’t wait, then your heart can’t take this….

You glanced at Frank. He waggled his eyes at you suggestively. You reddened. If he was trying to throw you off your game, he was succeeding. You told yourself sternly to focus. Then, the chorus kicked in.

Have you heard the news that you're dead?

No one ever had much nice to say

I think they never liked you anyway

Oh, take me from the hospital bed

Wouldn't it be grand? It ain't exactly what you planned

And wouldn't it be great if we were dead?

“Fuck!” you swore. You’d forgotten how fast this part was. Frank’s fingers were, of course, dancing over the “strings” with no problem. You knew you had to catch up to him.

You noticed your Star Power meter was almost full, so you waited for just the right moment.

Tongue-tied and, oh, so squeamish

You never fell in love

Did you get what you deserve?

The ending of your life

And if you get to heaven

I'll be here waiting, babe

Did you get what you deserve?

Just before the second chorus kicked in, you titled the neck of your guitar upwards, activating your Star Power. This meant you would get a quadruple bonus for whatever points you earned. You gave it your all on the chorus, and watched your score go up and up.

“Whoa!” Frank gasped, seemingly thrown off. To your surprise, he missed a note.

“Oh, man,” Mikey groaned, from his spectator spot on the couch.

It was still a pretty close match, when you got to the bridge. But, by the time you got to the outro, Frank seemed to be sweating. As Gerard’s prerecorded voice sang his final “la-la-la”s, the outcome became certain to you.

If life ain’t just a joke, then, why am I dead?

Oh, dead!

PLAYER ONE WINS!, read the screen, in bright, flashing letters. You realized, panting, that you were player one.

“I….I did it?” you gasped.

“Holy shit,” Frank gasped, dropping his controller in shock. “He actually won.”

He sank down onto the couch, like he couldn’t believe it.

“Are you….mad?” you frowned, wondering if you should have talked less trash.

“No, that was amazing!” Frank praised you. “I wasn’t expecting that at all.”

Despite your bravado, you hadn’t really been expecting to win, either. Whatever confidence you’d lost when Josh critiqued you, had been regained tenfold. Mikey gave you a slow clap.

“Well, a bet’s a bet,” Frank said finally, standing up, and walking to the other end of the bus.

“Where are you going?” you blinked.

“Getting this for you,” Frank smiled, handing you a gorgeous, white Epiphone guitar.

“Frank, you don’t have to….” you gasped.

“No, I’m a man of my word,” Frank insisted. “I’ll even help you carry it back to your bus.”

“You serious?” you asked, incredulous.

“Hey, man, you earned it,” Frank shrugged. He put the guitar in its case, and then put the case on his back. “Let’s go.”

“Thanks for hanging out with us, Y/N,” Mikey waved. “That showdown was pretty fun to watch.”

“See ya, Mikey,” you waved back. “Thanks for having me.”

You still couldn’t believe this had happened. They seemed so much cooler than you.

Frank was quiet at first, as you walked back to the Paramore bus. You felt awkward, unsure what to say to him.

“So,” he asked, “do you think that your bandmates are gonna be impressed, when they see the guitar you won?”

“I’m sure Hayley will,” you replied. “Josh….maybe not.”

“Why not?” Frank asked. “He’s the lead guitarist of your band. Wouldn’t that make him more impressed?”

“I don’t know,” you sighed. “I feel like he’s never impressed with anything I do.”

“What’s his beef with you?” Frank asked, looking annoyed on your behalf.

“I’m not sure,” you confessed. “Maybe it’s because he’s super Christian.”

“And you’re…..not Christian?” Frank guessed.

“And I’m gay,” you confessed.

“.....Oh.” Frank stopped in his tracks for a minute, seemingly taken aback by this.

Your face went red. Fuck. Maybe you shouldn’t have said that out loud.

“Do you, umm…..do you mind that?” you asked nervously.

“Pfft,” Frank scoffed. “Dude. You think I ‘mind’ gay guys? Have you missed the part, where I’ve spent half this tour, making out with Gerard, in front of thousands of people?”

“Are you and Gerard…..together?” you asked uncertainly.

“Oh, no,” Frank shook his head quickly. “I’m totally single.”

Your heart began to beat more quickly, as you noticed he said I’m single - not I’m straight. Were you reading him wrong? You wondered if you had the balls to make a move.

This is the last night of the tour, you told yourself. If I don’t say something right now, I won’t get another chance.

“Frank….”, you said, taking a deep breath, and telling yourself to man up. “I, um, I think you’re really cute.”

“Really?” Frank said, stepping closer to you. You felt the hot metal door of the bus against your back. “Y/N, I think you’re pretty cute, too.”

“Y-you do?” you breathed, your cheeks going hot as he leaned in. Was this real life? Or had the June heat made you start hallucinating?

“I do,” Frank smirked. “How about you give me my guitar back, and I give you a kiss instead?”

“Sounds like we have a deal,” you purred, and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him into a kiss hotter than the summer sun. He responded, eagerly, pressing you harder up against the door as his tongue found its way into your mouth. You moaned….

But, just then, you were launched violently forward, as the door swung open behind you. You and Frank hit the ground, as Josh came storming out of the bus.

“You guys are disgusting!” he growled.

“Dude, what’s your problem?!” Frank demanded, getting up, and brushing the dirt off his pants. He gave you his hand, and helped you up out of the grass.

“My problem is the display of perversion, that you two are putting on, in front of God and everybody!” Josh cried. “Do you have to do that in front of my bus?!”

“You think we’re perverts?” you gasped, shocked and hurt by his words.

“All gay men are perverts,” Josh sneered. “What kind of image are you setting for the band? A lot of our fans are Christian. They won’t buy our new record, if they see you behaving like this, Y/N!”

“Not every Christian is a homophobic piece of shit like you,” Frank snapped, putting himself between you and the irate guitarist.

“What did you just call me, you nancy boy?!” Josh hissed, and threw a punch in Frank’s direction.

Frank caught the punch in his hand. “I called you a piece of shit!” he repeated, before throwing a punch of his own. Unlike Josh’s, it connected, sending your homophobic bandmate down into the dirt.

“You’re gonna pay for that, Iero!” Josh yelled, wiping the blood from his nose. He tried to get up, but never made it off the ground, as Frank kicked him in the ribs.

“Frank, stop!” you cried. “That’s enough!”

“No, it’s not!” Frank said angrily. “You said it yourself, right, Y/N? This guy has been being a dick to you all summer, just because of your sexuality! That’s bullshit!”

He aimed another kick in Josh’s direction. You were surprised, how defensive Frank had become of you, despite knowing you for such a short time.

“What the hell is going on here?!” cried a familiar voice. You turned, and saw Zach approaching the bus, with Hayley close behind him.

“Hal and I leave for two seconds to go get snacks, and some asshole starts beating up my brother?!” Zach gasped.

“Josh, oh my god, are you okay?” Hayley gasped, running over to check out her boyfriend’s nosebleed.

“He’s not an asshole,” you explained. “Guys, this is Frank, from My Chemical Romance.”

“I don’t care what band he’s from,” Zach said angrily. “Why is he kicking Josh?”

“Because Josh called me a pervert,” you explained.

“A pervert?” Hayley repeated. “Why would he say something like that?”

“I said it, because this freak had his tongue down Y/N’s throat!” Josh explained.

“Wait, what?” Hayley blinked.

“We, um, yeah, we were kissing,” you admitted, embarrassed.

“You, um…..you like to kiss guys?” Zach asked awkwardly.

“Um, yeah,” you said, feeling uncomfortable. You had never come out to him. You knew he was a devout Christian, too, and had assumed he would hold the same views as his brother.

“That doesn’t make you a pervert,” Zach said, surprising you.

“But, what will the fans think?!” Josh demanded.

“Some of our fans are gay, too,” Hayley pointed out. “And there’s nothing wrong with it. I can’t believe you would call Y/N names, just for something like that.”

“Yeah, Josh, I’m really disappointed in you,” Zach frowned. You were stunned. You never expected him to take your side.

“You don’t think that what he and Frank are doing is a sin?” Josh asked.

“I think God loves everyone,” Zach said plainly. “And only He can judge Y/N. I’m not going to.”

“You guys can’t be serious!” Josh gaped.

“I’m seriously reconsidering your position in this band,” Hayley said, narrowing her eyes. “And in this relationship.”

“What? Babe….come on,” Josh pleaded. “Y-you wouldn’t dump me, and fire me, just because of this stupid fruit…..”

“Call him a fruit one more time,” Frank snarled. “See what happens, pal.”

“Frank, it’s okay,” you said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I have my band on my side now, and that makes….all the difference.”

You were touched by their support. You had stayed silent this whole time, because you didn’t think you would have it.

“Y/N, I’m sorry that my brother treated you like this,” Zach said quietly. “I want you to know, I support you, and your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you shook your head. “We just kissed for the first time today, and….”

“I could be your boyfriend,” Frank said softly. “If you want me to.”

“Wait, what?”

“Do you want me to?” Frank asked, smirking at you.

“I….I’m supposed to be going home to Tennessee soon,” you hesitated. “And you live in New Jersey, so….”

“I’m in the most famous band in the world,” Frank said smugly. “I have a private jet that can take me wherever you are.”

“......Oh,” you blushed.

“So,” Frank repeated, leaning in closer again, “do you want me to be your boyfriend, Y/N?”

“....Yes,” you breathed. “Yes, I do.”

You pulled him into another kiss, not caring that the rest of your band was watching. Or how much it pissed Josh off. The tour was ending, but your once-in-a-lifetime romance was just beginning.

#frank iero x reader #male reader #frank iero imagine #fuck Josh Farro's homophobic bitch ass #homophobia tw

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mrsalwayswrite · 4 years

Text

Say You’ll Stay - Chapter 5

Fury/Band of Brothers Crossover Fic

To those of you wondering when our beloved Easy boys are coming into play... this chapter gives a hint and as to where they are in their journey.

Also, italics means character is speaking in French.

Tag List: @happyveday @alwaysindecemberfeels @god-of-dramatic-death-scenes @saritanotserena

Series Masterlist // Next Chapter

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

Anna woke before the sun and slipped out of the cottage before anyone else was awake. Even through the lingering exhaustion that had taken up permanency in her bones, her mind was used to field hospital hours and Nurse Falk's timeliness. So in the still quiet hours, she hurried towards the church.

Although she would like to say she was surprised, she really was not to see Medic Hunter awake and checking on the few patients they had.

"Did you sleep at all, Joe?" She whispered, not wishing to disturb those still sleeping.

"Some." He shrugged, keeping his own voice low. "Figured I could get caught up once you came back. Everything alright? They treat you well."

"Yes. I even got to sleep in a real bed."

He gave a low whistle as they moved towards the back and away from the patients. "Lucky duck."

"How are they? Do we know when they will be evacuated?"

"Not yet. I'll talk to Captain Evans today. Private Harris has a low fever now, I'm worried about infection."

"I'll watch him today. Go sleep, I can handle this."

"Thanks, wake up Arthur if you need anything. The other medics are staying in the building next door." Joe said, squeezing her shoulder. Quietly, he walked towards a side door which led to a private room that they had taken over from the local priest.

With a sigh, she let down her hair and ran her fingers through it, attempting to get all the knots and tangles out. What she would give for a glorious bath. Quickly, she twisted the long strands and pulled it back into her usual bun on the back of her head.

"Nurse…" a voice croaked out in the gloom.

And with that, she went back to work.

That day flew by as she and the other medics worked tirelessly on helping their patients, especially as throughout the day, Private Harris' fever worsened. At one point she was called away to help translate for Captain Evans, conversing with the local priest once again. As night fell, her movements were weary-laden and mind sluggish but she persevered.

She knelt by Private Harris, dabbing a cool, wet cloth on his forehead when the main door opened to the church. At the moment, her patient began coughing so she paid no mind to the newcomer and focused on soothing the young man before her. She could hear quiet talking and knew one of the other medics was dealing with the newcomer.

"Nurse Cooper?"

She looked behind her. "Norman?" Standing up, her eyes scanned him with worry as he slowly approached. "Are you alright? Are you injured?"

"No, no. Um, Boyd sent me… and well Don too. They are finishing up and said to meet them back at the house."

"Oh? Well, let me… do you mind waiting a couple minutes? I need to tell Joe, see if there is anything else I need to do first."

He smiled that endearing boyish grin, so full of sweet innocence even amidst a bloody war. "I'll wait by the door."

"Thank you." She watched him walk away and then headed to where Joe sipped some water, leaning against a table covered in medical supplies.

"Heading out?"

She nodded, hands fiddling with her uniform. "Anything else I can do first?"

He shook his head. "No, get outta here. An aid truck is coming tomorrow to pick up the wounded. Rumor is we're heading out early tomorrow for the next town."

She sighed. She should not be surprised but for some reason it still caught her off guard how quickly they would just up and move, leave the wounded and killed and move on. Only to repeat the process all over again. This was war. Something she had to frequently remind herself. She still hated it.

"Ok, I'll be here to help load the wounded." She started towards the main door but turned on her heel to look at Joe again. "And don't forget to write to your wife. You can send the letter with the medics. Nurse Falk would forward it."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't you forget to write too."

She smiled and met Norman at the door. Together they headed out, down the steps of the church and towards the cottage they had stayed at the night before.

After a couple of minutes, she broke the silence between them. The question had been dwelling in the back of her mind. He looked so much younger than the others. "How old are you, Norman?"

"Eighteen."

"And how did you end up on Fury? Did you go to tank school?"

He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. "No. I was supposed to be a clerk, a typist. That's what I went to school for."

"Oh! How did…."

"They lost their bow gunner. The army pulled me off the bus and told me to report to Don."

"I'm sorry. I'm guessing it wasn't easy."

"No, no it wasn't. At first I hated them, especially Don. He made me sh… well, it doesn't matter now."

"What?" Curiosity tugged at her as she glanced at the young soldier by her side.

He inhaled sharply then the words poured out like water, begging to be released. "He forced me to shoot a Nazi in the back. Wrapped my hand around the gun and forced me to pull the trigger. Said he was teaching me to do my job. I never wanted this. I didn't want to kill people. I was drafted. I just…" he seemed to suddenly realize all he confessed and slammed his mouth shut.

She stopped walking on the side of the street, ignoring the other soldiers and locals. Her heart broke for this young man who had been thrust into a situation he never wanted to be in, who was forced to do things he had never imagined for himself. How true was that for most of the other soldiers she interacted with daily.

"Norman, my mother always said that a hug can't take away the pain but it can help remind you that you're not alone. So, can I give you a hug?"

That seemed to startle him. His eyes widened, mouth opened slightly as he froze, standing next to her. Hesitantly he looked around before finally meeting her eyes. She could see it behind the surprise in his gaze, that raw vulnerability, the desperate need for physical contact that was more than a slap on the back from a crew member.

"Oh, come here." She took the initiative, not waiting for a verbal response, and wrapped her arms around him. After an awkward second, he put his arms around her, returning the hug. She was only a couple inches shorter than him, but the way he clung to her, it felt like a child clinging to an older sibling for comfort. The feeling brought tears to her eyes. It had been some time since she gave or received a hug like this and she may have selfishly held him longer than necessary. A couple moments later, they released one another. Norman took a step back and rubbed the back of his neck once again.

"See, that wasn't bad."

His cheeks turned pink at her comment but he nodded his head, a small smile on his face.

They finished walking to the cottage in companionable silence. She wrapped her arms around herself, the night's air sleeping through her few layers to bring a chill to her bones. The worst of winter might be over but it was by no means warm yet. Or at least warm enough for her taste.

On the street, it was obvious a war was going on. Between the soldiers and tanks, the random splattering of blood from dead men that waited to be washed away with the next rain, it could not be mistaken for anything else. Inside the cottage, it felt like the eye of a hurricane or an oasis in the desert. Everything was still pristine, clean and orderly. Black and white photos on the walls, cushioned chairs, a basket for knitting in the corner of the room, a small stack of books on a side table. It was odd walking into such a domestic scene after seeing the evidence of war just outside.

"Odette!" She called out in French after she and Norman walked into the cottage and headed towards the kitchen. "It smells like heaven in here!"

"Anna, dear, you are too good to this old woman." The elderly woman chuckled, stirring a large pot over the stove. Even though her hair was gray, wrinkles around her eyes and mouth and she shuffled when she walked, her mind and tongue were sharp as a tack still. "The cassoulet is all done, just keeping it warm for the young men."

"They should be here soon I believe."

"Why don't you go sit down until then? Mmm, you must be exhausted, I tell you nurses never are able to put up their feet for a minute. Was the same with the last war and now this one."

"Yes ma'am, you let me know if there is something I can do." Anna let her hair down, massaging the back of her neck, hoping to relieve the tension slowly building up there. She could hear the door open and headed back out to the common room to let them know dinner was ready.

When she came around the corner, Norman was sitting down near the fireplace with a book in his lap. Instead of the rest of the crew it was just Gordo and Grady making their way in. Gordo dropped down onto a different chair, immediately putting his feet up on an adjacent chair, uncaring of the mud his boots trekked in.

Grady's eyes landed on her, the weight of them making her freeze. "Looky whose still here, boys!" He barked a rough laugh that made her wince.

"Leave her alone." Norman said.

"Leave her alone." Grady mimicked at Norman before sweeping his eyes back to her. "You sucking his cock too, just like Boyd's?"

"Wha… what?" She stuttered out but he did not seem to really expect an answer.

He prowled towards her, each footstep landing loudly in the cottage. "Not gonna share with the rest of us? Huh? Just them pretty boys?"

The way his eyes raked over her made her shiver but not in a good way. She backed up a few steps but found herself bumping into the edge of the doorway.

"Grady!" Norman rose to his feet, book still in hand. Gordo just sat there watching the drama unfold before him, fiddling with the gold chain necklace he wore.

Grady turned to face the younger man, pointing a finger. "You stay outta this."

When his back was turned, Anna reached under her uniform dress and pulled out the combat knife Don had given her back at the field hospital, what felt like ages ago. She had hoped she would never have to use it… especially against one of his own crew. She held the knife just in front of her at chest level. Surprisingly her hand was steady, even if the rest of her felt like she was trembling.

"Ohhh, better watch out. Kitty's got claws." Gordo teased, still making no move to get involved.

Grady turned back to her and seeing the knife, his smile grew. "What you gonna do, little girl? Gonna stab me? Huh? That's it?"

She said nothing, just watched and waited. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Odette watching, frail hands gripping her apron until her knuckles were white.

Grady took one more step closer, almost as if waiting to see what she would do; like a predator toying with its prey one last time before pouncing.

The front door opened; boots sounded on the hard floor. Anna and Grady's eyes remained locked even as the tension in the room increased with the new occupants witnessing the scene before them.

"Someone want to explain what the fuck is going on?" Sergeant Collier stated, anger bubbling just under the surface of his cool tone.

Grady retreated back a step, turning to face his commanding officer. "Nothin', Don. Just having some fun."

"Fun, huh? Then why's she got a goddamn knife out?"

"Anna…" Boyd started to walk towards her.

Before he could reach her, Odette shuffled in and wrapped an arm around Anna's shoulders, glaring at the men in the room. "Come on, dear."

Without a word, she tore her eyes away from Grady and followed their hostess down the short hallway to the guest bedroom she had stayed in the previous night. The whole time she kept the knife in hand. Soon as they walked away, she could hear the raised voices coming from the common room.

"What's the problem?! She's just some girl." Grady spoke first, an almost laugh to his voice as if this was all some joke.

"She's not some girl. She's a goddamn nurse! Show some respect."

"Oh? She sucking your cock too, huh, Don?"

"Get out!" Don yelled. "If you're gonna act like a dog then I'll treat you like one and you can sleep outside."

"You're gonna choose that bitch over your own crew?"

"Get the fuck out or so help me God I will shoot you right now and sleep like a baby tonight!"

Silence… then the front door opened and slammed shut, rattling even the painting on the wall in the far back guest room.

Anna dropped the knife on the ground and placed the hand over her mouth, the first hot tear rolling down her cheek. It had been a mistake coming here. She should have stayed at the church with Joe. Even then, she knew she was not fully safe. She should have stayed back at the field hospital, back with the other nurses who looked out for each other. She should have stayed home and never signed up for the Nurse Corps.

A knock on the bedroom door jolted her, making her flinch. Odette looked at her, arm still around her shoulders.

"Anna?"

The elderly lady made no move towards the door. Silently she continued to stare at Anna but raised an eyebrow in question. The nurse nodded, not looking up from her hands laying limply in her lap. As Odette walked the couple steps to the closed bedroom door, Anna tried to brush away the evidence of her tears on her dirty sleeves, wondering when all those tears escaped.

Boyd stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets. "May I come in?"

She looked up, holding his gaze for a moment, then nodded and glanced at Odette. "Thank you."

"If you need me, I am just a call away." She shuffled back down the hallway, giving Boyd a long look before disappearing.

"I'm so sorry, Anna." He finally said, sounding far more weary than she had ever heard from him. He had only stepped into the room but made no further movement. "I told you you'd be safe here and then Grady…"

"It's not your fault, Boyd." She said after his words drifted off. Her eyes dropped back to her lap, hands picking at her fingernails.

"Feels like it. I should have come get you instead of Norman. Shit. I reckon you want to head back to the church instead of staying here? Can't really blame you there if you do."

"I don't know honestly. Nowhere is safe for me."

"Well if it helps, Don kicked Grady out, though I assume you heard that. So, if you stay, you'll be safe here tonight. Don won't let nothing happen to you. Me neither. I suspect Norman feels the same way. He looked like he was ready to take a swing at Grady himself." When she did not respond, he finally moved to sit next to her on the bed. "Grady, he… war changes folks in ways they'd never guess."

"I know."

They sat in silence for several moments.

Boyd reached down and picked the knife off the floor near her feet where she had dropped it. "Did Don give you this?"

"Mmm? Yeah." She gingerly took it back from him then narrowed her eyes at his smug look. "Why?"

He shrugged, looking like the cat that caught the canary. "Nothin'."

Her eyes drifted to his hands again and noticed the bandage wrapped around his hand. Guilt flooded her at the sight. Her day felt so chaotic, she had completely forgotten to check his laceration. "I'm sorry, I haven't checked your hand today."

"S'fine. Gordo rebandaged it for me this mornin'. You can look at it tomorrow. Sides, ain't that bad no more. You got worse patients I reckon back at the church."

"Still… I want to make sure you're alright."

"Thank you, Anna. Tomorrow, you can." He stood up and turned sideways to look down at her. "You wanna come out and eat?"

"No… I'm not hungry. I'm… I'm just going to go to sleep."

"Alright. Good night, Anna. You make sure to eat in the mornin' then. You need to eat regularly."

"I will. Good night, Boyd."

Soon as he shut the door behind him, she curled up on the bed. She laid there for some time, allowing the stray tears to finally fall, no longer strong enough to keep containing them. She was thankful no one interrupted and they just allowed her peace. The stillness in the room felt like a haven. She could hear the others occasionally but there was no longer shouting.

Normally she would fall asleep but right now her emotions were rolling, keeping her from relaxing. Carefully she slid to the side of the bed and grabbed her personal bag. After a minute she pulled out her worn copy of Pride and Prejudice. She smiled faintly thinking about the many nights her mother would read it to her before tucking her in for bed. Then when she got older, it became her favorite book to read over and over to herself. It was one of only a few possessions she still had that traveled with her from home. She cracked it open to where her bookmark was. For a second, she traced her finger over the beloved words, pretending she was home in her bedroom and the only things she had to worry about were her university applications. She lay curled on her side, allowing the words to drift over her skin and mind, a soothing balm for her nerves.

Once it became too dark to make out the words, she closed the book and replaced it in her bag. Slowly she sat up, rubbing her eyes. The house had been quiet for some time now. She guessed by this point everyone was asleep. Slipping off the bed, she headed out of the bedroom door. Although she was still not hungry, her throat felt parched. Between the crying and many hours of reading, it had been far too long since she had a drink. Carefully she moved towards the kitchen. She could make out the forms of Norman sleeping on the floor and Gordo on a chair, head tilted back and snoring.

Using the pitcher left on the counter, she filled a cup up with the water and drank it. It immediately soothed her throat and she sipped more slowly on a second glass. She stared outside the window above the sink, a full moon shone through. Suddenly the strong urge to bask in its light filled her and she acted on instinct. She set the cup down and swiftly moved towards the back door, opening it as quietly as she could as to not wake the cottage's sleeping occupants.

The full moon shone brightly in the cloudless sky, the stars twinkling alongside it like thousands of diamonds in the sky. War could ravage the earth until all that remained was smoke and barren ground, but it could never touch the heavens. There was something comforting about that fact. The beauty and majesty of the heavens could never be tainted by human hands.

She stood there, arms crossed over her chest in an attempt to ward off the chill of the night air as she looked upward. A gentle breeze made her hair, still unbound, sway around her.

It was not until the smell of cigarette smoke hit her, did she pay any attention to her surroundings. With a gasp, she scanned the immediate area and finally noticed a tall form standing just a few feet away, the burning end of a cigarette almost a beacon in the surrounding darkness.

"Oh! I didn't think anyone else would be out here. I'm so sorry to interrupt."

"S'alright." Sergeant Collier said, still more of a hidden shadow than recognizable form. "Didn't mean to startle you."

"It's my own fault. I should have paid better attention." She looked back up skyward, lamenting the fact she should head back in and try to get some sleep before tomorrow.

"I'm sorry about earlier." He stated bluntly. "It won't happen again. I swear."

"Thank you." She whispered, twisting her fingers together, trying to force back the wave of nervousness. "Um, can I …" she gestured towards him.

Somehow, he understood her vague gesture. He pushed off the wood pile he had been leaning against and came to stand next to her. Silently, he handed his cigarette over. She could feel his eyes on her as she put it to her lips and inhaled. Immediately she began coughing, eyes watering, as the smoke stung her lungs.

He chuckled as she handed the cigarette back. "Not a smoker?"

"No." She coughed out. "No, I've tried but I can never get used to it."

"Probably better for you." He exhaled, the smoke drifting away and into the sky.

They stood there silently, side by side. Anna could not help but notice how much taller he was than her. He had to be around six feet tall with her only coming up to him mid-chest. In the moonlight, his strong features appeared softer, less intimidating.

Though the memory of Norman's story from earlier came to mind. How this man next to her forced his newest crew member, someone who was still practically a child, to kill a Nazi point-blank in the back. That fact alone should scare her. The inhumanity of it. But then she was reminded of how he defended her earlier from someone else in his crew. Even how he looked out for her by giving her a knife when he barely knew her. It made no sense. Why was he looking out for her? She was no one to him. Her mind struggled to put the two facets of the man together in her mind.

"You going to be out here much longer?" He broke the silence, still staring forward.

"Um, maybe a few more minutes."

He nodded, tossing his spent cigarette to the ground. To her surprise, he slipped his leather jacket off and dropped it over her shoulders.

"What? Oh no, it’s-"

"Doll, I can see you shivering. You can give it back in the morning."

She huffed but could not suppress the small smile on her face, almost amused how easily he saw through her blatant lie. It was chilly out here but peaceful, and she needed some more of the quiet tranquility before going back inside. "Thank you, Sergeant Collier."

"You can call me Don."

"Then you have to call me Anna."

His lips twitched in what she thought was a smile, but she was unsure with the shadows. "Alright. Night, Anna." He turned and stepped inside, the door shutting with a soft click.

It was a long moment before she turned back around to stare up at the sky. She slipped her arms in the sleeves, hugging the jacket closer to her, surprised by how warm it was. It smelled strongly of cigarettes, sweat and something distinctly male. The stench should offend her, she doubted it had been washed anytime recently, but instead she found herself burying her nose into it. It was huge on her shorter form, but it brought a feeling of comfort, like when a child wears something of their parent's clothing, pretending to be grown up.

He was an enigma to her. Someone she knew was dangerous but protectively loyal. What scared her the most though was when he called her the pet name, it woke up a swarm of butterflies in her belly.

*****

The sunrise just peeked over the wooded horizon. Another day of war. Another day to try and survive. Another day to hope your crew survived. Another day to wonder why the Nazis did not just give up.

Fuck 'em all.

Don brushed past the infantry soldiers running around, trying to find their platoons or looking last minute for one of their guys probably off sleeping somewhere. He headed towards where the tanks were waiting on the edge of the little town.

"What's the news, boss?" Binkowski asked, as Don approached the other three tank commanders. They stood several paces away from the tanks, clearly having been waiting for him to return with orders.

"Right. We're heading out…"

"No shit." The big blond deadpanned. The others glared at him. "What?"

"One of these days, I'm going to shoot you." Don stated, only half-serious. He found he enjoyed the blond's dry humor. Binkowski was also the man to jump first into a fight, which either made him quite brave or incredibly stupid. Don had not determined which quality it was yet.

"Nah, you'd miss me too much."

"Like a hole in the head." Davis muttered, a frown on his ever-stoic face.

They all chuckled but then grew serious again when Don started speaking.

"Right. Intel says Krauts are drawing back into Germany. We've been requested by a battalion of paratroops to help them hold the area near Haguenau, so that's where we are headed, boys. Captain Evans and his boys will continue on past and link up with another company set to push into Germany."

"Paratroopers?" Peterson questioned, dropping his cigarette on the ground.

"Yeah, those idiots that decided to jump out of plans, go behind enemy lines, all that shit." Binkowski explained, with a short bark of sarcastic laughter. "Must think they're something special."

"Why don't you ask them when we get there?"

"Alright, here's the lineup- Fury, Murder Inc, Lucy Sue and Old Phyliss. Evans wants us in the front so we can peel off when we reach the main road to Haguenau. Should take a couple of days to get there." Don said.

The other three nodded or grunted their affirmative.

"Good, mount up!"

Everyone headed to their tanks, crew jumping into their positions and turning on their comms. Don headed to Fury but slowed his steps when he saw Grady standing in front of the tank with Boyd by his side. Gordo and Norman had their heads popped out of their holes watching.

With a sigh, he moved closer. He knew Boyd would not let this go. In all honesty, it was probably better to get this dealt with now instead of letting it fester like an infected wound. His crew did not need bad blood between one another. They would never survive if they did not trust each other. Grady refused to meet his gaze as Don stood in front of his gunner and mechanic.

"She's not some whore you can rough up. She's a good girl."

Grady rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. "I know, Don. I didn't mean nothin' by it."

"You still scared her good." Boyd said quietly, hands in his pockets. "Should apologize to her."

Grady nodded, staring at his feet.

"You better or I'll kick your ass."

The mechanic looked up at the gunner, a smirk on his face. "Kick my ass, huh? You sweet on her or something?"

Boyd rolled his eyes. "No, I ain't, and you know it. She reminds me of my little sister."

Gordo chirped up, chuckling in his seat. "She's too pretty to look like your little sister, if your sister looks anything like you."

"Shut up, Gordo."

The crew clambered up into their positions, the tension dispelled.

Don stood on his seat, surveying around. The slight shifting of movement brought a fresh wave of scent that was not his own. Somehow underneath the grime, there was the faintest hint of something that reminded him of lilacs. Turning his head, he sniffed at the collar of his jacket and was hit by the scent once again. It had been the most pleasurable torture since he put the jacket on that morning. He had found it resting on the back of one of the chairs in the common room when he stumbled out of the second guest bedroom.

The scent brought him back to the prior night and watching the little, redheaded nurse staring at the night sky with a soft smile on her face. Bathed in the moonlight she looked like an angel to him. After he had gone inside, he had stood at the sink, looking out the window above it for a couple minutes watching her. Alone, he allowed a smile on his face when he noticed her burying herself in his jacket. It had been a spur of the moment decision to give her his jacket and now he was wondering if he regretted the action or loved it. Her scent lingered with him, just like her.

He looked around once more, most of the men in position. He could not help but look towards the back of the company where the medic truck was located. Where she was.

#Fury movie #fury 2014 #fury fanfic #band of brothers #Band of Brothers fandom #band of brothers fanfic #band of brothers imagine #Don Collier #Don Wardaddy Collier #don collier x OFC #boyd swan #boyd bible swan #Norman Machine Ellison #Trini Gordo Garcia #Grady Coon-Ass Travis #world war 2 #ww2 #mzwrites

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crimson-snowfall · 4 years

Text

[Birthday Fic, NSFW] Fiery

Hello everyone, so I wasn’t really planning on writing a birthday fic for Leonardo since I’m not that much of Leo stan, but since @mikotomizuki asked me for a Leo smangst (lol kinda hard to resist this hoe) and I just so happened to be in the mood when she asked me... this happened. I told her it’s just gonna be short since it was totally unplanned so I don’t know how the fuck I ended up writing ~1.8k words (which is definitely longer than my average fics)

Genre: Smangst (Smut + Angst)

Word Count: 1840

Warnings/Tags: profanity, a little bit of femdom i guess, choking, nipple stimulation, rough sex, vaginal sex, 3rd person POV

It had been a few decades since Leonardo moved out of Le Comte's mansion, and the main reason behind this sudden decision is currently pinning him down on the floor, pressing the blunt edge of a dagger against his neck. The woman wore a devilish grin as she straddled him beneath her, on the other hand the pureblood in question simply had a rather entertained smile on his lips.

"Feisty as ever, I see." Leonardo knocked the dagger of Arthemis' hands, earning himself a look of absolute displeasure.

"Yeah, and you're as bland as ever," Artemis sneered as she reached for the memento of her days as a vampire hunter, sheathing it back on its holster, before finishing off with what Leonardo has come to consider the woman's choice of endearment for him, "...you filthy pureblood."

Artemis got off of him, slamming the door on his face before he could even get on his feet. He found her lounging comfortably on the couch when he came in, but just as when he was about to take the vacant spot next to her, she laid down and deliberately took up as much space as her little form could cover. Leonardo chuckled in amusement before settling down on the armrest on one end of the couch.

"You know cara mia, I wouldn't mind getting a welcome home kiss every now and then." Naturally, his suggestion was met with immediate repudiation.

"Never. Also, watch those hands or I'll cut them off," Artemis growled, and Leonardo's hands just momentarily paused in their tracks. After briefly gauging her mood, his hands promptly resumed their northbound expedition, his calloused fingers ticklish against her soft legs.

His grumpy lover glared daggers at him, and just as when his prying hands were about to reach her thighs, she reluctantly readjusted herself on the couch. Leonardo wasted no time occupying the now vacant spot, before draping his arms over her shoulder, pulling her closer to him.

"Tch. Ridiculous how you ask me why I keep calling you a filthy pureblood when you always play dirty." She may be stiff in his embrace, but at least she wasn't downright turning him away.

"I haven't seen you in a week, cara mia. How is wanting a little bit of your love and attention considered playing dirty?"

Artemis rolled her eyes. "Yeah. A week. Immortality must be really tough. Too bad not even we vampire hunters could put an end to your eternal thirst."

Leonardo leaned down to press a kiss on his grumpy lover's cheeks. "Well, I do agree with you that it's rather unfortunate. However, I don't think I'll ever want to have any blood other than yours, and you know what? Maybe I can die too."

This time, Artemis gave her an incredulous look while wiping the spot on her cheeks that he had just kissed. "You know what? I hate you. You've got guts implying you can die when even the most surefire extermination methods don’t work on you.”

Leonardo simply shrugged off her tirade, before capturing her lips in a devouring kiss. She hates him, she says, but if anything, it didn't really take long for it to be evident that she probably didn't mean a single thing she said with how decisively she turned the tides as their tongues battled for dominance. The forsaken vampire hunter has always been a good kisser– probably the only woman in existence that can leave Leonardo gasping for his breath.

The fact that the vampire hunters sent her after him was likely their way of forcing her into her retirement. The average lifespan of a vampire hunter lasts for a couple of centuries, and Artemis has lived way past her retirement age. So one day, the vampire hunters gave her an impossible mission: to discover the method on how purebloods can be exterminated, and should she fail to bring the corpse of one in the span of a year, then she is to lose her honor as a vampire hunter and exit the extermination scene.

There are still times when Leonardo genuinely wonders if Artemis is still holding his 'non-killability' against him, when he would gladly drop dead for her if that's what would make her happy. Sure, it may not be fair on him, but when has he ever cared about those kinds of things? Besides, nothing can be more unfair than being subject to the cruel fate of being unable to die.

Leonardo's hands had found their way to massage Artemis' inner thigh as she busied herself suffocating him with the ferocity of their kiss. Unfortunately, before he could even make an attempt to venture deeper, he found himself once again pinned down, only this time against the couch and not on their doorstep.

"Hey bloodsucker," Artemis arrogantly called him out, "do you want me to love you?" Or so she asks, but with how fast the buttons on his shirt is flying off, Leonardo just knew that the question was purely rhetorical.

"Yes," Leo purred out, "love me into oblivion, cara mia."

"As you wish, my filthy pureblood." Perhaps it's the natural athleticism of vampire hunters, but it never fails to amaze Leonardo just how fast Artemis could strip both of them of their clothes.

Rubbing her wetness against his massive length, she began lapping up every inch of skin on his torso, leaving behind a trail of love marks where she felt like it. She'd always loved giving his nipples the special attention it craves, and this time was no different– she flicked it over and over again with her little tongue while staring him down, satisfying the remnants of her predatory nature with the vulnerable look on her pureblood's face.

"Are you trying to milk me, cara mia?" Leo asked breathlessly as he reached out to set aside stray locks of her hair away from her face, before traveling down to seize her breasts, twirling her nipples in reciprocation of her gesture.

"Just shut up and enjoy it." With those words, Leonardo felt his cock slide up into Artemis' dripping wet core, a gasp of pleasure escaping her lips as it stretched her insides. Her hands slowly made their way to perfectly curl around his neck as she rode him out, sending him into a distinctive haze of pleasure.

"Fuck," Leonardo groaned as he watched his cock fuck her sweet pussy, "you're as tight as ever, cara mia." Leonardo squeezed her ass in his enrapturement, and the hands wrapped around his neck tightened their old on him in response.

"And you're as lewd and as filthy as ever," Artemis mewled out as she devoured every bit of Leonardo's salacious expression, increasing her pace with each groan of pleasure ripping through the pureblood's throat.

Her pace morphed into a frenzied one in no time, and she kept on wildly bouncing up and down his deliciously massive cock until she was completely taken over by the violent waves of her throbbing orgasm, her body convulsing as she soaked him with her sweet release.

Leonardo didn't gave her any chance to fall limp on top of him however, and in the blink of an eye Artemis was on her knees as her lover viciously pounded her from behind. Curses immediately filled the room as she lashed out on him over her loss of control, and smashing his lover until all the curses were replaced by nothing but his name has become Leonardo's greatest self-indulgence in the recent decades.

Being the prideful woman she is, she doesn't give in so easily, and that's exactly what makes it even more satisfying for Leonardo. The pureblood would've made her orgasm several times and she would've been a disheveled mess by the time she can no longer resist the urge to scream out his name, chanting it over and over again as though it were some prayer.

"Leonardo, please...!"

"Please what, cara mia?" Leonardo asked with a triumphant smirk as he slowly pulled out, before thrusting all the way back in with a ferocious intensity, his name escaping her lips once more in a lewd moan.

"F-fill me up, Leonardo. I want y-your filthy pureblood c-cum inside me," she cried out desperately, saying it just loud enough as to not have him make her repeat those words again.

"Now that's a good girl," Leonardo leaned forward to kiss her roughly, and complying with her wishes, he finally stopped holding back. He fucked her with with an unforgiving intensity until his hot, white release filled her up as they came together, before his body came crashing down on her.

Once she has recovered from their orgasm, she began complaining over his weight on her. "Hey bloodsucker, are you trying to kill me? You're crushing me down here."

With a low chuckle, Leonardo turned them over so that she's resting her head on top of his chest. "Better?"

"No," she denies even as she snuggles closer up against him, one hand pulling hardly on his cheeks, "you're an old geezer and you stink like one."

"Really now," Leonardo took her hand and began licking her wrists, not taking his eyes off of hers as his tongue trailed over her pulse, as though waiting for her permission.

"Just do it, really," she averted her eyes to hide her embarrassment and bit back the sound that threatened to escape her lips as he bit her down, the pleasure washing over her more than enough proof for her that she could no longer return to being a vampire hunter even if she wanted to.

After having his fill of her, Leonardo pulled her up for a loving kiss– the only one of its kind that she would always return with the slightest hints of the love she would never admit.

"I love you, cara mia," Leonardo whispered softly as his golden eyes betrayed just how much he had been longing to hear her give voice to the feelings he's certain that existed as well– but Artemis never would.

For in the same way her blood could not kill him, his bite could not turn her into a vampire– and despite their longevity, the lifespan of even the most resilient vampire hunter remains much shorter of that an average lesser vampire.

So Artemis would rather take those feelings to her grave than bind Leonardo's poor undying self with words of love.

"Too bad I'm way above mistaking my debauched, carnal desires for mushy feelings of love, my filthy pureblood," Artemis lied with a weary smile as her exhaustion finally took a toll on her, and it didn't really take much time for her to doze off peacefully on his chest.

Leonardo watched her with lonely smile on his face, combing his fingers through her messy hair, "Then I'll try my best not to yearn for those words," he murmured before allowing the comforting embrace of sleep to take him to the land of dreams.

And in his dreams, his beloved Artemis would openly profess her love for him.

#ikemen vampire #ikevamp #ikemen series #ikevamp leo #ikevamp leonardo #ikemen vampire leonardo #ikevamp fanfic #ikemen vampire fanfic #ikemen fanfic #ikevamp fanfiction #ikemen vampire fanfiction #ikemen fanficition #birthday fic

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ardentprose · 5 years

Text

Rain and Ramen

Jimin x Reader

Genre: Domestic Fluff, Slight Angst

Warnings: mentions of sex

Song: Any rain lo-fi mix on youtube like this one

The water hisses as square-shaped noodles are dropped into the depths of the pot, submerging quickly beneath the bubbles. Jimin tears another package open and peels away the plastic wrapping, tossing it in the general direction of the overflowing trash bin. After deciding there was enough boiling noodles for the two of you, he reaches over to the pitiful portion of counter space tucked between the wall and gas stove top. He picks up a cheap all-in-one spice container and with a flick of his wrist adds a few dashes, licking his thumb at the end.

Across the room you lie against the peeling wallpaper decorated with posters collected from various soon-to-be and never-to-be-known artists alike framing your head and shoulders. Jimin could not understand why you insisted on getting the signatures of each and every musician after their set no matter how late you were forced to stay. You tell him if they ever became famous you could sell them on e-bay to pay next month’s rent.

What if they never go anywhere? He would ask holding on to the pole above your hand, chest pressed to your back, as you took the train home.

Then at least we made them feel like they would. You always respond earning an endearing kiss on the forehead from your husband.

You flip a page in your book, coming to the end of the chapter. You squint under the lamp light that has now become more apparent than what your two windows could offer in the wake of a raging night thunderstorm. Heeding your mother’s warning as a child to never read in the dark, you close the book and roll your neck.

Your eyes naturally find your husband, shirtless at the stove a mere twenty feet in front of you. The muscles in his shoulders contract as he tends to dinner, at times stretching so that the ligaments that define his back accentuate his spine. A pair of dimples right above the waistline of his sweatpants - the same ones he’s worn since college - wink at you from time to time. It never fails to draw a smile to your face, even if Jimin swears to you to just wait another month and he’ll get rid of the love handles.

“These are not love handles, Jimin! You’re skinnier than I am. And even if they were, I’d love you all the same.” You would tell him as your fingertips trace the soft skin peeking between his tee and boxers.

“They are though and I would be fine if I could just get rid of them. How will I scare other men away if I look like the chubby side kick rather than the dashing, strong hero?”

He always pouts and even in the dark you know his cheeks are as round as the dumplings you splurge on every weekend. But telling him you want to bite said cheeks like the delectable side dish would be asking him to take it the wrong way.

So you would resort to loving his body the best way you knew how. By using your wandering fingertips to push his hips over, swinging your leg over his at the same time. With his back pressed into the mattress, he has no where to run, no where to look but up at you. You have his full attention now instead of his self-deprecating thoughts.

Instinctively he lays his palms on your hips. Your hands rest over them.

“Feel these? These are real love handles, Jiminie. You are more than ten pounds away from having them.”

He would pinch your skin, finally seeing your way of things as you talked yourself down the way he did, relenting to your unconditional love and the way your hips roll over his. And every flaw, perceived or real, would be kissed and held and adored as love blossomed between your unified bodies and locked lips.

Jimin turns the stove off as the first thunder clap erupts. The tall narrow window that spared your humble one-room apartment some few hours of daylight rattles with the vibrations of the building. On cue, rain assaults the glass with such ferocity Jimin pauses his actions as you draw your eyes from his body to the sky.

“I really hope the glue holds.” Jimin mutters as he runs his fingertips along the crease of the window frame. Last time, water collected in the bricks of your old building and caused water damage that your landlord found all too easy to pin on you.

“Grab a hand towel to be safe and stuff it in the corners.” You suggest. Jimin hums and takes a spare one to do just that.

As night arrives in full, the room is cast in a yellow haze offered by the odd lamps you two had found at the nearest thrift shop. That was what made up most of your apartment. A unique arrangement of cheap but practical furniture, not one item matching another. Maybe once upon a time in high school you had created a dozen Pinterest boards of your aesthetically pleasing home. But now, in reality, you had grown to love the story of the life you and Jimin had created together in this hole-in-the-wall home.

“Chopsticks or fork?” Jimin’s soft voice, subdued with a long day’s fatigue, breaks your constant reminiscing. You spot him holding a bowl in hand, the other resting in the single drawer holding plastic take out utensils available.

“Chopsticks.” You answer, pulling your legs from the tangle of blanket and sheets they had become intertwined with, resetting the bed that acted as the main function of your home.

He rolls his eyes. “You don’t know how to use chopsticks.”

“I do too! And if that was true, then why did you ask me?” You retort, playing along to the nightly argument so routine it felt like saying prayer before dinner.

“Because if I don’t you’ll get mad at me for assuming you wanted a fork.” Jimin scoffs, grabbing two pairs of chopsticks despite his own opinion.

“I do not-”

“Or you’ll just steal mine so you can prove to me how much of a mess you make.”

You grin unabashedly but do your best to look horrified by his accusation.

“You’re lucky I love you, Park Jimin.” You accept the bowl and the kiss he leaves on your lips.

“You’re the lucky one.” Jimin yelps at the swat to his butt as he returns to the stove for his own serving.

You set up your laptop, signing in and opening Netflix to find the TV show Jimin and you binged every night like a true married couple. There weren’t many things you guys could afford, but having the small luxury of escaping reality and daydream of another life with the one you love was a price you were willing to subtract for a sense of sanity. In this case, however, it was daydreaming an affordable home in the suburbs. As such, you were in the middle of season two of House Hunters.

Once everything is settled, Jimin sits crossed-leg beside you, his knee brushing yours and thigh keeping your skin warm. As always, you exchange comments between slurps of noodles, sometimes agreeing and other times arguing over the characters’ choices in the story.

During such an argument you go in for a mouthful of noodles without paying attention. What little noodles you manage to grab splash onto your legs, leaving yellow residue and the sting of failure on your skin.

“Jimin…” You stare at the screen ahead of you, not giving him the satisfaction of seeing your guilty expression.

“‘Ere you go, baby.” He pulls out a fork from seemingly no where and having to spare a glance at him to take it, you see he’s doing his best not to smirk but failing triumphantly.

“I ate half my bowl!” You protest as he reaches over with a napkin again from thin air to wipe down your legs as you hold the bowl over his head. ‘I told you so’ glitters in his eyes as clear as day. But being the sweetheart he is, he says nothing. Even if his shoulders shake with internal laughter. He leaves a kiss on your thigh and tosses away the napkin. Then shovels another pile of ramen between his swollen lips.

The rain grows steady, causing you to turn up the volume on your laptop. Finished with his bowl, Jimin sets it on the nightstand and maneuvers your body against him, careful of your hot soup but wrapped up in you all the same. His breath smells heavily of ramen, hot against your neck, but you have no desire to move him, indulging in his mouth leaving little affectionate sucks and kisses from time to time.

As you finish your bowl he takes it for you, setting it with his to be washed later. He turns your chin for another kiss, hands falling to your stomach to rest comfortably. Your hands settle over his, picking at the hangnails on each finger nail. Then tracing the wedding band that clicks against yours every so often.

The episode ends and the rain has quieted to a steady hum. The paper thin walls of your apartment remain standing, although the edges of the wood paneling round your window frame look a bit warped.

“It’ll dry.” Jimin says against your temple, knowing you worry about the landlord finding any and every reason to accuse you of damages in order to take what little savings Jimin and you had saved since graduating college.

“I hope so.”

“You know so.” He squeezes you making you grunt in warning from a full belly. Jimin releases your body and rolls out of bed, ignoring your whines so he can set the dishes in the sink.

You put the laptop away and spread-eagle out on the bed as Jimin turns out each lamp around the room before stepping into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

“Babe, come brush your teeth!” He mumbles with a mouth full of toothpaste.

“No, I’ll do it in the morning.” you whine, rolling under the covers.

You hear Jimin spit into the sink and rinse it down. Shutting off the light he returns, joining you under the covers.

“You’re gross.” He states. You hum, wiggling closer to him and finding your favorite place, face tucked into his neck and leg slotted between his heated thighs. Warm palms resiliently soft after years of blue collar jobs run down your shirt - well, really his shirt from work today - and back up against your skin. Goosebumps dance down your spine and a shiver pushes you closer into Jimin’s heat. He unclips your bra and convinces you to sit up long enough to slide it off. He’s more concerned than you are about the rumors of bra-sleeping health issues but you’re just thankful to breathe easier without it.

You hum a thanks, offering your lips in a goodnight kiss which he takes no matter what he says. Your hands run up and down his chest, one settling between your heartbeats, the other drapes over his neck. The blanket shifts as he adjusts to a better position and sighs.

The steady beat of rain offers a lullaby and you fall asleep in no time. Jimin can feel the steady exhale of warmth against his pectoral. Even if he wakes up in the morning with drool dried down to his stomach, he doesn’t care, pulling you all the more closer as he plays with the ends of your hair. It helps him fall asleep, twirling it around his fingertips, brushing against his palm and offering the scent of home to him. Sometimes it’ll be tucked away, and even still, Jimin will wait until your sound asleep to find a stray to untuck and twirl again and again. It’s not unusual for you to wake up with Jimin’s hand tangled in your hair forcing you to gently extract his fingers with your head bent at odd angles in order to not wake him up.

Jimin is not particularly proud of the place you two presently call home. The building creaks, the room is claustrophobic, and as his wife, you deserve a home where you’re allowed to paint the walls whatever color you like. Bills, unpaid and overdue constantly occupy him. It seems no matter how many hours you pick up or jobs he fits into the week there’s still not enough to give you everything you want. Jimin sighs and bites his lip.

Everything I want for you. He corrects, knowing that the decision to move into a low-income house was part of the plan you both agreed to. In fact, you had suggested it in order to be able to attack those student loans first. Yet Jimin wanted more for the both of you. He wanted you to decorate room after room of a beautiful house that the two of you would grow old together in. He wanted a safe neighborhood in case you wanted kids - or even pets.

He wanted a stable job, a lifelong career he could take joy in and also provide for his wife with. You assured him every day that a future like that awaited you. He just needed to be patient. But how long could you put up with this? How long before your father’s advice crept back in and reminded you how marrying Jimin so young was unwise.

Then again, how could he forget the way you fought for him in front of your entire family at Thanksgiving? - and won them over. How could he forget the excitement in your eyes as he told you his dreams of dancing and telling stories with every fiber of his being. You were nearly pushing him into the dance academy’s administration office. How could he forget the way you made the best of every situation as if it wasn’t your current lifestyle but a game of pretend?

“It’s just for now. Not always.” The words have become your mantra. Even if all the worries of living a comfortable life plagued Jimin every day, he was thankful that he was here with you. He would never regret proposing to you. He would cherish the nights falling asleep next to you in this tiny little room. No matter how many nights there would be.

#jimin x reader #jimin x y/n #bts #jimin scenarios #jimin fluff #jimin one shot fluff #jimin one shot #jimin imagine fluff #jimin imagine #bts park jimin #bts one shots #bts scenarios #bts angst #jimin angst

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writemymemoir · 5 years

Text

Stowaway Pt 1. (The Mandalorian x fem!reader)

SUMMARY: Finding a way off a planet

A/N

First part of a series, I dunno when this is taking place just of yet. But we’ll figure that out. This is mainly an introductory to the series, so nothing much is happening.

T/W

Violence, and adult language

Part 2

You knew it was mistake, walking towards your old friend’s house through the freezing cold, but it was your only relatively legal option left now. You had no choice. You had spent five months now trying to get off this planet, however with your limited resources, you had been met with dead ends wherever you turned.

Huddling in closer to your snow parka, you trudged along the icy sludge that was the road in this town. Coming up to your friend’s infamous building you took in the sight, it was as beautiful as ever, concrete walls, no visible windows, and an old rusted security door. Knocking, you waited for an answer.

A beep from the side of the door drew your attention. The screen glowed blue.

“What do you want?” a gruff voice sounded through the machine.

“I’m looking for Varan Cleeze,” you said speaking loudly over the howling wind.

“State your business,” The voice said.

“That is between me and Cleeze,” you said, getting annoyed at the man behind the door.

“Not if you want to get inside, girly,” You huffed, a scowl had settled on your face.

“Is he here at least?” you asked, exasperated. If you knew he was here, then maybe you could sneak in the back way maybe.

The door slid open, making you jump. “Why don’t you come in and find out,” the voice purred. You scoffed in disgust. You had lived long enough to know the not so hidden intention of the man behind the screen.

“Why don’t you get fucked, piece of shit,” You said as you took your staff and smashed the screen.

“Piece of fucking shit, garbage,” You grumbled as you started your trek back home, holding your bandaged arm lightly. Hitting the screen may have released some steam, however it did pose a risk to your injured arm.

You shivered already thinking of lying in dirty snow sludge of your home. Varan may have been your last viable option, however now this left you with a more drastic option.

Stealing your way into a ship.

There was no way you’d be returning to the icy tundra where your lean-to was.

Oh, this will be fun, you thought. You like to think you were great at getting into ships. However, it was getting out of them that cause problems for you. Changing direction, you started heading towards the port’s cantina, you started formulating a plan. Passing the shitty home of Varan Cleeze, you saluted it your middle finger.

You had three things you needed to know about the person to choose them. How big their ship was, how many were in their crew and where they were going. You weren’t too fussy with the last option, however, going anywhere backwater was always a better option.

Walking into a cantina was a dangerous option for you as well, but since you had dug out your bounty tracker through a very botchy self-surgery, you were feeling confident in your ability to not be seen.

Despite the freezing cold, it was market day, and so the town’s citizens made a day of clogging up the centre square and all main roads near it. So dark alley and sketchy streets was how you made your way down to the cantina.

It wouldn’t have been a bad idea to stop and buy some disinfected and pain meds, but alas goes the story you knew to well. You had zero cash. So, your arm would have to do with some cheap booze you could score out of any sleaze ball men that were working the bar.

By the time you had made it to the front door, your nose felt ready to fall off. Sniffling, you stepped through the door.

The cantina was darkly lit, tables surrounded the centre bar with hooded figures sitting at almost all of them. This frosty planet was mostly known as a getaway holiday place for criminals, bounty hunters and bounties themselves.

You only had a few credits, and a cantina was one of the few places where you could buy what you needed.

Walking to the bar, you ordered a shot of their finest rum, by finest rum you really meant cheapest. You smelled the rum, its smell closely resembling that of ship fuel, and you walked towards the bathroom.

The bathroom was the dingiest place you had ever seen, but it was secure enough and hid you from prying eyes.

Pulling up your sleeve, you saw the gruesome cut you had inflicted on yourself. Your botchy job at stitches meant that they caught in your sleeve. The constant irritation left the cut red and angry. Slowly, you ran water over your arm, the cold water seemed to cool the cut slightly, but it wasn’t going to fix it.

You only had one shot of rum, but it was enough to do the job. Pouring the rum onto you cut, you bit back a groan. Tearing of the bottom part of your under shirt, you wrapped it around you arm to help stop the cut from getting more irritated.

Finally, you had finished. Looking at the mirror, you saw bags under your eyes, worse than normal. You hadn’t slept much, but that was to be expected when you had been chased all over the galaxy by bounty hunters.

Pulling your hood up, you turned and opened the sliding door. A dark figure loomed over you in the hallway in front of the door. The figure was tall, muscular and looked lethal. A light was blinking in their hand.

The bathroom was too small to fight with your staff, so you slipped knife out of your sleeve, ready for anything.

“Can I help you?” You asked, slightly shifting your stance sideways, so you good arm was facing the figure.

“You sure can,” The figure lunged at you, you grabbed the empty shot glass and broke it over their head. Their hood fell back, leaving the face of a very pissed woman looking at you. You stepped back into the room, she stepped forward and the door shut behind her.

“You’re going to pay for that you little bitch,” She snarled, fury in her eyes.

“Oh, no doubt,” Yu smirked, a split second later you lunged for her, feigning a right hook with you bad arm, then jabbing the hidden knife for her side. She brushed away your hook and blocked the jab, catching both your arms in one hand. You cringed as she pulled back her other arm and punched you in the nose. Blood instantly flowed out.

Growling, you slid your knife in your hand to cut the hand holding yours. Free, you stood back and kicked her into the door behind her. She groaned but launch into an assault of punches. You blocked most and managed to get some punches in yourself. You two were a perfect duo of punching and blocking, neither able to get a proper hit on the other. Knife still in your hand, you flicked it and started slashing.

Managing to cut her across the forearm, snarling she launched into a series of kicks, you only managed to block a couple before she had you pinned on the wall behind you. She continued booting you to the stomach, until you were doubled over and winded.

Grabbing you by your bad arm, she put her own knife against you neck. You let out a scream, her hand was right on you cut. Breathing roughly through your teeth, you locked eyes with her, you could see the fury was still there.

“You’re worth a lot more alive than dead,” She said, her knife cutting a bit too deep into your neck, hand tightening on your arm. You smiled; no doubt blood was on your teeth.

“Quite wrong, darling,” You jumped into action, not caring about the knife to your throat. Kicking in her knee, you head a sickening crunch. She dropped to her knees, screaming. Doubling back around, you elbowed her to the temple, and she crumpled to the ground.

There was a beeping coming from her side. Rolling her over you grabbed the fob. So, after the pain of your self-surgery, it hadn’t worked. Dropping the fob to the ground, you crushed it under you boot.

Stepping over the fallen bounty hunter, you looked into the mirror. Blood dripped down from your nose. Your neck was bleeding as well, not deeply, but enough to be a pain. Washing you face, you pulled your hood up and left the bathroom.

Plans had changed yet again, you had to leave this town, bounty hunters would be crawling all over the port. There was no way you could get onto a ship without another fight.

Walking quickly out of the cantina, you headed back to your makeshift home. You had a long walk over the icy plains to get to another forest far from the town.

Wounded, you would have to make the journey as quickly as possible, less you freeze to death.

________________________________________________________________

You had been walking for the whole night. You knew if you stopped you would no doubt freeze to death. So, you continued.

The rum did little to help the wound after your fight, you had wished you had drunk it instead. Any warmth would have been well welcomed by you.

The snow was deep in the plains, so you mostly kept to tracks made by bigger animals. You prayed that they were at least smarter than you, hunkered down in a burrow for the freezing night.

You knew you weren’t anywhere close to the next forest, you had to make a decision as to where you were going to sleep. An igloo was always an option, but you had limited experience making them, coming from a mostly jungle planet. You didn’t pause your walking to think, you just kept trudging along.

Looking around for any kind of shelter, you felt defeat closing in on you.

This is how I will die? You thought, shame crashing over you. Your walk had taken almost all the energy from you. You were stumbling every other step. But you kept pushing yourself to continue.

On the bleak horizon, you saw something reflect one of the moons of the planet. You knew you hadn’t hallucinated it. The dark outline of the object was framed by the night sky. You could reach it, you just had to push yourself even more.

It seemed that your skill to break into ships was not going to go to waste anytime soon it seemed.

Calling on the last bit of effort you could, you picked up your pace to reach the ship by dawn.

By the time you had reached it, your feet were bloody from broken blisters and blood and snot were frozen to your face in the most appealing way.

The ship was average size, you knew your way around most, so this ship was easy to size up and lower the ramp. The ship was completely dead, this led you to believe that it was there for deserted for the time being.

Exhaustion ate at your vision, and hunger made you weak. Your main plan was a find an unused corner that you could hide in. That was pretty easy to find since most ships like the one you were one was filled with dark little hidey holes for little packages like you to fit in.

Finding a relatively comfortable hole and satisfied that you would not be found, you hunkered down to sleep. Pulling your parka tighter to keep the small warmth you had away from the cold. You closed your eyes, and fell into a deep sleep.

#the mandalorian x reader #mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian #star wars

179 notes · View notes

alluremin · 5 years

Text

Fair Game

pairing: park jimin | reader

genre: carnival au, crytid-ish hunter au| crack turned horror (?)

warnings: swearing, brief mentions of blood

premise: “...I know our lives are technically in danger, but nothing ever happens in this town, so I’m pretty freaking pumped.”

word count: 4.4k

a/n: this is my story for @foreverpark‘s halloween writing challenge! i had a lot of fun writing this!! (i know i said this was going to be posted yesterday, please forgive me. we all know that i’m wildly inconsistent. and yes i’m also aware that halloween has long since passed)(the dialogue prompt has been adjusted slightly to fit the situation)

The screams of children fill your head as you stare absentmindedly into space. The screeching of rubber bumpers colliding with one another do nothing to pull you out of your reverie. You feel like you’re living in a never ending loop of torturous proportion.

Sweat starts to trickle down the back of your neck as the sun continues to sink closer to the horizon. You can’t even be bothered to fix the umbrella or to adjust your bun turned bird’s nest higher on your head. It wasn’t until you feel a tap on your shoulder that you finally came back down to Earth.

“You’re off the clock for the day!” Peyton’s chipper voice squeals in your ear. It’s not that you don’t like the girl, but she was always so happy to be at work and you had a hard time understanding that. After the day you’ve had, all you can do is offer a weak smile and a pat on her shoulder as you shuffle off toward the main office.

You had been working at this god forsaken carnival since you were sixteen. Sure, the extra income is nice, but now that you’re twenty one and on the verge of graduating from college; you dread going home every summer. Not to mention, there was always something foreboding about carnivals that made your skin crawl. You worked nights for one summer and have never done it since. The memories of that summer inexplicably make your skin crawl. There was just something about when the lights would go out on the rides that made you wish you could leave and never come.

The last thing you wanted to do, however, was risk missing out on an opportunity for work. You were already swimming in student loans, so it wasn’t ideal to turn down work when the opportunity presented itself. You constantly remind yourself that there were only a few more weeks left of summer, then you could finish your final year, graduate, and find a job that was actually fit for an adult.

As you collect your stuff from the back office, you can feel your phone vibrating in your back pocket. The thought of having to speak to anybody right now made your brain turn to putty, so you ignore it. En route to your car, however, you can feel it go off at least 12 more times, only adding to your irritability. Ripping your phone out of your pocket, you glare at the screen. In this very moment, you decide that you’re going to strangle your friends. Your eyes roll almost voluntarily as you scroll through the messages.

You lock your phone and throw it into the passenger seat before dropping your head to your steering wheel. The problem with this whole situation is that Jungkook knew none of you would say no to him. The thought of having to go home, shower, then get back in your car to make the journey to Jungkook’s house was exhausting in and of itself, let alone having to actually do any of those things.

Quickly into your freshman year of college, you managed to make an amazing group of friends. You became close with the boy across the hall and his suitemates. Jimin was extremely sweet, and more often than not, he left for his classes around the same time that you did. Not only that, but you often ate together and did laundry together. Before you left for Christmas break, he pulled you aside and asked you out in the cheesiest manner possible; under a mistletoe. You couldn’t possibly deny him when he looked that cute.

It wasn’t long before he would invite you across the hall to hang out with him, and his suitemates, Yoongi and Seokjin. They were both sophomores at the time, you and Jimin both freshmen. The four of you fell into the steady rhythm of having meals together, hanging out, and crying over finals (that last one was mostly just you).

Last year, you all moved into the same townhouse together. It was great and your only complaint was the Jimin never slept in his own bedroom, but his body heat wrapped around you made him easy to forgive. One night, you all were hanging out in the rec center, playing your weekly game of ping-pong when a bright eyed kid walked in and sat in the corner by himself.

At first, you all ignored him, thinking he was waiting for someone, but when some time passed and he was just playing with his fingernails, the four of you decided to ask him to play ping pong with you. You learned that his name was Jungkook, he hated his roommates, he was a freshman, and he was extremely good at ping pong. Needless to say, he quickly became a member of your makeshift family and you found a use for Jimin’s empty bedroom.

Strangely enough, his hometown was close to your own, so there was no break in any of your routines when summer hit. Jimin spent the majority of his summer with you at your childhood home and Yoongi and Seokjin traveled over every few weekends to hang out with the three of you.

When you push open your car door, you’re met with the view of your boyfriend coming out the front door to meet you. He could likely tell by your lack of responses to the group chat that you were having a long day, to say the least. Instead of attempting to make conversation, Jimin simply wraps his arms around your shoulders and holds you. You don’t fight him off.

“Jimin, I’m so sweaty,” you whine into his shoulder.

“Don’t care, I missed you.” He kisses the crown of your head before he releases you and looks you in the eyes. The small smile on his lips brings one to your own.

“I need to shower before we go to Guk’s. I feel absolutely disgusting.”

“Okay, I’m going to help your mom put away groceries! She just got home a couple minutes ago.” Jimin kisses the tip of your nose before going into the kitchen. It’s no wonder she likes him more than you or your siblings.

After a shower and a short breakdown, you and Jimin are on your way to Jungkook’s house. You could only hope that his parents were expecting all of you there to, once again, scheme about some ridiculous plan Jungkook had to catch another cryptid he found on the internet.

Since this summer started, there have been various occasions that Jungkook believed a ghoul, ghost, or mysterious creature had been located in the area and forced you and your friends to go out and look. Big surprise, you all have yet to anything.

Upon entering his house, Jungkook greets you and Jimin at the door with a smile on his face, and Yoongi and Seokjin wave at you from the couch in the living room.

“Where are you parents, Guk?” You ask.

“Date night. They’re really taking advantage of this empty-nester lifestyle,” he giggles to nobody in particular while leading you and Jimin into the living room.

You audibly gasp at the sight before you. Night-vision goggles, EMF detectors, a go-pro, and a large pile of black clothes sit in a pile on his living room floor.

“Don’t you have student loans to pay?” Jimin laughs as he crouches to the floor, staring at Jungkook in question.

“Yes, but if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this right! I’m also using the excuse that I’m treating myself the only way I know how,” Jungkook picks up the go-pro that sat on the floor and grins at you. You can’t help but stare blankly at him.

“You broke Y/N with your crazy, Guk,” Yoongi says monotonously, not looking up from his phone.

“Hey, I don’t think he’s crazy. I’m just blown away at your commitment, honestly.” You sidestep Jimin, who was sitting on the floor fishing through the sea of black clothes, and ruffle Guk’s hair. If you hadn’t known Jungkook, you truly would’ve believed exactly what Yoongi had just said. Among other things, this was just one of his hobbies and all of you accepted it. Honestly, cryptid hunting gave you all an excuse to hang out and play around in the woods or abandoned buildings and act like stupid teenagers again.

“Okay everybody gather around, it’s time to debrief!” Jungook announces to the room.

“We’re all sitting right here!” Seokjin waves his arms overdramatically at Jungkook.

“I just wanted your attention and now that I have it, let’s get started.”

Yoongi sits forward at this and tries to look interested, but you could tell that he was dreading going out tonight. You stand behind where he was sitting on the couch and squeeze his shoulders while Jungkook started his rant.

“Okay, so, today I was scrolling through one of my blogs… you know the one that I track all of the happenings in the cryptid hunting world. Next thing I know, I get a message from somebody with a link to a post somebody made about a Yowie that was spotted not far from where Y/N lives! So-”

“Hey Jungkook, I hate to interrupt your speech, but can you please tell me what the fuck a Yowie is?” you question him. You could feel Yoongi’s shoulders shake under your arms as he chuckles.

“Okay so it’s basically bigfoot… but from the Outback... of Australia.” He looks at you in complete seriousness. It’s only a matter of seconds before the rest of you crack up at his confession.

Once you all manage to gain your composure, you notice Jungkook scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment, his cheeks turning a bright pink.

You leave Yoongi’s side and sit on the floor next to Jimin. “Not that I don’t believe in the vast ability of this ‘Yowie’ to travel, but it’s not like we’re in the middle of the Outback, Guk,” you reason with him. He drops unceremoniously to the floor next to you.

“Yeah, I was hoping that you guys wouldn’t think anything of it. You usually just tune me out when I go on my rants then follow me into the woods and throw sticks at each other and stuff.”

“Hey, maybe it’s out there! We don’t know, right?” You smirk at him and a smile returns to his face. “Who knows? Maybe Yowies can swim across the ocean, eh?”

Jimin joins in on your comforting Jungkook, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you into his side. “Even if it’s not a Yowie, maybe they saw something else! If there’s anything out there, we can find it,” Jimin assures.

You turn around to look at Yoongi and Seokjin. Seokjin is trying to figure out how night vision goggles work, looking around the room with them on, his mouth hanging wide open in confusion. Yoongi, on the other hand, was still staring at you incredulously.

“Right, Yoongi? We’re still going out to find whatever it was?” You raise your eyebrow at him to say something. One thing you knew for a fact was that Yoongi had a soft spot for you and you knew that you could convince him to drop his doubts for the sake of Jungkook’s feelings.

“Uh, yeah. I’m sure it’ll still be fun even if there’s no way in hell that-” Yoongi stops mid-sentence when he notices your glare. “-we’ll find it if it’s out there, kid.” You look away satisfied.

“Alright, it’s settled then! Yowies here we come!” You shout excitedly in an attempt to bring up the energy in the room.

“Y/N, what’s gotten into you? By the end of our hunts your face is usually buried in Jimin’s back. Remember that one time you got so scared when Yoongi broke that stick that you-”

“Kim Seokjin, if you finish that sentence, you’re toast. I’m willing to brave the storm if it means we make a new scientific discovery!” You exclaim. Everybody gawks at your false sense of confidence, but if they have any comments, they keep them to themselves.

“Okay so here’s the game plan…”

The five of you load up in Seokjin’s truck and head toward the place you dreaded most: the carnival. The clock read 1:00 am; Jungkook had insisted that you wait until after midnight because he was sure that every cryptid was probably nocturnal. You tried to explain to him that nocturnal just meant it would be dark outside, but he was set in his ides and you didn’t have the heart to argue with him. Instead, you all made use of the afternoon to watch movies and nap until you had to go out.

As you’re driving down the barren road, you can’t help but lean onto Jimin and close your eyes again.

“Are you still tired, baby?” He whispers.

“Yeah, I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“I can tell, you move a lot in your sleep.” Jimin kisses the crown of your head and wraps his arms around you body to pull you impossibly closer.

“Hey, no sleeping, we’re on a mission!” Seokjin shouts from the front seat. You groan into Jimin’s neck when Seokjin’s early 2000s playlist blares through the speaker. You can feel Jungkook on your left side roll his body around to “Fergalicious”. You pick your head up and give up on getting any more sleep.

Only 5 more minutes pass before you pull into the parking lot in front of the fairgrounds. In all honesty, there was something about the way the attractions look in the dark without their lights on that brings goosebumps to the surface of your skin. They look incriminating, hauntingly abandoned by the carnival goers for the day, completely alone for the night.

Since the sun had gone down, the temperature had dropped drastically. You were in an oversized black hoodie Jungkook forced you to wear (for stealth) and your athletic shorts. Maybe you’re starting to let your nerves get the best of you, but the second you step out of the car, the wind begins to pick up, almost as if it’s greeting you, or warning you.

You cling to Jimin’s arm, not only because you love his attention, but also due to your nerves. You try to convince yourself that this feeling was normal. Everytime you all went out at night, you do the same thing; you were excited to go out and have fun, but once you got to the location, or “hunting grounds” as Jungkook liked to say, you started to get scared. All of the terrifying, albeit fictitious, facts that Jungkook would tell you about the cryptid in question would creep back into your head. All you could hope was that you never would actually find any of the things he told you about.

You and your friends approach the locked gate at the entrance of the fairgrounds. They turn back to you as you fish a ring of keys out of your pocket. Perks of working at this carnival for the last 5 summers, you guess.

The heavy padlock falls when you remove the key from it, causing a cloud of dust to puff up from the ground. You drop to pick up the lock when a loud groan echoes somewhere in the distance. It sounds like bending metal, almost.

“You guys heard that, right?” Jungkook asks while pointing his flashlight down the path between the rides.

“C’mon, Guk don’t start. You know how unreliable these rides are, it’s probably just the Gravitron slowly falling apart.” Yoongi hits Jungkook’s shoulder as the two continue forward. Jimin grabs the underside of your arm to help you stand while Seokjin takes the lock from you hands and hangs it on the fence.

“You okay, babe?” Jimin asks.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. The sound just made me jump,” you say shakily. Jimin holds your hand and you trudges forward after your three friends. “Yoongi’s right, these rides are mediocre in structural integrity, at best.”

“I think it’s cute when you get scared on our hunts. You always hold my hand really tight, “ Jimin teases. You nudge his shoulder with your own.

Everybody stops near the Ferris Wheel and Jungkook splits up the equipment. You’re not sure why he hands you an EVP detector; the second the device so much as makes a peep, he knows you’re going to lose you mind. In all honesty, that probably the exact reason behind him giving the device to you. “I didn’t think that Yowie’s could manipulate electromagnetic fields, so why would we need this? They’re just animals, technically… I think.” Your question trails off with your train of thought.

“Do you think I would risk not catching another entity because I was so focused on the Yowie? C’mon Y/N, I’m not an amateur!” Jungkook jokes but there’s a hint of seriousness in his statement. You throw you hands up in defeat and choose not to question him further.

“So should we split up and cover the grounds?” Jimin asks.

“I don’t mean to ruin the vibe we have going here,” Seokjin cuts in before Jungkook can begin to speak, “but this is vaguely reminiscent of Scooby and the gang. Tag yourself, I’m Velma!”

Jungkook turns from Jimin and glares at the older man. “Dude, seriously?”

“What?”

“Now is not the time… but Yoon is Scooby-Doo.” Jungkook smirks at Yoongi.

“Why am I Scooby, I feel more like Shaggy. You’re Scooby!” Yoongi points to Jungkook.

“Does that make Y/N and I Fred and Daphne by default?” Jimin pipes in.

“So I’m a damsel in distress?”

“Y/N, you’re literally hanging off of my arm right now,” Jimin looks down at you in amusement.

“Okay everybody, reel it back in! I know that you two will at least humor me and try to find some evidence,” Jungkook motions to you and Jimin. “You two on the other hand, won’t. You’ll sneak back to the car when nobody’s watching. I’ll go with you guys.” Jungkook grabs Seokjin and Yoongi by the elbow and pulls them in the opposite direction that you Jimin start to head in.

“So do you actually believe in all this stuff?” You look up at Jimin.

“I don’t think so. I mean, we’ve never found anything before. At school or here,” Jimin reasons.

“I guess that makes sense. I like to think that I don’t either, but then I feel so uneasy whenever we go out. Like… there’s gotta be things we haven’t discovered yet, right?”

“Are you alright? You look really pale, sweetheart?” Jimin grabs you by the shoulders and slide his hands up to you cheeks.

“Yeah, I think so. I’ve just never felt this anxious before.” You look him in the eyes when you feel another strong breeze whip across the right side of you body. Another deep groan echoes throughout the grounds and all of your hair stands on end. Jimin pulls you into his side and spins the two of you around with his flashlight in hand.

A beeping noise meets you ears, growing in volume. You recognize that it’s coming from your back pocket. With shaking hands, you reach behind you and pull the EVP detector out. The lights on top of the device started to flash, the meter in the center rising with the noise it was emitting.

“Is it supposed to do that?” Jimin asks you while keeping his attention on your surroundings.

“I don’t-”

You don’t finish your sentence.

Suddenly, every light in the entire carnival come to life. Animatronic attractions and music from the booths blare to life. The music rises to a decibel that causes both you and Jimin to cover your ears. Once the ear splitting tunes lower back down to a bearable level, Jimin grabs your hand and you two run in the direction that you came from, hoping that you run into your friends on the way.

After you find yourself in front of the Ferris Wheel, you hear Jungkook screaming out for you and Jimin. Spotting him to your right, you run in his direction; toward the fun house.

Once you two arrive at the backdoor, Jungkook pulls you inside and you see Seokjin and Yoongi crouching in the corner trying to catch their breath.

“Alright, what the fuck is happening right now?” Jimin yells.

“There’s something here, I don’t know what it is! We heard a loud sound like the one we’d heard when we first got here, then everything turned on. It felt like we were being watched...are still being watched,” Jungkook trails off and leans against the wall. You can see the terror and confusion in everybody’s eyes and you’re sure your own match theirs.

“Y/N, please tell me there’s an explanation. Somebody knows we broke in and are trying to scare us off?” Seokjin ran his fingers through his hair out of anxiousness.

“The only way to turn on all of the attractions at the same is a master key in the control building, otherwise they all have to be turned on individually, also with specific keys.”

“Who has keys?” He asks you.

“Three people. The city has one, the manager has one… and I have one.”

“Okay so maybe somebody from the city, or the manager?”

“I don’t know about the city, but we were only here for 15 minutes before this all happened and the likelihood of somebody making it from City Hall all the way out here in that time is impossible. The manager left town for the weekend on a camping trip with his family…” You trails off when the severity of the situation hit you, so you sink to the ground and hold your head in your hands.

“You’re not doing it Y/N, are you? You said it yourself, you have a key!” Jungkook points an accusing finger at you.

“Jungkook, I’ve been terrified since the moment I got here, of course I didn’t! Do you honestly think I’d risk us getting arrested for a good joke?!” You throw your hands out in front of you as you yell.

“...I know our lives are technically in danger, but nothing ever happens in this town, so I’m pretty freaking pumped.”

All of you start to yell at Jungkook for his comment when you feel the ground beneath you become uneven. The funhouse is tipping.

“Everybody shut up!” Yoongi yells as he stands. Another bang and the flimsy building tips again. “Holy shit, everybody get out!”

You all file out the door you came through and run toward the gate. Only when you turn your head do you realize you’ve made a huge mistake. In front of the funhouse, a giant figure, almost appearing as if it’s made of mist, turns toward the sound of your running feet. Yoongi notices your petrified figure in front of his and he grabs you as he runs past, forcing you to break your gaze from the creature and run for your life.

You’re unsure why you thought you would be capable of outrunning whatever that thing is, but as you reach for Jimin’s hand, you feel as if your body becomes frozen in place before everything goes dark.

The sun peaks over the horizon as your blurry vision returns to you. Jimin’s hand is still in yours. You manage to sit up with a groan and your ears ring as you take in the display around you. Your friends surround you on the ground and in a frenzy, you make your way around to each of them, checking for a pulse. The tears stream down your face in relief when you confirm that everybody’s alive.

When you touch his wrist, Jimin stirs and meets your gaze, sitting up holding his temples. Your legs are covered in scratch marks from where you fell on the gravel path and Jungkook’s hoodie is ripped to the elbow. Your head landed in the grass, but everybody else wasn’t so lucky. Jimin had a gash on his forehead that would probably need stitches, Jungkook and Seokjin had scratches all over their cheeks, and Yoongi had fallen backward, so you couldn’t see what was going on with him.

Wordlessly, you and Jimin crawl from person to person trying to stir them awake. Seokjin and Jungkook woke relatively easily, but Yoongi took some more coaxing.

“Is everybody okay?” You manage to croak out. Everybody around you groans and Jimin releases a noise resembling “yes”.

“What the fuck happened?” Yoongi asks as you all begin to stand. Nobody answers his question. Nobody has an answer to his question.

When you turn around, the area is in disarray. The carts from the Ferris Wheel are either dismantled or completely destroyed, laying on the ground around the giant ride. The funhouse is completely knocked over on top of the game booths that lay behind it. Toys and string lights are thrown everywhere.

You pull your phone out of you back pocket, the time reading 6:39 am. The screen is completely cracked, but still appears functional, so you carefully unlock it. The only notification the comes across your phone is from the weather channel. ‘Flash Tornado Warning 1:32 am, take cover.’

You show the phone to everybody as you all stand there in disbelief. Everyone is silent, because whatever happened to you last night wasn’t because of a tornado. Tornadoes don’t chase you down. Tornadoes don’t make eye contact with you and change their course. You knew that and so did everybody else.

Jimin took your shaking hand and Seokjin pulled everybody together, forcing the five of you to walk out toward the gates. Outside the fairground, everything look practically unscathed. Seokjin’s truck was just as you had left it. The flags that separated the parking rows were all still in place. Everything outside the carnival was completely untouched.

Maybe you all are the only ones who know what really happened last night; whatever it was that happened last night. You don't know what you saw or why it happened. Before you crawl into the backseat of the truck, you walk back toward the gate.

“Y/N, don’t go back over there,” Jimin reaches for your hand but you slip out of his grasp and continue forward.

Without hesitation you reach into your pocket and hang your keys on the gate. You definitely weren’t going in for work later, nor would anybody else. In this moment, you knew that this would be your last time ever stepping foot on these fairgrounds. With what you and your friends experienced here tonight, you predict that the feeling is mutual.

#fpwritingchallenge #kwritersworldnet #networkbangtan #bts #jimin #jungkook #yoongi #seokjin #bts x reader #jimin x reader #bts horror au #horror au #bts crack #crack au #bts jimin #bts jungkook #bts yoongi #bts seokjin #bts fanfiction

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theonyxpath · 5 years

Link

Here we are, coming to the last few days of the Creature Collection for 5e Scarred Lands Kickstarter, and the last 9 days of the Kickstarter for Deviant: The Renegade. Wow, the time sure flies with these – you can check out below in the Blurbs for details on how everyone’s pledges have added to both projects in different ways.

That’s really a huge part of the fun for us – using KS to help create more and new parts to a project! Not something you can really do with a standard pre-order.

Thanks everybody who already pledged – and if you haven’t yet, you really do owe it to yourself to take a look. Both campaigns have a huge amount of backer activity and involvement, and have great KS-runners.

Next up, we’re looking at Mummy 2nd Edition for the just inaugurated Onyx Path Kickstarter account that Creature Collection is on right now, so we’re really going to need to get our previous backers to give that a try and pop over there. Not the easiest shift to make!

Dark Eras 2 art by Luis Sanz

At the end of the week, Dixie, Eddy, and myself (and maybe a surprise Onyx Path creator or two) will be attending the Save Against Fear Convention in Harrisburg, PA, that benefits the Bodhana Group. These folks are a non-profit group that believes that tabletop gaming can have therapeutic value – and as many of them are licensed to provide therapeutic assistance, as well as being long-time table-top gamers, they know what they’re talking about.

While there are numerous therapy panels, this is very much a gaming convention with a busy gaming area and panels about making table-top games, as well. If you can stop by, it’s a lot of fun – and the proceeds go to a worthy cause!

You can check it out here: https://www.thebodhanagroup.org/about-the-convention

Eddy will be running Pirates Of Pugmire at 6pm on both Friday and Saturday nights, all three of us will be on a World-Building panel on Saturday at 1pm, and we might be able to squeeze in a recording an episode of the Onyx Pathcast at the con.

Distant Worlds art by Sam Denmark

Funny I should just mention the Onyx Pathcast, as I want to remind everybody that the first live call-in show will be Tuesday October 8th at 5pm Eastern US time! Why that’s tomorrow!

Call in and give the terrifying yet terrific trio a piece of your mind! Cause an awkward silence so Dixie can sing the Awkward Silence Song, or give the gang your opinion on something so Matthew can interrupt you mid-way! Eddy would love to debate with you about the latest wrestling special, what was that, Hell In A Cell?

We’d all love to hear from you, no matter which of our game lines you’re into, or even if you’re into all of our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

Our Creature Collection Kickstarter for Scarred Lands 5e is scampering towards the next Stretch Goal to add more monsters – that the backers vote on – to the book! Over 20 pages of new monsters have been added so far, and an Encounter Pack giving players a place to use some of our collected creatures – the book is now 184 pages but we want to hit 196 at least – here in the last 4 days!

This book was designed with amazing art by our friends at Handiwork Games, and they’re running the Kickstarter for us on our brand-new Onyx Path Kickstarter page! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/339646881/scarred-lands-creature-collection-for-5th-edition-rpg

And, we’re running this Kickstarter, too!

The Deviant: The Renegades Kickstarter has a little more than a week to go and it’s vengefully slamming through Stretch Goals now! So far, we have the classic Backer T-Shirt, unlocked the Deviant Screen, added the Beast core book and Dark Eras PDFs to the CofD PDF collection, and added three sections of the Clades Companion book! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deviant-the-renegades-a-tabletop-roleplaying-game

Onyx Path Media!

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast features an interview with go-to editor Maria Cambone where she and Dixie will punch the hell out of some irregular verbs!

And even earlier in the week is our first Call-In Pathcast! Dixie, Eddie, and even Matthew, will be manning the phones and answering you LIVE ON THE AIR! Tuesday October 8th from 5-6pm Eastern US time. Go to https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/ or to your favorite podcast venue!

It’s character creation month on the Onyx Path Twitch channel, with every Saturday showing character creation for a different game! Saturday 5th saw character creation for the Scarred Lands, and this coming Saturday 12th will have character creation for Deviant: The Renegades, currently on Kickstarter! Follow us on www.twitch.tv/theonyxpath to ensure you don’t miss a session!

That’s not all we’re doing with Twitch, of course, as we’ve currently got ongoing games of Vampire: The Masquerade, Hunter: The Vigil, Changeling: The Lost, Mage: The Awakening, TC: Aberrant, Pugmire, and more! Check our channel out, as it’s the best place to go to see demonstrations of some of our best games.

Did you miss the Onyx Path News last week? It was on the Onyx Path Twitch channel instead of YouTube, and that’s where it’ll be living from now on. As long as you have us followed, you should receive a notification when the news is due for broadcast. As ever, you’ll be able to ask Matthew Dawkins questions about our releases during the news show.

Final pieces of Twitch news: Eric Zawadski is currently running a Deviant: The Renegades game for us on our Twitch channel, and Matthew Dawkins will be running a Scarred Lands one-shot to demo lots of the monsters from the upcoming Creature Collection! Please watch our actual play this coming Wednesday, for a meatgrinder of a session!

Remember, if you miss any content on our Twitch channel, some of it finds its way to our YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com/user/theonyxpath Don’t forget though, that some of that content is Twitch exclusive or belongs to the Storytellers running their games, so don’t miss out and remember to follow us!

Have you missed any of Occultists Anonymous‘ latest Mage sessions? Here they are for you:

Episode 49: Research & Recreation Atratus and Wyrd put their heads together over the Seer’s map to determine where they should go and what they should be looking for. Later, the cabal meet with the Consilium of the Greater New York City area.https://youtu.be/wHtF5BWpRJ0

Episode 50: Alluring Scents The cabal makes plans for Peru and realize that a certain werewolf might be very helpful. Songbird has an idea to help the cabal be more… intriguing.https://youtu.be/XKa9jHqNuqo

The ENnie award winning Red Moon Roleplaying continue their excellent actual play of V5 Chicago by Night over on their site right here: www.redmoonroleplaying.co

The Story Told Podcast interviewed Eric Zawadski on their show to discuss all things great about Deviant: The Renegades, right here: http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/website/bonus-episode-14-deviant-the-renegades-ks-interview

Drop Matthew a message via the contact button on matthewdawkins.com if you have actual plays, reviews, or game overviews you want us to profile on the blog!

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And NOW Scion Origin and Scion Hero are available to order!

As always, you can find most of Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we’re releasing the PDF of Witch Queen of the Shadowed Citadel for Cavaliers of Mars on DTRPG! A PoD version of this project will come out later as a combined book featuring Witch Queen and City of the Towered Tombs. ALSO, we’ll have new Cavalier of Mars journals and other fun items on our RedBubble store on Weds!

Conventions!

Save Against Fear: October 12th – 14th This Week! Come see Rich, Eddy, Dixie, and maybe a couple of surprise Onyx Path crew! GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd PAX Unplugged: December 6th – 8th 2020: Midwinter: January 9th – 12th

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Redlines

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

Second Draft

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad (Scarred Lands)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Development

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Manuscript Approval

Mythical Denizens (Creatures of the World Bestiary) (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Vigil Watch (Scarred Lands)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Post-Approval Development

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Scion LARP Rules (Scion)

Editing

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Let the Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Geist 2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Post-Editing Development

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

TC: Aeon Ready-Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

W20 Art Book (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

Indexing

Geist 2e (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution core (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Contagion Chronicle – Sending out contracts.

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e – Sam on the fulls.

Ex3 Lunars – Contracted.

TCfBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed – Workin’ on it.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Trinity RMCs – Contracted.

Cults of the Blood God (KS) – Contracted.

Chicago Folio – Waiting to hear back from a couple of artists, then done contracting.

Mummy 2 (KS) – KS stuff in progress.

Memento Mori – Contracted.

City of the Towered Tombs – Contracted.

Let the Streets Run Red – Right after Chi Folio art is in.

In Layout

They Came from Beneath the Sea!

Dark Eras 2 – Aileen working on it.

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds

VtR Spilled Blood – In progress.

Geist 2e Screen – Need notes from developer.

Proofing

C20 Cup of Dreams

M20 Book of the Fallen – Josh wrapping up 2nd proof.

DRE Screen – Sent to Eschaton for approval.

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties – Almost ready to send to Eschaton for approval.

At Press

Trinity Core Screen – At Studio2.

TC Aeon Screen – At Studio2.

Trinity: In Media Res – PoD proofs coming.

Trinity Core – PoD proofs ordered. At Studio2.

Trinity Aeon – PoD proofs ordered. At Studio2.

V5: Chicago – Printing.

Aeon Aexpansion – Backer PDFs out, errata coming in.

Witch Queen of the Shadowed Citadel – PDF on sale this week.

DR:E Jumpstart – Out to backers, gathering errata.

W20 Art Book – Backer PDFs out this week.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Not to celebrate, but to commemorate the death of the comedian who went by Charles Rocket. He was part of the awful season on Saturday Night Live (1980-1981) right after Lorne Michaels left, and we commemorate him because he was by all accounts the first person to “drop the f-bomb” clearly on American TV. He was, of course for the time, fired immediately. We here at Onyx Path, who believe in the magic of all words, not just polite ones, to tell our stories, salute this trailblazer who gave his all for the cause.

#Onyx Path Publishing

22 notes · View notes

winchesterandpie · 5 years

Text

Welcome Home (Dean Winchester x reader)

Pairing: Dean Winchester x reader

Word Count: 2556

Warnings: some angst

A/N: Hey y’all! I’m back! Hopefully this summer I’ll have a little bit more time for writing! Shoutout to the amazing @jezzula for helping me edit, she is AMAZING 😘 As always, feedback/reblogs/comments are welcomed and appreciated! Gif is not mine! Love you all!!

To say that this was ‘not good’ would be a serious understatement of the situation in which we found ourselves. Sam, Dean, and I stood back to back in the center of a darkened room. That part, in and of itself, wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary.

The main problem here was that our attacker was invisible. It’s a little bit tricky to defend yourself against something invisible.

Fortunately, I had the solution. Unfortunately, it came with a pretty major catch. I’d never be able to be around the Winchesters again, and it was more than likely they would try to kill me.

To tell the truth, it wasn’t much of a decision - as long as they were safe, it didn’t matter what happened to me. I had already made that decision long ago, back when I first started hunting with them. There had always been a possibility that my secret would be exposed, a risk that one day I would have no choice but to show them.

“Sam, Dean…” I said softly, taking a breath to steel myself before continuing. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what, sweetheart?” I could hear the confusion in Dean’s voice.

My head bowed as I stepped away from the boys, loneliness seeping into my bones as a glowing ball of magical energy took form between my hands. I didn’t dare look back at them - I couldn’t falter now.

“You’re…” Sam said behind me, and I could hear the shock in his voice.

“Idish ta vi!” I muttered, feeding the spell’s energy and allowing it to fill the room with a new type of light.

Immediately, the form of our attacker was visible. Sam and Dean didn’t hesitate despite their shock, leaping into action to subdue it. Disappointingly, the disappearing act seemed to be the only trick it could pull off, and it was quickly overpowered. Selfishly, I had hoped it would take longer, that it would give me more time to resign myself to losing the Winchesters.

Once I saw that they had it under control, I released the spell. It would maintain the light long enough for them to deal with the creature, and I wouldn’t have to be there. Unable to bear the growing ache of loneliness and hurt, I turned and slipped through the door and into the night.

“Noctus igira ne.” I cast the spell under my breath, causing the shadows to gather around me, hiding me in the night as I moved to gather my bag from the Impala. I quickly scribbled a note to Dean before running a hand over the sleek car for the last time. It took all the strength I had left to tear myself away and sprint across the field to the treeline.

“Goodbye, boys.” I whispered, turning for a final glance at Sam and Dean as they came out of the farmhouse. My eyes grew wet, but I refused to let the tears fall - I needed to widen the distance between us before I could afford to let myself feel.

The next night found me several states over with a new car, and a new phone. I’d pulled out one of my old identities, one that I hadn’t used when I was with the Winchesters. I practically collapsed onto the bed in the motel room, utterly drained. It’d been a long day of running while trying to cover my tracks more thoroughly than I ever had before. After all, the Winchesters were better at finding people than anyone I’d ever known, but now I knew their tricks and what to avoid in order to avoid them.

“So if you’re ever looking for somebody, remember that you gotta outthink them, not outrun them.” Dean was sitting next to me at the table in the library. It was my first hunt with the Winchesters, and we had quickly realized that tracking someone down was not my strong suit. “You have to check any alias you can think of that’s connected to them.” His warm hand rested on my shoulder encouragingly.

Blinking, I pushed the memory away as tears welled up. You knew what would happen when you revealed you were a witch, I reminded myself, willing the tears to go away. It didn’t work and several slipped free from my eyes.

In an attempt to distract my mind, I sat up and pulled my bag closer, unzipping it to see what clothes I could change into. I’d packed light for the hunt since it was only supposed to take a couple of days, so the only comfy clothes I had with me were a pair of leggings and a hoodie I’d stolen from Dean. I changed quickly, almost desperately, but froze when I pulled on the hoodie and was enveloped in Dean’s scent.

Dammit, why can’t I make it stop? I shouted in my head as the tears began again against my will. I laid back down, rolling over to bury my face in the pillow.

“Hey, you alright?” Dean’s voice was gentle, muffled by the pillow I was hiding my head in. I’d only been with the brothers for two months, but the hunt had gone south fast, and it was my fault. “That was a rough hunt, but you did good, kid. If you need anything, we’re here for you.” I took a deep breath, before hesitantly sliding the pillow off my face.

“I just can’t stop seeing her face, Dean.” My eyes were red and puffy, I was sure of it, but he didn’t flinch away. “When it… took her, she just looked at me like she was counting on me to save her… but I couldn’t! I failed!” The tears ran hot and salty out of the corners of my eyes and I was powerless to stop them.

“C’mere.” His arms, strong and sure, pulled me tightly to his chest, creating a safe bubble around me as I cried. “Just let it all out.”

“We’re supposed to save people,” I mumbled between sobs. “You and Sam both saved your targets, but I failed. I’m no good at this.” I hated how weak I sounded, trying to calm the sobs but only succeeding in making them worse.

“How long did you say you’ve been hunting?”

“Since I was seventeen.”

“And you’ve never had a hunt go wrong before now?” He sounded almost… impressed? To be fair, magic had helped a lot with my track record. “Princess, you’re pretty incredible. Sammy and me, we’ve had hunts go wrong loads of times. Sometimes you just can’t save everyone. And it hurts. Of course it hurts.” He pressed a kiss to the side of my head, squeezing me reassuringly.

“Then how are you still hunters?” I pulled back from his embrace, just enough to meet his gaze.

“Maybe we can’t always save everyone, but if we let it stop us from hunting, then someday in the future, somebody that we could have saved doesn’t get saved. One mistake doesn’t mean you’re a failure.” I hid in his chest again, and he held me without saying anything for a long time as my tears subsided.

“Thank you,” I whispered at last, pulling away again. His hands came up to brush the last remnants of the tears away.

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled softly before continuing, almost as though he could sense that I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “You hungry? Sammy should be back with burgers soon.”

“That sounds really good, actually. Also, I thought you weren’t a chick-flick moment type of dude?” His grin widened, and he ruffled my hair.

“Don’t mention it to Sam. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

Dean wasn’t here to dry the tears this time. I was well and truly alone in the world.

*Six months later*

I stumbled back into my shoddy motel room, my hand pressing against my stomach in an attempt to staunch the blood flow. I had beaten the wendigo, but not before it’d managed to get a good blow in. Stitching myself up definitely wasn’t something I was looking forward to. A throat cleared and I was instantly on the alert, my gun up in my free hand.

“Easy, princess.” I knew that voice.

“Dean?” The gun came down, but I remained on guard. He stepped out of the corner’s shadows, hands spread non-threateningly “Where’s Sam?” Dean could easily be a distraction.

“He’s in the next room over. We came for a wendigo hunt,” he said, sitting lightly on the bed. “Though, from the looks of it, it’s been taken care of. Were you going to stitch that up yourself?”

“Well, I didn’t exactly have another option.” I sat heavily in one of the chairs by the table. “You didn’t come here to kill me, then?”

“Why would we do that?” He sounded shocked, hurt even. His soft gaze met mine, and I could see pain there, likely matching my own.

“Because I’m a monster.” My voice dropped to a near-whisper, and I couldn’t hold his gaze.

“Sweetheart, no. You’re not a monster.”

“But I’m a witch. You hunt witches.”

“Y/N, being a witch doesn’t make you inherently evil. Look, I know we need to have this conversation, but I’d rather have it when you’re not bleeding out. Will you let me stitch you up?”

He rose and approached slowly when I nodded and set aside the pistol. Working quickly, he moved my shirt to expose the wound, clearing away as much blood as he could and sterilizing it before picking up the needle.

“Jeez, kid, how long have you been bleeding like this?” His hands were gentle on my skin and I could barely feel the needle’s passes.

“Longer than I’d like,” I replied dryly, eliciting a brief chuckle from Dean. Oh, how I missed that sound. I closed my eyes to revel in the moment, as if I could freeze it in time. I may not have been sure where we stood anymore, but I could still draw a laugh out of him.

“Hey, don’t go to sleep on me, now.”

“M’not. Though I could do with a nap.”

“There you go. You’ll be good as new in no time.” Dean tied off the bandage over the stitches, resting his hands on my stomach for the briefest moment before pulling away.

“Thanks, sunshine.” The nickname slipped out as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Dean was silent for a long moment, his green eyes not meeting mine. In an attempt to avoid the awkward silence, I moved slowly to the sink to wash the blood from my hands and face.

“We need to talk about this, now that I’m not worrying you’ll bleed out.”

“Yeah, we do.” I turned back to face him. “Dean, I… I’m sorry.”

“Y/N, did you really think you could just leave a note that said ‘Dean, I love you and I’m so sorry. Be safe’ and that it would somehow be enough? We hunted together for 5 years, dated for 2 of that... and then… you just disappeared without a trace.” His voice cracked, and I wanted nothing more than to hug him tightly and never let go, but I had lost that right when I ran away. “You’re not a monster, you never have been. If you were a monster, you could’ve killed me and Sammy a long time ago. I’m sorry if you were scared of how we might react if we found out. But sweetheart… you didn’t even given us a chance.”

“Dean… I... “ Six months of rehearsing in my head, but when it came down to it I had no clue what to say. “You’re right, I… I shouldn’t have run. But please try and understand - I’ve gone on witch hunts with you two. I was worried you would see that I was a witch and your next thought would be that I was dangerous.” Tears welled up in my eyes as I recalled how I had felt on that night so long ago, but I fought them back. “So I hid, dropped off the grid, and did the only thing I could think of.”

“You hunted solo.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

“And I tracked you and Sam… moved whenever you came too close.”

“So why not this time?”

“I was in the middle of a case. Figured I’d be done and gone before you boys showed up. Didn’t even notice Baby when I was coming in.” His eyebrows went up at that one. A hunter not being aware of their surroundings was often fatal.

“It’s dangerous to hunt alone.”

“I know.” I shifted uncomfortably, wishing desperately that I could’ve put this off for longer. “So what now?”

‘Well, you can’t keep hunting alone.”

“I’m not going to stop hunting if that was your suggestion.”

“It wasn’t. Let me finish, princess. I’m suggesting that you come home, that you stick with us.” After everything I had put him through, he still wanted me to come home?

“But, Dean, I lied to you.”

“You did.”

“And I’m a witch.”

“True.”

“And… I dunno, I ran away like a coward.”

“What point are you trying to make, Y/N?”

“I don’t deserve to be welcomed back like that.” The tears welled up again, stronger this time, and there was nothing I could do as they rolled down my cheeks. Dean wore a soft smile as he opened his arms, and without hesitation I crumpled into him. He let me cry it all out, his hands passing reassuringly up and down my back.

“Sweetheart, you lied and you ran, sure, but you’re family. To me, you’re more than family. It might take some time to rebuild trust all the way, sure, but we love you. I love you. Sammy and I didn’t spend all this time trying to find you just to get rid of you. I’m not giving up on you.” Dean pulled back a bit, enough to look me in the eyes and thumb away the tears.

Emboldened by his words and his tenderness, I stretched up slowly, giving him plenty of time to pull away, to object. Instead, he grinned warmly and leaned down to meet my lips with his. The kiss was gentle and sweet, a promise and a reassurance. His scent was intoxicating, his arms warm around me, lips soft on mine, and I was home. For the first time since leaving the Winchesters behind, I was home again.

Eventually, my lungs demanded oxygen forcing me to pull away for air, and I rested my forehead against his. He pulled away a little further to press a kiss to my forehead. A few more tears slipped free, this time from relief, and I let out a watery chuckle.

“It’s alright now, kiddo. I’ve got you.” Dean’s lips brushed my forehead with every word. “D’you want to say hi to Sam? He should have burgers.” My stomach rumbled at the mention of food, which Dean laughed at.

“You know I never say no to food.”

“There’s my girl.” We picked up my few belongings and, with Dean’s arm warm and reassuring around my waist, we made our way to the next room over where Sam was.

“Hey, kid.” Sam grinned, pulling me into a hug. “Welcome home.”

Hope you enjoyed!

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#Dean x reader #Dean Winchester x reader #dean x you #dean winchester x you #reader insert #dean winchester #supernatural #supernatural fanfiction

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kidmachinate · 5 years

Text

Phantasy Star Online 2 Closed Beta Impressions

Home is a feeling, not a place. This is where Phantasy Star Online 2 fits in my life. There was a huge gap in time since the original release back in the year 2000 and then the Blue Burst release on PC back in 2005. PSO2 released in Japan during July of 2012. Almost eight years later from that release and even more time since the nostalgia with the original release and its rebirth of sorts through Blue Burst, the feeling of home remains.

We will get probably my only negative point out of the way, which was to be expected in a closed beta. There were issues getting online for the first five hours the game was live. An Error 37 issue, if you will. Expected problems…but they KNEW how many people would be excited for this. It has been almost eight years for a proper US release. Being that it is a closed beta, they knew exactly how many people were going to be logging on. Not being properly prepared from the start is inexcusable and they were silent on the issue until almost an hour into being live. Now that this is out of the way, let’s forget about that and get into what the game has in store.

What people enjoy with Monster Hunter World combat wise, started here. The Action-RPG style of combat. I always look at Phantasy Star Online as the MMO before MMOs were cool since it existed before World of Warcraft. I’ll get back to this point in a minute. PSO2 has a lock on that isn’t perfect but just works. In Monster Hunter World you have to switch up some options to get it to work (IMO) better than it does with default settings, and even then, it feels a bit funny. Said system may have improved with this one due to being able to swap targets. There also seems to be a free aim of sorts as well and more precise targeting options with Rangers. I don’t play a Ranger however, so I can’t entirely confirm that last bit. Personally, I made a Techtor/Hunter named Dimidia who I got to level 30 before the closed beta period ended.

Phantasy Star Online did not technically start as an MMO as the main parts of the game were very much not that. However, the lobbies and player interactions in them very much functioned like traditional MMOs do today. Phantasy Star Online 2 embraces this and fully realizes an MMO style within the sci-fi world of Phantasy Star. The basics from the first are there to enjoy but there is so much more to grasp with this game and I look forward to learning it. People legitimately just hang out here to chat in game at times…and have fun doing it. It is hard to put this into words when this really seems like something many have gotten used to already in whichever MMO of choice already. This spirit of community has not faded since the dial-up connection days through the Dreamcast.

Drops in the game have much variety and the game will launch with all previous missions from the existing game in Japan. The character creator has been significantly improved to make characters look different from one another and MAGs (familiars with abilities and stat boosts for your character) are still a thing. PSO2 also carries over a great feature from Final Fantasy XIV in which you technically only need one character for all your classes. Couple this with a subclass system that allows you to have stat bonus and abilities enjoyed from whichever one you pick to combine with your main class. There are some returning weapons from the first Phantasy Star Online (hi Lavis Cannon) that many will have their eyes on and newer ones too I’m sure. I’m still trying to understand how armor and gear works in the game. You can swap between equip sets relatively easy for different weapons and spell setups. I assume this will be easier down the line when PC becomes an option to play on. This current closed beta was only on the Xbox One but the game release will be playable with Xbox One and PC players enjoying cross-play. I’m hoping they test this in an open beta, should they do one in the first place. Four races and nine classes in-game make for pretty good build variety too with up and close or ranged melee builds, support builds, casters, or hybrid versions of everything just mentioned. I think there may be hidden classes of sorts not included in that total but I’m unsure on that.

When playing the closed beta, there was some lag in select areas. Was to be expected with multiple people playing and all, but nothing that took away from the flow of the game. The combat feels very smooth, the addition of a dodge is very welcome, and being able to not just get timed hits with your melee damage, but spells as well is amazing. I forget if you can do timed hits with spells in the first game. If you could, feel free to ignore that bit. The areas and quests didn’t feel samey from what was played, and this isn’t even everything…so there will naturally be much more to enjoy. I can’t speak in regard to voice chat as I think only one person used it total. Can’t speak much about chat UI either but I wouldn’t dare without a keyboard anyway. Gonna have to look into that for console play.

One big attraction to the game for me and the series as standard RPGs before it has always been the sci-fi scene. It provides an escapism of sorts and gets the thought process going. Is this where we could be in the future? I suppose we’re about done here. Anything further would be ranting and I already did that in a YouTube video. Hopefully this was a bit more informative than that...but this is only the beginning. APRG fans owe it to themselves to give this a shot upon the official release or (hopefully) a potential open beta in the near future.

#phantasy star online 2 #pso #sega #dreamast #mmo #multiplayer #impressions #closed beta #sonic team

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pseudonymfox · 6 years

Text

Abort Mission (6)

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: You and your boyfriend have powers, now he is dead and you are expecting a baby. Hydra is interested in the child so they send the Winter Soldier. What happens if Bucky unexpectedly falls for you…

This Part: You had to flee for multible days out of Paris and to Bucharest where you decide to rent a small apartment. Everything started to turn out fine but something is wrong with Bucky which leads to you being hurt...

Warnings: mentions of pregnancy, violence, language, angst, small time jump

A/N: Happy new year everyone. I know it’s been a while but I’ll be hopefully be back on track now again :) <3

Series Masterlist - Main Masterlist

<<Previous Part

Opening with his metal hand the already opened door, peeking behind him inside the room you saw nothing. Everything seemed to be in the place where you left it. James just checked the bathroom but came out again, a look of confusion and worry written over his face.

“Someone broke in but they didn’t took anything?” you said looking after your stuff. James held his finger up to his mouth letting you stand still and glued to the spot. Waiting for his next move you watched with fear and concentration his face tensing before pointing your not even unpacked bags. Hydra had always their ways to find you, no matter how far you would go or how good you would hide from them even in some ways it really interested you. It just brought up the guilt inside of you up letting you play over and over again what you did through the day. Every step you took and every little detail that you could have missed. Obviously there could be multiple reasons for it but one was for sure it. Earlier the day when you called Abigail with your private phone, which you carried around all the time and spoke onto her voicemail that you were in paris. Not only did you pull this stupid move, no you also didn’t just brought you into danger it was also James, your unborn child, Abigail and George. Once again you thought what great talent you had by bringing the people you cared for into danger and stress out yourself and James.

Carefully and weirdly calm the both of you moved through the streets with your head hung low and you felt also both physically and emotionally exhausted that you could pass out at any time. The few grumbles besides you let you know that James was also not really pleased right now, not really more words were spoken which let the voices in your head only getting louder and you got scared of his reaction because you knew you had to tell him, might be the only thing you could do to get that off of your shoulder at least a bit you hoped.

The process of you getting to the train station and actually into the train was for you like a blanked space in your head. The exhaustion grew with every step you took but just the feeling of being angry at yourself let you feel like in a trance.

Say it.

Tell him.

NOW.

“It was my fault” you looked up to him who sat besides you. The train started moving slowly as the speakers sounded up letting you feel a bit better to get as far away as possible from there.

“I called someone earlier and spoke and left her a voicemail saying where I am. I know how immensely stupid that was but I swear I won’t do it again.God I brought everyone in danger again..” you confessed, looking away again not standing another second of his blue eyes looking at you like this.

“Was it the old couple you worked for?” he asked still staring at you. At first you were confused why he knew that or if you told him about them but you remembered that he was kinda stalking you so you nodded and continued to stare to the ground, the only light that was coming from the moon that shone through the window in your small cabin that you got luckily for just the both of you.

“Let’s get rid of your handy first” Sticking out his hand you reached into your pocket and gave to him. You didn’t wanted to since there on that phone are like the last voicemails, texts and photos with Luke, Abi, George, Hunter and other people and things you just didn’t wanted to let go of, probably the last things you had what was really personal.

“Here take this, I guess you wanna keep what’s on the phone” he simply handed you the small chip and without further thoughts he crushed your phone like a cracker letting you hold back a gasp that was about to leave your lips. In the back of your mind you also thought that it was kinda cool but not like you would say it out loud.

“Are you angry?” Carefully you looked to him as he threw the reminding pieces out of the small window before sitting back on the bench without really noticing that it was much closer to you.

“We don’t even know if it’s your fault. Hydra has always their ways and I really don’t think that was a one time thing” James shrugged watching your still concerned facial expression.

“Let’s make a promise, whatever is coming next and whatever we want to do. We tell each other. No more secrets or whatsoever” Made sense you just thought and sticked your pinkie finger to him.

“Don’t you know this?” you asked grinning and he shook his head speechless.

“This is what you do when you like make a promise...it’s a pinkie promise” you took his hand and showed him what to do, holding onto a moment you saw him grin before releasing his hand again.

“We should try to sleep now” he just said and the both of you turned the bench into a bed for two people. You couldn’t be more excited for this already uncomfortable looking bed and just be able to finally close your damn eyes before your body would collapse and do it itself. The sounds of the train that drove through france beautiful landscapes and city’s could lull you right into sleep, you didn’t care that James was laying so close besides you and hopefully he didn’t either. It might be something like a ‘next step’ to sleep with you in the same bed with your faces like just inches away from each other but also you probably just over thought it.

He didn’t seem to be asleep, more like he had to concentrate really hard to fall asleep.

“Do you even me to call you James? or is it Bucky now….or Buchanan?” that was an honest question but as soon as you finished his eyes opened again and he started laughing. Like really laughing which you haven’t really heard like this before, maybe at one point in the diner.

“I can almost remember nothing y’know but I’m sure that no one called me just Buchanan...always Bucky” He chuckled with you.

“Ok.Good night...Bucky” you told him after a few remaining moments, as his eyes closed again but you could feel the grin on his lips. Finally you fell asleep besides the snuggly heat that radiates from Bucky’s body and the movement from the train.

Something about seven-ish hours later you got woke up from Bucky and took right away a next train further away just to have more distance from whoever intruded your hotel which let you still go crazy. The last train you decided to take was towards Bucharest, the final endstation. It rained like it’s coming out of buckets that just splashed down from the dark sky. Bucky and you laid together on the benches opposite from each other, which you weren’t a fan off. The cold was way more presentable than with the human torch besides you, there weren’t blankets or something so you just tried your best to snuggle into your jeans jacket.

“Can I tell you something?” you took your eyes off the window where the rain hit the surface letting the sight go blurry.

“Didn’t we made a...uh a pinkie promise?” he replied smirking over to you.

“Right, right. You asked me a bit earlier if we kissed before and I..I lied. We did. I said no because I felt like it would be easier for you”

“I know” he said right away letting you feel a bit embarrassed, not because of the make out session you had but because he knew you lied to him. Like he caught you in the act.

“-I can’t remember it well but I..I just know. I can’t explain it” he started again.

“I think that’s it. Just let me know if I forgot something” you smiled revealed.

The breaks of the train screeched loudly and coming slowly to stop as Bucky took most of the bags in his hands and you followed him outside.

Walking through the trainstation you’ve made stop at a bench, it was still raining outside and you had nowhere to go or to be at this moment. Bucky brought a newspaper on the way, checking on free apartments or for now motels, you couldn’t understand a single word what stood there anyways.

“Ok let’s go we take a look at a few ones” he grabbed your hands and pulled you along with me. Neither of you thinking or really just minding of letting go again as you walked fast through the streets trying not to get completely drenched which was impossible by now. You could use your abilities but you got exhausted if you would do this even more while being pregnant so you just decided against it.

“Bucky that was the fifth one. I am tired and hungry..and drenched” you whined and pulled the water out of your hair and sat down in the lobby of another apartment that wasn’t ‘good’ enough or too expensive. It was already in the middle of the day and besides all of that you didn’t exactly made a pause or ate much besides snacks.

“I know...We can take a pause and eat something. Maybe find something where we can sleep.” He stood up and helped you up too, holding your hand again and with the other the two bags. You weren’t sure how you never noticed that but he didn’t look quite alright as well, never since he was passed out on your couch you saw him sleeping. Maybe you are always falling asleep at first but his appearance told you something else. You would ask him later you decided.

As he stopped walking you just walked right into him almost knocking yourself out. Following his sight to another apartment building where a young guy just came out, he was dressed in a suit but he just didn’t look trustworthy. Nothing really did. This guy seemed just as tired as you, his suit way to big for him and kinda trashy. Bucky walked up to him starting a conversation you again couldn’t understand, all you could do was watching astonished while he kept you with his hand behind his back. It was quicker than expected as he followed the guy back inside.

“Bucky? What did you talk about” you squeezed his hand a bit tighter to get his attention but also for more comfort.

“He has a free apartment and maybe that’s the right one?” and right in this second you heard more distant sounds from yelling and things breaking coming from somewhere in the building. Your eyes widened and then you just raised your eyebrows at him.

“-Well I said maybe right?” he said shrugging and it wasn’t wrong. You even understood why a few didn’t even wanted to let you see the apartment before. When two people would look as tired and suspicious as you two while having all their belongings in there hands then you wouldn’t let them in either. A few stairs up without an elevator you knew that you wouldn’t get any higher or lower again. It had to be this apartment, that’s how tired you are right now. Going past him you decided to take at least a look. While they talked again you looked around the one room flat. It had a open kitchen connected with a..well you couldn’t say living room. It was just couch and opposite of it was a bed. Connected to that was a small bathroom. Everything needed a bit of decoration and maybe new furniture but it’s something you tried to think positive.

“What do you think?” Bucky joined your side, catching you a bit off guard.

“You really wanna hear that?” you yawned out loud and looked out of the windows, seeing markets on the streets filling with people and the sirens of the police could be heard rushing past the building. “-Well I think we won’t find anything else for now and I can’t get kicked out again from the way we look” you pointed to both of yours appearances.

With that you got your apartment and payed for the next three months rent. Until then you still had money for food but you would have to get something soon or you won’t come any further. Winter just came rushing in and so did the cold. Normally you would love the holiday season, you didn’t had the usual Christmas as kid like some kids would have but you loved how everything just fell into this christmas vibe. Snow started falling and it was ice cold because your heater wasn’t that strong. You imagined it a bit different but after all you didn’t wanted to push your luck.

The baby was fine and Bucky well was a different subject. He wasn’t talking to you much and you knew by the time you moved into the flat that he didn’t sleep like at all probably and that pissed you off so much. It’s been like what a month and you have mood swings like hell, your back hurt so much that you could barely walk and Bucky worried you more and more. This night was just like the others as you decided to stay up a bit longer, you heard him shifting and turning on the couch which Bucky decided to stay on even after you told him that you could share the bed. After you fell asleep one or two times you saw that it was something about 4 am. Looking through the room and down to the couch you saw Bucky sitting up with his head leaned against the back starring against the ceiling. Lifting yourself up you walked towards him, for a moment you thought he was asleep but his eyes were open clouded and not even noticing you.

“Bucky?” you spoke up. He only hummed quietly in response, not moving and neither looking up. You didn’t like that.

“Come one buck. How long aren’t you sleeping?” your back started aching again so you sat down besides him wincing from the pain. “-hey...Bucky?” you asked again, same response. Kneeling up you took his face in his hands and turned him to you, he blinked a couple of times before he seemed to realize what is going on.

“Yeah what’s goin’ on” he slurred totally relaxing in your hands.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” you asked patting his face slightly to get him stay with you as you his eyes rolling into the back of his head. Sighing you pulled him towards you and laid his head onto your lap and the blanket over his body. You would just stay awake from now on.

You let your hand softly go through Bucky’s hair in hope that it would soothe him somehow and you kinda loved that the second you would stop he would grunt or grumble something. Maybe two hours later you had to stand up, feeling uncomfortable sitting so long in the same place. Slowly and carefully you lifted his head and placed it on the couch so you could stand up. You decided to make some coffee, sadly not for you but for him. For you it was tea and a toast. A look around the small room you smiled at how fast it looked not like a meth house well beside that Bucky decided to glue newspaper on every window, not like you are paranoid yourself but he was topping everything. He also hid two backpacks under the floor. His weird grumbling got louder which snapped you out of your little trance, his breathing increased loudly and he started shaking and turning on his spot.

Going to his side you reached for his arm which was clearly a mistake, the second you touched him, he reached back and took a hold of your arm tightly letting your cry out loud, his eyes snapped wide open as he pushed you back. Laying on the floor you held your arm where the bruise already started forming, he stomped towards you and before he would hurt you again or maybe even himself you kicked him in his knee as you scrambled back to your feet and behind the kitchen counter. “Stop Bucky!” you held your hands up in surrender hoping he would snap out of it. But he continued to march to you, taking the same steps back to hold the distance between the two of you. The clicking of the water boiler reminded you of something which was the last thing you wanted to do.

“God fuck you James” you screamed and threw a pan at him to take him off guard as you clicked off the water boiler and opened the lid taking out most of the water and letting it just flow in the air before looking back to James who had the pan now in his hand.

“James stop it! Listen to my voice!!” you shouted but he threw the back at you, luckily just hitting your shoulder, you walked further away from him. Taking a small portion of the hot water you let it splash him right in his face. It wasn’t enough to hurt him badly but you couldn’t turn it cold right now without the danger of you fainting or worse. He hissed back as held his face and looked back up to you, only looking angrier.

“You know me! I am (Y/N) and you are James buchanan Barnes. We are in bucharest right now..remember?..please remember!” you tried to throw in some information maybe that would help but as he threw his right hand at you, you could only duck in second to let him hit the wall as you pushed him with your side away from you.

The water splashing onto the ground as you couldn’t control it any longer, your nose already bleeding as you winced out again remembering that he hit your shoulder with a pan, you scrambled to your feet and fell onto the bed as he landed on top of you pushing you down with his body. You catched both of his wrist as he tries to strangle you using all your body strength to do so.

“What about steve remembering him if not me? Steve Rogers?...come on Barnes!” you grunted as your arms gave out. His hand lacing around your neck pushing hard slowly cutting of your air. With on of your hand your reached to side looking for something as you reached the night stand you took the lamp that stood there and crashed it onto his head. Enough was enough you decided and catched for air. Sinking from the mattress down to the ground, you saw him trying to stand up again. The tears where now falling freely, you couldn’t fight anymore not against him. Pushing your knees up to somehow protect your baby bump from him. Remembering the ultrasound picture you reached back onto the night stand you took the photo and held it out to him, showing him it. You were almost ready to be hit again but he stopped dead in his tracks as he looked confused at the paper. He reached for it and stared at it as you tried to stand up hearing him call your name softly only to lean with your arms onto the bed as you felt a weird pain in your stomach again and again.

Like a click in his head switched on he looked the small picture in his hands, realizing what he had done. Some furniture broken or run over, water all over the place then his look caught you on the ground. A dark purple bruise on your arm and your shoulder bleeding through your ripped shirt and a red bruise in the from of hands around your neck. Tears streaming down your face as you sobbed. He did that. He hurt you. Both of you. His eyes widened as his hand balled into a fist and falling to his side.

“(Y/N)?” he asked and wanted to reach out to you but decided not to as he thought it would be the best to stay away from you. Seeing you trying to stand up again and then suddenly leaning onto the bed seeing you tense and reaching to take a hold of your stomach. He wanted to ask again but you cut him off with a loud pain filled “NO” as you stood up and run out of the door leaving him behind

Next Part>>

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uiruu · 5 years

Text

Okay so here’s a confession lmao... I kind of got into Loona because of Hunter x Hunter.

I got caught up in the HxH manga, and there are apparently a lot of references to a jpop idol group called Keyakizaka46. There’s a nen ability called “Silent Majority”, which is like a doll thing with the exact same haircut as the main member of that group, who has a song called Silent Majority. Also Halkenburg’s bow and arrow nen ability has him make a pose from the song Fukyouwaon. So I saw that and was like “WHAT THE HELL TOGASHI”, and I checked out those songs. They’re okay. Nothing to write home about. I mean like, they’re fun I guess, I like Fukyouwaon better of those two (which are the only ones I heard), but idk. I listened to it a lot for a couple days, it was like a guilty pleasure thing haha. And then like I must have seen posts from some of my HxH mutuals (who probably aren’t mutuals anymore after... uh... the drama in late february lmao...) post about Loona, and I was like okay, if I’m listening to this idol group that I can kinda tell isn’t like the highest quality thing in the world, let’s see what a Real group is like.

I wasn’t really attuned to the differences between jpop and kpop, though I think I have a better understanding of the prevailing trends and styles that differentiate them (not just language. theyre as different as hiphop from LA and UK grime rap. that’s pretty different). But yeah, I was interested to see what a really Quality group sounded like. I wasn’t really expecting much, I was expecting something very catchy but kinda bland, like a lot of American pop is. I was also expecting something a little exploitative because of just the nature of having a group of “idols”, and I’d heard stuff about the kpop industry that wasn’t pleasant.

And like, I listened to Hi High (which was the top result at the time. i got into them about a week before Butterfly), and I liked it at first. I wasn’t ready to let myself love it, though. In the back of my mind there was that voice saying “lol what are you doing, you are not the target audience for this, i should keep this to myself cause it’s embarrassing. if i admit that i’m listening to kpop right now i’ll be laughed at haha”. But still, it was catchy as hell and I liked that. The video production was sooooo good too, that video looks like a movie.

I watched Egoist too cause I guess it was the top related video, and I thought that song was pretty good, but idk I guess a lot of it just didn’t like sink in or something? I don’t really know. I listened to some others but didn’t find anything that stood out, I think there was a point just before Butterfly released where I liked Hi High, Egoist, and Love Cherry Motion (though I was kinda iffy on that one). I remember talking to my friend Jaci about them cause I know Jaci’s a kpop fan, and they said that they were kinda into Loona but not especially, though Heart Attack is one of the best kpop songs ever made. After hearing that, I listened to Heart Attack, but I didn’t really like it, it was a bit too bubblegummy for me, I guess.

Then Butterfly came out, and by then I knew most of the members by name (not all), and I had watched videos from people like formoftherapy about the songs I had heard and so I felt better about liking kpop cause the illusion of it being completely shallow was shattered. Butterfly didnt wow me at first... I liked the video a lot but the song was kinda eh. The “wings, wings” in the chorus stuck out to me in a bad way lol, I didn’t like that.

So anyway, by then I was like huh, I’m gonna check out some more stuff. So I listened to groups like Momoland and Blackpink and Red Velvet. And by listened to, I mean really just kinda one song from each of those. I listened to other Momoland songs after Bboom Bboom and they didnt really do anything for me. I listened to Red Velvet songs besides Peekaboo and they were okay, Russian Roulette was pretty good but not something that really wowed me, but I was super super super into Blackpink for about a week there haha. I don’t know, I really liked Ddu-Du Ddu-Du, and I liked the members a lot. They’re only four members, so it was really easy to get into them. I listened to more of their songs though and at first I liked them, but the more I listened, the more I realized how bad they are lol. The members themselves are fine but god, some of the other Blackpink songs besides that one are just really bad. To me, anyway. And I think that’s when I realized... oh... Loona’s really something unique, huh?

Like, listening to other groups made me like Loona more hahaha. That’s when everything started to click with me. Songs that didnt impress me at first, like Girl Front and Favorite and especially Heart Attack started REALLY clicking with me. Suddenly every song I listened to from them I liked. And I was noticing things in their songs that I didn’t notice at first. And like, that’s also when it hit me... oh, it’s not just that Grimes did a feature in the intro to one of their songs, they actually take a lot of inspiration from Grimes musically. Aaaaaand that was the nail in the coffin. See, I was one of the biggest Grimes fans alive before we all collectively realized she’s kind of a shitty person. So, to see the good aspects of her music translated and adapted and iterated on by another group is cool. It also kinda made me facepalm because like god fucking damn it, I thought I was free of Grimes, turns out even when I get into something I thought was totally separate, nope... I can’t escape haha. Then though I started noticing interesting and experimental-ish production EVERYWHERE in their songs.

And that’s when I’m like okay... I gotta finally go through and watch all their videos in order. I knew bits and pieces about the Loonaverse already, so I was ready to sink my teeth in and see it all for myself. It takes about 2 hours to watch all their music videos but it’s really worth it, that was a cool experience haha. The next day, I watched some of formoftherapy’s reactions to doing that same marathon too, and that helped me notice and appreciate even more things, especially about the music video production, since that’s what they specialize in talking about.

And then you know, two or so weeks later, here we are, and I’m all in, haha. It’s wild to think that I thought Egoist was pretty good and Heart Attack was not really my cup of tea at first haha. Egoist now blows me away EVERY time I watch that video... the song is sooooooo good and the video is maybe their best and most cohesive video aesthetically and thematically speaking. Heart Attack is also in my top 5 songs now.. so is Butterfly haha, that song grew on me a lot too. It helps for Butterfly that the choreo and video are so artistic and masterful.

Oh, also, one last thing, in the part where I mention other groups... I don’t wanna knock Red Velvet at all. I love Red Velvet. I could write a separate post about my journey with their music too, and how there was a moment when their songs also started clicking for me, and I think they’re just as adventurous and eccentric as Loona. I like Loona more cause I’m more personally invested, and I think Loona covers a broader range of styles and themes and stuff, but Red Velvet are really, really good. I cannot overstate that lol. Also, there are other groups and songs I’ve gotten into since then too, I’m not just a fan of two groups lol. Though to be honest, if I had to pick the ones that I think are doing something really interesting and stand out from the crowd, I think there’s only three groups I would call myself a die hard fan of, and that’s Loona, Red Velvet, and Fromis_9 (who have sooo much potential, im excited to see where they go).

That’s all! I don’t expect anyone will reblog this (cause its so specific to me lol) or even read this, it’s pretty long after all, but if you did, thanks <3 I just wanted to write about my journey with this. Cause like, it’s cool how this type of thing can happen. It was cool to watch myself start to allow myself to really get into it. I could feel myself getting more and more into it but I was embarrassed about that and I thought it was really lame of me haha. I don’t mean that I was sad or scared or whatever, again, I just thought it was really lame haha. But I mean, deep down I thought it was cool, and the more I got into it, the more that became the only way I thought of it. And now I just think it’s really worth checking out and like not all that lame at all. There are lame groups, yeah. It’s just cool that Loona isn’t one of those. I didn’t expect that the one I heard the most about was 1. not even close to the most popular, and 2. really deeply musically interesting and risktaking, and that’s something that’s always appealed to me about the music I like. Who knew that Loona of all groups would be like that lol. You know... Loona. From the “Stan Loona” memes. Huh.

Go figure.

#loona #long post #o

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