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gotnofucks · 4 years ago

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Colour Me Red

Pairing: Steve x Reader

Summary: Your boss is chasing you like the proverbial hound of hell, and one vibrant shade of red is going to be his undoing, and yours.

Words: 3k

Warnings: Oral sex, allusions to smut, suggestive talking, kinda workplace harassment but not really, boss and employee relationship, 18+ ONLY

A/N: This is for my jaan Lexi’s 700 Challenge. Congratulations baby girl @bluemusickid , you deserve this and so so much more. Every day I live in awe of you and can only love you more. I’ve chosen the colour Red for this challenge.

Most people arrived at work early to impress their boss. You came early to avoid yours. Every morning was a race to dress up faster so that you could be out before he pulled up at your place to give you a ride. When you’d started working at the Avengers Compound, you thought your biggest problem would be alien attacks or spontaneous combustion. Yet, here you were, being pursued by your boss who was the very embodiment of the hounds of hell.

Captain Steve Rogers, for all his brilliance, was a man unaccustomed to being told no. At one word from him, agents would run in the field and fight a battle of their lives. He was respected and revered, his beautiful visage both an endearing and terrifying symbol. However, all you wanted was for him to leave you alone.

The first time you’d met him, Steve had taken one look at you and said, “I am going to fuck you”. You had gaped at him in disbelief, wondering if this was the true Captain America. You had almost gone back home, intent on finding another job but you needed the money and well, there were so many others around, how often would your paths cross with him?

Turns out, a lot. You had applied for the PR secretary position for Natasha, so imagine your surprise when you showed up for work and were told that you’ll be working for Steve Rogers. In retrospect, you should have quit that day, but the pay was far too good. You had ignored sleazy men before, how difficult could it be to ignore Steve’s advances?

From the very first day, Steve didn’t bother to hide his interest. He offered you a seat in his office, but only after you pointedly ignored his offer to sit on his lap. He had rolled his eyes playfully, explaining your role and duties before dismissing you.

“Walk slow, I want to have a good view of that ass.”

Months later now, you could say it was a well-versed routine. He would flirt with you and you’d kindly remind him about appropriate workplace practices. He would bring you flowers, and you’d pass it on to the old lady who sat behind the reception. You almost wanted to thank him, for it was because of him you’d become a pro at running in high heels.

Arranging your documents, you waited for Steve to arrive. He won’t be happy knowing he has a press conference today. You’d typed out his speech, he only needed to say it into the camera without looking constipated.

“You evaded me again today.” Steve greeted you, entering and taking his seat behind his desk. You met his eyes, unimpressed. He never gave up, did he?

“Good morning Captain Rogers.” You said with a smile, handing him the papers that he took with a wince.

“You don’t call me Captain Rogers in my dreams.” He casually said, going over the planned interview. You rolled your eyes, ignoring him the best you could. It would be a lie to say you didn’t find Steve attractive, but you were not about to sleep with your boss.

“Can you please stick to the script this time and not call the government a piece of shit organization who are greedy, racist, bigots?” You asked, not wanting another disaster management situation on your hands.

“Spot me the lie darling.” Steve said, smiling. He threw the papers on the desk, leaning back to look at you with a fond look in his eyes. “You need to let me drive you here someday. Or I’m gonna camp outside your house so you can’t run away.”

You flush, averting your gaze. God, why did he need to be so beautiful with such gorgeous eyes?

“Can you give it a rest until the press conference? I have a lot on my hands.” You said, rubbing your temples tiredly. Steve frowned, his eyes lingering over the dark circles under your eyes before getting up and coming around the desk to stand behind you, his large hands gently taking your shoulders and kneading. A soft moan escaped you, your bunched muscles relaxing under his touch.

You leaned back farther, your head meeting his firm stomach. His fingers splayed over your collarbones, heal of the hand pressing into the soft juncture where your neck met the shoulder. Groaning, you relaxed yourself, letting Steve massage the stiffness out of your body. Slowly, he leaned down, mouth right next to your ear.

“Imagine the kind of sounds you’ll make when you’re under me.” He breathed, pressing the softest of kisses on your cheek. Your eyes widened and you shot up, putting some distance between you. Steve grinned, taking in your labored breath with interest.

“Captain Rogers” You warned, taking a step back when he took one towards you.

“Say my name.” He demanded, walking purposely towards you until you crashed against the wall. Leisurely closing the distance between you both, he caged you with his hands, leaning in close. You gulped as he got into your space, his breath fanning over your heated cheeks and eyes turning liquid.

“This is inappropriate.” You said, blinking and looking away. You were scared his super senses would smell the arousal pooling between your thighs, warming your core. Steve chuckled, dipping his head as if to kiss you but stopping short.

“I’ll let it go today, since you’ll be screaming it soon enough. Why don’t you go and edit the speech, hmm? I want that part about thanking the government for their cooperation struck.” He smelled like sin, the musky aftershave he always wore clinging to your pores and infusing in your scent.

Smiling a little at the deer caught in the headlights look in your eyes, Steve pushed away from you and flicked your forehead playfully. He turned and walked back to his desk, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips as your stumbled out of his office after hastily collecting your papers. Every time you thought you’d gotten used to his advances, Steve would reduce you to a bundle of nerves with a few well chosen words.

Persistent little fucker.

If he didn’t show up in five more minutes, you’ll have a coronary. The reporters were already waiting for him, and you still needed to debrief Steve about the changes you had made. Left to his own devices, he’d unapologetically curse the government out and call out their crap with Bucky and Sam cheering from the sidelines. Again. That had been a nightmare.

“Where is he?” Jacob asked. He looked frazzled, looking worriedly at Tony from across the room. His boss was just as likely as yours to cause a scandal during a press conference and when they sat together, a shit storm was definitely on its way.

“I have no fucking idea!” You swore, running a hand through your hair and hoping your makeup hadn’t run off. You’d be sitting at the podium beside Steve, ready to kick his shin at the first moment he went off script. Jacob shot you a sympathetic look and a pat on the shoulder, his hairline glittering with sweat.

“One day I’ll quit this job and be a professional troll just to roast these assholes. Oh god, where the hell is he?” You bemoaned.

“Right here.”

You turn around, finding Steve striding towards you. The frustration in your eyes melted as you looked him over, the crisp navy blue suit fitting his body in a way that saliva pooled under your tongue. Shaking your head, you wagged a finger at him, trying your best to give him an angry frown instead of fuck me eyes.

“You’re the reason I’ll get greys so early in my life.” You scolded. Steve, however, lost his smirk. His eyes were trained hard on you, eyebrows turning in as if deeply disappointed. When his eyes met yours, you unconsciously stepped back and stumbled into Jacob. You knew Steve had a temper, but that anger had never been directed so harshly at you before.

“What the fuck?” He hissed from between clenched teeth. You blinked in surprise, completely at a loss of words about why he was suddenly so angry. You exchanged a bemused look with Jacob who was inching away from you, eager to be out of sight of the fire that was so obviously burning in the captain’s eyes.

Gulping nervously, you peered at him and cleared your throat. “Captain Rogers?” Your voice was soft and confused, and yet it only seemed to incense Steve more. He made a deep rumbling sound in his chest before grabbing you by your arm and pulling you away with him. You protested, trying to steer him back towards the conference but you were no match for his strength. He remained silent as you tried to loosen his grip on your arm, alarm evident in your voice at this unexpected aggression.

He brough you back to his office, pushing you in before he shut the door with a loud bang that would be sure to scare off anyone who might have wanted to step in and save you. Facing him in bewilderment, you opened your mouth to ask him what the fuck had gotten into him when he raised a hand in warning.

“If I hear ‘Captain Rogers’ pass one more time from your lips, I’ll shut you up in a way that will leave your throat sore for days.” He growled. Your breath hitched, fear and thrill spreading like venom through your blood as he prowled towards you, completely masculine and yet feline in his approach. Your legs refused to follow your command to move away and stayed rooted to their spot, trembling when Steve was standing right before you.

“Say my name.” He whispered. You licked your lips, eyes locked with his as his name passed your lips for the first time ever.

“Steve”

It was barely audible and yet you could see the shiver that ran down Steve’s body, a victorious growl expelled from his throat and suddenly you were pulled flush to his chest, his lips enveloping yours and branding a searing kiss on your lips. You gasped into his mouth, clutching his shoulders to keep steady on your legs that had turned to jelly.

“You dare,” Steve said, pulling away to glare at you, “you dare wear that shade of sin on your mouth in front of the world?”

It took you a moment, brain still in shock from the intimate embrace you’d just came out from when you registered what he said. Taking in his words along with the red that bled from your mouth to his, you sputtered in indignation.

“Did you drag me in here because I wore a red lipstick?!” You asked, slapping his chest to push him away. Steve, unhappy with your ire, pulled you closer still and slowly traced the curve of your bottom lip, pulling back his thumb to show you your lipstick that sat in stark contrast to his pale skin.

“My girl doesn’t go out looking like this in front of the world.” He countered. You scowled, twisting in his hold so you could knock some sense into the sexist bastard.

“I won’t be policed by somebody who regularly wear three sizes too small t-shirts to fuck with my ovulation cycle deliberately. And what the fuck does it mean ‘looking like this’? What do I look like to you Captain Rogers?” You sassed, breathing heavily.

Steve fisted your chair, tilting your head back as he possessively ran his nose down your neck and sniffed appetitively. “Looking like this, like the forbidden fruit that caused man to fall. You are already my undoing, do you wish to cause a war looking as tempting as this?”

Anger that had boiled in your gut disappeared as if doused by water. Maybe you were still pissed at being treated this way, but the heat that simmered deep in your bones overpowered it. His words set your heart on fire, a raging desire you rarely let yourself feel near him sending you straight into his arms, your head buried in his massive chest that cradled you close. Oh so close.

“There are ten different things I have to say to you about what just happened here, but I’ll do it later when my sanity has returned to me.” You said and Steve chuckled, his arms around you strong like boulders.

“If my kisses alone drove you insane, you’ll be a puddle of dumb mess after I’m done with you.” He huskily whispered in your ear and your core pulsed, a warm gush flooding your panties. This man would be the death of you. For months you’d fought the urge to let him fuck you on his desk and in the elevator, trying your best to overlook this eye fucks and flirting only to end up in his arms, right where he had prophesized you belong the moment he clapped eyes on you.

You didn’t believe in destiny, but then again Steve Rogers didn’t need a divine force to interfere on his behalf to get him what he wants. This moment had been building for a while now, like a volcano threatening to erupt until it finally did, encasing those close to it in scalding layers of passion and sin and love.

“I love this shade but just this once, I’ll make an exception. I’ll wipe it off.” You conceded. This was not you accepting defeat, just a compromise. There was much left to talk about and discuss, but you had a hoard of reporters waiting for the good captain to make his big speech.

You reached for the napkins on his desk, intent in quickly wiping your lipstick off when Steve grabbed you to himself again, cupping your face.

“Oh no honey, that trace of desire won’t stain a piece of paper. The only place its going to be is smeared on my cock. On your knees.” He ordered, very much like he did on the field. And yet, the order was as much a request. You could say no and drag him to the conference right now with no consequences. He was the same man who came by every morning to give you a ride despite knowing you’d already have left. He was the same man who cheekily rolled his eyes when you snubbed his affections, and yet never said a mean word to you. What would it feel like, marking this exemplary man with your colour, knowing as he walked that he was coloured in you?

You sank to the floor, hands already working to free his cock from the confines of his pants. Steve looked at you, letting you do everything, his hands resting lightly on your shoulders. Peering up at him, you marveled at the fact that it took so long to have you here like this.

“You could launch a thousand ships even on your knees.” He said.

Your lips pressed against the head of his cock, kissing him delicately. Steve jerked at the first touch, digging his fingers in your flesh when you licked him from head to base, suckling lightly, teasingly. You adored the noises that escaped him, loving that he didn’t even think of hiding them from you. When it came to desire, Steve Rogers didn’t mince his words.

His cock was beautiful, silken and hard in your fist and on your tongue. He tasted like the sea after a storm, salty and electric, dangerous and beautiful. Loving him this way came easy, and though you hadn’t had much experience with cocks as big as his, you were determined to show him your feelings with a gusto. Running your tongue along his slit with an impish grin, you swallowed him deep, humming to send vibrations up his length. Had your mouth not been stretched around him, you would have smiled wide at the curse he just yelled.

Picking up your pace, you bobbed your head and rolled his balls, getting high on his taste and sounds as he came undone in your mouth, spilling his essence that went thickly down your throat and ended with a moan from both of you. Pulling away, you saw his member streaked with the red traces of your lipstick and an animalistic possessiveness swelled in your chest. You marked him.

Steve helped you stand up, kissing you deep as he seemed unable to utter anything at the moment. You reveled in his touch, holding him close and wiping the stray tear that was lingering at the corner of your eye.

“You know its love, don’t you?” He asked you softly, the most vulnerable you’d ever seen him.

Was this love? Was it love when you’d secretly smile at his fixation with you? Was it love that you always kept a flower from his bouquets before passing it on to the old lady? Was it love when you could read his tiredness in the lines of his forehead and make his coffee stronger? Maybe it was. Maybe it was love because there was no other way you’d have went on your knees to worship a man. Unknowingly, in accepting every ‘no’ you threw his way, he had earned your ‘yes’. In forsaking the access to your body, you had gifted him your heart. Holding his gaze, you pressed your lips to his palm, smiling.

“It is love.”

“Mr. Stark, where is Captain Rogers?” A reporter asked. “Wasn’t he supposed to be a part of this conference?”

Jacob groaned, kicking Tony’s shin repeatedly to no avail. He wished he could slap a hand on his boss’s mouth and drag him away, because the glint in Tony’s eyes meant that he would be working damage control for the next coming weeks.

“Rogers, you ask?” Tony said grinning, his face alight in mischief. “Friday just gave me some million dollar worth information on that, and I am proud to announce to the public that the world’s oldest virgin just got his dick wet.”

Banging his head on the desk in the view of the clambering reporters, Jacob cursed you and your libido that had ruined him.

“Why couldn’t they wait until after the conference?” He moaned, jumping out and almost tackling Tony who was about to give the media some ‘video proof’. “Oh no you don’t Mr. Stark, you sir are on time out. I’ll be reporting you to Miss Potts!”

#lexisholiday2021 #bluemusickid700challenge #steve rogers x reader #steve x reader #Steve Rogers #boss!steve

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imaginethebeautifulworld · 4 years ago

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Hello! I hope you are having a good day/night. May I ask for axis and allies plus spain, romano and prussia speaking to their s/o in their native language? Thank you very much! -Humble Anon��

A very good morning/afternoon/evening to you as well, lovely!

When I began brainstorming these, I kept approaching this ask with the thought in mind that the S/O's first language is not the same as that of the Nation's, and aren't quite completely fluent as of yet. It made it a little bit easier for me to write, and offered me just a little more leeway to daydream. ^_^;

America:

Alfred really only does so when he's super tired, stumbling into the kitchen with bedhead to grab his first five cups of coffee, half-flopping on you as he greets you with a kiss to the cheek- ruined by his yawn- accent stronger than normal as he rumbles out a good morning, asks how you slept. He rambles lightly about his weird-ass dreams, making you smile just from his annunciations. At some point, he remembers to start translating, swapping over to the dialect you're most familiar with mid-sentence.

Canada:

Oddly enough, Matthew plays Language Tag more frequently than Al, but more often than not, it's usually an unrefined Franglish that has always irritated Francis and Arthur. (He enjoys this fact, just a little.) Around you, however, it really only flares up in moments where he's just so overwhelmed and in awe, taken aback by how much he's in love with you. Most of his petnames for you are in English, but those moments where you're both spending a lazy evening in bed, he'll happily shower you with all kinds of cheesey compliments in French, teasingly poking your nose every time you try to get him to translate.

China:

Yao has a habit of slipping back to Chinese on a whim, honestly oblivious to the fact most of the time. You've noticed it gets significantly worse whenever he's stressed, and you've learnt some very colourful nicknames for the Others over the years because of it. Despite his seemingly incessant need to pace while venting, you always manage to coax him into your arms, steadily working your fingers across his back, easy out the knots that had been plaguing him. Meetings always brought him stress, but after a good rant and a few moments of your grounding touch, he's sighing away all remaining agitation, slowly bringing himself back to you and apologising for the slip.

England:

One of Arthur's greater strengths comes in linguistics. While he would much rather prefer a courtship with an English speaker, he's not going to deny himself happiness just because of a silly little language barrier. He generally tries to keep everything on common ground, but his nicknames for you, and some of his more scandalising compliments, are murmurred in English. He always keeps it quiet, an intimacy reserved only for you. There's many a "dearest" and "darling" when first waking up in the morning, a languid greeting for the coming day. (Also, he swears mostly in English, so be careful if you decide to borrow any of his vocabulary.)

France:

Francis never hesitates to prattle in French; it's second nature to him. Sometimes, he'll hop between both yours and his preferred dialects several times in a single sentence. You know it's just part of who he is, and while it can be annoying some days, it is helping you improve your own fluency. There are also moments when he makes you weak, his expression uncharacteristically sincere, hands carefully clasping your own. He hums out a soft phrase, one you still haven't fully translated, leaning closer to caress your jaw, thumb brushing against your cheek, any number of praises passing his lips.

Germany:

Ludvig, since Day One, has tried his best to make sure you're comfortable around him, and part of that is him keeping firmly to the language you are most familiar with. When coming across words he may not be entirely familiar with, or saying a more complicated phrase, his accent may sometimes come out a bit thicker than would be normal. The only time he really slips into German is when he's on the phone with folks from his government. You don't mean to eavesdrop on the latter, but you do enjoy how much deeper his voice tends to get when he's being "professional." Secretly though, you have to admit his voice when he sleeptalks is your favourite of them all.

Japan:

Kiku constantly, and often unnecessarily, goes out of his way to make sure that you're comfortable, and despite your arguing against it, one of his ways of trying to do so is to only stick the language you both share. Frankly, you love hearing him speak Japanese, even though you really only hear it when he's at the store, and sometimes to the servers during date night. You love how gentle his voice is, his accent adding almost a sweetness to his words. Lately, you've been debating how to tell him that you'd like to hear it more, but for now you savour the little pieces you've collected over the past few months.

Prussia:

You learnt some time ago that Gilbert quietly speaking in German actually helped you fall asleep significantly easier. For that reason, he primarily only does so while either headed to bed, or whenever you're spending an afternoon together in the library. He'll sometimes read to you, but mostly he tends to ramble. You only understand a handful of the things he's saying and assume that he's regaling you with tales of days long past. In reality, he's running through his checklist for car parts he wants to fix, complaining about something stupid Roderich did back in 1648, and most often- when you're on the cusp of sleep, breathing deep and relaxed, his hand resting on your back- he's listing off every single thing he's come to love about you, not as afraid of his vulnerability when you're hardly conscious enough to hear it.

Romano:

Lovino spent too long relearning Italian to ever abandon it, even for your sake. He casually weaves it into regular conversation, the endearments, greetings, exclamations, and nicknames fluidly blending into the ordinary. He figured out quite a while ago that you actually enjoyed his "slip ups," so he's especially generous on date nights, about half of the words he's saying falling around you in his unique dialect. He once told you that you should be grateful, that he was blessing you with "the most beautiful language in the world." And begrudgingly, lost in his smile and the way the candlelight makes his eyes spark, you have to agree.

Russia:

Over time, one of your favourite pastimes with Ivan has becoming hunkering down on a settee by the fireplace, where he'll work on his knitting. The best part of these moments, especially on particularly frigid mornings where you've no obligations, is that Ivan will start to sing to himself, always pieces in Russian. Sometimes they're lullabies he's picked up from the royal families over the years, sometimes they're peasant rhymes he's known since childhood, and on some rare occasions, he'll sing something from an opera he fell in love with back in 1872. He'll often pepper in a few casual words here and there, always with a lightness to it, but you're absolutely addicted to how full his voice sounds when he sings.

Spain:

Antonio is actually the worst of the bunch. He can and will ramble in Spanish, a lot, so much so that some of it has permanently rooted itself into your own vocabulary, some of your replies slipping out without pause these days. He tends to catch onto his slip-ups quickly at least, quickly sliding back into your shared venacular with a quick apology. Still, you'll often hear him singing in Spanish, greeting the plants in Spanish, talking to the cats in Spanish. He's particullarly bad at losing himself whenever he's invested in a football match, or if you happen to catch him irritated about politics. Tonio has taught you quite a few colourful curses over the years, smattered with some day-to-day phrases you've both come to recite by default.

Veneziano:

Feliciano is surprisingly good at sticking to the language you feel most comfortable with, though he's notorious at mucking up the number of syllables in certain words. You have a strong suspicion he does this intentionally, this elongation solely designed to annoy you, especially as he always seems slightly bemused each time he does it. Regardless of how annoying he can be in your language, you do love eavesdropping on his conversations with his brothers, chattering away in Italian, his words and hands moving far too quickly for you to even hope to follow along. There's something so soothing in listening to him speak, even if he is producing 500 words per minute.

Thanks for the ask, Anon! I hope you enjoyed~

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milkacchan · 4 years ago

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Request for anon: Gib the angst with grandpa enji and grandma rei. Grandbb gets hurt b a d due to smth and 😬😬😬

(Ojiisan is granddad in Japanese, the fir al version of it anyway. Jiji is informal, baba is the informal version of grandma)

Hero work was risky. Enji knew this. He knew better than anyone you can be fine one minute and dying the next but he still never fathomed it happening to /you/. He didn't /want/ to.

And then he gets a panicked call, from Shouto, and it sounds like he's crying, like he can't breathe. And in seconds, his retirement is thrown out of the window. His old costume is on and Reis concerned- he doesn't even have time to explain it all to her, just that you /need/ help.

When he arrives, the scene is at a stand still. Heros unsure of the next move, unsure of how to progress without hurting the situation and Shouto- although his exterior remained calm, endeavor could see it in his eyes. He was panicking. The facade cracked a little upon seeing his father, his expression turned sorrowful, sour and concerned, all at once; for just a split second before he returned to collected.

"She's in there, in the rubble. She got hit before he went down. He's in there with her but he's hurt. They both are."

"Negotiator?"

"Tried, he won't budge."

Enji nodded, mentally racking over plans and strategies- that green haired kid would be useful right now. But he was away, in America, probably watching it all go down on tv. So for now, Enji was alone in strategizing.

"I want the building stabilized and watched. Men on ever corner, exit and window of this place. The girl is first priority. If there is a choice between her and him, let him go. Do I make myself clear?"

There was a chorus of 'Yes sirs', both from special forces and heros that would be initiated in the plan.

He gaze flickered from the building back to those in front of him and he continued his explanation. This needed to be executed carefully- very carefully.

Casualties were at a low but he sure as hell wasn't going to add to that number, especially with you.

His plan was explained and he received confirmation, then it was put into action. His son on his right and ground zero on his left, the plan was initiated.

They used distractions and the stormed the building- probably not the smartest, but it's all they had right now.

Enji didnt care about anything else but you. He didn't care about the chaos ensuing around him. He didn't care about the others he saw. He did however, care about that blood trail. It could be you. Or it could be him.

He looked over to Shouto who nodded. "I'll take this one, you take the other."

"Got it," Shouto agreed with a small nod before taking off in the other direction.

Enji followed it, eyes scanning his surrounds with frevor- analyzing everything in his path. The blood trail dotted; it got light until it stopped, just outside a closed door. He wasted no time opening it. He scrunched his nose. It smelled foul.

Then he saw you. Crumpled in the corner in a pool of blood and his heart stops. It feels like the world is crashing around him because Fuck- you looked dead.

"Shouto!" He calls, his head turning towards the door but his gaze remains on you.

He's quick to get to you, kneeling down and putting his finger under your nose

You're breathing. Oh thank fuck, you're breathing.

He gently moves your arm, which is cradled over your stomach. It looks broken- its bruised and swollen and he doesnt like the blossoming purple patches along it. But your suit is ripped too, theres a large gash on your stomach and he cringes at the blood. He gently moves the sticky fabric off the wound. It was deep and tissuey- he could vaguely see the bruises beginning to form on your ribs- he didn't like that either. You were hurt, bad. Really bad.

He slides an arm under your back and the other under you leg to pick you up, almost crying in relief when you /move/. It's just a squirm but it's something, at least

He's /praying/ that you make it through, immediately thinking of the worst scenarios. They're playing over in his head.

A groan pulls him from his thoughts and he looks down, watery eyes peer into his. They're lidded and tired and scared; he let's out a breath he didnt know he was holding.

"Oj-Jiji-" You groan out, gripping his arm. Your head his on his shoulder, hair knotted and dirty, face covered in layers of dust and dirt. But the tear streaks are obvious.

"Firefly," He whispers, "it's okay,"

"It hurts," You whimper. "It hurts so much-"

"I know, I know. We're getting you out of here-"

"Did you find her- oh god," Shouto paled upon seeing you. He stumbled into the room, placing a cool hand on her cheek. You leaned into the touch.

"Dad," you kept her hand on Enjis arm, your grip tightening.

"Princess you're gonna be okay, alright? It's not- It's not that bad. We're gonna get you out and to a hospital,"

"If you're gonna lie," you mumble, "make it convincing. I know it's bad."

"You're gonna be fine baby, I promise you, you're gonna be okay."

He gently hands you to Shouto. "Go, I'll take care of things here. I'll meet you at the hospital. Go quickly."

"Jiji-"

"I'll be there soon, Firefly," he kissed your forehead.

"Jiji I love you," It was small, panicked and scared. But you wanted him to know, you wanted him to know in case you didn't make it. You'd lost blood. A lot of it. He could see it in the way you spoke. The adrenaline started to wear down by the time Shouto had entered the room.

You were crashing again and he hated it but there was nothing else he could /do/.

"I love you too, Firefly."

You let out a quiet cry, gripping your fathers shirt, looking behind him at your granddad as he carried you out. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to keep your eyes open. Black dotted your vision and you could vaguely hear someone calling your name as the world faded.

Rei sat quietly in the waiting room chair, her leg bounced and she chewed the inside of her cheek. Her hand held her son's tightly as her husband paced in front of them.

He should've gotten their sooner, he should've known it was happening. He should've been there to help her.

"Enji," Reis voice ripped him from his thoughts. The nasty thoughts running through his head a mile a minute.

They'd taken you in for emergency surgery. The bruises- those were from him. But the gash was deep. Deeper than Enji had originally thought. And with the blood lost, it wasn't looking too good.

"Are you alright?" His deep voice rumbled, the concern evident.

"Baby, come here." She whispered, holding her hand out. "You've been pacing for hours. Sit down. Relax."

He hesitated. Could he really? Could he really just sit? Shouto had zoned out. For what felt like forever his just stared at the ground, before he fell asleep with his head on his mothers shoulder. Natsuo and Fuyumi were somewhere- he wasn't sure where at the moment.

He supposed he could calm himself down enough, try to breathe through it. So he did. He walked over and sat down, sighing when her hand slipped into his.

"She'll be okay," Rei whispered. "She's strong. She's resilient. And there's a great team working on her. It's-It's going to be okay."

"I don't know," he mumbled. "She looked bad when we finally got to her. She was so pale," he squeezed her hand. "And there was so much blood. I should've gotten there sooner."

"No, you can't blame this on yourself. This isn't anyones fault. You did your job and you brought her home."

"But did I bring her home right? Did I bring her home alive?"

"Yes."

And Rei was right. He did bring you home alive. The surgery was a success. You stabilized, you regained the color in your face, normal breathing and heart rate.

They stitched you up, fixed a few broken ribs- sewed up that cut on your chin. They used a quirk for your arm, that seemed to be the easiest but for the others it was too risky.

So the Todoroki family sat in the small hospital room, around your bed, just waiting. They held small conversations, took turns sleeping; though Todoroki needed it the most. He kept putting it off.

"Aw- don't tell me you've all been waiting here. You all are getting soft," a voice mumbled.

Enji looked up and smiled. "You're awake."

"Princess," Shouto leaned foward and kissed your forehead. "How're you feeling?"

"I mean- all things aside, fine. It's a party in here though, you having fun?"

"I'm going to hit you." Natsuo narrowed his eyes.

"Can't hit a cripple," you hum. "Nice try though, Uncle."

"You almost died, yet here you are, cracking jokes."

"Yes. That's how I handle uncomfortable situations. You know this. I blame Auntie."

"I blame your father." Fuyumi rolled her eyes.

Shouto looked up, saying something back. Enji had turned them out.

"You feel okay?" He asked, eyes trained on you.

"I mean, it hurts a little but I'm okay." You smiked softly. "Thank you for finding me. I'm sorry you had to though."

"Don't apologize. You did nothing wrong. I'm just glad your okay," he swiped his thumb across your cheek gently.

It was okay after all.

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alfredosauce50 · 3 years ago

Text

What makes me human [Cyberpunk! America x reader] 15

Wordcount: 3, 484 Rating: T for strong language and mild violence “For you, it can be. I'm actually conscious about the taste and origins. You know those protein jellies Zao makes? They're made of his roommates.” Chapter synopsis: Everyone goes out for a night in town for a day off. While Arthur is complaining about the venue of choice, Allen sulks about the prospect of being replaced. When you disappear to the bathroom, he follows you and comes clean about it, even suggesting that you run away with him. You're reminded that you picked the right choice when you come across some unfinished business. The reader is referred to as she/her.

15 - Blood was on the agenda

“Technology advances, but humans don't. We're smart monkeys, and what we want is always the same. Food, shelter, sex, and in all its forms, escape.”

He could repeat the quote word for word if he wanted.

A week had passed since Zao left the planet, leaving you buried to the neck with work, and him, with an unstable mechanic. Alfred was still wasting away, but he couldn’t bring himself to care when the guy was the source of all his problems. Ever since he returned to the guest room after comforting Arthur, this feeling of abandonment never stopped haunting him.

How could it, after seeing you curl up so comfortably with Alfred? Every night was the same. Allen would face you, hoping you could face him. But it was always your back. Your arms were coiled around the blonde's neck like they belonged there. And the image seared into his mind like branding. It only burned deeper into his soul at every passing day as you stuck closer to the man.

Down a narrow flight of stairs in a secluded street was a pounding nightclub. Two bouncers who could easily take his head off guarded the entrance. With tattoos of dragons etched into their skin, the sight was enough to get Arthur warbling again. “Why did we have to come here? The club across the street looked fine to me!”

Allen clicked his tongue and ruffled his hair.

“If it weren't for the fact that two of your friends are on the hit list, we'd go there. But we need every bit of protection we get.” Holding his hips as he gave the two men a squint, a tense silence fell around the group before they gave a soft grunt. A grin stretched over his face. “Good thing your boyfriend has connections.”

“... Hah...” Digging a hand through his choppy blonde locks, he shook his head with a hard frown. “And because of that, that idiot will turn up dead in a ditch one day...” As he trailed off, everyone entered the establishment. One of the bouncers whipped their head over their shoulder to stare at the group that just disappeared inside.

“Didn't we already let that guy in? The blonde one?” He pointed behind him with a thumb.

“... You're tripping balls, man.” The other sighed.

“Not today, I'm not. The one with the blue eyes. Like an hour ago.”

“Maybe he came in again cuz' he wanted to. It's not that deep.”

“This is why I'm better at this job than you.”

“Eat shit.”

It was a cloudy afternoon. A grayish-blue haze had been cast over the city, but what you walked into was so much dimmer in comparison. Nothing but neon illuminated the interior. Lights that faded from blue to purple lined the countertops. The tiles of the dancefloor were a blinding white. Next to it was a heated pool that glowed blue.

As fog clouded over the surface of the steaming water, it curled around the patrons wading in it. Needless to say, you were hypnotized. “Did nobody actually think of bringing their swimsuit?” Scrambling to the edge, you bent down to your knees and played with the white clouds. “A nice hot soak would do my sore muscles some good.” Before your fingers could do so little as graze against the water, Alfred grabbed your wrist.

“But not for your junk. They're practically swimming in STIs... Just do it at home in the bath.” He grumbled, pulling you up. Shivering at the thought, you let him pull you to the bar.

“But the bath doesn't glow...”

“Not yet, it doesn't.”

Allen narrowed his eyes. The guy was so quick to follow you, then lay hands on you, it had him rethinking his life purpose. Protecting you was meant to be his thing. Hell, it used to be his job, even. And yet, here Alfred was, having replaced him. No way. He was just an outsider in the end, wasn't he?

As he watched your interaction with him, he would soon learn he was right to some degree. Maybe Alfred didn't replace him, after all. He just became another figure in your life. Somebody he never managed to be--yet.

“Let's just grab some grub.”

Ever since Alfred arrived, he'd been wondering what was on the menu.

Hunger might have been history, but not eating. And you knew it well. Shooting him a weird smile, you nudged him with your elbow. “You say you don't have organs, but you still have a digestive system. How else do you use the toilet, huh?” Alfred looked at you, turned away, then looked at you again with his face scrunched up in a scowl.

He couldn't admit it, but you were right down to a T. “It doesn't count. It's not exactly real if it's not made of organic materials.”

Taking a seat by the counter, the stools beside scraped back to be occupied by your friends. While Alfred sat on your left, Allen sat on your right. Arthur took the end. “It's all a social construct.” You piped, much to his displeasure. The word wasn't entirely accurate to describe the emotions flurrying in his chest, however.

Was he frustrated? Yes. But he'd be lying if he said he didn't want to hear what you had to say. And you didn't disappoint. “If something serves a function in your body, it's an organ. Doesn't matter what it's made of.”

Alfred waved over the bartender. “I'm not having this conversation with you. We're from different generations, so I have a right to brood in peace.”

“Fine. But I won't let it destroy you.”

His breath hitched while he was about to order. “Can I--” Darting his eyes to yours, his voice only faltered at the steely look in them. Tearing his gaze from you had never been so difficult. “... Can I get a yakisoba with extra bonito flakes on the top? And uh, six of these dim sum-thingos?” He slid the menu to you.

“What do you want?”

A soft laugh rumbled from your throat as he refused to look at you. I'm finally getting through to your thick-headed ass, huh? But you couldn't be unreasonable. This was always a touchy subject. “I'll just have these dumplings. What about you two?”

Allen raised his brows, unimpressed. “Lotus chips and beer for me. This isn't the most vegetarian-friendly place in the world. Sucks.”

Arthur smirked. “I know, right? But protection is the priority, I suppose. I'll have the BLT.”

“I don't think you get to side with me when you ordered the worst thing off the menu.” The redhead mused, causing the other to flare their nostrils. He slapped his hands down on the counter to sit further up his stool. “But I get it. Aw, everything reminds me of him! Except for this BLT cuz' it's white.”

“Shut your gob and bugger off, Allen! It's literally just food.”

The said man sipped his beer loudly. “For you, it can be. I'm actually conscious about the taste and origins. You know those protein jellies Zao makes? They're made of his roommates.”

“So what? Not everyone has the same eating habits as you. Deal with it!”

You exchanged funny looks with Alfred. “Don't they get along well?”

“Not as well as us. And it'll stay that way so long as you don't talk about your philosophies.”

“... And that's not happening.” The food finally arrived, so the murmur of conversations came to an end. But it wasn't long before they picked up again. “You're not the only one who can have opinions.” Alfred glanced at you with narrowed eyes. “I can't even say that they're as strong as yours. But you'll have to live with them. Maybe you could learn something new.”

He scoffed, but he couldn't bite back a defeated smile. “C'mon, not this again. You of all people should understand how I feel about that stuff.”

“And I've seen what it does to you.” Alfred hung his head at that. This was exactly what he wanted to hear, but it annoyed him all the same. The hardest topics were often the most worth discussing, and this was a perfect example of it. Giving your chest a few indignant bumps with his head, he sulked like a child much to your amusement. “I'd love to entertain you some more, but nature calls.”

Hopping off the stool at that, he thrust out a hand to grab yours. It all happened so fast, even he was shocked. But it became apparent to you both what just happened—he needed you for one last reckoning. For you to see that expectant look of his, saying how he wasn't done with you. After a few moments, he let go, letting you turn away and run off to do your business.

Life had been such a shitshow you almost forgot the situationship between you and him. Even with his lacking memories, he couldn't forget it either. And now, he just had to wait for the right time.

“Right. That's it.” Allen grumbled, scraping his chair back to hop off.

Arthur glanced up.

“And where the hell are you going?”

“Gonna go with her. I've learned to not trust anything anymore.” Jogging after you at that, the mechanic was left with a fellow blonde.

“Well, would you look at that? It takes two to tango.”

Alfred shook his head. “What?”

“You and Allen, I mean.”

The toilet flushed. Leaving the cubicle to wash your hands in one of the communal sinks, you stared at your reflection as you shook away the water droplets. The pandemonium of the club music had faded to a soft thumping, giving you some space to collect your thoughts. Even in the darkness, what you saw in the mirror couldn't be clearer. It was distinctly different from watching yourself in a pond—where the ripples of the water distorted your image—specifically the one in the garden back at headquarters.

Your old home.

But it could burn for all you cared. This was who you were now. Tired, resentful, and fuelled by a fire of hot vengeance.

“... Whatcha thinkin' about?”

Your heart jumped out of your chest as you turned to the voice. Leaning against the doorframe was none other than your old bodyguard himself. “Oh my god, you scared the crap outta me.”

He craned his head to the side with a grin. “Sorry, a force of habit. Security works better when they're discrete.” You responded wordlessly with a small, wistful smile. As nostalgic as it was to have the man by your side 24/7, he didn't have to do this anymore. And it was better that way. Something about bodyguarding never sat well with you. Not with a man of his talents, anyhow.

Walking in to join your side, he bent down to fold his arms across the sink. Then, he rolled his head up to you. “So... Wanna tell me why you look like that?”

“Like... Like what?” Blinking a few times at the mirror, you leaned in to peer at your reflection.

Allen snorted. “Not literally. Well, not your physical appearance. I can tell when something's on your mind.” Straightening up, he squeezed your shoulder as he stared at both of your reflections. Almost instantly, he felt you tense up beneath his fingertips. “I've known you for nearly eight years, dollface. I'm offended that you're underestimating me.” The man pressed his cheek to yours coyly. “Even if you don’t talk to me about your problems, I can smell em’.”

You outstretched your hands to hold the edge of the sink, breaking away from the contact on his skin. It wasn't anything worth paying mind on your end, but the feeling of your face separating from his was reminiscent of tearing something from its glue. It stung as much as it was destabilizing. It showed in his troubled frown, which deepened when he heard your mirthless laughs while you hung your head.

“I'm sorry I haven't been talking to you.” The loudest silence fell around you both as his eyes went round with grief. “It's... Too productive.” Returning his gaze with a bittersweet smile, he felt himself die a little inside. You weren't spared of the sensation as you continued with an honesty so brutal, it killed you to say it. “I've been trying so hard to make something out of myself.”

Your brows trembled ever so lightly as they furrowed together. “But I'm getting so tired, I wanted to just... Give up on the future. Maybe disappear for a bit. But I couldn't bring myself to come to you or anyone about it. You especially.”

Allen huffed out a pained breath. “Why? I wanna help you! You can trust me with anything, you know that! Out of everyone in the world, I'm the closest to you, aren't I?” Holding onto your shoulders, he gave you a desperate squeeze. “Or am I wrong to assume that?” In this space in time, he never felt more betrayed in his life. The hurt coursing through every fiber of his being was unbearable—he preferred being skewered into by your father's blade to this.

“Because it’s Alfred now?”

Your heart sank as you listened to and saw how wounded he was. His lips were trembling, and tears were threatening to spill from his glassy eyes. Never in your life had you seen him cry. The sight was so sobering you couldn’t hold yourself from pulling him down into a tight hug. “No! It's because you're you.” As your bodies swayed from side to side in the embrace, you dug a hand through his hair and screwed your own eyes shut. “You’re my only family in the world. Nothing and nobody will ever replace you, ever.”

He tightened his hold on you as he let a few tears roll down his face. His eyes had been shut as a last-ditch resort to keep that from happening, but they oozed out the tiny gaps of his lids. “Then talk to me.”

Allen never knew he had this fear, but here it stood before him in all its glory, threatening to undo his sanity at the seams. It was the fear of being a second choice. Being abandoned. He already was once, and it nearly cost him his life. But if you did it--“What makes me so different from the rest? Why would it be easier to say this to everyone else?”

“Because you’ve known me since I was thirteen!” You buried your face into your hands to hide how it contorted with pain. Falling deathly quiet at your sudden outburst, he could only watch as you trembled away. “I’ve been working towards something ever since. I always thought I was scared of disappointing dad. But in the end, I was more afraid of disappointing you.”

Allen pulled you in again, and this time, he didn’t hesitate to kiss your cheek. It wasn’t a first, but the way how his mouth lingered on your skin made it feel like something more—something beyond a platonic friendship—and pulling away felt like a sin in itself. “Don’t think that fucking low of me. You could never disappoint me.” Pressing his forehead to yours, he bit back a contented sigh as your cries quietened to sniffles.

“You have nothing to prove. Fuck expectations. You don't have to live the way everyone wanted you to. Just live how you want.” Reaching up to hold your face, he was at a loss from how satisfied it felt to finally say it. But the moment of truth had yet to come—the culmination of everything he wanted in this world.

“Just run away with me. We can put this all behind us. We don’t have to think about this ever again.”

You held onto his hands that found a place on your cheeks. It was a nice thought. To abandon everything you knew to live a carefree and blissful life with Allen. But you declined with little hesitation. “We don't run from things. It's not who we are.” A sad smile made its way to your face. “And I have too much unfinished business.”

Allen wasn't sure whether to think of your response as rejection. But he wasn't about to let it get to him. “... If you ever do, then tell me. Zao's got a nice retreat in the middle of nowhere. We'll pack our things in the middle of the night and disappear by morning.” Your smile spread to him, but his was more bittersweet.

“I just want you to know that you'll always have a way out of everything. I'll wait for you. So just... Give me a call.” He shoved his hands into his pockets to walk off. With one last wistful look over his shoulder, he added this. “I'll always be your guy.”

Going to the bathroom was meant to clear your head, but here you were, sitting in your lonesome in an empty pool room in the penthouse to mull over the conversation. You would be lying if you said you didn't want to run away with Allen. A part of you wanted to return to how things used to be—when it was just you and him. He was the most important person to you in the world, but so was Alfred. You couldn't just forget about him like fuck all, could you? Breathing out a drawn-out sigh, you watched the soft pulsing of lights of the city at night through the window.

Maybe Allen did want you to forget him.

Fiddling with the gun he left you, the barrel scraped against the counter in small slides. Then, you picked it up with a huff to slide off the stool. It was about time you joined the rest. As you did, you caught sight of a familiar silhouette by the window.

Shrouded in the dimness of the room, their body was nothing but a shadow against the scenery of neon holograms and billboards. With a brief squint, you could recognize the person almost right off the bat.

“Alfred? How did you know to come up here?” Tucking the gun into your back pocket, you couldn't help but grin at the pleasant surprise. The said man spun to your voice, then waved. Your grin would've widened at the sight, but it faded upon discovering he was in a different set of clothes than what he arrived in. He came in a dark khaki military jacket and navy blue jeans.

Weird. When did he change to a kimono?

“Hey! I haven't seen you in ages. Come gimme a hug, dammit!” Tightening his arms around your waist, he lifted you up a few inches off the ground. A few nervous laughs fell from your lips as you held onto his shoulders to stabilize yourself. And they felt... A little softer than you remembered. Warmer. Before you could linger too long on the sensation, he set you on your feet and gleamed.

“Whatcha doing in the club, (F/N)? I thought you didn't like places like these. 'Specially when this one's got ties to the underworld and stuff.”

You craned your head to the side—never have you been this baffled. “... You walked in here with us.”

Alfred blinked. “Oh, did I?”

“... Are you drunk?”

He patted his chest a few times without eliciting any sort of whirring noise—immediately, the interaction changed to an unsettling one. But his answer only confirmed your suspicions. “Nope! Stone-cold sober. It would take more than a few drinks to get this baby down.” He gloated, much to your surprise. But the shock soon morphed into a grim kind of understanding.

Alfred couldn't get drunk.

In a heartbeat, you grabbed his wrist, then felt down his forearm. The utmost terror contorted at your expression as you felt his soft flesh sink between your fingers. You only sucked in a horrified gasp when you witnessed his veins disappear under your presses. It was almost as if he was—“Heh. You having fun there?”

Glancing up at him in a dark glower, you never bothered to open your mouth. Instead, you reached for your back pocket. If he was who or what you thought he was, you couldn't let Alfred see him. He couldn't leave this room alive. However, your conviction couldn't triumph the smallest shred of hope that you were just seeing things. There was one way to confirm you weren't hallucinating.

Blood was on the agenda, and you wanted to see it.

You pulled out your gun at light speed and fired a shot into his palm.

The explosive bang was loud enough to reach a few floors down, including the elevator that just left this one. Allen was whistling to himself when he heard it.

As faint as it was, he couldn't mistake it for anything else.

He shouldn't have left you alone.

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nanabrainrot · 4 years ago

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Big Brother Complex

CHAPTER ONE

Take It Easy

Summary: How happy to get a sibling in such a lonely house. If only either of you felt that way. (AU in which Holly is a divorcée from Mr. Kujo and moves in with reader’s father)

Pairing: PT3ISH!Jotaro Kujo/Stepsister!Reader

Warning: NSFW

Jotaro Kujo lived a life of solitude and that included his home. Despite the overbearing presence of his lovely albeit annoying mother, Jotaro was generally left alone. At the concept of him moving in with another family, he begrudgingly complied, earnestly assuring he couldn’t care less, especially that he was to have a stepsibling his age he had never met.

Nevertheless, some strange anxiety bubbled in him as the moving truck rumbled outside, him easily carrying some boxes upstairs where there was 2 bedrooms, one across from the other; he could only assume the ajar door was his room. his mother and stepfather’s master bedroom having been downstairs, he knew it safe to assume that the stepsibling was in their room, the door closed yet some rustling of papers could be heard in the hall. He could hear Holly’s jolly laughing downstairs as she chatted with the movers, but none of the noise drummed out the thud of his heart. Why was he nervous?

He opted to ignore the closed door, opting to radiate the essence of unbothered, unconcerned to avoid the possibility you wouldn’t like each other.

BOMPH!

The moving boxes hit the floor. It was groggy today so he discarded his jacket on it, left in his gray shirt as he stopped to look out the window. So bright out, he thought, agitated, I need to put these stupid curtains up soon.

“Do you need help?”

A girl? Oh. The stepsibling across the hall. “No,” he replied before turning to look. A pause. A really, really long pause. You were stand there, glazed in a sheen of sweat from the summer heat and donning a pair of too short active shorts and a black sports bra; you might as well have introduced yourself to him in lingerie with the seductive state you presented. Your chest huffed a bit, seeming out of breath, hair all frizzy from your hanging braid, and glasses slipping off your nose. “Sorry, I just got back from a run, I was just gonna change but I wanted to say hello,” you apologized, moving forward from your bedroom’s doorframe to his. You held out your hand. “(Y/n). It’s nice to meet you.” Fuck, your smile.

His hand, suddenly clammy, reached for yours and almost enveloped it wholly. Tiny, he thought. “Jotaro.”

The main problem was that he didn’t dislike you at all. Actually. In this situation, maybe that would’ve been better.

- - -

“Thank you for helping me, JoJo, I’m so bad at biology.”

He seriously didn’t know what he was doing.

He was home alone with you, Holly and your father visiting your grandparents for the weekend, giving you time to adjust to each others company and get along with each other. He felt like he was on autopilot. He was just helping you with the homework, why was he doing this? How did this even start? It didn’t matter. He overheard you on the phone yesterday telling your friend you were going to get a check up for the birth control you were on. Birth control? That’s interesting, Jotaro thought, mentally jotting it down, before shaking it off, disgusted with himself.

You were his sister now, Holly insisted.

Then why the fuck were you doing this?

Your papers discarded on the floor, pens and highlights strewn about as you record player spun some classic 60s tune from America. It was all background noise. You wore so little at home; tiny shirts and shorts and the way your nipples hardened and demanded his attention, this should’ve been expected.

The worst part was you obviously had the same things in mind when you looked at him.

To put things short: Jotaro was dry humping you.

You were laid on your back of your full mattress, white toile de juoy patterned sheets wrinkled as your hair spread like a halo at the headboard against your pillow, eyes clenched shut and chest heaving with your panting as he rubbed his hard cock through his boxers against your sopping wet cotton panties. Your shorts at the end of the bed and his shirt and pants lost somewhere, but who the fuck cared? Best of it, you stripped the bandeau and he watched your tits bounce as he rutted into your groin, both of you desperate to fuck, yet afraid to.

Dry humping was second best.

“Ah, JoJo... this feels good...” you sighed, propped up on your elbows behind you to get your face closer to his. You looked so good. Your pussy probably felt even better. “Can I kiss you?” you asked in a soft voice, all shy despite close to naked as he pushed his cock against your slit through the cotton. “Please,” Jotaro groaned in a low voice. Your lips were soft with your strawberry chapstick as you put your arms around him, pulling him down to lay on you as he kept humping, pressing kisses to each others lips.

“Wait, I’m gonna -“

It came out of him before he knew it. He hadn’t really done anything like this before. He wasn’t sure if you did. He didn’t really care for girls, most of them fawned over him and made things awkward. You just wanted to talk, have his company, get to know him.

He came in his boxer briefs. The plaid fabric now wet with his cum as your chest heaved. You always seemed to wear a bored expression. The mangas he read called them ‘kuudere,’ quiet ones, ones who always seek to wear one expression and lived in a perpetual state of boredom.

You sure didn’t look bored tonight. Your brows knit together and eyes wide with almost shock and plump lips just a tad ajar. The record had spun to an end. He clambered off you, too tall and bulky to move correctly off the bed while avoid stepping on your homework. It was quiet. You heard some crickets chirping as the alarm for 10pm went off.

That was supposed to be your homework break.

Despite cumming, his cock ached for your warmth still and he collected his clothes from the floor, watching as sat up and put your bandeau back on. So pretty in the moonlight. “...Did you understand the material?” he asked awkwardly, breaking the silence. His cheeks were burning, why were his cheeks burning?

“Yes,” you quietly replied, “...thank you, Jotaro.” He slips on his pajama pants to navigate the hallway, shirt in his hand, adjusting the pants so to avoid ruining them with his cum before he could get down the stairs to throw the clothes in the wash. Before Jotaro left, he mumbled a bittersweet, “Goodnight, (y/n).”

His heart aches a bit. Something in him wants to cry a little, admit that it was a one-time thing, just a mistake. He wants this. You want this. He wants it again. He doesn’t just put his hands on random girls, so what does that mean? What did that mean? The stairs creak beneath his bare feet as he begins to descend them. How was he supposed to sleep now?

“Goodnight, Jotaro.”

Your bedroom door closes.

The silence of the house is sickening.

#jotaro kujo #jotaro kujo x reader #jotaro kujo x you #jojo’s bizarre adventure #jojo’s bizzare adventure x reader #jojo part 3 #jojo part three #sin tag #nana writes #nana writes jojo

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infiniteshawn · 5 years ago

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Golden

a/n: 4k of meeting Steve Rogers fluff. Yes, I am writing for Steve Rogers. No, I never thought I would. Yes, this is the first thing I’ve written in months. No, it is not very good. Enjoy nonetheless.

The street was quiet. Dark, almost, save for the glow of your halogen headlights. You took a breath and tapped your forehead on your thin, massive steering wheel, mentally collecting yourself for the social situation you were seconds from entering.

Elizabeth Andrews, a family-friend that you’d known since you were only seven, was getting married.

You lived an hour away and had to work later than usual at the restaurant, so naturally, the street was already filled with the parked cars of the guests that had actually arrived to the engagement party on time. A sigh left your lips.

You swung open the heavy door of your ’65 Mustang to twist in your seat and slip your heels on. Huffing a laugh to yourself, you were sure you’d be kicking them off after taking twenty steps to the front door.

You couldn’t help it. You’d always found these social events too formal and too busy and too emotionally taxing to bear, and if Liz wasn’t someone you’d known so long, you’d be curled up on your hand-me-down couch with a glass of red wine to watch endless reruns of Full House. Instead, you were constricted by a black cocktail dress and a bit too much makeup.

With a bottle of wine in one hand and an envelope of cash in the other, you knocked.

And of course, no one answered. You could hear the stereo blasting Roxy Music from the front step and for a second, you thought that this might not be so bad.

You reached to turn the brass knob to notice it was already being turned, and the crisp April air was subsided by indoor warmth as the front door swung open by itself.

It didn’t really open itself. It was opened by a very large, very handsome man you’d never met and at first, he didn’t say anything. Either did you.

Instead, your eyes travelled from his dark brown dress shoes up his long, navy-slack clad legs, over his broad middle, and landed on a pair of beautiful blue eyes.

The moment must have ended because he was stepping to the side and saying something to you, and all you could focus on was his smooth, honey-like voice. He must have told you to come inside, but it really didn’t matter because he seemed to be experiencing the same lack of words that you were. The two of you must have looked ridiculous.

His eyes left yours as someone in another room called, “Steve!” and he seemed to come to his senses.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath, “I’ve gotta get back in there,” he spoke with a playful grin, “drinking game.”

“Ah,” you said, forcing a giggle and nodding, your false amusement failing to fool him.

“You know people here, though?” he asked, suddenly serious and earning a raised brow from you, “I mean, I just don’t want to leave you here if you don’t know anyone. You’re good?”

“Oh,” you grinned, “yeah, yeah. I’m good. I’ll see you in there.”

“You better,” he smiled warmly before walking away, and you knew he was just being kind as opposed to suggestive. He actually seemed more polite than the guys you were used to meeting at social gatherings like this.

“Finally!” a voice greeted you as you snapped out of it, meeting the chocolate brown eyes of a woman you knew all too well.

“Liz!” you grinned, pulling her in for a hug, “sorry, I had work and then the drive, it’s always too long,” you reassured, handing her the envelope and wine bottle you’d been gripping for a few minutes. “Hey, you’ve met James, right?” she spoke, waving a handsome brunette over to the two of you.

“Yeah, at your birthday last year,” you smiled politely, pulling him in for a hug.

“Bucky!” someone called and James turned his head, and you remembered something Liz had mentioned to you a couple of months back: his friends were literally the Avengers.

You’d never met any of them, but you did have a deep, suppressed memory of researching the lot after Liz had muttered something about James and the Second World War and Captain America. You turned your head to get a glimpse into the living room, and were shocked to see many people you knew, and a few you didn’t. Steve—the one who’d answered the door and the one you now realized was Captain America—stood among the group, throwing his hands up in surrender and then took a swig of his beer. You wondered what he’d just confessed to.

* * * * *

You mingled. It was nice. You caught up with many people you weren’t recently in touch with and got to know many others you’d never met, and Steve somehow became a large part of it. He stuck by you toward the end of your rounds, and for a little while it was just you two. He asked about your degree and career plans, and you asked about his job but refrained from digging too deeply—his old-fashioned tendencies told you enough.

You found it charming, actually. He had called you ‘ma’am’ a few times and turned a deeper shade of pink soon thereafter, but you couldn’t help finding it endearing and innocent. You’d even reached out to grab his arm a few times, but not too many. There was something between the two of you, and neither of you could accurately put your finger on it. So you didn’t try.

“You need another drink,” Steve said, swinging the fridge open and retrieving two Stellas, “I didn’t-“ he started, “I didn’t mean you need another drink, I was just getting one, so I figured maybe you wanted one, I-“

“Steve,” you chuckled, stepping closer to him to take the bottle from his hand, “you’re all good, I wanted one.”

He smiled, relieved, but you felt for him. He was trying, you thought, and it seemed as if he really didn’t want to say the wrong thing or give you the wrong idea. A tortured gentleman.

* * * * *

“And it just started pouring rain,” Liz spoke animatedly, a little huddle having gathered around her in the living room as she explained how she met James, “and this guy who’d also missed his train asked me if I wanted to dance.”

You couldn’t help the smile creeping up your lips. You remembered this story—she’d only told it a million times—but it never got old.

“I just knew, that was it,” she finished. Everyone was looking at her, but Steve was looking at you.

You raised a brow at him, and he realized he’d been caught. A bashful grin crept up his cheeks and you didn’t even think, saying exactly what was on your mind.

“I’ve never danced in the rain.”

His gaze was a little more concentrated, now, but still warm.

“I’d recommend it,” he replied, and you couldn’t help the small tinge of jealousy tugging at your heart strings. Steve must have sensed it, because something told him to reach down and give your hand a squeeze. You squeezed back.

* * * * *

The party was dying out, but you hadn’t really noticed. Steve’s humour had kept you busy all night, and you found yourself wondering why you’d always hated gatherings like this when people like him existed.

Steve had been thinking about what you said earlier, and after much mental deliberation, he shot his Asgardian friend a look.

Your laugh was interrupted by a low rumble.

“Oh, fuck,” you said under your breath, attracting the attention of Steve and a few other members of his posse. He raised a brow.

“Sorry,” you spoke, placing your beer on the table as you stood, “I just realized I need to cover my car.”

You walked away briskly, calling something along the lines of “be right back!” as Steve followed suit, also breaking from the group.

“I can help you,” he offered and you ignored him, too worried about water worsening any rust on your factory paint. Not bothering to locate your jacket and thankful you hadn’t taken your shoes off, you flew out the door, Steve hot on your heels. You looked back and squinted your eyes at him with a smile, questioningly, but sweetly.

“It’ll be faster with two peop-“ he began, but interrupted himself, “shit. Didn’t peg you for a muscle car kind of gal.”

“Oh, yeah,” you shrugged but grinned slyly, proud of the classic car you’d managed to maintain for the last couple of years. “My dad bought it in ’95, I grew up with it,” you spoke, popping open the trunk to retrieve the fitted fabric, “it kind of died when I was seventeen, and my dad didn’t bother. Sat for a while,” you explained, and Steve watched intently as you began to unfold the blanket-like tarp, “and I begged my dad not to sell it. Told me if I could fix it, I could have it. So she’s mine now.”

“Cool dad,” Steve chuckled, reaching for the opposite side of the cover as you hooked it under the front left corner, “was it a lot of work?”

“Not really,” you replied, “brakes, battery, new plugs. It was pretty light work, if I’m being honest.”

Steve looked impressed, smoothing out the last of the cover for good measure.

It seemed that the second your Mustang was protected to your standards, the rain began.

And it wasn’t just rain.

It was fucking pouring.

“Great,” you muttered under your breath, ready to make a run for it, but Steve wasn’t budging. He didn’t give you time to ask questions.

“You said you’ve never danced in the rain,” he called, the falling water droplets drowning out his voice.

You grinned slightly, suppressing a giggle as rainwater dripped from his hair onto his face, trailing down the tip of his nose. You wanted to kiss it.

He took a step closer, arms stretched out a little, bringing your attention to the situation. You’d already caught on.

“I haven’t,” you spoke with a smile, your dress clinging to your legs as you took a step toward the super soldier. His dress shirt was stuck to his torso and you had to fight the pressing urge to look. You focused on the water dripping off of his long lashes instead.

“Well, then, I’ve gotta ask,” he spoke smoothly, tilting his head to the side as he held a hand out, “can I have this dance?”

There was no music save for the fuzzy melody of endless rain hitting the pavement as he pulled you close, one hand intertwined with yours and the other on your waist. If you weren’t so cold, you’d have blushed.

His box-step was well-rehearsed, and you wondered if he did this often and then remembered that he’s just, well, old. Steve was impressed with yours, and you didn’t mention that your dad had taught you to dance by standing on his toes in the living room to “Surfer Girl” by The Beach Boys when you were four.

Your head was nestled into Steve’s firm shoulder, and you snapped away in fear of getting makeup on his white shirt.

“You alright?” he asked in response to your quick movement, moving his hand from your waist to his side to capture yours. He moved it to his chest.

“Yeah, sorry,” you smiled up at him, appreciating the way his eyes remained an icy blue even in the dim lighting of the few street lamps, “just wanted to look at you,” you half-fibbed. It wasn’t why you moved, but it also wasn’t wrong.

Steve tossed his head back for a second, mouth falling open with a wide smile.

“Smooth,” he chuckled, but he held you a little tighter. He swayed with you, soon lifting his arm and indicating for you to do a twirl. The ends of your sopping hair spewed droplets of water as you rotated.

He pulled you back in, but the air was thick this time. His smile was tight-lipped yet he was beaming down at you, admiring the slope of your nose and the curve of your lips and those big, beautiful eyes.

“Steve,” you whispered, loudly enough for him to hear. He tilted his head, urging you to go on, “I’ve also never been kissed in the rain.”

He squeezed your hand and spoke, more gently than before, “Would you like to be kissed in the rain?”

“I’d like to be kissed in the rain by you.”

That was all he needed. Steve leaned in, pointy nose brushing yours gently before his lips molded to yours, applying the gentlest pressure in the warmest way. Your hands were freezing but your soul was on fire, heart going a thousand beats per minute and mind running even faster. The rain engulfing the two of you kept you separated from the world, creating a moment in which there was only you and Steve. You didn’t want to be anywhere else.

His hands left yours and travelled up your sides, settling on each of your cheeks, fingertips reaching into your hair. Yours had found his chest and there was no turning back as you slid your palms upward, finding his neck and pulling him into you and kissing him harder.

Steve broke it.

“Slow down there, partner,” he grinned, and you laughed against his lips.

“Partner?”

“Sorry,” he laughed, too, “I guess you can tell that I don’t do this often.”

You couldn’t tell, but it did make sense. He led an unusual life.

His forehead rested on yours as water dripped down both of your noses. You shivered.

“Yep,” he concluded with a sigh, breaking apart fro your frame, “it’s cold. Shall we go back in?”

It was playful but formal, and he held his arm out for you to link yours with. You held onto your dance partner, trailing slightly behind him as he hopped up the steps and pushed the front door open, pulling you inside to assist in soaking the welcome mat.

“Hey, Buck?” Steve called, but quickly lost himself to laughter, “we have a bit of a, a situation.”

James popped his head around the corner with a furrowed brow, changing his expression to that of surprise as he laid eyes on the two of you, absolutely drenched.

“What the hell?”

Steve stuttered, his gaze moving from his best friend to yours, unsure of how he was going to explain himself.

“Caught in the rain,” you grinned, eyes locked on Steve’s as you replied to James’s question.

“I-uh, okay,” he shook his head, hands raised in surrender as a silent declaration not to ask questions, “Liz is in the kitchen cleaning up, and you have about ten seconds to get upstairs and avoid interrogation. Try not to drip too much.”

You were shocked at the lack of consequences, but Steve knew that Bucky had been attempting to set you up as long as he’d known you--as long as he’d known you were perfect for Steve.

You each kicked off your shoes for a silent exit, nodded at each other with an uneasy giggle, and made a run for it. Steve seemed to have a destination in mind, so you followed, hot on his heels until he was pulling you into the guest room and pushing the door shut.

All it took was a raise of your brow and Steve was already defending himself, insisting that this was not what it looked like.

“Not what you think, I promise,” he pressed kindly, opening up the closet to retrieve two stark-white towels. He tossed one in your direction and you began patting down your hair. You watched as Steve moved a duffle bag from the dresser to the edge of the bed, unzipped it and began to rifle through its belongings, “I’m staying here tonight and I packed two t-shirts,” he began, “you’re welcome to borrow one because I don’t think you’re driving home in this weather with that car.”

“I’m sure I can just borrow something of Liz’s,” you spoke, eyes set on his hands as he re-folded the grey Camp Lehigh t-shirt he’d offered.

“Yeah, that makes more sense, yeah,” he muttered, more to himself than to you, fearing that he was being too forward or not forward enough or just flat-out weird. You noticed his insecurity.

“Actually,” you piped up, placing the towel down on the opposite side of the mattress, “I will take it. Thank you.”

Steve looked up with the slightest smile, handing you the shirt and lingering, just for a second. His eyes travelled downward.

“Sorry! Um, I, I can turn around, if you wanted to, to put that on, now,” he blurted, and you couldn’t help but giggle at his innocence.

“Sure, Steve,” you grinned in response, gaze momentarily fixed on his wet dress shirt stuck to his muscular back. You reached around for your zipper, but the wet fabric didn’t allow for much flexibility and forced a frustrated sigh from your lips.

“Okay?” Steve asked, eyes set on the wall as he listened to your strained breathing.

“Yep,” you tried one last time, giving up after an exaggerated effort. “Nope, actually, I can’t get this zipper down for the life of me.”

“Need help?” he chuckled, turning around before you could answer. He crossed the room, grinning down at you before you turned around and lifted your wet hair out of the way.

Steve’s fingers hovered over the nape of your neck before he took hold of the tiny zipper, taking his time sliding it down the track. He tried not to look at your newly-exposed skin, really trying not to think about what he could see of your lacy black bra, and didn’t let go until you huffed a quiet “thanks.”

Steve gulped as you turned around, tilting your head upward in hopes that he’d kiss you again. He got the message, eventually, because he seemed to take forever to meet your lips. Your noses brushed and his hands were peeling the damp dress from your shoulders when a sudden knock at the door caused both of you to jump.

“We’re going to bed, Steve,” James called from the other side of the door, a sigh of relief leaving Steve’s lips.

“Alright,” he called back, thankful that Bucky wasn’t asking any questions—yet. “Night, Buck.”

Steve was the one shivering, now, and without thinking, your hands quickly travelled to the top button of his dress shirt. His chest rose and fell as you worked your way down one, two, three, four, finally asking, “is this okay?”

He nodded, a distant smirk on his lips as his forehead fell to yours once again.

His shirt was open and you hesitated to touch his skin.

“It’s okay,” he spoke hoarsely, “I’m not gonna be able to peel it off by myself, anyway.”

He was cold but his skin was fire against your touch as you opened the thin, white garment, tugging it off his broad shoulders. A light dusting of hair coated his hard chest, and even soaking wet, he smelled like mint and honey.

The fabric fell to the floor at his feet and still, he hadn’t kissed you, worried it would escalate into something too much too quickly.

“Steve,” you started, your hands falling from his chest to your sides, “we probably shouldn’t-“

“You’re right,” he agreed, moving his head to the side to plant a kiss on your rosy cheek, “not the right time. I will, however, spare you the second-hand embarrassment of watching me kick wet pants off,” he chuckled, breaking away from you to sling his bag over his shoulder, “I’ll be right back,” he spoke, leaving the room quietly to change elsewhere.

You put on his dress of a t-shirt and attempted to comb through your hair with your fingers as you sat against the headboard, unsure of what was to come upon Steve’s return.

He clearly didn’t know either, because the way he gently pushed the door open and looked at you with such affection and uncertainty had your heart bursting with the urge to hold him. He wore blue plaid pyjama bottoms and a white t-shirt, and of course, his socks were fuzzy.

“Nice socks, Captain,” you noted, and his cheeks flushed at the sound of that name on your lips.

“Very funny,” he grinned, planting himself in the space beside you and laying on his side. You looked down at him, wondering if you should shift to tuck yourself into his chest or continue admiring him, so relaxed and vulnerable and raw.

“You gonna get over here or stare at me all night?”

You rolled your eyes but gave in, tucking yourself under the covers and curling up beside him.

“Oh, we’re doing that,” he joked, shifting to tuck himself under the duvet, too. “You look pretty.”

“I look insane,” you responded quickly, positive that what was left of your makeup was a mess and your hair was frizzed to the max. “You, on the other hand,” you trailed off, reaching out to drag your fingertip across his jaw, settling on his chin before you brushed his lip with your thumb.

“Hm?” he hummed, eyes shutting for a second as his arm locked around your side, pulling your narrow frame flush against his own.

“Just didn’t think I’d end up here,” you spoke softly, and his ocean eyes fluttered open once again.

“I never thought Bucky would be getting married,” he quipped, “but I guess life’s full of surprises.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Steve broke it.

“Promise I’m gonna go sleep on the couch,” he muttered, eyes shut as he appreciated having your face nestled into his neck, “just resting my eyes.”

* * * * *

Everything was golden. The light streaming in through the white curtains, the feeling that came with the strong pair of arms wrapped around you, and the little flecks in the blue eyes that slowly opened to greet yours.

“Shit,” Steve muttered, realizing both of you had fallen asleep and morning had come. “M’sorry,” he spoke groggily, his hand navigating its way out of the blankets to run his fingers through his hair.

“It’s okay,” you spoke more cheerfully than he did, pressing your head against his shoulder once again and revelling in the feeling of his warm shins on your cold toes.

“No, really,” he continued, sounding worried, “I was going to leave, I really was, but you fell asleep and you were so peaceful and warm and I couldn’t let go, I tried,” he paused, “and now Bucky’s going to have a million questions and you’re gonna have to deal with all that and-“

“Steve,” you cut him off, lifting your head to meet his concerned gaze and hushing him, “remember last night? I told you I’ve never danced in the rain, and we danced? And then I said I’d never been kissed in the rain, and you kissed me?”

Steve blushed a little, but nodded nevertheless.

“I don’t want to have to ask every time I want you to kiss me.”

His cheeks flushed more deeply this time, but you could tell he was happy when his lips formed a lazy grin and his grip on your lower back tightened.

“Good to know,” Steve smiled, pulling you into him for a soft, perfect kiss, and neither of you cared about the consequences.

It was just you and Steve, and it was golden.

#steve rogers #imagine steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers fic #steve rogers fluff #steve rogers smut #chris evans #chris evans x reader

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doomedandstoned · 4 years ago

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Spelljammer Reveal Trippy New Vid, Talk ‘Abyssal Trip’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

Interview by Billy Goate

Cover Art by Aaron Cahill

Our week of big interviews continues as we meet up with the ethereal doom outfit from Stockholm SPELLJAMMER and premiere a new music video, from their just released second LP, dropped only weeks ago on RidingEasy Records and now the number one album on the Doom Charts.

'Abyssal Trip' (2021) is an enthralling listen from edge to center, with lavish textures, deep thematic content, and unforgettably emotive atmosphere that will stick with you for life. Enjoy it as you read the revealing conversation with Niklas Olsson (guitar, vox) and Robert Sörling (guitar) that follows as we unpack their steller new spin, talk nerdy gear shit, and contemplate humanity's fate.

And now, Doomed & Stoned is pleased to bring you the world premiere of the brand new video for that epic third track, "Among The Holy."

Give ear...

Spelljammer - Among The Holy (music video)

You guys have been a band now for damn near 15 years, maybe longer. Most bands don't make it past two years! What is the "key" to the band staying together for so long and continuing to find inspiration for creating new music?

Rob: I don’t think it’s been 15 years just yet but we are getting there, haha. None the less - that’s a really interesting question! Nik and I started the band much because we share the same taste in music, film and, well, art in general. I think that's the core keeping it all together. Also, there have been a few constellations of band members over the years, all with their own dynamic. I think these kinds of changes, and the new directions of the music because of that, is part of the inspiration. Maybe another reason is that we all live in different cities and because of that sometimes a lot of time passes between rehearsals, writing sessions and such, making us always craving for new Spelljammer jams and songs.

Nik: The craving yes. And another reason I think is the fact that we’ve never really been in a rush to get anywhere. Anything Spelljammer, the music included, takes time. If we had been set on making it, this thing probably would have fallen apart a long time ago.

Abyssal Trip by Spelljammer

How did the theme for Abyssal Trip originate?

Nik: I have always been more drawn to the feelings or emotions you get from a riff or piece of music than to any theme of a lyric. But I would say that any themes came in at the lyrics state, which is at the end of the process. But the themes aren’t that specific to any of the albums. I think I cast a pretty wide net in the beginning and stuck to it. For the next album perhaps we will venture more into unchartered waters. We’ll see.

What fascinates you about the Great Abyss of the ocean?

Nik: I totally get that the word abyss conjures up images of ocean trenches and, yes, the ocean is a fascinating and to a large extent undiscovered place. However, when I wrote that I wasn’t necessarily thinking of the ocean but more the abyss of our own minds. But I think it’s a word that evokes many things, like despair and doom, and it is of course totally open to interpretation.

Is mankind doomed or do we have time to correct our course?

Nik: I’m not as pessimistic of a person as the lyrics may suggest. I think we will be here on earth for a long time. Mankind is clever (perhaps too clever for her own good) even if there are a lot of people hell-bent on trying to screw up everything for everybody else.

Rob: Yes, and considering how ignorant and careless (some) people are acting during this pandemic, at least over here, makes you wonder if there’s any hope at all.

Nik: People are the worst. Ultimately, though, none of it matters because we’re all doomed.

Have you guys seen any good movies/documentaries or read any good books lately that inspired you or otherwise challenged your thinking about life, the present, or the future?

Rob: I can’t say that I’ve seen or read anything recently that challenged me significantly, I guess I’m getting too old to be that overwhelmed haha. The film A Ghost Story though was kind of cool though because it was different, slow and weird (in a good way), and for me it’s always inspiring to read/see/hear something that makes you think, "Man, I wish I had come up with that idea”.

Nik: Absolutely! Punch Drunk Love, Moon, and Office Space are definitely movies like that. I have watched so many movies and series through this pandemic and I can’t remember any of them right now. But I did just notice that there is a season 3 of Loudermilk on HBO! If you haven’t already, see it! I’m currently reading "Homeward Bound, The Life of Paul Simon” by Peter Ames Carlin. It’s a good read about one of my favorite musicians.

For recording this album, what kind of gear did you use and what production/engineering considerations did you have to take into account?

Rob: Since we did a remote recording in the countryside we had to use whatever stuff that we could fit into a couple of cars. I have a couple of old audio interfaces that I linked for a total of 16 channels. I also have a small collection of mics (nothing fancy) and we used them all and the rest was borrowed. We set up the drums in the living room and put the guitar and bass rigs as far away as we could (the adjacent rooms) to avoid bleed and just focused on getting the rhythm tracks done. The goal was to get us all in the same room and to catch the vibe from a relaxed rehearsal kind of situation. The bass rig used was a Orange Terror Bass and an Ampeg SVT 810 and the guitar was tracked through a Reval Mark I and/or Orange TH-100 and a Orange PPC 412. Of course there’s always some unforeseen problem lurking and this time it was the electricity in the old country house.

Nik: I don’t use many effects, just a fuzz. For this one I used a Supercollider from Earthbound Audio. It is exactly what the name suggests. That’s all you need really.

The album cover is amazing! It reminds me, in some strange way, of the creature in the old B-movie Robot Monster (1953). What's the story behind the artwork?

Nik: It definitely has a B-movie vibe that I really like. I’m afraid I can’t really tell you much about it other than the artist name is Aaron Cahill and you can find his stuff on Instagram under the name nghbrs.

I filmed your first US appearance at Psycho Las Vegas in 2016. Fans want to know: do you have ambitions of returning to North America once the world sorts out this pandemic?

Rob: Yes, that’s our first and only US appearance so far and we wouldn’t mind at all returning to Vegas or any other part of the US. For now it’s really hard making any plans at all. In fact, you would think that this kind of isolation would enhance creativity, and maybe for some it does, but for us it’s actually been the most unproductive period so far for Spelljammer. So I’m hoping that by the time this thing blows over we get the inspiration back both for writing/recording new music, and in time hopefully revisiting the US!

Nik: I agree, playing at Psycho Las Vegas was a blast. I hope we get another opportunity to come back some day.

Spelljammer at Psycho Las Vegas/a>

Some Buzz

“The vastness of everything is something that I think about a lot,” says Spelljammer bassist/vocalist Niklas Olsson. And it certainly shows in both the expansive, sludgy sounds and contemplative lyrics of the Stockholm, Sweden based trio. Following a 5-year break between their previous album, Ancient of Days — perhaps fittingly spent pondering said vastness — Spelljammer is back with an album that perfectly bridges the band’s earlier desert rock leanings and their later massive, slow-burning riffs.

'Abyssal Trip' (note: carefully reread that album title) takes its moniker from the perpetually dark, cold, oxygen-free zone at the bottom of the ocean. The 6-song, 44-minute album fittingly embodies that bleak realm with rumbling, oozing guitars intercut with dramatic melodic interludes. The songs take their time to unfurl, making them even more hypnotic. Likewise, the lyrics take a poetic approach to establishing the sonic scenery.

“The lyrical themes we address, like the ultimate doom of man, and the search and longing for new and better worlds, are still there,” Olsson says. “The concept of something undiscovered out there in vast emptiness is pretty much always present.”

The recording process for Abyssal Trip differs from previous releases in that the band — guitarist Robert Sörling, drummer Jonatan Rimsbo and Olsson — opted to capture the performances while holed up in the mental bathysphere of a house in the countryside near Stockholm. “The songs benefitted from the relaxed environment of being away from everything,” Olsson explains. Indeed, the album sounds confident and meticulously arranged, afforded by the band’s isolation. Sörling mixed the album and it was mastered by Monolord drummer Esben Willems at Berserk Audio.

Album opener “Bellwether” begins dramatically with a very slow, nearly minute-long fade in of rumbling distortion setting the stage for heavily distorted bass and guitar plucking out the lugubrious riff for another minute and a half before the drums begin, and likewise equally as long before vocals gurgle to the surface. “Lake” abruptly shifts gears, opening with an unusually fast gallop before rupturing into thundering doom that soon drops into a clean-tone Middle Eastern melodic breakdown.

The title track serves as the album centerpiece, opening with ominous film dialogue about blood sacrifice that launches into pummeling, detuned guitars rumbling over gut-punching drums and howling vocals hearkening to the proto-sludge of Pink Floyd’s “The Nile Song.” The dynamic relents briefly for a slow building clean guitar melody before all instruments lock into a jerking riff topped off by a trilling Iommi style lead. Throughout, Abyssal Trip is, just like its title suggests, an epic tour through desolate zones which yields much to discover.

Follow The Band

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#D&S Debuts #D&S Interviews #Spelljammer #Stockholm #Sweden #doom #metal #doom metal #music video #HeavyBest2021 #RidingEasy Records #Doomed and Stoned

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randomfandomginger · 4 years ago

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Puppeteer

I’ve been working on this fic for long enough I should really talk about it over here lol

Anywho, who ordered a Logince and Moxiety slowburn with extra plot and superpowers?

Summary: There are a couple of life experiences that you can't get through without bonding with others. Being kidnapped just happens to be one of them. Discovering that you share certain enhanced abilities with your fellow kidnappees- that's another. (Logan would argue that it's hardly kidnapping, he's just helping to forcibly move them to a second location. No, never mind, that's definitely kidnapping.) Why have they all been brought to the same place? To fight crime apparently, and to steal back a little something that might just change their lives as they know them.

Words: 80k, complete!

Click below for the character’s introductory chapters!

Chapter One- Patton

Patton had been an optimist his entire life, somehow. To be fair, it had nothing to do with his personal experiences and everything to do with his love for life as a concept. Patton felt that he was lucky just to exist, lucky to have found such loving and accepting parents, lucky to feel so secure and happy as himself, lucky that he could do and see everything he wanted to do and see. Patton felt lucky, nothing else to it.

“Honey I’m home!” he called out jokingly into the open air, using his foot to help open the door to his apartment. In his hands, groceries were piled high, his spoils from his trip to the grocery store.

The store had been out of spinach, so they would have to forego the salads that he and Virgil forced themselves to eat every few meals, just for a semblance of healthiness in their lives.

“Pat? Is that you?” Virgil’s head poked out from around the corner. Patton was so lucky about so many things, and just knowing Virgil was one of them. The two of them had been inseparable since middle school, but the fact that they had both ended up at the same college had nothing to do with luck and everything to do with their shared love for the English language and a certain bond that could only possibly form between two boys who entrusted one another with such unique, such important secrets as they did.

“Who else would it be?” Patton said with a grin, setting the groceries down on the small table that they had set up in the middle of the tiny room. “Is anyone else around here referring to you as ‘honey’?”

“Last time I checked it was just you,” Virgil replied, beginning to help Patton stuff as many of the groceries as he could into their minifridge. “But then again, better safe than sorry.”

“Touche,” Patton replied. “Cutesy nicknames, that’s how they lower your guard…”

Virgil just laughed, a deep rumbling sound that Patton had been hearing for years, yet he never failed to feel a rush of happiness upon hearing it. “Alright, you find some cheesy feel-good movie to put on, I prepare our first round of food?”

“After last week’s disaster? Yes please,” Patton replied, smiling.

Being around Virgil was as comforting for him as it was for Virgil. Virgil’s brain seemed to slow down a bit when Patton was around, and a sense of contentment seemed to surround him. He was familiar, and safe, and Patton had known him so long that he could sometimes predict how he felt about any situation before he actually felt the shift in Virgil’s emotions.

Virgil gave him a grin. “I didn’t know it was physically possible to burn ramen, what with it being immersed in water and all, but you managed.”

“Well, I am a man of many talents,” Patton replied, a bit of an inside joke between them, already squatting down in front of their little box TV and looking through the collection of DVDs below. They’d been collecting since they were both children, but they’d agreed that only the essentials should come alone to them with college. That’s why, after a mere four hours of soft bickering, they’d settled on their twenty favorites to bring along.

“Hmm,” Patton mumbled to himself as he ran through his options. He could hear Virgil bustling around in the kitchen, humming the lyrics to some old song as he worked. “Something cheesy and feel-goodsy…” Patton said, then giggled at the word ‘feel-goodsy’.

He settled on Avengers, for both a comforting and fun storyline and Captain America’s ass, though he’d never admit the second one.

He and Virgil had been watching Avengers for years now, but what could he say? The movie held up. They’d always end up watching it somehow after bad breakups, difficult tests, kids being jerks, anything. It was a comfort movie, and one of the few that Virgil could stomach seeing more than three or four times. Movies like that were to be treasured.

Virgil waltzed back over to their shoddy little hand me down couch and sat down next to Patton, pulling him out of his thoughts, their plates clutched in Virgil’s calloused hands. “Our main course tonight will be none other than those gourmet reheated pizza slices that were apparently still left in the back of our fridge,” he announced with a flourish, handing Patton his plate.

Patton played along, gasping. “The very same gourmet reheated pizza slices that may or may not have been ordered a week ago?” he asked, doing his best but ultimately failing to hide the start of a grin tugging the corners of his lips up.

Virgil nodded gravely. “Those very same slices.” They stared at one another for a moment before they both burst out laughing. “Alright, what movie did you choose?” Virgil asked him mirthfully, and Patton simply nodded at the TV, where Avengers was all cued up and ready to go. “Nice!”

“Well, it is a cinematic marvel!” Patton joked, grinning at Virgil’s soft groan. “How could I not pick it?” He took a large bite of the pizza, chewing at the slightly stringy cheese.

“Terrible pun, Pat,” Virgil said, shaking his head as he shuffled a little bit closer to his shorter friend as he took a bite of his own slice. “ Terrible pun.”

Patton loved these nights on their ratty old sofa, eating cheap food and watching movies that they’d both already seen too many times to count. He knew they both had homework they needed to get done, and the next morning their stomachs would probably hate them, but these nights were to be cherished.

After all, Friday nights were one of the only nights he used to be able to have friends over.

Patton was fifteen, dressed in hand me down pajamas, and sitting in his living room, practically vibrating off the walls.

“Goodness,” his mother chuckled, walking into the room and finding her son staring at the front door anxiously, knee bouncing up and down feverishly. “He’s only five minutes late, Pattycake, I’m sure he’ll be here in a moment. Maybe traffic was just rough.” She was amused, which seemed to be her default setting. Amused and fond.

“I know, I know,” Patton said, bouncing his leg a little bit faster as the corners of his lips twitched. “Sorry Mom, I’m just anxious.”

Patton could feel his mom’s ripple of pride as he said that. He looked up to see his mother trying her best to hide a grin. That always happened these days, even though he’d gotten used to calling her mom almost a year ago. “And I can tell that from all the way over here!” his mother commented. “What makes this Virgil guy so special, hmm Pattycake?”

“He’s a friend,” Patton said, distracted, looking up and meeting his mom’s growing smirk with a groan. “No, Mom, not like that. He’s just a friend, I swear.” He wasn’t just a friend, he was Patton’s closest friend, but he didn’t really think saying that would help his case. It didn’t matter, he didn’t need his mother to know it for it to be true.

“Alright, whatever you say,” his mom said with another smirk. “You two are sleeping in the living room though, you hear me? Not your room.”

The doorbell dinged then, luckily saving Patton from any kind of further embarrassing gossiping. Vaulting to his feet, Patton rushed over to the door, opening it quickly and doing his best to act like his entire face hadn’t been flushed a brilliant red only moments earlier.

Virgil, complete with an overnight bag, stood on his front porch. As Patton took his friend’s image in, Virgil’s anxiety spiked through him like lightning. Virgil was clutching his bag close to his chest, eyes a little bit wide and unsure, knuckles white. Patton frowned. He didn’t really mean to read Virgil, but it wasn’t like he could help it.

“Hey,” Patton said softly to his friend as he took him in, Virgil’s anxiety still coursing underneath his skin like boiling water. He didn’t really need his empathy to figure out that Virgil was tense, but oh well. “You doing okay there, Virge?”

Virgil swallowed, nodding, shoving down whatever he was feeling. Patton resisted a small wince at that. Repression was never good in the long run. “Yeah,” he finally replied, cracking a small grin as he took in Patton in his baby blue pajamas. His mood shifted to a more positive one. “Yeah, better now.”

Patton beamed at that. “Great! Welcome to my home!” he said with a small flourish. “Come on in!”

As Virgil walked through the front door, Patton’s mom came around the corner, still grinning. “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Virgil!” she exclaimed happily. “Patton’s told me so much about you.”

“Mom…” Patton grumbled, flushing a little bit, but Virgil just laughed a little bit.

“It’s nice to meet you too, ma’am, thank you for letting me stay the night.”

Oh gosh, he’s so polite.

“Please, call me Mrs. Hart,” Patton’s mother said with a small smile.

When his mother left, Virgil began to look around his living room. Patton followed his gaze, a frantic bundle of excited and nervous thoughts. Virgil’s gaze rested for an unnaturally long time on the mantle, and Patton frowned a little bit. Virgil’s house was full of baby pictures. You get through the front door, there are baby pictures on the walls. You go to use the bathroom, bam, more baby pictures hanging above the toilet. Their living room practically looked like a ‘greatest hits’ from Virgil and his older sibling’s lives. Patton had even found baby pictures all over the mug of hot chocolate his mother had handed him. They were everywhere. Virgil was the youngest of four, and Patton didn’t think there had been a moment of silence in that tiny house. He positively loved it.

Patton’s house didn’t have baby pictures. They didn’t even have him when he was a baby. Patton didn’t remember his childhood, as he was a baby at the time, but he did remember the foster care system.

Baby pictures don’t make a family, Patton reminded himself firmly. Sure, it would be nice for him to remember anything from his youth, but he was happy now, under the care of two loving parents that he cared for very deeply. No sense in dwelling on what you couldn’t remember. Besides, he had Virgil here right now, and his top priority was making his friend feel comfortable in this new space.

“Your house is so much cleaner,” was the first thing that Virgil said, after a long moment of silence. He wasn’t exactly wrong, the entire living room looked as though it had been surgically bleached. His parents liked a clean home.

Patton burst into laughter at that. “I promise my room looks more lived in,” he replied. “Plenty of dirty clothing on the floor.”

Sometimes, Patton hated feeling other people’s emotions. Sometimes it was a rush of hatred and disgust and all kinds of horrifying darkness that made Patton feel dirty just for feeling it secondhand. Sometimes it was sadness so crippling that Patton’s own knees felt weak, that he could feel himself tearing up. Sometimes, it was fear so paralyzing that he felt his joints lock up and his own breathing get shaky.

Tonight, it was joy and excitement and a tinge of adrenaline that usually accompanied exploration. Tonight, Patton had never been less bothered by his empathic skill.

As they watched the movie, Patton could feel his mind beginning to wander. This was in no way the fault of Avengers, he’d simply seen it more times than he could count. Besides, now his brain was full of thoughts regarding his special skills.

The empathy was bad enough, forcing him to pry into people’s heads when he didn’t want to know, but his second skill was even worse, even more intrusive. Patton knew secrets, or more accurately, one secret per person. Sometimes he knew their worst fear, sometimes he knew their greatest hope. On very rare occasions the two were the same.

For instance, when he first met him, Virgil’s greatest fear was someone discovering that he was different. It had changed since that day, but Patton had known and always would know with nothing more than a simple cursory glance exactly what it was. There were no words floating in circles around Virgil’s head, there was no psychic link moment where everything became clear to him, he just looked at him, and he knew. He didn’t have any better way to explain it.

Patton hated it. His mom’s greatest fear was cancer, and his dad’s greatest hope was to give his wife and son the best lives that they could possibly have. Most people’s were generic like that, but more often than he’d like to admit Patton would stumble across something that he’d rather not know.

He’d outed his first foster father at age eight, asking his mom what a homosexual was, and why his new daddy was so worried about her finding out. He’d informed his second foster father bitterly at age twelve that his wife was having an affair, one that she feared he’d discover. It wasn’t until he was thirteen and finally settled in with his mom and dad that he was able to relax.

Patton was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that when the doorbell rang, he jumped about a foot in the air, jostling the table.

“Oh crap!” he cried out in distress, watching as Virgil’s glass teetered, before beginning to fall to the floor, almost as if in slow motion.

Quick as a blink, Virgil’s hand shot out, easily snatching the glass before it hit the floor. He’d barely even looked up from his phone.

“Nice catch,” Patton said with a grin. “Show off.”

Virgil stuck his tongue out at him. “What can I say? I’m a man of many talents.”

Two, to be exact. They both had two. It had taken Virgil a long time to use his around Patton, but his enhanced reflexes came in handy around the house, as Patton tended to bump into anything and everything that could be broken. Virgil had probably saved about ninety percent of their dishes by this point. Super fast reflexes don’t sound very much like a superpower until you bump the dining room table over and not a single dish ends up broken.

“I’ll go see who it is,” Patton said cheerfully, patting Virgil’s silky purple locks as he passed him by, smoothing out his shirt in an attempt to make himself marginally more presentable before pulling open their heavy oak door.

“Hello!” Patton said cheerfully, his smile dipping momentarily as he took in the scene before him.

A young boy, maybe about his and Virgil’s age, stood in front of them. He had dark hair, so dark it was almost black, and navy blue spectacles on his face. He was dressed in all black, almost formal. He was expressionless, but a wave of guilt hit Patton like a brick. He began to feel uneasy.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?” Patton tried again, eyes flicking behind the boy to see the two men standing there, staring straight ahead. They almost looked like soldiers.

“I suppose,” the boy spoke, and Patton turned his attention back to him. He appeared to be sizing Patton up, an action which was not appreciated. “Are you Patton Hart or Virgil Sinclair?”

“That would be me,” Patton said carefully, “What can I do to help you good folks?”

The boy in front of him opened his mouth again, when he heard from down the hall, “Pat? Everything good out there?” Virgil was nervous, he could tell from his voice.

“Ah good, that answers my next question,” Logan said with a nod, now rummaging around in his back pocket for something. “Well, Patton, I would tell you that I am incredibly sorry about this, but the fact of the matter is, I don’t find myself bothered by this. After all, it is necessary.”

Patton was taking a step back, already trying to close the door, but the man closest to him grabbed it before he could. “Virgil!” Patton shrieked as they pushed past him into the house, and then he felt a sharp prick in the side of his neck.

Looking back at the young boy, Patton swayed for a moment, suddenly feeling heavy. Blinking drearily, he squinted in an attempt to focus. What was he supposed to be doing? Gosh, he sure felt worn out. Wouldn’t it be nice if he could just take a little nap? As Patton’s eyes sagged closed, he could hear Virgil doing something, most likely fighting the other men, but he couldn’t keep his focus on much of anything for too long.

Family, he thought as he drifted off, staring up into the other boy’s bright blue eyes, his biggest hope is for a family.

And then his eyelids slipped shut, and he could feel his head thunk against their floorboards.

Patton didn’t dream while he slept. It was just dark. He couldn’t see anything, he couldn’t hear anything, but he knew he was asleep. That in itself was peculiar. Patton was a lucid dreamer, and usually his entire night was filled with fantastical adventures and unusual shenanigans.

He awoke in a strange bed, in the middle of a strange room. His eyes snapped open, another unusual occurrence for him, seeing as Patton usually took ages to muster up the courage to open his eyes after a full night’s rest.

The room was dimly lit, and he sat up, rubbing his neck slightly as he took in his surroundings. To his left was a table, a couple of books stacked underneath. In the right corner sat a potted plant with a light blue vase. In the chair next to the potted plant sat the same boy from the night before, staring intently at him.

Patton jolted as he noticed him.

“Oh, good,” the boy said with what looked like an attempt at a friendly smile. “You’re awake. We may begin. My name is Logan.”

Patton sat there, his mind racing. Should I say something? Will that make it worse? Where am I? Who is Logan? How long was I asleep? What am I doing here? Why did he take me?

Where’s Virgil?

Chapter 2- Janus

Janus couldn’t believe his luck. Honestly.

Walking throughout the crowded city street on swift feet, he eyed up the stores to his left and right respectively. The crowd rushed around him like a babbling brook, and just as loud. Vendors were out on the congested streets, doing their best to entice the public under their brightly colored coverings. Children were laughing, birds were chirping, and the organized chaos around him made conditions perfect for what he wanted to do.

Janus ducked out of the street, standing off near the opening to a sweets store, observing the festival from a bit more of a difference. The shadows obscured his already covered face further, and Janus tugged impatiently at the strings on his hoodie, squinting his honey and hazel eyes squinting at the people wandering through the festival. “Come on, come on,” he muttered under his breath.

A little ways away from him, a tan man with long black hair laughed loudly, running his fingers through his thick hair before interlacing them with his girlfriend’s once more. Perfect.

Janus concentrated. Usually, when he shifted, he preferred to close his eyes, but the most important part of this whole thing was that he stayed constantly on his toes, so he begrudgingly kept them open.

Janus could feel his entire body begin to tingle as the shift took over. That was probably his least favorite part of all of it. He could feel his chin bulging slightly, as well as his nose growing. His build became stockier, and his eyes, so captivating before, turned to a dulled brown. Likewise, his hair darkened as well, the already dyed blonde coloring fading from the roots outward. In a matter of moments, he was a completely different person.

Janus put down his hoodie, stepping a bit further out of the shadow of the archway and smiling a smile that wasn’t quite his. “Alright, let’s get this started,” he said, his voice deeper than it had been only moments earlier. Good, that was all in order then too. The mimicry was always easier than the conscious effort shifting took him, so long as he heard their voice first.

As he walked, opposite the direction from the man he’d just impersonated, he kicked at the sidewalk casually, forcing his toes to the end of his boot. Did I lose a couple of inches? He wondered, amused. He was pretty short already.

Whatever. He ducked into a nearby store, one that sold crappy old antiques for overinflated prices, resisting the urge to crack his knuckles as he did so. That would have been horribly stereotypical. Giving the shopkeeper another one of someone else’s signature smiles, Janus set to work, eyes flicking from shelf to shelf, noting the unsurprising lack of customers that made his job much simpler than he needed it to be.

As Janus left the same store only minutes later, an extra pep in his step and his pockets full of useless knick knacks, he blended back into the crowd easily, letting the flow carry him through the streets.

Nabbing a spare pastry from a visiting vendor and dropping some change on the counter, he continued through the crowded streets, allowing his face to slowly bleed back into the one that he’d been assigned at birth. This time, changing back was almost like shrugging off a heavy coat, one that fit him just a little too strangely to feel completely comfortable in.

That was the oddest part about it, in his opinion. Everyone was a slightly different experience. Some people fit like skin tight leather, others gave him a strange, almost bloated feeling while he was trying their likeness on. Still others left a tangy taste in his mouth, and on very, very rare occasions, people just felt right. A person’s outward appearance wasn’t the determining factor, to the best of his knowledge, as Janus had tried and failed to find one characteristic or pattern that would differentiate exactly how it felt to become that person.

It was a beautiful, bright summer day, and the heat of the sun beat down on Janus’ back while he wandered, taking another bite of his chocolate pastry. The sweet was positively exquisite, and he smiled. The summer festival was his favorite time of year, not only for the ease with which he was suddenly able to pickpocket, but also for the out of state company and the vendors from all over that lined the streets constantly, jousting one another for position, each tarp cover more flamboyant and eye catching than the last.

There were a couple of little kids playing in the street nearby, shrieking and giggling. Their mothers were pleasantly conversing a small ways away, most likely also keeping an eye on their respective children. Janus watched them from the corner of his eye, running his slender fingers through his hair. They were caught up in their own little world, unaware of the strife and conflict that surrounded them at all times.

He frowned. Ah well, they would learn soon enough. He certainly had.

As he moved on, his phone buzzed. Digging it out of his back pocket and checking it absentmindedly, he noted the time.

Grandma: When will you be home, garter snake?

Smirking at the pet name (though he’d never admit it), he shot back a ‘soon’ to his grandmother before repocketing his phone. He’d technically gone out today to see the festival and he wanted to stay just a little bit longer. After all, it really did only happen once a year.

It was at that moment that Janus heard the crying. Honestly, it was a miracle that he could even pick it out in the first place, what with how quiet it was. Luckily, several years of living on edge and learning to make money where there was none had prepared Janus for hearing noises others didn’t deem quite so important.

“Mom? Mommy!”

Janus glanced around hurriedly, heart race picking up as the small voice became clearer. The kid was getting closer to him.

It only took him a moment more to spot her, wearing a slightly scruffy white dress and blue boots, her straw colored hair pulled back in two braids. There were tear tracks on her cheeks, and she stood off to the side of the crowd, calling out to the foot traffic desperately, like she wanted to weave and search her way through the crowd but was unable to. She clutched the side of one of the nearby vendor’s tarps in her right hand and a tiny stuffed bear in her left. Crap.

Quickly, he ducked out of the flow, approaching the girl with his best ‘I’m not intimidating’ smile. The girl, for what it’s worth, evaluated him through calculating eyes. This would be very good, if not for the small sniffles she let out every couple of seconds, and the tears budding in the corners of her little chocolate colored eyes. Why is no one helping her? he thought, an irrational surge of anger coursing through him.

“Hey there kiddo,” Janus said, the words sounding a bit strange in his mouth, but pressing on nonetheless. “You doing okay there? You look a little lost.”

The girl nodded hopefully, though he couldn’t tell which question she was nodding in response to. She kept the distance Janus had established by stopping a few feet away from her, clutching the tent behind her a little tighter. “I’m looking for my mommy,” she explained, before sizing him up again and stating decisively, “You’re not my mommy.”

Janus had to push down a bubble of laughter at that, watching a small grin cross the girl’s face. “Well, you’re definitely correct there,” he admitted, shrugging in a ‘what are you gonna do’ kind of way. “But I can help you find her if you want,” he offered.

“Mommy told me if I ever get lost to go to the nearest place I recognize and wait there for her, but she hasn’t come to get me yet and I’m scared,” she told him. Janus didn’t miss the way her voice broke on the last syllable, or the tears now threatening to spill over the corners of her eyes and down her rosy cheeks.

Oh shit oh crap, don’t let the child cry, he thought, and before he knew what he was doing, Janus had dug through his pocket and pulled out one of his knick knacks, a little silver chain with an aqua stone hanging from it. It was one of the simpler things he’d nabbed, most likely not even very old at all. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the store had taken it and distressed it themselves in an attempt to pass the necklace off as an antique.

The little girl’s eyes widened as he offered the necklace to her, taking a step forward and reaching out with both of her little freckled hands to examine it.

“Here you go,” Janus said dumbly, because he wasn’t really sure what exactly to tell the small girl, but he wanted her to know the necklace was hers to keep, and she seemed pretty entranced by it already, but it couldn’t hurt to clarify.

“It’s so pretty,” the little girl said, touching the dangling stone carefully. A child who’d been taught how to handle breakable things, even better, Janus thought, giving her a reassuring smile.

“Okay kiddo, if I’m going to help you, I’m going to need to know your name, okay?” he told her, and she nodded up at him.

“That sounds reasonable,” she said softly, sounding out every syllable in the word reasonable. “My name is Jessica, but my friends all call me Jessie.”

Janus continued to smile at her, hoping it was still coming off as reassuring. “That’s a very pretty name, Jessica,” he said, watching her attempt to fasten the necklace around her neck. “My name is Janus, and my friends call me Janus. Would you like some help with your necklace?”

She giggled a little bit and nodded again, eager. “Thank you Mr Janus!”

He couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face as he knelt down to help her, Jessica turning around and raising her hair out of the way, even though it was in braids. Diligently, he refastened the little silver clasp around her neck, suddenly thankful for his long nails.

“Alright Jessica, now let’s get you back to your mother!” he announced in his best chipper tone, and the little girl flashed him a grin brighter than the sun.

I should probably find an officer, or maybe someone in charge of security, he thought, and even though his blood went a little cold at the thought of willingly walking up to anyone dealing with law enforcement, he shot another glance over at the little girl, and he steeled his nerves, doing his best to push down the anxious fluttering in his stomach.

“Okay Mr Janus,”Jessica responded, prim and proper and polite as she used her palm to wipe the last of her tears off of her face. Then, a little shyer; “Can I hold your hand?”

He looked down at her, and the words “Of course,” were spilling out of his mouth before he could even stop them.

Just as shyly, he felt a tiny hand slip into his, and Jessica gave him another of her little smiles. “Okay, all ready now,” she announced, and Janus grinned at her.

And the two of them were off, Janus weaving through the crowd easily, used to navigating large groups of people. Every so often, he would glance behind him to reassure himself that Jessica was still there, despite the weight of her tiny hand in his own.

As they neared the police tent, stationed near the barricades closing off the road at the ‘start’ of the festival, Janus could feel his stomach trying to crawl out of his throat. There were a few officers standing around under the cover of their tent, and one very desperate looking woman speaking with them hurriedly. As Janus approached, he could hear the conversation a little bit clearer.

“Please, sir, I need to find my daughter,” the woman pleaded. “I don’t even know what happened, one moment she was holding my hand and the next she was gone, please!” She sounded close to hysterics, clutching the deep red purse around her arm tightly.

“Ma’am-” the police officer said in a slightly exasperated tone, but it was at that very moment that Jessica cried out “Mommy!” and let go of Janus’ hand, running past him on her short little legs and straight into the arms of the anxious woman.

“Jessica!” the woman responded, picking up her daughter and squeezing her. “Oh my gosh, Jessica, what happened to you? Why did you let go of my hand? Are you safe? Are you okay?” The woman’s questions got louder and more concerned the longer she looked her daughter over, patting her down for injuries and then hugging her again, just as tightly as the first time.

“Mommy, it’s okay,” the little girl said, in that same placid tone that all children somehow managed to channel through them when they really truly believed that nothing was wrong. “Mr Janus helped me.”

“Who is Mr Janus, honey?” Jessica’s mother asked, biting her lip nervously and giving her daughter another once over.

“He’s right over there!” Jessica pointed back to where he was awkwardly standing a few feet away, feeling a little bit like he was infringing on a personal moment. “He gave me a pretty necklace and helped me find you.” Janus gave her an awkward wave, unsure of what exactly to do.

As Jessica’s mother looked him over, Janus squirmed under the scrutiny. Jessica clearly took after her mother, sharing her straight blonde hair and button nose, though her mother’s eyes were blue, and Jessica’s were brown.

“Hi,” he tried, unsure of the proper protocol for dealing with returning a lost child.

Jessica’s mother’s grip tightened on her child for a moment, and then she smiled genuinely at him, and oh, that was Jessica’s smile too, and tears were welling up in her mother’s eyes as she said her next words. “Thank you so much for bringing my little girl back to me.”

Janus felt a rush of emotions, most of them positive, some of them bittersweet, still others a little bit confused and unsure. “Yeah, it was no biggie,” he managed to make out, giving her a smile and a head tilt. “I just did the respectable thing.”

Jessica’s mother gave him another smile, and said in the most genuine, sincere voice she could manage, “Well, if the world were full of people like you, we’d be all the better for it.”

Janus had to resist the urge to laugh outright at that, though the corners of his lips did twitch up. Hopefully, he could pass that off as a bashful smile. Oh lady, you have no idea. “It was my pleasure,” he responded smoothly, smiling down at Jessica and waving. “It was nice to meet you Jessica.”

“Bye Mr Janus! Thank you for helping me find my mother!” Jessica said with another one of her big grins, and surged forward to wrap him in one more big hug before she let him go.

“Bye Jessica,” he echoed, even as he turned away, smiling a little bit, knick knacks weighing heavily in his pockets.

The walk home was a slow one, one that he knew well. He’d been walking these bleak streets for years now, practically since he was old enough to stand on his own two feet. They were as familiar to him as anything could be, the result of time and effort spent exploring their back alleys and lanes.

Now that the festival was behind him, the cheery feeling had faded, the colors desaturated. Even the air seemed different, slightly stuffier. He knew that was ridiculous, he knew the air quality couldn’t deteriorate that quickly, but it seemed to choke him, worming its way down his throat and making itself at home in his lungs. It always had.

A dog barked from a nearby house as he passed by, and Janus crossed the street. There was no one out on these roads, but that wasn’t uncommon. He wouldn’t have been very surprised if a tumbleweed bounced past him one of these days on his walk home. It was just horribly stereotypical enough to be funny.

His grandmother’s house was a little brick house on the end of the block. She’d lived there as long as he’d known her, which was pretty much his entire life. Then again, he’d lived with her for most of that life. He didn’t really remember his parents, but that was okay in his book. Anyone who deserted their three year old child wasn’t anyone he ever wanted to meet, much less be related to.

Besides, his grandmother had been a more than capable caretaker. No one had showed up at more random childhood talent shows and concerts than she did, and she baked cookies wherever Janus did anything even minorly noteworthy, to show him just how proud she was of him. They’d replanted practically the entire garden behind the house together when he was little, and it was yearly tradition by now for the two of them to go out on the first acceptably temperate day during the spring and do their first round of weeding together.

Janus was walking up to the front step, already fumbling for his key when he stopped. The door was already open, slightly ajar. His eyes narrowed.

He could hear deep voices coming from inside, faint, but definitely there. Not his grandmother.

Without a second thought, he shifted, struggling a bit to pull his coat from this morning back on. Crap. Were the man’s eyes blue or brown? Was the small scar on his right hand or his left? Did his chin have a cleft in it or not? He didn’t remember, and that could be dangerous.

His coat was full of holes, little ones, but holes nonetheless. It was like he’d left it in the back of his closet, only pulling it back out to wear again once the moths had had their way with it. Was his nose really that big too? That certainly didn’t feel right. Clearing his throat and letting his voice deepen and shift into the man’s honeyed rumble, he slipped his jacket off and left it on the rocking chair to the left of the door. The voice was always easier.

“Mrs Devon?” he called out as he pushed the door the rest of the way open. The voices inside quieted immediately, and Janus put on his best mildly concerned but mostly confused look. His teeth were just a little too white to be real. Something told him that he wasn’t nailing this.

“Janus? Sweetie is that you?” his grandmother called out. She sounded nervous, never a good sign.

“No, it’s, ah, Mark.” Janus winced. He hadn’t had time to come up with a name, a story, anything. “From nextdoor?” he tried.

“Ah, Mark, come on in!” his grandmother called out, and Janus had to resist smirking. She was a better actor than he’d ever be.

As he walked through his hallway and into the kitchen, he found his grandmother sitting at the kitchen table with her hands crossed in front of her. Her lips were pursed and her expression was mildly frazzled. All around her, making themselves at home in her kitchen, were several different middle aged men. Sitting on the counter and sipping from a juice box was a boy that looked about his usual age, kicking his feet a little bit.

Staring at the scene in front on him, Janus all but tilted his head to the side questioningly. “It appears that I am not acquainted with your guests, Mrs Devon. Are they new in town?”

Before his grandmother could reply, the boy with the juice box spoke. His tone was icy. “Simply passing through.”

“Yes, I do believe they’re looking for my grandson,” his grandmother said, meeting his eyes. Janus could feel his blood run cold. Surely this isn’t for petty theft, he thought.

“What did he do this time?” he tried to joke, but it fell flat.

“Not a gosh darn thing,” his grandmother replied. “Mark dear, you will let me know if you see him, won’t you? He’s been out all day and I’m ever so worried about him.”

“O-of course.” His throat felt dry.

“We were informed that he would return at around this time,” the boy said, eyes narrowing behind his thick glasses lenses. He brushed some of his black hair out of his face as he evaluated Janus.

That seemed to be happening a lot today.

“Well, I certainly haven’t seen him,” Janus responded, you know, like someone who certainly had seen him.

“Of course you haven’t,” the boy repeated again, in that same cool tone that made Janus feel like his skin was crawling. “Because if you had seen him, then you would certainly tell us. After all, you have nothing to hide, and as a fine, upstanding citizen you certainly want to make sure that the law is being upheld.”

“That goes without saying,” Janus replied. Seriously, don’t say it. Stop talking to me. Please.

The boy sighed heavily. “This is a real shame, Mr Devon, I’d hoped you would cooperate with us…”

“I’m sorry?” Janus replied, feeling dread begin to pool in the bottom of his stomach.

“Yes,” the boy said with a nod. “Yes, I suppose you are.”

There was a small prick in Janus’ neck, and he gasped, stumbling away from the man behind him, eyesight already going a bit fuzzy. Somewhere to his left, his grandmother let out an indignant cry. Shit. “What- what did you do to me?” he gasped out, blinking heavily even as the man retreated back next to the boy with the brilliant blue eyes. “Shit,” he gasped out, and then his vision went black.

Chapter 3- Roman

It was just like his brother to have done something incredibly stupid the last week of their senior year and then claim he was “too tired” to get anything else done for the rest of summer. Roman let out a small huff as he walked back from their kitchen, balancing two plastic cups in one hand, and a bowl of chips in the other.

Remus had set off fireworks indoors. Not a couple of fireworks either, he’d gone out with some friends a couple of nights before and bought as much as six months of a minimum wage paying job would buy in fireworks, which was more than you’d expect. Roman had been saving his own money for college, despite his scholarship, but Remus just went out on impulse and purchased more fireworks than could fit in the back of his truck quicker than you could say “bad idea”.

Talk about going out with a bang.

Besides, Remus wanted to be a ceramist, he’d already gotten everything set up and ready to go on that front. Best to start the whole ‘starving artist’ thing as early as possible, right? At least, that was his go to joke whenever it was brought up.

“Anything good on TV?” Roman asked him, setting the cups and chips down on the table.

Remus was flicking through the channels absentmindedly. “Nah,” he muttered.

“Move your legs,” Roman told him, nudging one of the offending limbs. Remus insisted on wearing booty shorts throughout the entirety of ‘shorts season,’ no matter how cold out it actually was. Between the AC and the time of day, Roman didn’t know how his brother’s legs hadn’t frozen solid already. Remus had always run warm though.

“Mmh, no,” Remus replied, reaching out and popping a chip into his mouth.

“Don’t make me sit on you,” Roman warned him. “I’ll do it too.”

“Whatever.”

“You asked for it.”

Roman sat down on Remus’ kneecaps, but instead of the usual cursing and writhing that would result from such an action shared by siblings, Roman could only feel Remus’ knees give a little bit, and then they went completely flat and rubbery.

“Oh, gross!” Roman leapt off of him at once, brushing down his butt like he’d sat in lava. “You know that I simply despise it when you do that!”

Remus let out a little snicker. “Do what?” he asked him, smirking.

“You get all… rubbery. I don’t know how to explain it! Just… ew.” Roman made a face.

“I know, right?” Remus grinned at him. “I’m like a gutted fish, ready to be cooked! Where do my bones go? Who knows…”

“Don’t make it any weirder than you already have,” Roman said, exasperated, like they hadn’t had this conversation over and over again in the past. “Come on dude, please, just move your legs.”

“Oh! Well why didn’t you just say so, brother dearest?” Remus said, batting his eyelashes comically at Roman and sliding his legs gracefully to the floor, where they fell with a slight jiggling motion, kind of like jello. Roman resisted the urge to make another face, he knew it just egged his brother on.

Sitting down, Roman popped a chip into his own mouth, chewing slowly and savoring the flavor. Twelve years of schooling, done and dealt with. He couldn’t believe it. They’d done so much and spent so much time in that old brick building that it felt almost wrong to leave it. He had no more constants in his life, no more getting up early every week day for school, no more Friday math tests, no more lunch block to be spent with the theatre kids. He had lost all his constants.

Well, all but one.

Remus was his one true constant. They were going to the same college, despite all of the differences between them. Roman’s football scholarship was offered by a place with an excellent theatre program, and Remus had chosen the same school based on their stellar arts program alone. Remus was the antithesis to his thesis, the yin to his yang. Even Remus’ powers seemed to be in direct contradiction to his. Roman had expected them to be exactly the same, since they were twins, but his brother and he couldn’t be more different when it came to their strange, almost otherworldly skill sets. They’d had two apiece their entire lives, the powers of unknown origins that they only used when it was them and their parents around.

Roman had always had thick skin and an even thicker skull, in every sense of the words. He couldn’t remember a time when any knife, nail, or needle had ever pierced his skin. He led a surprisingly bruise and scrape free childhood, but it wasn’t until he’d accidentally caught his finger in a stapler and pressed down and the stapler had bent that he realized he couldn’t break his epidermis. He’d come to his mother and father crying, they’d thought he was finally hurt, but when he showed them the bent stapler and his pristine almond skin, they’d simply exchanged a look that he couldn’t quite figure out.

Remus’ skin was weird too, but not in the same way as Roman’s. Where Roman’s skin was rigid and unmoving, Remus’ was practically too easy to bruise. He’d spent most of his childhood covered in bandages and gauze pads, but he’d never broken a bone. This probably stemmed from the fact that Remus was like a rubber band. He could have been a contortionist, though Roman hadn’t ever seen a contortionist that could squeeze themselves completely flat and slide under his door to wake him up at three am on their birthday. Remus had limits, sure, and he seemed to keep the same body mass no matter what, but it was like his bones were gone sometimes, weird to look at and even weirder to feel.

It was Remus’ second skill that really made him the one with the more interesting skill set, in Roman’s opinion at least. It was the one thing that actually made him a match for Roman’s super strength, and made sibling squabbles a little bit more “fair.” He didn’t use it often, and Roman hadn’t ever really been able to put a finger on what he should call it.

They were seven or eight at the time, sitting on the floor of their living room, propped up in front of the TV. Colorful cartoons flashed on the tiny screen, but neither brother was actually paying much attention at all to them. Their focus lay on the toys on the rug in front of them, trucks and cars and dolls and little tiny building blocks.

“Boys, do you want lemonade?” their mother called from the kitchen, before returning to her usual humming.

“Yes please!” Roman called back to her politely, before returning to his very serious battle with Remus. So far it looked like he was winning, but he never knew when Remus would try and cheat to get the upper hand, so he had to stay vigilant. His father had taught him that word last week, and Roman had been thrilled to know that it had so many practical applications.

“Alright, Monsieur Poopybutt will now lead his forces in an attack!” Remus cried out, holding up his own doll, a barbie with a sharpie mustache scribbled across its small upper lip. He placed the doll very delicately in his biggest monster truck, colored the green and brown of camouflage.

As Remus mimed driving the car closer to Roman’s lego castle, he let out a hearty laugh. “You fool! You’ve fallen for my plan, hook, line, and stinker!”

Remus chuckled. “It’s hook line and sinker, doofus!”

“Whatever! Point is, I have you now!” Roman grabbed another of the dolls, one he’d been saving for the special moment that Remus tried to attack him head on, like he always did. “This is Princess Elizabeth!” he announced, brandishing the doll close to Remus’ face so that he could see her closer. “She wears a sparkly dress!”

“I know Princess Elizabeth,” Remus replied, unimpressed. “You use her every time we play. She knows how to use swords and whatever. She’s not that cool.”

Roman gasped theatrically. “How dare you besmirch the good name of Princess Elizabeth?” he cried, dramatically throwing one arm over his forehead, the other still clutching his doll tightly.

“Meh.”

“Well, dear brother, there’s something you do not know!” Roman cried out, grinning the gap tooth smile of a delighted child. “Princess Elizabeth has learned a new skill since our last battle!”

“Oh?” Remus asked him curiously, tilting his head and flashing his own identical gap tooth smile. “What is it?”

“Princess Elizabeth has learned how to use magic,” Roman whispered, eyes sparkling as he leaned in for dramatic effect. It had taken him days to fully flesh out her backstory, limitations, and powers. Originally, he’d wanted to make her like himself, but in the end he’d fallen back on the classic elemental control.

Remus let out a raspberry. “Well that’s good for me, since Monsieur Poopybutt is immune to magic,” he said with a shrug, knocking Roman’s doll out of the way and continuing his siege on Roman’s now unprotected castle.

“Wait, you can’t just do that!” Roman cried out, scrambling to grab Princess Elizabeth. “You made that up just now, you can’t change the rules!”

“So what if I did?” Remus asked him, grinning. He was already in the process of destroying Roman’s castle, ramming the truck containing his own doll into the side of the structure again and again. “Monsieur Poopybutt can do whatever he wants! He’s immune to magic because I say so, and he’s killed Princess Elizabeth, so I’m free to attack your castle! Besides, you can’t learn how to use magic that quickly, that’s unreasonable. Learning magic takes time!”

“Princess Elizabeth is not dead!” Roman protested, holding her aloft. “See, she’s right here! She’s fine! You didn’t do anything to her!” He paused. “And you can too learn magic that quickly! Princess Elizabeth is a fast learner!”

Remus just looked over at him, before grabbing the doll out of his hand and chucking her across the room.

“Hey!”

“You started it! There, she’s dead, I killed her! Don’t make me pop off her head too!” Remus retaliated. “She’s gone, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

Roman let out a shriek, throwing himself at his brother and knocking him away from the castle, sending him staggering to right himself.

“What was that for?”

“You can’t just kill Princess Elizabeth! She’s my doll, not yours!”

They were both on their feet now, glaring at one another, the toys discarded. “I can and I will!” Remus replied haughtily.

“I hate you!” he yelled at his brother.

“And what are you gonna do about it, huh? Punch me?” Remus’ voice was deeper now, a low growl in the back of his throat that no ten year old should be able to use.

Roman shoved him. He knew it wasn’t the right thing to do, he knew that Mom had told him never to physically lay his hands on anyone unless it really couldn’t be helped, because they weren’t as strong as he was, but he couldn’t help it. Remus had been a pain in the butt all day, and this was just the last straw. Besides, he’d killed Princess Elizabeth and that was simply unacceptable. She was too important to just be killed off like that. So he pushed his brother with all the strength he could muster, stumbling into him and knocking him over.

Immediately, it was like his arm had gone dead. Pins and needles traveled throughout his entire body, and Roman felt drained for a second. Stumbling further, he fell on top of his brother. Immediately, Remus went pliant beneath him, probably ready to ooze away from him like he usually did. “Ow, get off me!” Remus cried out.

Roman felt like his body had been filled with lead, the pins and needles feeling retreating and leaving him utterly drained. He was oblivious to Remus’ whining as he tried to figure out exactly what he just felt. That had never happened before, not even when he hit things as hard as he possibly could.

“I said, get off of me!” Remus cried one last time, and then he shoved up at Roman.

Roman stumbled back and off of his brother, feeling a little bit like he’d bounced off of a wall. Crying out on his own, he felt his back connect with the floor as the air was knocked out of him.

A moment passed, and then Roman became acutely aware of his brother staring at him with wide eyes, their quarrel forgotten. His brother had shoved him away with a strength that only Roman could have possessed.

It had happened in the span of a couple moments, only seconds. Maybe he’d imagined it. Roman rubbed his elbow on reflex, even if it didn’t really hurt. He had never felt more powerless.

The best way he could think to explain it was energy redirection. However hard you hit Remus, he could hit back just as hard. He assumed. It’s not like they took a lot of time testing it out. As long as Remus could weather the hit, he would be fine. That was a lot cooler than his super strength, the only thing he got out of that was an advantage in football.

I wonder if Remus would be able to redirect energy from a moving car? he wondered to himself before banishing the thought from his mind. Remus would absolutely be up for being hit by a moving car for an experiment, and if he even heard about the idea he wouldn’t be able to get the idea out of his head. If he didn’t end up asking Roman to do it, he’d find someone else to hit him with a car. Roman wasn’t sure which of those options he felt more comfortable with. Probably neither.

Right now, they were both just having a lazy night in, gorging themselves on food while their parents were still paying to keep it stocked in the house and heckling at reruns on TV. It was peaceful and familiar, and Roman was glad for that. With so much changing so soon, he was a little nervous for what the future held.

Their mom brought their dinner out to the couch about halfway through wherever stupid TV show they’d put on for background noise, and after a profuse thanks from the twins, who hadn’t expected any other food to be provided, she retreated back to her study to work.

They dug into their calzones while they watched, the ceramic plates cold in their laps even with the steaming food atop them. College was stressful to think about, college was going to be expensive, and college was nowhere on their radar tonight, luckily.

The Princes had a rather nice house, upper class if you will. It was no mansion, but they had several floors and more than enough bedrooms for everyone. They were quite comfortable, and one of the features of their big house was their lovely doorbell, which had been rewired sometime when Roman and Remus were children to ring with a pleasant chime whenever anyone pressed the button. That being said, the sudden loud knocking at the door was a jolt to both of the twin’s systems, unexpected and louder than was strictly necessary.

Roman felt his grip on his fork tighten a little bit too much in his surprise and he looked down sheepishly. “I bent another one,” he told Remus.

His brother just rolled his eyes. “You’re a dork. Try to bend it back into shape while I go greet our guests.” He slid off of the couch and, with a shimmy, waltzed over to their intricate front door, opening it with a flourish.

Roman listened from the couch. His brother had an interesting way of greeting guests that tended to persuade them to leave quickly if they were unwanted, and his methods were fun to listen to. He just didn’t have a clue who would be knocking at- he checked the time- ten thirty at night.

He could hear Remus wolf whistle from the doorway, low and long. Roman frowned. He’d have to talk to Remus about doing that in the future, that was quite inappropriate. Then again, if he told him that, it might just make him do it more.

“Damn, where’d you fall from, angel?” Remus said, presumably addressing whoever had the misfortune to be on their doorstep.

The response was quiet, and Roman had to strain to hear it from the spot on the couch. “I have not fallen, in fact, I’m here on business. I’m looking for Roman and Remus Prince.”

“I sure hope you are, pretty boy.” Roman could almost feel Remus’ smirk, could almost envision his brother biting his lip in that way he did that made you feel weird making eye contact with him ever again. “Hey Ro,” he called over his shoulder. “Look who’s here to see us!”

Roman poked his head over top of the couch just as the boy at the door sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is definitely them. Just…” he waved his hand vaguely at the men behind him. “You know the drill.”

It took Roman about three seconds too long to understand exactly what he meant by that. One second Remus was standing there, grinning at him with his hands on his hips, the next his brother had been stabbed in the arm by the man closest to him, crumpling to the floor mere moments later. The man leaned down and picked him up like a sack of potatoes, beginning to walk out the door.

Panic rippled through Roman’s system as Remus left his field of view, and he threw himself at the blue eyed boy, unsure of quite what he was supposed to do but knowing that when he got there he’d figure out exactly what he was doing. He had to get Remus back.

Unsurprisingly, the boy dodged, stepping neatly out of Roman’s way and back a little further onto their porch. Thrown for a bit of a loop, Roman stumbled, twirling around to try and find the man that had grabbed Remus, single minded and focused on that and that alone, and-

-he felt a sharp prick in the side of his neck.

“You son of a bitch,” he whispered, feeling a haze settle over him, stumbling a bit further as his vision began to go dark.

Edit: Here’s the Ao3 link!

#sanders sides #logince #moxiety #sanders sides fanfiction #fanfiction #my fanfiction #logan sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #janus sanders #remus sanders

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etherealwaifgoddess · 4 years ago

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Run To You - Chpt.1

Summary: Bucky has had the day from hell and all he wants is to buy what he needs and get home to his sick kid. Enter Steve Rogers in the wrong place at the wrong time and Bucky’s day goes from bad to mortifying. Master list is HERE :)

Content Warnings: A smidge of bad language, but really ya’ll should expect that from me by now lol

Word Count: 2.3k

Author’s Note: Hello lovelies! Who’s ready to start a new adventure with me? I knew I wanted to write a kid!fic with Bucky and Steve but I didn’t expect it to go quite this way until I jokingly called a friend “Captain Clueless” and then couldn’t get that name out of my head in relation to Steve. I fell completely in love with this little universe as I went and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. XOXO - Ash

Chapter One

Bucky Barnes is not at his finest. He just got off a sixteen hour shift from his job as an ER nurse and can barely keep his eyes open. The shift should have ended four hours earlier, but a tour bus accident had them overwhelmed on what had already been a busy night. Bucky was looking forward to catching a few hours of sleep while Becca was at preschool but nope, he came home to a frazzled best friend/ babysitter and a sick four year old. It was always something with Becca, her immune system just wasn’t what it needed to be. Bucky couldn’t fault her for that, she had been born premature and that unfortunately resulted in a whole host of health issues for the little girl. He would never regret adopting her, it was the best decision he’d ever made, but some days parenthood wore on him.

Bucky moves the load of laundry Natasha had started for him into the dryer. It smells clean but there will forever be a slight stain from puke on the ladybug print sheets. He can try his heavy duty stain remover on it later, but he knows there is only so much that can be done for white fabric and bodily fluids. There’s a reason most of his scrubs are black. After checking in on Becca, Bucky begs Natasha to stay a little longer so he can run down to the bodega to pick up a few things for when Becca wakes up. He would have sworn they had an extra bottle of Pedialyte, but apparently they’d used it up during Becca’s last bout with the flu.

Natasha waits patiently, listening to Bucky complain about his shift while he quickly changes out of his scrubs into a pair of soft grey sweats and an old Blink 182 tshirt. She’s been his best friend since their first year of college when they met in Intro to Biology. The two of them have been inseparable ever since, both even choosing to stay in Brooklyn after college instead of going back to where they were from. Natasha’s family was from Russia but traveled a lot so she was happy staying in the city that felt like home to her, and Bucky would have done just about anything to avoid going back to the tiny town in Indiana where his parents were still selling drugs out of their trailer and making each other miserable.

Bucky had thought he was free of his family forever when NYU accepted him into their nursing program. It was his way out of a poverty stricken little town that people rarely escaped from. Bucky had left home at eighteen with no intentions of returning, and he probably never would have, but during his last year of nursing school he found out through Facebook that his thirty eight year old mother was pregnant. To no one’s surprise, his mom was still dealing, still with his deadbeat dad, and was too far along when she found out she was pregnant to have any other option than having the baby. It was a repeat of the situation she’d found herself in at sixteen when she had Bucky. Knowing what it was like to grow up in that house, Bucky couldn’t allow another child to be brought into such a toxic environment. As soon as his mom confirmed the news was true, he hopped on the next flight out to Indiana and started the process to legally adopt his sister once she was born.

When Rebecca Grace Barnes came into the world nine weeks early the doctors said it was a miracle she survived. She was so small, just barely three pounds, and needed to stay in the NICU for just over a month. Bucky had made arrangements with his professors to turn in exams and papers online, barely managing to finish up his nursing degree while biding his time before he could go back to Brooklyn with his baby sister. It had been a wild ride trying to get his nursing career started while caring for a newborn but Natasha had been a life saver. She and their other friend Clint had stepped up in a huge way, helping to watch Becca when he needed to work and daycare wasn’t open. Their schedules had gotten even messier recently when Becca started preschool. Bucky is counting down the days until kindergarten starts so their schedules will align enough for him to only lean on Nat and Clint one or two days a week at most.

“Are you even listening to me?” Natasha throws a balled up Minnie Mouse sock at Bucky who’s too tired to dodge and instead gets a face full of pink fleece.

“Yeah, Nat,” Bucky sighs, wishing he could take off his aching prosthetic but knowing he’ll need both hands for shopping bags. “I’m getting you a choco taco and a red bull this time. I got you.”

Natasha nods happily, completely unphased by Bucky’s eye roll. She’s getting her wake up juice and her crunchy chocolatey sugar, and that is all that matters.

Bucky rushes around the bodega grabbing everything he’ll need to deal with a sick kid, throwing things in the basket without even bothering to check price tags. His bank account will hate him, but he doesn’t exactly have time or options to find the best deals. Grabbing Nat’s items and an iced coffee for himself, he waits in line as an older man chats with the clerk while the teenager rings up his order. The television in the corner is playing the local news, apparently Captain America visited a rec center in Brooklyn recently. There are sound bites from elderly residents and young kids fawning over him, and one of the Captain himself extolling the importance of community and keeping kids off the streets.

Bucky thinks his eyes will get stuck in the back of his head with how hard he rolls them. “This fucking guy.” Bucky grumbles as he places his basket on the counter, unloading his stuff.

The clerk nods in silent agreement.

“I’m sure he was a ‘bright shining beacon of hope’ back in WWII but he has no clue what’s going on in the real word nowadays.” Bucky continues.

The clerk nods once again and Bucky, feeling particularly exhausted and grumpy, yells over at the TV, “It’s not all rainbows and sunshine Captain Clueless!”

“Captain Clueless?” A deep voice rumbles from behind him, “I’ve been called a lot of things over the years, but that’s a new one.”

Bucky sees the clerk's face go pale and the kid freezes, confirming what Bucky feared when he heard that rich baritone behind him. Oh fuck.

Turning around, Bucky prepares himself for the worst. Instead, he finds an extremely amused looking Captain America holding a bottle of water and a bag of swedish fish.

“I’m… I… I didn’t mean…” Bucky stammers. He doesn’t know how to politely explain I meant every word but never meant for you to hear it.

The register pings as the clerk frantically finishes ringing up Bucky’s order, trying to get both men out of the shop before the situation can get any worse. The sound startles Bucky and he turns around to see the green blinking $58.79 on the little box. His stomach sinks, there went grocery shopping for the week. But, he reasons, Becca won’t want much for a few days while she recovers and he’s no stranger to a ramen-only diet. They’ll get by, just like they always do.

Before Bucky can hand over his last three twenties, a sleek black card taps against the card reader and the machine starts blinking, processing it. Bucky spins around in surprise only to literally face plant into a solid wall of muscle. Muscle that smells like tea tree and mint, yum. Bucky moves backwards in surprise, bumping into the counter but getting himself away from the giant of man who’s also moving backwards after their collision.

“It’s on me.” Steve tells him with a shrug.

“You didn’t have to do that.” Bucky insists, “I insulted you.”

“You were just being honest.” Steve reasons, “I don’t get to hear people’s honest opinions all that much.”

“That has to be weird.”

Steve chuckles, “Pal, you got no idea.”

“Well, thank you. And I am sorry you heard that.” Bucky collects his bags, still dumbfounded by the whole experience.

“I’d like to hear more about why you said it. Whatever you think it is I’m missing about the twenty-first century. I’m just out for a run so if you don’t mind company on your way back to wherever, maybe we could talk?”

Bucky shakes his head. The man actually wants to learn how to be a better person after being insulted by a random grungey stranger in a bodega. “You really are Captain America.” Bucky murmurs, still stunned.

Steve chuckles again; a deep, throaty sound. “Yeah, guilty as charged. But you can just call me Steve.” Steve winks conspiratorially and Bucky thinks he might actually combust. No one should be allowed to be that good looking.

Bucky waits as the cashier rings Steve up for his things and Steve taps his card again to pay. “I thought it was weird enough getting a card that swiped when I came out of the ice, but now this one doesn’t even swipe. It just taps and poof, done.” Steve says with a faint tone of awe.

Bucky can’t imagine how many things Steve needed to adjust to after waking up from the ice. “Far cry from what you were used to, huh?”

“Well, it sure beats keeping coins in old coffee cans.”

Bucky glances over at Steve as they leave the bodega together, “You do that whole ‘awe shucks, man out of time’ thing really well. Is it real though? No offense, you can’t really be that well adjusted. You’re still human.”

Steve meets Bucky’s eyes for a moment, crystalline blue piercing into smoke grey-blue, assessing him. After a few beats he decides Bucky is someone who can handle the truth. “It’s a lot easier to do that than to curse up a storm every time some piece of tech pisses me off. Plays out a lot better with the whole Captain America image too.”

“I didn’t think Captain America even knew how to swear.” Bucky teases.

“He doesn’t, but Steve Rogers does. I grew up in Brooklyn, I know how to curse.”

Bucky laughs, swinging his bags idly as they walk in silence for a few steps.

Steve breaks the silence, reminding him of why they’re walking down the street together in the first place, “So really, why do you think I’m so out of touch? Because I thought SHIELD did a bang up job teaching me about the world and what I missed while I was out.”

“I’m sure they did, but SHIELD is still an agency with their own ideas and agendas. I promise you, you got a watered down version of real life. Do me a favor; when you get home look up what they say about The Great Depression and WWII. Do a little research on how we look back at those times. Then think about how it really was back then when you were living it. I would bet you lunch that the two don’t line up.”

“I never thought about it that way.” Steve admits. “I’ll look it up today, promise.”

They arrive on Bucky’s stoop and he climbs up a step, looking down at Steve instead of up at him. He wants to know what Steve thinks once he does some research but doesn’t know how to ask. Luckily, Steve beats him to it.

“I’m going to need your number if you’re taking me out to lunch.” Steve says casually, a light hint of teasing.

Bucky blushes, trying to remind himself that he was the one who threw the lunch bet out there. Steve Rogers would never just ask him out like that. “I… uh… um…” he fumbles anyway.

Steve takes a step back in retreat, his own cheeks flaming. “I’m sorry, that was. I’m sorry. You clearly have a sick kid to get back to, and I’m sure a lovely wife waiting for you too.” he motions at Bucky’s bags. “Thank you, for being honest with me.” Steve turns to hurry off and, thankfully, Bucky’s brain catches up with him.

“Steve, no.” he blurts out. “No wife. Sick kid, yes. But no, um, no one else. If you want my number, I’ll give it to you. My schedule is a little weird because of my job but I do want to know what you think when you get done looking things up.”

Steve smiles up at Bucky, soft and hopeful and genuine. It isn’t the All American facade grin he uses for the cameras, and it feels all the more special to Bucky because of it. Steve hands over his phone to Bucky so he can enter in his contact info and then sends him a quick text so Bucky has his number too. “So, I’ll call you later then?” Steve tries, sounding a little unsure still.

“Yeah, I’ll look forward to it, Steve.” Bucky looks up at his doorway, knowing he needs to get back to Becca but not wanting Steve to leave quite yet.

Steve takes the hint and gives him another soft smile and a small wave as he turns and heads off down the bustling city sidewalk.

Bucky stands there a moment, collecting himself and trying to process it all, before hurrying back upstairs to his little apartment to relieve Natasha of babysitting duty.

*** New chapters will be posted on Sunday and Wednesday nights until the fic is complete ***

#stucky #stucky fanfic #shrunkyclunks #modern au #modern day au #steve rogers #captain america #non winter soldier bucky barnes #nurse!bucky #parent!bucky #becca barnes #kid!becca barnes #adopted child #marvel #steve rogers x bucky barnes

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writers-blogck · 5 years ago

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BNHA Imagines - MISC 01

Meeting for the First Time

Hitoshi Shinso:

He was pissed that he was put in the General Studies, he should be in one of the hero courses! Those tests weren't made for a quirk like his so there was no way for him to show off how powerful it could be. Plus, just to top it all off and piss him off further, he could hear a couple of students whispering about him. He could tell they were all support heroes, huddled up and gossiping. He thought that this would go away when he got into U.A. but guess jerks would always find a way. He was used to it by now. "He looks super creepy, it's like he wants to be known as a villain." The one girl spoke, obviously frightened by the purple-haired boy. "I know. Mind control is always bad, how could a hero have that quirk?" "I bet he'll drop out and join the League of Villains. He already fits the part." The words filled him with both anger and sadness. He had lived his entire life with those words and worked every day to prove them wrong. He had thought that since U.A. would be different since he had expected the students to be smarter but it was obvious that he was wrong. The three years here would be filled with voices and hidden stares just like the rest of his life. Why should he expect anyone to think differently? "You do realize that the number three pro-hero is a man-made up of fire, right?" A new voice spoke up, bringing Shinso out of his thoughts and made him pay attention again, "That seems pretty villainy to me. What about thirteen? I'm sure people thought that her quirk could only be used for villainy. Plus it has been scientifically proven that a majority of villains were students who either failed or kept being told they could only be a villain instead of a hero. So please, be my guest if you want to keep berating him but don't be upset when he treats you like a villain. Even the best person will be a villain if they are diminished enough. All it takes is one bad day." Your eyes glowed a medium blue as you stared at the girls. You were part of the support class as well but still had a powerful quirk. It was called Memory Card, allowing your brain to reach super-genius levels for up to fifteen minutes. You would remember anything you had ever been told and could use this power to access all of that knowledge. It helped that you were just super smart, to begin with, knowing your brain was made to support such knowledge. As your eyes slowly changed back to (e/c), the group of students scurried away. Before Shinso had the chance to talk to you, you were gone. At that moment, he made it his duty to go find you and at least learn your name.

Mirio Togata:

Panic began to fill your chest as you crumbled against an alley wall. The dim street lights were the only thing lighting up the world around you. Everything seemed so dark and like there could be anything just around the corner. Whispers swirled around you and you could feel she was on her way. Why did it have to be like this? You would prefer not having a quirk to having to go through this. It made your entire body want to shut down.

Most of the time you were able to control her. As long as you were able to keep yourself calm and collected, she couldn't take control. You were able to use your quirk as it should be used. It was able to make people see their biggest fears, something which kept you from training with it as much as you should. How could you train with someone when you would have to make them feel that way? You had vowed from a young age to only ever use it in emergencies and against bad guys. Yet, due to your lack of training, she was able to take over every now and again.

Nightmare felt like a demon at times. You had no clue how these types of quirks worked. The only other person who you knew who had something like this was Tokoyami and he didn't understand himself. Dark Shadow got stronger when he was in the darkness, Nightmare got stronger the more you lost control of your thoughts. Breathing hurt as you gasped, fingers scratching at your neck as if something was choking you. You had medication to keep these episodes from coming on but you had run out. The doctor said he could see you in a few weeks and that you shouldn't have any attacks. Well, obviously he was wrong.

Hot tears streamed down your cheeks, one of the only things you were able to feel at that point. The rest of your body felt like it was numb and wasn't in your control anymore. No matter how many times you reminded yourself it wasn't real, it didn't help. Her sharp talons had attached themselves deep in your back and were planning on staying there. She had never gotten control of your body but you were terrified one day she would be strong enough. "Hey!" An echo reverberated around your skull, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It was a male voice and while Nightmare could mimic someone, this sounded different. It felt hot, unlike everything around you that was freezing you to the bone. It seemed to only strengthen due to the voice but a patch of warm spread on your shoulder, shaking you. Loud thunder rumbled from above - she was angry. The talons tightened but you forced yourself to focus on the soft warmth until you felt your eyes open again.

The alleyway faded away as the light returned, bringing you out of your attack. The sun was shining down at your crumbled form against a tree on school grounds, your skin suddenly becoming quite warm. How long had you been here with the hot sun shining down on you? As you sat up properly, you could feel the sweat under your blazer and made a mental note to get some water as soon as you were inside. "Are you okay?" Your attention shifted to the boy standing above you, his voice exactly like the one you heard before. He was larger than you overall, suggesting him being an upperclassman. He wasn't part of 1-B, the class you had been assigned to. They told you that if you had more control over your powers, you could have made it into 1-A. You wanted to but you had no idea how to train without using someone else. What class was this boy in? General Studies? Support? Your mind was in a daze, slowly shifting your attention to the blue worried eyes looking down at you. Blonde hair was pushed back, though it was beginning to get messy with the heat. The first thought in your head as you saw his face for the first time was: Can the sun be a person?

Tamaki Amajiki:

Japan was so different than America. You knew you were lucky to be one of the transfer students to U.A. but it was intimidating with the entirely new country. The manners were so different here, they had so many ideas of what was polite and what was disrespectful. How would you learn it all? Would someone get mad at you because you were a foreigner? These thoughts filled your head until a shout rang out and you felt a large amount of force push against you. It was easy to regain your balance after stumbling back an inch or so. The sound of metal crunching up filled your ears as you began to focus back in on the present. What had happened? "Oh my god, are you okay?" A purple-haired boy that was much taller than you asked, running over in your direction before slowing as he got closer. His eyes moved from your figure to the crumbled car in front of you. A mixture of confusion and panic washed over his face as you casually looked down at the ruined vehicle. Luckily, no one was inside. What had happened? You glanced toward the direction it came from before you felt pale hands ghosting over your skin in search of some type of wounds. "I'm fine!" You smiled up at him, causing him to stumble back to put some space in between the two of you again. "That's a full car that just hit you. Maybe you have a concussion...Hm, you need a medic but the villain is still attacking...What should I do?" He mumbled the last part to himself, body rocking back and forth on his heels. This reaction was normal for you when someone saw your quirk for the first time. You were small, just reaching 5 feet (a symptom of your quirk), which often caused people to see you as fragile. It was rather ironic when they finally saw what you could take.

"I can take it. I am like super dense, you definitely can't pick me up. I'm 300 pounds if you can believe that!" "What...?" "My friends from home call me Buggie because of my quirk. I'm like an ant, do you know about them? I'm sure you do but some people don't think about how strong they are. They can carry up to 1,000 times their weight! I can do that too, isn't that really cool? I mean, lifting 1,000 times my body weight is straining but you know what I mean. " "Yeah, alright. If you're not hurt..." There was doubt in his eyes but he needed to get back to the battle. He would have to trust you if he could get back to Fatgum and help him. What if he was being hurt right now? His stomach twisted and he felt like he was ready to throw up. "No, I'm fine! I can move this car if you need, I could easily pick it up and-" "Ah- I don't have time. I'm sorry, I need to get back to that villain." A simple nod was all that you got as a parting before he was running off, white cape fluttering behind him. You wondered if he was a student of U.A. as you walked away, looking down at the address of the school that you were trying to find.

Nejire Hado:

When Ryuku decided to take you, along with Tsu and Uraraka for your internships, you were shocked. You were a quiet and shy individual, feeling a lot smaller than the two other girls. Both of them weren't afraid to speak out about what they think or how people are going to react. To you, this was your everyday life. Your quirk allowed you to see the future, multiple versions of the future. Sometimes it was good but you often saw so many terrible and dangerous things. Such simple things could hurt so many people. It had left you filled with anxiety, wishing you could turn off your visions. What was even more shocking was the member of the big three that also was part of your group. The three of them had spoken to your class, though you had a hard time paying attention, you still were able to remember her. Nejire, that was her name. She was so much nicer than you thought. She was so patient with you, it had to be due to Tamaki. She was used to dealing with someone with a fast-acting mind.

"Senpai..." You spoke softly, catching the attention of the blue-haired girl. The first time you had called her that was an accident but she seemed to like it. You couldn't help but wonder if she paid more attention to you than the other two girls. Was that fair? Were you just overthinking it and seeing things that weren't really there? "Yes?" She smiled and your heart couldn't help but skip a beat. Nejire was just so pretty and sweet, it was hard to keep yourself from getting flustered around her. She was what you dreamed to be but you doubted you would ever be as good as her. You didn't even have a chance, why did you keep trying? Shaking your head ever so slightly, you pushed those thoughts away to focus on the task at hand. "Are you sure you want to take me on patrol with you instead of Tsu or Uraraka? I'm certain they would be more suited for it...I don't want to mess up and make something-" "You are perfect for patrol, my little kohai. Plus, I want to get to know you better and you seem to be less nervous when there are not many people. Don't worry about it, I'm certain about my choices. I like to think I make pretty good ones, you know?" Her arm flung over your shoulders, leading you forward as you were left in silence. How could your face feel this hot? Was the air thinner? "O-Okay..."

How were you going to survive this girl?

All-Might:

The two of you were much younger when the two of you met for the first time. It was hazy to remember how it all went. It was strange to think there was a time you didn't know him or Aizawa or the others. They felt so permanent in your life now that thinking before them felt wrong. All-Might was one of the top heroes and the others were rising in the ranks just as much! Why would you want to focus on the past when the present was so good? It wasn't as magical as the press tried to guess. They said he rescued you from falling off a bridge or you had been a hostage but it was nothing that fancy. The two of you had met your first day of U.A. because the two of you were in 1-A. Toshinori attracted the attention of most of the other students and you would be lying if you said you didn't check him out like the others. He was handsome- a strong body with a dazzling smile. The full package. When lunch rolled around, you would be surprised when he approached you first, asking if he could sit with you. It wasn't that you approached him first and fell in love like the media believed. It was the exact opposite. If anyone asked him to this day, he would be willing to gush about you for hours if they let him. At first, it was a simple adoration as a friend who was proud but it began to change. It would all be out in the open when he ended up kissing you while a camera was pointing at the two of you. That was when all shit went loose. But it was much simpler back when the two of you were in school. It was no different than any puppy dog crush between two people. The two of you had no clue of the chaos and pain that waited for the two of you in the future. Who would expect their happiness to be on a timer?

Aizawa Shouta:

It wasn't rare to find Aizawa drinking at a bar in his free time. He was stressed and it was only getting worse as the year progressed. His students were being put in more and more danger and there was nothing he could do about it. These villains were getting ahead of the pro heroes and it was increasingly becoming hazier on if they could win. One would like to believe the good guys always will win but Aizawa knew better. He had lost that innocence long ago.

"Are you alright?" A soft voice brought him out of his thoughts, making him look up to see the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen. They held no grief or guilt in them and instead sparkled in the dim bar light. They were holding a small glass of wine, their lips dyed with a faint hue of red. "I'm fine." He grumbled, eyes drifting to the whiskey in his cup. Was this his second glass? He didn't keep track, he just drank until those thoughts left. It was one of the only ways he was able to get some sleep recently. It wasn't healthy but he didn't know of another way. So much was happening and he was in charge of making sure his students were safe. Bakugo had gotten kidnapped, who knew what else was coming? They were children...

Without any warning, they sat down in the stool next to him silently. Nothing was said between the two of them at that moment or the rest of the night. Aizawa didn't have to do anything and yet, the person stayed. He had expected to get annoyed but the presence of another person helped. His mind was able to relax if only for the few hours they were able to spend together. The minutes passed as they sat together, drinking their respective drinks. The sun soon set and the darkness began to cover the city. The time of the villains. He needed to go, he had work in the morning. He may not get a lot of sleep but he was going to take advantage of the warm liqueur in his stomach and the calmness this person provided. As he stood to put his jacket back on, his eyes glanced over at the dark streets again and couldn't help but think about how dangerous it was outside. He was a hero, after all, he was trained to go out when it was like this but when he looked at the other person, they looked just like a citizen. Before they parted, he took a chance and offered to walk them home. He was considering taking it back but once they agreed, he was too far gone.

Hawks:

For your first two years of attending U.A., you were an intern under Aizawa. He would never admit it but he had a soft spot in his heart for you. When you first entered the school, you had no family and had self-esteem about as good as Tamaki's, one of your juniors. You could remember seeing him get into 1-A as you were finishing up your last year. That had been a hectic time for you but you were part of the top three of your own year and had to give a speech. You were proud when you heard the shy boy was in his own big three. You knew he had talent when you met him.

Most of your time was spent in your internships as you had two to do, something extremely rare. Your official internship was under Aizawa and you were training to become a teacher at U.A. but you wanted some more fieldwork under your belt. When you first started, Aizawa did have you go on missions and such but it had declined the older you got and the more concrete your goal of working at U.A. became. It was true but you wanted more. That was when you met him for the first time. He was amazing to watch! When hearing that he was only twenty, you decided that you would internship under him.

Aizawa tried to talk you out of it but he knew once you had something on your mind, you wouldn't stop until you got it. It took a lot to finally get the boy to agree to take you under his wing. He gave a long list of reasons why the two of you would be a terrible pairing but you kept coming back with reasons that destroyed his complaints. In the end, it was your determination that made him agree to let you tag along. What would your life be if he rejected you? Once you finished your final year in U.A., you were given a position as a teacher's assistant, to Aizawa as was expected. When you got a few years under your belt with him, Nezu would then allow you to teach first years. It was a dream come true! Training future heroes was amazing but you did have that tug every now and again where you wanted to help with more hero work. Hawks decided to let you come with him on patrols whenever you got that way, the two of you going through many sleepless nights together. The press even dubbed you as Hawk's 'semi-sidekick'. You weren't in the front lines a lot but you really appreciated what Hawks did.

Hawks had no clue what to expect when he took you in. He had never been a mentor to someone and it was strange when they were only three years his junior. The mentorship morphed into a strange friendship that only strengthened once you graduated. What he didn't expect was to begin feeling differently about you, no longer seeing you just a kid. Aizawa had accepted his soft spot for you during your second year but Hawks was still in denial about how he really felt. The two felt different types of love for you but without you even knowing, you had them wrapped around your finger.

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bazzybelle · 5 years ago

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Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat! AKA Bat-Baz II: Electric Bazaloo

Note: I feel I should explain for those new to the beauty and wonder that is Bat-Baz. It started with THIS piece of art by the talented @parijpg (give them 100000% credit for starting the whole Bat-Baz craze). I was so inspired to write that THIS happened (Original Bat-Baz Fic).

If you scroll through the reblogs of that fic, you’ll find some QUALITY ART by the lovely @subpar-selkie !

I was going to end it there, but THIS (adorable BAT) and THIS (more quality content from @subpar-selkie ) were posted this week… So, I caved and wrote ANOTHER BAT-BAZ fic!

It’s the (not very highly) anticipated sequel to Love is Blind (As A Bat). Definitely not as good as The Godfather: Part II, but hopefully better than the straight-to-VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray Disney sequels.

Thank you to @carryonsimoncarryonbaz for the beta-reading, @giishu , and @f-ing-ruthless-baz for yelling at encouraging me to post this story, and @fight-surrender for bothering me this week and cheering me up and making sure I don’t feel too alone this week.

Enjoy… and I’m so sorry.

PS: Also, posting this on AO3. If you want, you can read it HERE.

__________

SIMON

“How many times do I have to tell you!? Rowling’s spells are dodgy at best!”

Baz is yelling on the phone to his half-sister Mordelia. He looks absolutely exhausted, and I can’t say I blame him for taking it out on his little sister. He just spent the better part of the evening as a small black bat, and must be beyond mortified. Anyone who knows Baz Pitch, knows that he usually deals with his embarrassment with snark and (on occasion) misdirected anger. In this case, the anger is very well-directed. It seems Mordelia was responsible for turning him into a bat in the first place.

“I don’t care what spell you were trying to accomplish! Her spells are as problematic and preposterous as she is! She’s barely a magician herself, if we’re being honest.”

I feel like I need to calm Baz down as he’s quickly heading towards one of his famous tirades. I start to run my fingers through his hair and plant a small kiss on his shoulder. Baz’s grey eyes meet my eyes and he sighs heavily. He grabs onto my hand and gives it a small squeeze.

“I know it wasn’t done on purpose, Mordelia, but you need to be careful! You’re starting Watford in the autumn and I highly doubt your classmates will appreciate you turning them into winged mammals.”

I choke back a snort as I think about the hijinks Baz’s sister will get into once she begins her Watford education. Images of a frozen moat in January, and enchanted snowball fights (you can enchant them so they follow the intended target like a tracker – Baz had gotten me a few times that way) fill my mind. I start to lightly scratch Baz’s back and I feel his muscles beginning to relax. I just hope he ends his call soon, so I can have my boyfriend back to his calm, arrogant self.

“I shall be coming back tomorrow to collect my… belongings. If you so much as breathe on my clothes or my mobile, I will not hesitate to turn you into a tarantula!”

Baz finally hangs up and tosses my mobile back to me. He starts rubbing his eyes and groans heavily. I continue to rub his shoulders and start to nuzzle his arm. He turns to me and offers small, tired smile.

“I apologize for that, Simon. But I’d like to think you’d be the same way if you’d just spent the better part of your evening flying from Hampshire to London. I can barely feel my arms.”

“Would you like me to rub your shoulders for you, then?” I ask him. Baz raises an eyebrow and smiles coyly at me.

I place myself behind him and start to knead my fingers into the space where his neck meets his shoulders. My thumbs press deep circles into his shoulder blades. I am careful to not touch his hair, nor the base of his neck (he flinches when I get too close to where he was bitten – it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be when I first massaged him, but I’d rather not risk it).

I hear a soft sigh coming from Baz. I want to continue, but I’m noticing his head lolling forward. I stop my back rubbing and sit back down next to him. I take note of his eyelids beginning to droop. I move some hair from his face and he smiles dreamily at me.

“Did you need to feed before going to bed?” I ask him. Baz shakes his head slowly.

“I fed right before all this started.” Baz gestures towards his body. I lift myself from the bed and gather some pyjamas for him. I toss them to the bed and grab a pair for myself.

“Here. I’ll warm you up some blood, just to be safe, while you change.” Baz rolls his eyes at me, but I’m already out the door before he can protest any further.

I walk into the kitchen to see that the spell books and materials have already been cleared out. I’ll have to thank Penny properly tomorrow, for her help tonight. I suppose a breakfast of her favourite pancakes (banana-blueberry) is enough to show my gratitude. I heat up some blood we keep on hand in the fridge (several butcher’s shops carry a steady supply). I also take some time to make a few sandwiches for him (and for myself… I get hungry when I worry). Before going back into the bedroom, I quickly change into my pyjamas and wash up (Baz must be beyond exhausted if he didn’t even think to freshen up in the bathroom, which means he’ll be cranky tomorrow).

When I get back into the bedroom, Baz is already settled into the bed, eyes closed, and sheets pulled up to his chin. I can feel my heart softening for him, he’s had an impossibly long day. I kneel down beside him and run my hand through his hair. His eyes open slowly. I place the sandwiches on the night stand and hand him a mug with some blood inside.

“I’m fine, Snow” He slurs, but accepts the mug regardless. He downs it in a matter of seconds (Prat… Was probably more thirsty than he let on), and places the mug on the nightstand, next to the plate (he doesn’t touch the sandwiches, which is fine, he’ll eat when he wants to). I climb into the bed and wrap my arms around his waist. Baz settles in as well. I hold him for a little while as I feel him beginning to doze off.

I plant a few small kisses on his shoulder as I start to fall asleep as well.

BAZ

A rumbling in the pit of my stomach startles me awake. I clutch at my abdomen as I attempt to recall when I had last eaten. I rub my eyes,wondering what time it is. I glance at the window and see the dark skies of the night. I wonder how long I’ve been asleep for, as I glance at Simon still sleeping peacefully beside me. His lips are opened slightly (mouth-breather) and he has his arms pulled tight against his chest. I move to give him a small kiss, when my stomach rumbles again.

Right… should probably take care of that first. I look to the night stand and remember the sandwiches that Simon made. I stare at him as I eat slowly (I’ve been practicing controlling my fangs… the only good thing to come out of America), feeling so grateful for the beautiful disaster in my life. I would never ask him to do what he did for me tonight, but Simon does it anyway, just as I would for him. I finish off a couple of sandwiches from the plate, and bring the dishes back to the kitchen. I brush my teeth in the bathroom (exhausted as I am, I still maintain proper hygiene) before heading back into bed with Simon.

I face him and watch him for a moment as he sleeps soundly, chest slowly rising and falling. I reach over and run my fingers through his hair. I plant a small kiss on his lips (I never want to relive the experience of my boyfriend kissing me in bat-form ever again).

An all too familiar feeling begins to arise as soon as my lips leave Simon’s. The splitting headache, the light-headed feeling, and most importantly, the blinding pain shooting up my back. I leap out of bed and I shout to alert Simon, but all that comes out of my mouth is a small, garbled chirp.

Seven snakes! Not again!

I rush to wake him up, but my head suddenly feels so heavy… and I cannot keep my eyes open for much longer… And my stomach begins to lurch.

I feel myself crumple onto the bedroom floor…

At least Simon will know it’s me this time. I think as I hit the floor and become shrouded in darkness…

SIMON

I don’t feel Baz in bed with me as I wake up. I rub my hand on his side of the bed and feel it empty. My eyebrows furrow as I slowly lift myself up from bed. It’s strange for Baz to be awake before I am.

“Baz?” I call out groggily. I look over to his side of the bed once more and notice his pyjamas in a pile on the floor.

“Fuck!” I yell out as I jump out of bed. If there was something I could be sure of, it’s that my boyfriend would NEVER leave his clothing in a messy pile on the side of the bed. Something must have happened to him… again!

Panic rises in my throat as I search through the clothing. I’m hoping with everything in me that I don’t find ash or anything else that could indicate my deepest fears.

Everything seems to be normal, but I notice tiny claw marks within the fabric of the pyjamas. My eyes widen as I piece the clues together.

Bloody fucking hell! Not again!

My eyes dart around the bedroom for any sign of Baz hiding. I begin to search through the darker corners of the bedroom, each spot turning up empty. With every empty spot, I start to panic a little more. Did he get out? Did he get stuck somewhere? Merlin, are there any stray cats that could have gotten inside?

“Baz!? Stop being such a wanker! Where did you get to?!” I call out. When I don’t hear an answer, I stomp through the bedroom door and into the kitchen, where I see Penny, sitting calmly, drinking some tea and eating cereal.

“Good morning Simon.” She tries to say to me, but I ignore her as I start to desperately search the flat for any sign of Baz, or any place he could be sleeping (is he a nocturnal bat? Does it matter? Is his curse following the rules of his anatomy or that of a bat?).

Penny tries calling out to me again, but I’m currently flipping over throw pillows and searching under the sofa.

“Simon… What on Earth…”

“Baz is missing again! Except he’s also a bat again! And I can’t find him!”

I start to move the bookcase, rattling the books and objects placed carefully inside. The organization was Penny and Baz’s doing. They argued for weeks on how to organize the books (Penny wanted alphabetically; Baz by the Dewey Decimal system – which I’d have never even known about, but I’m in love with an impossibly intellectual tosser), but settled on a system that worked for both of them. I’m now mucking up that system, by moving and shifting things around. I’m wondering if Baz found his way behind on the of the books. Maybe his wing got caught somewhere.

“Simon… you should maybe…” She joins me by the bookshelf, but I avoid her and head into the kitchen. I’m thinking that maybe Baz got into one of the cupboards (were they opened last night?)

“Not now Penny!” I open every cupboard in the kitchen and look inside. Nothing. No Baz. I begin to tug the curls in my head, as I think about other places he could have gotten into.

Penny has joined me by the cupboards. I feel her grabbing my wrists. “Simon!” she shouts at me, finally forcing me to look up at her. She points to her head. Plopped calmly and looking at me like I’m impossibly thick, is Baz. Once again, he’s a bat.

“Bloody hell, Baz! You can’t scare me like that!” I reach out my hands, and he hops into them. Bat-Baz nuzzles his face between the space between my thumb and index finger. I bring him up and plant a kiss on top of his head. Penny scratches him behind his wings.

“I found him perched upside down on the lamp, fast asleep. Nearly gave me a heart attack. He woke up not too long ago and found his way to me. What happened? I know you were joking about trying new things with him… But… did you ask him to change back, Simon?!”

I stare at her, mouth open wide and eyes boring into her. Does she actually think I would put Baz through another round of transformations all for a little excitement? I look at Bat-Baz, and he’s giving her the exact same look.

“For Crowley’s sake, Penny! No! I woke up and he was gone! He must have changed again during the night!” My comments are backed up by Bat-Baz’s frantic chirping and wing-flapping. I try to sush him and start rubbing the back of his wings. It worked to calm him down yesterday, and it seems to do the trick today. Bat-Baz starts licking my hand, and while I think that’s adorable and sweet, I don’t want to think about my bat-boyfriend in this way… lest it start affecting our intimate moments.

Penny starts scratching her head and frowns down at Bat-Baz. “I’m wondering if the spell last night worked at all? Is this a side-effect of that spell? Did it mix badly with the spell that made him a bat in the first place?”

“What do you suggest we do?"

Penny stifles a small laugh, "Maybe try and figure out what bats eat? It seems we’ll be stuck here for a while.” Her comment is met with angry chirps from Bat-Baz. If I wasn’t holding onto him as tight as I was, I’m fairly sure he would be attempting to jump at Penny.

“Oh! I didn’t mean it Basil!” Penny tries to pet him, but he hisses at her. I turn my back towards her and lift Bat-Baz to my face. He is not amused at this situation, but I still frown at him.

“Baz… I know you’re pissed off, but try and calm down, yeah”. I turn to Penny, who’s stuck her tongue out at him. I shake my head at her.

“And you! Now is not the time to take the piss out of anything.” Penny looks away, ashamed and I can’t help but roll my eyes. Since when am I the responsible one out of this group? I place Bat-Baz on my shoulder and head to the kitchen. I need to make myself some breakfast before trying to tackle this mystery.

I look at Bat-Baz, who’s started nuzzling my face, and just wanting to stay as close to me as possible. Baz hates feeling vulnerable in any way, and being changed into a tiny animal, without his strength and his magic… yeah, pretty fucking vulnerable, if you ask me. I pick him up again and look into his eyes (fuck… they’re still grey…). I feel my heart break a little as I stare at them, because they look devastated.

“Hey… don’t be like that. We’re going to figure this out.” I speak in a small soft voice to him, but Bat-Baz looks away from me. I run my thumb over his little head a few times and his eyes close. A tiny, sad chirp escapes him as he leans into my touch. He starts licking me again. I bring him closer to my face.

“I promise, Baz. If anything, this proves even further that we match… y’know… ‘cause of the wings.” I give my wings a small flap as Bat-Baz rolls his eyes.

“I know you’re laughing on the inside, Baz. Come on. I’ll try to find you something to eat.” I give him a small peck on his bat lips and leave him to perch on the edge of my wing. I start to look through the refrigerator for any fruit or blood (seriously… what do bats eat? What kind of bat is he? I mean… vampire bat makes sense, but is that a little too on the nose?).

I don’t notice the bright purple glow surrounding Baz’s small form. I feel him swooping down from my wing and see him flying desperately towards the bedroom. I slam the refrigerator door shut and run after him. Penny tries to follow, but I shut the door before she gets too close. She begins to knock on the door.

“Simon! What’s going on! Is he changing back?”

“Yes Penny! He’s changing back!” I breathe a sigh of relief as Baz turns back into himself (again, completely starkers… probably the only side effect of the spell I can’t be mad about). I rush to him and wrap my arms around him. He leans his head on my shoulder and breathes heavily into me. I run my fingers through his hair and start rubbing his back. He lifts his head and his eyes meet mine.

“At least we know how to change me back.” He says. I start to laugh.

“Fat lot that’ll do, until we know what causes the transformation to happen. D’you remember what happened before you changed?” Baz leans down and presses his hands together. He starts shaking his head. Another series of knocks pounds through the room. Penny’s voice rings out, loudly.

“Is he back to his grumpy self, then?!”

Baz glares at the door. I sigh as I get up and fetch some clothes for him to wear. If we’re going to have a discussion about breaking his spell (or I suppose it’s more of a curse at this point), Penny should be a part of it.

“I’d like to see you maintain a cheery demeanor when spending most of your time as a tiny winged mammal, Bunce!” Baz barks, while slipping on one of his shirts. Now that he’s decent, I should go open the door. Before I do, I walk up to him and cup his face in my hands. I make sure he’s looking at me

“We’re going to figure this out. Trust us, okay?” Baz smiles at me and nods.

“Okay.”

I give him a small smile and softly kiss him once more. Baz reaches up and starts to caress my shoulders. I press further into him, when a pained moan escapes his lips. I quickly back, worried that I hurt him. Baz’s eyes are opened wide, and panicked. I grab his wrists and try to get him to look at me, but it won’t work.

“Baz? What’s happening?” I try to ask him.

“Simon! It-” His speech is cut short by a series of loud, hysterical chirping. He finally looks at me for a few moments, before collapsing onto the bed. I manage to catch him and lie him down, but I can already see the transformation happening. To my horror, he starts glowing and shrinking into his clothes.

“Fuck! Shit! Baz… Why’s this happening?”

Merlin, Morgana, and Methuselah! How many times has it been now? I notice a small lump moving around inside the sweater. I look inside to see a furious Bat-Baz. I cup him in my hands and walk sadly towards the door. I open the door to a Penny with her hands on her hips. She frowns at the bat-boyfriend in my hands.

“Wasn’t he just changed?”

“He was! That didn’t last very long.” I set Bat-Baz back on my wing. He calmly perches upside-down and wraps his tiny body in his wings. I think he wants to be left alone for now. I don’t blame him.

“Well, what happened now, Simon!?”

“I don’t know Penny! All I did was tell him that we’d fix things and then he changed again!” I stomp out of the bedroom and head back to the kitchen. I whip open the refrigerator and pull out some eggs and fruit. I decide to make myself some breakfast and cut up some fruit for Baz. Maybe some food will calm us both down.

Penny follows me into the kitchen and leans on the wall as I cook the eggs. “Is that all you did, Simon?” she asks me. I slam the spatula in my hand down on the counter and turn to her, hands raised above my head.

“Oh of course! I forgot to mention the secret demonic ritual I had Baz perform so that he can stay a bat at my whim!” I notice that my wings start flapping. I take a deep breath and calm myself down. The last thing I want to do is send Bat-Baz accidently hurtling across the room because I’m throwing a tantrum.

Penny places a calm hand on my shoulder. “No! But did you do anything else?”

I sigh and run my hands through my hair, trying to think of anything that could have done this to him. The only thing I can think of is the kiss I gave him. But that can’t be it. It was what changed him back to his normal vampire-self. I shrug at Penny. “I don’t know… I kissed him. But I alway-”

“AHA!” Penny shouts in my ear. Her sudden exclamation causes me to jump back and violently flap my wings, which in turn sends Bat-Baz flinging off. Thankfully, he catches himself before hitting anything and flies up. He dives towards Penny, who ducks for cover. Bat-Baz starts screeching at her, before I step in between them. He lands on my head and buries himself in my curls. I turn back to Penny, who’s wearing a small apologetic look on her face.

“Well? What is it, Penny?” Penny stands up and straightens her plaid skirt.

“The kisses Simon. We know that kisses turn him back into a human. Well what if they work both ways?” Penny grabs an apple and begins to slice it. She places a thin slice in her hand and holds it up towards my head, a small peace offering, I suppose. Bat-Baz perkes up and sniffs the apple slice in Penny’s hand. He slowly hops into her palm and starts to eat the apple slice.

Merlin… My heart melts to watch them. I snap out of it and continue my discussion.

“Both ways?”

Penny starts to scratch Bat-Baz behind the wings. He continues to eat his apple slice. “Yes. Like how we spell your wings off until a bell rings?” I nod at her, pressing her to go on. “Well maybe this is similar. Since we connected it to a Bat-Man spell.”

“What does Bat-Man have to do with this?” I finally finish cooking my eggs and place them on a plate. Penny has placed Baz on the counter and continues to slice small apple slices for him. He starts to eat them slowly. I start shoveling the eggs in my mouth. Bat-Baz looks up at me, and I didn’t think a bat could look so disgusted… but there you go. Penny’s got the same look on her face, so maybe it’s just me.

Penny heads towards the refrigerator. She opens it and starts to look for something inside. “Think about it Simon. Bat-Man is all about living your life within a duality. Maybe the spell was not literal enough. Instead of changing a bat into a man. It allowed for a more controlled dual life. Controlled by your kisses, it seems” She pulls out one of the containers of blood, we keep on hand for Baz. She hands it to me and motions towards the stove. I eat some more of my eggs and get started on heating some of the blood. I don’t suppose we need very much of it right now.

Penny grabs a small saucer from the cupboard. I spoon a tiny amount of blood into the saucer and set it in front of Bat-Baz. He gives it a look and looks up at Penny and me, with drooping ears. I sigh at him.

“Honestly, Baz. It isn’t a big deal if we see you feed. You should feed so that you feel better.” He doesn’t make a move toward the blood, instead focusing on the apple slices. I grumble to myself and grab Penny by the arm, leading her away from Bat-Baz.

“So… What, I can’t ever kiss Baz again? What sort of rubbish is that?” I hear angry chirping, signifying Baz’s agreement that our situation is in fact rubbish.

Penny lifts her glasses from her head. She grabs a small piece of cloth from her skirt pocket and begins to clean them. “Don’t be dramatic, Simon. There is a solution to this. We just have to go to the source of the spell.” I groan, because that means we have to call Mordelia and ask her what spell she used and I do not feel like talking to her. I look over towards the kitchen counter.

“Baz? You done in there?” A series of small chirps tells me that he’s done feeding. I go back to the kitchen. I clean up the saucer and plates, while Baz finishes up the apple slice he’s been eating. I pick him up and he starts licking my hand again (I’ve gotten used to it by now… seeing as we won’t be allowed to kiss until this spell is broken, we’ll have to find more creative ways of showing affection towards each other). Penny looks over at us and makes a face.

“Nicks and Slick, Basil! Maybe I need to spell a small pouch to put you in so that you allow Simon the use of his hands!”. Bat-Baz looks up at her and glares. I bring him up and kiss the top of his head.

“She isn’t serious… Right Penny?” She shrugs and walks away. I frown at her and look down at Bat-Baz who… actually has a sneer on his face. I head towards the bedroom.

“Come on… Let’s turn you back into my Baz.”

BAZ

Simon is leaning against my arm, reading a graphic novel adaptation of Interview with a Vampire (I bought it for him recently, after he would not stop asking me about Anne Rice).It’s taking everything in my willpower to not kiss him right now. All I have to do is think about how uncomfortable it is to move about as a bat and my desires to kiss him disappear (almost disappear… or rather… momentarily disappear. I am a constant disappointment to myself, after all). I have chosen to browse through The Vampire Lestat. It is the homework that Bunce has given to us. She has settled herself on the kitchen table, reading the atrocious Twilight books, while furiously writing down notes. I look down at my own neatly written notes, and the few sentences that Simon’s managed to scribble down (with my gentle coaxing).

We had been going at this all day. After our unconventional breakfast, Simon took me into the bedroom and privately changed me back into my nearly human form. We then (well, mostly me, Simon was pacing about the flat the entire time, while Bunce took extensive notes) called my irksome little sister to ask her what spell she was trying to cast.

Apparently she thought it absolutely brilliant to try and cast Expecto Patronum. According to Mordelia, she was hoping to know what her patronus was, and I just happened to show up at the wrong time. She insisted that “it would have worked had you not shown up, Basil!”. After berating her for nearly an hour on how impossible the very notion of a patronus was (the closest thing could be a familiar, but even that is rare), I once again threatened to turn her into an abhorrent arachnid before hanging up the phone.

We came to the conclusion that I was turned into a bat because, well, if patronuses did exist, it was very possible that mine would be a bat (at least that was the explanation Bunce offered, I personally think it’s bollocks).

Which brings us to our homework session. Bunce believes that in order to turn me back into my full-self, we needed to create a spell that brings forth my true nature (hence the diverse selection of vampire-related literature).

For now, I am scanning the pages of my book, while Simon lazily lies against my shoulder. I look over at him, to see him smiling up at me. I smirk back at him. Simon reaches over and gently tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. I lean towards him and touch my nose to his. He begins to caress my face and I lean into his soft touch.

I realize too late that his lips have made their way to mine.

I pull back in fear. Simon is wearing a look of shock… which soon changes into one of instant regret.

“Fuck! Bollocks! I forgot!” He yells, which gets Bunce’s attention. She runs towards the sofa, but I can already feel the transformation taking over. I give Simon an angry sneer.

“I swear to Crowley, Snow. I-” my hand clamps over my mouth as a loud chirp escapes it. My head once again feels dizzy and I feel sweat beads on my brow. I lean over and put my head down to steady the all-too-familiar sensation of sickness and lightheadedness. I can hear Simon next to me apologizing profusely. I reach for his hand and hold it tightly. I don’t have much time before I am a bat again, and although I am cross with him, I don’t wish for him to beat himself up over this.

I give a small lop-sided grin to Simon and collapse onto his shoulder as the transformation takes over (hopefully for a final time).

SIMON

And so we’re here again. Bat-Baz nestled in my curls (I think he’s having a nap, the transformations take a lot of energy out of him), Penny making tasteless bat-related jokes and puns, and me trying to keep my head on straight. It’s becoming more and more difficult to do so.

Baz hasn’t wanted to change back into a human and has been feeling extra mopey. I’ve cut up some more fruit for him, but he hasn’t been in the mood to eat anything. I’ve tried petting his head, his wings, his tiny back… no response from him.

I now reach up to my head and hope that Bat-Baz decides to climb onto my hand. I sprinkled some sugared water on my hand as a way to coax him (with that sweet-tooth he’s got). A smile spreads across my lips as I feel his tiny body clamber into my palm. I bring him down to eye-level and he begins to excitedly lick the sugar off of my hand. I start laughing and give him a kiss on one of his wings. Bat-Baz stops licking and a small blush creeps over his cheeks.

“Glad you’re feeling a little better. Can you eat something for me?” I offer him a small piece of strawberry. Bat-Baz thankfully accepts it. As he’s eating his strawberry, Penny enters the kitchen. She’s holding a notepad and a triumphant smile on her face.

“What is it, Penny?”

“I think I’ve got the spell to change Baz back.”

“Okay. What is it?”

Penny shows me the notepad. Bat-Baz looks down at it and starts to angrily chirp at Penny. I read the spell, but I’m not familiar with the quote written down.

“Where is this from, Penny? And why if Baz obviously objecting to it?” Penny’s lips curl into a sneaky smile. Whatever it is, it’s making her far too excited.

“Twilight.”

I shake my head violently and walk away from her. Absolutely not! Baz hates that entire series. He claims they are terrible books, and the very notion of dazzling in the sunlight is offensive to him as a vampire.

“You’ve got to be joking Penny! Of all books to choose, you chose Twilight? Baz will never forgive you.” I look down to see Bat-Baz giving Penny the most judgmental look I have ever seen (well for a bat, that is).

“The quote is technically from the movie, but it should still work! The entire franchise is wildly popular! I still see Normals walking around with Team Edward shirts!”

Bat-Baz covers his head in his wings. It’s going to take some convincing for him to be on board with this, but so far, it’s the best shot we’ve got (even though it’s a rather piss-poor shot).

“Alright. Let’s try it.” I sigh and follow Penny into the living room.

Penny smiles and holds out her hand. I place Bat-Baz in one of my hands and cradle him carefully. He grips onto my thumb and curls into a small ball (I think he’s begun to lose hope at this point… also, bloody Twilight? As if he wasn’t mortified enough). I give Penny my other hand. She lifts the notepad to my eye level and I read off the first line of quote.

“I know what you are” I say to my tiny bat-boyfriend. Penny places her hand gently over Bat-Baz’s head, making sure the ring finger touches him directly. She squeezes my hand tightly and looks into my eyes.

“Say it. Out loud… SIMON SNOW say it!” She yells. I can feel her magic in the air, stong, comforting, with the distinct smell of sage in the air. I feel it wash over me and vibrate over Bat-Baz’s tiny body. He beginning to chirp wildly and I begin to worry that we’re hurting him. I want to get this spell done with. I speak in a loud clear voice:

“Baz Pitch… Vampire-Mage”

A bright, white light explodes from Penny’s ring and causes us to fall backwards. In the commotion that occurs, I let go of Bat-Baz and he slips from my grasp. The white light envelopes him completely and I need to shield my eyes. A strong force pushes Penny and me back a little more. I try to look for where Baz landed, but all I can see if the piercing white light. I have to hope that he’s somewhere in there, turning back into himself. Eventually, the white light starts to dim and the pulsing magical force starts to die down.

Merlin please let this be it. Please let Baz be himself again. I don’t think he can handle another series of intense changes.

I hear Penny screaming before my eyes get the chance to adjust to the scene in front of me. But, there he is, on the ground and fully human again. And… naked. And unconscious! Fuck!

I yell at Penny to get me some water for him. I grab a nearby blanket and scramble to him. I drape the blanket over his body and gently lift his head from the floor.

My anxious mind winds down as I hear his slow steady breaths. He’s alive, but probably completely drained. I lift him a little more and position my legs beneath him, so that I can better support him. Penny comes back with a glass of water and a small wet towel. She bends down and places her hand on his arm.

“Is he alright?” She asks, concern washing over her brown eyes.

I nod at her. Penny sighs with relief and places the glass on the floor, beside me. I ask her to go find some clothes for him, for when he wakes up. I grab the towel from her and start to dab his brow and his face. As I work, I hear a soft groan coming from his lips. His eyelids start squinting and he stirs a little. I give him a small delicate shake.

“Baz? It’s okay. I’m here. You’re okay.”

He starts to mumble something, but it’s hard for me to understand him. I lean in closer to him. “What was that?”

“That was wholly unpleasant.” He opens his eyes and smiles at me. “Hello, Snow.” he drawls.

“Hi.” I laugh at him. I help him sit up and offer the glass of water to him. He smiles as he takes a sip.

Baz’s little smile quickly turns into a slight frown. He looks down at the blanket covering him and his eyes bulge.

“Snow… am I, naked?”

“Um… y-yes?”

“Crowleyyyyy! Just set me on fire now!” Baz smacks his hand over his eyes in complete humiliation. I wrap one of my arms over his shoulders and gently hold him close. Baz buries his face into my shoulder and wraps one of his arms around my neck. I kiss the side of his head and rub small circles on his back. Penny creeps back into the room and quietly places some clothes beside me. I turn to her and mouth a “thank you”. Penny smiles and squeezes my wing. She heads to her room and closes the door, allowing us some much-needed privacy.

I give Baz a small shake and he lifts his head from my shoulder. I grab the clothes and hand them to him. He accepts them and starts putting them on. I get up from the floor and give him a few moments to collect himself and regain his dignity.

I’m putting some water to boil for tea when I feel a set of strong cool arms wrapping around me. Baz leans his head on my shoulder and gives me a small kiss on my cheek.

“Thank you. For everything today.” He whispers to me.

I smile in return. He doesn’t need to thank me. For him, I’d do it all.

“D’you think it worked this time?”

Baz sighs, “There’s only one way to find out.”

I turn to face him and study his deep-grey eyes. They’re tired, mostly. He draws a shaky breath, worried that the spell didn’t work.

“It had to have worked. I know it did.” I whisper to him. Baz closes his eyes and lowers his head.

I comb his hair back with my fingers and trail my hand down his face. We both take a deep breath and lean into a tiny, almost-chaste kiss. I see Baz squeezing his eyes shut, anticipating the transformation to begin.

But… nothing happens.

I shake Baz happily. “Baz! It worked! You’re you again!”

Baz begins to laugh and touches his forehead to mine. He grips my face in his hands and pulls me into a deep kiss. I lean into him and respond with a small happy sigh.

Baz pulls away and cocks an eyebrow at me. “I think I’m going to take a break from visiting my parents. I’ve had enough excitement to last me quite a while.”

I roll my eyes and him and flick his chin. “Baz… I don’t want to hear about your family right after you’ve snogged me.”

Baz laughs and pulls away again. He grabs my hand and leads me slowly into the bedroom. Once we’re inside, and with a coy smile, he grabs his wand from the nightstand and closes the door.

#The Return of Bat-Baz #Bat-Baz #simon snow #baz pitch #tyrannus basilton pitch #tyrannus basilton grimm pitch #basilton pitch #snowbaz #carry on #wayward son #crack #Yes hello I am a trash #trash #I am also a shit #comforting boyfriend #Simon Snow is a good boyfriend #my writing #fanfic

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sciencelings-ocs · 4 years ago

Text

Andromeda’s Origin Fic

Hydra...

They were hydra…

Andromeda put a hand over her mouth to keep herself from gasping. She was only a wall and an open door away from the discussion taking place. Her parents were just beyond that wall. They were Hydra… They didn’t work for NASA or for some new space department of the government, no. They worked for the secret Nazi organization that had fallen into obscurity so long ago.

The facility was makeshift and thus not heavily guarded or under heavy surveillance. It was why she wasn’t caught yet. She had just been exploring while she thought her parents were doing something boring. She didn’t plan to find some deeply hidden government secret. She didn’t plan to find anything at all. She just wanted to catch a glance at the newest spacecraft that her parents talked about.

She didn’t plan on her world crumbling.

Her parents were the bad guys. Her mother, a tall proud Indian woman, who refused to wear anything other than a full saree and a pound of jewelry, wasn’t an astrophysicist for NASA… no, she was part of a deeply embedded part of the government made up of Nazis. Her father wasn’t the head engineer in charge of the most recent space-traveling equipment, he was a lead Hydra scientist.

Andromeda couldn’t believe it. Her parents weren’t evil. They were Indian immigrants with genius-level IQs that she just happened not to inherit. They spoke rapid-fire Hindi and their English was spoken with a heavy accent. They argued about music and food and wanted Andromeda to have more of a dating life, they had favorite movies and collected little things from everywhere they went. They weren’t evil.

She was spiraling. The room was shrinking in on her. That was before the alarms went off. Red lights and screeching sirens filled the concrete halls.

Andromeda didn’t think, she just ran. She didn’t know where she was going, the only direction she recognized was ‘away from here’. Her heart was beating in her throat so loudly that she could feel it even with the sirens.

There were too many halls that looked the same, she made so many random turns. She only stopped to avoid a heavily armed squadron of hydra security guards. After an eternity of running and hiding, she got to a room. It wasn’t a research room, it wasn’t filled with computers or partially finished machinery. It was a hanger with a single aircraft in the center.

It was like a rocket and an airplane fused together, it was like it was straight out of Star Wars. It had massive wings and almost just as massive thrusters on the top. It was white with an insignia of an eagle of the side.

She heard rapid footsteps behind her. She ran to the only place she thought she’d be safe. Into the aircraft. The room was already a dead end, there was only one exit. The yelling got closer. She could recognize her father’s pleading voice in the chaos.

She had just enough time to slip into the ship before the men entered the room. The ship was big enough to fit a few dozen people but what really piqued Andromeda’s interest was the cockpit. It was too familiar. But she had never been in an aircraft like this before, she had only piloted a simulator at the Junior NASA camp.

The simulator. It was modeled after this aircraft. Every detail was the same. Had she been secretly being trained to fly this thing? The only thing different was the guns. It had them. The simulator was just for a fusion spaceship that she thought was completely theoretical. It was meant for exploration, it wouldn’t need guns. But this one did.

Loud pounding on the metal door interrupted her train of thought and reminded her of her pure panic. There was muffled yelling, some from her parents, pleading with her to get out of the spaceship and that it’s okay and that she’ll be safe if she did but there was more yelling that directly contradicted that.

She wasn’t going to give herself up, she didn’t exactly have a choice. Hydra was so bent on not getting discovered that they wouldn’t hesitate to kill some teenage girl that got in their way.

So instead of surrendering, she started the spaceship up and sat in the pilot’s seat with the co-pilots seat empty. There was several empty spacesuits in the back, but she wasn’t prepared for an intergalactic flight. She didn’t even know where she’d go. Where would she even get help? From what she heard, Hydra was everywhere.

She decided to figure that out later. Once she was out of Hydras tentacles. She methodically flipped switches and pressed buttons that she was trained to press. The massive turbines started to spin and she could feel the rumble of the rocket engines. She put on the headset and adjusted the little microphone over her mouth. She pressed the button to open the sky door. She could barely hear the angry screaming from outside.

She had to take a breath and control her heartbeat before she pulled the lever back to do more than hover a dozen feet in the air. Before she managed to blast off into the sky, a transmission echoed through her display.

“You can land the plane and surrender yourself or we won’t hesitate to blow you out of the sky.” A calm but grumpy male voice said through the intercom.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. I don’t exactly believe any of you would be nice to me at this point and I don’t feel comfortable in a world where Hydra is pulling the strings.” Andromeda said, her voice shaking a little as she pulled up a GPS system on a touchscreen monitor. The entire earth was displayed with dozens of glowing points for secret bases and government places to land.

“There is no place on this earth where you can run from us, you can make this easier and make your sentence much lighter if you give up now.” The voice on the other said sounded frustrated. Andromeda noticed a little button on the side of the screen that seemed to be a little magnifying glass. She pressed it and grinned as instead of zooming in on the planet, the diagram zoomed out. Earth was a tiny speck with a handful of planets named on the screen. One pointed out an entire star system, ‘Skrull Refugee System’. Well, Andromeda is kind of a refugee now… she’s definitely not safe on her own planet. Hopefully, these Skrull guys didn’t mind her joining the party.

“Well, then it’s a good thing that I’m not planning on landing on this earth.” She set her targeting system to the main planet in the star system. At least she had a chance out there in the stars if she stayed on earth, there was no guarantee she would be able to avoid hydra.

“You brought this upon yourself.” The voice said gravely as a video message popped up on her main screen.

“You have one more chance, Ms. Starling.” A burly man said in the center of the screen. “Land the aircraft or consequences will be thrust upon you.”

“Consequences come for us all. And they’ll come for you guys when the good guys in the government realize that they’re being run by fucking Nazis.” She growled.

“There’s no more Captain America Ms. Starling. Stop living on fantasies. We already run the world, we just have the mercy to let you live in it. Your parents, however, must pay for your crimes.” The camera panned out to show a dozen armed people around her parents who were now being forced to kneel on the ground with guns to their heads.

Andromeda’s blood went cold. She didn’t even have time to beg before the shots made her ears ring and her parents collapsed on the floor in a pool of their own blood. The video cut out and she couldn’t move. She had to force herself to activate the thrusters. She was still in shock when she exited the atmosphere minutes letter.

She shook for thousands of miles after she left the earth. She was in shock and had to push herself physically to take the steps that she needed to take to survive in space. She sluggishly put on a spacesuit and tucked her long black braid into the helmet.

She desperately tried to control her hyperventilating as she now had limited oxygen and wasn’t quite sure of the readiness of her spacecraft. It wasn’t even near fully stocked besides a full fuel tank, likely for test flights. There was no food, the water was at a minimum and had no circulating filtration. The bed didn’t have a pillow or a blanket and Andromeda only had what she came with which was the clothes off of her back and whatever was in the pockets of her silver jacket.

To avoid confronting what had just happened, Andromeda looked at the schematics of the ship, apparently, the engine was powered off of the stolen power from some cube thing called a tesseract that was in the custody of some government agency that Hydra had already infiltrated.

It was hours later when she completely broke down. Everything collided with her all at once and it felt like it was crushing her. But that could also be contributed to the rapidly decreasing stabilization of the spacecraft. As she plummeted towards her destination, the structural integrity of the ship was decreasing drastically, the pressure and the destabilization of the oxygen made Andromeda’s vision go dark long before impact. Her last thought before it happened was a brief moment of thankfulness that she would die with her own choices and that she might be able to see her parents again.

Fortunately or unfortunately, she woke up after an indeterminant amount of time. There were hours of barely reaching consciousness for a moment before the darkness overtook her again. There were only moments, images. Laying on the ceiling of the spaceship, covered in blood. Being carried away by green hairless humanoids. Talking in some language unlike anything she had ever heard on earth. A soft bed. Strange lights. Purple fluid being pumped into her bloodstream with a clear tube. Pain… lots of pain, burning pain, electrifying pain, blinding pain. She just wanted it to be over.

She fully woke up in what seemed like a medical bed. It was much different than what she had experienced on earth, but it wasn’t that different. Her head ached and her vision was fuzzy. Her body just felt strange and off. She couldn’t figure out why or what was specifically off.

As her vision cleared, she began to recognize what was going on around her. There was a green, almost reptilian figure working on a hologram of what seemed like an image of Andromeda’s body with glowing purple starting to color her veins and incomprehensible information on the side. There was a machine to her side pumping opaque purple fluid into a clear pipe going into the skin in her arm.

The room was clean but not excessively complex, there were no windows or curtains, just a gray metal door, and the medical console being manned by the alien figure. It wasn’t like she wasn’t expecting to see aliens but it was still a pretty strange sight. Strange in a fascinating way, Andromeda definitely thought it was super cool to be likely one of the only humans to be in contact with aliens. And the aliens seemed to be nice as she was still alive even after crashlanding into their planet and seemed to be receiving medical attention.

Suddenly, her situation collapsed back on her like a mountain being dropped from the sky. She wheezed in a breath as tears filled her eyes. The alien (woman?) at the glowing hologram turned around as she noticed Andromeda awake and struggling to breathe.

“You are safe terran. You do not have to worry.” The Alien woman said calmly, surprisingly enough, in English.

“I’m sorry, I had nowhere to go…” Andromeda whispered, for some reason, her voice was hoarse and scratchy.

“You have no reason to apologize. You are not the only one like that here. Now rest. You still have thirty-seven percent of your blood fusion to go. You will feel better when it’s finished.” The alien woman messed with the machinery currently injecting purple liquid into her. She suddenly felt very light-headed and tired. It only took a moment for her to fall back into comfortable darkness.

The alien woman was right, the next time she woke up, she felt better than she had ever felt. She felt strong and refreshed. She felt new. Her head was lighter, which turned out to be partially because her long hair had been cut to implant what the alien doctor said was a translation chip or something. This wasn’t the only change though.

It turned out that the purple liquid which was now coursing through Andromeda’s veins changed her in more physical ways. All of her hair on her body turned a bright white and when she looked into the mirror, she saw that her once dark brown eyes turned violet. Her skin tone was even slightly cooler as the color of her blood had completely changed. The little veins in her eyes were shades of purple instead of red or pink.

The alien woman told her that they had gotten to her after she had lost a lot of blood and they had to adjust their own to be compatible enough to be transfused. Apparently she reacted strangely with the blood formula and it physically changed her in unforeseen ways. This left alien scientists and doctors mystified and incredibly interested.

The Skrulls, whose enhanced blood was now coursing through Andromeda’s veins, were a shapeshifting race of aliens who were constantly under attack by blue humanoid aliens called the Kree. This was why they had several refuge planets. The system of planets was shared with other survivors of the Kree, including humanoids of all neon colors and even aliens who could pass as human.

Andromeda was given a makeshift shelter with a handful of other aliens, some feminine, some masculine, some gender non-conforming. Mostly green reptilian Skrulls, but also an androgynous alien with bright pink skin.

It took her a while to get used to her new life, thank goodness aliens were a good distraction from major trauma. Life was simple, everyone worked together to survive. There were hunters who went into the wild planet and brought back strange alien creatures for food, there were farmers who grew crops and saved them up to ration them out every day. There were shelter builders and doctors and cooks and caregivers for children and dozens of other essential jobs that everyone wordlessly participated in. Andromeda tended to drift towards hunting and assisting the medical team. She had several first aid courses under her belt and alien physiology was fascinating to her.

She was also being considered as a co-pilot for rescue missions. They didn’t have too many people who could fly a ship and who was willing to leave stability to willingly risk their life. Naturally, Andromeda volunteered for the job. Her life was exciting and different but after so many months, it had begun to be monotonous. Every day was the same. The infinite vacuum of space sounded much more fun.

It was during her first rescue mission when she realized how much she had changed. She was stalling in the co-pilots seat, ready to take off at a moment’s notice when an alert pulsed through her high tech monitor. She wasn’t supposed to get out of the ship. She was just a pilot. But if the distress signal was going off, that meant that the crew was captured or needed backup. Andromeda took the emergency gun from under her chair and stood up from her spot after putting the ship on stealth standby.

She crept off of the ship in her adaptable uniform that was derived from a defector of the Kree Star Force. The suit changed colors to blend into the dry red environment and created a mask around her mouth to breathe the planet’s gasses. She twisted her wrist and the gauntlet of the suit activated a flickering GPS system, pointing out where her teammates were.

She eventually made it to a small cliff in the orange rock that looked over the situation. Her teammates were surrounded by gunmen of the local oppressive government with a dozen unarmed civilians huddled in the center. There was some far away yelling but she didn’t care to hear it. She just had to think of what she needed to do. Her skin crawled with adrenaline. Or at least that’s what she thought it was.

No one had noticed her presence. She carefully aimed her gun at the closest bad guy. She had never been great with guns and she was a little far away for comfort but she really couldn’t do much else. Of course, even with the most advanced targeting system she had ever worked with, she missed. At least it caused a bit of chaos.

The bad guys in bright blue uniforms looked around wildly for her but she had already ducked back behind the rock. The bad guys yelled and one of them called for someone to find the ‘idiot slug-fucker’. Andromeda wasn’t sure about the accuracy of that translation but she didn’t like the sound of it. Her skin crawled even more as a dominant yell echoed through the valley of rock.

“Show yourself or they’re all going to be shot down!” She froze. She couldn’t just sit there and ruin the mission and be the reason even more people are dying. She stood up from behind the scarlet stone and held her arms up in surrender. For some reason, her skin only crawled more. It was too bad humans weren’t the most interesting beings in the universe, if she had wings like Nidaviliir Demons or durable and able to take out technology like a Remorath but she was only human. The most basic boring creature in the universe.

But she wasn’t quite human anymore. After she was saved by the Skrulls, she became something else entirely. And it took this long for her to know the true effects of what had happened to her.

The feeling of her skin crawling went up her spine and stopped in between her shoulder blades. A strange feeling emerged from her back, not painful, not uncomfortable, in fact, it felt right. Behind her, flesh and feathers grew from her back and her spacesuit merged with her new growing limbs. Massive bright white iridescent wings expanded from her back, taller than she was and several times wider. She test flapped them once and was thrust about a foot off of the ground with barely any effort.

The strangest part was how natural it felt. It was like she was born with the wings that she had only just barely grown herself.

“Take it down!” the main bad guy screeched. Andromeda automatically shielded her body with her wings. She didn’t know if it would do anything to whatever type of weapons they had but it was a purely instinctual reaction. To her surprise, the energy blasts bounced off of her wings like lasers off of a mirror.

Once the shooting stopped, she unfurled her wings and thoughtlessly dove off the cliff. She glided low to the ground and took out a handful of guys just by ramming into them. This was when all hell broke loose. Her teammates went after the bad guys who were focused on her and she reflected energy blasts with her wings so that they would avoid the people who were in harm’s way.

It only took a minute for the fight to be over, blue military uniformed bad guys lied motionless on the ground, most of the civilians were safe. There were injuries but the mission was a success.

“Since when have you been able to do that Starling?” Her Skrull co-pilot exclaimed.

“Since like, uh, three minutes ago?” She shrugged. She didn’t really know how to undo the shapeshifting and her back had taken a hit or two in the fight. The wings felt heavier and more in the way than natural limbs at this point. She wanted them gone but she wasn’t sure how to do that.

“Maybe you should be out here instead of just in the ship!”

“Maybe…” Andromeda considered as they headed back towards the spaceship.

Everything else went off without a hitch. They left the planet without being attacked again, no one died on the way back to the refugee planet, everything was fine. Andromeda had to have her wings half-open as there was no other way to sit, she still couldn’t figure out how to reverse it and was hoping that she could figure it out.

After helping the new refugees with their injuries and having a meal or two, she passed out, back and wings up, on her bunk. Surprisingly enough, her wings were gone by morning.

This was just the beginning of her journey. She wasn’t just a refugee from earth, she wasn’t a science experiment anymore. For the first time in a while, she felt hope that she could be more than what was expected of her.

#andromeda starling #my ocs #my oc #marvelsona #oc fic

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devil-kindred · 4 years ago

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death stranding adventures- final

I finished Death Stranding!

A recap on the events through the end of the game + my thoughts as they occurred below the cut! Beware spoilers if you haven’t played the game!

- left port knot with the order for fragile and found myself looking at a sea of the blob BTs- not exactly a joyous moment. I finally figured out why they look familiar though! They resemble the Portuguese man o’war! Which makes sense in keeping with the beached/aquatic creature theme given: the fish that show up after you defeat the catchers, the catchers themselves, THE WHALE, the little floating crabs, etc. The lions don’t fit the theme obviously, but I chalk that up to them being more of a Higgs thing? Since he’s the reason you encounter one in the first place.

- I got Sam through the floating BT minefield without too much trouble by hugging the moutainside and using the rifle to take out the ones that were closest to make a path. After that, there was a brief reprieve and then I had to fight a catcher BT. Did that then the normal BTs appeared once I progressed a little further. Made it past that, then rushed through mule territory and then, more BTs. This time 4-5 lion BTs (i don’t remember which but I know it was more than 3 because I thought I was done and then about got Sam stomped on by the one that I missed). Finally finished that and got a TON of chiral crystals for my trouble which was admittedly kinda nice, though my thoughts were mostly “please just let me finish this delivery T_T” by that point.

- Continued the trek to the Capitol Knot City and noticed the sky had changed from a color I refer to as “tornado green” to this very ominous red shade. Not a good sign, followed by rumbling noises that made a even worse sign. Nearly to the city gate (as in maybe the length of one of the bridges you can build level close) and then. A whale. Falls. Out of the sky. ._. Guessed it was time for round whatever number I was on at this point and once again, Sam with the standard reaction to weird BTs goes “what the fuck”. My thoughts exactly at this point.

- Climbed onto whatever thing that emerged from the tar was closest and then clambered onto a building that appeared. Was helped once again (as I was with the previous fights) by a ghostly Sam that lobbed all sorts of neat useful things my way, most importantly two grenade launchers and a multi rocket launcher. Thank you ghostly Sam! I would’ve been doomed without your help. Defeated the whale, collected more chiral crystals, then FINALLY made it to capitol knot.

- Delivered the items to Fragile who looked... really not well. I was concerned there was going to be another loss, but Sam waved a cryptobiote in front of her face and she woke up. Prior to Sam walking up to he, Mama/Lockne ran over and tried to hug him which Sam was (understandably) having absolutely none of but at least he was kinda gentle when he stopped her.

- They explained the whole thing that happened and how Fragile was essentially bounced back from Amelie’s beach and that she wanted Sam to go to her. So they have a long convo about how Sam needs to go and has to find a way to stop her, but also understand that he might not be able to come back. Pretty sobering, but ok. He and Fragile do the forehead touch (which I know helps but it’s so cute, I can’t) and she tells him to picture Amelie’s beach and feel the connection to her. Fragile does the same “I know you love her” thing as the first time and Sam gets sent over to the beach. Fragile looked very sad, chiral allergy tears aside. Which, given that she probably considered him a friend by this point, fits since there’s no guarantee he’ll come back let alone be able to stop Amelie.

- Elsewhere, on Amelie’s beach things are... not looking good. There’s dead sea creatures everywhere, the water’s red, and the sun thing looks like it’s going to turn everything on the beach into smoldering ashes any second. Sam finally finds Amelie after running around for a while and she reveals she’s an EE, which he already technically knew thanks to Higgs. Amelie explains a bunch of stuff and tells Sam to make a choice: stay with her and watch the world end (no thanks) or stop her. Sam pulls the gun which does no good and upon following her, gets a prompt to hug her. He does and they both get super emotional (which is in turn making ME get emotional) and then Amelie shoves him away.

- Sam plummets into the ocean and somehow gets bounced back to his own beach. Where he’s blue? For some reason. I don’t think it’s a tint because everything else on the beach looked the same colors it always was in prior sequences. He’s the only thing that’s not. Which, there is a reason for I’m sure. Anyways.

- Cue running along the beach for eternity a good while with Sam stopping every so often to sit down and catch his breath as well as reflect on what Amelie told him. Which was a lot. She explained that she and Bridget are one and the same, a separation of Ka and Ha that managed to coexist. She also says she got bored of waiting for the end and decided to bring about the extinction early and, while I can understand that’s her purpose as an EE, way to say fuck humanity I guess.

- In between more running and resting, it’s revealed that Sam is the BB Cliff (aka Mr. Combat Veteran) was looking for. His son. (Which you find out kinda after fighting him for the third? time.) Sam was apparently an experiement and a potential sacrifice (man this game gets dark fast) for something. Die-Hardman- aka John- told Cliff as much in less words and instructed him to take his son and run. Cliff does and bad things ensue when he gets cornered. John/Die-Hardman was given the order to shoot Cliff and when he refused to Bridget/Amelie made him, quite literally, by grabbing his hand and making him pull the trigger. My thought process during these has bacially centered around “wow Bridget is awful” but add the swearing of your choice to that sentence. Basically, I do not feel charitable towards Ms. Extinction Entity.

- Cliff took BB Sam out of the pod at some point and when Bridget shot him via using John/Die-Hardman as a puppet, she also shot BB Sam. Upon realizing this, she freaks out. Which is understandable given that she just killed a man and a baby. But what did she think was going to happen? That Cliff would throw his teeny baby son across the room when she pulled the trigger? What exactly was her expectation here?

- So BB Sam died and went to the beach. Or was it his own beach? They all start to blur together a little after a while. Amelie finds the BB, which is blue because it’s not breathing (ooh hey maybe that’s why adult Sam is blue? ... but my understanding is when Fragile jumped him to Amelie’s beach, all of him went— not just his soul. So maybe not? Is it symbolic? Am I just looking too hard into this?) and does infant cpr (I think?) and lo and behold, BB Sam is brought back to life! She tells him she knows the way home and puts him in the ocean. & in upsetting the balance of life and death, she made him a repatriate

- Once again back on the beach, Sam decides he’s had enough of being stuck there and remembers the gun and Amelie’s words that “a gun won’t help you here but it still has a role to play” and decides to use it as a way to end the beach cycle. There’s a click and then the title “Death Stranding”. I was very confused at first and just kind of stared at the tv like “that’s it? All that for—“ and then a little button prompt showed up on the bottom with the words “reconnect with the living”. Push the button and oh look, Sam’s still alive (Which is very much a joyous moment for me as a concerned player)! He tries again a few times and realizes it doesn’t work, then hears a very familiar song. Following the sound he finds little BB handprints in the sand and following those leads him to some familiar voices.

- Amelie/Bridget shows up again, this time in white as opposed to her signature red (i know there’s symbolism in that change, maybe rebirth? or just signifying that she’s trying to be on humanity’s side of things this time around?) and tells him that he still has ties to the living and then points at the five figures floating in the sky⏤ presumably meant to represent Deadman, Mama, Lockne, Heartman, and Lou. Or is it Deadman, Mama/Lockne, Heartman, Lou, and Die-Hardman? Following that, various voices belonging to those mentioned above remark that they can see him and just need to bring him back. Sam winds up in the ocean again (i’m finishing up this post almost a week after beating the game so my memory is tad iffy on the exact way things happened) and is greeted with the sight of Deadman holding Lou in her little pod while he’s got his hand around Sam’s ankle.

- They manage to bring him back to the land of the living and what follows is a fair amount of cutscenes. In the absence of Bridget/Amelie/Samantha ‘America’ Strand (the woman who never existed), Die-Hardman takes up the mantle of president (good for him!). He reveals his face to the crowd (and presumably everyone watching from... wherever they may be) and starts talking about the unsung hero none of this would’ve been possible without... which is about the time Sam, who’s been hanging out in the very back of the room (mood), decides to bail (also a mood). He slows a little when Die-Hardman says the hero doesn’t need to be named, they all know who it is and they’re all for grateful for their efforts. He keeps walking and exits into the hall and wow, BRIDGES buildings are a lot bigger than you’d think from looking at the outside which is large in general but inside is... a lot.

- Deadman catches up with him and drops some information about Die-Hardman aka John. Which I think Sam already knew due to the sequence while trapped on the beach but oh well. Sam continues down the hall and tries to pass Die-Hardman who appeared from somewhere? I’m going to guess parts of the facility loop or there was a change in scenery and I just wasn’t paying enough attention. He confesses information about his past, including how he got his name, and kinda has an emotional breakdown which made me very sad for him and increased the number of times i cried while playing this game. Sam gives Die-Hardman/John back his gun and repeats Amelie/Bridget’s words and leaves.

- Sam goes to leave the building and runs into Deadman again who hands over Lou’s pod and... Lou’s dead. Which was very depressing and the knowledge of which hurt. A lot. Deadman tells him to take Lou to the incinerator and takes Sam’s cuffs offline while giving some useful information: his location is undetectable by BRIDGES while his cuffs are offline and they will automatically reconnect to the network when he uses the incinerator. Sam nods, gives Deadman a hug and tells him “thanks for everything”. Which is more than a thank you, it’s a good-bye and kojima has now broken my heart into five billion pieces. Sam departs, gets out the big door, and... oh hey, Fragile!

- They chat briefly, during which she reveals that she’s carrying on her father’s legacy and that Fragile Express now has a private contract with BRIDGES and they’re the first independent company to have it. Good for them! She comments on Lou (I think) and remarks that he at least shouldn’t need an umbrella. Then asks him if he’d work for her. Sam says no and explains how he felt when he first began his journey and reveals he still feels that way (and now i’m even more sad! let’s take the five billion pieces that are my heart and just shove them in blender at this point, why not!). Fragile is upset and I think she tried to stop him again but he left anyways.

- Thus begins the trek to the incinerator with BB’s Theme playing on the way there (it’s a wonder i could even see the tv at this point as the ending just keeps hammering the sad nail home). Finally made it to the incinerator taking the same path I did on the first visit (thanks Igor for the tools!) and Sam enters the building, takes off his cuffs and sets both those and Lou’s pod down on the incinerator before he remembers Deadman’s words. He snatches Lou’s pod back just in time and the slab descends into the floor, the doors seal shut, and turn his cuffs into ashes. It’s revealed that Sam took Lou out of the pod and not much has changed. He tries infant cpr and hearing his words the entire time literally had me sobbing. Sam says “come on baby’ and he’s crying (i’m crying and now the blended pieces of my heart are being run over by a steam-roller) until he finally gives up... and then... Lou lives! There are a bunch of baby BT’s floating nearby in the incinerator which is a little concerning, but hey Lou’s alive! Sam cradles little Lou to his chest and she’s so tiny⏤ her little skull is barely the size of his palm! Anyways, Sam and Lou walk outside and it starts to rain... but the sun is shining, the rain causes no harm to him or Lou (or Sam’s clothing) and a rainbow appears. The first normal rainbow in the entire game. Which is a good sign, I think? The title screen appears once more and woo! I beat the game!

This was a very unique and fun game, and I can honestly say I enjoyed every minute of it. Between the music, the environment, the characters, and all the lore you can uncover by reading Sam’s mail... it was an amazing experience. I still have some trophies I’m missing and I think I only need 10 more to platinum the game so I’ll be playing chapter 15 for a little while longer. Plus I want to rebuild all the roads + find all the memory chips. I do want to replay the game in it’s entirety sometime just to see what i pick up on ahead of time the second go-around. And, while I may have beat the game, this is going to be another one of my forever fandoms. I don’t have much contributed right now, but I hope to have more things posted soon now that I know the whole story. if anyone ever wants to chat about the game, fic, or anything, feel free to send me a message!

#ds adventures #death stranding spoilers #siren yells into the void #death stranding

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