#i feel like i can return from the cliff and be ‘safe again’ | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sweet-as-an-angel · 2 years ago

Note

Hiiii, I loveeeee ur work ❤️

I was thinking about a head cannon of how some of the mw2 characters (ghost, soap, König, etc) would react to their partner sending them a nude photo?👀👀👀

Sorry if you did this already but I’m pretty sure you haven’t tho cuz I definitely would have read it already 😭

MW2 Reaction to Receiving a Special™ Photo from Their S/O

Warnings: 18+ (just to be safe), Non-Specific/Explicit Implications of Smut, No Pronouns used for Reader except 'You', Singular Mention of Graves Throwing Himself off a Cliff, Dominant! MW2, Submissive! MW2, Dominant! Reader, Submissive! Reader, Profanity, etc.

Ghost

He will literally stare bug-eyed at the picture you’ve sent him like 👁️O👁️

Since it’s a physical photograph, he keeps it on him like a chapstick, which is to say all the time.

He isn’t risking ANYONE besides himself seeing it.

And when he’s about to embark on a mission, he keeps it tucked into his vest right where his heart is so that it’s practically part of him.

He likes to think that, somehow, you can hear – feel – his heart beating, know that he’s still alive and fighting so that he can come home and see you.

And when he returns from a mission and goes to his quarters, he has some…alone time.

You know, to really study the picture.

Not that he doesn’t know every curve and edge of your body already.

But that doesn't stop him growling your name into the pillow as he rocks against it, a hole cut into the bottom of it – a poor imitation of you.

A makeshift lover.

If anyone ends up seeing that picture – if they stole it from him, if by some act of God (because that’s what it’ll take) it slipped out of his vest or pocket – they are in for a World of Pain™.

There won’t be a time they won’t flinch upon hearing Ghost’s name, or when they see his shadow like an omen on the wall as he commandeers the halls. Prowling.

He’d feel pretty guilty about someone else seeing you how he does, even if it was only for a fraction of a second.

So he’s definitely going to make it up to you when he gets back <3

König

His heart can’t take this kind of torment.

He’ll be looking down at his phone, the image of you burning into his skin like a holy artefact.

He definitely gets more jumpy around people when he has his phone on him.

Will literally clam up and shove it into the deepest recesses of his pocket if someone comes too close.

Even when your picture is safely stored behind a password-protected photo album.

He has to excuse himself from training or other commitments whenever his mind wanders back to you, and subsequently that image (which is basically all the time).

Sometimes he calls you while he’s sorting himself out.

He just needs to hear your voice – to feel closer to you.

It’s the only way he can finish.

“Engel,” he rasps, his breath stuttering, “I need you,”

And everyone just looks at him like he’s grown a third eye when he returns because, unbeknownst to him, König can’t keep quiet, and everyone who has never heard even a peep from him is suddenly aware of the carnality that lies beneath his skin, wired into his soul.

And at the centre is his love for you, boundless and overflowing so that the rest of his teammates know it, too.

Not that they mind all too much.

They all sit and think that you must be one beautiful person to evoke such a response from König.

Soap

Will tease you back.

Sends a mirror pic of him in a tight black shirt, saying something like ‘You’ll see the rest when I get home.’

Is absolutely ravenous when it comes to you.

No cap, goes absolutely ham in the shower when the image of you in nothing flashes in his mind.

His low moans are enough of a warning for the rest of the 141 to stay away for the next half an hour or so.

Aside from that, he’ll just look at the picture because he finds you beautiful.

Stares at it while he’s in bed. Laments on how much he misses you ☹️.

He’s counting down the days until he can see you again, and with each that passes, he can feel your silhouette becoming tangible in his hands, as if you were stepping out of the photo.

Sometimes, he dreams that you’re there with him, nestled between his arms.

Other times the dreams are a little more…graphic.

But Johnny can’t help it.

He just can’t contain himself when it comes to you.

Valeria

If you thought her violent tendencies could never extend to you, prepare to be amazed.

The second this woman sees what you’re trying to do – or, rather, what she thinks you’re trying to do – she is not happy.

You could have sent that image with the purest (within reason) of intentions; just letting Valeria know that you miss her, wishing her a good day – whatever.

What she sees is you trying to manipulate her by using your body as an instrument of destruction.

Dramatic, yes. But Valeria has never been one to take chances.

She’ll be deceptively calm over text: ‘Don’t tease me, Darling. You know what happens when you do.’

All day, all she can see is that image.

Whenever she turns a corner, you’re there; whenever she’s talking to someone, you’re peering at her over their shoulder; when she’s alone, you’re sat with her – on her – trying to take her attention away from her paperwork.

Redemption is a baseless concept when Valeria returns home that evening.

You will not know rest until she’s done with you.

Price

“Fuckin’ Hell, Love,” he’ll say, the darkness hanging on his voice tangible even through the voice note.

“What’ve you been up to while I’ve been away, hmm ?”

Will not rest until he knows he’s got you hot and bothered.

This entails him sending increasingly risqué images of himself; first, just one of him flexing, his arms thick and crawling with veins.

The next is of his shirt raised just below his chest, the dim light of the room keeping enough of him shrouded that his identity is unknown to all but you, his wide silhouette taking up most of the picture.

And, if you decide to be resilient against his attempts to make you feel as you have him, you’ll receive a series of menacing messages.

‘Don’t get too comfortable, Angel’, he’ll say.

‘You never know when I’ll come through that door–’

He grins as he sees you’ve read his message, hanging on his every word.

‘And ravage you.’

And you know he means it, too.

Meanwhile, he’s multitasking; keeping a clear, professional head and giving orders while resisting the primal urge to drop everything and find you.

And no amount of pleading or tears will spare you from his wrath when he returns.

Horangi

Regardless of how well the military life trained his self-discipline, nothing can dampen the sheer need Horangi feels whenever he receives a special picture from you.

I’m talking: he will literally sit in silence for ten minutes because he’s got a raging issue he needs to take care of but can’t risk anyone else seeing it.

Will thunder down the hall to the nearest bathroom when the meeting’s over and take out his frustrations there.

When he calls, you’d better pick up the first time.

If you don’t, you’ll have Hell to pay when gets home.

“Baby,” he breathes down the phone, the fog already making his mind frost over, his body burning up.

“What have you done to me–”

These brief encounters are the only thing keeping him sane while he’s away; they make him feel closer to you.

And, repaying you in kind, he returns one night, in the silence of the moon hours.

He finds you, pulls you to him, clutching on tight as you begin to wake.

And, between delirium and consciousness, his voice is all you can hear.

“Shouldn’t have tested me, Sweetheart,” he says, whispering as though partaking in a secret.

“Now I’m going to have to challenge you.” His arms are snakes as they constrict you.

“Fall asleep before I’m done with you, and I promise there will be no end to your suffering.”

Alejandro

Teasing a man as passionate as Alejandro is not going to end well for everyone involved.

Expect to receive a barrage of very choice texts back.

‘You have no idea what you’re doing to me’, he’ll say, followed by a photo of the tent in his trousers.

And a sinister: ‘But you will’.

If he’s away on business for even just a few days, he’ll go practically feral whenever he sees that picture of you.

To everyone else, he’ll be the leader Alejandro Vargas they all know him as – ruthless and righteous.

Yet, there’s something different in the way he walks as he excuses himself from the table, his destination unknown.

His gaze is narrowed and his teeth are grinding, rabid in disposition.

And when he gets home, no matter how long of a day it’s been, you’re in for a very long night.

He’ll appear behind you, a spectre, clamping a hand down on your shoulder.

“You shouldn’t test a soldier, Love,” he says, his grip tightening.

You don't turn around, an exhilarating fear keeping you frozen.

He leans down, his mouth just at your ear, his breath hot.

“Because you never know when he’ll snap.”

Rodolfo

This man is usually rather quiet and submissive when it comes to the more personal aspects of your life together.

But when you send him a picture that makes him question how long he can keep his composure for, you’re in trouble.

You’ll be receiving a phone call from a very exasperated Rodolfo, who, despite his best efforts, has succumbed to your charm.

Definitely a growler when he’s in a dominant mood.

More of a whimperer when he’s not.

At times like these, you get both.

“Darling,” he breathes, the back of his head pressed against the cold cubicle wall. “Look what you’ve done to me…”

His whining is more than enough to let you know the effect you’ve had on him.

And it’s what he says next that makes your blood run cold.

“I won’t let you get away with this.”

The husking baritone in his voice tells you he’s being truthful.

And if you try to clap back with something witty, or even an apology, Rodolfo just laughs.

“The time for mercy is long past, mi Amor,” he tells you.

“All you can do now is prepare for the Reckoning.”

Graves

This smug idiot.

Definitely smirks to himself when he gets that picture.

Has to resist the urge to show it off to everyone in the boardroom because he’s just that proud to have you as his partner.

Yes, he is hard. Yes, he’s still going to give this presentation in front of all the major shareholders.

Why ?

Because he’s Graves. Also, because he knows he has more money than everyone else in that room, and, consequently, more power.

Will shoot you back a text like: ‘Mighty fine work, Babydoll’, followed by, ‘You’re getting a promotion when I get home.’

Yes, he uses corporate jargon when discussing intimate matters.

He’s a businessman at heart, he can’t help it.

Definitely more playful than most of the others on this list.

The type to take his time with you and make you laugh while he does so.

But when he wants to be rough (and when you want him to be), he can be.

And he gets mean when he’s like that.

I’m talking hair-pulling, name-calling – basically just bullying you, but consensually.

Does his best to take care of you, though.

If he found out that he’d actually upset you, he’d literally jump off a cliff – he wouldn't be able to forgive himself.

Expect many lavish gifts if this happens, though.

But don’t tell him that I told you that 👀.

Gaz

Will nearly drop his phone – it turns to butter in his hands.

He looks over his shoulder at least fifty times before he’ll allow himself to look at the photo again.

Poor boy’s face is turning red, his palms are sweating, he can’t think straight.

Paranoid 24/7 that everyone knows he has that picture of you.

But it doesn’t intimidate him enough for him to even try to keep quiet in the barracks when he has some alone time.

Similar situation to Soap; everyone knows to steer clear of whichever room Gaz was last spotted walking into for a while.

It would take him a few days for him to send a picture back.

More than likely, it’ll be of him in a scarcely lit bathroom in nothing but his boxers with a very prominent outline in them.

Followed by a text with something to the effect of: ‘Been thinking about you all night, Sweets’

And God forbid you send him another image of yourself. And definitely do not send a message saying ‘Aww, has my good boy been behaving himself ?’

Will literally send him over the edge.

The rest of the 141 can’t commandeer the bathroom for the rest of the day after that.

And when Gaz gets home, just know that your phone screen can’t protect you anymore.

Not when you have a man made of pure intellect and solid mass running full-force at you with all the pent-up energy seen only in a nuclear reactor.

Reblog for more content like this! It helps creators like myself tremendously and it is greatly appreciated :-)

Masterlist Masterlist [Continued] Masterpost Modern Warfare AI Masterlist

AO3 Wattpad

11K notes · View notes

gloomwitchwrites · 5 months ago

Text

Tattoo Artist Simon "Ghost" Riley x Female Reader

Chapter Specific Warnings (per the warnings MDNI): swearing, angst, family drama, suggestive themes, rough kissing, mild intimacy

Word Count: 4k

A/N: Part Nineteen of Ink & Needle

Archie’s parents come knocking. You seek out Simon for comfort.

Chapter Eighteen // Chapter Twenty

ao3 // taglist // main masterlist // ink & needle masterlist

The words lingered. Nearly burst.

You almost said them—almost confessed it all to Simon at the cliff’s edge.

I love you, Simon.

But you didn’t. You clung to them, sucked them down and pretended they didn’t exist. When you looked at Simon, and saw the possession in his gaze, you faltered. Those dark eyes of his transported you back to Riot Room, to the way he looked at you in the mirror when he had you in his lap.

You couldn’t speak them. Couldn’t make them real and whole and tangible.

As you chew on your nail in Amelia’s kitchen, you regret not saying something to Simon. The truth sits heavy in your chest. It is a rock in your stomach. Things might be different if you had said those words to him. Maybe you’d be with him now and not anxiously tapping your foot against the floor.

Amelia comes around the corner, her gaze falling to your bare feet. “Where are your socks, dear? You’ll catch cold.”

The weather is finally starting to change, becoming chillier by the day. It’s currently raining outside. The sky is gray and dreary.

“I’ll grab some,” you reply, reaching for your coffee mug. “Just started the kettle for you.”

“Thank you. That’s sweet,” smiles Amelia. “Did you eat yet?”

“Just toast with a bit of butter and jam,” you answer, yawning.

Amelia tuts. “Always start the day with a proper breakfast.” She begins opening cupboards. “I’ll take care of it.”

You’re about to ask Amelia if she’d like some help, but Lillian’s soft wail from upstairs silences your question.

Lillian is a month old now. It feels like only yesterday when you were at Evie’s bedside at the hospital. According to the pediatrician, Lillian is developing well. Healthy. That at least is a comfort. Everything else is tangled up, like bugs twisted in a sticky web.

Amelia glances over her shoulder, setting a pan on the stovetop. “How about you check on, Evie? I can handle breakfast.”

“Sure,” you nod, yawning yet again, taking your coffee cup with you.

“And put on some socks!” she calls out after you.

You lift your mug in answer, ascending the stairs quickly and entering the bedroom you’ve been sharing with Evie. She reclines in an arm chair with Lillian held to her chest. The baby suckles at her breast, all wailing gone.

Evie glances up and you instantly see the exhaustion. Having a newborn isn’t easy, but it’s so much worse without a partner. Evie might have you and Amelia to help, but who she really needs is Archie. She deserves to have her husband here with her.

When you returned from your trip with Simon, you tried not to hound Evie about what happened while you away. Spending time in Scotland helped you forget everything—to take the burden off your shoulders for a while. It was nice. Lovely. Simon helped you slip into comfort. You were safe and loved while you were with him.

Evie insisted that everything was calm while you were gone. Nothing but rest, but you know it’s a lie. She’s been pensive—a bit withdrawn since your return.

It’s troubling, and you’ve been keeping an extra eye on her. The only time you see Evie smile is when she’s looking at Lillian.

You take a sip of your coffee. “After you’re done feeding, I can watch her for a bit. Take a shower?”

Evie softly shakes her head. “I’ll be fine.”

You pop a hip. “When’s the last time you showered, Evelyn Green?”

This time she smiles, and it reminds you just how infrequently you’ve seen that side of her. She sighs with exaggeration, and that is all the answer you need. Evie’s lips part, and you hold up your hand, silencing whatever rebuttal she’s forming.

“No arguments,” you insist. “Shower. Breakfast. And I’ll take Lillian.”

Evie’s gaze softens. “Thank you,” she murmurs, her focus returning to the little bundle in her arms.

When Lillian is done feeding, you take her from Evie’s arms and head downstairs. You want Evie to take her time and enjoy the shower. Sometimes she tries to handle things alone, and she simply can’t. It’s why you’re here and not back in America.

Amelia putters about in the kitchen preparing breakfast. You sink down onto the sofa, placing your mug on the coffee table before situating Lillian into her bouncer. It’s not automated, but you’ve found using the toe of your foot to keeps it in motion while keeping your arms free.

Lillian’s eyes are open. Those beautiful blues shift around, exploring her surroundings. It takes a bit, but she eventually falls back into slumber. Leaning forward, you examine her little fists. Her fingers are curled tight and it takes forever to wiggle a single finger free.

“Need to clip your nails, little lady,” you muse.

Lillian’s response is a slow blink and a yawn before falling back asleep. You laugh softly and lightly tap the tip of her nose. She wiggles a bit, face scrunching, but she doesn’t wake.

“Now. Where are your clippers,” you ponder, glancing up.

As you search your brain for where they might be, a harsh knock comes from the front door. You turn in the direction of the sound, staring through the doorway of the living room, unsure of who might be here at such an early hour.

It’s not even ten in the morning.

“Can you get the door, dear,” calls Amelia from the kitchen.

“I have Lillian,” you reply back, still staring at the front door.

“Blast,” swears Amelia.

You hear shuffling, and then the clanking of pans just before Amelia comes around the corner. Another knock follows, this one more insistent than the last. Amelia huffs, strands of grey hair slipping from her bun as she rushes toward the door.

Returning your attention to Lillian, you move the toes of your feet against the bouncer, giving the contraption some movement to keep the infant asleep.

“What are you doing here?”

Amelia’s question comes out like a bullet. An accusation laced in metal. You’re immediately on alert.

Leaning away from Lillian, you attempt to see around the old woman. Your view is partially obstructed, and you can’t entirely make out who is on the other side of the door.

Their answer is muffled, and while you don’t catch any words, their tone of voice sounds familiar. What’s irritating though is that you can’t seem to place it.

Frowning, you stand, staying close to Lillian. There isn’t one but two people at the front door. You take a step forward and to the right in order to see over Amelia’s shoulder.

Your blood solidifies in your veins. Becomes ice. That coldness creeps outward, snagging bone and muscle until you’re rigid and unbelieving. Evie is upstairs right now and has no idea that her in-laws are at the door.

Archie’s father, Charles, wears a perfectly tailored tweed coat and black slacks. His wrinkled face is formed into a severe frown, as if seeing Amelia and being here at all is entirely distasteful. Archie’s mother, Miriam, stands next to him. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a severe bun, skin so tight from the hairstyle her expression remains neutral.

Fuck.

“The two of you should leave,” says Amelia, tone flat.

“We came to see our granddaughter, Amelia,” replies Charles just as flatly. “And it’s not your decision.”

Amelia scoffs. “It’s my bloody house. And neither of you are welcome.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “You know this.”

This has nowhere to go but south.

Miriam’s eyes widen slightly but the rest of her face remains the same. The woman is so vain she’s likely had recent work done. “You would deny us, Amelia? After everything?”

After everything? As if they deserve to take one step into this house or interact with Lillian at all. You don’t want to be part of this conversation, and Lillian is right here, next to you. Oblivious and asleep. There is no way you can slip past the bickering trio to hide her upstairs.

“Fuck,” you mutter, as you attempt to sort out your next steps.

You can’t see Amelia’s face but you hear the anger in her tone. “Leave.”

Charles and Miriam stay where they are. Of course they do. They’re wealthy. They own an obscene amount of land. And they know a slew of influential people. They won’t budge. Not for anyone. They stick their noses up at everyone that don’t deem worthy of their attention.

“We drove—”

“Your driver drove,” corrects Amelia, and Charles rolls his eyes.

“Semantics,” he sighs, removing his scarf. “We came to see our granddaughter. Let us in.”

You don’t like his abrasive, pushy tone. This is the exact shit that pisses you off.

Amelia stands her ground. “You’re not allowed in this house. You know that, Charles.”

Why he isn’t allowed inside the house is beyond you, but you suspect it has to do with Evie and Lillian’s presence. If they weren’t here, Amelia might allow them entry.

Charles’ frown deepens somehow, his cheeks going bright red. “Where is Evelyn? I’d like to speak with my daughter-in-law.”

They haven’t spoken to Evie once since Archie’s death. The only contact she’s had at all from them is through their solicitor.

“She’s not here,” says Amelia.

“Absurd. Of course she is.”

You glance down at Lillian and sigh.

“It’s the friend.”

Friend drips off Miriam’s tongue like a viper. It stings your skin, and you hate that it does. This is the same woman who called Evie a leech on her wedding day. Her slimy demeanor never got under your skin but it does now.

You turn, ready to strike out, but a soft voice cuts through the tension.

“It’s okay, Amelia. Let them in.”

Evie stands on the bottom step of the stairs. Her brown hair is still damp from the shower. She wears a dark green fluffy robe. Evie appears less tired than before. Maybe the shower refreshed her.

Amelia glances between Evie and Archie’s parents before stepping aside, allowing them entrance. The movement is sluggish—almost reluctant.

Charles extends a hand and Miriam enters first. Her gaze knocks Evie, and then Amelia before turning inward, noticing you, and then—

Before the words even leave her mouth, you block Miriam’s view of Lillian. Her lips become a thin line and she clutches her purse like you’re about to snag it from her at any moment.

Charles enters in behind her, frown unchanging. He studies you a moment, and then the blocked bouncer.

“Is Lillian there?” he asks, taking a step forward.

You match his movement. “She’s sleeping.”

Amelia follows behind like a brewing storm. She gestures at the two lounge chairs across from the sofa. “The two of you sit there.”

Charles and Miriam glance around as if afraid to touch anything. You feel their distaste for the space ooze from them in a wave. They eventually sit, though they do so reluctantly. Miriam’s completely rigid.

You wait until Evie takes a seat. She selects the middle of the sofa, directly in front of Lillian. Amelia settles to Evie’s left and you end up on the right. Evie reaches out and lightly presses on the bouncer until it begins to softly rock.

“Thank you for inviting us in, Evelyn,” says Charles. He hasn’t removed his coat and neither has Miriam.

Strange. Perhaps they don’t plan on staying.

“Of course,” she replies. “I just want peace between everyone.”

Evie is always the optimist. She cares about everyone else before herself. In this, you wish she’d be a little selfish. Archie’s parents have always been awful, and being kind to them doesn’t seem worth the effort.

Removing your phone from your pocket, you send out a quick text to Archie’s solicitor. He told you no interactions, but Evie let them in, and he needs to be here or at least be aware of the situation.

Mister Grant responds almost immediately.

I’m on my way.

For a second, your fingers hesitate. Simon told you to text or call if something came up. That he would act as a buffer if necessary. But Mister Grant is already on the way, and it’s early. Simon is probably in his shop getting ready for a day full of clients. You don’t want to bother him with this. It’s not his battle.

You place the phone screen-side down on top of your thigh.

“I agree,” says Charles. He clears his throat. “It’s why we’ve come.”

Amelia snorts and Charles shoots her a look. Amelia stares right back, unafraid. “And what is your version of peace, Charles? Hm?” She looks ready to brawl.

Thank fuck for her. You’ve faced these two plenty of times but it’s better with backup.

Amelia isn’t Charles’ biological mother. His mother died suddenly, but his father, James Williams eventually remarried before divorcing that woman and marrying Amelia. Amelia and James were together for almost eight years before they separated. The fourth wife was James’ last. While Archie never cared about his grandfather’s many wives, Charles has always been vocal about his faithfulness to one woman.

Evie isn’t making eye contact with anyone except her daughter. There is a small, sad smile on your friend’s face that clenches your heart.

“A peace that has everyone’s best interest. I think we can all agree that Lillian’s health and future come first,” answers Charles.

“Indeed,” muses Amelia. “And what does this look like to the two of you?” She glances between them. “You didn’t drive all the way to my home just for a quick visit.”

Charles and Miriam share a look.

Your heart drops into your stomach. The tips of your fingers grow numb. Evie’s gaze is still on Lillian but her fingers no longer press against the bouncer. They’ve gone still.

Charles clears his throat before reaching into an inside pocket hidden within his tweed coat. Withdrawing some folded papers, he begins to smooth them out.

“What is this, Charles?” asks Amelia, worry in her voice.

“Our lawyers drafted this. All Evelyn needs to do is sign.”

Evie finally glances up. “Sign what?” Her voice sounds a little distant and shaky.

“You’re not signing anything,” you say to Evie, placing your hand on her knee.

Charles keeps his gaze on Evie. Even Miriam is looking at her intently. They both sit up straight, clearly uncomfortable.

“Wait until Mister Grant gets here,” you murmur. “He can take a look at it.”

“That won’t be necessary,” interrupts Charles. He retrieves a pen from his pocket, clicking the end. “Just sign at the bottom, and you’ll never see us again.”

“Sounds like a bloody dream,” mutters Amelia.

“So you didn’t come to see Lillian?” asks Evie.

“We did,” affirms Miriam.

Even as she says this, something doesn’t sit right with you. Ever since Archie’s death, his parents have done nothing but make Evie’s life hell. Why would they come for a ‘final visit’ before breaking off ties entirely?

“There’s a catch,” you say. “What is it?”

Charles’ gaze moves to you and his frown deepens. “All Evelyn needs to do—”

“What do you want, Charles?” snaps Amelia. “Speak plainly.”

“You’re not the child’s grandmother nor are you her mother, Amelia,” growls Charles. “Stay out of this.”

“And yet I have been more of a parent to Archie than either of you,” she retorts.

Charles’ lip curls, the papers shaking in his fist. “You were a lounge singer my father had a fancy for. And when he tired of you, he left.” He takes a deep breath. “Thankfully.”

“James would be ashamed of your behavior,” hisses Amelia.

“My father is dead and I am the head of the Williams estate,” snarls Charles. He drops the stack of papers into his lap. “And this matter only concerns us and Evelyn.”

Miriam leans forward, her gaze on the bouncer. “Lillian will be happy. All her needs will be provided for.”

Evie’s head tilts slightly. “Lillian already has what she needs.”

This conversation is spiraling. Your head is spinning. Maybe you should have contacted Simon. He’s much closer to you than Mister Grant.

Miriam sighs and you immediately want to throw them out the door. This is going nowhere except downhill. They have a fucking agenda. You know this deep in your bones.

“Lillian is our granddaughter. We want what’s best.”

“And I’m her mother,” breathes Evie. “I know what’s best for her.”

“Do you, Evelyn?” replies Charles. He smooths the papers again and holds them out. “It would be best for everyone if Lillian leaves with us.”

It would be best for everyone if Lillian leaves with us.

No. Fucking no.

You should have texted Simon. They’d cower in his presence. He’s the intimidation you need in a situation like this. But Simon is not here.

It is just you, Evie, and Amelia against two entitled assholes who can’t leave things alone.

“Lillian is not leaving with you,” you say coolly, fingers curling around your phone.

“That is for Evie to decide,” replies Charles, matching your tone.

Evie shakes her head. “Lillian is mine.”

Amelia stands, her anger on full display. “You will leave this house immediately.” Her voice is so cold. All bottled fury.

“Amelia—”

“Leave, Charles. Take your wife and piss off.”

“Amelia!” cries Miriam, also standing.

Charles pops up from his seat, his free hand out to stop his wife from moving forward. He tosses the papers onto the coffee table and then steps back to place his hand on his wife’s arm.

“I see we aren’t wanted.” Charles grabs his scarf as tears begin to form in Evie’s eyes. “Think about it, Evelyn. You know we can provide a better life for her.”

Amelia crosses her arms as Charles and Miriam see themselves out. When the door is shut, Amelia storms over, engaging the lock.

“The fucking nerve,” she says.

Evie grabs Lillian and abruptly stands, clutching the infant to her chest. “I need to lay down.” She pauses. “And pump.” Her voice cracks on the end before she takes off up the stairs.

You watch her go, your heart heavy. Amelia sighs and walks past you, entering the kitchen.

Amelia sighs and walks past you, entering the kitchen. Breakfast is likely ruined but you’re no longer hungry.

When Mister Grant arrives, he retrieves the papers Charles left and promises that he’ll look into it. He remains calm during the exchange, but even you can tell this situation rattles him. It’s not uplifting, and it only turns your stomach.

The rest of the day is a blur. You hardly feel anything. Most of your time is spent checking emails and catching up on work. Even then, it’s fuzzy. Completely separate as if you’re looking through a foggy window. The words on your computer screen mean nothing and your head hurts something fierce.

You’re aching inside. Wanting—needing comfort. You crave strong arms around you, and a comforting warmth only a specific person can provide.

But you don’t seek Simon out, though you want to. Instead, you sulk on the sofa, leaving the bedroom to Evie. She needs her space and time alone. You don’t want to shake things up after all that’s happened.

It’s not until the next day that you realize how much you miss Simon. Over a week has passed, and yesterday was hell. You need to feel his hands on your body. To hear his gruff voice in your ear. To feel that perfect stretch of him inside you.

Anything.

You’ll take anything Simon is willing to give. You just need him right now.

The hour is late, but you’re desperate. The walk to his place is short. Brief. You didn’t call ahead, but you weren’t thinking of that when you walked out the door. The only thing on your mind is getting to him.

Simon gave you a key to the exterior door that leads into the cramped hallway up to his apartment. It’s dark when you enter, and you shut it behind you softly, lingering just inside the doorway for a moment as you catch your breath.

You ascend the staircase, pausing at Simon’s apartment door. As your fist rises to knock, you hesitate, the stress of yesterday catching up to you. It hits like a wave and you feel the tears welling up unbidden.

Knocking sharply, you step back from the door.

Bravo doesn’t bark. It’s all quiet on the other end. That would be just your luck for Simon not to be home.

But then you hear heavy footfalls, and the door swings open.

Simon is maskless and his eyes widen slightly at your appearance.

“Simon,” you murmur, not recognizing your own voice. It’s cracking. Shattering.

“What’s wrong?” he asks quickly, reaching out to take you into his arms.

As his arms go out to pull you close, you drape your own around his neck. Pulling him close, you bring him in for a fierce kiss. You are demanding. Needy. Simon senses this immediately. He melts against you, the two of you tangling until one of you has to come up for air.

“I need you, Simon,” you murmur against his mouth. “I don’t want to feel anything. Just you. Only you.”

The middle of Simon’s brow furrows, his gaze traveling all over your face like he’s trying to map your pain. He sees a problem, and he wants to solve it. You’ve seen this assessing gaze before. But you don’t need Simon to solve anything. You just need him to fuck you.

The two of you can talk afterward.

“Please,” you whimper and Simon relents.

He drags you inside, slamming the door shut with one hand. He shoves you up against the wall, trapping you there, his pelvis pressing against your stomach. You cling to him, fingers digging into the back of his neck.

Simon steals your breath, devours you with kisses that bring a slickness to your core. This is how you needed to be kissed. It is melting away the ice. Warming you everywhere. You seize more of them, hungry to consume as many as you can. You are a greedy thing, and Simon willingly submits, indulging you completely.

Your fingers claw at his clothes. You want them off. You want them gone. There is nothing you long for more than to feel Simon against you, to know only his flesh and touch. Everything buzzes. Everything aches.

Simon heeds your desire. He pulls on your clothes just as you tug at his. Pieces start to fall away. Drifting to the floor. Skin is revealed, and Simon is warm beneath your hands. He is all hardness. Pure strength.

You explore his angles and ridges, fingers trailing over tattoos and scars. Simon groans with every touch, pressing harder against you, grasping your hips and waist and thighs as if the two of you have been separated for an eternity.

Your hands descend, and Simon groans loudly when you wrap your hand around him.

“This is what I want,” you murmur. You release him, grab his hand, guide it between your legs. “And I want it here.”

“Fuck, love,” growls Simon. Bending at the knees and sliding his arms under your thighs, he lifts you off the ground and presses you against the wall again. You wrap your legs around him, hooking your ankle behind his back.

Simon slides home, filling you completely with one quick thrust.

Your fingers dig into his skin, leaving half-moons behind.

Simon isn’t slow. He is just as desperate, using your body in the exact way you need him too. This is what you needed—what you desired.

Skin against skin. Exchanged kisses and breath. Dark eyes with pale eyelashes staring into your soul. The man you love claiming you.

Your lungs are full of him.

Vanilla. Black tea. A hint of smoke.

All you feel is Simon.

It is intoxicating, and you are drowning.

taglist:

@km-ffluv @glitterypirateduck @tiredmetalenthusiast @miaraei @cherryofdeath

@sapphichotmess @saoirse06 @ferns-fics @lialacleaf @unhinged-reader-36

@miss-mistinguett @ravenpoe67 @tulipsun-flower @creamwhxre @sageyxbabey

@mudisgranapat @ninman82 @lulurubberduckie @leed-bbg @theshrikeandcanary

@yawning-grave81 @knight4xmas @jupiternighties @corvusmorte @darling006

@azkza @nishim @carma-fanficaddict @haven-1307 @voids-universe

@itsberrydreemurstuff @spicyspicyliving @cod-z @keiva1000 @littlemisscriesherselftosleep

@statixx-x @umno-yeah @webmvie @blackhawkfanatic @talooolaaloolla

@sadlonelybagel @aykxz98 @daemondoll @xxkay15xx @iloveslasher

@sammysinger04 @dakotakazansky @suhmie @cinnabeanz @rogerrhqpsody

209 notes · View notes

stxrvel · 10 months ago

Text

the court (3)

hi guys! part 3 is finally here and i apologize for the delay and also that it is so short :(. i've had some problems these days, but today i could finally finish this part and finally bring it to you guys! i hope you like it and see you next time! <3

summary: you and Azriel had to start making peace with the reality you were to live from now on... pairing: azriel x f!reader words: +2k warnings: bad words and mentions of captivity

part 1: the cliff

part 2: the house

part 4: the routine

You felt strange. The last few days had passed too quickly since you had been dragged out of the tiny cell where you lived, if you could call it living. You hadn't thought you would be unlucky enough to see the high lord of the Night Court again, but that last day on the mountain, his face was almost the last one you saw.

The memory made you shudder, an uneasiness coursing through your body that tried to counteract the calm coming from the other side of the bond. Azriel was silent, which you had noticed was quite common for him. Mor was at his side, sending you a reassuring smile that did little to calm your nerves. You didn't know how Azriel was coping with it all so well when you felt like you were going to explode.

The scene could almost be funny.

Tarquin, your High Lord, was at a safe distance, sharing a lethal gaze with Azriel through the masses of air. Mor was a few steps ahead, holding her hard stare for everyone else.

Only one was missing… the High Lord of the Night Court.

Your parents were not there, because they were over the border with the Day Court, which is why there were also envoys and representatives from Helion. You would only have to run a couple of meters to reach your Court, to return home.

Azriel at your side sighed and you couldn't help but send him a sidelong glance. It was impossible for you to decipher his expression, so you couldn't tell if the separation hurt him as much as it did you. It was never your intention to separate from him as soon as you met, in fact, you spent many nights imagining and dreaming that your mate would appear and take you far away from that mountain. But Azriel was basically the right hand of the reason you had ended up captured, you didn't know how things worked like that and you didn't want to make any more trouble. Going home was what you wanted and maybe what would work for everyone.

Barely a little over a minute would've passed when Tarquin spoke.

“Y/N,” he addressed you and you turned your gaze from your mate to your high lord. “You are home. Please come.”

You looked at his outstretched hand feeling a hand wrap around your throat and the warmth of Azriel's wings cover you from the not at all cold winds of Court Day. You passed saliva carefully, sending a glance to your partner, who kept his jaw tense and his gaze fixed on your High Lord.

You took a step forward and felt those shadows, which you knew were part of Azriel, swirl about your feet as you walked.

The Court Day was not cold, but the moment you separated from Azriel you began to feel chilled.

Clasping your hands in front of you, you walked towards your High Lord, quickening your pace each time you felt further away from the members of the Night Court who now kept their gaze fixed on your neck. As you reached Tarquin's side, you caught sight of Azriel again and for a second he couldn't hide the pitiful expression on his face. He watched you for just the tiniest of seconds, which felt eternal, when he hardened his gaze again to look at Tarquin.

“Where is he?” your High Lord spoke again, when he was sure you were behind him and in the custody of his warriors.

“He's coming,” Mor spoke, shifting her pace on her feet to the side of a stiff Azriel.

“Good,” Tarquin nodded. “I suppose we can wait a while.”

He turned and you had to look away from Azriel as he raised one of his hands in the direction of the border.

“You're free to go home. Your parents are waiting.”

Out of the corner of your eye you barely noticed Azriel move, but you might as well have imagined it because Tarquin was obstructing most of your view. You could barely give your mate a glance, savoring the feeling of the bond once more, trying to send something that wasn't fear or panic or sadness before you left, which you knew was what you had felt these past few days because you had no strength to control the flow of emotions that traveled through that; no strength to put up a wall around you. It was a habit, during your days of captivity you always hoped that someday the High Lord of the Night Court could easily see through you.

You noticed a slight nod of his head and that was enough. You turned on your feet to walk ahead of the soldiers, though your body begged you to turn back and take refuge in your mate, though his shadows still swirled at your feet no matter the distance, leaving him alone. You didn't want him to be alone, but you didn't know how to ask them not to follow you.

But when you were close to the border and spotted the silhouettes of your parents, any thought vanished from your head. Anything other than that you were home, that you were able to return, that you could see your parents again. There was no better feeling than that at that moment.

“What?”

Your mother stood in front of you, a cup of her amazing hot chocolate in her hands and her eyes red from spending so many hours crying over your return. They were in the living room, the cozy, homey atmosphere beginning to finally mend the cracks you didn't even know existed in unreachable parts of your soul and head. It was an indescribable peace, but not complete and of course you knew why.

“You can't go back there, Y/N,” your father mimicked your mother's gesture, leaning forward slightly as if they wanted to come closer and wrap their arms around you and never let you leave the house again. You understood their fear, but now you were living a new reality.

“I'm not saying I'm going to leave now or tomorrow. But I will, someday, eventually,” you calmly explained to them. “He's my mate.”

“I don't want that,” your father shook his head and a small amount of pain flooded your chest. During that time you tried hard to keep your emotions from running through the bond for Azriel's sake. Now that surely he and the others must be at the High Lord's house, the last thing you wanted was to worry him.

“Dad, Azriel had nothing to do with what happened.”

He said nothing in response, sinking into the armchair next to your mother who maintained a slightly more neutral expression.

“You speak well of someone who is a mortal enemy of our Court,” her icy voice cut through the silence. The air felt heavier.

You looked at her again, her stone-like expression waiting for you on the other side. “I thought you having worked for the High Lord would understand that you would do anything for his protection.”

Your mother twisted her mouth, crossing her arms over her chest. When she turned her head, your father sent you a reproachful look.

“You know that's a touchy subject for your mother.”

“So is your treating my partner like a criminal,” you frowned at them.

“But he's not innocent,” your mother sentenced, even without turning to look at you.

“Azriel did everything in his power with the knowledge he had- now he's supposed to be omniscient?”

“Whatever conclusion we come to, I don't want you to go back to that court.”

“Dad!”

“The High Lord of the Night Court held you captive for almost fifty years! Are we supposed to be happy that you want to go back?”

“But I found him. My mate… Azriel.”

“Y/N, I hope you understand that this is a very serious situation. And the best decision you can make is not over there,” your mother stood up, seeking to end the conversation at that moment. The euphoria of the welcome had worn off.

“Are you asking me to leave my mate?”

The silence was deafening. Your parents barely glanced sideways at you, still with their expressions twitching.

“What the fuck? What's next, are you going to ask me to reject the bond?” you exclaimed through the pain in your chest. The shadow of helplessness running across your eyes.

“Of course not, sweetheart. Just… do you understand what these years were like for us?”

“Do you understand what they were for me? I was the one who went through it and I'm willing to go back for him,” you looked at your father, exasperated. The last thing you expected from that meeting was for them to end up having a discussion like that. Whatever the High Lord of the Night Court decided to do would never have anything to do with what Azriel could never do. You knew down to your bones that if he had known earlier things would be very different.

“I don't know, Y/N…”

“I'm not going to ask for your permission for this,” you stood up, preparing to go back to your room. Your mother still looked angry and your father frustrated. “I'll stay for a while, but I'm not abandoning Azriel.”

“How long did it take and did he have to find you until you were about to die?”

“That has nothing to do with him and you know it,” you slurred the words, angry. With that feeling throbbing in your chest, you left the living room on your way to your room. At some point you felt a breeze rush through your chest, reminding you of your mate's feeling of bodily warmth.

Tarquin's office had never felt so stifling. Azriel had become so used to feeling all your emotions through the bond that now that he felt nothing from the other side he felt too anxious. He knew that whatever Rhysand and Tarquin were talking about was important, too much, and that he should be as vigilant as Mor was, but his head kept coming back to you. He was too worried that he couldn't know how you were doing. He didn't know how he would survive the next few days.

Somehow they had managed to have a diplomatic conversation. Azriel heard a few things at the beginning about the derogatory and venomous remarks of the high lords until they came in to touch on the subject of prisoners and the fight over fifty years ago. Mor was doing her mediating role excellently and knew that they had come to an agreement at some point. That was all he knew.

“However, regardless of what we agree,” Azriel observed Tarquin after feeling his gaze, “whether or not to go back will be up to her.”

“I know,” he averted his gaze, feeling Rhysand turn to watch him. Tarquin stood behind his desk, serious and unyielding as always, but patient… for some reason, understanding.

Azriel felt his chest compress, the all-too-familiar emptiness welcoming his grief, even though it had barely been a couple of days since he had met his mate. It seemed like he had barely begun to live since the day he saw you. So many new emotions and so many inexplicable voids. He couldn't even feel her anymore and that… it could drive him crazy. How would they live from end to end as if nothing? As if it all meant nothing? As if being away from her wouldn't rob him of air?

“You'll see each other again. That's for sure-”

“Don't fucking talk to me,” the Shadowsinger shot up from the chair, Mor barely wincing at the sound.

Tarquin watched curiously between faces and Azriel cursed not being able to hold his tongue every time Rhysand addressed him. He didn't regret it, because he wanted Rhysand to be able to feel a quarter of what you came to feel under his captivity for so many years, though sometimes his head wandered to find excuses for his actions or lack thereof, because this was his friend for centuries, his brother for as long as he could remember, but he also knew he should be mindful of who he was speaking in front of. They weren't supposed to give way to the other high lords of Prythian suspecting in the slightest what the new events had generated in their Inner Circle, that it was something that could shake the foundations of the Court, but Azriel couldn't contain that rage that moved unbridled in his chest and he wasn't about to downplay it when it came to his mate; it was not a trivial matter.

“Az,” Cassian had approached him that morning before leaving, when the Shadowsinger had been standing in front of the entrance to the Town House waiting for the others to arrive to leave for Summer Court; waiting for you, specifically. Azriel had barely glanced sideways at him, easily noticing his slumped shoulders and the low note in his voice. “I know you don't want to talk about it, but you should try to work things out with Rhys. Or at least try to-”

“Should I?” Azriel turned his head, his eyes piercing the barrier of vulnerability in Cassian's gaze. The Shadowsinger was trying, but every time someone mentioned his mate hostility was born within him. He didn't want anyone to go near her or talk about her, or even breathe around her. They didn't deserve it. They couldn't, after everything that had happened. “I wonder what you'd like to hear from me if it was about Nesta.”

Whatever gibberish was going to come out of his friend's mouth died the moment he heard his mate's name. Azriel barely noticed how his body tensed, considering himself satisfied, as some of his shadows stirred around him and then parted from him.

“I will handle this situation as I see fit, Cassian. I don't need your advice or opinions. None of you have the right to come and tell me what I should do,” Azriel spoke between his teeth, trying to maintain his composure, even though anger burned his throat. He was rejoicing in the fact that his shadows had warned him that you were on your way and some of them had stayed with you to accompany you.

“I didn't mean to sound that way, Az, I didn't-”

“This is a situation that concerns only Rhysand, myself and my mate,” Azriel cut him off, turning his body to look at his brother. “If you want to keep things peaceful between us, I beg you to stay out of it.”

Azriel could barely notice the change in Cassian's face, from shock and stupefaction to a kind of nostalgic understanding. Reality weighed heavy on his shoulders, but there was some sort of understanding behind the regret reflected in his expression. Cassian knew that he would've acted the same way Azriel did if Nesta had been in her place and that as much as he wanted to try to keep things stable in his home, the decision was not his to make alone. The situation depended on Rhysand's repentance, Azriel's capacity for acceptance and your willingness to forgive.

“Should I be worried?” Tarquin spoke, snapping Azriel out of the incessant whispering in his head. He turned to look at him, frowning, flicking his gaze between him and Rhysand.

“No,” he replied before Mor could, earning a glare from his friends.

Tarquin didn't look convinced, Azriel couldn't convince anyone by speaking with so much pent-up anger, but the subject wasn't broached again. And, a couple of hours later, they were back at the Town House.

tag: @isa1b2h3 @naturakaashi @anuttellaa

#azriel x reader #azriel #acotar #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar #azriel angst #azriel x you #azriel fanfic #acotar series

391 notes · View notes

mustainegf · 3 months ago

Text

𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐑𝐒 ¹⁹⁸⁶

Over the last few weeks, I had started to notice cracks in James’ tough layer. It had started with small things at first, the sudden worry in his eyes, the moments when he kinda seemed far away. I'd asked him about it, of course, but he'd always dismissed me, telling me that he was tired or feeling the pressure from the band.

Then the nightmares started.

It was shortly after 2 AM when I awoke to James tossing and turning next to me. At first, I assumed he was just trying to turn over, but when I turned towards him, I could see how his face was contorted in horror.

His eyes were shut, his brow knotted in almost pain as his hands squeezed the bedclothes running through his fingers, gripping them white knuckled.

"James," I softly said, trying to touch his shoulder. "James, wake up."

But he didn't wake. Instead, his breathing quickened, a strangled sound escaping his lips as he twisted beneath the covers.

I shook him harder, trying to drag him free from whatever nightmare had him in its grip.

"James!" I shook louder, hoping to break through.

Then his eyes flew open, wild and terrified. He was up in a snap, gasping like he was drowning. His hands flew up to the headboard as he tried to reorient himself.

"James, it's okay. You’re safe." I told him, trying to keep my voice very calm, even though my heart was practically in my throat. I put a hand onto his back. "It was just a nightmare."

But he wasn't hearing me. He still breathed superficially, with a tremendous effort.

It seemed it was more than a bad dream, he was in full blown panic mode, his eyes darting around the room looking for an escape.

"James, look at me," I whispered sharply, shifting across so that I now sat in front of him so he couldn't avoid my eyes. "You're here with me. It was just a dream."

That's when he finally looked at me, really looked me in the eyes, but they were filled with a fear I'd never seen before. It broke my heart.

“I… I can't… breathe," he choked, his voice quivering.

"You can. You're okay," I'd try to reassure him, hands cupping his cheeks as my thumbs gently caressed the little acne marks. "Just breathe with me, okay? In and out, nice and slow..."

He tried to mimic, but his breath sped up involuntarily. The frustration and fear began to return.

"James, look at me," I whispered. Clammy skin, his jaw trembling beneath my hold. "You're okay, just breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth."

It took a moment, But then something started to happen, slowly, agonizingly slowly, as his breathing started to even out, he was calming down.

"That's it, just like that," I whispered, thumbs brushing his cheeks. I could feel the wetness of the tears on his skin. "James…You're safe now."

He nodded weakly, his eyes still glossy with confused fear. I kept my hands on his face, afraid to release him, afraid that if I did, he might slip again into that madness.

"Tell me what happened," I whispered, I needed to know what the hell had scared him so bad.

He shook his head, and his look dropped to the bed between us, his shoulders slumping, swiping a hand down his face.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean to… to scare you."

"You don't have to be sorry for a single thing. I'm just glad you're okay now."

But then he shifted back slightly, just enough to look me in the eye, and I could see the struggle in his face.

"C…Cliff," James whispered hoarsely.

I’m that exact moment I knew what was going on. “Oh, baby…” I coo, quickly pulling him to me as his tears return.

James smushes his face into my chest, tears soaking my shirt. “I know… I know, James…”

I can’t even imagine what he’s going through. Of course, I missed Cliff too, it’d only been a month without him. But James… James and Cliff were like brothers.

His sudden, heart wrenching passing had torn James apart in ways that I could hardly begin to understand.

James was stuck in this memory of that horrible crash, reliving that terrible night over and over again.

"I miss him so much," James choked, his face buried against my chest. "I can't… I can't stop thinking about it, about how it should've been me. I should've been the one…"

"No," I cut him off before he could go any further down that path. Reaching a hand up, I gently lifted his face, forcing him to meet my eyes. The eyes that looked back at me were red and swollen, in so, so much pain. "You can't think like that, baby. That wasn't your fault. It was nobodys."

"But it should've been me," he whispered. "I should’ve taken that bunk, not Cliff. He was too good for this world, and now he's gone, and I'm still here…"

There were absolutely no words that would take the pain away and nothing that I could do would ever bring Cliff back, but I could just be there for him, to hold him.

"I'm so sorry, James," I whispered, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "I'm so, so sorry. But you can't blame yourself. Cliff wouldn't want that. He wouldn't want you to suffer like this."

He nodded weakly, his body trembling with sobs as he buried his face in my chest again. "I just… I don't know how to stop this feeling," his voice was small and broken.

"I’ll help," I told him.

"You don't have to do it alone."

#mustainegf #fanfic #reqs open #fanfiction #request #metallica #metallica x reader #metallica fanfiction #metallica fluff #james hetfield x you #james hetfield x oc #james hetfield fluff #james hetfield x reader #james hetfield imagines #james hetfield fic #james hetfield fanfiction #james hetfield #metallica oneshot #metallica imagines

108 notes · View notes

riverbutghost · 1 year ago

Text

Cold But Warm

Pairing: Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley x Fem!Reader

Summary: You and your lieutenant found a safe cabinet. And once all of the adrenaline left your body, you realized that you got a little wounded, which led to you and your lieutenant to have a conversation.

Warnings: blood, military stuff, strong language, Simon acts like an asshole ‘cause he’s scared… Also, this is so rushed and i don’t like this one but here we go lol

Masterlist ~ check my other fics if you like this <3

Also, please send me requests lol

Russia was cold, as usual. But it was December, and you were wandering around in the Russian forests. It was something else.

“I’m freezing!”

Simon huffed at you. He was starting to get sick of your complaints. He gritted his teeth.

“Stop whining like a fuckin’ child.”

You rolled your eyes. He was a good soldier, he would never complain about his surroundings or anything at all. You admired him sometimes, all the time.

He was one of the best, his tactics were always impressive. His flirting skills were impressive too.

“You had said something about needing time?”

His steps faltered for a second. He returned being cold and dismissive in a second as well.

“I don’t remember.”

“Back at the base, like three days ago or something.“

He shrugged. You were starting to get annoyed at him for not giving a fuck. He was always like this.

“Can you slow down for a second? Jesus…”

You gripped his arm hard enough to make him falter. He turned around, took three steps towards you in an angry way. You stepped back at the same time as he took a step towards you.

Your feet slipped and all of a sudden you were on the ground. You groaned at the pain in your butt. He hovered over you menacingly. His eyes weren’t the soft ones you knew. There was something there, an anger.

“I said I don’t fuckin’ remember. Can’t you just shut that stupid mouth of yours for a second? I’m trying to hear something for fuck’s sake!”

You narrowed your eyes at his tone and anger. You wished you had teamed up with Soap instead, but Price wouldn’t let you anyway.

You couldn’t help but feel a little hurt at his sudden change in behavior towards you.

What could have happened in a week for him to change?

“Get up sergeant.”

He turned around, started stepping away from your flinched form. You wondered why he was that angry. Surely, the comms weren’t working because of the weather. But there had to be something else. Something you couldn’t get your finger on.

You got up, took quick steps towards him. His posture was sharp, ready for anything. You averted your eyes from him after checking him out.

“Focus,” You mumbled to yourself, for thinking about him, your superior, that way. What were you, a high school student?

He was a distraction.

“S- Ghost?”

You waited for his reply as you breathed a long sigh, the journey was clearly exhausting. And you found nothing, not a single rock because of the snow. It was hard.

You were sweating one second, then feeling cold. Your vest was useless for this weather. You just hoped you wouldn’t freeze.

“Someone’s here.”

You furrowed your eyebrows. You couldn’t see anything.

“Wha-“

Simon pushed you out of the way at the same time the shots started coming. You coughed a little then rolled over to your side, your gun ready to shoot anything. You looked down, gasped at how close you were to the cliff. It wasn’t that deep, but still.

Simon was behind a tree, you were laying on the ground. He was a few feet away from you, shooting at anything and everything. You watched him shooting, at the same time trying to make sure you were okay while talking to his comm. He was a multitasker. For sure.

You got up quickly, a slight pain tugging at your lower abdomen. You brushed it off, your heart pounding with nervousness. You crouched.

You quickly hid yourself behind a tree next to Simon.

“Where did they come from?!” You yelled over the noise.

Simon grunted. He wasn’t panicking like you do, again proving that he was always a good soldier.

“I don’t fucking know.”

You didn’t question anything further than that, he was clearly pissed.

“Fuck- Fuck!”

Simon yelled and threw his gun at the ground, getting a pistol from his holster. Your stomach filled with proud for your teammate Soap, for giving him an extra pistol. You were going to kiss him on his cheeks when you were out of there. If you could.

“We have to move.”

You gulped down your nerves. How could you move in this situation?

“How?”

He turned around, looked at you while reloading his pistol. He tilted his head towards the cliff.

“We’re gonna jump.”

“What?!”

Simon turned again, one hand moving to his throwing knife. He threw the knife right into the enemy’s neck. You reloaded your gun, only to realize there wasn’t any ammo left.

“Fuck! I’m out.”

You panicked, it was a shitty time for you to be out of ammo. You didn’t even have another gun because you forgot. Yeah you fucking forgot.

“Jump! I’ll cover you.”

You looked at him worriedly. It was all happening so fast, and you couldn’t comprehend anything. You were going to die.

“It’s just water, sergeant. I’ll find you.”

You jumped after looking at him with determined eyes. He visibly swallowed.

You couldn’t help but feel scared while falling down to the water. It wasn’t something you liked, God it was the worst thing ever. Your body made contact with the freezing water, and you couldn’t help but get lost in your memories from your past.

The torture, the abuse, the training..

You felt your eyes close, falling and falling in the deepest parts of the water.

Simon wasn’t kidding when he had told you he would find you. He was indeed, searching for you.

When he had finished killing them all, he jumped of the cliff because he couldn’t spot you from up there.

He searched through the freezing water, even though his mind was trying so hard not to shut down from the cold.

He spotted you eventually, you were laying down on the snow a few feet away from the water. He rushed towards you, hands immediately gripping your vest and pulling it off. He lowered himself down a little, tried to hear your breathing. You were, to his surprise, breathing slowly. Though your shaking was not normal.

He scooped you up, carrying you safely to the cabin he had found while looking for you.

He kicked the door open with his feet, then pushed it again after entering. He put you down on the soft mattress, which seemed clean enough.

He then started working on the fireplace, trying to make something warm for you.

“Hey,”

He sighed at your soft voice, shaky from the cold. He sighed again after hearing the fire’s cracking noise. He got up and turned around, looking at your shaking form.

“Strip.”

Your breath hitched, your mind going to the past. He realized the mistake he made, and cleared his throat.

“I’ll give you a sheet that I’ve found. Now, strip. Don’t want you to have hypothermia or some shit like that.”

You nodded, still looking at him. His eyes moved from your hair to your face, to your body and you shook.

“Get out?”

Simon cursed himself for a moment, then left the room. He thought about the decision he had made, to stop talking to you unless it’s necessary. It made everything easier, he thought. But no, it didn’t. He was rude to everyone except you, until now. He was rude to you too, to keep you from being a liability to him.

“Uh, Simon ?”

He composed himself, then left the little kitchen. He looked at you, your face a little pale. He hummed, tilting his head a little.

“I think I got shot.”

His face turned serious as you could tell from the mask, he took rushed steps toward you. You were holding the sheet to your body, still shaking from the cold but not as much.

“Let me look,”

A wave of insecurity washed over you. You were totally naked, and he was asking to see your body? Hell no.

“Uhm, let me-“

Simon stood up and took a pillow from the couch. He gave it to you.

“I need to see, c’mon now.”

You pulled the sheets away, holding the pillow to your chest. Simon kneeled down, fingers delicately holding your waist. His serious eyes trembled slightly at the sight. You didn’t get shot, the bullet just grazed the side of your chest.

“It’s just a scratch.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He looked up to you.

“Does it hurt?”

You swallowed the intense pressure of being naked in front of him, your lieutenant. Your lieutenant who fucked you so good that you forgot your own name-

“No, just feels uncomfortable.”

He nodded then got up. You frowned a little. Why was he acting like that?

“Simon-“

“Gonna go get some water.”

You gulped again. It was like the first time you had met. He was making you nervous, and you didn’t like it one bit. You wanted him to come closer, cuddle you to him while you stroke his hair. Apparently, he had decided to keep things professional. All of a sudden.

He came back with a washcloth and a bowl of water. You gulped down your nerves.

The washcloth softly touched your side, making you suck in a breath.

“Why are you distant all of a sudden?”

His hand stopped for a second. He looked up to your eyes, then back down. He continued tapping your side softly, even though his eyes hardened a little his touch was still gentle.

“I’m not.”

You scoffed. He gripped the washcloth harder than before, and dipped it in the water again.

“Stop it, Simon. Fuck, it hurts.”

His hand stopped midway through, and looked at you. He thought you meant the scratch for a second.

You didn’t mean to tear up, but there it was. Your eyes blurred, and your lips wobbled a little. Simon gripped the bowl, a little pressure more and the bowl would break.

“Stop it.” He said sternly.

You hiccuped, the soft noise clenching Simon’s heart. His knuckles were white under his gloves. He looked down and up again. You were fully crying now, your hands coming to your face.

“You’re all I have-had.”

Tear after tear ran down your cheeks, soft sobs echoing through the little cabin. Simon looked at you, you were slowly crumbling in front of him. He made you feel that way, he crushed you.

Simon put the bowl beside him with shaky hands, then gripped your hands, putting them down. Your eyes found him, softly looking at him.

Simon took the pillow which was hiding your chest and put it down, eyes still looking at you. You didn’t say anything. His hands then found your waist, pulling you to him. You immediately threw your arms around him, resting your head on his shoulder. He stayed still, rubbing his hand up and down on your back. You sobbed on his shoulder.

Simon’s heart was beating extremely fast, he wasn’t sure if it was heart attack. He was scared. He had never felt this scared about someone before. It was tugging at his heart, and the fact that he made you cry didn’t help but worsen the feelings he had.

“Why?”

Your muffled voice came after a few seconds.

“Thought I had to stay away,”

You cried harder at that, hands gripping his shirt. He had taken off his vest, but still the mask was on.

“Don’t- don’t do that please.”

Simon hugged you harder, tighter. He was stupid for sure, to make a decision like that.

“Never felt like that before,” He mumbled, voice groggy. You sniffled.

“Like what?” You asked.

Simon fell silent. He knew what he was feeling, but didn’t want to admit. He was scared, of losing you too. It was all so complicated, and he was tired. Of all this feelings, it was overwhelming for him.

“M’sorry, pretty girl.”

You shivered at his nickname, remembering the last time he had said it. Your head left his shoulder, and you looked at him.

“You’re so stupid.”

You sniffled, an angry expression visible on your face.

“I’know.”

You licked your lips, then looked at him through your eyelashes. Simon tilted his head. Your hands slowly moved to his face, holding the hem of his mask.

He hummed lowly, his chest vibrating. You slowly took his mask off, giving him enough time to intervene.

Your hands roamed over his face, every detail had already been on your head. You kissed his lengthy scar, making him feel alive again. He hummed, the sound vibrating through his chest.

He hummed again and dropped his head to your forehead, mumbling apologies over and over again while kissing your face.

He felt weird, overwhelmed about all of this. He broke his decision in a second just because of you, and he wasn’t regretting it. Not yet anyway.

“Don’t do that again, okay?”

You mumbled, eyes dropping ever so slightly. He hummed, giving one last kiss to your jawline.

“Never, love.”

#call of duty #simon riley angst #simon riley #simon riley x you #simon riley x reader #call of dooty #cod mwf2 #ghost x you #simon ghost riley #simon riley fluff

917 notes · View notes

haute-pockette · 11 months ago

Text

The Doctor's incarnations have fears associated to what caused their regenerations Two acting childlike and whimsical because he's afraid of growing old again. He's scared of becoming a crotchety old man that will die alone. He surrounds himself with friends just as he much with surrogates, to help him feel like he isn't too old to be running about having adventures. Three having a lot of complex and mixed feelings about the Time Lords. He resents them for what they did to him and his companions, but also very scared of facing that fate again should cross their path once more. Four can't stand spiders. They didn't directly kill him, but damn did they play a big part leading up to his regeneration. They give him the willies and Sarah Jane and Romana always have to take care of invading arachnids while he is perched safely on the center console. Five hating heights might actually be canon, he's shown freaking out on a cliff in Castrovalva and hating every minute of a plane ride in Time Flight. Boy likes to keep his feet firmly where he doesn't risk falling. He'll get vertigo if too close to a ledge. Six being scared of getting sick. While this one is more vague, it was the fever of Spectrox Toxemia that kills, so I could see him being panicky and over compensating when it comes to illnesses. Pulls manflu pity every time: bed rest, tea, soup, hot waterbottle on the forehead, reciting rhetoric about his woes. Poor Peri and Mel has to tend to his drama. I can also see him hating bats but in a "why can't you fuckers make more than a tiny vial of milk, asshole???" kind of way. I think Seven's might also be canon (in the books at least) with the way he mentally locked away his Sixth self in fear of the Valeyard. Though he wasn't really a cause for regeneration, he certainly set the Doctor on the path to it. Eight terrified of medicine and hospitals. Aspirin is already deadly to Time Lords, anesthesia fucked up his regeneration. This boy won't go to a medical professional unless he's dragged in unconscious. He will look at broken leg twisted out of shape and claim he can walk it off. The Warrior/War Doctor scared of failing people the way he did Cass. His spirit for hope and brighter ending to the war broken when he regenerated. He became the one that got his hands dirty because he was too scared to let anyone else die under his care.

Nine scared of war. War Doctor held off his regeneration for years to keep fighting, and Nine clearly does his best to step away from the incarnation he hated being more than anything. Like he said, "Coward, any day." Ten is a bit tricky. He's scared of Daleks, losing companions. He's scared that people around him will be willing to sacrifice themselves for him. Scared of the heart of the Tardis, the very soul of time itself ripping away what/who he loves. After Rose is safe from it he was very careful to never let anyone open it again. Eleven scared to see another Time Lord again. He's heartbroken about being the last of his kind. Romana, Brax, Damon all gone. The Master's plans had gotten so much more violent and destructive and insane than they used to be. The other Time Lords so desperate to escape the Time Locked war that they'd destroy time to do it. He's scared of everything ending if the Time Lords return. I haven't really seen enough of Twelve or past that to give proper interpretations on them, but I'm pretty sure Twelve is determined not to be seen as an old man. It's like he sees this new cycle as starting over so he's trying to act like he's the young, rebellious first incarnation? idk

#Doctor Who #Headcanons #Classic Who #new who #Second Doctor #Third Doctor #Fourth Doctor #Fifth Doctor #Sixth Doctor #Seventh Doctor #Eighth Doctor #War Doctor #Ninth Doctor #Tenth Doctor #Eleventh Doctor #Twelfth Doctor

202 notes · View notes

mybutcheredtongue · 9 months ago

Text

I'll Love You 'til the Grass Around My Gravestone is Deceased

post azkaban sirius x fem!reader

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (see full series list here)

1993

Giving an elf clothes is basically the same as throwing them off a cliff. Life-ruining. You think about this as you leave Winky sobbing at Crouch's feet, turning to return to your tent. Poor Winky. First she had to deal with that awful man as a master, and now she's being set free by said man. It's a tough life for house elves, you'll give them that. This all just reminds you of Bitsy — you'll have to go visit her first thing when school starts.

You glance to your left, spotting Mr Weasley escorting the kids back to their tent, and feel guilt gnawing at your gut.

"Give me a sec, will you?" you say to Minerva, jogging over to their group. "Mr Weasley?"

He looks up, raising his eyebrows when he sees you.

"I'm sorry for all that...I'm sure it was a shock to the system..." you say warily. "But please, don't think of me any differently. My — my past has no effect whatsoever on my work, and I can assure you that I will always do what is best for my students and — "

Mr Weasley brings up a hand, waving you down with a shake of his head. "Don't worry, professor. The boys — they speak very well of you. And Ginny too — I'm not worried."

You're surprised at that. You half expected him to look at you in disgust and steer his children away from you. It warms your heart to know he doesn't think you're bad.

"Thank you, Mr Weasley," you say genuinely. He gives you a small smile. "And I'd really appreciate it if maybe you...kept this to yourself? It's just — my job is everything to me, and if others found out..."

He nods understandingly. "You have my word."

You smile at him, nodding nervously. You glance at the three kids behind him, hoping your concern for them is communicated well enough. You head for Mr Diggory, giving him the same story, and he just nods like he wants to get as far from you as possible. That hurts, but you'll take what you can get. You scamper back to Minerva, and the two of you head back to your tent.

⁠✧⁠*⁠。✧⁠*⁠。

The rest of your summer break is...boring. Believe it or not, it can get very lonely in your house with just Dubh as company. You consider going to visit your parents again, but part of you feels guilty when you think about leaving. What if Sirius tries to contact you but can't reach you at your parents'? It's too much of a risk.

You and Remus spend your time together, like you've always done, but it's still not the same. It's not like you spend every waking moment together — and you miss him when he's not there. You miss the company of your best friend. The silence of your little home is deafening when you wake to do the exact same things you did the day before.

One evening, your mind wanders to Harry. You wonder how he's getting on. You hope he's safe and not still shaken after the events of the Quidditch World Cup — that night definitely set you on edge and worried for your godson. Perhaps it's time you should actually make an effort to contact him — now that he knows well who you are, he doesn't deserve to just have that be it. Right now, your relationship is still very professor-studenty...and you don't want that. You're his godmother and you want him to see you exactly as that — someone he can trust, someone he can confide in and talk to without worrying about school or work.

So, with all this in mind, you grab a quill and some ink, fishing out a piece of parchment and setting it all down on the table.

Dear Harry,

Too formal, you think. You scratch it out messily, starting again.

Dearest Harry,

No, that's not right. You scratch that out.

Hey, Harry!

What are you so excited about? This is just setting him up for something interesting, and you really have nothing interesting to tell. Scratch that.

What's up, Hazza?

Scratch.

My beloved godson,

Scratch scratch.

To: Harry

Scratch scratch scratch.

You look down at the parchment, realising you've just about scratched out the top half of the parchment. Nice one. You crumple it up, throwing it towards the rubbish bin in the corner of the room and missing it by half a mile. You groan, getting up and begrudgingly tossing it in the bin properly and getting another piece of parchment. You take a deep breath before starting this one.

Harry,

I hope you're well, and that you're enjoying your stay with the Weasleys'. Do tell Ron and Hermione I said hello and I'm really looking forward to seeing you all in September! Hopefully there's a year ahead where the three of you aren't getting up to too much mischief...though perhaps that's an impossible thing to ask for.

I hope you're doing okay after the World Cup. I won't mollycoddle you and say you have nothing to worry about because you're old enough to know better, but you can always talk to me, Harry. I mean it. I'm your godmother and it's high time I start acting like it.

I'm afraid I don't really have anything interesting to share. The summer can be quite boring for me — it's just myself and Dubh. Remus comes 'round a lot, but I think that's because he gets a free meal out of it.

There's a room here for you, y'know. When we were made godparents, Sirius demanded that you have your own room here because it was a 'necessity'. Personally I think it was just so he could get the chance to put the idea in your head that tying your dad's shoelaces together would be a good thing. It's lucky one-year-old Harry had little-to-no dexterity.

Write back soon with all the news! I could do with a little excitement.

All my love and best wishes,

You sign your name, tapping your quill against your chin thoughtfully as you read back over the letter.

P.S. If you hear anything from that daft dog will you please let me know? I've gotten no word and can't help but worry. Enjoy the photo!

You spend five minutes rummaging around for a photo, eventually landing on one of a young Lily smiling sheepishly, her cheeks rosy, clutching a copy of her potions textbook in her arms.

⁠✧⁠*⁠。✧⁠*⁠。

Children run and crowd the platform at King's Cross, hugging parents and grimacing as their mothers press sloppy kisses to their cheeks. You push your own trunk and Dubh's crate through the crowd, finally managing to get onto the train and into your usual compartment in the Prefects' carriage.

You sit down with a sigh, taking out your books and doing what you usually do: touch up lesson plans. Then you pull out a fictional book, written in French, hoping to brush up on your skills in the language before the arrival of the Beauxbatons students.

This year, something big is happening at Hogwarts: the Triwizard Tournament. One of-age student from Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons is selected and the three participants compete in three tasks to win a grand prize of a thousand galleons. You're quite excited for it — especially to meet the new teachers from the other schools. It's something to look forward to!

After a while, you decide to get up and stretch your legs. You'll go for a walk down the train, maybe have a quick word with your seventh years and see how they're doing. Off you go, and luckily you do spot a gaggle of your seventh years in a compartment with the door open. Inside, you find Cedric Diggory, Molly Milvy, Elisa Catchweld and James Smith. All Hufflepuffs. They tell you about their summers, the holidays they went on, their hopes for this coming year, their worries about exams. Molly Milvy seems especially worried about her Astronomy exam, pulling out a thick textbook from her bag and flipping it open.

"I've just — Professor, how in Merlin's name do you analyse spectra? I just — I cannot wrap my head around it — "

You chuckle light-heartedly. "Oh, Ms Milvy, we'll cover it, don't you worry. I'll explain it all when we come to it."

"When will we come to it? I'm seriously just beginning to worry — "

You gently take the book from the blonde girl, closing it shut. "I'll make a note to get an early start on spectra with your class this year, and I'm happy to spend time going over it outside of class with you if needs be."

She smiles, some of the stress leaving her face. "Okay, okay. Thank you, Professor."

You glance at Cedric Diggory. Did his father tell him about you? If he did, he's not showing it. He's looking as friendly as he's always been. You nod and smile at the students, bidding them goodbye before continuing on your way down the train. You pass students, giving them all greeting smiles, before eventually you near a compartment, peering in the window and spotting Harry, Ron and Hermione sitting inside, chatting away amicably. You knock on the door, smiling when Hermione stands to open it.

"Professor!" She immediately starts to smooth her hair down in an effort to look more presentable and you chuckle at her antics.

"I hope you don't mind my interrupting," you say, and they all shake their heads. You slide the door closed behind you, wondering if you should sit down or not. No, maybe not. Surely they don't want their professor butting in like this. "Anyways, I'm just popping in to say hello...Harry, did you get my letter?"

Harry nods. "Oh, yeah, I did, thanks. I meant to send one back but it only arrived a few days ago, thought it best to just leave it 'til now..."

"Oh, that's fine. Nothing to worry about," you reply with a smile.

"Professor, I wanted to ask you something," Harry questions and you nod. "At the Cup, when the Dark Mark was conjured...do you think that means Voldemort is back?"

You bite your lip, shrugging. "Honestly? I don't know, Harry. But I do know that with Wormtail free to do whatever the hell he wants, it's best to keep your wits about you."

"Do you know who conjured it?"

You scoff. "Sure if I knew, don't you think I'd have said something that night? I haven't got a clue, I'm afraid."

There's a brief silence, and you nearly consider leaving them because you think you're boring them, but Ron asks you a question.

"How come you're not an animagus?"

You blink in surprise at him.

"Y'know, 'cause all the rest of them were."

Your legs are tired from standing and you decide to forego all previous worries and just sit yourself down next to your godson, smiling across at Ron.

"Oh, Ron, you think the boys would have let a girl in on their little tricks?" You chuckle. "They had their own little club of...animals, and none of the rest of us were supposed to know. Though I will say that they did choose a terrible spot to perform their little ritual."

"Ritual?" Harry asks curiously. You can spot the glow in his eyes at the prospect of hearing about his parents and godfather and it warms your heart to see.

"The animagus one," you answer. You look over at Hermione. "Hermione, I'm sure you know of this already — " the girl swells with pride, " — but the spell for becoming an animagus is incredibly complicated. First, you have to keep a mandrake leaf under your tongue for an entire month — Sirius found that one especially difficult — "

"Why?"

You laugh. "Well, one, because it's awful to eat and drink with that in...and two, because Sirius had a fondness for snogging every girl in the castle."

Hermione's eyes widen and her face flushes. Ron and Harry share a look as both jaws drop.

"What?"

You grin at their shocked faces. "Yes, Sirius was quite the ladies man back in his day. Couldn't keep him away from a pretty girl! Anyway, then the boys had to say this chant every day...oh, what was it? I can't remember — "

"Amato, animo, animato, animagus," Hermione says and you nod.

"Yes, that was it. Every sunrise and sundown, those boys were chanting that incantation. They had to make up this potion and drink it during a lightning storm. Which, took quite a while...but the night there finally was one, they went up to the Astronomy Tower, for ease of access or something, I guess. And well, I spent practically every night up there in the Tower and may have walked in during their transformation."

"Really?" Hermione says, engrossed in your story.

"Oh, yes. It was weird, honestly, going up there and seeing Remus standing around these three familiar-looking animals..." you smile, remembering the memory. "But that's it, really. I mean, I already knew Remus was a werewolf before that, and now I knew the rest of 'em were transforming into animals whenever they pleased! But to answer your question, Ron, I had missed the chance to become one, and I wasn't as committed as they were. Though I would love to see what animal I'd be...James used to joke that I'd be a sea urchin, but I reckon I'd be something cooler like...like, I don't know, a dragon."

The three laugh and you smile.

"So, Harry, have you heard anything from Sirius?" you say, worry knotting your gut.

Harry nods and you feel a wave of relief washing over you. "Yeah, I have. He sent me one a while ago, kind of at the beginning of summer? He — uh — he said he's fine. And well, I sent him one a few weeks ago, before the Cup — but I haven't gotten a reply yet."

You nod thoughtfully. "Alright, thank goodness. He — he can't send me letters, you see. The Ministry are monitoring our house."

"Wait, really?" Hermione says in surprise. "That's awful."

You shrug. "It's nothing I haven't had to deal with before. They just — they're desperate. Desperate to get something on me."

"But you've been proven innocent!" Hermione exclaims. "And Dumbledore trusts you. Surely that's enough for them?"

You shake your head grimly. "I'm afraid not. The public hates that Sirius managed to escape, and the Ministry are just hoping they'll catch me out on something and make everyone think they've done something worthwhile. It'd also be a good jab at Dumbledore because he trusts me — Fudge worries he wants to become the Minister of Magic. Not that I think Dumbledore has even the tiniest shred of interest in that position anyway."

"Why wouldn't he want to be the Minister of Magic?" Ron asks incredulously, scoffing.

"He says it's because he has everything here, at Hogwarts," you say with a shrug, before adding with a small smile, "but if you ask me, I think it's because when you have control over everything like that, you don't have to fight for anything. Dumbledore likes that fight."

You roll your jumper's sleeves up, sighing. You should probably get going. Someone might accuse you of favouritism, sitting here with these three. Which...wouldn't be wrong, of course, but still not a great look for you. Hermione lets out a small gasp, looking at your forearm. You follow her gaze, landing on a tattoo.

"What's that for, Professor?" She asks curiously. Ron and Harry both lean forward to get a better look. It's that same painting of the pottery that Remus did for you, now permanently etched onto your skin. It's a jug, a plate and two cups. Upon the jug, is a pair of antlers, and on the plate, a lily flower.

You smile fondly, brushing over the art with your fingers. "It's pottery. Y'know, for the Potters..." you smile over at Harry. "There's Lily and there's James." You point to their symbols respectively. "S'pose I'll have to get another for you, eh, Harry? Wonder what it'd be."

He beams back at you, like it's the greatest honour in the world. The corners of his eyes crease behind his glasses.

You stand with a sigh, brushing over your jumper and pulling the sleeves back down over your tattoo. Not your only tattoo, by the way. There's another much bigger one on your back, but that's a story for another day.

"Well, I best be off," you say. "I'll see you all at dinner."

With that, you leave the compartment, slipping down the corridor again. You glance over your shoulders to see Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle standing at their compartment doorway, a jeering sneer on Draco's face.

Ah, teenage drama. Happens to us all.

⁠✧⁠*⁠。✧⁠*⁠。

The Great Hall is alive with great chatter and excitement. Inside, students buzz with anticipation, yapping away to each other as they reunite. You sit yourself down at the staff table, greeting everyone after the holidays. There's an empty seat beside you, Minerva's usual spot. On your left, sits the tiny Professor Flitwick, who greets you cheerfully.

"Hello!"

"Hello, Filius!" you chirp back, smiling at him.

Hagrid is of course, busy with the first years, battling their way across the Black Lake. Minerva, you saw, is busy supervising the drying of the Entrance Hall floor — which had previously been assaulted by Peeves' water balloons.

You glance down the table, wondering who the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is. You scan and scan for a new face, but are stuck with Severus Snape's ugly scowl as your eyes meet. You wave condescendingly at him, bending your fingers like you're waving goodbye to a little toddler. His nostrils flare and he looks away from you. Poor baby. Holding onto that grudge against Sirius all these years, he must have an awful dull life.

Professor Dumbledore sits in the middle, smiling contentedly out at the students as you all wait for the first-years to arrive. Professor Sprout sits on the other side of Flitwick. You like Pomona Sprout — she's that kind of funny and friendly woman who won't take any bullshit. It's great.

"Pomona, long time no see!" You say, leaning to talk to her while Flitwick charms his spectacles to dance on the table for his enjoyment. He claps his hands excitedly, ignoring the two of you.

"Aye, that'd be right!" She exclaims heartily. "By Godric, you wouldn't see such rain if you prayed for it! I was absolutely drowneded outside!"

You chuckle, choosing not to correct her use of 'drowneded'. "Honestly! I had to use about three drying spells before coming in here. Madness."

No sooner have the words left your mouth than the doors of the Great Hall swing open and Minerva strides through, leading a trail of young first-years behind her. They're positively drenched, shivering from head to toe with the cold. There must have been no time to dry them off, you suppose. One young lad is covered in a large mass of fabric, one you recognise as Hagrid's moleskin overcoat. He's practically swimming in the massive piece of clothing, his head just barely poking out from the top of it.

The first-years look around in wonderment, gazing up at the sky, looking nervously out at all the older students, looking back at the teachers. You smile and wave at the ones who look at you, hoping to ease their nerves a little bit.

Minerva places the Sorting Hat on a three legged stool before the first-years and you suppress a groan.

A thousand years or more ago,

When I was newly sewn,

There lived four wizards of renown,

Whose names are still well known:

Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,

Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,

Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,

Shrewd Slytherin, from fen,

They shared a wish, a hope, a dream,

They hatched a daring plan

To educate young sorcerers

Thus Hogwarts school began.

Now each of these four founders

Formed their own house, for each

Did value different virtues

In the ones they had to teach.

By Gryffindor, the bravest were

Prized far beyond the rest;

For Ravenclaw the cleverest

Would always be the best;

For Hufflepuff, hard workers were

Most worthy of admission;

And power-hungry Slytherin

Loved those of great ambition.

While still they did divide

Their favourites from the throng,

Yet how to pick the worthy ones

When they were dead and gone?

'Twas Gryffindor who found the way,

He whipped me off his head

The founders put some brains in me

So I could choose instead!

Now slip me snug about your ears,

I've never yet been wrong,

I'll have a look inside your mind

And tell where you belong!

The Great Hall erupts into applause and you applaud too, thankful that it's over. Truth be told, you think the sorting is a whole load of hogwash. No one person is just cunning, no one person is just intelligent...it makes no sense. You like to think that though you were placed in Gryffindor, you were a sort of Jack-of-all-trades. Kind, clever, cunning and brave. Of course, you know that perhaps you're setting yourself too high...but who doesn't have a fantasy?

The Sorting begins, and you drum your fingers on the table in front of you. Thirty-three years old and you feel just as impatient as the other students do, desperately hoping for Minerva to hurry it up a little. You can feel your stomach gargling loudly, glancing around to see if anyone noticed. Sprout did, and she's nodding bleakly at you as though she feels your pain.

This is the one thing you don't like about the feast — the lack of one while you wait for the Sorting to finish. Sometimes, you try and use your intuition to guess what house they're going to get. A young girl hops up onto the stool, and Minerva places the hat on her head.

Ravenclaw, for sure.

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Yeah, well, I was going to say that.

Time drags on and on, and you're seriously starting to consider taking a chomp out of the wooden table in front of you. If you squint just right...it looks like a bar of Honeyduke's chocolate.

But thankfully, it seems you won't have to go that far, because Minerva finally plucks the hat from the stool once the last student has been sorted and carries both the stool and the hat out.

Dumbledore stands, arms opened wide in welcome. "I have only two words to say to you," he tells you, his deep voice booming around the hall, "Tuck in."

And tuck in you do. You eat to your heart's content, glad to finally be rid of the rumbling in your tummy. You clink your goblets against Sprout and Flitwick's cheerfully, beaming when Minerva finally joins you at the table, huffing something about Peeves and his antics.

Finally, when the last of the desserts have been cleared and plates have been licked clean, Dumbledore gets to his feet again. Wondrously, the buzz of chatter ceased almost at once, everyone turning to listen to what he's going to say. You wish you had that kind of power over a room.

"So!" he says, smiling around at everyone. "Now that we are all fed and watered, I must once more ask for your attention while I give out a few notices."

"Mr Filch, the caretaker, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden in the castle has this year been extended to include Screaming Yo-yos, Fanged Frisbees, and Ever-Bashing Boomerangs. The full list comprises some four-hundred and thirty-seven items, I believe, and can be viewed in Mr Filch's office, if anyone would like to check it."

Filch is standing down the bottom of the hall, eyes flitting about the hall suspiciously. He lands on the Weasley twins and gives them a dark look — you expect he hopes to really catch them out this year. Not a chance.

"As ever, I would like to remind you all that the forest on the grounds is strictly out-of-bounds to all students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all those below third year. It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year."

Now this sets the students off. There is loud whispering and muttering, a few outbursts of 'What?'

"This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers' time and energy — but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts — "

At that moment, there's a deafening roll of thunder and the doors to the Great Hall bang open.

→ all kinds of interaction are appreciated ♡

⁠✧⁠*⁠。✧⁠*⁠。

→→ read chapter seventeen here!

a massive thank you to all my taglist loves for all their kindness and support:

@wholelottalove05 @izuoyarmin @hyperspeedo @carpe000diem @jennifer0305

#sirius black x you #harry potter #the marauders #angst with a happy ending #angst #fanfiction #sirius black #hp #sirius black x reader #fanfic #marauders

109 notes · View notes

redara · 8 months ago

Text

Where You Are

Summary: when the world gets too much, you know you are safe in the confines of your mind, even if that means you are drowning.

A/n: this is based on my personal experience. It may be different for everyone, but each one of them is valid. If you are going through one rn, i hope you find that safe place to call home.

Pairings: Bi-Han x reader/you.

Ratings: Teen & Up.

Words: 1.172.

TW: description of dissociation and anxiety. Soft!Bi-Han.

The restricting feeling in your chest comes, binding, tightening, stealing your breath with each passing seconds. Your heart aches, a pricking feeling, like a glass stabbing. The seconds turn to minutes. The familiar coldness blooms from your palms, numbing, making your fingers shake.

Calm down, calm down, calm -- you wheeze. Feeling suffocated by nothing, drowning in the abundance of air and space. Chatters from the people around you feel muffled and agitating, gritting in your mind, edging you towards the figurative cliff.

So you do what you do best at moments like this: you take the plunge.

You're conscious, and at the same time, you are not. You are simply not there. Physically, your body remains in the room, reacting to others as cordially as usual, but mentally, your mind is elsewhere. Mind drawing thousands of jumbled memories and imaginations to distract you from the fact that you are drowning.

A moment passes, and the shakiness of your hands becomes manageable. Another moment passes, and the ache of your heart dissipates. An illusion, a battle tactic, you've successfully numbed yourself when your mind wants to go on a fight or flight mode. In that little victorious moment, you mentally pat yourself in the back, promising that once this is all over, once you are alone, you will mend your wound the way you know best.

But your victory is short-lived when someone calls you, and they begin to engage in an antagonizing conversation with you, and you are cornered once again -- too poor a reaction, too little, too much, too strong, too weak -- and that restrictive feeling returns; the memory fucks up by replaying snippets of the bad ones, triggering you inch by inch, that your imagination can't keep up, trying to fix everything.

Then once more, you hide your shaky hands, you smile your heartache away, you take the plunge into the abyss.

***

The hours feel like forever. By the time you're leaving the dining hall to return to your room, you feel too exhausted to think. Purposefully, you take the quieter path, away from the prying eyes and their sharp tongues.

So you pass the garden, lost in your own mind, trying to assure yourself to keep it together. Just a little bit more. It has passed. You are doing a good job. You just need to stay strong a little bit longer.

But for how long...?

"I didn't see you in the dining hall."

A deep, raspy voice startles you -- you're drawing blank on your mental defense, rendering you to stare wide-eyed at the voice owner. The Grandmaster is standing in the garden, still dressed in the formal blue hanfu, still looking so distinguished despite the hours of loud celebration and exhausting conversations.

You bow, "Forgive me, Grandmaster, I didn't know you'd be here."

"Spare the formality; we are alone." He beckons with a tilt of his head, and like a dog on a leash, you approach him. "Like I said, I didn't see you."

His words confuse you. Surely he did see you; you sat at the assigned seat where you can see each other; it was his plan after all. If you were to sit beside him, the uproar would be much worse than the festive dinner you just walked out of.

"I sat where you wanted me to. Did someone block your line of sight?” You carefully ask; the last thing you need is to have your Grandmaster be upset with you, a nobody hunter of the Lin Kuei.

But your Grandmaster, your Bi-Han, your lover, shakes his head. He raises a hand to your face, and your heart leaps, your mind screams -- the memory of some other hand in the past makes you flinch and close your eyes in the present.

"Y/n..." Bi-Han calls, voice a soft whisper, and touch a gentle caress against your cheek. His fingertips are cold, but his palm is warm, cupping your face. You are being pulled closer by his other hand around your waist, and soon you feel his forehead pressing against yours.

The cold fingers a startling wake up call. It pulls you out of the abyss faster than any method you know. It holds you, engulfs you, that you soon can feel the ground beneath your soles, the night air mixing with Bi-Han's warm breath, the soft silk of his hanfu under your gripping hands, his steady heartbeat --

"Come back to me..." He asks, a careful demand, a plea. "You are here yet you are also so far away. I do not understand what ails you, but if you let me, I can try. It is cruel -- the Gods put you into battle with something unseen, whilst we both know I would fight it with you. I would win it for you."

His forehead is exchanged with his lips, warm, shaky, pressing against your skin. He then holds you closer, tighter, encasing you as if he is shielding you.

You try to reply, voice being held tight by an invisible noose from your tightening chest. A sob comes out instead. The dam of your restrained tears finally breaks, unleashing your cry -- your knees buckle, too tired, but the ground never claims you when Bi-Han holds you steady; his presence a strong tether that keeps you from sinking.

Neither of you says a word. Neither of you need to, even when the cold air of the garden turns into the warmer air of his bedroom, when your weak form is curling on his bed, still being held by him. His usually stern gaze shows sympathy and concern as he looks at you. Lips moving, asking, "What do you feel?"

You shake your head. Can't articulate your feelings. Can't make heads or tails of your ordeal.

"What do you need?" Bi-Han wipes your wet cheeks with his thumbs. "Did anyone disrespect you? Tell me their names, and I will make sure they won't repeat their mistakes again." When you shake your head again, his eyebrows curve upwards to his forehead, "Please, tell me what you need..."

You inhale shakily, "S-stay... Please, stay with me..."

"You foolish little thing, you need not to ask, I am not leaving."

"I'm sorry -- I'm sorr -- sorry --" then your composure breaks, and your cries come out a bit more liberally, truthtfully it terrifies Bi-Han. Your apology is unending; you want to make sure he knows you are sorry for being so weak and pathetic in front of him; you don't want to make him second-guess your relationship; you can't lose him too...

He doesn't need to ask. Doesn't need to pry more. He stays there unmoving, watching your eyes, the ebb and flow of your unsteady self returning to the present. There is a light in his gaze when you begin to 'exist', when you begin to crave more of his cold touch, when you are not far away in your mind anymore.

"Bi-Han..." You rasp.

He heaves a sigh of relief. His rare smile shows when you repeat his name again. "There... Now I can see you..."

#bi han imagine #bi han #bi han x reader #bi han x you #bi han x y/n #mortal kombat 1 #mk1 #redarader #anxiety #dissociating #mental health #mental illness #fanfiction #fanfic

92 notes · View notes

annaraebananawriter · 7 months ago

Text

(Request) I Bet You Were the Best Brother

It's been a while since I posted a oneshot, so I hope this 5k one manages to make up for that.

As I've mentioned before, been going through a bit of a writer's block that is finally going away. Some it still lingers, but it is infinitely better. Feels like I can breathe again. So, everyone reading this that struggles with writer's block at the moment--know that it will go away. You will be able to write again. It's not a matter of if, only when. You will be able to write again.

Anyway, I don't have any other major life updates for you, so I guess I'll let you start reading now. Happy reading! Let me know what you thought!!

Fandom: Undertale/UTMV

Characters: Dream and Nightmare (Who belong to Joku)

Warnings: A character losing their memory and swearing and I think that’s it. Let me know!

Summary: Ilike_cringe (Fri 14 Oct 2022): "here is a request :>. Could you make it that nightmare might have hit dream tooo hard in a fight that (bear with me ) Dream lost his memory ( if you could could you add more spice \^o^/)"

Word Count: 5395

~oOo~

Nightmare wanted there to be a note that the fight started off normal.

His gang showed up, causing some ruckus. He hung out in the background observing, soaking in the new misery like a sponge, keeping an eye out for the tell-tale sign that the Star Sanses had shown up. In today’s case, that ended up being an arrow flying at one of his boys, which barely got dodged, the blue glow disappearing as it left eyesight. Grinning, he had taken it as his cue to join in, grabbing Dream by the ankles as he notched another one, and throwing him across the space.

Not too hard, of course. He didn’t want his brother out of commission quite yet. That was always the fun part about the fight, seeing him defeated. It needs to be drawn out a bit, though, for it to be really satisfying.

Dream recovered from the toss quickly, though he was soaked head to toe—he had unintentionally tossed him into the river. Whoops. The annoyed look on his brother’s face made his grin widen even more. They quickly fell into their routine after that, trading blows and insults, slowly moving away from the others. Another toss had them entering the woods, which resulted in a lot of fallen trees, a clear indicator of where they’d gone.

A cliff came into view, with Dream’s back to it. Nightmare didn’t take much note of it at the time, too preoccupied—his brother had just gotten a pretty bad hit to the back of his skull, making him stumble. Pausing for a minute, he gave him some time to get his bearings back before attacking again, pushing him closer to the cliff edge.

So…technically, this whole thing could be considered his fault, but how was he supposed to know what would happen?

The cliff seemed perfectly safe in the normal dangerous way!

This means the fight was going great until the cliff crumbled under Dream’s feet, making him shriek, eyes widening, his bow dispersing as he pinwheeled backward. Nightmare froze, staring at the now absent spot with eyes equally as wide, tentacles raised to strike.

Then it went silent.

“…shit,” he hissed, automatically turning around in case his brother teleported at the last second to safety. It wouldn’t be the first time, so it shouldn’t be the last time.

No one was there.

He waited.

Still no one.

Maybe Dream was just in shock, still picking himself up. Turning back, Nightmare stepped closer to the cliff, small rocks tumbling after the larger ones from his movements. If he leaned over, he could probably tell…ah, no. Nope, that was just a bunch of trees. His brother was probably under those trees. Probably just picking himself up.

He’ll return in no time.

Nightmare just had to wait.

So, he did.

For one minute. Then two. Then…honestly, he lost track of the minutes after that, glancing back and forth around the clearing, looking over his shoulder at the cliff like Dream would just suddenly appear, having climbed up for some stupid reason. Any minute now, the fight will be back on, continuing as usual…any minute now…

…any minute…

…any—

Okay, so.

Something was wrong.

Turning back to the cliff, he glared at the edge. It was its fault this was happening. Why did it decide to crumble now? Particularly when Dream was on it? Why?

Now his brother was somewhere below, dazed as hell, without the clear thinking necessary to teleport, or injured badly enough to be unconscious—and as soon as that thought popped into existence, he shoved it away, then took time to quell the rising panic in his soul.

No, no, that’s not possible. Dream’s far more durable than that. Sure, it’s a cliff, and cliff’s cause damage, even to immortal beings, but still. His brother could heal, so shouldn’t that work on himself, make him more…invulnerable, or something? Unless…he couldn’t actually heal himself and he’s just been assuming that he could this entire time…no, that couldn’t be possible. Nightmare’s pretty sure he’d remember that if it were the case.

So…what happened?

Maybe…maybe Dream was just staying down there for a while.

He’ll probably join again in a bit.

Yeah, that’s probably it. So, he should really go back and help his boys. Hey, maybe Dream’s already there! Maybe he went to his friends instead. Makes sense, makes sense…

He should go help his boys now, he’s been standing here too long.

And…he wasn’t moving.

Why wasn’t he moving?

Dream’s fine. He’s back at the main fight. It’s something that’s happened before. It should be something that happened here. It’s fine. He can go back. So…what kept him here, staring around like his brother would magically appear, a tight feeling in his chest that threatened to steal the air away from his non-existent lungs?

Maybe…maybe he should just go down there, check on Dream—

That was another thought pushed away. No, hell no. If he gave in to that though, if he went down there to check, now, after too much time has already passed for that to be considered just moving the fight along, that’d be…that’s cause his brother to hope. Hope that things could go back to the way things were before the apples. He can’t go through the painstaking steps needed to crush that hope, put off the last stubborn spark that remained until he was sure it wouldn’t create another flame. Not again.

Besides, he didn’t even care. Not that much. Sure, yeah, he cared somewhat, always would—that’s just naturally part of being a brother. But the majority of how much he cared was in the past, before everything was plucked off a tree in the form of a black apple and devoured. That care no longer exists, taken over by the need to win all these fights, making the scales tip in his direction.

It just…didn’t exist. He didn’t care.

(Some days, it was harder to convince himself of this fact than others.

This was one of them.)

He didn’t care, so he should so rejoin his boys, and get out of this AU.

This time, he teleported.

It was an easy win. Dream never came back.

When it came time to go home, Nightmare couldn’t stop his gaze from wandering away from his boys, who were celebrating as usual, over to the trees. In the direction of the cliff, even if he couldn’t see it from here.

The tight feeling in his chest squeezed and squeezed. His tentacles flicked nervously behind him. For some reason, he kept thinking that now was the moment his brother would appear, now was the moment he could stop all this silly, stupid worry, go back to being angry. And the longer he looked, the more that thought wavered and shook, gathering speed as it transformed into a tornado that threatened to consume all of his other priorities until he made sure Dream was okay. But the only way to do that was to go and check, and leaving now would just make the boys confused and worried, which he could not handle right now.

Besides, he was sure it was fine.

He got them all home before he could convince himself otherwise, before the urge to make sure was too overpowering. To make sure he was really distracted, he holed himself up in his office, pulling out some paperwork—which wasn’t even real paperwork, just a bunch of sudoku and word searches and other puzzles printed out to make it look like he was working on important stuff.

For the most part, it worked. Kept his mind too busy to think about what happened.

Then he got to one particular word search that—and he is not joking or exaggerating this part—had three words at the bottom for him to find, all in a row, that read: ‘Dream’, ‘injury’, and ‘concussion’. Isn’t that just the strangest collection of words you’ve ever seen? The surreal coincidence of the words made Nightmare stare down at the page for a minute, completely gobsmacked. Who the hell was writing these word searches, and why the fuck did they include these three specific words on the same one?

It was like a sign or something…

Sneering, Nightmare tore the word search up into tiny pieces, sitting back in his chair, spinning around and around. Trying very hard not to think about the three words. And how his brother never came back. And how the yelp he let out when he fell just fell silent and how he never bothered to check and—

And now he was thinking about it.

“Fuck.”

Growling to himself, he stopped spinning in his chair. Then, he promptly stood and teleported back to the AU.

Leaning over the cliff again, he teleported down. His brother wasn’t anywhere in the immediate proximity—though, why would he be? This was all just a waste of time—so he started walking around, ducking under some tree branches. When he fell, Dream would’ve had to have landed somewhere around here…though he still wasn’t sure why he was searching.

His brother was probably gone by now. His friends probably came to collect him.

Why did he think he’d find him here, lying on the ground as if nothing happened? As if he just decided to take an impromptu nap, in the snow and in wet clothes and…

Oh. Oh, shit.

That was actually Dream lying there in front of him.

Fuck.

Almost tripping over himself, Nightmare hurried over, falling to his knees beside his brother. His hands hovered in the air around him, unsure what to do. “Dream?” he called, hoping to wake him up. Nothing happened.

Dream didn’t move.

For a soul-stopping moment, Nightmare actually thought he might be dead. Panic swirled in his chest, choking him, until he remembered that if they were dead, their body would turn to dust. Presumably, anyway, since they had no real way of knowing that until they…y’know…actually died, but still. The thought allowed him to gather himself enough to Check his brother, make sure of it. It said he was fine, if missing a chunk of health.

Nightmare breathed out, hating how shaky it was. “Idiot, making me worry for nothing…” he muttered to himself, looking down at his brother, frowning. Shaking his shoulder, he raised his voice a bit, eager to wake him up, make sure he left to wherever, hopefully back to his friends, and get home himself before his boys wondered where he went off to. “Dream. Wake up.”

No response. Dream was still. Breathing—he double-checked, just to be sure—but still.

Frowning, he shook him again, rougher. Still nothing.

Even unconscious, his brother insisted on being annoying. Scowling, he sat back on his heels. “If you don’t wake up, I’m going to kick you.”

Nothing.

Welp. His hand was forced.

Standing, Nightmare kicked Dream in the side—not too hard, of course, he’s not a complete monster. Just enough that he woke up.

Which he did.

Finally.

Nightmare rolled his eye to himself, crossing his arms as he watched his brother groan, coming to. A hand half-raised to his head before stopping, eyes blinking open and squinting against the light. His eyelights were paler than normal, just a hair bigger, too. He could see the exact moment they focused in, his brother clocking that there’s someone standing above him, but Dream didn’t panic, didn’t seem to be anything more than confused.

Dream blinked again. “Hi.”

Nightmare raised a brow bone. Seriously? That’s it? He fought the urge to roll his eye again. “What are you still doing here?”

His brother seemed to get more confused. “What?”

Wondering if the fall knocked loose some brain cells, Nightmare scowled. “What do you mean, ‘what’? You know what. What are you still doing here? This is, like, the most uncomfortable spot to have a nap.” Without waiting for him to answer, he continued, waving a hand around. He couldn’t let the opportunity to mock him go by. “And why didn’t you rejoin the fight? I thought you had a duty to protect the positivity in the multiverse.”

“Um…” Dream blinked for a third time, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. He laughed, nervously, like a reflex, and when he opened his eyes again, they were fuzzy again. “Sorry, you went a bit fast for me there. Could you repeat that?”

Ugh. Now he was just being difficult.

“You’re so annoying.” Nightmare said, stepping away. “Just get up and get out of here.”

Looking up at him, the words seemed to take a few minutes to sink in. Then, nodding, Dream tried to stand, movements jerky, as if he was figuring out how to move them for the first time again. When he stood, he wobbled, tilting over a bit before righting himself.

Nightmare realized he had stepped forward, ready to catch him should he fall, and retreated, tucking his hands back into his arms.

Damnit. He was slipping. He had to get out here, fast.

“I’m alright.” Dream said, clearly noticing his misstep. He was smiling. Nightmare had to look away before the sight made him feel warm inside. “Just a bit dizzy.”

“Whatever,” Nightmare said in return, leaving it at that.

Still smiling, his brother shifted on his feet, looking down at his hands and clenching them into fists a couple of times. His gaze wandered back up to him, and then away, looking around them with a curious, still confused, look. It was almost like he was trying to figure out where he was, as if he wasn’t just in a fight here earlier.

He couldn’t have forgotten that fast, could he? And what was he still doing here?

Shouldn’t he be opening a portal by now?

“What are you waiting for?”

Snapping back to look at him, Dream didn’t seem to understand the question. “Huh?”

Waving a hand again, tentacles flicking behind him, Nightmare’s scowl deepened. Why the fuck was he acting so weird? “Open a portal already and go home. Your friends are probably worried sick by now.”

(He ignored the voice in his head that said he was starting to get worried, too.)

“Right, right.” Dream nodded, trying and failing to look like he knew what he was talking about. “A portal…see, um, I would do that…but, uh…” Looking around again, shifting some more, his smile turned sheepish. “Well, I don’t remember, exactly, how to do that.”

Nightmare did not return the smile, unamused. He just stared.

What the fuck? What was he playing at? What was the point in drawing all this out? Nostalgia? What did he get out of acting so weird? What was going on here?

“Do you think this is a fucking game?” Nightmare asked, voice slipping off into a growl. His tentacles moved restlessly. He was getting agitated now. He just wanted to go home, get back to his puzzles, and maybe sleep for a week. But no, he was here, playing along with this stupidness, unable to get a grasp on what was happening.

Dream looked alarmed, holding his hands up and shaking them furiously. “No! No—”

“Then why the fuck are you wasting my time? I come out here, in the middle of the evening, to make sure you’re good, and you decide to, what, pull a joke on me?” Unable to curb his irritation, he shook his head, rubbing a hand down his face. “Stars, I hate you. I’m reminded now why I don’t bother doing this for you. You never take it seriously.” Turning he started to walk away, hearing Dream stutter excuses behind him.

He didn’t want to hear any excuses. He was done. He was going home.

“It’s not—I’m not joking,” Dream called after him, footsteps crunching on the snow as he chased after him.

“Of course, you are!” Nightmare sighed, in annoyance or anger or both of them combined. He didn’t care anymore. “You always are!” He didn’t bother stopping or turning around. Just continued on. And then he remembered he didn’t have to walk away at all, could just make a portal out. Turning his annoyance to himself, he raised a hand to do so—

“I don’t remember that.”

—and stopped.

The statement struck the right chord, making something inside him fall to the pit of his stomach, pricking him uncomfortably. Slowly, he turned to face Dream again, paying more attention. “…what?”

“I—I don’t remember that,” Dream said, tone so genuine, eyes so wide and confused and even scared that it seemed to create a physical attack on his soul. Raising a hand, his brother held it to his head. “I thought if I waited a bit, I might remember something, but I don’t. It’s all just…blank. I don’t know anything you’re talking about, like the fight or my friends. I place any faces to them or names or anything.” He let his hand fall, shaking his head as he turned his gaze down to his feet, speaking softly. “I just don’t remember.”

The words pushed Nightmare out of the present, sending him spiraling into the black hole opening in his ribs, right where his soul is. They pressed in on him, reverberating, turning into a high pitch that buzzed inside him, threatening to cut off his breath.

He didn’t want to believe the words. In fact, he was trying his absolute best not to. Excuses flew through, nitpicking through the explanation and finding words that betrayed the real truth. He told himself over and over that no matter what, no matter how injured he got, Dream would never allow this to happen. His brother would hold onto himself with an iron grip, too desperate to let go, and the Multiverse would allow him to hold on because it was just another being that favored him. They would not let their favorite Guardian lose his precious memories, not for all the stories it brought them.

No, it just wasn’t possible. He was lying—though the reason why was unclear, and nothing could really justify it, he had to be lying. It was a trick, a ploy, maybe even a trap. Yes, that’s it. Any minute now, the other Star Sanses would jump out, pull their weapons, and Dream would drop this façade and go back to pleading with him and when it didn’t work, when Nightmare lashed out in anger, he would pull out his bow and—and—

It just---it had to be a trick.

It had to.

It…

His eyes didn’t look like he was lying, though.

No matter how long he searched, how close he looked, it was a blank sheet of gold. He found confusion, yes, he found anxiety—nothing new there—but he did not find any recognition. Hope and helplessness, but no relief in having someone he knew find him. Even now, as his brother looked around the clearing, he only saw curiosity, as if he hadn’t seen this place before, as if he had just arrived, as if he had just woken up and was in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar faces. The eyes came back to his, smiled at him, and—

And they were still blank.

A ghost.

The black hole in his ribs widened, pulling him in faster. Digging his heels in, he resisted with everything he had, swimming back out. He had to confirm this, he told himself, had to make sure this was the truth. If there was any chance he did remember, whether that be his friends or his title or Night—

Well, Nightmare just had to find it. He had to.

He heard himself speak before he was fully back in his body. “Did you hit your skull?”

“Ah, maybe?” Dream tilted his head, reaching around to the base of it before retracting quickly, wincing. “Yes. Yeah, I did.”

“Turn around.”

Obedient, Dream did, and Nightmare stepped closer, observing the crack. It wasn’t as bad as he was expecting—certainly not as big—but it was still enough to make bile climb up the back of his throat. Swallowing it down, he darted his gaze around it, taking in the gaping black hole, about the size of a cherry, thinner cracks webbing out from around it. It had blood crusted on the edges, and he was sure that if he took the time to look around the cliff, he’d find matching spots.

Absently reaching out, he traced along the wound with his fingers. Stars, how he wished he knew how to heal. This would be so much easier.

Dream pulled away after his fingers made contact, and he let his hand fall as he turned back, already apologizing. “Sorry! Sorry, that just…really hurt.” He laughed again, but it petered out as he caught sight of Nightmare’s face. “Oh…that bad of a sight, huh?”

“You said…” Nightmare swallowed again, ignoring those words. “You said you don’t remember anything?” The feeling in the pit of his stomach clenched.

“No.” Oblivious, Dream shook his head. “The latest memory I have is of you standing over me. Before that…” Tilting his head again, his brother thought about it, ultimately coming up with nothing. No spark in his eyes. “Nothing.” He looked regretful, like he wished he could be of more help. “Sorry.”

There he went again, apologizing.

Nightmare was going to have to have a talk with him about that. He can’t keep saying sorry for things that he didn’t need to say sorry for in the first place.

First, however, was dealing with—this.

“So…” He didn’t want to ask the next question. It burned in his throat, made his tongue curl in preparation, the words too ugly to even think about. Why did it need to be said? He already knew the answer to it. Why did he insist on asking it when he knew what was going to be said? He would rather them stand like this forever than ask it.

That was a risk, though. And he would really like to get some sleep tonight—even if that might be impossible the longer this sank in. They should really wrap this up soon.

That meant asking uncomfortable questions.

Swallowing himself down, Nightmare let the question go. It couldn’t hurt to ask, anyway. “You don’t remember me?” The words lingered in the air, an odd hint of emotion to them, something fragile and vulnerable.

(He knew the answer to why he wanted to ask this.

Somehow, somewhere inside him, there was still a need that maybe something would be remembered. If the longer they talked, the greater the chance the memories would just snap back into place. That the hollow feeling of having someone you grew up with look at you like one would a stranger would disappear, replaced by joy or anger or tears, anything else.

Inside, if nothing else, he needed there to be a chance he’d be remembered.)

It felt like hope.

“No.” Dream answered, the shaking of his head feeling like salt poured into open wounds. He seemed disappointed in himself, upset he couldn’t help. For him, this was failing at giving someone what they wanted.

For Nightmare, this was confirmation.

(It felt like denial.)

(There was a stinging in his chest. Where did it come from?)

“Where you someone important?”

Nightmare automatically bristled. “I—” He stopped himself, glaring down at the ground while clenching his jaw.

His instinct was to say that, of course he was. He was Dream’s brother. They grew up together. They were, still are, two halves of the same coin, two halves to the same balance. Despite everything, that had to mean something.

But that wasn’t the truth, was it?

Not anymore.

Maybe one time, before The Incident, before the villagers came to them. It was just the two of them, after all. And Mother, but she couldn’t really say much, or do anything beyond existing. Maybe then they were each other’s most important person. And maybe it would’ve stayed that way had everything not gone to shit.

But the point was, that was in the past.

Whatever they had, it was gone. In more ways than one now…

Inhaling, Nightmare looked away, shoving his hands into his pockets. “That…depends on your definition of important.”

They had other people in their lives now. He had his gang, his boys. Though he often complained about their foolishness and called them idiots, not once had he ever wished he hadn’t met them. Dream, he knew, felt much the same about Ink and Blue. Neither of them would trade their friends for the world.

Even for each other.

“I was—” Nightmare sighed, rolling back his shoulders. “I’m your brother. Nightmare.” He forced himself to look back at Dream, even if the eye contact burned his soul with something uncomfortable. “Your name is Dream, by the way. In case you forgot that, too.”

“Cool!” Dream paused and gasped, beaming as he made the connection. “Our names match!”

“Yeah.” Nightmare said, forcing himself to smile back. “Yeah, they do.” Of course they did, he thought to himself. That’s the reason why they chose the names.

Brow furrowing, Dream tilted his head. “Wait, if we’re brothers, wouldn’t I just live with you, then?”

“What?” Nightmare felt himself frown in return. “Why do you think we’d live together?”

Strange, considering Dream didn’t even remember him.

(There was that stinging again.)

“I-I don’t know, I just…I have this feeling that brothers should be living together. That they need to live together. I don’t know why, but it’s a very strong feeling.” Dream raised a hand to his chest, hovering over where his soul would be. “When I think about you, um, that feeling gets all…strange.”

This caught his attention. “Strange?”

“Yeah.” Nodding slowly, Dream worked through it, finding what to call it. “I think it…I think it turns jealous, somehow.”

Nightmare stared.

Jealous…?

That couldn’t be right. Dream had to be reading it wrong.

There was nothing to be jealous about. His brother always had the perfect life. What more could he want?

If anything, he should be the one jealous. He’s the only one who deserves to be jealous. Jealous of the way people were always drawn to his brother over himself, the way people thought everything of the sun and nothing of the moon, even though they both shared the same light. It was his right to be envious, his right to look upon the past and view it with bitterness. It was his right to look at the present, now, when Dream still has his friends and his standing and still has everyone revolving around him.

At least he can find relief, find arrogance, in the fact that he found his own friends, his own group of people who looked up to him. It took years, it took work, but he found them.

He didn’t need Dream anymore.

(So, what if sometimes he looked at his brother and his friends and felt a longing to join them?

So, what if he found the way they laughed, the way they treated each other, a reminder that he’s done too many things to be treated like that again?

So, what if he’s tired of fighting all the time and wants to go back to how things were, while knowing that could never happen, while looking across the battlefield into golden eyes that reflected the same kind of feelings and—and…oh.

Oh.

Oh, they would never escape being peas in a pod, would they?)

“Hey, you mentioned my friends, though.” Dream said, brightening up again, looking around like they might just pop up. Not that he would recognize them. “Maybe we could find them and they could help me get home. What do you think of that?”

Maybe, Nightmare thought, looking away as well. He couldn’t lie, it would be nice to leave this place, and dump the responsibility of an amnesiac onto someone else. Especially the Guardians of the Multiverse, the coveted Star Sanses.

But something twisting in his stomach stopped him from agreeing.

He thought, all too suddenly, about how he came back hours later to his brother still lying in relatively the same spot he fell. Meaning Ink and Blue never came back to look for him after they retreated. You’d think, for monsters that claimed to be his best friends, they’d be out here the minute the battle was over, bringing Dream back home to be checked on.

Why should he trust his brother with those two, when they didn’t even search for him? They probably don’t even know he’s missing. They certainly don’t know he’s injured. He can’t help but wonder what their reactions would’ve been to this memory loss.

Too bad he won’t find out.

“I think they’re busy, actually.” Nightmare decided, making a split decision that he hoped wasn’t wrong. “And going to be busy for the week yet.”

“Oh…”

Dream looked disappointed. Hurt.

The look on his face only solidified Nightmare’s decision. His tentacles curled in satisfaction. “You can come home with me, though. Stay for a bit.”

“Really?” Starting to brighten yet again, Dream seemed to hesitate, searching to make sure he was telling the truth.

“Yeah.”

“Awesome.” Dream’s smile lit up the forest, and Nightmare turned himself away before he found himself getting soft because of it. Raising a hand to open the portal, he heard Dream chuckle behind him. “I gotta say, even though I don’t remember it, I bet you were the best brother ever.”

The words were said so confidently, so…normally…it made Nightmare freeze. The portal wobbled in front of him, but stayed open, and he blinked at it a couple of times before he turned back to his brother.

His mouth was dry, for a reason he couldn’t yet understand.

“What?”

“Well, I mean…it’s like you said. You came all this way, in the middle of the night, to check on me. You were worried. And then, when you found me, you stayed to wake me up, even though you technically already completed your goal. You didn’t just leave. And you checked my injury without me asking you to, and told me my name, and now you’re offering to let me stay at your place.”

Dream’s smile turned smaller, more vulnerable. “It just seems like a very nice thing to do.”

Nightmare’s gaze was frozen, locked onto that genuine, soft smile. The last sentence played on a loop, ringing inside his skull.

A very nice thing to do.

In any other situation, the suggestion would be laughable.

But like this…

(There was that stinging. Again. Why won’t it just go away?)

He thought back to the fight that happened earlier. How he reveled in the pain he caused, how much fun he had taunting his brother. How often he attacked him, without worry or caution. How eager he was to throw him around into trees, back him up into a cliff. He hadn’t even thought about what might happen, too giddy, too smug. All he wanted to do was put him in his place…he hadn’t even cared that he was bleeding…hadn’t even reached out to try and save him when the cliff crumbled…

How long had Dream laid there, in the snow, still in wet clothes?

What did he think as he watched Nightmare watch him fall?

How can that be called nice?

How can what happened during The Incident be called nice? What kind of brother turned his twin into stone, and left him in a dead AU all alone, knowing full well that he would one day return? What kind of brother picked an apple he was supposed to protect in the first place? What kind of brother was he?

Certainly not the kind this Dream was talking about…

“Right.” Nightmare said, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. He understood why this time. He wanted to throw up. “Thanks.”

Dream didn’t notice anything wrong. Still smiling away. As always. Always. “No problem!” Rocking back on his heels, he started to look around as his attention span waned with no portal to go through.

Still, Nightmare did not move to open it.

Instead, he found himself changing tracks. Jumping train from thinking about how bad of a brother he was, to how good of a brother Dream was.

Is.

Was.

Stars, this was so confusing…

“You weren’t that bad of a brother yourself.” Nightmare said, and this time the words were better tasting. At least this way, something true would be said here.

Dream looked back at him, surprised, with a spark of confusion. Then, even if he didn’t know everything Nightmare was talking about, he smiled, taking it as the compliment it was. “Aw, thanks.”

Nodding, Nightmare finally managed to open the portal, letting Dream go through first. He hesitated to follow, looking around the AU again. For some reason, he felt like he would still find his brother, memories and all, waiting for him if he looked hard enough. But he wouldn’t. He knew that.

At least, he had to accept that.

That stinging again…

Showing it down once again, Nightmare turned and went home.

(It’s only after Dream is settled into one of the guest bedrooms—stocked with fresh bedsheets and a fresh pair of clothes for the next day borrowed from Nightmare’s own closet—and he’s back in the safety of his office that he lets his composure finally break. Choking, he slides down his door, hand clasped over his mouth to keep as quiet as possible.

It’s only then that he lets himself cry.

Cry about how he never reached out to catch his brother when he first fell.

Cry about what his brother thought before splitting his skull on a rock.

Cry about the stranger left in his brother’s body.

Cry about everything.)

#my writing #my fanfiction #fanfiction #oneshot #request #undertale #utmv #dreamtale #dream sans #nightmare sans #tw swearing #tw amnesia

66 notes · View notes

mysticwolfshadows · 16 days ago

Text

Taken - Zutara - Part 49

First / Previous / Next / Masterpost

They make it to the Fire Nation with very little fanfare. It was shockingly easy, given how difficult it had been to get past the barricade when they went to Roku's temple. But there they were, landing harmlessly in a cave on one of the outer islands.

While Sokka lamented about how this was their life now, hopping from cave to cave, until the invasion began.

Zuko rolled his eyes, and shared a look with Katara and Suki. One of them had to talk sense into Sokka.

"We could try finding some new clothes?" Suki suggested, glancing at Katara.

"Zuko and I know how to blend in with the Fire Nation."

Aang was quick to jump in. "Yeah! Blending in is better than hiding out. Wouldn't having Fire Nation disguises be just as safe as hiding in a cave?"

"Plus, we can get real food out there." Toph punches a wall, making cave hoppers jump out, Momo diving after them. "Unless you'd rather eat cave hoppers in the dirt."

Sokka purses his lips, looking at Zuko as his last hope.

Zuko rose a brow, arms crossed. "We need to conserve as much of our supplies as we can. If we keep using our reserves when we don't have to, we'll run out before we reach the Black Cliffs."

Finally, Sokka caved. "Fiiiine."

They start by finding the nearest farm. There was a series of clothes lines, which they studied carefully for a moment. Aang wondered about the ethics of stealing for a moment, before Katara rushed forwards to snag a silk robe. Suki and Toph weren't far behind, and the boys soon followed.

They returned to the cave to get changed, Toph putting up walls to give them some semblance of privacy, while Sokka and Zuko scrounged together a wig for Aang to wear to hide his tattoos.

"What about your scar?" Aang whinged, as they tied the headband(?) around the wig to help keep it in place. "It's distinctive!"

"Burn scars are common in the Fire Nation," Katara said, as she stepped out. "While they aren't usually on the face, you'll probably see a lot of them, especially in outer islands with fewer resources and physicians like this one."

Zuko turned to say... He couldn't remember. As soon as his eyes landed on Katara, his mouth went dry and his head empty. She looked...

"You look great!" Aang said, beaming.

"Thanks, Aang," she said, moving to get a look at their handy work. "It looks good. Should hold for a day." She glanced at Zuko, and her own smile tugged at her lips. "You look nice."

He swallowed. "You... You too."

Over Katara's shoulder, Zuko could see Sokka making a gagging motion, as Aang watched on in confusion.

"So!" Toph called, as she stepped out of the barrier with Suki. "Where are we going for lunch?"

Heading into town, Katara and Zuko took lead, pointing out different kinds of shops. Katara hadn't had much time to explore the city when she'd been in the city before, but the signage was enough for her to give recommendations. Zuko was more straight forward with his answers, and helping steer them away from the more niche establishments.

Katara was so excited to be eating fresh and authentic Fire Nation cuisine again, she barely noticed Aang wondering off. She made sure to order something more mild for the others, giving a smile to the frowning waiteress.

"We just moved from the colonies," Katara explained, before gesturing to Zuko and herself. "We spent a good amount of our childhood her on the islands, though. We've missed it. If you could hold the spice on theirs, but maybe add a little to ours...?"

The waitress hummed, but made a note on her pad. Then she was off, and Katara felt herself begining to relax. The smells of the Fire Nation filled her. The warm ocean spray and the spices of cooking food. The feel of Agni on her skin, filling her with a pleasant warmth she hadn't felt in so long...

They ate in comfort, giving simple conversation and enjoying the food. She listened to other patrons, hearing about how lucky they were that the draft hadn't reached their island yet. Apparently, in the wake of Prince Zuko's 'death', the draft had been instated but not entirely enforced on outer islands. More prominent families, like Mai's, were voluntarily enlisting their sons as 'officers'. There was speculation, with only Azula as heir and there having never been a female Fire Lord, that the Fire Princess would need to marry, and her spouse become Fire Lord in her stead. Others thought that Azula would be skipped over, with Ozai being fairly young for a Fire Lord, and that her first son would become the true heir instead. Of course, Katara knew that Ozai would never pass on his throne willingly, much as Sozin and Azulon had before him, and that Azula would never let herself be forced to marry, much less be skipped over in succession.

As they were wrapping up their lunch that they heard about the local academy. A pair of mothers, talking about how the headmaster was cracking down on students behavior, as they passed by to their table. One was worried, as the school was so strict already, and her daughter On Ji was such a sweet and gentle girl, who had such a creative mind, and was worried that innovative thinking might get her in trouble. The other woman wondered if perhaps it was a good thing for her own son, Hide. He was becoming rather unruly and disrespectful at home, with his father gone on the warfront. Perhaps the headmaster's stricter rules would bring Hide into line.

A faint memory, of a young Zuko in a boys uniform, more militaristic than academic, tickled the back of her mind. But the FIre Nation was know for their similarities in uniforms. In the military, the main difference between a foot soldier and a captain was the more angled and spiked shoulders, with more gold accents. And Aang...

"Zuko," Katara whispered, as they were walking back to the cave. He blinked at her, inclining his head to show she had his full attention. "Do you remember what Fire Nation school uniforms look like? I only saw the Royal Fire Academy uniforms, but..."

For a moment, Zuko blinked. Then, his brow scrunched, and he cursed so venomously under his breath that a lick of flame was spat from his lips. Reaching out, he grasped her elbow, squeezing it.

"Make sure the others know we might have to run," he said, turning to look back down the road towards town. "I'll find him and bring him back. If his cover is blown, we'll need to leave immediately."

"Be careful," she said, as he let go. They shared a look, the air tense around them, before turning away from each other and rushing off.

First / Previous / Next / Masterpost

#fanfic idea #fanfic #atla #avatar the last airbender #zutara #katara #zuko #wip

17 notes · View notes

trikruismybitch · 2 years ago

Text

Why Not You?

Parings: Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Technically suicide?

Summary: Clint & Natasha are on Vormir and just as Nats about to jump something stops her.

“You tell them yourself.” Natasha shoots her widow bites at Clint before turning to jump off the cliff. An explosion happens and she’s knocked off her feet as she holds her side. Looking up she sees Clint drop his bow before starting to run but then suddenly he freezes mid-step.

“Clint?” Natasha gets up and walks to him but he doesn’t make a sound. He doesn’t even flinch when she waved a hand infront of his face which increasingly worries her as she shakes him and he still doesn’t budge from his spot. It’s like he’s frozen in time.

“He’s okay.” A soft voice says from behind her

Shooting around Natasha takes a defense position as she raises her arms at the woman before her. Quickly assessing her she has (Y/h/c) hair in a half updo with the rest flowing freely down what Natasha can tell was maybe mid-back. Her posture remained natural with both hands clasped infront of her in a non-threatening position which does nothing to relax Natasha.

“Who are you,” She presses as the woman before she smiles slightly before answering

“I’ve gone by many names but the one I have chosen for myself is (Y/n),” she goes to take a step toward Natasha which causes Natasha to raise her arm that she had previously dropped. (Y/n) raises her hands in a placating manner before speaking again, “I am not here to hurt you Natalia.”

“How do you know that name?” Natasha prods

Y/n raises her eyebrow “It is your given name is it not?” Natasha’s face remains neutral “I know many things.” She says vaguely

“Why are you here?”

“Well the first it to stop you from killing yourself,” the (Y/h/c) says like she’s scolding a child, “The second is to...talk.” She says with a shrug

“What did you do to Clint? You say your not here to hurt me but he’s frozen.” She asks

“I guess you can say I can control time, along with other things. He’s not in any pain he’s just stuck in that moment.”

“What are you?”

“I guess you can say I am being out of space and time,” (Y/n) shrugs “My siblings and I were of the first beings to be upon this earth but as it developed we were cast out, forced to watch and never interfere in the life’s of mortals.” (Y/n) turns around to look at the rising sun leaving Natasha a very ample opportunity to kill her. If what she says is true then Natasha probably couldn’t kill her, not that she wants to, something about her is familiar.

Natasha walks forward till she’s standing a few feet away from (Y/n) as she takes in the rising sun “What do you want with me, besides trying to save my life and talk.”

“If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go?” The woman beside her asks.

Furrowing her eyebrows Natasha looks at the woman. Just now noticing enticing (Y/e/c) eyes that give her a sense of security and as weird as it may seem she feels safe with her.

“Volgard” and within the blink of an eye Natasha was there she gasps lightly.

“Don’t worry about Clint he’s okay still frozen but safe on Vormir.” She answers before Natasha even asks earning a thankful nod in return.

“Why me?” The redhead breaks the silence “Why are you doing this?”

The (Y/h/c) woman sighs as she sits down patting the spot next to her Natasha following. “As I am forbidden to interfere in mortal matters unless called upon which now a days is highly unlikely, but I’ve been watching you.” Natasha doesn’t know whether to take it as a compliment or to be a little creeped out, she settles on both.

Turning her head to look at the goddess sitting next to her she finally takes into account just how beautiful the woman sitting next to her is. The glow of the sun setting against her skin casting an utheral glow around her. Feeling eyes on her she turns to face her before giving her a a gentle smile as she lays her hand on top of Natasha’s.

“I’ve watched you grow up beating all the odds stacked against you. The future is usually written for everybody, everyone serving a purpose. You were supposed to die in the red room,” The woman states speaking again before Natasha can speak “Its uncommon for someone to beat the odds when they’re stacked so highly against them. You were around 10 when Madama B made you fight one of the older girls.”

Natasha’s breath hitches as the memory comes to mind. She had been disrespectful and payed the price by being forced to fight a much older girl who was 15 at the time. Madame B was using her as an example to teach the others a lesson about what would happen if you didn’t comply. Instead of Natasha dying she ended up winning the fight “I had watched and thought your fight was over but you got up and won.” You chuckled lightly your fingers lightly trailing over Natasha’s with a gentleness she hadn’t felt before.

“I kept a much closer eye on you after that. When you escaped the red room I was so proud,” you murmered gazing in the green eyes you had fallen in love with “Then you joined SHIELD and turned yourself around. I was happy you had Clint he’s a good guy.” You turn your head looking off into th distance as Natasha still looks at you “Then Budapest happened.” Your face turned dark as clouds started forming rapidly over head “When Taskmaster shot you...the bullet was inches from your heart.” You took a deep breath the skies clearing once again “You probably remember as well as I do Clint was nowhere near you busy trying not to die but,” You look at Natasha “You were about to die. I heard you calling asking for anyone to help you and so I did.” Natasha inhaled deeply tears filling her eyes but never falling.

“You were the woman I saw,” She shook her head “I thought I saw an angel i felt the bullet wound closing. When I told Clint he told me I just had a nasty concussion because there was no wound.” She watches as you expose your chest where a scar sits right where Natasha had been shot.

“You took my wound? What-I-how?” She splutters confused as she asks her question.

“You were drifting between life and death. It was the only thing I could do to save you,” you shrug covering up your chest “It was nothing.”

It was anything but nothing actually. You almost died. For the first time in a millennia you had been hurt, willingly taking on a wound for a mortal had almost gotten you cast out. Your parents were furious for interfering in the mortal world, your siblings disappointed. You argued that she called and asked for help, they said she should’ve died as she was, it was far too late. They told you, your infatuation with a human would get you killed one day. They weren’t wrong.

“I’m immortal” you tell her “A bullet wound won’t kill me. Hurts like a bitch as you would say.” Natasha snorts at that shaking her head

“I still don’t understand why me out of everyone in the universe.” She looked up into the sky.

Natasha really couldn’t fathom why you, a goddess, immortal being cared about her well-being, it just didn’t make sense.

“Why not you?” You question “You got delt the wrong cards since birth. Even fate had tried to turn against you, yet you preserved. You have sacrificed your life time and time again for the greater good.” A white flash appeared and they were standing in Vormir again “You have given willingly and unselfishly, trying to clear the red in your ledger,” You take her hands in your own, “You have cleared that ledger twice over Natalia. I will not let you sacrifice your life as if it means nothing.” Natasha’s heart aches and tears fall down her face at your words.

She had been trying so hard to make up for her past mistakes and here was a moniote being that knew and seen everything she had done and told her it was enough. That all her work in clearing her ledger had been past. But (Y/n’s) final words caught up to her as she released her hands taking a step back.

“I won’t let you sacrifice Clint.” She said defiantly “He has a family, no matter what he has done in the last five years, he needs to go home.” She did not expect a light laugh and a bright smile from you in return.

You cup her cheeks and look into her eyes “After everything we have talked about, you truly thought I would let your bestfriend die?” You chuckle at her obliviousness “I wish for you to never be in anguish ever again Natalia and losing Clint would cause you pain, a pain I wish to keep you from.” You sigh as you feel the time for what you have to do comes nearer.

*flashback*

You watch as Natasha arrives on Vormir before feeling a presence behind you.

“I know what you are thinking and you cannot.” He says coming to stand next to you watching over the woman that had unknownly captured your heart

“You are important கேட்பது” he speaks using your creation name. (listening)

You smile at your brother “I have not heard that name in centuries” you put your hand on his shoulder drawing him closer.

“Listen வீடு I know you feel it is your duty to keep the home together and that father and mother are pressuring you to stop me but it won’t work.” (Home)

Qazius looks at you in sorrow his blue eyes water for the first time in a melina “Why are you leaving us?” He turns you to face him, his hands in your shoulder tighten “We have been through everything together what am I to do without you?”

“You will watch over Natalia for me.” You ask his jaw clenches at her name. He does not care for her, especially for what she’s is unknowingly forcing you to do. “Brother” you clasp your hand against his on your shoulder “I know you feel as if Natalia is taking me away from you but I will always be in here.” You point to his heart. “This is my choice, I have lived for far too long. It is time I join our fallen family, but I need you to promise me to look after Natalia. I asked எதிர்கால to show me her future and she seems to have a peaceful one but in case fate decides to stray I need you to protect her,” his blue eyes let out a few more tears, “for me.” You ask pleadingly. (Future)

He pulls you into him one last time wishing he could keep you here “I swear it by the old and new.” He promises.

You pull away “You were always my favorite, younger brother.” You smile one last time before disappearing

Qazius looks to where you meet the woman that is unknowingly causing your doom. He had never felt the love you claim to feel for her, maybe one day he will.

*flashback over*

“I don’t understand,” Natasha shakes her head running through all the possibilities “Are you saying you can get the stone without a sacfirice?” She questions

“Not exactly,” you step away from her as you look down the cliff “You and Clint will not die, I promise you that.” You turn and face her again sensing her confusion “I must ask you something, you may decline of course.” You clasp your hands behind your back as you take a step forward in Natalia’s personal space “May I kiss you?” You unclasp your hands as your nervously fiddle with your dress

Natasha’s eyebrows shoot upwards. Your quite beautiful in fact that’s probably the first thing she noticed about you but she was too busy trying to determine if you were a threat. She looks at you noticing the way you rock on your heels while you fiddle with your dress but despite your obvious nervousness you maintain eye contact with her, face neutral despite obviously being nervous from her reply. It’s honestly cute.

Natasha smirks a little stepping closer “And what would I get in return.” she teases not actually wanting anything.

You take a step closer so your noses are touching hesitantly placing your hands on her waist, “A glimpse of your future and the answer to how you can get the soul stone.” Natasha blinks a few times not actually expecting anything but nods slowly as you both lean in.

For you it’s everything you have ever wanted. Despite being alive for eons it’s the first time you ever truly felt alive. You pull her in closer her hands finding perch on your face. Your heart beats wildly as volcanoes erupt in your stomach. Feeling like your being lit on fire as every hair on your body stands up. Tingles roll down your spine and settle in your stomach as you force yourself to pull away and open your eyes. Her eyes are still closed before she strikes back abruptly out of your arms and her eyes shoot open.

For Natasha your lips are the softest thing she’s every felt. She can feel you gently holding her waist a stark contrast to the strength you must hold. An enslaught of flashes are brought before her eyes. Her holding the soul stone, Clint at her side a heavy feeling in her heart as she hands it to Steve. Steve on the ground behind her as Thano’s stands above Thor with Stormbreaker being forced into his chest as Mjnor sits a few feet infront of her. Standing infront of a lake the heaviness in her heart weighing more as Wanda comes to stand next to her. Sam standing next to Bucky and her with Steve’s Shield in his hand the heaviness in her chest even more. Wanda stands infront of her smiling brightly holding her hand. A small figure with red hair and blue-green eyes staring at her in her arms babbling Mama. Finally an image of you apologizing to her before falling backwards. The flashes end forcing Natasha to move out of your hold as she regains her bearings.

“I-You,” she stands up ridgedly her mind finally coming to the conclusion “You can’t.” She says

You look at Natasha with sorrow, “You’ve brought something to me that I never thought I’d feel for another. Love. You may not know me Natasha but you have brightened my life and lit a fire in my very being. Your worthy Natalia remember that,” you take a step backwards as your foot is met with nothing “I’m sorry.” You fall backwards

“No!” Natasha yells but she’s too far away from the cliff and by the time she makes it to the edge your body lay lifeless. The sky rumbles and cries before a flash appears.

Natasha wakes up next to Clint in a pile of water. She sits up and feels something in her hand. Looking down she slowly opens it revealing the soul stone shining brightly.

“Natasha?” Clint sits up looking confused. He looks at her and noticing the stone in her hand “How?” He asks scooting closer to her.

She looks up as a tear drops from her eye.

“So your telling us, a goddess that has been around for eons has been watching you since you were a kid, somehow fell in love with you and sacrificed herself so neither of you had too?” Tony recounts. Natasha nods her head in conformation as Tony scoffs and rubs his head “I’m grateful but honestly it just seems too good to be true, was she even a real goddess?” He questions when they all suddenly hear the skies roar with thunder and lighting. They all look to Thor who’s puts his hands up, shaking his head. Tony looks at Natasha and her crestfallen face. He grabs her shoulder “We’ll avenge her,” he looks to everyone “And we’ll get everyone back.”

It was after the battle. Tony died. Steve left and is old now. Clint went home to his family. And Natasha stands looking out on the lake thinking about everything that has happened in the last day, mostly about Y/n and her sacrifice. The guilt she felt roaring inside her.

She hears silent footsteps thinking it was Bucky or Sam she ignores them until a man in a a white three piece suit with gold ascents stands a few feet next to her. Before she can even speak he speaks in a soft tone.

“She wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.” He continues to look across the lake ignoring the way Natasha’s head snapped towards him. “She made a decision and once her mind is made up, no one can change it,” he turns his head cold blue eyes locking with Natasha’s, “Trust me because I tried.” He turn to look at the lake again

“Who are you?” She asks already having an idea but trying not to make assumptions

“My name is Qazius. I am,” he pauses slightly “was (Y/n’s) younger brother.” He answers

Natasha doesn’t know what to say for the first time in her life. She’s at a loss of words. They just stand in silence for awhile before Qazius breaks it.

“I didn’t understand why she cared for you so much until I watched you battle today,” he glances at her briefly, “You’re fierce and unrelenting, you have a fire burning in you to protect and sacrifice no matter the cost. It’s admirable and I can see why she loved you.” He states

“I’m sorry.” Natasha apologizes. Qazius looks at her confused “About (Y/n),” his eyes flash with pain before masking it again but Natasha caught it, “I may have not known her but she protected me without me knowing and the time I did spend with her showed me how kind and caring she was.”

Qazius looks at her like he’s seeing her for the first time “Thank you mor-” he stopped himself short before correcting himself “Natasha. She was the best of us.” He says. Natasha glanced at him questionly “Out of all my siblings (Y/n) had the kindest heart and the most empathy out of us all. She wanted us to help you humans even after we had been casted out eons ago by your ancestors.” He looks at her “I think you had a lot to do with it. You inspired her to try to change our minds, told us we had a responsibility despite what humans thought. She failed...but maybe now that she’s gone that will change.” He looks away from Natasha seeing a woman with auburn hair making her way towards them.

He turns to Natasha offering his hand. She looks at it before taking it feeling something being handed to her. “This was her necklace,” he looks behind him, the woman’s closer and he can feel the power radiating off of her even from the distance, “It signifies her haven been the first born. I think she’d like it if you’d have it.” He tells her

“I can’t take this.” She tries handing it back but he raises his eyebrow staring at her.

“Don’t refuse a gift from a god Natasha,” he smirks before sensing the woman was approaching “Whoever wears it will be protected,” he tells her as the woman comes to stand between Natasha and the man, “If you need me call my name.” He tells her smiling politely at the woman bidding them both farewell.

Wanda crosses her arms and stares at his retreating figure before looking towards Natasha “Are you alright?” She asks her.

Natasha looks at the pendent clutching it in her hand feeling a rush of power and a sense of what could only be described as the feeling she felt when she was with you wash over her, “Yeah,” The memory of Wanda smiling and holding her hand flashes into her mind, “Or at least I will be.”

The end

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #marvel #natasha romanoff x you #natasha x reader #black widow fan fic #black widow x fem!reader #black widow x goddess!reader #natasha shouldn't have died #immortal!reader

419 notes · View notes

autumn-foxfire · 2 months ago

Text

HAIBARA MOVIE!

Kir T-T She tried to save the woman but Gin is a bitch. It's good he didn't hear her though,

Not even minutes and he's already looking adorable!

And Ai is the sweetest girl in the world. She has seen so much cruelty and she still chooses to be nice T-T

I'm sure Agasa's inventions won't be anything important in the movie at all :p (He deserves so much more credit for his inventions).

Sonoko is also really nice and I adore her! She made sure Ai got her good karma in return for her own kindness towards the old woman.

Awww Akai is such a good dad, making sure that Shinichi and Ai stay safe. He's already an approvement on Shinichi's actually parents.

I was about to complain that Shinichi didn't mention the women of the BO but I didn't realise it was because he was revealing the info about their codenames. I didn't realise all the distilled liquor belong to the men of the org.

I feel so bad for Ran. She was shaking while she said this because her father couldn't even resist not drinking for a morning to join the trip.

Shinichi... You really just hitched a ride on the police boat because you can't leave anything alone T-T

Wow, he's actually acting the role of a child pretty well. Why can't he do this all the time?

He loves being complimented for his intelligence T-T

Shinichi should be sweating bullets right now with this technology.

Ever since how Shinichi counts has been relevent in a case, it's used all the time XD

And Amuro and Vermouth have shown up. This can't be good.

WHOOP! The secret it "out". And both Vermouth and Bourbon are scared for Shinichi (and Ai for Amuro, I guess).

Lmao yeah I guess the system would also be bad for the BO. Perhaps it's better it doesn't exist.

Camel magically grew back his hair (I know it's because this movie was in development way before that moment it's just funny).

Why are they playing this as a joke when it's devestating that they're made to deal with this.

I do appreciate Shinichi giving the kids hints instead of just telling the answer straight out and when he was struggling to give them a better one, Ai jumped in to help T-T

...Why aren't you telling Ai? I fucking HATE how the don't include her in the discussion when it's really imporant for her to be so.

THIS WAS SO CUTE. Okay they redeemed themselves slighty, but I would still love for her to included in discussions.

AI MADE SURE AYUMI WAS COVERED IN A BLANKET EVEN AS SHE'S FEARING FOR HER OWN LIFE AND TRYING TO RUN.

RAN!

OH MY GOD I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT AND I AM SO EXCITED.

Okay but now the org know Ran knows about them (she saw them kidnap a little girl) and she FUCKING FOUGHT THEM AGAIN. She. Should. Know. Because at this point they will kill her.

She is at her breaking point with him. I hope that broke a couple of ribs.

SHINICHI IS NOT GIVING UP ON AI T-T HE JUST DIVED OFF A CLIFF AND INTO THE OCEAN TO CHASE AFTER THEM.

Hearing Agasa cry is making me want to cry T-T SHE'S HIS FAMILY.

One very pissed off and very dangerous little boy.

HE'S SO ANGRY AND UPSET WITH HIMSELF AND WORRIED FOR AI OH MY GOD T-T

AI T-T

MY GOD THIS MOVIE HAS DONE MORE FOR AI IN THE PAST FEW MOMENTS THAN THE SERIES HAS DONE FOR HER IN A LONG TIME!

I love Kir noticing the bug and not doing anything about it T-T And I know that knot has been tied properly. The women are being treated well in this movie.

Awww, they're all protecting the children from the truth.

And Amuro has given Shinichi the info he needs to fuck shit up.

Kogoro is being treated like a nuisance this movie as well and I am all here for it even if the movies usually write him better.

Ai has always been so kind T-T

AI AND AKEMI T-T

But that explains why Ai was on her computer.

She has a dog? Can she get anymore perfect?

Can someone throw Kogoro out? Or bring back the Kogoro from the previous movie? Please?

You know what I also like? Vodka feels like an actual threat instead of the side goon.

My heart is breaking.

KIR! SHE'S DOING WHAT SHE CAN! I LOVE THE WOMEN IN THIS MOVIE!

And Gin has arrived.

Gin at this moment: My long hair and hat look awesome but damn they don't make a helicopter landing easy.

KIR IS THE MVP OF THIS MOVIE MY GOD I LOVE HER. She's hitting Gin where it hurts to give them more time. She has her mission, she said she'd never compromise it, but she won't let two innocents die in vain.

Shinichi internally: Get fucked Gin.

I FUCKING ADORE THEM.

I ADORE THEM AS WELL.

Vermouth saving Ai for a change. If only because she knows if they found the truth about her, they'd find the truth about Shinichi.

He adopted that expression from Kaito.

I don't know why I'm surprised to hear deep fake in Detective Conan.

Okay, Gosho, movie writers, women can have adam apples. Ran's bruise was enough to identify the man

SHE GETS TO BE AWESOME TWICE IN ONE MOVIE?! I LOVE THIS.

Lol but Shinichi, you wouldn't have been able to catch Ran in your normal body, you have not trained your arm muscles.

LOVE IT. BOTH OF THEM ARE IN DANGER.

AND HE IMMEDIATELY GOES TO MOCKING THE DUDE.

SHE CARES SO MUCH!

AND SHINICHI APOLOGISED TO HER! WHAT IS THIS MOVIE?! WHY IS IT WRITTEN SO WELL?! It's on par with the movie 23 because the writing is just incredible.

Amuro is worried about his son. Akai is also worried about his son.

SHINICHI HOLDING THE PHONES TOGETHER TO MAKE HIS DADS TALK IS HILARIOUS.

Awww, they put their differences aside to help their son.

Shinichi: I am down for doing something insane and dangerous.

I fucking love Vermouth fucking shit up while she's dressed in but a towel.

AND AI STILL HAS GREAT MOMENTS TO COME!

He lost everything to keep him alive and he still decided to fuck them up.

Akai earlier in the movie: A rifle won't work.

Akai's solution: I'll bring a rocket launcher.

R.I.P

And just like Shinichi wouldn't let Ai die, she won't let Shinichi die.

I ADORE THEM.

I love how Ran had a movie where she nearly drowned and Shinichi is like "hold my beer".

THIS IS SO GODDAMN ADORABLE. I see why this is the CoAi movie but I just appreciate their platonic bond with one another.

I don't appreciate the "kiss" comment, though. CPR isn't a kiss, it's to save a life.

Of course Shinichi has to show off one more time before the movie ends though.

RAN'S FIRST KISS WAS TO AI AND I LOVE IT.

Ai knows Ran is a lesbian and wanted to make sure she has her first kiss with a girl.

This really wasn't needed, especially because Ai didn't kiss Shinichi. She just wanted Ran's lips before him.

And Shinichi wasn't even that upset about it. He just looked confused with her XD

So the disguises that Vermouth and Kaito can create would fool the AI. Interesting.

AND IT BROUGHT BACK AI'S ACTIONS FROM THE START OF THE FILM WITH IT BEING VERMOUTH!

This movie was great. It's tied with number 23.

#dcmk #foxy's dcmk commentary

16 notes · View notes

madrone33 · 10 months ago

Text

So, I've been re-reading the Deltora Quest books for the first time in years because my obsession with them has recently been revived (just finished Valley of the Lost), and man, I don't think I realised before just how, like, absolutely devoted Lief is to getting rid of the Shadow Lord and freeing Deltora. It's especially apparent in the first few books.

The Belt is basically all that matters to him. Not even finding the Heir is more important, honestly the heir is very much secondary to the Belt. They're just the person who will put on and activate the Belt's magic; they are a means to an end. His own life is secondary to the Belt - which isn't to say he's not afraid of dying, he really really is, but when shit gets real and it looks like this is the end, his thoughts almost always go to the Belt. Just like the heir, Lief thinks of himself as a means to an end. (Which is ironic, seeing as how he is the heir.) Lief will make the Belt, and the heir will wear the Belt, but it's the Belt itself that matters most to him. Because it's the Belt that will save them.

'Do not worry about me,' Lief whispered, trying to keep his voice steady and calm. 'Nothing matters but that we seize the gem. If I die in the attempt, it will not be your fault. You must take the Belt from my body and go on alone, as you have wished.'

I must prepare myself for death, Lief thought. But he could only think of the Belt around his waist. If he was killed here, the Belt would lie forgotten with his bones. The gems would never be restored to it. The heir to the throne of Deltora would never be found. The land would remain under the Shadow forever.

'No!' Lief cried. 'Wait!' At this moment of terror, his one thought was for the Belt of Deltora and the topaz fixed to it. If he did nothing to prevent it, this golden eyed giant would surely find the Belt after he was dead, take it from his body- and perhaps give it to Thaegan. Then Deltora would be lost to the Shadow Lord forever. I must throw the Belt over the cliff, he thought desperately. I must make sure that Barda and Jasmine see me do it. Then they will have some chance of finding it again. If only I can delay him until I can do it...

[Literally just died] Lief felt himself pulled to his feet and slung over Barda's shoulder. His head was spinning. He wanted to cry out, 'What of the crown? The opal?' But then he was that the crown was in Barda's hand.

Lief's fingers felt for the clasp of the Belt he wore under his shirt. If necessary, he would unloose it and let it fall into the mud at the bottom of the stream. It would be better for it to lie there than for it to fall into the hands of the Shadow Lord again.

And maybe it didn't really hit me when I first read them 'cause I was approximately A Child, but it's really sinking in now just how bad things have been in Deltora for the last 16 years. When they talk about slavery and fighting arenas and brandings and starvation and executions in the streets. For some reason all these human atrocities are hitting home a lot more than before. It used to be the monsters that seemed the scariest, but now I can see that yes, the monsters are horrifying and traumatising and terrifying, but Lief and Barda and Jasmine continuously choose to keep going, they willingly put themselves through hell, because the Shadow Lord is worse.

Anyway, all this to say, Deltora really couldn't ask for a more selfless and loyal King that Lief. This kid is willing to die so many times over if it means his people are safe.

(The only thing he tends to go off mission for are his friends and family, but even then, I'm thinking of that part in Isle of the Dead where Laughing Jack holds Jasmine hostage and demand the Belt in return. And Lief refuses. Because his people must come first. And he knows Jasmine would never want him to betray their land for her. Like??? So many feels.)

#deltora quest #essay #lief of del #emily rodda #my posts

55 notes · View notes

dandelion-wings · 23 days ago

Note

Hi! For the Whumptober prompt meme: from the first list, 16 "no, I can’t feel anything", with Jean please! I hope your October gets better soon °^°

Thank you for the ask, and for the well-wishes! <3 Funny story: I did a bunch of research last night on "delayed injury" for this, because I thought it would be a fun twist for that prompt, and then I woke up this morning and... absolutely chose violence. I can rehash the same setup two prompts in a row, right? >>

(Though I am filing that research alongside a suggestion made to me re: the last fill that I saw too late to take, and there may or may not be a non-prompt story that utilizes both concepts some time in the future.)

---

It isn't Klee's fault. She had been as safe in her play as ever, and it wouldn't have happened if the Abyss Lector hadn't arrived when it did, or if Jean had taken a little longer to consider the ground before she struck.

Klee is more than capable on her own in Mondstadt's tamer wilds. Perhaps (*probably*) it was a mistake to think that she was more-or-less harmless out there, damaging only the landscape, very careful never to put bombs anywhere near roads ("It's bad to step on bombs, ever!"), or structures ("Walls should stay up! And roofs should stay on!"), or people ("Only blow up monsters and bad guys!"). But despite her age she can defend herself ably, and even with some of the expedition returned the Knights are still stretched thin when it comes to Vision-users, who are really the only people who can safely watch her.

These are all excuses. Jean knows that when she makes them to herself, letting Klee go out the city gates day after day, but they seem solid enough.

When Klee comes to Jean and tells her that she'd seen a bad guy while she was playing in the Whispering Woods, one of the really bad scary ones she's supposed to report *right away*, Jean lets her take Jean's hand and lead her back out of the city. She'll have Klee wait a bit back from the engagement, but this is easier than searching the woods based on Klee's rather erratic directions, and Jean can handle what sounds like one Abyss Lector on her own. Besides, all the knights she would call on are of the city on missions of their own, and she doesn't want to wait.

The location Klee points out is actually on the edge of the woods, one of the lower cliffs rising up out of Starfall Valley and only half-wooded. Jean leaves her deep among the trees, in a spot with no monsters about. "If you feel like I'm taking too long, or you see anything that frightens you, return to Mondstadt and tell a Knight right away," she tells Klee, before heading up.

She circles around wide, scaling the higher cliff to the west of that one, then crouches at the edge to look down at the cliff below. From here she can see the Abyss Lector, circling a section of disturbed ground. It seems agitated, gesturing and muttering to itself, making arcane gestures with its catalyst and then dismissing it again. Jean doesn't know what it may be searching for, but generally, when creatures of the Abyss are on the hunt for something, it's better to stop them *before* she find it.

Drawing her sword, she leaps into the air, letting her glider spread out to catch her. She glides forward a few feet, lining up the angles, and then shifts her stance as she pulls the cord. Her glider's wings snap shut, and Jean comes crashing down, sword-first, upon the Lector.

The tip of her blade catches on the Lector's pauldron and drags down from there, scraping a deep gouge into its armor. Jean bends her knees enough to soften her landing and draws straight, summoning a Gale Blade. The swirling Anemo catches the startled Lector, and she uses its moment of surprise and the force of the Anemo to whirl around, then takes one step forward, ready to hurl it against the hard stone of the cliff.

As her weight comes down on her front foot, something clicks underneath.

Disturbed ground- Klee was playing here- and the Lector's appearance would preclude her usual and required warning sign.

Jean hurls the Lector in a panic, no longer thinking about her aim, and leaps sideways. She might have been fine, had it only been her and the bomb. Layers of earth on top usually muffle the force of Klee's explosions. But the Lector, which *hadn't* hit the cliff and *isn't* still staggering from the blow, recovers enough to send a fireball flying towards the spot where Jean had been. It hits just as the ground begins to bulge.

There's a soft *whumph* from beneath the dirt, and then a much louder, roaring, rumbling *WHOOMPH,* and then the very stone of the cliff goes out from under Jean's feet.

She yanks the cord of her glider only to have rocks immediately batter into it, though at least the wood and fabric of the wings serve as a partial guard against being pummeled herself by the falling stones. One does strike her in the arm hard enough that she feels bone crack, and she loses her grip on her sword. Then, tumbling wildly through the air with only the drag of the broken glider, she hits the ground in the midst of the falling stones.

More bones crack as they fall upon her; Jean, on her belly, throws her hands over her head. Then one huge boulder crashes down right in the small of her back, and she screams, her vision going white for a moment at the sheer agony of the impact, convulsing under it, bile rising in her mouth. She's retching and spitting up the remnants of her breakfast as the last few pebbles and flakes of gravel settle, a layer of thick, choking dust over the pile she's halfway buried in.

There's no sign of the Lector. Jean tries to twist about and look up, but her broken arm gives out under her, and her back is screaming with half the muscles torn, and when she tries to turn her neck alone she can't actually see past one torn, dangling glider wing.

She's gasping for air, her lungs compressed under stone and scree and further choked by the heavy dust, and pain and panic and adrenaline have her heart pounding. In the woods, under the trees, she can see Klee's pale face, her wide eyes, the way she clutches with one hand on her little book of tales that serves as a catalyst and the other tight around Dodoco. Jean mouths *'Go'*.

One thing goes right: Klee turns and bolts, rushing for the road out of the Woods.

That leaves Jean lying there, unable to see most of her surroundings, barely able to move, wracked with pain. Except for where she isn't, but Jean isn't thinking about that right now. She has to stop panicking.

Anemo still responds to her Vision's call, though she's not foolish enough to try to heal herself while she's still crushed beneath so much stone. Instead she uses it to control her breathing, dragging air in and out of lungs through her Vision's power instead of her own compressed diaphragm. As that slows and steadies, her heartbeat does, too. The pounding in her ears slowly recedes, and what Jean had thought was dizziness fades with it.

She wishes she had her sword. Instead she's channeling through her brooch, which is far from a catalyst--not that she's ever been good with catalysts. But it's enough for this one task. She won't think about what happens if the Abyss Lector does come to finish off the job.

It doesn't. Jean lies there regulating her breathing, struggling to focus on that, on the slice of woods she can see, on the ways she's going to have to rearrange the Knights' schedules in the next few days, on the wisdom of perhaps sending some of her recovery time becoming better-practiced with catalysts, anything that isn't the fear sending cold tendrils through her or the despair that threatens to choke her throat and blur her eyes. Above all, she has to stay calm.

Help comes startlingly quickly. Jean has only just gotten her breathing and heart rate fully under control and set up a rhythm she can stick to when there's a breathless, familiar shout. "Master Jean!"

"Watch out," Jean manages to croak as Amber comes pounding out of the wood and up to her. "There may be an Abyss Lector about."

"Yeah! Klee told me. Don't worry, I have a couple Baron Bunnies ready, and I told Klee to keep heading back to Mondstadt and get more people to help."

Amber is doing an admirable job of looking and sounding steady herself, though her voice wavers just a little at the end, and she's pale around the edges when she steps back to survey the pile of stone Jean is under. Jean is proud, but not surprised. The Outriders used to be responsible for wilderness rescues, when there were enough of them to handle that alone, and Amber is still usually the person who finds stranded travelers or overconfident adventurers when they run into the sort of circumstance they need to rescue from. She does know what she's doing.

In fact, just as Jean is reminding herself of that reassuring fact, Amber shoves her bow into its case and steps forward again to start taking off stones. "You're not that far in. If I get these off here, it shouldn't shift anything... can you breathe any better?"

Jean attempts a breath without any aid from her Vision and feels that the cramped feeling is mostly gone. "Yes, I can."

"Okay. Since no one else is here yet, I'm gonna take this slow! But this is way more spread out than it is piled up, so it's safe to move most of it."

Amber is well into the process of unearthing her when Albedo arrives on the scene. Jean feels something drawn tense in her relax at his presence. He's as capable of Kaeya or Eula of handling the Lector if it appears, even if he hadn't been her first thought as a rescuer.

Better yet, he's brought along a selection of survival gear that she suspects matches the contents of his emergency cabinet on Dragonspine. He leaves that to Amber as soon as she exclaims in recognition of the stretcher, though, and steps in to move the last few and largest stones instead. Amber had tested the huge boulder that had struck her in the back once, barely tilted it, and immediately decided from Jean's pained noise that she couldn't move it alone. Albedo carefully and precisely places a Transient Blossom on one side of her, just beneath an outward jut of the stone, and brings it up so that the stone tilts and then topples over on her other side.

Jean feels a bolt of rebounding pain up her back, torn muscles spasming, and chokes back a cry. She doesn't feel the same bolt going downward.

Kneeling down beside her, Albedo puts a hand to the small of her back, sending another wash of pain up her spine as he presses gently at what *must* be crushed bone. He runs his fingers lightly up from that spot to the back of her neck, prodding each vertebrae. Then the pressure returns in that painful spot, for a moment, and--nothing. Jean feels nothing at all.

She tilts her head enough to look at him, and he meets her gaze and reaches out to do something she can't make out. "Can you feel this?"

"No," Jean whispers back. "I can't feel anything."

"This?"

"No."

"And this?"

Jean can't entirely choke back the despair at that, "No."

"One last time."

Albedo's fingers are suddenly pressing down, hard, on the painful spot that makes Jean twitch all down her spine--all down the part of her spine he can *feel*--and she gasps out, "Yes."

"Hmmm." There's only the barest, slightest hint of apology lurking in his clear blue eyes; the rest is shared understanding. Jean finds herself unutterably grateful for his reserved calm as he rises again and turns to Amber. "Is the stretcher ready? We'll have to roll her onto it."

"It is," Amber says, her voice shaking harder now, face white, and Jean realizes with a sharp stab of regret that for all they'd both been quiet, for at least part of that, she'd been watching. But she drags it forward beside Jean, takes a deep breath, and looks up at Albedo. "I'm ready."

Jean manages neither to scream when they roll her onto it, nor to say more than, "It's all right," when Amber apologizes for jostling an apparently broken leg, then flinches. She lies still on the stretcher and keeps her eyes open for any sign of the Abyss Lector and guides her breath with her Vision, in and out, in and out, slow and steady, refusing to let her fear control her.

The Knights at the gate leap to help, freeing Amber from her burden, though Jean is relieved that Albedo refuses to relinquish his end of the stretcher. There's something about Geo users that seems to keep their steps always steady, and his serious calm remains a reassurance beyond what her own breath control can give. By the time they reach the second tier of stairs Noelle has come racing to take the other end, and Jean is carried to the Cathedral with as little jostling as could possibly be expected.

Sister Victoria is at the Cathedral's gates by the time they arrive, and takes ruthless control of the situation. Jean is settled in an infirmary bed by the time Barbara, whose hands are clutched in her skirts but who smiles idol-bright regardless, gets there. Jean draws in breath for a clear and honest description of her own injuries, so far as she's able to tell.

"I did a basic field examination," Albedo says before she can say the hard words of her self-report, and beckons Barbara off to a corner, facing him, so that Jean doesn't have to see her face when he says them instead.

Jean still hears her sob, once, and whisper, in a choked voice, "Big sister...." And then a deep indrawn breath of exactly the sort that Jean has been taking, and Barbara turns and starts towards the bed with a determined step and that idol's smile, only a little strained, and a nearly-cheerful, "We should start with a potion for the pain, and then I'll do- everything I can!"

---

The potion isn't just for the pain. Jean wakes in darkness; she lies still, her head fuzzy, trying to remember where she is and how she got here. Someplace close, someone is crying.

Scent and feel--medicinal herbs and familiar scratchy sheets--tell her this is the Cathedral's infirmary, so she can relax until the memory of the past day slowly filters back to her. Subtly, aware of the sobbing presence at her side, she tenses and relaxes her jaw, her arms, her back and abdomen, testing for lingering aches and pains. There's none at all, even in her lower back. Barbara is very good at what she does.

There's none at all in her legs, either, because they don't tense when Jean wishes them to. Even Barbara, best healer in Mondstadt, can only do so much. The spine is one of those few parts of the body that rarely if ever responds to magic.

Which is as good a clue as memory as to who is sitting beside her. "Barbara?" Jean whispers into the dark. It's been a long, long time since she's heard her little sister cry.

The legs of a chair scrape on the floor, and then Barbara is lurching closer, a shadow in the dark. "I'm *sorry*," she chokes out. "I tried my best, but... it wasn't enough."

There's a weight in Jean's chest that grows suddenly heavier, like another stone dropping atop her, at that admission. She hadn't even realized that she was still hoping that Barbara would say it was just taking a while, or she'd put in a nerve block, or--it doesn't matter what hopes she'd held. Those words crush them.

She swallows down her own sob of despair as they come crashing down. "It's all right," she lies, with dismay at the voice her way wavers. It refuses to steady, but she still forges on. "I am a healer too. I know how difficult nerves are, and the spine... is impossible."

Barbara swallows hard enough to be heard; her voice is a little less thick as she answers. "Not impossible," she says in a tone that's struggling to be cheerful, and failing even worse than Jean's. "Lisa says there's an Electro healer who studied in the Akademiya at the same time as her, and helps Bimarstan out sometimes with these sorts of cases. She can't always help, but... she's going to write and ask! You're the Acting Grand Master of Mondstadt, and she's Lisa's friend. I'm sure she'll come."

Or Jean can go to Bimarstan. She's afraid to have any hope at this thin reassurance. It's far from a guarantee, and to count on it... yet she can feel the weight on her chest lift just a little.

Not much. Jean wants nothing more than to burst into tears. If she was alone here, she might. But Barbara is here, and already guilty and grieving. The last thing Jean wants to do is make it worse.

*'Be strong for your sister,'* she remembers her parents saying, her mother sternly, her father kindly, both more than once. Barbara has always been the smaller of them, the weaker, the one who struggled no matter how hard she tried. Jean *can't* give into weakness in front of her, can't pile this pain on top of her own.

She holds out her arms. "It's all right, Barbara," she whispers, and pulls Barbara close when she falls into them, stroking Barbara's hair as she starts once again to try. Jean squeezes her own prickling eyes closed to keep any tears from escaping as she holds her sister tight.

---

Eventually Barbara falls asleep, and Jean after her. She wakes as the room brightens, morning's first light dancing in a dozen different colors across the room through the stained glass of the window, and finds her sister gone. A little while later a different sister of the Church comes in with breakfast--thin broth and tea--and wordlessly props Jean up with a pile of pillows before leaving her to eat.

Without anyone here to comfort, Jean feels the despair beginning to creep in. She choked the tears back too well in the night; her eyes are dry, now, belying the rising, choking tide within her breast. She takes a deep breath, then another, once again tugging at the Anemo around her to keep her breathing steady. But however steady her breathing, this time soothing her body does nothing for her mind.

Even if Lisa's friend from Bimarstan can come, even if she can help, Jean doubts it would be a quick or easy solution. When those things that so rarely respond to magic *do* happen to recover, whether magically or otherwise, it's a long, slow process, working by inches to regain feeling, or sight, or movement, or speech. The Cathedral has a half-dozen such cases already. For few do they expect to do more than maintain or slightly improve their quality of life.

So Jean can't count on that. If she assumes that this is her future--her chest squeezes tight, refusing the Anemo forced into it, until she closes her eyes and counts to ten and tries again, slowly loosening it--then what does she do next? Her days in the field are over. That means her days of leading the Ordo are over. She might remain Acting Grand Master in name until Varka returns, though perhaps it would be better to formally and officially return to Master of the Knights and give Kaeya the title, but there's no question now of her ever becoming Grand Master in earnest. Nor remaining Master of the Knights, at that. It's a more administratively-focused position, but both are expected to provide leadership in battle, and she cannot.

A future outside the Knights looms large and terrifying, empty of all purpose. With effort, Jean turns her mind away.

Until Grand Master Varka *does* return, it's unwise to make such a dramatic change in the Knights' command structure as to remove herself entirely. She can still handle the administrative side of affairs, in fact might do better at staying on top of it without anything else to handle. If Kaeya takes over as central commander in the field it will detract from certain other work he does, but she's not a fool. She does know Sister Rosaria does enough similar work that she might be able to ask her, obliquely, for more assistance--or even have her reassigned to the Knights as an adjunct for the duration, though that would be a fight with both the Church and, she suspects, Rosaria herself. And while she hates to lean upon Diluc, under the circumstances-

Diluc. What will he have to say about this? He's left the Knights, too, but she can't ask him for any advice about her future. Diluc left with a purpose of his own, a righteous one, even if she disapproves of some of the methods with which he pursues it. He still protects Mondstadt, in his own way. He still *can* protect Mondstadt. Jean has trained all her life as a knight, dedicated heart and body and soul to its defense. Now she's nothing but a broken shield, her very presence on the battlefield a weakness rather than a strength.

Jean tries to make herself stop *thinking* of this, to focus on the immediate needs of the situation, to drown her fears in expediency. It isn't working. Every thought leads to the yawning depths of the life ahead, robbed of her family's ancient duty and the calling she feels in her own heart, without the strength to serve Mondstadt as has always been her joy.

Perhaps she can find a place in the Cathedral. They're always in need of healers, and while she'll never be Barbara's match, she could learn to use her healing more delicately than battlefield medicine requires. It isn't what she *wants*, but that's a selfish thought; it's still service, will still help Mondstadt. If she has to give up the career she's pursued her entire life, the work at which she excels, the comrades with whom she's fought side-by-side, whose lives she's saved and to whom she owes her own life....

Jean's chest has once again tight, and this time she can't focus herself enough to loosen it. She starts a flow of Anemo and then thinks, this is something she could do as a Church healer, and then she's imagining herself sitting there forcing air in and out of lungs as she's done a time or two in the field, and then her chest tightens again. She abandons all control of the Anemo around her and just sits there wheezing until it loosens of its own accord, unable in any way to heal herself.

The broth and tea still sit on the side table. Jean has no desire to eat, feels almost nauseous with revulsion at the thought, but she knows that she needs to after such a complex healing. There's no point in making Barbara and the other sisters' lives more difficult. She picks up the bowl, manages one lukewarm spoonful, and tells herself she's warming up for another as she chases the one stray slice of spring onion that hadn't been strained out around the bowl with her spoon.

Before she can wind herself up for that second spoonful, there's a knock on the door. Jean knows who it is from the cadence before Kaeya pushes the door open. He's filthy, covered in dust with his boots smeared with dried mud all the way to the top, and he moves with the careful walk of someone who's been riding far too long as he appropriates Barbara's chair.

"You're meeting with the commander of the Millelith in Liyue Harbor today," is all Jean can think to say.

"Unfortunately, I had to cut that conference short. That does mean the Tianquan will know what's happened by this afternoon, but even if I'd been here already, she would have known by tomorrow evening in any case." He flicks the whole subject away with a hand and leans in. "Lisa filled me in. How are you?"

Jean takes a deep breath, sits up as much straighter as she can manage when she can only rely on the pillows to hold her, and gets ready to fill him in. "I've considered the situation, and I think it may be best to name you Acting Grand Master, and resume a support role as Master of the Knights until Grand Master Varka returns. I should still be capable of all the administrative duties of the Acting Grand Master, and fully intend to continue doing them, so as not to completely overwhelm you with work. I may even be able to take over your work as Quartermaster for the duration, but the Knights need a commander fit to take the field. I had thought to ask if Sister Rosaria might-"

"*Jean*," Kaeya interrupts, leaning in, looking at her seriously. "How are *you*?"

All of Jean's efforts to stave off the tightness fail at that question, and it feels as if her chest caves in on itself. Now the tears come, her throat closing and her eyes prickling. She calls Anemo again to help her breathe past it and blinks hard.

"I have to talk to Klee," she says, desperate for something, *anything* to say that won't turn into a sob. "She saw everything, and one of her explosives was involved. There were clearly errors... I should have fully considered the safety ramifications of allowing her to bury them, even well away from habitations and with their locations marked as she has been doing. Those will have to be addressed, but I don't wish her to think that she was at fault."

"I've already talked to her," Lisa says, coming in through the open doorway. "Albedo has, too. You have an *adorable* get well-card on the way, though it might be a little delayed. I mentioned that the wheelchairs they use at Bimarstan would be useful if not for all of Mondstadt's stairs, and she and Albedo got distracted trying to design a chair that could handle them.... But let us handle her for a little while."

"Thank you," Jean whispers, and, humiliatingly, sniffles, unable any longer to hold back the tears.

Lisa, not even bothering to look around for a second chair, comes around the bed to sit directly beside Jean. She rests a hand on Jean's arm, and her perfume fills the air, familiar and comforting, the same sweet roses with a faint deeper undertone that has surrounded Jean a thousand times when she's come to the library to steal a quiet moment and a cup of tea. As always, Lisa's presence is all it takes to coax her secrets out.

"I'll- I can do my best to help the Knights, until Grand Master Varka returns," she chokes out. "But I can no longer *be* a knight. I can't- I am meant to be Mondstadt's sword and shield, and yet I cannot serve- there is so little I can *do*."

Kaeya leans in further, tensed to rise from his chair, shoulders shifting and hands coming up as he looks at her in uncertain question. Jean gladly holds out an arm, and he steps forward and rests his knee on the bed and pulls her into a hug, one of the sort she's felt too old for since first was made a captain. Lisa slides in closer behind Jean and wraps an arm around her from the back, and Jean buries her face in Kaeya's shoulder, dust and all, and lets his cape soak up her tears.

"You know," Kaeya says, "the Inspector's position has been open for what is it, now? Five years? It requires someone of utmost integrity to fill the position, preferably with considerable experience, and it isn't a combat role."

Lisa chimes in, rubbing Jean's shoulder comfortingly with her free hand. "I'm sure Barbara has already told you that I've written to an old associate from Sumeru. Even if she can't be as much help as I hope, Sumeru is much more forward-thinking about these sorts of problems than Mondstadt is, and she may have some ideas. I wouldn't count out Klee's 'Bouncy-Jouncy Carriage,' either."

"And while Diluc might make a production out of insisting you needn't stay a knight, you know he'll do whatever it takes to get you any help you need," Kaeya adds. "The Dawn Winery's name and money can open plenty of doors."

"I know." More tears are welling up, and Jean clutches at Kaeya for support as she's wracked by a sob. "Thank you. Please don't- I would rather not, right now, but- thank you."

"Whatever you like, darling," Lisa says, and Jean can feel Kaeya's nod.

Another sob takes her, and another, and in the arms of her two best friends she curls around the weight of despair in her chest and lets them hold her through it, just for a little while. There will be time for hopes, for plans, for rebuilding the future around everything that's just changed. Right now, Jean needs this space to mourn.

#ngl the mood on this one has... external influences. but here we are #fic bits #asked and answered #why not meme i guess #someone please give jean a nap

15 notes · View notes