#i had other stuff to draw and i still drew this last night bc even if i don't like itachi as much as i like the others | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

flames-tstuff · 4 years ago

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Okay so, um, I hope you don’t mind me requesting something! ^.^ 💕 You always support me and I wanna support you too!

So, Uraraka and Ojiro. Fluff & Tickles. The idea is that Uraraka is stressed out and one way she copes is by coloring, and Bakugou or whoever sees her and teases her, then Ojiro defends her and says like, it’s fine to be a kid sometimes, bc they’ve grown up pretty fast. And so like, the next day they go to a park and swing, he gets her ice cream, then they go back to the dorm and color while watching cartoons, and then a tickle scene happens on the cartoon, and then it leads to him tickling her and hugs and cuddles and friendship. Aaaaa 🙈

To Be a Kid Again (BNHA)

Ojiro wants to show Uraraka that it’s okay to be a kid again sometimes.

Pairings: Platonic Uraraka and Ojiro

Warnings: Bakugou being a jerk, some light angst

Word count: 1.9k

A/N: Omg this is such a cute pairing!! I've never even considered them together, either as friends or as partners. What would their ship name be? Ojiraka? Also, I've never written for either of them, so I hope this is okay!

Uraraka was tired. It had been a long day at school, and despite the fact that it was only Wednesday, she was more than ready for the weekend.

After changing out of her uniform and grabbing a couple items from her room, Uraraka flopped down onto one of the couches of the commons with a heavy sigh. She really didn’t have anything to do now that classes were over for the day. She’d already finished her homework and dinner wasn’t for another or hour or so. Despite how exhausted she was, she had just enough energy left to do one of her favorite activities to pass the time: coloring.

She didn’t know why exactly, but something about sitting down and letting herself get lost in the mindlessness of coloring had always been soothing to her. So there she was, sitting on the couch crisscross, using her knee as a table and getting to work. After a few minutes, the brain fog that had been plaguing Uraraka the last couple of hours began to disappear, and her mind was back as ease.

That was, until Bakugou came into the room. Looking just as tired and grumpy as she felt, Bakugou was about to head up to his room when Uraraka accidentally caught his eye.

“What are you looking at, Round Face?”

She quickly looked back down at her lap in alarm. “N-Nothing. Sorry.”

Bakugou continued to glare her way when he noticed the book in her lap and the pile of markers next to her. He came a few feet closer, eyeing it suspiciously.

“Tch. What are you, five years old?”

“Wh… what do you mean?”

At this time, Ojiro had just entered the commons and was just about to step into the elevator when the other students’ conversation caught his attention.

“Coloring books? Seriously? That shit’s for babies.”

Uraraka felt her cheeks start to burn.

“Hey, hey!” Ojiro jogged over to see what the commotion was about. Bakugou tended to pick fights pretty easily. “What’s going on here?”

Bakugou just crossed his arms and scowled at him.

Ojiro looked down at Uraraka, whose ears and cheeks were painted red. He then noticed the art supplies surrounding her. “Is he giving you a hard time?”

Uraraka just looked back and forth between the two of them, not daring to say anything.

“I heard you say something was ‘for babies,’” Ojiro turned to Bakugou with a stern look on his face. “You weren’t talking about coloring, were you?”

Again, silence.

“It’s really not, you know. People draw and color all the time! Besides, even if it was, what’s wrong with that? Everyone should be allowed to do things they enjoy, especially something as harmless as coloring. I don’t see what the problem is.”

“The problem is that we’re trying to be heroes!” Bakugou shot back. “Heroes shouldn’t be doing childish shit like that! If you really wanted to be a hero you’d be out training!”

Ojiro sighed, a little exasperated. “Of course training is important. But rest is important too. Doing things you love is important. If you don’t take the time to be a kid and let loose a little, you’re going to burn out. No pun intended, in your case, Bakugou.” Ojiro smiled, a little teasingly.

“Ugh, whatever,” Bakugou relented and headed back towards the elevator. “Whatever it’ll take for you to shut up and stop lecturing me.”

Uraraka and Ojiro both snickered at that, and in a few moments, it was just the two of them.

“Sorry about that,” Ojiro said apologetically. “Bakugou can be a real pain sometimes.”

“No kidding,” she agreed. “Um… thanks. You really didn’t have to do that. I’m sure I would’ve been okay on my own.”

“Of course you would have! But what are friends for?” Ojiro smiled brightly, holding out his hand. Uraraka smiled back and accepted the hand up. “You hungry? I think it’s about time for dinner.”

~~~

The next day was just as hard, though Uraraka did feel a little better after a good night’s sleep.

After dinner the previous night, Ojiro had asked if she’d want to hang out the next day after classes, in attempt to keep tabs on her since her fight with Bakugou. She assured him she was fine, but he insisted that it was his treat, so she obliged.

“So where are we going?” Uraraka asked walking next to Ojiro on the sidewalk.

“I’m taking you to one of my favorite places.” The two entered a chain link-fenced area.

“…a playground?”

“Yep! This was one of my favorite places in the world as a kid, and it still is. Come on! Let’s swing!”

And before she could argue, Ojiro grabbed her hand and tugged her along towards the swing set. Thankfully there wasn’t anyone else around, so they had the place to themselves.

“So,” Uraraka started, swinging her legs a little. “Why are we doing this exactly? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love hanging out! But where is this coming from?”

Ojiro laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, a little sheepish. “I was thinking, well… I wanted to show you that’s it’s okay to be a kid. To let loose a little. You seemed like you needed it, especially after what happened yesterday.”

Uraraka’s heart warmed at that. She really couldn’t ask for better classmates as friends.

Ojiro’s expression dropped to something a little more serious. “I’ve realized that we’ve all had to grow up so fast in these last few years. It makes me kind of sad.”

“Why is that?” Uraraka questioned.

“Don’t you miss this kind of stuff?” He gestured to the rest of the play set. “As much as I hate it, I think you and I both know there’s some truth to what Bakugou said yesterday. Heroes are supposed to be constantly training, constantly trying to grow and improve their skills. All that’s great, but it leaves no room to be what we actually are… teens. Kids. Don’t you ever feel like you grew up too fast?”

Uraraka couldn’t help but think about her parents. How, as just a little girl, barely old enough to go to school, she committed to helping them make money in any way she could. All the experiences she’d missed out on when she was younger due to her family’s financial situation. “Yeah… I guess I do.”

Ojiro offered a sympathetic smile. “That’s why it’s times like these, in the little spare moments we have to ourselves, that we can take the time to indulge that inner child.”

Uraraka took a moment to digest his words. “I think I understand now.” Then, in a small, hopeful voice: “Maybe... a-after we’re done here, we could... um... get some ice cream?”

Ojiro grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.” He hopped off his swing. “Race ya!”

“Hey, no fair!” Uraraka laughed and chased after him.

~~~

After getting their ice cream—strawberry for Uraraka and vanilla for Ojiro—the two friends happily walked back to the dorms together.

“By the way,” Ojiro said, “I never got the chance to tell you, but I saw your coloring book, and well… it looks really good!”

“Oh!” Uraraka looked down, a little embarrassed. “Hah, thanks…”

He could tell she did believe him. “I’m being serious! I think it’s really cool that you’re into that kind of stuff. Have you always liked coloring? You seem to be good at it.”

“Yeah, but I really can’t take much credit. I mean, it’s just filling in the shapes. It’s not like I drew it,” she reasoned, licking her ice cream.

“Hey, I can hardly stay in the lines, so it’s impressive to me.”

Uraraka laughed, knowing he was probably just saying that to make her feel good, but she appreciated it nonetheless.

“Thank you,” she said, speaking as sincere as possible. They had made it back to the common area of the dorms where they stood, waiting to depart to their own rooms. “For everything.”

Ojiro realized she thought he had brought her back here to say goodbye. “Hey, if you want, you can hang in my room.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! We could watch TV, or if you have homework to work on, I won’t bother you.”

She smiled. “I’d love that. Thanks again, Ojiro, you’re the best.” She threw her arms around him in a tight hug. Ojiro was a little taken aback, but quickly returned the gesture.

The two friends sat comfortably on his bed with their backs against the wall. The TV droned on in the background, mostly forgotten, as they chatted about school and their weekend plans.

Once the conversation died out, they settled down to watch what was playing on the screen, falling into comfortable silence. One of the characters poked the other, making them jump back and laugh. Ojiro smiled at the scene and stole a quick glance at Uraraka to see how she was doing, just in time to see her blush a little at the sight. It was so brief, if he hadn’t looked at just the right moment he would’ve missed it.

Suddenly feeling mischievous, Ojiro darted his hands to Uraraka’s sides and began squeezing, making her squeal and fall back on the bed in a fit of happy giggles.

“Ohohjiroho! Eeeep! Whaha—Why? Hahaha!”

“Because! I wanna hear you laugh! Didn’t I tell you to start letting loose?”

Uraraka was too weak and giddy to respond or do much more than weakly bat his hands in a half-hearted attempt.

Ojiro made the mistake of coming closer to get better purchase on her ribs, and Uraraka pushed through the tickly feeling just enough to be able to reach a hand up and scratch at the base of his spine, making him yelp and jerk away. This gave Uraraka just enough time to gain the upper hand by pushing him down and straddling his waist with her knees.

“Uraraka, wa-HAHAHAIT!” he burst into loud belly laughter as she began kneading up and down his torso the same way he had done to her.

“Maybe you should start taking your own advice, Ojiro!” she laughed with him. “Come on, you shouldn’t be afraid of being a kid again, right? Tickle tickle!”

This made his cheeks turn bright red and his laugh go a few pitches higher.

Uraraka was feeling all-powerful with Ojiro now at her mercy. That was, until she felt a soft, feathery feeling against her neck and under her chin, making her flinch and snort.

“Ohohoh my gohohosh, you snohorted!” Ojrio teased through his own laughter.

“N-no fahahair!” Uraraka stammered out as best she could. “You shohouldn’t be allowed t-to use your tahahail!”

“Wehehell too bahad! I’m using it!”

The two stayed like that, trying to out-tickle each other—Uraraka going at his ribs and belly, and Ojiro trying his best to throw her off using his tail to brush all over her neck and sides, both laughing hysterically. Eventually Uraraka was weakened just enough for Ojiro to get her back one last time before they both collapsed in exhaustion.

“Jeez, you don’t give up easy, do you?” Uraraka panted, a big smile still on her face.

“No,” Ojiro agreed. “But you held out pretty long too, I’m impressed.”

After finally catching their breath, Uraraka opened her arms in offering. “Cuddles?”

Ojiro couldn’t have refused the offer if he tried. “Heh. Yeah, cuddles.”

He scooted closer and wrapped his arms around her torso, leaning his head into her shoulder. She wrapped her arms around him in return, resting her head atop his.

And there they stayed for the rest of the evening.

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robininthelabyrinth · 5 years ago

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My fav MDZS stories are ones where Mo Xuanyu lives and WWX takes him under his wing when the Sacrifice Summons goes slightly wrong. I would love to see your version of this au bc your writing is very very good and I've fallen in love. However you want to character MXY is fine, but I know you'll make him compelling.

also on ao3 because long

“It’s not wrong if you write it down,” Mo Xuanyu muttered to himself like a mantra as he scribbled down a rough explanation of what he was going to do. “If you write it down, it’s just an experiment, and that makes it okay.”

That’s what they used to say back at Koi Tower. Not all of them, no – most people didn’t talk to him, stupid shy useless stuttering bastard that he was.

But Jin Guangyao had smiled at him, smiled the way he smiled at everyone no matter how lowly, and Mo Xuanyu, flattered at the unfamiliar feeling of positive familial attention, had tentatively smiled back. That had been a mistake, of course, but he hadn’t realized it at the time – he was still young, then.

He hadn’t been crazy, then.

(Had he? He didn’t remember. The screaming nightmares weren’t until later, after he’d swallowed down that medicine that Jin Guangyao gave to him, that he’d forced down his throat with Xue Yang holding his shoulders down – they’d been regretful about it, he remembered that. That’d been nice. No one’d ever been sorry about what they’d done to him before. Or after, for that matter.)

That came later, though. Towards the end. The experiments – that was earlier, wasn’t it?

Yes. Back when Jin Guangyao still thought he might be useful, and he let him follow him around; back before Xue Yang had disappeared – wait, if Xue Yang had disappeared, who’d held him down? – back when he still called him Xue-gege because Xue Yang thought it was funny, and if he did that he could sit around in a place where no one would find him and watch while Xue Yang did…stuff.

Usually bad stuff.

Still, it was better than being anywhere else in Koi Tower. With Madame Jin, who hated him and threw things at him, just like Auntie Mo did, and his father who wanted him to talk about girls (Mo Xuanyu didn’t know anything about girls), and all the people who giggled at him and talked about him behind their sleeves as if he couldn’t still hear them.

If you write it down, it’s just an experiment, Jin Guangyao told him, smiling, because he always smiled. That’s why what Xue Yang does is okay.

Xue Yang taught him the basics of drawing arrays, how to hold the brush in your hand and push spiritual energy into it. Mo Xuanyu didn’t have very much, so it made him very tired and then he dropped the brush; that made Xue Yang laugh at him, push him down until his face was on the ground so he could get a better look at what he was drawing, and then he got bored and pulled him back up to try again.

It was still better than being taught by the Jin sect cultivators who sneered at him and ordered him to get hit with boards any time he made a mistake, and Mo Xuanyu made a lot of mistakes.

Mo Xuanyu didn’t like to talk to people much, wasn’t very good at it. Wasn’t much good for anything, really.

Except this, he supposed. This was something he could do.

Xue Yang taught him the basics of drawing arrays, but it was only ever the basics – as soon as he figured out how to do it, Jin Guangyao took over the teaching, and he only ever wanted Mo Xuanyu to learn one array in specific.

It didn’t have a name. It was an ancient, forbidden technique; those didn’t get names. Jin Guangyao’d found it in a book, hidden on an abandoned old mountain – a place where lots of people died in a battle a long time ago, and then again not so long ago – and he’d thought it was just right for Mo Xuanyu.

The array required blood, blood of the caster, incisions all over – painful ones – and the point of it was to offer up your body to some extremely villainous ghoul so that it could take revenge for you.

“But I don’t want revenge,” he’d told Jin Guangyao, plaintive and naïve. “And I don’t know any villainous ghouls.”

“You don’t have to ask for revenge,” Jin Guangyao had told him, patient. He was always patient when he wanted something. “You can ask for something else, if you want. Revenge is just the usual reason.”

“Not many things besides revenge are worth sacrificing your soul for,” Xue Yang had opined, and Jin Guangyao had glared at him like he’d said something stupid. “What? It’s true.”

“We’ll discuss the Chang clan later, Chengmei. I was talking to Xuanyu.”

Mo Xuanyu had been poking at the manuscripts, feeling doubtful, and Xue Yang’d huffed and grabbed them. “Don’t touch the papers! Wei Wuxian didn’t leave much behind; I’m not losing the bit we got.”

“Wei Wuxian,” Mo Xuanyu had said, feeling the weight of it on his tongue. He didn’t know much, but even he’d heard about the Yiling Patriarch. “Is he the villainous ghoul you want me to summon?”

“No,” Xue Yang’d giggled. “He wants you to bring back Nie Mingjue.”

Mo Xuanyu hadn’t known that name – he really didn’t know anything – but the weeks that Jin Guangyao thought that he could one day become him were probably the best in his life. He’d never been petted or coaxed before, never been treated so well; he ate nice food every day, wore nice clothing, slept as late as he liked, took lots of baths…Jin Guangyao wanted his body to be in good condition before he did the ritual. He gave him lotions to make his skin feel soft, used medicine to nourish his organs, spent hours and hours teaching him to braid his hair the way the Nies did, all complicated and pretty yet practical.

(“He’ll hate it so much,” Jin Guangyao whispered in his ear on the nights he let Mo Xuanyu share his pillow. “Soft and decadent and weak – you’ve got the weakest golden core I’ve ever seen, Xuanyu, weaker even than me, and you’re too useless to even have any ambition to make it stronger. I could push you down with one hand, overpower you, make you crawl…no one will ever be scared of you. Let’s see how much you like being the weak one, da-ge.”)

It’d only been when the ritual failed – not just once, but many times, no matter how many cuts Mo Xuanyu made on his arms or how well he painted the array – that Jin Guangyao had given up on Mo Xuanyu.

They hadn’t been able to figure out why it wasn’t working, back then, but now Mo Xuanyu thought that maybe he just hadn’t wanted it enough back then. He’d wanted to make Jin Guangyao happy, yes, and he hadn’t really cared what it cost to do it – Jin Guangyao’s arguments that he was useless and pointless, his life worthless, and so he might as well do something useful with his death were pretty convincing – but he hadn’t wanted it.

He wanted it now, though.

Something worth sacrificing your soul – it really could only be revenge, couldn’t it? Xue-gege knew what he was talking about. Revenge was something you needed, something that ate away at your soul until sacrificing it was the only thing left to be done with it, and that, that, was what was going to make the ritual work this time.

Mo Xuanyu was going to get revenge. Revenge on Auntie Mo, on Master Mo, on Mo Ziyuan, on A-Tong…they deserved it. He hated them. He hated what they did to him and how often they did it, he hated that this was his life and that nothing would ever get better, he hated hated hated…!

(“You don’t have to do this,” the young sect leader surnamed Nie had told him when they’d had tea for the last time. He’d bought Mo Xuanyu the cosmetics he liked – he’d offered to buy him something nicer, but Mo Xuanyu had his preferences; the expensive stuff didn’t feel heavy and greasy on his face, didn’t make him feel like he’d painted himself into being somebody else, someone braver. “Just so you know.”

“I know,” Mo Xuanyu’d said. Sect Leader Nie had come to ask him for any information he had about Jin Guangyao. He didn’t say why, but – Nie, Mo Xuanyu’d thought to himself, Nie like Nie Mingjue – he hadn’t been at all expecting to hear the story Mo Xuanyu’d had to tell him. He hadn’t been the one to suggest the ritual, that’d been Mo Xuanyu – he hated, hated, hated – but Mo Xuanyu never did learn the name of any of those extremely villainous ghouls so he’d asked him for a suggestion.

He’d suggested Wei Wuxian, and that’d made Mo Xuanyu giggle to the point of hysterics. Don’t touch the papers, Wei Wuxian didn’t leave much behind – oh, Xue-gege, you’d think this was so funny!)

“Gotta write it down,” he said to himself as he made the cuts and drew the array: it was already starting to glow in a way it hadn’t any of the other times he’d done it, and it wasn’t that he’d gotten any stronger. “Writing it down makes it okay…”

He went to get some paper, and that’s when the cat came in. A big old fisher cat, vicious and mean.

And, well, Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang were always talking about how you’re supposed to try stuff out before you do the real thing – practice makes perfect, that’s what they always said, until the day Jin Guangyao got tired of Xue Yang’s practice and made him disappear, and after that it wasn’t all that long until the day that he got tired of Mo Xuanyu, too, and made the sect kick him out.

(They said he was a cutsleeve, which was true, and they said he’d attacked Jin Guangyao, which was laughable – wasn’t Jin Guangyao the one who was always commenting on how weak Mo Xuanyu was? But that was after he drank the medicine that came with the nightmares and the weird spasms and the rest of it, and it wasn’t as if anyone in Koi Tower had ever listened to anything he said even before that.)

He wasn’t actually going to do anything bad to the cat. He just wanted to use it to make sure he got the markings all done right; it wasn’t as if the array would actually work, not without him in the middle – this array ran on resentment, on revenge, and how much resentment could a cat have?

Apparently Mo Xuanyu’d underestimated cats, or possibly his array-drawing skills, or maybe even it was only that he’d poured so much hatred into the array that when he put the cat down in the middle to see if the positioning was right the whole thing exploded right in Mo Xuanyu’s face.

He woke up to Mo Ziyuan kicking him and yelling about how dare he report him to his parents (he hadn’t reported anything, just asked for his stuff back, he hadn’t even meant to do that because he knew it was pointless but they’d asked what he was thinking about and it had just slipped out) while A-Tong broke all his stuff, but that was pretty normal so he didn’t think too much about it.

The cat leaping for Mo Ziyuan’s face, howling something that sounded an awful lot like the words fuck you except sort of halfway into being a cat’s meow, was new.

Kind of funny, too.

Mo Xuanyu giggled and lay back down on the floor while Mo Ziyuan ran out, crying for his mother, with A-Tong right on his heels as always.

The cat made its way back over to him and jumped up on his chest, looking down at him. It was a pretty handsome cat, now that Mo Xuanyu was looking at it: long and black, with white on its chest and like little socks on its forepaws, a noble appearance that had been concealed by the messy state of its fur.

“I’m sorry I accidentally nearly sacrificed you to a villainous ghoul,” Mo Xuanyu said to it.

“Who told you that I’m a villainous ghoul?” the cat said back. “You couldn’t find another wandering ghost as harmless as me!”

Mo Xuanyu was crazy, yes, but it wasn’t – it wasn’t that type of crazy. He had fits that sent him down to the floor, limbs thrashing crazily; he had days in which he wanted to do nothing but die; screaming nightmares at night and sometimes during the day, hearing and seeing things that weren’t there…

This was still new.

“Did you just talk?” he checked.

“You bet I talked,” the cat said. “Now tell me, how in the world did you manage to offer up the body of a cat? That’s not how that ritual’s supposed to work!”

“It was supposed to be my body, Master Cat,” Mo Xuanyu explained. “But they said that you should always try something out first –”

“First off, you shouldn’t be sacrificing yourself either,” the cat said. “That’s your soul you’re talking about – the ritual just says the soul goes back to the earth, but what if it destroys it entirely? You could’ve been doomed never to reincarnate!”

“That sounds restful,” Mo Xuanyu said wistfully.

“…you have serious issues. You know that, right?”

“Yes, Master Cat.”

“Stop calling me ‘Master Cat’. You know my name, you can use it.”

Mo Xuanyu blinked, long and slow. “But I don’t know your name? You were just the stray that lived out back behind the grocer…”

“I’m Wei Wuxian! You summoned me here and offered me a body!”

Mo Xuanyu hadn’t realized it’d worked. “Does that mean you won’t help me get revenge?” he asked, disappointed.

“I don’t exactly have much of a choice, do I?” The cat – Wei Wuxian – huffed. “That stupid ritual…how many cuts do you have?”

“Four,” Mo Xuanyu said automatically, except when he checked they were about half-there, half-gone, and after a little bit of investigating it looked like the other half of them were echoed in appropriately parallel locations on Wei Wuxian’s fuzzy feline body. “Oops.”

“Oops, he says,” Wei Wuxian said, but he already sounded cheerful again. “Seems like you bound our souls together when you brought me back – probably because there were too many souls in the center of the array, once you added in the cat. Anyway, don’t count me out – two legs or four, I can still help you get revenge. Who on, by the way?”

Mo Xuanyu tried to explain. He wasn’t very good at it, tongue tripping over his words as he tried to put into words why he hated them so much that the idea of killing them had possessed him in every one of his three souls and seven spirits, and it all sounded really stupid when he said it so he went off on a tangent and explained how his father had wanted to use him but he was too useless for that, and his half-brother wanted to kill him but he was too useless for that, and his family just wanted him to die, but –

“Too useless for that,” Wei Wuxian said, and his ears were pinned back against his head with his hackles raised and fur all puffed up all over. “Yeah, I got the gist. Okay. I’m sold. Let’s kill ‘em.”

“Really?”

“…I’m actually pretty bad at cold-blooded murder, even if the people you want me to kill do sound like scum. Hmm. Maybe we could just cause them a lot of trouble? A lot of trouble?”

“That seems like a bad idea,” Mo Xuanyu said doubtfully.

It was, if only because Mo Xuanyu was about as terrible at causing a disaster as he was at anything else.

Wei Wuxian ran off into the main greeting hall and started knocking things around, bellowing unconvincing meows as if he’d never met a cat in his life, and Mo Xuanyu wanted to die of embarrassment, stuttering apologies at the visiting Lan sect disciples that looked about as awkward about the whole thing as he was.

(They’d tried to get him to deal with the fierce corpses first, sending him out to the hills and yelling at him to do something, but he’d never been invited to night-hunts back at the Jin sect so he just stood around uselessly until they’d given up and invited some real cultivators.)

Auntie Mo was furious – even more so when Mo Ziyuan showed up and started trying to hit Mo Xuanyu for being a liar, except he wasn’t lying (Wei Wuxian had shouted something about theft and robbery, about cutting off someone’s hand if they stole from him again, and everyone thought it was Mo Xuanyu doing the yelling and then he’d had to explain, hadn’t he?) and eventually the entire thing got to be so stressful that it brought on one of his fits.

He woke up not long afterward, with his head in a Lan sect disciple’s lap – he was transferring spiritual energy, which was nice of him but unnecessary – and Wei Wuxian on his chest, frantically licking his cheek and trying to whisper questions of “Are you okay? Mo Xuanyu? Can you hear me?” into his ear.

“I’m okay,” he said, blinking away the daze. There were broken teacups and wine jars tossed all around – it must have been one of the screaming fits, where he threw himself down on the floor and tossed and turned and screamed and sometimes frothed at the mouth. He broke a lot of things during those fits, almost always his own. “Sorry for disturbing you.”

“I told you he was a lunatic,” Auntie Mo said, her voice shrill as always. “Always breaking our things, and then he still complains when A-Yuan borrows a little, as if he wouldn’t just break it himself anyway…! Wretched thing! Useless thing! Honored cultivators, please pardon us this embarrassment, forgive me. We’ll take him away at once –”

Mo Xuanyu flinched, and the Lan sect cultivator who still had his fingers on his pulse frowned. He was very young, and Lan sect; he’d probably never encountered a lunatic before. “No need,” he said. “We need to go and get started with setting up the array in the Western Courtyard. Senior Mo here can show us where it is…can’t you?”

“I can,” Mo Xuanyu said, eager to avoid being locked away again. He scrambled to his feet, not forgetting to scoop up Wei Wuxian the troublemaker. “Follow me.”

They said a few more words, reminders not to go outside once the array was set up, and then they followed him, talking quietly behind him –

“Why’d you call him Senior, Sizhui?” one of the Lan sect disciples was asking the other in an undertone. “He’s a lunatic!”

“He’s a cultivator,” the one that had helped him earlier said. “He has a golden core, and he’s older than we are; that means he’s a senior.”

“He’s got a golden core? No way! He paints his face like he’s a hanged ghost!”

“Jingyi! What does it matter what he does with his face? It’s true, I felt it when I transferred him spiritual energy. Anyway, I didn’t want him to get punished just for having a fit…hey!”

That last exclamation had been because Wei Wuxian had twisted out of Mo Xuanyu’s arms and leaped towards the flags they were carrying, snatching one to the ground and rolling around with it.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Mo Xuanyu said, wanting to cry. He didn’t have any grudge against these Lan sect disciples; why was Wei Wuxian making trouble for them? “I didn’t mean to mess up your flag formation, or the…”

“Spirit Summon Flag,” Wei Wuxian muttered from his feet and Mo Xuanyu quickly used a foot to slide him back behind him and pretended he’d been the one to speak, smiling earnestly at them. “Weak, with a range of no more than five li, but serviceable enough; they can go ahead and use it.”

“You know about Spirit Summon Flags?” the taller Lan sect disciple – the one who’d been called Jingyi – asked, looking surprised, and Lan Sizhui elbowed him in the ribs.

Mo Xuanyu shrugged helplessly. “They used them sometimes at the Jin sect,” he said, which was true, even though he’d never gotten involved in that sort of thing. Saying that just made them all look even more surprised, though; probably at the idea that a lunatic like him had been part of the Jin sect in any way shape or form. “That was back before I went crazy. And you don’t have to call me senior – I got kicked out before I learned anything useful.”

“You’re still a fellow cultivator,” Lan Sizhui said, and smiled at him. Mo Xuanyu felt his face go red and he looked away, regretting how easily he showed his emotions; it would probably embarrass Lan Sizhui later on, when he heard the rumors about Mo Xuanyu’s sexual preference. That wasn’t the reason he’d blushed, he’d never had any interest in children – it was only that he liked it when people smiled at him.

“I’ll be going,” he said, and grabbed at Wei Wuxian again, only to miss and nearly trip before finally managing to pick him up. “Good luck with your hunt. I hope it goes well.”

It did not go well. Mo Ziyuan got himself killed by stealing a Spirit Summon Flag – Mo Xuanyu and Wei Wuxian both checked their left arm or forepaw at the same time, seeing the cut there heal up before their eyes; apparently the curse considered it to be close enough, maybe because Wei Wuxian had invented the thing – and somehow Mo Xuanyu ended up being accused of his murderer.

And that was before things got really bad.

“Set up a blocking array at the corner,” Wei Wuxian hissed in his ear.

“I can’t!” Mo Xuanyu said, hiding behind a tree. “I don’t know any arrays!”

“What?! Impossible. You did the body offering array – that’s extremely difficult, especially for someone of your cultivation level.”

“It’s the only one I was ever taught,” Mo Xuanyu explained, and Wei Wuxian’s fur suddenly puffed up all over again.

“Someone is going to die, and not necessarily the Mo family,” he said darkly; it might have been more intimidating if Mo Xuanyu hadn’t tied a red ribbon around his throat earlier to try to make the idea of him being someone’s pet a little more believable. “Whoever did that really only wanted you for one thing, didn’t they? I wonder why they wanted me back so badly.”

Mo Xuanyu was about to explain that actually Wei Wuxian hadn’t been the original target, but then there was more yelling – the Lan sect juniors were very competent but the ghost hand was terrifying – and Wei Wuxian got distracted, hissing at Mo Xuanyu to kick Lan Jingyi.

He obeyed on instinct, which saved Lan Sizhui’s life, and then Wei Wuxian was out of his hands again, streaking towards the corpses like a bolt of feline lightning, and suddenly there were three more corpses standing up and fighting against the possessed remains of Auntie Mo.

“Looks like I can still cultivate,” Wei Wuxian said happily, strolling back over and using the tree to leap back up to Mo Xuanyu’s shoulder. “I thought I should be able to use your golden core, given the way the curse bound us together…how are we doing on the curse, anyway?”

Mo Xuanyu checked. “I think that’s everyone, actually? I should thank whoever sent the ghost hand.”

Wei Wuxian was silent for a moment. “Huh, you’re right,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking about it at first, but those Spirit Summon Flags definitely didn’t have enough of a range to summon a ghost hand like that from far away – and we would have heard of a lot more deaths if it’d been that close. Someone must have released it near here.”

Mo Xuanyu hadn’t been thinking along those lines at all. It was only that no matter where he lived, Mo Manor or Koi Tower, there was almost always someone causing bad things to happen.

“Should we do something to help?” he asked hesitantly, watching the battle unfold and then flinching when there was an unexpected sound – two strums on a guqin, full of spiritual power.

“Nope!” Wei Wuxian said. “In fact, we should leave. Right now.”

“Leave…?”

“You can’t be planning on staying at Mo Manor now that everyone’s dead? Come on! Let’s go! Hanguang-jun’s here; he’ll take care of the ghost hand.”

“I wasn’t planning anything,” Mo Xuanyu argued even as he headed towards the exit obediently. “I was going to be dead, and the body would be yours, and you could do whatever you liked with it when you were done.”

“Well, we’re done,” Wei Wuxian said. “And you’re not dead. You’re just going to have to live with that.”

“Live with…not being dead?”

“Just accept the glorious wisdom of your elders already,” Wei Wuxian said cheerfully. “Either way: we go. As quickly as possible. Before anyone notices. Is there anything you need to pack? We should take the donkey in that courtyard.”

“And money,” Mo Xuanyu said practically, heading for Auntie Mo’s room first. After all, she was dead and wouldn’t need it, and he was the last living heir of the Mo family – it was only reasonable that he take the first pick before everyone else got it. “You can always use money, even if you’re dead. Or a cat.”

Travelling was a bizarre experience.

Mo Xuanyu hadn’t been allowed to go outside of Mo Manor in a few years – Wei Wuxian hissed and spat some very impressive curses on the Mo family name, present company excluded – and even at his time in the Jin sect, he’d always been taken places by other people. Now, for the first time, he was alone…well, alone but for Wei Wuxian, who insisted that they had to stay together, curse or no curse, because of how they’d been bound. Mo Xuanyu suspected the real reason was because he didn’t think Mo Xuanyu could make it by himself, and he was probably right.

At any rate, he didn’t have anywhere to go, so instead he followed Wei Wuxian’s instructions to head towards Dafan Mountain to see if they could find some tombs that Wei Wuxian would be able to use. He still had fits, still wanted to die rather a lot, but he ended up spending so much of his time trying to coax the donkey (dubbed Little Apple by Wei Wuxian after they figured out that apples were the best and possibly only incentive to get it moving) that he didn’t have time to think about it too much.

Not being around either Auntie Mo or anyone from the Jin sect helped. Wei Wuxian wasn’t too bad – he may have been a villainous ghoul once, but now he was a cat.

“Didn’t you used to cultivate with a flute?” he asked as they walked along the mountain paths late at night. Well, the donkey walked, Mo Xuanyu rode the donkey, and Wei Wuxian rode in Mo Xuanyu’s arms. “What are you going to do about that? You can’t play a flute anymore; you’re a cat.”

“Cats are innately musical creatures,” Wei Wuxian said. His voice had become a lot more human in the past few days, rich and compelling and increasingly lacking the rough meows that had initially interrupted his speech. It was no surprise that someone as talented as him could pick up being a cat faster than Mo Xuanyu had ever learned to pick up being human.

Mo Xuanyu narrowed his eyes. “That’s a lie, right?” Wei Wuxian had been trying to teach him how to distinguish those, but they weren’t having very much success with it. “I don’t think I’ve heard a single decent sound out of –”

“Why don’t we see who’s making that noise?” Wei Wuxian said loudly, so they dismounted and went to go look.

There were people yelling, caught in a golden net.

“Can you get them down?” he asked Wei Wuxian, who reached out with his claws to grab a leaf, muttering something that was probably uncomplimentary.

And then –

Oh, no.

“Why are you hiding behind a tree again?” Wei Wuxian asked him, not keeping especially quiet. “Don’t tell me you’re hiding from that little Jin sect boy who clearly didn’t have a mother to teach him?”

Mo Xuanyu dropped him like he was a boiling hot skillet.

Like everything he’d ever done on instinct, the move immediately backfired: Wei Wuxian landed on Little Apple’s foreleg claws first and suddenly Little Apple was braying loud enough to wake the dead, which set Wei Wuxian off yowling and hissing right back at him.

“Who is that?!” Jin Ling demanded, striding over with an extremely cross expression that suggested he’d heard the bit about mothers. “Who is – oh. It’s you.”

Mo Xuanyu weakly lifted up a hand. “Uh…it’s nice to see you, Jin Ling.”

Wei Wuxian’s yowls cut off as if he’d been suddenly smothered.

Jin Ling glared at him. “Stupid cutsleeve, you think I didn’t hear what you said earlier?”

“I didn’t!” Mo Xuanyu said immediately, starting to shake at once. He couldn’t bear it when people in bright yellow were angry at him, not since those last few days at the Jin sect; it was a sure-fire way to bring on a fit. “I swear I didn’t! I – I –”

Jin Ling lifted his sword and Mo Xuanyu squatted down to cover his head at once, feeling his eyes overflow with blubbering tears as he began to panic. “I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t,” he wailed. “Don’t hit me! I don’t want to drink any medicine! I don’t want to get hit! I didn’t do it!”

“You…!” Jin Ling didn’t seem to know what to do now. “You’re such a coward! You – damnit!”

Mo Xuanyu had his face hidden away, so he didn’t see what Jin Ling did next, braced as he was for a blow. He could vaguely hear the sword being put away, but that didn’t diminish his fear in the slightest: the majority of the Jin sect had never been willing to use swords on each other, thinking it disgraceful. Even Jin Guangyao didn’t use his sword very much – he preferred other methods.

Mo Xuanyu was most afraid of those other methods.

He flinched violently when someone lightly touched his shoulder.

“Stop crying, you’re making a fool of yourself!” Jin Ling said, his harsh voice at odds with the gentle touch of his fingers. “Have some thought to your face, okay?! You can’t embarrass yourself like this! Aren’t you my uncle, after all?”

“He’s your what?!” Wei Wuxian’s muffled voice came from under a bush.

“It’s true no matter how you look at it, even if I don’t want it to be,” Jin Ling said with a sniff, clearly assuming the exclamation had come from Mo Xuanyu. “Listen here, what are you doing on Dafan Mountain anyway?”

Mo Xuanyu snuffled, wiping his nose with his sleeve. “Well, my cat –”

“Night hunting!” Wei Wuxian hissed.

“I mean, I was night hunting,” Mo Xuanyu repeated obediently, then frowned. “That’s not really believable, is it?”

Jin Ling looked pityingly at him. “Not really. Do you need – is there something…?”

“Those words from earlier were really rude,” Wei Wuxian said from the bushes, and Mo Xuanyu covered his face with his hands. “They shouldn’t have been said.”

“Yeah, well, whatever. It’s not like I haven’t heard it all before –”

“Jin Ling, get away from him,” a low, cold voice said from behind him.

Mo Xuanyu’s shoulders slumped. It wasn’t relief so much as it was resignation: if there was one thing he knew, that everyone knew, it was that you didn’t cross Jiang Cheng. They said he could smell the stink of demonic cultivation on you, and once he did, that was that, and Mo Xuanyu was pretty sure, though no one had ever said for sure, that the body offering array was some form of demonic cultivation.

They said Jiang Cheng would take demonic cultivators back to the Lotus Pier to be tortured to death.

Mo Xuanyu was almost looking forward to it. Other than the horrible sword flights back and forth to Koi Tower in Lanling, Dafan Mountain was the furthest from home he’d been, and Wei Wuxian had been waxing poetic about the beauties of the Lotus Pier for days now; it would be nice to see it, however briefly, before he died.

He’d probably get to see lots of Jiang Cheng, too – he’d only ever caught glimpses of him before, when he was visiting Koi Tower, so he’d never had a chance to look his fill. And whatever could be said about the man’s temper, it couldn’t be denied that he had a first-rate face.

“Why?” Jin Ling asked, not moving. “It’s only Mo Xuanyu. Did you ever meet him? He’s –”

“Not him,” Jiang Cheng said, and he looked – bemused? That wasn’t the expression Mo Xuanyu would have been expecting. “It was – Wei Wuxian…wait, the cat?!”

Mo Xuanyu’s mouth dropped open in shock. How did he know?

“Definitely not!” Wei Wuxian blurted out, which didn’t seem smart, and suddenly Jiang Cheng looked extremely confused and abruptly sat down.

“Uncle, what are you talking about?” Jin Ling said. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Jiang Cheng said, a hand to his temple as if he had a headache, or possibly questioning his sanity. “It’s – it’s the cat. I heard – that voice – Wei Wuxian wouldn’t be sniveling on the ground like a newborn infant, and the only other thing around is – so it must be –”

“Is lunacy contagious or something?” Jin Ling demanded. “Uncle, I know you’ve been looking for him for years, but you can’t seriously think Wei Wuxian resurrected himself as a cat!”

“Meow!” Wei Wuxian said desperately, except it was as awful a meow as it’d ever been – entirely human. “Meow, meow –”

“That voice –!”

“Uncle!”

“Shut up!” Mo Xuanyu abruptly yelled, pushed entirely beyond his limits. “All of you! Just shut up! Stop yelling and stop harassing my cat!”

With that, he grabbed Wei Wuxian and ran blindly into the woods.

He kept running until the air wouldn’t enter his lungs anymore, and then he fell down under a tree and burst into tears again, the fear and panic and exercise all escalating uncontrollably until he fell into another fit, no matter how much Wei Wuxian tried to talk him down.

When Mo Xuanyu woke up, he felt as though he really had gotten beaten up by Jin Ling, even though he knew he hadn’t been. He groaned.

“You’re awake again, good,” Wei Wuxian said. He was standing on his two hind legs, forepaws behind his back as he slowly paced a circle. “Those fits of yours – they only started after you went crazy, you said?”

Mo Xuanyu nodded and sat up, rubbing his face – he didn’t have a mirror to check, but all those tears must have messed up his make-up. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the case of cosmetics he’d insisted on taking the time to remove from Mo Manor, no matter how much Wei Wuxian had urged him to leave quickly before they were found.

“Based on the things you’ve said, it seems like there was a particular point in time where you went crazy – enough that you can accurately pin-point things as being before and after.”

Mo Xuanyu nodded again, using his fingers to apply more red paint around his eyes, which were still a little swollen and tender from all the crying.

“And you said something when Jin Ling was holding his sword – damnit, that was Suihua, I should have recognized it at once – anyway, you said something about…about not wanting to drink medicine?”

Wei Wuxian certainly fixated on the strangest things, Mo Xuanyu reflected. Maybe lunacy really was contagious.

“Someone poisoned you,” Wei Wuxian concluded. He still had the red ribbon around his neck – in combination with the way he was just barely maintaining his upright balance and the way his tail was lashing around, it was rather cute. “If it took place in the Jin sect, it was probably something with quicksilver, since they use it to make vermillion. It damages the brain and liver if consumed in high quantities, and it’s associated with epilepsy, hallucinations, and terrible nightmares; it’s been used since ancient times to make men into fools.”

Mo Xuanyu nodded politely, mostly disinterested. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know who was behind it, and it didn’t really matter what exactly was involved – if anything, the medicine could almost be seen as Jin Guangyao’s way of being nice. He could have had Mo Xuanyu disappeared the way he did for Xue Yang, or he could have fed him to Xue Yang’s fierce corpses, or even just slit his throat...at least by going mad, Mo Xuanyu would still be useful to Jin Guangyao, a vivid demonstration that any madness in their bloodline must have come from their shared father’s side, not the mother.

He wasn’t sure why Jin Guangyao cared about that, but at least he wasn’t dead. No, wait, didn’t he want to be dead? His half-brother was so confusing sometimes.

Maybe sending Mo Xuanyu back to Mo Manor, back to Auntie Mo and all the others that Jin Guangyao knew Mo Xuanyu feared, maybe it was supposed to teach him how to hate enough, so that he could make the ritual work – if so, Mo Xuanyu’d probably disappointed Jin Guangyao all over again.

“…some ways to at least ease the symptoms, maybe more if we can find a good enough doctor.” Wei Wuxian was still talking, for some reason. “At least you have your golden core; if you were a regular person, there wouldn’t be any hope at all.”

“Hope is overrated,” Mo Xuanyu said. “It just makes it worse when you’re inevitably disappointed, and then you die, if you’re lucky.”

Xue-gege had taught him that one, and he was even pretty sure he’d quoted it correctly, but Wei Wuxian didn’t look particularly impressed.

“I’ve heard that quicksilver poisoning can cause qi deviation, which is associated with suicidal urges,” Wei Wuxian said, dropping to all four legs and then hopping onto his shoulder. “Let me try to stabilize your qi – maybe it’ll keep you from saying things like that all the time. Go on, get up and stretch your legs a bit; they’re probably sore from all the running and thrashing you were doing.”

Mo Xuanyu walked all right, walked right into a confrontation with a stone goddess, which was honestly just how this day was going. Wei Wuxian really needed to stop being so surprised when bad things happened.

“Can you play the flute?” Wei Wuxian hissed into his ear, all thoughts of qi stabilization forgotten. “I need to summon something powerful, and yowling, while surprisingly effective, isn’t going to cut it.”

“I can play the dizi,” Mo Xuanyu offered. “But I’m not good at it, and anyway we don’t have –”

“Good enough! Grab that piece of bamboo and give it to me, I can use my claws to make the holes, and you can follow the tune that I show you –”

Wei Wuxian meowed, Mo Xuanyu played, and Wei Wuxian’s ears went flat backwards in apparent agony.

“Whoever taught you should be tortured to death,” he said briefly before resuming his guidance, focusing in on whatever demonic cultivation technique he was doing – it made the Ghost General appear, so Mo Xuanyu assumed it was successful, although Wei Wuxian’s shocked muttering suggested something had gone wrong regardless. Again, not much of a surprise.

One thing led to another, and then a tall man in Lan sect white showed up along with the juniors from Mo Manor, along with Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling, and at that point Mo Xuanyu decided that some of this bad luck had to be Wei Wuxian’s, because even the worst of his bad days weren’t usually this bad.

Wei Wuxian panicked when they bumped into the tall man – Hanguang-jun, apparently? Mo Xuanyu vaguely recalled hearing about him, but he’d never come to Koi Tower while Mo Xuanyu had been there – and it was very uncomfortable to have a panicking cat on his shoulder, especially when he was still trying to remember enough flute-playing to follow along with the tune Wei Wuxian was meowing, something more relaxing to try to calm down the Ghost General.

“…Wei Ying?” Hanguang-jun said, staring at the cat.

Mo Xuanyu stopped playing and turned his head to stare at Wei Wuxian. “How are you this obvious?” he asked.

“This is not my fault,” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, aggravated. “I’m a cat! Nobody should be blaming me!”

“I think I’m losing my mind,” Jiang Cheng, located somewhere further away on the field, said, his voice sounding strangled. “I really do swear I just heard….”

“That was me!” Mo Xuanyu said quickly. “Totally me! I picked up ventriloquism to better process the auditory hallucinations! I’m very sick, and also a lunatic – you can just ignore me!”

Nobody seemed especially convinced.

“…Sect Leader Jiang,” Hanguang-jun said after a while. “There are very good healers dedicated to the calming of the mind at the Cloud Recesses. I can take Young Master Mo – and his cat – with me to see them, which I think will be beneficial to everyone involved.”

“Fine,” Jiang Cheng said. “But I’m coming too. I think I need it.”

Hanguang-jun frowned for a moment and the two of them stared at each other for a long time, unspoken emotions crackling in the air between them. Finally, he nodded. “Very well.”

“You know, I don’t think we’ve ever agreed to go to -” Wei Wuxian started to say, but Mo Xuanyu stuffed his fingers over his little snout. Hanguang-jun was the second master of the Lan sect, which meant Zewu-jun was his brother, and Zewu-jun was Jin Guangyao’s friend – and you didn’t go against what Jin Guangyao wanted, not if you knew what was good for you.

Mo Xuanyu might be stupid, but even he could figure something out after it hurt enough.

“It’s fine,” he said. “We’ll go with you for a little, but you have to promise to let us go afterwards. You have to promise, you hear me? I don’t want to be locked away again!”

Hanguang-jun had a strange expression on his face, which was about the same as the expression on Jiang Cheng’s face, and Jin Ling’s, and all the Lan juniors – had Mo Xuanyu said something wrong?

“Your freedom and safety will be assured,” Hanguang-jun said.

“And my cat’s!”

Jiang Cheng put his hand on his head, looking pained.

“And your cat,” Hanguang-jun agreed peaceably, and turned and started to lead the way.

Mo Xuanyu and all the others followed behind.

“Fine,” Wei Wuxian muttered in Mo Xuanyu’s ear once the others were far enough ahead to not immediately overhear. “We can go with Lan Zhan back to Gusu one time. They really do have good healers there, anyway – but I want to talk to him about that ghost hand. Someone released it right next to Mo Manor, probably the same person who wanted me back so badly that he taught you how to do the body offering array, and I want to have words with that person.”

Mo Xuanyu was a little confused: was it Sect Leader Nie he wanted to talk to or Jin Guangyao? And why was Wei Wuxian so angry at them? They were both so nice, at least some of the time…better not to ask.

“You should get some Emperor’s Smile when you get to Gusu,” Wei Wuxian added.

“I don’t drink,” Mo Xuanyu objected.

“For me.”

“Cats don’t drink.”

“I’m not planning on being a cat forever,” Wei Wuxian said. “And won’t that be a surprise to everyone?”

Mo Xuanyu thought about it. “No,” he said after a moment. “I really don’t think it will be, actually.”

#mdzs #mo xuanyu #wei wuxian #jin guangyao #xue yang #lan wangji #jiang cheng #jin ling #nie huaisang #my fic #my fics #dark #just assume ALL the trigger warnings #Anonymous

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hansoulo · 5 years ago

Text

thread count

Pairing: The Mandalorian/Reader (gender neutral, no Y/N)

Warnings: liek… cursing? mentions of nightmares. bed sharing. the works.

Word Count: 1.7k

A/N: posting this at noon bc im tired of staring at it in my drafts 🤡also i recognize that star wars decided glass is called transparisteel but given that it’s a stupid ass decision i’ve elected to ignore it. enjoyyyyy :)

“No.”

“Mando-”

“No.”

You let out a frustrated groan, your rucksack dropping to the floor with a heavy thud as you flopped back onto the bed. The one, single bed.

“It’s too late to go anywhere else, alright? We’re basically stuck here. Let’s just make the best of it, okay?” He grunted at this, still standing at the doorway gripping his disintegrator rifle. “Drop the ‘tude, tin can. Could be worse,” you mumbled as you reached to wipe a hand over your face, sinking into the soft sheets.

It was kinda nice, actually. You couldn’t remember the last time you slept on a real mattress, with real pillows and blankets that didn’t feel like sandpaper. The inn owner was sweet, a wizened old woman who’d only smiled when you asked if there were any rooms available. Just the one, she had said. Down the hall.

This was ridiculous.

The Mandalorian stepped forward, closing the door with a large hand on the rusted knob. The room was small and sparsely furnished, but it was a far cry from your usual, less than ideal sleeping arrangements, so you relished in the feeling of the pillows beneath your back before propping yourself up on one elbow, eyelids already drooping as you watched him. He looked… awkward. If you had any more energy, you’d probably laugh. “I could- ” he cleared his throat, setting the rifle against the wall, “I could sleep on the floor.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you scoffed as you reached down to pull off your boots, throwing them haphazardly into a corner. You’d helped him with the occasional bounty for years, and known him for longer than that. You could share a fucking bed. Besides, it’s not like anyone else was around to see. Minus the baby of course, but it (he? she?) didn’t really count, right? It was already sleeping. “It’ll be fine.”

“No, I’m going to just-”

“Mando,” you glared, standing up. “If you sleep on the floor, you’re gonna be even more of an ass tomorrow morning. Just do us all a favor,” you waved a hand towards the baby in its pod, “and get over yourself, alright?” You reached down to the hem of your top, tugging it above your head before you heard him make a low, distorted sound - probably a cough, but the modulator made those kinds of things hard to tell. Left in your undershirt, you crouched down to stuff the fabric - dusty and soiled from a day of travel - back in your bag. “What?”

He shifted on his feet, his helmet ducking slightly at the sight of your exposed skin. “Oh c’mon,” you groaned, your expression teasing. “You stabbed a guy with a serving fork yesterday, Mando. I don’t think this could be any worse.” If you could see underneath his helmet, you’d be willing to bet he was blushing. Funny, how that worked. How he worked.

The bedsprings creaked underneath your weight as you laid down again, pulling the blankets out from their tucked corners. The window on the other side of the room lay open, bringing in a chill that had you drawing the covers tighter around your shoulders. “Could you close the window?” you whispered, tracking the glint of beskar through half-closed eyes as he complied with your request. His armor reflected orange light - dim and flickering from a small lamp hung beside the door - before it was snuffed out by a gloved hand. You let out a quiet thanks, not bothering to fight the exhaustion dragging at your mind as he stood above you. “I’m going to sleep,” you mumbled, turning on your side to face the wall. “Do what you want.”

⫸ ——-– ⫷

Flat, white light crackled across your vision and you opened your eyes with a groan. You could hear rain beating against the windowpane, glass rattling with every new roar of thunder in a way that had goosebumps erupting across your arms. It was dark outside, inky and fogged over save for the few flashes of lightning that cast the room in sharp relief. You didn’t really mind the storm - you usually liked them - but something about the way it sounded had you on edge. It was a bitter kind of rain, unrelenting and loud and really, really cold. Bracing yourself on your hands, you lifted your head, only to knock it against the edge of something metal. “Ow what the fu-” Oh. Oh.

He hadn’t been next to you before - no, you would’ve remembered if he had - but now... now he was. Next to you. And he… had a hand on your hip and- and you were still facing away from him but you squirmed, feeling the weight of his arm on your waist, heavy and slack. No gloves. No vambrace. No pauldron. Just… the helmet. No shit, bantha-brains. The Mandalorian let out a breath, the sound low and seeping syrup in your bones. Was he still asleep? Maybe you should- “Stop moving,” he rasped, his voice hoarse.

“Sorry,” you whispered, your words thick with sleep. “M’just cold.” It was a half-truth. You were cold, but the fact that you were pressed up against one of the most feared bounty hunters in the galaxy probably didn’t help either. Neither did the fingers digging into your hip. Or the arm tucked underneath your neck. Or the hand attached to said arm that was skimming across your collarbone, seemingly unaware that it was touching anything at all. He drew you in closer and you could feel his legs slotted into yours, your toes brushing the bare skin of an ankle (that didn’t belong to you) before your scattered thoughts were forced elsewhere.

“Then why’d you take off your shirt?” he mumbled. The rain pounded a rhythm in your head, lulling you down and allowing yourself to sink back into his arms. You didn’t really want to think about tomorrow morning. If things would be weird. There was a chance neither of you would remember this when you woke up, though, so it’s not like it mattered. Even if you did - if he did - you knew it was all business.

“Hm?” you said, tucking your chin and scooting back slightly. Your back met the hard planes of his chest, his skin hot and thrumming even underneath the thick material of his shirt. The man was like a fucking space heater. Ha. Space heater. Funny. You were funny. And tired. And- wait did he ask you something?

“Why take off your shirt if you’re cold?” he repeated. The last word trailed off as a palm moved across the expanse of your stomach, his thumb rubbing circles across the raised seam of your undershirt and burning the skin beneath.

“I wasn’t cold then,” you huffed, reaching a hand over his and guiding it below the thin fabric until it rested still on your sternum. A better version of you, more awake and with more critical thinking skills - with the power of thought in general - would probably kick you for using the Mandalorian like a fucking hot water bottle, but that didn’t really matter. You were cold - and exhausted and laying on a bed that was very, very comfortable - and he was warm. You couldn’t really be expected to take any responsibility for this. “Plus, the shirt was dirty,” you added, only dimly registering how your fingers laced with his, tracing battered, scar-shiny knuckles in your half-sleep. He hummed and leaned forward, the metal of his helmet rounding smooth against your hair.

“You’re thinking too loud,” he said, his breathing falling back into tandem with yours as you felt your eyes fluttering shut. “Go to sleep.”

⫸ ——-– ⫷

“Mando, wake up. Wake up, please.” Your voice was tremulous as you shook his shoulder, stretched over tight with desperation and knocking against the walls of the room. Your plea bounced back hollow, a high, unrelenting tone that made your ears ring. Everything was caving in on itself, crumbling slow and then all at once in a way that had the sweat on your temples icing over. You weren’t a child anymore. You shouldn’t have nightmares. “Please.”

He sat up quickly, a hand bolting out to the blaster tucked underneath his pillow and aiming steady at the enemy that had yet to show itself. “Is someone there?” he asked, graveled over but still frighteningly alert. A light sleeper, you supposed.

You shook your head, wet tracks crackling on your cheeks as you spoke. “No, no one. It’s fine.” He relaxed at this, setting the blaster down at his side. His palms were dry when they came up to your face, slightly calloused but still soft as they traced over the rolling tears.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” you whispered, meeting the dark slit of his visor before ducking your head. “It’s nothing, I-” you sniffed, swallowing the air that was caught in your throat. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“Hey,” he called out, hesitant and a bit unsure. “You okay?” You nodded, closing your eyes in an attempt to clear your vision before opening them a few moments later. The Mandalorian only stared, his helmet tilting with a cock of his head.

“Just nightmares,” you said when he remained quiet. “But they aren’t normally this bad.” The remains of a sob fragmented beneath your ribs, bubbling up in a wet cough that burned your throat. His hands came to rest at your back, flat and steady against your spine until your breathing evened. “I’m sorry,” you repeated after a few minutes.

The Mandalorian let out a quiet noise, gruff and a bit pained-sounding. “It’s okay,” he said, his fingertips pressing softly into your shoulder blades. You could only just hear him through the storm outside. “I get them too.”

You faced the beskar, gaze searching for the eyes you knew were looking at you and finding nothing but darkness. It was enough, though. To know he was looking. “You do?”

“Every night.” A beat passed before you hiccuped again, swiping at your eyes with the back of your hand. “It’s still late,” the Mandalorian whispered, his hands gentle as they reached around your shoulders. You let him pull the covers over you, feeling his words soak into your back. “Let’s just go to bed.”

permanent: @ah-callie @itzagoodthing @spookypym @opheliaelysia @watsonwise @damndamer0n @amarvelousmandalorian @bunnyart-blog @agirllovespasta @pascalispedro @pascalplease @coffeencontemplation @chelsfic @lesqui @javierpenaspinkshirt @symbiont13 @glowingpena @squidlywiddly87 @1zashreena1 @hiscyarika @lostingoogletranslate @keeper0fthestars @bobafvtt @halfwaythereroyal @starwarsiscooliguess @huliabitch

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian fanfiction #din djarin fanfiction #pedro pascal fanfiction #sw fanfiction #the mandalorian oneshot #din djarin oneshot

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babineni · 4 years ago

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Okay so literal months ago I wrote some Aloth x Watcher first steamy night together stuff, then I completely forgot about it, then I came across it a few days ago so I guess y’all can look at it, if you want.

Happy Valentine’s Day, I guess

Below the cut, bc a) explicit content b) almost 3k words, sooo yeah

Gaura woke up to the bed shifting slightly under her. She glimpsed movement as she rubbed her eyes and once she made out the silhouette of the man leaving her side, her drowsiness dissipated in an instant.

'Where are you going?' The Watcher asked as she sat up.

Aloth turned around to her voice, and a faint, adoring smile appeared on his face. He loosely held on to a worn book. The last thing Gaura remembered before falling asleep was the wizard reading aloud from that book at her request. It was... about corrosives... she thought. It didn't take her long to drift off.

'You fell asleep,' Aloth said. 'I thought that was my cue to leave.'

'It's not. Unless you want it to be,' Gaura moved to the edge of the bed and reached for the wizard's free hand.

It has only been a few days since she gave him the kiss that changed their friendship into the bond they shared at that moment. The Watcher didn't have much in mind when she kissed Aloth that day, she merely wanted to show him how she felt and asked for the chance to show it again and again and again. But she had a lot of feelings for the wizard and she felt them strongly and deeply, and in the few days of their courtship, Gaura often found herself wondering if she felt too much, too deeply, too strongly for Aloth to feel comfortable around her. So she let him set the pace of their relationship, even if she was fully aware of his occasionally excessive caution and his indecisiveness.

Aloth sat down beside Gaura. He put his book aside so he could hold her hand with both hands.

'I would like to stay, it's true, but...'

'Then stay.'

The wizard hesitated for a moment, then let out a shaky laugh.

'I got the impression you needed rest.'

The Watcher moved closer to him and placed her chin on his shoulder. She let her eyes close as she enjoyed the smell of the ocean breeze clinging onto Aloth's hair. 'I was soothed, not tired,' she said. 'And I definitely wasn't bored.'

'I did not think you were.'

'Just making sure, you don't get the wrong idea,' Gaura pulled away and left a peck on Aloth's cheek. She then placed the book by the window beside the bed, laid back on her place and patted the space next to her.

The wizard was just about to take her offer when he looked down at himself and noted his armor. Then he looked at the Watcher and noted her loosely fitting nightgown.

'I'll be ready in a minute,' he said and started to undo the buckles on his leather suit.

Gaura knelt on the edge of the bed once more. 'Let me help,' she offered as she reached for the laces on his chest. Aloth gave her a nod, but otherwise he said nothing. But the Watcher could still see him biting his lip and his cheeks turning red from the corner of her eyes. After a few moments, all that was left to do was merely pushing the armor off the elf. Gaura slid her hands under the garment, prompting Aloth to let his arms hang by his sides. It seemed like a relaxed gesture but to her it felt anything but that. For a moment she felt his heart pounding in his chest, its speedy rhythm enticing her.

'Gaura?' The wizard's voice was breathy as he leaned closer to her. Close enough for his breath to mingle with hers. 'Was this your intention all along?' He asked as a faint, slightly sly smile formed on his lips which disappeared in a fraction of a moment.

'No,' she replied while she reached for his undershirt and fiddled with it, ready to pull it off him as soon as he asked, as soon as he showed any sign that he wanted her the same way she wanted him. 'But I'm open to it. I'm... more than open to it.'

'You... you don't think this is too soon?' Aloth's question sounded almost like a plea.

'No. And even if it was... I find it really hard to care about timing right now,' Gaura laughed and it proved to be contagious. She pressed her lips against the wizard's, and pulled his shirt upwards. Aloth helped her take it off him, quickly uttering protective spells before he reached for the back of the Watcher's head and closed the gap between them again. His touch was gentle, feather-light, but his kiss hinted at impatience and a desire that could have been just as scorching as the fire in Gaura's soul if he allowed himself to truly feel it.

The Watcher pulled away. 'My turn,' she said, as she reached for the straps of her gown. She untied them with a few simple tugs and let the gown fall on its own to her knees. Aloth's tender gaze wandered along her body, tracing the cracks on her skin. But eventually, it returned to the glowing center of her chest. There was something in his eyes that Gaura couldn't quite place, not even as the wizard turned his attention back to her face and looked straight into her eyes.

'May I?' He asked, his hand hovering right above the bright mark.

Gaura replied with a somewhat impatient nod. Aloth pressed his palm against her chest upon her permission. He seemed almost mesmerized by the combined sensation of her strong heartbeat and her flames gently licking his skin.

'You act as if you couldn't just conjure flames at will,' the Watcher teased as she leaned in to leave a sloppy kiss below Aloth's jaw. She made her way down on the side of his throat while she reached for his trousers. She quickly undid it and slid her hand under it. She kept her mouth pressed to the curve of the wizard's neck as she caressed his already half-hardened bulge.

'No magical fire feels like you,' Aloth answered, his voice ringing with admiration.

Gaura pulled away hesitantly and surprised. She stared at the wizard as he averted his gaze shyly, his already flushed face taking a deeper shade of red.

'Turn around,' she said breathlessly, with the corner of her lips perking up. 'Take off the rest of your clothes.'

Aloth swallowed hard. 'What's on your mind, if I may ask?' He spoke cautiously. However his movements did not reflect what his voice did. He turned around as Gaura asked, and as he dragged his pants down, he almost seemed eager for an answer. An answer that was not meant to be expressed in words.

The Watcher chuckled softly as she shuffled out of her nightgown and moved closer to the wizard, as close as she possibly could without falling off her bed. She wrapped her arms around him from behind. She pressed her chest against his back tight and she rested her chin on his shoulder, right by his ear. Aloth let out a short, quiet gasp at the contact. His body stiffened slightly, prompting Gaura to leave a gentle kiss on the curve of his neck, then another one on his earlobe.

'I just want you to relax,' she said while she inhaled the scent of his hair and she allowed her hands to explore his chest, enjoying the feeling of goosebumps forming under her touch. 'I want to soothe you the way you have soothed me just now.'

'I hope you don't take it as an offense, but-' the wizard's words turned into a shaky sigh as the Watcher's fingers reached one of his nipples and drew circular patterns around it slowly and gently. 'Soothed is... truly, the last word I'd use to describe how I feel right now.'

'Do you want me to stop then?' Gaura asked, her lips brushing against Aloth's ear.

'No!' He replied without hesitation. The Watcher couldn't help but chuckle at his haste, which prompted him to clear his throat, and make a poor attempt at regaining his composure. 'No, I...'

His trail of thought was diverted by one of Gaura's hands sliding downwards. However just before she would've reached his loins, she pulled her hand back. Aloth held his breath while she wet her palm, then a moment passed, and another, and the Watcher merely stood motionless behind him, with only her flames caressing and enveloping him with all the tenderness of her soul.

'Please, continue.'

Gaura hummed approvingly as she pressed her lips against Aloth's neck. She reached forward again, gently caressing the wizard's thigh as she did so. She wrapped one hand around his cock and began stroking it at the same pace as her mouth moved against the side of his throat, while the other kept massaging his chest, with her thumb occasionally brushing against his nipple. A few moments later she felt his touch on the back of her head, his slender fingers brushed against her scalp gingerly, prompting the Watcher to look up at him. Aloth turned his head slightly towards her but he couldn't tear his gaze from her hand pumping his shaft slowly and steadily.

'Is this tempo alright?' Gaura asked. 'I want everything to happen to your liking. We'll take it as slow or as fast as you want.' She leaned in, and left a small kiss on Aloth's parted lips, drawing a staggered sigh out of him.

'I... I wouldn't mind if you were a... a little fas-... Oh,' Aloth's request turned into a short, surprised, quiet moan as the Watcher obliged him before he got to finish the sentence.

The wizard's breath quickened as well, and Gaura could almost hear a few notes of his pleasure mingling faintly with the air he exhaled. Aloth pressed his lips against hers as tightly as he could at their angle, trying to muffle the sounds escaping him, which enticed the Watcher all the more. She had to restrain herself from rubbing him even faster, the same way Aloth had to force himself to keep kissing her. Gaura couldn't tell how long they went on until he broke the kiss and covered his mouth with his free hand instead. The wizard rested his forehead against the Watcher's as he moaned into his palm. She could've sworn she felt his eyelashes flutter against her skin, drawing a soft chuckle out of her.

'You are so lovely,' she spoke softly. 'You want us both to keep quiet?'

Aloth gave her a few somewhat staggered nods.

'Alright, Aloth,' Gaura replied. 'Lean back against me.'

The wizard hesitated for a moment, then he cautiously lifted his head and looked at Gaura. She made her best attempt at giving him a reassuring nod, but she couldn't help but bite her lip when she looked into his eyes full of adoration for her, twinkling with a hunger for release. He then let his eyes close and threw his head back against her shoulder. His neck formed a curve that the Watcher couldn't resist. She trailed it with her tongue, prompting the wizard the press down on her scalp slightly, wordlessly asking her to kiss him harder. Gaura picked up the pace of her strokes, making Aloth squirm under her touch, making him fill her ear with more and more of his muffled moans. The Watcher closed her eyes, and allowed herself to be lost in the anticipation for Aloth coming undone at her hand.

'Gaura?' She heard her name. 'Wait... wait. Stop!' The wizard grabbed her wrist and straightened up. He gently peeled her hands off him and stepped away with an apologetic expression on his face.

'Is something wrong?' The Watcher asked. 'Did I...?' A small kernel of anxiety formed in her: she wondered if she ended up crossing an unknown line. If she did indeed felt too much, too strongly and too deeply.

Aloth raised his hands as he sat down beside her. 'No, you did nothing wrong,' he hastily said. 'And by that I mean... that felt truly incredible,' he took her hands in his with a smile. 'It's just... the magic that protected me from your hair was wearing off.' The wizard let out a frustrated sigh.

It took Gaura a moment to process his words. 'Oh.'

'Forgive me, I'll just need a moment...'

'No, no, don't apologize,' she lifted his hands to her lips. 'I can spare a few moments in exchange for more fun afterwards.'

Aloth let out a relieved chuckle as a response. 'Thank you,' he cast his spell, then he let go of her hands and cupped the Watcher's face instead. 'I... I liked the way you held me,' he left a soft kiss on her lips. Then another. And another, as he laid down and pulled Gaura with him. 'You said you wanted everything to happen the way I liked.'

'I meant that,' the Watcher said as she moved to straddle the wizard.

A moment was spent in silence. Aloth watched Gaura intently as one of hands moved slowly to the back of her head and allowed her flames to dance along his fingers.

'Just now, it felt like... like you were touching me everywhere.' The wizard said eventually. 'I'd like you to stay close. Please.'

Gaura smiled as a response and tightened the grip of her thighs around him. She slowly rolled her hips against him, letting her slick folds coat Aloth's cock with her arousal. He stifled a groan and moved his hands to the Watcher's waist.

'You're so sweet,' she chuckled as reached back and guided the wizard's hands to cup her ass instead. She locked lips with him as she continued grinding against him. Then after a few moments, she pulled away. 'Give me one moment,' she said as reached for his cock and guided it to her heat.

The Watcher descended upon him slowly, surprised at how intensely she felt Aloth entering her. All that time she spent pleasing him turned her more sensitive than she realized. She bit her lip as she began rolling her hips again, slowly, getting used to the feeling of him inside her. Gaura set a steady, relaxed rhythm for them, one that Aloth quickly picked up on. His thrusts were light, but deep, each of them sent sparks of pleasure along the Watcher's nerves. She quickened her pace slightly, indulging her impatience for him, but she couldn't bring herself to lean back to Aloth just yet. She reached for one of his hands, and guided it to her lips. She took his thumb in her mouth and suckled on it, allowing a few of her moans to escape her throat but be trapped by his finger. She kept her gaze locked with Aloth's as she guided his hand back down, this time to the nub between her thighs. She didn't need to say anything. Aloth rubbed her clit at an erratic rhythm, and the sweet dissonance of sensations nearly overwhelmed the Watcher right then and there.

'Gaura,' Aloth whispered her name invitingly and she responded by learning back down over him and pressed her lips tightly to his.

Their muffled sounds mingled as they hastened their movements. Soon, Gaura lost all sense of her surroundings. She only felt Aloth getting lost in her, the same way she forgot about everything but him. There was no such thing as too much, or too strong, or too deep. There were only her nerves set ablaze by the wizard's touch, consuming her senses and reason. And there was only Aloth, embraced by the flames of her soul. Soon, there wasn't even that, only a feeling of overwhelming ecstasy. The Watcher couldn't help but break their kiss as one last cry of pleasure burst out of her. Aloth continued moving under her, keeping her mind in a sweet, precious haze, but even then she felt him finding a release in her as well. He wrapped his arms around Gaura in a tight embrace, and buried his face in the curve of her neck, in attempt to use her as an anchor to the reality around them. Neither of them knew how much time they spent motionlessly entangled. Soon, their awareness returned to them, and Gaura rolled off her lover.

'Don't take this the wrong way...' Gaura said panting, once she felt she was able to speak again, 'but this... this was more fun than that book about corrosives.'

Aloth let out an exhausted laugh. 'I'm... I'm inclined to feel the same,' he said as he turned to the Watcher on his side. She left a peck on his cheek, then another on his lips. 'I assume,' Aloth continued, 'you don't think this was too soon, then.'

'Not at all. Do you?'

'No,' a relieved smile appeared on the wizard's face, as if his answer reassured him just as much, if not more, as it did the Watcher. 'I am glad you asked me to stay. And... I am truly happy you kissed me the other day.'

Gaura reached for Aloth's face and ran her thumb along his soft, adoring, if tired smile. She spent a moment admiring the beauty of that smile before she spoke again. 'I am happy you let me make you happy,' she chuckled. 'There is so much in my heart for you. I might just need all the time in the world to show it all.'

'At the current pace, you mean, or...?' Aloth's furrowed his eyebrows.

'At the pace you set for us.'

The wizard's expression softened. He let out a sigh as he relaxed. 'I would like that a lot,' he shyly moved closer to Gaura. They spent a few moments while Aloth settled between the Watcher's legs and rested his head on her chest. They fell asleep shortly after, locked in a comfortable embrace, with a hint of a smile lightly pulling at their lips.

#pillars of eternity #aloth corfiser #aloth x watcher #nsf vörk #oc fic: gaura #gaura sélfolgh #Wrytinge™

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lightwoodsmagic · 5 years ago

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I’ve been struggling with my writing for the last couple of days, and nothing was really helping, until @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed gave me the below prompt. Thank you, I love you.

‘Single dad Zayn needing a babysitter REALLY badly bc if he misses his exam he gets kicked out of school so he sorta asks his new neighbour Liam if please please he can watch her for a few hours’

Hope you enjoy!

📚 🧁

“I’m so sorry mate, you know we would if we could but I’ve had to go into work today, and Haz’s got that shoot.”

Zayn squeezed his eyes shut, his free hand rubbing at his temples. Akilah was watching him with wide eyes from the floor, her thumb shoved in her mouth; he didn’t have the heart today to try and break the habit.

“It’s fine Lou, thanks anyway,” he sighed. “I’ll give Niall a call, see if he can watch her.” He already knew he couldn’t, remembered the meetings he said he had today, but the white lie was better than the additional guilt that it’d make Louis feel. “We’ll catch up soon, yeah?”

After Zayn finished the call, he sank down onto the couch, hands trembling slightly as he tried to figure out what exactly his options were.

His exam was in an hour, a half hour drive away, and his usual babysitter had called this morning with food poisoning. He’d tried desperately to find a replacement, calling everyone he knew until it’d fallen on even calling the people he knew were busy, just in case. The lads were busy, his family all working or at school and too far away to help, the girls he worked with at the restaurant unable to help. He only had one other option, and he just had to pray that Bev from across the hall was home.

A small hand gripped his jeans, and Zayn’s gaze dropped, his eyes softening and his heart melting as Akilah pulled herself up, holding onto his knees.

“Baba, snack now?”

“Hi, mere chand.” Zayn ran an affectionate hand through her hair, grinning when she tried to bat it away, even though it was slightly strained. “I’ve packed some snacks for you because Baba has to go to school.” He stood up, heaving Akilah up with him with a woo that made her giggle. “Do you want to go see Mrs Johnson? See if you spend some time with her while I’m at school?”

She shoved her thumb back into her mouth as Zayn moved to grab her bag from the kitchen. “Yeah!”

Zayn blew out a breath as he moved through the flat and across the hall, knocking gently and hoping with everything he had that she was home and -

“Zayn dear! And Akilah, how are you, sweet girl?” Bev cooed, but Zayn’s heart sank when he realised she had her coat on and her handbag. “What can I do for you, love?”

Zayn gripped Akilah tightly to his body, hoping her weight and humming in his ear would settle him. “I - I have an exam in less than an hour and no one can watch her, and I’ve already rescheduled once and if I can’t make it, I’m gonna get kicked out of the class and I won’t be able to graduate Bev, and I’m sorry, I just didn’t know where else to go.”

The trembling in his hands grew when Bev’s face fell, and she immediately looked regretful. He looked down to hide the stinging at the corners of his eyes.

“I’m so sorry love, I have an important appointment, but it’s okay,” she said firmly, slow hand coming up to lightly pat his face, wiping a tear from his cheek, “because you should go and ask Liam.”

Zayn’s eyebrows furrowed as Akilah started to squirm. He popped her carefully on the ground and pushed the heel of his hands into his eyes. “Who’s Liam?”

Bev made a soft noise, pushing gently at his chest as she moved out of the doorway and shut it behind her. “The lovely man who just moved in next to you! He’s such a sweetheart, Zayn, and I was just talking to him about his little nieces and nephews,” she mused, gesturing at Liam’s door as she moved towards the lift. “I’m sure he won’t mind, he’s very kind,” she stopped, turning to fix him with a sly grin, “and he’s very handsome.”

“I can’t leave her with a stranger, Bev! I don’t even know him,” he hissed, ignoring the knowing look on face.

“Yes well, I do dear, and he’s very lovely. He’ll look after her well, I’m sure,” she said happily, “and maybe you too, if you’d let him.”

Zayn spluttered, heat rushing to his cheeks as he tried to protest quietly, but she cheerfully waved him off. He didn’t know this man, had never even met him, but he’d officially run out of options. There was no harm in trying, he supposed, no other real choice.

He knelt down, his knee digging harshly into the carpet. “Okay, are you ready to meet someone new? His name’s Liam, apparently.” He tried to sound positive, but he could tell from the hesitance on his little girl’s face that he hadn’t succeeded.

“I guess so,” she mumbled around her thumb, but then she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung, and Zayn couldnt stop the heavy feeling settling in his stomach.

He lifted her off the ground, pressing a kiss to her temple, and stood in front of his neighbour’s door. He could hear soft music coming from inside, a soft melody and careful bass. Zayn was running out of time, so he took a deep breath, and knocked firmly. He bounced Akilah gently on his hip, realising that she was getting too old for this now, really, but she was helping to settle his nerves and surely it wasn’t really a bad thing -

The door swung open, and Zayn’s breath caught in his throat.

The man standing in the doorway, soft grin and curious eyes, muscled arms and what looked like flour in his hair, was one of the most attractive men he’d ever seen, and Zayn did not have time for a breakdown right now.

“Hello, can I help you?” His voice was low and warm, and his smile widened when he noticed Akilah, and oh. There were crinkles at the corners of his eyes and he was covered in tattoos and Zayn was half a second away from thinking that his exam could go and fuck itself before Liam spoke again. “Oh, hello pretty girl! I’m Liam, who are you?” Liam reached out to shake her foot softly.

Zayn was frozen, and all he could do was watch as Akilah shyly drew her thumb out of mouth and eyed Liam carefully.

“Akilah. This is my Baba.”

Liam’s eyes snapped to his, and his smile shifted, no less genuine but something behind it now that filled Zayn with warmth.

“Uh, hi, ‘m Zayn. I live next door.” He reached forward awkwardly to shake Liam’s hand, and his grip was strong and he really needed to focus.

“I’m Liam, but you already know that,” Liam laughed, and his eyes only moved from Zayn’s quickly to check on where Akilah was squirming.

Zayn sighed and put her down. “Careful please darling, just stand here a moment.” He steeled himself, and then just allowed himself to ramble. “I know we only just met, and I’m so sorry to ask anything of you, but I have an exam at school and no one else can watch her and Bev said you might be free and I’m sure you don’t want to spend the afternoon looking after a kid you don’t know and we don’t even know each other but I can’t miss this and I’m desperate Liam, and —.”

“Zayn,” Liam held up a hand, stained green with what looked like food dye. “Of course I can watch her, you need to get to your exam. I promise it’s okay, alright? I’ve got a niece around her age, we’ll have fun!” He reached out to gently grip Zayn’s bicep, and Zayn almost whined at the contact.

It’d been years since he’d had any kind of relationship, bar a one night stand almost a year ago, and now even this was almost erring in the side of too much. Inappropriate really, considering the situation. Zayn shook his head and let the words sink in.

“Wait, really?” Relief flooded through him, and he quickly shoved the bag at Liam. “There’s snacks and some games and drawing stuff in there, some diapers as well, and some wipes.” He picked Akilah up again as Liam waved at her out of the corner of his eye. “Mere chand, I have to go to school, okay? Do you wanna stay with Liam for a little while? I’ll be back as soon as I can, but you’ll have fun, yeah?”

Akilah grinned suddenly at him, and reached out for Liam in a way that she’d never done with a new person before. Zayn swore quietly, and handed her to him properly, heart stuttering in his chest as he watched the two of them smile at each other.

“Lee-yum! We’ll have fun, bye Baba.” She wasn’t even looking at Zayn when she said it, eyes wide and focused on Liam, and Zayn could definitely relate.

“Yeah Baba, we’ll have fun,” Liam murmured, gaze back on Zayn, and bounced Akilah on his hip, and Zayn’s heart stuttered in his chest. “I was just doing some baking for my sister’s party tonight, do you wanna help me?”

Akilah squirmed again, in Liam’s arms this time, pumping her tiny fist in the air in a way she only could’ve learned from Harry, and Zayn rolled his eyes fondly at the cheer she let out. So much for being worried, then.

Zayn would’ve stared at the image forever, but he was definitely going to be late if he didn’t leave.

“Be good for Liam, okay love?” He darted forward to kiss her forehead, “and I’ll be back soon. Liam,” he reached out to cling to Liam’s forearm, his thumb running circles into his wrist. “Thank you, I’m beyond grateful, I can’t even explain it.”

“Zayn!” Liam laughed, swaying slightly so Akilah laughed. “Just go, okay? I’m more than happy to help. Can I have your number?” He was smirking now, and there was no way Zayn was going to be able to concentrate on his exam. “Just in case something happens.”

Zayn quickly put his number in Liam’s phone, hands still trembling slightly. “Okay, I’ll just,” he jabbed his thumb awkwardly towards the lift, “I’ll just go.”

Liam’s grin turned slightly wicked. “Okay. Good luck, Zayn.”

Zayn started walking backwards now, soaking in the sight of his beautiful daughter giggling in the arms of a gorgeous man. “Thank you. I - I’ll see you later, Leeyum.” He let the teasing word sit in his mouth longer, drawing it out, and the look on Liam’s face made it worth it. Zayn grinned with a final wave, and jogged towards the lift. He was anxiously tapping his foot, waiting for the doors to open, when Liam called his name out into the hall.

Zayn spun around, pulse racing. “Yeah?”

“Maybe when you come back, you could stay for a bit?” Liam seemed slightly shy now, and the answer was obvious even before he kept talking. “I have some cakes and biscuits and scones, and I’m - well, I’m a baker so they’re good, I promise, and —.”

“Liam,” Zayn cut him off, and he couldn’t help but laugh. “Absolutely. I’d absolutely love to.”

#ziam #my drabble #ziam drabble #now i wanna write a whole FIC UGH #ziamfanfiction

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transdonaldduck · 5 years ago

Note

*KICKS IN UR DOOR* I would love to hear more about ur tmnt universe stuff

okay!!! you dont gatta ask me twice. I drew these last night at 3 am and lost steam halfway through and gave up on donatello bc i wasn’t happy with any of my sketches and that’s that! forewarning: im edgy so this is edgy

the rest is under the readmore

The setting: It’s new york babey! We’re following our protagonist April O’Neil, 17 years old, as she navigates the confusing waters of high school, first jobs, and accidentally stumbling upon a mutant underworld. This samples a lot from rotmnt and 2012 bc i have no creativity

characters i’ve thought out

Irma- 18, senior, about to go to college to major in Architecture. She’s aloof but she actually cares about people deep down, she just doesn’t like to show it. She’s trying to let her natural hair color grow out from the years she dyed it black. She likes documentaries, chess, hanging out at graveyeards, and writing horror short stories. Seems sorta doom n gloom but is more apathetic than negative. She’s the president of the journalism club (who runs the school newspaper and morning news segment.) She’s looking for someone to take over the club after she’s gone, and has the perfect candidate in mind… if only April had the skill to match her enthusiasm.

April O’Neil- 17, junior, and aspiring journalist and reporter. She’s upbeat, determined, confident, and a real bright spot ot the people that know her. Her favorite things to do are listen to music, sing, take pictures, and take walks in the sun. She’s a go-getting, very self driver to acheive her goals, and her ultimate goal is to be the greatest reporter that has ever lived. Unfortunately, april doesn’t have the knack for reporting, and every piece she’s submitted to her schools newpaper has been fluff pieces… Irma tasks her with writing a front page headliner for the paper so she feels confident passing the club onto her, and in Aprils attempt to come up with the greatest story ever, she sutmbles upon a gang war and 4 mutant turtles…

Casey Jones- 18, Junior, and barely passing. Casey’s the kind of boy no one really expects anything of, so he doesn’t bother trying bc at least then he won’t fail. April inspires him to be better. He likes bad jokes, terrible coffee, and hockey- he’s hoping that April will tutor him enough to be able to bring his grades up enough to be allowed back on the school’s team. He seems sorta prickly and rude at first, but he’s just got a spiky outer shell and he’s really sweet inside. He loves horror movies and extreme sports competitons. He makes a point to walk april home whenever she stays late working on school stuff,

turtle time

the setting: They still live in the sewers, Splinter is still their dad but he’s very old when he gets the turtles, making him even older now. He does a lot of meditating and watching tv and doing crosswords, yknow old people stuff. He relies a lot on Leo to be the head of the house now that he’s old enough. He still trains the boys to learn martial arts bc he thinks it’s important they can defend themselves, considering what they are. He can kick ass when he needs to, tho

leo- 19, red ear slider, silent and stoic leader, raised as a child to be responisble for his brothers. He’s pretty socially awkward and weird bc he was divided from his brothers at a young age and didn’t get a lot of chances to grow and play with other kids his age. He doesn’t do much outside of train, study, and chores, and April is appaled by the fact that he doesn’t have like, ANY hobbies. she takes it upon herself as a personal mission to find something for him to do. He doesnt know the meaning of the word fun, but he tries not to always be a stick in the mud (mostly by removing himself from the fun situation in a misguided attempt to make everyone happier…)

raph- 18, Snapping turtle, and he’s got a short fuse and a big appetite. He’s a bit resentful of his families situation stuck in the sewers and darkness, and he hates being looked down upon. He’s only rebellious bc of how confined and trapped he feels, and though he can act like a grump and lash out he has a heart of gold. He likes wood carving, it’s actually how he made his little sun pendant he wears, it’s something to remind him the sun will rise soon and he’ll be there to see it.

donatello- 17, softshell turtle, bookworm and tech wizard. he likes to read for fun and he’s super into mechanics and computers. smarter than his brothers but thinks WAY too much, often holes up in his lab for hours trying to work out some particularly tough programming problem and will only come out for tea or pizza. he can be snooty/superior in situations where his intellect can be flashed. the worst ninja of the bunch (he thinks more with his head than with his body and never practices)

mikey- 15, box turtle, goofy gooey heartfelt younger brother. He cant draw for shit but still tries because he thinks it’s fun. He’s good at writing and poetry, he likes words and keeps a daily diary he writes in every day. He also keeps a dream journal and a log on all the tunnels in the sewers they’ve explored. He like to keep notes. Comic books are his favorite reading material but he’s picky about the art styles he enjoys, and he is very naturally talented with anything physical. good at easing tension but has 0 common sense, just a round angel

Leo is the shortest and lightest, agile and quick. Mikey is second shortest but he’s fat, which doesn’t detract from his natural flexibility. Raph is second tallest and broad shouldered with big arms, a powerhouse. Donnie is tall and lanky, a little uncoordinated but still strong.

#tmnt #Anonymous #teenage mutant ninja turtles #leonardo tmnt #raphael tmnt #michaelangelo tmnt #donatello tmnt #my art

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kuroosweakness · 4 years ago

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Okok VIRTUAL HUGS! and late night thought dump again! -🐾

I should start writing notes on myself so I can remember stuff better

TMRW THERES ANOTHER JJK EPISODE!!

Why is it on every quiz I take, the main character likes me? Like I swear I’m perfect for itadori

BUT ALSO KUROO IL HIM SMMMM😍😍

Kuroo🥺 why do you not exist😔

Bruh how would his hair translate to the real world😳 it’s all fun and games till you see how bad his hair ACTUALLY is

Lmao it’s fine bc I still love him I guess🙄🙄

JKJK I DO I DO

I drew Kuroo and OH MY GOD I SUDDENLY NOW DESPISE HIS HAIR👺 but I also love it🥺🥺 like the first time I drew him😃 that was trash like wtf is that his hair- BUT THE SECOND TIME? I DID IT AND I WAS SO PROUD so I guess his hair isn’t that bad. Oh well, the more I draw him the easier it is I just don’t know where his hair falls from

Who should I draw next? Idk

I’m obsessed with jjk so for the first time I’m drawing everyone from jjk, I already drew Gojo, Megumi and Nobara

I wanna draw a Haikyuu character ^^ anyone who won’t give me a HARD TIME WITH THEIR STUPID HAIR👁👁 (yes I’m talking abt u Kuroo what u gonna do abt it?) ((*cries bc he’s fictional and isn’t here to fight me))

Tsukki’s hair is lowkey crusty like wtf is that😃

Tanaka is prob the easiest to draw since well, HE BALD😶

KUROO, STOP SLEEPING BETWEEN TWO PILLOWS IT IS NOT HELPING U

Ok but lowkey, (I’m kinda like a therapist but not but bc I act like one I dug so deep into this) I headcanon he sleeps between two pillows bc his parents used to fight all the time when he was younger and now he’s just so used to it I don’t think he can sleep if he stops🥺

I also think his a light sleeper when his ears aren’t covered LIKE THE TINIEST MOVEMENT COULD WAKE HIM UP😳😳 imagine getting out of the bed for a glass of water and he’s just asks you why you’re awake and you tell him your throat is dry so you want some water then he puts you back in bed and gets the glass for you🥺🥺 and the he gets back in bed and cuddles with you after you drink your water-

PLEASE I GOT INTO SO MUCH DETAIL🖐😭 I HOPE KUROO IS NOT A PHASE OMG BC I HAD PHASES BEFORE AND MOST LAST ONE YEAR

Nah I love him sm🥺 It’s prob not

Imma listen to yagami yato again for the 3rd time in a rOw

I SAW THIS ONE TIKTOK AND NO MY FEARS HAS COME TO LIFE LIKE SENPAPI GABE (idk if u know him he’s a popular anime tiktoker) TALKED ABT HOW TO GET GAME AND TALKED AB THE CHIBI CHAN THING I WAS TALKING ABT LAST TIME AAAAAAA-

hey hey! I honestly am getting rlly attached to you :) Ik I’m just a anon and I’m prob too shy to ever reveal myself (even though it’s probably the most obvious connection lmao) I enjoy sending you asks and seeing your reactions. >w<

writing notes on yourself is such a good idea! :)) except it might be bad for ur skin- u can carry around sticky notes!

jjk 😳 i saw a tiktok that reminded me that sk8 the infinity is coming out in a few days and jfdksajlsdkjf ugh, time to fall back into the anime hole (i haven’t watched animes other than haikyuu in a while :’)

i tried drawing kuroo’s hair and it looked like grass that haven’t been mowed in years.

hair is too hard to draw smh :’

*imagines playfights with kuroo* *cries*

i- RIGHT? tsukki’s hair looks kinda soft. tanaka, our king

WDYM, KUROO’S SLEEPING HABIT IS CUTE 🥺(it’s not helping him but it’s helping his s/o because they’ll be able to lay on his back at any time and he won’t be able to do anything about it. UNLESS HE PURPOSELY ROLLS TURN AND CRUSHES HIS S/O- he would.)

i- fjdkslakdjf your water scenario isn’t good for my heart. not me melting into a puddle of goo </3 i’m a light sleeper too- (see, this is another sign we’re compatible- >< )

i love ur details!! <3

omg i really don’t want him to be a phase. i’ve had phases too and they only last like a few weeks because i move on to other things like kdrama actors (*sighs in cha eunwoo*) and other anime characters- BUT THIS IS THE LONGEST I’VE EVER <33 i won’t be dating for the next couple of years because my mental health says no; gotta find ways to cope with loneliness :’)

I’VE SEEN HIS TIKTOKS BEFORE- but it’s been a while so i’m sorry babes i don’t really know what ur talking about :’D

i enjoy reading your asks 🥺come talk to me again soon! <3

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langdxn · 5 years ago

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Hey hey! I really liked the Richard fic you recently posted, I haven't seen many people writing for him! Could you write some smut for Richard? Maybe something where the reader and him sneak around the clinic in the middle of the night bc they both can't sleep and end up having sex somewhere? 👀I'll leave it up to you, I just really love your writing!

Awh thank you very much anon, I’m so glad you liked it! Richard’s our soft boi and I love writing for him so much, I had to give him a new aspect here just for fun. Hope this is what you were looking for, anon! ❤️

You weren’t usually this nervous introducing yourself to clinic newcomers.

After gazing at him from your dark corner of the lounge for three weeks straight, convincing yourself there would never be a right time to greet Richard, you decided the perfect time to approach him would have to be at 4am on a Wednesday.

“Can’t sleep?”

Richard’s focus remained on the TV set, volume low to not wake the rest of the clinic.

“Me neither,” you sighed, slumping into the seat beside him. Uncomfortable, its padding had seen better days, but the clinic wasn’t there to make life easy for you.

“I’m Y/N. You’re Richard, right?”

A nod.

“Jonah’s been talking about you. Won’t shut up about you actually. It’s not all nice things but that just means he likes you, at least in Jonah’s language anyway.”

Richard’s gaze dropped to his lap, clearly unwilling to discuss his roommate. Your plethora of inane icebreakers was wearing thin already.

“I’m not taking their meds either. You think they’d have noticed when there’s a pair of insomniacs sat wide awake in the lounge that should’ve been out for the count four hours ago.”

He stifled a snicker under his breath, curling his long brunette hair behind his ear. Assuming this stony silence couldn’t last forever, you rose to your feet and stood in front of him, completely blocking his view of the flickering screen. Outstretching a hand before him, you smiled warmly.

“Walk with me?”

He took a second to deliberate, quirking an eyebrow and meeting your eyes with his, before taking your hand as you whisked him away.

Treading out into the humid summer night, you headed for the tire swings as Richard trailed obediently. You picked a swing in the middle, leaving Richard no choice but to sit beside you. He took a seat tentatively, gazing at you for the next instruction.

“So what do you think of this place so far?”

“Could be worse,” Richard huffed, you flinched slightly at the first words you’d heard escape his lips.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” you laughed dismissively, scuffing your sneakers in the dust beneath your feet. “I could still be living with my parents.”

Concern suddenly washed over his face, brows furrowed as he looked at you softly.

“What did they do?”

“Ah, you know,” you started swinging nervously, gliding your feet back to throw yourself forwards. “Threw stuff whenever I said something out of turn. Threw me out the door when something didn’t go their way. Argued more than they talked. Packed suitcases, smashed plates, the usual.”

“That—that’s not the usual,” Richard muttered, crossing his feet as the momentum of your swing carried him away.

“Yeah, I know it isn’t. Just makes it easier if I pretend it’s what everybody else does.”

A tense pause between you allowed you to hear the crickets in the summer night, a cacophony of natural nocturnal creatures that also avoided taking their sleeping meds.

“My parents couldn’t understand what was wrong with me,” Richard sighed solemnly, you scuffed your feet on the ground to halt your swing. “They just left me here so they could get on with their lives.”

“That’s not the usual either,” you murmured.

“Yeah, I know.”

Richard slammed his feet into the dirt, sliding from his swing to lean against the tree, a slight pout scrunching his lips.

“Hey, don’t worry,” you shushed him as you untangled yourself from the tire swing and stopped in front of him, your sneakers bumping his. You raised a caring hand to brush his brooding brunette fringe from his eyes and gently cupped his cheek. “Fuck them. We’ve got each other now, right?”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” His deep blue eyes sparkled even in the dim light, a troubled gaze meeting yours.

“Because we’re in this together, Richard. We’re two fucked up kids stuck in this shithole until they decide we’re mentally fit to be released back into the real world.”

“Oh and it also helps I’ve had a crush on you since I first saw you.”

You winced at your blunt delivery, almost hoping he hadn’t heard you.

He definitely heard you.

Richard snaked both his hands around your waist and drew you into him, enveloping your lips with his. Your hands draped around his neck and pulled him closer, fireworks bursting in your mind as you melted into his touch.

Trailing his grasp down to your hips, Richard spun you both around until you were pressed up against the sharp bark of the tree, your hair swinging recklessly around you and wooden nodules resting in the small of your back as he allowed his hands to wander up your chest. Grabbing handfuls of your breasts, he kneaded lightly at the flimsy nightdress between you. Unadulterated moans slipped through your conjoined lips followed by a searing path of heat coursing down between your legs, willing your shaking knees to hold you up.

His soft fingertips journeyed down to clutch your thigh, wrapping it slickly around his hips allowing him access to your already dampened panties.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since I got here,” he hummed against your lips as you pulled him in deeper, nibbling the tip of his tongue to draw him into your mouth as a contented grunt escaped him.

He reluctantly broke away from your kiss to glance down and take in the view of you curled around him, clinging onto him, rivers of arousal spilling from your core down onto his jeans.

“You’re so beautiful,” he cooed. You shared a knowing glance, he traced a finger towards your panties, scooping them aside in one smooth flick, exposing your folds enough to slide two fingers inside you.

You threw your head back against the tree as he curled his fingers against your walls, tracing gentle flicks inside you as your hands hesitantly wandered to unbutton his jeans. Retrieving his cock from its denim incarceration, you gently pumped a few times before his hand slipped out of your cunt and helped you line up with his length. He edged his hips into you until his tip parted your entrance, his eyes firing into the back of his head on contact.

“Fu—fuck, you’re so tight,” Richard murmured as he slipped inside you, disguising his soft moans by planting hot kisses up your neck.

Your heavy breaths and lazy scratches under his shirt spoke the words you couldn’t find as he increased the tempo of his thrusts into your dripping walls, the sounds of your slapping skin echoing around the basketball court behind you.

“You’re so wet for me,” he moaned, setting a torturous pace peppered with gratuitous grunts falling from his tongue. Richard felt the unmistakable tugs of your walls as pressure began to build deep inside you and smiled.

“You’re close already?” He thrust his hips into you like punctuation, forcing helpless moans from your parted lips. “I need you to say it for me, babe.”

His relentless pounding into your walls had rendered you entirely speechless, so much that you couldn’t remember the last time you spoke to Richard while he was rutting into you. You cupped his face in your hands, planting rushed kisses across his cheeks and lips pleading to let you tip over the edge of your climax.

“Richard, I—I’m gonna—I’m gonna cum—“

“It’s okay Y/N, I’ve got you,” he husked, holding you flush to his chest and curling his hips deeper into you. “Let go for me.”

Your clouded eyes rolled up to the night sky as your orgasm took control of you, Richard’s spread hands digging into your hips as he gave in to his own release, pouring slowly against your walls with a loud, unrestrained moan.

As you caught your breath coming down from your high, you met his piercing blue eyes with a warm, caring gaze.

“I better tell Jonah the only way to get you talking is by screwing you against a tree at 4am,” you chuckled, earning you a cheeky glare from Richard as he slipped out of your dripping folds.

“I better tell Jonah the only way to shut you up is by pounding you against a tree at 4am.”

“Fuck you, Richard,” you slapped his chest playfully, carefully unhooking your legs from his waist to drop to the ground.

“You just did, babe.”

#the last time i saw richard #cody fern #richard x reader

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devinsfm · 5 years ago

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joe keery. cis male. he/him. ／ jack devin just pulled up blasting video killed the radio star by the buggles — that song is so them ! you know, for a twenty - four year old radio show host, i’ve heard they’re really impulsive, but that they make up for it by being so captivating. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say obscure vintage horror comics, blurry photographs of mysterious figures in the woods, and vivid descriptions of spine - chilling tales . here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble ! ( sam, 23, est, she/her )

hey there, demons ! *ba tum tss* i’m sam and i never do this, but i really felt like it was time for a change, so i drew lots of inspiration from some of my favorite ocs and i love what i’ve come up with ! character info is under the cut and please feel free to message me if you would like to plot !

i. stats

𝔣𝔲𝔩𝔩 𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔢: jackson willard devin

𝔭𝔯𝔢𝔣𝔢𝔯𝔯𝔢𝔡 𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔢𝔰: jack, spooky guy, the night watchman

𝔥𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔱𝔬𝔴𝔫: salem, massachusetts

𝔡𝔞𝔱𝔢 𝔬𝔣 𝔟𝔦𝔯𝔱𝔥: ocotber 31st, 1995

𝔷𝔬𝔡𝔦𝔞𝔠: scorpio

𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫: demisexual

𝔬𝔠𝔠𝔲𝔭𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫: host of the graveyard shift, a radio program airing every weeknight from 12am to 5am

𝔭𝔬𝔰. 𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔱𝔰: captivating, witty, resolute.

𝔫𝔢𝔤. 𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔱𝔰: impulsive, gauche, naive.

ii. history

jackson willard “jack” devin was born on halloween day ( yes, really ) in salem massachusetts ( yes, really ). his mother stayed home with him as he was growing up while his father is a boston cop turned sheriff of the county and he’s an only child.

outside of the popular tourist spots, his hometown has a very close - knit, stuck in the 80s vibe. it’s the sort of place where everyone knows everyone for their entire lives because no one ever leaves and no one new ever moves in. phone and internet signals are nearly impossible to come by, so the local arcade and the video store still have quite a booming business in the year 2020. jack grew up in a not - so - typical small town suburban gothic environment, his dad’s income being just enough for them to get by every month.

he was an energetic kid who cycled through all sorts of interests, trying out everything from little league ( disaster ) to music lessons ( not as much of a disaster, but he wound up getting bored of it ). nothing seemed to really stick until he got his first horror comic : a vintage issue of tales from the crypt with tattered, yellowing pages. he was five years old and paid five cents for it at an elderly neighbor’s yard sale and from that moment on he was hooked. it started with the comics, but he quickly expanded his horizons to movies, books, and television in the genre of horror.

he got intro drawing and that was the only thing besides his newfound interest in horror that he could sit still for. at first he would just try to re - draw the panels in his comic books, but soon he was drawing anything and everything that caught his interest and he was getting good. he was being homeschooled by his mother at the time, but once friends and family and, well, everyone took notice of his skill, they were encouraging his parents to nurture his talent.

his parents fought about it. his dad didn’t see the value in his skill and wanted him to instead focus on academics, aspiring towards his son one day becoming a lawyer or a businessman or even following in his footsteps. jack never wanted that for himself. he was homeschooled by his mom up until then and she believed in him. it was with her blessing that he would go to a real school for the first time at the age of fourteen, starting off his freshman year at a high school that was a thirty minute train ride away in boston and catered exclusively to youth who demonstrated an exceptional talent in some area of the fine arts.

jack did well in school, but his grades probably would have been a lot better still if he didn’t start purposely acting out as his relationship with his dad got worse and worse. he started skipping classes, getting caught trespassing in cemeteries at 2am, and smoking a lot of weed.

when it came time for college, jack planned to attend art school. he swears he did. he looked a few schools on the west coast to get away from his dad for a few years yikes and planned to apply, but on the deadline date he got so high that he forgot to submit his portfolios. yes, really.

he loaded up his van ( a turquiose monstrosity he painted to look like the mystery machine ) and headed out to california anyway after telling his parents that he would be attending UCLA. of course, they quickly found it that it was a lie and his dad was furious. the two got into a huge fight over the phone and things were said. the result is that jack and his father haven’t spoken to each other ever since.

he did lots of odd jobs while he was on the road and basically lived in his van, which didn’t change right away when he decided to settle in LA, but he eventually got a job fetching coffee for the late night employees at a local radio station.

it was the typical, cliché story : the regular late night host called out of work at the last minute, there was no one else around and they were going to be on air in ten seconds. jack was thrown in front of the microphone and told to think fast !

he did, and the listeners loved him for it. whether it was his ramblings about horror movies or his thick boston accent or his reckless use of swear words on live radio, he turned out to be a massive hit. the successful night earned him a gig as an occasional substitute deejay, and with each broadcast he grew more and more popular, and about two years ago he was finally given his own program.

the graveyard shift is a radio program that airs every weeknight from 12am - 5am in the los angeles area and on apps such as iheartradio. jack hosts the show as his ( thinly veiled ) alter ego the night watchmen and discusses topics such as the paranormal, conspiracy theories, and all things horror. it’s one of the most popular programs of the time slot in the country.

it’s something that he never expected or picturing himself doing, but now he can’t imagine doing anything else. he’s become really passionate about revitalizing the field and bringing radio into the 21st century. he signed a HUGE contract with the studio when his show first started and now he’s a quite well known radio personality in the area and across the country.

iii. extras

huge stoner. high as fuck 90% of the time, and the other 10% of the time he’s probably still high, just not as fuck.

well known for his on air antics. he’ll light a joint in the middle of his radio show, he’ll prank call a friend and broadcast it to the entire city, he’ll curse in every single sentence and skate by on the after hours excuse when he’s reprimanded for it. he’s so outlandish and bizarre and like nothing that’s ever been heard on the radio before, and it just draws people in.

he often seems shy in person, but it’s more like he’s just a little socially awkward, something which also shines through in occasional non - malicious but blunt remarks and general lack of regard for what people think of him. he really just...doesn’t care.

genuinely seems to believe it’s either halloween day and / or the year 1986 at any given moment as that’s about as recent as his pop culture references get. he’s never heard of the k*rdashians, he doesn’t know what the mcu is, and the phrase yeet means absolutely nothing to him. mention any of it to him and he’ll just stare blankly bc he honestly doesn’t have a clue.

HOWEVER, he did start the area 51 meme from last summer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

still draws. especially if he has to still for a stretch of time, then he’ll take out his latest sketchbook ( he goes through a lot of them ) and start doodling. he’s still quite good, mostly in his favored comic - esque style.

BIG CHAOTIC ENERGY and ZERO IMPULSE CONTROL

a chatterbox with friends but don’t be fooled...he’s been giving his own dad the silent treatment for almost seven ( 7 ) years now. it’s his preferred method of expressing anger towards someone because he isn’t really a fan of confrontation, but he’s maybe a liiiittle bit stubborn.

most of the time he’s a really easygoing person, a good friend and very loyal to the people he cares about. well - meaning, not the best at advice but he’s more likely to try and cheer a person up anyway.

he has a pet pied ball python named the crypt keeper ( tkc for short ) who he sometimes just carries with him because he likes to just chill wrapped around jack’s hand and arm.

iv. wanted connections

maternal or paternal cousins ( their grandparents probably live in boston or new england but otherwise anything goes for this )

close friends

friends

guests on his radio show

fans / haters of his radio show

people who don’t like him / find him annoying

exes ( 1 - 2, can be on good or bad terms )

“casually dating” but it might get real complicated soon - allie james

( these are just ideas and i’m trash at coming up with stuff, so please don’t feel limited by what’s listed here. )

#excess:intro #drugs tw #i decided that i needed something new but i just ''created'' this ''new character'' instead #countdown until i mess up his name has officially begun

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autvmnalsky · 5 years ago

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Blindspot

Who is he? Who is the man with no eyes?

Pairing: Park Jimin x Reader (non romantic)

Genre: Supernatural Horror, Drama

Word Count: 3.9k

Summary: Everywhere you turn, he’s there, just barely on the edge of your vision. No one else seems to see him. He outside on the street, in your house, in your room. Yet, no matter how hard you try, you’re unable to look at him directly.

Warnings: mentions of death and blood

A/N: if y’all dont already think i’m the worst procrastinator ever i’ll have you know that i started this fic in august of 2018 and meant to finish it for halloween of 2018 but i couldn’t even finish it in time for halloween of 2019 bc im trash

Two children, a boy and a girl, played along the rocks at the waterfront. It was overcast today, as it usually was, and a dense fog rolled over the bay toward the shore. They scuttled along, chasing crabs, attempting to grab the tiny, orange critters as they disappeared into the water. Their mother watched from a bench a few feet away.

“Be careful, loves. We can’t afford to lose anymore people here.”

The children nodded understandingly and proceeded with their activity. That is, when the eldest, the sister, spotted something strange amongst the jagged rocks that jutted out from the mellow tides.

“Mommy! What’s that?”

The mother stood up from the bench and calmly strolled over to her daughter. She peered down at the rocks, and saw the strange figure that was jammed between them.

The mother let out a sigh. “That’s Stephanie. Do you remember her? She baked brownies for the bake sale last month.”

The son nodded. “I thought she went missing last week.”

“She did. This is where the people who go missing sometimes end up. Come on, children.” She held out both her hands and each child took one. “You two walk on home while I go tell Sheriff Strazzeri.”

Emerald Bay was too small for a proper sheriff’s department, or a crime scene investigation unit. It was just Sheriff Strazzeri, passionate about the law, and his son, Will, who attended the town’s subpar, probably not accredited by any other town’s standards, medical school. Together they investigated all the weird things that happen in this tiny town.

People always say there’s nothing to do in Emerald Bay. They’re pretty much right. It’s a small coastal town, with a population of about four hundred and declining. On the east side of Emerald Bay is the Marina, lined with abandoned boats that smell of rotting fish and are covered with ancient, dried-up barnacles. On the west side is your ticket out: a dirt road that leads into the forest, a thick, dense barrier of emerald painted evergreens. That’s where the town gets its name. And past the forest is the farmland, and past the farmland is the big city. So why don’t people leave Emerald Bay? Why don’t they abandon it completely?

The answer? No one ever makes it out of the forest alive.

Everytime someone packs their bags and tries to leave Emerald Bay, something prevents them from truly leaving. You remember when you were young, maybe three or four years old, your neighbor, Ben, decided he had enough of the monotony of this town, and got in his car and started driving. You thought he was off to a bigger and better life, somewhere out in the big city, but three days later, they found his car broken down on the road in the forest, with his dead body rotting inside.

A few years before that, a woman who had been widowed, thought it was too difficult living in the house she had shared with her husband. She didn’t even take her things. She just started walking. She wandered into the forest, and a few days later, her body was found floating in between the boats at the Marina. In the pocket of her yellow raincoat was a piece of paper, surprisingly undamaged. On it was a drawing, done in what appeared to be blood. It looked like it was drawn by a toddler, simple and cartoonish. It was of a man, or rather a stick figure, with something over his eyes. Below the drawing were two words: SAVE ME.

This has been going on for as long as anyone can remember. Residents have tried to explain this strange phenomenon, sometimes with outlandish theories. But the most common theory, and what you think is the most plausible one, sprang from the drawing found in the widow’s pocket.

Many think that she was trying to warn us. That she drew it in a haste before she died. Many think that there is a man in the forest. One that wears a piece of cloth over his eyes. One that takes the lives of anyone who wanders into his home.

Supposedly he lives in the forest alone. Deep into the dark woods, making himself known only at night. His skin and his hair are an ashy gray, and he is said to glow under a full moon. But the most distinguishing thing about him is he always wears a black blindfold. Why? Because he is blind. Because he is the man with no eyes.

You have always been interested in this kind of stuff. The spooky, the scary, the unsettling. Slenderman theories completely consumed you in grade school. So did werewolves, ghosts, and all things supernatural. You’ve always managed to prove them all as myths. Except this one.

You had almost forgotten about the man in the forest until last week.

Mark was a well beloved citizen of Emerald Bay. You had been in school with him your whole life. He was so incredibly smart and gifted. Everyone thought he would become mayor one day or something. That is, until a couple of weeks ago, when he went missing.

His family said he went to buy milk from the grocery store and he never returned. All of Emerald Bay were on the lookout, although there aren’t very many places to hide in such a small town. He had no reason to run away either. His parents were very loving, and his friends were supportive. No one ever imagined that he would do such a thing.

A week after Mark went missing, his body is found at the edge of the forest. There’s no sign of injury, and he wasn’t gone long enough to die from thirst or starvation. Will can’t find anything wrong with him. He can’t even determine when Mark had died.

As an ordinary citizen, you don’t have access to many of the details surrounding Mark’s death. All the information you get is from what they print in the local newspaper, and you know those things never tell the whole story. You began volunteering at the local library a few months back, hoping to gain more access to the towns archives, but there are so many newspapers and journals that it quickly became overwhelming, and you put a pause on poring through them. However, being the urban legend enthusiast you are, you want to know more, and the only way to get information is to dig it up yourself.

That’s why you waited until tonight, the night of the first full moon since they discovered Mark’s body. You equip yourself with a flashlight, pepper spray, and a sledge hammer (you know, just in case). You’ve never hunted this kind of creature before, so you don’t know what kind of equipment you would need. It’s stupid to go out into the forest alone, especially on the night of a full moon, but you don’t know anyone stupid enough to agree to go with you.

The streets are dead, as they are every night, when you pull your car up to the edge of the forest. You can see the full moon peeking through the branches of the trees, round and luminous.

You must go on foot from here. The roads in the forest are bumpy and jagged from the tree roots breaking through the asphalt. You would bust a tire within seconds of entering.

The chilly sea breeze nips at your skin when you exit your car. You pop open your trunk and grab your hunting supplies: An EMF meter you built yourself, your sledge hammer for defense, holy water blessed by Reverend Kang, some dried sage, and a wooden stake because vampires aren’t real but you never know, right?

You close the trunk and step away from your car. The breeze seems to get stronger as you walk toward the forest, almost as if it’s pulling you into it. You let it lure you in amongst the trees. You follow it until you can’t see your car behind you anymore, and still you continue on. You make your way around a large tree and then stop dead in your tracks. In front of you is a figure, glowing so brightly that you can’t discern any actual shapes. You just know that it is vaguely human.

“Y/N.” The sound echoes in your ears. The voice is melodic, calming, unlike anything you’ve heard before.

You struggle to catch your breath. “H-how do you know my name?”

“I know everything.” The figure lifts its hand up and beckons you. “Come closer.”

You can feel your limbs wanting to move on their own. You try to resist it and stand your ground. You don’t want to go near him. You want to stay a safe distance away, but he’s too strong, and he pulls you closer to him. Soon, the two of you are face to face, and you can make out his features. His hair glows silver, and his icy white skin contrasts starkly with the black blindfold that covers his eyes. He radiates a strange energy, one that you’ve never experienced before. It’s cold, yet warm at the same time. Goosebumps prickle on your skin, yet your body feels feverish. Your chest feels tight as you struggle to fill your lungs with air.

“W-what are you?”

He doesn’t hesitate to answer. “I am ancient. I am the only one of my kind, therefore I don’t have a name. But you may call me Jimin.”

“Jimin,” you mutter in awe. You have so many questions for this strange creature. You never thought you’d actually find him, and now that you have, you must make the most of it. “There are so many things I want to know. Why do you take people? Why do you kill the residents of Emerald Bay?”

“I simply call to them. It is their choice whether they answer or not.”

“Are you calling me to right now?”

“Yes.” Jimin furrows his brows in confusion. “But you seem to be resisting my charm.”

“I’m not here to be your next victim.”

“Then why are you here?”

“LIke I said before. To find out why you take people, why you kill them.”

“But that’s not the only reason. The people who come here are unhappy. They want more from Emerald Bay. No one wanders into the forest, no matter how curious, unless they don’t mind being taken.”

“That’s not true,” you refute.

“Isn’t it? Think about everyone who has wandered in here. Think about your own self.”

You open your mouth to speak, to tell him he’s wrong. But with the blink of an eye he’s gone.

You drive home dejectedly. Yes, you found Jimin, but now you have more questions than answers. What is he? Why does he kill people? How does he do it?

You get farther and farther away from the forest. It’s nearly morning and the AM fog is starting to roll in from the ocean, coating the town in a thick blanket of gray. It’s so thick, you can barely see the block ahead of you. Your eyes momentarily wander away from the road to check your mirrors. Your tires screech as you suddenly slam on the brakes. You rub your eyes and blink. You could have sworn you just saw something in your back seat. And you’re almost positive that something was Jimin. But as you glance back up at your rear view, there’s no one there. It’s just your empty back seat and the eerie fog behind you.

You tell yourself that you’re just seeing things. You didn’t get any sleep last night and you’re starting to hallucinate.

When you get home, you’re so exhausted that you immediately collapse onto your bed and fall asleep. If you dream that night, you don’t remember any of them.

You sleep until you can’t anymore, and you lay in bed until your body aches. It screams at you to get up, and so you do, making your way to the bathroom to wash your face.

You splash the cool water over your skin, rinsing off the cleanser that still clings to the area around your eyes. Afterward, you use a towel to pat your skin dry and take a look in the mirror. You freeze and nearly drop the towel. Over your shoulder, you can see Jimin standing, watching but not watching.

You whip around but there’s nothing there. When you look back in the mirror, he’s nowhere to be seen. You got plenty of sleep this morning, so there’s no reason for you to be seeing things. But what else could possibly explain this?

Something doesn’t feel right.

As hard as you try, you can’t bring your eyes to open. You can sense it. You can feel something in your room. You sense an unmistakable presence at the foot of your bed. It feels, evil, demonic, malevolent.

You gasp for air, but the blankets seem to suffocate you. You want to push them off so you can breathe, but you’re paralyzed. Your heart races as you try to will yourself to open your eyes, to take a deep breath, anything.

As quick as it comes, the feeling is gone. Your heart is beating out of your chest. You wiggle your toes to see if you can move again, but you’re too scared to open your eyes. Instead, you bury yourself deeper beneath your covers and try to fall asleep, but you can’t shake the feeling that something truly evil was just in your room.

When you finally succumb to slumber, you dream of the forest that night.

You’re running. The brisk air and the smell of pine nip at your nostrils. Your lungs burn, and no matter how hard you push yourself, you can’t seem to move faster than a crawl. You feel something chasing you, and you’re trying to get away. You’re trying to get back to the main road where you’ve parked your car, but the only thing around you is endless forest. Your heart feels as if it’s going to explode.

Faster, faster, you tell yourself. But it’s no use. You can’t go any faster.

You run and run. You don’t see the fallen branch on the ground until your foot catches on it, and you hurdle forward, putting your hands out to break the fall.

But you never hit the ground, because the panic jolts you awake.

This time you’re able to open your eyes, and it’s daylight out. Your clock says 7:03, twelve minutes before the alarm is supposed to go off and you have to get ready for school.

When you sit up your brain pounds with a massive migraine that leaves you a bit nauseous. You wash your face in the sink like you do every morning, but today, you don’t see Jimin in the reflection with you. You bend over to rinse the cleanser off your face, and when you stand back up straight, you’re hit with a sudden wave a dizziness. Bile makes its way up your throat and you heave violently into the sink until it’s filled with thick, dark blood.

When you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, you see your mouth covered in red. You stumble back as a high pitched scream rings through your ears.

Your mom rushes up the stairs and sticks her head in to the bathroom. “Is everything alright? Why did you scream?”

You turn to face her. Can’t she see that your mouth is covered in blood? She’s not looking at you in horror, her concerned expression does not waver. When you glance back in the mirror, there’s no blood to be seen, and the sink is spotless as well.

“Ye-yeah, Mom. I just…” you wrack your brain for an excuse, “thought I saw a spider. That’s all. Everything is fine.” But you can still taste the metallic tang on your tongue.

When she leaves you look back in the mirror and Jimin stands in her place. You can feel his gaze piercing through the cloth over his eyes.

With the blink of an eye he’s gone.

Your life goes on like this for days, weeks. Everywhere you turn, he’s there, just barely on the edge of your vision. No one else seems to see him. He outside on the street, in your house, in your room. Yet, no matter how hard you try, you’re unable to look at him directly. You can’t sleep. You can barely eat. You can’t focus.

You can’t stand it anymore. You need answers.

The Emerald Bay Library is old, much like all the other buildings in Emerald Bay. It’s been here for longer than even the oldest residents of the town can remember. Its shelves are filled mostly with novels from the previous century. No one knows where they came from. They seemingly just manifested one day. It’s part of the mystery of how this town came into existence.

After your volunteer shift, you tell Head Librarian Kim that you’re going to stay behind to do some research for a class project. He hands you the keys and tells you to lock up when you’re done without questioning you any further. The second he leaves, you head a computer to search the town archives. You look for journals, newspaper articles, anything that documents strange and inexplicable happenings. You write down some promising pieces along with their call number and set off to find them.

When you turn the corner to head down one of the aisles, you can feel him. You look around you, seeing if you can find him lurking in the shadows. You don’t see anything, but his presence, the heaviness in the air, this thick, eerie feeling, is unmistakable.

Shrugging it off, you scan the bookshelf for what you’re looking for. You trace your fingers over it’s spine, almost as old as the town itself.

The Mystery and Lore of Emerald Bay

You pluck the book from the shelf. It’s dusty, like it hadn't been touched in years.

You wander over to the tables that sit in between the shelves and take a seat. The book’s leathery cover feels dry beneath your fingers. Stiff and crusty. Dust flies up toward your face as you open the book and flip through its yellowed pages, filled with handwritten and hand drawn accounts of unexplained phenomena that once sent the town into panic.

The first is the chupacabra, from the time the town’s cattle were disappearing. Turns out it was just a resident who didn’t want to pay for beef at the local butcher shop and decided to take and slaughter them for himself.

Then the Emerald Bay Monster, which was quickly determined to merely be driftwood.

Along with a few other things that have since been solved by modern science. Things like poisonous mushrooms, lightning bugs, and fairy rings.

Finally, at the end of the book, you find what you’re looking for.

The Man with No Eyes

You skim through the introduction and description of Jimin, then some eye witness accounts written by former residents of Emerald Bay, long dead from old age or maybe even something more sinister. Then you find what you’re looking for.

Not much is known about this mysterious man, only that he kills. Some say that he is both immortal and invulnerable, making him impervious to any harm one might attempt to inflict upon him. However, there are rumors from the ancient times about this man. There have been no records of whether anyone has actually attempted these methods, however, the creature still stands, which is a testament to something. If one truly wants to know, legend has it that the only way to kill him is–

You’re about to turn the page only to find that the subsequent pages have been ripped out, and on the back cover, written in what appears to be blood, are the words:

YOU CAN’T KILL ME

You drop the book as soon as you see it.

You want to yell at him, to scream. But it’s hard to talk to something you can’t face directly. “What do you want? Why won’t you leave me alone?”

“I will be here until you give into me.”

You whip your head around, only to be met with dusty bookshelves and darkness.

“Is this how you got the others to do it? By messing with their heads? Come out where I can see you!”

That’s when the bright, glowing figure steps out from the shadows and stands in front of you. His face is expressionless as he stares at you through the pitch black blindfold.

“Do you think they just happened to go to the forest, just because you wanted to?” Jimin asks. “No, that was me, calling to them. And now I am calling to you. I have come to claim you. It is your time.”

You shake your head and stand your ground.

“Come to me,” he beckons.

“And what if I don’t?”

“Then I will choose someone else,” he answers plainly.

“I don’t want someone else to die but I don’t want to die either!”

”Then don’t. You don’t have to die. Just come to me.”

“Why don’t you just leave me alone? Why don’t you leave all of us alone?”

“It’s not in my nature. My species feeds off of your energy, your sadness.”

“And if we don’t give it to you, you die?”

Jimin chuckles. “No, you can’t kill me that easily. I simply get angrier, more violent until I get what I want.”

When he smiles, you can see his teeth. Sharp, jagged. There are rows of them, like shark teeth. Your heart pounds in your chest. You take a step back, but Jimin is quick to step toward you. You take another step, but the backs of your legs hit the table. You quickly dart your eyes around the room, searching for an exit route. There are tables, chairs, and shelves in the way. The main entrance is on the other side of the library, and Jimin stands in the way of the emergency door.

“There’s nowhere for you to run, Y/N. Because as fast as you run, I will always be faster.”

“What happens when I give in?”

“You’ll find out.”

He removes his blindfold to reveal the brightest, most blinding light you have ever seen.

The same woman watches as her children play along the shore. a light breeze blows a crumpled piece of paper to her feet. she picks it up and reads it, sighing.

MISSING PERSON Y/N Along with a photo your mom took of you two years ago.

You’ve been missing for over two months now. Usually the bodies turn up within a couple of weeks. No one was brave enough to go into the forest to look for you. Not even Officer Strazzeri. Not even your mother.

Maybe you weren’t taken. Maybe you were a lucky one. Maybe you were actually able to escape Emerald Bay onto bigger and better things.

#networkbangtan #armiesnet #btswriters #bts writing squad #busanboysnet #park jimin #jimin fanfic #bts fanfic #jimin #my writing #mine

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emybain · 6 years ago

Text

Renegades Titanic AU: Part 4

sis may be sick posting this but I got a break today from the madness and I’ve been itching to post the next part since like Wednesday so here she is. I was going to write more but figured it would be better splitting up this part and the next part bc this would've been a lot longer since the next part will have a lot of stuff going on. also, go watch the hecking movie if you haven't already please I dont want to spoil but I also love this au and its my current obsession okay

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Part 4: The Next Day

Nova

“I’ve been on my own since I was six, when my family died.” Nova tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as the wind picked up. “Well, not technically on my own…” she trailed off, fixing her eyes on the horizon. She didn’t want to mention the other’s names, especially Ace’s, in front of Adrian, due to their circumstances.

“With the Anarchists?” Adrian piped up, looking down at her. They were strolling along the first class deck, Nova feeling out of place in her old shirt and hand-me-down suspenders among the beautifully dressed ladies. Adrian had sought her out that afternoon after lunch and invited her on a walk along the deck, to which Nova accepted, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do. Now, it was nearing late afternoon, and they had made a few laps around the ship.

Nova shot him a bewildered look, but laughed. “Anarchists? Is that what you call us?”

Adrian blushed. Nova bit her lip, ignoring how adorable he looked. “Um...yeah, I guess. Because of their crimes.” She noticed how he didn’t include her in with them. Huh.

Nova said nothing in reply, remaining silent. They stayed like that for a bit, until Nova forced herself to speak again. She was bothered by last night's events, and felt it necessary to address them properly.

“I want to thank you, Mr. Everhart-”

“Adrian,” he interrupted, before coughing awkwardly. “Sorry. But please, call me Adrian.”

“Adrian,” Nova nodded, his name feeling weird on her tongue, “thank you for saving me last night.” Nova looked down at her hands. “And also thank you for your discretion about what really happened.”

Adrian stopped, so she did as well. He turned to face her. “Of course, Miss McLain. If you don’t mind my asking, what made you think you had no choice?”

Now it was Nova’s turn to blush. She tore her eyes from Adrian’s, despite enjoying gazing up at them, and made her way to the railing overlooking the ocean. She turned back around and leaned against it, hugging herself.

“I know what you’re thinking.” She risked a glance up at him. His eyebrows were furrowed together. She looked back down. “How can someone who causes pain be in pain herself?” She laughed humorlessly.

Adrian took a hesitant step forward. “No, that’s not what I was thinking at all. And besides, you're not the one causing people pain. They are.” The way he said they, with so much hostility, sent a shiver down Nova’s spine. He had no idea just how much she had done, how much destruction and pain was on her hands. How Nightmare was the most wanted criminal in Europe.

Nova pursed her lips. Deep down she knew she shouldn’t open up to him; he was a stranger, one of them. But his eyes were so kind, so filled with concern. Surely, since he had kept her secret last night from everyone, he could keep another. It wasn’t like he would rush down to third class to tell Honey or Leroy or Ingrid, either.

Her arms tightened around her middle. “It’s just…” she swallowed. “It was everything, I suppose. And everyone. There’s this pressure to be what they want me to be, and-and I don’t know if I can do it. You know, not once have they asked me what I want. It’s always been about their needs and desires. I’m barely seventeen and it’s like the weight of the world has crashed down upon my shoulders and I’m powerless to lift it up.”

“That’s some serious stuff.” Adrian quirked his lips up, drawing Nova’s eyes to them. She looked away immediately. “That much stress would have dragged you to the bottom for sure.”

She knew he was trying to be lighthearted, possibly for her sake, but all she could do was hum in reply. “I have until this boat docks to figure out how I’m supposed to make them proud, but I’m frightened of failing.

“Do you care about them?”

Nova’s head shot up. “Pardon me?”

Adrian repeated the question, crossing his arms over his chest.

Nova blinked at him, stammering. “That’s...that’s very rude. Not exactly a question you should be asking me.”

Adrian shrugged. “It’s a simple question, Miss McLain. Do you care about them?”

She pushed herself away from the railing, a laugh bursting from her lips. “It’s an inappropriate question for someone of your rank and mine.”

“Why is it so hard to answer the question?” He smiled, but it was confused.

“We are not having this conversation,” Nova said firmly, looking around them as people passed. “You are rude and presumptuous, and now I’m leaving.” She reached out to shake his hand, which he accepted. “Adrian...Mr. Everhart, it’s been a pleasure.” Although her tone said otherwise. “I have thanked you, and-”

“Insulted me.” Adrian grinned. Nova’s teeth clenched. Of course he found it amusing. He would probably recount the whole conversation to his little friend group later. Nova knew she should have just kept her mouth shut. Now she was paying for it.

“You deserved it.” Nova looked down at the book-type thing he had been carrying around with him all afternoon, and frowned. She had noticed it earlier, but thought nothing of it. Now, though, she could see how he carried it close to him as if it were important. She let go of his hand, which she had still been shaking, and reached out for it, snatching it before he could pull back. “What is this stupid thing you’ve been carrying around, anyway?”

Adrian did nothing, said nothing, only watched calmly as she peeked inside at its contents. The outside was made of fine leather, soft against Nova’s hands. Her head tilted. “What are you, an artist?” Flipping through each page, Nova slowly made her way to one of the lounge chairs near her, sitting down. “These are rather good.” In her peripheral vision, she saw Adrian sit down next to her, watching her closely. Her cheeks reddened. “They’re very good, in fact. I didn’t know rich people could have talent.” Only a second later did she realize that that probably wasn’t the best thing she could have said. Now she was the rude one.

He drew a lot of people. She recognized some of his friends she had seen the night before, drawn quite often. She also recognized his parents. There were others, too. A mother with her child, children in a park with a dog. As she kept flipping, she noticed the same face of a young woman, who, unlike the others, was posing for her picture.

“You like this lady,” Nova observed, admiring every detail of the drawing she was currently viewing. “Were the two of you-”

“Oh, no.” Adrian chuckled nervously, and one peek at him confirmed he was blushing. Nova smiled. “She had beautiful hands, you see? He turned that paper over to another one, of the same lady, and pointed to her hands. “Also, she was around a lot when we were in Paris, the daughter of an old friend of my father. Very kind, but also very demanding about getting her portrait done.”

Nova hummed, the smile still resting on her face as she looked at Adrian. “You have a gift, Adrian. These are exquisite. You see people as they are, and not what they portray themselves to be.”

Adrian met her eyes, his own softening. “I see you, Miss McLain.”

Nova’s heart skipped. “A-and?”

“I don’t think you would have jumped last night.”

__________

They talked for a while after that, and Nova found herself enjoying the company of Adrian Everhart, son of her enemies. It wasn’t like talking to one of the others. No, he actually paid attention to her, hanging onto every syllable that came from her lips and never once interrupting. It had been so long since Nova had spoken to someone of her own age, but she also had a feeling she enjoyed talking to him for more reasons that just that.

She learned that he had travelled a lot when he was a child, before his mother passed away. And even when he was adopted, his dads took him everywhere with them. He, unlike her, had seen the world. He had even mentioned how he and his friends would often travel alone when they wanted to.

“I wish I could do that.” Nova sighed, gazing at the sunset before them. They were standing side by side at a railing, elbows barely brushing. “Just leave whenever I please without a care in the world.” Quietly, she added, “It must be nice having money.”

Adrian drew back slightly. “Actually, we try not to spend too much money when we travel, at least my friends and I do.” His cheeks reddened. “We only recently came into a great deal of money, and frankly, none of us are used to it.”

Clearly your parents are, Nova wanted to say, but she bit it back and swallowed it. As far as she could tell, Adrian was being honest, and he had seemed uncomfortable whenever she brought up the subject of wealth. Even the way he dressed, which was much more modest than the rest of the first class gentlemen, showed how he must not have liked his wealth.

“Say we travel somewhere together, even just in theory,” Nova mused, forcing a smile on her face. “Like, oh I don’t know, the beach.”

“That’s oddly specific.” Adrian’s grin returned, warming Nova inside. “Let’s do it.”

“Really?” Nova perked up, although she couldn’t quite place why.

“Yeah.” Adrian nodded specifically. “We can go with Oscar, Ruby, and Danna as well. You’d love them, trust me. They aren’t like the rest of first class. We’d go to one of those piers with rollercoasters, drink cheap beer, walk along the beach, watch the sunset...” He trailed off. Nova thought of his friends, who, like him, didn’t exactly fit the first class stereotype when it came to looks, based on what she had seen the previous night.

“I’d like that. Very much, in fact.” And she meant it. Never in her life had she been allowed to just have fun, to be young. It was always study more to outsmart the Renegades, train harder to beat them, do this and do that to be one step ahead of them with the promise of their downfall. Revenge, revenge, revenge, had been implanted into her mind since her family was murdered, and had been watered carefully by Ace and Phobia and Winston and Ingrid and Leroy and Honey over roughly ten years.

“Screw everything,” she blurted out suddenly. Adrian blinked, surprised. She looked at him, a new excitement blossoming in her chest. “This world is a mess. The people in it are a mess. Fuck all of it.”

Adrian looked like he was about to laugh, but he made a frantic shushing sound. “Lower your voice, people are looking.”

“I don’t care.” Nova smiled widely at the sunset. “Let them hear. Fuck. Everything.”

Behind them, someone cleared their throat. They both turned, and Nova’s eyes widened. It was the Council, and they didn’t look the least bit happy to see Nova with Adrian. Somehow, that made Nova happy. Not far behind them were Adrian’s friends, attempting to catch up once they saw Adrian.

“Dad, Pops.” Adrian’s voice suddenly took on a slight strain. “You remember Miss McLain from last night?” Both of his dads nodded and acknowledged Nova with the same iciness from the previous night. Adrian introduced her to the others, who were kind if only out of politeness. When she was introduced to his friends, however, she was greeted with real smiles.

The dinner bell rang then, and Nova was instantly reminded that she was to join all of them tonight. Fear erupted inside her.

Adrian seemed to remember as well. “We should go get ready, right, Father?” He walked over to Hugh Everhart and the others, then turned back to Nova. “I’ll see you at dinner, Miss McLain?” There was so much hope in his eyes that any excuse Nova was about to make up dissipated. She swallowed and nodded, watching as he walked away with his dads and the rest of the Council. His friends, however, stayed behind.

One of them, Danna, she remembered, snapped her fingers in front of Nova’s face, drawing her attention from Adrian’s retreating figure.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Danna asked, concern in her eyes. Nova bit the inside of her cheek, suddenly losing her confidence she had previously had with Adrian. These were his friends, she reminded herself. She could trust them.

“Not really, Miss Bell.” Nova shook her head.

Danna’s lips quirked up. “It’s okay to call me Danna, you know. Miss Bell is a little too formal for my taste.”

“The same goes for me,” Ruby piped up, all smiles. “And I’m sure for Oscar as well.”

“Of course.” Oscar nodded. “Although, Mr. Silva does have a ring to it.”

“What are you planning on wearing?” Danna brought back the conversation to where it began. She looked Nova up and down, not out of distaste, but critically. When Nova gestured to what she was currently wearing, seeing as she had nothing better, Ruby shook her head.

“Oh, sweetheart, no, no, no.” She reached forward and touched Nova’s elbow lightly. Nova jumped from the contact. “You’re going to need something more than that.” Ruby shared a look with Danna, and then they both linked arms with Nova.

“C’mon.” Ruby pulled her along. “We’ll make sure you shine tonight.”

#renegades #archenemies #supernova #nova artino #Adrian everhart #Oscar silva #danna bell #ruby tucker #anarchists #my writing

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biavastarr · 6 years ago

Text

Co-Workers

Pairing: steve rogers x you (fem!reader)

Warnings: language, mild (?) violence, injuries, inaccurate medical descriptions, inaccurate passage of time

Word Count: 3,968

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any of the media or characters mentioned in this story.

Author’s Notes: okay so this is my first fic that I’ve written since seventh/eighth grade and since the theme is nostalgia and I’m the writer who has the power to do whatever I want I’m gonna disregard like half of canon and make this fic post-Civil War except they all got along and everyone’s alive and happy and Pietro and Bucky are living at the tower too and it’s not the compound mainly bc I want it to be in the city. reader is an ex-SHIELD agent who joined the Avengers like a month ago bc she’s been on the run since it fell. I just,, I love them both. I’m definitely being overindulgent and this is way too much exposition for stuff I don’t think really gets mentioned.

this is for @whirlybirbs and her endgame writing challenge, the nostalgic thing in this being the innocent “they all lived in the tower together” era that I loved so much. this is my first time writing for Marvel but I hope you guys enjoy!

Summary: Being a former SHIELD agent left you with a lot of walls that a certain blonde super-soldier is all too good at tearing down.

This mirror, you decided, has got to go. You were staring at yourself from ten different angles and the A.I. was reciting a full rundown of your skincare routine and it was quite frankly creeping you out. Ever since you moved in to Stark Tower last month, Tony had been trying to charm you with increasingly technologically enhanced appliances and you were starting to feel like Belle, what with having to tell your fridge that no, you are not hungry but thank you for the concern.

You carefully smoothed over your dress, a black, crushed-velvet thing with a high neck and flowing sleeves, a cinched waist, and wide skirt that fell delicately at your knee. If you could appreciate one thing about the mirror, you mused, you could admit that it let you know you look damn good. You slipped on a pair of pumps and left your little pseudo-apartment as quietly as you could manage, praying that your years of SHIELD training didn’t fail you in your time of - dare you say desperate? - need.

Tragically, as though the gods themselves had it out for you - you’d curse Thor for this later - you only managed to make it down the hall before delighted crowing from one genius billionaire playboy philanthropist made himself known. You turned slowly, bracing yourself for this inevitable interrogation-slash-please-be-friends-with-us speech. The man strolled over to you with a smirk on his face, Captain America himself trailing awkwardly behind him. Your heart fluttered pathetically at the sight of the blonde soldier. No, you reminded yourself sternly. Coworkers are coworkers.

Blissfully oblivious to your sour expression, Tony clasped your hand and spun you wildly, your dress flaring out around you. “Do my eyes deceive me, or are you finally gracing us acquaintances with your presence at movie night tonight?” He drawled out his comment, glancing far-too-knowingly at a certain slack-jawed supersoldier.

You winced, knowing that he’d just quoted you from a check-in report you had given Fury the other day that the other Avengers had found and pouted over. You didn’t have any specific issues with them, you knew, but they were your coworkers. The last time you had trusted the people you worked with, you had ended up with a gun to your head in a room full of Hydra members. It was easier - both for you and your heart - not to mix business with pleasure. That being said, you also knew that it’s never wise to be rude to a man who’s quite literally housing and paying you. Ever since SHIELD fell, Tony Stark had taken it upon himself to finance this whole initiative.

You sighed dramatically, faking a put-upon tone. “I suppose I can promote you all to glorified roommates, if you would like, but no, I’ve got a date.” Your eyes subconsciously drifted to Steve, drinking in his appearance as you admired his absurdly tight shirt straining over his chest.

At this, Tony lit up, his grin only widening further, eyebrows dancing high on his forehead. “Oh, really,” he questioned, “and with whom, may I ask, are you going out with? Can they really outmatch ole’ Capsicle here with his puppy eyes?” He winked at Steve, who was doing his best (which was not very successful) not to stare too deep into your eyes.

Smiling playfully, you pinched Tony’s cheek, laughing at the blush that painted his face in reaction. “Aw, Stark, that’s for me to know, and for you to never find out.” With a swish of your dress, you stepped around him, nodding kindly at a still-silent Steve Rogers, and entered the elevator.

As the doors closed, you waved shyly at the pair, trying not to think too hard about how none of the walls you had built, those defenses so painstakingly made, could ever really protect you from those incredibly blue eyes that still looked your way.

---

Steve hated when Pietro picked for movie nights. The last three time in a row had granted the Sokovian complete and utter control and he was dying, he was sure of it.

While they normally rotated turns, last week was what the Avengers had hoped to be your turn, but you had shrugged and said you had a mission, passing it off to Pietro, despite him literally picking the week before, not that Steve was still bitter about it or anything. Not at all. Tonight it was supposed to be Tony’s turn, but he had picked up on Steve’s exasperation with the speedster’s movie taste and gleefully handed the reins to Pietro once more.

Wiggling his eyebrows (ridiculously), Pietro popped the DVD for Not Another Teen Movie into the player, flopping down into the seat beside his sister with a bright grin. “Look, Captain,” his heavily accented voice drew Steve from his thoughts. “You may even like this one, it’s a play off all the other flicks we’ve been watching. Also, the guy who plays Jake is hot.” He winked unabashedly at Steve, who was now contemplating how hard it was to fake a heart attack if it meant he could leave the inevitable teasing that would come from tonight.

No, not because he was an “old man who can’t appreciate fine cinema” (Natasha’s cutting words after he said he didn’t particularly enjoy High School Musical 3), but because your absence meant that the others could safely - and loudly - tease him about you.

Bucky, whose metal arm was slung casually around the seat next to him, was currently bearing a shark-like grin, and Nat, who had draped herself across an entire half of the couch, much to Tony’s chagrin, had a smirk painted on her face as they watched everyone settle in, easily noting that you, like always, had elected not to come.

“Where’s our new recruit?” Wanda inquired with an air of fake innocence, oh, Wanda, not you too, not you, thought Steve in alarm, the young witch looking around as if she really needed to search for a person she knew was not attending.

“Oh, haven’t you heard? She’s got a date.” Tony said, drawing out the last word as if he treasured it dearly.

“No!” Wanda mock gasped. “How did I not know this!” She turned to Steve, the bowl of popcorn shifting dangerously in her lap. Sam nimbly scooped it up before it fell, and Tony mumbled something grateful about stains in his carpeting before stuffing his face with the buttery popped kernels. “Who’s she out with?”

Sam grinned at her slyly as he tossed a piece of popcorn at Natasha, watching her catch it deftly in her mouth. “It’s probably Pepper’s new assistant, Jared, I think? He’s always staring at her like she hung the moon or something, bet he finally got the balls to ask her out.”

Natasha shook her head incredulously. “No way, that kid is so nervous he rivals Steve in his eloquence around her, I swear. Maybe she met someone outside of the Tower. She does go out without us a lot.”

Steve flushed considerably, cursing his Irish skin for betraying him so. He tried to focus on the movie again, preferring the embarrassment of the whipped cream-covered protagonist to the current situation he was facing. “I do not get nervous around her,” he grumbled, more to himself than anything. Bucky’s head shot up at this, his damn super-hearing once again being the bane of Steve’s existence.

“Yeah, punk, and I don’t have an arm made of Vibranium,” Bucky snarked, throwing his metal hand up for emphasis. “What, like it’s just natural for you to fall off your chair mid-debriefing?” Steve, again, bemoaned his reddening state, doing his best to ignore the group around him smirking at the memory.

Sam patted his leg consolingly, having stretched out on the pillow-laden floor for better access to the snacks. “Look, man,” he started carefully, “you’ve just gotta say something, sometime. You don’t want to wait until it’s too late and you definitely don’t want to say it when you don’t mean to. She’s an Avenger, just like the rest of us, despite how much she tries to act like she’s not, and it’s not going to make life any less complicated for her if you’re stewing on feelings she doesn’t know about.”

Steve laughed a little disbelievingly. “What, you think I’ll tell her in the middle of battle? C’mon, man, give me some credit.” Sam rolled his eyes eerily in sync with Nat and Bucky.

“Alright, Rogers, whatever. Act like you don’t need us.”

---

Oh fucking hell, you thought, sprinting frantically through the streets of Paris as the city lights twinkled tauntingly above you.

Your date, as you had called it eighteen hours ago, was actually at a gala hosted by an arms dealer Fury suspected was Hydra, and now, with a gash carved across your leg and a head wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding, you felt that he had been quite justified.

Pausing for a moment in a flower-covered alcove, you held your breath, hoping that whoever had been tailing you had finally called it quits and moved on. You were tapping out a message on your phone, letting him know what went down, when you caught sight of the man tracking you.

Shit, you thought to yourself. It was the man whose very arm you had entered the gala on, and he was the most trusted goon of the suspect you had been investigating. You knew it was safer to head back to the Tower, check in with Maria and Fury, and then return for further evidence, especially considering the USB drive you had tucked into the pocket of your dress, but you had already gotten so much from this mission that you hadn’t expected and by god if you weren’t a relentless and slightly reckless pursuer of justice.

Narrowing your eyes as you continued to observe your oblivious pursuer, you opened up your purse, quickly wrapped your calf wound, and carefully slipped on the stealth suit and matching boots, packing away the dress and frowning slightly at the new tear in the seam. One of the surprise pains of being an Avenger was the tragically short lifespan of your closet.

Padding behind the man silently, you finished your message to Fury, punctuating it with the update of your plans to infiltrate whatever base the man was headed to. Breathing in deeply, you slid your phone into one of the straps across your thigh and winced slightly at the pain still screaming in your leg, hurrying on behind the burly man.

---

Maria groaned exasperatedly at the message blinking on her monitor, swinging her chair around to face Fury. “You see this?” She pointed at it in frustration, finding no other words for your stupidity.

“Fucking dumbass. She always does this. Thinks she can get all the motherfuckers out of sheer will.”

“God, I mean, she’s a good agent, but she has no regard for her personal safety. It is such a pain, Nick, I’m telling you, I’m going to get gray hair just from having to be her handler.” Maria tugged at her dark locks as if to display them for inspection. She and Nick both loved you, but they forgot how dumb it was to send you on a solo mission with no back-up; you were never sated with just satisfying mission objectives; with no one to stop you, you wouldn’t be finished with the job until at least an entire base was wiped out or you were carried away on a stretcher.

Nick shook his head and picked up his phone again, signalling to Maria that she needed to respond to you, well-aware that you’d ignore their protests anyways. Dialing his backup plan, he internally groaned at the voice that picked up.

“Hey, Stark. So I borrowed your new agent-”

---

Oh fucking hell, for real this time, you thought, wincing at the heavy manacles they left you in. You were a little grossed out that these things looked like they came out of a medieval torture museum, and had the rust to prove it, but you supposed that was a later issue. You had gotten your tetanus shot, you reminded yourself as a new grimace shook you when the metal dug painfully into your wrists.

No, your current issue were the two Hydra agents staring you down in the harshly lit room. You assumed it was the designated unwillful-interrogation room, but you clocked no less than three potential exit points, from the door to the vents to poorly concealed hollow panel you bet you could kick in with a hearty shove. Finishing your assessment of the room, you waited until one of the agents cleared their throat before turning back to them.

“Who do you work for?” His gruff voice ground out, grabbing the chain that kept your bulky cuffs suspended in the air. Your lips curled into an expression of disgust at his proximity.

“I mean, a) cliche line, seriously, and b) why do you even ask? If I’m from anywhere worth being from, it’s not like I’d tell you. Also, you guys should have, like, basic investigative skills. Facial recognition technology. Literally anything.”

The man growled again, rattling the chain as if he was trying to shake you around like a ragdoll. Your head swam and you were reminded of the blood draining out of you from a wound with an ever-slipping wrap.

Figuring that waiting longer would only worsen the situation, you yanked your arms up and wound the chain tightly around the agent, choking him out while his partner sprang up towards you. She shot straight at you through him, clearly not caring whether he survived this attack, but you launched yourself up and over his shoulders, snapping his thick neck with a twist of the chains. Angling your wrists up so that the next bullets hit the cuffs, you wriggled your hands out of the pinched, burning hot metal and lunged at her before she could react.

Scrabbling at her hands while trying to grab the gun, she managed to sling you over her shoulder so you landed with a thud on the ground. You kicked out at her feet and she fell heavily on top of you, but you flipped yourself over, straddling yourself over her hips. She tried to jerk her head up, but you dodged quickly, circling her throat with your hands and forcing your knee down on her thigh so you could follow the momentum and twist with a loud crack of her neck.

Letting her body slump to the ground, you dusted yourself off and looked around. Electing to exit via the vents, as it seemed to be the safest way to stay out of sight, you braced yourself against the chains hanging from the ceiling and pulled yourself up and out of the room.

---

“Barnes, Rogers, Romanoff, Wilson, c’mon, we’ve got a mission to ‘supplement,’ as Nick so delicately put it.” Tony was speedwalking through the common area, ignoring groans of protest as he smacked the whining assassins. “Shut up, Barnes, you can lose to Natasha at chess on the quinjet, we’ll have plenty of time on our way to Paris.”

“Paris?” Steve parroted, joining Tony at his side. “Does this have anything to do with the fact that this alleged ‘date’ has lasted a day and a half?”

“Relax, Cap, your girlfriend is fine-”

“She’s not my girlfrien-”

“Right, you wish!” Natasha cackled loudly, high-fiving Sam and Bucky while Steve turned and gave her the best kicked puppy expression he could. This only served to make them laugh more, and Steve once again questioned why he ever let these dorks - his dorks - all meet.

---

“Yes!” You whispered quietly to yourself, beaming at the storage room full of explosives you could see below you. Dropping down as quietly as you could manage, you let yourself land on the shoulders of the lone guard and knock him to the ground, stabbing him in the stomach with knife you had pulled out of your boots. Pausing once again to readjust the bandage you had tied around your leg, you let yourself lean against a crate for a moment, your vision wavering.

---

“Tony?” Natasha’s concerned voice rang out from the cockpit, causing everyone to worriedly look in her direction. “Was this base supposed to be on fire?”

Steve stood up and rushed to the windows, his own eyes confirming one of his biggest fears. He had a team member down there, and he didn’t know if she was alive or dead, and worst of all, he didn’t know what he could do to help her.

“Sam, Tony, you guys get out now. Fly over and try to get us visual on any activity going down. Let us know if, if you see her.” Steve shook his head at his stumble, pausing momentarily. “Bucky, Nat, as soon as we land this thing, we’re all going to split up. Cover as much ground as we can. Where’s our closest landing point?”

“I’ve got it, Cap, calm your beautiful, beefy-”

“Do not even finish that sentence right now.”

“Rogers that.”

“That doesn’t even work, Tony!”

---

It had been a whole 273 seconds since Steve had touched down on the ground and there was still no sign of you, and with the few Hydra agents stationed at this base being found dead or dropped already, this left his mind all too open to thinking up terrible situations that you could’ve found yourself in.

Don’t be ridiculous, he chided himself, the knocked out agents, the explosions are a good sign. She’s a capable agent; if she did that, she’s out here somewhere. He clenched his jaw in concern over the state of the base, though. He was guessing that it was you who blew it to near pieces, and rubble was still crumbling and settling. He just hoped he didn’t find you trapped under any of it.

Suddenly, a piercing scream curled out from around a corner, and he whipped his head in search of the chilling sound. Jogging into another collapsing room, he breathed a weighty sigh of relief upon discovering your bloody but intact body on the ground. He followed your horrified line of sight to discover a kevlar-clad severed leg, drenched in blood and soot.

He knelt before you, bringing your head to his chest and wrapping his arms gently around you, trying to quiet your panicked cries, though puzzled at the sight - as an agent and then Avenger, you certainly were no stranger to gore. Steve rocked you slightly, and your shrieks quieted enough for him to bring his face level with yours and search your eyes earnestly. You watched him, your face blank, as his large thumb brushed tenderly against your cheek, wiping the stray tears and dust from your face.

“Hey,” Steve whispered, “are you okay?” He took your hand in his, gingerly stroking the back of your hand in soothing circles, and you marveled at his soft touch despite the rough leather of his gloves.

“I,” you started helplessly, “I’m, uh.” Tears continued to escape you, and you tried to fight the humiliation of crying at work, no matter how grave your situation was. You nodded brokenly at the bloody calf across the room from you, hoping he would put two and two together, and your shoulders shook once more. Steve looked at you quizzically, fighting the urge to kiss your fluttering lashes until the unidentified pain went away.

“....What?”

“What do you mean what?”

“I, just, what?”

You wailed again, throwing up your hands in frustration and instinctively standing to go and show him yourself when suddenly you glanced down in wonder. No, your eyes did not deceive you, you were standing on the same two legs you had entered this mission with. “Oh, that’s not my leg!” You gestured excitedly at the limb you had mistaken for your own, glancing back at your own leg that had a matching gash down the back of the calf. “I had just assumed I couldn’t feel it because of shock, y’know, and-”

“Do you wanna go on a date with me?” Steve’s breath hitched as he realized what he just said. Oh god, he groaned internally, this isn’t technically in the middle of battle, but-

“What?” You were blinking, a lot, more so than what Steve thought was normal. He tried not to read too much into your eyes, those eyes he found himself lost in, prettily framed by those long lashes and holding a gaze he couldn’t understand.

Shit, his mind was racing, stumbling over his words once more. “I, uh, I don’t, um, know why? Why I said that? Oh, god, I mean, we’re not even there yet, not that I’m expecting you to have to be there, ever, oh god, I am so sorry, I’ll just-”

“Steve,” you cut in, gasping a little and clutching a ridiculously thick arm of his for balance. “Fuck, uh, my leg, my actual leg this time-” With a painful whine, your body toppled against his as you blacked out, warm blood still trickling down your calf.

---

You squinted your eyes open, trying to avoid the glaring fluorescent light the filled the room. The hospital room, you realized, turning your head with a wince to see a large window whose natural light was tragically obstructed by cream-colored blinds. You let your eyelids droop again, hoping that you could avoid the effort of revamping your lighting by just falling asleep, but you had no such luck. You settled for letting your gaze wander aimlessly around the area, which you assumed to be a local Parisian medical center and not the Avengers medbay you had yet to visit - Tony would never allow such an ugly tile pattern within fifty feet of his home.

Shifting carefully, all too aware of the throbbing pain that still burned in your leg, you looked to the other half of the room and stifled a gasp - the one and only Captain America was asleep at your side, leaning heavily to the side of his fragile-looking plastic chair. Your eyes fell to his still-gloved hand, which was clasped in your own, and you briefly wondered how out of it you were that you hadn’t noticed this immediately.

Dragging your free hand over to cradle his face, you called his name softly. Bleary-eyed and painfully cute, Steve blinked his way awake, coming back to you. His shoulders sagged in relief at the smile on your face.

“Hey.” You weren’t necessarily one for feelings or overaffection, but you hoped Steve didn’t notice the embarrassingly obvious adoration in your voice as your eyes drank him in.

“Hey.” His tone matched yours, sleep-husky voice still loving and velvet. You started to draw your hand away, relishing the warmth that emanated from his skin, but he caught your wrist cautiously, gentle enough to let you slip away if you wanted but firm in his request.

You stayed like that, together, for a dreamy few seconds, before he cleared his throat awkwardly. “Listen, uh, so, I’m sorry, about asking, not that I didn’t want to ask because I did, but it was unprofessional and unfair to you and-”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I said yes, Steve.” He blinked at you adorably in question.

“But I thought you didn’t want anything like that with a, um, coworker?”

You swallowed and looked down at your clasped hands. You had spent far too long keeping people at arm’s length because of your fear, and you knew you could trust the Avengers. You made a tiny, tentative promise to yourself, to give people chances like they had given you. Bringing your eyes to match his, you gave him a small smile.

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing that Captain America is my coworker, and it’s Steve Rogers who’s asking.”

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fluff #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x you #my writing #birbswc2019 #i dont rlly like this but i am 2 tired to try harder

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