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lynkhart · 3 years ago

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MAJOR spoilers for the C2 finale of Critical Role so read at your own risk of you haven’t caught up!

I have so many feelings regarding Caleb and Essek’s intertwining character arcs I needed to explore, so strap in folks, you’re in for a bit of a ride! (But seriously though, this is like 4000 words long, I basically wrote an essay 😂)

At the start of the campaign, Caleb Widogast was dripping in guilt and self loathing and refused to believe he could ever absolve himself of his sins. Essek Thelyss was a cold, aloof individual who betrayed his people for selfish goals, and their differing yet mirrored narratives have been an absolute delight to watch unfold.

In the beginning Caleb truly hated himself. He shot down any attempt at a compliment, described himself as a ‘disgusting person’, outright rejected the idea that he was worthy of love, and never let the blame shift from him for what he’d done. When Beauregard and Veth/Nott pointed out that he was coerced and manipulated into killing his parents, he reacts in an incredibly visceral way, and I’ve seen several comments likening it to a victim of child abuse who was groomed into believing they were as responsible as their abuser, and I think that’s exactly how it was meant to be read. He doesn’t see himself as a victim, only a murderer, and punishes himself for it every day. We see this in the way he presents himself, dirty and unkempt because in his mind he doesn’t deserve to feel good about himself in any way. Other than Nott/Veth and Beau to a certain degree, he purposefully isolates himself from the rest of the group and it’s a long time until he feels relaxed enough in their company to drop his defences a little.

(Speaking from a purely meta point of view, Liam did an absolutely phenomenal job of showing this through body language and I’d love to see someone do a compilation video of it. He starts off very hunched and guarded, leaning his body away from the closest person to him and avoiding eye contact and physical touch; but by the end stands tall and sure of himself.)

Early on there were a few moments where he had the option to do some pretty dark shit, and I’m sure there’s a possible timeline where he gave into his desire for revenge and really lost his way, but I’m glad he stuck it out and worked through his trauma in the way he did. His PTSD and disassociation when casting with fire was tragic, but over time he was able to work through it thanks to the constant love and support of his friends who kept him from going off at the deep end.

Molly’s death was the catalyst for change in a lot of the party, and Caleb is no exception. On the verge of leaving the group prior to his death, the grief they shared, combined with their frantic attempt to rescue the other half of their party put things in perspective and gradually he learned how to be a person again, to care.

Altering time to save his family had been Caleb’s only goal in life, and so when Essek and by extension, dunamancy was introduced, you could see his eyes light up at the possibilities.

A huge turning point for him is aligned so closely with Essek’s redemption arc which feels quite apt I think. When Essek confesses to his crimes, Caleb delivers a beautifully iconic piece of dialogue where he acknowledges their similarities and how much he himself has changed as a person since meeting the Mighty Nein. (Source - CR wiki)

‘You listen to me. I know what you are talking about. I know. And the difference between you and I is thinner than a razor. I know what it means to have other people complicate your desires and wishes. And I was like you. Was. I know what a fool I have been for years. You didn't account for us. Good. That is life. Shit hits you sideways in life and no one is prepared. No one is ready. These people changed me. These people can change you. You were not born with venom in your veins. You learned it. You learned it. You have a rare opportunity here, Thelyss. One chance to save yourself, and we are offering it.’

This is not the same Caleb we met back in the Nestled Nook inn way back in the first episode. While not yet fulfilled or entirely convinced of his own worth, he knows he’s on the right path. That alone is progress enough, but that he uses his own experiences to help another escape those same chains of guilt says such a lot for his development. When he tells Essek that his ‘venom’ was learned, he’s also talking about himself and his own history of being manipulated and gaslit, with the implication being that it can be un-learned just as efficiently.

Caleb Widogast is selfish no more, or at the very least, doesn’t let his goals undermine anyone else’s anymore. Contrary to what he himself might still think, he is in no way a bad person. He loves fiercely and cannot abide seeing those he cares about in pain.

Early game Essek is what Caleb could have been if he’d rejected his friends and focused solely on his own selfish goal to undo his mistakes. Both are impassive at first and see the Mighty Nein as means to an end...until they get to know them and then their fate is sealed. The Power of Friendship wins once again!

At the beginning Caleb said he wanted to ‘bend reality to my will’ (sic) and in the end he does just that, though not in the way he originally intended. Destroying the T-Dock, and by extension the one thing he’d been building towards from the start, the chance to go back and change time, for me personally was the absolute peak of his journey. I rewatched the scene where Caleb revealed the truth about his parents death today, and it was really jarring to see just how far he’d come since then. It made me oddly proud actually.

I always felt like his plan to save his parents was the one thing holding him back from truly accepting their deaths, which is why the final scene of him in the cemetery with the letters for them hit so hard. He never truly gave up hope that they’d be reunited, but ultimately he realised he was merely postponing the inevitable and never allowing himself to live his own life. While time travel shenanigans would have been incredibly interesting to explore in game, choosing to let the past lie and not go back for them finally allows him to grieve and move on, and perhaps most importantly of all, to forgive himself at last.

I know some people were annoyed by Caleb’s decision in the finale to spend the rest of his life teaching rather than continuing to adventure, but I see it as the natural conclusion to his whole arc and his own personal victory.

He looked Trent Ikithon in the eyes, a man who he’d spent years wanting to kill and run from in equal measure, stripped him of his power and his voice (and ultimately his ability to harm anyone else) and finally spared his life so he had to live with the indignity of his defeat for the rest of his miserable existence. You couldn’t have asked for a more damning rejection of everything he’d been brainwashed into believing as a child. His dismissal of Trent’s position in the Assembly played into that as well. He never really wanted power for the sake of it; he had no desire for politics, he just wanted his family back, and while he didn’t get the one he started with, he made a new one for himself in the end.

As Caduceus once very wisely said:

‘Pain doesn’t make people; it's love that makes people. The pain is inconsequential; it's love that saves them.’

Caleb gets to break the cycle of abuse and teach a new generation of mages the way he should have been, with kindness and respect, and I’m pretty sure he’d have introduced a handsome drow as a guest lecturer from time to time. 😉

Speaking of...

Essek described himself as selfish and as a coward, forever putting his own wants and desires first, yet over the course of his journey with the Nein we see his priorities change drastically.

Having friends gives him people to care about, something he’s never had before, and it changes his outlook on life completely. For me, the first time we really see this is when he joins them for dinner in the Xorhaus and stops levitating. It’s a subtle thing, but meaningful. He explains that it had become an expectation of him, a quirk he’s known for, and so to feel comfortable enough around the Nein to drop that pretence is quite bold I think.

Much later, when he chooses to destroy the mini beacon they discover in Aeor in order to give everyone a long rest before the final confrontation with Lucian, he’s essentially giving up everything he betrayed his people for, just to keep his friends safe. The existence and context of that single artefact could have had an earthshattering impact on the Dynasty’s entire culture, forcing them to reevaluate their entire belief system and attitude to the Luxon, something he’d wanted from the start, something he helped start a war for, but he offered it up as a sacrifice without a second thought.

I’d say that’s a pretty big morality shift, and I’m super interested to see if Matt reveals if his alignment changed in the post campaign Q&A. I have a feeling he set him up as a potential BBEG but the party was like ‘no, you can’t have him, he’s ours now’ and that was the end of that. 😂

I think it says so much about the other characters too, that they befriended this person they barely knew, and when he was revealed to have done such terrible things, their first reaction was to give him comfort and an opportunity to atone. Jester held his hand while he confessed, and afterwards, while they didn’t immediately forgive him, they saw the good in him and wanted him to be better, which ultimately feels like what the entire campaign was about, leaving places (and people) better than they found them. It’s obvious that he’s never really had many friends before and has therefore never had the opportunity to be emotionally open with anyone, so seeing him gradually warm up to the Nein and allow himself to soften around them was really lovely to watch.

(Obviously, from a realistic moral perspective, he still fucked up big time. He’s still a godsdamned war criminal and really should have been put on trial for what he did, but I think from a narrative and personal point of view, his redemption arc was far more satisfying, so I’m glad it happened the way it did. (And not to derail but the rest of the gang have done some pretty horrific stuff as well, though perhaps not quite on the same scale)

He has a few moments towards the end that I absolutely love because they show that beneath the guilt and anguish, there’s an incredibly sweet and sensitive soul in there, just wanting acceptance. His dry jokes which often don’t quite hit, (the ‘I will punish the bakery’ line is such an under-appreciated one 😂) his simple joy at learning to garden in the Blooming Grove, and realising that he’d never been asked what his favourite food was before was actually kind of heartbreaking, because it highlighted how lonely his life must have been until that time. There was a moment pretty early on I think when he cast disguise on the party and Jester asked if he could cast it again to change the look of her outfit a bit and while he seemed to find it amusing, he refused, not wanting to waste a spell on such a frivolous request. Cut to their time in Aeor where he burns a fly spell just so he and Caleb can flirtatiously swoop around each other for a couple of minutes, all the while trying to beat Lucian to the city.

His breakdown when Molly’s resurrection failed really cemented to me how much he’d grown as a character. He never met Molly, his only knowledge of him was secondhand, through the eyes of his friends, but seeing it fail just broke him because he knew how much it hurt them to go through it all over again.

His comment to Caleb about not admitting defeat and wishing he could do more did get me wondering at the time if he was going to try and do something crazy, perhaps sacrificing himself via the Temporal Dock to make amends or somehow forcing another reroll, but I’m glad he didn’t. The conversation following that with Fjord was one of my favourites- he shows him acceptance and belief in his potential for the future, something he’s lacked for a long time, and when Caleb bluntly affirms afterwards that he is indeed an official member of the Mighty Nein, it’s the start of the rest of his life, and something he’s exceptionally grateful for.

It all leads to that final moment in Aeor with Caleb, when, presented with the opportunity to alter time and undo everything, he chooses to accept his decisions and carry the weight of his sins for the rest of his long life. That’s...huge.

He’s essentially choosing to live the rest of his existence as a fugitive, forever on the run, with no guaranteed peace or safety. He chooses to spend his life making up for his deeds, rather than looking for an easy way out.

I think that may have had a big impact on why Caleb ultimately made the same decision, as if Essek had been up for altering his timeline I think he’d have struggled to resist it himself. The conversation they had earlier in Aeor about their priorities and resisting temptation really comes to mind as well.

Now, to the relationship.

It was subtle, and not as ‘in your face’ obvious as the other characters, but I’ve been watching and hoping for a long time and I must say, it feels good to be vindicated.

(And if you have any doubt, both Matt and Liam confirmed on Twitter that their post finale relationship was 100% romantic)

I’d been hoping that Shadowgast would be a canon endgame relationship for a while, so the finale, and the aforementioned T-Dock scene in particular had me quite literally shaking with emotion as I watched live. Here you have two men, both damaged and guilt-stricken in their own ways, who find in each other a kindred spirit and a path to redemption.

They’re both very guarded and closed off people, but Essek in particular has a definite shift in the last arc of the campaign especially when it came to his interactions with Caleb. At the start he was quite aloof and stoic, though charming, and they had an instant connection through their shared love of the arcane, (anyone who couldn’t see them making heart eyes at each other when Essek was describing the different types of magic he could teach Caleb was clearly blind) but by the end he was incredibly open to showing his vulnerabilities and that takes a lot, especially for someone whose primary focus was to stay in control of every aspect of his life. The ‘Caleb, I’m scared’ moment during the Trent fight in particular made my heart ache.

No, we didn’t get a dramatic declaration of love or a cinematic mid-battle kiss, but I’d argue that their relationship was just as, if not more intimate than any of the other main characters were. They understood each other in a way the others didn’t, their shared guilt, feelings of inadequacy and their obsession with magic forged a deep connection from the get-go. Neither of them are big fans of PDA I think, though Caleb is tactile as hell (forehead touches and kisses, oh man, I’m so weak for those 😩👌) and some of their most iconic moments have them putting themselves in harm’s way to protect the other. Essek shaking off his forced guilt trip immediately after the now infamous forehead touch in ep140 was beautifully poetic, as was using his fortune’s favour to pull Caleb out of the rubble moments before. Caleb trying to include him in his Sphere of Invulnerability in the finale and Essek staying close to him the whole fight despite being obviously terrified of Trent was the icing on the cake. It’s clear that they care for each other a great deal; whether by the finale they’d consider it love is up for debate, but we know that’s eventually where it ended up and honestly, I love that. I deeply appreciated the fact Matt and Liam both emphasised that they took their time with their relationship, letting each other heal in their own way before they took the next step. All too often in media, and real life too sadly, a romantic relationship is seen as some kind of quick fix, and that a lover will somehow complete you or make all your problems vanish. They knew this wasn’t the case here, and that made it all the better.

While I would have *loved* to have seen them together as a couple right to the very end, the change in their relationship felt right, if bittersweet. I doubt they ever stopped loving each other, and if anything, choosing to shift to a deep and lifelong friendship over a romance that would cause them both so much pain is one of the kindest things you could do for someone you love. After all, friendship isn’t a downgrade, just another way of experiencing that same love, and it wasn’t as though they broke up and never saw each other again, it was pretty strongly implied that they remained a major feature in each other’s lives, they just changed their label slightly. Caleb would hate to have forced Essek to watch him wither away, and although his eventual passing would hurt Essek regardless, incompatible lifespans being what they are, having a period of time to adjust to it, to give them a buffer between the inevitable heartbreak was actually really sweet.

Their romance was no accident, they knew going in that it had a time limit, that it wasn’t going to be forever for one of them, and the fact they did it anyway says so much. They began their adventure wholeheartedly believing that they were both, in their own way incapable of love, only to later find it with each other. Whether their relationship lasted for a couple of years or multiple decades is irrelevant, what matters is that while it did they had a happy and fulfilled life together.

I know some folk wanted Caleb to use the transmogrification spell on himself so he could live on with Essek as another elf, or make him human instead, but that would have been way out of character for both I think. If they could have backwards engineered one of the rejuvenation stations in Aeor and used it to extend Caleb’s life by a hundred years or so, so he’d have a similar lifespan to Veth, now, I could have seen him possibly doing that, so he could spend more time with his best friend too, but nothing further I think. He longed to be reunited with his parents too much to postpone death unnaturally like that.

That both Caleb and Essek ultimately chose to live with their mistakes and make peace with themselves was incredibly cathartic, and I couldn’t imagine it playing out any better.

The fact Matt has explicitly stated Essek is Demi too means so much to me personally because the latter is a label I’ve been identifying with a lot recently, and it’s so rare for aspec relationships to get any representation! It has honestly given me a lot to think about over the last few days, and I really appreciate it.

To conclude, here’s a bit of shameless self promotion. I wrote this after watching the finale and honestly feel like it sums up my feelings on the nature of their relationship pretty well.

‘A casual hand on a shoulder, a waist, a wrist; a gentle kiss placed on a forehead is common between them now, an intimacy born of trust and mutual affection. Over time it grows, like a fire born of seasoned timber; gradual and steady, no spluttering kindling that flares and sparks, but a slow burn, one which lasts.

Their love is embroidered into every aspect of their lives together. Acts of service, of comfort, of understanding.

Sometimes a kiss leads to more than a kiss, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way they are content.‘

So yeah, I love these two wizard boys so very much and I couldn’t be happier with the conclusion of their stories. ❤️

#Critical Role #Critical Role Spoilers #CR Spoilers #shadowgast #Essek thelyss #Caleb Widogast #C2ep141 #C2ep141 spoilers #critical role finale

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now-im-a-belieber · 4 years ago

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Hii❤️ can j please request "i love you so much that it terrifies me" with Bill? Thank you❤️

prompt: "i love you so much that it terrifies me"

bill guarnere x female!reader

a/n: annnnd im back to writing angst! don't worry the ending is mostly happy and i kind of have an idea for a part 2?! but here's this for now, i'm kinda proud o' this one!

taglist: @capsparkyspeirs @wecomrades @tvserie-s-world @hellitwasyoufirstsergeant

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Your enlistment was nothing short of a miracle.

It happened during the last attempt you'd given yourself out of about a dozen other times. The officer, who'd become used to you storming up to his desk every other day, sighed upon noticing your return this time. Until then, he'd only ever glance your way and then back down at whatever work lay upon his desk. But this time, he sighed.

Hell, so what if you'd worn him down more so than convinced him you were fit to fight? He'd finally agreed to let you sign your name on the dotted line.

"Fine." The officer said. "You wanna prove something so badly, go on, prove it." And he went on to ramble about how he wouldn't be surprised to find you back home in a week's time after failing to meet any requirements at Toccoa.

"War is no place for women." He huffed, finally.

"Then I'd better hurry and get out there. Since anyone who shares your ideals clearly has no fight left in them on the behalf of people like me."

You brushed off his discouragement and marched home to the beat of your ever quickening heart. Bill was certainly going to have a lot to say about this. But so were you...

He was packing when you arrived. There were no more days left until Bill was due at the training camp. Just one night's rest. The last night you'd planned to spend together for only God knew how long.

But before any goodbyes could begin, you hovered in the bedroom doorway with news to share. Better to get this out in the open and out of the way...

"I got in." You breathed, stood with the confirmation papers in your vice grip, like if you let go of them they'd cease being tangible.

"You got in?" Bill repeated in monotone. You weren't expecting a fight. You'd actually thought Bill would burst at the seams with pride and joy, like he said he would when you first wondered aloud, if your joining up was wise.

But then he repeated the same sentence in some kind of realization. And there was a smile affecting his tone as he spoke in the charming draw you'd always adored. He abandoned his poorly packed bags and swept across the room to stand before you, with a gleam in his eye. And then came his rambles of praise and excitement. Telling you he knew you'd make it. Telling you he'd be right behind you every step, ready to give hell to anyone who might try and break you down along the way.

You let your man fawn and flatter you, but knew this night couldn't end without making yourself perfectly clear.

"That's the thing though." You revealed with a shaky breath. You hadn't thought much about how to say this. But you knew you had too.

"Your help.... I don't think it would help. Bill, I have to do this on my own. The officer's right. I *do* have something to prove. And I don't want anyone thinking I made it to where I'm headed because my boyfriend knocked enough barriers out of my way."

You didn't wanna fight. You desperately didn't want this to be a fight. But this was something you were sure of. So you braced yourself at the sight of your man's jaw clenching.

And there was no hiding the flash of sadness in Bill's eye's, though sadness for what, you couldn't be exactly sure. As you held your breath, you watched as Bill slowly relaxed his shoulders. And through the pregnant silence that had settled, he reached out to you and said, "Alright, doll."

"Alright?" You wondered in suspicion. That was almost too easy.

"I know you ain't gonna change your mind about somethin' this important to ya." Bill pointed.

So then it was decided. You'd be headed to the same place with the same goal with the person you'd loved longer than you had fingers to count on. But you wouldn't let on that you'd known Bill long before stepping foot onto the camp grounds. After a while longer of your making your aspirations clear, Bill promised he understood. And you hoped your selfish determination wouldn't be misconstrued.

And still, your man went on another monolog about how proud of you he was.

"But if ya think I won't be around every corner waitin' up to steal you away, you'd better think again." Bill kissed your head and coaxed you to bed, reminding you this was the last of night's like these.

So you stayed entirely swept up in Bill's orbit. Talk of what things would be like quickly washed away by your appreciation for the moment Bill implored you to stay focused on. This was the last of night's like these indeed...

///

He'd been at Toccoa for a week already. You realized entirely, that your late joining would affect you just as negatively as every other aspect of your joining at all.

But this only made you want it worse than ever. Not just to prove yourself. Not just to prove others wrong. But you felt the desire to be a part of this for reasons much more profound than you'd ever had the means to understand for yourself, let alone explain to anyone.

So you followed every rule like it was do or die. From which path to walk to find your barracks- to the drills you were sent to practice before you'd so much as stepped out of the cab ride here.

And to your surprise, you seemed to blend into the background of things. There were no gasps or whispers traded as you found your place among the men.

It was hard to tell if they could care less about your presence, or if they collectively, subconsciously, decided to freeze you out; finding it the easiest way to focus on reigning supreme themselves.

And it was just as you'd gotten used to the silence you'd been receiving, when you saw him. Your man. Your Bill, yakin' with some fellas who reminded you of the kids you'd hung around the school yard with, back home.

And at the sight of the man you'd loved for so long, after a fortnight gone from his side, you were inclined to run into his loving arms- despite your fuss made about keeping a distance.

And then he saw you, too. And the bunch he was with had begun walking off. Bill seemed to turn, to follow along, in a moment that sent your heart to plummet. But over his shoulder Bill shot you a wink and a sly smile.

And something about the smile he gave you beyond the space he respected made your heart rise back up and melt all the while. And you realized he was completely on your side. How did you get so lucky?

Things went on like that for a couple weeks. Most of the company would pay you no mind. This meant your accomplishments seemed invisible and the times you might've been bold enough to ask for a helping hand fell on deaf ears.

But some started to pester you, unable to hold back their snide remarks any longer. An odd pride swelled within you, when your existence started becoming meaningful enough to irk them. And eventually, a few of the sweeter souls seemed to recognize that you were, in fact, a human, just as eager to be a part of the great big fight as they were.

So with the few friends you'd made, you'd found occasional moments of respite side by side. But of course, there was one soldier who managed to hold your attention everyday- though you were damn good at pretending this wasn't so.

Bill, on the other hand, couldn't be stopped from shouting encouragement across obstacle courses and casting longing stares across the dining hall. And some of the guys you'd started getting on with kept cracking jokes about how Bill must've had some secret crush on you. In a way, they weren't wrong. And the whole act was almost a little bit fun.

Bill went as far as introducing himself to you, acting a bigger flirt than you'd ever recalled him acting when he was very first pursuing you- which was really saying something.

And when the pair of you managed to sneak off on those weekends you were set free, it was almost as if you'd never been parted at all. Bill would trace patterns across your skin and laugh with you about nothing into the night, like always.

And every one of those rare opportunities ended by you asking if he was still alright with this whole strange arrangement you'd created. And Bill assured he was fine to sit back and watch you out run easy company's fastest sprinters, and give Shifty's near perfect shooting record a little competition. Bill knew you were on a personal mission to accomplish all the things you knew you could, without any implications. But you *were* starting to miss him.

Because those days and nights where you got to steal a moment of Bill's time were becoming sparse. And your rough plans together were almost always thwarted- by surprise drills and punishments.

And it came as a shock to no one that you'd most often get the worst of it from Sobel. His unhinged language somehow sunk lower when aimed at you. You knew his demeaning of your gender was intended to break you down. But you didn't let it. His discipline was often set up for you to fail, and make a fool of yourself. But you powered through the worst of it, and shot the bastard a grin each time you managed to come out on top of each ridiculous task. If you hadn't been motivated to push yourself before, you'd become mad to gain power by now.

Trouble was, on the few nights Bill made a point to sneak into your bunk, there was just no time for much besides dutifully listening to him drone on about how he missed you.

You'd been made to double your workload when everyone else got the rare chance to take it easy. And during then, Bill sought you out, like he once promised he would. And though you couldn't help but appreciate the nights he offered to stay up with you; to help finish some nightmarish task made to drive you to throwing in the towel- you sent him away. Bill would argue that any fight you had to face was his fight too. And you argued back that you thought he'd promised he understood that you were dead set on coming through this on your own.

Some mornings he'd let his hand squeeze your own below the table in the dining hall; while the others were busy fighting over desserts. But you eventually started shooting down Bill's attempts to display even the smallest affection- feeling strangely endangered by and entirely undeserving of his kind attention, at least until you earned your wings.

Those moments were already so few. And eventually they ceased all together, and the weeks started to fly by. Before you knew it, the time that had passed almost seemed to push the two of you further apart. Bill would be sent on one exercise while you were banished elsewhere. And on and on, until d-day.

As you slipped into your gear, a pit grew in your gut. Not for fear of what might be to come, but because you couldn't find Bill. And you *needed*to find him before thing's got even more complicated.

The sight of the man boarding a separate plane only brought you a blink of relief. But hardly so, it was no goodbye. Only confirmation that he was headed toward the same fate as you.

You were pushed onto your own flight, and the worry within you increased ten fold.

As the plane idled, some men chattered to ease their nerves. Their conversation had passed through one of your ears and out of the other, until you heard Bill's name repeated a couple of times.

"What's his problem? Seems to be more of a bitch than usual." One of them griped, wondering about the state of your man. It made you sick to realize you hadn't been near enough to him to realize he'd been in a strange mood, for a while.

"Yeah, well you'd be a bitch too if you found out your brother died, just before your flight out to hell." Johnny Martin pipped up. His tone more defensive than usual. You couldn't help but gawk at the peevish soldier who'd often, perplexingly, been kind to you. Had he really just said what you thought he said?

"Bill's brother?" You begged to know, trying quickly to hide the way your face fell.

"Yeah. He was killed in Italy, somewhere." Martin informed, keeping a quizzical eye on you.

"I see." You played, shoving all the terror and hurt deep deep down. There simply was no time to feel such things, and certainly not enough time for an explanation, should you start to lose it a little.

Before you knew it you were rocketing toward the ground and scrambling through tall grass to find a familiar face. Smoke and flames led your way, and one day and night passed before you saw your man again- two days that seemed to pass slower than years and decades.

And when you did spot Bill, he was relaxing with some of the others on the steps of a blown up building; and some horrid resistance within you grew stronger than the usual natural instinct to run into his embrace. The mixed emotions caused a cry to lodge itself in your throat, but you wouldn't let it out of course.

And by then Bill had made his way close enough to you to notice the sheen of tears you were reluctant to let fall.

"Still blerry eye'd from that shit storm we dived into, huh?" He nudged your side with his elbow and the smile he wore was gentle and encouraging despite the mayhem that had shadowed your senses, and his no doubt, for days now.

"You didn't tell me about your brother." You spoke in a whisper that came out in more of a hiss, unintentionally.

"Yeah, well you didn't tell me goodbye. But who's countin'?" Bill shot back, not speaking in anger so much as dejection. The two of you stood holding each others gaze for the first time in longer than just the two days you'd been separated.

"So what are we gonna do?" Bill wondered. But the ending of his statement was drowned out by the officers shouting for your company to fall out.

And for weeks that was as good as it got. The looks you shared across rooms were scant. And if there was ever time you might've had to find each other and sort things, you didn't take it- too terribly afraid he'd tell you how horribly you'd been treating him and break your heart in the middle of this already loveless bedlam.

It was all your fault, creating this chasm between the two of you and having no clue how to close it up. You'd walked around it many a time and met on the edge but the space was only growing.

The distance you insisted upon at first was never supposed to last this long but it seemed to have found a permanent place between you.

And what was worse, were the instances Bill found himself at your side- sharing silence on patrols and long rides from one place to another.

He was right in your reach. Just like he promised to always be. But that only made the storm of emotion within you seem to rage even wilder.

By the time your company had reached Belgium, you'd convinced yourself that everything you'd once shared with Bill was long gone. For all the times you failed to reach out to him, Bill seemed to pass up reaching out to you all the same.

Until one night. You were headed back from viewing some old film with a few of the guys who'd become used to your presence. There were still a few troopers who grimaced at the sight of you mixed in battle near them. But there were more who'd been proud to fight beside you, and invited you to take in a film on one lucky night off.

Bill was among them, listening to their banter while you lagged behind the bunch. You'd been certain that he'd finally crossed over to the side if the men who'd found it easier to turn a blind eye your way. But then

your crew rounded the corner of some weather worn barn. And Bill broke away from the group and stopped you from walking on- grabbing you by the elbow and gently holding you to stall.

"Bill, I don't think-" you began, croaking past the ever present lump in your throat. Worried that the others would hear should you start to bicker. You didn't care what they knew, anymore. Only hoped to prevent any further upset. There was already so much sorrow you're lot had to carry and sort through. And selfishly, you couldn't dream of stirring up any more upset.

"Shaddup. This ain't how it's gonna be no more." Bill returned, his voice full and insistent. He still held one of your arms and brought his other hand to follow suit.

You were too stunned by his insistence and his closeness after so much confusion that you keep your mouth shut.

"I miss you, damn it."

Your brow furrowed at his gentle confession and your mouth hovered open. Too many words jammed in your throat but you manage to stammer out the one's that reign truest.

"I miss you too."

Bill's worry seemed to fade into relief. His eyes shut as he brought his lips to your head, like he always used to do. And you let him.

"Well, we can't have that." You closed your eyes then, as he spoke against your temple and ran his hand up to your shoulders, bringing his fingers to hold your face. You let Bill lean in for a real kiss, feather light and sweet as ever. And you didn't try and stop as he followed behind on your decided way back toward your billet.

But as you turned the corner at last, a drunken member of your company stopped you from walking further.

Cobb stood in the middle of the rest of the path, sipping from a foreign bottle. He never liked you much. Before you could shove past the guy, he spoke up.

"Who the fuck do you two think you are?" Cobb spat, eyeing Bill past your shoulder. "What makes either of you think you deserve happiness, let alone love? In the palm of your hand in the middle of all this? It's audacious. You disgust me." Perhaps Cobb had seen the way Bill had only just so tenderly held you. Or perhaps he was just on another senseless bender.

Either way, you let your eye's roll and breezed on by, leaving the drunken fool behind. He didn't let Bill pass so easily, though, slurring something about your character in the face of the man who'd so far unconditionally loved you.

"Get fucked, Cobb. Maybe that stick up your ass'll come lose, then." Bill pushed past the soldier who'd been insulted enough to shut his mouth. But his alcohol fueled barb rang in your ears the rest of the walk to the place you were headed.

The walk was quiet. And you debated over speaking your mind even as you crept into the room. It had to be done, you realized. The room was empty of listening ear, and equipped with a door to shut the world out. You and Bill hadn't had many chances like this in a year or so. And you knew fate had designed this opportunity, a chance to finally say everything that you hadn't been able to.

"Bill." You stared, turning to face your man after you'd turned the lock on the door. He stood with his arms crossed as if to brace for impact.

"Maybe Roy wasn't wrong."

Bill shook his head as you spoke and met you in the middle of the room where you'd stood.

"I just got you back. You're nuts if ya think I'm gonna let you slip away from me again."

"But I didn't slip away!" You corrected with urgency. "I pushed you away. More than a couple of times!"

"Maybe, but you had a good reason." Bill assured, his eyes going wide under his strong furrowed brow.

"No, I had a selfish reason. And Cobb might be a drunk asshole but he's right! I don't deserve you, not now!"

"Fuck that guy. He gets a say in what happens to us? Don't fuckin' think so. You're not walkin' away from me after all this time just cause some pessimistic asshole-"

As Bill shouted, you lost all the strength you'd been enforcing to keep from falling apart over this. Your throat burned as a pathetic sob escaped and hot tears ran down your face.

What had started as some mechanism you'd used to get through training turned into something bigger and uglier. This was war. This was what it turned you into. Some selfish monster greeded for more credit when you'd already earned your place.

You'd pushed Bill away time and again and you knew he had to be near his breaking point. He proved so tonight, by grabbing you close and demanding you not stray so far again, like you'd ever really come back from doing so.

And what was worse than the realization that you'd pushed him away, was the realization that Bill might not always come back. And what if you couldn't change? What if, on your road back to being less selfish, he'd finally realize you weren't worth the chase?

"I fucked up." You admitted, heaving the realization through sobs. "Oh God, Bill, please don't leave me."

"Hello? You heard a thing I've been sayin'?" Bill rang, reaching out to you much like he did not even an hour ago. One set of fingers came to lovingly brush the tears still rolling from your eyes. And then he held your head in his hands so you'd look at him as he spoke up.

"It's always gonna be you. That's what I'm put here fightin' for. Even when you get all determined and leave me in the dust. Hell, I'm so in love with you it terrifies me, doll. Scares me that one day you'll get too good at bein' on your own, and leave me, all alone, still be fightin'." Bill poured forth, searching your gaze as he spoke.

"Point is, I'll always be on your team. You just gotta let me stay cheerin' you on, damn it."

You nodded and tried to swallow your emotions to no avail. And finally just let yourself cry again as you repeated to Bill how sorry you were. He wrapped you in his embrace and let you lose it.

"I'll do better." You swore, meeting his eyes.

"Just feel better, for now, huh? That'll make me a happy man."

You didn't deserve Bill. But damn it, if he'd still have you, you'd be right there ready to cherish his very existence with each set and rise of the sun. You both agreed that there was no way either of you could make it through the rest of this hell without one another close by.

And you figured some of the guys had already pieced together that there was something between you and the man with an unforgiving nickname. And, apparently, Bill had entrusted Babe Heffron with his entire life story by now. That explained the curious glances the replacement had now and again thrown your way.

To hell with what anyone might've made of the two of you. To hell with any future or past where Bill wasn't in step with you.

The next night your company was hauled off toward the forest without a coat to trade between the lot of you. Teeth chattered and breath fogged the freezing air. But Bill clasped his hand in yours, and an incomparable warmth spread across everything that made you whole.

Some new kid was the subject of the company's pestering tonight, but it hardly lasted. Spirit's settled and someone near the front of the ride seemed to rhetorically wonder about home, and what it would be like to get back.

Some men answered, voicing hopes and dreams of the future. You only turned to look right at Bill, who already had his sights set on you. And then you realized, nothing much had really changed. You'd always been lucky with Bill at your side. God how you'd be glad to let it last...

#bill guarnere #bill guarnere x reader #bill guarnere imagine #band of brothers

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randomingoftherandomness · 4 years ago

Note

For the prompt! 1 or maybe 8? If you’re feeling up to it!

A/N: Thanks for the prompt! I’m gonna go 8. A has always liked B and it’s hard for them to see B falling in love with C, not knowing that C actually has a thing for them

James gives him a familiar look that is equal parts frustrated and incredulity, and Booker knows he deserves it. “Don’t, just,” He swallows, waving his hand. “Just don’t, okay? Not tonight.”

The man may not be his best friend but he is certainly showing Booker why he should take that top spot when he merely uncaps the nearest bottle of beer and holds it out to Booker. “Thanks,” Booker huffs.

“Still think you’re an idiot, though,” James says, clinking the neck of their bottles together. Good to know what he’ll have to look forward to when they head off on their week-long road trip to help James’ sister move her things out from their home state.

It’s Andy and Quynh’s engagement party but no one’s expecting him to be the life of the party and that suits him quite well. Any minute now, James will be swept up into a conversation and leave him to his little corner by the radiator and the window. Booker plans to stay the respectable amount of an hour before making up some excuse, a deadline due midnight perhaps, and escaping the almost oppressive happiness.

The lovely couple is in the thick of things, holding court amongst their well-wishers and despite the determined cloud of misery that hangs over him, Booker finds himself feeling happy for them. Andy and Quynh are some of the best people he knows and he can only be happy for that unique joy of finding the person you would want to walk the ages of this earth with. If anyone should find it, he is glad it’s them.

James nudges him in the ribs and he doesn’t need to turn to know why.

The music changes just as he hears Andy’s laughter and Joe’s playful growl in greeting. He can’t see the entryway from here, too many bodies, but he can picture it in his mind. That bodily hug, picking Andy up in his arms. It’s how they’ve always greeted each other ever since they started up this friendship and it’s honestly endearing.

Booker’s heart gives an unpleasant lurch at the way Joe opens out an arm to wrap around Nicky’s waist. The gesture was comfortable, familiar like they’ve done it a million times before when Booker knows that they’d only begun to put a name to that unspoken attraction between them just a few weeks ago. It’s a thing so new that it still hurts him to see it.

Joe and himself had had a thing back in uni that fizzled out into a deep and meaningful friendship, and if Booker still harboured some lingering affection for the man, that he had hoped they could one day figure out a way they could work, he thinks he hides it well enough that it doesn’t show. Nicky was someone that entered the picture when they’d dined at his little restaurant and Joe had gone speechless at the sight of him over his Minestrone.

Booker isn’t blind. He knows love at first sight when he sees it and the thing between the two of them was just that. He’d been the one that nudged them along this path, being their touchstone in those early days and even now for the things that frustrated them. Booker was the first person Joe had called when they’d gone on what was their first date and he was the one Nicky came the night before what would be their first kiss.

It was stupid to be this involved when his heart breaks whenever he sees them both together, but he thinks he can never truly be divorced from them, so a fool he will just have to be.

James sighs from beside him and takes his beer bottle, stealing his attention back to the present. “Do you need to go?” He asks, frowning before shaking his head. “No, wait. Do you want to go?” Damn, Booker can’t help thinking fondly, he is really vying with Joe for that best friend position.

He parts his lips to speak, leaning in to say that it’s ok, that he’ll go in a moment when he sees James’ eyes flick up somewhere behind him.

“Hey,” Joe greets them, bending down to wrap his arms around Booker in a tight hug. The inflection of his voice sits wrong with him, though, and it takes him a minute to pinpoint that this was the same voice he uses when there’s something wrong and he is trying to hide it.

“Why are you guys hiding in this corner?” Nicky asks, eyeing up the way that they’re pressed knee to hip, to shoulder on the narrow seat. Booker doesn’t know what to make of the guarded way those pale eyes regard him and he wants to say that it is nothing, when James wraps a strong hand around his wrist, squeezing tight.

“We’re talking about the trip we’re taking. Next weekend, just the two of us,” James says, the words pouring out of him like silken butter. Booker can’t help but gape back at Joe and Nicky when they turn to him.

Something almost like cold fury crosses Joe’s warm brown eyes but when he blinks, it’s gone. “Oh? What’s the occasion?”

James laughs, throwing an arm around Booker’s shoulder. “Nothing much. Just plan on showing this guy just how special he is. A lot of people overlook that. I don’t intend to.”

“James...”

“He’s a very special person,” Nicky agrees with a soft laugh that doesn’t meet his smile. “Very lovely.”

Booker’s stomach coils uncomfortably and he thinks he feels heat creep up his neck at the praise. Joe cuts in, physically angling his body towards him and the insistent press of his presence has him breathless for a moment.

“Can we speak to you? Just for a minute?”

“Y-yeah, of course,” Booker croaks. Turning to raise his eyebrows at James, he waits until Joe and Nicky have made their way towards the balcony to hiss, “What the bleeding fuck, James!”

In reply, the man merely claps him on the shoulders and cups his cheeks with bottle cooled hands. “Listen. If this goes the way I think it’s gonna go, you owe me beers for a year and you tell them not to cut my throat in my sleep, okay?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Booker whines, clawing out for him as he darts quickly away and towards Andy and Quynh.

Sighing, he hauls himself to his feet, following Joe and Nicky out to the balcony. “Is something the matter? Are you guys ok?”

Joe frowns at him, stepping closer to him to push the sliding doors shut. Out here, there’s nothing but the sound of the city and the muffled voices of the party behind them.

“Are we okay? Shouldn’t we be asking you that? When did you and Copley get together? Why didn’t you tell me?” Joe starts, only to pause when Nicky grabs him by the arm.

“What Joe is saying in his uncharacteristically ineloquent way, is that we’re surprised, that’s all. Seems to have come out of nowhere,” Nicky gently enunciates.

Booker folds his arms in front of him, feeling defensive for some reason. “We’re not together.”

“What?”

“We’re not together,” Booker repeats. “We’re just friends.”

Nicky shakes his head, propelling himself forward to grip Booker by the shoulder. “But he said-”

“I’ll be going out of town with him for a week to help his sister move from their home state, that’s all,” Booker shrugs. “I was going to tell you guys tonight.”

“But the way he said it made it sound like you were together?”

Taking a half step back, Booker hides his discomfort by ducking his head. “Yeah, he can be a dick like that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

He tries to make his way back into the party when Joe’s hand curls itself to his elbow. “Booker? Booker, I’m going to try something and you can punch me if I’m wrong, but I really hope that I’m right about this.”

Booker keeps his eyes on Joe’s, hardly daring to breathe lest he breaks whatever spell that has been spun between one breath and the next when he feels himself being pulled into a kiss. It’s a featherlight touch, that he arches into with heart-aching familiarity, barely lasting a second before his mind catches up to him and he pushes Joe back in horror. He turns to Nicky, an apology on his lips that sticks in the back of his throat when he sees that there is no anger there, nothing but quiet anticipation that makes his eyes almost glimmer in the city lights.

“We’ve been meaning to talk to you about this, Booker, but you always seem to give us the slip.”

Fingers card through his hair and settle at his nape, drawing his eyes back to Joe. “I never got over you, Basti. I know, at least I hope I know, that you didn’t either.”

“But, Nicky...”

“Nicky was well aware that he loved you when he got into this relationship with him. It was one of the first things we talked about on our first date,” Nicky laughs, closing the distance between them to wrap an arm around Booker’s waist. “Then when we kissed, we knew.”

“Knew what?” Booker stumbles over the syllables, heart racing a million miles per hour at the slow smile that stretches Nicky’s face.

“Knew that we wanted to try this, but only with you. Think you’d be okay with that?”

Joe nuzzles a kiss to his temple, even as he feels his mind short-circuiting at the words. “You don’t have to say anything. We can take this slow-”

“Yes,” Booker breathes, hand over Joe’s heart and the other pulling Nicky in. “Yes, a million times yes. Please.”

He buries his face in the crook of Nicky’s neck. The vibrations of their laughter and their words are lost to him, and he can’t bring himself to care. Whatever comes next will come and he will tackle them as they do. For now, there is just them, on this balcony, and the infinite happiness that fills his chest with liquid gold.

[send me an ot3 prompt]

#booker x joe x nicky #the old guard fic #gab writes stuff #thanks for the prompt!

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veinsandknuckles · 4 years ago

Text

Long hard road, pt 4

Vimes/f!Reader Slow burn AU where Vimes isn’t married. Rated R as of this chapter Content warnings: masturbation, consensual voyeurism, rough sex, piv, cunnilingus (referenced), BETA-free (for now) Read part 3 here There were a lot of things that threatened to drive Vimes back to drink. The state of the world, most of his own memories, the way Colon pronounced the word “impasse”. But lately one in particular tempted him so sorely to get off the wagon and reclaim his former home in the gutter that he could only barely withstand the impulse and that was you.

As hard as he tried not to look, he did have eyes and they would fix on you, despite all his good intentions. The way you walked, the way you moved. The softness of your skin, where ever it was bare. Your playful, mean smile when you teased him.

It started out perfectly innocently every time and Vimes told himself that people looked at each other all the time, he’d spent a lifetime watching people, it was part of his job. It was in the name of his job. And then, as quickly as you could say ‘pathetic letch’, he found himself practically hypnotised with his mind straying back to the dark places he usually guarded so carefully.

He’d held out for as long as he could. No matter what you said or how you looked at him, he’d been determined not to understand you or at least not to let himself believe it, or enjoy it. The attention of such a beautiful young woman was always dangerous, even when it was nothing more than a joke.

And you didn’t let up. There was always a touch on his arm as you slipped past him on the stairs, a meaningful look to drive home a double entendre. You’d even had the gall to lick spilled cream off of your fingers once in an absentminded way that might almost have been unintentional, and that had nearly been enough to make him angry. He knew he’d failed spectacularly at keeping you at a safe distance or else he wouldn’t have met you in conversation, hung around the bar until your shift ended or tried to make you laugh. It didn’t happen often, but it happened often enough.

When ignoring you had proved to be impossible, Vimes had told himself he’d be allowed to keep the joke going as long as he showed he was in on it. By being an unremitting realist, he could at least force you to settle for laughing with him, rather than at him. Haha, very funny, draw in the lonely, middle-aged man with sweet smiles and filthy jokes and watch him struggle not to make an absolute tit of himself. ‘We sure do both know what men are like and it’s lucky for me I’m a safe target, because I already know that nothing good ever comes my way’. ‘Wouldn’t it be hilarious if someone like you would go for someone like me’.

That, too, had gone about as well as could be expected because it may have helped him save face, but it sure hadn’t saved him from wishing, and (when especially weak-minded) hoping, you meant more.

Vimes couldn’t help it. Gods damn it, he was lonely. Wasn’t everyone? It was only human nature to go on wanting, even after a lifetime of wanting in vain. He was just a man and you were beautiful and funny and relentless.

Sometimes he stalked up the stairs to a freshly made bed and buried his face in the pillows, hoping to find a trace of your perfume, and wondering whether (if he somehow let slip that he’d leave his door unlocked) you might ever be desperate enough to come to him. He could just about slap himself when his thoughts went there.

And the dreams. He couldn’t count how many times he’d woken up in the small hours, stiff as a poker, sheets tangled around his legs and soaked with sweat, with your name on his lips. He refused to do anything about that problem but wait it out, with some help from the snow on his windowsill if necessary, no matter how he ached. It was no less than he deserved.

Because the truth was that he was as sad an old fool as any of the marks he’d ever taken statements from, with their pockets empty or their safes cleaned out and still somehow with hope in their hearts, expecting every moment that their temptresses would walk back into their waiting arms and explain it all away as a misunderstanding. There was the dreaded, long-ignored voice of hope inside his mind that kept on asking if you could really lie that well and for that long, and why.

As if there couldn’t be a thousand reasons why. Vimes could think of plenty.

There must be a sob story coming, some former lover you wanted him to do away with or some great reason he should spill his guts to you so you could string him up by them and collect payment from his enemies. (Were it not for the perfect hiding spot he’d found for his purse, he knew he’d be dead already - whoever it was that kept searching his belongings wasn’t subtle about it.)

If he ever betrayed how you affected him, he’d be lucky only to pay for it with his dignity - you were too clever not to have something up your sleeve. Lately he’d begun to think he should get it over with, take the hit and pick himself back up afterward. You may very well laugh at him, but in the end it still meant you’d move on and he could regain some peace of mind.

It was all a painful cliché, but at least it made sense because he was sure he’d got you more or less figured. Or he had been sure, right up until tonight.

Vimes had withdrawn to his own room almost immediately after you’d left and now he sat on the edge of his bed, trying to piece together what had just happened.

He’d thought he’d managed to back you into a corner when he’d asked you, upfront, why you kept on toying with him. He’d expected you to laugh it off like usual as a harmless way to kill some time. Instead...

“We all have needs.” Ye gods.

He prided himself on being able to spot a liar, and even if you were good enough to fool him, why on Disc would you push it even further when he’d just given you an out? You’d looked up at him with such vulnerability and told him, once again and more explicitly than ever, that you wanted him. Your voice had been uncertain and you’d looked as if you were barely able to hold his gaze... as if it mattered to you whether or not he turned you down.

And he had turned you down, and then he’d had to watch you leave, with a little twerp who, predictably, embodied everything Vimes was not. Young, strapping, forward, handsome and (it had to be said) not terribly clever, even compared to him.

Could it have gone any other way?

With a sigh and a determination to be brutally honest with himself, he took the shard of shaving mirror lying on his bedside table and regarded his distorted reflection in the moonlight. He rubbed his chin, making a noise like sandpaper against stone. The familiar inner voice of self loathing supplied all sorts of helpful remarks about his receding scalp and grey hair, his broken nose, his lined brow and all the other little marks on his stupid face that showed just how far he was past his prime. But he’d promised himself he’d be honest, even if he wasn’t comfortable with what he saw.

The thing was that (even though he’d never been what you could call lucky in love) in the spirit of fairness, Vimes had to admit that his looks had never really been an issue. In fact, he dimly recalled being told he was handsome back in his heyday on many occasions, and by women who knew very well that he had nothing to offer of value.

This was uncomfortable, because if the fault hadn’t lain in his appearance, it had lain in his behaviour and he couldn’t lie to himself about that part.

At first he’d been too shy even to talk to girls, whether kind or cold, pretty or plain. When the worst of that post-pubescent awkwardness was got over, he’d already gotten started on his lifelong downwards spiral and was too broke, and broken, to be much of a catch for anyone.

With few exceptions, his past with women could be more accurately described as a series of encounters than anything resembling relationships. Sure, there’d been some repeat offenders, but they’d returned to him the way you’d return to your local all night greasy take away - he’d been reliable enough when you had a craving for something quick, cheap and slightly disgusting. Those had been the glory days, before he’d poured himself into his work and poured the rest of his life into a bar glass. Past that point Vimes hadn’t even been reliable anymore.

So, where did that leave him now? He was as close now as he’d ever be to a good man and for all he knew, maybe something remained of his decent looks, albeit in a gaunt and grizzled way... He tried to put himself in the mind frame of a bored, easy young woman with self admitted, and now proven, low standards. His hand trembled slightly as he put the mirror down.

Stranger things happened. Worse matches were made. Hadn’t he seen countless men linking arms with women who should by rights have been as far out of their reach as you should be out of his? He’d never envied men like that. He’d been too busy pitying their wives and girlfriends. But this wasn’t even really relevant, because you’d never asked him to court you, had you? He knew what you’d been asking for. The very thought of it made his mouth dry and his treacherous member stiffen.

A sound in the hall made him start. Vimes groaned. Just when he’d thought the evening couldn’t get worse... it was you; he recognised your voice even if he couldn’t pick out a word you said. You and the twerp. You were right outside his room, stepped nearer to it as you laughed, then withdrew again.

A door opened. A door shut. Not just any door, either, but the door right beside his own. He heard the deeper voice, cut off mid sentence. You were actually about to... in the very next room to him. Vimes felt something inside him almost break.

Did you know? Or were you too drunk or distracted to remember where Vimes was staying? What would be worse, if you were doing this intentionally to finally send him over the edge, or if he was somehow violating your privacy just by sitting perfectly still on his own bed?

Could he leave? But the floorboards outside complained even under his light steps. And if you were to slip out yourself, and spotted him standing there... besides, there was nowhere for him to go! The hall downstairs would be closed by now, at least officially if not physically, the torches and candles out and the fire burned down to embers.

He wasn’t about to freeze to death over this when it wasn’t even a guarantee he could avoid detection. And he had a right to be here. That was the only reason he decided to stay.

There was a scrape of wood against wood as someone landed on the bed next door and shoved it up against the wall. Another laugh. Vimes swallowed and stared fixedly into the darkness. And then, so softly that he could barely hear it, you moaned. If he’d been the type to, he might very well have cried.

Moving as if in a dream, he got up (a little awkwardly now) and closed the window half way. He pulled off his shirt. He unlaced his boots and stuffed his socks into them. He averted his gaze as he undid his trousers. Another moan, louder this time, and a string of words, muffled through the wall but he still understood the tone of them, heard how they pitched a little higher... urging.

You knew. Of course you knew. Vimes had never been so sure of anything in his life. You’d looked him right in the eye and told him you were trying to make him jealous.

Well, he caved. You won. You wanted him to hear you and by gods, Vimes was too tired, and honestly too angry, to resist.

He pulled the blanket aside and lay down, shut his eyes and edged close to the wall that separated him from you. He hadn’t even touched himself yet and he was already so hard that the weight of the covers pressing against his erection felt almost painful. The next time he heard you speak, you sounded impatient, and Vimes wasn’t surprised. If it’d been him in there with you, he would’ve torn every scrap of clothing from you by now and given you everything you could take.

All the images of you that his subconscious had forced on him, whether asleep or awake... he’d shut them out as quickly as they’d appeared but now, despite knowing better, he welcomed them back and built on them. It wasn’t difficult to picture you dishevelled, smiling and eager. Vimes frowned and felt the heavy, sickly heat of guilt and shame shifting and growing in his stomach.

He shouldn’t do this, he’d regret it. He was already regretting it. Because, and this was the worst part of all of this, he was pretty sure he knew exactly what to do with a woman like you.

He heard your voice in another moan and he gasped in response. The noises and the shifting of the furniture painted a perfect picture - that idiot was down with his back on the bed making you do the work, and by the sound of it, you had just lowered yourself down onto him and called out as he entered you. Vimes couldn’t deny the sting of jealousy, but it was softened when he waited for you to continue and realised how little he had to compete with.

If it was him in there, you might well start out sounding equally impatient but he would meet you soon enough. He would know how to touch you - he could read you so well already and every little sigh and movement from you would tell him how you wanted to be treated. Vimes reached down to grip the base of his cock, squeezed hard and waited - and yes, you were already settling into a quick pace. He cursed under his breath. You would want him to be rough.

If it was him in there, you would be on your back, spread for him. As much as he loved the safety of darkness, he’d keep the candles burning so he could see every inch of you. Whatever of shyness or reserve you might still have, it would melt away when he kissed you, ran his thumb across the lips of your filthy mouth and knelt between your legs.

He pictured your hands - would they reach for him? Undress him? Would you be wanton enough to run them along your form to show him where you wanted him? Would you touch yourself, wet your fingers in your own slick and please yourself if he tarried?

Had you ever brought yourself to the finish while thinking of him? But that was difficult to imagine, even now.

If he had the self-command, he might tease you; it was the least you deserved after everything you’d put him through. Vimes pictured putting his weight on one knee, pressing it up against your cunt and forcing your thighs apart wider, pictured your wetness slick against his skin, pictured you pushing up, grinding against him. He pictured your eyes opened wide, looking up at him desperately with a pretty little frown, he pictured your hands trembling on the blankets, pictured your voice asking him to touch you, to fill you.

He kept a firm grip on himself, stroked up slowly and let the precum trickling from the head wet his calloused palm. Then he decided that if he was going to do this, he may as well do it right and so he spat into his hand before continuing at an agonisingly slow pace. It had been so long since he’d done this and he had been so thoroughly tortured these last few weeks that his cock was already jumping at his own touch, but he’d be damned if he wouldn’t outlast you.

You were crying out now while riding that... boy and Vimes just knew he could make you keen like that before he’d even touched you. Vimes was filthy enough to give you a run for your money and, not that this should matter, but he knew it did, he was big enough, could last long enough to leave you weak-kneed for days. If you let him take you as hard as he wanted, he could stretch you like you’d never been stretched and fuck you to within an inch of your life. That was the problem - he was pretty sure that if you did want him, he could give you what you needed and the hunger he felt wouldn’t be sated after just claiming you once. It never was. And he would use every trick in the book, all his years of experience to leave you wanting more.

Teasing wouldn’t last long. Soon enough, knowing you, you would sigh out a “please” and he wouldn’t be able to hold back. He’d hike your pretty legs onto his shoulders and make you look up at him, grab your jaw and twist your head if he had to to make you meet his gaze, and he’d hold it and watch every subtle shift in your expression as he buried himself in you.

Vimes groaned, felt his dick twitch and he squeezed, hard, around the base and pressed the back of his other hand against his mouth to shut himself up. He had never let himself think about this before, at least not long enough to imagine how soft, how tight, how dripping wet your cunt might be around his cock. Wet enough for it to smear across your thighs, stick to his skin, trickle down to his balls... Good gods.

And still, he couldn’t be blamed for picturing it. There you were right this moment, inches from him, moaning and whimpering and sending the bed thumping over and over against the wall. You were enjoying it and that was fine by Vimes because he knew he could do better.

If it were him, he’d take you deeper, harder. You would be begging him by now. He could almost hear those words in your sweet, breaking voice, calling out his name with a whimper and pleading with him to fuck you so roughly it hurt. Even as the head of his cock reached the deepest part of your cunt, you’d be crying out for more.

Maybe he’d flip you over onto your hands and knees and hold himself back to watch as you curved your back, bared your pretty little arse for him, left yourself open and dripping for him like an animal in heat... squirming on the sheets, turning your head to look back at him with lust darkening your eyes. In that position you’d be as exposed as you’d ever made him feel, you’d be at his mercy and he could hold your head down with one hand and tease your cunt with the other while he fucked you.

His ears strained to hear you now, your gorgeous voice calling to him. It was for his sake you were so loud, he just knew it. How much sweeter wouldn’t it sound when you finished?

If you were half as desperate as you seemed to be, it wouldn’t take him long to make you gasp and plead, wouldn’t take him long to find just the right rhythm and pressure to tease your clit and make your cunt clench around him. No matter how tight you squeezed, he’d force himself back inside, over and over until it was all too much for you and he finally pushed you over the edge.

Vimes stroked himself faster, his cock almost burning hot to the touch, balls already tensing. Every few seconds pleasure, blended with shame and longing, threatened to overwhelm him and he had to stop for a moment to hold himself back.

It should be him there with you. You’d wanted it to be him, he was sure of it. It could have been...

For a second, it was almost impossible for Vimes to resist the urge to get up, wrap the blanket around his waist, kick down the door and throw your boy-toy out the window before taking his place.

He wondered what would happen if he did. Would you treat him the same? Hold him down and take what you needed?

He would buck under you, meet every rolling motion of your hips, he’d give you everything he had. Gods. All he wanted was to bury his face between your breasts, hold you, have his hands guided by yours so he could please you as he took you.

Vimes had almost pressed himself against the wall by now and he knew he wasn’t fooling himself - there was no rhythm anymore, he could hear that little shit stammer out something and your voice, as thick as it was with pleasure, was nowhere near high or breathless enough for you to be close to your peak. He had to listen as somebody else fucked you and the idiot wasn’t even doing it right.

He didn’t want his pleasure to last much longer than yours did. If you weren’t here with him, there’d be no reason for him to continue. Vimes heard you pick up the pace as you raced to the finish and he matched it, tried to picture your touch in place of his own, mind jumping from image to image as he let himself unravel... your filthy mouth made filthier than ever as you took his cock down your throat, his face buried in your cunt with his tongue and jaw working against your core, lapping up your desire... your voice crying out his name, over and over...

Vimes bit down hard on his own wrist and felt his whole body tense up from the mattress until his weight felt divided between his shoulders and his heels. For one moment, endless and fleeting all at once, his mind was almost a complete and blissful blank, with no guilt weighing on it, no cares, no nothing. What little of his higher functions remained informed him that if he’d come any harder, he probably would’ve pulled something... It was a miracle that he could silence himself enough to make so little noise, just one long, quiet growl of half pain, half pleasure. It really had been a long time, because through the haze he could feel his seed landing in strings across his chest.

He had no idea how long he lay there, staring blindly at the ceiling. If you’d had any spectacular finale of your own, he was sure he would have heard it but all he could make out now was gentle murmurs back and forth between you and your companion. All the effort you’d put in, and between you and him, Vimes, he wasn’t sure he hadn’t gotten more out of the bargain.

It was hard to think, now. Vimes was dimly aware of a thousand new reasons he could and should kick himself, but he couldn’t quite distinguish one from the other at the moment. And if he was really such a wretch, he hadn’t really done anything worse than was to be expected, had he?

It was late and he was tired. You weren’t here. He’d spent the entire evening willing you to appear beside him and it was time to admit defeat. Sleep could claim him - hopefully now he could at least go one night without being tormented by awful visions.

With the last bit of strength he could muster, Vimes grabbed his shirt from the floor and mopped up the worst of the mess he’d made, then balled it up and threw it into the corner with contempt. He rolled over into the middle of the bed and couldn’t help thinking that it was much too wide for only one person...

Well, what else was new. He’d wake up tomorrow and hate himself, and that wouldn’t exactly break the mould either. As he fell backwards into unconsciousness, the last thing he heard was the door next to his own once again open, then close.

He smiled grimly. You might not be here to fall asleep beside him, but at least you’d join him in sleeping alone... in this life, that was about as fair as things ever got.

Seconds later, he was snoring.

#sam vimes #sam vimes x you #sam vimes x reader #sam vimes imagine #vimes #nsft #my fics

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first-and-last-neocount · 4 years ago

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Death, the Shadow, Spreads Its Wings Around Me - Chapter 1

Yooooo, I finally finished the first chapter of my first fic! And it’s a multi-chapter Resident Evil/Supernatural crossover, so it’s not like I’m diving straight into the deep end at all! *sweats*

All thanks to the wonderful @fonulyn, who nudged me into actually finishing and posting this damn thing by luring me into squealing about my ideas over Tumblr and then drowning me in supportive comments until I gave in. You’re an absolute darling, Fon, and I hope you enjoy my contribution to our cozy little Nivannedy rowboat.

Most of it’s under a cut, since it got awfully long for a first chapter, lol. Or you can read it on AO3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26437897/chapters/64411741

Chapter 1:

The ocean looked as black as ink.

Wreckage from the underwater base was strewn through the rolling waves, pieces as small as sheets of paper up to entire sections of insulated wall nearly ten feet across; all the truly heavy material had plunged to the bottom of the bay, but the rest now bobbed and swirled on the surface. Stormclouds had rolled in, the winds whipping the bay to a frenzy and darkening the water until it was impenetrably dark. A sea of shadows, from which nothing good could emerge.

Leon should have been resting in a medical tent, but instead he was on a boat cutting its slow but steady way across the churning waves, helping the rescue teams as they searched against all the odds for survivors. The winds had grown too unpredictable for a helicopter, so they were doing it the old fashioned way – a half-dozen coastal patrol boats, spread out into as even a grid as they could manage on the open water, combing through the debris field. Leon didn't hold out much hope for survivors, but he needed to be here anyway.

Even if he only managed to find the body, it was the least he could do.

When Leon had made it to the emergency command centre that the BSAA had set up just outside of Lanshiang's city limits, it had been in too much chaos for him to get a meaningful report from anyone. The explosion of Neo-Umbrella's underwater base had thrown everything into a frenzy, as rescue and salvage teams scrambled to deal with the fallout and contain any potential escaping bioweapons. When Leon had found the hasty medical centre and walked into the first tent, he'd been relieved to see Chris Redfield sitting on one of the folding cots, one arm in a sling and cut and bruised to hell but otherwise seemingly unharmed. Ignoring the chaos of medical personnel rushing around them, Leon made his way over to the BSAA Captain, and even managed to dredge up a wry smile from somewhere under his exhaustion.

“Well, we did it again, I guess. You'd think someone else would take a turn at saving the world one of these days...”

Chris had looked up at him, and Leon stopped in his tracks. There was something far worse than the usual exhaustion in Chris's dark brown eyes. His face was mostly expressionless, too tired to convey what was clearly churning inside him, but his eyes – his eyes were almost black with despair, filled with the kind of pain that Leon knew all too well. He offered only a single sentence.

“Piers didn't make it out.”

The ground didn't crack open beneath Leon's feet. The sky didn't fall. There were no explosions or dramatics or apocalyptic signs; instead, the world just... stopped. The noise of the chaos around them cut off as if the audio track had simply been muted, leaving ringing silence in Leon's ears. In that moment, a grenade could have gone off three feet away and he wouldn't have heard it. His vision seemed to dim around the edges, narrowing in until he couldn't see anything beyond Chris Redfield's hunched, defeated shoulders and despairing eyes. He couldn't feel the weight of his tac vest or the aching of his own muscles, couldn't smell the lingering smoke in the air – everything was gone, leaving him unmoored and adrift, his brain no longer processing the wealth of information that his body was trying to convey.

Low and echoing, as if from down a long tunnel, Leon heard himself rasp out, “What... happened?”

“He saved my life.” Chris's expression twisted as he said it, some of the raw agony in his voice finally breaking through onto his face. “We... that thing down there... if it got out, so many people would have died. We had to stop it.” His head bowed forward, his gaze falling to the ground – yet his haunted stare was clearly seeing something else, flashes of the horror he had just lived through.

“Piers got caught under debris. Crushed his arm. We were going to lose, we didn't have a chance... then he. Injected himself, with something.” A shudder ran through the Captain's frame. “He started to mutate. Whole arm swelled, muscles, spines, the whole nine yards. Fought the creature off with some kind of electrical blast. Got me into an escape pod, even though I was barely conscious.” Another shudder, stronger than the last. “Then he... when the base blew...” He looked back up at Leon, and the mask of exhaustion was gone, fiercely held-back tears shimmering in his eyes and his handsome features warped with helpless rage. “He stayed behind.”

This time it was Leon who couldn't hold the gaze. He turned away, his gaze drifting over the walls of the tent before fixing, still not really seeing, on the view from the open flaps of the tent – on the grim orange light reflecting against the gathering clouds, the rising plumes of black smoke reaching up like grasping hands. Lanshiang was burning, whole tracts of the city turned to rubble by the wanton destruction of the J'avo mutants, and it felt like the perfect mirror to the devastation unfolding inside Leon's heart.

Piers Nivans. Leon had only crossed paths with the young sniper a few times, and always in the context of a mission, where the BSAA and DSO's interests had overlapped; they had probably only spoken directly to each other on a handful of occasions, yet that had been enough for the younger man to make a powerful impression on Leon.

Admittedly, it had been his looks that had caught Leon's eye the first time. Leon had never tried to make much of a secret of his preference for tough, muscular men who looked like they could probably bench press him if they tried; Piers hadn't only had that going for him, but also stunning hazel-green eyes, a jawline to die for, and a fierce self-confidence that he wore like the proverbial shining armor of a noble knight. After only a few brief exchanges, though, Leon had realized there was so much more beneath the surface; Piers might have acted like just another military muscle-head sometimes, but he was also kind, quick-witted, and compassionate. While other agents often shied away from Leon, intimidated by his reputation, Piers had looked at Leon with something embarrassingly close to awe in his eyes sometimes... but he'd still had the nerve to ask if Leon was okay after an intense fight, offer him a hand into an escape chopper, even once argue with him when he thought the plan to breach a building full of infected was too risky. Chris had once commented to Leon that Piers usually stayed in the background and left the detail-wrangling to others, but that when Leon was present, he seemed compelled to step into the conversation; Leon had been unexpectedly warmed by that little revelation. He'd even wondered, sometimes, if the spark of attraction he felt for the sniper might be mutual. Their line of work didn't allow much time for their private lives, and Leon had mostly given up on the idea of romance after how spectacularly his relationships with Ada and Jack had crashed and burned, but something about Piers had made him want to reconsider. Maybe someday, he'd thought. A beer after work, just the two of them, without the rest of Chris's boisterous team around – get to know each other better, see if their compatibility only existed on the battlefield or if that chemistry extended to personal interactions as well. Always, though, those ideas had come with those inherent caveats; possibly, maybe, someday.

Now, someday would never come.

The numbness was starting to wear off a little, the duller throbs and sharper aches of his body making themselves known again, but Leon couldn't fathom the thought of resting. More pressing than all the physical pains was the sudden, burning knowledge that he'd forgotten the other crucial truth of their work. That all of them spent their lives standing on the very threshold of annihilation; that all too often, someday never arrived. Planning for tomorrow was a fool's dream, because none of them ever knew if they'd even have a tomorrow – if Leon wanted something with Piers, he should have grabbed for it with both hands, when he had the chance. And the slow, collapsing hole of despair in his chest told him that whether or not he'd admitted it before, he really, really had wanted it. He'd let his own fear hold him back, though, and now the chance was gone.

“They're putting together a recovery team, to see if they can find any survivors – or remains.” The sound of his own voice was startlingly normal, but Leon didn't turn to face Chris; he didn't want to find out if his face was holding up the facade as well. “I'm going with them. I'll bring his body back if I can.”

“What?” He heard Chris shift behind him, the sudden concern in his voice. “Leon, you're exhausted, you -”

“Get some rest. I'll let you know when I get back.” Forcing himself into motion, Leon strode out of the tent, ignoring Chris calling after him. The edges of the gaping void in his chest were growing, the chasm spreading wider and wider as the reality of the situation sank in, threading tingling lines of pain through his whole body. It felt as though, if he stopped moving now, he might just fold in on himself like a dying star and crumble into nothingness.

That could come later. First, he had to do what he could for Piers – even if it was far, far too late for it to matter. Even if all he could manage was to bring his body home.

The icy spray coming off the waves as the boat cut through them barely even registered on Leon's skin; he felt just as cold inside, that black hole of pain swallowing his organs and filling his veins like tar. He wasn't alone in his focused silence – no one in the boat was talking, all of them standing rigidly at the rails and staring intently out at the waters around them, searching for signs of life... or, failing that, of human remains. So far, they had only recovered two bodies, both of Neo-Umbrella scientists who must have been working inside the facility when it was destroyed. Those bodies had been placed at the very back of the boat, tucked against the rear rail under a tarp, and were being studiously ignored; Leon wouldn't have even bothered to fish them from the water, if it were up to him. They had known what they were choosing when they signed on with Neo-Umbrella. The people who kept this interminable war going, who made it necessary for good men like Piers Nivans to give up their lives to keep their world safe... they didn't deserve burying, if you asked Leon.

Suddenly, his gaze caught something other than the smooth surfaces of the laboratory wreckage. He called it out before he even fully knew what he'd seen. “I see something! Twenty degrees left!”

The boat slowed and turned, heading toward the object he'd seen. As a wave crested and sank, Leon got a better glimpse, and his heart leapt into his throat. It was a body, alright; floating face up, half-draped across a piece of wreckage, and wearing not the white of a lab coat but camouflage military gear. They were still some distance away, and the body's face was turned away - but Leon could just make out the drape of a piece of grey-green fabric around the body's neck, sodden wet and plastered down against the tac vest but still distinguishable as a scarf, and he knew. He knew with a certainty that turned his blood to ice.

Piers.

As the boat pulled closer, murmurs swept through the boat crew; they might not have known Piers by name, but they all recognized that the man whose body they were approaching had been a BSAA Lieutenant by the insignia on his left shoulder. Leon didn't make a sound, his gaze trained on Piers, his pain-numbed brain finally starting to recognize that there was something strange about the corpse. They had almost reached their target when Leon's sluggish mind finally connected the pieces, and he inhaled sharply.

Chris had said that Piers injected himself with one of Neo-Umbrella's viral cocktails, that he'd mutated heavily enough to have spines and some kind of electrical discharge. Hell, prior to that, his arm had apparently been crushed by falling debris. And yet...

The right side of Piers's shirt was torn away, exposing not only his arm but the side of his chest as well. Even his tactical gear there had taken a beating, the vest ripped and sagging as though the swelling of the mutation had burst it. Yet – there was no mutation. All Leon could see was smooth, tanned skin. Piers's arm looked whole and undamaged, as human as it had ever been where it lay limply at his side, not even cut or bloodied as Chris had been; other than the deathly pallor under his tan, and the horrible stillness of his chest, he looked entirely uninjured.

As the boat pulled alongside the wreckage, the two men closest reached out with hooked poles and snagged the back of Piers's tac vest. With a few muted grunts, they dragged the BSAA agent's limp form closer, until they could reach down enough to grab him and haul him up onto the boat. As they lowered him gently onto the slick wood of the deck, Leon couldn't help but kneel down and reach out to touch him, mind spinning and chest aching fit to burst. He was distantly aware of a few of his companions watching him with pitying eyes, but no one tried to stop him; it was obvious that Piers was gone, but it must have been equally obvious that Leon was breaking down, and that he wouldn't fully accept it until he'd felt the sniper's cold skin and absent pulse for himself.

His shaking fingers landed first on Piers's shoulder, touching that undamaged flesh and wondering with a sick shudder what fresh hell Neo-Umbrella had cooked up, that the horrific mutation Chris had described had simply vanished as though it had never been – but the moment he made contact the muscles under his hand tensed, Piers's brilliant hazel eyes flew open, and his chest heaved as he gasped for breath and started to cough.

“Piers!” Heart suddenly pounding double-time, Leon grabbed for the sniper's wrist; even as he sought for a pulse, his other hand was smoothing the sniper's soaked hair back from his face, assessing the look of wild panic in Piers's eyes. “Get me blankets and a first aid kit, now! Piers, can you hear me? You're safe, I promise, you're going to be fine -”

“Agent Kennedy?” Piers's voice was a weak rasp, barely audible over the sudden flurry of movement around them, but his eyes had refocused and were fixed steadily on Leon. The recognition and awareness there made Leon's heart flutter, and he managed a shaky smile, smoothing Piers's hair back again needlessly. He could feel the BSAA agent's pulse with his other hand, stunningly strong and steady, and it made him smile wider despite the absolute deluge of adrenaline running wild through his veins.

“Yeah, it's me. Just stay with me, Piers, you're gonna be okay.”

Leon knew that the odds of that were not actually in their favour – hell, it was bordering on an impossibility that Piers was even alive at all, and a downright miracle that he wasn't mutated beyond recognition – but he said with all the conviction he could muster, and it was almost enough to convince himself. Piers smiled weakly back at him, then the medic was there, wrapping warm blankets around Piers and asking rapid-fire questions about where he was hurt and how much he could feel as the man began to cut away his waterlogged tactical gear. Leon moved back a little to give the medic room to work, but when he would have let go of Piers's wrist, the sniper grabbed his hand and held on; heart swelling with too many emotions to even begin to process them now, Leon mirrored that fierce grasp and stayed close, unwilling to move an inch further away than he had to as long as Piers clearly wanted him there.

As the medic did a thorough inventory of Piers's injuries, checking vital signs and testing responses while looking for any major wounds, a strange look of consternation came across the man's face. Before Leon could ask, the medic said slowly, “Lieutenant, are you in any pain right now?”

Piers blinked, then frowned. “Um, not really?” he said, looking rather surprised by that fact himself. “I figure I'm in shock, though, because I don't even feel cold and I'm pretty sure you guys just fished me out of the ocean.”

“We did, yes.” The medic was frowning too. “Yet your core body temperature is already returning to something near normal. Your heart rate is steady, your blood pressure is only slightly elevated, you have no major visible wounds, and you don't seem to be suffering any loss of sensation.”

Piers froze, and his grip on Leon's hand tightened. “Wait.” he breathed out, eyes wide, and looked down at his own arm in bewilderment. “My arm... I was...”

“Chris said you got hurt pretty badly down there.” Leon murmured, cutting Piers off – he didn't know how the medic would react if Piers admitting to having been infected, but he knew it wouldn't be in any way good and he wasn't anxious to find out specifics. There were absolutely no signs of mutation or mental alteration in evidence, and unless and until Piers started showing worrying symptoms, Leon wasn't going to let them lock him up in quarantine when he'd somehow managed to survive what should certainly have killed him. “You look fine though. Maybe... Chris just got it wrong, yeah? Heat of the moment and all that.”

Piers looked up, met Leon's gaze – and whatever he saw there, it made his eyes go wide, and Leon could have sworn he saw the sniper's cheeks flush, ever so slightly. “Right.” Piers said, voice still slightly hoarse. “Yeah. I... it was pretty chaotic there, for a while. I got thrown against the wall, and I just assumed my arm was broken and I was powering through on adrenaline. Can't stop to assess injuries mid-fight, you know? But maybe I – maybe it was just a little bruised after all.”

“It appears so.” The medic still looked perplexed, but he shrugged. “You're damn lucky, then, Lieutenant – we thought we were out here on a recovery mission only, and I'm damn glad we were wrong.” He stood up then, and cast a pointed glance at Leon. “He needs to stay wrapped up in those blankets until we get back to shore, and one of us needs to get back to helping with the search. You wanna stay and keep an eye on him, make sure he stays awake and responsive?”

Leon usually put a lot of work into maintaining his aloof persona, but right now he'd just been handed a miracle of a second chance and his facade of cool indifference was the last thing on his mind. He nodded gratefully, and the medic nodded back before striding off to rejoin the rest of the crew at the rails.

“Agent Kennedy...”

The soft words brought his gaze back to Piers, and Leon smiled down at him, squeezing his hand gently. “Call me Leon, please.” He said quietly, and got to watch a little smile tug at the corners of Piers's mouth. “Are you really okay?”

“I think so.” Piers held his gaze steadily, hazel eyes open and honest. “The Captain told you what I did, didn't he? You know that I was...”

“He did, and I do.” Leon replied, still keeping his voice low – the recovery crew didn't need to hear this exchange. “Don't particularly feel the need to spread it around, though. You look completely fine, and I don't know how that's possible but I'm not inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm just incredibly glad you're alive.”

Piers was definitely blushing now, but he was also looking at Leon with dawning confusion. “Wait a second, weren't you in the city when everything went sideways? What are you doing out here with the recovery crew? And where's the Captain?”

“Chris is at the medical tent back at command. He's a bit battered, but he's going to be fine.” Leon said soothingly. “As for why I'm here, I was looking for you.”

Piers just stared at him as if he didn't understand what he was hearing. Leon bit the inside of his cheek a bit, trying to force back the nerves; it had been a long time since he'd opened up to anyone, to any degree, who wasn't Claire or Chris. Even with them, he usually just put a bit less effort into making himself appear 'fine' and let them draw their own conclusions about how he felt. He'd just been given a very sharp and painful confirmation, though, that what he felt for Piers was more than a passing fancy – and even he wasn't stubborn or emotionally constipated enough to ignore that kind of a warning, so he took a deep breath and made himself continue.

“Look, I know we haven't really spent all that much time together, but – I like you, Piers. A lot. And when Chris told me you were dead, I realized what an idiot I was for not saying anything. I let my own fears and hang-ups get in the way, and if you weren't somehow here and alive and safe, I'd have regretted that for the rest of my life.” Piers's eyes had gotten rounder and rounder as Leon spoke, and he was looking at the DSO agent like he had hung the damn moon, and they were still holding hands, so Leon smiled weakly and said, “I guess, what I'm saying is – once the trauma team back at command clears you for real... do you wanna go grab a drink together?”

For a second, Piers looked like he'd frozen in place – then he started nodding vigorously, and a broad smile broke across his face like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. “Yes.” he said fervently. “Hell yes, I – honestly, it's kind of a running joke with the guys on the team at this point, but I really, really like you too, Agent Kennedy.” If anything, his grin only got wider then. “Leon.”

Leon grinned back at him, a light, giddy feeling bubbling up in his chest; it had been far too long at this point, so long that Leon had almost forgotten, and it took him a moment to identify that feeling as joy. For once not tempered by loss, or anger, or bitterness. The city was still burning and the war against bioterrorism might feel like an unwinnable uphill fight, but Piers was alive and safe and they were going to get a drink after debriefing and maybe this once, just this once, Leon could actually get to keep something good in his life.

Their boat finished its section of the grid and turned back toward shore a few minutes later, one survivor and two dead bodies retrieved from the wreckage. It took about a half hour to get from the debris field back to port, and then another ten minutes to make the trek back to the emergency command centre.

Piers didn't let go of Leon's hand until the medical team came to whisk him away for a proper examination, and neither one of them had stopped smiling.

#resident evil #leon s. kennedy #piers nivans #chris redfield #nivannedy #i'm only going to tag characters as they appear #because holy shit my tags on AO3 got long fast #supernatural #eventually anyways #the bits of it that are spn right now aren't really obvious #the neocount writes #holy shit look at that #i used my writing tag again already!#thanks fon :P #and thanks to everyone else #in this nivannedy rowboat with us #it might not be a spacious ship #but we're all having fun paddling like hell XD

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toomuchofabastard · 4 years ago

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Heaven’s Final Betrayal (4/6)

[ << CHAPTER 1 ] [ < CHAPTER 3 ]

Fandom: Good Omens (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Aftermath of Rape/Non-Con, Dissociation, Consensual Anal Sex

Word count: 5,705 (total 15,475)

Fic Summary: It was obvious that Heaven wouldn’t exactly be thrilled about Aziraphale’s role in preventing Armageddon. But neither the angel nor Crowley could have predicted how far they were willing to go to get revenge, and now Aziraphale needs him by his side more than ever.

READ ON AO3

___

This time, Crowley woke to a face full of angel’s chest, the feeling of the carpet brushing against his knuckles, and irritatingly, in spite of his sobriety, a pounding headache. He cracked an eye open and was greeted with a close-up of Aziraphale’s face, looking pensively down at him.

Crowley smushed his face back into the angel’s waistcoat and mumbled something that might have been ‘good morning’. He felt a plump hand run slowly through the back of his hair. When he craned his head back up, Aziraphale was smiling faintly at him. They were still sprawled on the sofa where they’d lain together, bodies pressed close, long into the night. Crowley must have drifted off at some point. Damn it. He’d meant to stay awake as long as the angel was. He hoped he had been alright on his own.

He sat up, cracked his neck loudly, and yawned a little wider than he should humanly have been able to. Aziraphale also rose unsteadily next to him.

“You sleep at all?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale shook his head. His expression was muted and sombre. He looked tired.

“I was thinking,” the angel replied. “About what you said.” He sighed deeply, a sigh heavy with defeat. “You’re right,” he admitted again. “I can’t keep running away from everything. Burying my head in the sand.”

Crowley rubbed the angel’s thigh fondly.

“It’s going to take some time to come to terms with, that’s all,” said Aziraphale, with fake breeziness. Then he hesitated. “I… I didn’t really believe them capable of such…such…” He didn’t complete the sentence.

“Yeah,” responded Crowley, not really knowing what else to say. That much had been plainly obvious from the way the angel had reacted.

There was an awkward pause. Then Crowley spoke suddenly. “Me neither. For what it’s worth.”

Aziraphale glanced up and laughed lightly, hollowly. “I don’t know whether that makes me feel better or worse,” he said. Then his face settled back into melancholy.

Once again, Crowley didn’t know how to respond. Aziraphale just looked so desperately sad. Over thousands of years, he’d probably seen pretty much every one of the angel’s varied and histrionic repertoire of expressions, but this emptiness and misery broke his demonic heart. Even more so, the thought that there was nothing he could really do to fix it. This wasn’t a situation where he could drop a flippant remark or a line of verse worthy of the bard to light up the angel’s face. He didn’t have the words for this. But he supposed there was one thing he could remind Aziraphale.

“I’m with you,” he said simply.

That brought the angel out of his reverie for a moment. His face softened and he leant into Crowley, the corners of his lips lifting into another genuine smile. Still a shadow of his normal ones, but Crowley felt cheered nonetheless. He hugged him back.

“How ‘bout some breakfast?” he asked after a while.

Aziraphale seemed to contemplate that for a minute, but then he shook his head again. “I’m afraid I’ve… rather lost my appetite.” His face dropped again, his eyebrows pinching with remorse.

Crowley nodded. He supposed that was inevitable, though it still hurt and worried him. It was better than Aziraphale trying to force himself to act like normal, anyway. Fortunately, eating was just a pleasure, rather than a necessity, for them. He was sure they’d get back to it eventually.

He leant closer to Aziraphale again, cupped a hand under his jaw and kissed him softly on his pudgy cheek. “I love you,” he murmured. The angel blinked and smiled up at him again. He laced his hand on top of Crowley’s, eyes closing as he melted into the touch.

“I love you too,” he replied.

◥|⧗|◤

They didn’t do very much for the rest of the day, nor the days following. Aziraphale didn’t express any further interest in leaving the cosy sanctuary of the bookshop, which suited Crowley just fine. The rest of the world could wait. He’d flipped the sign on the door to ‘closed’ the second they’d returned, and as far as he was concerned, it could stay that way indefinitely.

Mostly, Aziraphale pottered about the shop like normal, shuffling books between the shelves in patterns apparently meaningful though inscrutable to Crowley, and sat in his comfy chair and cardigan, thumbing through some old volume, in a blanket of dust. He ignored the phone when it rang. At night, he dimmed the lights so that Crowley could rest, but he stayed awake through until the first beams of sunrise filtered between the window panes and the hubbub on the streets outside started up again.

Crowley watched him closely, and lay around, and dozed, and watched him some more. Occasionally, he tried to kill time by fucking around on his phone (ineffective, it transpired), but he always kept one beady amber eye on the angel.

There was something ghost-like in the way he moved sometimes. Drifting. Untethered. He didn’t hum to himself as he shuffled between the labyrinth of shelves, like he usually did. Crowley missed the humming. His limp seemed to have vanished, at least. Crowley hoped he was healed now. He found himself wondering if Aziraphale would even tell him if he wasn’t.

The angel hadn’t spoken another word about what had happened since that second morning, but Crowley could tell it was still nagging at his mind. He caught him sometimes, staring into the middle distance, deep in thought and with a grave expression on his face. As the days pressed on, blurring into one another, Aziraphale’s mood varied, but didn’t noticeably improve. Sometimes he seemed happy, and Crowley could make him laugh, and it was almost like he had the old Aziraphale back again, like it had never happened. Other times, Aziraphale might have seemed happy to anyone who didn’t know his moods so intimately, but Crowley wasn’t fooled. The fake smiles and cheerfulness returned, despite the angel’s promise.

“Angel, you’re doing it again,” he would say.

“I know, Crowley,” came the tired reply. “Please, just let me have this.”

And sometimes Aziraphale sat and just cried quietly, one hand pressed to his forehead, face marred with grief. Crowley didn’t say anything then, just sat with him in silence and stroked his back until the tears and stifled sniffles stopped. There was nothing left to say, anyway.

It was those times especially when Crowley felt the anger rising within him again. It kept bubbling up at inopportune moments, seemingly unprompted, like molten lava coursing through his arteries, scorching away every other emotion. Damping it back down was a herculean task, and unending, but the last thing he wanted to do was accidentally take it out on Aziraphale. And seeing as the deserving targets of his rage were out of reach - literally - there was nothing to be done with it. He could still feel it though, festering away inside him. Once Aziraphale was better enough that Crowley felt comfortable leaving him alone for a while, he was going to go someplace on his own and scream and howl and claw something - he didn’t know what - to shreds with his bare hands and set whatever was left on fire and watch it burn to ash. It still wouldn’t be enough. But it would help.

Until then, he would be as soft and gentle and patient as he, being a demon, could possibly manage. For his angel. He wouldn’t let him see.

◥|⧗|◤

Hence, he was sprawled out on the sofa one evening, trying not to physically combust, while Aziraphale lingered in the back room, making his first tentative mug of cocoa since it had happened.

It seemed to be taking him longer than Crowley would have thought. When the angel eventually emerged back into the main room and trailed over to where Crowley was sitting, Crowley shifted to face him. The smell of the cocoa wafted into his nostrils and lingered on his tongue, tasting sweet and warm, just like Aziraphale. But as he looked closer, Crowley noticed something.

There were ripples dancing on the surface of the liquid.

“You’re shaking,” Crowley frowned.

“Mm?” responded Aziraphale, blankly. “Oh. Yes.”

He eased himself into the armchair next to Crowley and rested the mug in his lap, glancing vacantly down at it. “Can’t seem to stop,” he muttered. Crowley’s frown deepened.

He leaned forward and tried to catch Aziraphale’s gaze. “Hey.” Aziraphale looked up.

Something was very wrong here. The angel was looking in Crowley’s direction, but as Crowley looked closer, he could see that Aziraphale’s eyes were not actually focusing on his face, but nearer, almost on some invisible plane between them. His gaze was empty. Just like before, Crowley remembered, and dread settled heavy in his stomach.

“Aziraphale? What’s wrong?” he asked, ardently searching those blank eyes for an answer.

The tiniest hint of a crease formed in Aziraphale’s eyebrows. His mouth opened to speak, but for a few seconds no words came out. His eyes drifted away from Crowley’s face and slid aimlessly around the room.

“I… don’t know,” he said eventually, his voice steady but distant. “I feel… strange.” He didn’t say anything further.

Crowley swallowed and tried to stifle the feeling of panic that was starting to rise in his chest. He scanned over Aziraphale’s body, as if searching for a hidden injury, or some clue as to what could have happened, why he was suddenly like this. The wax and wane of the angel’s breast as he breathed seemed a little heavier than normal, but not that significantly. He was still shaking slightly. The cocoa, now rapidly turning tepid, was cradled limply in his lap, like he’d forgotten it was there.

“Angel?” Crowley asked again. Aziraphale turned towards him, and the subtle lines of concern on his face deepened, but his eyes remained blank. His mouth kept moving like he wanted to speak, but couldn’t.

“Angel, please.” Crowley couldn’t keep the falter from his voice.

He clambered out of his seat and closer to Aziraphale. Aziraphale’s hands didn’t resist as Crowley quickly removed the mug to another table, and then grasped them tightly, squeezing in an attempt to get a response from the angel. “I don’t know what to do,” he implored. Still nothing. Shit. Shitshitshit.

In a final desperate attempt to elicit a reaction, Crowley threw himself forward into Aziraphale’s lap, burying his face in his stomach and clinging to him. “Come back,” Crowley whispered. “Come back to me.” He knew he was only talking to himself at this point. The buzzing of panic inside his head made it nearly impossible to think straight. Aziraphale would snap out of this eventually. Right? He had before. He had to. Crowley tried to breathe evenly. He had to.

A few, hideously-long minutes of silence and dread passed, until Crowley suddenly felt Aziraphale’s breathing quicken underneath him. There was a gulp, followed by a quiet, fearful voice. “…Crowley?”

“Oh, thank hell,” Crowley gasped. He looked up at Aziraphale, a dizzying wave of relief washing through him. The angel still looked petrified, but the emptiness in his eyes was gone.

“You scared me, angel,” said Crowley.

Aziraphale said nothing. He was breathing heavily, and his face was now pale and veiled with fear, confusion, and a hint of guilt.

“You were gone. What happened?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale swallowed again and his forehead creased further with distress. “I-it-it was like… nothing felt… real,” he stammered. “Not even y-you. I-I knew you were,” he added emphatically, “but… it was like I was… disconnected. Everything felt distant. H-hazy. Like I was floating.”

Aziraphale hesitated a moment, and then spoke again. “This, um, this keeps happening.”

“What?” Crowley’s eyebrows shot up.

“N-not as bad as that,” Aziraphale continued, licking nervously at his lips, “but since… you know… sometimes I’ve been feeling s-sort of… detached, and, uh, lightheaded. I don’t know why.”

He turned away from Crowley again, and Crowley saw his chin beginning to tremble. “…Am I losing my mind?” the angel whispered.

“Oh, angel. Why didn’t you tell me?” Crowley sighed.

Aziraphale just shook his head, his face crumpling. Crowley took his hand.

“It’s okay,” Crowley said. He thought for a moment. “D’you know why it was worse this time? Like, what set it off?”

The angel nodded, and bit nervously at his lip. “Th-there’s a book, in the back room,” he began to explain. “Um. Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management.”

He stopped.

“…yeah?” asked Crowley after a few seconds of silence, dipping his head.

Aziraphale seemed frozen again for a moment. Then he suddenly blinked back to reality and smiled reflexively, fleetingly, in Crowley’s direction. Crowley’s face darkened and he ran his thumb over the back of Aziraphale’s knuckles as the angel continued.

“Before Armageddon, after the birthday party, they - …Gabriel and S-Sandalphon - they, uh, showed up here to- to check up on me. Well…,” - his voice became hushed and he looked down - “…threaten me, really.” He swallowed loudly again, and Crowley felt a tremble run through his hand. His heart clenched in sympathy.

“Gabriel pretended that he wanted to buy it - the, the book -” Aziraphale continued, and he chuckled weakly, “-and declared it to be pornographic.” He rolled his eyes, making Crowley smirk despite himself. “S-So that we could talk in private, you see,” the angel explained. “They cornered me in the back room… They were standing on either side of me, so I-I-I couldn’t see them both at once, and they were asking all these questions, and Sandalphon was blocking the exit and-” His voice got faster and more breathless as he spoke, until he was almost panting through the words.

“Easy. Easy, angel,” Crowley cut in. “Breathe.”

Aziraphale nodded and his eyes closed. Crowley stroked his back as he wheezed and tried to get his breathing under control. Eventually he seemed to calm, and opened his eyes again.

“So when I saw the book in there, it-it reminded me… ” Aziraphale trailed off again.

He didn’t really need to explain any more. Crowley could intuit the cause and effect easily enough.

He pulled him into another fierce hug.

He’d never known. They’d come here, to Aziraphale’s home, just rocked up unannounced to intimidate him. Backed him into a corner and put the screws on him. Crowley could picture exactly how the ‘conversation’ would have gone. Satan below. Was there no sanctity they wouldn’t violate? Maybe he should have seen it coming after all. No wonder Aziraphale had reacted so badly to the reminder. The undercurrent of the whole situation was sickeningly similar to what had happened in Heaven.

Crowley held him close until they both calmed down. Aziraphale was the one to break the embrace this time, sighing mournfully as he did so. His eyes, half-lidded, dropped back to the floor. Crowley took hold of his hands again.

“I’ll get rid of the book,” Crowley said. That was the least he could do to help.

Aziraphale’s head jerked up. “Don’t destroy it!” he entreated.

Crowley smiled softly. Oh, how he loved this angel. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied. He cupped Aziraphale’s face in his hands and kissed him gently on the forehead. “I’ll take it to a charity shop or something.”

◥|⧗|◤

For now, Crowley hid the book with the theatre programmes, underneath The Sound of Music. No chance of Aziraphale happening upon it there. He might take the opportunity to get rid of that dratted thing too, while he was at it. It was only another reminder of those wankers in Heaven.

The days continued to slip listlessly by, like water gliding off a duck’s back. Now that he knew what to look for, Crowley began to notice when sometimes Aziraphale slipped into that troubling, vacant state. That’s what the whole drifting-around-like-a-ghost thing had been about. How could he have missed that?

The clue was always in the angel’s eyes. Glazed-over, duller than normal. The confirmation was in his response to questions. If he didn’t look over at Crowley, if there was a delay before his response, if the answers he gave were vague and scripted, emptily cheery. He seemed able to carry out his normal routine on the surface - even hold a simple conversation - but challenging that revealed the lack of consciousness underneath.

What worried Crowley the most was the effect this detachment from reality was having on the angel’s memory. Once he snapped out of it, Aziraphale couldn’t always recall what he’d been doing while he’d been in that state. This lead to painful conversations as Crowley had to remind him:

“You read that one yesterday, angel.”

“…Oh?”

“Yeah. You were sitting there for about two hours, I think.”

“I… I don’t remember.” He always looked so distressed and guilty once Crowley pointed it out. “I must have been… ‘away’… I suppose.”

Crowley thought maybe as time passed that the episodes were getting less frequent, but he soon came to realise that some were just so subtle and their routine so established that he had missed them. He hated himself for it.

Aziraphale’s voice, uncertain and fragile, drifted across the bookshop one late afternoon towards him. “Crowley? What… what have we been doing all afternoon?”

“We’ve just been here, angel,” Crowley replied as his heart sank. “You… you’ve been doing things with your books… you were on the computer for a bit…” Aziraphale just nodded hesitantly. Crowley could tell he didn’t recall doing any of that. Guilt and sorrow spiked through him. He should have noticed. Though even if he had, he realised, he couldn’t normally get Aziraphale to snap out of it. He would just stay with him until it stopped. He wished there was more he could do.

Otherwise though, Aziraphale seemed to be getting slowly better. He returned to regular mugs of tea and cocoa, even nibbled on a few biscuits. Cried less, smiled more. Proper smiles, not the previous pale imitations. Damn, Crowley had missed those smiles.

One night, they made their first foray into the outside world for well over a week - at least, as far as Crowley’s flat. Crowley wanted to check up on his plants, which he was sure were mounting some sort of insurrection by now, and it would do the angel good to get out, rather than languishing around the bookshop all day. They ended up staying, and cracking open a bottle or three of something red and alcoholic, collapsing onto the pristine sofa beside each other. It was good to relax a little. Crowley felt the alcohol slowly unwinding him, his body loosening like a string that had been left taut for too long.

Aziraphale got decidedly tipsy, but fortunately drew the line before booze-induced breakdown this time. He was actually… giggly. Crowley could scarcely believe it. He was even further taken aback when the angel suddenly leant close and pressed a quick, sparkling kiss against his unexpectant lips. A bolt of hot lightning seemed to shoot through him. He blinked at Aziraphale in surprise. The angel drew slightly back but kept his face intoxicatingly close to Crowley’s. He gazed up at Crowley, expression hopeful.

Crowley paused, finding himself lost in every detail of the angel’s face. Those blue eyes, locked onto his, so deep sometimes Crowley felt like he was falling into them, drowning in them. The little folds at the corners of the angel’s eyes and every other sketch-like line on his face, from thousands of years of laughter. The way the wine brought a rosy and cherub-like glow to his cheeks, and left a stain, red, on his lips, like rouge. Those lips. Soft, parted, eager. Crowley felt them pulling him inexorably forward, his own mouth parting to match the shape of the angel’s. He held his breath and closed his eyes as they met in the middle, interlocking perfectly together. Fuck, those lips were soft.

Aziraphale returned the kiss, slowly and tenderly, almost reverently. Crowley could taste the Cabernet Sauvignon in his mouth, matching the feeling of it still purring in his own throat. It was like he was drinking him in. The room faded from his awareness as they melted into each other. Crowley raised his hands to caress Aziraphale’s sides, drawing him closer. Aziraphale hummed contentedly and Crowley felt his mouth tighten with a smile as he leaned in and his kisses became firmer. His hand came down to rest on Crowley’s thigh. They felt so consummately fit together, like a set of matching fingerprints, like the quill and paper; made for each other.

As they continued to embrace, Crowley’s hands slowly trailed down Aziraphale’s body to press against his hips. Aziraphale recoiled suddenly and broke the kiss with a small gasp.

“Um, Cr-Crowley,” he stuttered, “I don’t know that I’m ready to-”

Oh, Crowley realised. He thought I meant-

“Hey, no, ’s ok. Didn’t mean anything by it,” Crowley slurred quickly. He reached for Aziraphale’s face and stroked the hair away from his temple with a soft smile. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

Aziraphale broke into a matching smile. There were those little creases at the corners of his eyes again. The angel’s gaze floated down to Crowley’s lips, and he leant back in, his mouth seeking Crowley’s once more. Crowley happily met him as Aziraphale reached his arms behind Crowley’s head and crossed his wrists, locking the two of them together. Crowley placed his hands gently back on Aziraphale’s hips and rubbed around them and his lower back in the same rhythm as their mouths moving together. A great feeling of relief and euphoria flooded Crowley’s body as they kissed. This was how things were meant to be. The two of them as one, safe in the home they’d made, finding pleasure and joy in each other. It felt like finally being able to breathe out.

The stereo, neglected in the corner, quietly clicked into life, and began streaming out the mellow strains of whatever soul record Crowley had last left in there. Did he do that? Or were even more sentient machines in his life starting to develop their own opinions about the soundtrack to his and Aziraphale’s love life? Honestly… Crowley was too lost in their own world to give a damn.

They never went further than kisses that night, but around a fortnight later, they were back visiting Crowley’s flat again. Aziraphale had continued to improve in the intervening weeks, and they were back to something close to their normal routine. He’d opened the bookshop to customers again, albeit with much more restricted hours, and Crowley was more content now to leave him to do his own thing. The angel was eating properly again too, though maybe with less delight than normal. The zoning-out was still happening. Crowley hadn’t yet worked out what to do about that.

They found themselves sat on the sofa again, Aziraphale perched in Crowley’s lap, lips on his, and everything was quiet and peaceful. Aziraphale suddenly parted from him and sat back. Crowley raised a quizzical eyebrow at him.

“I think I’m ready to try,” Aziraphale said, fiddling with Crowley’s necktie.

“Try what?”

Aziraphale made a you-know gesture with his eyes and motioned with his head towards the bedroom.

“Oh,” Crowley said. He had wondered when - or indeed if - Aziraphale was going to want to go to bed with him again, but he’d been waiting for the angel to make the first move. He wasn’t actually expecting it so soon.

“You sure?” he asked. Aziraphale nodded.

Crowley couldn’t help but feel tense as they made their way into the bedroom. He didn’t want this going wrong. The weight of what had happened in Heaven seemed to be sitting on his shoulders like some wicked clawed creature, a constant pressing reminder of everything that had changed. But if Aziraphale said he was ready, well, Crowley could only take his word for it.

Aziraphale settled on the edge of the mattress and reclined back, pulling Crowley down by his scarf to lean over him. Hints of the angel’s cologne flickered in Crowley’s senses as their mouths found each other again. Aziraphale was kissing him more forcefully now. Crowley could feel the angel’s determination as his tongue hungrily searched his mouth. His uneasiness slowly began to fade away as he lost himself in the feeling and the smell of him.

Without breaking the kiss, Aziraphale lifted one arm and clicked his fingers. A thrill raced through Crowley as both of their clothes melted away. Aziraphale shuffled backwards, and then lay back on the bed and spread his legs, gazing up at Crowley through his eyelashes. The sight sent hot blood down to pool in Crowley’s already-aching cock. He slunk forward to join Aziraphale on the bed. The angel hooked his legs around Crowley’s waist and pulled him in. A huff of pleasure escaped from Crowley’s lips as their naked bodies came into contact.

It felt like it had been far too long since he’d seen Aziraphale like this. There was a craving aching through Crowley’s whole body: to touch Aziraphale, to explore his whole body with his hands, to massage and knead all the bare flesh on display to him at last. But having only one hand free, he contented himself with running it slowly up and down the angel’s thigh, loving the feel of the strength of muscle underneath all that ample softness. Aziraphale sighed gently. The angel reached a hand down to where they were pressed together and wrapped his hand around both of their cocks, rubbing slowly up and down. He was just as hard as Crowley. Crowley started to buck his hips into Aziraphale’s touch, relishing the waves of arousal the friction brought and the light moans that soon emanated from the angel with every movement. Clearly, the enjoyment was mutual.

Once he was almost-painfully hard, Crowley sat back up and, with a miracle, applied lube along his erection, shivering slightly at the cold. Aziraphale blinked deliberately as he likewise used a miracle to prepare himself. Grasping his cock, Crowley shuffled until he was in position kneeling between Aziraphale’s raised legs, and then he hesitated. He looked up at Aziraphale. The angel was watching his progress intently, his chest rising and falling heavily and mouth parted. He noticed Crowley pause and lifted his gaze, his eyes meeting Crowley’s. He looked nearly as nervous as Crowley felt, but still just as determined. He nodded earnestly at Crowley. Ok, Crowley thought. Here goes.

Aziraphale sighed quietly as Crowley entered him. Crowley let out a low groan and bit his tongue, eyes screwing up with pleasure, and pressed further in, until the tightness of the angel’s body completely enveloped his throbbing cock. Oh, how he had missed this. He’d almost forgotten how utterly divine it felt to be inside him like this. Aziraphale’s hands gripped the sheets at his sides and he moaned again, but it was a sound of pure ecstasy, not a cry of pain this time.

Reassured, Crowley began to fuck him, softly and cautiously at first, but with increasing passion as the exhilaration overtook him. Aziraphale lay back and let himself shift with Crowley’s movements, continuing to moan. After a while, Crowley moved to press down close against him, so that his hair kept flopping down into both of their eyes as he thrust, and their laboured breaths were mingling with each other. Aziraphale’s hands came up to dance lightly across Crowley’s back. Sharp, sweet arousal rocketed up and down Crowley’s spine to his shaft, and he buried his face in Aziraphale’s neck with a strangled groan of “angel…” Fuck, it felt so good. He was losing himself in the sensation, feeling the first hints of his orgasm building, when there was a sudden voice in his ear.

“Crowley… w-wait…”

Crowley froze immediately, and whipped his head up. Aziraphale’s face had gone slack and his eyes were blown wide and blank, staring straight past Crowley. His hands were still rested on Crowley’s shoulders, but the rest of his body had gone completely limp.

“Oh shit,” Crowley gasped. He pulled out as quickly and gently as he could and clambered off of Aziraphale, falling down next to him. “Angel?” he asked, aghast, as he clasped Aziraphale’s face and pulled him to face him. Aziraphale continued to stare, unhearing.

“Bless it,” Crowley hissed under his breath. The angel’s eyes were like two voids of emptiness, completely transparent. This was a bad one. A bad one. The worst he’d seen yet. Makes sense, he thought. But he needed to snap him out of it.

“Hey. Aziraphale,” he urged, massaging the angel’s cheeks. “Look at me. Focus on me.” Nothing. Crowley swore again.

On instinct, he grabbed the angel’s limp hand and pressed it to his chest, holding it there with his own. “Feel that, feel my heartbeat,” he said. Said heartbeat was fluttering and pounding so hard under his ribs that Crowley could practically detect its echoes through Aziraphale’s skin. “Focus on me,” he repeated. “Come back.”

He sat and waited for a response, holding the same position and concentrating intently on Aziraphale’s face, everything else forgotten. He hated being left alone like this, just waiting, with no idea what to do. Minutes trudged slowly by.

Eventually, the angel began to blink and Crowley saw the light return to his eyes, which shifted around as he took in his surroundings again. Crowley watched as he registered where he was and what had happened, and then the angel suddenly let out a little whimpered “oh” and collapsed into a mess of tears.

“Hey, hey, it’s ok,” Crowley said, and took him into his arms, holding him close.

“It’s not,” Aziraphale gasped. “This isn’t what I wanted to happen,” he sobbed into Crowley’s bare chest. “Y-You didn’t even get to…” He stopped, and his eyes flickered meaningfully down to Crowley’s groin.

For a second, Crowley didn’t know what he meant. Then it dawned. “Oh, fuck that, angel!” he exclaimed. “It doesn’t matter!” As if getting off was the main thing on his mind right now.

Aziraphale broke down into sobs again.

“Oh, angel, please don’t cry. It doesn’t matter, it’s ok,” Crowley said, and rubbed at Aziraphale’s face, trying vainly to stem the flow of tears down his cheeks.

This had been a mistake. He wasn’t ready after all. And of course, now he was beating himself up about it. Crowley couldn’t stand the idea of Aziraphale thinking he’d somehow let him down.

“They had to ruin everything, didn’t they?” Aziraphale said, his voice more bitter than Crowley had ever heard it. Crowley didn’t want to tell him that was probably the point, angel.

“I can’t even make love to you anymore,” Aziraphale continued miserably. “What if I never manage to?”

“Then we won’t anymore. It’s alright.”

Aziraphale sniffed. “That’s not fair to you,” he said.

“Look,” Crowley said. He lifted Aziraphale’s face to his and stared him intensely in the eyes. “I survived six thousand years not having sex with you, angel. I can do another six thousand, and six thousand more, however long. Eternity, happily, if that’s what you need.”

Aziraphale gazed at him, misery and love intermingled on his face, but didn’t reply. Instead he just reached for Crowley and curled up around him, still weeping fitfully into him. Crowley cradled him, heart aching, until Aziraphale eventually finished crying and drifted into a deep, exhausted sleep.

Crowley was still cuddling him when they awoke to the light of the morning. Aziraphale blinked sleepily and shifted closer to Crowley, resting his head on Crowley’s ribs. He looked worn out.

“Are we going to talk about last night?” Crowley asked him.

“Why?” Aziraphale said, and he perked up suddenly. “Do you want to try again?” he asked, face eager.

“No!” Crowley snarled with exasperation. “For Satan’s sake, angel. I want to make sure you’re ok.”

Aziraphale’s face fell. “I’m fine, Crowley,” he responded tersely.

“You cried yourself to sleep, angel, you are not fine,” Crowley snapped back, a note of anger slipping into his tone. Aziraphale just closed his eyes and sighed wearily.

Crowley took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. God, why did getting him to admit his feelings have to be like pulling teeth? he thought, though the hypocrisy of the statement wasn’t lost on him.

“Why are you so focused on this as the be-all and end-all of our happiness?” he asked gently.

Aziraphale looked at him and sighed again. “Because… I like having sex with you, my dear. I want to have sex with you. I enjoy this aspect of our relationship,” he said. “And if… if I can’t do that anymore, it’s-it’s like they’ve won. I don’t want this to be another thing they’ve stolen from me. They’ve already taken so much.” His voice wobbled slightly. “I just want to feel whole again,” he finished.

Crowley sighed too. “Ok,” he murmured. “I understand.”

He twisted a finger distractedly through Aziraphale’s shining curls. He could understand that. The struggle to keep something of yourself when everyone around you seemed bent on trying to break you apart. He wanted Aziraphale to be happy again as well.

“Just remember, as far as I’m concerned, you’re already whole,” he reminded the angel. “And… try not to pressure yourself too much, ok?”

Aziraphale smiled weakly and nodded. Crowley hugged him tight.

“You know I’d do anything for you, angel,” he said, trying to make it sound as deeply sincere as he meant it.

“I know,” Aziraphale replied, his voice warm with affection, and squeezed him gently back.

They snuggled together for a few more quiet minutes, and then Aziraphale spoke up, coyly. “Does ‘anything’ include… fresh croissants from the bakery on the corner?”

A smile cracked wide across Crowley’s face. He propped himself up on his elbow and gazed down lovingly at the angel. “Are fresh croissants vital to your continued health and wellbeing, angel?” he asked humorously.

“Well, they are rather,” Aziraphale replied with affected indignation. He blinked up through his eyelashes, pouting slightly.

Crowley smiled again, then bent over and kissed him right on the tip of his upturned nose. He never could resist that face.

“I’ll be right back,” he promised, untangling himself from the sheets. Aziraphale beamed.

#my fanfiction #rape tw #noncon tw #whump #aziraphale!whump #good omens whump #nsfwhump #long post

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f4liveblogarchives · 5 years ago

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Fantastic Four Vol 1 #203 & #204

Fri Aug 30 2019 [12:13 AM] Wack'd: Any ball that's both sufficiently big and can accommodate Ben's fingers cannot possibly be regulation

[12:14 AM] maxwellelvis: Hmmm... [12:16 AM] Wack'd: Well this is a weird swerve we've taken

[12:17 AM] Wack'd: So Reed and Sue are dropping by to help. Mr Evans is skeptical because he thinks superheroes don't have time for little people but then they actually show up! So he's happy [12:18 AM] Wack'd: Reed: We're not a group of super-policemen. We're people concerned with helping people. [12:19 AM] Wack'd: This bodes well

[12:19 AM] maxwellelvis: Oh great, we've got another god-child [12:19 AM] Wack'd: ...sure

[12:21 AM] Wack'd: Back at the Baxter, Sue has a machine that makes cookies! Franklin is pleased. Johnny is worried about setting unrealistic expectations for cookie production [12:21 AM] maxwellelvis: Nobody tell him about Cookie Clicker [12:21 AM] Wack'd: Johnny: What'll his future wife do to impress him? [12:21 AM] Wack'd: 🙄 [12:23 AM] Wack'd: So the monsters rampage through NYC. The Four go to stop them. And meanwhile little Willie's measurements are off the charts! [12:23 AM] Wack'd: There's actually two original Human Torches but sure

[12:27 AM] Wack'd: So Reed figures out what's up and thankfully was working on a radiation absorber to help little Willie, which he uses to melt up the evil doppelgängers [12:28 AM] Wack'd: Sure

[12:28 AM] Wack'd: And so our story ends [12:28 AM] maxwellelvis: We're never gonna see Willie again. [12:28 AM] Bocaj: Some would call a machine that makes cookies “an oven” [12:29 AM] Wack'd: It's got a conveyor belt and everything [12:29 AM] Wack'd: Doesn't really seem to require much effort [12:29 AM] Bocaj: Still though [12:30 AM] Wack'd: Oh my god! [12:30 AM] Wack'd: We see Willie again, once, seven years from now, in an Iron Man Annual [12:30 AM] Wack'd: He dies [12:31 AM] Bocaj: 😐 [12:31 AM] Bocaj: God damn marvel comics [12:31 AM] Wack'd: William Evans, Jr. on Marvel Wiki [12:31 AM] Wack'd: This poor child

Fri Aug 30 2019 [12:34 AM] Wack'd: HERE IT IS [12:34 AM] Wack'd: THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR [12:34 AM] Wack'd: THE CANONICAL FIRST APPEARANCE OF FRANKLIN RICHARDS IN AN ADORABLE COWBOY COSTUME

[12:36 AM] Wack'd: A trope that will vex this poor child for, apparently, exactly the next 40 years [12:37 AM] Bocaj: He only has himself to blame for keeping himself a child for 40 years [12:38 AM] Wack'd: And the writers [12:38 AM] Bocaj: Writers are a myth [12:38 AM] maxwellelvis: Note: Thing to do with a Fantastic Four thing: Have Valeria visibly age but Franklin doesn't, if I ever got that far. [12:39 AM] Wack'd: He's a Steven Universe [12:39 AM] maxwellelvis: Mixed with Rigby and why he hates his brother so much. [12:40 AM] Wack'd: "I'm gonna enter a deep, meaningful relationship right now! That's how that works, right?"

[12:41 AM] Wack'd: Agatha drops by to pick Franklin up for his "lessons." I wonder if they ever tried public schooling him? Or, uh, have him interact with other children at all [12:41 AM] Wack'd: Maybe the real reason he's keeping himself a child is that he keeps assuming that kindergarten is going to start and no one ever takes him [12:42 AM] Larena: Johnny I have something to tell you about heteronormative standards of happiness [12:43 AM] Wack'd: I really don't want to point out every fucking time we're back at this well so maybe we should stop being there, jesus

[12:49 AM] Wack'd: So Reed finds a thing with science [12:50 AM] Wack'd: And then this lady shows up

[12:50 AM] Wack'd: She is being chased by a Skrull! And then she gets shot [12:51 AM] Wack'd: We are now done with Kirby tiny gremlin Skrulls. They've eaten their Wheaties and they're back for revenge

[12:52 AM] maxwellelvis: This one's got a laser so compact it rests in his palm. [12:53 AM] Wack'd: Fight fight fight [12:54 AM] maxwellelvis: When WAS the last time we saw the Skrulls in this comic? [12:54 AM] Wack'd: The 60s, I think [12:54 AM] maxwellelvis: Wow. [12:54 AM] maxwellelvis: The Avengers/Captain Marvel/Cosmic Marvel absorbed them FAST. As you can probably tell by this guy's look. [12:55 AM] Bocaj: Look, someone had to feed them if the FF weren't going to leave saucers of milk out [12:55 AM] Wack'd: Holy shit. They...kick his ass! Pretty decisively! [12:56 AM] maxwellelvis: I mean, it's just one Skrull trooper. Be pretty sad if they lost to a lvl. 1 mook like him. [12:56 AM] Wack'd: They usually don't win their first fight in an issue! This is a novelty [12:57 AM] Wack'd: So Reed gets her to a medical scanner and she wakes up and switches to English [12:58 AM] Wack'd: Expodump! [01:00 AM] Wack'd: So this woman is from a once-great world when suddenly the evil empire showed up, you know the drill. [01:01 AM] maxwellelvis: This must be the first time the FF have come up against the Skrulls after they became a star-spanning empire [01:01 AM] Wack'd: The lady doesn't know this but we the audience are shown many cities were saved by the Watcher. This is definitely interfering dude, I don't care how quiet you are while don' it [01:01 AM] maxwellelvis: as opposed to occasional nuisances. [01:01 AM] Wack'd:

[01:02 AM] Wack'd: So these folks figure out how to make tunnels between their cities and build a new society...and then Skrulls fuck that up, too [01:03 AM] maxwellelvis: And Uatu never does the Doctorly thing of railing against this non-interference thing, he just does, what was it you say? Baby word games? [01:03 AM] maxwellelvis: To keep his job in place. [01:03 AM] Wack'd: Yeah [01:03 AM] Wack'd: Baby word games [01:03 AM] Wack'd: In fairness Uatu has phenomenal cosmic power he's potentially sacrificing, without which he can't necessarily do much [01:04 AM] Wack'd: Whereas the Doctor can go renegade because they can't take his brain and they...could take his ship but they're not gonna [01:04 AM] maxwellelvis: Because it's a hunk of junk by Time Lord standards. [01:04 AM] Wack'd: Also Uatu probably needs to save all of Watcherkind a few times, build up some goodwill [01:05 AM] maxwellelvis: The Time Lords DID take the TARDIS from him once, technically. But they gave it back for good behavior. [01:05 AM] maxwellelvis: As an "attaboy" for stopping Omega from flooding the universe with antimatter or whatever. [01:05 AM] Wack'd: Yeah [01:05 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Adora--yes, really, is here to seek aid [01:06 AM] Wack'd: So the Four are like "fuck, guess we're goin to space!" [01:06 AM] Wack'd: But first we need to check in with Johnny, who has decided his ticket to happiness is not a new significant other, but reenrolling in college [01:07 AM] Wack'd: Johnny: Two girlfriends later. I finally realize my only real skill is tinkering with cars, and I don’t wanna wind up being the 70's answer to the Fonz! [01:08 AM] Wack'd: You could probably make a living working on cars, Johnny, but whatever [01:08 AM] maxwellelvis: You shut your fool mouth, Johnny! Fonzie was cool! [01:10 AM] Wack'd: So Johnny starts making the moves on a college girl, who is unimpressed by his attempts to show off his skee-ball skills [01:11 AM] Wack'd: And even less impressed when she asks him about traveling to space and so on and he claims he never paid much attention [01:11 AM] Wack'd: And then Frankie Raye appears! Remember Frankie? [01:11 AM] maxwellelvis: Oh right, the girl who hates fire. [01:12 AM] Wack'd: She claims that she didn't wanna date him because he was always rushing off in the middle of some emergency and they never got any real time together [01:12 AM] maxwellelvis: "Liar liar liar!" [01:12 AM] Wack'd: And then Reed radios Johnny about going to space and she's like "yeah, like I said", and leaves [01:13 AM] Wack'd: Johnny decides he's too sad to go to space and while he's not dramatically quitting the team or anything, he wants to take some time to decide what he wants to do with his life [01:14 AM] Wack'd: Which everyone's pretty chill about, comparatively [01:14 AM] maxwellelvis: Pretty sure they all know what massive hypocrites they'd be if they belittled him about feeling ennui. [01:15 AM] Wack'd: Or about dramatically quitting the team [01:15 AM] Wack'd: Reed's set up a teleporter by getting Adora's signal and he tells Johnny that if he changes his mind he can join them with the press of a button. [01:15 AM] Wack'd: And Sue says some mail came for him and drops it off [01:15 AM] maxwellelvis: IMPORTANT PLOT POINT ALSO IMPORTANT [01:15 AM] Wack'd: And then...the story keeps following Johnny! [01:15 AM] Wack'd: Huh! [01:16 AM] maxwellelvis: “It’s a bold strategy Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for ‘em” [01:17 AM] Wack'd: Johnny tries to drop by the garage. Closed for a vacation. The Avengers are busy with Mr Gyrich and told Jarvis to turn away all visitors [01:17 AM] Wack'd: Which leaves Johnny with one last resort for company [01:17 AM] Bocaj: ugh gyrich [01:17 AM] maxwellelvis: i'm glad Sabretooth killed him in the X-Men movies [01:19 AM] Wack'd: 🎶 Spider-Man / Spider-Man / Friendly impoverished Spider-Man / Stays at home / Can't pay to fly / He'll only ever know New York skies / Look out! / Here stays the Spider-Maaaaaaaan! 🎵

[01:20 AM] Wack'd: Oh, okay, this isn't going to be a team up, because he's busy fighting the Man Wolf in his own book [01:21 AM] maxwellelvis: I was expecting to see a cutaway to him breaking down Molten Man's door, honestly. [01:21 AM] maxwellelvis: But man, Johnny must feel pretty low right now if even Spider-Man is too busy to hang out. [01:22 AM] Wack'd: Oh hey, the letter is an invite to a fancy private college!

[01:22 AM] maxwellelvis: "Security University" That doesn't sound ominous [01:23 AM] Wack'd: I didn't even have until the end of the page to make that joke

[01:24 AM] Wack'd: So a building blows up and Johnny springs into action [01:24 AM] Wack'd: This guy is definitely a creep but for some reason the thing that's setting off the most alarm bells for me is that he's calling Johnny "John"

[01:25 AM] Wack'd: OH MY GOD THIS DOOFUS? REALLY?

[01:25 AM] maxwellelvis: The wha-? [01:25 AM] Wack'd: I thought we were scraping the bottom of the barrel when Gideon came back, but no [01:26 AM] maxwellelvis: Who? [01:26 AM] Wack'd: The guy whose sole shtick is "commits assassinations by taking photos" [01:26 AM] maxwellelvis: Ahh. [01:26 AM] maxwellelvis: Who? [01:27 AM] Wack'd: One of the very last Lee/Kirby villains [01:28 AM] Wack'd: He tried to commit some assassinations at the UN [01:28 AM] Wack'd: And was stopped [01:28 AM] maxwellelvis: Now, was he stealing souls with his camera, or was it just a disguised gun or something? [01:28 AM] Wack'd: It was a raygun [01:29 AM] Wack'd: This is such a nothing guy that he's literally not appeared in any other book until now and will unceremoniously vanish off the face of the earth once we're done here [01:29 AM] KarkatTheDalek: Thought that was Dr Faustus for a second, but apparently not [01:29 AM] KarkatTheDalek: Discount Dr. Faustus [01:30 AM] Wack'd: That's right, a fucking *decade* of stripmining the Lee/Kirby run for parts, and not only is he just returning now but no one will ever try and use him again

#1979 #Marv Wolfman #Keith Pollard #The Main Book

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disappearinginq · 5 years ago

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New Bad Things Happen Chapter

This, no lie, took me since February. God knows why in the hell I decided surfing was the topic to write on when I’ve done it a whopping total of once, in very shallow and cold water in the North east, but it came about with a prompt from @blazeofobscurity about wanting to see Magnum get to be the one to save Rick, so....ta da! (ending still feels rushed, but YOU KNOW WHAT? IT’S DONE.

Also here: Bad Things Happen on AO3

and here: Bad Things Happen on FFN

Juliet didn’t regret a lot of things in life. Not her service in MI6, not taking up Masters on his job offer as a majordomo, or meeting Richard. And lately, she didn’t even mind Magnum and the shenanigans he dragged her into. Not that she’d ever say it out loud, but it was…nice, getting out of the compound and doing something that was more meaningful than running facial recognition on the UPS delivery driver.

She was, however, having serious doubts about taking up Magnum’s invite to come surfing at Sandy Beach Park.

“Come on, Higgy!” Magnum had protested, putting on his best smile as he grabbed his board from the boat house. “It’ll be fun!”

She’d tried to gracefully bow out of it. “I’m paid to watch the estate, and it’s a little hard to do when not actually here.”

Magnum glanced down at the two Dobermans. “What the hell are they for if they can’t watch the house without you?”

As if sensing Magnum was complaining about them, Apollo growled, pinning his ears. Magnum responded by sticking his tongue out.

“Stop antagonizing them, and they’ll stop growling at you,” she reprimanded, continuing on before he could protest about it not being his fault. “And besides, the lads are fine on their own, but it’s still working hours, and I’m not paid to go to the beach.”

Thomas raised an eyebrow at that. “By that logic, you shouldn’t leave the property, ever, and you do it plenty when you’re helping me with a client.”

“Oh, is that what you call it?” she asked archly.

He frowned, like he wasn’t entirely sure what else it could be. “Well…yeah. I mean, if you really don’t want to come chase down bad guys or investigate cases, then fine. I’ll stop asking. But you seem to have fun when you do, so I keep inviting you.”

She felt herself blush. She really didn’t mean to be so standoffish with him, it was just…self-defense on her part. She was a spy – ex, or not, it meant she had trust issues. There were no such thing as genuinely good people in her line of work, and after Richard, she just…couldn’t stand the idea of losing someone she cared about again. Even as a friend. So it just seemed easier to not have any.

Robin accused her of being a recluse, and she hadn’t argued, because she couldn’t. And in her less than charitable moods, she wondered if part of the reason Robin invited Magnum to stay in the guest house was because he full well knew that Magnum would suck her into his orbit and force her to get out of the house.

“Look, if you really don’t want to come, then that’s fine,” Thomas said. He pulled his board down from the top shelf. “You don’t have to. But just remember – you’re an employee, not a prisoner. You’re entitled to have some fun every once in a while.”

He’d left then, heading to the front gate where Rick and TC were supposed to be coming to pick him up – the Ferrari wasn’t exactly built for strapping down surf boards before heading out to the beach. The estate had a decent swimming beach, but given the sheltered cove, the waves were minimum at best. Not even good for body surfing, unless there was a storm moving in.

She’d eyed the other boards on the rack. There was at least a half dozen more. They hadn’t been taken out or used the entire time she’d been majordomo at the Nest.

Something in the way that Thomas said ‘not a prisoner’ made her finally give in. She didn’t delve into the psychology of it at the moment – she was too busy grabbing a board of her own and catching up to Magnum to see if he would wait for her to change to dwell on it.

There was just something…off…about it.

It hardly mattered. By the time they’d arrived at the beach, she’d completely forgotten about it.

Because somehow, she hadn’t really thought this through.

She’d never been surfing. Never had the desire. She liked snorkeling and diving and shell collecting. She watched a surf competition once since she moved here, and after seeing three competitors eliminated for near drowning, breaking boards and bones, she decided Americans (and Australians) were crazy, and she wanted no part of it.

But at the same time, it was nice to be included in something that didn’t involve bullets, breaking and entering, high speed chases, and, inevitably, the police.

She’d made her peace with the fact that she was just going to enjoy the beach. She didn’t have to surf, right? She could just sit and watch from the board and not try to bludgeon her own skull in trying to catch an adrenaline rush.

She made it midway out – just past the close-to-shore breakers, but not nearly far enough out she would bother the more experienced surfers, and from here, she could see where the waves were breaking and easily avoid them. Observation was a part of learning, right? She could just treat this like another mission. Yeah. That’s what she would do. Observe.

It was fun to watch though.

Magnum was never the type to take anything too seriously, and while other surfers at least tried to ride the waves, he was all over the place – half the time he didn’t bother to stand, or…surf, really. At least, not what she called surfing. While everyone else made a concentrated effort to stay on their boards, Magnum seemed to be having way more fun falling off. His grin was wide enough she could see it even from where she was floating, and while she couldn’t hear him over the waves, she could tell he was having a fantastic time.

Rick had a balance and ease with his board, she felt a pang of jealousy. While not reckless like Magnum, he could shoot through the waves with envious precision. She had a vague memory of him mentioning having spent time in Hawaii before he’d ever joined the military, and she could easily picture the man as a teen on the beach with a girl on each arm.

She was so preoccupied watching those two, and the dozen or so other surfers out enjoying the gorgeous weather and waves, that she didn’t notice someone come up beside her until he spoke.

“So…” TC said conversationally, “you come out all this way to hang out by yourself in No Man’s Land?”

She would deny the startled scream until her dying day.

It was made slightly better by the fact that TC was not expecting her reaction and jumped enough that he wound up flipping his board and himself.

After apologizing profusely, turning ninety shades of red after he came back up sputtering and looking indignant, she couldn’t help but laugh.

It was something just so normal. She’d forgotten what that was really like.

“I’m sorry, TC, I didn’t mean…” she smothered a snicker behind a hand when he shot her a teasing glare as he made a show of uselessly ringing out his rash guard.

“Yeah, yeah. Sure you are. You always wound this tight?”

She shrugged helplessly. “I like to think not, but…”

TC smirked. “Uh huh. So lemme ask you a question, Juliet Higgins. Why’d you let Thomas drag you out here if you’ve never been on a board before?”

She ducked her head, wincing as she looked back up at him. “Is it that obvious?”

TC chuckled. “Only ‘cause it’s you. If you had any idea what you were doing, you’d be out there snaking and shredding waves. So. What’s the deal?”

It was moderately aggravating how often these three men could knock her off balance. She was so used to dealing with subversive facts and lies of omission that their candidness made her trip over her prepared responses. But familiar as she was with trading lies for lies, she couldn’t do it face to face with honesty.

As she floundered for a response, TC took pity on her.

“Lemme guess. You got bored with being cooped up at that fortress of Robin’s that you agreed to the first non-case related thing Thomas invited you to without really thinking things through?” he guessed.

“Something like that,” she admitted. “I’ve never surfed. Never had the desire. And then, whenever I considered it…”

TC hummed in agreement. “Yeah. When Orville brought it up the first time, the first thing I did was look it up on YouTube. And then I decided that man was crazy, and clearly trying to kill me. Took him about…oh, I dunno…three hours before he turned to blackmail to get me in the water. But here I am today.”

She smiled at that.

“You know, you could ask Rick to teach you.”

Juliet snorted. “No, thank you. I’ll…just watch for now. I don’t quite feel like making myself look the fool today.”

A loud shout from the waves turned both their heads as Magnum rocketed through barrel of one of the larger waves, form perfect as he crouched low over the board, balancing with his hand trailing through face as the wave curled behind him, only to purposely zag sideways, spinning wildly in a hard right turn, throwing himself off the board in a dive.

TC just shook his head. “Don’t seem to bother him any,” he said, nodding towards where Magnum disappeared beneath the waves, his board tumbling through the white water as it crashed. “He knows damn well how to surf. He’s just having fun now. I am in fact 99% positive he’s a fish.”

“Only 99?”

“Waiting on DNA results.”

Juliet laughed out loud at that one.

She was enjoying herself enough she actually almost missed Rick paddling by until he swerved mid stroke to swing in beside TC.

“So…” he drawled. “How’s it going?”

“Higgy doesn’t know how to surf,” TC explained before she could stop him. When he caught the death glare she was giving him, he shrugged unapologetically. “You act like we don’t know you, Higgy-baby. Like I said – if you had any idea what you were doing, you’d be showing it off by now.”

Higgins tried not to flush bright red at the insinuation that she was a show off. She liked being good at things. She was so used to people dismissing her off the bat that she felt like she had to show them what she could do. Did it really come off as showboating?

“You wanna learn?” Rick asked. “You do yoga every morning, so balancing isn’t going to be that much of an issue.” He paused, frowning. “Unless you have zero sense of rhythm, then you’re gonna spend most of the day trying not to drown. But we can start on the smaller waves if you want, just to get you standing.”

“I’m not sure it’s worth your time, Rick,” she tried. “Aside from snorkeling, aquatics aren’t really my area of expertise.”

Rick and TC exchanged looks before looking back to her in unison. It was actually a little unnerving watching them have a silent conversation like that.

“So what you’re saying is, if you’re not automatically good at something, it’s not worth doing?” asked TC.

“No…”

“Or do you seriously have that much of a hang up about learning in front of others? You think anyone cares?” Rick gestured to the small crowd out on the waves.

Sure, there were the ones out by the much larger waves, who clearly knew what they were doing, but they seemed to wipe out just as often as the ones on the smaller breaks nearer to shore. They were smiling, laughing…

Enjoying themselves.

“Having fun isn’t fatal,” Rick pointed out.

“Fun, no. Riding a bit of foam and plastic with nothing between you and a concussion except God’s grace is another matter entirely,” she pointed out.

Rick pushed himself up into a sitting position, straddling his board and easily balancing in the current. “Eh,” he shrugged. “Took me six months to learn to surf well enough I was confident enough to try the pipeline, and I was a teenager who lived on the beach with nothing else to do except practice.”

“I can’t believe I’m letting you talk me into this,” Higgins groused.

“And I can’t believe you’ve lived in Hawaii for three and a half years and never been surfing,” Rick countered. “Today is full of surprises. Now, are you going to make an effort, or are you going to chicken out and go tanning with Kumu instead?”

Damn the man if he didn’t know exactly what button to push to convince her to at least try.

“Fine,” she agreed.

Rick smirked. “Wow. The wild enthusiasm there was a little stunning. Might want to tone it down a bit. Come on. We’ll practice in the smaller waves.”

An hour later, and sorer than she would’ve thought possible from trying to balance on a piece of plastic covered foam on waves preteens on boogie boards were having considerably better luck on, Juliet admitted temporary defeat and decided Kumu had the right idea: carbs, sunscreen, a good book and a beach towel on the warm sand.

She’d waved the guys off, emphasizing the temporary part of her acquiescence. They’d come to surf, not babysit, and she’d managed to at least finish on a high note, and that was good enough for her. No broken bones, no sand burn from wiping out in the shallows, and she even managed to ride one wave all the way into the beach.

Juliet found herself strangely – and pleasantly – surprised that the raucous cheering from both TC, Rick and the other practice surfers felt genuine.

And best of all, no one noticed just how poor a swimmer she actually was. She made a mental note to try swimming somewhere besides the protected cove at the Nest to improve herself before settling down on the sand beside Kumu’s chair.

“Oh look,” Kumu said, peering over her sunglasses with a smirk. “You aren’t allergic to fun.”

Juliet allowed herself a small smile before taking Kumu’s offered paperback – which was, of course, the second in the White Knight series, looking well worn and loved.

“Today is full of surprises,” she agreed.

&*&

“She seemed to improve,” Thomas commented as Rick and TC made their way back out to the lineup. The waves were getting bigger, but not dangerously so. Not as long as they avoided straying too far to the left of the beach where the volcanic rocks jutted up out of the sea, creating white wash and swirling eddies as the tide came in.

At least a dozen or so other surfers were out with them, waiting their turn for the next break.

“Well, when you start at rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up,” Rick said. “But she was at least more agreeable that TC here when I started teaching him.” He clapped his friend enthusiastically on the back with a wet smack. “Buddy.”

“You were decidedly less nice about teaching me, pal,” TC retorted with his own overly-‘affectionate’ clap that made Rick wince.

“You’re right,” Rick agreed. “Very unprofessional of me to resort to blackmail. E kala mai iaʻu. Forgive me?” He held up his hand for their familial high-five, innocently batting his eyes.

As soon as TC reached for him, Thomas could tell the exact moment TC realized his mistake. Too late. Rick grabbed him by wrist at the same time as he kicked the near side of TC’s board, flipping the larger man ass over teakettle into the water.

“And on that note, I see my wave – catch me if you can, old man!” Rick crowed, paddling off as soon as TC’s head cleared the surface, sputtering indignantly and glaring daggers at his retreating back.

“Yeah, you better run, Orville!”

Magnum couldn’t help but laugh, even as he held TC’s board for him to easily slide back on. “Oh yeah. That was menacing. I’m sure he’s just quaking in his board shorts.”

“Shut it, TM.” TC jabbed a pointed finger at him. “Ya’ll yahoos are gonna turn me gray faster than you made Nuzo bald.”

Thomas sniggered. “You’d be distinguished…” he trailed off, watching Rick shoot for the upcoming swell. It would be a beauty – big enough he would be able to ride it into the shallows if he managed to catch it, and Magnum had yet to see him miss.

Except Rick wasn’t the only one aiming for it.

A man, probably in his upper forties who should’ve known better than to jump the line and snake a wave like that, was paddling just as hard for the wave, ignoring or oblivious to Rick several yards behind him.

It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion, and Thomas was moving before he even had time to process what he knew – that Rick wasn’t going to see the other surfer until it was too late, that the man was going to crumble the wave and Rick was going to wipeout much too close to the edge and go down in the soup and into the rocks and reef.

(*(

Rick didn’t even see the other surfer until the man stood on his board, appearing out of nowhere as far as Rick was concerned, too far out on the crest to be able to ride it well but close enough to ruin it for him.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Rick shouted, “I got it, I’m on it!”

The guy either didn’t hear, didn’t care, or didn’t know how to kick out, because he kept going.

“Move!” Rick shouted, cutting sharply to avoid ramming into the man. He managed to keep his balance, throwing his left hand high and his right down low to balance, as his legs bent and pushing the board forwards.

He might’ve made it, if the guy had any idea what he was doing and got out of the way, but he didn’t. Instead of swerving or kicking out over the back of the crest, he lurched sideways, crumbling the wave in front of Rick and snaking the wave out from underneath him.

Rick toppled backwards into the surf, his board flipping up over his head as he went down, hard, into the swell of the wave.

*&*

White wash was always disorienting. Up from down was impossible in the best of circumstances, and the waves were relentless, toppling anyone and anything ass over teakettle in whatever direction it could.

There was a reason why one avoided the rocks.

Rick opened his eyes against the stinging salt, looking for the bright of the sun to aim for but also immediately trying to aim away from where he knew he’d gone down. Current went in every direction, eddying around the shallows of ocean floor, the rocks and the incoming tide, spinning him about without time to even figure out up from down.

Time seemed to move really fast and yet really slow – he could feel the churn of the water, the pull of his tether on his ankle yanking him along with the board caught on the top of the wave as he went up and over in the barrel of the crashing wave – the white obscuring everything as he crashed into the rocks.

His chest slammed into one of the sharp volcanic rocks with enough force to knock the air from his lungs and reflexively suck in another breath.

Except he was still underwater.

And now he was actively drowning.

Reflex and instinct made him cough and choke to spit up the water except there was no air to replace it and the salt water burned like acid down his throat and into his lungs, panic kicking survival instinct into high gear and rationale to the curb. He lost track of the surface versus the floor, flailing in the churning surf until something caught his ankle, catching him in the barrel of another wave as the crest came down on him, slamming his head into the rocks.

*&*

Thomas abandoned his board, ripping the tether from his ankle as dove in – the last thing he needed was a buoy preventing him from diving attached to him.

The white water made it almost impossible to see.

Almost.

The water was clearer here in Hawaii than anything off the coast of Coronado or anywhere else he’d been diving. Even with the sting of salt in his eyes and the dark rashguard Rick had blending with the rocks, it was easy enough for him to pick his friend out of the soup.

The blood in the water helped.

So did the fact that he wasn’t being taken with the current – Magnum saw the tether line caught on a jagged outcropping still tied to Rick’s ankle. The board was gone or broken but the rope held fast, keeping Rick from reaching the surface, but at the same time, kept him in place for the incoming surf to basically body slam him into the rocks.

Swimming in the swirling eddies was probably suicidal by most standards. If Thomas stopped to think, he might’ve agreed.

It still wouldn’t have stopped him.

He grabbed onto Rick’s lifeless – don’t think that- body, wrapping himself around his friend’s torso and taking the brunt of the next wave, reaching for the diving knife he kept strapped to his leg any time he was in the water.

Thank god for old habits.

The knife sliced easily through rope, and suddenly they were tumbling free, the crest of the wave lifting them over the sharp volcanic rocks, even as they tumbled through the surf and across the rocks, the sharp edges and angles slicing through his rashguard and skin. It was like being caught in a never ending motorcycle crash and for a moment, the only thing Magnum could think of was the chopper crash in Afghanistan.

Now was not the time.

Small nicks and cuts were the least of his concerns, and he braced with his bare feet against the reef, bending his knees and craning his head back and over until he was curved almost in a perfect ‘c’, Rick still clutched in his arms as he moved with the wave instead of against it, angling sideways to bring them away from the reef edge.

His foot slipped, slicing open on the edge of the reef, careening them sideways instead of the angle he was hoping for, but they were cleared enough to make it out of the maelstrom and into the open water.

Thomas’s head finally broke the surface and he sucked in a much needed breath. He hadn’t been down for long – less than a minute – but it seemed like ages, and it was even longer for Rick, who still wasn’t conscious. Thomas clutched him to his chest as he turned his back to the shore, keeping Rick’s head above water, tilted back against his shoulder as he swam sideways towards the beach.

There was yelling. It may have been directed towards him, but he wasn’t listening. At least not to them.

He was listening for any sign of life from his friend.

His feet hit the sand and he managed to half stand, half stumble onto the sand, coughing and choking even as he pressed two fingers to the side of Rick’s neck with almost bruising force.

Thready and thin, but still there. The gash across side of his head bled freely down the side of his face, the salt water mixing with the blood like a deranged water color painting, and the numerous tiny cuts started to bleed, too, and the skin around his head wound was already turning an angry red and purple bruise.

But Rick wasn’t breathing.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Magnum snarled, immediately straddling Rick’s chest – he could hear Rick’s voice in his head mocking ‘people will talk’ – and starting chest compressions.

Fuck. What were the rules for CPR now? Was he still supposed to breathe for him? Or was that taking away from the circulation of blood and oxygen to the brain? Was it different for drowning?

Facts blurred along with his vision.

Sensory perception in shock was a bizarre thing. He could hear people. People he was sure he recognized but couldn’t name, the rush of the surf that still pulled at his feet and dragged the sand out from underneath them as it washed back out to sea, the pounding of blood in his own ears and his own ragged breathing.

All that noise and he couldn’t hear the one thing he wanted.

Rick.

“Goddammit, Rick, LIVE!” In a moment of pure spite and rage against the cosmos, he slammed his fist into Rick’s chest hard enough he heard a crack and suddenly Rick was jackknifing upwards, hacking and sputtering and choking, salt water and blood mixing together as Thomas grabbed him by his shirt sleeve and pulled him sideways to vomit up any water still in his lungs.

After a minute, Rick collapsed back onto the beach, groaning as he touched a shaky hand to the sizeable gash across his head. “Ow. Why does everything hurt? And why does my mouth taste like margarita Monday and the Sahara?”

He was alive. He was alive, alive, alive.

And yet…

His fingers dug into material of Rick’s rash guard, trying to force himself to focus, to anchor himself here and now on the sand, trying not to stare at the swirl of red and sea water in the eddy of the encroaching tide washing out around them and the sun no longer felt warm on his back as the chill of the cave pressed in around them.

Thomas shook his head.

Hawaii. Not Afghanistan. The ocean and a freak accident, not the purposeful slow drowning of water boarding. Rash guard, not BDU undershirt.

It was 2019. Not 2017.

They were fine. They were fine. Fine.

He didn’t even realize he wasn’t breathing right until someone grabbed his wrist, and he tried to yank it free but the hand followed easily.

“Hey, whoa there buddy…”

He bit his lower lip with enough force he tasted copper and iron mixed with the salt of the seawater still dripping down his face.

The grip on his wrist tightened to bruising force and he blinked, trying to focus on the fingers.

“Five things.”

Thomas’s attention snapped back to Rick, who was now looking at him with a mix of concern and knowing.

“You’re turning blue, Thomas. Take a breath. Five things.”

The inhale was sharp and stuttered, hardly enough to really count but he managed to blurt out: “The beach. The water. Black. Red. Hands.”

Rick nodded, wincing slightly. “Good. Four.”

Thomas dug his fingers into the sand beneath them. “The sand. The sun. The wind.” He felt something slowly start to uncoil from around his throat and for the first time in what felt like hours, he took a real breath. “You.”

“Three,” Rick prodded, his grip still bruisingly tight on Magnum’s wrist.

Thomas took another shuddering breath, closed his eyes, and concentrated. Auditory was always the sense he tripped over the most. “Gulls. The surf. People yelling.”

Rick smirked, and let his head drop bag against the beach, closing his eyes against the sun, humming in agreement. “I think that’s TC’s brand of worry. Two.”

“Someone’s grill. Salt. Though that might just be water up my nose.”

“Still counts. One.”

Thomas ran his tongue along the inside of his lip. “Blood.”

Rick cracked an eye open. “Not what I was hoping for, but you look about as bad as I feel so I’ll let it slide. You okay?”

Thomas touched a finger to the spreading bruise on Rick’s forehead, gently prodding at the deepening purple and blue, but he didn’t feel the give of broken bone. And Rick was awake, and lucid – which was more than he could say for himself - which was a good sign.

“We should take you to the hospital,” he said, purposely ignoring the question. “Make sure your brain isn’t any more scrambled than it was.”

Rick grumbled under his breath. “I don’t need an MRI to tell you that it is. But if it’s all the same to you, any time you want to get off me would be great ‘cause I think you broke something with your oh-so-tender loving care.”

Most of Thomas’s weight was on his knees on either side of Rick, but he pushed himself to his feet anyway, offering a hand to his friend. “You need a hand?”

Rick sighed. “I’m collecting my thoughts. Debating if here is as good a place as any to die. The world is already spinning, and I don’t want to puke on a public beach. Just give me a Viking funeral.” Despite his protests, he held out both hands to Thomas.

As soon as he was upright though, he promptly turned his head to the side and dry heaved into the sand, one hand going to his ribs as the muscle contractions pulled painfully on the cracked ribs. “So glad we waited on lunch,” he gasped in between spasms. “Or this would really suck.”

Thomas couldn’t help the snicker. Gallows humor was Rick’s ‘process’.

They’d wound up on the wrong side of the rocks. Thomas hadn’t paid any attention to where he was going when he pulled Rick free of the board tether, just aiming for shore by any route necessary, which as far as he was concerned, worked in his favor. TC and Higgins were just now clambering over the sharp volcanic rocks that separated the swimming beach from the deadly reef and outcroppings.

Which meant no one saw how close a call it was.

After years of therapy, Thomas wasn’t exactly ashamed of panic attacks – not when in hindsight he could tell himself it was understandable for anyone to have issues in the same situation, but that didn’t mean he liked it advertised.

Especially not to Higgins.

The majordomo was starting to loosen up, but she still tended to nitpick and rail on anything she considered a fault of his, and sometimes…he really just didn’t want to give her another reason for thinking he was worthless.

“Can we down play this one?” Rick asked quietly. “Maybe just tell them about the concussion, and not the almost dying part?”

The look on TC’s face was all Thomas needed to agree. TC took ‘mother hen’ to a whole new level, but he was also the first to yell about foolish and reckless behavior – whether it was an accident or not – which was just how he dealt with stress. But sometimes it just came off like he was berating one of his kids for a stupid and avoidable incident.

“Sure,” Thomas agreed.

What was one more secret between them?

#bad things happen bingo #magnum pi reboot #magnum pi 2018 #thomas magnum whump #rick wright whump

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fireinmywoods · 7 years ago

Text

fic: palimpsest [3/8]

“Skip to the point, Jim. The sooner you spit it out, the sooner I can refuse and get back to work.”

“It’s really no big deal,” Jim says as the door slides closed behind them. “I just need you to come down to Hearth with us…as my husband.”

The Enterprise has been sent to negotiate reaccession to the Federation with an isolationist religious group known as the Kindred. While there, Jim notices that some of the children seem to be gravely ill. The problem is, the Kindred practice faith healing and refuse to allow a doctor to be brought in. So Jim does what he does best: he improvises.

CHAPTER 3: In which dinner is served, Leonard is not a people person, and Hearth’s newest celebrity couple finally get a moment alone. Sort of. PG/Teen, ~4,300 words. [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2]

Given the Kindred��s apparent fondness for living metaphors, Leonard isn’t surprised to learn that their main hall is built around an actual hearth: a colossal stone fireplace in the center of the room, open on all sides and laid with a roaring fire which fills the entire hall with heat and light.

The Kindred apparently eat most every meal together, and they’re not overly fussy about individual family units. They really do seem to view the whole clan as one big family, and that extends to mealtimes, when they all sit themselves down at the long tables filling the congregation hall, sharing a bench with whatever Brothers or Sisters or Aunts or Uncles they happen to end up near.

The Enterprise crew is more intentionally seated at a table with several Councilors and what seem to be some portion of their immediate families. To Leonard’s chagrin, he and Jim are placed front and center, right where everyone at the table can get a nice clear look at them. Leonard hasn’t felt so overtly on display since his and Jocelyn’s wedding reception. At least the Kindred aren’t likely to start tapping their cups to make him and Jim kiss – though he has no doubt they’d be all for it if they knew it were an option.

Their fellow diners are obviously hoping for an encore to Jim’s earlier performance, and Jim doesn’t disappoint. He’s very much on from the moment they sit down, chatting away with everyone around them, asking endless questions about their families – How long have you been married? How many grandchildren do you have? When’s the baby due? – and listening to their responses with what appears to be genuine interest, smiling and nodding and offering compliments in all the right places. He peppers the conversation with lighthearted anecdotes of his own, blending fact and fiction so skillfully that even Leonard can hardly tell where one ends and the other begins: his disastrous first attempt at recreating his grandmother’s pot roast recipe, the Enterprise’s recent visit to a planet where the natives aged backwards, the time he dropped his wedding ring in the Tullisian Poison Swamp and nearly lost a hand getting it back, the neighbor girl who lived downstairs from his and Leonard’s first apartment and decided the best strategy for pursuing her passionate seven-year-old crush on Leonard was to compose elaborate signed confessions from “Jim” disclosing all the terrible crimes he’d committed.

(“Oh, she hated my guts,” he says, laughing along with his audience. “Poor kid. I had to feel for her. If I’d had any real competition for Leonard back before we were married, I probably would’ve done something ever crazier – and I was an adult.”)

Through it all, he’s constantly checking in with Leonard, looking over to take in his reaction to a story, turning to him for confirmation of some trivial detail or another, lavishing him with a thousand unnecessary touches. He brushes imaginary crumbs off Leonard’s sleeve and steals bites from his plate, teases and flatters him, leans in close to whisper side comments in his ear. He’s playing his role as smitten, attentive husband to the absolute hilt – well past the point of overkill, in Leonard’s opinion, but the Kindred are eating it right up. They really must be starved for entertainment out here.

Leonard supposes he should be thankful for the dynamic they’ve established, in which Jim does the heavy lifting and all he has to do is play along. Even so, it’s nerve-wracking being so intensely under the spotlight, knowing his every word and expression are being scrutinized and dissected by a bunch of strangers. And as for the touching – well, he can’t say he minds it, if he’s being honest with himself, but there’s something profoundly disconcerting about how performative it all is, the unsettling nagging thought that Jim’s just giving the people what they want to see. It’s been a long time since he felt like he had to second-guess Jim’s intentions or wonder what he’s really thinking. This feels like backsliding, and it bothers him more than he’d like to admit.

At least the food is decent: platters of golden cornbread, bowls of creamy polenta seasoned with little bits of bacon, a bittersweet corn-based drink the Kindred call avati. It’s the plainest of fare, but well-prepared. At least it hasn’t come out of a food slot, which gives it an edge over most of what Leonard’s eaten since they left Earth.

At one point while most people at the table are distracted with side conversations, the man on Leonard’s other side leans over and tops up his and Jim’s tankards with a strangely meaningful smile. Leonard awkwardly smiles back, not understanding – at least not until he raises his cup to drink and catches a whiff of what’s inside.

“Wow.” Jim sputters a laugh into his tankard. “This is, uh…very strong, Brother Ernesto.”

“Even the most conscientious among us are not immune to momentary lapses, I’m afraid,” Ernesto says gravely, his eyes alight with a distinctly un-Kindredlike glint of mischief. “You see, some time ago I produced a barrel of good wholesome avati and stored it overnight in the back corner of my cellar, intending to retrieve it the next afternoon for my daughter’s wedding. In all the fuss of preparation the next day, however, it simply slipped my mind. Sadly, by the time I discovered my error, the damage was already done, and the avati had degraded into this…subpar swill. But the gods bid us not to waste that which they have so graciously provided, so I resigned myself to consuming it myself so as not to make others suffer for my mistake.” His mouth twitches, not quite disguised by the cover of his bushy, grey-threaded beard. “Fortunately, I am blessed with a few steadfast friends who are willing to partake of the vile brew in order to share my burden.”

“We should all have such friends,” Jim says with a smile. “My husband and I are honored to be counted among them.” He takes a draught off his tankard, maintaining an impressively straight face while he rolls it around his mouth and swallows.

“It has quite a strong taste, but not altogether unpleasant, wouldn’t you say?” Ernesto says, watching Jim keenly for his reaction.

“Not unpleasant at all,” Jim says, lying through his teeth. That poker face may have fooled Ernesto, but Leonard’s been drinking with him for years. He could tell it took all Jim’s considerable willpower not to spit his mouthful right back into the cup.

Leonard can’t say he blames him. He’s drunk his fair share of moonshine and home brews, but this stuff is first cousin to rubbing alcohol; he feels like he might go blind just sniffing at it. If it wouldn’t cause a scene, he’d seriously consider smacking the tankard out of Jim’s hand to keep him from poisoning himself.

A pair of little boys run up to the table, tugging on the baggy sleeve of Ernesto’s robe, and he turns away to address them. Jim takes the opportunity to lean over and whisper in Leonard’s ear, “Oh my God, it’s like orientine acid. I think it’s eating a hole through my stomach lining.”

“You need to stop drinking every damn thing people hand you,” Leonard mutters back. “I’d’ve thought you’d know better after your little adventure on Rejo II.”

“Are you kidding? I’d drink that elixir again in a heartbeat. I could see sounds, Bones. How awesome is that?”

Leonard doesn’t know why he bothers. “Yeah, well, keep drinking that shit and the only thing you’ll be seeing is the inside of a toilet bowl.”

“They don’t have toilets here,” Jim says cheerfully. “Indoor plumbing is a worldly luxury to be shunned by all the gods’ righteous children. Did I not mention that?”

Leonard mentally adds a week to Jim’s imprisonment in medbay. And more beets. The little bastard’s gonna be up to his eyeballs in beets by the time Leonard’s through with him.

Leonard is hopeful that dinner will mark the end of what has been a longer, weirder, and exponentially more stressful day than he expected when he got up this morning. Unfortunately, their hosts have other plans. After the meal is over and the dishes have been cleared away, they’re ushered outside to where another massive fire has been laid in an open pit, surrounded by rings of rough-hewn wooden benches. From the noises the Kindred are making, this is the setting for some kind of socializing and fellowship hour, which is sure to drag on even more torturously than dinner without the distraction of food. The prospect makes Leonard want to scream, or maybe take off running through the cornfields, comm the ship and beg Scotty to please please please bring him back before he has to feign interest in one more rambling account of which great-great-grandmother begat which branch of cousins.

But then – as with most of the disasters Leonard finds himself in the middle of these days – there’s Jim to consider. Jim needs him here. He’s worried about the kids, about this mystery illness Leonard has yet to catch hide or hair of, and he’s counting on Leonard to help him figure it out. Leonard can’t just leave him in the lurch.

He steals a glance at Jim, hoping to shore up his resolve one way or another, and startles when he meets Jim’s eyes, having evidently caught him in the middle of his own glance. The tiny shock of it jolts through him, tightens his grip on Jim’s hand. It’s pure reflex, nothing more, but Jim squeezes back anyhow, and smiles at him – as if he’s really and truly happy to be standing here in the ass-end of nowhere, surrounded on all sides by cornfields and sanctimonious puritans, holding Leonard’s hand.

Damn it all to hell.

All right, fine. Leonard will play nice a while longer, for Jim’s sake. If he’s going to do that, though, he needs a break, and he needs it right the fuck now.

He makes a beeline for one of the farthest-flung benches, Jim following close behind, clinging to his hand like he has been all day. That’s fine. Leonard’s only trying to escape the slavering wolf pack of their audience, not Jim himself. He just needs some space to decompress, turn off for a few minutes, and Jim’s the one person in the universe who doesn’t feel like work to be around. Even after all the shit he’s pulled today, Leonard would still rather have the jackass with him than not.

He takes a seat at the very end of one of the outer benches – whoever’s going to be pestering them next, they can be Jim’s problem, not his – and Jim plunks down beside him, so close he’s practically in his lap.

“How you holdin’ up?” he asks quietly, drawing their hands over to rest on his leg. That particular move is undoubtedly for the Kindred’s viewing pleasure, but the question is just regular old Jim, direct and unaffected, and it goes a little way toward soothing Leonard’s frazzled nerves.

But only a little way. “You owe me big time.”

Jim gives a low whistle. “That well, huh?” He takes a sip from his tankard. Leonard left his behind in the congregation hall, glad of the excuse, but Jim seems to like having a prop, or else he’s quickly developed a taste for shitty hooch. “Well, the good news is, this shouldn’t last too long. The Kindred are the ‘early to bed, early to rise’ type.”

“No,” Leonard says sardonically. “These party animals? And here I was looking forward to sampling the local nightlife.”

Jim grins into his cup. “Careful Brother Ernesto doesn’t hear you say that. The guy’s running a secret still right under the Mother’s nose – I bet he’d be happy to invite us over for some after-hours boozing. Who knows who else is in on it? We could end up partying the night away with half the Council.”

Leonard makes a face. “I’ll pass, thanks.” Jim can have another hour of halfhearted civility out of him, tops, and then he is well and truly done for the night. His tolerance for small talk and ass-kissing only extends so far, even for Jim.

He’s actually kind of surprised that they haven’t already been swarmed by their adoring fans. In what may be the first stroke of luck he’s had all day, Sulu and Aaronson are sitting all the way on the other side of the fire, each of them having been waylaid by Kindred members eager to show off their (many, many) children. So far, though, Leonard and Jim have managed to escape the same fate. The benches around them are gradually filling up with grey-robed occupants, but no one has joined them on theirs.

Speak of the devil. Leonard spots an older fellow heading in their direction and groans internally, steeling himself for another onslaught of chitchat and platitudes – but then a ruddy-faced woman (the man’s wife, most likely) catches him by the arm and steers him to another bench, whispering something in his ear. She glances back over at them once she and her husband are seated, and Jim raises his tankard in a toast and shoots her a showy wink.

Oh. So that’s what this is. They’re not really out of the spotlight at all. The Kindred are just giving them their own little stage apart from the crowd, like zoologists keeping a prudent distance from their research subjects to observe how they behave in their natural environment.

It’s a faux privacy they’re being offered, but Leonard will take it. Anything to get a few minutes of peace and quiet – or what passes for it where Jim’s concerned, anyway.

He eyes the tankard Jim’s been nursing, wondering if he needs to worry about him getting sloppy on top of everything else. Jim’s a pretty mellow drunk these days, but there’s no telling what a bellyful of bathtub gin will do to him. “How much of that rotgut have you had?”

“Just the one taste,” Jim says, which seems like an unusually bold lie even for him, at least until he sticks his cup under Leonard’s nose, cluing him in to the fact that the contents have somehow been reverse-miracled from whiskey into water. “Switched it out as soon as I could. That shit’s like 200 proof, and my doctor told me I’m not allowed to do anything stupid.”

Leonard cracks a smile at that, his nerves settling a little more. “Sound advice. Color me impressed that you’re actually following it.”

“Excuse me, I have been an angel these past few weeks,” Jim says with exaggerated affront. “I’ve been doing my PT, haven’t I? I’ve come for all my follow-ups, on time and everything, even though you always pawn me off on Chapel and you know she loves finding excuses to jab me with stuff. I took a break from sparring, I’ve been eating all the gross vegetables on your list, I haven’t been in a single fistfight – I’m following your rules to the letter, and you’re still not satisfied.”

“Oh, get off your damn high horse,” Leonard says. “What do you want, a medal? Keeping yourself alive for a few measly weeks isn’t some back-breaking ordeal for most folks, you know. Besides, you’ll be back to your old tricks as soon as the clock runs out. You’re like some little hellraiser pretending to be nice until Christmas to impress Santa. You ain’t fooling me, kid. We both know good and well which list you belong on.”

“Unbelievable,” Jim says – another of his uncanny impersonations, though he never can get Leonard’s accent quite right. He raises his cup for a drink and adds loftily, “I guess there’s no pleasing some people.”

They fall into a comfortable silence after that, Jim probably eavesdropping on nearby conversations while Leonard does his very best to tune them out as he casts fruitlessly around for something to distract him from his slowly ebbing agitation. He doesn’t want to glance around the crowd too much, wary of making eye contact and accidentally inviting over unwanted company, and there’s not a lot else to look at. They’re surrounded by corn, corn, and more corn, the peaked roofs of the congregation hall and a few nearby houses barely visible over the towering stalks. The double moons overhead are kinda interesting, one nearly full, the other a slender reddish crescent, but they can only hold his attention for so long. The rest of the sky is just stars, and lord knows he’s seen enough of those to last him a lifetime.

For lack of anything better to focus on, he winds up looking down, examining his and Jim’s hands where they’re propped on Jim’s leg: Jim’s paler fingers twined through his, the angles of their knuckles, the familiar topography of veins and metacarpals standing out in the back of Jim’s hand, the glint of that damn creepy-ass ring.

Christ, this is all so fucking weird. Only Jim could get them into a mess like this.

By the look of the corn, it’s early fall here on Hearth. The temperature has dropped since the sun went down, a cool breeze whistling through the corn stalks and ruffling their hair, and the heat from the fire doesn’t quite reach the outermost ring of benches. Still, Leonard’s immediately on his guard when Jim sets his tankard down and gives a big, dramatic shiver. Sure, it’s a bit chilly, but Jim normally likes to pretend he’s immune to silly little things like ambient temperature, as evidenced by the countless cases of frostbite, chilblains, and hypothermia he’s presented with over the years. Suffice it to say, Leonard’s not falling for the delicate flower act.

His skepticism is rewarded a moment later, when Jim finally releases his hand only to wrap that arm around his back, cuddling closer to him on the bench. He widens his eyes in response to Leonard’s arched brow, all innocence. “What? I’m cold. And my big, strong husband is right here to cozy up with. It’d be out of character if I didn’t take advantage of that.”

Leonard nudges his elbow into Jim’s ribs, hoping it’s too dark for Jim or anyone else to see the color he can feel rising in his cheeks. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“I think I’m enjoying it the exact right amount,” Jim says breezily. He pokes Leonard in the chest. “You, on the other hand, need to lighten the fuck up. This isn’t really that bad, is it?”

Leonard grunts, noncommittal.

Jim scooches closer still, his hand creeping up Leonard’s back to rest on his shoulder. “On a scale of, I don’t know…Risa to mole people.”

Leonard winces. “Would you stop bringing them up? Criminy.” Jim cackles to himself, and Leonard elbows him in the ribs again, a good deal more sharply this time. “And you know what, if it were up to me, I might pick them. At least they didn’t stare at us like we were some kind of sideshow act.”

“Because they were blind. Now you’re just being difficult.” Jim rubs Leonard’s shoulder, his supposedly cold hand feeling very warm indeed through Leonard’s shirt. “Look, tomorrow we’ll get you in to see the kids, you’ll do your genius doctor thing and figure out what’s going on, and then I promise I’ll let you get back to terrorizing innocent ensigns who forget to come in for their BC injections. In the meantime, could you please just try to relax? Of course these guys are paying attention to us – it’s either that or watch the corn grow. Our visit is probably the most exciting thing that’s happened here in years. C’mon, loosen up a little. Have some fun with it.”

Fun is a pretty far cry from the mood he’s in, what with the Kindreds’ beady eyes boring into them from all angles, Sulu smirking or making kissy faces every time he catches Leonard’s gaze – and that’s not even getting into the twisted, contradictory feelings he has about the quietly possessive weight of Jim’s hand on his shoulder, the way Jim’s been staking his husbandly claim all night with one casually familiar touch after another.

Leonard’s not sure how to explain all that, though, and he’d probably just end up digging himself even deeper into this mess if he tried. Instead, he chooses the lesser evil of a slight concession, working his arm between them and sliding it around Jim’s waist, telling himself as he does so that it’s no big deal. It’s just Jim. He’s put an arm around Jim plenty of times before. No need to overthink it.

Jim shifts agreeably into the hold, somehow managing to tuck himself even closer against Leonard’s side. “There we go,” he says with an infuriating touch of condescension. “Now was that so hard?”

“You are without a doubt the most godawful obnoxious husband a man could have,” Leonard informs him.

“Aww, Bones, you old romantic, you.” Jim cranes over and pecks Leonard’s cheek, which should not make Leonard’s fool heart flutter like it does. “Good thing you let me handle our grand origin story earlier, Romeo.”

Leonard shakes his head in disbelief. “You are so full of it. I can’t believe they bought half the horseshit you were selling back there.”

Jim shrugs. “Ah, everyone likes a good story. That’s just human nature. And it wasn’t all horseshit. I just…embellished some things.” His hand has migrated across Leonard’s shoulder to his neck, fiddling idly with the layers of his uniform collar. “After all, you know what they say: what is a lie but the truth in masquerade?”

His tone is one of airy nonchalance, but it doesn’t land quite right. Leonard has known him too long and too well not to recognize when he’s only pretending not to give a shit.

Leonard turns his head and finds Jim already looking at him, the hint of a smile playing around his mouth. He’s sitting so close, intimately close, and Leonard wants to ask just exactly how much truth they’re talking, here, but he can’t quite bring himself to speak the words. This whole day has him so goddamn turned around; his heart is a snake nest of competing emotions, chaotic and confused, and he’s more unnerved by the fact that he’s not sure how Jim would answer that question than by any possible answer he could give.

Jim doesn’t say anything either, just keeps looking at him with that cryptic little almost-smile. The light from the fire casts a flickering coppery-gold glow over the right side of his face, gilding his features, catching in his lashes. His eyes are gleaming, unreally bright, so heartstoppingly beautiful that Leonard wants to touch them, insanely, wants to capture that glittering fiery blue in his own hand like an opal and take it with him everywhere he goes.

God, he wants all kinds of crazy, paradoxical things. He wants the pretty lie Jim told the Council earlier, that sweet and gentle romance, how easy it sounded, but even more than that he wants to go back to their first semester at the Academy, to the ugly reality of their cheerless library nest, just so he can grab hold of that loudmouthed, wounded, insecure stray and give him a fucking hug.

He wants Jim to kiss him again, right here and now, pull him close in front of all these people and kiss him like he means it, like he was teasing at earlier, like he’s loved him from the start and he’ll give him anything he asks for, anything at all, and then he wants to take Jim to some dark quiet place and kiss him back, kiss him again and again until he can breathe past all this raw tangled-up ache inside him that he can’t put into words. He wants to hold Jim’s fire-gilded face in his hands and kiss the truth into his not-quite-smiling mouth and know that he gets it, he understands what Leonard’s trying to say even when Leonard himself doesn’t, because that’s how it works when you fall in love with your best friend.

He wants all of that, and at the same time he wants to never leave this moment, sitting here together on this uncomfortable bench, Jim molded to his side with an arm curled around him and two fingers tucked into his shirt collar, watching him with fire in his eyes.

“Brother James!”

Jim turns toward the voice, plastering on an expression of ever-so-slightly tipsy good humor for the benefit for the woman who’s hailed him and for the rest of their audience. He’s on again, ready to launch back into the masquerade, but he doesn’t budge a millimeter from Leonard’s side, and somehow these past few minutes have flipped some kind of switch in Leonard’s brain which makes him find that comforting rather than disquieting.

A whole gaggle of people are approaching them, a couple Councilors among them, and Leonard resigns himself to another long spell of chatter and scrutiny. There’s no use fighting it, so he just wraps his arm more securely around Jim’s waist and gives himself permission to enjoy the feel of Jim’s warm body fitting so naturally against him, the comfortable pressure of Jim’s thigh and hip and flank against his own.

At the end of the day, what he really wants is Jim – the craziest, most paradoxical thing of all. If this as much of him as he can have right now, he’ll take it, and be damned thankful for it, too.

[Chapter 4]

#mckirk #mckirk fic #fireinmywoods fic #otp: bedside manner #star trek #aos #mccoy #kirk

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human-resourccs · 7 years ago

Text

He Just Likes The Rush - Ch. 7

In which things finally settle down a little and Jon gets put through the wringer.

previous chapter

~2000 words

Jonathan was lucky that he hadn't killed him right then and there, stood at his complete mercy in one of his own traps. Yes, it was definitely luck and nothing more. Another whim of his good mood, and his sense of fair play. Not the look of embarrassment on his face nor his pathetically dishevelled appearance which suggested he hadn't had a good night's sleep since Edward made his escape that first time - the implication of the latter made him swallow dryly. He would not be so quick to forgive, however; if he thought an endearingly sentimental apology note was going to cut it, Jonathan had another thing coming. But… he'd hear him out. This once. the last thing he needed was people thinking he'd gone soft, after all!

He wondered why Jonathan hadn't simply tried to contact him through the regular channels. Making meaningful gestures was Edward's thing. Frowning lightly, he reached blindly across his workbench for his phone; it used an incredibly secure network of his own making. He punched in the numbers - Yes, he had gone out of his way to find out Jonathan's contact details; so he could make a point of not using them, to prove… to prove something to himself - and dialled it in. The startled look that briefly crossed Jon's face made him smirk; there was a sort of audible smile to his tone when the other dropped the scrap of paper and fumbled for the ringing phone in his pocket - startled, but not at all surprised by it.

"Jonathan."

It hung quiet for a moment.

"Edward. I appreciate your not gassing me immediately upon entry."

"Don't thank me yet, I haven't made my mind up."

Jonathan paused, measuring his words. He… wasn't really expecting to actually face Edward so soon already. Ed spoke up again first.

"Not very good at this, are you? One would think one would try harder when their life quite literally lays on the line. Or perhaps you're just getting a kick out of it, who knows? I certainly-"

Jon gathered his breath.

"I'm sorry, Edward. I've no good excuse for what happened. I was simply acting like a complete fool."

He heard Edward huff quietly over the line.

"Yes, you were. Acting like a total idiot. When I was attempting to show concern for you, of all times!"

He had prepared so many speeches in his head to cut Jonathan down in the coldest, most efficient way possible, but this was so… blunt. Utterly honest. Jonathan had put himself at his complete mercy in this way; he had cameras and traps at his disposal. It had thrown him completely off-kilter, honestly. He wasn't expecting this. He was trying to be angry with him, damn it!

He saw Jon glance briefly up to the camera, then away again. If it weren't for the poor monitor quality, he'd have staked a bet that he actually looked guilty. Now that must have been a trick of the light. That was not fair.

"As I said, I've no excuse. And no good excuse for my continued absence after my escape, either."

"Oh, I'm quite aware of what you were up to after Dent's ham-fisted half-assed breakout. Information and intelligence are my most valued commodities. I'm sure it simply slipped your mind during your toxin-induced months-long bender. It's honestly amazing that your addiction to mortal danger hasn't killed you yet."

"…Of course. It had never been my intention-"

"You look like garbage, by the way. You look like you've been sleeping homeless for a month."

He saw Jonathan's mouth hang open, taken aback slightly. Edward bit his lip, trying not to let his sly grin be too audible through his tone.

"I think I can smell you through the camera. If they decide to re-make Castaway I'm putting you at the top of the casting list."

Jon frowned indignantly.

"Edward-"

"No, no. I'm still pissed off at you. You deserve this."

Jonathan sighed an indescribably tired sigh.

He did.

"…I do."

"Good! We're in agreement."

This continued on for approximately twenty minutes before Edward was suitably smugly satisfied with the thorough verbal dressing-down he'd given his friend. More importantly, he had the entire ordeal on disc, which left him with a larger measure of control than Jon could be entirely comfortable with. But this was the exchange for their continued interaction; Jonathan had been equal parts exhausted and impressed by the vulgar creativity he was capable of when he set his haughtiness aside; decidedly dragged through the mud, things were… more or less forgiven. It was a shaky, tentative re-alliance. Edward did not trust easily, he'd discovered.

Following the methodical verbal dissection, Jonathan bid his farewells, went home, and was promptly overcome by the exhaustion he'd accrued over the past couple weeks - he'd actually left to speak with Edward the moment the impulse had taken him; which had been mere moments after waking up from the previous day's escapade. It was a measurably more restful sleep than he'd had in quite some time.

It wasn't until a day or few later that Edward started breaking into his home again; proclaiming rather loudly as Jon came home that if he was going to continue visiting him then the place was going to have to measure up to the barest standards of cleanliness he had! Which, incidentally, was still absurdly high by Jon's standards. This was probably also a passive-aggressive extension of Edward's ire. He wasn't really complaining, despite the resulting misplacement of a fair number of his instruments.

"I mean really, Jonathan. Did you just grow fond of the abject squalor at Arkham? Decide to keep the aesthetic?"

"Been busy, that's all."

"No no no. I've been busy. You've been-"

Edward's sentence broke off with a strangled squeak as he turned and caught sight of movement in Jonathan's hair and his stomach seemed to drop through the floor, then puffed up angrily.

"Is this a joke? "

Jonathan had no clue what he was talking about until he felt the newly-familiar tickling across his hairline.

Oh.

Shit.

He'd forgotten.

Jon's eyes widened a little bit, stiffening in an attempt to quickly correct the situation.

"Now just hold on-"

"Seriously?? Did you really go through all of this just to-"

"Edward."

Something about Jonathan's expression interrupted his thought process- he'd never seen the man look so openly visibly distressed since he'd met him, and an amount of colour had gathered at his cheeks. Edward inhaled, slowly, and relaxed his shoulders.

Fine, fine.

"I am expecting a very good explanation for this."

Jonathan frowned a little indignantly.

"I. Uh... Became quite fond of her. After you left."

"You… got attached. To a spider."

Scarecrow. Self-proclaimed Master of Fear. Had become attached to a small spider. Was letting it nest in his hair. He needed a second to process the catastrophic mental shutdown this information had caused.

There was a long pause.

"...Yeah."

The anger and indignation had more or less evaporated by this point. He clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. Jonathan frowned harder - the arachnid came to rest hanging just above his eyebrow. It was too much; he doubled over laughing.

Jonathan was absolutely baffled by Edward's uncanny ability to switch moods at the drop of a coin. His laughter was sweet, though; compared to the hearty fake stage laugh he employed in his criminal performances. Giggling, even. It made that warm sickly sweet feeling swallow up his heart in the way it always does; he was starting to enjoy the sensation. In that brief instant he could've told you with total conviction that he'd make a fool of himself a hundred times to see Edward collapsing into uncontrollable fits of giggles and snorts like this. At least he could attribute the burning in his cheeks to embarrassment; his face had remained the picture of indignation while he worked through the emotional short-circuit he'd just suffered.

Edward lifted his mask ever-so-slightly in order to wipe the tears out of his eyes.

"I can't believe you- you- replaced me with a spider! I suppose now I'm going to have to compete with it for your attention like some sort of trashy rom-com, aren't I?"

Jonathan pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

Gotham (particularly the GCPD) was incredibly grateful of the re-alliance that they were never really even aware had occurred. From the city's point of view, the Riddler and the Scarecrow simply finally toned down their frantic activity a little and everyone could rest a tad easier for it.

They settled back into the rhythm of before; enjoying one another's company. Edward abjectly refused to get within 5 feet of Jon for a while so long as his companion - lovingly dubbed 'Aria' by Edward, who flatly refused to let Jonathan choose a name with the argument that he would undoubtedly pick something so embarrassing she would run away from home - remained on Jon’s person.

They'd settled into a comfortable silence in Jon's living room, it had passed quite late into the evening and they were content to remain in each other's presence while Jonathan scribbled horribly untidy notes of theories and formulae into his worn old notebook and Edward overthought things that he knew didn't really matter.

the journal wasn't even old, Edward mused, watching the other's hands work quickly down the pages. Things just seem to look weathered when they stay in proximity to him too long. It's like he has an area of effect that just causes furniture to age. Fascinating.

He rested his head in one hand. Drew a long breath. Something about the atmosphere, the bizarrely intimate silence finally caused a welling up in his chest that made Edward speak up.

"…I'm colourblind."

The quiet scratching of pencil against paper came to an instant stop, but Jonathan didn't look up. Edward paused, heartbeat quickening. Why did he admit that? He'd never revealed this weakness to any of the others. This… mistake in his biology. A defect he could never truly fix. He'd nothing to gain from it. But then, nobody had spared the fraction of time it took to even ask before Jon had. Whether it was because he was simply curious or because he cared; it didn't matter. He'd paid attention and after all was that not all he demanded people do in order to become more intelligent?

"You asked why I never take this mask off. I'm severely colourblind. Short-sighted, to top it off."

Jonathan set the pencil down quietly. Ed swallowed.

"I'm telling you because I trust you won't abuse this."

There was an unspoken threat behind his tone.

"Completely deuteranopic. Greens, reds, and purples. I always did enjoy taking things I was told I couldn't have. These-"

He pressed a finger to the edge of his mask.

"Are corrective. I created the tech with my own two hands. I detest having them removed and being reminded of the irritating imperfection. Amongst other things. That's all there is to it. Trivial, really."

As he spoke, Jonathan had turned to face him - an obvious question resting on his features. He wasn't really capable of grasping just how difficult the admission was for Edward, but… he had a sense of it. The notion of being trusted with such information made it feel as though his chest might crack open with the effort of trying to contain the rogue emotion.

"Thank you, Edward." Was all he could muster in response; hoping that the emotion in his voice could put across what he didn't have the words to convey.

Edward held his gaze for a few impossibly long seconds more before the intimacy of the moment became more than Ed could comfortably tolerate without babbling anxiously.

"Seriously. If - If you tell anyone about that, I'll tear you and your stupid little spidery companion apart, you hear me?"

Jonathan laughed.

#jonathan crane #edward nygma #scarecrow #the riddler #danny writes

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mirkandmidnight · 7 years ago

Text

hadestown thoughts

road to hell

i love road to hell and the idea of hermes as this meta narrator retelling the story over and over again. i thought this was a really good introduction to the characters, and was a hell of a bop.

living it up

also a bop

amber gray’s growly voice? fuck me up

“yOu think I gIVe a dAmn???” me too

damon daunno is a really cute orpheus, i kind of love him? the interaction between him and persephone is great

i live for these cello instrumentations

all i’ve ever known

ah yes. eurydice.

i didn’t love anais mitchell as eurydice because there’s just this slightly petulant quality to her voice that bugs me

that said, nabiyah be’s voice is lovely. she gives eurydice this strength but at the same time there’s a sense of wistfulness you get from her

way down hadestown

mmmmmm yes

what a jam

i feel like this song hasn’t changed that much from the concept album and i am surprisingly okay with that

“everybody looked and everybody saw it was the same man they’d been singing about” “you’re early.” “i missed ya.” hahahahaha

patrick page’s voice rumbling along in the back is everything

epic ii

all i really have to say about this song is that damnon daunno’s falsetto is insanity

chant

without a doubt one of my favorite songs in the show. the interplay between both couples, with the chant behind them, makes me want to start chopping up my furniture

polyphonic harmony to the max

nabiyah be has a really nice head voice too

take a shot every time damon daunno does the “la la la” thing. you’ll die.

“did you think i’d be impressed with this neon necropolis???” fuck him up persephone

patrick page. the man. the myth. the legend.

hey little songbird

i mean it was fine? i think i prefer greg brown’s version of this tbh, not really sure why

“and they’re giving me...hell...back in hades” me too man

when the chips are down/gone, i’m gone

i adore the fates as this funky ruthless jazz trio. honestly the best conceptualization of them there will ever be.

the harmonies are so tight??? truly a jam

tbh gone, i’m gone is just kind of there? not really much to say about it

wait for me

YES

i loved this song on the concept album and i love it even more now

this version actually made me feel kind of bad for orpheus? like he’s a ditz but he cares

lol back in the day i thought “to the end of time” was as high as his falsetto was going to go. what a laugh.

damon daunnos’s belting is also insanity. i love him. god. also the continually building refrain is incredible? like they just keep adding harmonies and it’s the tightest shit ever

the thing this show does really really well is building the ensemble into all the group numbers

why we build the wall

love the intro to this song. it sounds like something you’d sing in a chain gang, which i guess is kind of the point. and that cello!!!

the call and response stuff is really neat

“AND THE WAR IS NEVER WON” ahhhhhhh

okay but also this ominous narration and building strings and cymbals and then amber gray: “Anybody want a drink?” all annoyed as the end of the first act makes me so happy you don’t even know

our lady of the underground

that cello line oh my god i got chills

have i mentioned that i love amber gray? because i fucking love amber gray

the growly voice

“i don’t know about you bOOOOYSSSSS”

the instrumental solos are really nice

i honestly spent the entire song imagining her as helene doing this and it was funny as hell

what a way to start act two

way down hadestown ii

hermes is back ladies and gents

this song kind of felt like a preview for chant ii which was fine

the fates spend a lot of time dragging hades for people who are so connected to him which, again, i’m fine with

“you sold your soul. you get your due. that is all we promised you.” CHILLS

the continued polyphony with the “way down hadestown” melody and the workers’ chant is so cool

oh no poor eurydice she’s so #shook

chant ii

this song is just plain good ominous fun.

that laugh omg

this is the song i love patrick page the most in like he’s such a dick but he’s just so much fucking fun

also this song feels like a salsa

chant ii basically takes all the melodies from the previous group numbers and layers them on top of each other in polyphonic insanity

persephone: tries to give eurydice advice, ends up talking about the time she and hades had sex in her mother’s garden

“women are so seasonal” pfft hades

the final section that’s just hades is so intense like it just keeps building and building and building

“I CONDUCT THE ELECTRIC CITY”

the counting with the cello in the background??? mmmmmm?????

patrick page. jesus christ.

epic iii

you thought damon daunno’s falsetto couldn’t get any better? you were fucking wrong

homeboy starts in the stratosphere and just keeps getting higher

“the heart of a king loves everything like the hammer loves the nail” mmmmmm yesssss

i do like his lower range as well, though, when he uses it

so i really loved justin vernon as orpheus on the concept album, like the layering they did with his voice, but this is the song that made me go yeah, damon daunno all the way

“la la la la” here we go again

but the second section of the song is so much better tbh

“what has become of the heart of that man now that he has everything”

“see how he labors beneath that load/afraid to look up/afraid to let go” mmmmmm

“where is the man with his hat in his hands/who stands in the garden with nothing to lose” MMMM BOI

and the la la las come back in a meaningful way yeet

and like damon daunno actually makes me believe what hermes says about him, that he can make you see how the world could be instead of the way it is

word to the wise

yes the fates are back

these harmonies are so tight

“heres a little snippet of advice: men are fools. men are frail. give them the rope and they’ll hang themselves”

his kiss/the riot

patrick page. yes.

the instrumentals on this are really nice tbh

lol who doesn’t love a good creepy accordion

i mean it’s fine as a song, but that’s all? there’s nothing wrong with it, i just don’t really love it

promises

i like this song for the fact that it’s one of the few times that we see orpheus and eurydice interact, and it’s this really sweet moment

but also really bittersweet because we know what’s coming and they don’t

see here we actually get damon daunno’s lower range and it’s legitimately gorgeous

wait for me ii

hermes has this great almost defeated narration at the beginning

hades and persephone are going to try again yeet

“wait for me?” “i will” the sound of my heart exploding

this song has such a “let’s get moving” vibe

i have to say it again: damon daunno has pipes

doubt comes in

ahhhhhhhh i’m not ready

such an ominous intro

the fates as the narrators of this song gives me a really weird vibe and i don’t know how i feel about it

like they have this really intense tambor to their voices

goddammit orpheus you had one job

road to hell ii

well of the characters in this show hermes is not the one i was expecting to get fucked up about

noooooooooo hermes

“it’s an old song/and we’re gonna sing it again and again” AHHHHHHHH

the choice not to have any accompaniment for the beginning of this song is really interesting and really fitting

“to know how it ends and still to begin, as if it might turn out this time”

when the ensemble comes in i tear up every time

“he could make you feel how the world could be instead of the way it is”

the actor playing hermes really fucking sells this song okay and i’m not okay

and now i’m crying in the library again

#hadestown #Hades #Persephone #greek mythology #hannahcdotes

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anghraine · 7 years ago

Text

“the words we’ve both fallen under” - fic

So, the people (aka @brynnmclean and @ladytharen) have spoken! They chose the queer Rogue One AU (Jyn/f!Cassian + Baze/Chirrut + Bodhi/Luke) for the Theoretical Fic, which was spawned by @therebelcaptainnetwork’s Friday prompt (“hope”). Like everything ever, it grew well beyond anything I anticipated. OH WELL.

fandom: Star Wars

characters: Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor (as Cassia); Jyn/Cassian, implied Bodhi/Luke

verse: the queer Rogue One AU, of course!

length: 2k

stuff that happens: Jyn and Cassia after the bedsharing!

Jyn didn’t begrudge the Rebels their victory celebrations, which extended for several weeks, at least at night. She didn’t even think of herself as separate from the Rebellion, exactly—not after Scarif.

It was just … crowded. Very crowded, considering that this particular cantina grew out of a skeletal base on Solis 2, where her team had just arrived with some soldiers and senators. And it was loud. Easily as loud as Massassi’s cantina, spurring her nerves to screeching alert. She could endure that, had endured it many times, but she didn’t want to. And this was not a time for doing anything she didn’t want to.

Searching for a discreet exit, Jyn must have betrayed some part of what she felt. She didn’t usually, and nobody seemed to be paying particular attention to her—she’d taken care to wedge herself behind Baze—but suddenly, she felt Cassia’s mouth near her ear.

Only the habits of years kept Jyn motionless. Her blood ran cold, or maybe hot; she couldn’t tell the difference.

“Do you want some fresh air?” Cassia murmured.

Jyn tried not to look grateful.

“Yes.”

Cassia shifted in some unobtrusive way that placed her at Jyn’s side, hand warm against her back. With some resignation, Jyn suspected that last was her imagination. The leather vest hardly registered slight changes in human temperature. And Cassia ran cold, anyway. Jyn had shared her bed enough times (eleven) to know that it wasn’t some Cassia façade.

Platonically shared her bed. Jyn had even managed to platonically pin Cassia to the bed and straddle her hips, which took some doing.

Cassia made a smooth excuse that Jyn didn’t bother listening to, but which everyone accepted. More or less. Baze actually smiled—it was faint, but unmistakably a smile. That struck Jyn as deeply suspicious. But he didn’t say anything, so neither did she, instead letting Cassia maneuver them outside without incident.

(Jyn couldn’t remember the last time she’d tolerated anyone maneuvering her at all. Well, anyone else, since they’d done the same thing back on Jedha. Cassia might just be an exception. Sometimes.)

As soon as the doors snapped together behind them, Jyn’s tensed muscles relaxed. Cassia drew a breath of the base’s crisp, cool air.

“That’s better.”

Jyn shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “Beer and sweat not your favourite smells?”

Cassia kept her—their—quarters in pristine order, regardless of where those quarters happened to be. Jyn herself couldn’t have cared less, but once she realized that Cassia didn’t expect her to assist in any meaningful way, she shrugged off her initial irritation. If Cassia wanted to soothe herself with colour coordinating her (many) outfits, fine. Jyn soothed herself with cleaning and loading her blasters, after all.

(By now, she didn’t just possess a nonzero number of blasters, but several, only two of which originally belonged to Cassia. That alone would nearly have made everything worth it, and … she had quite a bit more than that alone.)

“No, not really,” said Cassia dryly, heading down stairs that led to a narrow steel platform beneath the main portion of the cantina. This particular base consisted almost entirely of platforms, square buildings, and assorted stairs and ramps, all in featureless grey metal. Jyn gathered that it had been cobbled together out of some abandoned Imperial installation. Or a Republic one, maybe. It had railings and everything.

“I figured.”

“Too many people, too,” Cassia added, tone suspiciously neutral.

Jyn eyed the back of her head. “I thought you were a … people person.”

“Really?”

Thinking back over the … five weeks they’d known each other, Jyn supposed it could go either way. Cassia always had something to say, but she wasn’t exactly outgoing. “You’re good with them.”

“When I have to be.” She stopped and leaned against the platform’s wide rail while Jyn caught up. “I like the quiet.”

That pleased Jyn in a fuzzy way she didn’t care to interrogate. She settled for an indistinct noise of agreement.

Suitably enough, they continued side-by-side without talking, making their way to the furthest wall. There they remained visible from the cantina, if anyone chose to look, but at least didn’t stand beneath the noisiest part of it.

It was nice. Jyn, not overburdened by self-consciousness, felt just enough of it to avoid saying so. But she enjoyed everything: the coolness of the air, not heavy like Yavin 4’s, the easy silence, the mingling light of Solis’s moons, the smaller two eclipsing the largest into a slice of gold. She had two blasters in her holster, no enemies in the vicinity, and Cassia at her side, her limp all but gone. Without even touching her crystal, Jyn felt calm and contented in a way she very rarely experienced, far beyond her usual stoicism.

She didn’t look at Cassia. They shared quarters, a bed, and most hours of day and night; while Jyn welcomed the eagerly yielding Cassia that now and then shattered her nightmares, she took care to separate her from the actual woman. At this point, she already had seen Cassia a) young and beautiful in her silly parka, b) drenched from hair to boots, c) striding past in an Imperial uniform that fit her much better than the Alliance one, d) collapsing in Jyn’s arms, and e) swathed in shadows under Jyn’s body. She didn’t feel the need to try herself further by adding ‘gilded by moonlight’ to the rest.

Not that she’d be able to avoid it, really.

“Have you seen Bodhi?” Jyn asked.

“Yes, in the cantina,” said Cassia, unperturbed by the abruptly broken silence. “Not in the best mood. I think he ran into Skywalker.”

“Again?” Jyn didn’t mind Skywalker in himself: rather liked him, in fact. He’d personally asked her if he could name his squadron after her team, and had possibly less patience for cowards and fools than she did. But for whatever reason, he and Bodhi had taken an almost immediate dislike to each other. “I don’t even know what they find to disagree about.”

Cassia paused. “Skywalker is attractive, isn’t he? I’m not the best judge.”

Raw determination kept Jyn’s eyes on the blotted moon. She blinked several times at it. “You think that’s why—?”

“A factor, perhaps,” Cassia replied. “I can’t say for sure, of course. It could be nothing more than Skywalker hating Imperials without much ... discrimination.”

Jyn could understand that, in general. She rarely saw one without wanting to club them into a bloody corpse. But not Bodhi, who had defected and suffered and sacrificed, whatever he might have been or done before.

“We all hate Imperials,” said Jyn. “Does he think he’s special?”

Cassia’s hand tapped idly along the railing. Jyn would bet credits that she had a frown on her face.

“Maybe.”

Jyn would have blamed her uncommunicativeness on right, she’s a spy, if not for the fact that Cassia would tell her pretty much anything (unclassified), if asked. She just never volunteered it, so Jyn—or someone, but usually Jyn—always had to drag it out in pieces.

“All right, what did they do to him? Do you know?”

“Burned his family alive,” said Cassia.

A few moments passed without a word from either. Above them, somebody laughed, followed by others, before their voices faded into some other part of the room.

“Fuck,” Jyn muttered.

Cassia shifted again. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“No,” said Jyn automatically. “That’s not—that’s not fair to Bodhi, but—damn.” She’d hoped it was a bit more mundane.

“None of us are fair to each other,” replied Cassia, her voice still more even. “Not always.”

That snapped Jyn’s resolve. She glanced over her, but Cassia was staring ahead, her back a straight line from her shoulders to the cybernetics hidden under her skin. Attraction seemed rather besides the point.

“I know,” said Jyn quietly.

She suspected it might be as close to an apology as Cassia got. Since I’m not used to people sticking around was as close to one as Jyn had offered, she decided she’d take it.

Features softening, Cassia turned her head to face her, amusement flickering into her face. “Anyway, I think the unfairness has gone both ways with them.” She cleared her throat. “As it were.”

Jyn didn’t mean to smile, but she did, anyway. “You’re never going to forget that, are you?”

“I never forget anything,” Cassia said.

Jyn shook her head. “Then I’ll expect you to remember my birthday every year.”

Cassia’s low, startled laugh altogether banished Bodhi and Skywalker’s whatever-it-was. “If I know where you are.”

“Shouldn’t be hard,” said Jyn.

The amusement faded into something else, sweeter and more cautious. “You’re staying?—I—you mean, indefinitely?”

Jyn thought of a good half-dozen responses, alternately snide and earnest. But she only said,

“Yes.”

Cassia’s face broke into a bright, dimpled smile. Jyn, who had not expected that particular attack, felt dazed. Just a little. Physical awareness flooded back, or became relevant again. The golden moonlight caught in Cassia’s eyes, her skin, even her dark hair, gleaming from within. The hazy glow of it gentled her features without weakening them, her face warm and pretty rather than starkly beautiful. For all of that, her eyes fixed on Jyn with the same elated intensity that she remembered from the not-apology in the hangar, and after.

Speaking of unfair—

“How long do you think we’ll stay here?” she asked. “Assuming it’s not classified.”

Cassia seemed puzzled but undisturbed. “Not very long. We want to keep the small bases as unobtrusive as possible, and the rest will be scattering from Yavin soon. We’ll need a new central base.”

“Colder than Massassi, I hope,” said Jyn, vengefully.

Cassia looked betrayed. Her smile turning crooked, she twisted back towards the base below them, though without the rigidity of before. “You’re the one who’ll suffer if we get stationed there.”

“I’ll live,” said Jyn. “Not all of us are delicate flowers.”

“Really, Jyn?”

Jyn grinned openly, leaning against the platform’s side. “So what about you? Are you hoping for anything in particular?”

Cassia’s fingers splayed out on the railing, then grasped it. She wet her lip.

“A few things,” she said.

Jyn gave up.

“Cassia?”

When Cassia turned towards her, inquisitive, Jyn didn’t wait long enough for fear. She stepped forward, curled her fingers into Cassia’s jacket, and kissed her.

Cassia’s lips parted in what Jyn assumed to be surprise rather than invitation, but within a moment, her mouth was pressing back, as soft and careful as in the turbolift. They’d finally circled back, finally—and then her hands slid about Jyn’s waist, up her back. It was so little, but Jyn felt drunk, heady and flushed all over, more than she’d been capable of before, maybe more than she’d been capable of in her life. She had her arms about Cassia’s neck again, fingers walking against the nape and threading into her hair, smooth and soft instead of stiff with sweat and blood. She pressed closer when Cassia tilted her head to slant her mouth against Jyn’s, both panting.

No, Cassia was saying something, whispering against Jyn’s lips. Cassia and her words; she always had something. Even now! A very tiny bit exasperated, Jyn slowed and forced herself to pay attention.

“Jyn,” Cassia murmured. “Jyn, Jyn, Jyn—”

Jyn almost shuddered, fingers clutching in Cassia’s hair. She’d never kissed anyone who knew her name. Anyone who knew her at all. And this wasn’t anyone—this was—

“Cassia,” she breathed.

They stepped back for air, because they had to. Inevitably, that first moment was awkward. Neither quite knew what to say, and it’d been so much even though it was nothing they hadn’t done already. But Jyn took in Cassia’s rumpled hair and swollen mouth and half-shy smile, and could only think, again.

A small breeze rustled past. Cassia shivered.

Jyn had too much self-respect to say I’ll warm you up, or anything of the sort. To go by Cassia’s flush and thinly-veiled pleasure, her face said it for her.

“That one of the things you were hoping for?” she asked.

Cassia could have said something clever, or beautiful, or wry: Jyn didn’t doubt that she had it in her. But she just laid her hand against Jyn’s cheek, her eyes wide, almost stunned, as she smoothed the fringe aside.

Cassia leaned down and kissed her again.

#anghraine's fic #otp: welcome home #therebelcaptainnetwork #rule 63 #the queer rogue one fic #this has been in my head for... a long time #like. a very long time.#jyn erso #cassian andor #star wars #bodhi x luke #proto-bodhi/luke anyway. but uh. i am not a proponent of sweet sunny optimist luke #anyway #yes the title is 'we belong' again #mostly so i can sneak it onto my ficlist ;)#the file was just 'esperanza' tbh

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writehoodie-blog · 8 years ago

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Speaking Simlish - Chapter 2

It was right around six o’clock on a windy Monday night when I was drumming my thumbs waiting for him to text me back. I was distracted, so it makes sense that I didn’t hear the clicks of Angela’s heels coming down the linoleum tile behind me.

“Reagan! I am so happy that you here, babygirl,” Angela Stokes cooed as she pulled me in tight for a hug.

“Mrs. Stokes! You know I’m always happy to see you, but the voicemail didn’t say why we’re all here. Are we–” I started.

“In trouble?” Mrs. Stokes giggled, “‘Course not, baby. I will explain it all in detail when everyone gets here. I trust you’re rallyin’ the troops?" That’s one thing I always appreciated about Mrs. Stokes, even after everything, she saw value in me. She trusted me with all her heart. She believed in me. It’s not that I didn’t get along with other adults, but she was the only one that wasn’t jaded by her own self-loathing for being stuck in the hoods of San Myshuno. I think she may have actually been a true believer. A true believer in that any community can succeed if they all have the opportunity.

“Yes, Ma’am,” I responded politely, “I text Shamar. He should be comin’ soon.” In truth, I felt like I hadn’t texted Shamar in weeks or at least not anything meaningful. I just didn’t know how to act around him. He had sent me text after text over the summer, but I never knew how to respond.

Mrs. Stokes interrupted my thoughts, “And how ‘bout Jada or Isaiah?”

I was lucky that the lightbulbs in that hallway to her office were mostly all in need of replacing and that my skin was so brown, so that she could hardly see me start to blush. I responded, “They ain’t answered my texts…I think they–”

Mrs. Stokes just laughed, “Say no more. They can hear the news after our meeting then.” I don’t know why I was so uncomfortable to tell her the truth about Isaiah and Jada that night. She was always cool about everything. I always really liked Angela. She was almost like my home away from home and made me feel calm. Maybe that’s why the world without her was such a hell of a storm.

My thoughts were once again interrupted, but this time by a much a deeper voice, Shamar. He grabbed my waist from behind and pulled me close into a hug. I felt his cold breath seasoned with minty gum drift down my neck and I smiled. I had missed his hugs. “Hey,” he said.

“Sham. Hi,” I said awkwardly. I couldn’t toy with him. We had been playing that inevitable cat and mouse game for much too long, when we knew that we’d both lose eventually. Mrs. Stokes smiled to Shamar while she turned the knob to open her office door. To all of our surprise, she opened up to not just her office, but Jada and Isaiah necking on her couch.

The poor woman covered her eyes and muttered, “Oh my lord.”

Shamar stepped in front of me and let out a shout to Isaiah, “Aye bruh, put some clothes on.” I was watching the whole scene, but Shamar put out his arm in front of me to keep me from trying to help out even if I couldn’t do much. He always doing that, trying to take the lead.

“My bad, my bad,” Isaiah said, but I knew that secretly, he wasn’t that embarrassed. It wasn’t his first time getting caught being bad in public places. I think the teachers always let it go, because he was just too damn cute.

“Yeah, we didn’t know anybody was comin’ in here!” Jada said, throwing her clothes over her head, so frantically that she almost threw them across the room.

Shamar squinted his eyes and said, “And if you did, what? You woulda just had makeup sex after your eighth break up, anywhere else?”

“Shamar!” She whined, “You know it’s not like that…”

Thankfully, Angela interrupted, “Kids! I am going to get myself a diet coke and y’all better be sitting in your chairs, fully clothed, when I come back.”

We all sat, exchanging looks back and forth at each other while Mrs. Stokes carefully sipped her coke slowly. The tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. Finally, Mrs. Stokes cleared her throat. She said, “As y’all know, we sent one student to represent our school at the No Sim Left Behind educational campaign last summer. That was Reagan.” She smiled at me, but I quickly looked away, hoping to avoid the subject.

Shamar leaned forward, putting his hands together as he rested his elbows on his knees. He said, “Right…and then…”

Mrs. Stokes turned her head to face Shamar and swallowed her smile to continue, “Well, Reagan, I don’t know if you ‘member submitting your experience essay at the end…”

I looked up and nodded, twiddling my thumbs, “I ‘member.”

Mrs. Stokes smiled at me again until wrinkles formed at the end of her eyes and she said, “Well, you checked the box and that essay earned you placement at their semester long program!”

I coughed in disbelief. I said, “‘Scuse me? That must be a mistake.” Shamar put his hand on my back to pat out my cough, but I think he was just lookin’ for an excuse to touch me, not that I minded.

Isaiah interrupted for Mrs. Stokes had a chance to respond with a question that must’ve been on all of their minds, “Aye, I hate to be that guy, but uh, what exactly do the rest of us have to do with this?” Jada and I laughed. I have to give him credit. If Isaiah was good for anything, it was breaking tension.

Angela cleared her throat again and said, “Isaiah, I’m glad you asked. Willow Creek Collegiate has expanded their program to accepting more students.”

“…But, we didn’t fill out any applications. How is that possible, ma’am?” Shamar said.

Mrs. Stokes responded quickly, “The student pool is picked based on the winner of that previous program. Since Reagan won, it will be three other kids from San Myshuno West district. One being a student of highest promise and two teacher recommended students.”

“Who’s who?” Jada said, turning to face Isaiah. I think she was looking for a laugh. She was always searching for his approval, no matter how many times he made it clear that she was disposable to him. I don’t think he meant anything by it. Maybe part of him loved her, but she was a fool to think that they’d ever end up together.

He shut her down quick and said, “Take a wild guess.” I looked at Shamar to see if he had tried to hide a laugh after that too, but his face didn’t change. He was just waiting for Mrs. Stokes to respond.

Angela looked back to me as if she were having a conversation with just me and said, “So, y’all don’t need to make a choice right now, but I really, really think y’all should go. I think it would be really good to experience somethin’ new. Who knows. Y’all might have some fun. “

Have some fun. Those were the last thorns of that rose that I did not pay close enough attention to. After all, it was finally “having some fun” that got me into the most trouble, ain’t it?

BINGE | PREVIOUS | NEXT

#simblr #whwrites #ss #simblr story #ts4mm #ts4nsfw #ts4 series #ts4 legacy #ts4 gameplay #ts4 story #speakingsimlish #the sims 4 #black simmers #FEEDBACK PLEASE

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adjectivebear · 8 years ago

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Can’t Believe You Don’t Know

Pairing: Zevran x Female Amell Rating: NSFW Summary: Solona believes she's unattractive. Zevran vehemently disagrees. And what's more, he knows exactly how to prove it. (Did I finally finish my ancient Kink Meme WIP? Why yes, yes I did.)

“Ah, there you are, my dear. I was beginning to think you were hiding from me.”

“Not at all,” Solona lied, unable to contain a disappointed sigh as she closed her book and lifted her gaze to the assassin sauntering toward her, already mourning the pleasant evening that could have been.

They’d been staying at Castle Redcliffe while the Arl made his preparations for the trip to Denerim, and though her companions were getting more restless by the day, Solona was rather enjoying it. It wasn’t that she hated camping—well, no, she did hate it, actually, which was why it was so nice to finally be indoors again, where it was warm and dry and blessedly free of insects, with real food, a proper bed, and plenty of light to read by.

And yes, more places to hide from Zevran.

It wasn’t that she hated him, either. Indeed, she rather liked him when he was slicing up darkspawn, engaged in meaningful conversation, or joking with the rest of the party. She imagined they could have been very good friends if he took slightly less amusement in playing at seducing her.

Or if she didn’t wish so desperately that he weren’t playing.

For a few precious hours she’d dared to believe he was serious. No one had ever flirted with her before, and he was so handsome, and yes, he’d tried to kill her, but she’d been more than willing to forgive that particular offense if it meant she would no longer have to resign herself to the overwhelming likelihood of dying a virgin (she knew how pathetic that sounded, but there was a bloody Blight going on, and beggars couldn’t afford to be choosers). But then he’d started flirting with everyone else, and Solona had understood.

He wasn’t interested in her. He just liked flirting.

She couldn’t believe she’d ever been foolish enough to believe otherwise. She knew what she looked like. She was chubby, no taller than an elf, could not so much as look at a sunny day without sprouting a dozen new freckles, and had an unruly mane of not-quite-brown, not-quite-blond hair that stuck out at odd angles even when she wound it tightly into a bun. She’d been a laughably easy target back at Kinloch Hold, and that was even before her twenty-first birthday had come and gone, granting her the dubious honor of being the oldest virgin in the Circle and earning her the horrid nickname ‘Saint Solona’ as though her continued chastity were born of some prudishness of her own rather than everyone else’s refusal to have sex with her.

No one had ever fancied her. It was absurd to think anyone ever could.

Well, no—that wasn’t entirely true. Cullen had fancied her. But he hadn’t bothered to tell her so until it was far too late for them to do anything about it, and after what had happened during Uldred’s rebellion…

No. It didn’t bear thinking on. It was done now, and there was no use in regretting the things she couldn’t change. Like the inevitability of dying alone and untouched, the crueler part of her mind supplied helpfully.

She scowled, suddenly in even less of a mood for Zevran’s nonsense.

In the grand scheme of things, his teasing was probably was a stupid thing to be bothered by. However much it felt like he was deliberately taunting her, she knew he was just having a laugh and that it was ultimately nothing personal. And yet, despite constantly reminding herself of precisely that, the playful mockery never failed get a rise out of her, which only encouraged him to do it more frequently.

Much more frequently. While originally he’d flirted indiscriminately with the entire party, he’d been focusing solely on her for months now, to the point where it seemed that half of their interactions ended with her stomping off in frustration. It wasn’t a tendency she was proud of, and lately she’d begun to resort to simply avoiding him.

Or not so simply. Avoiding someone was actually stunningly difficult when you shared a camp.

Apparently, Zevran was keen to make it just as difficult in Redcliffe.

Solona sighed again as he got closer, the warm glow of the lamplight playing distractingly over his brown skin and those unreasonably tight trousers he favored. He leaned casually against the table next to her, presumably to make absolutely certain she’d noticed the latter. She felt her cheeks flush and gritted her teeth. She would not play this game tonight. She was reading, damn it, and she was just getting to the good part.

“Was there something you needed?” she asked in a clipped tone, forcing her eyes to stay locked on his face. Those damned trousers left nothing to the imagination, and she refused to give him the satisfaction of catching her gawking at his legs, backside, or… other areas in the vicinity.

“My dear Solona,” he said, pronouncing her name in that maddeningly Antivan way of his, “my intention was simply to provide some company. Look at you, all alone in this dusty library. What a sad way to spend an evening! Why are you here, and not celebrating your victories with Alistair and Leliana?”

Solona snorted. Not long ago, she would have been with them, but now she doubted she’d have been particularly welcome. She adored her friends, but sometimes she rued the day they became a couple. “As much as I love being a third wheel, I thought the night might be better spent catching up on my reading.”

“Oh? What is it that captivates you so?” Solona moved to grab the book, but Zevran’s hands were quicker. He snatched it up, glancing briefly at the cover illustration before turning to the summary inscribed on the back and reading aloud. “‘Enchantress of His Heart: the sultry tale of the forbidden love between the handsome and noble Knight-Captain Marius and the beautiful, seductive Lucienne. Their passion burns brighter than any flame she can conjure, but how long can they keep it a secret—’”

Solona seized the book, her cheeks burning. “I never claimed it was intellectually stimulating reading,” she said defensively, clutching it to her chest lest he make another grab for it.

He laughed. “No doubt it is stimulating in other ways, yes?”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean,” she said primly. “And even if I did, so what? A girl’s allowed a little wish-fulfillment every now and then.”

She realized she’d just handed him the perfect bait the second the words left her mouth, but by then it was too late. She scolded herself as he leaned closer, fixing her with that smoldering look he so loved to employ.

“You don’t need fiction for that, Solona. I assure you, I am both willing and quite able to fulfill your every wish.”

Solona played off her shiver as a sudden chill, counting her blessings that the dampness between her thighs was known to her alone. That she’d have had no good excuse for. “I wish to be allowed to continue reading.”

“Of course! How rude of me to interrupt. In fact, I shall join you.”

Before Solona could protest, he’d selected a volume from the pile of books in the center of the table, settled into an adjacent chair, and begun to read. She groaned inwardly, but grudgingly admired the lengths to which Zevran would go to annoy her. If he’d been even half as dedicated an assassin, he must have been the golden boy of the Antivan Crows. Still, he was being quiet now, which was a vast improvement, and since there was little hope of convincing him to leave, she decided to just accept it and reopened to the page she’d left off on.

It was initially a bit awkward, as she’d just gotten to one of the steamier scenes, but after a few moments she’d all but forgotten Zevran’s presence, the occasional sound of a page being turned the only reminder that she was not alone. She felt her irritation begin to wane. Was it possible he really did just want to keep her company? Perhaps she’d judged him unfairly.

She’d finished one chapter and was well into the next before she chanced a furtive glance at her companion.

Or, rather, she’d intended it as a furtive glance. The secrecy was rather lost when the target of one’s gaze already had his eyes fixed intently upon her.

“Do you stare at everyone like that?” she asked, shifting awkwardly in her seat and praying to the Maker that the dim light camouflaged the hot flush rising in her cheeks. The smirk playing at Zevran’s lips spoke to the contrary.

“Not everyone. But a beautiful woman like yourself?” He reached out to toy with a lock of her hair. “Why not? I am sure you draw many stares, from men and even other women.”

“Oh, for the—honestly!” she sputtered, slamming her book shut and rising from the table so quickly that she nearly knocked over her chair, suddenly more furious than she’d ever been in her life, and not at all sure whether this new fury was aimed at Zevran or herself. He had the nerve to look confused, which only fueled her rage. “You are absolutely insufferable!”

“I am... not sure what—”

“The more fool I for hoping we might actually be able to pass the evening like civilized people,” she continued, shoving her belongings haphazardly into her satchel, “because you obviously cannot be in the same room with me for more than five minutes without getting the overwhelming urge to mock me.”

He began to open his mouth, but Solona was having none of it, determined to speak her piece before the angry tears prickling behind her eyes began to flow. She was a sodding Grey Warden now, not the pathetic schoolgirl who’d been bullied at Kinloch Hold. She would not weep.

“Can’t you see that I don’t think it’s funny? Can’t you just leave me be? Don’t you understand how cruel it is to make me—?” she bit her tongue then, mortified to have come so close to confessing herself, to admitting just how deeply his playful flirtations affected her.

Maker, she was pathetic. Tears threatening in earnest now, she abandoned the half-packed satchel in favor of just leaving as quickly as possible.

But this, like a peaceful evening of reading, was not in the cards.

She had not gotten three steps toward the door before a hand wrapped around her wrist, its grip not so tight as to be uncomfortable, but difficult to break nonetheless. Resisting the juvenile urge to stamp her foot in frustration, Solona reluctantly turned to face her captor, who still wore the same damnable expression of puzzlement.

“Mocking you? Is that what you think?” The uncharacteristic softness in his voice left her too stunned to reply, snapping out of it only when he raised a hand toward her cheek. She dodged the touch, irritated anew.

“What do you expect me to think?”

“That I mean what I say?” The suggestion earned a particularly unladylike snort from her. “Is it so hard to believe?”

“Yes, actually!” she snapped, taking some morbid pleasure in the frown it brought to his face.

“Why?”

A mirthless laugh escaped her before she could stop it. “What do you mean, why? Andraste’s mercy, Zevran, how stupid do you think I am? What could you possibly want with some fat, freckled little mage?”

The frown deepened. “You say such things about yourself, yet think me cruel for saying you are beautiful? I am not certain I follow your logic.”

Solona huffed and stared at a spot on the wall.

“But no matter,” he went on, waving away the issue. “I do find you quite lovely, my dear, but no doubt you still question my sincerity. Perhaps a bit of convincing is in order, yes?”

Solona was not quite sure she trusted the purr in his voice, nor the gleam in those golden eyes, but if Zevran marked her wariness, he paid her no heed, instead giving off the appearance of one deep in thought.

“Hmm, where to begin? Ah, yes! I believe it was your eyes which first caught my attention, my fair Warden,” he said, pressing blithely onward despite the suspicious narrowing of the features in question. “They are truly remarkable. I have always been partial to green eyes, but yours are a particularly enchanting hue, like new leaves at the first light of dawn. They remind me of the Brecilian Forest.”

“They make you feel as though something is going to jump out and eat you?”

“Why must you always make the seduction so difficult?”

“Right, how silly of me. My eyes are like the Brecilian Forest. By all means, go on.”

Zevran gave her a mildly exasperated look, but quickly recovered and continued as though she’d never spoken. “And you have such beautiful hands.” Solona bit back a gasp as he ghosted his fingertips along the insides of her wrists before capturing her hands in his own. She tried not to think about how warm they were. “So graceful and soft. Getting to feel these lovely hands upon my flesh almost makes it worth getting wounded in battle.”

“And to think, all this time I assumed you were just careless.”

“I am beginning to suspect that you and Alistair are somehow related.”

For reasons she could not explain, Solona burst out laughing at that. And then found it remarkably difficult to stop. So preoccupied was she that she did not notice his hands moving once more until one was cupping her cheek.

That sobered her.

Her first impulse was to move away, to shake him off, and yet she found that she couldn’t force her muscles to obey. The feel of his palm against her cheek was… nice. The warm, tingly feeling she’d come to associate with Zevran’s presence began to spread through her body.

Oh, she was in trouble.

“You laugh too rarely, Solona,” he said softly, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. “It is a sweet sound.”

“I don’t—”

“Shh. No more commentary from you, I think. For now you only listen, yes?”

Solona found herself nodding, having at some point become completely enthralled by those breathtaking golden eyes. Eyes which were now mere inches from her own. Too close. Much too close...

“You have such soft skin,” he said, running his knuckles along her jawline. “And these freckles of yours—ah, would you forgive me the pun if I said I found them bewitching?” Solona’s breath caught in her chest as he leaned forward to rub his cheek against hers.

Sweet Andraste, this couldn’t be happening. She must be dreaming, imagining the caress of his skin, the soft scent of leather that clung to him long after he’d changed out of his armor, the hot breath tickling her ear as he nuzzled her and—oh, Maker—the warm press of his lips against her temple. Any moment now she would wake up in bed, hot and bothered and alone.

Wouldn’t she?

“And you smell divine,” he purred, the vibrations against her ear sending shivers down her spine. “Like books and incense. When I was a child that is how I imagined all mages must smell. In fact, it is only you.”

She was briefly compelled to ask if he routinely went around sniffing mages in order to test that theory, but the words died on her tongue, replaced by a gasp at the first gentle nip on her earlobe. She felt his lips curve into what she could only assume was a wicked smile.

“I think you like that.”

The shudder that wracked her body seemed to be all the answer he needed. Slowly, teasingly, he began nibbling his way up her ear, each little scrape of teeth sending a corresponding jolt straight to her groin.

No, this couldn’t be a dream. Her pleasant dreams were never this vivid. Which begged the decidedly unpleasant question of why, exactly, this thing that was actually happening was actually happening. Some spell, perhaps? Residual energy left over by the demon that had possessed the Arl’s son? Or something of her own doing? Maker, had Avernus’s potion turned her into a blood mage without her knowledge? Was that even possible?

“You are thinking, my dear,” Zevran admonished. “You must stop that.”

Solona meant to argue, really she did, but he chose that exact moment to slide his tongue along the whorl of her ear, making her toes curl and rendering her incapable of any response more coherent than a needy mewl. The rational part of her mind protested that this was absurd, that she couldn’t possibly be this desperate, even as she eagerly tilted her head to allow him better access, her cooperation rewarded by an enthusiastic series of nips and kisses along her neck.

Yes, thinking… thinking was entirely overrated.

She let out a whine of protest when he pulled away, only to be distracted once more when he brought both hands up to cup her face, his bright eyes locking with hers. Her heart was pounding so hard, her breath coming so quickly that she worried she might faint.

“And your smile… my dear, my heart aches that you do not grace me with it more often. I’ve seen many great beauties, and yet when a smile lights your face they all seem plain in comparison.”

She flinched back in surprise when he leaned closer. He looked confused and slightly hurt, and she’d just begun to berate herself for ruining everything when realization dawned on his face.

“Sweet Solona,” he said softly, tracing the pad of his thumb along her bottom lip. “Has no one ever kissed you?”

Embarrassment washed over her. Slowly, she shook her head.

“We must fix that,” he said, closing the distance between them.

Her knees nearly buckled at the touch of his lips, and she clutched his shoulders to keep herself upright. It was somehow at once exactly and nothing like how she’d expected a kiss to feel, and Solona had spent a great deal of time thinking about kissing lately, due in equal parts to her lamentable taste in literature and the fact that Alistair and Leliana couldn’t go five minutes without doing it, which was either adorable or nauseating depending on her mood.

This kiss was not at all as described in the books. There were no fireworks flashing before her eyes, nor did the earth tremble beneath her feet, nor was she especially conscious of her body thrumming with desire, whatever that felt like. But his lips were soft and warm against hers, she felt pleasantly toasty all over as though she’d had a bit too much wine, and she was fairly certain that if she reached between her legs at that moment, she would have found herself drenched.

Her hands slid down his back, her means of supporting herself evolving into an embrace. A thrill of excitement shot through her when his tongue played at the seam of her lips and she obediently parted them, allowing him passage. Having another person’s tongue in her mouth did not feel nearly as odd as it really ought to, and she must have moaned at the sensation because she felt him laugh as he flicked his tongue teasingly along her own, coaxing her to respond in kind.

And respond she did. She was unpracticed and clumsy, and it couldn’t possibly have been a very good kiss for him, but he gave no indication of displeasure as his tongue danced with hers, gently instructing her on the proper form. She had nearly gotten the hang of it when a sudden chill gave her pause.

She broke the kiss and glanced down to find her robes opened to the waist, Zevran’s fingers still upon the laces. She shot him an incredulous look. He grinned back, entirely unrepentant, and though she knew she ought to have been scandalized, she found herself trying not to laugh.

“You can’t pick locks to save your life, but you can get a girl’s robes open without her being any the wiser?”

“Locks are not quite so easily distracted by a thorough snogging,” he pointed out, sliding his hands along the edges of her robes. “Now, let’s see what we have here…”

He attempted to slide the garment off her shoulders, and Solona immediately clasped it shut. She looked away, blushing furiously.

“Ah, Solona, forgive me.” He pulled her into his arms. “Forgive me, that was too bold. I did not mean to make you feel threatened.”

“No,” she said into his neck, kissing him there to prove she meant it. “No, it wasn’t, I didn’t, it’s just…”

“You are shy?” he guessed, and she nodded, because it was easier than verbalizing the truth. He released her, grinning once more. “Of course you are! Where are my manners, trying to relieve you of your clothing while I stand fully dressed before you? You have my humblest apologies.”

Undoubtedly, the honorable thing would have been to screw up the nerve to tell him what was really on her mind, but Solona was only human, and the impossibly handsome man on whom she’d harbored a massive crush for the past several months had just divested himself of his shirt, so perhaps she could be forgiven. And if she couldn’t be, the sight before her was well worth an eternity in the circle of the Void reserved for dishonest ninnies.

She had seen Zevran bare-chested before, but he’d been bleeding on each of those occasions, which was hardly conducive to ogling unless you were a blood mage and into that sort of thing. Now, with no such impediment, she found she could not tear her eyes away.

Maker, how was it possible for any man to be so perfect? He may as well have been carved by a sculptor: lithe and muscular, every delectable contour so marvelously defined that just looking at him felt somehow sinful. He also had not been joking about the extent of his tattoos. There were a number of them curving sinuously along his arms and torso, all seemingly designed for the sole purpose of emphasizing his magnificent form.

“It’s just occurred to me that if you’d taken your shirt off the day we met, I would be dead right now,” Solona admitted, having quite a bit of trouble averting her gaze from the sharp V of his hips.

Zevran laughed. “And what fun would that have been for either of us?” He took up her hands, kissing each palm before placing them on his chest, and Solona was briefly mesmerized by the contrast of her white hands against his dark skin. Then she became aware of the heat and texture of that skin, and suddenly mere aesthetics were the furthest thing from her mind. Her fingers drifted over his collarbone, his neck, his jaw.

Something childish took over inside her as her fingers approached his ears. Solona had always liked elf ears. She’d always secretly wanted to touch them, just to see what they felt like. It was beyond her comprehension how anything so delicate and pretty had inspired a racial slur.

She had also heard rumors that those lovely ears were extremely sensitive. She traced a fingertip along the edge of one, barely stifling a giggle when Zevran let out a hiss of pleasure.

Ah—the rumors were true, then. That was good to know. She traced it again, then, growing bolder, leaned in to kiss it. He made another pleased sound, grasping her about the waist, and she really did giggle. She mimicked the attentions he’d paid to her earlier, spurred along by his little sighs and the unconscious flexing of his fingers when she found a particularly good spot. She flicked her tongue against the tip and he groaned, clutching her waist nearly hard enough to bruise.

“You are not as innocent as you look,” he said, sounding slightly breathless. His hands covered hers again, prompting them to continue their exploration of his body, and shyly she let them begin to drift lower, skimming over his toned arms before traveling inward to study his chest and stomach, tracing the lines of each tattoo she encountered along the way.

“I look innocent?”

“Terribly innocent,” he confirmed as her fingers trailed along his taut abdominal muscles. “Saintly, almost. It makes me want to do wicked things to you. Ah, you’ve no idea how becomingly you blush!”

Solona stubbornly ducked her head to hide her coloring cheeks and Zevran laughed at her, at which she might have summoned the will to feign annoyance had she been any less fascinated by the vibration of it within his chest or the small, brown nipples pebbling beneath her fingers. The tiniest hint of a smile tugged at her lips. Saintly, indeed, she thought, placing a fingertip on each nipple.

She couldn’t help but laugh at the surprised noise he made as she sent the first gentle pulse of electricity into the sensitive flesh. A second pulse had him purring, his head tipping back as his eyes slipped shut.

“You approve, then?” Solona said, setting a rhythmic pattern of many smaller bursts of magic. “One of the mages gained himself quite the fan club with this trick. The other girls couldn’t shut up about it. It seemed worthwhile to figure it out for myself.”

“Oh? Is this the cause of those delicious sounds coming from your tent at night?” Solona’s mortification must have been palpable, because he continued, “Not to worry, my dear, you are perfectly quiet. Elf ears are keener than most. Especially when they happen to be pressed up against your tent.”

Solona sputtered indignantly, blushing anew, and he chuckled, preempting any more coherent scolding by kissing her soundly. When he finally pulled back she was too dazed to recall why she had taken exception to his confessed misbehavior in the first place.

“Can you blame me? Knowing that you are right there, pleasuring yourself, a flimsy bit of canvas the only thing keeping us apart? The temptation is too great.” The liquid heat pooling in her groin had Solona fidgeting helplessly as he leaned forward to nuzzle her cheek, his voice dropping to a sultry purr. “What do you think of, my pretty witch, when you touch yourself?” He dragged his tongue lazily down her neck. “Do you imagine that it is my fingers between your legs? My tongue?"

Solona swallowed hard. The answer, of course, was a resounding yes, but her pride—what little that remained—refused to permit so effortless a victory. “That’s rather presumptuous of you,” she said, the whimper that escaped as he nipped sharply at the juncture of her neck and shoulder doing little for the air of cool composure she’d striven to project. “What makes you think you feature at all?”

“Excluding the position in which we currently find ourselves?” One finger found the gap in her robes, eliciting another whimper as it scorched a path from her clavicle, between her breasts, and down her stomach, stopping to trace a slow circle around her navel. “I am not blind, Solona, and I am certainly not naïve. I know what it means when a woman looks at me as you do.”

“I… I don’t—” she began weakly, only to be silenced by his lips again. When he released her, he held the edges of her robes in his grasp once more, but made no move to undress her. He caught her gaze, and Solona realized belatedly that he was waiting for permission. “You won’t like what you see,” she blurted.

“Perhaps you should let me be the judge of that.” There was something approaching tenderness in his expression, but Solona did not have time to marvel at the strangeness of such a thing because in the next instant her robes were being pushed from her shoulders and she was squeezing her eyes shut, unable to watch that expression turn to disappointment. If that meant she was a terrible coward, so be it.

The fabric slid down, pooling at the belt still slung around her hips as her top half was bared to his view. He said nothing, and with each passing second Solona’s heart sank a bit further.

He found her disgusting. She’d known he would. He may have thought she was cute when she was dressed, but naked…

It’s not as though I didn’t warn him, she thought sourly, more painfully aware than ever of her own imperfections. If only she were like the girls in the Circle who could eat whatever they wanted and never gain an ounce, or the other girls who just never seemed to be particularly hungry in the first place. Or, at the very least, the other girls who were just as heavy as she, but had large enough breasts that no one seemed to mind.

Solona felt her own breasts—her sad, disproportionately small breasts which hadn’t grown a bit since she was twelve, no matter how fervently she hoped and prayed for them to do so—tightening, though whether it was a result of the sudden chill or her mental scrutiny, she couldn’t say.

“Oh, Solona. You are even more beautiful than I thought you would be.”

Solona’s eyes flew open in surprise to find him regarding her quite strangely indeed. One of his hands skated down her ribs, leaving gooseflesh in its wake as it came to curl around her waist, giving her a little squeeze there.

“So soft and lush,” he said, his free hand trailing softly over her bare skin. “These cold Fereldan nights would not be nearly so inhospitable with you in my arms.” He ran his knuckles along the underside of a breast, which tightened further at the attention. Solona flushed.

“They’re too small,” she said, feeling the need to apologize.

“They are perfect,” he corrected, cupping them in his warm palms. “You see? Just the right size. And these,” he said, rubbing his thumbs over her nipples in a way that made her knees go wobbly, “these I am truly enamored with. I have never seen nipples quite so pink. How pretty they are.”

He gave them a gentle tweak and she nearly lost her balance altogether. Looking entirely too pleased with himself, he maneuvered her around to lean against the table before resuming his attack, teasing her with soft strokes and hard pinches until she was gasping for air and gripping the edge of the table for dear life. Why, in all the years she’d spent doing those exact things to herself, had it never felt like this before, the very lightest of touches sending throbs of desperate, aching need to her cunt?

She barely noticed the muscular thigh insinuating itself between her legs until he ground it against her—hard.

Pride, dignity, and other such inconveniences fell by the wayside as she rubbed herself against it, her oversensitive flesh craving the sweet friction it granted. He obliged her with firm pressure, and she was vaguely aware of making noises she wouldn’t own up to later as a hot coil of pleasure began tightening in her belly more quickly than it ever did when she was alone in her bed. One more nudge, one more hard tug on her nipples and she’d be done for. Almost. Oh, Maker, almost...

The hands and thigh withdrew suddenly, and Solona nearly screamed in frustration. She glared at Zevran, who smirked back before pulling her flush against him and claiming her mouth once more, which was entirely unfair because she wanted to stay cross, and it was all but impossible to do that when his delicious bare skin was pressed up against her and he was doing those things with his lips and teeth and tongue.

She conceded defeat, moaning softly into that unbelievably talented mouth and slipping her arms around him to tighten the embrace. It took her a few seconds longer than it really should have to notice that there was something hard pressing into her pelvis, and she must have let out a startled noise when she finally realized what it was, because she felt him smile against her lips.

“In case you still had your doubts,” he said, his voice rich with amusement as he captured a trembling hand and led it to the bulge in his trousers, “I can assure you that this does not happen unless I very much do like what I see.”

She supposed he had a point, there.

She gave the bulge an experimental caress, drawing a groan from his lips that somehow had her throbbing in anticipation. Zevran caught her hand again, this time depositing it pointedly on the laces of his trousers. A glance up at his face gave confirmation of the silent instructions and, blushing furiously, Solona set about her task. Her fingers felt awkward and clumsy as they worked the laces, and she suddenly, irrationally wondered if she ought to just flee—a notion she quickly abandoned as the evidence of his arousal sprang from confinement.

With only medical diagrams and the vague descriptions in romance novels to draw from, Solona wasn’t entirely sure what she’d expected a real penis to look like, but she was quickly deciding that she found this one quite attractive. She had no way of telling whether it was any larger or smaller than most, but to her untrained eye it certainly looked impressive enough, swollen and flushed and displayed all the more prominently for the swirling tattoos that flanked it in lieu of hair, drawing the eye inexorably toward it.

As if anyone would really have wanted to look away.

He chuckled, and she realized she’d been staring. She grinned sheepishly. “It’s lovely,” she said, drawing a fingertip along its length and discovering that it felt even better than it looked. She had never imagined that skin could be so soft, so hot. He made little noises of encouragement as she slid her thumb over the head, smearing the drop of fluid glistening at the tip.

It twitched suddenly, and she jerked her hand back in surprise. He laughed.

“Sometimes it has a mind of its own,” he said, calmly recapturing her hand and guiding her to wrap it around him. He showed her how to grip his cock so that the silky skin slipped back and forth over the rigid flesh beneath with each pump, and she delighted in the feel of it in her hand.

Once comfortable with the basic principle of the act, she began to vary her strokes—fast and slow, gentle and rough, trying to determine what he liked best. It didn’t take her long; Solona had always prided herself on being a quick study, and Zevran wasn’t remotely shy about expressing his approval when she did something right. He moaned when she handled him roughly, gasped when she squeezed tightly on the upstroke, and so she continued to do just that.

A few moments of her specially-tailored attentions had him panting as he thrust his hips into each stroke, and Solona blushed at the sudden realization that she dearly wanted to watch him come. Would he cry out? How would his face look? Would he shoot his seed all over her stomach? And why, in Andraste’s name, was the latter such a bizarrely appealing prospect at the moment?

Before she had the chance to learn the answer to any of those questions he pulled her hand away, swallowing her protest with a kiss as he guided her to sit on the edge of the table. He began hitching up the skirt of her robes.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked, squirming uneasily as he dropped to his knees before her. He grinned up at her as he inched the fabric slowly, teasingly up her thighs. Solona bit back a groan. Maker, how she loved and hated that grin.

“I believe it is your turn to show me something of yours, yes?” he said, hooking his fingers suggestively into the waistband of her smallclothes. Solona’s cheeks burned.

“I…” She swallowed hard and tried again. “I suppose that’s only fair.”

Later, she imagined, she would be terribly flattered by how quickly her smallclothes found their way onto the floor; at the moment, however, she was too busy trying to get a rein on the nerves and desire warring within her as his hands stroked along the outsides of her tightly-clenched thighs. She moaned pathetically as he dropped a kiss to one.

“Sweet Solona,” he murmured, massaging the flesh beneath his palms, “let me see. I promise you, I won’t bite. Well, not unless you want me to,” he amended, flashing a cheeky smirk. When after a moment she still did not comply, he ducked his head to press more soft kisses to her thighs. “You asked me what I want with you,” he said between kisses. “I want to taste you. I want to hear you call my name as I bring you to ecstasy, over and over, until you think you will die of it. I want to bury myself between these plump thighs and make love to you until neither of us has the strength to move any longer, and to rest on your soft belly after I have spent myself inside you.” He raised his eyes to catch her gaze. “But first, I want to see you.”

Solona shivered. “Yes, okay.”

Her thighs were pushed apart, Zevran settled between them as soon as the words left her mouth, and Solona lay back on the table and tried to remember to breathe, uncertain whether she was mortified or excited to be spread so lewdly for him. She had a feeling it was a bit of both. She heard him inhale deeply, and her cheeks grew even hotter.

“What a fine little cunny this is,” he said, brushing his fingers softly along her outer lips before gently parting them. He dragged a finger through her folds and Solona whimpered, embarrassed by the slick sounds of his ministrations. She could hear the satisfaction in his voice when he spoke again. “So wet for me already?”

Solona couldn’t quite muster a coherent response, which he must have realized, because he didn’t wait for one.

She gasped at the feel of a hot, wet tongue sliding up her cleft, letting out a particularly undignified squeak when it finished its journey with a flick against her clit. She squirmed helplessly, willing him to do it again.

“Delicious,” he purred. “Just as I thought you would be.”

She wasn’t sure whether to blush at the compliment or cry out of sheer frustration, but both soon proved irrelevant because that tongue was back, lapping at her as though she was the best thing he’d ever tasted. And she’d thought he was good at kissing! Those skills paled in comparison to what his mouth was doing to her now, eagerly licking and suckling the sensitive flesh, robbing her of any higher thought than Yes, more, please!

She let out another squeak as that tongue was plunged deep inside her, and then moaned, threading her fingers into his hair. Maker, she never touched herself there; she’d tried once or twice but, finding it slightly uncomfortable and an awkward angle at which to hold her wrist to boot, she’d abandoned it in favor of her clitoris, dipping her fingers into herself only when she wasn’t quite slick enough outside yet. But having a warm, wriggling tongue inside her? Even in her wildest dreams, she couldn’t have imagined how incredible it would feel!

She whined at the loss when the tongue withdrew, only to draw the sound into a sharp keen as it slid up to tease her neglected clit. The tingling heat came flooding back as his tongue flicked and circled, and she must have been closer to the edge than she realized because he captured the swollen bud between his lips and sucked and suddenly she was coming harder than she ever had, her cries echoing through the library.

Too sensitive now, she tried to squirm away, but he caught her hips, holding her firmly in place. “Again,” he said, delivering a feather-soft lick that made her shudder all over. “I know you can.”

Oh, and he did, didn’t he? That terrible, wonderful, absolute pervert!

She groaned, ceasing her struggle as he lavished her with gentle attentions until it was no longer too much but just right, and she wasn’t sure how he could tell when it was, but he could, licking her harder and faster until she shattered beneath his tongue a second time. Once more she tried to escape, and once more he held her fast, soothing her with barely-there strokes until she was ready again.

Once, twice, thrice more that clever tongue brought her to orgasm, leaving her a panting, quivering pile of useless limbs when he finally began to pull away.

“Why are you stopping?” she demanded breathlessly, propping herself up on her elbows with no small amount of difficulty. He laughed, bestowing one last kiss to her nether lips before wiping his mouth on her robes and rising to his feet.

“As flattered as I am by your appreciation of my talents, too much more attention to your little pearl may leave it sore in the morning,” he said. He bent to kiss her, slow and lingering rather than insistent, and she melted into it, blushing at the taste of herself on his lips.

He stood back up and began to redo the laces of his trousers. Panic lanced through her.

“What—why are you—?”

He quirked an eyebrow at her.

She cleared her throat and tried again. “I mean, I thought you wanted to… you know,” she finished lamely.

“I do very much wish to you know,” he said with a grin, “but I think it might be wise to adjourn to a bed before we do so.”

Fear knotted in her stomach. If they left this room, if he saw her in better lighting, he would change his mind. Deep in her gut, she knew it. This was her only chance. “No. Now.”

He cast a brief glance around the room, and it occurred to Solona that she had never seen Zevran look awkward before. Under different circumstances, she might have laughed. “To… speak truthfully, my dear, I had not anticipated quite this level of enthusiasm. I’m afraid I, ah, came a bit unprepared.”

It took her a second to catch his meaning, but her entire body sagged with relief when she did. “Grey Wardens are all but sterile, and besides, I’m a mage. We have ways of handling these things.”

“Ah… yes, but there is still the matter of—”

“Zevran Arainai, if you do not penetrate me this instant I will set your hair on fire.”

His eyebrows shot skyward. Slowly, a smile began to spread across his face. “Yes, ma’am.”

Solona’s heart sang in victory as he undid the laces, freeing that beautiful cock again. It had wilted slightly, and this time she needed no prompting to take it in her hand, leaning up to kiss him deeply while she coaxed it back to readiness.

When he was fully hard once more, he broke the kiss, gently pushing her to lie back on the table. Her heart fluttered madly as he spread her legs wider, her breath catching in her chest as she felt the very tip of him pressing against her. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the intrusion.

“Are you ready, Solona?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Tell me what you want.”

She cracked one eye open, finding a mischievous grin on his face. “You know quite well what I want,” she said peevishly. She shifted her hips to try and take him in, but he moved just far enough away to prevent her from succeeding. She scowled.

“I do, yes, but I would like to hear you say it,” he purred, complicating matters all the more by taking his cock in hand and tracing the tip in teasing circles around her entrance. “Ask me to make love to you.”

“I hardly think this falls under the mantle of ‘making love.’”

Zevran sighed. “Do you want to argue semantics, or do you want to get fucked?”

Solona blushed. “The latter, please.”

“Then perhaps—” he pressed forward slightly, just barely dipping into her “—you should humor me, yes?”

“OhholyMakerpleasemakelovetome,” she gasped, not even minding the victorious smirk on his face as he withdrew once more to line himself up properly.

“Remember to breathe, amora,” he said softly, and she didn’t fully understand why until he’d thrust inside her, sending a shock of white-hot pain through her lower body.

He stilled, allowing her time to stretch to accommodate him, but the pain showed no sign of subsiding. No, no, no, this wasn’t at all how it happened in the books; it only stung for a second, and then the heroine was perfectly fine. Romance novels had lied to her! She felt horribly betrayed.

Zevran shushed her, and she realized she’d been whimpering.

“Darling Solona,” he cooed, rubbing her stomach, “it won’t always hurt. Just this time and the first few hereafter, and then you will know nothing but pleasure from love-making.”

“Are you… are you trying to be comforting?” she asked. “You?” She couldn’t help it: she burst out laughing.

Above her, Zevran let out a groan that did not sound born entirely of exasperation. “And just why is that so funny?”

“I don’t think this was what Loghain had in mind when he hired you to impale me,” she managed, before dissolving into laughter again. He rolled his eyes, grinning nonetheless.

“You have a strange sense of humor,” he said. Very slowly, he pushed the rest of the way inside, stilling again once their hips met. “Are you alright?”

There was something in those lovely eyes that made her feel warm all over, and Solona shifted her hips a bit, discovering that the pain, though still sharp, was not as unbearable as it had been. “Yes, I think so. Mostly.”

“Let me know when I may begin to move. There’s no hurry; we have all night. I assure you, I have exemplary self-control,” he added, only slightly boastfully.

He stroked his hands up and down her sides, pausing now and then to worry a nipple between his fingers, and little by little Solona felt herself relax around him. Soon—so soon that she wondered if Zevran had been trained to do precisely that (and came to the conclusion that yes, there was a good chance he had been)—his soothing touches had chased the worst of the sting away.

She caught his gaze and gave him a brief nod.

She winced the first time he withdrew and thrust back in, and the second, but by the third or fourth she’d grown accustomed enough to the smaller twinges of pain that she was able to focus for the first time on how it actually felt to have a man inside her. “Odd” was the first word that came to mind, though not in a bad way. The sensation of being filled and stretched, of him moving deep within her was alien, but she could tell that it would be pleasant once she’d grown used to it.

“Oh, Solona,” he breathed. He gripped her hips, squeezing the doughy flesh there with a groan of approval that quickly dismissed any instinct she might have had to be ashamed of it. “Solona… amora… you feel so good.”

She blushed at the praise. Or was it because of the wet sounds of their coupling, and how very loudly they echoed in the empty library? Or the heat in those golden eyes as he slid his hands up and down her body, kneading at her breasts, her belly, her hips, her thighs; the way that thin sheen of sweat made his skin glisten in the lamplight as he rolled his hips against hers, or the soft murmurs of Antivan that she didn’t understand but could only assume were complimentary?

With so very much to blush about, would she ever be able to stop blushing?

His hips stuttered, and this time she recognized the word he uttered as a curse. “Apologies, my dear,” he said breathlessly, “but it appears I may have overestimated my powers of self-control. I’m afraid this will not be my finest performance. You feel so good, and I’ve wanted this too long. Oh, Solona…”

He swore again, sinking his fingers deeply into the flesh of her hips as the rhythm of his own became erratic, leaving her gasping at the force of his thrusts until, mere moments later, his entire body went rigid, his eyes shut tightly and his mouth open in a silent cry.

Solona's heart did a little somersault. Maker, but he was gorgeous when he came.

Zevran released her hips, bracing his hands on the table as he sagged above her, his breathing ragged. Solona wanted to kiss him again, but since doing so would require moving--which she did not want to do--she contented herself with revisiting the thick lines of black ink on his arms and chest.

He smiled. “You like them.”

“They're beautiful.” She traced the tattoo on his cheek, her heart fluttering strangely when he turned his head to kiss her palm. “They suit you,” she continued, largely to mask the fact that she had no idea what one was supposed to do after sex. Back in the Circle, this had always been the point at which the participants slunk back to their respective beds while everyone else politely pretended to be unaware of what they'd been up to. Out here in the real world, she was at a bit of a disadvantage.

“Pleased to hear it, amora,” he said. He straightened, leaving her feeling suddenly, disconcertingly empty as his softening cock slid out of her. He helped her to her feet, then gathered her into his arms for a soft kiss. “How do you feel? I... forgot myself a bit in the end. I did not hurt you?”

Solona shook her head. “No, I'm fine. I feel like I probably could use a wash, though,” she added sheepishly, feeling a fresh stab of betrayal at the uncomfortable wetness between her thighs. Scores of smutty books, and not a one had bothered to mention that you leaked afterward. She had a good mind to unload the whole of her collection on the next shopkeeper she met!

“It's a messy business,” Zevran said with a laugh. He set about getting his clothes back in order, so Solona followed suit. “Come. We will get you cleaned up.”

Solona took his hand and allowed him to lead her into the hall, comforted—if oddly disappointed—that post-coital etiquette outside the Circle was very much the same as it was inside.

At least, it had seemed that way until she turned toward the stairs.

“Where are you going?”

Confused, and with the growing suspicion that she had once again failed to recognize some important social cue, Solona replied, “To my room, of course.”

“Mine is closer,” he said, giving her hand a gentle tug in the opposite direction. Still puzzled, but trusting that Zevran was more of an authority on these matters than she, Solona followed him.

True to his claim, Zevran’s room was just around the corner. Though much smaller and simpler than what seemed customary for a nobleman to offer his guests, it was blissfully warm compared to the large, drafty tower room she’d been set up in. Solona wondered if he might agree to trade, but suspected this was not the most appropriate time to ask.

Zevran shed his clothes and began filling the wash basin with hot water from the pot in the hearth. Tamping down a resurgence of self-consciousness, Solona began removing her robes. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t already seen her mostly naked, she reminded herself as she worked the laces. If he hadn’t fled from the sight of her in the library, he wasn’t particularly likely to do it now, even if this room was rather more well-lit.

Quite well-lit, in fact. Indeed... curiously so, Solona realized, counting dozens of flickering candles scattered about, casting the room in a hazy golden glow. There was a censer in the corner releasing the sweet, spicy aroma of frankincense, and, when Solona turned to place her folded robes atop the bed, a decanter of brandy and a pair of empty glasses on the nightstand, accompanied by what looked to be a bottle of massage oil.

“Andraste’s flaming sword, Zevran, did you plan this?”

“Would you think me a scoundrel if I said yes?”

“Yes,” Solona laughed. “But… I wouldn’t mind.”

“Then I am a fortunate man, indeed,” Zevran said cheerfully, carrying the steaming basin to where Solona stood at the foot of the bed. “I confess, I did have a rather more elaborate seduction in mind. But you made a very persuasive argument to the contrary,” he added.

Then, before Solona had a moment to think, he’d knelt at her feet. She watched, dumbstruck, as he plucked a sponge from the basin and began gently cleaning their mess from her skin.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked once words returned to her.

“You said you wished to bathe,” he answered matter-of-factly.

Solona shook her head. “No, I mean why are you doing all of this? Why are you being so nice to me?”

Zevran grinned up at her. “Should I be cruel to the women I take to bed?”

“Haven't you killed a number of them?”

“A fair point,” he chuckled. He paused to rinse the sponge, then returned silently to his task. It was not until Solona had accepted that she would be receiving no answer that he finally spoke again, his face a mask of impassivity. “When you found me in the thrall of the Sloth demon, you wept for me.”

Solona sucked in a breath. It had been nearly two months since they liberated the Circle, and the image of him being stretched on the rack by the Crows was still all too fresh in her mind. “Zevran, that was awful. Anyone would have--”

“Anyone did not. You did.”

Solona turned the words over in her head. “So... you’re doing this because we’re friends?”

“As you say, I have had worse reasons.”

He sounded sad, and Solona regretted forcing him to dredge up the memory. Should she apologize? Would that be weird? Certainly, it wouldn’t change anything. She could be as sorry as she liked, and his training would have been no less barbaric.

Reminding herself that words were seldom her ally in such situations, she reached out to stroke his hair. He leaned into her touch like a cat, and she considered herself forgiven.

Silence fell between them, but it was a comfortable one, and Solona thanked the Maker that she had not ruined the evening. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to indulge in the sensation of the warm sponge travelling up and down her legs as she carded her fingers through Zevran’s hair. She’d never been bathed before. It was pleasant.

Perhaps a bit too pleasant, she discovered, unable to contain a soft moan as he drew the sponge over her sex. She looked down, mortified, but if the smirk was any indication, Zevran was not offended in the slightest.

“Excited again, amora?” he teased, giving the over-sensitive flesh a more deliberate caress.

“So are you,” she pointed out, glancing at the half-hard cock between his legs. She felt herself flush, lust coursing like wildfire through her veins. “Can we do it again? No, it’s too late for that. Unless it’s not?”

He laughed. “You are insatiable, Solona! I knew you would be. One can always tell with women.”

Solona frowned. “How?”

“Ah, a master never reveals his secrets,” Zevran said, rising to his feet. He took her hand, kissing it softly. “Come.”

He reclined atop the blankets, and Solona was struck anew by how beautiful he was. His smooth brown skin glowed in the candlelight, his pale hair shimmering like moonbeams where it lay across the pillows. His bright eyes locked with hers, gleaming with promise as he gave that perfect cock a languid stroke.

How was this not the form Desire demons took?

Solona scrambled into his open arms and he rolled her onto her back, rising on his elbow beside her. He ran his knuckles along her cheek. “More comfortable than the table, yes?” he said with a grin.

“I stand by my decision.”

Zevran laughed and ducked his head to kiss her. Soft and slow, it was not quite the sort of kiss Solona was expecting, and it took a moment’s recalibration before she was able to return it with any measure of success. But, in what looked to be the theme of the evening, Zevran didn’t seem to mind, meeting her clumsy attempts at participation with patience and good humor.

After what felt like ages he deepened the kiss, and she moaned, eagerly welcoming his tongue with her own. His free hand roamed her body, light and relaxing at first, but growing more heated in time with their kiss. She sighed, pressing herself into his palm as he kneaded a breast, and she felt him smile against her lips.

He broke the kiss, trailing his lips down her neck. He pressed soft kisses and gentle bites along her throat, her collar, her breasts. He caught a nipple in his mouth and she gasped, arching off the bed as throbs of aching need shot to her clit.

Too soon, he released her nipple with a wet pop, his eyes glinting wickedly as he met her gaze. “Do you like that, amora?”

“Is this really the time for rhetorical questions?”

Zevran rolled his eyes, but didn’t look especially bothered. “Ah, woman, can you not humor me?” He laved his tongue over the abandoned nipple, giving the other a gentle pinch. “It pleases me to hear the words.”

An unexpected flood of arousal rushed to Solona’s core. “Yes,” she said, her voice just above a whisper as heat rose in her cheeks.

“Yes?” he echoed, planting lazy kisses over her breasts. “Yes to what, amora? Yes, you can humor me? Yes, you like being suckled?” He gave the nipple another hard suck and she barely contained a squeal.

“Yes,” she repeated, sinking trembling fingers into his hair. He chuckled, but had mercy, suckling the opposite nipple until she squirmed, desperate for something, anything between her legs.

“Still so shy, my dear,” he purred, relenting in his assault to kiss his way down her ribs. “Hmm. Do you like this?”

“Yes.”

“And this?” he asked, dipping his tongue into her navel.

“Y-yes.”

He drew lower, peppering her belly with kisses until he reached her pubic mound. “And when I kiss your cunny--you like that, too?”

“Maker, yes,” Solona said, parting her legs in anticipation as his kisses fell lower still. Her toes curled as he swirled his tongue over her clit--it was a bit sore from before--but he did not remain there long before climbing back up her body to capture her lips in a deep, dizzying kiss.

“And when I make love to you,” he said breathlessly, his hard cock twitching where it was pinned between their bellies, “do you like that?”

Solona swallowed. “Yes,” she said, and felt a tremor run up the length of his body.

“Shall I make love to you now, amora?”

“Yes,” Solona breathed. “Yes,” she repeated, winding her legs around his hips as he nestled between her thighs, dragging the head of his cock through her sodden folds. "Yes,” she whimpered, digging her nails into his back as he drove himself in to the hilt. There was still pain, but it was dull, a mere annoyance accompanying the wet slide of his cock inside her, and she sighed, tightening her legs around him.

It was nice, she decided, having him so close during sex. It felt cozy. Intimate. For a moment she thought she understood why he insisted on calling it “making love,” but she banished the foolish notion from her mind.

This was sex. Sex between people who cared for each other as friends, perhaps, but nothing more than that. It wouldn’t do to go letting herself get carried away on flights of fancy when, come morning, things between them would be exactly the same as they had been yesterday.

Zevran shifted the angle of his hips slightly, and that niggling thread of disappointment vanished as he thrust against something deep inside that made her eyes roll back. She heard him chuckle, but couldn’t find it within her to be annoyed when he picked up his pace, hitting that spot on every stroke.

He was speaking again--her name, and “amora,” and strains of Antivan that she remembered from earlier but still could not hope to decipher. He said a phrase she she didn’t recognize, his thrusts coming to a halt. He licked his lips, then repeated so that she could understand. “My name, amora. Say it.”

Solona flushed. Feeling a bit silly, she said, “Zevran.”

His whole body shuddered. “Solona,” he sighed, stealing a searing kiss as he began to move again with more vigor than before.

“Zevran,” she said again, emboldened by this passionate response. She raked her nails lightly down his chest, feeling him shiver beneath her touch. “Zevran,” she moaned as his cock thrust against that particular spot, over and over, until she felt herself beginning to unravel. “Zevran, Zevran, Zevran…”

He opened his mouth, but if he said anything Solona didn’t hear it because she was coming, and he followed right on her heels, burying himself as deep as he could while her body clenched around him as though it never wished to let go.

He collapsed on top of her, and she held him close, briefly entertaining the irrational fancy that she would be perfectly content to stay that way forever.

“You’re all sweaty,” she said finally, combing her fingers through his damp hair.

Zevran laughed tiredly. “Yes, that happens,” he said, pressing soft kisses into her neck. He rose up to lay another kiss on her lips, then rolled off of her. “Come,” he said, sliding under the covers. “You will catch your death of cold.”

Solona’s hand had nearly reached her robes before she realized that he meant for her to join him in bed. She looked toward the door. Then back at him.

They were finished, though, weren’t they? Late as it was, they were unlikely to do it again. But, once more, she conceded that he knew things about the world outside the Circle that she didn’t, and crawled beneath the covers.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to lay her head upon his chest.

“And...what’s the purpose of this?”

“Do you not find it pleasurable?” he asked, kissing her hair.

It was rather comfortable being cocooned in his arms under the warm blankets, feeling his heart slow to a steady rhythm beneath her cheek. So comfortable that her eyelids were quickly growing heavy. “I suppose it is.”

“Then, what other purpose is required?” He squeezed her. “Rest, amora. It’s late.”

Solona closed her eyes. “Just for a few minutes.”

“A few minutes,” he agreed.

Solona awoke to the pale grey light of pre-dawn filtering through the curtains. Keeping her eyes shut tightly, she turned away from the window, just as she’d done every morning since they began their stay at Castle Redcliffe.

Except that this morning she turned right instead of left. And she was naked.

She gasped, bolting upright to find an equally naked Antivan Crow lying next to her.

Maker’s balls, she’d had sex with Zevran.

Twice.

Careful not to make a sound, Solona climbed out of bed as gingerly as she could, looking back once both feet were on the ground to make sure she hadn’t woken Zevran. Confident that he was still asleep, she tiptoed over to retrieve her clothes. Her robes had been kicked onto the floor at some point in the night, and she said a silent prayer of thanks that they’d managed not to fall into the washbasin as she shrugged them on. Unlikely as she was to meet anyone in the hall at this hour, sopping wet robes would have been difficult to explain.

She toed on her shoes, casting her eyes about the room for her smallclothes. Where had they--?

Oh, Maker, they were still in the library. Saint Solona had left her knickers in the library. Hysterical laughter bubbled up in her chest and she clasped a hand over her mouth to contain it.

Right. She would finish dressing, find her smallclothes, then slip into her room before anyone was the wiser. She could do this, she assured herself. No problem. She cast another glance toward the bed to make sure Zevran was still asleep.

She was met with golden eyes tracking her every move.

Shit. Of course he was a light sleeper. Shit. Shit, shit, shit…

“Um. Good morning?”

“Good morning,” Zevran said, making no move to leave the bed. “You seem in quite a hurry.”

“I, er. No,” Solona said. “Yes. What I mean is, thank you so much for last night. It was--you’re very good at sex, and… thank you, for--ah--for that. But I should--I should really go. People will be waking up soon, and--” she shrugged, unable to locate any more words.

Zevran looked thoughtful. “I believe I understand.”

"Thank you.”

“You are a Grey Warden, I am a Crow. I can see how you might not wish such a dalliance to become public knowledge.”

Solona’s stomach dropped. “What?”

“It is perfectly sound judgement,” Zevran continued. “You are attempting to court the favor of the Fereldan nobility. Sharing your bed with an assassin is perhaps not the best look.”

“Me? No--you! I thought that you wouldn’t--because I’m--” she gestured helplessly at herself. “I mean, last night was one thing, but in the cold light of morning…”

“Ah. I see,” Zevran said, crossing the bed to where she stood. Before Solona could act, he grasped her partially-laced robes and pulled them open, looking her up and down. “Yes. Yes, this will be a problem.”

Solona’s heart sank. “It will?”

“Now that I have had my hands on you, I fear I shall not be able to keep them off.”

Solona opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

Zevran laughed, resting his forehead against hers. “Come back to bed, amora.”

He did not have to ask her twice.

#dragon age fic #da fic #zevran #Zevran x Amell #smut

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beatrice-otter · 6 years ago

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Fic: Finishing The Race

My other Not Prime Time treat! B5 was one of my first fandoms, and it will always have a special place in my heart. I love that show. I had never considered Susan and Stephen together,* either platonically or romantically, but as I thought about it the obvious hook would be his work on the Underground Railroad for telepaths escaping the PsiCorps, and Susan's hatred and fear of the PsiCorps for what they did to her mother and other telepaths who won't toe the line. Then I watched the episode about the underground railroad, and a) Susan doesn't find out it's Stephen behind it and b) the plotholes. Why the heck does Stephen tell Sheridan ANYTHING? He wasn't about to find out on his own, and Stephen doesn't need his help with anything, and with something like that each new person in the know is a possible way for the PsiCops to scan you and find something! It's a huge breach of security for no gain. *Stephen and Marcus, oh yes. Come to think of it, that would be a great poly triad: Marcus/Susan/Stephen. Someone should totally write that. I headcanon Marcus as ace romantic whereas both Susan and Stephen are very sexual people, and Marcus and Stephen had chemistry but would need a buffer, and Marcus loves Susan but she finds him a bit too romantic and much for her so she and Marcus would need a buffer too, and if you balanced it right it could be really good. Maybe a poly V? Title: Finishing the Race Author: Beatrice_otter Fandom: Babylon 5 Characters: Susan Ivanova, Stephen Franklin Written for: deservixen for Not Prime Time 2018 AN: Episode coda for A Race Through Dark Places. At AO3.

It was a dangerous thing to speculate about, Susan knew. What she didn't know, she couldn't betray. She shouldn't even be thinking about it. All it would take was one telepath scanning her—and she certainly didn't trust Bester or one of his type not to, and B5 was busy and crucial enough that something would happen sooner or later to draw a PsiCop's notice. Again.

But. Bester had left alone, empty-handed. He had not arrested any rogue teeps, nor had anyone in custody. Smuggling people out wasn't his style; if he'd captured anyone, he would have trumpeted it to high heaven and used them as an example. And if he hadn't found anyone, he would have torn the station apart until there was no place anyone could have hidden. He would have been everywhere, like a cockroach, until he found his quarry or proved they weren't here.

She'd been expecting his presence on the station to be a lot more unpleasant. She had braced for it. Then he had left. Just … gone. And while everyone else had relaxed, Susan had known something was wrong. Had he found the rogue teeps and killed them?

Then Talia had come to her quarters, wanting to talk. Cagey, exhausted, admitting the PsiCorps was every bit as bad as Susan had ever said … but not willing to give any details about what had happened. And not grieving anything but her faith in the Corps.

The next day, Susan checked the station log. Overnight, there had been eleven 'burials in space,' dead bodies ejected from the station towards Epsilon III, to crash on the planet. Space burials used less energy (and were therefore cheaper) than cremation, used for lurkers and those who had a taboo against cremation but couldn't afford to ship a body back to their homeworld. The corpses were logged as rogue teeps killed while resisting arrest, some with names and some without.

But whoever had recorded the burials hadn't taken into account the traffic patterns around B5. Space burials were supposed to be timed to the gaps between ships, so that there would be no chance of them hitting anything. Those eleven burials had not been timed to fit into the gaps between ships … and Susan had received no complaints from irate captains about hits or near-misses with large debris. Therefore, there probably hadn't been any actual burials. The records had been altered.

Michael was right. Whoever was running the Underground Railroad on Babylon 5, it was a member of the command staff. But not one who'd ever taken a shift in C&C, or they would have known how to alter the logs better.

Stephen was seeing his last patient of the day, and he was tired. A full shift at Medlab, followed by a couple of hours in the clinic … it took a lot out of you. Particularly when, in those two hours in the clinic, you saw so damn many people whose conditions would have been perfectly treatable if they'd had better access to prevention or earlier treatment.

Still. It was good work, meaningful work, that made a difference, and he'd never give it up. He'd only been partially truthful when he told Captain Sheridan that he'd started the clinic as a cover for the Underground Railroad.

That was one of the handy things about being known as a truthful man with a high moral code and a simple life. People generally believed what you told them, even when you were confessing to multiple felonies and repeated fraud. It made concealing and misleading … much easier.

"Alright," Stephen told his patient, a Human woman named Harya, as he stripped off his gloves, "I don't have any more samples of your prescription or any of the generics you can tolerate, so I'm afraid there's not much I can do for you. I'm sorry. You know the symptoms better than I do, but I don't think you're in immediate danger of a bad episode."

"Naw, it's fine," Harya said, looking down at her hands, face drawn taut in the anticipation of pain. "The samples from last time made a real difference. I just … I got a job, you know? On Beta Durani, and they have universal healthcare. It's just getting there—jumps make it worse, you know? But thanks anyway."

"I'm sorry," Stephen said, helplessly. "I hope it all works out for you."

"Yeah, me too," she said with a sigh, slipping off the stool and grabbing her jacket. "Thanks anyway."

Stephen packed up his kit as she walked out, tossing things into it with more force than necessary. This was what he hated, more than anything else: to see people suffering, and know it was unnecessary. People called him an idealist, but he wasn't. He was a realist. He dealt with this mess every day. He saw the costs, economic and not. And he'd studied the logistical challenges involved. Lack of healthcare was one problem Earth and its colonies could fix. If they chose to. But the colonies were, by and large, too poor, and EarthGov didn't care about anyone not on Earth itself.

Someone cleared a throat, and Stephen looked up quickly. People generally looked out for him, in Downbelow, because they knew they might need him. But even for him, it wasn't a good place to let your guard too far down.

"Commander Ivanova," he said, surprised. "What brings you here to my clinic? Need something for you back, after sleeping on the couch for a couple of days? Captain Sheridan told me how he fixed the problem." Stephen shook his head. He didn't know whether to shake his head at the foolishness of thinking he could get EarthGov to back down about money, or be amused at how Sheridan had maneuvered around them.

"No, I'm fine," Ivanova said. She pulled out a white-noise generator and turned it on so no one could overhear them without getting close enough to be noticed. "You should have had Captain Sheridan alter the records."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Stephen said, mind racing. Never mind how she'd found out, what was he going to do? He couldn't tell her anything; she'd never give them up willingly, but she wouldn't be given that choice. Stephen himself was only a peripheral part of the command staff. He could always come up with something that needed him in MedLab and avoid being in the same room with a PsiCop, as he had in the last week. Ivanova was the second-in-command; like Sheridan, she would have no choice but to deal one-on-one with Bester and his ilk. If they ever suspected anything, Susan would have no defenses. Anything she knew would be theirs for the taking the second they wanted it.

"You fooled Bester, somehow," Ivanova said. "Made him think he'd killed the rogue teeps. Talia was probably involved in that, somehow. Then you modified the station records to show the bodies were disposed of. Except you didn't time the launches right—you'd have had hits or near misses with at least two ships, last night, if you'd really launched them when the timestamps say. I fixed that, by the way. You're welcome."

Stephen closed his eyes and sighed. There was always something. "Well, next time I'll know better," he said. "Thank you. I really appreciate it." Not that anyone was likely to look; or, at least, if anyone ever looked that closely, they were probably screwed anyway. Still, you never knew; it was why he'd bothered to dummy up the body disposal records, even after Bester had left.

Ivanova shook her head and went on. "What I don't understand is, why you would involve Captain Sheridan, and then not have him handle the records. He's handled space burials before, he wouldn't have made that mistake."

"He didn't want to get too involved with the details," Stephen said. "He was mad enough to find out it was going on under his nose, I didn't want to push it."

"Fair enough," Ivanova said. "But why involve him at all? One more person for Bester to scan and find out from."

"Oh, he avoided Bester before he left," Stephen said.

"Yeah, I know," Ivanova said. "Stuck me with dealing with it all. But still. Bester might find out he was wrong. With our luck, he'll be back for something completely different and pick it up by accident during a surface scan."

"Hopefully not," Stephen said. "But you know how the Captain is. When he gets suspicious of something, he just doesn't let it go. Garibaldi, too—they're very alike, that way. Now that the PsiCorps knows we've used Babylon 5 as a waypoint, we can't use it anymore. Better to be up front that it was here, but won't be any longer. That way he doesn't waste time on it, and doesn't need to feel obligated to keep digging."

That was a lie, of course; they'd have to be more careful, but there were only so many possible routes to get people out of EarthGov controlled space. And even fewer of them had people, doctor or not, willing to help rogue teeps. A route the PsiCorps believed they'd shut down? With the local commercial teep on their side? They'd have to be more cautious, but Babylon 5 would continue to host escaping telepaths for the foreseeable future.

No, the reason Stephen had brought him in was so that if it didn't work, or if Bester came back and scanned Sheridan, he would know that Sheridan believed route was shut down. It might not make any difference, but who knew? Even if Bester didn't fall for it, it might by them time.

Ivanova gave him a hard look. She probably suspected that he wasn't telling the truth, or at least not the whole truth. He gave her the most open look he could manage. There were advantages to being, in general, an open book. When you really needed to conceal something, most people overlooked the fact that you might have anything to conceal.

"Why didn't you come to me for help?" she said at last.

"Help yesterday with the records, or help months ago running the Railroad?" Stephen asked.

"Either."

He shook his head. "Commander, you have always been very vocal about your hatred of the Corps. You would have been the first suspect—I'd bet good money Bester scanned you without permission when he first arrived, to see if you knew anything. Involving you would have been far too risky."

Ivanova scowled. "So, you're saying that if I wanted to help, I should have hid my opinions about the Corps."

"Oh, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying," Stephen said. "There are a lot of ways to help. My hope is that the Corps will be changed, or possibly dissolved entirely, and that's not going to happen without outside pressure. Even if it doesn't change soon, they need to be held accountable, kept on their toes, and you're in an excellent position to do that. But the people loudly pointing out PsiCorp's faults for all the world to see can't be the same ones who are smuggling rogue teeps out from under their nose."

"I guess not," Ivanova said distantly. She shook her head. "Well. You did something very good here, Doctor Franklin," she said as she turned off the white noise generator. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Stephen said.

Susan shook her head. Stephen Franklin, of all people, running the Underground Railroad. He was romantic, idealistic, and independent enough to do it, to put his life and career on the line to help people escape injustice. She'd just thought he was an open book, a good natured person who saw the world through rose-tinted glasses. If anyone had asked her, a week ago, if the good doctor could have managed the subterfuge and deception to pull anything like this off, she would have laughed in their face. And yet, there he was.

There were hidden depths, there. She should get to know him better.

#fanfiction #fanfic #Babylon 5 #susan ivanova #stephen franklin

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