#i temporarily panicked about the cost but whats done is done | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ragingpancake · 3 years ago

Text

I Will Try (To Fix You) - Part 2

It’s ten days before Carson deems Rodney “well enough” to return to his quarters. To date, this has been the longest infirmary stay that Rodney’s ever had and truthfully, he should probably stay a bit longer. His kidneys still aren’t functioning as well as they should, which means Carson’s been closely monitoring his water intake and urine output and a whole host of other things that John knows Rodney is embarrassed about. He’s also not entirely steady on his feet, courtesy of the muscle spams that wrack his calves and his thighs, bad enough sometimes to nearly bring him to tears. It’s ten days before John, Carson and Elizabeth have a very real, very difficult conversation about what a prolonged stay in the infirmary will likely do Rodney mentally, left with nothing really to occupy his time except, well, time to think about just how close he’d come to death. Carson is reluctant to release him; they haven’t yet gotten him back to solid foods and of course his kidney function is still a concern, but John knows Rodney, knows that he needs to be anywhere but here and he argues his case: Rodney can come stay in his quarters. His team is grounded for the foreseeable future, courtesy of John who is unwilling to go off-world without his entire team and while he’s offered to temporarily reassign Teyla and Ronon to Lorne, they share his line of thinking. Rodney can come stay with John, but he has his whole team who’ll be watching out for him, who will bring him for twice daily check ins, if needed, who will monitor any time spent in the lab, who just want Rodney to have some semblance of normalcy during his recovery. It must be an impassioned speech, because by the time he’s done, Elizabeth nods her consent and John finds for the first time in ten days, it’s a little easier to breath.

--- Rodney, predictably, complains about the arrangement. He’s not keen on having a babysitter and that hurts John’s stunted feelings more than he’d ever admit out loud. But when Carson makes it clear that the only option is an extended stay in the infirmary, he relents pretty easily and all that’s left is to prepare John’s quarters. Easy peasy. Right? Wrong. It turns out that the room John’s claimed for himself isn’t quite meant for two people. It’s small and while it’s fine for just him, he knows that it’s going to be too cramped, too claustrophobic and so he spends the eleventh day scouting out some of the larger quarters near the East Pier with Teyla, pretending to understand when she makes suggestions based on where the light from the rising sun falls and which room has the best view of the ocean, which she believes will aid in Rodney’s recovery. He’s never been much into new age bullshit that seems to be pretty common across two galaxies, but he’s willing to shove a couple of crystals up his own ass if it means getting Rodney better.

He enlists Ronon, Lorne and a couple of marines to help move their things. John leaves his own quarters to Wallace, Gregory and Barnes despite how uncomfortable the thought of them seeing his own personal effects makes him, and he takes Rodney’s room with Ronon and Lorne. Rodney, for his part, has a lot of stuff. It takes the better part of the afternoon to get everything moved over, including Rodney’s deceptively heavy prescription mattress, his four laptops and the whiteboard that he’d swiped from the labs within the first week of their arrival. John’s stuff, save for his own bed, mostly fits in a couple bags. By the time they’re finished, he’s tired, shoulders and back aching, reminding him just how fucking old he’s getting, but still, he trudges down to the infirmary, plastering a smile on his face for Rodney as he steps in through the paneled doors. “Hey buddy,” he greets. “Got us all set up in some new digs. Wait until you see the tub in this one,” he says, nodding as Carson comes over, Rodney’s chart in hand. “He all good to go, Doc?” “I suppose he’ll have to be, now won’t he?” He asks and there’s a scowl there that John cheerfully ignores. “I expect him back here at 10 and 2, Colonel. A minute late for either appointment and he’s back here, d’you understand?” “10 and 2, just like a steering wheel. Got it, doc. How about the food situation?” “Yeah, what he said,” Rodney frowns and John knows from previous experience just how miserable a clear liquid diet can be. “I’m alright with him startin’ on solids, but take it easy,” Carson warns. “Nothin’ too heavy,” and Rodney waves him off, but despite his lackadaisical nature, John really is taking this seriously, committing everything to memory. “Got it. We good?” Carson pauses for a moment before he sighs. “Aye. But not a moment late, Colonel!” He warns as Marie and Simpson come, pushing a wheelchair that Rodney tries to vehemently refuse. John settles a hand on his shoulder gently. “Hey, hey. C’mon. Easy. It’s a pretty long walk to the pier, alright? Let’s not push it too much on your first day.” “Traitor,” Rodney mutters under his breath and John actually does smile because it feels a little like it used to before those God damned Carneans. John steadies the wheelchair while Marie and Simpson maneuver Rodney into it and after what feels like forever, they’re finally on their way. “You did get my laptops, right?” “Yes, Rodney.” “And what about the Athosian soaps from the bathroom? Those were made specially for me by Gita and, and, and the medicinal properties-- “We got ‘em.” “My mattress?” “Of course.” Rodney harrumphs like maybe he’s expecting John to have forgotten something, as if John would ever. “What about—” “Your favorite red pen that you use to mark up all those damn physics journals? Yep. Got that too. We grabbed everything, buddy. And if there’s somethin’ you need that we don’t have, just say the word and we’ll make it happen.” Rodney falls strangely quiet at that. --- It’s easy to live with Rodney. Lorne had very nearly pissed himself from laughter when John said so after the first few days and honestly, John took a little offense to that on Rodney’s behalf. Sure, he’s messy and he’s loud and the longer he’s out, the more of his biting sarcasm is returning, but John’s all for it, especially when he considers the alternative. (And he does consider it, frequently, usually in the dead of night when he wakes up from nightmares of vomit and grey skin, of an antidote recovered too late). But honestly, save for the fact that John now has to deal with Rodney’s dirty clothes strewn across the room and the stupid whiteboard that takes up the space that John’s surf board should be occupying, not much has changed at all, a testament to just how much time the two of them had spent together even before this. John follows Carson’s instructions to a T, and okay, maybe that’s a little different too because John’s always been the one to avoid the infirmary at all costs when it comes to his own health and

well-being, but he’s not taking a chance with Rodney’s. He takes him to his appointments and at nights, when the muscle spasms seem to be the worst, John sits with him on that stupidly comfortable bed, kneading the tight muscles in his legs as he tries to distract Rodney with shitty 80s movies and random banter about anything and everything that he thinks will goad Rodney into a tirade that’ll take his mind off of the pain. He even lets Rodney have four hours a day in the labs, split into two hour segments with an hour break in between. Normalcy. That’s the goal here and Rodney’s always at his best when he’s in his element, berating scientists and defying all laws of physics. That’s where Rodney is when everything goes to hell. --- It’s been twenty days since the Carneans. Ten days of the two of them cohabitating, ten days of Rodney slowly working his way back to normal. He’s been subsisting entirely of power bars and MREs, which, while not entirely healthy has been cleared by Carson if only for the fact that they provide sustenance without being too taxing on Rodney’s still delicate system and John’s just thinking about whether or not he can try to convince Rodney to try something a little more substantial from the mess later that evening when the call comes in over the radio. “Zelenka to Colonel Sheppard, please respond.” He sounds harried and John closes the latest mission report from Lorne’s team, already on his feet and moving when he taps his comm. “Sheppard here, go ahead Doc.” “I need you in Science Lab 3 please. There is a… situation.” “What do you mean by situation, Radek?” But when Radek keys up his comm again, John can hear the panicked wheezing in the background and he picks it up to a swift jog. “I believe Rodney is having a panic attack,” he says. “I have tried to bring him around but nothing is working and I--.” “I’m on my way. Sheppard out.” He meets Ronon in the corridor and he doesn’t even have to say a word before the Satedan is altering his own course, following after John. They can hear it before they even open the door. Rodney’s on the verge of hyperventilating, the sound of his ragged breaths interspersed with pained moans and Ronon is quick to clear the lab of well meaning scientists who are gaping at the scene while Radek tries to shield Rodney from view as much as possible. “Hey, hey,” John says soothingly, trying to keep his voice calm despite the way his heart is beating against his ribcage. “I’m here, buddy. Rodney, look at me. Hey, hey,” and he reaches out, finger under Rodney’s chin as he tips his head up, wild blue eyes meeting hazel. John wants to take Rodney’s hand, but his arms are wrapped around his middle, clutching his stomach so tightly and John glances over at the toppled plate on the floor, shards of glass now mixed with what looks like not-meatloaf. “Talk to me, Doc,” John calls over his shoulder at Zelenka. “What the hell happened?” “He was out of power bars, but hungry, so Miko thought perhaps he might be enticed to eat by something from the mess, knowing that this,” he gestures, “was Rodney’s favorite. He managed a couple of bites and everything was fine until… until it was not.” “Cramps,” Rodney rasps, reaching out to grip John’s wrist painfully. “Cramps. Poison, I—I can’t--.” “Get Carson down here,” John snarls, voice softening as he turns back to Rodney. “Hey. Listen to me, buddy. Carson told us this could happen, remember? The cramps. That’s why we started light. You’re okay though. I promise, Rodney. You’re okay, I’m right here and I need you to breathe.” It takes a bit of manhandling but John manages to get Rodney up enough that he can slide behind the other, drawing Rodney back against his chest, taking a couple of deep breaths. “C’mon, buddy. Breathe with me. You’re alright. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Rodney.” That’s how Carson finds them a few moments later, Rodney trembling against the other, but thankfully no longer hyperventilating. “He’s alright,” John says, glancing up at Beckett. “Panic attack when

he tried to eat and cramped up.” “I thought—I thought--.” John pets through Rodney’s hair gently. “I know. You thought it happened again, but it didn’t, right? We’re gonna go down to the infirmary with Carson though and let him check you over so you can see for yourself.” “Easy, lad,” Carson says as Ronon comes over to help Rodney to his feet with more care than he’s shown anyone else, guiding him over to the gurney before he tugs John to his feet as well. “John—” Rodney rasps, the name catching his throat as the cramps hit again and he curls on his side, swallowing hard against the panic beginning to rise again. “I’m here,” John reminds him again, moving to take Rodney’s hand. “You’re alright, I promise.” And he is. He will be. John will be sure of that. --- The panic attacks don’t last long. He still cramps painfully when he eats, but the team is always with him at meal time to help him through it, John always, alwayseating a third of his food before switching his tray with Rodney’s for him to finish it, confident that there’s no poison. The effects of what had been done to him still linger, still present often and painfully, and sometimes, John doesn’t think what he’s doing is enough. That he should be doing more, that he should’ve done more back on that fucking planet to have saved Rodney from this entire ordeal. But Rodney’s getting better. John can see that when he goes longer and longer without a muscle spasm, or the first time he pees on his own and calls John in to see how clear it is, proof that his kidneys are finally starting to function normally. “You know,” Rodney says one night after they’ve pushed their beds close enough together that if they each scoot over to the edge, their shoulders are touching, “it probably won’t be too much longer until we can go back to our own quarters.” There’s an uncomfortable knot that twists itself up in John’s stomach at that but he swallows against the lump in his throat and says casually, “oh yeah? That’ll be cool. I guess.” “Yeah,” Rodney says and then he falls silent for a moment, as if waiting for something. Apparently, his impatience has returned full force because he doesn’t even give it a half a second before he’s speaking again. “I mean, unless we just… don’t?” Okay. That’s unexpected. “I just… this has been incredibly difficult, Colonel. Uh, John,” he corrects, “and you’ve… I know that this is probably because of some weird, misplaced guilt you’re harboring, because that’s how you are, Lieutenant Colonel Martyr, but… this has been okay… hasn’t it?” “Rodney, I--.” “I know I’m difficult. I’m messy and I’ll be going back to keeping weird hours soon enough and, and, and I know I can be annoying, but you’ve put up with that remarkably well and so I just thought--.” “I don’t want to go back to being alone,” John blurts out and he can feel the tension leaving Rodney’s body beside him. “Good. Me neither.” They fall into a comfortable silence then for a moment, the only sounds being their quiet breathing and the sound of the ocean waves through the open window. (Teyla was definitely right about picking this room.) “It’s not guilt,” John says after a moment. “I mean, not that I don’t feel guilty, because I should’ve never--.” He clears his throat and stops himself before he goes down that road. “You’re… I dunno. You’re McKay. Rodney. And I… when I found you that day, I thought you were dead,” and he can feel Rodney flinch at that, but he needs to get this out, he thinks. “I thought you’d died and I just… realized that I would’ve gone out of my fucking mind if you had, Rodney. Like, legitimately crazy because you’re… You’re you and I’m--. I’m yours. However you want me. If that means we forget this conversation ever happened and go back to how it was before all of this, I’m okay with that, but I just… I had to tell you because I came really fucking close to never getting another chance to.” Rodney is quiet, doesn’t say anything but after a moment, John can feel the other’s hand brush against his own before he

squeezes two of John’s fingers. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say at one time in all the time we’ve known each other.” And John laugh out loud at that, an actual laugh, and as he does, he feels that knot inside of him loosen just a bit. “Which is to say,” Rodney continues, “that I… would very much like to notforget this happened. I… suppose that I’m yours too. Maybe I always have been.” John doesn’t know where they’ll go from here. He’s under no delusions that this will be easy, any of it, but when has it ever been? All that matters though is that they have time now to work through it, to figure it out together. Maybe they’ll fix each other.

#mcshep #hurt/comfort #hurt rodney mckay #whumped rodney mcay #john sheppard #rodney mckay #sga #stargate atlantis #fandom: sga #angst #poisoning #panic attack

27 notes · View notes

daraanna · 4 years ago

Text

Baby steps

He was standing over a crib made of a basket and a pillow. It's been 3 days since his daughter appeared in the world. A little human being no bigger than his forearm, with black hair and eyes, and a broad forehead. After more than twenty years of life, Sasuke thought that he knew everything about love. He remembered the love that he have for his parents and how, through pain, it turned into hate. At that time, he thought that there was no escape from this state. After Itachi's death, he completely lost himself in the darkest depths of his soul. However, he was saved by his new family. He found a new bond, similar to a parental relationship with his sensei, a brotherly relationship with Naruto, but while travelling with Sakura, he discovered a completely new kind of love, combining trust, respect and friendship with passions that he had never paid attention to before. This love was built on a deep mutual understanding, after spending a year together they understood each other without words, both in combat and in their daily journeys. Despite this, standing over his daughter's crib, he knew that, if at all possible, he loved her even more. He was beginning to understand why Itachi had sacrificed everything to protect him. He knew he would do the same for her. Sarada was completely defenceless dependent on the care of her parents. He was sure that Sakura would be able to provide her with everything she needed. But as for himself ... For the first time in his life, he didn't know what to do. Being a genius and a stubborn person, he easily found solutions to problems. If something required more work from him, using the method of trial and error, he always made his way to achieve the goal. However, this was not the method he could apply in this case. There is no place for experiments. In the end he was even afraid to touch her without the supervision of his wife. He was afraid that he would hurt her as he did his new family-team 7.

So all he did, was stand and watch her tiny chest rise and fall with each breath she take. This calm rhythm was disturbed as the infant made a quick motion with its tiny limbs, then opened its eyes and let out a loud scream. Before he had time to react, Sakura had already picked up the little one and soon she started to feed her. Sasuke stood still in place watching his family. He felt useless. Pink-haired, despite the fact that she still did not regain her full strength after giving birth, was able to look after their baby. Even Karin changed Sarada’s diaper several times when his wife was not around.

It wasn't long before the green irises caught his gaze.

"Anata?" She asked, looking at him knowing that something is bothering him. He knew from experience that there was little point in denial.

He was silent for a moment, and then he let out a sigh.

“I don't have it ...” he replied, but seeing Sakura's confused face he added ”Parental instinct ... Father instinct? I don't know what to do, I can't take care of her like you do...”

He admitted embarrassed, and his wife's reaction definitely not helped, she start laughing. It was the last thing he expected, and he felt annoyed.

“Sasuke-kun” pink-haired started as soon as she managed to calm down ”You really think that my behaviour is due to the maternal instinct?”

He didn’t say a thing.

“Anata, I'm a medical ninja. I was literally trained to take care of infants, so did Karin...” she replied looking him straight in the eyes. Even though he saw the sincerity in her gaze, her words did not completely convince him.

"To be honest, I also panicked at the beginning," she sighed seeing his reaction. It's natural, most parents don't know how to care for a newborn baby at first, theory and practice are two different things, she finished smiling and pointing to him on the place on the bed next to her. When he sat down she put Sarada between them.

“Babies are not as delicate as they look ... Believe me, you won't hurt her if you are careful and remember a few rules. It may be harder with one hand but it is not impossible ...”

Hearing that, Sasuka felt relieved. Even though he wasn't sure of his own abilities, he definitely trusted his wife. By listening carefully and observing (also with the Sharingan), he learned to care for their child.

.................................................. ....

Within two weeks, the moment came when he was left alone to take care of their child. Sakura and Karin travelled to the nearest city to buy vaccines for Sarada. This journey with a child would take too long. He also couldn’t go, because there was the necessary knowledge and medic licence to buy them. The first 3 hours passed calmly. The milk bottles his wife left for them should be enough if he didn't, they have formula as well. Sarada cooperated by sleeping most of the time. The problem started as usual, with a scream. Sasuke quickly found himself at the crib, it took a little longer to find the reason for her crying. Her diaper had to be changed. It was an activity that the head of the Uchiha family had never done before. At least not alone. The lack of one hand effectively prevented him from mastering this art so far, and he did not want to use a susano, whose bony hands were definitely not suitable for caring for a child. The baby's crying continued, and he couldn’t wait for Sakura's return. As carefully as he could, he put her on the changing table and unbuttoned the diaper. The contents were frighteningly large, it was hard to imagine that such a small creature could produce so much of... The mission of changing a diaper was not easy. It took over 20 minutes, cost him three packets of wipes, two clean diaper and a litter of water. Nevertheless, he was proud of the end result. Sarada on the other hand was not impressed, she already fell asleep.

.....................................................

Three months passed before they made the decision to return to Konoha. Travelling with an infant turned out to be even more difficult than travelling with a pregnant woman. They both agreed that sleeping outside should be kept to a minimum. However, it was not easy to determine the route home so that you could find accommodation at the inn every day. In addition, it extended their path almost three times. When they got here looking for help, he had not expected that they would be able to stay here for so long. However, Karin convinced them that she did not mind their presence. They occupied only one room in the huge empty facility which she had to take care of. In addition, Uzumaki had a clear weakness for their daughter. Sarada took his place as an object of her adoration. Not that he complained about it. The little one also liked to play with Karin. Especially she liked her glasses and hair. However, as Uchiha she did not like excessive affection.

Now he was sitting and watching the former Taka member walk down the corridor, cradling baby to her cheek.

"You're so cute, you have such a clear and tiny chakra, uhhhh you're so sweet I could eat you!" But despite the fact that his daughter had a much greater tolerance to cuddles than he did. It was her patience that had its limits as well. Which have now been exceeded. The baby moved its limbs vigorously before a loud roar came out of her small lungs.

Karin was devastated.

Sasuke just sighed before he went to save his firstborn. As soon as he took her in his arm, the crying ceased. Sarada looked at him with those large black eyes curiously. Her little body, still agitated by the hiccups after crying, slowly relaxed as one of her fists clung to his shirt.

“Hn. She doesn't like being squishing” he replied.

Uzumaki blushed slightly ashamed.

At this point, Sakura ran into the room.

"What happened?" She asked, looking at their daughter.

"She get little irritated" he replied. Hearing her mother's voice, little Uchiha smiled, only to burst out laughing moments later when the pink-haired kissed her forehead. However, as soon as he tried to hand Sarada over to her, the little one made a dissatisfied sound, clenching even tighter the fist she was holding on to him. Her attention turned to him once again. Despite the fact that she undoubtedly inherited her facial features from Sakura, the face with which she looked at him was a pout typical of the Uchiha. He couldn't help but smile. Seeing this, baby giggled again.

“Uh, the three of you are disgustingly cute, “Uzumaki sighed, reminding me of her presence.

Sakura only replied with a laugh “I just finished packing tomorrow we can go ...”

..........................................

The farewell turned out to be much longer than he expected. During the three mouths they spent together, Sakura and Karin became friends and exchanged thousands of studies related to medical ninjutsu, as well as managed to grow a new plant with a combination of two popular species used in the production of chakra tablets. Of course, they left the exchange of contact data for the last moment. At some point they became too emotional when Uzumaki burst into tears and then his wife joined her. He was starting to lose patience. He looked at Sarada who was sleeping in the sling that acted as her baby carrier, didn’t care at all about what was happening around.

He sighed looking at the red glass frames held by the infant. As soon as they reach the city, they have to buy her some real toys... Although of all the things that were in the hideout, the glasses seemed the least harmless. Not to mention the fact that taking them from an infant was almost impossible. He could only be grateful that Karin decided to give up her spare pair of glasses. As well as everything else she had done for his family in those three months.

“You also take care of yourself and, most of all, look after them” she added at the end, when she finished saying goodbye to his wife.

“Hn” replied correcting the position of the child in his arms ”Thank you ... For everything you have done for us” he added, making Uzumaki temporarily stunned.

“Uh, I owe my life to Sakura-chan after all. It's nothing special that I helped you ... Well, it doesn't matter, you have to go, otherwise you won't reach the inn before dark. Bye” she replied, returning to the hideout.

"Bye” replied pink-haired waved goodbye “Ready to go?" she asked smiling at him and the sleeping baby.

“Hn.”

........................................................................................................

Oops, I did it again I made Sasuke too OOC, got lost in the fanfic Oh baby, baby Oops, you think that I can write Maybe It will be better next time I'm not that talented XD

#sasusakusara #sarada uchiha #PAPASUKE #Sasuke Uchiha #sasusaku #Sakura Haruno #mamakura #karin uzumaki #blank period

118 notes · View notes

curiousconch · 4 years ago

Text

Scarlet Letters

Chapter 2 of Ricochet (An Open Heart AU)

Catch up here: Prologue | Chapter 1

Chapter Synopsis: Grappling with the aftermath of her breakup with Rafael, Heather is faced by yet another threat, forcing her out of her apartment. Bryce and her other friends come to her aide.

Pairings: Rafael Aveiro x MC (Dr. Heather Song) | Bryce Lahela x MC (Dr. Heather Song)

Words: 2.4k+ | Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller, Romance

Rating/Warnings: Mature (16+) / language, hints of violence

Author’s Notes: Majority of the characters are owned by Pixelberry, except the main character Heather Song. Please let me know if you want me to tag you in the next chapters. Comments and suggestions are certainly very welcome! Thank you for reading!

Heather can't remember how she covered the distance to her building, nor how she arrived in front of her apartment door. Grateful for the silence that embraced her as she got inside, she went directly to her room. Once the door shut closed, she finally let go of the flood that brimmed from her eyes. Crouching down on the carpeted floor, in that dark rainy night, she sobbed like never before.

What she can only remember is how hopeful she was tonight before it all ended.

She planned the surprise for him on the first day she landed in Maryland, coming to the realization that she was waging an unnecessary war against him and his efforts to comfort her. It never occurred to her that she will be too late.

She squinted at the picture of the bodies entangled in Rafael's living room couch. She can still vividly see it, along with the sound of the breaking bottle of wine she bought at the airport.

She heard rumors. That's all she thought it was - baseless whispers of people seeing Rafael with someone else. Even her friends Sienna and Elijah tried to warn her of what was happening, but she was so deep in denial that she didn't dare to listen. She trusted him that much.

Her sweet and charming Raf. Her savior. Her love. She never wanted to be so wrong as badly as she did at that moment.

The man whom she thought she exactly needed and wanted was the same person who wreaked havoc in her soul.

She wanted to forgive him, in her heart she wanted to give him another chance. But her brain screamed against it, her past life bursting in all shades of red inside her mind.

The portraits of her teenage years flashed before her eyes one by one, like horrific creatures escaping from her personal Pandora's box:

That fateful day she came home early because she was sick during her junior year in high school, the sound of voices in the master bedroom.

Her dad and a strange woman enamored.

The bags and boxes containing her father's belongings. The divorce and its fallout.

Her mom working night and day to put her through school, leaving her alone most of the time.

Cancer. Losing her mom because of it. The reason why she wanted to be a doctor.

It cost her half of her life to submerge those experiences in the trenches of her adolescence. But now, all of it was bursting over the surface, like large waves in the sea of her present. She felt like drowning.

Helpless, she wailed, wanting nothing but the indescribable hurt to fade away. But it didn't, instead, it stayed, for how long she have no idea.

With her ears ringing and her whole body sore, she fell into a troubled slumber. It wasn't until the next morning that she saw the scarlet letters painted on her walls.

***

Jordan huffed as he jogged away from the sidewalk into the alley nearby. His black hoodie cast a shadow dark enough to hide his face.

He discarded the plastic bags in the dumpster, a soft thump sounded as the spray paint canisters rattled against the bottom.

He found his way to his parked car nearby and jumped in, removing his leather gloves and shoving it into the compartment. He briefly looked at his watch - 10:36pm. He roughly had about 24 minutes before the meeting.

Backing up from the alley, he drove out to the main street and made sure he wasn't being followed. He took the next turn to the highway, flipping on his radio, humming along the music.

When he arrived at his destination, he found a nearly-empty parking lot. He found a solitary Lexus near the back fence and parked his car several meters away. He took a discreet path towards the black car and hopped inside, pulling the hood off his head.

"It's done," he spoke to a man in a suit at the back seat, and showed a picture of red spray paint on blue walls. "You'll hear it on the news tomorrow."

The man beside him silently nodded, sneering at the image. He withdrew a thick manila envelope from his side and gave it to Jordan.

"As requested,"

Jordan peeked into the contents, revealing a thick wad of cash and a glint of black metal.

Contented, he stepped out of the vehicle and got back to his own. Turning on the ignition, he thought to himself - Phase 1 check. Time for phase 2.

***

The sound of scrambling footsteps overlapped with the loud and panicked shrieks within the walls of Heather's bedroom.

Jackie came in first, ready to curse the abomination of Heather's screams as she came in to the apartment, after pulling an all-nighter. She stopped in her tracks darting at the direction where the other's frightened gaze was fixated.

After hearing Jackie's panicked shouts, Sienna and Elijah followed suit into Heather's bedroom. Upon entering, all their eyes shot across the pale blue wallpaper, a scene right out of a horror movie, coming to life in front of them.

LEAVE BOSTON NOW, OR ELSE.

The characters were sloppily written in red spray paint, as if someone spelled it in haste.

Sienna was the first one to rush to Heather's side, sliding an arm around her in an attempt to comfort her. Elijah got out of the room to call 911, muffling Jackie as she cursed with a mouth of sailor.

Within 15 minutes, the police arrived.

Elijah also sent a text to their group chat, alerting Aurora and the rest of their friends as to what just transpired.

A flurry of replies came in right after. Bryce's was among those text messages.

His face crumpled with anxiety as he sat staring blankly at his phone. He was in his office, his oak desk was filled with case files, all of which he recently dug out from the records department to assist on the reopening of the investigation.

This recent attempt to terrorize his star witness made him speechless. The person behind this is getting bold, he observed.

He decided to abandon his attempt to work on a Saturday, unable to quell his worries. He stood up, got his leather briefcase and made his way to the parking lot.

He drove as fast as he could, plying through traffic effortlessly, navigating the familiar route using muscle memory. He ran into their apartment building, and practically raced to the closing elevator to bring him to the penthouse.

When the familiar door came into view open, he let himself in, his eyes darting around.

Gone was the serenity of the brunches he shared with the group. The scene he stepped into was just chaos.

A barrage of yellow markers were strewn in the apartment, while several people were trying to collect any traces of evidence left behind by the perp. Police tape marked one doorway, a few voices discussing possible theories as to how the events unfolded.

In the middle of it was a frail figure wrapped in a thick gray blanket, and he instantly recognized who it was. "Hey," he managed to say coolly as he strode towards her.

Heather looked up at the towering figure who just crossed the living room. She offered a weak smile, trying to hide the turbulent emotions inside her.

Bryce could see right through her though, but he just smiled back, understanding that she wasn't quite ready to open up yet. As he reached out to touch her hand, he was interrupted by the sound of Rafael's booming voice as he stormed into the room.

"I came as I heard, are you alright?" Heather's boyfriend said as he rushed in to kneel down in front of her, looking very much concerned.

"What are you doing here?" The hatred in Heather's quiet voice made Bryce's eyebrows shoot up.

He saw Rafael immediately retreat, an apologetic look in his face, as if he forgot who he was. He saw Raf's instantaneous shift, then went to leave them to talk to the police at the now cordoned room.

He gently nudged Heather, a wordless question in his face. She shook her head and frowned, peeking at her roommates and the CSI team moving about the apartment.

Clearly, she didn't want to discuss it with strangers around, Bryce figured. He nodded, his eyes softening as he realized that there was more events to uncover beyond what he can see.

After an hour, the deputy in charge motioned for the group to gather in the living room. Once they were all there, he began to explain that Heather's room will be a designated crime scene indefinitely.

"I strongly suggest staying somewhere else, we don't know the and exact nature of this, at least not yet. Choose a place that offers the the most security, but preferably somewhere nearby."

With this, Bryce saw Rafael about to raise his hand. Seeing the panic in Heather's face, he quickly blocked the other man's attempt.

"Keiki's in boarding school, so I have a spare bedroom. You can stay there temporarily," he winked at Heather, assuring her that he got her back.

"Why should she stay with you? Rafael's an FBI agent. She should stay with him," Jackie contradicted as she stood behind Heather, unable to see her discomfort.

"But that's what exactly the attacker expects. We have to get one step ahead of them." Bryce countered.

"But Rafael's her -"

"Enough." One stern look from Heather was all it took to shut Jackie up, her other roommates visibly confused. She shot them each a pleading glance, making all eyes shift to Rafael's tall figure across the room. He immediately hunched his shoulders as if in concession.

"I'm staying with Bryce temporarily. He's right, we have to be at least a step ahead if I want to stay alive." She mouthed a thank you to Bryce, then turned back to her other friends. "Sienna, can I please borrow a few of your clothes? I can't touch anything in my room, except the suitcase I brought in from my trip."

"Of course." Sienna left the room while the others still shared a puzzled look between Heather and Rafael.

Agreeing to her new housing arrangements, the deputy nodded and excused himself, stepping out the apartment. He beckoned the rest of his team out before leaving behind his card, asking them to give him a call if they remember anything new. Taking that as his queue to leave, Rafael left after, looking deflated.

When the group was all that's left in the penthouse, Heather told them about the breakup, clearing the awkwardness from the room. She told them everything - from catching an early flight to surprise Rafael, to her ending up being the one surprised, witnessing her boyfriend's betrayal.

"That son-ov-a-bitch!" Jackie cussed, Elijah only shook his head. Bryce's reaction was a mixture of speechlessness and confusion.

"I-I know I've told you about my suspicions, but I had no idea Rafael had it in him to prove them right," a meek Sienna told Heather, her firm hand rubbing against her arm.

"Well however you look at it, he fucked up. So bad." Bryce whistled, his mouth stiff with the effort to wrestle with the truth bomb Heather just dropped.

"For once in this life, I agree with you, meathead," Jackie nodded to his direction, her eyes softening as she turned to comfort Heather in her own way.

They each tried to console her, but Heather insisted she was fine. Bryce saw her defensive body language, so he made it his mission to provide Heather an escape route.

"All right people, don't you have sleep to get to? Gotta keep you all well-rested. Can't have you bitten off your asses by Dr. Ramsey, am I right?" Apparently, the mention of the infamous grumpy attending was more than enough to make them back off.

He grabbed the duffel bag Sienna produced and grabbed her black suitcase along. Heather removed the thick blanket around her and replaced it with her brown trench coat hanging on the couch.

After what seemed like endless hugging and assuring each of them that she'll be fine, she followed Bryce into the elevator to the garage.

They loaded the bags onto his silver Camry's trunk in silence, and got into the car. Heather instantly sighed in relief as she settled into the passenger's seat. Bryce navigated his way out of the basement and into the street, his amber eyes alternately darting from the road to his friend.

"Well, you look like shit."

"Thanks?" she smiled back at him, unable to stifle a chuckle.

"No problem. You know I'm not one to give false commentary." He grinned, before finally focusing in his driving.

It wasn't long before they arrived in Bryce's sleek condominium complex. She knew the building was newly-built and probably the most secure residence in the city money can afford. Bryce called it Boston's Fort Knox, so when he offered his place, it seemed to be the best solution.

It was initially a bachelor's pad, with enough space for a kitchen, a living area with floor to ceiling windows, and two bedrooms. But over the past few months, it transformed into something more homey, a place where the Lahela siblings can call their own.

It wasn't Heather's first time there. She spent many of her day offs there, all just to help him with his relationship with Keiki, Bryce's teenage sister. She also had the most hand in how it looks inside now.

As they stepped into the condo, Bryce couldn't help but notice how Heather's looked around. The sight of her in his place brought back fond memories.

After a few moments, he urged her to move forward, and led her to the bedroom across the hall.

He unlocked the door and let her in, a mixture of yellow, blue and white interiors welcomed her. It was a homage to the sun, sea and sand of their native state Hawaii.

"Do you want anything? A drink? Something to eat? Boxing gloves to punch someone with?" Bryce leaned on the room's doorway, watching her as she settled in.

As if on queue, her stomach rumbled, and he can't help but laugh.

"Do you still have a pack of ramyun here? I'll come out to cook once I don't look like the piece of shit you just called me." Heather rolled her eyes at him, grabbing a towel from the nearby dresser.

"Nah, I'll whip it up myself you just make yourself presentable to eat my majestic korean noodles." He bowed to her like a butler would before setting course back to the kitchen.

She snickered as she stepped into the shower. Leave it to Bryce Lahela to lighten up the mood.

Tags - @choicesficwriterscreations @eleanorbloom @ramsey-lahela

#open heart #open heart 2 #rafael aveiro #rafael aveiro x mc #bryce lahela #choices fanfiction #choices #open heart fanfiction #choices fic writers creations #bryce lahela x mc #bryce x mc #rafael x mc

9 notes · View notes

crystal-soba · 4 years ago

Text

Dbd x reader

Saving you from the hook

. Dwight:

You were against the trapper, being slower than usual to make sure you hadn't stepped on a trap. He was obviously mad at you, never being able to find you and resetting his traps. It was like a game of cat and mouse but the cat doesn't hesitate and kills brutal killer with a score to settle with you.

He hasn't caught up to you yet, you were working on a gen with only two more to go. Dwight was on the team this round, you watched him run around the map distracting the killer when necessary. You admired him, his leadership skills, his careing nature towards his friends, and his gorgeous eyes and face... You were distracted by just thinking about him. You didn't see the wires fizz out and explode startling you.

You got up and started to run as you hear your heart rate spike.he was a couple of feet behind you on your trail. You looked back every now and again seeing his terrifying mask and weapon. You looked back to see where he was, steeping into a trap and screaming.

Tears filled your eyes and you tried to get out of your death, of course he got to you first. Picking you up and carrying you into the killer shack. You knew he was taking you to the basement, only one more gen to be done . If it gave your team enough time to get the last one so be it.

The sharp hook pierced through your shoulder, blood dropped down to the ground and tears mixed with blood. You heard running and heavy breathing getting closer to you. When you looked up you saw Dwight. He got you off the hook and slightly panicked as the beating heart got louder.

He grabbed your hand and jumped into a locker pulling you in with him. The locker was cramped and being so close to him made you blush. The trapper looked around, opening the two lockers at the start of the basement. Your breath quickend as a panic attack crept in. You looked at Dwight and mouthed "I'm scared." He nodded knowing that you were about to probably panic. Trying to think of a way to calm you down was hard when he was pressed against you.

He looked into your eyes and went for it. Tears pouring down your face while he put his moth on yours. He wanted to stay like this forever. But when the trapper gave up and left you had a need for air. When you exited you looked at him blushing, he grabbed your hand again and you both ran for the exit gate.

You both sat next to the fire smiling at each other while holding hands. You stared into the fire feeling peaceful for once in this hell hole. As long as he was here you knew you'd be safe.

Jake:

You both made a pretty good team together. You both became natural friends by having similar problems at home. You stayed next to him when you both at trials, protecting each other at all costs.

The other survivors thought you two were a couple, often teasing you and asking when you would be married. You both blushed any time the brought it up. You blushed because you wanted it to be true, you couldn't tell if Jake was blushing out of embarrassment or not.

You were in a trial together, you could sense that by the sound of hooks hitting the ground. You tried to find him while doing gens around the map. The killer was the nurse. Her screeching filling the silence. It was tough fighting her she could be a cross the map within seconds it seemed.

You had already been hooked before not wanting a repeat of another hook you delt with the pain for now. You prayed jake would magically appear next to you to help you continued to do a gen.

She was getting close to you. She was patrolling this gen heavily knowing someone was around doing it. You never really knew when she was going to show up. As your gen popped you tried to hid behind a tree. She teleported behind you. Making your heart jump as you ran, she was playing with you as she teleported back and forth Making it almost impossible to do anything.

She teleported infront of you hitting you and causing you to fall. She cared you to a nearby hook and watched as you screamed and cried. She teleported away and you waited to be rescued. You heard running and looked up to see Jake even though you were in extreme pain you smiled a bit as he carried you to a safe spot.

He tried to patch you up silently steeling glances at your beautiful eyes. You did your best to suppress the pain and to stop crying. When he was done you still sat there looking at each other. He hugged you with you still in his lap. "It's okay you did good. I don't think she's near us." As soon as he said that you huffed out a few breaths of pain. He stood up and lifted you up helping you walk. You both walked to a gen and worked on it together. "I'm lucky you came to rescue me. For a second I thought I was a goner." You continued to work on the gen. "Y/n. As long as your around I promise I will never let you die on one of those hooks....I can't watch the person I love die....." You stopped working on the gen with stunned silence as he nervously looked at you. You "I- Jake do you actually like me?" He nodded, blushing again. "Well then let's make it this round. I'm not leaving your side.

At the camp you leaned on his shoulder sleeping peacefully. The other survivors giving you both a look. "You did good jake. I take it she liked you too." He nodded as you both cuddled together.

Ace:

Ace was an interesting person... At first you stayed away from him not liking the whole gambling bit. But after a few trials together you both warmed up to each other.

This round was not looking good, the doctor was such a terrifying and ruthless killer. It was almost impossible to do anything with the feeling of madness creep slowly into you.

The gens were going pretty slow hearing the laughing of the mad man sent chills down you spine. You had been hooked once scared of your third you were hiding in a corner trying to snap out of the lingering madness. You couldn't tell if the laughing or running was real anymore.

He was really however. He nocked you down and picked to up, carrying you to the hook. You cried and wheezed while fighting off the entity. You heard quiet footsteps coming for you. You got picked off the hook by Ace, you both limped together holding on to each other as support. You both limped to a hiding spot.

He did his best to heal you like you healed him. You still felt insane not knowing if the heart beat was real or not. You had to figure out a way to snap out of insanity. Holding onto Ace for comfort. He whispered to you to calm you down, "It's okay. Im here. Your safe." He took of his hat and sunglasses putting them on you. His scents were so familiar, he gave his lucky items to you? You looked up feeling safe and secure. "Thank you." You tried to steady your breath. He shrugged "No probablem y/n." He was so soft and warm. You leaned to him not knowing what you were doing. He smiles gently tilting your head up and gave you a short sweet kiss. You let out a relaxed sigh and got up with Ace ready to face the doctor together.

You two weren't at the campfire with the others infact, you two were playing together in the woods.

David:

David tend to get into a lot of trouble. In the realm and in his life. Constantly getting into bar fights and brawls. He told you stories of his fights and how he always won match. You smiled when he did this, just liking the sound of his voice.

You were in a match against the Shape. The stalker watched you from afar, you were his obsession this match. You were paranoid of him sneaking behind you and grabbing you.

He had killed one survivor already, with another hooked earlier. You were doing a gen waiting for something to go wrong. He was silent as a mouse, not a single heart beat warned you about him coming. When he grabbed you you let out a surprised yelp. Struggling as hard as you could.

When he hooked you he did it slowly adding more pain to Your suffering. When david came to your rescue, the shape was making his way to you both. He turned around and unhooked you when he looked back at the shape he aimed the flashlight at his eyes temporarily blinding him as you ran away.

He tore off a sleeve of hi shirt, wrapping it around your wounds. You smiled at him and he smirked at you. When the shape rounded the corner grabbing you David spring up. It was like slow motion as David got up and decked Micheal in the face and grabbed you.

You grinned at him while running to the gate. You had your head in his lap resting peacefully as David told the group how he saved you. When he finished you gave him a peck on the cheek as he put on a grin.

Tapp:

You were still on a hook. You had been there for a while now, fighting off the entitey slowly losing hope. Was no one coming for you? Will they just let you die here? Alone and scared. You at least tried to help the group, you did two gens by yourself at least.

You thought about giving up and letting the entitey take you away. You were tired and weak. The clown came by every now and then to see if anyone was going to grab you. He felt kinda bad that nobody was getting you yet. But oh well, he'd shrugged and walked away. Tears fell down your face, so this is it huh? Shows what the other survivors car about you.

Just as you decided you were going to let yourself die, Tapp came by. He scooped you up, put you on his shoulder and started running. Your face was emotionless as he set you down. "Why did no one come for me earlier." You said monotone. "I don't know y/n. I'm sorry you had to sit there for so long." You shrugged, "oh well. It's over now so that's that." He looked concerned as he helped you. "Y/n I want you to know that I care about you, Im sorry I wasn't there sooner but I'm here now. And I'm not leaving until you are safe." He put a hand on your shoulder as you let a few years fall. You nodded and got up running together. As you you powered the gate you could se the clown coming towards you two. You started panicking. If he caught you you were done for. Tapp stepped behind you to protect you as you were almost done. The gate ring as the door opened, you turned around to see the clown had stabbed Tapp. You ran into his side almost nocking him down. As he lost his balance you grabbed Tapps hand and ran out.

At the fire you both looked at each other on opposite sides telling bad jokes and laughing together.

Adam:

You two were pretty close together, most of the time talking about his and your experiences at teaching and helping you figure out where you were and what you are supposed to be doing.

You had first arrived in the 'fog' about four days ago, you were still learning what to do. Adam was currently teaching you how to do 'generators' the things you had to do to get out. You relied on him to survive, you followed him, listened to him, watched him. You pretty much did everything together, you liked it.

He told you when to hide and when to run, some of the killers and their weaknesses. Aperently you were going against the 'spirit'. You didn't know she could phase walk, something like turning invisible and not being able to see her. This made you nervous, looking around for any signs of her.

The gen both of you were working on 'popped' before you were about to leave you felt a sharp blade stab into you right shoulder, you let out a shocked scream. You tossed and turned while she carried you to the hook. You've only been hooked once while in a trial, you remember the extreme pain you felt. You cried as you felt the same pain and taste of blood.

You dangled there waiting for someone to rescue you. She was standing there waiting for a survivor to come and save you. Nobody can come because it would be risky to take you off the hook infront of her. You saw adam hiding in a bush, he picked up a rock and threw it causing her to check out the noise.

He ran to you, lifting you off and ran with you. You cried as he patched you up. "Why am I here?.. what did I do to deserve this?" "I don't know y/n. It's okay, we'll find a way out eventually..I promise we can figure it out together. He wrapped his trench coat around you, your tears were wiped away by Adam his hands still lingered on your face. The feeling of your soft skin was comforting to him. He smiled at you as you have him one as well. you both leaned into each other slowly, your lips meet for the first time. Eventually getting more and more heated untill you had to break it up.

You both worked on a gen together, confidence motivating you. As you both opened the gate with rushes of anxiety as you both ran out of the trial. At the campfire you were laying next to him while he read to you.

Jeffrey:

When he first arrived in the fog you were the only one around, he was scared, understandable though. You tried to teach him the ropes, of how to do gens and avoid the killer. He trusted you, followed your every move, a few trials later and you two were best friends.

He eventually started to talk to you, you both had small conversations. He told you his favorite hobby, Painting. In every round you secretly grabbed flower petals and colored plants, your plan was to make him different colors of paint. You tore of a chunk of bark from a tree kind of making a canvas.

You were both working on a gen together, the killer was legion more specifically Julie. She hated your guts. You made good friends with Frank, her boyfriend. You thought you and Frank were just good friends, sure he spared you and watched you outside of the trials but you both were just good friends.

You saw her running towards you jeff didn't she as about you stab him but you blocked her, taking a hit for him. He ran to a hiding spot as Julie laughed. She was going to put you through hell, she didn't care about the other survivors she was going to make you pay.

She draged you to the basement while you squirmed, the kicked you down the stairs making you hit you head on a locker. She laughed while she carved your skin with the knife, spelling words that discriminated you. Hamilton is what you felt as she carved the s word all over your body, you didn't have the strength to get up or fight back. She finally got up and wiped your blood off her knife still laughing. She put you on the hook in the basement, you didn't scream you just sat there maybe death would relive your pain.

You didn't expect anyone would be able to save you this time, Jeff came running to save you. When he saw what she had done to you he got pissed. He knew you wouldn't be able to walk, and he didn't have time to heal you. He carried you in his arms to the exit, running and praying you'd be okay.

When you woke up at the fire you were tired and weak. You noticed you were being cradled by Jeff he smiled down at you happy you were okay. You tried sitting up so you could give him a small peck, he knew what you were doing and helped you by leaning down and putting his mouth on yours. "Thank you for saving me." He whispered to you "any time, love you." You both stayed together for the rest of the night.

I hope that was good. Still improving

#reader insert #scenarios #oneshots

8 notes · View notes

alonelytinywriter · 4 years ago

Text

Into The Deep

Anonymous said to alonelytinywriter:

One word: Mermaids.

Excuse me, but if you think I’m gonna drop everything I was doing and start a whole series in my head about mermaids now then, well, you’re right. Because I did. Now I have an entire AU in my head where all the BNHA character are mermaids ~ mermen!! ~ and I just can’t continue until it happens. I just - their so dynamic and I can see so clearly what each character’s tail would look like and I’m so hyped that someone asked for mermaids. THANK YOU!!!!!!! Also, I really, really hope no one minds but the OC in this is a woman of color. I’m not, but I see it so rarely and it bothers me because I feel like there’s not enough put out there for anyone of a different skin complexion than - ‘white’ - and I realized that there doesn’t really seem to be a lot to read and relate to so, I don’t know, I just want to get some out there that they can also enjoy because I want everyone to feel included. It was honestly a bunch of fun writing this OC and I adore the way she turned out. I just hope it doesn’t offend anyone, ha ha ahhh, I know I’m gonna get hate mail because I’m not a girl of color myself but oh well. Come at me if you don’t like it. Don’t forget to hit that heart if you enjoy and read the warnings on every story because it changes! They’re there for a reason!

Warnings: NDE, Kidnapping, Bakugou - so ya know the drill, it’s Bakugou, but not that bad really - Language, WOC, all in all - this one is pretty safe.

Mermaid! No Quirk! Bakugou / Original Female Character

Playlist - EvERythiNG. All of it. Shuffle. Pandora. Done.

Name: Jacquie Keita ~ Birthday: August 14th ~ Age: 22 ~ Hair Color: Black (Dyed white) ~ Eye Color: Golden Brown ~ Gender: Female ~ Height: 5” 4’

Appearance ~ Jacquie has an athletic build with lean arms and legs, as well as a smooth stomach, due to years of swimming in the open ocean. She has light taupe skin, golden eyes although her long lashes make her irises appear darker than they truly are, and long dreaded hair which she has bleached white several times. The roots, however, are grown out and Jacquie hasn’t made landfall to pick up the supplies to dye it back. ~ Due to the fact she lives as a nomad on the open sea, Jacquie isn’t overly worried about her clothes. Most outfits contain sweats and sport bras, or cotton t-shirts with athletic brands printed across the fronts. She owns more bathing suits and items to exist in the water than anything, and she has zero shame in it.

~ Into The Deep ~

~ Jacquie had been traveling the ocean for years - first on a little dingy she’d bought for next nothing and nearly drowned in before she could leave the waves around the lagoon, then on a small house boat that was better suited for a lake than the ocean but it worked near the shorelines . . . so long as there were no storms. It had capsized near France and left her stranded for months until she’d been able to put the money together to purchase her next boat - and now, finally, she owned the 49 foot crossover house-ship swaying beneath her feet. The fact it was a crossover was important, because it allowed for her life style on the open ocean, and kept her safe.

~ She worked as a marine biologist, specializing in marine life and environment. She traveled the world, studying the habitats of all kinds of fish, looking for new breeds or kinds of ocean plant life, and the house-ship was a large, sturdy vessel. It was just under fifty foot long, and if Jacquie was being honest, most of the ship was used as space for her labs and research room, although she had sectioned an area off for herself. On the deck was the cockpit, where she could steer the ship, and it connected to the kitchen/dining room. Connecting that room and a small section of the floor below was a spiral staircase that would lead to the living/bedroom and a small door off to the side led the restroom. There was a lifeboat tied to the starboard, and a large glass tank on the port, where she could keep any fish or creatures she caught, if only temporarily to tag the fish for research, or care for them if they were sick or injured.

~ Sighing, Jacquie stared out over the waves, chest aching as she took in the sight of the bleached white corals that surrounded her ship; a bright bolt of lightening streaked across the sky and for the first time Jacquie noted the sent of ozone in the air. The storm was getting closer and she wasn’t prepared at all. She wasn’t going to make it to the shore before it hit - she could already see the wall of dark storm clouds rushing towards her - and the idea of riding out a violent Japanese ocean storm made her stomach churn. She had never been a fan of storms before, but now that she had lived on the ocean for so long, she understood just how dangerous they could be.

~ Jacquie had sailed around the world twice. She’d visited nearly every beach-line there was to see. Twice. But never had Jacquie seen a storm like this. There was rain, but it wasn’t very hard, like you would see near India, and that nearly cost Jacquie her life. It wasn’t such a bad storm, after all. It wasn’t until she was running across the deck, the lifeboat hanging at a strange angle from its davits that worry really began to creep into her chest. She was having to push herself up the side of the boat as she ran the deck - the ship was listing towards port and she couldn’t figure out WHY, and when she glanced over the edge of the railing she realized the drop wasn’t sheer any longer. She could see the ship’s great white side, and the angle made her stomach drop.

~ The ship was listing badly, and it wasn’t level from the back to the front either, a noticeable incline going from bow to stern. The ship was sinking, and Jacquie couldn’t do anything to stop it. She didn’t know how, or even why, but the ship was going to go down, and if she didn’t do something, she was going to be going down with it. Looking overboard she saw the sea was rising, getting close, the waves nearly rushing over the deck with every swell. She wasn’t sure where the reef was any longer - maybe she had hit it and that was why the ship was sinking. Or maybe she had drifted out and away and she was about to plunge down into the depths below.

~ Her morbid thoughts where cut short when a flash of lighting streaked across the sky, illuminating the world around her like midday for a moment. And there, nearly thirty feet above her ship, was a massive wave. It wasn’t the wave that brought her up short, however, although that was terrifying enough in and of itself. It was the distinctly sharp shadow drifting through the wave, a shadow that screamed shark at every one of her senses from the slope of its tail-fins, to the size and shape. The only problem was that there seemed to be a very angry, very human man attached to the front of the shark, staring down at her through narrowed eyes.

~ She never even saw the second wave seeping over the deck of her ship, but she was pretty sure it - he - did, because his eyes went wide a moment before it hit her. She felt the bite of the cold water as it knocked her feet from under her and sent her across the slick wooden floor. Her back hit the railing, and for a moment she thought she was okay, but then the wood cracked as a third wave crashed into the boat and the once solid wood against her back fragmented into the storm, leaving her with nothing to stop her from falling into the churning ocean below.

~ The water was terrifying. It surrounded her like a blanket, made it impossible for her to find the surface, made it impossible for her to think. She screamed when her head broke the surface, panicked coursing through her blood like a drug. She couldn’t see past the salt water burning her eyes, couldn’t breath past the liquid rushing over her again and again. The ocean had never scared her before but now, now it was something different. Black and icy and filled with rage, and there, only fifteen feet way, Jacquie spotted a dark triangle slicing through the water as another flash of lightning illuminated the world once more.

~ The shark. Her second scream was drowned out by a roll of thunder, but lightning accompanied it and she was able to see the shark drifting closer, a ten foot swell of inky darkness that made her muscles scream for her to do something - anything. The water was too cold, though, and it hurt to move her muscles beyond what was keeping her head above the water, and she couldn’t see the ship - where was the ship???

~ The shark was flung away with the next wave, or it went underwater, she wasn’t sure, and the next drug Jacquie away as well. A floating top spinning atop the surface of the water. It felt as if the waves were fighting over her, jerking her this way and that as she desperately attempted to keep her head above the water. She kept going under, and she couldn’t tell which way the surface was until she would burst into the air, lungs sucking in air until she was forced under again. The cold of the water was quickly numbing her arms and legs and it was becoming harder to keep her head above water. In the distance beneath the water she could see the flickering lights of her ship sinking into the darkness, and the realization that she was now stranded in the middle of the ocean, with no ship, no flotation device, nothing to keep her alive against the forces of nature steeping over her like cold tea. Or maybe it was the water, which had closed over her head, and she was too tired, too exhausted to continue kicking her legs or sweep her arms. She could clearly see the world around her, a darkness that seemed the filter gray light to show the shape of the waves as they swelled above her, the bubbles as they foamed across her limbs, her hair listing through the current like eels. It was peaceful.

~ What was not peaceful was the feeling of something hard, like an invisible rock, slamming into her. It hit her across the chest, slamming the air from her lungs in a whoosh. The world began to fade to a true black as she watched the thick cloud of silver bubbles drift away, and water began to flood her mouth and throat, chocking her. There was something else too, something thick, and slimy, and oddly rubbery, and it was forced into her mouth until she had no choice to swallow - swallow or choke on the strange lump as the darkness completely obscured her vision and her senses failed her . . .

~ Jacquie slept. And while she slept, she dreamed. Blurred wanderings through blindingly bright memories of the sun above the ocean, winds so calm the clouds didn’t move and the water sat as still as a mirror, her mother and father’s face, the ocean teaming with life around her. A mirage of memories, each brighter than the last until there was nothing but a wash of white -

~ The sun woke Jacquie. It was the wash of white, blinding in the clear, cloudless sky above her, which showed no signs of the storm before. The water was clear and vibrant, lapping gently at the sandbar that she rested against, and as far as she could see the reef grew brilliantly, like a snow capped wonder. She couldn’t remember making it to the shore, couldn’t remember finding shelter on a swatch of sand, and the longer she looked, the more she felt as if something were very wrong. She was propped against a large pile of seaweed and kelp as if she had been purposefully laid out, and the sandbar didn’t rise far enough from the water - she was submerged well to her navel. She should have been able to see the islands. Should have been able to see the formations of the bleached coral beds that showed her location but, instead, she saw nothing but water and sky. Even when she clambered to her feet and craned her neck this way and that, she didn’t spot anything that gave her any indication as to where she was at all. The reef surrounding her didn’t match anything she had seen before, despite the familiar bleached corals.

~ Suddenly, something brushed against her leg, making a tingle run up her spine. She thought, for a moment, that it might have been a fish, but when she glanced down she didn’t see anything. Then she felt it again, the slightest tingle against her leg, almost a tickle. And then it grabbed her. Jacquie screamed, jerking her leg away as hard and fast as she possible could, but that only served to send her flailing into the water. And that’s when she saw it. The grey-white triangle sticking straight up in the water - the fin of a black tipped reef shark, the same shark she had seen in the storm, the one that hadn’t seemed . . . right. And as she stared in horror, the fin turned in the water, and then sped towards her, moving steady and straight as an arrow.

~ Jacquie, despite all her knowledge, began to thrash in the water, trying to swim away. She was panicking, wanting to put as much distance between the shark and herself as she possible could, and when it seemed to swim right past her, she nearly calmed. Had it decided she would be too much of a hassle? But then it began to turn, streaming towards her in a wide arc. Circling. The shark moved in closer, the circle growing smaller and smaller each time it made a pass around her, and she didn’t know what to do. The rocks she had been propped against wouldn’t protect her well from the shark, and they didn’t come high enough out of the water to ensure it wouldn’t be able to get to her even if she climbed atop them. The Shark swam around her in a tight circle, close enough the the swishing tail sent waves over her stomach, and she could see him clearly for the first time since he’d begun circling. And just like the night before, there was something . . . misshapen about the shark. Its head wasn’t shaped all wrong, and then, when it turned again, she saw why it was misshapen and the shock nearly made her collapse. Her brain hadn’t been playing tricks on her the previous night. The shark within the wave had been looking down her through narrowed eyes, because the shark didn’t have a head. It’s upper body extended and shifted until instead of the hard grey scales of the shark, the surface was smooth, pale skin. Abdomen, chest, shoulders and arms - these appeared darker, nearly like the tail - and a head of messy blonde hair that looked spiky, even under the water. He was staring up at her, eyebrows narrowed, a strange sort of noise emanating from the water as it circled. It was a low, growling sound, nearly musical, beautiful and . . . somehow sad. It nearly sounded like a whale, and if it wasn’t for the fact she were sitting in the water, watching the shark - merman - mershark? - move closer. His narrowed, red eyes sparkled in the sunlight as it filtered through the water, and his skin gave off a silvery glow.

~ He rose from the water then, his arms propping his head and shoulders above the small waves as his eyes found hers and stared hard. He made a soft sort of noise, something between a purr and a growl and behind his lips, Jacquie could see the pointed tips of his teeth.

~ “Stay away from me!”

~ The mershark paused, his teeth bared at the sharp tone of her voice, and Jacquie took his surprise and ran with it - literally. She was on her feet and already several steps away before the mershark seemed to realize what she was doing, but when he did he was on her in a moment, his arms wrapping around both her legs at the calf, sending her crashing into the water. They wrestled for a moment, and the mershark snarled, his teeth bared into a angry grimace as he attempted to wrestle her under his frame. He won, if only because of his size and weight, and Jacquie panicked as he pinned her beneath the water, his face inches away from hers. She sealed her lips, trapping the last reserves of oxygen she had left as she desperately tried to buck the mershark from her. He wasn’t bothered by her movements, though, and he merely stared down at her with a grim sort of purpose. He was going to drown her. She was going to drown, he was going to drown her - holy fuck was he going to eat her - and then she couldn’t hold her breath any longer. She gasped, flooding her mouth with water, and a flashback of the storm swept over her so violently she thought she could feel the churning of the water around her. But there was something strange, something about the way the water seemed to flow from her nose, and out her mouth. She was . . . she was breathing. She was breathing underwater.

~ The mershark laughed then, and Jacquie could hear it. She heard it like it was carried on a cool summer breeze, dark and full of gravel, and it filled the water around her like a living, breathing thing.

~ “Holy fuck.”

~ The mershark throws back his head and laughs again, his long fingers squeezing her shoulders tightly. “I knew you were a great pick. You’re gonna be so fucking good.” He moved then, dragging her with him effortlessly as he swam through the water, the current hardly seeming to effect his direction at all. She fought, tired to pull away, but the mershark only pulled her closer, tsking at her struggles. “Stop moving would ya? It’s getting annoying.” He growled in her ear, and there was something to his tone of voice that made her go still. He wasn’t asking. He pulled her down, past the reef, until they arrived at the dark entrance of a cave that seemed to be built into the side of the sandbar. He wasted no time speaking, instead he opted to throw her on a pile of soft sponges laid across the bottom, causing her to bounce lightly in the water as he began to flint about, grabbing this and that as he swam around the cave. There was a multitude of items that screams of being from the surface and some of it - a lot of it, Jacquie realized with a start - seemed to have come from her boat.

~ To Jacquie it seemed as if he were circling her once more as he continued to move between one set of shelving and the next, and his words early only served to strength her thoughts of him eating her, so when he approached her side and reached towards her she nearly screamed. He didn’t, however, eat her. He did yank her forward when she refused to give him the arm he motioned for, his hands rough on her delicate skin as he slid heavy gold bands over her wrists. Arm bands followed, as well as several heavy necklaces that weighed Jacquie down and forced her to stay at the ocean floor verses floating upwards at the slightest current. He wasn’t finished until she was covered with more jewelry than she had seen in her lifetime and the weight of it pressed uncomfortably into her skin.

~ “It’s too much.” Jacquie said softly, already removing several layers of the necklaces that had been thrown over her head. “Too heavy.”

~ The mershark growled low, but he didn’t move to stop her until she was wearing only a few necklaces and other shining jewelry pieces. He did, however, propel himself forward and curl his body around hers like a puppy, his head pressed into her side while his tail wrapped around her waist, a more effective lock to keep her in place than if he had tied her to one of the rocks that made up the cave.

~ “Bakugou.” Jacquie stared and the mershark sighed. “Bakugou.” “I . . . I don’t -” “What, are you one of the stupid humans?” The mershark bit out harshly. “M’name is Bakugou.” “Oh.”

~ “Fuckin’ hell, what is your name?”

~ “J - Jacquie.” It was strange talking underwater. Everything sounded vaguely muffled, but not at the same time, and every time she inhaled it felt as if she were swallowing jello and feeling it ooze from her nose. “My name . . . my name is Jacquie.”

~ The mershark - Bakugou - smiled. “Good. That’s a good name for my mate. You look strong, and your hips are wide so you’ll be a perfect mate. You’ll -” But Jacquie wasn’t listening. His words were ringing through her ears, making no sense because over and over again one word kept rising to the top: mate. And from the way he was talking it seemed like he meant it. They were going to have pups, he cooed, rubbing his face against her abdomen. They were going to fuck, hard, and then when she got pregnant he would take care of her until she birthed the pups and they would do it all over. “You’ll be so fucking pretty with your stomach all swollen for me, swollen with our pups. And as soon as the seaweed finishes it’s work, you’ll have pretty little tail to move around with.” His sharp teeth nipped against her side with every word spoken to her like she was a lover, causing her to shiver in his hold. “It’s okay, sharks take care of their mates, not like those flimsy reef mer who flee at the first sign of danger, like that stupid fucking Deku. I’ll keep you safe, mate. And I’ll never let you go.”

#sharkmer #mershark #bnha #Bakugou #merbakugou #mermaids #merman #my hero #yandere #yandere bakugou #yandere my hero academia #no beta ill die a (wo)man #yandere bnha

11 notes · View notes

wafflewarriors · 5 years ago

Text

Of Daydreams and Realities

Chapter 11: Ugly Goodbyes

Dean held up his EMF meter, his mouth pinched into a grim line. You could tell he was thinking by the way his eyes looked at comatose-you, lost in his own mind.

You said aloud, “What are you thinking?” You stood before him, eye to eye, but he could not see or hear you.

Dean looked at Sam, who gave him a knowing look. “You know what I gotta do, Sammy.”

Sam only nodded, clearly reluctant, but it had to be done. Both hunters knew it.

The two doctors and the detective did not, however. John asked cautiously, “What?”

Dean gave a daring smile and said, “I’m going to have to die.” There was a strange twinkle in his smile.

///

Everything kind of went to chaos. The Doctor began refusing outright, while John began demanding questions. Sam tried to defuse the two while Dean searched for the proper equipment. Death was not something to play with. One wrong move, and Dean was stuck with you.

Sherlock just stood there, trying to understand with his observant eyes. Why would a man lay his faith on you being a ghost to the point where it would cost his own life? There must be a catch.

Sam just quit trying altogether and began helping Dean while the Doctor panicked behind them, unsure of how to stop this madness.

John stepped forward to stop Sam from helping Dean, but Sherlock grabbed his shoulder to hold him in place. “John, let them.”

“What? This is suicide!”

“No, he’ll be coming back.”

John couldn’t believe his ears. “What?”

“He’ll come back. He’s trying to talk with her. Don’t you see? He’s temporarily flatlining so he can speak with her. It’s brilliant.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts.”

“I don’t. But if they were, his strategy is absolutely brilliant, John. Brilliant.” He watched Dean lay down, letting his breaths steady. “Have you done this before?”

“Yep.”

Sherlock was captivated.

///

Once everyone had settled and was ready for this to work, the Doctor and Sherlock began working out how to fully mend the tear in dimensions.

“If we leave it be, the tear will continue to fester and grow until it’s irreparable.Usually, this wouldn’t be too catastrophic, if they were normal dimensions. But your dimension,” the Doctor pointed to Dean and Sam, “is full of monsters and demons and ugly, ugly creatures, and yours” he points to Sherlock, “has terrible criminals, and mine,” he says, but softer, “constantly has aliens tampering with Earth and time. We are not a good match.”

It took a little while for Sherlock to fully understand the gravity of the situation and it’s dynamics, but he caught on. He racked his brilliant mind and brainstormed for genius ideas.

John, Dean, and Sam watched the two clever idiots work out a solution. They brainstormed themselves, nonetheless. It made them feel a bit more useful.

Of course, Dean was the one to figure it out. Few people gave him the credit he deserved when it came to smarts. Dean was intelligent. Very, very intelligent. Just a different way than most people. Things that were simple required more thought and overthinking, and things that would be complicated came easier. It all just needed some common sense. “Well, she’s a ghost, couldn’t she just, I don’t know, possess her other body? The one in her world?”

The Doctor’s eyes grew wide like dinner plates. “Oh! That’s it! You know, I had a theory. It is possible that she’s alive in her other dimension. It would make more sense. It’s trying to synchronize. They’re both in comas.”

Sherlock was staring at you, lost in his mind palace for a minute. “We could return her to her own body and just shut the gate behind us.”

Sam murmured, “But her body here would die. We’d have to bury her.”

There was a silence.

“But we would know she’s alive, and in her own world. Where she belongs.” John said.

Everyone agreed.

///

You sat on the floor. It was all you could do; you couldn’t sit on the bed, or prop yourself up against the walls, or sit comfortably in any way. The best you could do was sit beside your hospital bed, which towered over you.

“Hey.”

You turned. Here comes one of the boys again. You sighed, laying down and resting your arm over your eyes.

Dean whistles. “Hey. Wow, okay that’s depressing. Am I that boring?”

Where was he going with this? You turned to look, and realized he was looking at you. He could see you.

“Oh, wow. Your plan worked. I wasn’t expecting that.”

He was wearing whitish-grey hoodie with light blue jeans. He didn’t cry ‘ghost’ like your white t-shirt and sweatpants did, though.

“Yeah,” he said. “I am an expert though. I know Death himself. Literally.” He was being extra casual about this. He sat beside you, making himself as comfortable as possible on the hard tile floor. The infirmary had been your prison for a little less than a week, now. He looked around, thinking and pursing his lips before finally saying, “I have an idea, but I want to know your thoughts on it.”

That was very vague. “…okay.”

“I think there’s a way to get you out of this coma.”

You perked. “Well, of course I’m going to take it! How? How do we do it?”

“Hold on, hold on. Sammy and I and the other three were talkin’. I figured I’d tell you.”

“How do we do it? Dean seriously, tell me. I am so sick of this room.”

“I know. We… think that the other you is in a coma, too. If we could match you up with that body, theoretically, you’d wake up.” He wiped a hand along his face. “The point is, you’d have to return to your own world. You would possess your true body, and we’d, theoretically, be able to close the tear behind us. But… you’d be stuck in your own world.”

No… no that wasn’t right. That couldn’t be. “But I’m… I like it here. Apart from first meetings… you guys kept me hopeful. I can’t go back. Not when I’ve seen the TARDIS, or the Impala, or Sherlock Holmes. I can’t. I can’t just leave my favorite stories like they never happened. Dean, you guys are the best thing that’s ever happened to me! I was nobody! Just some kid flunking in college!”

“Then I’m sorry.”

And he faded away, back to life.

“No! Come back!” You screeched. “Dean!”

The walls echoed back, but there was no reply.

You belted a scream of frustration and rage, and punched at the floor, the only thing you could physically touch without passing through. How dare he. How dare he make you go back. You wanted to stay! They were known to find other solutions, so find them! Your head hurt as you ugly-sobbed, curling into yourself. “No… no…no…nonono…” Why were they throwing you away? Why were they doing this? You crumbled, thick sobs escaping your chest. This was so much worse than being a ghost.

So so much worse.

Tags: @jay-bel, @buttercup337, @seriously-n0pe, @hermionejacobs, @rosaren2498, @beeblisss, @queen-bubble, @bider-man, @calumhoodisthicc

55 notes · View notes

pivitor · 5 years ago

Text

I’ve been really frustrated lately.

One thing quarantine has hammered home to me is how much I hate my current job. I just...don’t want to go back. I hate being there. I don’t get any satisfaction from it. I’m not going to act like I’m special for hating my job or anything, but when I was still going in every day I thought it was at least something I could handle in the long term, I think I played down to myself how much I actually disliked it. I don’t think I can keep doing that.

Atop from normal job related things, my boss screwed me over with my taxes this year and I didn’t realize it until right when i stopped going into work this year. My office has had three employees at the most the entire time I’ve worked there, so the office has never had its own payroll; I was always included on the payroll of the restaurant we operated. Once we sold that, my boss told me he was shutting down the payroll altogether and would just be paying me by cutting me checks and giving me a 1099 at the end of the year, and told me that I’d still be paying the same amount of taxes, just as a lump sum at the end of the year instead of having some deducted from my paycheck every week. I didn’t really feel like I had much of a choice. But, hey, when I had my taxes done this year, it turns out that’s hella illegal! 1099s are for self-employed independent contractors, and I am neither! My tax person told me that I wouldn’t get into trouble, but that my employer could definitely get in trouble with the IRS for swapping an employee over to being an independent contractor like that when they’re still working the same position for the same amount of money. It also cost me extra in taxes, because every paycheck the employer pays a bit of taxes, but as a “self-employed person” I’m expected to pay that portion. So a little chunk of my taxes I’m paying this year is money my employer used to pay/was supposed to pay. I’m pissed about that.

Those two things put together mean I really want to get a new job. This lands me pretty much exactly where I was a year ago, when I was looking for a new job, then eventually stopped because my boss offered me a couple of promotions within the company in regards to the real estate company and coaching company he was starting, both of which really had only just barely started to come together when quarantine started. So now I have the added joy of essentially having wasted a year, and starting to look for a new job in a much worse economy than last year’s. Fun!

The coaching thing sucks. My boss is starting a company to teach food safety classes for the local food safety programs all restaurants need to be certified in. I’ve taught one so far and I was proud of myself for it, but none of the students passed, even with us stretching the eight hour outline given us to close to twelve. The pay isn’t what we originally agreed to and, frankly, isn’t worth the time you have to put into it. The idea of me teaching these was supplemental income, but if I were to teach one during the week instead of doing my desk job, I wouldn’t really be making enough money to justify it. With the extra time, I’d really be making less. It’s such a headache.

I really should see through the real estate. At one point I thought I’d get a new day job but maybe still help my current boss with the real estate on the side, but even if I don’t, I’ve already invested over 80 hours into this, I should really finish it. I’m 99% done with the program and just have to pass the final exams, but I started in November and honestly don’t remember a lot of the information. I’ve done nothing with it over quarantine, partially because I thought I couldn’t take my final exams during that time, but it turns out I could have all along. The course was going to expire at the end of May so I spent my own money to renew it thinking it would motivate me to finally finish it, but I haven’t. I can’t tell if I don’t actually want to do real estate, or if I’m just being lazy, or if it’s the fact that I honestly just don’t know how to study. I don’t think I can pass the test right now and I really don’t know what to do about it.

I also didn’t know I could apply for unemployment until, like, the end of April/beginning of May. I technically still had a job, right? Nope, even with me just being temporarily out of work, I could still apply. So I’m frustrated on myself at missing out on a month’s worth of unemployment payments for no reason other than my own stupidity.

My boss called me Wednesday and I panicked and didn’t answer, but he said they’re going to open back up soon. I don’t want to come in, but if I refuse or quit, I could lose my unemployment. Ugh. And THAT’S frustrating because going back to work, I’ll be losing money. I was making more money on unemployment than I was going to work, while spending less. I haven’t put gas in my car since March. March! Less money+more gas=suck. I send my boss and his wife an email tonight detailing the tax situation. I guess I’ll give them a call tomorrow.

I’ve been lucky to have been well-taken care of throughout this pandemic, and to have been able to pay off quite a bit of my debt -- for the first time in a few years now, I have more money in savings in the bank than I do in credit card debt. But the extra $600 in unemployment goes through the end of July, and I was hoping to be able to continue cashing in on that for a few more weeks and actually add a bit of money to my savings. I know I’m going to need it in the future.

So I’m frustrated, I think, because I basically have no direction, and feel like I wasted so much time. Even in quarantine, I applied to a few jobs and even had an interview, but I wasn’t serious about job searching, and now I feel like I didn’t take advantage of all that time I had. I need to get out of my parents house so badly, I need to be able to finish breaking away from their fucking cult bullshit SO BADLY, I’m having such a hard time seeing the path forward. And it’s such an awful time to be job hunting or, god forbid, moving right now. I think I really screwed up, and while I think there’s not much to do but start applying to jobs again, I’m frustrated and, honestly, a little bit scared about my future.

#pivitor

3 notes · View notes

optimizche · 6 years ago

Text

Angelic : I'm Here (Park Chanyeol/Reader)

All chapters

I stood beneath the stream of warm water gushing out the shower head, letting it wash over me.

Letting it cleanse me.

Combing my hands through my soaked hair, I pondered if I had made a mistake by leaving heaven and coming to earth.

Ever since that night, when I had kissed him, everything had changed. My mind had become a mess, raging with lust that begged and ached to be quenched.

Never in my life had I been desirous of the pleasures of the flesh. But ever since his lips had touched mine, I had begun to yearn for a relief from the lascivious fantasies festering away in my head.

None of my brothers noticed any changes within me. All except for Yixing.

The angel of healing that he was, he was always perceptive to any and every malady that afflicted a person, irrespective of whether they were physical, mental or emotional.

I could see it in the way his dark eyes followed me everywhere that he could sense my internal distress. He could feel exactly what was bothering me.

Despite having an inkling of what was troubling me, he hadn't yet made my brothers aware of it. And for that I was immensely grateful. I did not even want to imagine the wrath of my brothers, especially of Junmyeon, that I would have to endure, had they realized that I, their youngest and only sister, was overcome with lust. A sin of the highest order.

So lost I was in my thoughts and in rinsing the lavender scented suds of shampoo from my hair, that I didn't notice or hear the door of the shower panel slide open and shut.

I froze when I felt a set of hands upon my hips.

"Are you alright?" came his voice, hushed against my ear as he pulled me backwards, into him.

"Yixing..." I sighed in relief, leaning back into his frame, realizing he was just as bare as I was. A realization that caused colour to rise to my cheeks. This was the first time since the past few days when I found myself alone in his company, without the presence of the rest of my brothers to distract him.

Arms wrapping securely around my waist, he turned me around to face him. His dark eyes examined me intently, the intensity of his gaze forcing me to look away from him.

A hand came to cup my cheek. "Look at me," he said, a hardened edge in his voice. "Look into my eyes."

"Yixing, please," I protested feebly, my hands resting upon his chest, feeling my heartbeat rise in trepidation, knowing full well that he'd know the true extent of my wantonness if he looked into my eyes.

I tried to avert my eyes, looking anywhere else but not at him.

"Look at me. I command you to," came Yixing's stern, harsh voice as both his hands caught my face and forced me to meet his gaze.

It took him all of a moment to truly see through me once our eyes met.

He gasped, his hands fell away from me.

"You let one of them kiss you," he said, aghast.

I felt my heart sink, seeing the look of betrayal and shock upon his face. I felt sick. Diseased, almost.

Yixing backed away from me, stepping out of the shower panel. Quickly cutting off the water, I followed him, panicking.

"Please, Yixing. I'm sorry," I pleaded, reaching out to grasp his wrist. "I didn't kno-"

He whirled around, pushing me back against the nearest wall by my shoulders.

"Do you know what you've done?" he demanded angrily. "Do you have any inkling of what you've done?"

Tears sprang into my eyes as guilt and self-loathing rushed to flood into my heart. "I'm sorry. Please don't tell the others..." I stuttered. "T-they'll tell Father."

Comprehension dawned in his eyes upon the mention of our father, his anger evaporating and turning into fear as he realized what would happen to me if anyone else came to know.

They'd tear away my wings from the roots, cleave and flay my flesh until I was branded by my shame, my disgrace. And then I'd be banished, to live my life as a mortal. The ultimate humiliation for our kind.

His death-grip on my shoulders loosened and he stepped away from me, anger and disappointment written plainly upon his face.

"Why did you do it?" Yixing breathed, his voice pained. Like his own heart was breaking. "You know these desires rankling within you will one day reveal the truth?"

The tears now began to fall down my cheeks freely. "I don't know why I did it. I-It just felt good."

He looked upset, his finely sculpted features furrowed in distress. "Did he tell you his name? Who he was? Anything?"

I shook my head, choosing to look down at the floor instead.

Yixing did not speak for a while, choosing to think in silence as he went to retrieve fresh towels from a hamper so that we both could dry off.

Taking a towel from him, I quietly went about patting away the water from my drenched skin. He did the same. And we both could feel the tension building in the air with each passing moment.

"I will have to tell the others," he eventually spoke and I rushed to where he stood, the towel wrapped around my form.

Grasping his hands, I pleaded with him frantically. "Please don't tell them, Yixing. You know what will happen if anyone else comes to know. I... I don't want to fall. Please!"

I knew that he was deliberating his choices. And right now, this moment was a matter of life or death for me.

The conflict was etched across his face, every muscle in his body strung taut with tension.

I don't know what it was that made me act in this way, but I found myself reaching out to thread my fingers into his dark, wet hair, pulling him to my lips. Perhaps it was my desperation, or my raging desires for intimacy, I found myself kissing him.

A soft moan left me when I met his soft, full lips with mine, pressing into them insistently. I wanted to somehow stop him from telling the others and I kissed him with every last bit of desperation I had in me...

...until his own hands wove into my damp hair, giving my roots a gentle tug and parting from me.

"I've loved you since the day you were born, princess," he murmured, his warm breath fanning over my face. "When I saw you for the first time, I promised Junmyeon that I was going to spend the rest of my life protecting you in any and every way that I possibly could."

"Yixing, I-"

"Let me speak, ___________," he growled, effectively rendering me speechless. His hand came to cup my cheek, cradling it in the warmth of his palm. "I vowed to Junmyeon that I'd never let you fall in harm's way as long as I lived. And I intend to keep that promise. No matter what."

My eyes widened as I realized the implication of his words. And the suggestive look in his eyes while his hands slowly untucked the towel wrapped around me only confirmed it.

"Y-Yixing," I exhaled. "You don't have to."

He smiled at me, his cheek dimpling. "I'm a healer, aren't I?" he said, opening the towel and letting it fall at my feet. "If it is my touch that remedies your ache, however temporarily, I'm willing to aid you. Whatever the cost may be."

_____________

With a gentle push of his hands on my shoulders, he had made me lie down on my bed, murmuring an incantation to lock down the door, just like "Baekhyun" had done in my dream.

But this wasn't a dream.

It was real.

Everything that he was doing to me was real.

I lay on my stomach, my hair forming a damp curtain around my face, as I trembled and writhed with the agonizing ecstasy flowing through me.

He was above me, his mouth nipping and licking at the twin scars on my back, adjacent to my shoulder blades.

One of his hands, curved around me to reach where I ached the most, between my legs, his elegant digits buried deep within my pulsating walls.

"Xing, ohh..." I moaned, my hips bucking rhythmically, fervently into his hand, wanting him to reach deeper within me.

Hands clutching at the sheets, I pressed my mouth into the pillow beneath me, trying to conceal the bitter truth of how utterly wrecked I was.

"Its alright, my lovely," he cooed in his honeyed voice, sweeping my hair away from my face, his tongue dipping into the lips of the scar on my back "I'm here now. I'm here."

"You're here..." I whimpered, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip as I unravelled beneath him yet again.

154 notes · View notes

kenimichrow · 5 years ago

Text

The Landless King (Arvaelon Narkerym) 1: The Day of Memories

Spring in the Southern Continent, City of Flosee

That day was a day of memories.

It started with good memories. It was a new city in a new continent. A new country with a new culture. I had already been there a few days after arriving from Masserine, where I had left my magic teacher to settle into his retirement. Having rested a little, I could now go out and explore.

The city was filled with sights to behold. I met a merchant with wondrous wares from all parts of the Sessite Confederacy. Each item was extraordinary and unique, and he explained each one’s origins in detail as he tried to convince me to purchase it. Alas, traveling is not the most profitable of pastimes, and so I had to turn him down. He seemed to think I was haggling and brought the price down, but in the end I could neither afford the luxury nor the weight.

Soon after that I wandered into the palace district. I gazed upon huge majestic buildings with foreign architecture that I couldn't even begin to understand and admired their lavish beauty. You’d think that I would have had my fill of such displays of overly obnoxious amounts of wealth from my decades in Kessan, but there is a reason they cost so much. They were dazzling with a hypnotic strangeness unique to the Sessite Confederacy’s culture. I’m sure I made more than one palace guard anxious as I stared at them from the street, so I did not linger at any one palace for long.

Flosee, however, is not only beauty and wonder. That day, I met a poor soul who tried to pick my pocket. I chose not to pursue him as he ran into the market crowd after I foiled his attempt, but his presence reminded me of the dark underbelly of the city that I had been ignoring.

He wasn’t the only poor soul in the city.

I pretended not to see them, but slaves littered the city. It made my own slave mark tingle beneath my leather bracer as memories of ancient pain tried to surface. I pushed it down, intent on enjoying my day, but my momentary pity for the thief rekindled the same thoughts for those shackled in the market.

My mood soured, but I told myself I could do nothing for them. It wasn’t as if I had sparked the Revolution of Sladora myself. I had simply played my part. There were other far wiser men who had given me the opportunities to free myself. I had been the soldier, not the commander, and so I wouldn’t know how to light the match of similar flames here. And even if I could, would I do it wherever I saw slaves? Travel the world, setting every city on fire who dared to collar their fellow man?

I saw my long lifespan stretch before me, and a weariness began to weigh down on my soul. The Revolution of Sladora had been a hard and trying time, and I selfishly didn’t want to repeat it just to change the entire world. I just wanted to live in it, content that I myself was free and that I had my homeland of Sladora to return to.

Perhaps Tuenoril was right, and I was a coward without conviction. Our whole family was now dead, countless years of their life cut short, and what had I done to stop it? Counseled caution? Spoke of endurance and waiting for an opportune moment? As I waited, our sister had wasted away in the same bed where her nightmares were made real. Would the slaves in the market waste away too under their suffering as they waited for an opportunity that might never come to them?

I had no answer, and so I pushed it to the back of my mind and made my way to find lunch. I had seen a particularly interesting food stall earlier that day and had promised myself I would try it.The excitement of trying something new temporarily replaced my melancholy, but the fates were not so kind as to let that last.

Art by Haver

Before I could reach my anticipated destination, I saw a flash of steel from the corner of my eye. My instincts from the war made me turn to face it, but the blade I saw was not meant for me. Too quick to stop, a dagger entered the throat of a nearby guardsman. The unlucky man fell to the ground as he quickly bled out, and his compatriots swiftly descended on his assassin.

The sudden violence was unnerving, and I was quickly swept up in the panicking crowd as they fled the scene of the attack. I managed to find an alcove to escape the stampede, but by then I had been carried far from where it had all happened. When I tried to return and offer help, I was shooed away by a wary guard who was barring people from re-entering the market.

I decided to find a tavern instead to fill my belly and clear my sense of unease. It was only later that I would realize that the guard’s death might have been a warning from Kirith, if her divine spark still lived.

“Flee! Like the flood of people from the market. Before the coming violence.” Her gentle voice might say. But alas, I viewed it then as only a random skirmish in the vast expanse of the cityscape.

My unease dissipated as the shadows grew long. As I made my way back to the inn I was staying at, I heard a gasp in a nearby alley way along with fleeing footsteps. When I moved to inquire, I found a woman staggering towards me as she clutched her side. Blood dripped onto the pavement and gushed between her fingers. Even in the dim light I could tell it was the wrong color. I could smell rot, and the flesh exposed by the tear near the wound was clearly festering in a way that old injuries fester when ignored. But old wounds didn’t bleed like that.

I offered her support, and she fell into my arms. I instructed her to apply as much pressure as possible to her side, though I was careful not to touch it myself as I held her up. Then I scanned our surroundings for the nearest guard. My search was fruitless in an eerie way. There were no guards nearby. I wracked my memory and could not remember seeing any guards for a while. The unease from that afternoon began to grow anew, but my immediate concern was the woman.

We made our way into the city towards where I assumed would be a guard station. As we walked, the woman leaned on me more and more until I was practically carrying her.

Then I heard them. Warning bells ringing throughout the city.

Memories of the night the Sladoran Revolution caught flame flooded my mind. The cold sweat brought on by panic. Standing above my dead master as the mansion came alive at the sound of the city bells. Fleeing into the night to discover the city in a riot as other slaves who had also successfully assassinated their masters attempted to save those who had failed. My heart rate spiked, but I forced myself back to the present.

There was no battle in the streets right now, but the bells were ringing, so there might soon be. I turned to the woman in my arms, intent on moving her to my back to speed up our progress, only to find her eyes unfocused and her breath stopped. Reverently, but with haste, I laid her in the streets. I said a silent prayer to a God who had long before my birth been no longer able to hear it, and turned away.

My knowledge of Flosee was limited, and with a different culture, I had no way of knowing the city’s plans to protect the citizenry in the case of an attack. As such I made a guess - the most protected part of the city would be either the palace district or the city center. I decided the city center was the better bet, as they would have to make it past the palace district to get there, and began to make my way there.

Before I could reach it, however, sounds of battle began to surround me. As I tried to avoid the sources of the noise, I caught glimpses of ogres, trolls, hill giants, and even goblins fighting alongside men of all different races covered in red-painted armor. It was an unsettling sight of cooperation as they murdered the people of Flosee, but oddly quixotic in a gruesome way.

I did not stop to admire it, though. I fled deeper into the city. I quickly became lost in the maze of a foreign metropolis, but I noticed I wasn’t alone. Others fleeing the battle were also gathering, almost as if they were being corralled toward one another. This became more obvious when, at one plaza, red-painted attackers emerged from all directions. Most of the civilians fled, but two armed combatants and myself were cut off.

One of those trapped in the plaza was a grey skinned half-orc covered in hides and wielding a large sword. He was the only one of us who looked rather undisturbed by being surrounded, even seeming a little excited as he eyed their crimson armor.

“These guys don’t seem to be too friendly, how about you guys?”

When I called out to the two, he didn’t even look at me. I thus deemed him agreeable enough to hide behind as I summoned a disk of force to act as my shield.

The other potential ally, a mocha half-elf with the exotic features of the Sessite Confederacy, no doubt from the dilution of her Elven blood, had a similar idea. The leather clad lady graceful maneuvered to my side and brandished a dagger at the man who charged her. As she fended him off, she greeted me back in a furious shout. “They’re burning my city to the ground!” I took that as yes, she was indeed friendly to me. Probably.

Art by Haver

The half-orc began to mow down those who came at him like they were little more than dogs, so I decided to lend a hand to my kin. I made my way behind her attacker with my rapier in hand, and gracefully cut him down. Or rather, I tried. I managed to get a few good hits in, but then made a major error of judgement.

Casting magic in combat was new to me. Though over the last 35 or so years I had been taught by my teacher to fight with it, and had even learned to cast while wielding my rapier, I had not had many opportunities to put the skill to use in real combat. As such, I failed to put the proper distance between myself and my opponent before trying to cast a ray of freezing air at him. The spell shot over his shoulder as his blade sank into the flesh beneath my arm. I could feel the blood seep into my wool shirt beneath my armor, plastering the tattered cloth to the wound.

As a seasoned soldier, I pushed through the pain, but the battle dragged out as neither the lady nor myself could land a decisive blow. Eventually the half-orc, having decimated his half of the battle, moved to our side of the plaza to take out the remainder of the enemies. One by one they fell at his hand until finally, only one attacker still stood. His life ended thanks to a well placed dagger by the lady while he cowered from the half-orc’s raging visage.

The half-orc smiled at the woman and patted her shoulder with a growly “good job”, while I clutched my side, ignored. He then kicked one of the corpses that surrounded us and asked, “Where are these weaklings from?”

I could only shrug, but the half-elf mentioned some rumors of red-painted bandits she had heard before. She had no specifics, though.

As we mulled over the mystery, I suddenly noticed that it hadn’t been three people fighting in the plaza, but four. A small halfling waddled through the fountain water that came up to his waist as blood streaked behind him. When he got to the edge, he clamored over the fountain wall and came to stand before the three of us.

He was caramel in color with the robes and features of a native and a grim look on his face. “Who here is a citizen?” He demanded, but only the half-elf gave a reluctant “I am”. It seemed the half-orc was also a visitor unlucky enough to be in the city at the wrong time.

“Then you’re conscripted. You’ll be with me on this. I’m a member of the city guard.” The halfling mandated.

“I am?” The half-elf sneered scornfully, clearly not on board.

“We must defend the city.” He stated firmly, but the half-elf continued to express her reluctance. We didn’t have time for them to argue, here in the middle of a besieged city, and so I quickly stepped in.

“Have you seen any other guards of late? I don’t think only two, one conscripted, are going to be much good by themselves.” I interjected, and the halfling paused.

“And who are you?” He asked.

“You can just call me Arnny for now.” I replied in the interest of brevity. My full name could be a mouthful for those unfamiliar with the Elven tongue.

“Well, Arnny’s right, I stumbled upon some robed figures who seemed to have killed a guard. Have you seen anything like that?” The halfling asked as he looked at the group.

“I haven’t seen any guards, but I have seen some dead people with some nasty wounds made by a robed figure in the… uh, in an alleyway.” The lady responded.

“Like decaying nasty? On a fresh wound?” I asked, remembering the woman who had died in my arms earlier.

“Yeah.” We began to muse over the connection between everything that had happened: the strange wounds, the robed figures, and the guards. It was clear by the timing that the robed figures had something to do with the red-painted attackers, but there wasn’t much any of us knew. Thus, before we said much, the half-elf stopped us.

“I think this discussion would be better had somewhere safer.” She cautioned.

“Then we should head to the guard station. Even if there are no guards there to help, it will at least have supplies.” The halfling suggested, and we all agreed, though the half-orc gave a token protest in favor of searching out more combat. The half-elf quickly assured him we’d probably find a fight on the way. After all, the city was under attack.

Before we could decide which guard station to head to, however, a crowd of people came running through the plaza. Low and behold there was at least one guard other than the halfling left in the city. He was directing the group that raced by as they traveled through the war torn streets. He called out to us as they passed:

“The walls have been breached! The city is lost! Head to the docks! We must escape the city!” With his brief warning delivered, he continued to herd the citizens to the south. We quickly decided to follow.

What awaited us there was the bright, orange flames of all the city’s boats set afire. Massive ships all flying the same colors dotted the river. They clearly belonged to the red-painted soldiers who had taken the city. Behind us, those same enemies surrounded us, killing any who fought back. Eventually a lull in the battle appeared, and a leader among the attackers came forward. “Surrender or die.” He declared simply.

The half-orc who I had fought beside in the plaza immediately went to protest by readying his weapon until the half-elf put her hand on his arm to caution him. “There will be time for revenge another day.”

“It will not be revenge for me.” He grunted back, still hesitant.

“For me it will be.” She murmured with quiet fury.

Something in those words, perhaps the fierce anger so lowly spoken, seemed to convince him “You promise me a good fight?” He asked.

“It will be.” She swore in a voice dripping with venom. With a grunt of agreement, he dropped his sword. Everyone in the crowd did as well. Surrender was the clearly logical choice. We were vastly outnumbered with no place to retreat. If even the battle-hungry half-orc could see it, how could the rest of us not?

Logic did little for my heart as despair locked around it just as the cold metal of the shackles locked around my wrists.

Almost a hundred and twenty years, and I was still as powerless as the night slavers invaded the small fishing village I was born in off the coast of Martovia. That night, the bells rang out as they had here, and my family fought as I had fought here. My father and eldest brother lay dead at our feet as my sister and I urged Tuenoril to surrender. Just as the woman had urged the half-orc. It was the clearly logical choice then too. But my mother never even saw Kessan, and my only remaining family despises even the sight of me. Was it logical if you died anyway? Was it logical if in return for your life you lost everyone you cared about?

I had hoped I would never have to make that choice again. I trained so I would never have to make that choice again. I thought I had become stronger since then. That I could at least defend myself if something like that ever happened again.

I stared down at the shackles.

As the weight of my past and my present overtook me, all I could feel was a vast apathy resurging from a human lifetime ago.

It must certainly be that the Elven gods are dead, and our fates cast off to crueler ones.

#pathfinder #elf #magus #landlesskingarnny #ArvaelonNarkerym #journal #tabletop #roleplay #rp #kalredia #homebrew

2 notes · View notes

magic-and-moonlit-wings · 6 years ago

Text

‘Angor Reborn’ synopsis and reactions

I’m glad I managed to get this before 3Below premiered. I mean, I’ve said before how I don’t think the novels mesh well with the show canon, but I still like knowing what’s been written.

Long post, lots of spoilers, so I’m putting in a ‘Read More’. I’ve bolded some useful world-building stuff.

Prologue:

As a previous post attests, I am upset that the writer decided to have Angor’s deal with Morgana take place post-Killahead. Sure, Morgana’s definitely already against Merlin by then, and sure, it means we get some Trollhunters between Deya and Kanjigar, but it throws off a bunch of other concepts I had regarding the show’s timeline.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, this is the same author who has Bular aged at over 5200 years old.

I do like the thing about Angor having a menagerie of animals, which he loved, and having to trade away his animals and pieces of his boat - reduced to a raft by the time we see it - for supplies and information to track Morgana down. The dove he sacrificed to summon her was his last animal, and particularly dear to him, which was why he still had the bird in the first place. I also liked the bit about Angor being “legendary among his tribe for his calm, even temper.” Once he becomes an assassin, he looks back and describes his past self as “a humble gamekeeper”. It’s wild contrast to the troll we see in the show, showing how scarred he is internally.

Angor thought sacrificing his pet dove should have been enough for Morgana, since he had literally nothing else to offer ... except his stone flesh, which was not (as implied with the show) a premeditated decision.

We don’t actually see any of Angor’s fights with Trollhunters, just a summary that he traveled the globe, doing Morgana’s bidding, and the only times he didn’t hear her voice in the back of his mind was while portalling through the Shadow Realm.

The temple in India where Angor was imprisoned was named “the Temple of the Pale One” by the locals in reference to Merlin living there. He’s the one who chained Angor up and trapped him under rubble when Angor tried to trap Merlin in the Shadow Realm in hopes that would get Morgana to end his curse. (Merlin can sense Angor is cursed but doesn’t seem to care.)

This obviously means Merlin had to have lied about going to sleep right after trapping Morgana in the Heartstone, but I’m not going to call that a plot hole because I can believe Merlin would lie about that.

Chapter 1:

Jim has a nightmare about an old man trapping him in a glass bottle and then dumping him into a giant blender. Then he wakes up underwater.

He’s not in the potion, he’s at the bottom of Lake Arcadia Oaks, which he recognizes once he’s on the surface because he and Toby used to go camping there.

Jim takes off his armour to swim for the surface - which is nice, implying the armour being stuck in the show really was because he was panicking and not because it can’t come off. After he drops the amulet, it flies out of the lake and into the air, and he grabs it as it passes him; it drops him in shallower water.

It is established the Trollhunter team knows the Eternal Night is going to be a perpetual eclipse rather than some kind of damage to the sun itself or an adjustment of Earth’s rotation to have perma-night on one side and perma-day on the other.

Jim’s memory is messed up and he can’t remember that his mom isn’t missing anymore or what Merlin’s declaration that the potion will make Jim “both Troll and Hunter” means.

Jim finds and saves a wolf pup that had its legs tangled in some old fishing line. Its reaction to a human is more like I would expect of a dog than a wild wolf, but okay. Jim decides to name it Sir Barks-a-Lot.

The clouds part and the full moon is exposed. Jim doubles over in pain. He sees someone, or possibly two someones, approaching.

Chapter 2:

Everyone but Merlin is freaking out over Jim being gone. Barbara threatens the wizard. Strickler, consulting the Book of Ga-huel, agrees that Barbara does indeed have the knowledge and skill to break bones.

Claire tries to use the Shadow Staff to find Jim. It fails. (Then one would think it wouldn’t come as a surprise to her in the show when it fails again.)

“But how could you be so reckless?” Strickler asked. “How could you expose him to something this unpredictable?”

“That’s a bit like the cauldron calling the kettle black, isn’t it, Changeling?” Merlin said.

... Dude. If you are literally comparing something you did to something that someone you openly scorn has done, this does not make you look good.

Barbara drags Merlin out of the bathroom by his beard, insisting he do something to help them find Jim.

Strickler starts trying to contact Nomura, Claire goes into the Shadow Realm to see if cutting off outside input will help her lock onto Jim’s signal, and Toby jumps out the bathroom window and uses his Warhammer to fly for “aerial surveillance”, wishing Blinky and AAARRRGGHH were there.

Blinky and AAARRRGGHH are fleeing Usurna’s forces. AAARRRGGHH catches a spear that was about to hit Blinky and throws it back at the troll who threw it. They escape, temporarily, by jumping over a ‘fire bog’ ... Do I spy a Princess Bride reference? They take shelter in a cave and find some possibly-enchanted pools of water. Blinky describes himself as “royally cheesed off” at the events of the past week.

Chapter 3:

Jim awakes to a bonfire. He has been found by a River Troll and a Garden Troll, who recognize him as a human. The Garden Troll wants to keep Jim as a pet. Jim interrupts what he thinks is a fight between the two and is told that they are, in fact, in love, and “it’s our courtship dance!”

Jim goes off on a mental tangent about how pretty and wonderful Claire is. He wishes he could be holding her hand, and notices that his hand is surprisingly hairy. (This is probably the hand that got covered by the gauntlet, since the hand that lost a finger didn’t seem to have hair on it at all, or his transformation isn’t over yet.)

The troll couples’ parents show up and try to forcibly separate them. When it becomes a fight, Jim summons the armour of Daylight. He collapses in pain. The wolf is whining and barking. Some of the River and Garden Trolls start attacking Jim as well. Jim roars at them.

Chapter 4:

Angor is awed and discomforted to be physically in Morgana’s presence for the first time. Morgana and Gunmar have a subtle power struggle.

Gunmar possesses three Stalklings with the Decimaar Blade, to track down and kill Jim and his allies. Gunmar sends Angor to let the Stalklings out on the surface, taunting him about how Angor used to keep animals.

Angor wonders if Morgana might reward him if he were to kill Gunmar.

At the entrance to Trollmarket (implied to be the one in the canals), once he’s let the Stalklings out, Angor thinks he catches the Trollhunter’s scent, and leaves with the intent to track and kill him.

Chapter 5:

Jim tries to talk down the Garden and River Trolls, but his words are garbled because his teeth have changed. They get over their surprise and attack him again. Jim wins the fight and demands the star-crossed lovers be released.

Ronagog and Junipra, the Romeo-and-Juliet references, are allowed by their families to be together, but at the cost of each being banished from their tribe.

Jim gets a look at his reflection in the water. He’s got tusks, though he calls them fangs, and shaggier hair. His skin isn’t totally blue yet, but it’s bluish in a way he isn’t quite sure is a trick of the light. No mention of horns, so he probably hasn’t grown them yet. His armour feels too tight, and resizes for his new height and bulk.

Jim has an existential crisis about what his transformation will mean for his relationships with his mom, his friends, and his girlfriend. His angsty rambling about making decisions before thinking them through, and not knowing where you belong anymore, and how maybe sometimes it’s better to separate from someone before you hurt them, convinces the troll couple to break up. Jim is left alone with the wolf cub.

A thunderstorm is rolling in. There is a flash of lightning and Angor Rot appears.

Chapter 6:

Gnome Chompsky and Not Enrique question Fragwa about the missing Trollhunter. Chompsky is the ‘bad cop’.

Fragwa is about to tell them something when the Creepslayerz show up and throw a dwärkstone into the goblin’s mouth. Claire, Toby, and Strickler show up, Claire and Toby in armour, to confirm Eli and Steve were indeed asked to help instead of stumbling onto the scene by accident.

Stalklings attack and grab Claire and Toby. Strickler transforms and flies after them.

Chapter 7:

Angor taunts Jim about Draal.

Angor compares what Merlin did to Jim with what Morgana did to Angor. Jim does not have a good counter-argument to the parallels, although he does deny them. During the fight, Jim’s horns begin to grow out. His hearing, sense of smell, and sight are all enhanced, as are his reflexes.

Jim taunts Angor about the assassin being defeated by Merlin, despite no hint in the show or previous novels or earlier chapters that Jim would know about that.

Angor says once he kills Jim, he’ll move on to Jim’s loved ones, specifically threatening Barbara. Jim responds with primal rage. In the subsequent attack, the pixie cage and a container of Grave Sand that Angor was carrying are shattered. The pixies can’t get through Jim’s helmet, and he covers Sir Barks' nose, mouth and ears. Apparently the wolf cub does not bite him for this.

The pixies leave, carrying off the Grave Sand. Angor also disappears. Jim chases Angor.

Chaper 8:

Detective Scott’s first name is Louis.

A man in the police station is ranting about seeing creatures/people with lots of arms and glowing skin who fell from the sky but could now be disguised as humans.

Barbara is filing a missing person report on Jim. Merlin is with her, wearing an old band T-shirt (Papa Skull Live In Concert ‘92), parachute pants, high top sneakers, a porkpie hat, and sunglasses; some of James Senior’s old clothes, rather than his armour. Detective Scott points out that, statistically, most kidnappees are abducted by someone they knew. Barbara denies that it could’ve been James Senior, since he never even came back to get his stuff after walking out.

Nomura is outside the police station, watching in amusement as Barbara drags Merlin around. Nomura is upset about being attacked on her first day back at her human ‘day job’ - she likes working at the museum - and is mourning for Draal. She’s keeping her distance from the Trollhunter team for now, despite getting Strickler’s texts that Jim is missing, because Nomura is bad at sharing feelings.

Strickler stabs the Stalkling not carrying a human. His knife, which looks more like stone than metal to me, acts as a lightning rod and the Stalkling is zapped and disintegrated, even though the two Stalklings carrying humans in metal armour have not been zapped and the Stalkling Jim killed with a lightning strike only turned to stone, not dust. The shockwave knocks Strickler back. The other two Stalklings are startled into dropping Claire and Toby.

Chapter 9:

Jim chases Angor to Arcadia Oaks Dam. He switches to the Eclipse Armour for better stealth. He is relieved to have a fight to focus on, rather than dwelling on how his loved ones will react to his transformation.

Jim sees a hunched figure through the fog, identifies it as Angor Rot, cannot identify if Angor is alive or dead, and throws his sword at the figure, which shatters on impact. Jim literally does a happy dance. It was a trap. Jim is grabbed by a golem.

The golem is made of wood. The wolf cub bites it, which buys Jim time to summon his glaives. After they beat the golem and destroy the totem (called a fetish, referring to the archaic definition ‘a charm imbued with magical powers’), Sir Barks pees on the pile of sticks.

Angor nearly drowns Jim inside a Water Golem. Sir Barks nearly gets hit by a thrown knife and runs away.

The Eclipse Armour fades out. Angor takes the amulet. Jim snaps the totem animating the golem with his bare hands. Angor steals the Triumbric Stones, and presumably his eye but that isn’t mentioned in the narrative, and tosses the amulet over the waterfall. Angor knees Jim in the crotch and is about to stab him when Jim throws himself over the waterfall instead.

Chapter 10:

Claire summons her Shadow Staff, which flies to them and carries Toby’s Warhammer as well, saving them both from falling to their deaths. Toby chooses to fly back while Claire portals to the alley they were snatched out of.

Steve and Eli are hiding in the dumpster, which Steve excuses by claiming they were searching for Jim in there. Strickler and Toby show up. Strickler warns that Gunmar may have been watching through the Stalklings’ eyes.

Barbara and Merlin show up because Toby texted Barbara where they were. Merlin calls Eli “the inadequate one” even as he agrees with something Eli said. They agree they should take a break and eat.

The pixies show up. Eli recognizes them from the time Angor Rot set them loose on the school. Everyone blocks their ears and noses with packing peanuts from a box by the dumpster. The pixies begin huffing Grave Sand. Literally. “Huffing” is the word the book uses to describe it.

The Grave Sand appears to be inducing a Zen state in the pixies.

“Sounds like the medication they give hyperactive kids,” added Steve. “Lotsa people think it calms ‘em down, but it’s actually a stimulant to improve concentration. Uh, I mean, so I’ve heard other people who are not me say ...”

Unfortunately the Grave Sand also amplifies the pixies’ abilities so they can show people their fears without literally getting into their heads.

Chapter 11:

Jim has been washed downriver to the Arcadia canal system. Sir Barks-a-Lot has followed him, tracking his scent. The wolf cub pulls him out of the water. Jim is unconscious. His skin is bluer than before.

Sir Barks-a-Lot sees the amulet in the water nearby and brings it to Jim, dropping it on his chest and howling. The amulet zaps Jim. Jim wakes up. It is implied he was dead - “The Trollhunter gasped alive, his eyes wide with amazement, his blood pumping again” - but that could just be exaggeration of how people seem to come to life when regaining consciousness.

Jim, carrying the wolf cub, climbs out of the canal. He dislikes the sound of traffic and wonders if he belongs “in the wild with other animals” now.

Jim looks into the water and imagines seeing the faces of the people he’d be leaving behind if he abandoned civilization - wow, you can tell this kid is sixteen, he seriously thinks this is a feasible thing to do on impulse - until Blinky and AAARRRGGHH’s reflections appear, and do not fade, and start talking to him.

The cave they are hiding in holds ‘the Plunder Pools’. Over generations, various trolls hid treasures in the deep wells to keep anyone from stealing them, and the buildup of magical artifacts in particular has imbued the water with magical properties. Blinky and AAARRRGGHH can see Jim, but the image is very blurry, explaining why they don’t know he’s a troll when they return.

Jim does not bring up his transformation, but their conversation gives Jim new resolve to go back and protect his friends - especially when the talk ends abruptly, with Blinky and AAARRRGGHH discovered and captured. But first Jim has to get the Triumbric Stones back from Angor.

He spots a brochure for the museum in the various debris in the canal and gets an idea, or possibly is reminded of his past success in the Second Battle of Killahead even if that was ultimately a temporary victory.

Chapter 12:

The pixies’ fear inducing power affects everyone present.

Claire is in the Shadow Realm, calling out for Jim. Her staff can’t open a portal. She’s stuck there forever.

Toby remembers visiting his parents graves with Nana and Jim when he was six, which then time-cuts to the present except Nana and Jim are both gone. He backs into Jim’s tombstone.

Strickler proposes to Barbara, who reveals she is a Changeling too and she was also lying about having feelings for him, except in her case it never stopped being a lie.

Not Enrique is stuck in a pet carrier. Original Enrique blows a raspberry at him. The Nuñez family is leaving Not Enrique at an orphanage. He begs them for a second chance, to prove he can be good and deserve their love. None of them speak to him. Javier wonders if ‘returning’ him to the orphanage is alright; Ophelia dismissively says she can rewrite the law, and anyway, who would ever adopt him? Claire says nothing. (This one kind of cheeses me off because I had a plan involving Not Enrique and a cat carrier for Becoming The Mask and now that scene is going to look like a book reference even though it wasn’t meant to be one.)

Gnome Chompsky is cradling Sally-Go-Back, the doll irreparably damaged, in the ruins of the smashed dollhouse.

Eli’s mother informs him there was a news report, saying all the paranormal things he’s been investigating were a hoax. Mrs Pepperjack says Eli was the only one to ever fall for it, but now that it’s over he can stop pretending to be important and go back to being a perpetual understudy in the drama club. Eli screams.

Steve is in Arcadia Oaks High School. He thinks he hears Eli scream from inside a locker but doesn’t investigate - he’s chasing after his father. Steve finally collapses in exhaustion, begging his father to come back, promising to score more points in the next game and make him proud.

Barbara seems to be unaffected by the pixies - I guess maybe her worst fear is Jim being missing, which is already true? We don’t see Merlin’s fear but he tells Barbara that dolls have haunted his nightmares for centuries.

“Not just any dolls!” Merlin exclaimed hoarsely. “Little porcelain girl dolls, with their chipped faces, strange eyes, and horrible little voices that repeat the word ‘papa’ -”

“PAPA!” Steve shrieked randomly behind Barbara.

“Always ‘papa’ ... until the end of time!” Merlin finished.

“This ... explains a lot,” Barbara said as she released the wizard and watched him collapse on the alley floor.

Chapter 13:

Jim climbs onto the museum. Narration comments that the alley where everyone but Barbara is suffering pixie-power is only a block away. Jim jokes that he needs to stop breaking into the museum. College AU writers, make a note: There is, apparently, an ‘Arcadia U’ - probably a community college but maybe a university like the name implies? Seriously, what size is this town?

Jim carefully extracts a bunch of mineral samples from their cases without setting off the alarms, and starts cleaving them with his talons. The minerals in question are vivianite, amethyst, fire opal, wulfenite, peacock coal, and obsidian. I don’t offhand know any trivia about these beyond obsidian being volcanic glass historically used for knives because it has such a sharp edge, and amethyst being the birthstone for February.

Jim asks Vendel’s spirit to guide his hand in the stone cleaving. He remembers what Vendel said about cleaving stones to unlock their powers and wonders if cutting away ties to the human world with unlock new powers in Jim.

There are six slots in the back of the amulet, so Jim fills them all here. The amulet’s incantation changes to, “For the pursuit of Angor, Moonlight is mine to command”. The lights out of the amulet are black and white and the armour is two-tone grey.

Jim and Sir Barks are nearly caught by museum security, but the Moonlight Armour adjusts Jim’s boots to have something like jogging stilts, which, combined with his new troll strength, allow him to jump out of the skylight they came in through while carrying the wolf.

Chapter 14:

Barbara reminds herself she knows how to treat fever dreams, telling herself to forget the supernatural element and just deal with the pixie hallucinations like she would that. They also remind her of virtual reality - apparently the hospital where she works uses VR to help anxiety patients? The more worldbuilding is done, the more Arcadia sounds like a big city rather than a small town.

Barbara took a college semester abroad and studied painting in Rome.

Barbara traps one of the pixies in the Grave Sand container until it eats all the Grave Sand, then moves it to the densest part of the pixie swarm. When it explodes, it sets off a chain reaction and kills off all the other pixies. She likens this to an antivirus.

Merlin expresses amazement that a “mere mortal woman”, his exact words, could defeat the pixies when he, “the world’s mightiest wizard”, again his exact words, couldn’t. Claire, Toby, Not Enrique, and Chompsky immediately call him out on talking down to her.

Dialogue between Barbara and Strickler confirms my theory that Barbara’s already dealing with her worst fear and that’s why the pixies didn’t affect her. (Although, really, they could’ve just shown her Jim’s dead body or something - I guess if you get cerebral about it, ‘not knowing’ is scarier than having closure?)

More Stalklings show up.

Chapter 15:

Angor paints his face with mud. “This was tradition. This was ritual. This was what hunters of old did before they claimed their final kill”. It is implied he does not expect to survive fighting Jim but could be interpreted to mean he intends to ‘retire’ after winning.

Jim uses Sir Barks for misdirection and successfully gets the jump on Angor.

In addition to ‘spring stilts’, Jim can summon a longbow and arrows, his shield can adapt to armour a companion (in this case, Sir Barks-a-Lot), and swap out the stilts for cleats which let him grip any terrain, even letting him climb a tree at a run.

Angor, outnumbered once his golems are destroyed, retreats. Jim and Sir Barks-a-Lot give chase.

Angor has captured Ronagog and Junipra (the Romeo and Juliet parallels from earlier) in a stasis trap. He sets himself up so that if Jim shoots him down with a bow and arrow, the shot will also go through the two harmless, helpless trolls.

Chapter 16:

Gunmar speaks through the Stalklings. Toby calls Claire ‘Claire-bear’ while suggesting she make a portal for them to escape through. She can’t - she’s emotionally exhausted after pixie exposure. Gunmar laughs.

Barbara tells Gunmar to “put a cork in it!” and throws a trash can lid at one of the Stalklings, making it choke and giving the humans, Changelings, and gnome an opening to run.

Merlin calls Eli “the bespectacled, socially-awkward one”. Steve calls Merlin “fuzz face” and tells him to lay off Eli.

Claire, Toby and Chompsky temporarily pin one of the Stalklings. Barbara offers praise and encouragement.

Strickler, Merlin, and Not Enrique fight the other Stalkling. Strickler offers Merlin the chance to deliver the killing blow. Merlin explodes the Stalkling, not caring that Not Enrique was in the line of fire and barely dodged.

The pinned Stalkling gets loose and attacks Steve and Eli. Barbara shields them. The Stalkling falls ... zapped by Detective Scott’s Taser.

Claire wishes they could take the fight to Gunmar. Eli reveals he captured some of the surviving pixies and was planning to keep them as evidence of Arcadia’s supernatural activity, but he’ll sacrifice them for the good of the world.

Merlin actually offers praise ... right before erasing Eli’s, Steve’s and Detective Scott’s memories of that evening’s events. Like the terrible, terrible, arrogant, selfish, terrible person he is. But at least it didn’t leave open the plothole of Detective Scott knowing about trolls in the books but not the show, so it’s only rage-inducing for the character’s actions, not for the writer’s slip-ups.

Chapter 17:

Angor wants Jim to kill the innocents in order to kill Angor so that Jim will (metaphorically) sacrifice his soul and Angor won’t be the only one. Jim, instead, breaks the stasis trap.

The subsequent “What kind of troll are you?!” “I’m not a troll. Or at least, not one like you.” exchange reminds me of the Disney confrontation between Tarzan and Clayton where Clayton tries to goad Tarzan into shooting him. (”Go ahead, shoot me. Be a man.” “Not a man like you!”) I’m also a sucker for the “I didn’t miss” trope.

Jim gives Angor this weird speech about almost feeling sorry for him and how Angor tried and failed to take Jim’s humanity away - no, kiddo, that was Merlin that did that - and how he thinks Angor always regretted giving up his soul. Okay, that part’s true, but there’s still no explanation for how Jim knew that. Everything the characters know about Angor in the show suggests Angor and Morgana are the only ones who know Angor didn’t give up his soul on purpose.

Now freed of the stasis trap, the two trolls group-hug Jim and Sir Barks, and renew their relationship.

Angor’s dialogue when trying to stab Jim - “Now there’s enough troll in you for me to turn to stone!” - implies Creeper’s Sun is a troll-only toxin, even though it’s also seen turning trees and a metal shackle to stone in the show.

Jim claims that, although bad things do happen that no one asks for or expects, everything bad that’s happened to Angor since trading his soul away was a direct result of Angor’s own actions. He pins Angor to a tree with an arrow through the wrist and refuses to kill him. Somehow this wins him Angor’s respect.

Angor acknowledges Jim as the better troll and hunter, and then escapes using a smoke bomb, but leaves behind the Triumbric Stones. (And possibly his eye? That never gets mentioned at all in this novel.)

Epilogue:

Draal and Kanigar watch Junipra and Ronagog’s wedding from the Void. The couple exchange nose rings, which were fashioned out of Moonlight’s arrows, implying an expectation that these won’t just vanish when Jim dispels the armour.

Draal asks about his parents’ wedding. Kanjigar says he and Draal’s mother, Ballustra, had a more traditional wedding: a trial-by-combat cage match followed by reciting their vows. He then goes on to reminisce about Draal’s infancy, embarrassing his son.

Claire portals the last Stalkling, blindfolded, into Trollmarket. It knocks over a bunch of Gumm-Gumms and coughs up the pixies.

A pixie goes in through Gunmar’s gouged-out eye socket. He sees Bular, as reanimated-but-still-crumbling stone, blaming Gunmar for Bular’s death and saying that if Bular, a warrior in his prime, could be beaten by a human Trollhunter, what chance does old half-blind Gunmar have against a whole Trollhunter team?

In the swamp, Usurna reveals she plans to take over herself eventually, and is only biding her time allying with Gunmar. AAARRRGGHH notes she treats trolls like pawns and she agrees. In the Void, Kanjigar notes that the other Krubera are starting to turn against her, and if Blinky and AAARRRGGHH can keep her talking, Usurna will be taken care of soon enough.

The Void’s viewing window shifts focus to the Arcadia canals. Nomura is confronting Angor Rot over killing Draal. She wonders, rhetorically, how many of those he’s killed he actually remembers, and which of the deaths he’s caused haunt him most. Coincidentally, a dove coos just after she says this, which freaks Angor out. Seeing his panic, Nomura decides to walk away and let him suffer rather than killing him. She presumably meets and fights some Gumm-Gumms between then and when she shows up at Jim’s house, because there is no mention of her shoulder being dislocated.

Draal is extremely touched Nomura wanted to avenge him. It is Kanjigar’s turn to feel embarrassed and flustered when Draal caresses the ‘window’ between the Void and the living world and tells Nomura, “Never change, my Changeling.”

Jim is back by the lake. It’s sunrise; it would seem he spends the day walking, under the cover of the trees, and gets home after dark the next night, somehow without ever getting any sunlight exposure? He takes off the Moonlight armour, which also dissipates Sir Barks-a-Lot’s armour (and maybe Ronagog’s and Junipra’s wedding rings but they aren’t in the scene so we don’t know).

Jim swaps out the ‘on loan’ museum crystals for “the gems from Angor Rot’s pouch, including the Triumbric Stones”, which implies he does have Angor’s eye again but that’s left unclear, and opening the possibility there’s one or two other stones in the pouch that might come into play in a later novel.

A mother wolf and three more cubs are nearby. Jim sends Sir Barks-a-Lot back to his family. I expect they will “see each other again someday”, because that animal acted way more like a well-trained dog than a young and wild wolf, but on the other hand that’s animals in fiction for you.

Jim plans to stick to the safety of the shadows while walking back to town, presumably to avoid being seen since he isn’t supposed to know he’s vulnerable to sunlight yet.

Kanjigar expresses confidence Jim will be able to save the world.

In Conclusion:

Angor Reborn still jars against animated canon in several places but is not as much of a mess as some of the other novels. There are a number of bits and pieces worth keeping.

87 notes · View notes

chalabrun · 6 years ago

Text

between the dirt & desperation, ch. 2

Word count: 2,420 Pairings: Symbrock Rating: T Warnings: Animal death, non-sexual vore, violence Summary: Sequel to “Angry & Half in Love with You”, it’s been well over a month since Eddie moved away from San Francisco to start over in his hometown of Manhattan. Yet, it’s difficult to return to a normal life when what you were once addicted to becomes addicted to you. A/N: This is a crossover between Venom (2018) and Sam Raimi’s Spiderman trilogy (2002-07)

( READ ON AO3 )

The symbiote was relentlessly starved when they finally made some sort of harbor a dark place where grime crawled deeper and lower than the rats Venom gorged itself upon, being generous, ginger. It withdrew from coating the whole of Eddie’s body and instead emerged like a serpent, slithering and bobbing as it devoured what it could while Eddie watched on apathetically. Not because he didn’t care, but because it held less horror for him than it should. Those few days together—had it been less? Whatever it was, there had been no time to slow down and think. Here and now, in the deafening silence, there was.

Without having to be told, he knew that it’d known Maria. They had been together for a time, and it let him access that trust through the hum of tension. The hum that sometimes growled. A pigeon panicked and squawked when Venom lunged and crushed the bird in its jaws in a sickening crunch of finality, feathers and thin talons sticking from its jaws before swallowing it down whole. Then, more rats. More crunching and devouring and sick noises instead of what hung in the air like a noose.

Eddie squatted on a crushed cardboard box while it ate, unwilling to shut his eyes lest he saw what Venom did. The blood, the viscera, a taste that would make him retch if he let himself. His skin felt clammy. Oh, he’d been sweating. His clothes clung to his body unpleasantly, almost like he’d been dipped in water. Was it him, or Venom? He couldn’t tell anymore.

All he did know was, in the silence, there wasn’t any censor. While Venom feigned like it was fully absorbed in foraging for prey, everything passed between them. Every badly suppressed sensation, emotion. The cautious relief, the tension, the anxiety—those were Venom’s, he thinks. Or was it both? All Eddie really knew was his own caution, the tension, the suspicion, the—oh. So, there was some overlap. Did he fear it? Suddenly, everything he’d done came in sharp relief and the last month had felt like withdrawal. This…it was like taking a hit but getting none of the high.

Being too fucking aware to drown in the weird colors, to smell sound.

“So, how long are we gonna hole down here and pretend what happened didn’t, Ven?” It’s asked suddenly, tiredly, and now Venom flinches. He can feel it all the way up the appendage. Like a shiver down a spine. His spine, Venom’s? Or theirs. Regardless, Eddie sounded tired, frustrated. Probably not the most inviting front.

Venom slurps down the last rat. It’s morbid seeing it slide down his throat, and he can’t stand to watch. He pressed a finger to his temple, expelling a weary and terse sigh.

“…We’re sorry, Eddie. There’s just so much we didn’t understand—”

He can feel it. Like Venom is going to crumble, like he’d blow away if he didn’t clamor towards Eddie and twist around him for dear life. Eddie wants it, too. He wants it so much he can feel his fingers twitching, biceps tense like they’d open up at the slightest insistence and seize the symbiote in a crushing embrace. But, they can’t. Not yet. Not when Eddie doesn’t trust it. Even if he can feel its fragility, its heart that throbbed painfully.

Not when he can’t distinguish what belongs to whom.

“…Could’ve asked me. I wouldn’t have minded, y’know. Just sat down and watched some fuckin’ boring documentary about… I dunno, goddamn Plato for somethin’. Freud. Those guys. Knew all about how humanity ticks.” Eddie dropped his face in his hand, digging into the hair at his hairline as he watched a trickle of water run past to a storm sewer. He wanted to sleep. But, he couldn’t just leave things hanging like this.

A drop on his forehead. Who…? Nah, it was just beginning to rain. He forgot how cold and dreary Manhattan could be. Glancing towards Venom, the symbiote looking like the alien equivalent of a kicked puppy, the downpour starting.

“Com’mere. I don’t want ya gettin’ all soaked like that.” Putting his hood up, Venom retracted some back into his body, like ink soaking up parchment. The part that remained hung on the hoodie’s collar and tucked itself beneath his chin, warm and pliant beneath his stubble. Meekly did Venom rub himself against his chin, which admittedly tickled. Eddie broke out in a quick grin and chuffed softly, which earned a relieved pause from Venom as it continued to nuzzle into his jawline.

It was a start, at least.

“…We don’t want to end up like last time. We missed you, Eddie. …We want a second chance.” Venom’s words were quiet and admissive, and totally vulnerable. He could feel a tightness in his chest that wasn’t his own.

Eddie nodded, a thoughtful silence descending even as he got soaked, rain dripping from the lip of his hood. “I wanna trust you, Ven. I do, it’s just— …Funny. How people all over the world lead these fuckin’ lonely lives. Top brass. Lowest scum. And everyone in between who doesn’t have anyone to understand them. Not in the way they wish they could. Boy, if they knew the damn cost of it all.” Venom filled a side of Eddie’s hoodie, nuzzling yearningly into the blond’s cheek and rubbing affectionately. Absently, he grazed his lips against the symbiote that began purring deeply. “And now, I got it. Y’think it wouldn’t be this fuckin’ complicated, sharing headspace an’ all.”

Venom breathed softly against Eddie’s neck, pressing into his pulse. “You were kind to her. We saw it through her eyes. You were a good friend.”

Eddie swallowed thickly. “Yeah,” he agreed hoarsely, voice cracking huskily, feeling his eyes mist wetly. “Too bad she ain’t here to say so. Fuck—”

“You’re a real hard guy to track down, Brock. Guess I’m lucky you didn’t get very far.”

Eddie reared to stand and upset whatever water had been accumulating on him, like a statue suddenly come to life, perched over a gloomy autumn fountain and under a funeral shroud sky. There was the red. Red he remembered. But somehow shouldn’t but did. Spiderman. He’d seen him before in the papers, but that red looked different in person. Realer. Too vivid for a dark city.

“Spiderman? Th’ hell’re you doin’ here?” Eddie asked in surprise, Venom having vanished at the right time.

“Enough of the talk. You’ve got the symbiote, Brock. A lot of people are gonna get hurt if you don’t give it up.”

“What, is there a crime against loiterin’ in alleyways? Or are ya suddenly an avenger for fuckin’ vermin?” the blond demanded incredulously, those inscrutable opaque lenses making it impossible to tell what the vigilante was thinking. He could feel Vernom’s trepidation evolve into something malicious, tenebrous shadow building behind him like a nascent forest fire.

“Spiderman!” Venom seethed menacingly, claws curling and fangs bared menacingly. Its eyes narrowed to slits, Eddie feeling its inky substance creep up his skin and over his clothes. So, it was really coming to that? That they’d be the villains jumping innocent people in dark alleyways?

Spiderman poised himself to attack, reflexively wheeling a step back when Venom’s form grew like a cloud, sucking Eddie into that familiar black mist. “Wait—you two know each other?”

“Boy, I wish it was just a mutual acquaintanceship, but I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t know what a threat that thing is, Brock. And you’re in danger if you keep using it!” Spiderman proclaimed in a truer accusation. “You have no idea what this thing is really capable of.”

The cogs in Eddie’s brain began turning. “Wait—so you were the schmuck who handed Ven over to those exploitive creeps?!” Anger. There it was. Like finding a pilot light beneath a tank of petrol and lighting it. There was an emotion he didn’t mind sharing for once. And it was symbiotic between them.

A rumbling noise interrupted what the two were saying. “I bonded with him temporarily, Eddie. Because…I missed it. I missed us. Spiderman treated us like another suit. It lasted for a few days before a Dr. Richard Reeds parted us.” The hiss it uttered was low and banal, burgeoning with resentment. And now, of course Spiderman wanted to do the right thing and put them on the slaughterhouse floor they liked to call justice. “We’re a monster to him, Eddie.”

Whatever had gone on between them suddenly didn’t matter. Spiderman acted on impulse and slung his webbing on two dumpsters and hauled them back manfully, both metal cannisters careening and bouncing roughly on concrete before Venom enveloped him completely, like drowning in those 20,000 leagues under the sea without a submarine. It was familiar, like a womb. They were one again.

“YOU HURT US!” Venom roared as it caught one of the dumpsters and pitched it at Spiderman who reflexively leaped over it. “And now—you threatened to hurt Eddie! We’ll never forgive you!” It was less heartbreak here and more a possessive and righteous anger. At least, righteous to them. Here, in the darkness, everything felt right. Only Spiderman was wrong. He would never part them!

“Brock, if you’re in here, listen to me: I know how it feels! It feels great, at first. But this…this thing, it’s leeching on everything wrong! It makes it worse and—” Venom roared indignantly and tore the other dumpster in two, leaping to bear the weight on its blow that Spiderman barely avoided, vaulting into the air several feet up and racing up the side of the building. “—It’s going to ruin you if you keep this up!”

“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” Venom roared furiously, its own webbing soaring its body into the sky as it gave chase to Spiderman who took off in hot pursuit of a place predictably further away from civilians. “We won’t let you or anyone else separate us ever again!” Rage. The white-hot, poetic rage that would make the stars tremble. A romantic rage of tortured poets who saw the futility of gray skies and death. It was here, raw and maligned. Except towards Eddie. Despite everything, nothing could make it hurt Eddie.

His Eddie.

Spiderman landed squarely against the side of a warehouse, practically soundless. He couldn’t let innocent people get hurt, but inside no one was there in the charge of shifts. Maybe it’d cause damage, but all he cared about was the preservation of life. Not lost assets.

Adroitly did he use his webbing to open a narrow enough window near the roof and catapult his way through it, assessing his surroundings in the blink of an eye. The stacks were at least a few stories high, enough to provide ammunition against the symbiote. And—speakers!

Venom rocketed through the same window with a loud violence, struggling to squeeze through compared to the slender Spider. Glass shards rained as it landed heavily, a shake in the air as its tongue tasted the air. “We can hear you, little spider! Climbing higher up the water spout, ha!” the symbiote taunted, arrogance rife in its very veins. It stalked the long avenues of boxes and paraphernalia, Spiderman high aloft and studying its movements.

Wait—were those exhaust vents? And tankards of gas.

That gave him an idea.

“Hey, ugly! Over here!” The jeer got Venom’s attention, the symbiote snarling as it propelled itself upwards and swung through the rafters, just rows away from Spiderman. The masked arachnid dropped down when Venom barreled through and came too close, landing deftly on his feet before he found the exhaust vents. It was natural gas—perfect!

Venom waited for a brief moment, scenting the air for Peter. Quietly, and as swiftly as he could, he knocked off the spouts of two of the two natural gas tanks and a high pennywhistle of air pitched and already the stench of natural gas flooded the room. Booking it from the narrow office, he stood before and where Venom could see him. Luckily, the office’s doors looked sturdy and all but one entrance were locked, as there was only one way in or out.

“Looking for me? Guess we’re like the tortoise and the hare here, aren’t we, big guy?”

Already with a thin pride as it was, Venom snapped and devolved into a galloping morass of oily sludge as it raced towards him, Peter running headlong towards it as if embracing death. Except, he wasn’t. The smell of gasoline was acrid and likely set to implode at any minute.

At the last second did Peter dive aside while Venom barreled heedlessly into the office, ramming into several desks and overturning them in the process. Papers upset by the collision created a hail of white, obscuring their view while Peter locked the office shut with the fumes pent up inside, using his webbing to topple a row of shelving that landed cacophonously and shed its merchandise to effectively lock the pair inside, hauling it with inhuman strength to barricade the windowless room shut.

Feeling the very air shimmer with heat, Peter launched himself skyward and propelled himself by slinging through the skylight, willing that he was right and no one else was around to get hurt. He raced away as fast as his webs could take him, several blocks so before an explosion rocked the air and he was sundered to skid to a stop on a sidewalk, the silent night brightening hellishly as an inferno erupted and plumes of smoke roiled enormously and black into that grey sky, dying it sable.

Peter coughed and groaned softly, rolling on his back as he slowly got himself back on his feet, wiping away a skid mark of dirt on his mask.

Police and fire engines raced past, a cold breeze of their speeding coloring the night that same, vivid red. So different from the violence several blocks away, the vigilante’s heart heavy with a deep regret.

He didn’t like it when people died. Especially people who didn’t know what they’d gotten themselves into, but what choice did he have? Peter watched on as people slowly emerged from their homes, bundling themselves in coats and shawls as they gossiped worriedly for the flames licking the sky.

Peter bowed his head.

He had to get home. His Aunt May would be wondering where he was. Especially after all of this.

#eddie brock #venom #symbrock #veddie #peter parker #crossover #vore cw #kinda #if this doesn't make the fandom hate me idk what will :'D #angst gremlin here with more angst woop woop

29 notes · View notes

sofreakinmanyfandoms · 6 years ago

Text

The Craigslist Date - Chapter 12

Here we are at the second-to-last chapter. It hurts me. This was the first fic I started, and it’s almost over.

I’m living for Steve giving the reader the nickname that just sort of slipped into this chapter.

Also, I’m really sorry about the cliffhanger. It’s the most regret I’ve ever had for where a chapter has to end.

Word count: 1505

Warnings: If you have heart problems, read this on Oct. 3 when I’ve posted the last chapter. There’s also some strongly implied smut, but let’s be honest, I’ve had that before, and there is absolutely nothing explicit here.

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

You found your boyfriend in your shared bedroom studying the files laid out in front him; his hair fell down over his forehead and his brow scrunched up as he pieced the information together. Man, he looked hot when concentrating like that. You studied him from the doorway for a few minutes before finally entering.

“Hey, babe.”

A smile lit Steve’s face as your arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind. “Hey, Y/N. What have you been up to?”

“Just looking for my man.” You nuzzled your face into the crook of his neck and breathed in deeply, nibbling lightly behind his ear and smiling as his breath hitched. You had been rather clingy the past few weeks. Steve didn’t need to know it was partly because of Tony’s plan.

“As much as I like where this could go,” his voice was low and rough, “I have a mission briefing in twenty minutes.”

“Mmmm… twenty minutes is an awfully long time,” you purred, placing a few kisses along his neck and the back of his jawline.

“It is, isn’t it?”

Steve was five minutes late to his briefing. You tagged along, refusing to let go of his hand and waggling your eyebrows at the knowing smirks from the team when the two of you showed up, hair and clothes in disarray. Your boyfriend blushed deeply, a sight you would never tire of, before starting the briefing.

You had never been to a mission briefing before, so you paid extra close attention. Tony caught your eye and winked, a signal you returned. Today was the day.

----------

“Okay, we’re all here and ready to go. Everyone on board the jet,” Steve barked as today’s crew of Tony, Nat, and Sam gathered around him.

“Well, not quite all of us,” Tony replied.

The Captain knit his brows together. “Who are we missing?”

“He’s talking about me.”

Steve turned and froze, mouth gaping open. There you stood in the gear you and Tony had designed, the headband now part of a helmet and the gloves part of a full suit. You had EMP directional ports on your feet and chest for additional combat points, and you were pretty sure if you focused hard enough you could produce EMPs strong enough to get yourself temporarily airborne (as long as the ground wasn’t too soft, that is). The whole suit was in the Captain America color scheme of red, white, and blue, and even without Steve’s reaction you knew you looked good.

“Y/N, what are you – where did you get – what –”

You couldn’t help but laugh at his flustered reaction. “Tony and I have been working on it.”

“It’s about damn time,” Nat cut in. “Welcome to the team, Y/N.”

“Now wait a minute.” Steve had found his voice. “You’ve never been in the field before. You’re not ready for something like this.”

“She looks pretty ready to me,” Sam shrugged.

“Steve,” you assured him, “I’ve been training with Nat and I can hold my own now, I have the same enhanced strength and stamina that you have, and I can neutralize whatever technology they throw at me. I’m as ready as I can be, and I’ll have a team to work with. It’s not like I’m doing this alone.”

He cupped your jaw in his hand. “We’re going against a HYDRA facility,” he whispered. “There might be someone there who had something to do with what happened to you. Are you sure you’re up for this?”

“Yes.” He heard the conviction in your voice. “I’ve thought about it a lot, Steve. My life is different now but I still need it to have a purpose.” You lightly patted his shoulder. “Making sure you don’t get your dumb ass killed in the field seems like a good enough purpose to me.”

Steve laughed and Tony crossed his arms.

“If the two of you are done, we do have someplace to be.”

“Right.” Steve pointed at Tony. “You and I are going to have a talk later. Everyone on board the jet.”

----------

The world slowly faded back into view. Why did your head hurt so badly? Where were you? What happened?

You remembered arriving at the compound. You remembered joking with Tony about how you could power your own suit but he needed a reactor for his. You remembered Steve yelling something and… an explosion? Yes, you were pretty sure there had been an explosion.

“Welcome back, Ms. Y/L/N. So good of you to join us again.”

The familiar voice sent a chill down your spine as you struggled to focus your eyes. Doctor Leid stood over you, studying your prone figure that was once again strapped to a table. You jerked at the restraints, realizing they had adjusted for your new strength. Your helmet and gloves were on a table to your left, and you panicked. Without them, you couldn’t defend yourself. You were back under this woman’s thumb, and there was nothing you could do about it.

“It was really quite inconvenient, the time at which you left us,” the doctor said, lazily moving about the room, prepping syringes. “Caused a lot of damage, too. I lost some good assistants and some even better lab equipment.” She fixed you with her cold gaze. “Let’s pick up where we left off, shall we?”

Your mouth was too dry to form words, but she didn’t seem to mind. She seemed to be taking pleasure in drawing out the torturous anticipation.

“There were three phases planned. I barely had time to start phase 2.” Leid picked up yet another medicine vial of a glowing liquid and filled two more syringes. “Your EMPs were supposed to be much stronger. You might call them,” she paused and smiled, “heart-stopping.

“Of course, that was just phase two. Phase three is my personal favorite.” She brought a syringe over to you and injected it directly into your brain stem, cocking her head as you gasped and tried to pull away from the pain, but your head was strapped down as well. “Phase three is where we take all that energy you’ll be able to produce and set it off in the middle of Avengers Tower. You may or may not survive it, depending on how resistant to electricity your body becomes, but the rest of the team, well, let’s just say you’ll be –”

“Heart-stopping,” you whispered, cold realization sweeping over you. HYDRA never intended to give you superpowers. They intended to make you strong so you could be a human bomb.

No. No, you wouldn’t do that to Steve, to your friends. You thrashed wildly, Doctor Leid laughing at your failing attempts to escape.

Steve is coming, you told yourself, but will he be in time?

----------

“Where is she? I swear to God, Tony, if this little plan the two of you cooked up costs me her life I’ll never forgive you. Y/N, baby girl, where are you? Talk to me honey.”

Steve was in a full-blown panic as your comms remained silent. You had gone missing after the bomb went off and the team couldn’t find you. HYDRA had you again… heads were going to roll as soon as he found them.

The facility was an empty diversion, meant only to draw you in. There had been an energy signature coming from inside that they had been sure you could shut down, which was why Tony chose that mission to be your first. But the explosion had happened before any of you could get inside, knocking nearly everyone out and providing the cover HYDRA needed to take you… somewhere. Damn it, if Steve knew where you were, he’d be there already.

“I know it’s hard, Steve, but we have to look at this logically,” Sam spoke from his view overhead. “The blast didn’t knock us all out, so they only had a limited window to grab her under cover of the debris. They have to be close.”

“Northwest corner! F.R.I.D.A.Y. is picking up a slight difference in the wall at panels five and six,” Tony called, diving toward the building.

Natasha beat him there and had the hidden door open in seconds. There was a lab below the compound, empty except for you and the maniacal doctor standing over you.

“You’re too late!” Doctor Leid screeched as your teammates poured in. “I’ve finished. It’s only a matter of time before she –”

Sam shot her in the head.

Steve rushed to you and began undoing your bonds.

“Don’t touch me!” you gasped, pulling away as soon as he had one of your hands free and ripping the rest of the straps off. “Stay back, Steve. You can’t touch me.”

He looked in your eyes and saw sparks dancing. They spread through your whole body and soon you were glowing with sparks flying from you like a welding torch. The team had to shield their eyes from the brightness.

You gave Steve a sad smile. “It’s too much energy,” you whispered. “I can’t hold it.”

#the craigslist date #avengers #steve rogers #captain america #steve rogers x reader #reader #x reader #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #cliffhanger #angst #masterlist #i still suck at tagging

30 notes · View notes

thinkingaboutsanfrancisco · 5 years ago

Text

Without any further ado, a mere turn of his wrist brings the car and all of it’s illuminated interior features to life and, in the wake of my heightened emotions coalescing with the smoke pluming from my Parliament and starting to smother me, I race to take advantage of the power window. Mashing my finger on the button and waiting for it to complete it’s wind-down momentarily makes me long for the Bravada’s more utilitarian but instantaneous crank, yet any remnant of impatience or minor trepidation vanishes when the abundance of fresh air greets my slightly flushed face and cuts through the humidity in my lungs while I lean back into the soft headrest and sigh.

Fuck this feels great.

Abandoning this now vacant lot and emerging onto the street, with the wind coursing through my hair as we start breezily moving by people walking along the sidewalk, I start soaking up my vantage point of being a passenger carried into the epicenter instead of exhaustively dragging my feet around on the cold, concrete, outskirts and damn...the mild influx of adrenaline I’m getting from it is a delightful way to power me on for this night.

I wonder what S would think if he knew that this was my first ride straight through the heart of downtown.

Probably wouldn’t help his insinuations about me but it doesn’t matter, this burst of tranquility feels so fucking good that even S’ voice and subsequent answer to my earlier question aren’t jarring. Sure, the loss of whatever edge I was hoping that I could’ve had is going to send a surge of disappointment plummeting through me once we get to Studio 57, but we aren’t there yet and I’ll figure it out when we are. For now, I’m fine being immersed in my drag.

S continues, “But I saw that it was a play on Studio 54 and I almost lost my shit. You ever heard about Studio 54?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it. Why?”

What I meant by that question was ‘explain what this has to do with the club we’re actually going to’, not ‘Siri, pull up the rambling man’s Wikipedia article on Studio 54’, but I take it that we’ve got some time, so I indulge him. Turns out I’m the one who misinterpreted, because holy fuck…I knew Studio 54, but I didn’t know about it outside of the surface level of it being a celebrity playground that he touches on. I should’ve. Again, when everything’s great all the time, it never truly is…it’s merely a continuation of fumes from a fire that refuses to die, and Steve and Ian’s tale plays out like an all too familiar pursuit...right down to the invasion of the raids.

It’s the foundations of our world.

Bloated excess might’ve peaked in 1977 but the American Dream sure as hell wasn’t born then and if S brushed up on his history, he’d know that any innocence in the idea had long been brutalized to savagery by then. Steve and Ian’s capitalization only further immortalized the idea that pulling it off crookedly was not only feasible but could be glamorous and accepted by the mainstream, and it’s brevity only struck infamy and intrigue into the hearts and minds of any other idealistic but hopelessly broke schmuck instead of the fear that the IRS or the DEA or any other meddling law enforcement gets high off instilling since they like to parade around their premature successes with the same assertion as the guy they fucking caught. Whether it be intruding upon this club in New York or invading upon the grounds of a vineyard Tudor in Napa, The Good Guys are just as greedy for a cheap thrill, if not more, and all of the exploitative parading they’ve done over the years should make anyone willing to attempt the pursuit have to wise up and think about not only how to attain their desires but how to maintain them...

But most don’t get that far.

How could they? Excess isn’t meant to be maintained in this society, not when everyone else is salivating for their piece of the pie.

S is right.

It is sad. Fuck, it’s downright fucking tragic for anyone’s life to have wandered so far and locate themselves in such desperate sorts that they’re compelled to resort to illegality to make it; the definition of which isn’t always as flashy as Studio 54 made it out to be. Especially in this city, that’s in the midst of a new capitalist wave that’s only rising and has inflated the cost of living so beyond reason that it’s rendered the extravagance of “the dream” to be as basic as mere survival. While I can cringe and shake my head hearing this tale of their explosive greed, I sure as hell can’t peer down from my perch with judgement. I can never blame someone for wanting to provide a better life for themselves and their families, not when I’ve witnessed my dad’s dream long enough to where it’s soured into that surreal nightmare, and as much as it hurts, at least someday soon I’ll be able to wake up from it and make it real.

And if all goes well here soon, that reality’s about to come one night closer.

“Well, I agree with your sentiment that those theories surface level and rather ignorant of the depths they, and any other person who attempts ‘the dream’, find themselves in. Personally, I think Steve and Ian were motivated by the complete opposite. I believe that they were aware of the inevitably of getting caught, panicked, and upped the ante while profits were still flooding in so they could provide themselves both mental and monetary assurance for when eventually it all came crashing in. After all, that is how they were able to afford such a light slap on the wrist. Yeah, Steve and Ian should’ve known better, but America’s a country built on the notion of great risk garnering great reward...no matter what the cost. It was an extreme act of selfishness, yes, but for anyone to act as if they were subhuman for trying and temporarily succeeding is ridiculous when we all have our motivations and desires that would at least tempt us if we were in their lucrative situation. I don’t know what subreddit you’ve been stalking, but judgment on the issue by people who probably haven’t been forced to take a risk in their life is worthless.”

#/crawloutofthevacantlot #the bros #04172015

0 notes

imgonnabeyourbubblegumwitch · 7 years ago

Text

I Love You, You Pay My Rent: Chapter One

Previous Chapter (Prologue)

Nico had been officially living with Will Solace, professional rich person and minor celebrity for a grand total of one and a half days. It had, so far and against all expectations, been uneventful. Will hadn't actually been around all that much, though what he during the day Nico wasn't sure because he was pretty convinced Will didn't have an actual, proper job. The only evidence Nico was sharing a very nice apartment with another human being was the leftover pizza that had appeared in the fridge, an empty bottle of vodka that had appeared in the recycling and a memorable 5am rendition of the circle of life followed by a long period of rapping and Will shouting Alexander Hamilton over and over again. Nico hadn't known if Will were coming or going, waking up to go out, or drunk and coming in, and by the time he himself had gotten up several hours later at a far more sociable time Will was nowhere to be found.

Nico heated up the pizza, and tossed the note inviting him to help himself in the trash. He wandered around the apartment as he ate, picking pineapple off his slices as he went. He still couldn't believe he had ended up here, rent free. He was still slightly suspicious about Will's motives. No one let a stranger stay with them rent free. No one. Maybe there was some kind of bet involved. Or maybe Will was running some kind of scam, or was avoiding taxes.

Still even though he might be an unwitting accomplice to a crime, Nico had to admit the benefits of living with Will, for the moment, outweighed the projected cost of a lengthy court case and some time behind bars for misconduct unknown.

It was weird, though, having so much space and time to himself. Nico didn't usually crave human interaction, in fact he usually attempted to keep it at bay with a long stick, dark clothes and a bite-me attitude, but it was odd being on his own. Living with Leo had been living with constant noise. Leo just did not have an off-switch and so Nico had been constantly working to tune out an endless feed of useless chatter. And even in those rare moments when Leo wasn't talking, he was usually hammering at something that didn't look like it should be hammered. That or taking part in dubious DIY tasks that either worked against all odds, or failed spectacularly and required a visit from one of Leo's many and undefined relatives who between them seemed to fulfil the complete home construction spectrum.

Life for Will, aside from the 5am shower concert thing, was apparently going to be quiet.

In an attempt to be a decent housemate Nico washed up the plate he'd used as a morgue for the rejected pineapple and only used two exclamation marks on the note he left for Will on the fridge questioning the inclusion of the topping on pizza. Then he wandered around the living room for the sheer novelty of having enough space to be able to wander around the living room. It had been a long time since he'd been in an apartment this fancy, back before Leo when he'd lived with his father, or more accurately a series of housekeepers and au pairs while his father worked. They hadn't really been home, those apartments, any more than the family mansion they drove to every Christmas. With his father Nico would never have dared wake up at two-thirty in the afternoon, to wander around eating pizza, not even in the school holidays. His father had instilled in him, that there was always work to be done, and more importantly there was always someone watching. He should conduct himself with decorum.

He suddenly felt very self-conscious. He wasn't sure when Will would be coming back and even though Will had insisted he make himself at home, Nico felt strange being in the clothes he'd worn yesterday to move in in. He'd slept in them, curled up on the bare mattress, because he couldn't be bothered to search through his meagre possessions for his pyjamas and sheets. But he didn't want Will to get the impression that he was a slob, however accurate that impression might actually be so he retreated back to his room, not quite running but definitely moving at something quicker than a walk.

The boxes and bags he'd brought with him from his old apartment were stacked in a corner of the room that was now his. He really didn't have much. One bag of laundry he hadn't had time to do before leaving Leo's. A small box of assorted nick nacks, toys and other items he didn't really know what to do with: his mythomagic cards banded together with a corroding rubber band, an old notebook he'd used as a diary for a couple of weeks before he'd gotten bored with the idea of writing every day, other junk. Then lastly there was a black duffle bag which had his clean clo-

He withdrew a bright top he'd never wear, followed by a strange hat and what looked like part of an engine. These weren’t his clothes. This was Leo's bag. Which meant Leo had his clothes, Leo who was now probably half way across the country had his clothes. And Nico had a jacket, the outfit he was wearing and a three quarters full bag of laundry. He didn't even have his bed sheets: he'd shoved them in the bag along with his clothes.

Okay, he thought, it's fine. There was the laundry, he'd just have to do that. That would give him one work outfit, a pair of jeans that had seen better days and a couple of tops. Then there were the clothes he was in. He could wash those too. And, in the meantime, he'd just have to wear -

He looked back at Leo's bag with growing horror. He tipped it all out on his floor and there was a worrying clanking sound. He sorted through all the stuff, moving mechanical devices, screwdrivers and a chocolate bar over to the sell-for-scrap pile (and if Leo was upset about that he should have thought about it before making off with Nico's stuff). That left him with a handful of crumpled t-shirts that were small even for him, and a pair of shorts that were faded, stained and so threadbare it was hard to tell if Leo wore them or used them for cleaning.

It wasn't a great selection but he pulled on one of the bigger t-shirts, and the shorts. The t-shirt was bright yellow with a sunny, tropical picture of a parrot and some fruit. It ended too quickly and was far too tight. The shorts were little better: too low and, since the elastic had gone, worryingly loose around his hips. Now he really prayed that wherever Will was he was planning on staying there a long time.

He scooped up his own clothes and hurried to the washer. He dumped the lot in the machine and scouted around for washing powder. He closed the lid and then had to come to terms with the fact he had absolutely no idea how the washing machine worked. He stared at the control panel for a full minute trying to decipher symbols and pictograms that littered a control panel that looked like it should be controlling the enterprise rather than just washing your clothes. He stabbed a few buttons at random, and hoping he hadn't accidentally summoned a demon, ran back to his room like a skittish rabbit lest Will enter and see his bright yellow t-shirt and shorts of shame.

The washing machine was making comforting washing sounds that Nico could hear even from his room so he let it get on with it and focused on the other box he'd brought with him. Some of the items, like the mythomagic cards or his older sister’s teddy bear, he knew he'd never be able to part with but most of it was trash. Broken toys and memories had been heaped on the pile of useless junk from Leo's bag (he'd claimed the chocolate bar as his own). He was reading through his diary with the self-aware pain that came from reading the things his younger self had found angst-worthy (if only he'd known) when he first noticed that Will's nice wooden floor suddenly felt kind of wet.

Nico swore resolutely and scrambled to his feet. The washing machine was still rumbling happily but was now disgorging oddly tinted water on the floor in torrents. A panicked ten seconds of button mashing yielded no immediate halt to its attempt to flood the place so Nico decided to end it at the source and seek out it's kill switch. That proved to be harder than he'd imagined. He just couldn't find the lead and was beginning to think he'd discovered the world's first washing machine that could run on pure spite alone.

He slapped it since he had the impression this usually worked with computers but that only left him with a sore hand. Grumbling furiously, he ran into his bathroom, discovered he had also managed to forget towels were a necessity, backtracked to Will's. Towels in hand he began trying to limit the progress of the flood with an improvised wall, so that he would be less worried about the concerningly purple water damaging anything expensive, or creating an interesting reaction with anything electronic in the living room before he could subdue the poltergeist residing in the washing machine.

Barrier temporarily holding the flood at bay, he proceeded back to the washing machine with phone in hand.

"You are making me look on forums," he told the washing machine. "I officially hate you."

In response the machine began spitting up heavily fragranced bubbles.

Nico swore again, this time with even more feeling.

Okay, forget forums, it was time to call Leo.

Leo answered on what felt like the nine-hundreth ring. At the exact same time, Nico saw his mythomagic cards floating gently past amid a happy scattering of floral scented bubbles. He vocalised his feelings about this in no uncertain terms that made Leo threaten to clean his mouth out with soap the next time they saw each other.

"You probably won't need to," Nico said darkly as he bent down to pick up one of the cards and ended up with a nose full of bubbles. "Not if this keeps up."

"You're making no sense Nico."

He lunged for another card - Hades, that had a permanent place in all his decks - and slipped. He managed to stay upright but went skidding along on his towel barrier which had pretty much reached the limits of it's effectiveness. In an effort to stop himself from faceplanting the floor and/or banging into anything that looked breakable he threw out his hands and while remembering to keep a firm grip on his childhood cards, forgot about his phone which went flying at the front door.

The front door which was open and framing a very confused Will Solace.

"Oh gods," Nico had time to say before his phone hit Will in the nose.

There was a pause while Nico tried to find the words to explain the water and the bubbles and the cards and - oh hell - his clothes. Will surveyed the chaos with an unreadable expression. And then he burst out laughing.

It was unexpected but it was better than the yelling.

"What happened?" Will asked. "Are those mythomagic cards?"

He too another, longer look at Nico taking in the outfit and Nico's unsuccessful attempts to stand in slippery socks on a sodden floor.

"I like the t-shirt," he commented. "Very subversive. I can see you are really trying to mock -"

He broke off dissolving into laughter.

"I'm sorry," he said between giggles, "you - just - look- "

"Yeah, yeah," Nico grumbled. "Well the bubbles in your hair look ridiculous."

Will put a hand up to his head and as he did Nico threw a handful of bubbles at him. They missed, by a long way, because bubbles weren't a particularly reliable throwing material. Will laughed even harder and tried to throw some back but his aim was even poorer because he was giggling so much. Nico fell down again and he though he tried to stop himself he couldn't help but start giggling too.

Will had left the door open and an older lady with perfectly coiled hair and a fur coat was looking in at them in obvious consternation and disapproval. Nico waved and Will turned.

"Good afternoon Mrs Dodds," Will said. "Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?"

Mrs Dodds scoffed and turned her back on them. Nico began laughing at the stupidness of the situation and his laughter set Will off again. Will looked cute when he laughed: nose (red from where the phone had struck) all scrunched up like a kid he looked less like some unattainable-rock-star-minor-god-model, and more down to earth. Nico felt his heart skip a beat and a few tentative butterflies preparing to take flight in his stomach. The feelings were oddly sobering and he felt the laughter dying in his throat.

"I really am sorry about the mess," he said. "I must be the worst housemate you've ever had."

"Oh, not by a long shot," Will said amiably. "I once had someone who collected dead frogs.”

He tried to lever himself to his feet and after several attempts managed to get to his feet and with an awkward, penguin on ice like shuffle made it to the front door which he shut very firmly.

"How about I order food, we put on some music and have a cleaning up party?" he suggested.

"You don't have to help," Nico said. "I'll do it, I did make the mess."

"I forget to warn you the washing machine can be temperamental," Will said with a shrug. "Though I've never seen it do this before. You've got some quite incredible machine-messing skills, Di Angelo."

Nico grinned. It was an automatic response to Will's light teasing that he didn't have time to think through, or dampen down.

"Gotta be good at something," Nico said. "And for me that something is riling up the demon ghost that resides in your washing machine."

"They should write a film about your exploits," Will commented, completely straight faced. "I bagsie the rights."

"Only if you promise to hire

Will ordered Chinese. He put on some music - something upbeat and poppy that Nico wouldn't usually necessarily enjoy but actually worked pretty well trying to clean up a lilac coloured flood with his new landlord.

Will brought out more towels from the bathroom and tossed some to Nico. Then he paused.

"I don't have a mop," he said as though it had only just occurred to him.

"Why don't you have a mop?" Nico asked.

"Did you have a mop at your old place?" Will demanded.

"Yes!" Nico said. "We weren't heathens! We just didn't have a hoover, or a dishcloth for a long time, or plates for the first few weeks. But a mop! Of course."

"Yeah well I'd offer you a discount on your rent for forgetting such an important life-changing item but you're not actually paying me anything so-"

"You could always start paying me to live here," Nico mused.

Will stuck his tongue out and then sighed.

"One of my neighbours probably has one."

He sloshed his way over to the door.

"Be right back. Wish me luck."

"You're asking to borrow a mop from your neighbours, how much luck can you need?"

Will pulled a face that indicated he had shocking, horrifying knowledge that no mortal should posses.

"You don't want to know," he said in a deep whisper and then darted out, closing the door behind him.

As soon as he was gone, the butterflies that had been previously hesitant and timid took full flight in Nico's stomach. He realised he was smiling and wiped the expression off his face and focused very hard on extracting sodden mythomagic cards and leaving them all lined up on the counter tops to dry.

Will returned some ten minutes later with a mop and a chastised air.

"Nancy was of your view that mops are a basic human right and she could not believe I do not own one."

"See," Nico said. “It’s not just me who thinks you are a heathen.”

Nico was not usually a fan of cleaning but working alongside Will was kind of fun. It may have had something to do with Will, who was in charge of mopping and was utterly distracting. He spent more time dancing with the mop and singing along to whatever song was playing than actually mopping. Nico could hardly drag his eyes away from him, so he pointed out, perfectly reasonably, that it was an inefficient method of mopping and that Will's music choice sucked.

"Alright what would you put on?"

Nico hadn't been expecting that.

"I don't know. The Ramones maybe?"

Will held his gaze while he retrieved his laptop and then changed the song with a slight smirk.

"What you didn't think I'd have the Ramones?"

"I thought it would be all Disney songs and show tunes."

"Disney songs and show tunes?" Will asked sounding like he was trying not to laugh.

"I don't know," Nico admitted, "I have no idea what you like."

"They come on later," Will promised him with a grin.

Ten minutes later they were both jumping up and down to Blitzkrieg Bop and Will was singing and he was actually not all that bad when it wasn't 5am. They were halfway through the second verse when someone began banging on the walls.

"Oh ignore it," Will said. "That's Octavian. He's always complaining about something. Like when I hoover at 3am."

"Why do you -?"

"Because the night before Octavian was grinding breeze blocks and some sheet metal in his blender. I assume that's what he was doing. That's what it sounded like he was doing."

The banging sounded again, on the door this time. Will rolled his eyes but he stormed over and yanked the door open, shutting down the music with a wave of a remote as his did so.

"Hello Octavian," Will said with a forced polite smile. "Is everything alright? If you've come to borrow a mop I'm afraid I'm lacking that basic necessity."

Nico laughed and Octavian cast his sharp eyes over to him. Octavian was pale and thin. His eyes were faint blue and his hair was thin, and almost colourless. The general impression he gave was of a scarecrow that had been modelled on a skeleton. All the right features were there and they were all in the right places but the proportions and the colour scheme was entirely off.

"Can you keep it down?" Octavian asked. "I'm trying to work. Not all of us get money handed to us on a silver platter you know."

Will shrugged at that, but Nico thought that something about the jibe may have hit home because he seemed a little tenser.

"So sorry to interrupt your work. I know it's all you have since you can't seem to keep friends."

"Look who's talking," Octavian sneered. "How many housemates have you gone through now? How long do you think this one will stay?"

He glanced over at Nico again, looked him up and down and then turned away without comment as though he didn't think Nico was worth it.

"We'll try to keep the sounds of us enjoying our lives from disturbing your emptiness," Will snapped and closed the door in Octavian's face. He didn't turn around immediately and Nico got the impression he was trying to force himself back towards cheerfulness.

"To be fair," Will said when he did turn. "We probably were being kind of loud."

He put the music back on but in deference to Octavian it was no longer deafening and could be classed merely as noisy. In deference to the fact that Will hadn't freaked out when he'd come home to a flood, Nico didn't bring up what Octavian had said about the other housemates. It didn't stop him wondering though. Will seemed nice enough but Nico still couldn't get past the no rent thing. It made no sense to him. He couldn't figure out why Will would be so desperate to have someone in his spare room that he'd offer it to them for free.

By the time the food came, the flat was pretty clean. Nico's jeans, now several shades lighter than their once jet black, and other clothes had been shoved in the dryer. The floor was mopped, all of Nico's cards were drying on the counter tops. Order had been restored.

Will put on a movie while they ate. Will had seen it before and Nico was more interested in watching Will out the corner of his eye so he often missed big plot points. Will seemed happy enough but Nico got the impression he was worried from the way he picked at his food rather than just eating it. In the end, Will put it to the side entirely and picked up a fortune cookie gazing at it like an unexploded bomb.

"You know they are mass printed somewhere right?" Nico asked eventually when Will still hadn't cracked it open.

Will gave a rueful smile.

"I know. It's stupid. I usually ask them not to give me fortune cookies though. I don't know what it is, they just always seem to come true."

"Well how bad can that be?" asked Nico. "It's always, you'll find happiness when you least expect it or time waits for no man. Stupid, meaningless stuff."

"I know," Will said again. "Believe me, I know."

But he didn't open the fortune.

"Here I'll do mine," said Nico.

He grabbed his off the table and opened it up.

"Okay," he said unfolding the paper. "Mine reads: help! I'm trapped in a fortune cookie factory!"

Will burst out laughing and reached for it.

"Let me see that!"

"Alright it actually says good news of a long-awaited event will soon arrive. Stupid and meaningless."

Will grinned.

“I guess you’re right.”

But he still didn’t open it, and when Nico went to clean up the food later that night he couldn’t help but notice the cookie was missing.

Next Chapter

#writing #fandom #Will Solace #Nico Di Angelo #will solace/nico di angelo #solangelo #percy jackson and the olympians

118 notes · View notes