#i was going to start rings of power though because my sister keeps hounding me about it lol | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bitchfitch · 3 years ago

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Conall woke to the smell of cinnamon and burning hair. His nose scrunched and his lips curled in a silent snarl he wasn't awake enough to suppress as he sat up in the bed he kept trying to escape.

His every bone protested as he stood, and his muscles shook, with the aftermath of another full moon spent hunting through the woods like a common beast after being twisted into the shape of one by this stupid fucking curse. He managed to get his feet steady under him as he sought out the absolute bastard that kept dragging him back here.

Arlo was where he always was, sat in front of the vanity in one of the bedrooms with his fingers combing through his stupidly long hair. He huffed as a greeting, not even bothering to look at Conall as he picked at a few strands and started the work of braiding it all into a manageable length.

One of these days Conall was going to take a pair of shears to it all. Just to be cruel, just to stoop to Arlo's level.

"Why am I here," Conall demanded, "I left, I told you I had no interest in staying,"

"Yes well you see, I didn't bring you back here," Arlo retorted, "You crawled back all on your own, and collapsed on my doorstep like you do every damm month,"

"You know full well its your stupid curse that keeps brainwashing me back here," Conall stormed up to his side and was step away from grabbing him before that stupid curse twinged and forced any ideas of hurting the stupid unicorn out of his skull with a painful snap,

"It's not a curse, Its not My curse, and there's nothing to do about it that I Haven't already done,"

"I'm sorry, do you just expect me to believe you have nothing to do with the curse that makes me want to protect you? That turns me into a dog everytime you are at your most powerful? You Truly believe I'm that stupid?"

"I believe you're that stupid, because you can't see that that's the truth, I didn't give you this blessing, I didn't make it. I didn't even know it was still kicking around until I Saved your sister from it," he spat,

"Fucking Explain it then, Explain why you are such a fucking liar," Conall had to swallow down bile as Arlo's hurt bumped up against the stupid curse.

"Im Not A Liar. And it's a long fucking story," Arlo snapped at him,

"Then get fucking talking," Conall didn't care that he was scraping gouges in the wooden floor as he dragged a chair closer and dropped into it with a heavy huff.

Arlo rolled his eyes and sneered as he started, his tone that of someone telling a bed time story to a brat they didn't particularly like, "Once upon a time, there was a queen who ruled an expansive and beautiful kingdom. She was perfect, and regal, and swelteringly kind, and most of all she was devoted to making sure her people Thrived no matter the cost.

So, one day, she gathered her kingdoms most powerful sorcerers, calling them each by name as she beheaded them and drained them of every drop of blood they had to give before rending the meat from their bones so that those may be used too.

When she was done she poured it all into her cauldron, and preyed and chanted and sang as she cut her own heart from her chest and dropped it into her brew.

The blood boiled around this offering so willingly and lovingly given, and the magic found her soul and bound it back together as the first of her children rose from the pot with her mounted on his back.

He was a bull, white like the clouds above and as thick around the middle an entire chariot was wide, with golden hooves and single horn jutting from his forhead as he galloped and pranced with the reborn queen laughing on his back.

The second was a similarly single horned war horse, white and gold but smaller than the bull that came before him. Still, he was stunning as he joined the joyful parade with blood clinging to his coat.

The donkey was next, again with one horn growing from the center of his skull like a stake. Short and lean but powerful as he charged along with his brothers and their perfect mother.

Then the deer burst forth, his single horn forked as he bounded so proudly around the room, leaping and prancing over the ruined remains of their imperfect fathers and other mothers.

Finally a goat clambered out after them all, bleating and struggling to keep pace with his long legged family. He was the runt, the weakest, made from the dregs of the sorcerers' magic.

The queen saw her runt and opened her arms to him and carried him on his brother's back. None of her children would ever be forgotten, or allowed to be trampled as long as she was there to protect them.

The family, complete and beautiful and perfect burst from the chamber and into their palace, the joyful cries of the people echoing through the halls at the sight of their reborn queen. They screamed and screamed as they welcomed her children into their court by offering up a feast of a first meal for their hungry mouths.

The Queen's already prosperous land Flourished as though spring had finally hit after a year of winter. Her beloved and perfect and powerful children served their people with joy in their hearts. No one in the entire land ever went hungry, no field was ever blighted with rot, no wound left un-mended nor was even a single disease allowed to spread. The coffers were full and gold paved the streets, the water of their rivers and lakes ran crystal clear and sweet like honey.

The Perfect Queen and her Perfect children were worshiped by their people, but such beautiful perfection bred vile envy.

A vile and selfish little human crept into the children's rooms one night. A lasso in one hand and a dagger in the other as it hunted through the corridors, looking for which one it would steal away from its family.

But oh that silly little thing, weak and stupid as it was. It found the children curled up together with their mother watching over them.

The Queen cought it before it could even take a single step, her wings beat as she dragged it out the window with her, her claws digging into its soft body threatening to destroy it completely. But in her divine mercy, she lifted it higher and higher and higher, twisting and bending its imperfect shape into something even more grotesque.

She landed with it held in her arms and she called to her children, who of course always headed their mother's call.

She laid the creature at their feet and told them that it would protect them now, that it was their pet and that they should look after it, that they should love it so that it would love them.

That was the first werewolf, it stood guard over their rooms and when others like what it had been came close it would tear into them and spread its gift. They would turn too then, and join it in its guarding.

Though, the children only ever loved the first of their precious dogs. The rest were too much fun to not play with. So, long as at least one lived, they could do whatever they pleased with the others. So they did. They tore them apart and painted their rooms in their blood and takes their hides with their brains and the children made their mother necklaces and crowns and bracelets and rings and every other little bobble they could from those precious wolves' bones.

The children loved their mother, so of course they wanted to lavish her with every gift they could. She had already given them so much, it was only fair.

The perfect family and their perfect pets weren't allowed to be happy forever though. A man, A king, their mother told the children to call him that, came into their home and soon their mother was heavy with his imperfect children.

She assured her eldests that this was only a means to an end, that she needed an heir. Someone who would look after her perfect children when she was gone. She told them that while the children the king gave her would never be perfect, she would make them so. Just like she made herself perfect, just like she made all of them perfect, she would make these new lives perfect too.

To prove her devotion to the children born from the blood of her heart instead of the water of her womb, she gave the first of the king's imperfect offspring to them.

Oh how the king sobbed as they ripped it to shreds. Its awful little body not even worth being made into a gift for their mother.

The second was allowed to grow. Their mother would bring him to her perfect children every day and have each of them lay a blessing on him until he too was perfect.

Only then did they welcome him as a brother. Only then did they begin to follow his orders like they did their mother's.

Oh how foolish those perfect children were.

Death came for their mother one night, her blood stained the long dead king's son's hands.

Were he anyone else, they would have destroyed him just like they did that first child the king gave their mother. But their own blessings made him immune to their curses and their powerful bodies. Their mothers own blood protected him even when it hadn't protected her.

The Queen's perfect children cried and shrieked their mourning, and refused to lay their gifts on any of the cruel and selfish humans. It was their blood that ran in their littlest and most vile brother's veins, why should they serve any that would dare to share a history with him?

The new King did not have the patience for his perfect siblings. So he stole away their hounds and sent them to war, all but the one they loved, he killed that one in front of them and made them watch as it begged and suffered.

Then, when they continued to refuse to obey him, he took everything they had. He took their hair and their eyes and their horns, and the skin off of their flesh, then the flesh off of their bones and then he took those too. And he took until there was nothing left and those perfect siblings of his were gone,"

Arlo looked back to his mirror his shoulders tense and his hands shaking with ancient grief, "Then, one day many years later, when the Perfect Queen and her perfect children were only whispered myths, a pair of witches gathered all of their magic and the corpse of their beloved sister.

They went to the place that the Perfect Queen's castel had once stood and called on the fragments of her children, They pulled the goat, the weakest of his siblings from the aether and begged for him to revive their sister.

He looked at the humans, and saw only their selfish ways. But he could not return to his rest. No, they held him there and demanded he do what they asked. Said they would never let him go if he didn't. Said they would damn all of his brothers to that horrid… inbetweenness of not being fully alive and not fully dead while being all to aware of it.

So, he looked them in the eye and made them a deal, Their sister's heart would beat and her body would walk again, but they must never attempt to summon his brothers.

They were stupid, and agreed.

The goat took the dead sister's body as his. Her heart beat, and she walked and talked, but it was him who was in control.

He damned himself to this existence, knowing the witches had no way of killing him, nor did they have a way to summon his brothers while the body was being used.

Years passed again, now with the goat alone in the palace he had shared with his perfect family. Unable to leave because if he did some other ungrateful and selfish human might try to take from him again. They might not care about destroying the body he wore like the witches did, and if the body was destroyed, the witches might try to summon and damn his brothers.

So the goat lived in the buried castle and watched the world above through his mirror, and eventually he began talking to the witches, he was so dreadfully lonely that even their vile company held value.

Other horrid little humans would stumble close sometimes. He'd kill them on sight, Or curse them until their blood boiled in their veins, or he'd give them something that looked like a blessing just so they would lead more to him. It was the only fun he could have without risking his physical body being known.

But then the witches finally promised the goat a kindness. They told him that the wolves his mother had made for her perfect children still spread their blessings, but that with the unicorns dead and gone they had turned to vile beasts as they desperately searched for their charges.

The goats heart ached but then it soared when the witches told him that there was one being brought to him.

A little girl, they told him it was, a child so young that if he loved and cared for it it would grow up to love and care for him in return. He remembered the precious wolf he shared with his brothers and Gladly accepted the offer for them to let him care for it.

Offering them a loc of his hair and blood from his veins. He knew how to not be selfish, unlike the humans, he knew that you always offer something in return.

They took what he gave, but when they brought him his pup, she was in the arms of a strange man.

He collapsed onto his knees and begged for his sister to be cured tears staining his..."

Arlo hesitates, looking at Conall and picking his next words carefully,

"His face, that the goat had initially found repulsive but no longer minds. The goat was about to kill the awful and pathetic creature, about to take his precious pup to show her to the room the goat had put together just for her. But then the man's words registered.

He wasn't begging, he wasn't asking to take. He was offering everything he had for the goat to save his sister from a perceived suffering.

And the goat didn't see the witches making cruel demands and threats. He didn’t see that monster of a half brother demanding he and his perfect brothers work for the creature that killed their mother.

He saw himself, and he saw his perfect brothers, and their mother. He saw his family always looking out and protecting eachother.

The man asked for the goat to cure his sister of her blessing, and in return he would give everything he could.

The goat's heart broke. He wanted, truly wanted, to help a human for the first time since his mother's passing. But he couldn't do what the man asked. His mother was far more powerful, and even now centuries after her death and many many generations removed, her blessing still held stronger than the goat could ever hope to be able t overpower.

So he made the man, the pure and clever human who knew not to take without giving something in return, an offer.

The goat couldn't destroy the blessing, but if the man could offer up another to take his sister's place, the goat could transfer it to them."

Arlo looked back to his mirror, where he saw only Conall's reflection, as he finished the last braid, "I think you know the rest,"

A long moment passed as Conall tried to reconcile the story he was just told with the monster- no, the man, he sat across from.

"Were you really going to take care of Asena?" Conall asked, his voice low and quiet, as though speaking too loudly would break the careful peace between them,

"I was going to raise her as though she were my own. I was so excited to teach her magic, and to give her all the blessings I could... I guess the witches are doing that now though," He leaned forward against the worn wood of his vanity and rested his chin on his folded arms, "I was going to have a family again," he wiped at his eyes before the tears could spill,

"I'm sorry, Conall," he sighed

"Why?" Conall tried not to sound surprised at such a genuine sounding apology,

"I know those weren't the answers you wanted. I know you wanted me to tell you that it had all been a trick and I could just snap my fingers and cure you of my mother's blessing,"

"No, those weren't the answers I wanted but..." Conall didn't know what to say next, so he said nothing and just settled a hand on one of Arlo's thin shoulders. He squeezed it softly as he felt Arlo go rigid under his touch for just a moment before practically melting beneath his palm.

Conall had the sinking realization that this might very well be the first time anyone has touched Arlo since his entire family was killed.

Conall had the sinking realization that the same might be true for himself.

"Please," Arlo whimpered burrying his face in the crook of his arm, "Please, I don't want you to feel trapped here, but please stay, I'll offer whatever I can, but Conall please stop leaving me alone here,"

"I..." he tried to swallow down the words before they could damn them both, but he was so much weaker than The Perfect Queen's blessing,

"Of course,"

#arlo being arlo #cannibalism cw #violence cw #gore cw #body horror cw #child death cw #paternal death cw #ask to tag i guess

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pleom · 5 years ago

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swimmer!bang chan [M]

Warnings: heavy angst, mentions and descriptions of depression, emotional abuse, family issues, graphic descriptions of sexual content (cunnilingus, unprotected sex, handjobs, loss of virginity)

Word Count: 8.7k

Something inside you burns. It throbs and pummels against you from the inside-out, wholly unwelcoming, though you wouldn’t say you suffer. You wouldn’t say it’s painful, either. This feeling engulfs you, blending with your senses and the way they interact with each other. Physically, you’d say it’s another part of the experience. Coupled with the vibrations (dull and wide-spaced,) the muffled sounds, the incessant screeching and tapping and cramping and pulling and—

You gasp for breath—a whistle blows—and you can’t swim.

“Y/N, out,” your coach motions for you.

The students around you move hesitantly, but ultimately part for you to exit. Your vision is still blurry, but you manage to pull yourself up the ladder without slipping. You slip on the way to the locker room though, and embarrassedly throw yourself behind the door and onto a bench without abandon.

Your eyes sting, and are probably more red than they usually are after practice. Your skin grays and itches as it slowly dries, so you take a towel to assist both matters. When the only thing keeping your body from fully shrugging off the remaining water is what slides off the tips of your hair, you fling the cloth over your head and sit there, slouched and effectively closing out the rest of the world.

The moments of before are already starting to feel fake—a blur of imagined happenings. The only thing you can clearly recall is your errors, constant and public for all to see (and they did, they most definitely did.) Your lungs cry with the remnants of salt and bleach, and your chest burns with discontent. Discontent that you almost drowned; discontent that your coach didn’t let you drown. (You’ll also be hearing that from your sister later on, when you’ll come home probably coughing and aching, and you can see it already: her prideful and mocking gestures, her feigning concern and doubting your abilities. You sit here, chest gaping, and you know you’ll have no argument against her. She was born with knowledge you had yet to achieve.)

A voice makes you jump. “Are you okay?”

You hope with every fiber of your being you aren’t the person who the question is being directed to. You let it fly over your head, and rub the fabric over your hair to look inconspicuous. Wet footsteps seem to bound straight for you, and in what feels like a second, a shadow peeks from underneath your towel. There’s no use acting like you’re no one, because someone’s standing right before you and seems dead-set on getting you to interact with them.

“Hey.”

Lifting your head, you take in the sight of Chan, all broad-shouldered and pale-skinned to the point you might blame the chemicals in the pool for it. He stands shirtless, though as dry as your throat feels. His class must be after yours.

He doesn’t know you (though you know of him) and it’s clear on his face. Why he bothers to question you, you don’t know. You shouldn’t look that out of place, since a few students like to hide and hang out in the locker rooms alone sometimes. Guess you couldn’t pass off as one of them.

“You don’t look so good,” he says, “Was Coach hard on you? I always tell Dad to go easy on the new swimmers but he never does…”

He sheepishly wrings his towel over his shoulder. It takes you a moment to absorb his words, but when you do, you’re quick to react.

“No, no he doesn’t,” you hesitate, “How did you know I was new here?”

“I come here almost every day to help my dad mentor the students. ‘Think I’d recognize a face like yours.” he takes a step back and seems to take in the look of you. You know he doesn’t mean anything by it, but you shuffle in your seat nonetheless. “Did you just transfer?”

You wince at the question and shake your head. You’re too embarrassed to reveal that you have been enrolled since the start, which for sure would make the air between you even more awkward. You quickly flip the conversation to be less you-focused. “So, you help your dad train the students? You must be under a lot of pressure.”

The coach is pretty ruthless. Every interaction with him leaves your skin feeling prickly; every command and scold, his directions, and even his praises—superficial amidst a deeper frustration. You can imagine an inkling of what he must be around his own son, if he’s anything like your own parents.

Chan tilts his head as if in deep consideration, but ultimately shrugs. He takes you by surprise when he breaks into a slight smile. “No, not really. I’m just here to help, as long as someone succeeds at something new, we mark that as a win in our books. Pressuring anyone helps no one.”

You eye the entrance to the pool. His words don’t really match up to your experiences, and you feel a slight jealousy for those who wound up so lucky. Maybe it’s because you’re a late bloomer, if you can even call it that. His father must’ve been shocked at seeing a girl your age floundering at what most have already nailed down.

“It must be nice having a professional help lead you down their path, the only reason why I took this class is so I could finally have a useful skill under my belt,” you can’t help yourself from rambling, so you shut your lips tight once you realize you’ve nearly thrown a pity party for yourself. Cautiously, you glance at Chan and hope he’s been distracted by one thing or another, or grew bored of you once you opened your mouth. Neither seem to be the case, though he looks at you with mild astonishment.

He motions for you to give him your name, and you do, reluctantly, cautiously, as though you’re making a deal that you can’t take back. When you do, he grins with a face of understanding and gives you his hand to shake. This all feels entirely foreign, disconcerting, and you can’t tell if the wetness between your fingers is nervous sweat or remnants of the pool. You have no time to think about it, because you separate when another whistle blows and students begin to file into the locker room.

Chan’s already left with a grin and a wave, and you’re left tugging on your school clothes with your heart beating waves of fire.

Chan has been on your mind ever since, though that is not exactly a feat. You tend to overthink and hyperfocus on the inane—it’s a fault your family has never let you forget. It’s what brings you to the situation at hand right now.

You come home late, after spending your time at the nearby café to sort out your school work. What you forgot to do was sort out your emotions (crucial mistake) and immediately your mother is hounding your every move. You make a snide comment, under your breath, about the state of the house: it feeds you more despair than actual food.

It ends there.

A snap here, a threat there, and you wish you had left as soon as you came. Your house’s front door slams shut behind you and you swallow that hard lump in your throat the best you can. Here, you’re so focused on that insignificant little action, one of pain and only pride, that you miss the tears and the ringing in your ears and it’s all useless. You’re useless.

The sleeves on your shirt have grown damp from all the wiping, and a thought comes: why not get it all wet? You’re already a hose of emotions, and your mother will yell at your weaknesses; the uncontrollable. Giving her a proper reason to scream seems sensible. Maybe you should empower yourself before she can impose her power on you.

At least, that’s what you tell yourself as you stride towards the school and mentally rummage through different ways of justifying your actions. Who cares if they don’t make sense?

You don’t.

The school pool’s entrance is surprisingly easy to get through. The inside feels especially hollow without the fuss of your classmates and coach. Every step carries its own reverb, and you momentarily hold your breath in case it does, too. But even so, the emptiness of the pool has a strange serenity to it. You bathe in it wholly.

You can’t bathe for too long, so you kick off your shoes and get right to it. You toe the edge of the pool and examine its reflections. You keep your eyes off yourself, only tracing along the ceiling lights and the stars spotted from the window. When the moon starts slowly inching into the view, you plunge.

The water whirls around you in both a menacing and tantalizing way. It plugs all of your senses and you let it. It soothes; it stings. And when you start feeling lightheaded, you resurface.

It takes a while for the blur to leave your eyes and the pounding to leave your ears. However, even with all this sensory overload, you feel blithe, and a full-belly laugh escapes you before you can stop it. You don’t want it to. This is the happiest you’ve felt in months.

Just as quickly, it ends. Abruptly, because someone has made themselves known with a loud clang. It rings from the locker room, and before you can pull yourself out of the water and hide, the door swings open and reveals—

Chan.

He’s already down to his swimwear, and looks unsurprised by your presence here. In fact, he looks somewhat pleased. “You’ve started without me.”

You’re a bit too stunned to respond, and the position of you both suddenly starts weighing on you. You’re on school grounds, way past its lockdown. The dip in the pool has definitely cleared your mind some, and you know now that what you are doing is trespassing. Maybe alone, you could’ve learned to reprimand yourself for doing so, swear to never do it again. But here you are, and there’s a witness.

Chan chuckles, clearly not running through the same thoughts in his own head. Instead, he walks over to your side and kneels, extending his hand. “Need some help?”

You can’t bring it in yourself to argue, so you take his hand and let him pull you out. You collapse very sloppily onto the tiles, the weight of your soaked clothes dragging you down. There’s silence. Your heartbeat slows once you realize Chan’s not intending on pulling any tricks. (At least you hope.)

“I won’t tell,” Chan eases your thoughts, “as long as you tell me the reason why you’re here.”

Despite saying this, there’s no urgency or force behind his words. You don’t feel pressured to answer, so you pay no mind when you do. “Wanted some time alone for myself and this was the closest thing in mind.”

“Did you know the door to the pool would be open?”

“No, not at all.”

Chan hums. He doesn’t seem suspicious of you. He doesn’t question you after that. Instead, he takes a couple steps back, “Well… if that’s all…”

He races forward and dives into the water, splashing your legs in the process. He disappears for a moment, then breaks the surface into a breastroke. He moves languidly, though sharp enough to slice straight through the liquid.

It’s a harsh contrast to you. You start to feel uncomfortable and misplaced now that the son of your coach displays his skill. Imagining yourself in his spot feels daunting, and you have to fight your instincts to just grab your shoes and run.

Back home.

The thought makes you shiver.

“Hey,” Chan floats up to you on his back. “You wanted swimming lessons, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” You’re nervous to see where this is going.

He smiles. “So hop in.”

Your parents didn’t question why you came home late that night. Nor why your clothes were mildly wet. Your sister gave her routine insult–slash–brag and was on her way. You certainly didn’t complain, now that you were left to your own devices, and on it the screen pings with a new message, one from Chan, whose contact you have yet to save.

You stay up all night responding to his texts.

When the next day comes, your loneliness hits harder than usual. You had forgotten what it was like interacting with people for a period of time longer than the length of class. You find yourself looking over your shoulder more often for a glimpse of Chan, even while swimming. And surprisingly, you don’t get yelled at by the coach for being so sidetracked. You’ve accumulated more praises, though you still sense it’s from a place of pitiful obligation.

You come home earlier than usual.

“So you’ve just given up on your education now, huh?”

“What?”

Your head snaps up at your mother’s voice. She stands as volatile as ever, hands splayed over her hips. The house smells flowery; she’s making her special rose petal flan—something she only does as a treat for herself, when things for her are going exceptionally well. These days come rare but welcomed, because usually then she’s as sensitive and motherly as one can be.

Yet today is the total opposite. And you get an inkling as to why: your English test sheet, laid on the kitchen counter.

You wince. Of course she had snooped through your room and saw your failure peeking through your garbage bin.

“I gave you so many chances, so many chances, let you drop out of math for God’s sake! And this is how you repay me? Failing your tests and coming home early? Did you even go to the library today? Have you ever studied in your entire life?!”

Your mom shows no sign of ever stopping her tirade. Her neck seems to have grown redder by the second. Your sister arrives just in time to catch the next part, no doubt excited to have her ego fed as per usual.

“We’ve moved cities, exchanged schools, and transferred jobs, just so you could have the opportunity your sister had. Do you think life was easy for her when we all lived in that garbage bin we called an apartment? Do you think she let that dissuade her from acing her studies and receiving that scholarship?” Your mother points at your sister then, and the looks on both of their faces hit you with two different senses of shame, both equally strong. “Are you honestly willing to undo all of your sister’s hard work? This is how you want to end your senior year? This is how you planned to enter adulthood?”

And with that she takes your paper and shreds it. She leaves you for the living room, sparing not one glance at the way your lips tremble and eyes glisten. It hurts, but in a way, you’re glad she doesn’t notice. It’d only stack another disappointment onto that pile she holds. Your sister’s grown bored of looking at you too, and trots off behind your mother.

Despite your blues, the sun is still up. So you exit the front door and sit on the steps. You wish you had it in you to fight back, no matter how disastrous that might end out to be. Because what your mother doesn’t realize is that it all piles up. You never asked to move to a new city, this late into high school. Everyone’s already bound and wound tight around each others’ fingers—friends, best friends, lovers, all things you’ve rarely experienced due to your momentary presence. You have your acquaintances, those who you would probably refer to as ‘friends,’ but they’re surface-level at best, not people you could ever rely on.

But that’s all she thinks you’re good for: never achieving, or attaining, or accomplishing, only to ever rely on others.

Impulsively, you pull out your cell phone and reach out to the only person nearby that you can.

TO: BANG CHAN

Just had an argument with my mom :(

Not feeling good…

FROM: BANG CHAN

Oh, no :(( are you okay?

Wanna come over and swim? Help clear your head?

The pool doors are open

Legally, this time :p

The slightest grin stretches over your face.

“And that’s how you do a butterfly stroke,”

The other kids of this program have begun to slowly disperse. They’re all younger—freshmen, probably—that make you want to douse your head in shame. The worst part of it all is that Chan isn’t even teaching them, they’ve all learned how to do the basic swimming strokes, and it makes it all the more obvious how lacking you are.

Chan had tried to placate you and tell you that most students aren’t paying attention to your mistakes, but you’re pretty sure that you saw one kid giggle when you came up for air.

As afternoon blends into evening, the lights indoors begin to feel more artificial. Chan pulls you over to a bench once most of the kids have gone home. This is when the awkwardness starts settling in.

“You should come here more often if you’re so worried about your skills, which, by the way, aren’t as bad as you think they are. No one is looking at you funny because of it.”

He pats you amiably on the shoulder. You shrug.

“I’ve already got too much on my plate. I usually go straight to the library to start on my homework. By the time I finish, it’s dinner time and I’ve got to make the switch over to the cafe to finish up my studies. An after-school swimming program can remain an afterthought, sorry,”

“Geez, no wonder I’ve never seen you walking around during class,” he gasps, “you’re up to your neck in work!”

“Yep,” you sigh. “Doesn’t even seem like it’s paying off.”

“How so?”

“My IQ is in the negatives,”

Chan jolts up as though he’s been caught asking an insensitive question, but just as quickly melts into himself. He gently slaps a hand on your arm, giggling. “No, it’s not! But for real, though…”

“I wasn’t lying,” you say, “Hours in the library, and yet I still fail.”

“It happens to the best of us, sometimes,”

“Sometimes being the key word,” you insist. “This isn’t sometimes.”

Chan is silent for a moment. “Be easy on yourself, it’s senior year, you’re allowed to make mistakes.”

You’re tempted to say ‘No, I’m not allowed. I have never been allowed. I’ve been perpetually skidding along thin ice,’ but you swallow it.

“Ok but,” you start, slowly and cheekily. “I’ve yet to see you make a single mistake in the pool. What is it going to take to make the Great Bang Chan, son of an actual professional athlete, screw up?”

“If my friends got here,” he says with a smile. “They’ve always got tricks up their sleeves. Some that they can probably teach you.”

“They swim as well?”

“Yep, but definitely not as good as me as you might’ve guessed,” he jokingly flexes, laughing. Then he sobers. “They’re coming later, if that’s okay with you.”

“Why wouldn’t it be okay with me?” You ask, but you’re already getting up to make yourself more presentable for their arrival. “That means more tutors for me.” And more judges.

There’s a moment of pleasant solitude between you and Chan before his friends trickle in. They enter in small enough numbers that it gives you time to familiarize yourself with them.

Seungmin came the earliest, the most diligent of the crew. He spoke gently and swam even softer. Felix and Jeongin toed after him, and flung water with utmost chaos. Others came and you observed, much too shy to delve into the same antics they toyed in. At times, Chan would climb out and chill with you, prompting the others to take a break and chat alongside. It all mended into a blur as the sky grew purple.

Over the days, you find the presence of Chan’s friends comforting. They’re friendly—obviously—with lighthearted races and pool tricks. They give you an experience you’ve been deprived of since you moved. They’ve taught you well, surprisingly. And it must have also come as a shock to your coach.

He approaches you one afternoon after class ends.

“Y/N, you were amazing out there,” he says. “Haven’t seen an improvement that big in a long while.”

Something about his statement rubs wrong on you. You take a step back, guarded.

“Thank you,” you say, making sure to send a polite smile his way. “Swimming has started to become more fun as the days go by. Really grateful to have made the exchange over here.”

“I’m glad as well. Honestly, I was a bit worried when you enrolled a bit late into this class. Have to keep the students all on the same page, and it’s hard to split the attention,” he sets a hand over your shoulder. “But it seems like you’ll be on the same level as the others in no time! Keep up the good work!”

And like that, your suspicions have been confirmed. Your stomach drops when he leaves, and you mentally beat yourself up for thinking you were in any way competent. A pity-compliment, that’s all that was. That’s all it ever is.

Chan rushes into the locker room and quickly changes into his swimwear. When he sees you, he smiles, pauses to wrap you up into a hug, and is out in the pool in no time. His father watches him from the sidelines fondly, with an expression that clearly holds pride and amazement.

You wonder if you will ever get that kind of look from your parents. Or anyone, for that matter.

That question is still up in the air, weeks later, when your sister intrudes on your swimming class one morning. She doesn’t interrupt or anything. She just quietly stands by the pool’s entrance and watches. You see her eyes trail over the other students and slowly back to you, making silent observations, none of them kind.

When you climb out and class is over, she pulls you to the side. She takes a moment to look you over. “So this is what you’ve picked up since you came here. Impressive.”

“Well, yeah,” you say, and try to move hurriedly to the locker room to escape her. She takes you by the arm, demanding. You struggle shoving her off. “I also need to pick up my books for next class, if you’ll excu—”

“Oh, you don’t have any class to go to right now,” she snaps. “I’ve called. You’re coming home with me for now.”

You freeze, and with satisfaction, your sister drops your arm. “Why?”

“It’s an emergency, one I thought you should know,” a small smile spreads across her lips, and your heart sinks. It can’t be a family emergency, right? Or else she’d be more panicked, right? But if it’s not, what can be so urgent that your sister would have to pick you up from school so early? “Just grab what you need for now so we can go.”

Hesitantly, you nod your head and follow her orders. When you are sat inside her car, you wait for her to disclose any information related to your early departure. She doesn’t feed your curiosity then, only drives slowly and silently down the road to your house. She makes a detour, picks a route that’s longer than your usual, and finally breaks the silence.

“You know how my scholarship gave our Mom a better opportunity at finding a job, right?” It’s a simple question, but set up dangerously and your sweat kicks in as you nod. “And since Dad isn’t the only one working anymore, we’ve got more money to spend, right?”

Right. This is a big jump from the past, when your father only made enough to cover the expenses of the bills and a few groceries. Your mother was met with job rejections left and right, and neither you nor your sister had the time or management to juggle grades as well as employment. At that time, your mother insisted that you focus more on school. She made promises that if one of you hit big, that would be enough of a reward for her. That all her stress and burdens would be paid off. You suppose it half came true. Financially, you were all rewarded.

But rather, all her stress and burdens were pushed in a different direction. You wonder what it’s like to be on the opposite side. You eye your sister, and nod your head to continue.

“So, initially, her plan was to save up to help you out once you graduated. Of course, she knew this was necessary, since there’s no way in hell you’d strike a full scholarship with, you know,” she throws you a sidelong glance, batting her eyelashes. Your hand tightens around your seatbelt. “But she realized, even with a new and improved environment, that your current habits probably wouldn’t strike you one at all. She was forgiving at first. Thought about paying half your tuition and taking a loan for the other. Welp. Then you dropped pre-calculus for swimming and made her rethink her life choices all over again. Good job!”

“Sis,” you hiss, “what does that mean?”

You can’t handle her bullshitting right now. Though you know she has all the time in the world for it. Your surroundings have begun to look unfamiliar, and the anxiety inside you strikes. That’s probably the effect she was going for.

“It means you’re fucked,” she lets out a loud laugh, “you’re not getting any help from her. Or Dad for that matter. Better start counting your pennies, sis!”

And just like that, the tightening in your chest explodes. You feel as though you’re suffocating, each intake of breath amounting to none. Your body grows hotter and you’re wracked with shivers, and stuck inside the cramped space of your sister’s car leaves you no space to handle your panic attack.

You’re overwhelmed by the thoughts of what’s to come. Getting into college—now a complete uncertainty—just to be lost in debt, and there’s nothing to do about it. You lack life experience. You’ve been holed up and relying on the bare minimum to get you by. The only moment you have been able to hold your head above the water, and your own family has dunked you back underneath. You’re struggling to win a sabotaged race.

“By the way, don’t tell Mom I told you,” your sister says, now pulling into your driveway. She chatters in a low voice, as if she doesn’t want the world to listen in on your conversation. “It’s our little secret. Just like how it was mine and hers.”

You find yourself not coming home at night. Where you stay is just about as much of a mystery to them as it is to you. You’ve huddled yourself in the locker rooms some nights, using sheets and water bottles as cushions. You’ve cornered yourself in classrooms. Hell, you’ve even holed yourself up in your family’s car, in the backseat, on the floor so that onlookers can’t peep and tattle your nightly whereabouts to your family (What a disgrace that would’ve been). But you’ve always made sure to come back home at the lick of dawn, just before the rest of them would get up and bang down your door looking for answers to ‘where’ve you been last night?’ and ‘what time did you get home?’ and you’d answer ‘the park’ or ‘friend’s’ or ‘convenience store,’ and ‘at midnight.’ Just late enough for it to be believable. No one’s ever up that late, and if one were, they’d probably be tired or drunk off their ass to notice your absence. No one’s ever called your bluff, a heartbreaking realization that you’ve come to appreciate.

Chan, though, walks into the pool at just the wrong time. You’ve just gotten used to the stench of bleach and chlorine when he nudges you awake on your makeshift bed of thin sheets and soaked homework paper. You dash up, searching and grabbing for your phone to check your alarms (How did you miss it? Was it on silent? A dead battery?). Chan chuckles as if your panic is the funniest thing he has ever seen.

“You’re fine, school’s not open till another hour and a half,” he picks up on your confusion. It seems to settle into his own features. He’s got swim trunks on, and a towel slung over his shoulder. From the corner of your eye, you note the darkness of a not-yet-risen sun. “I just decided to come in early for quick practice.”

An awkward pause and an understanding nod to himself later, he kneels. “Hey. What are you doing on the floor here?”

His eyebrows knit and his worry looks even more pronounced in this dark blue reflection of… life. How pitiful you must look. He’s probably wondering if you’re that dirt-poor, that sleeping on tile might be considered a luxury to you. But even so, you can’t bother to be embarrassed by yourself at the moment. He’s pulled you out of the comfort of unconsciousness, so now you’re fighting your natural reactions to the biting cold and solid ground.

It hurts. You’re sore and your face is blue and all you can think about is crying. It hurts that your options are either this or your home, and the fact that you chose this.

“I’m fine,” you nod meekly, “Just…napping,”

Too overwhelmed to map out a convincing lie, you prepare yourself for the defenses. This is going to sting Chan and you are sure going to regret it later, but fuck it. You’ll deal with the consequences once you’ve showered under hot water and mulled it over at breakfast.

Chan reaches for your shoulder, palm warm, and helps you sit up. “Why are you napping on the floor?”

“Because if I nap in the pool, I’ll drown.”

Chan almost cracks, and you consider that a victory. But he just as quickly wraps an arm around your shoulders and pulls you into his chest, one hand laying over your own. “Don’t joke about stuff like that. I’m serious. Are you okay? Did…something happen at home, again?”

Something’s always happening at home, and that’s the part that drives you nuts. Your old friends can handle you complaining about spontaneous spats with your sister every once in a while, but would go madder than you if they heard every single crisis that went down behind your walls. You have to bite and swallow every time.

You shake your head. “I tried swimming last night. It went about how’d you expect, and I knocked out on the floor immediately after. Not sure how you can do it, Chan. Honestly, everyday I respect you a little more.”

He chuckles, arm tightening around you for a pulse. “No one’s born a pro. And I promise you, you’re on your way to becoming one.”

You feel as though you’re on your way to becoming no one. You try to voice this as inconspicuous as possible.

“What if you disappoint someone because you’re not there yet?” you ask, “What if they wanted you to be a pro since the very beginning, and because you’re nowhere close, they end up mad?”

“Who’s mad? If it’s about my dad, I promise you he’s not—”

“No, it’s not him.Forget it.”

“Is it—” he inhales, “Is—Is your family upset? Is that why you’re here?”

You don’t respond. It’s enough of an answer.

“I’m not sure what they said to you, but just know they’re wrong. We all improve at our own pace, and we’re not better or worse for it. You need to give yourself patience, ignore them, just—”

“Chan, I can’t ignore them,” you snap. You pull yourself from Chan’s embrace and bury your face into your knees. Your eyes burn as the emotions take over you. It doesn’t hurt less as time goes on. “They make my life a living hell and there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t know how to do anything. I’m the very definition of useless, and the worst part is that they all know, but no one helps. I can’t leave them or else I’ll just end up… here.”

Sobs start to wrack through you, and you can’t do anything to stop it. You’re tired of wallowing in self-pity, in others’ pity, but you’re at a loss for what to do. You wish you weren’t an adult with the tendencies of a child, only there for others to look after. No one’s taught you what it takes for that transition to happen, to grow independant, to discover skills and utilize them. They’ve just thrown you in the deep end and disregarded you when you drowned. You wish you weren’t so helpless. You wish you had some help.

“I wish I knew what to say,” Chan murmurs. He’s wrapped his arms around his knees and seems to gaze into the pool. Every once in a while, he passes you a glance, but ultimately, he leaves you to yourself.

The sun has slowly started to rise, and the birds have begun to chirp. That’s your cue to get out of here, though even now you’re running behind schedule. Your eyes sting and you hope your walk back home is enough to soothe them back to normal.

Chan stands up when you do, and quickly interrupts you by the doorway. His face is sullen, concave, and heavy as though he bears the same amount of burdens that you do. Who’s to say he doesn’t?

“Just… We’ll figure this out, okay? Together.” He meets your eyes. “I’ll wait at the pool for you. As soon as they start acting up, come here immediately. Don’t let their words intimidate you.”

“Okay,” just when you think this conversation’s done, he pauses you again. A beat passes. Several. And then he leans in—

His lips press against yours, soft and warm, and are off in an instant. You don’t have enough time to savor the feeling.

He smiles and says, “I don’t want you to be in any danger, whether that be at home or otherwise, okay?”

You smile. An unnamed pressure lifts from your shoulders. “Okay.”

You feel a bit guilty, keeping Chan out of his own home during the nights and mornings. You have to fight to reassure yourself that this is out of his own volition. He certainly doesn’t seem bothered when he spots you on your way to the pool’s entrance. And he’s found ways to help the time pass faster. Be it games, studying, or making out.

Yep, he’s introduced a new activity to you, though you can’t really complain. But it doesn’t change the fact that the pool’s tile and linoleum, all cold and hard, is not meant for a person to sleep on. You’ve started checking the other for bruises and marks that could be left behind in your wakes, literally.

Over time, it’s become a routine. A sad one; one that shouldn’t be necessary, but you force yourself to think of it in a positive light. That’s also something he’s been teaching you while you stay: how to manage your inner thoughts, how to turn those demons into angels, even when the devil is really, really trying you. It’s helped ease your wounds, and you avoid your family enough for them to not reopen them.

Finally, that’s his last lesson. Family is both permanent and temporary, and you’d be glad to know that the permanent ones are those you keep, and hold tight, and never ought to lose. While temporary family could always be cut off, and should be, because what’s the point of family if they won’t be there for you all the time? He’s made sure to look you deep in your eyes when he said this, voice clear and low, and just a bit unsteady. You take your time digesting that one.

You’ve got trouble with your family, and one night, after more than a week’s passed, you get into trouble with someone else’s.

You had arrived at the pool a tad bit early, you supposed, and had already laid out all your blankets and card games when the entrance clanged open. You were about to reveal a new game you’d discover online to Chan, only to be met with a voice much deeper than his.

“Y/N.”

Your head snaps up and immediately blood rushes to your ears. Coach dangles a set of keys in his hand, and seems–rightly–surprised at your appearance. But you can see the moment he understood what he saw. A person’s pity can only extend so much, and you know exactly where yours lies.

You don’t even have to wince.

School break has just started, and of course you’re grounded.

On one hand, you’re happy you don’t have to face your coach after being caught trespassing. His face held a look of rage and disappointment, and you don’t want to witness that any more than you have to. The resemblance between him and Chan are uncanny.

But you’re home. That doesn’t spell out comfort for you at all.

You and Chan send messages back and forth to each other consisting of “i miss you”s and “sorry that happened”s. You rant to him about how fed up you’ve been, and you feel relieved for the first time in a long while, because finally, someone is there to listen, judgement-free. Chan suggests sneaking into your house for the night a couple of times to see each other, but you reject, saying that your mother’s too eagle-eyed for that to happen.

Once break is over and school is back open, your family keeps their eyes locked on you like a hawk. You no longer can stop by the library for homework or studying, instead they demand you return back home immediately once school’s over. Your father insists on helping you study instead, and although you know it’s not out of the pure kindness of his heart, you accept it for the time being.

Swim class is awkward, now that both you and Coach Bang have to pretend to not have gone through that whole ordeal. But you can feel his gaze linger on you when you plunge underwater. You have no idea what he thinks of you now, after all this, and you’re too embarrassed to ask Chan.

One day, Chan approaches you before swim class begins.

“Mind if I take you out for a bit?” He asks. You slyly look at the clock ticking away by the door to the pool. You have just about a minute. Only a minute to get ready. “It’ll only be for a quick moment. You’ll be back in no time and if you don’t, I’ll cover for you.”

You squint suspiciously at Chan. “What’s this about?”

“A surprise. One my father will absolutely understand.”

When it puts it like that…

It’s a quick ride to where Chan ends up taking you: a bizarre little creek tucked behind several neighborhood houses. Its water runs fresh, uncontaminated by human interaction, feeding into the thick brushes of land and trees. It’s a beautiful sight indeed, but wholly inconsequential. You look to Chan for a clue as to why he brought you here.

He seems lost in himself and nature. Slowly, he jumps over to the rocks and gazes into the creek’s depth. For a moment, you think he’s just brought you to admire the scenery, so you’re shocked out of your own stupor when he speaks. “My father used to bring me here when I was a child. He used to bring the whole family out for a swim.”

You hum and silently make your way closer to him. He still dashes from one stone to another, calm and in thought. “My earliest memories of training began here. It was the best, surrounded by natural sounds and protected by the rocks. It isn’t too deep, just about perfect for my height and age. Eventually we started coming here less and less as my Dad took up calls and schedules. We all grew older and busier, till we just abandoned it. But sometimes I come here when I need to give myself a break and really think.”

You’re brushed shoulder-to-shoulder together now. Your balance isn’t as good as Chan’s, and you end up slipping and stepping into the creek every other second. He happily keeps a hand near your waist and hoists you back up whenever needed.

“Do your neighbors ever come here?”

“They’ve got their own gardens to tend to,” he nods towards the houses. “No one other than me has come here in at least a decade.”

He eyes you as he says this. It’s his own little safe haven. And if he’s so sure that no one has snuck in yet, that means you’re the first to enter it.

The realization makes you bow your head, flustered. Chan hums satisfactory by your side. You both listen to the birds coo and the bugs chitter, soaking in nature’s creations. When Chan notices you finally getting a bit restless, he takes your hand and leads you to the rocks. Your legs slightly dip inside the creek, its water soaking through your clothes, but you don’t mind. It’s coldness is welcomed as the sun soars higher into the sky.

“Here’s not like the pool,” Chan says, fingers toying with the ends of your hair. “There’s no chance anyone will catch us here.”

The implication is not lost on you, especially with the way he looks into your eyes as he speaks. Incidents of the past come to mind, but they’re quickly replaced by thoughts of the future, such as: his lips on yours, your hands in his, and most importantly—

“I know,” you hastily respond, “I know.”

And the moment is clear. His lips are definitely on yours, and your hands are in his, but also on his; and over his arms; and grasping his shoulders. And most importantly, his body surrounds you and he’s hugging you to his chest. Your breath runs low, and you can’t tell if it’s because of his arms or his lips.

Either way, you embrace it all.

He leans you on the rocks. He’s grinding and you feel something…hard, brush against you. It fills you with heat, both subtle and scorching and when he presses that against you again, his hand slowly travelling down your body, you stiffen and pull back.

“Chan, I—” You gasp, “I’ve never done this before…ever… and—”

“Hey,” He says, “It’s fine. We can stop if you want to.”

And he pauses, slightly moving backwards to give you some air to breathe in. You listen to your heart beat in your chest, use that rhythm to help calm you down. Once it slows, you’re still hot as before, though it spreads from somewhere deep in you.

“It’s—,” you stutter, “I want to do this. Now.”

A knowing grin spreads across Chan’s face, and he gently lowers himself over you, settles a kiss, quick and harmless, on your lips, then pushes onward.

It’s rough and gentle all at the same time. Both overwheling and manageable. You’re up to your hips in water, having slid down the rocks, but you can feel that you’re wet for other reasons.

Chan pulls backs and mouths at your neck, fingers unfastening the buttons of your clothing and tossing them haphazardly. You’re pretty sure you hear a couple splashes as he does so. He kisses down your chest, your tummy, and then hooks his arms around your bottom and lifts you. He helps you back on the rocks and holds you in place as he focuses on you.

“Turn over,” he commands. He’s still standing within the creek itself, chest level with your waist. The request takes its time to settle in your mind. When it does, your face starts to burn, but you follow his order nonetheless.

Like this, you lay flat on your stomach on the grass and your legs swing over the rocks and into the creek. Chan softly tugs your pants down, just far enough to expose you. He delicately places his hands on your cheeks and spreads them. And—

Oh.

That’s his tongue. And he’s dragging it over you in a way that makes your toes curl. You tighten around nothing, not until he does you the favor of adding his fingers to the mix. He slides them into you easily, pumping them while his tongue does its work on your clit.

And now you’re clawing at the grass and dirt and rocks. You can feel yourself lightly kicking Chan in the chest and shoulders, but he only squeezes your hips back, invitingly.

Soon, you’re cumming around his fingers and can’t help yourself from slowly sliding down the rocks and into the creek. Chan does his best to soften your descent, then turns you around to face him. His face is glimmering with both your and the creek’s wetness, hair laid down by sweat, lips plump from how much they’ve been pressed against you, God he just looks so erotic and amazing like this that you tug him in for a kiss. You taste yourself (at least you think that’s you) and it’s not the most pleasant, but you don’t mind because he doesn’t mind.

“Do you…?” You breathlessly motion for his member. He grins and looks down at you as if you’ve just asked him a silly question. And similarly, he plants a light kiss on your nose before diving for your lips again.

“Next time, baby,” he says, “Right now I just wanna feel you.:”

So he pulls you flush against him, arms roaming around your body. When you’re both red-faced from kissing the lights off each other, he helps you climb out of the creek.

Neither of you are really thinking when you hit the ground, him on top of you and his length sliding over your folds. He’s teasing, but you’re too excited to hold off for any longer, so you wrap your arms around him and pull him chest-to-chest, crying with your impatience.

With a chuckle, he gives in, sinking into you. You’re surprised at how well you take it. He fills you up so nicely, so intensely. Each thrust sends you into another fit of heat, your core burning and tightening around him. Chan nuzzles his face in your shoulder, and with every pump of his hips, he teethes at the skin of your neck.

Every feeling is amplified when he’s folded around you like this, and as time runs out, another orgasm makes its way through your body. Chan groans appreciatively and leans on his arms to plant kisses all over your lips, face, and neck.

“Good girl,” he whispers. “Let it all out. Let me feel you.”

You cry out when he abruptly pulls out. He kneels beside you and wraps a hand around his length, hastily jerking himself to completion.

You watch in entrancement, the way his face scrunches up, and the way his whole member and fist shines and you’ve suddenly got a craving to put your lips on his dick.

You hesitantly bring a hand over to it first, to test the waters. His movement stutters, then slows down once he realizes what you’re trying to do. You sit up and bring your other hand to his cock. Cautiously, you start to pump them.

“Don’t be scared,” Chan chuckles, “You can squeeze harder.”

Your grip tighten, but not too much, and you try again. Small, airy grunts fall from his lips. His hips start thrusting with your hands. You watch as the head of his cock disappears and reappears into his foreskin, shimmering with the mix of you and his pre-cum. It’s strangely appetizing.

You lean down to put you mouth on Chan’s dick without much thought. His hardness is cushioned by your lips, and his skin is silkier than you initially imagined. But it’s at this moment you realize you have no idea what to do.

You look up at Chan, and he groans at the sight of you at this angle. But then, a fond smile makes its way on his face and he lifts a hand to gingerly comb through your hair.

“It’s okay,” he laughs affectionately, “I’ll teach you another time. For now…”

He brings his hand back to his cock and finishes himself off. You deflate a bit, disappointed you weren’t able to give him his orgasms that he so desperately deserves, especially after getting you there twice. But he’s already on the ground alongside you, holding your face in the palm of his hands and pulling you into a loving smooch.

“That was amazing,” he moans, drawing out the loudest kiss sound from both of your lips. You both giggle in response. “I couldn’t be more happy you decided to give yourself to me.”

“Wasn’t planning on giving myself to anyone other,” you say. You climb on top of Chan, squealing as you try to indulge in the high-famed post-sex cuddles you’ve heard so much about. Chan squeezes you back with the brightest and most-dimpled grin you’ve ever seen.

Eventually, the mirth wears off, as the wind picks up and you’re immediately reminded that you’re both outdoors, off-campus one might say, but most definitely not on school grounds, when you absolutely should be.

You lay back, groaning when you check the time. Late. “My mom is going to kill me.”

It seems as though you can’t stop making mistakes and screwing your chances. The school year is almost ending and you feel like your life might end with it. You try to think more positively, but as the seconds tick by with neither of you racing back towards the school, the worse you feel.

Chan shuffles about. “Your mother isn’t going to kill you.”

“How would you know?”

He pauses; takes a moment to inhale.

“I told my dad about what’s going on at home, hope that wasn’t intrusive,” he says, and your heart stops. “He understands what you’re going through and regrets acting that way. He’s willing to take it all back. In fact, he says you’ve gotten so good at swimming lately, that he wants you to help mentor the kids. It’s a paid opportunity.”

His hand falls over yours. “I’m also seeking ways to get you away from there. My home’s got a guest bedroom, and I’ve been convincing my mom to clear it out.”

“You mean…”

“I do,” he says, “Some of us are not blessed with the most supporting families, and that’s okay. Because you have people that care for you, we care for you, I care for you, even if your family…cares for you a bit less.”

It hurts to hear him say it. Hurts even deeper to know it’s true. But the warmth in his gaze soothes you even just a little bit.

The dangers of going home is always a threat that hangs over your head, but if there’s one thing you’ve learned since meeting Chan, it’s that you don’t always have to go alone.

When the time is clear, when you’ve found support and built up confidence, you confront your family.

You tell them that you’ve had it. You no longer keep your whereabouts a secret, you no longer let them intrude on you anymore. You tell them that you’ve found a job, that you’re now able to support yourself from here-on-out. You are no longer financially, emotionally, or physically bound to them whether they like it or not. When you’re done, you don’t even stay to observe their reactions, though you can hear your sister snickering over your shoulder.

Chan’s there to give you a ride to his house, once you’ve packed up enough for a week. He says he’ll accompany again next time. Or maybe there won’t be a next time.

You are rewarded for what you have achieved, rather than what you can, and you can leave the past remnants behind and rediscover yourself in a new way, confidently.

I must salute smut writers, because every single time i’ve attempted to write smut I’ve struggled, ugh… but anyways………….

hope you guys liked this! if you made it this far, that is. ^^ this was edited by @jaeminlore who was really kind enough to do so!

#bang chan #stray kids #bang chan scenarios #bang chan smut #skz smut #skz scenarios #stray kids scenarios #stray kids smut #bang chan angst #stray kids angst #skz angst #bang chan fluff #stray kids fluff #skz fluff #bang chan fanfic #stray kids fanfic #skz fanfic #.mine

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raveismysublime · 5 years ago

Text

I am attempting to right a fic

So I am re-reading ACOWAR and am at the part where Nesta and Elaine go visit Graysen to try and get him to help the humans or something like that and Nesta is beating up Graysen for hurting Elaine.

So my mind wanders and goes... what if Cassian was there to see this? and then.... what if Cassian saw this from his POINT OF VIEW!!!!!!! So I’m like let me write this,

I have never wrote fan fiction besides some Lunar chronicles shit on Wattpad and Lesbian smut (don’t ask, it helped with my sexuality tho) SO please don’t come at me if you hate this

I just really wanted this from Cassian's perspective, like watching Nesta be a bad bitch instead of a rude bitch ya kno? Idk but here yall go

I apologize in advance if this is shitty ( it probably will be, please don’t hate I love u guys) and will probably never right a fic again but ok enough talking here ya go

Im gonna be taking parts of ACOWAR and typing them in so it looks believable

**we’re gonna imagine that Cassian went with them for this to work okay**

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

“So only the rich and chosen will walk through the gates?” Rhys asked, arching a brow. “I can’t imagine the aristocracy being content to work your land and fish in your lake or butcher your meat.”

This meeting was going nowhere, thought Cassian as Rhysand argued with the close-minded human boy. The fact this pitiful man thinks his mere father and some iron were going to protect him and the human lands from Hybern’s wrath was stupid, laughable even.

How he was able to land a Archeron’s sister was beyond what Cassian could think of. For once, he would agree with Nesta on the idea of this marriage.

“We have plenty of workers here to do that.” so the little boy speaks. Cassian wanted to retort, he wanted to desperately put this pathetic weasle of a man in his place but bit his tongue. This was not his fight, this was Elaine’s and at the moment Rhysands. He would not intervene.

Because if he did intervene this whole place would come crumbling down and weasel boy and his father would be crying in their underwear.

But Jurian said to the lords, “I fought beside your ancestor. And he would be ashamed if you locked out those who needed it. You would spit on his grave to do so. I hold a position of trust with Hybern. One word from me, and I will make sure his legion takes a visit here. To you.”

“You’ll threaten to bring the very enemy you seek to protect us from?” Weasle boy said.

Jurian shrugged. “I can also convince Hybern to steer clear. He trusts me that much. You let in those people … I will do my best to keep his armies far away.”

He gave Rhys a look, daring him to doubt it.

We were still too stunned to even try to look neutral.

Cassian wondered if the elder lord might be the one who could actually be reasoned with. Especially as Graysen said to Elain, “Take that ring off.”

Elain’s fingers curved into a fist. “No.” Ugly. This was about to get ugly in the worst way—

“Take. It. Off.”

How humiliating, Cassian thought, to Elaine for everyone to witness this absurd man. If only he could reach around, grab weasel man by the neck, pin him against the wall and shove two of his knives into each of his balls-

That’s enough,” Rhys said, his voice lethally calm. “The lady keeps the ring, if she wants it. Though none of us will be particularly sad to see it go. Females tend to prefer gold or silver to iron.”

Graysen leveled a seething look at Rhysand. “Is this the start of it? You Fae males will come to take our women? Are your own not fuckable enough?”

That was the last of it that Cassian was willing to endure. Was this man stupid? He should not be alive at this very second. He should be drowned in crimson and tears.

“Watch your tongue, boy,” his father said. At Least he had some sense to shut his son up. Elain turned white at the coarse language.

Graysen only said to her, “I am not marrying you. Our engagement is over. I will take whatever people occupy your lands. But not you. Never you.”

Fucking bastard. To even speak to a women like this, to even dare

He was going to rip out his throat

Tears began sliding down Elain’s face, their scent filling the room with salt.

Nesta stepped forward. Then another step. And another.

Cassian watched her every move, every breath and the anger etched across her brow. He could do nothing but stare at her movements

He could do nothing but stare at Nesta

Until she was in front of Graysen, faster than anyone could see.

He watched her dress swish against her curves, he watched her fingers

Until Nesta smacked him hard enough that his head snapped to the side.

He made a sharp intake of his breath. He had only ever seen her mad, furious, bitching to him or any other male. Never, never had he seen her so calm and burning towards someone else.

To him, she was snarky and he snarked back

To this man, she was calm and collected as her eyes burned into his face. Cassian would have never wanted to be on the receiving end of that look.

She was devastating.

“You never deserved her,” Nesta snarled into the stunned silence as Graysen cupped his face and swore, bending over. Nesta only looked back at me. Rage, unfiltered and burning, roiled in her eyes. But her voice was stone-cold as she said to me, “I assume we’re done here.”

The power uttered in those words. The power in her

All Cassian could do was watch her. Watch her defend her sister to no end, watch as the poor boy looked into her eyes with fear.

Feyre gave her a wordless nod. And proud as any queen, Nesta took Elain’s arm and led her from the guardhouse. Mor trailed behind, guarding their backs as they entered the veritable field of weapons and snarling hounds waiting outside

He enjoyed watching someone else take in the brunt of Nesta’s words and actions. It was entertaining to him to watch another male be weakened by her. He could get used to seeing that quite often.

Nesta, Nesta, Nesta

He couldn’t help laughing to himself.

She looked so beautiful when she was angry, he admitted to a small part of himself.

Gods, this women.

-----

OKAY i know that was probably so bad but I tried? idk tell me what ya’ll thinkkkk i just really wanted this written somewere but admittidly it sounded better in my head haha

I am just craving so much Nessian stuff at this moment like I am going to BURST where is this book.

#sarah j mas #nesta archeron #acotar #acofas #nesta #high lady feyre #rhysand #acomaf #acowar #feyre #nessian #acosf #a court of silver flames

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postmoderntongues · 5 years ago

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my 100 ideas

Most of these totally suck but i wrote 100 of them so let me know if any of them sound like something you would read or have any ideas for how to spice them up with blood and gore and how to get the most shock possible out of the idea.

-Two girls become drifter killers to fund the abortion of father-daughter incest

- Zombies like EDM and converge on a rave, replacing the drugged up crowd with nobody noticing

-human farming and a cannibal restaurant

-girls discover fairies and torture them

-two pageant stars become pro-ana superstars

-people earn points in an online game called “Calligula” by committing crimes and filming them

-A boy befriends a vampire trucker and reminds him of his last mortal love

-mall goths murder a “poser” in the woods

- De sade as a transcript of a hurtcore chatroom

-neighborhood kids who congregate at “dirt Hill” bully a child to death who comes back and haunts them in their teens

-A suicide club starts at a highschool

-Oliver twist remake where they are prostitutes instead of thieves

-A glitch in time leaves a rapist turned into a child and lands him at the mercy of his victim

-killer caterpillars

-Aliens that can only get you if you think of them

-A bulimic girl vomits up a baby

-Monsters live in the sand of a beach

-Experiments done on kids to turn them into weapons

-A pedophile on the run with his victim writes a fake memoir supposedly penned by the victim about murdering his family to escape

-Women storm the white house to torture/kill a rapist president

-An exchange studentl living in germany is called upon by the ghosts of a murdered jewish family to kill the family next door who are descendants of the nazis that killed them

-addicts at the end of the world trying to stay high

-anti-aging cream is made of dead 3rd world babies

-Bigfoot, our protagonist, tries to befriend a group of campers but accidentally kills them all off

-Prtending to be underaged, a girl traps a sadist pedophile in his own BDSM dungeon

-An american pedophile in asia becomes possessed by the ghost of a little girl killed in a brothyl

-a girl mutilates herself in her room in an attempt to look “beautiful” by cutting off all the features she finds ugly

-Satanists overtake a christian summer camp for SRA rituals

-A girl who is being molested’s dolls com to life in order to kill her stepfather, told from the POV of her favorite teddy bear

- A girl falls in love with a ghost who she can only see when she asphyxiates so she becomes hooked on duster

-A mute autistic girl befriends a demon who gets vengeance on her bullies

-Two DID alters fall in love and write love letters to each other in a diary even though they can never exist at the same time, plan revenge on church gardner who abused the host and caused the split in an attempt to be whole

-A child who killed another child is released from prison upon turning 18. When another child goes missing he must solve the mystery to clear his name with the help of his murder victim’s sister (who turns out to be the real killer)

-An adopted girl, upon turning 18, searches for her birth family only to discover a human puppy mill

-Two little boys abduct and murder another at a carnival and watch the panic unravel as the adults search for him

-A cult leader drives his followers to mass suicide

-A mother and daughter break a murderer out of jail and fight for his affections

-a school adopts lobotomies for problem students

-A human trafficker crosses paths with a telekinetic child

-An adopted girl finds out she is the blood heir to an enormous hurtcore ring

-A woman becomes aware that she is a character in a story and begins fighting the writer, who plans to write her into a tragedy

-a rich girl who has spent her life in a self sufficient high rise accidentally hits a lower-floor elevator button to discover that the zombie apocalypse has been happening for over a decade

-The son of a truck stop stripper living motel to motel comes across a magic pack of cigarettes that each grant a wish when smoked. In the end he gives his last one to his mom and she wishes he was never born and he disappears.

-An abusive troubled teen camp in the wilderness combats a masked slasher

-Activists free elephants at a circus but are captured by sadistic clowns

-Patient zero of a zombie virus goes around infecting hundreds of people through her work in a fast food chain because she cant take paid time off

-A vigilante caring for her murdered best friend’s infant has to take out a chain of criminals while still keeping up with the overwhelming task of motherhood

-A new club drug goes around the rave scene, highly addictive, eventually turns you into a zombie but so addictive people cant stop using it

-A girl wakes up and lives the same day out 100 times, with each day becoming more gruesome and out of control as she tries to stop the death of her best friend from happening

-A woman with no memories is arrested for involvement in a hurtcore ring

-Teens in a mental hospital after a rash of suicide attempts begin to die in strange accidents around the hospital

-A girl singer rising to fame realizes shes being prepared to be sacrificed by a death cult

-A boy who accidentally murdered his sister as a child becomes obsessed with a local girl who looks like she would have grown up to and stalks her, killing everybody close to her to “get his sister back” for his dying mother

-after trying acid for the first time a college girl is dragged back in time and witnesses the slaughter of the natives by settlers and is taken in by a native family fighting back

-A conscious zombie takes out a white supremecist stronghold

-Teens at a christian youth retreat battle a tentacle monster that feeds on virginity

-A haunted house bonds with the family that it is killing after falling in love with the lonely teenage daughter

-After abuse in the industry, a porn star seeks revenge against the producer who abused her, rendering her infertile

-A little girl who lives in a funeral home forms a bond with a senile old man who believes her to be his dead wife reincarnated

-A cursed school play production where the creepy theater teacher has a deal with the devil to sacrifice the lead girl, who grows a thirst for blood

-Upon puberty a girl starts to gruesomely turn into a mermaid despite her family’s assurances that these changes are beautiful and special

-a homeless prostitute forces her son to be her daughter in order to scam and kill pedophile men

-somebody nearby dies whenever a child sucks her thumb and she tries to break the habit

-after discovering her beloved guide dog is a demonic hell hound who needs human flesh to survive, a blind girl goes about finding deserving victims for him to eat

-A band of punk rockers find themselves set upon by nazis after one is killed at their show, the nazis have super-meth

-Everyday life in a small town is disrupted when the residents awake to find themselves living with grotesque cartoon physics

-A date-rapist catches an STD that turns his penis sentient and against him

-A boy who has never seen the sunlight is identified as a kidnapped infant and returned to his family, who have no idea how to handle his PTSD

-A tween popstar’s lyrics contain satanic messages that make his fans killers they kill their families and go on robbing sprees to afford his concerts

-A prim and proper young woman crosses a zombie-infested city to reunite with her (female) childhood best friend who she is in love with

-A chubby loner girl suddenly becomes an asset to her girl scout camp when it is set upon by monsters that only she knows how to fight from reading about them in horror books

-A kidnapped boy realizes he is outgrowing his captor’s attraction and sets out to eliminate the competition of new boys brought into the house

-A redneck boy and his incestuously abusive brother are the lone survivors of a monster attack on their family farm and the boy has to decide if he wants to help his abuser survive or take his chances on his own

-A school for poor children where children are farmed for their organs for the rich

-a young junkie discovers one day that he has the power to regenerate lost body parts

-An interracial group of rich friends finds themselves lost in a bad neighborhood overnightdurring a full moon where the occupants of the neighborhood come alive as werewolves

-A small Amish-type religious community is completely cut off from the world during a monster attack and carry on business with no idea that the outside world has collapsed other than that they’ve stopped receiving letters and newspapers. A team is sent out to scout the damage

-A girl who has her driver's license for the first weekend is held hostage as a getaway driver for two sadistic maniacs on their crime spree

-At a sleepover, two elementary school girls decide to kill another

-An ex-amish girl assimilates herself into society right when a monster attack begins to crumble it and must get back to her family to warn them that the world is ending

-Desade’s 120 days rewritten in the modern day hamptons

-a new diet pill causes moths to take up residence in somebody’s digestive system

-a group of white people go to film the “horrors” of a supposedly cannibal tribe, but when their racist notions are false, they force the people to conform to what they expected to find so they have something for their film

-a “murder circus” where participants pay to torture victims runs into a clash with protestors

-fights to the death like dogfighting but with human children

-a young man gives himself up to a sadist to pay off his sister’s drug debt

-A young woman working in the crime scene clean up business tries to shelter her own daughter from the horrors of the world by locking her in their apartment and becoming more and mor agoraphobic

-A home invasion turns the tables when the serial would-be-rapists/robbers break into the home of female vampires

-In the aftermath of the end of the world, a small tribe of hardened cannibalistic survivors now have to face forced assimilation back into society

-Trapped in a building with an active shooter, a group of elementary school kids fight back with school supplies

-An international tour group of study abroad students become stranded in the alps with a snow monster

-a team of serial killers/lovers is put to the test when one of them gets a woman pregnant and decides he wants to quit killing and become a normal person

-A teenage punk with a specialty for giving piercings turns into a back-ally abortionist in a wealthy suburb

-Twins who share a body and each have a head get into a feud over a lover and attempt to separate

-A group of racists find themselves cursed by a flesh-eating virus that starts with a change in skin pigment

-Racists hunting illegal immigrants come up on the wrong side of a desert spirit after destroying water left out by humanitarian groups

-A police force in a poor city is hit with a curse that transform them into flesh hungry pig-monsters and the local youth must take them out to protect their neighborhood

-A massive flood turns into a struggle for survival for a dorm building full of art students

-A woman is convinced that her son, conceived through a rape, is a demon

-A mental hospital during a zombie outbreak

#writeblr

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 4 years ago

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Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.14

Hunk drove a very hyper Pidge home. Letting her mix flavours had been a bad idea, Pidge talking the whole drive home so fast that Lance was surprised she was managing to drink her slushies in between her words. Promising his best buddy he’d fill him in the following morning, Lance felt a little awkward as he let him and Keith into his empty house. His beloved bronco wasn’t back yet, Shiro extremely lucky Lance didn’t have his phone number to hound him about taking care of his baby girl. Hovering at the base of the stairs, both men stood their awkwardly. Lance feeling weird as he knew he needed to say something, but wasn’t sure what that something was. Playing it safe, he opted for an apology. Keith’s life had been thrown in turmoil, just like Lance’s, and the man clearly missed his brother, something Lance couldn’t make better for him. Maybe if they’d met when in college, he and Keith could have been friends. Keith’s anger clearly stemmed from trauma, his repeated fixation on thinking he’d been turned very clearly said that. Lance had the feeling is had something to do with whatever happened to Shiro’s partner, but he wasn’t in the position to pry.

“Hey. I’m sorry we dragged you out. I know I was kind of a pushy, and you can probably put that down to my people pleasing personality, but I hope some part of tonight was enjoyable. It’s no easy, or fun, being on the outside, but Hunk and Pidge are good people. I’m not just using them to blend in, it was never like that. They’re both special to me. I know we’re like strangers and it’s awkward as hell living together, but I think after tonight I like you a little more than I did. I don’t think you’re a fundamentally bad person, and I’m not going to push you to talk to me. I guess what I want to say is, that I swear on Blue I’m not in the habit of hurting people. That doesn’t mean much coming from a vampire, because honestly, most of us are huuuuuuge douche canoes. But as long as you’re under my roof, I’m going to treat you like an actual human being, and not as “Keith the hunter”. I don’t know how many times I can apologise for being what I am, but I’m too much of a coward to off myself. I thinking part of my emotional growth was stunted from being turned... and, well, yeah. I’ll let you head to bed or whatever. If you can’t sleep, help yourself to whatever. I would prefer you stay out of my office for the sake of my clients, but I know you can get in there anyway... yeah... anyway, I’m headed up to bed... I’ll see you in the morning”

Lance’s undead heart leapt when Keith opened his mouth, only to fall when Keith closed his mouth and looked away. He’d probably said too much again. He was trying so damn hard, and he wasn’t exactly sure why it even mattered. Until Shiro came back, both he and Keith were left in limbo... Lance still kind of hoped that Shiro leaving Keith with him meant the older hunter wasn’t about to come for his head in the middle of the night, and that some time apart would make it easy for Shiro to see his brother was very much the human idiot he’d always been.

“How old are you?”

Lance nearly dropped the remnants of his slushy in surprise. Strawberry hadn’t been the smartest choice. Pidge had teased him about looking like a vampire for having red around his lips, and all over his teeth. Honesty was best when dealing with people in trauma

“I’m 44. In human years”

“Okay”

That was it. The limit of Keith’s vocabulary for the night. The hunter trudging towards his room, leaving Lance to walk up the stairs to his own. Stripping down and changing for bed, Blue let out a rumbled purr as she came running into his room and leapt up onto his bed to wait for him. He really must look like the lamest vampire Keith had ever met. Just a lonely vampire and his cat, living in the middle of nowhere. It was a good thing Lance didn’t mind being lame.

Lance’s dreams were horrible. He’d woken half a dozen times unable to escape the feelings flowing through his body. His teeth hurt, cutting into his lip as he huddled against his bedhead. He felt flushed with fever, arm aching as if he’d broken it. The skin had healed over the wound, but it itched so badly Lance wanted to scratch until it bled. Shivering and sick, he’d fallen back to sleep around dawn, waking with a throat feeling as though clogged with his death soil. Blue hadn’t left him, though that might not have been her choice given the door to his bedroom was closed, instead of slightly open so Blue could come and go as she pleased.

Showering only made Lance feel worse, he couldn’t get the temperature to cooperate and nearly tore the tap handle off it’s fitting trying. He ended up feeling like soggy cardboard, all wet and useless, as he towelled off and peered in the least cracked slither of mirror left. Today was definitely a day for make up. No amount of blood was going to bring back colour into his dulled skin. Being the youngest, he’d spent many a time as his older sister Rachel’s model. Mami had beaten her arse red on more than one occasion when Rachel had tried using nail polish as eyeshadow... his sister not the most skilled person to be giving anyone a make over, but his other sister Veronica had grown out of all of that kind of thing by the time Rachel had gotten old enough to be right into all frilly girly things, leaving Lance to be her victim repeatedly. After he’d turned, all of that had stopped. Initially his Papi would gently send everyone away from him, until his Mami took him by the ear and reminded him that though different, Lance was still their baby boy. When he’d been older his Papi apologised, but he never knew how good a vampire‘s memory was, that those days still stayed with Lance no matter how many years had passed. Today was not the day to be looking like a movie extra in a budget film, his whole face felt choked as he smeared his foundation on, before giving his lips a quick coat of waterproof lipstick, though humans had never really got the recipe for that right. Continuing his morning routine, he dressed as nicely as he could shirt wise, then opted for sweats on the bottom. It wasn’t like his conference call was going to be worried about his lack of proper attire when his shirt looked professional enough.

Coming downstairs, Lance darted through to his office, teeth aching all over again as he opened a bag of blood, messily drinking down the contents like he hadn’t been fed for days. Coran had said to expect a low, but this was nearing ridiculous. He wasn’t in any fit condition to entertain Keith with half hearted fighting, let alone provide legal representation to the clients trusting him in. Spilling blood across his laptop came as the final straw, Lance sinking to the floor where he balled himself under his desk, to scared to call Coran, and too scared to sit up and human. Instead he remained hidden there until his laptop started to ring, letting him know he’d spent a good three hours wallowing rather pathetically.

Before the family court, the matter took all of 15 minutes. Lance speaking smoothly, as he bounced his left leg, hands digging into his sweats hard enough that his nails had ripped through. Things would have been different if he’d known he could jump in his car and straight up to Platt, instead of this horrible feeling like he was a prisoner in his own home. The little voice in his head mocked him for not being able to pick up his phone and call Coran, paranoid over how Keith would act if Coran came running because he couldn’t keep his shit together. He didn’t want to die. Not while his Mami still lived. He didn’t want to break her heart, or prove the rest of his siblings right. He didn’t want Coran to be hurt, not that he thought Keith had the power to take Coran down... it was just... sometimes words left a wound that even the deepest blade was left dull in comparison. Keith was lashing out, hitting that target without aiming, like being caught in a spray of bullets. Coran didn’t deserve that with all the good for Lance and those like him. For Keith’s sake, Lance needed to keep all this shit secret. The hunter had signed up for his head, not his sob story.

Leaving the office, Lance headed into the kitchen. Keith at the kitchen bench trying to figure out the coffee machine. Dropping the pod in his hands, the hunter picked it back up without saying anything, but he didn’t need to. Lance knew how weak and pathetic he was, he could see it reflected in Keith’s brilliant eyes. Wordlessly he went to the cupboard, pulling out a can of wet food for Blue, Keith taking half a step away from him as he did. It stung. The not so covert action rubbed him the wrong way, not that he’d say so out loud. Pulling the ring tab back, Lance stubbed his toe on the counter as he reached for Blue’s dish. The act bringing tears to his eyes as he finally broke. Sinking down to the floor, he was showing Keith the most shameful side of him that he humanly could.

“Do you take sugar in your coffee?”

The question hung in the air, Lance’s face hidden behind his hands as he wept.

“Lance, do you take sugar in your coffee?”

Keith had said his name. Without any malice or prompting... he didn’t understand why

“I take three usually”

Why was Keith talking to him?

“Shiro says it too many, but I like three. You seem more like a one person”

“A one person”. Keith, who didn’t even think of him as human, was there in his kitchen calling him a person

“Am I really so useless that you’re wasting time on me?”

Lance regretted the harsh tone in his words. Wiping at his teary eyes, he looked up at the hunter to find him looking down on him

“Well you’re practically an animal, but... I think maybe I don’t hate you as much as I should”

Laughter bubbled up, Lance not blaming Keith for stepping back as his tears turned to laughter

“You can go fuck yourself if you’re going to be like that”

Lance’s laughter sobered, the vampire sniffling loudly. Okay. Keith was acting “Keithy” again, he could understand that

“One. Two if Pidge and Hunk are here”

Keith took a moment before a silent “oh” of realisation formed on his lips, turning back to the coffee machine as he tried to fit the pod in properly

“I... I have nightmares too”

Lance cringed. Asleep he hadn’t been able to consciously hold back. Keith had probably heard him screaming the house down, now taking pity on his undead arse

“I heard you calling for someone... friends or something. You we’re really fucking loud”

“I’m sorry”

“Who were they?”

“People who don’t matter”

They didn’t matter but that didn’t mean they weren’t always on his mind

“Nyma and Rolo?”

Lance shuddered at their names. They’d parted so long ago that it didn’t feel fair he should be forced to remember them

“People you don’t want to meet”

“I gathered from your screams. Are they the ones who turned you? Or were they friends?”

“I don’t want to talk about it”

“You say vampires never forget, does that mean you remember what happened with them?”

Lance shook his head quickly

“I don’t want to talk about it”

“So they sired you?”

Lance put his hands over his ears

“Shut up”

“If they did...”

“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!”

Screaming in anger, Lance hated Keith in that moment for pushing. Nyma and Rolo had been his friends. The keyword being “had”. He was allowed to have things he didn’t want to talk about. Those two were in his past, not is future. Letting his head dropped back, it smacked against the cupboard without enough force to be satisfying. He wanted to hurt. He wanted to break something. He wanted to tear himself out of his own skin. Nudged with Keith’s foot, he shot a look of rage up at Keith, the hunter holding out a cup of coffee

“Drink this. Shiro said he won’t be back for a while, but he was sending someone out to watch over you until he could be”

“I don’t need watching over”

Taking the coffee cup, the handle snapped before Keith had let go completely. Pulling the mug back, the hunter cut his hand on the protruding porcelain at the bottom. Hit by the smell of Keith’s blood, Lance felt all his senses come alive with the need to feed. Both their eyes widened as they met, both in fear over the situation. Keith feared Lance was about to maul him, as Lance feared how good Keith’s blood smelt.

Lance did the only thing he could do. He ran. Keith left staring as he bolted from the kitchen, his hand snapping through the bottom of the staircase railing as the grabbed it to use his momentum to get up his stairs just that little bit faster, tripping in his rush, but pushing himself on faster in the same heartbeat. Reaching his room, he slammed the door behind him, dragging his dresser over to barricade himself in. He hadn’t needed his phone in the office, so left it up on its charge station. Snatching up the device, he copped a glance of his reflection, disgusted at the sight of himself. His hands shook as he unlocked the device, calling the only number he could, Coran. With first ring, he found he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t run to Coran for help. He couldn’t tell him there was something still wrong with him. His phone thrown in disgust where the force shattered the device on impact, and dented the floorboard it’d hit. He didn’t know what to do, but he did know he was a mistake.

#once bitten twice stupid #ashratherose

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wrathofthewind · 4 years ago

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vi. Duel

CLANG.

The two swords met in the silence, reverberating like a bell.

Side step. Dip. Lunge. The ferocious screech of blades sliding, metal forcing metal to yield.

One blink and Ithana had thrown her weapon in the air, her leg extending like a hurricane as she gyrated in place. What it took Arnalt to dodge is what it took the blade to come down, aiming for his shoulder, but luckily Arnalt heard the whistle of its fall before he even saw it and quickly shifted his shoulder behind, the sharp edge of that Falchion slicing through a single shard of errant hair, then practically kissing his armor before it landed squarely at the edge of his toe.

He paused briefly, petrified, needing a moment. That single moment was all Ithana needed to throw her weight behind a punch and send him rolling across the arena, except she didn’t, instead, she laughed.

She pulled up the Falchion which stood up straight as its tip penetrated the ground, removing it with a schlick sound and displaying it in a twirling motion towards the applauding audience. They hadn’t seen through the minutiae of those extremely sudden movements, all but 8 seconds had passed, but Arnalt already felt a slight dampness on his hairline.

Ithana clicked her tongue and grinned at him. “Oh I’m just warming up. Need a minute?”

DONG. Her arm came up to block Arnalt’s blade with a jeweled arm brace.

She whistled, appreciating the strength behind the blow, it didn’t actually rattle her, but a small tremor spread from her wrist to her fingers before she clenched them. It was a solid hit, and an even more solid counter. Her exceptionally crafted spiked boots quickly came up to deliver an Axe-kick that would’ve crushed Arnalt’s skull if he hadn’t side stepped and then flipped back like a crescent, one arm supporting him while the other sliced towards her vulnerable ankle.

But of course Ithana did quick stepwork and rolled forward, again thrusting her Falchion confidently to meet Arnalt’s longsword.

Slash. Crash. Swoosh. Clang.

Over and over in a flurry.

The movements so fast they felt like a choreography to the audience, rather than a battle.

And then swoosh, another opening and Ithana had managed to punch Arnalt’s stomach in an uppercut that had him fly once more to the edge. He slowly picked himself up and spit some blood, wiping his mouth and glaring in her direction.

“That’s twice already Arnalt, are you sure you don’t want to just give me your ring already?”

Arnalt spit, irked by the taste of his own blood, and what was possibly the fragment of a tooth, his tongue searching to identify it… or was that gravel that somehow ended up on his mouth while they were kicking up such a ruckus with the swords. Hard to say. The arena was outdoors so it could be anything really and the adrenaline wouldn’t let him feel it.

“That bastard sword of yours is beautiful, maybe that can be our next wager.” Ithana wiped her sleeves, quite pleased with herself.

Arnalt shifted gears and landed a single palm on the ground, a menacing wind accumulated then exploded like a sizzling core straight up. She had thrown her Falchion towards him, aiming to immobilize his arm, and that wind was the only thing that blocked it.

“Are you trying to leave me handicapped?” Arnalt remarked.

“Eh, I just find that armor design annoying.”

Oh. He didn’t glance at it, but he took a very tiny and delicate handkerchief from a pocket underneath his chainmail guard and wiped at the metal protective sleeve to make the design even brighter. It was a hound surrounded by fire. A “hell hound” if you will. And it surely made her blood boil to be reminded of the ridiculous way her own Knight had lost his ring to begin with.

“Maybe I’ll make the hellhound my personal Knight. Even if you win today, he can just win that ring back.”

He side-stepped as she’d taken the bait and approached first, lunging with her full body and Arnalt quickly did a backflip out of the way and picked up the discarded Falchion.

He pointed both swords at her. A bit of the old excitement was entering his veins now, even if he knew there was no way he could best her at this skill level, truth was… it was fun to try. At least, now, he felt a little nimbler and able to parry with her, if he could just keep this up for… better not think about the hours.

Above them, the King was looking down with a curious face, one arm leisurely resting on his armchair while the other picked a few morsels from a gilded plate.

“Ithana, stop playing with your food.” He suddenly seemed disappointed, both in her childish display and in Arnalt’s apparent disadvantage. Right now Arnalt had the upper hand, two swords and a successful feint. But it was as if the King had seen all he needed to see to know who was outmatched and was already bored and raring to go.

He kept to protocol, but he waved for one of his monks to approach him and start filling him in on the duties of that day.

Taking his cue, some of the brothers and sisters began chatting and whispering with other nobles, looking at Ithana or Arnalt and betting god knows what on who.

Arnalt’s initial warm excitement turned frosty. His limbs felt heavier all of a sudden.

Ithana seemed similarly provoked but in a different way.

Arnalt blinked and she was gone, he glanced sideways and she was already grabbing his shoulder between her arms and a sound cracking noise echoed, loud enough to break through the whispers.

Soon after, Arnalt screamed, doubling in pain and kneeling down to cradle his broken shoulder. Now there were droplets of sweat painting his face, and a flush so hot it made him feel like he was baking alive. The pain was sharp and acute, dumbing him down, making him want to vomit.

“Is that pleasing to you? Father? I’ve broken the bird’s wing. Should I break its neck too?”

Arnalt hadn’t noticed he had tears in his eyes, he was doing everything in his power to stay still and breathe, even though his whole body was shaking.

The King glanced up at the sky. “Well, at least this didn’t take all morning.” He looked at a monk next to him. “Call it.”

The monk’s voice ran loud and clear. “Victory goes to the Lioness of Azuria. In exchange, she claims the price of one Aerial ring from his young highness.”

“Wait!” Arnalt gritted between his teeth. “What about your mercy!” He was shaking all over, but still trying to keep his eyes focused on one point in the ground as the view lightened and darkened in waves, his muscles spasming from the pained and held in the same kneeling position without fainting through a sheer iron will. The angle she’d broken his shoulder in was odd, the pain unbearable. An uncomfortable numbness was spreading and he didn’t dare glance at his arm, aware of its swelling.

“Mercy… yeah that’s your thing Arnalt.”

“I thought you wanted my ring.”

“Oh, but that’s the one I’m getting.”

Arnalt paled.

She easily walked towards him and slowly slid the ring out of his hand, his right arm unable to stop her and his left arm unable to move from the spot where he held his shoulder in place. His entire body frozen, unable to move an inch at all or stop this.

“Did you forget what the word on the hilt of my Falchion reads Arnalt?”

He bit his lip and bled, because he needed the redirected pain to partially distract him and stay conscious.

“I know… what… it reads.”

Indomitable.

“You can’t tell me what to do, and expect I’ll actually obey.”

Arnalt closed his eyes tightly, breathing harshly and then opening them again, trying to focus.

“Bitch.” He barely whispered.

“No, I’m just strong Arnalt, you’re the bitch; a weak little bitch willing to lose everything over a hound.”

She flicked her finger over the elaborate design on his arm brace and laughed.

Arnalt screamed sharply again. Huffing and puffing.

“That hit at the beginning was solid though, you’ve improved much, you know if you came more often to train on my grounds I could--”

While she talked, he glanced at the ground, frantically looking for indicators of time, wondering how long the battle lasted, becoming slightly confused when he saw a shadow that moved oddly, as if someone was flying over the arena, but it quickly melted into the edges where the other shadows were.

He tried going over the battle in his head. 10, maybe 15 minutes had actually passed since the battle began. There was no way Tyssen had made it, maybe he could just keep… talking; distract her.

But following her last words, Ithana slapped him squarely across the face.

“You dishonor our family name.”

He had no idea how she got there, but he figured it had something to do with her blathering and his lack of response. He mentally corrected himself, it was rude to call it a blather. She was earnestly offering him to train or-- who knows, he was in too much pain to commit the words to memory.

Fuck! Who talks so much to someone after breaking their shoulder!

Jibber-jabber, yackety-yak!

Behind her, Arnalt caught a glimpse of the King. He wore a tight smile, and shook his head slowly before standing and moving to leave, signaling for all the nobles to stand up and one of his monks to call a medic for Arnalt.

Ithana was already walking away.

“W-wait… I” he coughed and hissed a breath as a fresh wave of pain overtook him.

And just as Arnalt felt himself fading, he heard the rapid succession of footsteps, running from all sides. He could make out a few words.

“Missing!”

“Can’t find him!”

“Searched everywhere!”

“Kurian curse!”

Arnalt used every ounce of energy he could muster to lift his head and see, and across the arena, where he’d asked him to stand, Tyssen was leaning against a pillar with his arm crossed. He scratched his nose once.

How… how had he even done it?

“Heh. Good boy.”

He finally let his eyes roll back towards his skull and crashed forward. Pandemonium spreading in his wake.

Just as he lost consciousness, he thought he glimpsed the shadow of someone floating near him.

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ty-talks-comics · 5 years ago

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Best of Marvel: Week of January 22nd, 2020

Best of this Week: Amazing Spider-Man #38 (Legacy #839) - Nick Spencer, Iban Coello, Brian Reber and Joe Caramagna

I can read the headline now: Spider-Man vs. Fake News.

At least that's what it seems like this next Spider-Man arc will be about as the titular hero has to deal with his "biggest supporter," J. Jonah Jameson, and his new job as a clickbait hound in the age of modern online journalism. Who knows what hijinks will ensue?

This issue exemplified the kind of humor that Nick Spencer excels at: the hilarity of hypocrisy when it comes to some of Spider-Man’s supporting cast. This was best shown in Spencer’s hilarious Superior Foes of Spider-Man (2013) as Boomerang did everything in his power to create a new Sinister Six while selling them out at every turn and not learning from his actions as everyone in his sphere suffered the consequences of his betrayals. Spencer channels that same energy as Jameson has to face the fruits of his journalistic practices in the form of Norah Winters and the new Threats and Menaces blog office.

After Jonah launches into a (Boomer) rant about today's journalists, calling them soft, self-obsessed and lacking the edge that made him what he is, Norah tells her team to sound off about the stories they’re working on. Without missing a beat and with faces of malice, thanks to Coello, they tout their intentionally misleading headlines.

Norah explains that in the age of the 24-hour news cycle, they need to get those clicks by any means necessary and that Jameson was the inspiration for this because of his past headlines calling Spider-Man a menace usually without real evidence. She expects villains to repost it to their audiences and heroes to quote it with malice, giving them more clicks.

Everyone likes to take the piss of millennial journalists and can often come off as cringy, but somehow Spencer, Iban Coello and Brian Reber manage to really capture the essence of modern open architecture office spaces filled with young kids and their kooky hair colors. Coello draws a really good shot of this with the addition of a space for video games, two bright green vending machines and tables full of people either on desktops without dividing walls or on personal laptops. Of course, all of this comes after Jonah is nearly hit by a douchebag riding an electric scooter.

Reber colors everything in contrast to Jameson who wears a professional brown suit. The office itself is brightly lit, all of the freelancers and employees are given brighter clothes with striking reds, pinks, blues and purples. Even the basic Threats and Menaces banner is a bright red, kinda signalling how bad this company might be. It’s really fun to see how out of his element Jonah is among these kids and how much more awful they are in comparison to him… aside from creating supervillains.

As all of this is going on, Spider-Man is robbing a bank. One can see how this might be a problem as Jonah is doing his best to defend Spider-Man to Winters who wants him to write a smearing headline about the crime. Coello and Reber introduce us to the act with an amazingly dynamic splash page of Spidey zipping into the sky carrying bags of cash. The webs are slung so hard that they blur, laser gun blasts almost fly off the pages with vibrant red and orange colors and Spider-Man’s posing makes him look like he’s avoiding danger with ease.

We get a sidestory with Silver Sable trying to regain her strength with the help of (former?) Spider-Man villain, Foreigner, as the two are now lovers. After helping her, Foreigner goes to a secret casino where the use of superpowers is encouraged and there’s betting on the battles between superheroes, villains and everything in between.

Foreigner still maintains his supervillain connections, but he seems to be using it towards helping Sable. Minor supervillain and assassin, Chance, has set up the robbery and casino in order to place bets on Spidey's performance and potential property damage. Of course, he also rigs it so that surprise drones appear to make things harder. As things begin to get hectic, lo and behold we get the best shot in the entire book: J. Jonah Jameson riding in to save Spider-Man on an electric scooter.

Coello and Reber make Jonah look like an absolute mad lad as he rushes into danger without a second thought to save Spider-Man. Fiery explosions ring out behind him, his pose makes him look like he came straight out of a Tony Hawk game and Spider-Man is absolutely shocked at all of this. Legitimately, it’s a really badass panel and one that should go down as one of the best out of context shots in comic history.

Spider-Man reacts as we would expect, chastising Jonah for putting himself in danger. Jonah retorts that he and Spider-Man were supposed to be a team after Jonah owned up to his some of his worst actions after a gang of supervillains confronted him and Spider-Man earlier in the series. Though he was supposed to keep it secret at the request of his sister, Teresa Parker, Spider-Man reveals to Jonah that the bank he robbed was a front for a criminal organization and that he needed to run because there were too many bad guys. As Jonah flees, he vows to Spider-Man that he’ll make his life easier one way or another.

Soon after, we get an amazing double page spread of Spider-Man taking down these nameless villains as Chance counts down. He thwips, kicks and smashes these clowns over the head with his signature Spidey style before Chance announces that the house wins after Spider-Man takes them all down.

As far as art showcasing goes, Coello, Reber and Joe Caramagna smash it out of the park here. The panels flow as the action moves between Spider-an acrobatic antics and Chance’s excited facial expressions. Colors are rich and switch between explosive oranges to dynamic blue skies. The lettering is truly amazing as every sound effect is emphasized and given proper placement for effect.

Spider-Man wins, but soon gets a call from Teresa, asking him if he knows what Top Secret means. He questions what’s going on and then sees the headline from J. Jonah Jameson exposing the plot and why Spider-Man is a hero for it, accompanied by Jonah raising his arms into the air with childlike excitement. This is gonna be a wacky adventure.

This book was a lot of fun and I’m glad Nick Spencer is writing it. He’s able to bring the funny and really works with his artists to give each issue and story its own identity. None of them feel exactly the same and that’s commendable. With much thanks to Chip Zdarsky, Nick Spencer continues to build on the relationships established in the Spectacular Spider-Man series with Jameson doing his best to repay Peter for all the times he’s called him a menace after revealing his identity to his former biggest antagonist. At the same time, it’s nice that Peter’s also keeping in contact with his sister Teresa, a character that absolutely has a lot more going on that people might expect.

Iban Coello is an amazing artist and makes every page look so dynamic and fun, combined with Brian Reber’s coloring, this is an awesome looking Spider-Man book. Joe Caramagna as always does a stellar job by placing each balloon so that the dialogue is easy to follow without cluttering up the pages, emphasizing words to give every character a unique voice and placing sound effects so that one can almost hear the pages as they turn. I enjoyed all of this immensely.

If there's any criticism I could level at this book, it would be the drawing out of the eventual conflict between Spider-Man and Kindred. I know Nick Spencer is playing the long game and he's very good at it, making me anticipate it with every issue the creepy villain appears in, but there has to be substantial storytelling in the mean time. Hunted was an amazing story from start to finish, but the 2099 crossover left a lot to be desired.

In between, there hasn't been much to rave about. Even the Absolute Carnage crossover and the Sinister Syndicate storyline have been on the lower levels of Spencer's stories during his time on Spider-Man. Sure they were fun, but unlike the absolute hilarity that is the storyline with Boomerang, they feel a bit disjointed from the rest of the stellar story that Spencer is telling. I get a similar feeling from this issue despite how fun it was.

But don’t let my impatience stop you from buying this book!

#spider man #amazing spider man #j jonah jameson #fake news #marvel comics #marvel #nick spencer #iban coello #brian reber #joe caramagna

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bettsfic · 6 years ago

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nobody asked but here’s how i would have ended it

i’ve been thinking about this for the past 12 hours, how one of the many major failings of the finale was that everything happened out of order, and the stakes were distorted. the entire point of the series is that the night king is the biggest threat, and the politics of the throne seem petty by comparison. to defeat the night king and then battle for the throne is completely illogical. so here’s my attempt to put the events in order and pare down the conflict so that it’s manageable to accomplish in 6 episodes.

first i have to retcon a few things:

euron greyjoy either doesn’t exist or isn’t involved

jaime doesn’t leave for winterfell at the end of s7 (but he is strongly conflicted about it)

cersei isn’t pregnant

jon isn’t aegon targaryen (because, again, the entire point of his arc is that a bastard is valid)

bran’s greensight has some value that is an actual threat to the night king, other than being like a dumb hub of all human knowledge

EPISODE 1

the season starts in king’s landing. the march north has yet to begin (fixing the continuity errors of the back and forth on the kingsroad this season).

dany gears up to take the iron throne from cersei. jon pleads with her to march north instead, but she refuses, so he leaves for winterfell with brienne, sansa, et al to begin gearing up for battle with the wildlings and anyone else who can pick up a sword, even though it is a lost cause.

cersei uses the commonfolk as bait for dany, knowing her weakness is mercy. jaime, believing dany is capable of going mad queen, tells her all the people will die, etc. how could she do this, and it’s the last straw. brienne’s “fuck loyalty” finally lands. his allegiance to cersei is broken, though he makes no indication of it (i believe in nikolaj to be able to convey this without needing any major declaration of it).

melisandre shows up and does some mysterious magic stuff and tells dany a creepy riddle that basically goes, if one of your dragons falls, it will call upon something something, and dany is just ?? lol k.

EPISODE 2

jaime seeks out tyrion to tell him the major deets of cersei’s plan. he gets caught and held prisoner. tyrion finds him, lets him go, and urges him to convince cersei to surrender.

missandei gives her two cents -- you only need to defeat the queen, not the people. dany gives her “they don’t love me, they fear me” speech and missandei says like, but they will love you. they’ll love you because you’re good. and then there’s some exchange about like, dany realizing no one can be good if they hold all the power. power corrupts, and the idea of the throne has corrupted her. missandei says that dany doesn’t need a throne to lead. she’s already a queen, and always will be.

meanwhile in winterfell, jon is rallying forces to defeat the night king, and working with his siblings (sans arya, who has gone south to king’s landing with the hound) to make a plan.

tyrion then begs dany not to kill everyone if they surrender, bell ringing, etc. the battle happens as it did in canon, except jon isn’t there. without the iron fleet it’s less of a big deal. cersei still believes her armies will prevail. the civilians are still running around trying to find safety, which makes everything chaotic. cersei’s armies (which have elephants!!) are making good headway. things look pretty bleak.

jaime finds cersei and urges her to surrender, believing that dany will kill all the people. cersei refuses, because she’s winning. they have pre-victory sex, but to jaime, it’s sad goodbye sex.

rhaegal gets speared and falls. more battle stuff happens, well into the night and reaching morning (but we can SEE shit because the lighting is GOOD). dany is stricken with grief. then! an ARMY of DRAGONS flies in from the west. they circle king’s landing. everyone is going totally batshit with fear and awe. the bells ring. empowered and angry, dany really wants to murder everyone. cliffhanger.

EPISODE 3

dany makes her choice not to kill everyone. she flies to the red keep and has a confrontation with cersei in the throne room. dany gives cersei the opportunity to bend the knee and join forces so that together, their armies can march north and defeat the night king. cersei refuses. dany threatens to take down the entire red keep. jaime is at his queen’s side, knowing what he has to do, not sure if he’s truly willing to do it.

the hound and arya make it to the red keep. arya agrees to separate and borrow some faces to make her way past the guards, and let the hound in from there.

in winterfell, bran offers himself as bait to the night king. it’s a shitty plan, but the only chance they’ve got.

the mountain moves to attack dany. drogon, perched outside, screeches a warning. the hound intervenes and attacks the mountain. arya attacks cersei, but jaime intervenes and fights arya. dany hops on drogon and starts burning down the red keep. we hear many dragon war cries of support, lots of screaming, the bells. everything is collapsing and on fire. while fighting, jaime tells cersei to retreat and find safety. cersei is finally afraid, but still somehow believes she’ll win.

the hound isn’t doing so well with the mountain. arya, seeing that cersei has had basically all her power stripped away, gives up her fight with jaime reluctantly and helps the hound.

jaime, alone now with cersei, offers his final plea -- if they leave now, they can escape, and go make a new life together. cersei, for the last time, says she will not leave the throne. jaime kisses her and stabs her (like the scene with jon and dany, but not that), a mirror of killing the mad king.

the hound is holding the mountain at bay. arya sets him on fire. the hound cuts off his head. together, they make it out of the red keep just in time to watch it fall. they help the civilians to safety.

dany, seeing cersei dead and jaime huddled over her dead body on the throne (the same position he was in after he killed the mad king), ceases fire, and rescues jaime from the falling keep.

the next morning, dany, tyrion, jorah, varys, missandei, and grey worm approach the iron throne. the remaining unsullied and dothraki are lined up behind her. the remaining lannister army soldiers are being held prisoner.

dany gives a speech about marching north. she offers the lannister army an opportunity to redeem themselves by marching with her. they agree.

she approaches the throne, says her little speech about not being able to count to twenty, makes a comment about how it’s not as grand as she thought it would be. we truly believe she has ascended beyond the plight of a petty throne. dozens of dragons are whirling overhead. finally she says something about the throne being a symbol of tyranny, and how she’ll break the wheel. then she commands drogon to destroy it.

drogon melts the throne.

EPISODE 4

jaime marches alone to winterfell ahead of the armies. he arrives and sees bran waiting for him. he feels unworthy to still be alive. he should have died with cersei.

he approaches sansa to tell her what happened. sansa questions his loyalty, if he was willing to kill his sister, why should he be able to fight for them? brienne steps up and defends him, but she’s obviously very worried -- he looks half-dead.

while waiting for the armies, there is lots of braime time. brienne tells him he did the right thing. jaime asks to fight under her, and she agrees. he heals very slowly by the comfort of brienne, though it is apparent he is still planning to die in battle.

theon and yara arrive with the iron fleet and offer to fight for sansa.

the wildlings find the carnage the wights have wrought and arrive in winterfell to say they have only a few days before the battle comes to them.

dany arrives in winterfell with all of the armies. jon is relieved that dany didn’t go mad queen. sansa is still skeptical, and doesn’t want the north under dany’s reign.

the rest of the ep is spent preparing for battle. the hound and arya arrive in winterfell. arya makes a teasing comment to the hound about how she’s grown tired of his company, and seeks out jon to have their reunion. then she looks for gendry and asks for a special blade.

that night, jaime knights brienne. arya fucks gendry. sansa and theon get caught up. jon and dany bang it out.

we see the wights marching closer.

EPISODE 5

the battle arrives, and happens pretty much as it does in canon, except BRIGHTER. the dragons cause a lot of damage.

at one point, jaime is outnumbered, and it looks very much like he might die. we see him give up and drop his sword, but brienne throws them all off and tells him he doesn’t get to die today.

everything is the same, except jon leaves to face the night king. he arrives alone, theon already dead. there’s a big battle and he’s totally outnumbered. then arya sneaks up while the night king is distracted by jon and kills the night king the same way she did in canon.

the wights fall. victory!!

EPISODE 6

nearly everything that happened in episode 4, re: pyres and celebration, except when dany offers gendry lordship, he declines it, knowing arya would never want that life

braime goes canon but like, better. jaime says he should have died, brienne should have let him die. brienne says she’s glad he didn’t. it’s as close as she can get to a confession of feelings.

dany, realizing how loved jon is, offers jon a partnership, to lead the seven kingdoms together. jon declines, and explains that he’s never been able to choose his own destiny, but now he can, and he has a lot of thinking to do. dany respects his decision.

sansa wants the north to secede from the seven kingdoms. dany is enraged by this, and threatens to tear down winterfell. jon says that if dany does that, he will die with winterfell.

dany reluctantly accepts the secession, but threatens to one day return to winterfell and claim it. it is acknowledged that there may be a future war between the six kingdoms and the north.

sansa allows jaime to stay in winterfell. dany punishes tyrion for treason by forcing him to remain hand of the queen.

sansa is crowned queen of the north. bran is given hand of the queen. arya, gendry, jon, the hound, and ghost lead the wildlings back through the wall.

dany is crowned queen of the six kingdoms, and vows, with the help of her new council, to listen to her people and come up with a better system of rule.

i know it’s not perfect! dany being crowned queen still offers a kind of “the ends always justify the means” theme that i don’t really like, as well as the idea of royal lineage, and if i had the entire series to myself, i would have made it so that her aspirations for “liberation” were more true, and that, once she got into power, she immediately disseminated it. but also there are a lot of foundational problems with the entire premise that i can’t really fix in one season. also there are really too many characters to manage, and i may have still had dany kill more people to show her ruthlessness, but this is loosely how i would have approached a tighter ending.

#got spoilers #my fic

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alittlestarling · 6 years ago

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I blame @evhenstar and @eeveevie for their current Skyrim content as I sink into this hole. Have thoughts I spewed onto the page about Katja, my Nord Dragonborn:

Grew up in Riften; her parents had a rocky relationship and her mother was gone a lot. After her younger sister, Iseult, was born, her mother left one final time and never returned. Katja has often assumed the role of big sister, mother and caretaker of their home since their father didn’t pick up the slack. Katja was 9 when this all happened and, because of their mother leaving, Iseult has no memory of a life when this wasn’t the way of things.

Their father got himself into debt after their mother left; it was manageable at first, but then things spiraled. Maven Blackbriar got involved and kicked them out of their home. Katja has never forgiven her for that.

Katja tried to join the Thieves Guild at 14. Tried is the word because she barely made it past a few of the initial traps. She wound up with a broken leg that she had to hobble her way back out of the sewers with. Their money she’d been saving for the debtors all went to a local healer and they were hungry that fall.

Iseult has always been weak and has a poor constitution compared to Katja. Illnesses as a child continue to hound her and Katja is ferociously protective of her.

Favors a bow and arrow versus anything else. If she has to get in close, she keeps daggers on her person to go for the kill, but her finesse is in shooting.

Started smuggling for a local crime ring after she turned 18 and the creditors began to pound on their door. Her father was often AWOL so she took on the burden of doing something, anything to keep a roof over her and Iseult’s head.

Initially she sort of paired herself off with Ralof because I liked him and was bitter I couldn’t romance him (though, tbqh, I went into the game not knowing if I wanted to do romances anyways). I’m still ruminating on it.

Know that I’ve taken canon and ripped it apart with my bare fists, fight me, Todd.

There’s absolutely 100% a plot that happens after she brings Ulfric the crown where they forge an arrangement/arranged marriage because of their combined powers in the region. Of course he’s going to align himself with the Dragonborn. This dissolves long before the civil war is brought to an end.

After joining the Stormcloak rebellion, Katja accidentally finds herself face-to-face with her mother. There’s a lot of drama and bad feelings all around here, folks.

Honestly she just wants her house by the lake and to live at peace. It’s her sanctuary after everything and she’s happiest when she gets to spend time with Iseult in those walls, living in a way that she never dreamed.

You best believe that she definitely goes after Maven sometime because Katja holds tight to her vengeance.

#no bullet points bc copying in mobile sucks #elder scrolls: skyrim #skyrim #katja #dragonborn #words #rambling #issa also enables me

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beyondconfessor · 7 years ago

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Visceral

[3/20]

Rating: Mature

Warnings: N/A

Pairing: Sara Lance/Alex Danvers

Summary: Alex feared for Kara's heart.

N.B.: Also posted on AO3

She had just fallen asleep on Kara’s couch when she found herself standing in a forest. An owl sung out nearby, towards her left. From behind her, close enough that she could see her shadow dancing, there was the soft crackle of a campfire behind her.

Alex felt her body hum as she looked up to the cloudless night, and found herself staring up at the brightest, clearest depiction of space she’d witness with the naked-eye before. It was magnificent, like she could just fall off the Earth and begin floating in space. Even the world seemed quieter somehow, and yet louder with the sounds of insects and wildlife.

Behind her, she heard the rustling of someone moving, walking across the debris of the forest floor before Sara came to stand beside her.

“Pretty amazing, huh?” she said.

“It is,” Alex agreed. She angled her head to Sara, though her eyes didn’t look away from the sky as she told her, “As a kid I had this telescope. I used to look through it for hours. But this…this is so much more. The stars are different, grander. Look at how full the Milky Way looks, you can’t get it that clear without telescope. You can even see a shimmer of green near Cassiopeia.”

“Nerd,” Sara teased.

Still, Alex responded by nodding, ducking her eyes to stare not at Sara’s eyes, but down to her own hands. “I was. I am. I used to try not to be, but…” she thought back to middle school, to high school and everything that happened. Of the boy who had been the first person she felt comfortable being herself with and who shared with her all of outer-space. “Eventually I stopped pretending,” she whispered, her heart giving out a pang as she thought of him again, and his lost adulthood –– it only served to remind her of the boy from last night.

J’onn had messaged her before she fell asleep. The boy had died in operation, ultimately from mass blood loss. There was nothing Kara could have done, nothing to prevent it from happening and yet Alex knew that if she told Kara that, her sister would still think that she should have flown faster, should have dipped lower on the roads so that she had been closer. Should have done of one a thousand things that couldn’t have changed that moment from happening.

And even if they could have, she didn’t know what was to happen. Who knows what else could have happened instead.

“You okay?” Sara asked.

“Just a work thing,” she lied.

Sara nodded, a look on her face which said she didn’t believe her for a second.

Alex eased as no follow-ups or call-outs came. Sara was allowing her to choose if and when she’d speak about it. It was different to what she was used to her from the women in her life. Kara would have hounded relentlessly for an answer so that she could be a part of it. Maggie would have made some dry, off-beat, “fine, keep it to yourself” comment. Her mother…her mother would have frowned in a tight line, waiting for Alex to give in.

But the way Sara bobbed her head, as if that had finished the conversation, no questions asked. That was different. Nice, even.

In the absence of the question, a quiet settled between her and Sara, filled with only the sound of the nocturnal animals and the soft crackle of the camp fire thriving near them. Alex tore her eyes away from the stars –– cast in a different arrangement from being somewhere in history, in another universe, different to the stars she knew and loved –– to turn to look behind her. Lying the ground, Amaya and Ray Palmer were fast asleep, their breaths soft and shallow, utterly undisturbed by Sara and Alex.

She hadn’t come to know either of them, except by name. Amaya she knew to have strange magical powers that didn’t make sense, and Ray Palmer to shrink to the size of a fly, despite his name. Nonetheless, she had considered them to be good people on the grounds that you’d need to be, to sacrifice your life and family to travel through space and time and save all of history, wherever that called for.

She, at least, worked near her home for the most part, and no matter what, Kara and her were only ever a phone call away.

No-one else of the team was there, so it didn’t seem like a planned overnight camping trip. There was no gear, either, though it looked as though someone, probably Ray, had attempted to build a lean-to shelter that had collapsed upon itself.

“What happened to the Waverider?”

Sara shook her head, a faint smile on her mouth. “Small mishap. Took a little damage, it’ll be back in no time.”

“Ah,” Alex responded. “No hotels nearby?” She noticed then that Sara was dressed in long, red skirts, her hair pinned back from her face in a modest loop at the back of her head. Near the campfire she could see two bonnets discarded on the ground. “Or taverns?”

Sara gave her a don’t-get-me-started look, but the burn mark was faint and the bruise on her chin was healing up. There didn’t look to be anything new to worry about, either. “Believe it or not, I’m more used to sleeping rough than I am in a bed.”

“Because you used to sleep in a mountain, like some sort of bear?”

Sara gave her a funny look. “Well, yes,” she said, before shaking her head. “But I meant that my dad used to take my sister and I camping when we were kids. It wasn’t often, but…I think he wanted to make sure we knew how to pitch a tent, start a fire…just in case, you know? It was like a Lance summer tradition for a while.”

Alex nodded, not even able to picture a tiny Sara camping. But trying to consider it brought back her own memories of camping. “Before my father…” she paused, not sure how to place it. Died? He hadn’t been dead, even if she believed he had. Was kidnapped? Disappeared? “Went missing,” she chose to say, “he used to take my mother and I camping. We used to go fishing and when Kara came along, she was…she was horrified by this.” That had been a long forgotten memory. Kara with golden bangs that fell over her eyes, tears welling up as she watched her father explain how to unhook the fish. “She used to cry when she saw the hooks in their mouth, so my father would throw them back in the river. I used to get so angry because of her,” Alex shook her head, biting her lip. “I thought she was ruining the family trip, but she wasn’t. She just…didn’t understand what we were doing. It seemed so barbaric to her.”

“Sisters can be a pain in the ass.” Sara sighed then, the sound soft and aching in Alex’s heart.

“You must love her a lot.”

Sara’s face twisted, even in the dim light she could see her jaw clench, the way her chest fell in the exhale of long-held breath.

For a moment Alex wished she could swallow back the words and pretend they were never said. To think of what would happen if Kara died almost made her heart stop. For it to be Sara’s reality made her painfully aware of how fast it could happen. How many times had her sister almost died? How many times had she dragged Kara to the sun bed or pulled her from some crater, unsure if she was even breathing?

Sara spoke then, unveiling something far more intimate than she expected, “We did a lot of mean things to each other. Usual crap that sisters do, but…” and then, Sara sighed, “I stole her boyfriend,” her nose scrunched, “well, not stole, he was still with her. I don’t think she even realised until we went missing, that we were…”

There Alex lips parted, a thousand questions rising, before she pressed her mouth shut to listen. This wasn’t the time to ask.

“I think it took me almost dying the first time to realise how much I really loved her,” Sara said. Her shoulders were tense, holding back the depth of loneliness and regret in those words. It seemed almost unbearable.

Alex stared at the ground. In her peripheral vision she could see Sara’s hand, still covered in assortment of silver rings. She wanted to reach out and hold it, to feel Sara’s fingers between hers and let her know that she wasn’t alone.

“That was…Oliver, wasn’t it?” Alex asked.

Sara smiled at her, “Yeah, he was an ass too, back then. But I was a kid, and Oliver had wanted to pay me attention, which seemed like everything back then. I don’t think that’s why I did it, though. I think I was just young and stupid and liked the idea of someone wanting me over Laurel. I didn’t care if it hurt her at the time, didn’t care that it didn’t make sense either. But now I couldn’t imagine doing anything like that, least of all to Laurel. Sometimes I just wish…”

“You’re stupid as a kid. Everyone is.” Alex said. She had wished Kara away a hundred times over. Hoping that she’d become someone else’s problem. Hoping even that she’d just…disappear. Not just die, but…fly away. She couldn’t place the exact moment that had all shifted, but the process had been a slow and gradual feeling once she had come to terms with her father’s apparent death at the time. The final piece being in high school, after their friend had been murdered.

“Well, I need a beer, now,” Sara said.

Alex looked up and smiled at her. “Next time I’ll have to dream about a bar.”

Sara turned to look at her, a wry grin on her face, “There’s gonna be a next time, is there?”

“Well I can hardly help it,” Alex said, “I don’t know why I keep coming back…” she trailed off, but the unsaid words hanging between them, to you. Even in her dreams she was awkward as ever around Sara. It was only a matter of time before Sara would ask her how she was and she would respond two octaves higher with, I’m fine! Really!

“Maybe you’re searching for something across time and space,” Sara offered in way of teasing. “New fashion tips? I can tell you the latest in puritan fashion.”

“That must be it. Puritan fashion is definitely missing from my wardrobe,” she said, drawing a short laugh from Sara. Awkward as she was with Sara, there was something magnetic, it didn’t feel like infatuation, not like it had with Maggie, but…something else. Something familiar and a little bit new.

Drawing in a breath of cool night air, she said neither to Sara nor really to herself, “Whatever it is, I’m certainly not in Kansas anymore.”

“Well, Dorothy,” Sara said. “That’s not entirely true…”

“Is that so?” Alex turned to face her, sensing a story. She wasn’t disappointed as Sara began telling her about where they landed and how the anachronism began with what had seemed to be just a simple cat, which began Alex’s story about Kara and Streaky, leading to another story, and then another. Through-out the conversation, Alex found herself sinking into the dream, allowing the quips and jokes to drift back and forth, as she pretended that, for a time, there wasn’t something big and awful she had to tell Kara. It was a dream, after-all, even if it seemed too normal, too natural to be a dream. What she needed from this was it to be far away from the real world.

So it was.

“…and then of course I was to be burned at the stake for ‘corrupting’ their women.”

“Of course,” Alex said. “Women enjoying sex with each other? Blasphemy.”

Sara shrugged, before laughing. They had long since made their way to nearby the riverside to where an old, petrified tree had fallen over. Sitting upon it, side by side, over the course of the conversation, they had drawn closer until their knees were touching. Alex could feel the coarse material of the dress against her leg move higher as Sara turned to face her.

“Maybe it may have been a little bit cruel,” Sara said, looking mischievous, “I mean, they’ll probably never have sex like that again.” With that Sara’s face loosened to an almost perfect, empathic expression, before a smirk caught at the edge.

Alex laughed, “Wow! You are so arrogant,” she said.

“Well you’re meant to be the master of interrogation. Was I lying?” She asked. “Or do you need a demonstration?”

Alex snapped her jaw tight, her cheeks becoming hot and red. Taking a breath, she gave a small hum and looked at Sara, “I think I have plenty of experience to say, that you would certainly be memorable to them.”

“Ouch,” Sara laughed. “Well, Danvers, I’ll have you know that I perform much, much better sober.”

“Is that so?”

It was still night and the stars and moon didn’t seem to have moved so there was no way to know how much time had passed –– it almost seemed that the whole world had stopped moving to allow them this space. Alex wondered how much time they had left, how much time there could be if she considered Sara’s tease.

Alex could feel Sara’s hand on hers then. It began as a gentle brush, before settling down atop of her fingers in a careful, deliberate movement. Their fingers laced and once again, Alex could feel the warmth of the silver rings, the callouses on her Sara’s hand as she slid her thumb over the back of her hand.

“This is just a dream,” she told Sara.

“The thing about dreams, is that they’re often about what you desire.”

“Or fear,” Alex added.

“Are you afraid of me, Danvers?” Sara said, and Alex watched the way her mouth and tongue moved over the words, the way she drew out her name into two, clear syllables.

“Not a chance,” Alex answered, her voice soft. Sara’s lips in the moonlight still seemed impossibly pink, soft.

Sara’s smirk melted on her face into absolute desire, giving Alex a look that dared her to make the first move.

Alex’s heart pounded as she leant forward, feeling Sara’s hand come to slip over her neck and cup under her jawline as she was brought closer.

“Alex ––“ came a whisper, like someone was yelling from far away. Alex withdrew, just before she met Sara’s lips, turning around to where the voice had sounded. There was no one there, but Alex, knew that voice anywhere, in any time.

“Kara?” she answered.

“Kara?!” Sara flinched.

“ALEX!” Kara’s voice called, right in front of her.

Alex opened her eyes, blinking up at the morning light, shadowed by sister’s face. Kara’s face was furrowed, a pout on her lips. It was somewhere between frustrated and worried for her. Despite that Kara shared no genes with herself, she wore the exact same expression their mother often used when either of them had tried to get out of a school event.

“Wha…?” Alex questioned, sitting up.

“Your alarm has being going off for last ten minutes. Can’t you hear it?”

Sitting up, Alex pulled out her vibrating phone and looked at it. “Oh no,” she said. Kara lived further from the DEO than her apartment. She was running late. It was only by ten minutes, but it was late. “Crap,” she said, grabbing her work clothes and running for Kara’s bathroom where muffled swearing came behind the closed door.

Another five minutes later and she was trying to run a comb through her hair and brush her teeth at the same time. If everything went well, she’d be work right on time, which was still late by usual Alex Danvers time, but it’ll have to do.

“I’ve never seen you sleep so heavily in your life,” Kara said.

Alex nodded, double-checking she had her phone and keys, “Yeah, it was a pretty vivid dream,” she said, her brow furrowing as though about it. Most dreams felt like water trickling through her hands, gone by the time she awoke. But this dream had held as strongly in her memories as the other two Sara dreams had. Like it was something that had happened only last week.

She thought of the passed conversations, the way Sara’s fingers brushed against her skin and drawn her closer like Alex was the purest water to a parched Sara.

Alex shook her head, she didn’t have time to consider what that meant. She couldn’t go into logistics of anything, and the idea that she was somehow developing feelings over an idea of Sara seemed to be an obvious transference of her emotions for Maggie.

And yet…that didn’t feel right, either.

That hunger for Sara didn’t feel the same way as it had for Maggie.

She’d just finished tugging on her boots, with minutes to spares, placing a stopper in her trail of thoughts, when she gave Kara a glance over. Her sister was dressed in her sunshine-yellow dress with black low-heeled shoes. “Working today?” she asked.

Kara nodded. There was a furrow between her eyebrows, and her lips were pinched, an expression Alex was familiar with and often referred to as Kara’s ‘serious’ face.

“I’ll see you tonight,” Kara said, turning around to fix a pin in her hair in her bedroom mirror.

“Sounds good. We’ll get proper food, hey?”

“Sure,” Kara nodded, and then she was leading them both out of the door, grabbing her handbag with her. She didn’t seem as upset as she had last night, but there was deep tension in her that certainly wasn’t as sunny as the yellow dress.

Alex was halfway to work, exiting off the motorway when she realised that she hadn’t told Kara what happened to the boy. Damn it. She had wanted to get up earlier to discuss it with her, break the news gently to give Kara the opportunity to go through those emotions. Now, she’d would have to tell Kara that evening and just hope that no one broke the news to her first.

Three-quarters through her day and Alex found herself spacing out as she continued to worry about Kara. “Agent Danvers?” Kelly Anderson asked. Her recruits were midway through practicing placing on masks as quickly and efficiently as they could as soon as Alex called the word. It was boring, dredging work, but Alex needed the movement to be a fast muscle reflective as soon as something happened. When Nilo had requested why they needed to be at it for an hour, she had snapped back that if they couldn’t do it right now, what good was it when a toxic gas was thrown into a room and they had seconds to get a mask on before they were poisoned. One screw-up and they could die.

That’s what it felt like all the time. Teaching them to have muscle memories. To punch first, to drag masks on, to block an incoming attack. To react rather then wait, because that moment of waiting could get them killed.

Only with guns did she teach them to wait first. Finger off the trigger, weapon straight. You could remove a mask, but you couldn’t remove the impact of a bullet.

“Yes, Anderson?” Alex said, pointing to the recruit.

“Where will the simulation be?”

“In the warehouse district. Myself and a few others will be setting it up. You’ll be given the schematics of the building an hour before and strict orders from me in what you need to do.” Vasquez and Winn being the main officers she had chosen to help her set it up. The simulation was meant to be a challenge and teach them a few hard lessons that they won’t learn until they’re in the field, which by then would be too late for them. Better to shake them up early on.

“I thought we were meant to be given it a week before?” Nilo asked.

“Plans changed, the simulation will be on Monday. We had to move it up.”

“Why?”

“That’s classified,” Alex said, and was satisfied when a collective groan chorused from her recruits. Since the beginning, she had found it amusing to use the word classified for anything remotely sensitive that would be hinted at. The truth was that the warehouse they had chosen would be used to run a different simulation for a seperate reason entirely in the following week. It wasn’t classified per se, but need to know.

However, there was another set of recruits being trained by a few other operatives who would be partaking in her recruits simulation. They would be ears and eyes for training in the field, but the team didn’t know that yet. They knew there was another group of recruits, from the comms section, but weren’t quite aware of what was to follow. Not yet, anyway. Eventually, Alex hoped for them to integrate smoothly into the DEO and respect the different factions, but such a hope was a wistful dream at best.

“Masks!” she barked and her recruits grabbed for them, tugging them over their hair and face. They were learning. Even her slowest recruit was shaping up to have potential in the field.

The rest of the day shaped up to be like every other day, she worked the recruits, met up with J’onn to go over reports, and as it was a relaxed day, Supergirl wasn’t called in, though there were still Ops to oversee and check in. The day seemed to be normal, for the most part, dull even, but Alex still dreaded meeting up with Kara. So when she opened her door and saw her sister’s posture, head down, arms folded as she paced in the small area, Alex knew that she had been too late.

“Kara?” she asked, setting the groceries she’d bought for dinner, down on top of the countertop before stepping closer to her sister.

Her sister lifted her chin to stare through the framed lenses. Alex could see that her eyes were flooded with tears as she tore off her glasses and just stared, unblinking.“Did you know?” she asked, her voice cracking.

“I did,” Alex answered. “I…I wanted to tell you in person.”

Kara exhaled and then looked like she wanted to punch something, before some look of defeat hit her. She wanted to be angry at someone, but there was no one left to be angry at. “He was only sixteen, Alex. His dad will live with the guilt of going to the toilet for five minutes for the rest of his life!”

Alex swallowed the words she had to say, pained that she didn’t know how to comfort her sister. “It was a tragedy,” she said. “And it’s unfair, but there’s nothing that can be done to save him.”

“It was more than that, and yet it keeps happening,” Kara snapped, “People keep dying, people keep getting shot and what we do it’s-It’s not enough! There has to be something that we can do. People shouldn’t be dying from-from alien technology. It just shouldn’t happen. It just…shouldn’t,” Kara said, all eloquence gone as she stood, frustrated and broken. “I should have been faster, I need to get faster, and stronger and…and better,” she ended, her voice hitching with guilt.

“Kara,” Alex whispered. “There was nothing you could have done. You can’t always be there, you can’t save everyone.”

“But ––“ and Alex could see the naive hope that had braved through everything that came before. “I should be able to,” she whispered.

“No,” Alex said, closeting the distance to draw her sister into a close hug. Even there, Kara felt tense as if part of her wanted to rip away. Alex withdrew. “It’s not your responsibility. No one should have that responsibility to save everyone. Not even Supergirl.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Kara admitted to her. Her words sounding hoarse as if she was about to cry. Alex didn’t know how to fix how it. Alcohol wouldn’t make this better, ice cream couldn’t. This was a broken heart that Alex didn’t know how to fix, even time would never heal it. Kara needed to do something. She wanted to save someone, but she was too afraid to. She needed something. Someone who understood.

Clark, Alex thought and promised herself that she would get in contact with Kara’s cousin that night. If anyone would be able to help, it would be him. After-all, it was only a quick text message now that she had him as a contact in case the worst case scenario were to happen.

Kara seemed to calm down after cooking, her expression going from pained to determined as she considered other options to making a difference. There was also something therapeutic about chopping peppers, Alex thought. By the time they had finished the bowl of cooked pasta and had watched a movie, Kara had steadied her emotion, though she still gave a hollow look to the world around her, one that Alex feared would only grow worse.

“I know what I’m going to do,” she said as Alex took the empty bowls of spaghetti from her. “I’m going to do an article about what happened.”

Alex nodded her head, “That sounds like a good idea.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

Alex paused, looking at Kara. “I said it was a good idea,” she replied, incase Kara had misheard. But her sister just frowned, adjusting her glasses.

“No, you used your ��if that’s what you want to do’ condescending voice. It’s Mum’s voice.” Ouch. Alex felt the nasty stab from that comment, knowing that it wasn’t too far from the truth.

“It’s just…” Alex found herself saying, and then it was too late to take back the words. “Nothing changes, Kara. People don’t change their stance on gun control. There have been so many horrific massacres with both alien and human technology and the arguments always end the same two ways,” she held up one finger, “if the victim had a gun they would have been able to protect themselves,” then she held up her second finger and said, “that the person who did the massacre had a mental health problem and that nothing could have prevented it.”

“But the president has done so much,” Kara argued.

“She has, and using alien technology as a way to regulate guns was a genius idea on her part. Only certain high ranking government officials are allowed alien technology. Everyone else must surrender any found weapon to the local police station, who will then give it to the FBI who returns it to us. But that still relies on people being honest, and there are other weapons that can be found, other technologies and people can still break apart something advanced and replicate it, then claiming it as their own –– therefor, it’s no longer alien tech.”

“So…you think it’s pointless then?”

Alex sighed, “No, I think that you should report the truth and facts and run it by James. He’ll make the decision at the end of the day.”

“Maybe Lena will help.”

At the mention of Lena, Alex found herself remembering something Maggie said a while ago to her, a soft joke that always made her think better of Lena. “That sounds like a good idea,” Alex told her sister, this time with honesty; from it, a small, pleased smile pulled at her sister’s lips.

Maybe Alex’s fears were unfair. This was Supergirl and even Mon-El’s leaving hadn’t been able to break through her hope.

#sara lance #alex danvers #supergirl fanfic #legends of tomorrow fanfic #agent canary #supergirl #legends of tomorow #morgans fics

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elsewhereuniversity · 7 years ago

Text

To Be Favored (Part 4)

The story goes a little rushed here, haha- I tried to keep it from being too long! Sorry, hope you still enjoy!!

——————————–

I started getting gifts on my windowsill. They were small things, at first. A small earring. A discarded bracelet. Little things.

I was not naive. I knew they were from the crows. I would see them in the trees not far from my dorm, a small flock of them. I did not touch them or take them, no matter what. Soon enough, there were gifts there every morning. After a few weeks, they became increasingly more precious- it was always jewelry, and often golden. Stunning pearl necklaces, golden rings and bracelets, inlaid with small stones. It was tempting, but I let them be.

And as I did, the flock of crows outside my window grew larger every week.

——

They were following me, now. They were bolder. They would perch in the trees on my route home. They would sit and watch me as I ate outside with Vector. During the mornings, they would fly outside my window and nearly scream until I awoke. They would squawk and shrill to get my attention, would fly near me and sometimes dive at my head as I walked to class. After a while, it became tedious- not yet terrifying.

“What’s up with these crows?” I asked Azriel, coming in from classes.

She looked up at me, suddenly serious. “What do you mean?”

“The crows- they’re acting super weird. They like, watch me, or something. They follow me home and to classes. They leave me things on the windowsill. Sometimes they dive at my head as I’m passing by.”

“Have you taken anything they’ve given you?”

“No.”

“Have you ever fed them?”

“No, I would never.”

“Have you insulted them?”

“No- definitely not. I try my best to ignore them, but they’re not making it easy.” I sat on my bed. “Are they Other?”

She considered the question. “No- well, not completely. They’re not like the other Gentry. They’re not a part of Elsewhere, but the crows at EU are not normal crows. Whatever draws the Gentry here affects them too. They’re very dangerous Áurea. I don’t know much about them, but I do know that.”

“Yeah, so you’ve told me. I’m scared they’re gonna start attacking soon.”

“…How long has this been going on?”

“Since at least the first week of school. It was casual at first, but they’ve become increasingly more annoying.”

She stopped. “What?”

“Yeah. The first week, three of them followed me for a few days. It’s like a mafia or something.”

Her eyes snapped away for a moment. “You-you need to go see Cat Eyes. As soon as possible.”

I furrowed my brows. “Cat Eyes? She’s-it’s real? Why?”

“Yes, she’s real. But she might be able to help. You can find her somewhere around dorm three. Don’t look for her, she’ll find you. Stand next to the tree with 3 claw marks in it.”

“Is this whole crow thing that big of a deal?”

“Nobody knows the crows,” Azriel said. “Not even the Gentry. They operate by their own design. If this has been going on since you got here- you might need bigger help than just avoiding them.”

——

“I don’t take actual money for Seeing glasses, just so you know,” a voice said from behind me. “Trade or bust. Call me traditional, but I find that when anything deals with Them, it’s best to play with home court’s rules.”

I turned around, pushing off of the tree I was leaning against. A girl walked up to me slowly. She was a short girl, auburn hair shaped in a smart pixie cut. Black glasses framed green eyes.

“Cat-eyes?” I asked.

“The one and only,” She said, taking a quick but dramatic bow. I saw her eyes dart around me. “So, what have you come to trade?”

“Uh-I, uh, I don’t want Seeing glasses.” I whispered, keeping my head low. She chuckled.

“You’re new to this! Look, whispering is fine when dealing with the failing senses of the human kind, but if something Else wants to hear what we’re saying, there’s not much we can do about it, save some very powerful and dangerous spells. So, don’t bother keeping your voice down. There’s no one around anyway.”

I nodded. “Okay then, I uh, I need to talk to you about the crows.”

Her eyes immediately widened and she began to shush me, turning on a dime and heading back to her dorm, making a subtle sign for me to follow. Despite my attempts, she didn’t speak until we were inside, the door locked behind us.

“I knew it. They were everywhere- the trees, the lawn, the power lines. They never come near dorm three.” She looked at me. “What have you done?”

“Nothing! Nothing- I promise. Look, they’ve been following me since I started here. They’ve started leaving me gifts- that I haven’t taken- they watch me everywhere, they’re dive bombing me as I go places, they sit outside my window day and night. It’s like they want my attention- I was told to come to you.”

She shook her head. “I can’t do anything. There’s not much anyone can do against the crows, Gentry or otherwise.”

She sighed and waved for me to follow her. “Look, I was serious when I told you there’s nothing you can do. But maybe you can find out what they want- if they really are watching you- and go from there.”

“What could they possibly want?”

She looked at me with her green eyes, a serious look on her face. “Let’s both hope it’s not you.”

——-

I was attacked the next day.

I had been so close to my dorm- but the crows were everywhere now. The flock was everywhere around me. They had begun diving at me- like I was a toy and they were playing around, lobbing their feathery forms at my head. I dodged them well enough until one actually hit me. It hurt- it’s claws had been sharp. I let out a sharp gasp and froze in place until another one hit me again.

I began to run then. They all started calling at once, several of them took into the skies and plenty of others began to fly after me, throwing their bodies at mine. They hit the back of my legs, my arms, my shoulders, squawking whenever they got close enough to my ears. I felt them pick at my hair as they flew and I ran and ran, and it seemed like nobody else had been on campus at all that day. It was a little after noon, full daylight and the middle of the week- but as I ran there was no soul to be found as they hounded me. I didn’t dare look behind, but as I approached my dorm I fell hard against, having tripped in my haste.

They didn’t waste time descending on me. In a moment I felt myself covered by them, I heard their shrills and the flap of their wings around me and I screamed, batting at them as they tried to land on my. They were pecking through my clothes, scratching at me with claws that tore skin. I had never felt fear like that before, as I writhed on the ground, trying to get away from them. These strange creatures- who I had never offended, wanted something from me. And they were relentless in their desire. I had turned on my back, but they blessedly stayed away from my face. They started to pick and pry at my hand with their beaks and claws, and I could hear nothing but the beat of my own heart, my screams, and their own sharp calls to each other.

My hand was bloody by now, but eventually they managed to force me to open one of them completely. When I did, they stopped. They stopped calling to each other, stopped dashing at me and picking at my skin. I was left in a state of shock, breathing hard and watching as this murder of crows surrounded me on the ground, in the trees, in the sky. Then, one of them flew down and landed on my chest. It held something in it’s beak, shiny and golden. It hopped up my arm and placed it in my opened, bloody hand. It turned and locked eyes with me afterwards, watching me with intent. I had never met a gaze so malicious, so searching. No human monster could compare. It let out several loud shrieks in a row, right next to my ear and I closed my eyes as it screamed because more than anything I was afraid in that moment. I just wanted them to leave.

With a final shrill it chirped and flew off. Almost immediately, the rest of the flock followed suit, and I watched as, with the beat of their wings, they covered the sky in darkness. They left me on the ground, bloody and frightened. Shaking, I sat myself up and brought the golden trinket to my eyes. I recognized it- it was a bracelet. One of the gifts they had given me. One of the gifts I had ignored. I stayed seated on the ground for a few more moments, letting the weight of this fall on my shoulders. I was not naive. I took the message for what it was.

A warning.

——–

A few days after that I was still shaken, crying more often than not. Azriel had been in the room when I had entered that day, bloody and afraid. She said she hadn’t heard anything. Hadn’t seen any crows around the dorm at all. The crows were still everywhere- but they stopped attacking. They still watched though. They would always watch. I wouldn’t wear the bracelet, but I held it with me in my backpack. They must have known- and for then, it must have been enough.

What were they doing to me?

My mother called and I pulled myself together for it. I couldn’t tell her. They wouldn’t understand. Even if- it seemed impossible. Attacked by a flock of crows? Afraid for my life because of a few birds? It was laughable to anyone that wasn’t Involved- and I hadn’t wanted to be in the first place.

My mom told me that my eldest sister had just had a baby-Alonzo, they would call him. I was happy for her- they had been waiting for a while now for a kid. How sweet that was. I called my sister and congratulated her.

If I had known how cruel I would be to little Alonzo, I would have apologized in advance. Not that sorry would ever be have been enough.

——-

When they started leaving gifts for me again, I was too afraid to not take them. Cat-Eyes had given me the name of someone who could possibly help. So one day, I skipped my classes and wrapped myself in a hoodie to hide the marks from their attack. I waited until dusk, and I searched the campus for building A15E. It was a small thing, a single story building made of rather standard brick- apparently used for administrative purposes at some point. But now, it just stood there. The front door had been open, and I slipped into a building with a hallway where most of the lights were out except a few. I did as was instructed, and I did not speak. I looked straight ahead and avoided the curiosity to peak behind the glass panes into the abandoned rooms. I didn’t follow the slight ringing noise that was coming from a hallway to me left. I ignored the scraping along the walls. I kept my eyes on a fixed point and took exactly 27 steps and turned to the right, where I was faced with a wooden door that held a plaque that said “Filing Room.” I reached out and knocked four times. Then twice. Then nine. I put my hand to the handle and counted five breaths before turning it and stepping inside in a single movement.

The room was dark, very dark. Very dark, and empty, save for a few things strewn across the floor. The windows were boarded, but there were candles on the floor letting off a warm glow. In the center of the room a girl sat on a stool, legs crossed. She was very young, 13 at most, but she had straight long blonde hair that hit the floor and spread out behind her.

“You come for the truth,” She stated.

“Truth is feeble.”

I saw her smile by the candlelight. “Come. And what have you brought for such frailty?”

I walked forward a bit and took of my backpack so I could rummage around in it. Slowly, I pulled out a small piece of paper. She held out her hand.

“This seems…insubstantial.” She said, frowning as she read what was written.

“It’s a recipe.” I stated. “For Lavender Cake.”

“So you know my preference?” She seemed impressed. Apparently, Cat-Eyes had good information. “But you would have me make it myself? This, child, is not enough.”

“Of course not. That’s why I’ve already commissioned one to be baked for you- brought by my own money. It will arrive, fresh, to the doorstep of this building in two hours.”

“So why give me this nonsense?” She asked, waving the piece of paper.

“The cake will last for a moment, but the recipe will keep. As long as you hold that piece of paper, your treats are never far away. You have your ways about this campus, I know. There are students in the culinary department in need of your assistance. I know a few of their names. Not true names, mind you. A few simple trades, and you’ll have as many as you want.”

She looked at me with narrowed eyes. “You will stay until the cake arrives and deliver it to me personally. With that, a deal is made.”

“Agreed.”

She nodded, and let the piece of paper fall to the ground. “And what would you have of me?”

“A reading, please. A real one.”

She waved me closer and ordered me to hold on my hand. I did so, slowly, first offering the uninjured hand. She looked at me with knowing eyes. I offered her the scarred one.

She took it in her hands, which were surprisingly smooth, and looked over it with a cursory glance. “The crows are after you. Why?”

“That’s what I’m here to find out.”

“Hm. Then let us begin.”

The candles all went out in a moment, and I was left in a dark room. Slowly, voices that neither belonged to me or the girl in front of me began to filter in. None of them were languages I recognized, but all seemed only a step away, whispering into my ears. Then, each of the candles began to flicker back to life. The girl’s eyes were gone, she held a stare at the ceiling, head drooping back from the weight of her own hair.

Then, she began to speak.

“Black feathers, blood and bone in your soul. Treacherous desire. Scintillating, shiny, brown hair and eyes. Ours. Mine. Blood, blood, golden blood and bone. Favor. Gilded, bloody favor. Brown hair and a wit to match our own. Take, fear and desperation.” She had begun slowly, but her words were coming faster now, her grip on my wrist much tighter than before. “Our midnight will sprout from her back and she will fly with us- a Gift. A treasure. Favor, gilded, golden favor. Blood will run, hers and ours. A gift from us. A gift for us. A gift. A gift. A gift, a gift, a gift, a gift- a gift of bone and gold. Midnight black blood, golden tears. A gift. A gift for all.” She was screaming now, jerking my hand as she yelled. “Cherish. Kill. Take and have, protect. Ruin. Traitorous worship-a gift of blood. A favor of gold. Awash in favor, golden and glorious and shiny, bright in midnight blood. A gift. A gift. A gift. A gift.”

With that last word the candles went out again and the voices left. It was completely silent, and she was still gripping my arm with such ferocity that it hurt. Suddenly, she jerked back up with a gasp and the light from the candles rekindled. She pushed my hands away and looked at me with watering eyes.

“Leave. You must be gone.”

“What- wait, why?”

“Leave from here!” She screamed. “I should never have allowed you to step foot in this place. Go!”

“What did you mean? I don’t understand- all of that made no sense.”

“You are ruined!” She screamed. “Favored by the crows- a demise worse than death. Your poor wretched soul- leave this place before you drag me to hell along with you.”

I was starting to cry now. I was so confused, so lost and hurt. “What do I do- I don’t understand, please, please help me, I didn’t do anything-”

“This is not of your doing, child.” She said, not screaming, but still charged. “You have fallen into what the fates have designed for you. Now step away from this place.”

“But- your cake-”

“You think I care about a treat in the face of the evil that shadows you? Now leave! The only advice I can give is to remember that omens come in threes!”

“Wait…what?”

“GO!” With that, the candles went dark again and the voices appeared, angry and seething, and they chased me from the room and into the hallway. The door slammed shut behind me, and with a fear that I was becoming all too familiar with, I ran from the building and into the sunlight. It was darker now, dark enough to not be safe. I wasn’t safe anyway, so it didn’t matter much.

I ran home again, and the crows were there, as always. They didn’t fly after me, but they shrilled as I ran past and I watched them, their black eyes beading in the light of the rising moon. Their calls sounded like laughter, cruel and unending.

Azriel was sitting on her bed when I got in, covered in tears and crying in hysterics. I collapsed on my bed and she offered my water, which I refused. I didn’t want water. I wanted help. What the hell was that? Favor? A gift? Blood? What was happening to me? Couldn’t these damn crows just leave me alone- all of this was so terrible and unrealistic. Monsters on campus. Palm readers. Animals with monstrous intelligence. I had stepped into an unrealistic but dangerous dark fantasy, and all I wanted to do was be safe. But safety was just a dream.

When I had calmed down a little, I sat up and looked at Azriel with red eyes.

“You’re not human, are you?” I asked quietly.

She watched me and slowly, she shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Áurea. If it makes you feel better, you should know that there’s nothing you could have done to prevent this. The crows are…different. Indifferent to most, but not all. Love and hate is a very blurry line for them.”

“Am I…am I going to die?” I asked.

“No.”

Somehow, they answer didn’t make me feel any better.

-Oliver Scales

#Oliver Scales #stories #to be favored #aurea #azriel #vector #cat-eyes #the crows #submission

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chan-chanyeol · 7 years ago

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wip tag»

i got tagged by the lovely @heonseoks to give yall little snippets of my wips (there are a LOT)

im tagging m’love @hitchhikingbabeh, then @dreamscript and @sammsdreaming <3 and anyone who wants to!

so here are a few:

tell me what to do (jonghyun of shinee); current word count 4.4k

Good love is a democracy.

Pure love is anarchy.

You always felt like rules were never fun, but you knew their importance. Putting rules on emotions and feelings felt downright wrong, but when you feel too much you know there has to be limits. For your sake, for your lover’s sake, for the betterment of the relationship. If you don’t get both ends of the spectrum, it feels like something is missing. Sure, it’s the bad parts, and you can go through a bland relationship doing everything by the book…

But where’s the fun in that?

You’ve dated quite a few people. You’ve also had quite a few ‘things’. You’re still young, though, still have a lot of your life ahead of you. You’ve recently graduated college with the bare minimum, not really finding out what you wanted to do, so you’ve started to intern at a local entertainment industry as a stagehand and a manager’s assistant. This past month, you and another intern have been religiously shadowing a manager to help him out with a group’s debut and promotions. The other intern, whose name is Jonghyun, is currently enrolled part-time in grad school and is actually pursuing music for a career. You’re just here because the people are attractive, and if you’re going to have a tiring job, it might as well have some eye candy.

“Hey,” Jonghyun says, coming up to you in a flurry of panic and a balancing act of two coffees in one hand, his phone in the other. “Do you have the schedule for tomorrow?”

» sunken grade (jongdae of exo) (a forgotten wip) current word count 1.1k

“I really need you right now,” was all he said over the phone before he hung up. Luckily, you were awake, working on an essay, so you were there to answer your cellphone before the first ring was over. He never calls you late at night, and judging by the crack in his voice, this was important.

You came up to his house shortly, but knowing better you snuck around to the side instead of waltzing up to the front door. On the left side of the two-story house was a cherry tree, with branches high enough that somebody could sneak out of the window right there— or sneak in. You climbed up the tree with ease, having done this hundreds of times, and lightly tapped on the window.

“Jongdae?” You whispered, even though you know he wouldn’t hear you through the window. You tapped lightly again, and you still didn’t get a response. You looked closely and noticed a notebook wedged under the window, and you realized he must’ve left it there so you could get in without somebody lifting it from the inside. You pressed your palms flat against the pane of glass and slid the window up, and climbed in as quietly as you could.

He wasn’t in your immediate sight, not laying on his bed or sitting at his desk. You did notice light filtering in from the crack at the bottom of the bathroom door, so you shuffled over to the door and knocked lightly.

You got no reply, and no yelling of “go away!”, so you grasped the handle and turned it as far as it would go and slowly opened the door. He wasn’t hunched over the counter or kneeling in front of the toilet, and you were thankful for that. Your eyes traveled the room until you noticed him lying in the bathtub with his pillow. He looked up at you, and his usually bright and shining eyes were drooping with exhaustion and a hint of something else. You went and sat on the edge of the tub, feet flat against the tiles, searching your mind for something to say. Comforting words or something, but you drew a blank.

“Thanks for coming,” he mumbled, and his voice was hoarse, but he reached up and let the back of his fingers run down your back for a brief second. “Just being around you makes me happier.”

untitled (sehun of exo) current word count 1.3k

He’s not the romantic type. At least, not that you’ve seen. Sometimes, cute things will slip past his lips, and his friends will tease him and the girls will swoon. But that’s the most you’ve seen in the four years you’ve been going to school together.

Senior year, Sehun really came into himself. He got a bit taller, a bit more lanky, and more handsome. The white shirt and black slacks of the school uniform emphasizes all these things. It was no surprise to you whenever a girl would confess to him, but only slightly weird when he would deny every single one of them. You’re not sure he’s ever had an official girlfriend, but you know he’s been on dates.

You’re the lab partner and math tutor to Sehun’s best friend, Jongin. You’ve known Jongin since you were kids, your parents were close coworkers and he was the only one near your age at company parties. When high school rolled around, he got accepted into a big friend group, so you became an honorary member. (And tutor.) Mutual friends help make high school easier. Half the time you’re with Jongin, Sehun is there. You three do a lot of things together; study sessions, movie outings, sports games, the school plays or musicals. You lot have school spirit, but the one school thing you three consistently skip out on is dances. They’ve never seem crucial.

Well, until senior year prom.

Your friend group has mainly graduated. There’s your trio, and the others still around: Kyungsoo, Baekhyun, and Chanyeol. Kyungsoo was the first to get a prom date, and you were slightly afraid he’d be excommunicated for it.

“I can’t believe you’re going to prom,” Baekhyun groans when he sits down at the usual lunch table.

You’re sitting in between Sehun and Jongin, the latter sitting directly across from Kyungsoo. For a minute, Kyungsoo acts like he didn’t register what Baekhyun said.

“My parents want pictures,” he finally admits. “And she asked me.”

“Still,” Chanyeol complains. “We were going to have anti-prom, but now we all gotta go.”

“No you don’t,” Kyungsoo informs.

“We gotta go to ruin your night,” Baekhyun says,

“That’s stupid,” you say.

Baekhyun shoots you a look, but you know he regrets his words, and then Jongin is on your side.

“Don’t ruin his night because you can’t get a date,” Jongin says, teasingly but honestly.

Sehun asks Jongin, “are you going?”

Jongin started to mess around with the food on his plate, eyes focused on anything not human, and you noticed his cheeks turn dusty. “I might,” he mumbles. “There’s a girl I want to ask. I’ll only go if she says yes.”

“Who is it?” You ask, and everyone at the table stills to hear his reply.

“Um,” he starts. “Krystal…”

Sehun leans back and clasps his hands behind his head. “She’s totally out of your league.”

“Is not,” you counter, voice light. “Jongin is perfect for her. She likes dedicated and nice. Honestly, Jongin is perfect for practically every girl at this school.”

Sehun gives you a coded look, but you didn’t focus on him long enough to decipher it.

hellkite 2 (sehun hazard part) current word count 955

Now, if you had any power as an intern, you would make Sehun come in for weekly checkups, seeing as he’s basically in the hospital every week anyways. On his file, there’s no records of six-month checkups, no insurance name, no family or anything. You wonder what the hell that Kris guy makes Sehun do that drops him into a hospital bed so often.

“Junmyeon,” you sighed, dropping your bag on the coffee table as you plopped down onto the couch. “You know that Sehun kid?”

Junmyeon walked out of his bedroom with a bowl and a mouth full of cereal. “The one that claimed to be me at first? What about him?”

“So he’s a Hellhound,” you started, causing Junmyeon to choke on his cereal. “Probably, I mean. And he keeps showing up and I’m worried for him, you know? Like, doesn’t him being a Hellhound go against some sort of child service law?”

Junmyeon went to the kitchen and set his cereal bowl on the counter before sitting next to you on the couch. “Well, how old is this Sehun kid?”

“He’s 20,” you replied. “A few months older than me.”

Junmyeon nodded. “So he’s an adult, and can make his own choices. Being a Hellhound is one of those choices.”

You sighed and slumped down into the cushions. “I feel like I should do something.”

“You should not,” Junmyeon said, standing up and stretching. “I don’t need my little sister messing around with a Hellhound. Jiyong’s sister did, and we all know how that ended up.”

You scoffed. “She fell in love, that’s what happened.”

Junmyeon threw you a look over his shoulder before heading to the door. “Just listen to me, ____. Don’t do anything stupid. That kid is a devil, he likes causing havoc. Just, stay away from Hounds.”

You nodded slowly. “Yeah, yeah. Alright.”

Junmyeon gave you a smile as he got on his jacket. “Good. I won’t be back until tomorrow, I have work and then a Guardians meeting, eat something good for dinner. See you later, love you.”

“Love you too, you overprotective nerd,” you mumbled, earning a bigger smile from Junmyeon.

After the door was closed behind him, you started debating with yourself. Do you grab your keys and head out to the inner city in an attempt to find Sehun? Do you listen to your Guardian brother and stay home and watch dramas and order takeout?

Once your boots were back on and your bag slung around your shoulders, you knew the answer.

#writings #wip

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k-p-p-d · 8 years ago

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Rivalry. Pt. 1

PART 1 | PART 2

Genre: Angst. Gang!AU.

Warnings: Mentions of blood & violence

Word Count: 1.7K

Pairings: Mark x reader x Namjoon ft GOTBANG collaboration.

Summary: You’re innocently caught in the crossfire of two of Korea’s deadliest gangs, after an argument with your gang leader boyfriend. Could you have been hurt by someone closer to home? Or has the rivalry between the two become personal? Remember not everything is as simple as black and white..

Your name: submit What is this?

God I hate you!“ you screamed. Mark strides towards you, and yells back “Good! Cause I hate you too!”. This was not how you imagined date night ending up, but you caught him eyeing up another girl at the movies and you had to cuss him out for it. It started out as you quietly but sternly telling him what you saw, and that you didn’t play games, to a rage filled argument about everything under the sun. During the 4 years of your relationship, you argued like everyone else, usually making up soon after. This argument however, would be remembered forever.

The arguing goes on for hours. Mark runs his fingers through his hair, and sighs, “Y/N you’re clearly overreacting! Like you always do!” You could feel your anger level climb, how dare he say you’re overreacting? “Are you shitting me right now? Mark I. FUCKING. SAW. YOU..” you pause as a small laugh leaves your lips, “I’m telling you facts! Just admit what you did and apologise”. Crossing your arms you take a deep breath, waiting patiently for the apology, but instead he says, “Fuck that! I’m not apologising for something i didn’t even do!..” and clenches his fist. “Well fuck you then Sǐwáng”, you reply. Mark’s eyes flicker up to meet yours immediately, he clenches his jaw and fist in anger. “I told you not to call me that.. That’s my work name.. You’ve never said it before. Don’t start now.”

You know he doesn’t like it, he has always said that.. but he was pissing you off, and the rage you felt blinded your control. You walk up to him slowly, and look him over, scoffing you say, “Work? You say that so casually! Being a trained assassin and leader of a gang is NOT work Mark!”. His nostrils flared and he steps to close the gap between you. You can feel his heavy breaths on your face, you see his eyes turn darker, you can even hear how hard his heart is beating. He doesn’t speak at all, just stares into your eyes. You can’t tell if he’s trying to intimidate you or if he’s just angry, but you are just as angry and in the mood to push his buttons.

With a chuckle, you slowly speak, “What are you gonna do huh? Pull your gun out and shoot me?..” Mark steps back, rubbing his temples in frustration, listening to you talk. “..I can get angry too you know, you think i’m just a dormouse that won’t say anything?! If you did-” He takes out his gun and aims at your head, you pause straight away and stare at the barrel. Is this psycho actually going to shoot you?

“Are you gonna let me talk now y/n?” he says harshly, you swallow hard and nod.

Mark retracts the gun, placing it back into position. He walks towards you and calmly says, “One. I would never hurt you like that. Ever. That little thing I did, was to get you to be quiet. The barrel is empty.. Two. This argument wasn’t about my job in the first place, and three. I told you on our 1st date what I did.. yet 4 years later you’re still here. Tell me y/n if i’m that bad, YOU are the one who fucks me. So what does that make you?!”. He yells the last part, and you stand there in disbelief of what you just heard. Not knowing whether to punch him or cry, you shove your house keys in your bag and head out the door. Mark squeezes his eyes shut, immediately regretting what he said but his pride stops him from calling out to you.

The cool night air is exactly what you need to calm you, the lights of the city are beautiful and you stroll down the row of shops feeling more and more content. That is until your phone rings, you look at it see Mark’s face and decline the call. He is the last person you want to talk to right now. Your phone rings a few more times, annoying the hell out of you. Taking it out of your bag to turn it off, you see a text from Mark. You roll your eyes, knowing he’ll never leave you alone and decide to reply.

You notice something in the reflection of the shop window, the same two guys you saw a street away are still following you. It would have been normal, for people to be walking behind you as the street was quite busy. However, dating a kingpin you picked up some observational skills, and these men were different. The way they paced, and how far away they were, showed they were trying to keep up with you. The way they were dressed, would seem like everyday clothes to regular people but to you, it looked as if they were trying to fit into the crowd. You could see the outline of their guns, by just glimpsing their reflections. These men were after you. You decided to turn a few corners, to confirm your beliefs and of course they followed behind. Panic was setting in; you began walking quicker, the men matching your speed, your hands shook and you didn’t dare turn around. You needed Mark, but you knew that if you called him they would shoot you on the spot, so you text instead.

Looking around you, the men have gone. There’s no sign of them, as if they were never there to begin with. You follow Mark’s instructions and keep walking, almost running. Even though your chest is tight, and you can hardly breathe, the panic is slowly fading, because you know he’ll be here soon.. You’ll be safe. You wish you could walk forever, but your body is tired so you slow down to catch your breath. As you do this, your phone pings.

The relief you feel is indescribable, you get to go home.. alive. You should have been used to this happening, being chased, having your life threatened but the truth is Mark always kept you safe, away from all of that. You turn, with a smile on your face, shielding your eyes from the blinding headlights of Mark’s car. He didn’t stop close by you to draw suspicion, so you had to walk a little to meet him. As you began to walk, your mind began to work. You thought about how this was the first time in this situation, and you never wanted to face it again. You decided that the stupid argument didn’t matter anymore. Yes you and Mark weren’t a normal couple, but you loved each other and you worked. You thought about-

BANG

Your thoughts are seized by a searing pain flowing through your body, you freeze on the spot taking in small sharp breaths, that hurt every time. People are screaming and running. You look up to see Mark running towards you, it’s the last thing you see before your body hits the ground.

Mark sits on the ground, cradling your head and body in his arms. Slowly you rotate your head, you glimpse the blurry picture of the 2 men walking away, placing their guns back in their respective holsters. You were right, they were after you. This was an ordered hit, they were sent to shoot you. You steadily blink up at your boyfriend, he is shaking and crying but reassures you in his calmest voice, “I’m sorry baby.. I’m so sorry. This is my fault.. Just stay with me ok? Someone has called for help. You’re going to be fine” his voice is a whisper, and his tears causes it to hitch. Mark feels the warm blood seep through his clothes, he looks at his hands now stained red. He’s seen blood before, that’s no surprise but this is your blood. The love of his life. He can’t handle this, this is too much.. A panic attack would have happened by now, but he has to push that to the side for you.

Your life flashes before you; your childhood, your family, your parents’ wedding day, when your sister was born, the day you met Mark, when he asked you to be his girlfriend, the day you moved in.. Everything. You smile weakly, the memories filling you with happiness.. It’s short-lived however, because the pain shocks you back to reality causing you to cough. You try to fight the call of death, but you need to get rid of this pain. As your body falls numb, you find yourself edging closer and closer to the call, realising that you have to accept this, you were going to die. Your eyes close..

Suddenly, you feel light slaps on either side of your face. You crane your eyelids open to see Mark looking down at you, face red with tears. “Stay with me ok!! Don’t you dare leave me! You can’t leave me y/n!!” he shouts. He blinks tears from his eyes and whispers, “I love you too damn much.. Please..”. You look up at him, your body failing by the second. Through blurred vision, you focus on his face.. His beautiful face.. His bright eyes, now dulled by tears.. His shiny blonde hair cascading down his face.. With the little strength you have, you croak, “Mark.. I can’t.. Hold on..” Mark shakes his head, whimpering ‘No’ repeatedly. “No, don’t say that baby.. Please” his last word is barely a whisper. Taking a jagged breath in, you speak again, “I love you so much.. More than life..”. Mark leans down, placing a gentle kiss on your forehead, “I love you too y/n. I know who did this, and I promise you they will pay with their blood. They messed with the wrong power couple”

The sounds of sirens ring through your ears, they are muffled and fuzzy. Mark turns his head to the direction of the help and says, “Jagi. The ambulance is here! It’s here! You’re going to be fine!”. He notices you’re no longer moving, your breathing is almost non-existent.. He looks to see your eyes closed, your body completely giving way in his arms. He’s about to scream, but his eyes spot something on the ground beside you. It’s a red rose.

Mark grips the rose, ripping it to shreds. Through gritted teeth and tear clouded eyes, he utters the words, “Namjoon is gonna fucking pay for this”.

- Admin Rosa

Buy Us Coffee! | K.P.P.D Merch!

A/N: Sǐwáng = death. Also, it will be a series, so don’t hound me for it. It’ll happen okay? I promise! Calm your tits.

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