#i would do the thing where i point out details but there r way too many in this one | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

skzdarlings · 8 months ago

Text

bodyguard: the first guard | part three | chan/reader

masterlist.

(part one of the previous story.)

( read on AO3 )

A sequel to the Bodyguard. Miroh’s daughter is assigned a bodyguard of her own. The past is confronted when old friendships and new enemies are pushed to the brink.

pairing: bang chan/reader content info: sequel to the bodyguard (felix/reader). this is a new reader perspective. the previously established story dyanmics: explicit violence, mentions of torture. mentions of past sexual abuse, detailed descriptions of needles. chapter word count: 12,525 words.

B E F O R E

“Happy fourteenth birthday.”

Felix looks up from his work. He underperformed in training today and landed himself a punishment. His good record spared him anything too painful, but he has been assigned cleaning duty. Taking apart, cleaning, and reassembling weapons is not difficult work – he could do it in his sleep – but it is tedious.

Tedium is its own kind of torture, especially these days with his mind in a state of tumult. He has grown closer to Chris with each passing day. Felix knows they are not meant to think of each other as friends, just fellow soldiers, but that is the word Felix uses.

My friend.

That is who stands over Felix now. Chris is smiling and holding something wrapped in what looks like a kitchen napkin. Felix blinks at it, then furrows his brow.

“Huh?” Felix says. “It’s not my birthday.”

“Could be!” Chris says.

Felix supposes Chris has a point. Felix does not actually know his own birthday because he bounced around foster care before he found himself in Miroh’s program. If his birthday was recorded anywhere, no one told him what it was. So it could be his birthday. The odds are not great but not impossible.

“Um,” Felix says, because no one has ever wished him a happy – or happy possible – birthday. He guesses the best reply is, “Thanks?”

“It’s not a trick, man,” Chris says, smiling. He laughs at Felix, though it doesn’t feel cruel, and ruffles his hair before shoving the little wrapped item at him. “Here,” Chris says. “Got it especially for you.”

Felix unfolds the napkin and finds a cookie. It’s not the kind of food that is served at the regiment because their diet is so strict. Food is a sustenance and not a pleasure.

“Wow,” Felix says. It is a genuine surprise. Chris had to go out of his way to get this.

Felix feels embarrassed. He still struggles to cope with feeling in general. He almost yearns for a simpler, more naïve time, when he didn’t have to think or feel, just trust and follow. Now he is a flustered knot of embarrassment because Chris is giving him presents just because Felix mentioned he had never received one. It was an off-handed remark a few days ago, that he didn’t know his birthday and had never received a present but that it didn’t matter because he didn’t deserve it.

And he didn’t, he doesn’t, deserve any of it. Not a birthday wish or a thoughtful gift or Chris’s friendship. Felix has so much blood on his hands and he doesn’t how much of it is innocent. He never counted his kills like some other agents, stupid kids bragging to seem bigger and more powerful than their circumstances. Felix never did it for glory. He knew his place. Now he doesn’t count them because it doesn’t matter. It all comes back to him when he closes his eyes. He remembers what they were wearing, what they said before they died, the things they begged to a naïve, indifferent child.

He doesn’t count them because he doesn’t need a number to know it’s too much and he will never be able to take it back. He doesn’t deserve birthdays and friendships and Chris. He never will.

He doesn’t say this out loud. He knows Chris will argue with him, belligerent in his kindness and reassurance. Felix won’t listen in turn. The conversation would be useless. Rather than bother, Felix asks, “Where did you get it?”

“Hey, I know I’m trouble,” Chris says, still smiling, “but I got connections too, you know?”

Felix guesses he means Miroh’s daughter as she is the only agent with outside connections. They seem to have a tenuous understanding because she and Chris get in the most trouble. Chris, because he still bristles at commands and steps out of line. Her, because she’s Miroh’s daughter and held to a higher standard than the rest of them.

Chris can befriend almost anyone, garnering admiration in his peers if nothing else. His rebellious streak means no one wants visible association with him, but in the quietest of corners there is a whispered respect for the First Guard. He is as notorious as he is skilled and he has a natural leadership.

Felix supposes it is not outside the realm of possibility that even Miroh’s daughter would consider Chris a friend – but only somewhere even quieter than most.

Felix does not consider Miroh’s daughter a friend and he doubts he ever will. Her proximity to Miroh makes her an even bigger liability than Chris. Felix would never get close to someone like that, born into their position and too close to power for his liking.

“Miroh’s daughter, you mean,” Felix says.

Felix might keep his musings close to his heart, but that doesn’t mean Chris can’t read them anyway. Chris is a soldier by instinct if not choice. He is always one step ahead. It’s like he is inside Felix’s head. He seems to know what Felix will do before Felix does.

“Yeah,” Chris says. He rubs the back of his neck, breathing deeply. He looks almost sheepish, as if admitting he knows better. “She’s not that bad when you get to know her. Really.”

Felix is certain he looks unconvinced. It makes Chris laugh.

“You look worried,” Chris says.

“I do worry about you,” Felix says. He looks down at the cookie in his hand. It is hard to say out loud, but he manages a weak, “You’re my friend.”

Chris is suspiciously quiet. When Felix looks up, Chris has a determination to his countenance.

“Find me when you’re done here,” Chris says. “I wanna show you something.”

Felix, as usual, does as he is told. When his punishment ends, he tracks Chris to the barracks where the older boy is patiently waiting. He claps Felix on the shoulder but otherwise doesn’t stop to greet him. He is a little skittish as he leads Felix to their mysterious destination.

It is not so extraordinary in the end. Nothing around here is. Everything is cold chrome and sleek silver, one room much like the next, branded by Miroh as surely as its occupants.

Chris knocks out a ventilation panel then leads Felix to what looks like an unused crawl space, forgotten and collecting dust.

“Welcome to my office,” Chris jokes, still with that nervous laughter. It is putting Felix on edge.

“Is everything all right?” Felix asks.

“Well, no, Felix,” Chris says. “It isn’t. You know that now, don’t you?”

A couple years of shared assignments between the best and second best, the rebellious and the reluctant. A couple years of watching Miroh bludgeon his way through the world. A couple years of regret.

A couple years of friendship to change everything.

“Yeah,” Felix says. It is all he needs to say.

“Sit,” Chris says. There is a corner of the room that has been cleared of dust, this part of the hideaway evidently well-used. “Let’s talk.”

Whatever conversation Felix expects to have, it is not the one he gets. He sits and watches Chris, watches him breathe and measure his words. Chris is usually confident in what he has to say, even when staring down a barrel of a gun. This is more than disconcerting.

“I’ve been talking to some others in the program,” Chris says. “We’re all growing up. I’ll be eighteen soon. If we’re already strong, we’re just gonna get stronger. Miroh has complete control over us. I’m scared that if we don’t do something about it soon, then everything is going to get worse. A lot, lot worse.”

“Do something,” Felix says, his mind going a mile a minute. “What do you mean? Who else have you told about this?”

“People I consider friends,” Chris says. He puts a hand on Felix’s shoulder. “People like you, Felix.”

He thinks of the cookie in his pocket. His heart punches up with alarm.

“Miroh’s daughter?” Felix asks and this time he knows for certain his thoughts are very clear. He says her name – not even her name, her position, the daughter and heir of the very thing Chris wants to fight – and he says it with the obvious inflection of what-the-fuck-are-you-thinking?

“She’s a friend,” Chris says in a voice he usually reserves for an enemy. It startles Felix into silence. Seeing that, Chris smiles, trying to lighten the mood. “You don’t have to trust her,” Chris says. “Just trust me. Felix, I want to get us out, all of us. I don’t want that man or any other man like him to hurt anyone else. Not kids, not adults, not anyone. I won’t put you in more danger, I swear. That’s the opposite of what I want. I’m gonna protect you, okay? I’m gonna protect all of you. When the time comes to take a stand, I just want you to be ready. If something happens, if it all goes wrong…”

Felix looks at him, alarm and worry plain on his young face. Chris squeezes his shoulder again.

“If…” Chris swallows then continues, “If it is all goes wrong, I’ll pay the price alone. But I’d rather die trying to save all of you than live another day hurting innocent people for Miroh.”

“Chris—” Felix starts, an argument on his tongue.

“Don’t,” Chris says firmly. “If there was anything worth dying for, Felix, then it’s this. I’m gonna get you out. I’m gonna get you all out. I swear. Just be ready for when I say. Just trust me. Just be my friend.”

Felix spends a week after that in a state of restless turmoil. He sleeps poorly and fights worse and even spends a night in the Cell for his mistakes.

He doesn’t know what to think about Chris and his intentions. It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. But if it worked…

It wouldn’t take the blood off Felix’s hands, but it would be a start to something better. Felix has little thought for his own fate, undeserving as he is, but he thinks about Chris. Chris, the First Guard, who has been here the longest, who has watched the most people die, who has been punished the worst.

Chris deserves better.

Felix believes in Chris. He believes if Chris made an effort, then he would have what it takes to make a difference. Felix knows Chris is capable. He could do what he sets out to do.

It is not Chris that Felix worries about.

Felix observes Miroh’s daughter, studying her more closely than ever before. Felix trusts Chris’s general discretion but he worries Chris has a blind spot concerning her. They are the only two in their age category and they share a small barrack, the forced proximity undoubtedly creating a semblance of intimacy. Chris might trust her but Felix is not so biased. All he sees is Miroh.

Felix watches her. She doesn’t spend much time with Chris in public, her only close relationship with Seo Changbin. They are a bit notorious together. Felix would not call them the best fighters but they are tricky. He is pretty sure they throw their fights with each other and embellish more than necessary. Both like a good skull crash, more brutal than efficient. The trickery and brutality makes Felix more wary of her.

At the same time, her obvious friendship with Changbin shows she can care about someone else. The pair throw a mean punch but always patch each other up after.

Chris catches Felix watching them. They are having a go in the ring, punching and flipping, grinning when they think no one is watching. They have smiles just for each other.

“You look really deep in thought, mate,” Chris says, laughing. He hands Felix a water bottle while toweling down his own sweaty neck.

“Huh?” Felix finally breaks his concentration. He takes the water and smiles one of his instinctive but fake smiles – the kind he uses on a mission, when he is trying to convince an adversary that he is an innocent, unassuming kid.

Chris sees through it, of course. He lifts an eyebrow at Felix then follows his line of sight to the ring.

“What?” Chris says, laughing again. His own ears turn a little red as he teases, “You got a crush on her or something?”

“Ew, shut up,” Felix says, throwing his own towel at him. He feels flushed despite the fact it is vehemently untrue. He is not used to being provoked with that line of teasing. “No,” he says certainly. “I have no feelings for anyone. But I think they might.”

“Huh?” Chris looks between Felix and the ring. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, look at them,” Felix says. “They’re a little too close, don’t you think?”

Presently, Miroh’s daughter has Changbin pinned to the mat. She is on top of him and whispering something that makes them both snicker.

Chris stares at them. After a beat of contemplative silence, he laughs. Felix recognizes the fake sound, the same disarming humour Felix uses when conning someone.

“Yeah,” Chris says. “Hey, I’ll be right back, yeah?”

Felix watches Chris amble over. He says something to the duo and Changbin retaliates with some non-descript shouting and flailing. Miroh’s daughter rolls her eyes. She grabs Chris by the collar and yanks him into a fight.

The rest of the day progresses without much fuss or bother. Miroh has no jobs for them today so the schedule is just training and recuperation.

Felix manages to avoid punishment today. He tries expelling his anxiety in a fight but it does not fully work. Felix has come to realize he is not very good at letting go. Belief, emotion, the good, the bad: all of gets clutched in his fists and held to his heart.

Fighting tires him but it is not a satisfying tired, of exerted muscles and a pumping heart. He feels weary and everything everywhere is so loud, the chrome and steel of the Miroh facilities like an echoing dome. It cycles all that noise in an agonizing reverberation. It feels inescapable. He goes to the barracks which are smaller but it makes the claustrophobia worse.

Laying in his bunk, rubbing his temples, Felix dreams of a quiet room of his own.

It is then he remembers Chris’s hideaway. Chris miraculously dodged punishment today so he retreated to the barracks a while ago. Felix doesn’t want to disturb him but he figures Chris won’t mind him using the hideaway on his own if he’s careful.

They are permitted access to the training room for the few hours between work and mandatory repose. The hideaway is en route so it is easy for Felix to stealthily retrace his steps without raising suspicion. He disappears in the security blind spot the way Chris showed him.

Felix is in the tunnel when he hears a noise. He worries he was followed despite being so careful, but then he realizes the noise is ahead of him, not behind him.

He freezes in the crawl tunnel, trying to discern the sound. It doesn’t sound like talking, more like… breathing? Heavy breathing.

Then he hears a laugh that he recognizes as Chris. And he is not alone. The other noise is a sigh, a lighter, more feminine sound.

Oh.

Apparently, Chris’s hideaway is not just for talking to friends. The sound of kissing and sighing is more friendly than his conversation with Felix, that’s for sure.

Felix is frozen for a minute, too stunned and embarrassed to think of moving. He has to shuffle backwards to escape because he can’t turn in that part of the crawl space. If this was a mission, he could do it, but this is personal. He doesn’t want to get caught but it’s not because it will compromise any job; it’s because it will be awkward.

He scuffs his shoe in his backwards shuffle. It clangs, a subtle sound, but one that makes him wince.

It goes quiet around the corner. Felix knows he was heard and there is no time to escape. Seconds later, a frantic looking Chris is in the tunnel, red-faced with a line of sweat on his brow. His uniform is clearly dishevelled and Felix gets even more embarrassed.

Those feelings need somewhere to go. It comes out of him in a burst of frustration.

“What are you doing?” Felix demands, his voice breaking.

“Nothing!” Chris says, clearly a knee-jerk reaction. Then he takes a breath and says, “Look, I can explain—”

“It’s not Miroh’s daughter,” Felix says. He can’t even pose it as a question because he refuses to believe Chris could genuinely be that reckless and stupid. Befriending her is one thing – a stupid thing – but fooling around with the daughter of the powerful man who owns them is begging for tragedy.

“I’m not stupid,” Chris says.

“It doesn’t matter,” Felix says. “Whoever it is, you need to stop.”

“Look—”

“Seriously, Chris!”

“Felix—”

“It’s not worth it!”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Chris snaps. “You’re not normal and you don’t understand what it means to care about someone like that.”

It is obviously thoughtless, blurted in the head of the moment. It hurts anyway. Felix wonders if Chris can see the pain on his face because Chris looks immediately remorseful.

“Look, I didn’t mean it like that—” Chris starts.

“It’s fine,” Felix says. “You’re right.”

“Felix—”

Felix pushes backwards and leaves without waiting for any protest. He does not stop, marching all the way back to this bunk. Anger and embarrassment have finally dissipated by the time he returns. It has been replaced with determination.

Chris is the best, but he has been compromised whether he wants to acknowledge it or not. He feels too much, for everyone and everything, and it will get him in even more trouble than he is already in. if he retaliates with thoughtless provocation when it’s just Felix confronting him, then what will he do when it’s Miroh and the stakes are even higher?

Chris said he would protect them all. He swore to succeed at any cost, including his own life. There is no one swearing the same for him. No one has ever protected him.

Felix is the second best. He has never left a job unfinished and for that he is not deserving of the protection Chris is offering.

It won’t clean the blood on his hands, but if Felix can save a life worth more than his own, then maybe it will start to justify all of this, all of him.

Chris was right. Felix is not normal. But he was wrong say that Felix doesn’t know what it means to care about someone. Because of Chris, Felix knows how to care. He knows what he has to do.

Chris can try and save them all.

Felix is going to save Chris.

P R E S E N T D A Y

Miroh’s main facility has fallen.

It sounds so dramatic for something so anticlimactic, like you are describing the collapse of a kingdom and not the shutdown of his main office operation.

It feels like an apocalyptic demise.

You and Chan fight your way out of the building, taking on the people who fight in your name. Your father’s name. Miroh.

Miroh is dead. Irrefutably broken, little more than a heap of meat on the tarmac. With him gone and the only named heir on the run – you – this facility will shut down to maintain security.

Miroh ran a meticulously compartmentalized business. There is protocol for everything so even if one part of his operation fell, the rest could continue unimpeded. Miroh tried to establish a legacy that could rival old money like his enemy, going so far as to predict his own demise. Miroh has long braced for the eventuality of his end, so he made sure his business could fracture and run without him.

He did everything in his power to make you just like him, a little broken fracture of himself to ensure that legacy. But then he could not actually face what he created. He could not actually let go. He was the only one with the perspective and power and he had to keep it that way.

Miroh would not have accounted for your rebellion, not for the sake of someone else. For a friend.

Flashes of the last twenty four hours play in your mind. You can hardly pinpoint the change in yourself. It feels like this was somehow inevitable, despite how much you would have balked at the idea before. But now it is all that matters. It’s all that makes sense in this chaos.

You have to find your friend. This facility will be empty in a matter of hours, but there are others. Changbin is in one of them. You have no idea where to start.

One thing at a time, you tell yourself. Before you can ruminate on anything behind or in front of you, you need to fight. You do not have time for introspection or planning. You need to get away. Away from this place, away from your dead father.

Away from his soldier, the First Guard, Bang Chan, who for some reason is helping you escape.

You don’t know why. You seriously doubt your barely coherent pleading broke the conditioning and literal torture that made him into this thing.

You don’t have time to find out. At the first opportunity, you break away, leaving him with a handful of operatives to fight. It should keep them all occupied while you escape.

You do not want to risk trapping yourself in an enclosed space, so you do not venture to the parking garage where the company vehicles are stored. Some of them will be programmed and bugged. You feel bad targeting a civilian, but stealing one of their cars is the safest bet. There are some administrative employees who complete menial tasks for the company, those with next to no clearance level. They park their personal cars around the facility. You pick one that is easy to reconfigure without a key to boot.

Minutes later, you are driving for an exit. Your whole body is aching but you push through it. There will be time to recuperate when you are in the clear.

Sirens wail and alarms blare, every security measure in action. Your escape is certainly not a clean one but it doesn’t matter. You just need to get away.

If you can get off the facility grounds, you can lose any adversaries in the back country roads. The route to the facility was intentionally designed to be a convoluted labyrinth, making it difficult for enemies to approach without giving the facility ample preparation time. You know the paths better than anyone. You can get away.

A soldier marches right into the middle of your escape path.

It is too brazen for a regular agent. They would not be so stupid to try that, knowing you would just barrel into them.

You speed closer and recognize the First Guard. Chan is unflinching as ever, standing in the middle of the road as if he intends to stop your car with his body. He is strong but not that strong. You know that. But he looks like an inhuman phantom, looming there in his combat gear and mask, unphased and unharmed despite the hour of nonstop violence.

But that’s not the reason you stop. You think about him in that van. You could only see his eyes but they were expressive, the tilt of his head inquisitive.

You slam on the brakes. The car stops inches from his body but he doesn’t even blink.

Your heart is racing, breath bursting in gasps. He strolls around the car as if he was just waiting for his ride.

Soldiering instinct propels your hands. You draw a gun as he opens the passenger-side door. He bends down and looks at you, his brow quirked with a silent question. Your hand shakes and he is too good not to notice. You know that, but a regular person would never guess because he does not take his eyes off yours.

He disarms you, faster than a blink. He drops into the passenger seat, then slams the door and shoves the gun in its storage compartment.

You stare at him. Your gaze follows the line of his stark profile. His hairline is a little sweaty but he doesn’t look out of breath.

You don’t know what to think.

This is the longest you have been in his company since you were kids in training. Your memory of him is insubstantial, having spent little to no time with him personally. But it hardly matters what he was. Now he’s a soldier above all soldiers, a shadow filling this small civilian car. He’s not the biggest man in the world but he’s overwhelming all the same, partially because of his uniform and partially because of his posture. He feels too big for this little human space. His knee hits the gear shift, his thighs bulky in the small seat, his shoulders broad where he leans back.

He looks across the car and meets your eyes. You think about how many people have met this gaze, maybe in a moment just like this, sitting across from Miroh’s asset in a little civilian vehicle before he put a bullet between their eyes or snapped their neck. You have seen the results of his missions even if you were not involved in them. The statistics and numbers speak for themselves. Those eyes have seen more death than life and right now they are resolutely focussed on you.

You jump when he lifts his hand. He says nothing but turns the rearview mirror in your direction. You reluctantly peel your gaze away from him. You see what he sees: a vehicle in rapid pursuit of your own.

“Shit,” you say. You shove the mirror back into place. Your hands collide for a split second.

You can’t linger on the weirdness of this moment, that the First Guard is your ally, sitting in the passenger seat and helping you escape.

You drive. The other vehicle chases you down. You get past the easy security measures, blowing past gates and guards. When you approach the last gate, Chan rolls down the window and twists his body. He pulls the stashed gun and aims somewhere. Your eyes are on the road so you don’t see exactly what he does, but the gate slams shut between you and the pursuing vehicle, trapping them on the other side.

Then it is just you, him, and the road.

He puts the gun away. He sits back. He rolls up the window. He makes it seem like a routine, still unphased while your heart pounds with adrenaline.

You do not look at him. You do not speak. You focus on escape, taking a convoluted path through the countryside just in case. When the facility is far, far behind you, you take a back road and pull into a shadowed space between some trees.

You slam to a stop, shift the gear to park, but keep the engine running. You clutch the steering so hard, you imagine it cracking beneath the force of your grip.

Chan still does not speak. The last time he spoke was on that rooftop. What now?

A damn good question.

You look at him. He is not sitting the way you would expect a machine of a man to be sitting. You would have thought the First Guard would sit straight-backed and braced for confrontation, but his slouch is almost insouciant. He sits with his knees apart, his body slanted where his elbow rests on the door. One gloved hand strums the door and the other is draped over his thigh. He looks at you without any expression you can interpret.

You are tired. Your body hurts. Your father is dead and the operation is changing and your only friend is suffering and you can’t do anything about any of it. This morning you held a modicum of control over your life – or you thought you did – and now everything has spiralled.

You know logically that Chan is a victim of Miroh, but right now it does not matter. He is an infuriating figure of composure, not to mention your father’s greatest weapon, and that combination snaps the elastic thread of your patience, already stretched to its limits.

“Take off the fucking mask,” you say.

He stares at you, his expression still unreadable. You are tempted to reach across and rip the mask off his face. You would definitely not succeed, no match for his reflexes on a good day, but logic is inconsequential in the face of your emotions.

He doesn’t test you. He stares for another moment then raises one gloved hand. He unhooks the mask and peels it off. He runs the other hand over his face and through his hair.

You are not sure what you were expecting. The same brown eyes stare back at you, lined with a smudged shadow to look as dark and intimidating as possible. His brows are thick and dark, his hair as black, sweat loosening the slick style so a single curly tuft falls over his forehead.

You follow the slope of his nose down to his mouth. His mouth is closed and he is not smiling. He has full lips, almost too pretty for what he is. Glancing at that mouth on that too-pretty face, you picture a dimple smiled. The memory is almost a blur, a smear of an image over his face. You blink and it’s gone, his stoic face staring back at you.

“What is it?” he says. His voice is like the rest of him, too big in this small space. You swear it shakes the car and the earth under it, though that is ridiculous. It’s just a voice. He’s just a man.

Except he’s not. He’s something else, something that should not have done what he did. You have a million questions. You need those answers before you can continue but it all jumbles together in your head. It’s all too much, the flashes of today, of the past, of an uncertain future full of even more violence.

You finally turn off the engine and get out of the car. You have no intention of going anywhere, but you need space.

You pace in a long line, breathing in and out, using every trick in the book to ease your racing heart. After a minute, you hear the passenger door open. You look over your shoulder at Chan.

You can’t help the instinctive reaction to measure him like an adversary. It doesn’t help he has pummelled you twice in the last few months, not to mention his horrid reputation in an already horrid place. It would be stupid not to brace yourself.

He approaches you cautiously. He has the gall to raise a hand like you are the wild thing and he is the tamer.

“Easy,” he says. His voice is not so booming out here. Other than the dark combat uniform, he almost looks normal, his whole face open to you, eyes narrowed with intense focus.

It makes you breathe harder, the exhale shaky. He notices because he tries to placate you.

He smiles.

It is forced and unpracticed, but there are those dimples, just like you thought. You would have been less startled if he bared his teeth like an animal. The smile unnerves you, undoing all the calming work of your exercises.

“It’s all right,” he says in a frighteningly gentle voice. He tilts his head as he looks at you. “It’s just me, yeah?”

Just him. Like that should comfort you. You suppose you can marginally see things from his perspective, that maybe he has proved himself. After all, he helped you escape. It is obvious he is not doing this for your father or he would not have let you kill him. This is not part of a grand plan. There is no strategy. It’s all over.

It’s just you and him.

It does not comfort you the way he evidently thinks it should. Now is the time to ask those million questions, but you are beyond words. You are a live wire and that pitiful attempt at a truce ignites a flare of angry sparks.

You were built to fight. It punches out of you. Literally.

Chan is faster than you. He dodges your swing with ease, fast as an electric current himself.

“Hey now,” he says, holding out both hands. “Don’t—”

You know you can’t win this fight. You know it’s stupid to try. But each swing flies out of you, instinctive as breathing. He catches every blow, bats your hands out of the way, but he doesn’t swing back. His refusal to fight infuriates you. It makes you feel as helpless as you are.

An aggravated cry spills out of you, a strain behind your eyes as you take another swing.

“Stop it,” he snaps, his smile gone.

He finally goes on the offense, catching your hands and pinning them down. There is a moment of struggle before you feel the driver door at your backside, his body caging you in. You rear up against him but he holds you down, hip to hip, hand to hand.

“I said stop it,” he says. “What are you doing?”

“What am I doing?” you ask, voice breaking. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Your chest is pressed against his, moving with your breath while he stands like an ungiving wall. You glare at him and he stares back. His brow furrows in seeming confusion. He closes both eyes and breathes out, a steadying breath.

You thought seeing him lose composure would make you feel better, but you feel worse, more unnerved than before.

He looks at you, a muscle in his jaw feathering when he clenches it. You stare at it as he releases you.

“You must know I can’t trust you,” you say.

You make the mistake of lifting your hands to shove him away. You do not intend to punch him again, the worst of that aggression gone, but he doesn’t know that. You suppose you can’t blame him for his instincts after your demonstration.

When you lift your hands, he grabs your wrists. Swiftly and effortlessly, he pins your hands by your head.

“Oh,” he says. His eyebrows lift and his face is far more expressive than you expected. “I’m the one who can’t be trusted, right?”

“Excuse me?” you snap.

“I’m doing my job, yeah,” he says. “Yesterday you were running jobs for Daddy and today you shot him dead. Wanna talk about erratic behaviour? Wanna talk about who’s unpredictable? About who can trust who here?”

Your mouth parts with a useless, breathless rebuttal, stammering and empty. You didn’t expect that many words from him, not when he has been a silent shadow for so long. Never mind the easy, casual speech, every colloquialism and the taunting hurl of daddy. It makes you think of that scathing, troublesome boy he once was, as sharp with his tongue as everything else. But he is not that boy. You know for a fact he was broken. He has done all those jobs for Miroh without causing any strife in the operation. He is a weapon and nothing more. He exists to follow orders.

Until today. Until you.

“So?” you finally say, because what else can you say?

“So?” he repeats.

“So.” You have those million questions, but there is only one that really matters. “What are we? Soldiers without a general? Because right now it seems like we’re two people who have no reason to trust each other and no reason to work together.”

Your gazes are locked and you measure each other. Not that you are much of a threat to him. He has you pinned with very little effort. If you were at your fighting best, you like to think it would be a little challenge, but right now you stand no chance against him.

But he doesn’t want to hurt you or he would have done it already.

He drops your hands. He doesn’t step away, still regarding you with that scrutinous eye, but it is a menial demonstration of trust.

You drop your arms. You stare back at him, refusing to show the depth of your weakness. You think his body might be keeping yours upright, your legs so weak. You do everything in your power to keep your wild emotions in check, to keep the tears in the back of your eyes. You breathe deeply.

“I’ll help you find your friend,” Chan says, the last thing you expect him to say. You can only watch as he sighs and speaks. “You were my last mission,” he says. “Miroh told me to bring you in. I did. He wanted me to watch you. I am. He wanted me to be your—” He laughs but it is not a happy sound, dry and devoid of pleasure. “Your bodyguard, I guess.” He shakes his head. “Consider this me following orders,” he says. “That’s what I do, yeah? I follow orders. And I don’t leave a job unfinished. Ever.”

“And Miroh?” you say tentatively. “The fact I killed him?”

He shrugs dramatically, hands open in surrender.

“Miroh didn’t make me his bodyguard,” Chan says. “He made me yours.”

It is such preposterously simple logic that you laugh, a disbelieving bark of a sound. You look around at nothing, like the answer to your ridiculous circumstance is in the trees or the road.

When you look at Chan, he is still looking at you, his brow quirked inquisitively.

“Well?” he says. “Is that enough? Can we work together to finish this last job?”

“Your job,” you say slowly. You meet his eyes. “So that’s what I am to you?”

It’s meant to be an easy question with a reassuring answer. He is a soldier. You are his job. He will do what you ask. It’s as simple as that.

He tilts his head as he looks at you. His contemplation is too heavy. It was a simple question for a simple soldier who should speak no language outside of missions and reports.

His gaze is searing and it makes your heart skip a startled beat.

“Yes,” he says. He speaks the word like it’s exhausting to say out loud. It lands with a thud on an exhale. “My job.”

His forearm is planted by your head. His other hand grips your bicep. He is keeping you in place with his hips and thighs. You can feel the tension in his body.

You have no idea why you do what you do. It comes from the same place as those desperate punches. You know it’s useless, you know nothing will come of it, but you ride the propulsion of adrenaline. Your body, on the brink of desperation, has been pushed to its utmost capabilities in the last couple hours. What does it want? What do you want?

What did you ever really want?

You kiss him.

It shocks you both. Unlike the punch, he does not know how to retaliate. He stands there, breathing into your mouth. He is neither encouraging nor withdrawing.

You stop quickly and wipe your mouth. Mortification sets in.

None of this is like you. You blame stress. Your body is confused and hurt. You need recuperation. Whether you like it or not, you need comfort too. It is a deep internal call, only human. But you won’t be getting that from the solid, inhuman wall around you.

You push at that wall and it finally gives. Chan steps back. You doubt a punch would have moved him so easily as that kiss.

“Ignore that,” you say. “Adrenaline. I’m still – not right.”

He just stares, once more a silent shadow. You breathe out in a huff.

“Okay,” you say. “And we’re back to the staring. At least I know you’re still working.”

You turn to open the car door, effectively ending the tense exchange. Chan walks away. He silently circles the car to reach the passenger door. You look at his face, once more stoic and expressionless. He doesn’t look at you, dropping into the vehicle without another glance or sound.

You close your eyes. You take another deep breath of fresh air.

Maybe this is good. Maybe Chan is the ally you need right now. Someone level, someone only concerned with mission parameters. Someone who will not become compromised because of emotion.

Because you are very compromised.

You are not thinking clearly. You need a plan and some water and rest.

You get in the car. You start the engine. You don’t speak another word.

You drive for hours, wanting distance between you and the destruction.

The silence in the car is piercing, your head aching after the first hour. The little space acts like an echo chamber for your tumultuous thoughts. You keep replaying the day, every death and cry. You think about your security team strewn across those stairs, just another casualty in Miroh’s game. You think about your father, the unplanned murder but the utter lack of regret in your heart.

You think about Changbin. Your reckless side wants to look for him right now. You cannot stand to waste another second. Based on your father’s words, he could be anywhere, subject to any number of horrors. But despite the whirlwind tempest of your mind, there is a soldier inside you and she is more pragmatic. You are in no condition to fight. Even if you knew Changbin’s exact location, you would be no use to him. You need to rest, formulate a legitimate plan, then attack.

You can’t afford to make any mistakes. Better than anyone, you know the forces you are up against.

You pull into a highway fill-up station at dusk. The car needs fuel and so do you. There is a little shop near the fuel pumps, the place deserted other than the bored cashier behind the counter.

There was some cash in the glove box, enough for necessities. You will inevitably need to steal or manipulate, but you prefer to lay low tonight. You were careful to avoid traffic cameras and security tv as you exited the previous city. By the time the car is reported and Miroh’s operation works out your connection, you will be off the grid.

You turn off the engine and reach for the wallet. Chan snatches it first.

“What are you doing?” is spoken in unison.

“I’m going to buy us some fucking water and food,” you say.

“Are you? Really?” He gives you a pointed up-and-down look. “You gonna do that looking like you just played cannonball with a cement wall?”

You have not gotten a good look at yourself, just a flash in the rearview mirror, but he is probably right. You feel like utter shit so you must look it too.

“Well, you can’t go in there either,” you say. Even without the mask, he is clearly in an unusual uniform. A bored clerk will remember a terrifying soldier in combat clothes marching through his shop.

Chan flashes you a dimpled smile, frighteningly charming.

“Sure I can,” he says. “Just have to blend in.”

Your eyes widen as he discards both gloves then opens the neck of his shirt. You stare as he efficiently strips off his top layers.

If he looked powerful in the uniform, he looks as just as intimidating without it. He doesn’t boast gargantuan proportions but he doesn’t need it. There is lethal strength to the rolling musculature of his sturdy body.

You shouldn’t care. Soldiers strip all the time, long assignments and shared compartments making it an inevitability. But Chan is not just another soldier. In your head, he is that living shadow, covered all the way up to his eyes in the Miroh black and blue. Seeing all that skin is a startling reminder of the man under the mask.

You find Chan watching you, amused. That stupid eyebrow is quirked again.

“What?” you snap.

“Nothing,” he replies. “Be right back. Don’t miss me too bad.”

You roll your eyes, slumping in your seat as he gets out of the car. You have half a mind to drive away but you are pretty sure he would find a way to manifest at your destination anyway.

You watch as he enters the shop in a nonchalant stroll, wearing just his pants and boots. He waves at the cashier and says something that makes him laugh.

To his credit, Chan looks like a regular guy on a hot day, casually perusing a gas station shop. He makes small talk with the cashier and they laugh some more.

You knew Chan was a good soldier but you didn’t expect him to be such a good agent too. He is probably better at the civilian act than you. You are standoffish and opt for a quiet demeanour, blending in through invisibility rather than a persona.

Chan walks in and out, the cashier unaware of the nature of his customer. You return to the road with a full of tank of gas and some sustenance.

“Are you going to put your shirt back on?” you ask.

He gives you a side-eye as he shrugs the outermost layer back on. He doesn’t do it up. You refuse to act like a glimpse of his bare chest means anything to you.

Except it does. When he sits there with his knee against the console and his skin showing and a tuft of hair over his forehead, he looks like a person. He is a person, one who has been subject to some of the worst horrors of Miroh’s operation.

There is no denying Chan is a complicated figure, unwillingly complicit in atrocities. He acts like a normal person with a fully cognizant mind, but you just witnessed for yourself how easily he can fake that. You do not know how much of the real Bang Chan is actually inside him.

“Chan,” you say after a long time. The sun has almost fully set, the sky in its navy gloaming.

“Yeah?” he says.

There are no words that suffice. You could give an entire speech and it would be virtually meaningless.

“I’m sorry,” you say, leaving the breadth of the apology up to his interpretation. You keep your eyes on the endless miles of highway that stretch ahead. There is a long journey in front of you. There is a longer road behind you.

The car is illuminated with golden light from passing cars and overhead lamps. It flashes over his face in the deepening darkness.

“Don’t be,” Chan says. He crosses his arms in a protective position, looking out his window though there is nothing to see but the highway and passing cars. “None of this was your fault,” he says.

You laugh, a similar humourless sound to his earlier laughter.

“That’s not entirely true,” you say, thinking of all the missions you deliberately ran for Miroh. You thought you could make it mean something. You were just like your father, believing the ends would justify the means. You never tortured Chan yourself, but you were part of the operation that kept him in chains. There was nothing you could do to save him, but you certainly never tried.

He looks at you. You hear him move, the crinkle of his clothes, the water bottle he twists in his grip.

“I don’t blame you, you know,” he says. “Seriously. Today was crazy. Everything’s crazy. You’re not responsible for it.”

“I’m not not responsible,” you say. “My team is dead. My friend is gone. My dad – well, you can’t say I didn’t do that.”

“He had that one coming,” Chan says, his laugh a little more real. “No offense, but your dad kinda sucked.”

You find yourself laughing more genuinely too.

“Yeah,” you say. “I think we can agree on that.”

You fall into silence but it is more comfortable than before. There has been an undeniable tension since the moment he climbed in this car, looking at you with questioning confusion as you pointed a gun at him. You were panicking but he must have been equally bewildered. To him, you were a mission. He lives by his orders.

“I should apologize to you,” he says.

You look at him with obvious surprise. He meets your gaze, his expression sincere if not a little chagrined. His dimples show with a faint smile but it is not very happy.

“I’ve been an ass,” he says. “Today was – well.” He runs a hand through his hair.

“Trust me,” you say. You try to lighten the mood with your tone. “I’m a Miroh. You will never have to apologize to me for as long as you live.”

He doesn’t laugh or even force that pretend sound. He stares ahead, his gaze sorrowful and faraway.

“Sorry, that was—” you begin.

He forces a smile and shakes his head.

“Nah,” he says. “Truce?”

Smiling feels awkward and your injuries probably make you a terrifying sight. But he accepts it, nodding at you. The car does not feel like such a claustrophobic space after that. The air is clear as it can be, considering who you are.

Neither of you has an identity right now. You were tethered to the same monstrosity and now it is gone. Everything is different.

You are too tired for another late-night heart-to-heart. It is time for rest.

There is enough cash for a cheap motel room. You find a quiet inn off the highway, sequestered beyond trees and countryside fields. You finally look at yourself properly in the bathroom mirror. You decide Chan’s earlier remarks were a severe understatement. You look like a battleground more than a soldier.

You injures will repair themselves with time, but it is a grisly sight. You shower for now. The soap and water helps.

You don the same shirt and underwear. New clothes will be a necessity. You mentally plan tomorrow, everything you will need to accrue before you formulate an attack. You have already mentally plotted the closest facilities, but you will need to verify their function and security protocol before striking.

You are mentally strategize as you exit the bathroom. You are distracted, thinking nothing of the fact you are wearing underwear and a shirt.

Chan already showered because you insisted, knowing you would take longer with your injuries. He is sitting on one of the single beds, sorting through his weapons. There is the gun you stole from Miroh plus his own array of armaments, things so well hidden you did not realize he even had them. They are laid out on the bed. He sits at the foot in his combat pants and nothing else, his dark hair damp and face bare.

You stroll past him, feeling his eyes as they lift from a gun to your bare legs. Now that you have scrubbed the worst of the brutality from your body, you feel like something of a person again. His flicker of attention ignites an undeniable spark in your belly. At first, it startles you, because the First Guard is the absolute last person you should ever think of like that.

But then you look at him. He has turned his eyes back to his work, saying nothing as he reloads the gun with second-nature efficiency. He is holding a weapon but, despite his conditioning, he is just a man.

You are a grounded person. You keep your head down and go about your tasks with confident certainty. He is here, you are here, it has been a long day, and it is not unusual for soldiers to seek comfort before the dawn of a new fight. Comfort is as important in healing and recuperation as anything else.

You sit on your own bed and look at him. He is effortlessly attractive with his dark hair and dark eyes, the sloping muscle of his firm body. You trace his chest and abdomen with your eyes. He does not lift his gaze, his attention on the gun.

“Do you want to fuck?” you ask.

Bang Chan is the best soldier in the force. You are pretty sure he has never fumbled a weapon quite so spectacularly. It clatters to the floor and he kicks it under your bed.

“What!” he says. He doesn’t look at you as he retrieves the gun, laughing a comically nervous giggle. “Um… what?” he asks again. Before you can answer, he shakes his head. “That’s uh, wait. Um. No. Bad idea, right? I mean—”

“It’s just a suggestion,” you say, not really offended. “It’s been a long day. It doesn’t mean anything. We’re both adults here.”

As you say it, you consider his circumstances. Chan has spent his entire life in the house of Miroh. He is not innocent but he might be inexperienced. This man has killed dozens of people and worked dozens of dangerous operations. His body is built for violence, not pleasure, and certainly not his own.

You find yourself blurting, “Have you ever…?”

“Yes,” he says firmly, brow furrowing with annoyance.

“All right, all right, just asking,” you say. You decide not to push the topic because it clearly makes him uncomfortable. You just cleared the air and you don’t want to muddy it again.

You change the topic swiftly. You make some empty remark about the weather as you turn on the small television. It’s an old contraption, buzzing with static as it flickers to life.

Chan resumes his work. He puts his head down to concentrate.

Your gaze inevitably strays to him.

His hair dries curly. It feels like an unusual thing to know about the First Guard. He looks so much younger with a clean face.

You jump when that face lifts. He looks at you.

“It wasn’t… you know…” There is a hunch to his shoulders, his eyes dropping to his work. “I just did it on missions, ya know?”

“Did it,” you say. “On missions.” It doesn’t register right away, partly because you are tired and partly because you did not expect him to continue this conversation. “You mean sex?” you ask. “You had sex on missions?”

“I had sex for missions,” he corrects, eyes on the weapon he is disassembling. He is acting like the conversation is meaningless, his attention divided, but you know his task does not require that degree of concentration. He could take that thing apart in perfect darkness.

“For missions,” you repeat. “What, like a honeypot type scheme? You?”

It seems ridiculous at first. You picture the First Guard smashing through windows and tackling you in stairwells. There is nothing seductive about that raw violence. But then you look at the man in front of you, young and handsome, the one who so easily charmed that cashier while pretending he was someone else. You picture him in a suit and tie, maybe a t-shirt and jeans. He would be devastating with the right preparation.

Chan is the best. Maybe it shouldn’t surprise you he would excel regardless of the scheme.

“Something like that,” he says. He finally loads the magazine. “It wasn’t so bad, though. Seriously.” He twirls the gun with an effortless flourish. The grip finds his palm like the pistol is a part of him. “Trust me. My body was used for worse things. You get that too, yeah?”

You suppose you relate well enough. You were raised in the same program, put through the same grueling regimen. You have done things and you are not proud of them all. Your circumstances are not the same, though. You are each uniquely situated in your positions, even if you started in the same place.

We’re all that’s left.

Changbin’s voice in your head causes your mind to drift.

“What about you?” Chan asks, drawing you back to the conversation.

“Me?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he says. “You.”

The First Guard is asking you about your sex life. You woke this morning in a safe house and put on combat gear, ready for another mundane day of field work. Somewhere in the middle of that was a cascade of violence. Now Bang Chan is asking about your sexual proclivities. If you weren’t so exhausted, you would laugh.

“I mean, nothing special,” you say, sufficing for the boring truth. “Mostly just this. Sex doesn’t really mean anything to me. It’s like exercise. Long nights on a job. You know. Fellow soldiers on a mission. Sometimes a civilian hook-up.”

You can’t parse the expression on his face. His gaze is somewhat judgemental, or maybe it is just scrutinizing, intensely focussed. It bristles your nerves. Your tone is more derisive when you say, “I’m not a romantic.” You hold his intense stare in your own. “Sex is just a bodily function to me. Sometimes the body needs the release or the pleasure or whatever, so I satisfy it and move on. That’s who I am. I work. I get the job done. That’s what I have always done.”

What you always did. You are not sure how to describe yourself anymore. You nonetheless punctuate that definitive statement. You assume that is the end of the conversation.

Then Chan asks, “So there’s… no one… for you?”

If he was any other soldier, you would think he was angling for flirtation, but he just turned down your very blatant offer. You do not know why he has any motivation to ask such personal and irrelevant questions.

It is not worth the argument. You conclude with a simple, “No.”

He nods, rocking his whole body with the force of his too-casual gesture. The tips of his ears are red, though your gaze does not stay there. You are quickly distracted by his bicep. He lifts an arm to rub the back of his neck, muscles softly rippling. His brazen questioning coupled with his awkward shyness is incongruous.

You think it is unlikely you will ever understand this man. He has been taken apart and put back together too many times. Fragments of him seem to fire all at once and in great contradiction.

“What about Changbin?” he asks. “He must be pretty special to you. Ya know, for you to have done all this for him.”

You are simultaneously struck by repulsion and sentiment. Changbin is very special and you regret not realizing it sooner. He has always been at your side, taking hits to protect you well before he became your bodyguard. He is the person who kept you smiling. You understood each other on a different level. His friendship was a rare gift and you took it for granted. Now you would do anything to have it back.

But also…

It’s Changbin. Ew. You are an only child but you feel a brotherly affection for him. Picturing him in any other context is nauseating. It just feels wrong.

You have such a visceral reaction of disgust that Chan laughs. He puts up his hands as if in surrender.

“Sorry, sorry, my bad,” he says. “Just friends, then?”

“Yes,” you say. “Though there’s nothing just about it.”

You have replayed that rooftop exchange a hundred times, torturing yourself with every possible outcome. If only you did this, if only he did that. You rearrange every second, trying to find a version with a different ending.

You wonder how he will react when he finds out what you did. Aha, murder princess living up to her name! he might say. The old man should have seen it coming. I knew you could it, but of course I did. I’m so much smarter and better looking than everyone else here.

You smile at the idea but it fades quickly.

Changbin was with you last night. He was sitting within arm’s reach, his scar under your fingertips. Now he could be anywhere and it’s all your fault. Not just because of the rooftop mistakes, but because of every mistake you made before that.

You exhale. Your shoulders shake. Chan watches you close a fist around a pillow.

“You all right?” he asks.

“I’m ending it,” you say.

“Sorry, what?”

“I always thought Miroh was an inevitability.” You are speaking out loud but mostly to yourself. Your gaze is fixed on some distant point, your mind and heart miles away. “But he wasn’t,” you say. “No more soldiers. No more experiments. No more bribes and theft and terror. My father is dead and I am going to do what I should have done a long time ago. I am going to make sure his work dies with him.”

You look at Chan. A day ago, you both existed for Miroh. Now you are two people planning to dismantle an empire from a motel room and a stolen car.

“Do you have a problem with that?” you ask.

A part of you is braced for the worst, that he will reject it, that he will revert to some kind of conditioned programming and drag you back to a facility for condemnation.

Even while you think it, you know it won’t happen. The eyes staring back at you are as clear as your own.

“I’m just the bodyguard,” Chan says. “I go wherever you go. Always.”

You feel invigorated to start now, but you are tired beneath the burst of adrenaline. You need to let your body heal.

The room is dark and you doze in the light of the television. After a couple hours, you roll over and find Chan is still awake. He is laying on his bed, arms crossed and eyes open. He is watching the shopping channel, ad after ad after ad, with far more intensity than it merits. His mind must be somewhere else. You can only imagine what he is thinking about.

You wonder how much he knows about himself. He responded to your half-coherent treasonous pleading. Does he remember hating Miroh? Or is he truly only helping you because of mission parameters?

It is easy to forget when he is a bare-faced, curly-haired young man slouching in a motel bed, but Bang Chan is lethally competent. He knew all of Miroh’s innermost schemes. It will come in handy now, but it makes him an irrevocably dark character, whether it was willing or not.

You wonder how much Changbin would trust him.

Wait.

You were so distracted with your plans, you did not question a moment in your conversation.

Chan mentioned Changbin.

You never told Chan the identity of your friend. When you were pleading with him, you just called him a friend.

Maybe Chan heard you talking to your father. Maybe he knows about your relationships because that was his job. Maybe he just guessed because Changbin volunteered himself in the ring.

Maybe Bang Chan remembers more than he is letting on.

You fall asleep to the soft drone of the television. Your mind is walking in circles and you dream of similar rings. Nightmares of chrome cages and steel traps, a suffocating helplessness squeezing your ribcage.

In your dreams, the room fills with smoke, a charcoal smog that chokes you as quickly as the compression on your chest. You look down but you can’t see your body, only feel it. Your invisible body struggles against invisible bindings. You gasp for breath.

Your father appears. It is him holding you down, a heavy hand in the middle of your chest. You cry out. You want to move but your body is trapped.

You close your eyes. When you open them, Changbin is there. He is still a teenager. His head is bleeding – why is his head bleeding? – but he wipes the blood as if it’s nothing more than sweat, all his focus on you.

Of course it is. He’s your friend. He’s here to save you. How did you not see it before? It’s like you have been moving through the world in a fog, the same grey smoke that envelopes you now. His face is the only clear image, gawky with youth but alive and real.

The weight is lifted off your chest. Black spots swarm your vision as you suck in a lungful of air.

When you look again, Changbin is grown. He looks like he did a day ago, dark bangs in his eyes, stocky build ready for a fight.

“I’m not leaving here without you.”

Not leaving here.

His voices dances around you. You are trapped in your body, a screaming, shrieking force, watching through dead eyes as the world spins. People pass but they don’t hear you. You try to reach for someone but your body doesn’t respond to your thoughts.

A labyrinthine stretch of road unfurls then disappears. You are standing in the infirmary at the main facility. You stare at yourself, the younger version of you. You are already dead behind the eyes, resigned to your situation. There are masked doctors around you. A tray full of needles. You watch as the long point penetrates your skin. You’re just a child, arm so small in comparison.

Your child face contorts with pain, an expression your adult face cannot mimic because you cannot control your face.

You remember the pain, even if you cannot cry. It was like nothing you had ever felt. The pain meant it was working. The medicant was only administered to you when it had been thoroughly tested. The first injection killed every subject except one. The second program was a success.

The children were writhing in pain for weeks, screaming and crying, begging for parents that never came. Yours did, looming over your bedside, touching your feverish forehead and speaking through the fog of pain.

An investment, Miroh called it. You’ll thank me one day.

Changbin is there. He is a child too. They put a needle in his skinny arm. He winces but he doesn’t cry. He isn’t scared of the needles or the pain, but he isn’t eager either. He is just there, his head down.

You blink and he is grown. The needle is still in his arm, only it is not an injection but an extraction. You watch the fullness of his face wither. They are taking too much. He becomes a child again, screaming in pain.

The same pain moves inside you.

No, worse.

Worse.

You never could have imagined a worse pain. It courses through your whole body, peeling apart your insides while you lay there, helpless, watching.

Your father stands over you. You’ll thank me one day.

He disappears. For a flickering moment, you see Bang Chan. Curly-haired, dimpled cheeks. He stutters and shakes like a bad film projection. His face contorts, changes. Wide dark eyes stare at you, his face covered in rain – water – tears? Pouring down his cheeks, mouth open and a mute cry in the grey.

You want to touch him but you cannot move. His face flickers again. You feel a tiny, infinitesimal twitch in your pinky.

Then he disappears altogether. Your father is there. He grabs you by the shoulders and slams you down, straight through the earth, holding you there in the darkness where no one can find you and you cannot move.

“Hey—” comes a voice, somehow reaching you in the depths of that pit. “Hey, hey, hey, wake up.”

In your dream, your father shoves you.

In reality, you are thrashing in a motel bed.

It takes a minute to realize you are awake, that everything was just a terrible dream. Your adrenaline is a white hot heat in your chest, your voice a strangled shriek as you clamour around the twisting sheets.

“Hey, it’s all right,” Chan says. “You’re just dreaming, whoa, easy, c’mon… It’s all good. Easy now. Breathe for me, okay?”

It feels like your first breath in years. It goes down shaky, your vision blurry. You realize Chan is holding your wrist, lightly but carefully. You blink up at him. He turned on the bedside light at some point. Half his face is lit in gold as he looks at you with concern. It is such a strange expression to see on him. These were the same eyes glaring at you over that uniform mask. Now that brow is pinched with worry, his own breath a staggered thing.

“You all right?” he asks.

You are sitting upright. You look at your wrist in his hand.

“Did I try to punch you again?” you ask.

“You missed,” he says, smiling. Then he shakes his head and says more seriously, “It was my fault. You were yelling in your sleep so I woke you up. I guess it was too fast or something. Just, you know, I don’t think the walls are very thick here.”

“Right,” you say. Your heart is still stampeding. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” he says. “You… you good…?”

“Yeah,” you say. You are too weary for patience, so sarcasm spills out of you. “Peachy.”

He opens his mouth but you don’t wait to hear it. You slide out of bed and land on shaky legs. Your whole body is covered in a sheen of sweat. You want to shower, wash away the nightmare and the terror.

You are a light sleeper. You never dream like that. It is a testament to your exhaustion that you fell into such a deep sleep.

You tell yourself it was a dream, but your reassurances don’t work. Because it wasn’t really a dream, was it? It was flashes of real moments, real faces, real pain.

You stand under steady stream of hot water. You watch as the heat and the torrent opens a few scrapes, the water at your feet turning red. You think of Changbin with a needle in his arm, all that red pouring out of him. Standing there, helpless to do anything, like you are right now.

You have no idea where he is. You look at the scar on your palm and think of him in the moonlight, him in the ring, him at your side. A smile, a joke, a reassurance. A hand in yours, a promise.

He knew you better than you know yourself. He predicted this exact crisis of identity.

When it’s just you and you’re trying to decide who you want to be, not who your father wants you to be… When you’re trying to remember everything and you can’t decide what was real and what was just training and what was Miroh…

He drew that line across his palm. You picture a chasm of a wound, gaping and red, rushing red at your feet.

Just remember me, he said. I didn’t bleed because I believe in Miroh. I’m your soldier, not his.

True to his word, a man of principle to the end, he is bleeding for you right now.

In all your years of training, fighting, and soldiership, of missions and schemes, tricks and plots, you have always kept composure. Now it all weighs on you at once, every single second of your life, and it’s too much.

When was the last time you cried? You can’t even remember. It pours out of you now, big ugly gasping sobs that spill into the shower. You sit down where the water is pooling in pink. You wrap your arms around your legs and draw them up to your chest like a child.

You do not know how long you sit there, crying until it feels like there is no more water left in your body. It must be a long time because the water runs from hot to lukewarm. It feels strange to heave dry sobs with the shower still pouring down on you.

The water abruptly stops. You lift your head.

Chan stands there. He doesn’t look at you directly, his expression solemn, but he turns off the water and gets you a towel.

It feels surreal. Bang Chan is moving around a small motel bathroom, helping you like he has helped you all day. You stare at him with scrunched, sore eyes, your throat too strained to speak. You drop your legs and let him wrap the towel around you. Your heart kicks with momentary fright when he scoops you up, an effortless sweep.

No one has ever done something like this for you. You wouldn’t have let them, even if they tried.

You need it. You never realized how much you needed it. You are certain you will feel embarrassed in the morning, but right now you put your arms around his neck and cling for dear life.

He says nothing. He hooks an arm around your back and the other under your legs. He carries you back into the room and lays you in your bed, adjusting the towel for your modesty before pulling the blankets over you.

You continue to sputter and hiccup, looking at him as he moves. You wonder if he looks like this on a mission, determined and swift.

No. The First Guard wouldn’t fix the pillows under your head. He wouldn’t tuck the blankets around you.

Bang Chan stands over you, wearing nothing but his combat pants, no weapons or masks or piercing stares. He has curly dark hair and a soft face. When you touch his bare shoulder, he looks at you with a heart-shattering amount of tenderness. You didn’t know anyone could look at somebody that way, never mind him, never mind at you.

There’s a person inside him. There’s a person inside you. You don’t know who either of those people are, but you want to know. You need to know.

You curl your hand into a fist and feel the scar on your palm. A day ago, none of this would have mattered, but you know why it matters now.

“We have to find him,” you say. Your rasping voice is barely above a whisper.

Chan slowly cups his hand over yours, his palm to your knuckles, holding your touch against his shoulder. He squeezes your fingers. He nods.

“We will,” he says.

“You’ll help me?” you say.

“Yeah.” His own voice is a rasp, skirting the edge of emotion too. He swallows it down and smiles at you. “Like I said. I go wherever you go. Always.”

He sits with you in the soft golden light of that small bedside lamp. You do not think you can sleep again, but then exhaustion settles over you.

You are on the cusp of sleep when he touches your forehead. Your eyes meet briefly. It wakes you with a heart flutter, similar to a dream that drops you into reality. It is the heart-racing thump of a sudden fall. The kind that feels so real, more like a memory than a dream.

#bang chan x reader #chan x reader #bang chan x you #chan x you #skz x reader #stray kids x reader #skz x you #stray kids x you #bang chan fanfiction #stray kids fanfiction #skz fanfiction

407 notes · View notes

that-salty-ghost · 2 months ago

Text

As Above, So Below | Chapter 29: Exceptions| Viktor [Arcane] // Male Reader | Rating: M Throughout

Word Count: ~4.9k Summary: Viktor pushes your buttons until he's busy with other activities Tags: swearing, sexual tension, flirting, kissing, mage-y stuff Last Chpt: First Aid

Check my pinned post for more details/previous chapters/etc.

Some silent moments pass as you finish patching Viktor up—thankfully without further mention of the kind of effect he has on your nervous system.

The wind still howls, the snowstorm still rages on, but the two of you couldn’t be bothered inside these walls.

The air settles easily between you as you trail off into lighter conversations—Viktor’s voice dropping low and gentle as he tells you more about the little things that shape his life.

Like how he loves crossword puzzles, the sound of birds singing in the morning, and skipping stones on the water at dusk. That he likes to have something to sip on when he finds time to cook. That he hates public speaking. That he’s trying to stop picking at the callouses on his palms when he fidgets.

You share your own quirks and stories too—telling him about your ever-growing record collection, how Jeff followed you home from the Freljord, how you can’t dance for shit but know your way around the pole at the brothel.

You tell him that you don’t particularly miss your father, but you do miss his war horse. That you also prefer cooking with a drink in hand, and that you’ve been meaning to finish a puzzle that Viktor said he spotted at R&R’s.

When he politely asks if he can help you with it, you’re not sure how anyone could ever tell this man no when his eyes are beaming with that much excitement.

Which is also why you don’t have the heart to tell him that it’s not finished because deep down, you hated that puzzle down to its microscopic, way-too-identical, 3,000-piece guts.

It hurt your back to bend over it for so long, it was likely missing a minimum of a dozen pieces at this point, hell—even the image of some obscure landscape didn’t even pique your interest.

But Viktor does.

And who were you to rob him of the little things that he found joy in. To rob yourself of more time that you could spend with him.

Of course you agree.

You’re about to cap the salve and pack it up when Viktor’s question shifts the conversation back to everything that’s just transpired.

“Does ehh…anyone else know about you? About what you can do?” His question comes quietly and you’re not sure you’ll ever get use to how tender his voice sounds when he’s curious about something sensitive.

“Remy. And my fence…friend?...” You tinker with that title mentally before shrugging the semantics away. “…but I uh…I don’t think he remembers.” You scoff under your breath at that probability.

“What?” His brow quirks and you realize Viktor doesn’t know anything about Kass. “I’m failing to see how this is a forgettable experience.”

You’re amused that he’s more curious about the man’s memory rather than his questionable occupation, but try to answer all the same. “Kass uh…frequently dips into the pool of mind-altering substances.”

“Ah,” The machinist offers a small smile and a “Yes, I suppose that would do it.” to let that fact lie for now.

You offer a weak grin in return and try to give him a little more context. “He’s the one that said to ditch my backpack for the shoulder suspenders.”

“The one who said you would look like a workaholic?”

“That’s him.”

“Hm.”

He pauses with that information and you try to decipher where his mind went. Rather than pry, you just give him a little more. “He can be a lot. Definitely has some demons hot on his heels, but I think you would like him.”

“If he suggested that you wear those suspenders, I already do.”

Before you light up the room for the third godsdamned time you pull your hand from Viktor’s and let the glow slowly subside from your fingertips. You quickly eye the leather accessory in the corner of the room, still drying out near the fire when Viktor’s voice pulls your attention back to him.

“So, I’m only the third person who knows…that you’re a mage, I mean.”

His reversion back to the original topic at hand is not unwelcome. You nod, the realization finally hitting you that you’ve allowed this crush of three days in on one of the most vulnerable parts about you. A choice your father would’ve punished you for. Something he would’ve said would be the death of you if you didn’t put Viktor down first.

But you sit calmly, confident in your decision being the right one.

“I just…for both of our safety, have to ask you not to tell anyone else…I know that’s not fair—”

“Of course that’s fair.” He interrupts your incoming trail of apologies and you feel that his fingers shifted from his leg to the side of your knee. “And you have my word.” His swift understanding only furthers your conviction and your father’s voice immediately fades from your mind. “Though, I’m curious—with so few people that know—what made you trust me?”

“It was…kind of a gut feeling…?”

“Sharing something that personal is driven by your microbiome?”

“It’s hard to describe.”

“Try me?”

He clearly wants more, still not sure if you’re being completely honest. You try to explain it better.

“I used to think it was my mother looking out for me. I’m not so sure about that. Maybe it's just intuition, but…sometimes I get this…pull. I don’t have a better word but it’s strong. And I know I can trust it…so I know I can trust you too…”

Viktor’s expression softens and he seems to understand despite your poorly worded explanation. You reach for a washrag to dab up any excess salve and it hits why you showed the other man what you could do in the first place.

“This happened when you tripped up that pickpocket didn’t it?” You reach for his arm to assess his wrist one more time, feeling good about your work after checking for any residual inflammation.

Feeling good about having an almost-normal excuse to hold his hand again as well.

Viktor inhales through his mouth which quickly turns into a lopsided grin. He pauses, pressing his lips back together again without saying a word and flicks his gaze from your hands back up.

Feeling his eyes on yours, you stop what you’re doing to glance up at him. In an instant you realize his boyish ‘I’ve been caught’ expression has probably kept him out of trouble in many instances. Endearing was an understatement you think to yourself as your voice wavers.

“You’ve been sore all night?” The space in between your brows pinch together as that thought sinks in.

“That wrist is usually sore by the end of every night.” Viktor shrugs offhandedly like it was nothing for him until you catch him peering at his cane in the corner of your eye. You wondered quietly if that was the cause of said everyday soreness.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I didn’t want to ruin the night.”

“Ruin the night? You didn’t capsize a boat.”

“That didn’t ruin the night.”

“This certainly wouldn’t have either.”

A quiet “Hm.” is all he mumbles as he notices you’ve finished up. There’s a small selfish part of you that wants to pretend like you’re still working so you can keep his hand in yours awhile longer, but you loosen your grip as a signal that it was fine to move.

“How’s that feel? Any better?”

Viktor lifts his hand to stretch out his fingers, eyes widening after he experimentally rolls out his wrist. The disbelief that surfaces in his expression evident as he turns his hand with ease. “It—yes much more than usual…” He eyes the salve then your hand before his gaze finds yours again. “How…is that possi—?” The wily expression that plagues you gives Viktor pause, apprehensively tilting his head, jaw still slack with a brow arched. “…What…?”

“Just thinking about what it would’ve been like if you would’ve told me sooner.” It’s the first time you’ve thrown a little shade at Viktor. You know the man is quick, but you weren’t fully prepared for how he fully throws it right back.

With a toothy grin, he scoffs. Pressing his tongue to cheek and begrudgingly nodding at your comment with an “Ah…” Viktor’s demeanor shifts into something more playful, catching you completely off guard when he abruptly stands without warning. You reflexively scoot back, nearly falling off of the footrest as you do. He only gives you a teasing shrug—you can practically hear the sarcastic “whoops” he wants to say before he makes his way towards the door.

Your brows furrow as you get up to shadow him, a puzzled grin forming more fully with each step. “What are…” A chuckle escapes you as you try to figure out what he’s up to. “Where are you going now?”

“Oh.” He turns his head like he isn’t aware that he has you perfectly confused, motioning to the door with brows raised in feigned innocence. “Just thinking about taking mistress Linda up on that sleepover she so graciously offered.”

“Mistress Lin—is that actually her name?” Amusement seeps into your tone at his empty threat of joining the woman who recently propositioned him.

“Sure.”

“Suuure?” You watch Viktor bite back a laugh as you call him out. “You don’t know her name, but you’re ready to jump into bed with her?” You muse as you take a step closer to him. “You don’t seem the type.”

“I’ve been known to make exceptions.” He reaches for the doorknob, giving you a lighthearted challenge before shrugging nonchalantly. “And I’ve done worse.” The way he delivers the line, you have to believe him. And the pause it gives you is palpable.

You stand speechless for a moment while he cocks a brow at you to test his honesty. But you do no such thing. You’re not sure how far he’s gone with anyone, but you begin to realize that he may have more experience than you might’ve initially anticipated.

And based on the sly smile beginning to weave into lips that you imagine would look much better in between your teeth…you figure your theory is likely correct.

As he slowly starts to tease apart your self-control, you had to admit, Viktor has you wrapped around his little finger when he’s like this.

Crafty and collected and completely merciless with keeping you on your toes.

Toying with you and testing the waters to see if you were willing to go toe-to-toe with him.

And while your elusive confidence usually made it difficult to find the right words when he was around, wit was a game that brought it back to the forefront.

So, you bite.

“You could also do better.”

Secretly, you’re just as taken aback as Viktor looks as soon as the words leave your mouth. But still, you double-down and take a step towards the man whose hand is now slowly slipping off of the door’s handle. He collects himself with a small nod—a touché before starting to level with you.

“So, your intentions were to bed me in a cheap room after all?”

“Bed you?” You repeat back, his choice of words throwing you for a loop before you pick at the details of his accusation. “Viktor, this is far from cheap.”

“You’re not denying it?”

“Denying what?”

His small turn on his heels draws you a little closer, clearly not backing down from this subtle dance as he quips back.

“If you want to play coy you should’ve stayed in the river.”

“Coy…was that a fish pun?”

“You do seem to love those.”

His crooked grin adequately accents his unfortunately true accusation…you do appreciate the occasional tasteful pun.

“Clearly not as much as you seem to love Linda.”

It wasn’t your best counterpoint. You were struggling with your rebuttal after taking another step and catching the familiar scent of smoke from the stove and cardamom from Viktor. The smallest hint of herbal soap from his damp hair and the crisp outside air from the cracked window. Each aroma clashing beautifully against the other—stunning your senses into understanding the proximity closing in.

“We’re just going to talk, her and I.”

Ohhhh, you could kick yourself for that stupid fucking slip up right about now.

You understand exactly what he’s doing with his reclamation of your words. He wants to hear you say it. Wants to hear what you want. Wants to watch you grapple for control of this back-and-forth, of your flawed logic.

Wants to see you squirm when he fully turns to face you, his chest almost bumping against yours as he straightens his back.

You give in, allowing him to entertain the meaning as much as he’d like.

“I think your mouth might be too busy for that.”

Your new favorite color returns in earnest, staining his cheeks more quickly than he can hide it.

Look at that, you’re back in control.

His smug grin quickly dissolves into hushed breaths, lips parted when you subtly steal a glance at them only to find that he’s trying to steal a glance at yours as well.

Your heart betrays its sure rhythm…until the other man decides to join you in playing coy, instantly dragging you back into another rapid-fire exchange.

“Whatever do you mean, [Y/n]?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“Quite the smart ass.”

“Quite the smart tongue.”

“In more ways than you know.”

“Lucky Linda.”

“Unlucky you.”

“Unlucky…me?”

Your voice breaks quietly before you drop your gaze—taking in the meaning behind bold words and wondering how much weight was behind them until he solidifies it.

“Mmhm.”

Slowly succumbing to the familiar feeling of defeat as Viktor gets the upper hand of your repartee. Your eyes dart aimlessly over him as you try to pull your thoughts together in a desperate attempt to gain it back.

He catches your pause and quirks a brow, looking quite pleased to have you reeling under his words. With a sigh of exaggerated disappointment complete with a quick click of his tongue, he adds fuel to your fire just as easily as the hearth he’s fed.

“And here I thought you had a knack for getting what you wanted.”

Gods you wanted that. Wanted to push him right up against that fucking door. Wanted to close the gap between you, wipe that sly smirk off his face, and make better use of his quick tongue. Wanted to prove that his assumption about you was correct—that you were a person capable of going for what you wanted…or even that you could be for that matter.

For him at least…you wanted to be.

But there you stood. Wrestling with doubt and nerves and ego as you showed the icicles forming on the windowsill what it really means to be frozen in place.

Then it hits you. That small, hushed piece of information that slipped from the other man’s lips not so long ago.

You decide to take one more stab, relying on Viktor’s integrity when he dismissed mistress whoever-the-fuck within your earshot.

“And here I thought you were exactly where you wanted to be tonight.”

Loosening fingers fall the rest of the way from the handle only to be pressed flat against the door behind him. His knuckles carve white into the back of the hand that grips his cane a little bit tighter now. It’s small, subtle—but proof that you’ve rattled his relatively unflappable demeanor.

Something in him changes and at first you struggle to decipher it. His muscles look tense, particularly the ones in his shoulders as he makes an effort to hold his head high even with his back literally and metaphorically against the wall. You can’t tell if he’s surprised that you heard that part of their conversation, or if the meaning behind that sentence actually scared him.

When he pushes his weight off the door it takes every ounce of your being to stay collected. To maintain eye contact with a gaze that was becoming all too easy to drown in. To shake the shiver rolling down your spine when he answers you.

“I am…”

He speaks with confidence but the way honeyed eyes are frantically searching yours says otherwise. Uncertainty becomes apparent as he watches you watching him, his head dipping slowly downward with growing apprehension as he finishes his sentence softer than before.

“…well…almost.”

His breathing gets shaky, stuttering in his chest as it rises and falls. Uncertainty is one thing, but you’re realizing it’s more than that.

“Almost?”

He’s nervous.

“Almost.”

Just like you.

…

But unlike you,

“Where…would you rather be…?”

Nerves don’t get in the way of what he wants.

…

“…here.”

Viktor’s voice softens and before you can speculate—before he has a chance to change his mind—he leans forward to close the gap separating you.

His lips press against yours with a tenderness that stuns you into place. He’s unhurried. Resolute. Like kissing you was the most natural thing in the world for him.

Like he was in fact, exactly where he wanted to be for the night.

Regardless of his finesse, your body goes rigid as you reflexively grab ahold of his forearm for support.

…Which he doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

He returns your stiff grip with a tentative touch—his fingers extending lightly along the underside of your arm—soothing you despite the tight hold you have on him.

It’s such a small, soft motion…but it settles you. Immediately for that matter. That’s when it hits you that Viktor was actually right about what he said earlier.

Time really had no place when he was with you.

In the span of a sharp breath, you don’t know at which point your eyes fluttered shut. Or when you stopped thinking. Let alone when you stopped breathing. When your grip loosened, when your jaw unclenched. When your worries lifted into nothingness.

When the noise settled and everything finally felt…still.

Something you haven’t felt in years…

And just in time for Viktor to pull away.

As you feel him shift his weight back you all but catch yourself from greedily leaning forward. Leaving you looking practically starved, and clearly craving more than a mere sample…as delicious as it was.

Not yet ready to relinquish the small peck, your eyes hold onto what your lips couldn’t.

Doused with the same state, Viktor’s own lips remain parted, likely still lingering with the sensation of having yours pressed against them. A sensation it seemed he also wasn’t quite ready to surrender by the looks of it.

When your eyes meet, heavy and cautious and equally full of need for the other, Viktor tilts his head just slightly. His dark brows furrow, knitted with contemplation or curiosity—maybe both. But you recognize the purpose behind that look.

He’s trying to read you.

And rivaling the very book you pulled from the shelf, you let him.

He easily pages through your wanting expression, mulls over your body language until you catch him glance back at your mouth with a gaze that transitions from reserved to ravenous in a blink before meeting your eyes again.

Neither of you say a word. Neither of you have to.

He just quirks a brow at you.

Quicker than usual.

More intentional.

Not at all the expression you’ve seen when something has piqued his curiosity. Or when he’s wanting more insight that was initially provided.

No, this was something else.

This was a wordless way to say, ‘your move’. An affirmation that there could be more if you wanted it. Wanted him.

This wasn’t a request for more information.

It was a request for more…of you.

…

Maybe it’s just your imagination, but in the corner of your eye, you could’ve sworn you saw one of the icicles break away from the sill.

…

Turns out you’re tired of being frozen too.

Finally, you move—leaning forward and tipping your head to catch Viktor’s lips more fully than before. You can hear him inhale sharply at the sudden contact, can picture his brows pinching together in concentration…

…can feel his back hit the wall with a resounding ‘thud' as your actions come a bit more rushed than you intended. A soft “mmph” escapes from his lips to yours at the impact, his hand jerking from your forearm to your delt for balance, but he doesn’t break the kiss.

Still, you consider pulling back to make sure he’s alright. To apologize for quite literally throwing yourself at the other man. You place your hands against the surface on either side of his hips, bracing to push yourself away.

But his arm wraps around your shoulders instead—pulling you closer and reassuring you that he’s okay. That this is okay.

…more than okay.

It doesn’t seem like his first kiss, and it definitely isn’t yours, but judging by how much you both have clearly been wanting this, it might as well be.

Your hands are clumsy when you blindly reach for his waist—scraping your knuckles on the wooden door as you add to the symphony of thuds pounding against it.

And Viktor’s moments are no smoother.

Abandoning his support, his palm warms your cheek as slender fingers splay wildly against your ear and neck. You can feel him straining, his digits curling slightly before releasing—like he was holding onto his self-control by a thread. Fighting with himself from being too rough with you.

Too hungry for you.

Too consumed by you to care that his actions are quickly followed by a boisterous clank as his cane hits the floor.

…Which only seems to spur you both on.

Viktor’s lips crash against yours again and again. Each kiss becoming more desperate than the last with each breath sounding harsher in between. Your need for each other easily outweighing the desire to come up for air as the sound of huffs fill the room.

A small experimental press into your shoulder has you shift your stance, staggering your legs in between Viktor’s to accommodate the slight imbalance. You can feel his weight begin to fully settle onto you and you happily hold him against the door while his other hand drifts from your cheek.

Inch by agonizing inch his hand trails downwards—reading the lines that have shaped your history and sculpted your features like brail under his fingertips. His touch is cautious…curious—moving carefully over your chest, following each curve that dips around tense muscles and scars that never healed quite right.

You sigh into him while he explores you, pausing his pursuit on the raised line left from a bullet grazing you the day your parents died. He tables the questions churning in his mind to tilt his head and kiss you deeper.

Soothe your old wounds with magic of his own.

He presses his lips to yours more gently than the last time, slowing the adrenaline-fueled pace before you feel the featherlight touch of his tongue brushing along your lower lip. Your breath hitches as you savor how soft he is with you. How his movements are so delicate despite the tangible desire brimming just beneath their surface.

It’s quite the dichotomy. Strong enough to knock the air out of you.

In the form of a moan, sure. Which Viktor gladly muffles when he feels you part your lips for him. His tongue eagerly begins to dance with yours, moving slowly at first while he gets use to you before easily falling into a back and forth of give and take.

The thin fabric of his shirt leaves little to the imagination as your own hands begin to wander, running up his back before languidly trailing down again. He arches into your touch—pulls you closer while you start to memorize the curvature of his spine, the edges of his shoulder blades, the indents of his hips.

It’s effortless—getting lost in Viktor. His skin radiates a warmth that draws you in like a moth to a flame. You can’t help but consider the likelihood of his rising temperature being a byproduct of the arcane that recently resonated inside of him.

And that gives you an unexpected rush that you can’t explain.

Something along the lines of he can understand you on a base level that no one else has been able to even come close to reaching. Knows what it’s like to have something entirely unruly course through his veins without a compass or care. Knows the static and heat and tension and release of it all.

A micro-dosed version of it, sure.

A micro dose is more than enough in a world sober of magic. And more than enough to fully lose your inhibitions with him.

Deft fingers drag slow as molasses along your stomach, rippling over the contours that are already wound tightly in knots. You can feel him hum approvingly, clearly enjoying how your muscles tense under his teasing.

But not as much as you enjoy the sound he makes when you catch his lip between your teeth.

It’s a hushed groan caught in the crosshairs of surprise and pleasure. Barely above a murmur, but audible evidence that he’s come a little more undone. You give a light tug and match the subdued sigh that you pull from his lips, warmth blooming in your chest while his fingers dig into your shoulder and abdomen.

When you let go you can feel his smile while he chases evasive breaths, lips catching on yours lightly with each word that passes from them.

“And you…” He chuckles softly before finishing. “…said you don’t bite.” He follows his statement by taking the lead—pushing himself off the door, snaking an arm around your waist, and taking shallow steps to walk you backwards.

“I made…” You grin at his callback, trying to find your breath as well in between kisses and footsteps. “…an exception.”

“Do you make those often?” His voice sounds shot, graveled with passion that grows with each step. “Exceptions…”

“From time to time.” Your ears are burning and you’ve been so caught up in his aftershocks that you barely notice the pressure that’s caused your skimpy ass shorts to get tighter. You reinforce your own voice, playing into his question that you know is alluding to the common rules of a first date. “We’ve already made quite a few…”

“What like…assault?”

His clever response causes you to grin into a small kiss, your tongue teasing his before you correct him. “Well, battery. Technically.”

“That’s…not better.”

After another kiss, another step you manage to answer back with a crime of his own from the evening. “And how about theft?”

A playful nibble on your lip hitches your breath before he hums another rule broken from the list. “Mm. Vandalism.”

Gradually you get use to letting him steer you blind, your movements shifting from an uneven shuffle to steady-ish steps. You figure he trusted you mending him with raw magic—you can trust him not to let you fall on these expensive floors.

Not that you would care at this point anyway.

“Can’t forget about gambling.”

“Of course not.”

The backs of your knees hit the bedframe and you both stop in your tracks.

His focus travels.

Yours follows.

A glance behind you puts the luxe mattress layered with more blankets and pillows than you have in your entire loft into plain view. The implications of what comes after sitting heavy in the air as Viktor’s hands fall to your hips.

Your half-lidded vision is blurred but mesmerized by the way his whiskey eyes drink you in. His gaze moves down your chest and over your stomach until it drops low enough to make your cheeks flush.

“We could…just retire for the night, [Y/n].” His tone gives you all of the comfort in the world that it was okay to do so as he lifts a hand to cradle your cheek. “Falling asleep beside you—” He pauses, a sincere smile pulling at his lips while he imagines what that looks like. “That would be enough for me.”

Kind, warm eyes reflect the honesty behind sweet words. You match his smile and get lost in his touch, leaning into his palm before placing your hand on his. Thin fabric still leaving little to the imagination, you only have to glimpse down for a second to steel your thoughts into a word.

“Unless…?”

“Unless…” Warm ignites into to a smolder, sweet swiftly becomes sultry, and his touch fades from your cheek to fidget with the hem of your shirt.

“You’d like to make one more exception with me…”

----------

A/N: Oh it's HEATIN' UP--thanks to everyone for being patient with this chapter, it took a minute to fully form and write up and I hope it gives some warm fuzzies during these TRYING times :) Also wanted to say hi hello and welcome to any new folks! I am loving every comment, they seriously make my day. I'm so glad y'all are here and hope you enjoy the read! This is definitely a longer fic that started as a comfort read/be a place to visit if you've had a hard day and has turned into an entire story that I'm really excited to continue. I'm not sure how far into season 2 we'll go yet since we still have a few episodes left, but I'll be sure to include some tidbits and little easter eggs regardless of where to story finishes. Thank you also for the follows, feedback, likes, shares and everything in between. It means the world to me and I'm beyond humbled this lil thing has brought some folks even a little bit of joy. If you're feeling wild, my ko-fi is linked to my pinned post and in my lil sidebar (no pressure ever, I do this for free and because I love it)...But if there's a dollar in there I will be telling my homophobic dad his son made a buck writing gay smut at the family dinner next week.

And if that isn't success I don't know what is. Anyway, thank you again for reading and I hope everyone is doing well out there! Cheers, Ghost

#viktor x reader #arcane viktor x reader #arcane x male reader #viktor arcane #viktor arcane x reader #viktor arcane x male reader #arcane fanfic #viktor #arcane viktor #as above so below fic #that salty ghost fic

212 notes · View notes

whatsnewalycat · 7 months ago

Text

mindfuck

Dave York x f!Reader

Summary: Dave hypnotizes you.

Rating: Explicit (18+ only)

Word Count: 2.8k+

Warnings: hypnokink, not entirely good praxis of hypnosis, humiliation, implied infidelity, praise, smut, unprotected piv, D/s dynamic, dom dave, literal mind fucking so like a bit of body horror get into it

Notes: For @iamasaddie kinky May writing challenge. Prompt was hypnosis + Dave York. I found a lot of inspiration for this from a post in r/EroticHypnosis about mindfucking (can find again if anyone wants the link - lemme know!). Posting this in a hurry bc I am late to a thing so hopefully not tooooo many missed mistakes. OK THANK YOU FOR READING!!!

[ my masterlist ]

-------

All your life you wished you could turn off your thoughts at will.

Growing up, on those nights where your crowded head wouldn’t let you sleep, you would imagine twisting off the top of your skull like a jar lid and plopping your brain on the nightstand. It even worked sometimes, too, if you tried hard to convince yourself. When reminders of an upcoming math test or images of that cute boy in class crept into your purview, they had nowhere to go. They evaporated, and you slept.

Dave says you’re too smart for your own good. Sometimes when you’re lost in thought, he tells you he wants to empty that pretty little head of yours. Not in a condescending way, although you can see how someone might interpret it like that.

What he means is that he wants you to be with him when you’re with him. What he means is that he wants you to be present. Not thinking about the past or the future. Not reminding yourself of deadlines or analyzing the data stored in your brain or wondering what you mean to him exactly.

The first time he suggested hypnosis, you balked. Even after he explained how it worked, you were hesitant enough for him to drop the subject.

When he brought it up again, though, your skepticism swayed. You asked him for more details, so he dispensed the pros and cons and the step process. He could do it for you, he said. He knew how. He said he could rattle the bees from your buzzing honeycomb brain. All you had to do was trust him with this power.

So you did.

And you do.

Your valiant beekeeper meets you at this hotel every other Tuesday night, except on holidays. This isn’t the only one-on-one time he dedicates to you, but it’s by far the most reliable. He doesn’t always hypnotize you, either.

Regardless of whether he puts you in a trance or not, this standing date always starts the same. He slips you the keycard at some point throughout the day, only after he’s adorned it with a vase full of seasonal blooms and laid out something for you to wear.

Tonight he left you lilacs and matching lingerie. Intricate floral appliqués embellish the pastel nightie he laid out on the bed.

Opulence becomes you when you slip it on and pour a glass of champagne from the bottle Dave left to chill on ice. You mosey around the spacious high-end suite, sipping frosty bubbles as you admire the birds-eye view of downtown, the tall buildings and bustling city life all drenched in golden light from the setting sun.

As the time nears eight o’clock, you empty your champagne flute and make yourself comfortable on the plush bed. Crystals hanging from the chandelier fragment soft white light into dazzling tiny spectrums, sparkling rainbow when the door to the suite opens, then closes.

Dave enters the room with an air of authority that makes you straighten your spine and draw back your shoulders. After chucking off his jacket, he empties his pockets on the dresser and loosens his tie, then turns around to meet your gaze.

His stern expression melts as he looks you over, seeming to appraise how your body fills out the lilac nightie. Heat sparks in the middle of you when he greets you, “Hey beautiful.”

“Hi.”

He approaches your side and takes a seat at the edge of the bed, rolling the sleeves of his dress shirt, “Comfortable?”

Nodding, you sit up to pull him in for a kiss. His plush lips respond without hesitation, firm but generous as he slips a wide palm around your body and brings you even closer.

When he pulls back, he asks, “Are you ready?”

“Ready.”

He cradles your jaw, searching your face with blatant admiration before separating his body from yours. You lay back into the soft embrace of the pillows and wiggle around until you find the sweet spot of comfort while Dave drags an armchair to your bedside and sits down. Once you’re both settled and still, he begins.

“Close your eyes.”

You close them.

“Take a deep breath in…”

You take in air until you can’t.

“…and slowly release it.”

You exhale, rationing your metered breath through a straw-sized ‘o’ formed by your lips.

“Good. Take a deep breath in… two three four… and slowly release it. Deep breath in… two three four… now slowly release it.”

Behind closed lids, you concentrate on the rhythmic ebb and flow of your lungs contracting and expanding. His warm voice surrounds you. Envelops you.

“That’s it. Keep breathing just like this. Each time you inhale, draw the life from your breath, and exhale the rest. Notice how cleansing it feels to let it go. How the tension melts from your muscles every time you take a deep breath in…”

You inhale.

“…two three four…”

Hold it.

“…and slowly release it.”

Then exhale.

“Perfect. Keep doing that. Now imagine that every time you take a deep breath in, a warm wave washes over you… and as you slowly release it, the tide carries away tension, allowing your muscles to soften and relax…”

Each big lungful heats the tar holding your body together. You dissolve into the mattress as Dave’s deep, honeyed voice resonates through you.

“Again, take a deep breath in as the warm wave of relaxation washes over you, two three four… and slowly release it as the tide carries away your tension, allowing your muscles to soften and relax. Concentrate on my voice. Recognize it as a touchstone. If your mind starts to wander, have it return to the touchstone, return to my voice, and relax even deeper.”

Trees tower above you, stretching high into the pale blue sky. The moss-covered rock before you glows as he speaks.

“Notice how relaxed you feel. Notice that every time the warm wave of relaxation washes over you, two three four… tension melts from your body as you allow yourself to sink deeper and deeper into the sensation. Allow the relaxation to seep from your muscles into your bloodstream… to course through your veins and calm every cell in your body.

“Focus on your face. All those tiny little muscles in your forehead and around your eyes, notice how relaxed they are. Notice how the relaxation melts the muscles in your cheeks and jaw, letting your mouth go slack. You might feel as though you want to speak, but find yourself so relaxed that you can’t. That’s ok, because it feels good and safe to let the words dissolve on your tongue. Doesn’t it?”

When you try to respond, your lips don’t move. This fact doesn’t bother you. It feels good and safe in the forest, staring up at the treetops.

You realize you’re floating in a pond. You hear birds peacefully chirping and know it’s just you and them and the touchstone for a million miles.

Everything feels profound, but simple. You are small and big like a speck of dust or a galaxy. You are safe. You are at peace.

“Doesn’t it feel so good to relax, darling?”

Your fingertips rest against the soft moss of the touchstone.

“Yes, it does,” you tell it.

It glows with a satisfactory hum that vibrates through you.

“Perfect. Continue to focus on my voice. Soon, I will ask you to open your eyes, then close them. When you close your eyes, you’ll notice a warm wave of relaxation washing over you, turning knots into snarls and snarls into strands, every muscle in your body gently untangling as you allow them to go limp and heavy…”

You understand and follow his instructions.

“Open your eyes and take a deep breath in, two three four… and slowly release it, closing your eyes, letting the warm wave wash over you and pull you in deeper.

“Soon, I’ll ask you to open your eyes again. When you close them, you’ll notice the warm wave of relaxation wash over you even stronger than before, pulling you even deeper.

“Open your eyes, two three four… and close your eyes, sinking deeper and deeper. Good job. We’ll do it one more time, and when you close your eyes and relax, sink as deep as you can, all the way to the bottom. Open your eyes, two three four… and close your eyes.”

You’re lying in a meadow of wildflowers outside the forest, looking up at the serene blue sky. The earth beneath you is solid and brings you an immense sense of comfort.

“I want you to think about desire. Think about that warm, lush longing inside you. Concentrate on how good this sensation feels in your body, pleasure swelling thick at the center of you.”

His voice surrounds you, but you don’t see its source. The soothing timbre resonates from the wildflowers and the earth and the sky, from everywhere and nowhere all at once like how you imagine God sounded to Old Testament prophets.

You bring your focus to desire. It does feel good. Amazing, actually. Tangible like a glowing ball of heat between your thighs that throbs with each syllable he speaks.

“Allow the sensation to grow. Let it stretch and pulse and heat your skin. Let your mind empty of everything except this arousal. When thoughts arise, you let them fall away and arousal fills the empty space. You’ll let this happen over and over again until your head is empty of everything but arousal. Do you understand? You can speak now, darling, go ahead and answer.”

“Yes.”

“Try it for me.”

You acknowledge the cognitions that populate your mind. When you think about how you need to put gas in your car, you imagine the reminder dropping away, then imagine the warm wanting glow of desire branching up through your body to take its place. You think about a work project, but it loosens and falls into an abyss. Desire floods the space in its wake, a thick hot liquid that glows with light like lava, spreading to each new vacancy with ease as the thoughts drop from your consciousness.

“How does it feel?”

“Good,” you breathe, voice faint on your tingling tongue.

“Do you like how it feels, being horny and mindless?”

Your husband’s face appears, taking up your whole mind, then falls away. Rich, bubbling pleasure surges through you to fill the gap. You have to suppress a moan to respond.

“I like it,” you nod, “Fuck, it feels amazing.”

“Good girl. Now, you might notice something interesting happen when I ask you a question. You might notice that when I ask you a question, you’ll try to form a thought to answer. When you do this, you’ll feel my cock enter your mind. It’s bigger and harder than you’ve ever seen it, swollen and thick and so fucking ready for you, darling. When you try to form a thought, it pushes forward into the wet hot folds of your brain, severing the connections that typically allow you to think, preventing a response from forming. My cock pulls out, and slowly thrusts forward again, pushing out the thoughts, over and over for as long as you consider a response to my question. It becomes impossible to focus. You might notice that this penetration feels like it would in your pussy. My hard cock rutting in and out, sending waves of arousal through your body, fucking the thoughts from your head. Every time my cock moves, you’ll try to respond but cannot make yourself focus. It feels amazing. You give in to the sensation, allowing it to overtake you completely. When you’re fully saturated with arousal and nothing else, my cock pulls out of your mind.”

Your skin feels static and warm when you imagine him pushing his smooth, throbbing length into your brain. A shaky whimper croaks in your throat. Your heart thuds heavy within your chest, circulating desire, warm and wet, to every cell in your body.

“You might notice that when I ask you another question, any attempts at thought or sensations that come up except arousal will be fucked from your head until you surrender to the arousal. It feels good to be dominated in this way. To let pleasure consume your entire being.”

Licking your lips, you nod to show you understand.

“Now when I ask you a question, you’ll allow your subconscious to follow my instructions. Are you ready, darling?”

“Yes.”

“How was your day?”

When you try to recall your day and formulate an answer, the tip of his cock pierces the equator of your brain, splitting the hemispheres. He drives forward slowly, steadily, making you moan as he stretches you apart and tears all those delicate tissues that generate thought. Still, you try.

My day, how was my day…

He drags his cock out, then drives it deeper inside you.

Day… how was…

Your nerve endings buzz as he pulls out, gooey arousal shines on the shaft of his thick cock. He plunges forward into the hot center of you. You work your hips and whine. You can’t remember what he asked. It doesn’t seem as important as the pleasure clinging to your insides as he fucks you, so you give up.

His cock pulls out of your mind completely.

“What’s the weather supposed to be like tomorrow?”

You consider the question. The tip of him breaches your brain, forcing out forecasts and clouds and sunshine. Fragments return as you attempt to answer again.

The weather tomorrow…

He pumps in and out of you, obliterating whatever it was he wanted to know. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except the insatiable pleasure thrumming through you as he rubs against all your hungry nerves, giving them what they want.

“Oh my god,” you hear yourself gasp.

“How often do you think about fucking me?”

Seeds of embarrassment sprout the tender beginnings of thought, then he fucks them out of your head until you’re rolling your hips, moaning and nodding for more.

“Do you make yourself come when you think about fucking me?”

Only a loading screen appears before he’s inside you again. His perfect, thick cock pumps you full of this throbbing heat. You wish it would never end. You want to feel this and only this forever.

“That’s it, that’s my good girl. So horny and mindless for me. Letting my cock push deep and hard into the folds of your brain, fucking out all your thoughts, leaving your head empty to stuff you with arousal until you’re swollen and ripe, nothing else left but how fucking horny you are.”

“Sssooooo fucking gooood,” you slur.

“How would your husband feel if he saw you like this? In this hotel room, all dressed up in lingerie I bought for you, moaning and writhing on the bed?”

A thought starts, and he pounds it out of you, merciless in its rhythm as each thrust pushes you higher and higher. Horny and mindless, that’s all you are. Nothing matters except this.

“Do you really think we’ll run away together? Do you really think I’d leave my wife for you?”

A rotten sensation tingles in your chest before you feel him enter you from both ends, the cock in your mind working in tandem with the cock in your pussy. You choke out a moan and nod, body vibrating with a thick, hot sensation you can’t find the beginning or end of.

“Fuck fuck fuck, holy fuck—”

He groans, rolling his hips faster, fucking your entire being so hard and fast that you become pleasure itself. It’s everything and everywhere for eternity and you gladly accept this fact, wanting to forever exist in this moment.

“That’s so good, darling. So fucking good. You want me to let you come, don’t you?”

You nod frantically as the edges of you start to fray.

“Go ahead, come for me.”

His permission completely unravels you, ripping away the last delicate thread holding you together. You sob as you fall apart into a thousand pieces. His hips stutter and he moans, giving you a few deep thrusts before pulling out.

Your chest heaves as you try to catch your breath. You float in the peaceful pond, staring up at the towering treetops that kiss the sky.

“Now in a minute, I’ll bring you back to your normal state. When I count to four and tell you to wake up, you’ll come out of the trance relaxed and refreshed. Your mind will feel spotless. You’ll know that I adore you and hold you close to my heart.”

You hear birds peacefully chirping. You know it’s just you and them and Dave for a million miles. You are small and big like a speck of dust or a galaxy. You are safe. You are at peace.

“And one two three four… wake up.”

#dave york #dave york fanfiction #dave york smut #dave york x reader #dave york x you #dave york x female reader #pedro pascal character fanfic #pedro pascal characters #whatsnewalycat writes

163 notes · View notes

velieditss · 5 months ago

Text

Forbidden Desires

Pairing: Davos Blackwood x Bracken!reader

Summary: He hates you, he really does, but no more than you.

An: Bombastic side eye, criminal offensive side eye👀

This is the second chapter, you can check the first one here: Ch1

Davos stood by the window of his room, watching the carriage as it slowly made its way along the winding path. His forehead and hair were beaded with sweat; the pain coursing through his body numbed even the wound he still bore. The night before, he had been informed that one of the Brackens had stopped at a nearby inn, just a few hours away.

The message, distorted after passing through several hands before reaching him, did not specify which of the Brackens was on the way. Davos hoped it was one of the brothers, ready to settle the matter, but he doubted it. King Viserys's envoy had assured him that the Brackens would follow the king's "suggestion." Suggestion!

The anger still burned within him over how that "suggestion" had been conveyed and the blatant threats that accompanied it. Yet, the king’s envoy seemed indifferent, as if he cared little how his words were received or the chaos they might unleash; he was simply doing his duty.

Beside him, Alysanne was not watching the carriage but observing Davos with a furrowed brow. She was the only one in the family who had not received the news with pessimism; to her, it was a well-deserved punishment for what they had brought upon innocent people. In short, a fate worse than death: having a Bracken for a wife.

“You need to get back to bed,” Alysanne said in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Stop giving me orders just because you think I’m weak. Did you send that letter to our father? I’d prefer he learns of the king’s abominable demand from me, not through rumors, in case this goes public.”

“Of course, it was the first thing I did when our guest left,” Alysanne replied with the confidence of someone who always fulfills their duties.

Davos was sure that, along with the letter, his sister had sent a detailed account of what had happened, not omitting a single detail that could further tarnish his image before their father.

Benjicot, despite his young age, had the spirit of a warrior and did not fear the Brackens; in fact, he had played a key role in the three duels that took place. But he was too young to marry, and Alysanne... Davos would rather sacrifice himself than allow his sister to suffer such a vile fate.

At least, if the Bracken girl was under their roof, they could keep an eye on her and maintain some advantage. But if Alysanne were the one betrothed, they couldn’t protect her in that madhouse.

For all these reasons, and because they would lose half of their fortune if they disobeyed, Davos had not offered any of his siblings to comply with the king’s order.

Alysanne shook her head in exasperation.

“I offer good advice, not orders. It wouldn’t hurt you to listen to me once in a while. But don’t count on me to drag you back to bed if you collapse. I’ll get the servants to do it.”

“I’m not going to die, and I’m not so weak that I can’t throw you out of my room,” Davos retorted with a hint of irritation.

“Tell that to the Bracken girl. I’m sure she’s spent half the week praying for your death,” Alysanne replied, pointing at the tiny carriage in the distance. “And yes, you are weak. You’re sweating like a horse and can barely put on your trousers…”

Davos turned his back and pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

Alysanne used to keep him on his toes, both verbally and physically, and he used to be grateful for it, but not now, not since he had returned home with that cursed wound. The previous one had been a mere scratch; this one, however, worsened every day.

He didn’t need a grand maester to tell him; he knew the wound wasn’t healing as it should. He had regained some strength after losing a lot of blood, only to be struck down by fever again.

Returning home had been foolish; he should have stayed near where he was injured to receive treatment, but he didn’t want word to spread that Raylon had almost ended his life. He would rather die than give a Bracken that satisfaction. And it could still happen; he felt half-dead, though more from the damn fever that wouldn’t break.

The anger didn’t help either: having to face the king’s threat and the enemy at his door while in this condition only fueled his rage.

“Put her in one of the towers when she arrives,” he told his sister in a tense voice. “Until I decide what to do with her.”

Alysanne crossed her arms, annoyed by his tone, as if she were a mere servant rather than the sister who had raised him like a son.

“The order you received was to marry her,” Alysanne pointed out dryly.

“I won’t do it,” Davos replied firmly.

“So you’ll reject her?” she asked, raising a dark eyebrow. “I warn you, you’ll be sacrificing your share of the fortune, and you’d better not touch mine.”

Davos shook his head.

“I won’t sacrifice anything, because it won’t be necessary. She’ll hurry back home, and the Brackens will face the consequences when she does.”

“And how do you plan to make her leave?”

“There are ways to scare off women like her,” Davos responded, giving her a grim look.

Alysanne raised an eyebrow again, skeptical.

“Very well, but do I need to remind you we only have one remotely habitable tower?”

“Well, she won’t have trouble finding it, will she?” Davos replied, his tone as dry as Alysanne’s.

Alysanne was about to leave the room but stopped and, in a serious tone, warned him:

“You’re not at war with that girl; you’re at war with her brothers. Mistreating her will do no good.”

“She’s a Bracken. They’re all the same, even if I’ve never seen her. And she serves an important purpose: she’ll make Raylon and Olyver Bracken lose their lands and fortune.”

A spark lit up Alysanne’s eyes.

“I’m glad to see you’re not as crazy as you seem. Sorry, I mean that you’re acting with some logic.”

“This isn’t a good time to test my patience, Aly,” Davos warned her. “I need my riding clothes. I won’t be home when the enemy knocks on the door.”

“The maester said you should stay in bed,” Alysanne said, sighing in frustration.

“I’ll rest once I’ve calmed my anger with a ride.”

“You’ll need the maester if you insist on riding! For the old gods’ sake, Davos, be reasonable. Your stitches will tear, and your horse won’t like the smell of blood.”

“There are many things my horse doesn’t like, including you. How he’ll react to the blood remains to be seen; and now, enough with the bad omens. Don’t try to stop me, just this once.”

“That’s what you told me a week ago, and now the old gods are sending you a Bracken as a wife,” Alysanne retorted, her frustration spilling over before Davos could protest.

“I’ll fetch the maester and then deal with your ‘bride.’”

Davos slowly made his way to his dressing room.

“She won’t be my bride,” he muttered disdainfully.

Alysanne headed for the door and, without turning back, promised:

“I’ll have her placed in the least comfortable room we have.”

“In the tower,” Davos insisted.

“Fine. But it doesn’t have a bed.”

“Then let her sleep on the damned floor!” Davos exclaimed.

With that order, the door slammed shut.

𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎ 𖣂︎

The imposing three-story manor had a façade clad in dark grey stone, almost black, though it might have been the moss or ivy covering it that contributed to its somber appearance. From a distance, it was difficult to make out the details. Two towers rose majestically at the corners of the large rectangular building, giving it the air of an ancient, fortified castle. In front of each tower stood a massive tree, both in full bloom, whose branches obscured the rest of the estate, plunging it into an even deeper mystery.

“It looks like a sad, gloomy, and intimidating place,” you thought with a shiver.

The path to the house was lined with trees, though they were arranged irregularly, as if planted without a precise design. Ivy climbed the dark grey exterior walls, but it had been meticulously trimmed in front of the front windows, leaving the interior visible without obstructions. Above the main entrance, you could see a large, circular stained-glass window, though from the outside you couldn’t discern if the glass formed any image. On either side of the double doors were well-trimmed bushes, giving an impression of order that contrasted with the melancholy of the place. Eavesdropping under the windows wouldn’t be easy; they were too high.

One of your servants helped you down from the carriage. You smoothed your bronze-colored pelisse, which reached your knees, and glanced down to make sure the hem of your dress was in place, barely covering your shoes. You decided against wearing the hat in your hand, and at that moment, the sun peeked timidly through the clouds. «Is that a good omen?» you wondered. But perhaps not; it simply meant that, at least for now, it wasn’t raining.

“They should have seen or heard us arrive and would be out here to receive us. Their staff leaves much to be desired if we have to knock on the door,” you murmured, looking around with a mix of irritation and unease.

«Could we have the wrong house?» you thought with a knot in your stomach.

«Hopefully...»

The thought was almost a prayer. It was also possible that this was a subtle way of letting you know you weren’t welcome, but you chose not to say it aloud. You’d had a knot in your stomach for days, but at that moment, the sensation intensified. You feared you might vomit right there; the servant who had to clean it up would despise you, and that wouldn’t be a good way to start, in case you were allowed into the house. The servants waited for the order to unload your trunks, but you were paralyzed, as if anxiety had completely trapped you.

Your destination was in sight, so close you could almost touch it. Within an hour, you would meet your future husband, if he was even there. The emissary had assumed he was, but what if Davos Blackwood wasn’t home? What if he hadn’t even been informed of the marriage? That could mean a postponement! And that, far from worrying you, seemed perfect. Perhaps you would meet some Blackwood’s... or perhaps not. Maybe Lord Blackwood had been warned of what would be demanded of his son and had decided to remain inaccessible indefinitely, thus avoiding the news. Or maybe you’d love living there, as long as Davos didn’t show up, leaving the house to you alone. Or, in the most delirious of dreams, all the Blackwood’s would already be dead, and you could live happily in their home without anyone bothering you.

Ten minutes passed, maybe more. It seemed no one was home that day. Or maybe the Blackwood’s didn’t have servants... Excuses, more excuses. You knew well they were an eminent and wealthy family. This was undoubtedly a rejection. If they didn’t open the door in the next few minutes, you’d be back at that inn, celebrating your victory and freedom. You’d tell everyone you had survived the worst of fates, and that the gods had always been on your side. But if things didn’t go well... well, then the vision of the rock, the cliff, and the sea returned to you. Life wasn’t that good if you thought about it carefully.

You straightened your shoulders and gestured to your maid to knock on the door. She advanced uncertainly and raised her fist, almost losing her balance when one of the doors suddenly opened, leaving her about to punch the air. You shot a furious glance at the man standing in the doorway and remained silent. One look was enough to know that, for your good (or bad) luck, the Blackwood’s had indeed sent someone to receive you.

“My lady awaits you,” the servant said in a dry, direct tone. There was no apology, no greeting, no question. His attitude confirmed his position; you only knew he was a servant by the clothes he wore.

You glanced sideways at your maid before following the man, who seemed to share the same disdain for you as the rest of these lands and their inhabitants.

“Excuse me, why did you take so long to receive us?” you asked as you took hold of your dress’s hem, walking with your head held high to avoid showing weakness. “What was the dilemma that made you ignore us?”

“My lady wanted to ensure the rooms were clear before inviting you in,” he replied without turning around.

«Your lady?» If you remembered correctly, you had been told that Samwell Blackwood was a widower.

“Cleared of what?” you asked, confused.

“Of furious encounters.” The man spoke so low you weren’t sure you heard him correctly.

You didn’t understand anything and weren’t sure you wanted to.

When you passed between two columns flanking the vestibule, you entered a two-story hallway with a grey marble floor. Above the dark wood paneling covering the white walls hung tapestries; you observed that they were portraits of men and women, some of whom wore clothing from eras before the Conquest. You assumed they were the ancestors of the Blackwood’s.

“Will you take me to your lord?” you asked, stopping to observe each face and story depicted in the wall decorations.

“Lord Samwell is not here; I will take you to my lady, his daughter, Lady Alysanne,” he replied indifferently.

Ah, so it was the eldest Blackwood daughter who had taken charge of the house. This didn’t lessen your apprehension; on the contrary, it heightened your fear of what might happen.

The servant opened large doors and ushered you in as if you were a prisoner about to receive your sentence. The first thing your eyes caught was the silhouette of a woman with beautiful black curls, standing by a window where sunlight streamed in.

The Blackwood’s, like the Bracken’s, shared similar characteristics among them, or so you’d been told. The only thing that indicated you were in front of Lady Alysanne Blackwood was her fine clothes and the direct, unwavering gaze that scrutinized you mercilessly.

In that context, you felt like a true criminal.

You made a small curtsy, barely bowing.

“Welcome,” she said in a tone so cold and indifferent it made you feel like an insignificant insect.

“Thank you,” you replied, your voice quieter than you expected.

The silence that followed was terrible and suffocating, a space where you both observed each other, trying to decipher the other.

“I’ll show you to your room,” Alysanne finally said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

You glanced at your maid, who looked just as uncomfortable as you did.

“Will I be able to see Lord Davos? Could you take me to him?” you asked, hoping to meet your future husband and resolve the situation as soon as possible.

“I cannot do that. When he’s ready to see you, he’ll call for you.”

“Today?” you insisted, clinging to a thread of hope.

“Perhaps not.”

You grimaced, but in reality, the fact that this would only delay the inevitable brought you some relief.

You passed several double doors that likely led to the drawing rooms and dining hall, and finally reached the grand main staircase. Some splashes of color on the white walls made you glance back toward the vestibule. The round stained-glass window above the door cast blue, red, and yellow beams of light on the walls. The window’s glass formed an image: a sable escutcheon with a dead weirwood tree.

The emblem was part of the family crest; once at the top of the staircase, Alysanne led you to the right, down a wide carpeted hallway that had doors only on one side. You understood that these rooms faced the back of the castle. Soon you turned a corner and walked down another corridor that led back to the front of the house. Some doors on either side of the hallway had been left open to let in light. It was evident that the house had numerous rooms and was more extensive than it seemed from the outside. At the end of the hallway, Alysanne stopped in front of a spiral staircase.

“Where does this lead?” you asked.

“To a barely habitable tower with no bed.”

You tensed and waited, but she didn’t move and simply stared at the dark spiral staircase for a few moments. Then, without a word, she turned and led you back down the hallway and into the other. As she passed the door at the far end, she glanced back at you and your maid and put a finger to her lips, indicating that you should remain silent; then she approached the next door, just to the right of the staircase. Alysanne entered the room and opened two windows, allowing a light, fresh breeze to enter. You followed her, feeling a sudden curiosity about the view before you. From your position, the tall hedges you had seen from afar surrounded a vast garden, whose green, well-kept lawn gleamed under the sunlight.

Winding paths crisscrossed the garden, bordered by flower beds overflowing with roses and other vibrant blossoms, an explosion of life and color that stood in stark contrast to the austerity of the house.

“You're less troublesome than I expected,” Alysanne remarked suddenly, pulling you from your reverie. “And you're pretty. If you're clever, you might just survive here.”

The tone of her words unsettled you; you couldn't tell whether they were meant as a compliment or a warning. Should you feel flattered or insulted? Alysanne's words hung in the air as you turned to look at her, searching for some clue in her expression. But her eyes remained fixed on you, scrutinizing, as if trying to decipher your deepest thoughts.

You felt her gaze like a weight, as though she were trying to unearth every one of your secrets, those you wouldn't even dare to confess.

“I’ll take the brunt of Lord Davos’ anger for not placing you where he ordered, but I’d rather not wake him just yet, so try to keep quiet,” she added coolly.

Reality struck in an instant: you weren’t placed in this part of the castle out of courtesy or jest. Alysanne had made this decision deliberately, without explanation. A shiver of dread ran through you as you realized you were much closer to Davos than you had anticipated.

“Please, I’d prefer a room farther from his, even one in that tower,” you said, trying to stay calm despite the rising panic inside you.

Alysanne smiled, and though it appeared kind, there was something in her expression that told you Lord Davos' anger didn’t concern her as much as she had implied moments earlier.

“Nonsense. Most of the rooms up here aren’t regularly cleaned unless they’re occupied by guests. This is the only vacant room that’s clean and doesn’t have a permanent ‘Do Not Use’ sign hanging on the door.”

Her response left you stunned. You had been so focused on your own anxiety that you hadn’t even noticed whether there were signs on the doors in the hallway.

“Why is Lord Davos sleeping at this time of day?” you asked, trying to mask your nerves with curiosity.

“I’d be surprised if he were,” Alysanne replied, already heading for the door. Without pausing, she added, “I’ll have your trunks brought up.”

The door closed with a swift bang, leaving you alone in the room. You had barely had time to thank her, and now you found yourself lost in unsettling thoughts. Was Davos as ill-tempered as your brothers? Should you move cautiously, making sure not to disturb his rest? A cold sweat trickled down your back as your gaze settled on a second door, barely visible in the dim light of the room.

That door connected directly to Lord Davos' room, a possibility that morphed into a series of alarming thoughts in your mind. What if the man decided to enter while you were sleeping, without warning? The idea that he might pounce on you in the middle of the night took root in your mind, filling you with growing unease.

You were trapped in a strange place, in a house you barely knew, with a man on the other side of the door who, for all you knew, could be a true monster.

Maybe it would be better to tie yourself to that rock and throw yourself into the sea…

Want more?

Part 3

Check my Masterlist

#house of the dragon #davos blackwood #davos x reader #alysanne blackwood #reader #long reads #hotd #house blackwood #house bracken #forbidden desires #velieditss #they hate each other #omg

79 notes · View notes

sufferu · 2 months ago

Note

Hey what do you think of this take on rem’s love for subaru?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Re_Zero/comments/t85er7/novels_character_analysis_someone_just_like_her/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I think it brings up some very interesting points — I particularly like their point about Rem seeing herself in Subaru, as a fellow below-average individual trying their best regardless of their weakness — but I don’t think it captures their entire relationship and I feel like it paints Rem as a fair bit more…stable, than she actually is. Like, yes, she does see Subaru as her hero precisely because he works hard despite his weaknesses, but she DOES still see him as a hero, and she IS still putting him on a pedestal for it. Hell, her final act defending Crusch’s caravans from Lye Batenkaitos is punctuated by her CHALLENGING TWO SIN ARCHBISHOPS on Subaru’s behalf.

(we don’t talk about the fact that she did that enough tbh. what the fuck girl)

And like — I feel like this analysis completely glosses over a lot of the really fucked up stuff she does to Subaru pre-Gluttony. She DID torture him in the woods for several hours due to being suspicious of him, traumatizing him to the point where he’s still frightened of chains a year later. She DID murder him in the hallway of the manor, in a way that is explicitly called out as needlessly brutal by Emilia in the WN’s Unthinkable Present of Arc 4 (it was cut for time but it wasn’t replaced with anything, so I think it’s still worth bringing up). She DID sneak into his room to watch him sleep every night even after he said that it was…really kinda creepy. She DID have that internal monologue in the LN where she considered running away with Subaru while he was too braindead to protest so that she could have him all to herself, with nobody to get in her way. She DID call caring for him while he was too dependent on her to so much as eat, use the bathroom, or even sit up on his own “the pinnacle of joy.” She DID say that she “never would have resisted him” if he had forced himself upon her in her sleep. She DID fake dying to the White Whale in order to manipulate Subaru into saying he loves her. SHE DID ALL OF THOSE THINGS.

And also, the meta is NOT kind to her. Her love of Subaru gets paralleled to Petelgeuse’ love of Satella in Arc 3, with Petelgeuse praising her as the height of devotion (something he DOESN’T do with Wilhelm, notably, despite Wilhelm being Arc 3’s example of a more healthy form of devotion). Her love gets paralleled with Subaru’s early obsession with Emilia, too. She is the ONLY NON-SUBARU CHARACTER to be directly responsible for an IF Route, because Sloth:IF entirely hinges on whether or not she decides to take Subaru’s hand — NOT on Subaru’s decision to extend it in the first place, which is an important detail regarding how the IF Route is framed. And in Arc 7, her amnesiac self explicitly starts referring to everything she instilled in Subaru in those first couple arcs as insanely toxic: the more she starts to care about him, the more she tells him to slow down, to think about himself more, to — for the love of god — stop trying to be a hero. In the early part of Arc 9 she is one of the only people to say “yeah, I won’t rely on him right now, specifically because he’s dealing with enough as it is and he needs to slow down.” Rem, more than anyone else, absolutely despises the very things she pushed Subaru to believe during those first couple arcs, because she sees it as incredibly, actively harmful (and considering what Natchuki Subawu does during Arc 8 in order to be a hero, she is absolutely right).

I’m really looking forward to Rem regaining her memories, because the moment she realizes that SHE is the reason Subaru is like this, she is going to absolutely lose her shit.

(Also there’s something to be said about how her projecting herself onto Subaru and then being very strict with him — to the point where her amnesiac self goes directly against her earlier advice by telling him repeatedly to slow down, for fucks sake — there’s something to be said about how that reflects on how her treatment of herself is toxic and unhealthy. Which, you know, fits with how she forced herself to be Ram’s Perfect Replacement and pushed herself to her absolute limit for years. So.) (Like the way Arc 2/3 Rem treats herself is canonically Very Unhealthy, and also her self esteem is absolute shit. Let’s not forget that part lol)

#remsuba #my inbox #rem #natsuki subaru

54 notes · View notes

roses-for-rosalyn · 2 years ago

Note

what if abby's father and the reader's father were friends and the like to hangout and play tennis a lot ; one day jerry anderson tries to convince his daughter to play a game with him, his friend and his daughter (reader) who has just returned home after two years of travelling ;

both girls accept their father's invitation! then the big day arrives and abby finds herself in front of reader in her pretty tennis set (and maybe something could happen in the locker room, after a heated match 👀)

I'm baaaack!

Sorry this took me so incredibly long it's been a weird few weeks. I hope I did your idea justice, she's a long one.

word count: 3.3k

content warnings: enemies to lovers, mean, competitive Abby, thigh riding, fem! reader, oral (r! receiving), fingering (r! receiving), overstimulation, dirty talk, modern au where Abby's dad isn't dead obvi, no use of y/n

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

You were sitting at your kitchen counter sipping on a glass of ice water and gazing out the window, watching the summer breeze rattle the trees. It had been a few weeks since you’d gotten back from Europe, but ice still felt like a luxury. Europe was so beautiful and you wouldn’t trade it for anything, but after a few years you started to yearn for air conditioning, cold water and disgusting greasy fried food. Your first bite of a McChicken back in the states was orgasmic.

You also missed your family, your dad would call you every other day and talk about his day in incredible detail. He joined a country club and got into tennis while you were gone, he even made a few friends. You were especially happy about that because you were worried about him getting lonely while you were gone. You didn’t want him rotting in an empty house while you went out and traveled the world. Even though your dad’s days were mundane and repetitive you just liked listening to him talk. His voice was the only thing that could dull the feeling of homesickness.

The front door opening pulls you out of your thoughts. Your dad walks in clearly having just got back from the country club, he was dressed head to toe in tennis gear including a visor. You can’t help but giggle at how stupid and preppy he looks. You didn’t exactly grow up going to country clubs, and dressing in brand name clothes. Luckily your dad had gotten a new job so he could splurge on himself. It made you happy to watch him treat himself for the first time in his life.

“What? Why are you laughing at me?” He looks up and down checking his clothes for stains or any wardrobe malfunctions.

“Nothing, you just look a little funny dressed in your tennis uniform. Not exactly used to you in country club attire.” You smile as he acts mock offended.

“I think it suits me, thank you very much.” He dramatically marches over to the fridge to fill up his water bottle. He’s really not gonna let go of this.

“You’re right, you were born to wear exclusively Vineyard Vines and sip wine on the balcony of your third beach house.” You say with a smirk.

“Sounds pretty nice to me.” He smiles and leans on the counter across from you.

He hesitates before saying “I’ve been meaning to invite you to play with me and Jerry, I think you’d have fun, it’ll be like the good old days on your high school tennis team. You’d probably deeply humble both of us.” Jerry was your dad’s best friend right now, one of the first people that welcomed him into the country club.

“Dad, I haven’t played tennis in three years I don’t kn-”

“Jerry said he’d bring his daughter too. She also used to play a lot of sports in high school. We could do father daughter teams or daughters vs fathers. It’ll be fun.” He sounds so excited, you would feel way too guilty turning him down at this point.

“Ok, ok. Have you met his daughter? Is she like.. Nice?” You didn’t want to have to fake getting along with her for your dad’s sake, if you were being honest you would probably end up doing that anyway. Your dad wasn’t exactly good at finding you friends.

“Yes, she’s incredibly nice, and respectful. She’s a few years older than you, about 25 I think, and she works for a construction company.” He pauses trying to recollect the little information he knows about his friend’s daughter. “She’s so strong I’m pretty sure she could pick me up bridal style.” Your dad laughs at his own joke, but now you are a little nervous. It’s starting to sink in that your dad essentially set up a playdate for you with an incredibly buff woman. You just hope you don’t end up noticeably ogling at her, maybe you’ll get lucky and she’ll be incredibly mean.

You woke up bright and early the next morning, your dad bribed you with a fancy breakfast before the match. The food was delicious, but you couldn’t stop your nervous movements, constantly tapping your fingers or feet. Your dad noticed and reassured you there was no reason to be nervous, and that there’s no pressure. To be honest your nerves weren’t completely because you were out of practice. Meeting new people always made you anxious, especially when it was arranged like this. There was an unspoken expectation for everyone to get along and enjoy themselves and you liked to keep your expectations low.

Before you knew it you and your dad were walking to the tennis courts. Your dad noticed you were starting to get all up in your head.

“Hey, loosen up kiddo this will be fun, if it’s not you let me know and we can leave. I’ll just tell them I’m not feeling well and we can get ice cream. Jerry will understand.” He messes with your hair a bit and you feel mildly relieved.

Once you get to the tennis court all of the relief you felt drained from your body, immediately replaced with pure anxiety. As you walk onto the smooth green court you see a middle aged brunette man, no doubt that was Jerry, and a tall strong blonde standing next to him. She towered over him, every muscle chiseled to perfection by what must have been some higher power. As you got closer you could see her biceps straining against her blue t-shirt, her thighs were barely visible, but from what you could see they were just as muscular as her arms. You were beginning to ogle when you’re snapped out of it from the sound of your dad greeting Jerry. Your dad shakes hands with Jerry and Abby and you begin to do the same. Abby’s blue eyes pierced right through you, a neutral expression adorning her face. She was incredibly intimidating considering she could clearly snap you in two. You shake Jerry’s hand “I’ve heard so much about you, hope you still remember your stuff from high school. Your dad and I have gotten pretty good.”

You smile and reply “It’s been a while, but I’m sure I’ll warm up in no time!” You liked to stay humble, but honestly you were pretty good at tennis. You had won a lot of games and you were one of the best on the team. You didn’t talk about it much though because you were self aware enough to know literally no one cares about tennis. You were also as a result extremely competitive so you were hoping you would be able to tone it down in order to not scare your dad’s friend away.

You move to shake Abby’s hand “I’m Abby, nice to finally meet you.” From her tone you would have assumed she thought it was indeed not very nice to meet you. But you nod and smile as her calloused hand engulfs yours. You can’t help but notice how warm her skin is to the touch and how large her hands are.

She was incredibly attractive.

“Alrighty you guys ready for an ass whoopin?” Jerry jests.

“You bet.” Your dad replies.

You and your dad make your way to the other side of the net and get into your ready positions. Abby serves the ball first and her swing was strong, but it was no match for your speed. You quickly learned the harder Abby hit the ball the louder she would grunt, so naturally you attempted to rile her up further. You would smirk arrogantly at her every time you and your dad gained a point, and take an extra long time getting ready to serve on the rare occasion she and Jerry would score a point. You and your dad rack up points quickly and the blonde was growing visibly frustrated. She was starting to hit the ball even harder, her jaw was clenched and her expression was so serious. It was adorable.

Eventually Jerry calls for a break and sits on one of the benches with you dad, leaving you to sit with Abby. Alone.

You sit down next to her on the wooden bench and start sipping from your water bottle. She does the same and you sit in silence for a bit. You notice the sweat on her brow and how her shirt is starting to stick to her skin. You can almost make out her abdominal muscles through the thin blue fabric.

“I’m not usually this bad at sports, not used to losing.” Abby says, looking straight ahead. You can’t help but smile at her discontent, she seems just as competitive as you.

“I’m sure your strong muscles get you pretty far in most sports, but apparently tennis is not one of them, especially when you're up against an expert like me.” You say trying to joke around to lighten her mood.

“I wouldn’t classify a varsity tennis player as an expert, but okay.” She says with a smug look, still not facing you. She definitely did not understand your humor.

“Clearly enough of an expert to beat you.” You shoot back. Abby grows silent and continues to sip her water.

You sit in silence while your dad chats with Jerry, giving up on trying to make conversation with Abby. Eventually Jerry and your father stand up ready to finish the game. You and your dad beat them miserably. The game only ended because the sun started to go down, the country club quickly emptying out for the day.

Your dad and Jerry suggest you all get washed up in the locker rooms before leaving. They walk away from the tennis court side by side talking and laughing while you and Abby walk behind them in almost total silence. Once the group reaches the locker rooms the two dads turn to you and Abby.

“Would it be ok if me and Jerry grab a drink together? Abby can take you home in Jerry’s car.” The absolute last thing you wanted was to be stuck in a small car with this mean blonde, but you smiled and nodded.

“See you later kiddo.” Your dad smiles and tussles your hair before walking into the locker room.

You walk into the locker room as well, planning to just keep your distance from Abby for as long as you could until you were stuck with her in a tiny car. You can hear her heavy footsteps follow behind you and you quickly put your bag down, grab a towel and walk towards the showers to avoid facing her. You walk into one of the stalls and turn on the shower. The warm water helps to calm you down and soothes you. You lather on the soap massaging your muscles to relieve any soreness or tension, making sure you washed all the sweat away from the match. Unfortunately you have to be quick because you don’t want to make Abby any more annoyed than she was.

As you step out and begin to dry yourself off you realized you forgot your change of clothes.

Fuck.

You wrap the towel around you tightly and make your way to the lockers. Abby is sitting on the bench in the middle lacing up her shoes. Thank god she was looking down. You scramble over to your bag and grab your clothes out. You turn to head back to the showers to change in peace but Abby’s voice stops you.

“You took fucking forever.” She’s not looking at you, which you have observed to be a habit of hers.

“Didn’t want to stink up your car. Is that ok with you?” Abby scoffs, but says nothing in response.

“Seriously what the fuck did I do to you?” You blurt out, exasperated. You’re not usually this confrontational, but you felt like you deserved an answer. “I have barely had a conversation with you and for some reason you seem to have a problem with me or something.”

Abby stands up angrily to face you and you had almost forgotten you were wearing a towel until she looked at you up and down with wide eyes. “You weren’t even gonna get dressed before asking me that question?” She sounds genuinely pissed off. Was everything you did an inconvenience?

“Doesn’t matter, just answer it.” You look her straight in the eyes, challenging her.

“Fine. You really wanna know?” You nod “I barely had a conversation with you and I could tell you were a brat.” As she’s talking she starts walking towards you, you didn’t even realize you were backing away until you felt the cool metal lockers against your skin. “You have an attitude problem, you know that? You don’t know when to shut the fuck up” She’s close, too close, she’s looking directly down at you daring you to respond.

“Are you fucking kidding me? You were the one who started being rude to me.” You refuse to break eye contact with her, trying to intimidate her from your height was ineffective, she wasn’t backing down. “What are you gonna do?” You ask boldly, tilting your head inviting her to answer. “Teach me a lesson? We both know you’re not gonna do anything, so just let me get dressed so I can get home and never see you again.” She doesn’t respond, the only sound was you and Abby’s synchronized breaths as she stared at you with a fire in her eyes. Her stare somehow made you feel more naked than you already were, making you overly aware of the fact that you were wearing a towel that was starting to slip down.

“You have no idea what you’re asking for sweetheart.” She says almost breathlessly. The anger in her eyes quickly turns into a hunger when she looks down at your towel slowly slipping off your body. You’re holding on to the towel for dear life.

“Fuck.” Abby says breathlessly before doing the absolute last thing you could have expected. She kisses you. Hard.

You let out a surprised squeak and quickly back away, both of your chests heaving. You look in her eyes and see a desperation and hunger that’s almost scary, but for some reason you kiss her back. Abby melts into you and threads her fingers into your hair. You place your hands gently against her chest as she pushes you further against the lockers with her strong body. Her hands slowly travel down to the towel barely maintaining your dignity. She gently pries your hands from the soft material and rips it off throwing it across the room, keeping her lips on yours the entire time. You barely notice the cool air against your bare skin, she is so close to you you can feel her body heat radiate through her clothing.

Abby uses her foot to move yours outward, spreading your legs enough for her to slot her thigh between them. You moan into her mouth the moment her strong thigh makes contact with your bare cunt. You start slowly writhing against her, trying to relive the ache that was growing in your center. Abby breaks away and looks down at you desperately grinding on her thigh. “You’re already so wet for me sweetheart. Barely had to do anything.” She smiles smugly as she watches you become a moaning mess, her thigh creating a perfect pressure against your clit.

Abby starts kissing you down your neck, occasionally sucking on the sensitive skin, the feeling of her rough tongue causing you to whimper. She begins circling her fingers around your nipples, teasing them, before pinching them and rolling them between her fingers. You begin to move faster against her thigh and the pleasure in your belly begins to build. Your moaning starts to become louder as you begin to reach your high. Abby notices and moves her thigh further against you, putting even more pressure on your sensitive bud. “You close baby?” You nod and whine, desperate for any kind of release. You start moving faster against Abby’s thigh and your pleasure quickly hits its peak. It comes crashing against you in overwhelming waves, forcing loud moans from your lips. Abby eventually puts her leg down and backs away slightly, before kneeling in front of you. Before you can ask any questions she grabs one of your legs, hooks it around her shoulder and licks a stripe up your soaking cunt. You hiss through your teeth, sensitive from your first orgasm. She begins teasing your clit with her tongue and you have to thread your fingers into her hair for something to hold on to.

You barely manage to whimper out, “Abs-fuck- I-I’m too sen-senitive.”

She stops for a second and looks up at you. The sight of her kneeling between your legs is nearly enough to have you coming again. “You can take it baby, gonna make you come until you can’t give me that attitude anymore.” And with that she starts lapping at your cunt once again. She sucks your clit into her mouth, her tongue circling your sensitive bud. You let out a surprised whine, your chest heaving from the intense sensation. Abby’s hands grab hold of your hips, bring you closer to her mouth.

You can feel another orgasm building as Abby rubs her thumbs in circles against your skin. You begin uncontrollably writhing against her tongue, but Abby quickly uses her grip on your hips to pin you firmly against the lockers forcing you to remain still. The action caused your pleasure to bubble over. “Abby-”, you whine out “-ffuck-fuck.”

She keeps assaulting your clit through your orgasm, not slowing down. As you begin to come down, you become sensitive again and try to wriggle away from her. She pins your hips against the lockers and looks up at you with a stern look in her eyes. She wasn’t going to stop until you couldn’t even hold yourself up.

She shoves two fingers inside of you causing you to gasp at the sudden intrusion. Her digits slid in easily, your arousal now dripping down your thighs. She curls her fingers forward causing you to have to bite your lip to keep from screaming.

“Don’t you fucking dare bite your lip I want everyone to be able to hear you screaming for me sweetheart.” You clench around her thick fingers at her words and Abby takes that as a sign to keep talking. “You’re taking me so well princess. Think I can add another finger?” You nod eagerly at her in response. “Use your words baby.”

“Y-yes pl-please yes.” With your pathetic reply she adds another finger, filling you to the brim. She fucks you at a steady pace occasionally looking up at you to watch your face scrunch up in pleasure. She begins sucking hard on your clit causing you to let out a pornographic moan. She speeds up her fingers, hitting your g-spot with each thrust. Little moans and whimpers were escaping your lips every time her fingers hit that spongy spot. Your walls began clenching around Abby’s fingers and she knew you were close. Your orgasm hit you quickly and caught you by surprise, your whole body feeling the most intense pleasure you’ve ever felt. You’re not even sure what noises you were making or what you were saying, the pleasure was so blinding all you could do was buck your hips into Abby’s mouth. You were being held up exclusively by Abby’s grip on your hips. She stands up and quickly scoops you up bridal style to sit you down on the bench. She helps you get dressed and you could barely protest, she reduced you to jello. Abby stands up and offers her hand to help you up. You oblige and as you stand up she says “Need you to teach me your tennis skills sometime.” Weirdly she’s smiling.

You can’t help but smirk, “Yeah? Well it’s gonna cost you and I don’t take sexual favors as payment.”

#abby anderson #the last of us 2 #abby x you #abby tlou #abby x fem!reader #abby smut #abby anderson smut #abby anderson x reader #the last of us smut

569 notes · View notes

hungermakesmonsters · 11 months ago

Text

Catch Me If You Can

Chapter Eighteen

Plot summary : When your friend interviews for a position at Anvil, you have a chance encounter with Billy Russo. He takes you for coffee and, by the time you’re done, Billy decides he’s anything but done with you.

Pairing : Billy Russo x Reader

Story Rating : R

Chapter Rating : PG

Warnings : [This is a fic for 18+ only, minors DNI] There's some dark stuff pertaining to an abusive past relationship, attempted murder, and vague details of a car crash. Please check the warnings on each chapter if you choose to follow this story.

Word Count : ~4.4k

A/N : Set about a week after the last one! I'm honestly a little nervous about this chapter, I hope you like it! As always thanks so much for reading!

Chapter Eighteen

The whole world came crashing down around you in a single moment.

You didn’t realise until it was too late to stop it, until it was too late to change anything and avoid the inevitable consequences.

The private investigator took the envelope full of cash before sliding the file across the table to you, sparing you one last glance and a couple of words of warning before climbing out of the booth and heading towards the exit. Your gaze followed him out of the diner and onto the street, where he walked past -

Your heart stopped.

Frank.

He had his phone out, pointing right at you through the diner window, a mix of betrayal and disappointment on his face. It took a moment to figure out what was happening, for the penny to finally drop, but when it did, you felt your entire body fill with panic; he thought you were the security threat, the person who’d been digging into anvil over the last couple of months.

Your heart started to race, knowing that he was going to tell Billy what he thought he’d seen, that he’d seen you paying off the PI who’d been snooping around Anvil. You scrambled out of the booth, almost tripping over your own feet, desperate to get to Frank and fix the situation before it spiralled out of control.

But he was already on the phone by the time you got outside. You kept the file clutched to your chest, holding it against you like a shield as you approached the imposing figure of Frank Castle, stomach knotting as you heard him speak.

“Yeah, Bill, I’ll deal with it,” his eyes fixed on you as you stopped in front of him.

You waited in silence, for a moment thinking you could just about hear Billy’s voice on the other end of the phone before Frank hung up and dropped his phone into his pocket.

“I’m gonna need you to give me that,” Frank said, holding out his hand, expecting you to hand the file over.

“I can’t.” Because, despite everything that was happening, you knew one thing for sure; you couldn’t let anyone see the file, couldn’t let them know about your past.

“Y’know, the crazy thing is that I thought Bill was gonna be the one to break your heart, not the other way around,” Frank shook his head.

“You don’t understand -”

“Pretty sure I do,” he interrupted, not willing to listen to your explanations, “you’ve had your PI lookin’ into Anvil and Bill for weeks now, so give it up.”

“No, that’s not -” but you could already tell that he wasn’t going to listen to you, that he’d made up his mind. “I need to see Billy, I have to explain this to him.”

“That’s great ‘cause he’s already waiting at Anvil for you.”

You stared at him for a moment before realising that you had a choice to make - he couldn’t very well bundle you into his car in broad daylight, but you were aware how bad it would look for you if you refused to go with him. You’d just given up every single dollar to your name for the file in your hand and, now, you needed to make sure that it hadn’t all been for nothing.

“Okay,” you relented, “take me to Billy.”

Frank gave a grunt and nodded towards his truck. You followed after him, climbing into the passenger seat and keeping your eyes fixed forward. Once he’d started the engine, you reached for your phone, hastily typing up a message to Karen, wanting to try and explain what was going on before Frank told her.

“Who you texting?” Frank asked suddenly, taking his eyes off the road.

“Karen, I -” he snatched your phone before you could finish, your thumb managing to hit send on the half finished message as he pulled it away from you. “What the fuck?”

“You’re not draggin’ Karen into this shit,” he told you, his eyes returning to the road just in time to keep from running a red light - a sharp stop that caused your anxiety to spike even more, reminding you of the accident years ago. You were so distracted that you only caught the last half of what Frank was saying, “- when Bill’s done with you.”

You didn’t argue, didn’t ask him to repeat himself. You just wanted him to concentrate on the road. So, you remained silent, clutching the file to your chest and watching out the windscreen. The way he drove across the city made your heart race and your chest tighten, practically jumping out of your skin with every screech of brakes or honk of a horn.

And, when you reached Anvil some fifteen minutes later, you were quick to scramble out of the truck, almost gasping for breath.

He gave another grunt, indicating that you should follow him and, stupidly, you did just that. You didn’t realise that anything was wrong until you were in the elevator and realised that you were being taken down to the basement level instead of up to Billy’s office.

“Why aren’t we going to Billy’s office?” You asked, dread already starting to coil in your stomach.

“Bill doesn’t want you in his office,” Frank answered as the doors slid open, revealing a cold and terrifying looking corridor.

“I want my phone back.” You told him, unable to stop the fear from filling your tone.

“Told you, you can have it back when Bill’s done with you,” he motioned for you to start moving and, with no other option, you did.

When the elevator doors slid shut, your thoughts started to spiral to dark places you didn’t want them to go, to memories of feeling trapped and powerless. A lump rose in your throat and tears were already starting to sting your eyes as your footsteps echoed down the long hallway. When Frank stopped and opened a door, you let him usher you inside before you realised your mistake.

The door closed behind you, leaving you trapped and alone in what appeared to be an interrogation room. Had your state of mind been better, you might have realised that the room was used for training new recruits and conducting interviews but, since you were panicking, all you could think was that you were going to be trapped there until you confessed to all of the things you hadn’t done.

You turned back to the door quickly, pulling at the handle. You weren’t surprised to find it locked, but it did nothing to stop the panic that was raging inside of you.

The room had a long metal table and two chairs, one on either side, but you didn’t move to sit. You couldn’t move at all, terror had you rooted in place, your fingers still tightly gripping the file against your chest. There was a camera blinking in the corner of the room and you felt your stomach drop; was Billy watching you right now, could he see the terror on your face? (And, if he could, why wasn’t he coming to help you?)

Minutes passed before Billy stepped into the room. You stayed frozen as he stepped around you and you waited - you waited for him to tell you that this was all some big mistake, that he knew you’d never do the things Frank had accused you of. But it never came. As he took a seat, your eyes closed tight, silently willing yourself to wake up from this nightmare.

Another minute passed in total silence, like he was waiting for you to speak first and dig your own grave, but you couldn’t even look at him, much less form the words you needed to explain all of this to him.

“Just give me the file,” he finally said.

“I can’t,” you shook your head, eyes still closed tight.

“Who are you working for?” There was something cold in his voice, something broken and full of pain and, despite everything he was putting you thought, some part of you longed to comfort him.

“No one, I’m not -”

“Don’t lie to me!” The sound of his open palm hitting the surface of the table caused you to flinch, your eyes opening as you took a step back and pressed yourself against the wall, needing to put as much distance between you and Billy as possible. “You paid someone to look into Anvil, into me.”

“No, that’s not what happened! You don’t understand -”

“What were you after; finances? Mission details? How much were you getting paid?” His tone got sharper with every word.

“I wasn’t after anything, that’s not what this is. It’s not about Anvil -” you tried desperately still, somehow, holding onto some small glimmer of hope that you could fix things before they got too broken.

“Bullshit!”

“Please, Billy,” you struggled to find the words in your panic, “you promised that you’d trust me, that you’d -”

“I did trust you!”

His use of the past tense caused something to break inside of you, and you felt a sort of pain that you hadn’t felt in years, the sort of pain that could only be inflicted by someone you loved.

“Stop, please, Billy just -” you tried again, blinking back tears.

Everything was falling apart around you, the future you’d let yourself hope for was slipping away; you were going to move in with him, you were going to go work for The Bulletin, and you were finally going to start rebuilding your life after so many years of just existing and scraping a living. All your dreams were dying all at once, all because he wouldn’t listen to you, because he couldn’t trust you.

Some part of you knew that if you could just find the words, you’d be able to make him understand, but your panicked, racing mind couldn’t focus enough to say or do anything to help fix things.

“How long?” He asked coldly, ignoring your tears. “How long have you been lying to me, using me?”

“I wasn’t lying! Why won’t you listen to me? Why can’t you trust me?” You heard yourself begging desperately.

“Because you’ve been lying to me for months!” His voice got louder, sharper, and you no longer recognised the man in front of you. This wasn’t your Billy, this was someone else entirely. “You know, you really had me fooled, pretending to be this wounded little thing, acting like you wanted me, like we had something.”

“It wasn’t an act!” You managed to raise your voice to match him, desperate to make him listen, to convince him that you still cared, but Billy didn’t even seem to hear it. “Please, just - just let me explain. I can explain this.”

“Explain what? That none of this was real? That you tricked me into wanting you so you could get close enough to stab me in the back? Did you get paid extra to fuck me or was jumping into my bed just part of the game for you?” You could still hear the pain in his tone, but the moment Billy said those words to you, something inside of you snapped.

Your stomach continued to tie itself in knots. You hated every little thing about this, hated how he thought you were as bad as all of the other people who had used him and lied to him to get what they wanted. But your pain quickly started to turn to anger - he wasn’t the only one who’d ever been hurt, he wasn’t the only one who’d been lied to and used. As hurt as Billy obviously was by this whole situation, he’d broken his promises to you; he wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t hear you out, wouldn’t trust you.

You were being blamed for something you hadn’t done and you were going to lose everything because of it. Again.

“You think I jumped into bed with you?” Your tone turned sharper, colder, and more certain - because, in all of this, if you were certain of one thing, it was that you did not just jump into bed with him. Finally you had his attention, just in time for you to tell him; “falling in love with you is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, Billy. And you’ve just managed to prove why it was such a stupid idea.”

It was the first time you’d dared utter that you loved him aloud, but you were no longer scared of how he was going to react to the revelation or how vulnerable it would make you feel. It was too late to care about any of that. You’d come to Anvil hoping to save things with Billy but that dream was now over.

And, for the first time since all of this began, you realised that the truth of your past couldn’t hurt you anymore. It didn’t matter if Billy knew because he’d already given up on you, whatever was between you was over now, and everything you’d done to try and preserve it had been for nothing.

“Fine,” you relented, forcing yourself to step away from the wall and towards the table. Once you were close enough you slammed the file down in front of him so hard that its contents spilled out across the table; photographs of you, notes about your work, your friends and your finances.

Billy’s eyes dropped, quickly looking over it, starting to move things, rummaging through the paperwork, trying to make sense of it.

“It was never about you or Anvil. He was looking for me. And I just spent every penny I had paying him off so I wouldn’t have to leave New York, so I wouldn’t have to leave you. But I guess the jokes on me, because you don’t even care enough to keep your promises to me and just listen for five fucking minutes.” By the time you’d finished, you had to cover your mouth to try and suppress the sobs that were desperate to escape you.

Billy stayed silent, rifling through the pages and photographs in front of him, seeming to become more frantic with every passing second as he looked for something, anything, to prove that he hadn’t just destroyed your relationship for nothing.

You watched him for a second, knowing exactly what he’d find in the file, and knowing the questions he’d inevitably have for you when he found the details of your sister's death, and the car crash that had left you scarred. But it was too late for any of that now, he’d lost any right to ask anything about your past.

Moving back to the door, you gave the handle a sharp tug, even though you were pretty certain that the door was still locked.

“Wait -” his broken tone caused you to bristle. Where once you would have felt compassion, you now only felt anger.

“Let me out.”

“I don’t understand,” he told you, as he got to his feet and started to move towards you, his expression one of confusion instead of anger. You held up a hand, wanting him to keep his distance and Billy stopped. In his hand he was holding a copy of the photograph that he’d seen on your bedside table all those weeks ago, the photo of you and your siblings as children. “Please, help me understand this. I want to understand.”

“Which part, Billy? The part where you refused to listen, when you wouldn’t hear me out, when you wouldn’t trust me like you promised?” A hand scrubbed at your cheek, desperately trying to wipe away your tears, not wanting him to see just how much he’d wounded you. “Or the part where you thought so little of me that you thought I was fucking you just to get information on your company?”

“I didn’t know, I -”

“You wouldn’t let me explain!” You yelled and it was Billy’s turn to flinch at your tone. “I gave up everything I had to get that file, and now it doesn’t even matter. None of this matters anymore.”

“It matters, it -” he tried, obviously struggling for words, “- why didn’t you tell me?

“Why didn’t you believe me?” you threw back at him. ”Why is it so hard for you to trust me? Do you even trust anyone?”

“I’m sorry, I never -”

“Just - just stop. It’s too late.” You shook your head. It hurt too much and every word, every plea that left him only made the ache in your chest feel worse. “You promised me that you’d listen. I trusted you and you ruined it. You’ve ruined us.”

“No... don’t say that. Please, don’t say that.” His voice continued to crack and break, and it was almost enough to make you want to back down, but you knew you couldn’t. Not after this. He’d broken his promise to you and left you feeling more wounded and alone than you’d ever felt. “I’m sorry, let me fix this, sweetheart, please.”

“Fix this?” You almost managed to laugh through the tears. “There is no fixing this, Billy. You’ve ruined it. You broke my heart.”

“No, no... please, I -” for a moment he looked at you like those three little words were on the tip of his tongue, like he was ready to confess his love, but you didn’t want to hear it.

“Just stop. You don’t get to fight for me, Billy. Not now. Not after this.” You told him angrily. “I told you I couldn’t do this if you didn’t trust me.”

“You said you fell in love with me,” the words came out so softly that you almost didn’t hear them.

You could see the thinly masked distress on his face, the pain and misery that you’d managed to cause with that one, silly admission. You hated yourself for blurting it out like that, like you were some character in a soap opera or some shitty romance novel. And, if he’d been anyone else, you might have been angrier at his obliviousness to your feelings - of course you’d fallen in love with him, it had been so fucking obvious - but Billy had always been honest with you; he didn’t know love, didn’t understand it. All the people who were supposed to love him and abandoned him.

But not you. That was not what this was. You weren’t abandoning him, he’s pushed you to breaking point. This time it was Billy’s fault.

“What did you think was gonna happen?” You dared to ask, not even bothering to try and hide your pain anymore. “I’m not like you, Billy, I can’t just turn off my emotions whenever things get difficult.”

“You love me?” He took a step closer, the look on his face suggesting that he still thought that there was some way that he could fix things.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It matters to me, please, I -”

The door opened and, before he could finish that thought, you were rushing back out into the hallway, trying to put as much distance between yourself and Billy as possible. He followed after, your name dying on his lips when he saw Karen and Frank standing there.

“Sorry, Bill, she -” Frank started, looking at Karen who was now holding your phone.

“You’re both assholes,” she stated and neither man dared argue with her. Obviously, thankfully, she’d managed to figure out what was going on and where you were just from the half of a text message that you’d managed to send before Frank had confiscated your phone.

Her arm quickly pulled around your shoulders and she started to lead you towards the elevator while you tried to choke back tears. You didn’t dare look back until you were in the elevator; Billy looked heartbroken, following after you but keeping his distance.

“Please, I -” he tried.

“You’ve done enough, Billy. Just leave her alone.” Karen snapped as the doors slid shut and, a moment later, the floodgates opened and you started to sob uncontrollably, knowing that you’d lost everything.

TWO HOURS EARLIER.

Your heart was racing, thumping out a painful and uneven beat in your chest.

When Karen had told you that a private investigator had been asking around about you at The Bulletin, you’d put things together pretty quickly. You had her set up a meeting later that morning for you, hoping that you could fix things before they got out of control, even though your every instinct told you to pack a bag and get out of New York as quickly as you could.

You didn’t want to have to run, you didn’t want to leave the life that you were starting to build in the city. You didn’t want to leave the man that you loved.

Before heading to the diner to meet the PI, you stopped at the bank, withdrawing every penny that had, hoping that it would be enough, hoping that you could pay him off and fix everything before things spun out of control.

He was already waiting in the diner when you arrived, sitting in a booth by the window; a grizzled looking guy, well into his forties, who’d obviously been in the PI game for decades. As you slid into the seat opposite him, you felt your guts start to twist with a mix of anxiety and fear.

“If I’d known that this was the quickest way to get you out of hiding, I’d’ve done it weeks ago,” he stated before you’d even gotten comfortable. “I take it you wanted to meet to make me an offer?”

You took a breath, trying to steady your still-racing heart. “How much would it cost for you to go back to Florida and pretend you couldn’t find me?”

He almost seemed shocked that you knew where he was from for a second, but it was quickly hidden behind a lazy sort of smile.

“More than you’ve got,” he stated and your heart sank. “I’m a little surprised that you don’t seem surprised by any of this.”

“I’m not,” you offered, already feeling like you were wasting your time. “I knew it was only a matter of time before Scott started looking for me. Did he tell you why - did he tell you why he wants to find me?”

“No, and I didn’t bother to ask - usually don’t when the money’s this good.” He shrugged before sitting forward in his seat. “Go on then; what’d you do to this guy? I figured you either broke his heart or you took something of his. Must’ve been something big for you to spend these last few years running all up and down the country.”

“I didn’t do anything,” you voice cracked at how helpless you suddenly felt, “He tried to kill me, and that’s probably why he wants me back.”

That seemed to unsettle the PI and you decided to use it to your advantage.

“I take it you know about the accident?” You asked and the PI gave an awkward sort of nod, not knowing what point you were going to try to make. “It wasn’t an accident, he deliberately swerved the car off the road because I’d finally told him that I was leaving him.” Your voice continued to crack, threatening to break. “He pulled himself out of the car and left me there to die. I had to crawl through fire and broken glass to save myself,” you rolled up your sleeve, letting him see the scars, along with the sickening S that Scott had carved into your skin. “That’s why he wants to know where I am. He wants to finish the job.”

The PI let out a slow exhale and it was more than obvious from the way he shifted in his seat that he hadn’t been expecting that story, that he’d been lied to and used by Scott.

A trembling hand wiped at your eye, you were determined not to cry despite everything you’d just been forced to reveal.

“Look, I feel for you, but this is a big payday and -”

You reached into your purse and quickly placed the envelope on the table between you.

“That’s everything I have,” you told him, sniffing back tears, “you can have it all, just - please, give me the file and don’t tell him I’m here. I just want to be able to live my life. I don’t want to have to start over again.”

“You’d leave that rich boyfriend of yours?” He asked, like he almost didn’t believe what you were trying to tell him.

“If I had to. But I don’t want to. Scott has already stolen years of my life, please don’t help him take more. There’s just over fifteen grand in that envelope, I know it’s not a lot but -”

Your heart threatened to stop as he picked up the envelope and started thumbing through the stack of notes inside.

“This is everything you’ve got,” he stated with the certainty of someone who’d looked into your accounts. “You’re willing to give up everything just to make sure this guy doesn’t find you?”

“Yes...”

The moment that followed seemed to linger for an eternity; him looking at you like he was trying to decide what to do, while you stared back, silently praying to any god that might listen to you.

There was no holding back the relieved sob that slipped from you when he finally put the envelope in his pocket and slid the file across the table to you.

“I’ll tell him I lost track of you after the six months you spent in Chicago.”

“Thank you.

He gave something of a grumble as he started to pull his coat on and got to his feet, ready to walk away, but something made him stop. “Y’know, that boyfriend of yours isn’t as squeaky clean as you think. I’d be careful if I were you - and, maybe, you should ask him where his mother is.”

He didn’t give you the chance to ask what he meant, before he turned and left the diner, your gaze following him out the door and onto the street, watching as walked right past Frank Castle, who was holding his phone and photographing the entire exchange.

Chapter Nineteen

END NOTES : Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ok so this is probably the chapter than I've been most nervous about so I hope people enjoy the drama and angst! I know this probably wasn't what people were expecting from this chapter, but I won't say too much because I don't want to spoil anything for future chapters.

As always thanks so much for reading and sticking with this, it really does mean the world to me!

If you want adding/removing from the tag list let me know (I know it’s not working for everyone - if it’s not working and you don’t want to miss a chapter, I post every Friday around 7:30pm gmt)

TAG LIST

@lincerad @sweetserendipity65 @rafaelakelley @slayerofthevampire

@rensolodriver @lovelydoveval @doloreschanal @damagelove @danzer8705 @unlikelystarlightcowboy @schlotzshewrote @bisexualbith @uncontainedsmiles @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @lilliesofmay @billyrussoslut @readingabouthim @arwensloanebarnes @scarlettrikstr

#billy russo #billy russo x reader #billy russo x female reader #billy russo fanfic #the punisher #cmiyc ff #billy russo imagine

140 notes · View notes

sky-kiss · 9 months ago

Text

Raphael & Jaheira: You All Meet at an Inn

A/N: I had to get an intro out of the way before proper sassing down the line. And apologies, I'm out of practice with writing.

R & J: Let's be honest, his taste in wine is so much better than hers

Like many of his kind, the devil was a series of contradictions.

Handsome but not striking. Languid, but only on a cursory inspection. A more pointed observation would showcase the taut muscles in his shoulders and thighs, hinting that the lazy rolling motion of his wrist was intentional rather than instinctual. And, perhaps most importantly, despite the ostentatiousness of his garb, rich blues, reds, and golds, which demanded attention and respect, few of the Last Light’s patrons truly saw him.

Jaheira did not fault them for the oversight. The High Harper noted it with a world-weary amalgamation of affection and exhaustion. Few prey animals noticed the hunter until it was upon them. Man and beast were not such disparate creatures.

She shifted, rolling her shoulders to alleviate some residual tension—the aches that never seemed to properly fade these days, which had faded until only a decade prior. She should turn him out. And aye, much like the aches, even a decade ago, she might have done something about his presence—but where was the harm? He stuck to his corner and played his games.

In the darker stretches of the night, his attention shifted away from the lance-board and his books towards the door. The devil waited.

Jaheira waited, too.

The devil lifted his head, eyes flicking from the Mystra piece to the Harper. He made a show of it, eyes widening, lips turning up in a smile—noticing her, seemingly for the first time. She snorted, arching a brow. He shrugged, expression relaxing into something more neutral and more genuine, motioning to the seat across from him.

“You know, I rather wondered which of us would bring our little dance to its close,” he began, voice warm and rich. His lips twitched, expression colored with so many masterful little notes—presumed intimacy, natural familiarity…they might have been old friends meeting for drinks in any alehouse. Easiness and charm…the domain of all his kind. His eyes glittered in the firelight.

The half-elf sunk into the chair, holding her arms out wide. “Shall we continue circling each other like coquettish maids?” Jaheira waved him off. “Who has time for it?”

“Certainly not you, High Harper. All this,” he motioned around them, attention flicking to the window and the shadows just beyond. “Resting on your shoulders…such a weighty calling.”

“You offer to take it from me?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. You are so…uniquely equipped for these travails.”

Jaheira snorted. “Let us call it experience—hard won over many years of life.” She tipped her head to the side, regarding him closely. Without a room of distance between them, she could appreciate the more minor details of this mortal form: wrinkles near the corners of his eyes, hints of sunspots across the back of his hands, and streaks of gray brightening otherwise dark hair. He felt fully manifest in a way so many of his ilk failed to recognize—the little things grounded an illusion in reality. “Come, tell me what to call you. In my head, it is ‘devil this, devil that’...tedious.”

His eyes widened. “You shall have to forgive this lapse in manners—it’s the setting, you see. One really isn’t at their best.” He mimed a bow, someone still regal despite the confines of the chair. “I am Raphael—very much at your service.”

“A pleasant name! Well-suited to this pleasant face.”

Raphael hummed. With a snap of his fingers, the lance-board disappeared. In its place, a bottle of brandy. She did not recognize the label’s language. “A devil in your house, and yet…we are rather blase.”

“Do not take it personally.” She ghosted her fingers across the table. “Gods of death, demon princes…after these things—” his muscles drew taut, eyes narrowing as she spoke. “ —your feathers are very pretty, but… you make for a much smaller bird.”

To his credit, Raphael laughed. He poured them each a glass of wine. As if in concession, he took the first sip—no poison. Jaheira bowed her head and followed suit. The wine’s bouquet blossomed across her tongue—rich and deep, a hint of cherry and leather giving way to softer, more subtle notes. It reminded her of Calimshan—pleasant evenings before the true weight of adventuring settled on her shoulder…when she’d been young, Khalid at her side.

The knowing glint in his eye said he’d anticipated such a reaction. A smaller bird, perhaps, but cunning. I have survived so many years, his gaze said, and I have thrived for good reason.

“To walk so freely on the Prime is no small thing. And you do not seem the sort to bind yourself to the whims of mortals…” she tapped her chin. “A cambion, then.”

“Are we to trade parlor tricks, my dear? Shall I ask if your house qualified you as a ‘princess’ or a ‘lady’ in Tethyr?”

“A lady, though my youngest will argue that point till she is blue in the face.” Jaheira held up her glass in salute. “Do not take offense—it was a compliment, one mongrel to another.”

Raphael chuckled. “One mongrel to another.” The cambion sighed, relaxing back into his seat. He stroked his chin, fingers teasing across the whisper of stubble—not quite a day’s growth, perhaps a matter of hours. A testament to his dedication and vanity—over the past week, he’d never moved from his seat by the window. “Shall we be honest with each other, ladyship?”

“It depends. Will honestly not make your skin itch?”

“You wound me. I am a paragon of virtue to friends and clients both. And the honest truth is I am awaiting a favorite distraction of mine.” He sipped his wine again. “I dare say they might even solve the lion’s share of your problems. Interested?”

She hummed. Jaheira settled more comfortably in her chair. “Sing me your song, lovely bird. Perhaps…we may yet benefit one another.”

#bg3 raphael #raphael bg3 #jaheira #high harper jaheira #bg3 fanfiction #sassy old people #sassy old 'not royals' being passive aggressive and bitchy #my writing #i ignored doing an assignment worth 30% of my grade for these hags

99 notes · View notes

dwindlinghaze · 1 year ago

Text

painted a picture

(remus lupin x artist!reader)

summary : for remus' birthday, you painted a portrait of him.

contents : tooth rooting fluff, remus is lovely, r is lovely

　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

a blank canvas was set in front of you, ready to be used and littered with colours. you had this brilliant idea of painting your lovely boyfriend as a gift for his birthday.

you had a few polaroids of him just for reference all scattered around your room. at some point you considered painting the two of you together, but you decided not to because you wanted to focus on him.

you started sketching out his face and features, not forgetting about his beautiful scars and imperfections. you love every inch of him. sometimes you wonder how can he dislike himself so much when there's nothing to hate of.

picking up your oil paints, you mixed a good amount of primary colours to match his exact skin tone.

once the base is done, you made darker shades to enhance the painting. starting by his jaw, you brushed a perfect amount of paint to create the realism effect. then coming up to his ears, then nose, lips, hair, and eyes.

you added every little details of his eye. you looked at them enough to remember the small things of his irises. his soft and welcoming honey coloured eyes that you love so much.

making sure you added every scars and freckles, you finally got it done, smiling to yourself in satisfaction.

the once blank canvas is now replaced by the face of your love staring back at you. you were sure if anyone ever fall in love with a painting, it will be this.

you didn't change any of his features, leaving it perfectly just the way it is. you can't wait for remus to see your work. you were so proud.

his birthday finally came, it felt like the longest one week of your life. you had swathed the canvas with a navy blue silk before wrapping it up neatly to present it to him.

"happy birthday love," you said, kissing both of his cheeks affectionately.

"thank you, dove. is that for me hm?" he replied, pointing at your gift.

you smiled shyly, nodding in response. you didn't know why you're suddenly self conscious. you were literally jumping around in excitement the day before to the point where marlene had to stop you before you ruined your bed.

you handed it to him, saying a small you're welcome after he thanked you.

"don't be shy lovie. you know i love anything that you give me," he said to you, squeezing your knuckles.

"i know... open it up c'mon," you urged him.

he did just like you said. tearing the paper carefully. "what's this?" he asked, holding the navy blue silk in his hand.

"open it silly, i'm cruel if i give you a piece of fabric for your birthday," you said.

he chuckled before unwrapping it, breath hitching when he saw what was there.

"d'you like it rem?" you asked, fumbling with your sleeves. his face was a mixture of emotion. he didn't know if he wanted to cry or smile.

just the idea of someone taking that much time and effort to express how he looks through art is something that would never cross his mind. how someone is willingly able to focus on his every features and details of himself. not only are you thinking of him but you memorise him enough to put him on a canvas.

"i'm sorry if it's weird i can take it back and if you don't like it i can repaint so you don't have to feel weird about-"

"i love it," he whispered, a shaky sigh escaping his lips. how can he not? you've dedicated your time for him, although he didn't know for sure if he deserved it. "you're- i don't-" he tore his gaze away from the canvas and look straight to your eyes before he lovingly kissed you.

when you pulled away, remus was looking at you with his lower lip quivering and teary eyes. "you took your time to paint me?"

"i love you, i'd do anything for you."

"i love you too..." he said, his eyes travelling back to the painting. he smiled, looking back at you again.

"i want you to know that i love everything about you. i painted every little details of your face, not leaving anything out because everything about you are so beautiful."

"you added my scars," he whispered. thumb running over them.

"that's what makes you so strong. i couldn't leave that part out," you said, caressing his cheek softly.

he was speechless. what did he ever do to come across someone like you? someone that accepts him for who he is. even he doesn't.

"i want you to put it on your wall as reminder that- that man is the face of my boyfriend, the only man whom i love so much and if you ever think of hating yourself, you're hating on him. that poor man who doesn't do anything wrong," you pointed.

he chuckled, squishing you in between his arms as he fought his tears from spilling out. "i will put it up my wall, just like you wanted," he kissed the crown of your head. "as for the latter, i'll try," said remus weakly.

"it's okay remus, it takes time to love yourself i know that, but i'm always here to remind you that you are loved by so many people. including me. you're so special," you smiled.

"i love you too," he said before he leaned down and kissed you again. he really wished he can say something meaningful to you to express how much he loves you but nothing came to mind because no words can ever describe the amount of love and affection he has for you.

"hey! i want my own self portrait too! pretty please?" sirius, who just walked in pleaded.

"you'll be dorian gray 2.0," you said, chuckling.

"hey i'm not at all like him!"

#remus lupin x reader #remus lupin fluff #remus lupin x reader fluff #remus lupin fic #remus fluff #remus lupin imagine #remus x reader

211 notes · View notes

formulatrash · 3 months ago

Text

What Hot Hatch* Should Every F1 Driver Have? Pt 1

*some of these cars are not technically hot hatches but they are, spiritually, hot hatches to ME and also car genres are meaningless shut up

Unfortunately because I have problems I allowed the group chat to commission me into writing this. I think you will be able to see the point where I really unleashed the thoughts that probably ought to be kept inside. Maybe I will keep Pt 2 to myself.

Max Verstappen - Honda Civic Type R This was tricky because we know the grid's resident cat dad is actually an SUV girly off the track. But he's also a brand loyalist and I'm fairly sure literally has had one of these as his factory car so it checks out that a car notorious for having a better engine than it did chassis would fit the Red Bull post-Newey meltdown. And if you need to go round a bunch of roundabouts there's really almost nothing rivalled to a Civic Type R.

Lewis Hamilton - og Nissan Leaf Yes, Lewis has never had any association to the Renault-Nissan alliance in his life but whatever he's leaving Mercedes. Think he's sort of forgotten about this but he did commit to only driving electric road cars awhile back and I will defend the Nissan Leaf with my LIFE as one of the most fun cars to drive. Nearly said the NISMO Leaf but actually the time I had a go in one of them it was insanely overbearing in a way someone used to having Bono to whine to wouldn't appreciate. The stripped down, basic, original is more than enough to fuck about in a multistory car park and I'm confident Lewis would immediately know what to do with it when next to a BMW at traffic lights.

George Russell - Williams Renault Clio This was actually what started it because I was introducing my beautiful wife to the groupchat and then considering which driver should throw some pocket money at it. Leaving aside the fact that if I was that rich there'd be a lockup in Monte Carlo full of the shittest mid-90s three-doors you've ever seen in your life, this car is perfect for George. It's got a legitimate heritage connection and it's a proper piece, something to look after. There's even matching sweaters for him and Carmen to wear in a sponsored post. And when he gets that look in his eye and starts clenching his jaw too much it's extremely good for doing donuts outside Carrefour.

Sergio Perez - Toyota GR Yaris No, I know he drives for a Honda works team but if they haven't fired him yet they'll probably overlook this. The GR Yaris is a bit of a North American legend because you can legally only get it in Mexico - they're not obtainable in the US. So this is an understated big dick move and maybe what Checo needs is to have a little obnoxious fun, y'know?

Charles Leclerc - Sbarro Super Eight Oh, Charles. Tied up in scarlet. In order to maintain his Maranello-chained brand suffering nothing but Ferrari's finest horsies could do but they're not really in the business of making mean little things to hoon. Unless you consider the driver academy, I guess. Anyway - the Sbarro Super Eight is a Ferrari 308 V8 engine in the body of the kind of vehicle you can get insured on under the age of 25. It has too much (260) horsepower, it's a little silly and deeply selfconscious. And like il predestinato there is only one in the whole world.

Carlos Sainz Jnr - VW Golf This isn't even a statement about what car he should have, this is a car he does have. Mr Sainz and I may disagree about many things but his opinion that the VW Golf is the ultimate road vehicle is absolutely correct. Anyone who's seen the excruciating DTS segment where he tries to take a McLaren to M&S for a disappointing taco mix purchase will understand why Carlos held on to his Golf, a much better vehicle for picking up some bits. In the words of the man himself: "No Golf, no party"

Lando Norris - Lancia Delta Integrale Mk 2 "la Perla" Anyone with my Instagram recommendations will know in quite some alarming detail which Monegasque petrol station Lando uses to fill up his collection of sports cars. Weird fan paparazzi behaviour aside, the man likes buying unique cars and clearly isn't above something quirky given the Fiat Jolly. The Delta Integrale "la Perla" 1) sounds a bit like a sex toy in a way I think he'd find amusing, 2) is rare, with a totally impractical pearlescent white paint job for something ostensibly intended to hoon. It's expensive, semi-unique (allegedly only a few hundred were made) and a little bit silly, with plenty of rally-proven power and drive to muck about with.

Oscar Piastri - Honda City Turbo Oscar seems like the kind of guy who doesn't care too much about appearances. Not in the sense he looks bad - he very clearly does not - but like, lot of rumpled shirts in his wardrobe he's not bothered about ironing, y'know. So it fits that he'd need a hot hatch that does the job more than it's about aesthetic. The things I know about Oscar are that he likes to spend time with his girlfriend and he learned Japanese at school so I'm diagnosing him with JDM import disease and making sure there's a passenger seat. The Honda City Turbo is a teeny weeny little car that only makes its way into being a hot hatch not a kei car because of the totally unnecessary powertrain. And what a fucking powertrain, straight from the Mugen division into the least likely chassis imaginable. Yes, the car is not the most ostentatious looking thing but it's technically interesting and sick as hell so whatever.

Zhou Guanyu - Renault Twingo 133 Silverstone edition Zhou is a man of immense taste and style. He has a great little cat. He is a national icon in his home country and, frankly, any other. He has spent a lot of his life in Sheffield. Aside from this making him basically an idealised form of bloke, I think this means I can entrust him with the Twingo. Not, it's got to be said, overpowered as a car in its base model (my Mk1 Twingo could boast a 0-62 measured in minutes) Renault have never been able to resist souping it up a bit and for some unlikely series of reasons made a sport version to tie into the 2011 British Grand Prix. I don't even want to know why, now, it's better that it stays a mystery. Anyway, this is a Twingo with unnecessary horsepower and live data feeds the Mk1 would probably have a misfire even considering. It's quirky, comes with plenty of backstory and y'know. Whomst amongst us hasn't been screwed around with by Renault a bit in the past?

Valtteri Bottas - the Suzuki Jimny The Jimny is a car of greats. Deceptively small, it works perfectly in a city or if you need to drive up a mountain to get to a gravel course. loads of room at the back for a bike rack. It's practical, a little odd-looking in a charming way and everyone's delighted every time they see one. You can definitely get your ass out in this vehicle. Is it a hot hatch? Probably not but you don't get to define how the Jimny lives its life.

53 notes · View notes

tonydaddingham · 1 year ago

Text

i did not break my own heart last night thinking about the missing 1941 scene and have it sat in my brain all of today spinning around like a fucking microwave in order to not make you lot suffer with me. and i somehow feel i may be right about this so buckle up and lets break it down.

so yes, following on from this post, i think that there is going to be a third 1941 scene. twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern. it's been literally set up like that by even bringing back 1941 into s2 in the first place. but we're missing a crucial detail because it does not - at all, really - explain how they went from evading danger from hell and having a cosy candlelit bottle of red to celebrate, to the bastard 1967 scene. we all know this, this is nothing new.

the symbolism of nightingales is probably going to cast a shadow on this. these two excellent analyses look at the meaning of nightingales in the context of R&J, and the relation that the song has to this point in time, respectively. in summary; it's a song that should be around in 1941 courtesy of vera lynn and others, and the nightingale itself carries the meaning of love being hidden and forbidden by way of it singing under the cover of darkness, before being replaced with reality and soberness - represented by the lark. the Dinner of '41 scene is set in the bookshop at night; this would parallel - that they are safe and concealed, and truths can be shared, but the writing is on the wall that stepping outside would be to shatter the illusion, so to speak. it might be that the song itself gets miracled up onto the record player, or a wireless lying about - whatever. note: i don't think they'll dance though, not given crowley in ep5, "you don't dance"... but then again, if there ISNT a kiss in s3-1941, an aborted dance seems like the next best option... the cowardly one, but i'll take it

this would also track with aziraphale having his epiphany after the church in s1-1941; specifically, in my eyes, that he doesn't necessarily just realise he loves crowley, but that crowley by way of saving his books loves him too. this is only supported by the whole of the s2-1941 scene of trusting in each other as the only way to pull off the trick, the subterfuge. this is then, again, also important in the context of what i think happens in s3-1941.

i do think aziraphale is going to bring the books up again, and what crowley did, because it needs to be addressed. the Nazis/furfur confrontation has scared him, regardless of whether he saved them both, more than he realised. its put things into startling perspective. i think he's going to bring up the books, and actually question crowley a little more as to why he did it. the repeated use of, and subsequent weird reaction crowley has to, the use of the term "friend" in s2-1941 would indicate that this is going to be a focal point in s3-1941. are they just friends? is crowley disappointed that aziraphale is still referring to him as that, after what he did? 'saving' aziraphale in the church, and then saving his books? or is aziraphale just saying 'friends' so hesitantly in both instances because he's not completely sure where crowley stands?

we as the audience know the answer to this, but they obviously do not. if one of the crucial themes of s3 is going to be resolving miscommunication, it makes sense for this scene to be the first, and last, time they communicate properly... at least, until they sort out the issues that culminated in the Final Fifteen.

so let's say they start getting into a very roundabout way of discussing what they mean to each other. there will need to be the sobering, ice-water-over-the-head realisation however, as s2-1941 demonstrated, that they cannot belong to each other, because they manifestly belong to heaven and hell respectively. crowley is still being spied on, and it firmly places aziraphale in their line of sight too. it's going to bring up the holy water discussion; why crowley asked for it - to protect himself, whether by taking out demons or taking out himself, as long as it means he - and most importantly, aziraphale - does not get hurt.

they actively confess that they want to be together, in a way that is more than they are now. aziraphale wants to, but says that they can't, because it's too dangerous. crowley suggests that no one ever has to know, they can hide it (there, in the bookshop, whilst the nightingale is singing), and even if they are found out, they can run. "hell won't just be angry; they'll destroy you..." // "no one ever has to know".

aziraphale doesn't want to have to hide it, doesn't want a halfway measure- is still thinking in black and white. crowley however thinks that something is better than nothing - thinking in the grey. but ultimately, as long as they are still shackled, they cannot do what they want, and it puts the other in danger. "surely the great thing about being a demon is that you can do whatever you want" // "you sound jealous, angel...". instead, aziraphale promises that the day that they are no longer tied to heaven or hell, they can be together; crowley scoffs, thinking that that will never happen, so they will never happen, "you're so clever! how can someone as clever as you be so stupid?!"

the reason they can't right now is because they could be caught. they would have to skulk around, be ashamed, feel guilty - and aziraphale is tired of feeling like that. because only having crowley in secret would hurt more. not being able hold his hand, or dance with him, or kiss him, unless it was in the bookshop. if hell were to find out, crowley would be killed, true, but if heaven were to find out, aziraphale could be cast out. and if crowley survived hell long enough to see aziraphale fall - he'd never forgive himself, and in a way, i don't think he'd ever forgive aziraphale either.

it's tearing them to pieces, but they have to stop whatever is happening between them in its tracks. it's acknowledged, but it's not named. this gives them plausible deniability; if they called it 'love', it would be undeniable. so, aziraphale asks for crowley to go; asks him to leave before they do something they can't come back from. crowley doesn't listen - crowds him, gets in close, and aziraphale is powerless to stop it. doesn't want to stop it. he's selfish by nature, a selfless kind of selfishness, but he wants this with all his being. and then - "this is too fast, crowley, please don't..." // "im sorry, angel. please... please, forgive me". aziraphale never gets to answer, to grant him that, because boom - the actual first kiss.

so. now that i've had to make you read that, i'm going in for the kill. let's look at everything that follows - and look at how the above might recontextualise it.

1967: the offer of the picnic, the Ritz? ie. the literal lyrics of berkeley square? aziraphale has caved in the interest of giving crowley a weapon to use if all else fails, to protect him, but that's as far as he's willing to progress. everything else is still too painful; he's on the brink of tears, promising that one day they'll be able to do what they want, to be open about how they feel, but not yet. they can't. crowley tries to push, "ill give you a lift, anywhere you want to go..." (him offering again to run away? a second chance to leg it?), and aziraphale reminding him that they can't, he can't... don't make him go too fast again, it's not fair. it also sets up perfectly that aziraphale and crowley don't speak for the next 40 or so years (as far as we're aware) until armageddon is threatened.

bandstand: mostly this is still centred around the apocalypse contextually, but i think with the above hypothetical scene in mind (the offer to hide, to run away, to be together), aziraphale is sent back to remembering their mutual confession that they've nonverbally agreed not to bring up, because it's not safe, and it's too painful. they've skirted around it, and returned instead to a tentative kind of friendship at the beginning of s1, but they're still not safe to address why seeing each other again, being so close to each other and not being able to touch is so painful. anyway - aziraphale refuses their side, but the above scene would re-view this as 'our side can't exist yet, you know this! you know why it can't!', and crowley leaves, again after pushing a bit more than aziraphale can stand.

alpha centauri: basically a facsimile of the above; same steps, same dance. but this time, crowley harks back to aziraphale's foolish (?) hope that they will be together, without having to run away, when the day comes that they don't have to answer to heaven or hell. and aziraphale smacks him right back, echoing crowley asking for aziraphale's forgiveness in kissing him, "i forgive you." crowley knows exactly what aziraphale is getting at, there - he's answering crowley's whispered plea to forgive him for pushing, for trying to force him, for acting in desperation. but he's also not answering that - he's skirting around that very thing, forgiving him like a knife would, slicing back at crowley for not only insulting aziraphale on something that is likely a genuine insecurity of his, but also putting him back in his place, for their safeties, because them being together just cannot happen. not yet.

and "please forgive me" in 1941 might seem out of character, but idk if it is; crowley knows that doing what he's about to do will hurt aziraphale, aziraphale has (hypothetically) told him as much, but he needs to do it - and seeks not benevolence or forgiveness as crowley-the-demon, but actually seems aziraphale's forgiveness, as crowley-the-person. the echo would certainly match the tone given here, in multiple ways:

the ritz: i mean, what is there to say? yes, their song is literally playing on the piano, and heralds the shift in their being out from heaven and hell, the day has finally come where they can - again, going by this entirely hypothetical scene that ive concocted - actually be together as they want to. and the nightingale literally singing outside, but as @shoemakerobstetrician beautifully pointed out, god remarks that it's covered up by traffic. so actually, if we again refer back to R&J interpretation of the nightingale, the love is still hidden, still somewhat under wraps, but can only just about be heard over the noise of the streets outside. the prohibition of them being together, of loving each other, is dwindling. and one day, it'll stop singing altogether. that day is coming, it will come, and then they can do what they please. so whilst the ritz scene may well be a mark of them starting the next chapter, it's slow to take hold, there's still hesitancy - which absolutely makes sense when we see that they are still very tentative with each other come the beginning of s2.

s2 general: aziraphale realises their freedom first; he gets excited by the dance, and being able to show his love to crowley, completely and without barriers, in the form of the ball - what he has read to be the best way to do so. he touches crowley more. he shares his bookshop with him, gifts it to crowley as being his as well as aziraphale's, this safe space that is so wholly theirs that crowley has the power to grant entry. the same with the bentley - aziraphale sees it as theirs, and crowley silently agrees, granting aziraphale the same power. crowley is comfortable in the bookshop to remove his glasses, has a place for them. the bookshop becomes tidier, more minimalist, to make crowley more comfortable in it (it is more cluttered in s1, im certain of it). it might just be the grading between s1 and s2, and lack of clutter, but the yellow is more prominent - his literal favourite colour. everything just screams that aziraphale is ready to make good on his promise from s3-1941.

crowley... for once, is the one not quite catching up. not realising the little dates here and there are literally poses them as a couple (although yes, the coffee shop one is to prep crowley for the goob jumpscare), that aziraphale has granted him the power to grant entry. aziraphale literally asking, practically begging, crowley to help him hide goob. the mf colour of the walls. the colour of the bentley. it's not until nina outright asks him if they are together that he realises how careless they've been - but wait, is it careless if they have nothing to be careful of? well, arguably crowley does, hell are still hanging around him like a bad smell... but this is what he wanted! this is what he was pushing aziraphale for! so, does he risk it? he's not sure, but he's certainly realising that aziraphale is ready, if nothing else. and by the time the ladies stage their little intervention, crowley finally realises that the confession he started in 1941 now can be fully aired, can come out into the open.

the Feral Domestic: *fingers at temples* i know i have been fairly vocal about my interpretation of this scene, and frankly - until we get this hypothetical s3-1941 scene, i stand by it - but let's say this speculation about the scene is true, and re-examine the key points in the Final Fifteen that would completely turn on their heads in terms of meaning:

literally, harking back full circle to what aziraphale promised in 1967 as what they would do when they could fully acknowledge their love, and what they did as soon as - on paper - they were free at the end of s1. this is however before he's spoken to by nina and maggie, so maybe this is what crowley was planning in terms of confessing fully to aziraphale, but after their meddling he realised that yes, they need to actually talk about it again. he doesn't understand why they're telling him what they are - because he's existed so long in gestures and gifts and not talking, literally dismissed it now as a viable option, that it doesn't even occur to him to try talking again.

which is why he does something brave, and tries to tell aziraphale instead (say it out loud, make it undeniable, put a name to it, "i love you", something that i think was crowley's actual intention before aziraphale interrupts him) when he comes back to the shop... he's so nervous, because it's vulnerable, and because the last time he did, they ended up hiding for 50-ish years.

next up:

now, im reluctant to think that aziraphale lied in the Feral Domestic, because i do think the key thing at work is his paramount need to do the Right Thing (ie. make a difference in heaven). whilst metatron obviously manipulates him, im not entirely convinced that aziraphale wholly sees through it. i don't think he knew that metatron was up to something, i think the shaking off of this naivety is going to be part of his s3 character development. but this sentence - again, especially in context of the hypothetical s3-1941 scene - must on some level frighten him. especially if you take this meta into account, aziraphale must realise at least that they were never safe, even when they were denying what they were and how they felt, it didn't make a bit of difference. now, metatron could have just been talking about the arrangement, not referring to any romantic elements of any kind, but the threat of it? no wonder he pushes for crowley to join him in heaven; he could keep crowley safe there. they could be together, and heaven - in his eyes - would be able to say a word against it.

then:

the fear sets in; crowley was too late in telling him, acknowledging that they could be together, realising what aziraphale was saying to him without words, and now heaven has come for him. plonked them right back where they were in s2-1941, but perversely mirrored; instead of hell coming for crowley with violence, heaven came for aziraphale with kindness. crowley doesn't have a magic trick he can just do on the fly, perform it perfectly when the need for it is greatest, and has to cling to the hope that aziraphale still sees them as the barrier to them, the reason they can't be together. and in true miscommunication fashion, i think aziraphale does see it, but what metatron said lingers, and in addition to being inside the institution, changing it from the inside out, in order to make a difference... he knows that whilst it's exactly the opposite of what they wanted, he needs to make them safe. better to be inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.

but aziraphale doesn't tell crowley what metatron said, because instead he either deliberately tries to deny the implications of it (cognitive dissonance king behaviour), or he doesn't want to panic crowley and is trying to convey to crowley that he can't speak his concerns, not when the metatron could still be watching, and instead just needs crowley to trust him, take his hand, and join him in heaven where they can be safe. doesn't tell crowley that heaven hasn't captured him in shackles again, but he's willingly held out his wrists because it's the safest thing for him, and them, to do.

so it's one thing to look at what crowley's saying, but aziraphale's reaction? before, i just found it to be out of confusion, him not really understanding what crowley was saying, but tbh i never paid much attention to it (david stole this bit of the scene - not to put down my beloved michael here, but he did). and i know others have remarked here that aziraphale is flitting his eyes to the window and looks scared and stressed, but i don't completely think that its because he's scared that metatron is watching (although, now, i will accept with the rug thing and hypothetical s3-1941 in context it is definitely playing a part), but also because he's just starting to recognise that this is a repeat of the s3-1941 scene, "this sounds familiar, we've been here before... oh, we've definitely been here before... oh shit. i still can't do this, not unless he comes with me. we still can't be together, not in the way crowley wants. the way he's trying again, now, to ask for."

but the issue is: crowley wants to run away together. again. and i totally get why, but once again, going back to 1941: it's exactly the solution that will not work. they cannot run from this. heaven, and hell, will find them. they will come for them. it wasn't an option in 1941, it wasn't an option in 2019, and it isn't an option in 2023. aziraphale begins shaking his head - crowley is confessing, but a) aziraphale doesn't run from things, it isnt in his character, and b) it's just putting them back where they started - something that they have to hide. it defeats the purpose.

and this? yeah, im sure on neither side it was meant the way im about to interpret it, more of an unspoken thing, idk... but if the bookshop is indeed their place of safety, and is where they (as far as crowley sees it) can speak and keep their love, it makes sense that crowley is telling aziraphale he needs to stay. the bookshop can be interpreted so many ways - it represents their relationship, or that crowley means him, himself - but what if we looked at it like crowley is trying now to covet it, because it's protecting them? what if he's saying, "well, if you won't run away with me, we can't be free to have our relationship as we wanted it, not unless we stay here... heaven has come for you, has come for us, and whilst they're here we can't move. so what other option is left remain in this bookshop? to never leave it, and what we have inside it, because there's no other option in which we can be together if you won't run with me."

and what if aziraphale is saying, "no, i have an option, and that's to be together in heaven! they won't be able to do anything, not when im in the position the metatron has offered me, that can be our new bookshop... nothing lasts forever - this bookshop won't last forever, it's compromised, and we can't continue to secret away what we feel inside it, it's time to move forward."

welcome to the line that breaks my heart the most in this whole goddamn scene - and tbh i think is fairly self-explanatory in the hypothetical s3-1941 context. that aziraphale is trying, once again, to tell crowley that he is offering himself, letting them be an 'us', as crowley says shortly after - that before he couldnt do it, and these arent the best of circumstances, but they can finally do it and not have to hide in the bookshop. but crowley reminds him, "hey, i was in your shoes, remember. i wanted us to be together then, and you told me you couldn't, didn't want a halfway measure - well, now i don't either. and this will be a halfway measure, because i don't think us being together in heaven is going to go the way you hope it will. i understand a whole lot better than you do." in any case, it would explain why aziraphale choses this moment to look so devastated. this is what he promised crowley, but now crowley - to his mind, in the things left Unsaid - doesn't want it... him.

and then... back to the nightingales. they're not singing at all, not even under the rumble of traffic, like they were at the Ritz. they're completely absent - day has broken, the things unspoken have now been said, and there's no denying them anymore. from crowley's point of view, there was nothing to stop them this time, but if aziraphale won't run with him, then they have to go separate ways, because there is no other way. aziraphale knows there's the possibility that the only place they could actually be safe is heaven itself, that the bookshop was never as safe as they hoped it had been, but that crowley might actually come to see that. but the fact that crowley is resigned to just... returning to 'reality', to a world that's still turning where they aren't together? despite everything they've just said? "we could've been... us." well, that hurts.

and then... the kiss. now. im still of the mind that the kiss was an Issue. i definitely think it was meant out of love and desperation, and out of possibly being a goodbye. this would echo the hypothetical s3-1941 kiss... but it was hurtful. it was abrupt, and harsh, and not at all romantic (imo). it was possessive, and almost cruel. i do think still it was a last ditch attempt, a temptation, to get aziraphale to change his mind, before crowley leaves the shop and returns to the 'real world'. but it hurts aziraphale in many different ways - but with 1941 put in there, too? crowley is just testing his resolve, trying to push him, come around to giving in. crowley asked him to forgive him the last time he kissed aziraphale, and this time - this time, aziraphale is giving him what he asked for.

#did i just do a whole ass meta based off of a completely hypothetical non-existent hc of the third part of 1941?#yes - yes i did #but the Implications would not leave my brain #make of this what you will if you even got to the end and if you did frankly congratulations #good omens

235 notes · View notes