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whispermask · 2 years ago

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gasoline in your heart ch.10 | soap/ghost/könig

read on ao3 | first ~ prev | ch wc: 3.7k, total: 34k | completed

tags: smut, eventual ot3, fwbs to lovers, porn with feelings, jealous!ghost

dead dove time: this fic as a whole features a brief mention of a past suicide attempt, briefly graphic past child abuse (not CSA), past abuse of alcohol and present alcohol use, and at times dubious consent (consuming alcohol and engaging in sexual activities; dubcon voyeurism; dubcon sexting)

summary: soap and ghost start hooking up; soap and könig have apparently been hooking up; ghost doesn't know how to deal with it (eventual polycule)

preview: Simon scoffs a wet laugh and rubs furiously at his face with his other hand. He meets König’s eyes again and sees his worst fear mirrored there, an acknowledgement of the reality they almost had to endure. A world without Soap. A thrumming tension still so fraught that it might grow tangible and actualize itself if they even speak its name. An understanding passes between them: they have to stay vigilant, or else.

Soap gets captured by an internationally wanted arms dealer in Azerbaijan.

It’s not something he or anyone could have anticipated; what had been a relatively simple, one-man recon op to infiltrate a mid-security hydropower plant in Yenikend pivoted into a desperate scramble to stay alive as armed guards swarmed the facility and descended on Soap in an unexpected display of firepower. Ghost had listened over comms helplessly, just two clicks west of the plant. Sending Soap alone was a stupid decision of monumental proportions on Price’s part, which Ghost had all but roared in Price’s face as the blinking light of Soap’s tracker faded from the toughbook screen.

Ghost counts Soap up there with the best of them, knows he didn’t go down without first giving his captors absolute hell. But it’s been forty-eight hours since Soap went dark and Ghost’s worried enough that he’s called for backup.

“I understand how we’ll get in, but what’s the plan for exfil?” König asks. He’s in his full tac, veil, helmet, the works, a far cry from the last time Ghost had seen him.

(completely naked and spread out face down, hips and arse up on the sheets while Soap sank inside him, so slowly, making sure Simon had a good view from where he sat on the armchair propped in the corner of the room, close enough that he could see the shine of the lube in the low light, far enough away he couldn’t reach out and touch if he wanted to—and he wanted to)

“The way I see it, we’ve got two options,” Ghost says. They’re standing over a series of maps and schematics for the facility and surrounding territory. Ghost’s highlighted, in very uncertain terms, the loose plan for recovering Soap (alive, fuck Johnny, please be alive) in bright red marker.

“If we enter here through the auxiliary room and use the maintenance tunnels that run through the safeguard buildings, we can gather intel on where he’s holding Soap from his last known location, which is here, Division Four’s—that’s this area that’s built along the hillside and not over the dam, primarily administrative.” Ghost uses his gloved index finger to walk through their steps as he talks. “We can’t know what the exfil will look like until we know where Nazim is holding Soap.”

“Achso, what a shame,” König says. He brings his thumb and forefinger to his chin through the veil as he thinks—Ghost will find the time to be charmed by it later. In the last two days, he’s compartmentalized the part of him that has that attachment to König, to Soap even, though there’s an ocean of jumbled and overwhelmingly violent feelings simmering under the surface likely ready to overflow at the slightest provocation. König knows him well enough by now to not rock that boat, to maintain his calm, which in turn is keeping Ghost grounded through this ordeal.

(and the way he had taken Soap, writhing so beautifully for him, the long lines of his body tense and trembling, thrusting against a pillow Soap had placed underneath him to keep his hips raised just so, and Soap, Christ, the bunch and flex of his arse and thighs, the sinew of his back, the strength in his biceps as his hands clutched at König’s thighs and waist, pulling König back into his brutal, booze-sloppy thrusts)

“We’ll find him,”

(now’s really not the time)

This part is easy.

They move through the maintenance tunnel that leads from the auxiliary room where they’ve just wrenched the door off its rusted hinges. He’d shared a look with König over the laughable ease with which they’d breached the plant. He’s starting to get why Price assumed it would be get-in-get-out for Soap alone, but as they’re coming up on the entrance to the first safeguard building, it’s evident that Nazim must be on high alert. Two guards are posted outside the thick double-doors, chatting in Azerbaijani, distracted.

Ghost doesn’t hesitate, never was one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He moves in on the left guard, sees König slinking along the wall towards the right. He buries his dagger in the man’s heart through his clavicle, lowers him to the ground still sputtering before he falls quiet.

König’s stabbed the guard from behind through the kidney first, has him whipped around to jab the blade once, twice in his lung and neck. The guard is falling to his knees and choking on his own blood by the time Ghost turns around to look.

They move through the facility like smoke, dispatching guards as they go, making efficient, almost elegant work of it. As far as Ghost can tell, Nazim likely isn’t even here, and Ghost’s more concerned with finding Soap than exacting revenge.

In no time at all they’re standing before the heavy metal doors that lead to Division Four, where a guard fumbles to reload the clip he’s just futilely emptied, a fatal mistake.

When König has the guard pinned to the ground with a knee between his shoulder blades and the guard’s right arm twisted up in König’s grasp at a dangerous angle, Ghost puts a gun against the back of the guard’s head and says in broken Azerbaijani, “The SAS officer you took captive yesterday. Where is he being held?”

The guard lifts his head at an awkward angle and tries to look into Ghost’s eyes as he spits at Ghost’s boot. Without missing a beat, Ghost moves the barrel just left of the guard’s head and shoots the ground. The guard screams, either from fear or because Ghost’s just ruptured his eardrum.

König leans down and speaks into the guard’s good ear, “You should really tell him what he wants to know, or we could shoot you and find another guard. Your call.”

“Sub-basement level of Division Four, in an unused boiler room,” the guard responds in English. “That’s all I know, I swear!”

Ghost puts a bullet in the back of his head. He’s not Nazim, but it will have to do for now.

Four days after they recover Soap, he’s released from the hospital in Azerbaijan and into Ghost’s care. Ghost files him back to the air base, and then immediately onto a plane to London, mission be damned. Price can figure it out.

Soap had been unconscious when they’d finally come upon him, chained up and bloody in the corner of a dingy, rotting room. His face had been a riot of bruising and nearly unrecognizable, his left arm broken in two places and bent at a horrible angle. The worst of it is a puncture in his chest that had penetrated his right lung. When they’d found him, he’d been rasping wet breaths, head limp on his chest. He looked so small.

Ghost had stepped out of the room fighting nausea and gasping in great lungfuls of air bent in half with his hands braced against his knees. He got control of himself, compartmentalized some more. They were here to bring Soap home, there would be time for feelings later.

“Johnny,” König says when he sees them in the doorway of Simon’s flat, voice gone quiet and breathy. He’s dressed down to civvies, bare face unbearably young and vulnerable in the low light.

“As handsome as you remember, right Klaus?” Soap asks, eyes shining as König approaches to pull him into a crushing hug. Soap looks better from the last time König had seen him, though his face is still swollen in some places, his right eye blackened and the sclera blood red where a vessel has burst. His broken arm is in a neon green cast.

Soap gasps as König’s hold tightens, and König releases him, taking a step back as if to keep himself from touching. Soap laughs and says, “That’ll take some getting used to.”

“Öha, maus,” König says, “I’m just so happy to see you.”

“Believe me when I say the sentiment is mutual,” Soap says, and glances back at Simon where he’s still standing in the doorway, face mask settled over his nose as he watches the two of them. Soap beckons him closer with his good arm. Simon closes the door.

It’s close to midnight when Soap requests that they retire. König had made dinner for them, some kind of lemon-y chicken broth soup with rusk on the side. Simon had helped himself to seconds and was considering thirds when Soap had stated he was too tired to keep his head up.

Simon hadn’t considered sleeping arrangements when he’d instructed König to rendezvous at his flat, and as he turns down the sheets, he realizes that sharing with Soap while he’s still recovering might not actually be feasible. He sits heavily on the half un-made bed as clarity settles over him like a lead blanket. They had almost lost him.

Since that time at the New Year’s party, it’s like a dam’s broken, and Simon finds that his eyes grow hot and moist more and more easily these days. Without even realizing he’s started, he’s crying, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Simon?” König says, darkening the doorway of the loo where he’d been helping Soap strip down to his briefs. Concern creases his brown when Simon meets his eyes. He looks away too quickly, and König must see the glint of the wetness on his face. Simon expects him to call out for Soap, but he surprises Simon again by lowering himself onto the bed next to Simon, and carefully takes Simon’s hand from where it sits uselessly grasping at nothing in his lap in both of his. Anchors him.

“He lived, you know,” König offers.

Simon scoffs a wet laugh and rubs furiously at his face with his other hand. He gets the meaning behind König’s words, to stop acting like Soap died in Azerbaijan. He meets König’s eyes again and sees his worst fear mirrored there, an acknowledgement of the reality they almost had to endure. A world without Soap. A thrumming tension still so fraught that it might grow tangible and actualize itself if they even speak its name. An understanding passes between them: they have to stay vigilant, or else.

“We will too,” König adds, maybe more a reassurance for them both.

“Daunksche,” Simon says, and squeezes König’s fingers. He doesn’t give himself any time to overthink it, which has been his modus operandi where König is concerned, and presses his mouth to König’s, a sudden fervor to touch burning just under his skin.

“Oi!” Soap says from the bathroom. “Don’t start without me!”

“You good?” Simon asks. He nuzzles his mouth against Soap’s jaw. Soap breathes out slowly, then nods, sinking back into Simon’s bare chest where they’re propped upright against the cushioned headboard. It still feels daring to touch Soap like this, to let König touch him like this too. To be touched at all in return, maybe. He doesn’t remember ever wanting someone this much, a desire so sharp it aches.

“Can I—?” König asks, slipping a finger under the waistband of Soap’s briefs.

“Oh fuck,” Soap breathes, and then, “Yeah, yeah, I want to.”

It feels like a revelation to watch König free Soap’s half-hard cock from his briefs, slip the waistband under his balls, leaving him bare. Even though he’s still mostly dressed, Simon feels exposed in a way that would feel mortifying if he weren’t so turned on. He tries not to grind too roughly against Soap’s arse where it’s pressed flush against his groin. His cock drags against his briefs inside his jeans, already so hard he’s leaking. König’s hand smooths over the curve of Soap’s thigh and hip, then grips into the meat of him as he sucks at the head of Soap’s cock, electric blue eyes glancing up to find both Soap and Simon staring down at him.

“Fuck,” Simon says, lips parting on the word and he finds that he’s panting slightly. Soap moans in agreement.

König hollows his cheeks and swallows Soap down to the hilt and Simon swipes a thumb against each of Soap's piercings, toying with his nipples. When it’s all said and done, he’s coming down König’s throat in less than two minutes. Simon places a gentle hand on his chin to turn his head into a searing kiss as he finishes, and Soap moans his pleasure into Simon’s mouth, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood.

With Soap settled against the pillows, Simon reaches for König, fumbling at the button of his pants with one hand, his other gripped up in König’s hair to pull him into a brutal kiss that’s all teeth. The cut on Simon’s lip burns with the force of it.

They haven’t done this yet, not really, but it's something he's been thinking about since New Year's, holding König down, fucking into him while Soap watches.

Behind him, Simon hears Soap hum appreciatively as they strip down to nothing. Something lands on the mattress next to them, and Simon blinks his eyes open to stare at the bottle of lube he keeps in his bedside table. He glances up to see Soap smirking, because of course Soap knows how badly he wants this, needs it even, after everything that's happened. Simon curses and rocks his hips into König’s, their bare pricks sliding against each other, skin already sticky with sweat and slick. Simon grabs the lube and pops the cap open.

“Mein Gott, oh fuck,” König gasps against the comforter, face down next to Soap who strokes his head and back as Simon fingers him open, gets him ready. “Simon, please, please—”

“You want it?” Simon murmurs, crooking his fingers again. König’s breath leaves him like he’s been punched, sent staggering with pleasure.

“I want—bitte, I want you, I want—” König breaks off, rubbing his face against the comforter, trying to ground himself.

“I’ve got you, Klaus, I’ve got you,” Simon whispers, and presses another finger in. He admires König’s fluttering hole as it stretches to accommodate three of Simon’s fingers, and it’ll be nothing compared to Simon’s prick.

“Verdammt!” König rocks back, trying to push Simon’s fingers deeper, and Simon presses his other hand down hard against the small of his back, pinning him in place. König’s whole body goes hot and tight. A shudder rolls through, and Soap says, “He’s ready, fuck him now or he’ll come before you can even get inside him.”

Simon doesn’t answer, just leans over to kiss König’s nape as he slides his fingers out. He slicks his cock, his hand sliding over his bare skin obscenely, and then he’s settling on top of König, knees on either side of his legs, big and heavy enough to hold him down without even trying, something he’s learned König can’t get enough of. He spreads König open and guides his cock to nudge at his winking hole, swiping it a few times and rubbing the sensitive head through the lube slicking König’s skin.

“Relax,” he says in response to the initial resistance he meets. Commands, really. König obeys beautifully, and the tight-hot heat around him as he sinks in skirts the edge of pleasure and pain. Beneath him, König’s gasping with it by the time Simon’s fully seated, squirming helplessly, pinned, spread, open and aching.

“Fuck, Klaus, look at you,” Soap breathes.

Simon’s hips shift, pushing his cock impossibly deeper, and König gasps open-mouthed against the comforter. “Scheiße. You’re so good, you feel so fucking good,” König moans.

“You too,” Simon says, and means it.

König reaches back to grab at Simon’s bare thigh, knocking him forward and pulling him closer, close enough that Simon won’t have to bend too far to fasten his teeth in König’s skin, close enough that Soap can brush a hand against his forehead, grip his jaw and force Simon to look into his eyes when König says, “You can—gemma, move.”

“Yeah?” Simon’s hips shift, roll, his clock sliding out an inch, then back in. “Like that?”

“Harder,” König gasps. “I can take it; I’m not going to break.”

“I know you’re not,” Simon says in his ear. His next thrust is fast and deep, shoving König up the mattress, rucking up the blankets underneath them. König grips the cloth tight to brace himself, moaning, as Simon starts to move in earnest. His cock slides almost all the way out, then slams back in, then again and again. It all seems overwhelming: the feeling of König around him, the submissive line of his body where he arches his back to angle his hips for a deeper screw, Soap’s eyes on them, Soap’s parted lips as he watches them, half-hard again despite the obvious physical toll his orgasm had taken on him. Simon can’t image the sight they must make, starkers, a man of König’s stature spread open and held down while Simon fucks him hard and Soap watches. He’s never felt so out of control. He’s moaning raggedly on every breath now, rocking the bed on its frame with each thrust, holding König open so wide for his plunging cock that it must hurt.

Simon pulls König up suddenly so that his front is flush with König’s back. He wants Soap to see his face when he comes. He reaches around, fumbling for König’s cock, which he finds huge and aching, wet with pre-come that’s slicked the shaft and makes the glide of Simon’s palm smooth and fast as he jerks him. Soap shuffles closer, using his good hand to hold König’s face, thumbing away what must be tears as Simon fucks in harder, harder still, a punishing, brutal pace, life-affirming in all the best ways.

“God, I fucking love you,” Soap says and it’s not clear who he’s said it to, probably both of them, “look at you, fucking Christ. Klaus, he’s gonna make you come all over this bed and it’s all gonna be for me–” Simon risks a glance at Soap, eyes black, flushed from his cheekbones down to his chest, just from watching him fuck König.

“Oh Gott, oh fuck, Simon, please, please,” König begs, dazed.

A wave of heat rises in Simon, swallowing his senses, and he feels it start to crest when König starts to come on a sharp, bitten-off gasp, the rhythmic clenching of his muscles milking his orgasm from him. “Klaus, Klaus, fuck, you’re mine and you’ve always been mine and I’m going to keep you, I swear, I’ll keep you both—”

Simon slams in and goes still, his cock pulsing, and the liquid heat of König’s flexing hole as he comes creates a feedback loop of white-hot euphoria that keeps creating. Soap leans forward to kiss König who groans into his mouth so loudly Simon could swear the walls shake. He tightens his hand on König’s cock, feeling the molten spill of him as he spurts over Simon’s fist and onto the bed. He strokes him through it, and far past it, until König is batting away his hand, kitten-weak, even though he’s still rocking his hips back to grind Simon’s cock even deeper inside. Simon comes down a centimeter at a time, feeling a primal sense of satisfaction as he pulls his softening cock from König. He admires his handiwork, fingers his dripping come back into König.

“Fuck,” Soap agrees, and tips his head back on a breathless, ecstatic laugh.

Bam dotes on Soap with all the love and concern she’s shown Simon over the years, which Simon expected. She even takes a shine to König, and the two bond over colorful German swears and crocheting. What he didn’t expect was for Bam to conspire with Soap and König to get Simon to take a real holiday.

The three of them spend ten days in Mallorca— it’s less of a fuck you to his dad and more a lifelong childhood aspiration after his mum had described in tedious detail how wonderful the resort was. Now he can admit that yes, the resort is quite wonderful. Since it’s a few months before summer, the resort is largely quiet, which puts him at ease enough to let his guard down. When he does though, Simon finds that he’s forgotten how to unwind. Soap and König remind him, with sex, with food, with bourbon, with spa appointments for massages that leave him boneless and docile, with their love, their endless love, and by the end of the ten days he has no desire to return to London.

So they go to Edinburgh, back to Soap’s studio where it all started. König returns to active tomorrow, Soap and Simon not far behind him. They’re living on borrowed time. Simon tries not to think about it, especially after Soap’s most recent close call.

He wakes alone for the first time in weeks in Soap’s massive bed. He hears soft voices from the floor below and finds his briefs, pads barefoot down the staircase to find Soap and König standing in the art studio with their backs to the windows, facing the three easels. The sun-washed cotton covers that had concealed the canvases lie in a heap on the concrete floor. Soap holds a paintbrush in his good hand, the wooden tip between his teeth and his shoulders squared with the left easel. His brow creases in focus.

“I think you’ve got it just right,” König says, hand sweeping over whatever Soap is studying on the canvas. “Honestly, I don’t know how you artists do it, I couldn’t look at the same thing for— ah, good morning!”

Simon comes around to stand beside König and Soap. He looks to Soap first, who gives a vague wave of his hand, as if he’s accepted that he’d have to show Simon, so might as well.

They’re not portraits per se, more like loose abstracts with snatches of realism, painted in painstaking detail here, soft edges and muted colors there. It doesn’t register at first, but then—

“It’s us,” Simon whispers, because of course it would be, he should have known.

And it is unmistakably them, the left portrait sporting his skull mask pulled up partially over his face, his jaw and lips visible. König’s face is bare in the right portrait, his eyes a pop of startling blue. And at the center, Soap, the cut of his shoulders and quarter profile softened into something almost dream-like, or maybe that’s just how Simon sees Soap already.

“I’m not done!” Soap exclaims. “I really didn’t want you to see them until they were done, but then I hit a snag and needed Klaus’s opinion on something, and–”

“It’s—they’re perfect,” Simon says, in awe of Soap.

“That’s what I said,” König chimes in.

“You think?” Soap asks, eyes considering as he evaluates his work.

“Yes,” Simon says, but he’s not looking at the paintings anymore.

#soapghost #soapböx #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #könig #cod könig #mw2 #modern warfare 2 #mw2 fic #soapghost fic #soap/ghost/könig #gasoline in your heart #my fic

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bloodredx · 3 years ago

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Day 22: Discovery

“Lady Serena, I’ve delivered the samples to pathology.” Icarus said as he turned the door knob to her office. “Is there anything else you-“ He opened his eyes as he crossed through the threshold. The office stood bereft of its usual occupant, instead a heartbeat and smiling face stood in the center, flipping through one of the books that sat on the coffee table. The silver hair alerted him immediately of the owner. “Bones?”

The mage didn’t look up from his book, just nodding as his smile grew wider. “Hey there, Icarus. How ya doin’?”

A shot of fear rose up his spine. What the hell was he doing here? How did Bones know he lived here, did he follow him? And what the hell was the Lady going to do upon discovering this breach into her privacy. “Uh, not great.”

Bones raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s a shame. Anythin’ I can do for ya? Don’t want ya havin’ a bad day if I can help it.”

“Yeah, can you tell me exactly how you got in here?” Icarus felt his hand curl into a ball.

“Walked through the door, like ya just did.” His answer was so genuine, coated with innocence in a way that rubbed Icarus the wrong way.

“I mean, yeah. But this is a private office.”

“It ain’t your office.” Bones pointed out with a chuckle. “So why’re ya in here?”

Icarus could only imagine the clacking of the Lady’s heels coming down the hallway, marking the eminent demise of both men. He had to get Bones out of here. “I at least work here. Kinda. But how did you get past the front desk? Why are you here?”

Bones shrugged. “Waitin’. That’s all. Though if ya have work to do, don’t let me be in the way.” He flipped the page in the book. “Got plenty to occupy me here.”

“Why don’t you come with me? We have better places to wait than here. Like, you know, actual waiting rooms.”

Bones waved him off. “I’m good. This is exactly where I need to be, at least for now. Say, ya look pretty shaky. Why don’t ya have a seat? No need to be all stressed, ya hear?”

Icarus shook his head. No need beating around the bush now, clearly his subtle tactics weren’t working. “Listen, you can’t be here.”

“Mmm, I can be where I want.” He laughed again. “Seems like ya got ya guts in a knot, Icarus. What, somethin’ gonna come through that door and slice ya in half?”

“You have no idea. Please?”

“Listen I-“

The doorknob turned cutting off both of their words. Icarus felt himself tense in preparation. For what he didn’t know, but only the worst could come next. The Lady was holding her lab coat in her off hand as she passed through the door, a stern expression on her face.

“Lady Serena, this isn’t what it looks like!” Icarus felt his mouth blurt out.

She raised a brow, angling her scorn into something more tired than he was expecting. Her eye passed from her protégé to the man behind him. “Oh? What is it then?”

Icarus hadn’t rightly thought that far. “Uh, he’s a friend. I guess he came here. I don’t know how he got up here but he was here when I came looking for you. Please don’t do anything rash. I didn’t know he was here. He’s mostly harmless. Just a bit odd. I-“ The words poured from him as if a dam had burst, causing even Lady Serena to take a half step backward.

Her gaze moved past him yet again to the mage, content to let Icarus spout whatever explanation he had while she hung up her coat, and strode past the young vampire and right up to Bones. Icarus felt his stomach drop. The Lady raised her hand in front of her. No, she was going to stab this poor man, summon her vicious sword and make her justice known. Icarus moved to grab anything, just move to protect one of the only people that had been nice to him since this whole ordeal started. “No!”

But as he moved, something stopped him in his tracks. He was stuck, floating in mid-air. Bones smiled, taking the Lady’s hand, kissing it on the back gently and lingering a moment before speaking. “Good to see ya again, doll.”

What? Doll? Icarus blinked as the Lady’s face softened, ever so slightly. “It has been far too long, Bones. I suspect you would do better to inform me of your whereabouts a bit more.”

“Sorry ‘bout it, seems my last letter got lost then. Was worried ‘bout that. Was pretty deep in the middle of nowhere. Shocked it even had a post office.”

“No offense taken.” She conceded softly. “Regardless, I should ask you to please release Icarus from your spell. And to perhaps not play with his emotions so deviously. I can only imagine what cruel trick you’ve enacted to lead him to reacting so strongly.”

He burst out into laughter. “Oh, right.” He wiggled his fingers in Icarus’s general direction. “Sorry there, kiddo. Just had to razzle ya a bit. Did’ya really think I was in danger?”

“Of course I did!” he couldn’t help but shout as his feet reconnected to the floor. “How was I supposed to know?”

Lady Serena shook her head slowly before moving to sit behind her desk. “You weren’t. Though I’m more impressed that you took initiative to defend someone in a fight you couldn’t possibly win. That shows some merit of honor.” She paused. “Or foolishness.”

“Aw, ya really like me.” Bones grinned. “I’m flattered.”

“If only I could get him that focused on other studies.” Serena mused as she resumed her mountain of paperwork.

“I’m right here.” Icarus crossed his arms.

“I’m aware.” Serena shot him a look. “I assume your task is completed?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He confirmed, still running his mind through everything that had happened here.

“Lovely. I have no further tasks for you. Enjoy some free time, I have much I need to discuss with Bones.”

“Hm, got a few things to catch up on, huh, doll?” Bones pulled a seat closer to the desk, leaning his elbows on the polished surface once he was settled.

“Uh, alright.” Icarus scratched his head as he turned to leave. How the hell did these two know each other? And why was the Lady so casual with Bones basically breaking into her office, and with him addressing her so informally? It made no sense. He rolled his eyes as he placed a hand on the door knob. Why was everything so cryptic here? This was a mystery to be continued on another day, perhaps one when it didn’t feel like his lungs were about to explode from stress. He left the room in silence, retreating to the gardens for a place to calm down.

(OC-tober challenge by @oc-growth-and-development can be found here)

#Icarus #Lady Serena #vampire #vampires #Bones #mage #necromancer #discovery #oc-tober #oc tober #oc-growth-and-development #bloodredx writes #writers on tumblr

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gumnut-logic · 4 years ago

Photo

He waited until they made it home, the cockpit of Two stinking of wildfire smoke despite her filtration systems. No doubt it was leeching off their uniforms and it sunk into everything.

Throughout the rest of the mission, Gordon had kept an eye on his brother. He knew he would hide a missing leg if he could and if he wasn’t entirely focussed on watching out for Virgil, it could have been easily missed. the subtle flinches, the shortened breaths, the way he didn’t turn fully to join in the tired discussion on the way home.

After it happened, first chance he got, Gordon commed John to give him the lowdown on Virgil’s condition and begged his big brother not to notify his eldest brother.

“Gordon, Scott needs to know.”

“Not yet, please, John. Scott is under enough stress, let me handle this one.”

The silence at the other end of the comline was enough to give Gordon hope as he galloped the pod towards the old dam wall.

“It’s a question of safety and whether he is fit to fly. His respiration and heart rates are up. He’s obviously in some pain. His blood pressure is steady and there is no sign of bleeding...yet. This could endanger his life.”

Gordon swallowed. He knew what Scott would do if he found out. “Keep an eye on him, then. Just don’t tell Scott. He doesn’t need to worry.” He didn’t need to worry about Virgil telling Scott anything. The man rarely admitted to injury unless he had to. “You monitor him from up there. I’ll co-pilot home.”

“Scott will not be happy if he finds out.”

“You let me worry about that. I owe Virg this.”

“You’re scared Scott won’t let him launch with us.”

Of course he was. “We can’t launch without him, John. I’ll look after him, I promise.”

His space bro had grumbled some more, but eventually let it slide with some dire threats if Virgil’s health deteriorated.

A few words to Alan and the incident was secure for the moment.

Of course, Virgil then picked the damn crablogger off the forest floor. Having seen him move an entire tanker, something that weighed so much more than the old logging machine, it seemed a small thing, yet the tanker had required everything Two could put into her rear thrusters. The crablogger was relying on Two’s VTOL which, while strong, had nowhere near the shove of those rockets sticking out her tail.

Two struggled and Virgil with her. John pinged Gordon twice, concerned about Virgil’s blood pressure and the strain he was under. If Gordon was honest, his own blood pressure skyrocketed at the news, but he hung on. Don’t tell Scott.

So it was with some relief when Two picked up her pod and Gordon was finally able to re-board the green behemoth and check on her pilot himself.

Virgil’s hands were steady on the yoke as they turned for home, but he was pale and his breathing faster than it should be. He looked exhausted.

“Hey, Virg, want me to take over? This was a rough one.”

The raised eyebrow glare he received in answer was a very clear negative.

Stubborn idiot.

So it wasn’t until Two finally settled on her turntable and wound down to silence, that Gordon was able to take his bull-headed brother by the horns.

He waited that extra moment for Alan to skedaddle out of the cockpit and start working on the module reset, before tackling Virgil head on.

“So are they broken, cracked or just bruised?”

Virgil’s head turned on his neck so fast, Gordon was surprised he didn’t hear it snap. “What?”

“Virg, I’m not an idiot. I’m the one who shot you with the magnetic grapple. I saw what it did to you.”

His brother closed his eyes. “Don’t tell Scott.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Even pinged Johnny to stop him from following procedure.”

“He knows?”

“Of course, he does. Your suit screamed at him.”

“But Scott doesn’t?”

“Not from me, Alan or from Johnny.”

“Oh, thank god.” Virgil wilted where he sat, head falling into his hands with a groan.

Gordon almost commed Scott right in that moment. It always hurt to see a brother hurt, but the bigger the brother the scarier it was and Virgil was one of the biggest. He swallowed and took it on. “Okay, we gotta get you checked out.”

A ragged breath. “I don’t think it is too bad.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He climbed out of the co-pilot’s chair and offered his brother a hand. “C’mon, Virg.”

Virgil pushed his chair back and with the upmost care, leveraged himself out of it.

A wince and a couple of words under the man’s breath and they made their way to the infirmary.

Alan was waiting there for them.

“Alan!” Gordon hissed at his brother. “You’re supposed to be covering for us with the module.”

“I just want to see if Virgil is okay.” His little brother’s blue eyes were wide with worry. “I saw what happened, too.”

Virgil sighed. “I’m okay, Allie, I promise.”

“But what if you can’t come with us?”

Virgil straightened and strode over to Alan, his two big hands landing on those much smaller shoulders. “Nothing is stopping me from going to get Dad. I’m not staying behind.”

Gordon swallowed behind him, knowing that if push came to shove, it would be him that burst that bubble. God, please let Virgil be okay.

“C’mon, Virg. Strip and up on the bed. Alan, go be the distraction I told you to be.”

Alan’s lips thinned and he glared a little, but it was more worry and sad than anger. “You let me know as soon as you can.”

“I will, just go! Scott will be back soon and if that module is still sitting there in that condition, he’ll start asking questions we can’t answer. I’ll be down to help as soon as possible.”

“Okay, okay, I’m going.” His hand brushed over Virgil’s arm and squeezed gently as he walked past. He didn’t say anything, but the intent was obvious.

Virgil’s eyes followed him. “Thanks, Allie.”

A small smile and he was gone.

“Strip, Virg, we gotta get this done before Scott gets back.”

-o-o-o-

Virgil had a lump in his throat. He was caught between what was right and what he wanted.

He shed his clothes down to his undershorts, noting every movement, every spark of pain.

The magnetic grapple had caught him side on, flipping him into a mid-air roll and flinging him across the ground. The exo-suit took most of the impact, but his body strained against the padding that could only take so much.

As he climbed up on the bed, every damned bruise on his body complained.

“Shit, Virg.”

He straightened on the edge of the bed and looked down at himself. Yeah, it felt pretty much like that.

His right arm had some serious complaints about its treatment as the impact point. Again, the exo-suit claw had taken the brunt of the force, or it would have been likely he’d be missing said arm, but the bruising was blatant, mottling an outline of the suit’s contact points. His shoulder wasn’t happy at the wrench it had received either.

But none of that compared to where the arm of the exo-suit had collided with his torso and hip. The padding was there, but as a lower point of stress on usual use, it was thinner and his ribs had taken a beating.

He was reminded with every breath.

“Lie down and let the scanner tell us what the damage is.” Gordon’s expression was ever so worried.

Lying down hurt. Gordon helped him get horizontal.

Virgil let the breath from his body escape and relaxed ever so slowly into the mattress. “Ow.”

“No kidding.”

Gordon hit the sensors and a holographic version of Virgil’s innards appeared above him.

A moment as Gordon studied the readouts.

Virgil held his breath.

“Oh, thank god.” Gordon wilted beside the bed. “You tough bastard. Lots of bruising, but nothing broken.” A frown. “No wait.” Virgil sucked in another breath. “A crack. You’ve cracked a single rib.” An exhausted sigh. “Hell, Virg, you’re black and blue, but mostly in one piece. It’s a damned miracle.”

Virgil closed his eyes in relief.

And his exhausted body took the opportunity for what it was and attempted to drag him under.

“Hey, don’t fall asleep here. Only a few more minutes. Just need to make sure I double check everything.” His aquanaut brother played the medbed’s controls to run a variety of scans. “You’re going to need pain relief.”

“I’ll manage.”

“Manage to hide this from Scott? You know him. He’ll freak.”

“I’ve had worse.”

Those brown eyes looked down at him in concern. “Virgil, we’re going into space. You know as much as I that we will be out of our comfort zone.”

“I can handle space.” A frown. “Are you okay?”

A glare. “Of course, I’m okay. I’m just saying that it is space bro territory, not ours. Both of us will be outside our specialisation. That in itself will require extra thought on a daily basis. Not to mention that this is about Dad. The next few days are going to be anything but restful. With these injuries on top of it all and the need to keep them from Scott...there is no shame in the need for pain management.”

“I cannot face this fogged out of my brain on pain pills.” He pushed himself up into a sitting position, his legs sliding off the side of the bed.

Ow, god damnit, ow!

Gordon grabbed him, helping him up. The holograms blinked out.

“At least take some paracetamol. It won’t mess with your head.”

He sighed and everything hurt. “Fine. Give me the damned pills.”

It was a sign, obviously, that Virgil didn’t get up and get them himself. The next few days were going to suck big time.

Gordon dug through the cabinet, came back with a box of pills and handed them to Virgil. “Be kind to yourself, please.”

Virgil sighed, taking the box with resignation. “Thanks, Gordy.”

An arm wrapped gently around his shoulders and he found himself subject to a Gordon hug. “Sorry I had to shoot you.”

Virgil let his head drop gently against Gordon’s. “Had to be done. Thank you.”

“John, Alan and I will be keeping an eye on you.”

“I figured.”

“Look after yourself. I don’t want to have to tell Scott.”

“Neither do I.” Hell, it wasn’t just about whether he would be allowed to go on the mission. The thought of adding injury to the worry Scott already had... “I’ll do my best.”

“Your best is pretty damned good.”

Virgil smiled just a little. “Family trait.”

Gordon snorted and pulled away gently. “Get your clothes on before eagle-eye gets home. Cover those bruises up. Look after that rib.”

“Thanks, Gordy.”

“Anytime. I’ve got to go cover for you with Alan. Go hide in your room and let the Terrible Two tackle our authority figure.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.” Okay, so technically he was used to being part of that authority.

Gordon grinned. “Trust me, Virg.”

Flat glare. “Yeah, sure.”

“You wound me.” A mock hand to his chest. “And after I shot you to save you. This is the gratitude I get.”

He ducked out the door before the pillow could hit him.

-o-o-o-

Whatever the Terrible Two did, it worked. Scott returned after taking the rescue scouts home and no doubt getting caught up in reminiscing about his own days as the leader of their pack. Scott never did anything by halves and his career as a rescue scout was a prime example of starting at the bottom and taking out the top by conquering it. The man was a hard act to follow and Virgil was well experienced in that following thing.

It was a good thing, though. His big brother came back happy for the first time in ages. Scott was sentimental to some extent. He liked to look back.

Looking back at their father was fast becoming looking forward.

Virgil crawled out of bed for the debrief. He kept up the facade of happy and healthy despite the looks three of his brothers managed to throw him on a semi-regular basis.

He snuck out and went to bed early, claiming he had a project he was working on. The next morning, he wondered how the hell he was going to do this.

He could barely move.

He was shirtless, on his belly and everything just hurt.

Hell, damn, how?

“Lie still, Virgil.” Gordon’s voice was quiet.

“Gordy?” His voice was morning rough and muffled by his pillow.

“Stiff as a board?”

“Ow, yeah.”

“I can help with that. Give me a second.”

“What?”

But then something wonderfully warm touched his back. It was moist and smooth and god, it gently rubbed out the stiffness.

Virgil groaned into his pillow.

Gordon snorted. “I finally get to return the favour for all those post swim meet rubdowns you so kindly did for me.”

Another groan. It hurt, but god, the relief...

Gordon worked gently over his back and arm, some fragrant cream allowing his hands to slide smoothly across his skin.

“How does that feel?”

A grunt.

Another snort. “Don’t bother going back to sleep, Brains has gone over Two and will be reporting his findings in the lounge in half an hour.”

Shit.

Virgil flung himself out of bed and everything moved.

Including the room.

Gordon grabbed him. “Hey, slow down, give yourself a moment.”

He scrunched his eyes closed. Breathing still hurt like hell. Maybe he could hide in his studio for most of the day and curl up on the couch there.

“Here.” He opened his eyes to find Gordon offering him a couple of pills and a glass of water. “It’s only paracetamol, I promise.”

At this point he was almost willing to try the harder drugs. Wordlessly he took the glass and the pills and threw them down his throat.

“Thank you, Gordon.”

“Not a problem.” But his brother’s eyes were assessing him. “You sure you can do this?”

A single nod. “I have to.”

A hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “I want to check you out again today. Alan is going to drag Scott out to the sensor bank on the far side of the Island at two o’clock. You meet me in the infirmary?”

Another single nod.

“Grab yourself a shower and I’ll have some breakfast ready for you downstairs. If you can make it past Grandma, Scott should be a breeze.”

Virgil groaned.

“Yeah, well, that’s the deal. Hopefully one day we will be able to look back and share this story with a laugh, but right now, you’ve got to get through this without endangering yourself or anyone else.”

“Thanks, Gordy.”

“You’ve already said that. Just remember this next time Scott comes to you with blue hair looking for me, yeah?” And his goofy little brother grinned at him.

Oh, right, he might be paying for this forever.

A small smile.

It was worth it.

-o-o-o-

Half an hour later when the good news that Thunderbird Two had survived the mission better than he had, came through, he definitely was elated enough to throw himself off the couch and offer Brains another hug.

But he was ever so glad when the man refused it.

They were going after Dad.

Finally.

The determination in his big brother’s eyes was a fire that burned within them all.

And together they could do this.

-o-o-o-

Read the sequel.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds #Virgil Tracy #Gordon Tracy #Alan Tracy #episode tag #firebreak #nuttyfic reblog

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waywardwrestlewritingwaif · 4 years ago

Text

All Kinds of Love

As promised, some romantic misery with the King of Claymore Country.

Pairing: Drew McIntyre x reader

Word count: 2,829

Content warnings: Angst, very mild sexual content

Yes, it is the weirdest feeling seeing Wrestlemania reach its crescendo with nary a fan in sight, but you wouldn’t miss this for the world. There he is, clutching the World Championship he so richly deserves, reaching out to the camera, telling the fans that this is their moment. You’re prouder of him and happier for him than you could ever be for yourself, your heart bursting and tears prickling at your eyes as you watch the man you love with everything your heart and soul can muster, fulfill his dream. Drew McIntyre, the love of your life, stands tall- well there’s not really any other way he could stand, you joke inside your brain- and looks like a kind of superhero, even posing for a camera in front of an empty arena.

When the cameras shut down, he makes his way backstage and you’re the first one there to greet him, beaming up at him with shining eyes and you can see that he knows how close you are to crying, and he looks more than a little choked up himself. He wraps one massive arm around you and pulls you close, pressing a firm kiss to the crown of your head.

“I could never have done this without you,” he whispers, squeezing you tight to his body.

You know he means it. He’s said it for years and not once have you ever doubted his sincerity. He releases you and you force a smile, bathing in the tenderness of his expression as he looks into your eyes. Then he makes his way further backstage and you see his wife rush into his arms, embracing him with a passion he returns, their lips meeting before they’ve even exchanged a word. You shouldn’t stare but you can’t help it. You never can. The love between them is almost a physical presence in the room, a physical presence that pushes you off to the side where no one can see you, least of all Drew.

It’s not that he doesn’t care for you. It’s not that he doesn’t love you, in his way. It’s just not the way that you love him; never has been and never will be.

The two of you arrived in WWE around the same time, both young and dizzy with excitement, trying to adjust to America having grown up in Europe. You’d heard of him before then but the first time you saw him was your first day in WWE and pretty much from that moment, you were a goner. At first, of course, it was just lust. He was tall, dark and unbelievably handsome with those piercing blue-grey eyes like the Scottish sky over the highlands. He was with someone but you couldn’t help yourself, you made sure you got in his field of vision and befriended him and soon the two of you were joined at the hip- metaphorically.

Even when he married his girl, you weren’t too worried. You could see that it wasn’t going to last and you remained the most important woman in his life, even if he wouldn’t admit it. You were the one he could relate to and although his passion for the other woman made you feel sick to your stomach, you knew you could wait it out. The relationship came to a pretty ugly end but you were there to buoy his spirits and remind him that he could do better. You were better, although you weren’t so gauche as to say so to his face.

It wasn’t exactly a secret that you were in love with him but the two of you never discussed it. In your most optimistic moments, you liked to think that he was trying to deal with his complex emotions toward you; he told you regularly that he’d never been so close to a woman, that his friends had always been his lads, which was great but which meant that he’d never shared himself with anyone the way he did with you. When you were feeling low, you knew that he didn’t want to talk about your feelings for him because he didn’t return them. He didn’t love you that way.

The two of you were “released”- fired- from WWE on the same day. It hurt and being without a job was frightening but it wasn’t the end of the world for you. The women’s division was a dead end at that time and you knew you could do better somewhere else. For him, though, it was like his life became a black hole. The WWE had always been his goal; he’d been dubbed “The Chosen One” for Christ’s sake. How had he managed to go from that to something disposable? What was he going to work for now that he’d reached the Promised Land and failed? He was adrift in dark space, unmoored and directionless, barely able to process what was happening and unable to envision any kind of future.

“It’s not as bad as you think,” you soothed him, stroking his hair as he rested his head on your shoulder. “We’ll go back home. Yeah, the pay will be shit for a while but we’ll be conquering heroes returning from battle.”

And you were right, but it barely registered with him because he still felt so hopeless. He put in the effort. He got better and stronger and fed off the crowds that adored him but none of it got through to his heart. All those months when you first returned to the UK, the light in his eyes had gone out and it broke your heart like nothing you’d ever experienced before.

You tended to him, did what you could to patch his invisible wounds with tenderness and encouragement and he tried his best to seem happy. He wasn’t happy, or anything close to happy, but he wanted to be. He wanted to be better for you.

“I love you for what you’ve done for me,” he’d tell you. Not “I love you”, never that. It was always a qualified love. It still gave you something to hope for.

Nevertheless, you could see he was stumbling. He was fading before your eyes even as he seemed to be rebuilding himself. The sense of failure, the humiliation at being sent home with his proverbial tail between his legs gnawed away at everything that made him feel human. You were trying to pull him out of the pit but it seemed like gravity was working against you. You couldn’t hold on forever and the idea of losing him terrified you.

One day, you arrived at his flat with an armful of groceries, determined to get something healthy into him and make him interact with another human being for a couple of hours. You let yourself in and immediately the silence surrounded you, thick and chilling as fog. You left the groceries on the counter and headed to the bedroom, terrified of what you might find there.

What you found was Drew sprawled on his back, shirtless and still, his eyes closed. You hoped he was only sleeping as you crept softly towards him and felt weak with relief when you saw his massive chest rising and falling.

“Hi you,” he whispered without opening his eyes, his breath lightly tinged with whiskey.

“Hi yourself, big man.”

You crawled onto the bed, stretching out next to him and resting your fingers on his bicep. It was the sort of gentle touch you gave him all the time, something to remind him that he was human and that he was immensely loveable, even if he couldn’t truly feel it at that moment. He hummed a little in appreciation, like he usually did to let you know that it was some comfort.

Then his arm curled around you, pulling you onto him as he gave a tiny, pained smile.

“You’re an angel,” he murmured. “I’d be done without you.”

His rested one hand on the base of your back and ruffled his fingers through your hair with the other. You thanked the universe that he wasn’t looking at you, so that he couldn’t see the wide-eyed look of fear on your face. The two of you had always been affectionate but you knew instinctively that this was something different and you knew that it was dangerous. Your body tensed but he kept holding on for a long time before he spoke again.

“Kiss me,” he croaked, barely loud enough for you to understand.

Eager to please him as ever, you pushed your own emotional safety to the back of your mind and leaned down to touch your lips to his. That’s all it was, a chaste touch and then you pulled back, trembling. Right away, his grip on you tightened and pulled you back down, pressing your mouth to his ever so softly, gradually pressing his tongue between your lips while he held you firmly in place. You’d fantasized hundreds of times of the dam between you breaking, of the two of you allowing yourselves to be carried away on a tsunami of passion. This was nothing like those fantasies but it was somehow more intimidating because Drew needing you was something very different than Drew wanting you. If he needed you, you had some sort of power over him but because you were so desperately in love, you were paradoxically powerless.

His hands ran down your body and found the hem of your shirt, which he lifted and removed in one smooth motion before rolling the two of you over and kissing you more fervently, his hips slowly moving against yours.

Finally, he opened his eyes, and for the first time in months, they were a little brighter, there was a little spark that had been missing, a spark that you had put there.

“Take these off,” he said softly, fingers tugging at the waistband of your leggings. “Let me see you.”

And though you were nervous as hell, you stripped yourself down and opened yourself up to him, arching your back to offer yourself so that he could take whatever he needed.

It still makes you blush to think about how you spent the next months giving him everything he asked from you, not because his desires were troubling or even strange. You enjoyed all of it, reveling in the attention he lavished on you and feeling a lascivious thrill every time he wanted to try something new. What had always caused you a certain sense of shame was that you never once thought about whether you were going to enjoy any of the things he wanted: you wanted to do anything you thought might make him happy and a good portion of your own enjoyment came from seeing that you were making him happy.

The two of you were never a “couple”. He was clear that he couldn’t handle that and that he wanted to keep things open. The two of you could see other people, which meant that he occasionally went on dates as he tried to prepare himself to reenter the romantic world and you took on lovers from time to time as a sort of project that you could present to him, to show him that you could pretend you weren’t madly in love with him, if that was what he wanted.

Then all at once, the crash. He invited you over and cooked you dinner. The two of you chatted and laughed as you always did and it wasn’t awkward that he didn’t try to make love to you because you’d always had nights when you were just friends and those were equally wonderful in their way. Nevertheless, you sat the whole night with a knot in your gut because you knew something was different, you felt the monster rising from the depths.

So it wasn’t entirely surprising when he pulled back from embracing you as you were leaving and said, “I’ve met someone. I think she’s someone special and I’d like you to meet her.”

His cheeks were flushed with excitement, his eyes glittering like you’d never seen but deep inside them, you saw the guilt. He wanted so much for you to like this new girl. He wanted you to be happy for him. But he knew what it would do to you and that made him feel awful.

Still, to make him happy, you’d agreed to the dinner. You’d met this new woman, elegant and beautiful and obviously worried about impressing you because you were the best friend, the gatekeeper to his heart. The three of you conversed and drank wine and the two of them held hands and talked about what they’d been up to, things you’d had no part in, part of their special story that was already well underway. The whole night you felt stupid because it seemed like there was a fire alarm inside your ears, drowning out the conversation at times, so that you found yourself asking them to repeat themselves.

The night crawled by until you felt like you’d spent enough time that you could leave without seeming suspicious. Drew walked you to the door and stepped into the hallway.

“So what do you think?” he asked.

You wanted to answer but there was suddenly nothing of you left to answer him. You were an assemblage of scraps dispersed in the wind. You weren’t hurt and you weren’t jealous, at least not in that moment. You were nothing.

“I… I don’t think I can’t do this,” you answered at length, your voice cracking.

Immediately, you saw the guilt collapse on him.

“I’m sorry. I just don’t feel that way about you.”

“I know.”

“I would never do anything to deliberately hurt you. I love you.”

“I know.”

He did love you. He still does love you. He just didn’t love you the way that you needed. He didn’t love you the way you loved him.

You went home that night and cried yourself to sleep. You woke up the next morning crying. You let yourself go, let your life fall to hell, part of you always hoping that Drew would come to your rescue the way you’d come to his. You tried to be bitter about the fact that he wouldn’t do so but it was a false equivalency: when you’d saved him, the problems he had were about everything but you; you needed saving because of him alone.

Your friends came around with worried expressions painted on their faces but none of them could motivate you to do anything. Everything was heavy, your body was heavy, your feelings were heavy, too heavy for you to move from under their weight. Eventually, one of the men you’d taken to bed in order to show Drew that you were fine with keeping things open between you moved into your second bedroom and set to work taking care of you. On those infrequent, glorious occasions when you met up with Drew for coffee or dinner, he cautioned you to be careful with the man’s feelings. But your roommate wasn’t sick in love with you. He just cared. He cared the way you should have cared for Drew, a way that would have protected you. But you had been done for long before that fateful first kiss.

You’d stayed as close to Drew as you could handle, even attending his wedding for as long as you could stand being there. And wouldn’t you know it, the two of you found your way back to WWE together, your professional redemption complete. That was the extent of your happy ending.

You watch as he cups his wife’s face- Kaitlyn, you remind yourself, she a fucking person with a name- and kisses her again and again.

“We did it, my love,” he tells her, probably unaware that you can hear him, or unaware that you’re there at all.

You have to sit down because you know your legs aren’t going to bear your weight and for a few moments you think you’re actually going to throw up. You put your head in your hands as the tears flood out of you- you’ve schooled yourself to cry silently because you still come apart every time he accidentally rips your heart out.

A large body sits down next to you and you feel that instinctive electric charge of hope that it’s Drew, even though you know immediately that it’s Sheamus, always the big brother to the two of you, one who’s always known what you felt for Drew even though you’ve never said a word. He wraps a thick arm around you and squeezes your shoulder.

At length, you’re able to speak through your sobbing, clawing together the only few words you can think of. “Why doesn’t he love me?”

Sheamus pulls you close and presses his head down on yours. He doesn’t answer because he can’t. There is no answer. This is just the way things happen. It never seems to get any easier.

#wrestling imagine #wwe imagine #drew mcintyre fan fiction #drew mcintyre imagine #drew mcintyre x reader #wayward wrestle writing #wrestling fanfic

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sachiwrites · 5 years ago

Note

do i like bread?? on god gonna bake some brioche tomorrow watch me! anyways 👀 who are your fav HQ bois to write for? (if Atsumu happens to be one of them hello yes I’d like a 17. Kiss to hide from the bad guys please)

ahhhh, that sounds so good. raisins bread, melon bread, banana bread. i love all the breads. hope your brioche turned out great!

sakusa was really the first one i really get into but im always a sucker for the underappreciated bbs so send any and ill shoot my shot.

it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to you in the slightest. your former high school classmate seemed to have an irksome personality that managed to rub anyone the wrong way. in school, he’d been more respected as essential player on the team and by the time people noticed it was an issue, he was already a third year and ready for graduation. now as a university student, the totem rankings have reset and not particularly always in atsumu’s favor.

the fact that you’d even been accepted into the same school felt more like a curse than a blessing. stacking on the unfortunate luck of hanging in the same circle of friends. in a way you supposed it had its benefits. like having front row seats to the blonde setter finally getting what’s coming for him.

you’d noticed him lingering near one girl all night. friendly proximity lessening by the hour as more alcohol were introduced into the situation. honestly you couldn’t blame the girl, the giggly flush so familiar that it caused an ache in a part of your body that you chose willingly to ignore. despite his ugly personality, there was no denying that atsumu was an attractive guy.

it was a shame that his pretty face was about to get a very aggressive makeover.

the crowds almost parted willingly as star of the men’s basketball-team, and conviently the boyfriend of the said girl trapped under atsumu’s spell. from under the rim of your cup, you couldn’t help but smile because finally, just maybe atsumu would get some sense knocked in him.

but there was a flicker of recognition in his eyes, even noticeable from a cross the room as he seemed to come to terms with his impending doom. it didn’t, however, seem to deter him from brushing a kiss over the back of the girl’s hand before he managed to disappear into the crowds. a disappointed sigh escaped your lips as the fuming male made it to the scene only a moment too late, his frustration now directed towards his girlfriend. not the kind of drama you were interested in, you decided as you backed towards the kitchen for a refill.

this would be the last one, you promised yourself. most of your invited friends had decided to call the night quits a little over an hour ago. you weren’t sure what urged you to linger a bit longer. you had no intention on bringing anyone home but a good night out seemed too infrequent to waste.

twisting your wrist, the clink of ice against the side of the cup served as a brief distraction from your thoughts.

-and subquentally you from the figure approaching your from behind.

“ah, so alone? that’s no way to party.”

suddenly you mood all but soured, your fresh drink already feeling stale in your hands as you rose your gaze to meet atsumu’s. his grin was as wide as ever, no less winded by his unexpected escape. which didn’t feel like much of one at all given how close he still was to the scene of the crime.

against your will, you eyes flicked back to the corner once occupied by himself in the girl, finding not even the so called boyfriend present. maybe they’d called it a night?

“so rude. i figured it was just class that you wanted to ignore me in. now my feelings are hurt.”

rolling your eyes, you set your drink down and turned to fully face the pouting man. “hardly, i was just planning on leaving actually. it’s late.”

you were outnumbered and one cup was already too much alcohol in your system to be hanging out with miya atsumu alone. while your stance wasn’t swayed, you couldn’t say the same for your resolve if he continued to stand so close. subconsciously, you already counted seven times that your gaze had dropped to his lips. even three years later, apparently past crushes still made them look so inviting.

whether he picked up on your obvious dilemma or innately just that confident in his own ability, his usual smile adopted a new curl that didn’t sit quite right with you. the said smile, however, had a short lifespan as his attention flickered behind you and dropped all together. instinct taught you that if someone like atsumu was tense in a situation that you likely should have fled a long time ago.

the ideology only becoming immedialty more true as the said man quickly encroach on your space with an unreadable expression. you’re thankful for your forethought to set down your drink prior, freeing up your hands to push against his chest before it could meet your own.

“w-what are you doing? back off miya.” without his brother around, you could comfortably use his surename without sounding too familiar.

there was a clench in his jaw as attention remained behind you instead, almost as if he’d planned to step over you the whole time and you’d just been in the way. had he not initially greeted you, it would have felt too much like your high school experiences. but you were older now, aged out of a futile crush.

strengthening your voice, you gave him a firm shove that didn’t nothing whatsoever in your favor. “im serious, back off.” touching him served to be your second mistake of the night as his fingers curled around your offered wrist and pulled it behind his head.

grasping wildly, your managed to snag the short of his hair in retaliation. the hiss he gave in return was well earned. “what the hell are you doing?” quickly losing patience, you slapped at his chest with your free hand. “atsumu! if you don’t-“

you hadn’t been a wallflower in your coming of age, but you hadn’t particularly stood out among your peers. your close group of friends being all you needed to survive three years of high school. they were enough, allowing you to gain all the social skills needed for any situation in life. or so you thought.

nothing prepared you for sudden pressure of lips against yours. miya atsumu was relentless as he licked firmly into your mouth, opening you up for his onslaught of experienced tongue. the sudden shift tilted your world upside down, giving him more than enough pliancy to mold your mouth how he wanted. too bad it made more for a hostage situation with your comically wide eyes. you could easily see the confusion reflected in atsumu’s as he grimaced.

yet rather than be deterred, he only closed his eyes to you completely and pulled you closer. you would blame how easily you kissed him back on the alcohol later as you went slack in his hold. he’s kissing you like he’d been doing so for months, like his lips belonged slanted against your own. it was almost too overwhelming to keep up with. yet feeling so right as you slowly matched his rhythm.

then reality bled into the fantasy.

you weren’t sure how long the figures at your back had been standing there, the harsh words jarring your consciousness as if they’d just appeared out of thin air. rather than letting you investigate, atsumu kept you close, unrelenting as his swept you into another series of kisses.

“you sure that’s him?”

“i think id know that asshole that was all up on my girlfriend, asshole.”

“ just saying, man, looks like he’s got one of his own.”

“forget it. let’s go.”

it’s not the voice that’s familiar, rather the context as a particular scene become too vivid all too quickly. the disruption drawing you away from the kiss with more strength than you’d had at the beginning. that had been the basketball player (i.e the boyfriend of the girl atsumu had just had charmed in the corner of the room. you’d just been used, as a distraction to avoid conflict. suddenly the kiss tastes more bitter than sweet.

an overwhelming wave of conflicting emotions was enough to dam your tears as you rounded on the newly relaxed male. however, the easy going expression sharpens in time to catch your errant palm. miya atsumu looks down at you with all the arrogance of a man that had yet to learn his lesson. and you weren’t sure if you were qualified to teach it. the choice taken from you as he restricted the control of your hand by intertwining his fingers.

dark eyes, viscous like honey, peered over your joined hands pressed against his lips.

“so girlfriend, why don’t i walk you home now? this party is getting a bit old.”

#miya atsumu #miya atsumu x reader #atsumu x reader #queued bread is not stale

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megsironthrone · 5 years ago

Text

Choose Your Story 2.0 -part 3

Here’s part 3! I do apologize for the wait! You voted and there was a tie! *Characters are not mine!*

Part 1, Part 2

Warnings: Modern/University AU, jealousy, fluff, angst-ish. Multiple POV changes.

Pairings/Characters: Eventual Brienne x reader, Tormund, Margaery

Margaery’s POV

"Professor Giantsbane?“ The professor in question turned and looked at the student that wasn’t his with an arched brow. "What can I do fer ya?” Margaery smiled brightly. “You’re friends with Professor Y/L/N, correct?” Tormund nodded slowly, clearly unsure of where Margaery was headed with this. “Then you’ve seen how hopeless they are around Professor Tarth.” Tormund’s face showed no shame as he laughed. “Aye. Quite obvious to everyone how the professor feels.” It was Margaery’s turn to nod and laugh. “It is. Well, I have a plan and I could really use your help.” Tormund cocked his head to the side, a smirk on his face. “Go on.”

Normal POV

You ran your hand down your face as you got up. You’d been marking papers almost your entire lunch period and now you were exhausted and starving. You made your way to the teacher’s canteen and froze in the doorway. Tormund was sitting next to Brienne. Actually, he was practically lounging across the seats next to her with a smirk on his face that clearly indicated he was flirting.

You tried not to feel the tug in your chest. Brienne wasn’t with you. She was free to date whomever she wanted, if she wanted. But that didn’t stop your heart from squeezing or your head from screaming as you watched the two of them. Steeling your nerves, you walked over to the table with a smile. “Afternoon.” Brienne’s face, which had looked rather uncomfortable, brightened when she saw you. Or perhaps it was your imagination.

"Y/N, please join us.“ Tormund pouted playfully for a moment before smiling at you. "I was just asking the professor here if she wanted ta join me fer supper tomorrow night,” he revealed. You fought to school your features. You were not about to show the jealousy that was rearing its ugly head. And that’s exactly what it was. Jealousy. Even though you had feelings for Brienne, you weren’t confident or brave enough to go against an unofficial school policy by revealing those feelings. Tormund wasn’t like that.

"Were you now?“ you asked, taking a sip of your drink. Tormund merely grinned at you while Brienne cleared her throat. "I was just telling Professor Giantsbane that you and I have plans tomorrow night.” Your brows furrowed for a second before you caught the pleading look on her face. It was quite obvious she was trying to let Tormund down gently.

"Of course. I’d forgotten for a moment. I’ve been marking papers too long, I suppose.“ Tormund shrugged. "Well, I’ll have to try again some other time. See ya around, Y/N. Brienne.” With a wink, he left the two of you alone. It wasn’t until he left the canteen entirely that Brienne finally breathed.

"I apologize for putting you on the spot like that,“ she said quietly. You laughed and shook your head. "It’s not a problem. Tormund can be…overwhelming on the best of days. Out of curiosity, what are you doing tomorrow night?” Brienne’s face turned an attractive shade of pink. “I have a few papers to mark, exams to prep, and a gymnasium to set right again. Nothing exciting.” You smiled at her. “Why don’t I help? I use the gymnasium too. You would think university students would clean up after themselves and put things back where they belong.”

"Are you sure? I would hate to take you away from something important.“ You chuckled again. "I have nothing important going on, really. Just finishing the marking I started today.” Brienne thought for a moment before nodding. “Thank you.” You gave her a smile and got up to leave, bidding her good day.

While the future plans with Brienne put a slight spring in your step, they did nothing to deter Tormund it seemed. Every time you turned around, he was with her. You knew she wasn’t interested in him, but that didn’t stop you from getting upset. The green-eyed monster was like that. Too many times you came close to yelling at Tormund to back off. Too many times you almost blurted out to Brienne how you felt about her in front of everyone. You couldn’t do that to her so you avoided her as much as possible during breaks in teaching, when Tormund would likely be there.

Margaery’s POV

"It’s not working, is it?“ Margaery asked woefully. She, along with Tormund and Podrick, could see your jealousy building and building with each passing hour. Yet you still said nothing to Brienne. "Oh, Y/N is jealous. That much is certain, but they’ve got a hell of a lot of will power. Hasn’t cracked once. Margaery huffed and blew an imaginary strand of hair from her face. "This isn’t going to work. We have to try something else.” Tormund chuckled to himself and shook his head. Whatever Margaery was going to do, she would have to act quickly.

Normal POV

The next evening, you met Brienne in the gym. “Thank you for this, Y/N. It’s-It’s nice to have company.” You smiled at her and waved off her thanks. “It’s really not a problem. I didn’t have anything else to do tonight anyway. Should we get started?” Brienne nodded and turned away from you. You caught yourself staring again as the muscles in her back worked. But it wasn’t until you heard the doors closing that you snapped out of your thoughts. You would have passed it off as the wind except you then heard the tell-tale sounds of those doors locking.

"What the Hells?“ you muttered, trying one of the doors. Just as you suspected, it was locked. You turned back to face Brienne. She was at the other door wearing an expression you were certain matched yours. "Locked.” You nodded. “This one too. I don’t understand. I know the doors are on an automatic system to lock at a certain time, but when the doors are open, it doesn’t engage.”

"What do we do?“ You shrugged a little. "We could try to call someone, but as it’s the end of the week, I doubt anyone will be around to unlock the doors any time soon. We may have to wait it out until the custodial team gets here in the morning.” You could feel your skin flush at the thought of being in the same room with Brienne all night. Mentally scolding yourself for acting like a high school student, you returned to the task of cleaning the gym. At least you could pass the time.

Unfortunately, the gym wasn’t as bad off as you first thought so it didn’t take long to get it clean. That left you with nothing to do but sit around and wait. Waiting meant talking for you. Talking meant forcing yourself to keep the conversation light so your feelings wouldn’t come bursting out of your mouth like water through a broken dam. But, like most things, your mouth had a mind of its own.

"May I ask why you lied to Tormund? About your plans?“ you asked as soon as you sat next to her on the bleachers. Brienne’s face turned that pretty shade of pink again. "I-I,” she began and then cleared her throat, “I just, I don’t see him as someone I can…be with. He’s a bit much.” She looked at you and you smiled to show her you weren’t upset. “I get it. He’s a great man though and one hell of a best friend. But I agree. He has to find just the right person to be with him romantically.”

You fell silent again for a moment before you asked, “So why me? You could have said you had plans with anyone else. Why me?” Brienne didn’t answer. In fact, she began avoiding your gaze altogether. “Brienne? It’s alright. You don’t have to tell me.” Still, she didn’t say anything and you began to grow concerned. You slid closer to her and placed your hand on her shoulder. “Hey, I promise, it’s okay. Whatever it is.”

Brienne finally turned to look at you, but you didn’t have the chance to say more. Her hands instant grabbed your face and she brought her lips to yours. You froze for a fraction of a second too long. She pulled back with tears shining in her blue eyes. Her skin was no longer pink, but a deep shade of red. “I am so sorry.” She shot up and moved to run away. You quickly grabbed her wrist. She stopped even though she could have easily pulled you up with her.

"Look at me, Brienne. Please.“ After a few seconds, she did. Your heart nearly ripped seeing the tears that fell silently down her cheeks. Giving her wrist a gentle tug, you silently asked her to sit back down. Once she had, you brought your hand up and wiped the tears away. "Why are you crying?” you asked in a hushed voice. “I…I shouldn’t have done that. I let my emotions get the better of me and kissed you without asking. It won’t happen again.” You smiled sadly. She thought you were mad at her.

"What if I want it to?“ you asked, feeling your skin heat up yet again. You hated that you had that kind of reaction, but there was nothing to be done for it. "You do?” Your smile widened a bit as you nodded. “Of course. Brienne, I’ve had feelings for you almost since the day we met. I thought it was just a little crush and it would fade. But it hasn’t. I really like you, Brienne. I care very deeply for you.”

A beautiful, dazzling smile slowly stretched across the blonde’s face. Her eyes were widened in disbelief. It was like she never thought she’d hear those words. Whether in general or just from you, you didn’t know, but you were glad you said them if it meant she looked at you the way she was in that moment. You reached over again and cupped her cheek.

"I care for you too,“ she whispered. Licking your lips, you took a chance and leaned in again. Your lips brushed over her tentatively at first. You wanted to give her the opportunity to back away from you if she wanted to. When she didn’t, you grew a little more confident and kissed her again.

For a few moments, as your lips touched, there was nothing else. You and she were in your own little bubble and nothing was going to pop it. You knew it could come crashing down on your head at any moment, but you couldn’t have cared any less. Right now was about you, Brienne, and the electricity passing between you.

When you finally pulled away from her, you couldn’t stop smiling. Your cheeks were beginning to ache, but it didn’t matter. At least until that stupid, nagging voice in the back of your head reminded you. "Are we allowed to do this?” Brienne asked, voicing your own thoughts. You looked at her and felt your lips tip down. That was a good question. Now what were you going to do?

(a/n: i hope this makes up for the wait! Voting for part 4 will begin tomorrow.)

Tags for CYS are separate, so please let me know if you’d like to be tagged!

#university au #choose your story #cys #part 3 #brienne of tarth #brienne of tarth x reader #brienne x reader

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doroyamz · 4 years ago

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Love in Accra

The road looked like it was sweating.

Rain. Heavy rain. The rush hour traffic on the 37 Military Hospital Road had come to a standstill. The downpour, from nowhere, was a welcome distraction for Tony. Last night’s encounter with his wife, Alicia, still all too fresh in his mind.

Cars were barely moving along on in the ever-rising storm.

He felt a movement on his right thigh but was too preoccupied with his thoughts to give it any attention. Esi by this time was growing restless, tired of Tony’s now constant rebuffing of her advances. Last night, and for many nights in the past month, he was totally limp when she unzipped him, a far cry from the throbbing pistol that had thrilled her to no end when they first began their countless rendezvous.

In those early days, they were lust personified. Crazed and addicted to each other beyond reason. Their constant need to feel each other’s skin had a near cataclysmic pull on them and their respective worlds. Alicia got pregnant in those early days, an event Tony privately regarded as a spillover from being with his now long-standing mistress. Esi’s marriage was virtually in the gutter. She often showed up at home disheveled and night after night, retired to her marriage bed wearing a satisfying post-coital daze on her face. Her husband, would just watch her. Mute and completely emasculated.

But now her once insatiable incubus was limp to her touch. She could not understand it.

xxx

Alicia had found the video on his phone.

Tony’s entire world came to a screeching halt. His throat was so dry, he wasn’t sure if he had one anymore. He stood paralyzed; the phone screen thrust in his face. Cocked his head at an angle as if in disbelief at the two actors in the tiny screen.

The man in the screen was bald, tall and dark and looked very much like him. He stood at about 6”3 with an NBA player’s build and had the beard to match. The male actor was indubitably approaching climax and his voluptuous female understudy, on cue, fiercely gripped onto dear life – which in that moment, was her male lead.

The ochre-skinned woman in the screen was of the finest fettle. Folasade was a full-blooded Nigerian but her unapologetic curves screamed South Africa. She looked like a Marvel comic heroine brought to life.

Fola and Tony met at a seminar for West African business executives at the Kempinski Hotel, a few months after his wedding. Fola was leading a breakout panel session which Tony sat in on, intoxicated by her form and presence. The two had exchanged steamy glances all day long, making no attempt to restrain their mutual intentions for each other when the conference ended.

Tony could never get enough of Fola and in Tony, Fola had found a man who could satisfy her every whim. They could go for months on end without so much as a text message to each other. But whenever contact was made, their respective schedules were cleared until further notice. They were fully aware that their combined desire was a vast black hole with the potential to consume them, so they took conscious steps to maintain some modicum of balance in their meeting arrangements.

The night the fated video was shot, Fola was headed for a month-long business trip in Morocco. They had arranged to meet at her private office on Volta Street in the Airport Residential Area.

Fola’s suggestion to record themselves as a temporary parting memento was inexplicable to Tony. Her claim that it would be something that would hold her while she was away, seemed puzzling to him. Her feigned desperation, even more perplexing.

Tony was completely against the idea of recording their liaison. Remonstrating over and over again about how technology and affairs of love should never cross. Fola ogled him for a while, offered tiny chuckles as he groped her every now and then during his rant.

Tony became so engrossed in his personal deliberations that he missed her slip into the bathroom. When he finally took a moment to break from his monologue, he was out of breath and had worked up a sweat. The man felt he just needed to wash away all traces of that unholy proposal.

Once on the other side of the bathroom door, Tony became Pavlov’s Dog.

That was over a year ago and Fola still hadn’t returned from her trip.

His mind slowly drifted back to the screen. The soft moans and cries. The sound of skin on skin rhythmically playing from the Samsung phone speakers.

He didn’t feel shame. He didn’t feel regret. He heard Alicia’s cries, felt her pain slide across his skin. He just stood there. Numb.

xxx

“We have asked around about Tony…Alicia…for your sake, for your parents’ sake, for all our sakes…please��do not marry this man.”

One of the many admonitions Alicia fielded from her aunts and cousins after announcing Tony’s marriage proposal at her younger sister’s festive birthday party.

In the ensuing weeks after her announcement, the family matriarchs conducted an extensive background check to gather as much intel as they could on her suitor. From what Alicia’s mum told her the matriarchs searched far and wide, even unearthing some very unsavory stories about Tony’s maternal grandfather in Mampong, a township in the Ashanti region.

The women came back with a most damning report on Alicia’s debonair Asante. Alicia, however, was defiant and unmoved by their findings.

She stood up to address the mini-assembly.

“Each woman here knows how highly I value them. You have all shaped me, guided me and helped me become the woman I am today,” she said in a restrained voice.

“But with all respect, none of you know Tony like I do. You don’t know what I see in him, his potential. The depths of emotion I have felt in the time I’ve gotten to know him. None of you can know that. He’s not perfect, Lord I know he’s far from it, but I know he’s the one for me. Nothing you say or do can make me feel differently.”

She loved Tony deeply. She had never believed she was capable of loving a man, let alone marrying one, after all the damage she had seen men wreak in and around her life. And Tony had flaws, many serious ones, but he had a certain light to him and he had showed her honesty and a vulnerability she had never known men to possess.

Deep down, she believed she could change him, iron out his weaknesses and over time drive out his especially troubling womanizing habit. She knew he liked women and on countless occasions, with her own eyes, she noticed the magnetizing effect he had on them. Alicia also believed some of his troubles with women lay in the fact that he was a true empath. That he, unfortunately, had never learned to draw boundaries to his empathy which inadvertently led to his many ‘situationships.’

“I won’t lie Alicia. I know I have a woman problem. It’s like an addiction. The intimacy, the need to connect, the sex.” They were having lunch at the Hinlone Chinese Restaurant in Labone. The night before, as they lay in bed, Tony had told he loved her for the first time. Alicia simply smiled at his declaration, electing to play it cool although inwardly, she was beside herself with joy.

Flashes from the video.

The woman’s legs splayed. Tony’s thrusts. The glistening sheen of sweat.

“But I swear to you, most of my things with these women often start out because I pity them or I want to help them in some way…along the line, things just get muddled up and…I lose my way...”

The woman crying out in throes of pleasure.

Her mind was a broken dam. Thoughts, memories and conversations flooded her head and receded at their own leisure.

She wondered why these memories and conversations were coming up at this time. The video was still a freshly opened gash, one she had already accepted was going to be a large and permanent scar. But for the other flashbacks, she questioned their relevance to her current predicament.

He was always a monster. Why was I pretending all this time that he wasn’t? Who was I kidding?

The video was the bomb but Tony’s desensitized demeanor and harrowing forced confessions were the firestorm. She knew there was so much more he would have confessed to if she had had any more emotional stamina during her five-hour interrogation of the stranger she called her husband. She had been beyond foolish.

Time had lost its meaning. She had spent three days huddled in the corner of their bedroom tormented by her broken heart and mind.

Alicia just wanted to disappear.

xxx

One week and seventy-seven unanswered calls had passed since the explosive encounter. Tony wasn’t sure if Alicia was alive.

He was parked outside the Total House Clinic in Adabraka on a Saturday morning. Completely engrossed in his thoughts and yearning for divine intervention to offer him some guidance. Since his exposé, his mind had been in a fog that thickened with each passing day. The only silver lining were the test results from his urologist. Tony’s recent erectile issues were deemed a stress response and his dysfunction persisted due to a lack of proper rest. He needed to relax.

His wife was even more inaccessible now than she’d been during the miscarriage. For Tony, the miscarriage was a living hell made more intolerable by how suicidal Alicia had been. He was disappointed to have lost the baby especially after how hard they’d tried over the years but a small and, perhaps, darker part of him felt relieved. He didn’t think it was right to have conceived a child with his wife barely an hour after stealing sordid moments with another woman. A woman he met through his wife. In his mind, it was perhaps the universe’s way of warning him that he had gone too far this time. He would never have been able to look at that child without seeing Esi in his mind’s eye.

This time though, he had overstepped the good faith that the universe seemed to constantly extend to him. He knew his credit line with the powers-that-be was now in the red and would stay there indefinitely. His latest debt, while not his most damning by a long shot, was irredeemable. He had nowhere to hide. There were no more lies he could spin around Alicia.

But he needed her. He couldn’t lose his North Star. She was the only thing that prevented his chaotic nature from engulfing him or so he thought. Surely, after all these years she knew what she was signing on for. Why was she so surprised? That video was nothing compared to the numerous other unspeakables he’d committed over the course of their marriage. Of all the things to do him in, it had to be a twenty-minute porno. What a sick joke.

In a bloodrush, he let out a hollow scream. His mind was drowning in haphazard thoughts.

“What have I done? God what have I done?” he blurted out repeatedly at his steering wheel, as he fought to hold back tears.

“Why? Why now? Why did it happen like this?” he plaintively questioned.

No answer.

Deflated and resigned, he took out his work phone and called the only person who would always welcome him with open arms and accept him for the depraved and gluttonous animal he was.

xxx

Incense burned as Jill Scott’s ‘He Loves Me’ played softly from the soundbar. The room had been steamed to perfection.

The Executive Suite at the La Beach Hotel was their favourite love nest. Any sexual fantasy - from orgies to swing parties - either party happened to be in the mood for or could imagine, this was the room that staged its enactment.

Tonight it was just the two of them.

The toned, dark-skinned Ga woman on the bed was in her early seventies but inexplicably did not look a day past twenty. Tightly twisted Senegalese crochet braids, flowed magnificently from her scalp to her dainty waist. Her oval-shaped face remained flawless as did her soft, wrinkle-free skin. How she managed to defy time with her looks and poise was a much pondered upon mystery to all who knew her.

Dede was naked underneath a black, sparkling see-through gown. Her shea-butter glistened body glowed through the gown. A wet, willing and wanting goddess. Ready to be ravaged by her young midnight warrior. She rose to sit on her knees, directing her eyes to her nude captor’s crotch. She rendered a wry smile.

The warrior was flat-out flaccid.

“Mm,” she remarked, as she beckoned him to draw closer.

“Looks like our little man needs a little something before he comes out to play eh?” she teased in playful Ga.

He smirked as he approached her, only stopping when his groin and her face were level.

The mind-fog was still present but he closed his eyes as he begun to feel the slow and perfectly measured licking sensations in his nether region. Dede was always masterful with the things she could do with her mouth. Two lifetimes worth of experience to draw from.

Two minutes passed but Tony’s situation did not improve.

She paused to look up at Tony, “Is something the matter? You usually perk up for me with no effort. Have I done something wrong?”

“No…it’s not you love…,” he paused, longer than he’d intended.

“Just been under a lot of stress lately,” he sighed as he pulled away. He turned his back on the regal woman to look around the room for his clothes.

Dede wasn’t buying it. His tone. That pause. Something was definitely up. She had never known her beast to act or sound so tame in all the years she’d known him, not even during his grooming period.

“But you’re even more marvelous when you’re stressed…or have you forgotten Abidjan?” she asked, biting her lip.

He shrugged at her retort.

Tony was troubled by his recurring limpness.

xxx

Esi’s heart froze when she saw the Caller ID on her phone screen.

Alicia.

Why would Alicia be calling her? For what reason? Was it about Tony? Had she found out about them?

The phone was still ringing but Esi just stared at her mobile. A million worst-case scenarios flying around in her mind each time her ringtone looped over.

She decided she would not answer the call.

It’d been over eight months since they last spoke and the distance that had grown between them suited Esi, considering the increased frequency of her liaisons with Tony in those months. After years of clandestine maneuvers, she felt she was finally closing in on Alicia’s husband.

Both women had known each other from childhood. Esi even witnessed Alicia’s declaration of Tony’s marriage proposal.

The announcement was a mild shock for her at first but she remembered feeling something resembling happiness for her longtime friend. Alicia had found a man who could actually hold her attention. He had to be special. She’d seen Alicia turn down the most desirable of bachelors - a few of whom Esi herself subsequently sampled extensively - on countless occasions.

In her quiet moments, she sometimes wondered why her then soon-to-be-engaged friend seemed to routinely attract men of a higher caliber without even trying, while she often had to go above and beyond to pull a semi-decent man. She felt she was equally as - if not more - attractive than Alicia and just as accomplished professionally but somehow, she always seemed to come out second-best to her childhood friend when it mattered. These thoughts irked Esi more than she cared to admit to herself.

Alicia mirthfully introduced her old friend and soon-to-be-husband to each other a few days after her announcement.

Their eyes locked for a brief but intense moment during the exchange of pleasantries.

xxx

Nyarko Abronoma could not look at the man she called her son.

She was disgusted.

Why were the men in her family such cancers?

To the uninitiated, her family’s men were walking gods. Dazzling men who could bend the wills and desires of the staunchest hearts. They were gifted manipulators and they used their power to wreak havoc. Their preferred targets, were often women of high standing and character. They swarmed on these women like bees to honey. Once ensnared, their targets were mentally and emotionally stretched and bent beyond their limits, enduring relentless acts of gross disrespect and shame on account of these bedeviled men. And in no time, the prey merely became a shell of their former selves.

Nyarko, at the age of nine, saw her mother gradually lose her mind. A year later, a young Nyarko watched on as her mother was lowered into an unmarked grave. Both events, her father’s handiwork.

Her mother used to say that the men of Nyarko’s lineage were descendants of the fallen angels from the Book of Genesis. The Nephilim.

Even in her womb, she already knew Tony was one of them. Throughout her pregnancy, Nyarko prayed, fasted, sought the counsel of several spiritual leaders to save her unborn child. She desperately wanted her son to chart a different path than the men before him.

Tony didn’t know how to break the silence between them.

His mother had always been his trump card whenever things between him and Alicia were coming to a head. This time around though he was seeking his mother’s intervention as a Hail Mary. He knew she admired and loved Alicia. She would probably have traded her for him as her child if she had her way.

He told her what had happened, leaving out a few details.

Nyarko knew her son hadn’t told her everything.

She raised her head to observe her son. A beautiful boy with a Machiavellian heart. He was a poisoned chalice like his predecessors.

Tony looked away, uncomfortable with her soul-piercing stare.

“I can’t help you and I won’t,” she said in Twi.

He was stunned.

“I won’t let you drive that poor woman to the grave. If I help you, you are only going to repeat what your grandfather put my mother through and what my brothers did to their wives. Alicia is too much of a good woman for that. Too much. She deserves better. This time you have been exposed for all to see and we both know there are countless more lies and secrets behind those scheming eyes of yours!”

Tony’s throat tightened. He hadn’t anticipated this tirade from the old woman.

“You think I don’t know about you? The things you scurry around town doing like a possessed rat? I weep for Alicia everyday. I always pray to God to give her strength in dealing with you. You have no shame. Even during your wife’s miscarriage you had no decency, no respect for her, not an ounce of self-control. Hiding in and out of Accra with your concubines.”

Nyarko spat at her son’s feet.

“If anything should happen to Alicia, it will be on your head and I pray you pay for it.”

xxx

Three weeks and still no word from Tony.

Alicia’s call coupled with Tony’s prolonged radio silence led Esi to assume the worst.

She was driving back into Accra, via the Accra-Tema Motorway, after wrapping up a meeting in Tema's harbour area. Hawkers streamed along either side of her car, as she neared one of the highway's three toll booths.

Esi's mind was spinning. Everything seemed to be falling apart. Had she been stupid? Why couldn’t she be allowed to have her own slice of heaven? Was it a crime to want to be loved? She didn’t mean Alicia any harm but the connection between her and Tony was unavoidable.

Why was Tony all of a sudden ignoring her? Why weren’t they making love anymore? She knew he had a harem of ‘playmates’ he could call on but he always came back to her. Was he over her? Had somebody else taken her place?

Too many questions with no answers. She wracked her brain to think of a solution, a way out through all the madness.

Dede. The Madame. The old woman would probably know something. She and Tony were close, a little too close for Esi’s liking. But Esi figured that a woman at that age didn’t have that long to live, no matter how well she kept herself or how many boys she gobbled up, so Esi was fine with their relationship. Besides she was on good terms with Dede, the three had had some raunchy episodes through the years.

Esi called Dede and inquired about Tony.

“I last saw him about a week ago but I haven’t heard from him since then,” Dede stated.

More worry for Esi. He had gone to see Dede but had not even bothered to call her for three weeks? What was going on with him? Was he over her? She knew Dede had some skills but the old witch had enough boy toys to keep her satisfied.

Dede hummed an Erykah Badu tune. Esi forgot she was still on the line.

“Thank you Dede. I’ll give him a buzz again.”

“Dear girl, hold on for a second please.”

Esi was caught off guard by The Madame’s request. Outside of their fervid love-ins, Dede was typically brisk and forthright with her.

“Have you noticed anything…strange about Tony lately?” Dede asked, an almost mischievous lilt in her slivery voice.

“Strange? What do you mean?” a puzzled Esi asked.

“His performance, has it changed in any noticeable way?” The Madame was sipping on something in the background.

“Oh Dede…,” Esi responded bashfully.

“My girl let’s not beat around the bush. Is anything different or not?”

The sudden firmness in The Madame’s voice unsettled Esi.

“W-Well…recently he doesn’t respond to my touch. You know…,” she didn’t know why she was so shy in speaking to Dede about her sexual affairs with Tony. She had seen the woman on all fours.

Static on the phone.

“He can’t get it up,” Esi muttered feebly.

“Mm..I see. Thank you Esi, that’s all I needed to know. Best of luck reaching him.”

The line cut.

Why would Dede ask that? Was she experiencing the same issues she’d been having with Tony?

The suspicion that had been floating in Esi’s mind for the past few weeks was too absurd to now consider an actual possibility. It was impossible for that to happen to Tony, he was too red-blooded, way too potent for that.

It couldn’t be.

No...no..not Tony...

Tony couldn’t be…?

No!

It isn’t possible. Tony couldn’t be impotent. The mere thought alone was utterly absurd.

But how else could she explain his sudden limpness? Plus Dede would never have asked that question if she hadn’t noti---

Esi fatally rear-ended her Nissan Qashqai into a heavy cargo truck.

xxx

Their luxury three-bedroom apartment home on Second Circular Road, Cantonments, was a stone throw away from the U.S. Embassy. It was a $600,000 property that Tony had astoundingly managed to wind down to a sale price just short of a $100,000. Alicia used to call him ‘Puppet Master T,’ for his uncanny ability to always get what he wanted.

Tony lingered outside the apartment door for nearly half an hour. He was jittery.

A flurry of deep and quick deep breaths filled his lungs as he steeled himself and turned the doorknob.

The apartment felt hostile as if it despised his presence.

His sweep around his marriage home confirmed Alicia had packed up, that much was clear. Their bedroom was half empty, with no trace of his wife left in the room. Alicia was gone and she was gone for good.

A small stack of papers was neatly arranged on the bed. Divorce papers and a small sheet with a number to call when he was done signing. That was Alicia, methodical and precise, even in the worst of circumstances.

Tony sat on the bed, staring at the divorce papers.

He wanted to call Alicia but thought better of it. She’d probably blocked him on all platforms. When his wife didn’t want to be found, she did it well.

The die was cast. There were no more moves he could play.

Something vibrated under his left thigh, briefly snapping him out of his self-pity. He shifted his weight to find the smoking gun that had ended everything.

Tony unlocked the phone to find a freeze-frame shot of a busty Fola in a most compromising position. Alicia must have watched the video countless times, trying to make sense of it all. Her soon-to-be ex-husband zoomed out of the video application to the notification center.

Ato, his closest friend and fellow degenerate, had just sent him series of confusing text messages.

The first message read: “Bro...I have been trying to reach you.” Tony checked his call log to indeed find several missed calls from his main man.

Second message: “I don’t know if you’ve heard already.”

Third: “Bro…I’m so so sorry about Esi...I can’t imagine what you’re feeling. I’m so sorry bro. Please call me if you need me. I’m here for you…”

xxx

Marijuana smoke filled the air of the love nest.

Tony’s head lay buried in Dede’s bosom. He was silent, as Dede gently stroked his head and offered hushed words of consolation.

She drew a few more puffs from her joint and moved it down to Tony’s lips but her wounded warrior declined.

They stayed silent for a lengthy period of time as Dede spaced out from the weed.

Memories of a lifetime’s worth of sexual dissipation with her favorite boy streamed across her mind. Despite her wanton admiration for his sexual prowess, she had grown to develop an affection for her former protégé over the years.

The Madame, as Dede was referred to by Accra’s high society, had known Tony since he was fourteen. Even as a sprightly teenage boy - and much to her pleasant surprise - he oozed raw potential with his savage-like lovemaking abilities. By seventeen, the boy could do things she had never known men to be capable of. He had a frightening and near bottomless appetite that bordered on the frenetic, that even her infamous grooming techniques couldn’t temper.

She shed an unseen tear for her paramour’s wasted manhood. To be completely robbed of his virility in his prime was a cruel blow from the gods.

Dede nonchalantly crushed the end of the burnt-out joint into an ashtray on the bedside table.

“It’s a pity but it seems I have no use for you anymore, my dear,” she said sofly.

Tony was still, his eyes shut. It was what he expected from his Madame.

“There’s a young French couple coming by shortly. Quite the adventurous duo. It’s a shame you wouldn’t be joining us,” she sighed airily.

“A shame,” he whispered.

She started running rings around his lips.

“You’re of course welcome to stay and watch if you please my love,” she said somewhat coyly.

Tony slowly reached for her moving hand and kissed it.

He rose from his resting place, stretched to his full height, and promptly made his way to the door without looking back.

“Tony..,” he heard Dede call out before he shut the door.

Two spirited European-looking girls gaily passed him in the lobby hallway.

As he stepped onto the elevator, the vivacious couple turned around to take in the view of the brooding stud exiting the floor.

xxx

Tony hopped over the fence that separated the La Beach Hotel premises from the beach.

It was a little past midnight and the cool and salty breeze of the sea, soothed Tony’s mood. The mind-fog was clearing up. Whether the fog’s retreat was a result of the second-hand smoke from the weed or the effect of the beach, he wasn’t sure but he was grateful.

It was a moonless, starless sky. The ocean’s waves roared gently, calling to him. He had been here before, in another life perhaps.

He took in the scene before him one last time and smiled. All was fair.

Tony took the first steps towards his death.

xxx

#love accra ghana short story

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fell-in-love-didnt-you · 5 years ago

Text

Five Times I Wanted to Kiss You, and One Time You Did, Too

Oh, my god. I spent actual hours on this, It's a 26 page word doc. Word count of 10k +. Holy shit.

My friend will anonymously say “fic waz good” and I will tell theme tickety boo bebop. If you’re reading this, you know.

Okay, enjoy about six hours of my life poured into a fic I love more than anything I’ve ever written ever even outside the wonderful carry on fandom.

Oh, also, basically Chapter 61 happened but no kissing. Basically, all kissing that is canon has been taken out unless it happened between Agatha and simon. okay enjoy (putting a read more cuz it’s fucking long)

Read on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20051074

Baz figures it out fifth year, but he knows it has festered in the back of his brain long before this point. Maybe it has even been there since the first time they met. Being raised to hate the Chosen One doesn’t exactly mean you’re going to comply.

And he certainly does hate Snow. Stupid fucking hair, stupid fucking walk, and stupid fucking everything and anything else Baz can think of. He can’t even hold a wand right unless Bunce shows him first. Pathetic choice for a Chosen One.

And the whole “I’m going to follow you around until I finally catch you draining rats and defiling virgins” act also doesn’t let Baz sit on these confusing emotions for more than three seconds alone. Seriously, is it all some cosmic joke? Is some long-forgotten enemy of the Pitches sitting Upstairs somewhere, laughing until they cry, and also making sure Baz doesn’t have a fucking second alone?

If so, fuck you, Baz thinks. Fuck you and your whole lineage, if someone ever felt bad enough to sleep with you.

That is another thing: the wanting to sleep with Simon Snow, Mage’s heir, resident Good Boy, and savior of the magical world. Also, the boyfriend to the stunningly gorgeous Agatha Wellbelove, who also may have a thing for Baz, too. And Baz is flattered, honestly. He and Wellbelove would make some beautiful children that would dominate the magical world. Hell, maybe he’d name them all Simon Snow Pitch just to piss off the Golden Boy.

He wants so bad to feel anything else for anyone else. He’d fuck a chimera if he thought for one second it would clear this blinding, aching need to touch and be touched by the one person most disgusted by his presence. Anyone else. He’d marry Bunce, or a second cousin, or a tree.

But that feeling, that “It’s you; it’s going to be you” has sat in the pit of Baz’s stomach for five years before deciding to take root at the base of his brain stem and prick and demand attention from both. A torturous cycle akin to being stuffed in the ground alive with a straw poking though the earth. Never satisfied, but still hopeful like a fucking moron.

Baz climbs the stairs to the turret. If his mum was still headmistress, maybe lifts would have been incorporated sometime, or even just escalators. Everyone calls the Mage the ‘Great Reformer’, but Baz puts that on the far end of his list of names for that fuckweed. Far behind prick, narcissistic bitch, and crazy fucking lunatic, which all rank well within the top ten. But Snow would argue that the Mage is really the ‘Great Reformer’ everyone calls him.

Baz’s calf muscles and back disagree heartily.

Even though the basic unsaid rules of their room declared that Snow takes showers in the evening, Baz can’t stand the way his clothes stick to him like they’re a second skin. He thought last year he was finally done growing, but the Grimms are a tall folk, and it seems he’s inherited that (and maybe, like, four other things) from his father. Any walking makes him sweat when it’s this early into the year, and the added bonus of not fitting into custom clothing makes it all the more awful.

So Baz breaks tradition and grabs a towel from his wardrobe. They’re supposed to share one, but Simon decidedly moved his things away from anything resembling Baz about three seconds into this year’s term, and Baz actually doesn’t give a shit. If anything, he’s happy. Now, no lingering scent of Simon can be on his clothes anymore than it usually is.

Sharing a room with the person you want more than actual life makes him hyper-aware of what Snow smells like: brimstone, green fire, and burned foodstuffs. Makes sense.

Despite the building being old, the water pressure is wonderful. Baz maybe thinks someone has spelled it this way because there’s no way a place as old as Watford had this wonderful a plumbing system when it was made. Just as Baz is wondering who may have upgraded this integral part of the school, a loud, obnoxious knock on the bathroom door jolts him from his thoughts.

“We need to talk,” says a muffled voice on the other side of the dark wood door. Simon Snow has never been great at yelling, even in the best of times. Baz accidentally pushed him down the stairs once, and the only noise he made the entire time was a surprised little, “oh” just before he went down.

“I need to get clean,” Baz replies, hoping that will shove off any response for a few minutes.

The knock sounds again, though this time it’s louder. “Now!” Simon yells. He thumps even harder against the door, and Baz sighs as he rests his head against the cool tile of the shower. Never a dull moment when you know the Chosen One, he thinks to himself.

Baz really should be thinking about the structural integrity of a door that was made centuries before him. It’s got a cheap little doorknob from when the other fell out two years into their time at Watford. (Baz blames Simon, but he knows it was himself that did it; slamming a door closed will do that.) The thing hardly locks half the time, and Baz was so tired after a day of classes and scouring the Catacombs that he just didn’t think about locking the door.

So when Simon’s incessant thumping gets harder, the door gives. The knob, thanks to its cheapness, breaks, and the door swings in to reveal Baz, naked, actually in the shower and not plotting, because that’s what Snow always thinks he’s doing.

Baz’s first instinct is to cover himself up. Fling a towel around his lower half and cower in a distant corner until Snow decides that looking at a pale, naked vampire isn’t worth his time anymore. His second instinct is to shout. Because his towel is one the counter outside of the shower, his second instinct will have to do.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he demands, and if there’d been any magic in his voice, Snow would be spilling secrets from his childhood like a broken dam. But Baz doesn’t need magic to make Snow become flustered or spill his secrets. All he needs is a hiss in the back of his throat and a lethal glare.

Snow looks like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck. The most logical thing he can do at this point is close the door, walk out of the room, and not show up for a few hours so Baz can have a bit to think about this. But all Snow does do is stare, and stare, and stare, and stare some more. It’s like he’s trying to bore holes into Baz’s brain with just his eyes.

And then Baz watches those unextraordinary blue eyes creep from his face to where he’s trying desperately to cover up. And damnit, Baz thinks, that shouldn’t be doing the things it’s doing to me. It shouldn’t be setting him on fire all over like he’s not flammable to the largest extent, and it damn sure shouldn’t be making all the blood from the rats rush south like a freight train.

Snow comes to his senses finally (if he’s really got any) and slams the door shut. Baz can feel his face becoming redder. He likes the water hot, but this isn’t a temperature-related heat. This isn’t even the heat of arousal. It’s the heat of shame. Because while Snow was staring down where Baz’s hands are still covering, he was only thinking about one thing: snogging the daylights out of the Mage’s heir.

Shit.

…

The end of fifth year isn’t nearly as exciting as the previous ones: Simon slayed a dragon first year, and the Humdrum’s sent something equally as lethal (if not, more so) every year. However, for the first time in five terms, the last weeks are uneventful. Baz takes his exams in relative silence, though Snow’s tapping feet never stop.

However, if that’s the only upset they’ll have during exams, he can take.

It’s been about six months since Snow walking in on him in the shower, and they haven’t spoken about it. To be fair, they also didn’t speak about whatever it was that had been so pressing in Snow’s mind that day. It just didn’t seem as important as seeing your arch-nemesis stark naked.

Maybe he’d seen the long scar that ran down Baz’s legs. It wasn’t from whatever Snow was thinking it were from. It was years old from when the wraiths had thought it fun to mess with a Pitch. Live and learn, Baz thought. The wraiths hadn’t touched him since then.

Or maybe Snow was really just freaked out about the sight of another man’s prick. If he thought that only he had stones or some stupid shit, anatomy next year was going to fuck him over really well.

Whatever it had been, it’s gone and passed. Baz has shelved it away for the day he’ll finally get a good wank in, which will be only a few days from now. The last days of term always feel the longest, though, and even just remembering that is making his skin itch.

He’s forgotten it long enough, though, to begin packing his wardrobe. It’s not like Baz has a sizeable amount of clothing or anything, but compared to Snow’s, it’s massive. The winter coats alone outnumber all of Snow’s non-school clothing.

Just as Baz begins to take down the few frayed tees he’s ever owned, the door to the room opens. He doesn’t need to look up to know it’s Snow; the clambering of feet up the stairs always tells him enough. Apparently, Snow shares the same sentiment about stairs. Baz looks up to see Snow’s face flushed and his mouth open. (Though that shouldn’t surprise Baz anymore. Snow’s mouth is always open, like an obnoxious trout.)

“Haven’t suggested a lift to your Jedi master, then?” Baz asks, returning his attention to the remaining clothes in the wardrobe. “Or haven’t you mastered Up, up, and away?”

Simon’s glare reverberates through the room, and Baz drops the tie in his hand. The unmistakable scent of Snow’s magic is pouring into the air. Could what Baz just said really set him off that easily? It isn’t even comparable to their normal insults. Nothing this year has been comparable to the previous ones. Baz is too wrapped up in himself lately to really think of any good zingers.

Baz turns sharply from the wardrobe and says, “Calm down, Snow. You don’t want the Anathema killing you for maiming me.” Maybe in some distant world, that could be true.

Snow takes one large step forward and is up in Baz’s space. He’s not close enough to get a good punch in, but Baz knows that Simon doesn’t judge distance very well when it comes to physical altercations. As long as he even scrapes Baz, Snow counts it as a win.

“Stay the fuck away from my girlfriend,” Snow spits at him, hands live like a wire in the air. He always does this when they fight: the spitting of words, the gritting of teeth, and the pointing of hands. However, the actual flames that lick the insides of his eyes give way to let Baz know he’s probably as serious right now as he’s ever been. “I mean it, you fucking creep!”

Baz is just confused. Of course, he won’t let that show. A sly smirk paints its way across his face and he asks, “Trouble in paradise, Snow?”

More magic is exuded. More of the air feels alive with electricity. Snow’s magic has always felt like this: alive, alive, alive. There’s nothing about Simon Snow that isn’t alive. Baz wishes he could be jealous.

“Calm down, Snow,” Baz murmurs, bending over to pick up his tie. It helps to ease the shaking in his hands. Snow could quite literally explode all of Mummer’s right now, and Baz could go up with it. That’s not how he’s supposed to die.

Well, sort of. Simon Snow will do the right thing and kill him once and for all one day, far away from this day, when they stand on opposite sides of the battlefield.

But dying as a fifth year in the top of Mummer’s because Snow’s girl has obviously upset him is not the way Simon is going to kill him.

Snow’s jaw clenches, and he steps back from Baz. Thank Merlin for Anathema, Baz thinks, whoever you were.

Finally, the static in the air calms to the low buzz that always accompanies Snow, and Baz feels like he can breathe again. He can smell a hell of a lot more than most people, and maybe that’s why being around Simon has always made him feel like he’s suffocating. Or maybe it’s because he just wants to pin the Chosen One down on a bed and kiss him ‘til they both die.

That’s what Baz is thinking as Snow loosens his jaw and opens his mouth like the damned trout again. He’s thinking about stepping closer and filling a gaping hole in his chest that aches more and more every passing second. He’s thinking about just coming out with it, no matter the repercussions from his family or the Coven or even Snow himself. He’s thinking about twisting his hands into that perfect golden hair and touching the moles he’s longed to touch since they first met at the Crucible.

But all Baz does is think.

So, instead of pulling Snow in for a maddening and passionate kiss, he turns to his wardrobe and says, “Try not to blow Wellbelove up next time you see her. I still haven’t gotten my fill.”

…

Christmas at Watford is always bittersweet. Baz loves the turkey that’s served the night before the official end of the term, and he’s obsessed with the holly hung up just about everywhere it can be. Miss Possibelf always teaches them little Christmas spells like Merry and bright (obviously for lighting fairy lights) and talks about where the myth of Father Christmas really came from.

But it also makes Baz long for his mother. Sixth year isn’t easy. It’s the year before the technical last year one is required to take. Baz can stop coming after seventh year if he chooses, though he knows he will come back. He’s not going to be the first Pitch to ever drop out of Watford. Plus, Aunt Fiona’s threatened him with a silver cross branding over the heart if he decides to leave.

His mum loved Christmas much more than any other Pitch. She’d set up a big tree in the sitting room and physically place the ornaments on instead of spelling them up like every other magical family. When Baz once asked why, she gave him a look like he’d just asked her why she was breathing. After all, everyone does need to breathe.

So, yeah, the holidays simultaneously suck and rock. Aunt Fiona always brings down the shitty handmade bobbles from when Baz was, like, two and places them on the tree where everyone can see them. His dad mixes up basically all the top shelf alcohol into a cocktail and lets Baz have several glasses. Even Daphne gets in the spirit and throws a mini party with some more liberal members of the Old Families. It’s a good time to be a Grimm-Pitch.

Baz doesn’t entirely pack away his things. He just takes his coats, trousers, socks, and boots. He has more than enough clothing at his house. If he even so much as mentioned a sweater he thought was cool enough to look at for more than two seconds, it would be on his bed by the time he got home. He didn’t want or need anything from his school wardrobe. Just enough to get him to the train and back.

Snow kept the window open, and the breeze blows Baz out of his memories and right back into the chilly air of the room. Simon would keep that damned thing open all the time if Baz didn’t put his foot down. It was like that the first few months of the first year, but after he complained to Fiona about it enough times, she encouraged him to yell at Snow until he submitted to whatever whim was plaguing him.

Now, though… After last year’s revelations and midnight wanks, he can’t so much as snarl at Snow without feeling like he’s an utter arse. Hating Snow used to be as easy as breathing, even though vampires breathe far less often than humans. They do still need to breathe. Snow asked that once in fifth year. What a dunce.

You’ve fallen for a dunce, Baz thinks. A complete fucking dunce.

The cold gets to be too much. Snow isn’t even in the room. He’s probably off with Bunce trying to coerce cook Pritchard into giving him more scones or butter or something. As Baz is about to slam the window down and watch the snow fall from the sill, his eye catches on white blond hair that’s a stark contrast to the dark yew tree behind it.

Wellbelove is an objectively attractive person, and Baz can definitely admit that to anyone asking. She’s standing down against the yew tree, earmuffs protecting what Baz knows are tiny, pale ears that turn the lightest shade of pink when you compliment her. She’s got a light blue coat wrapped around her, and even though the weather definitely doesn’t call for it, she’s wearing a skirt and some tights that tuck away neatly into boots.

That’s another thing about being a vampire: the vision is impeccable.

As impeccable as it is, Baz wants to turn around at the next sight. Snow walks up to Agatha and wraps his arms tightly around her waist before kissing her. It’s so hetero that Baz thinks he might throw up. He would if it was anyone else. Just thinking about people like Dev and Niall actually getting their hands on a woman long enough to kiss her makes Baz’s stomach do summersaults and backflips.

But it’s Snow. His golden hair sticks out in every which way and demands attention in the flapping of the wind. He’s laughing loud enough that it trails up the room where Baz has his hands clenched on the window, nearly splintering it into thousands of pieces. Maybe the Anathema would hurt him for hurting the window. Then he wouldn’t feel so much.

It’s been easy to ignore them. It looked like they’d gone through a rocky patch there, and Baz let himself hope for just one second that it might be over. Of course, even if they were over, there was no way in heaven, hell, or the Veil that Simon Snow would fall in love with the evil gay vampire.

No way.

Baz wants to scream and rage and throw things around the room until his hands go numb and his fangs drop and he can taste blood in his mouth, which hasn’t happened in a long time. He wants to kill Snow and kiss him and throw him to a merwolf and take him so far away from the Humdrum and Watford and everything that’s been hurting him his entire life.

But Baz just slams the window down loud enough for Snow to look up and see Baz glowering down at the pair of them.

Whatever. Baz will just make Agatha love him instead. Shouldn’t be too hard.

…

Watching Snow get yanked out of thin air with Bunce on his arm feels like some weird fever dream Baz has made to cope with every stupid argument they’ve had this year. Even today, Snow came into the room just to get into a petty argument about the window again.

Snow’s just popped around the corner into the Wavering Wood. Baz mentally curses himself. Why does everyone try to follow him when he just wants food? (Blood? Same difference.) First Wellbelove, and then Simon motherfucking Snow and Bunce. Can a man have no privacy?

Of course, the second he realizes Snow’s in the vicinity of him and Wellbelove, Baz takes her hands into his, and it looks like they’re going to kiss. Of course, Baz isn’t going to waste his first kiss on a girl, but if it makes Snow mad, he’ll make that stupid sacrifice.

However, the sucking feeling of the Humdrum creeps into the air just as Snow comes to the clearing. Baz can only describe it as being dry. The air gets tight around him, and he can feel his lungs contracting like a heart that’s finally puttering out. However, his heart is beating what would be considered for normal for a human and erratic for a vampire. Snow asked once if he had any blood in his body. Why the fuck do you think I need it? Baz wanted to ask him back. He scowled instead.

Just as suddenly as Snow and that feeling appears, they both go away. Baz lets go of Wellbelove’s hands and stands in shock and awe. There’s no spell that can make oneself invisible, though one ancestral Grimms did try to use Out, out, damned spot for that. He accidentally discorporated himself to another dimension. Baz says a silent prayer for William Malcolm Grimm before turning to Agatha and basically screaming, “Where the fuck did Snow go?”

If Baz was thinking or was at all competent, he would track Snow using Come out, come out wherever you are, but Baz isn’t thinking. He knows Fiona will have his head on the pyre after she finds out, but Baz agrees with Wellbelove and goes to the Mage with her. They both saw it, and they both need the affirmation that they’re not crazy.

The Mage seems almost uninterested. It’s the last day of term for the eighth years, and he somehow thinks that’s more important than saving his literal heir. While Baz wants to punch the Mage on the best of days for what he’s done to the Old Families, he’d probably dig his fangs into the Great Prick’s neck if Wellbelove wasn’t there.

She’s an absolute wreck. Her best friend and boyfriend just got sucked out of thin air to Crowley knows where, and no one is trying to go find them. At least, no one skilled. The Mage sends his personal army after them, but Baz knows it’s just for show. The Mage’s army couldn’t find an apple on top of a bowl of bananas even if there was a bright neon arrow pointing to it.

So he and Wellbelove wait. Wellbelove is utterly inconsolable, but she does rest her head on Baz’s shoulder after a little bit. If Baz wasn’t so busy actively trying to take down her boyfriend and make him miserable, maybe they’d be friends. She’s a bright girl even with as little magic as she’s got, and she’s quippier than most people in their year. Her only real contender is Bunce, but she’s too busy worrying over Snow to be in any competitions.

Baz eventually gets the news that his family’s arrived for the ceremony. All the Old Families come for the Leaving Ceremony even if they have no one graduating. Baz will be up on that stage in the White Chapel next year, and while he can’t get the image of Snow and Bunce being sucked out of existence before his very eyes, the least he can do is distract himself by watching his predecessors leave.

Fiona is looking around, and it takes only three guesses for Baz to realize she’s trying to find the Chosen One. She’s hexed him at enough of these ceremonies to know he’d be here, and when she asks Baz where he is, all he can do is shrug. It’s not exactly lying; he really doesn’t know where Simon went. Baz looks over and sees the Bunces looking around just like Fiona, although they’re more worried.

It’s their daughter missing, after all. The brightest child they’ll ever put out hasn’t shown up to a ceremony she’s gone to since before she enrolled in Watford. Baz almost feels like he should go over and explain. He knows something, even if it’s not the whole story.

Just as he’s rising to his feet, the doors bang open. The light from outside nearly blinds Baz as he turns to stare at the two figures in the doorway. He already knows Simon is one of them. The brimstone and burning smell are in the air, and his magic is pouring out of him and tearing at the seams. After adjusting to the light, Baz can see Bunce’s bright hair and the glint of her ring.

There’s a moment of silence before chaos erupts. The blood hits Baz’s nose last. Somehow, even he thinks that’s wrong. The blood should have alerted him long before the doors flew open, but here he is, gaping open-mouthed at the two figures in the doorway. Simon is covered in blood from head to toe, and Penny is only cleaner by a fraction. It looks like it’s being sucked out of their pores. It looks like they’re going to die right there on the floor of the White Chapel.

Baz is stuck in place, and he silently thanks whatever Pitch ancestor is keeping him there. It would be even more of a scandal if he ran to his enemies and cried over their corpses. That’s to be done in private.

However, two hours later, a group of magical nurses and doctors have been called, and they all gather in Baz’s room, waiting for Simon to exit the shower.

Baz feels awkward. Should he be pouring tea? Would that be too domestic? He doesn’t have to wait much longer.

Snow steps out of the washroom like a zombie in a low-budget film. Even though it’s obvious by the smell that he’s scrubbed every surface of his body, dried blood flecks are still speckled here and there like the moles already present. If given enough time, Baz could find nearly every one of them. He knows every mole that litters Snow’s body and how large it is and where it’s located.

He’s a man who can’t swim that’s been cast out to sea.

Baz watches as the doctors perform vitals on Snow and check his skin to make sure the bleeding won’t start again by the simple pressure of fingers or clothing. They poke and prod until the Mage enters and watches himself. Then, they’re sent back to whatever corners of the world they crawled out of. Baz is pretty sure one came from New Zealand.

Simon looks like a stress ball squeezed one too many times. His hair has gone flat for once, the telltale buzz in the air that marks his presence is gone, and he doesn’t say anything he doesn’t have to. It’s the first time Baz has seen him not stutter out every other word.

It would be impressive if it wasn’t so fucking scary.

Then the Mage leaves, and it feels awkward between the two of them for the first time in six years. Even the Crucible wasn’t this bad. Simon seems to stare straight past anyone who looks at him. Wellbelove had been in here before Simon showered, just to see if he was alive, but he’d looked through her like she was a window. Baz had never seen Snow look at her like that. Even when he’d first noticed the two, Simon looked at her like she hung the moon, stars, and other planets.

So why does he suddenly straighten when Baz shifts?

In this state, Baz can do anything. He can sacrifice a virgin right in front of Simon, and Baz doesn’t know if Simon would scream or laugh or do nothing at all. He doesn’t know which of the three would be worse.

“What happened?” It’s the only thing Baz can think to ask. Maybe he should be demanding it, or maybe he should be taunting Snow for being sucked away in the first place, but even though he’s toed at some of the most untouchable of subjects, this feels like a new territory.

Simon takes a minute before he slowly turns his head to look at Baz. He looks gaunt. He looks like he does whenever term starts up: his face has gone sallow all over, his cheekbones stick out like he’s been starved, and his eyes sit just far back enough in his skull to be unnerving. Baz hates the beginning of term for that reason.

The smile Simon dawns then cracks his lips, and a small dot of blood bubbles up. Baz doesn’t even have the fiendish sense to want to pop his fangs and kill the Chosen One right there. It’s not like the Anathema would let him, but thoughts have to count for something, right?

“The Humdrum,” Simon murmurs, like that’s supposed to explain what’s happened in the last six hours. Simon says it like he’s praying to it, and that makes a chill run through Baz’s back.

“Can he even do that?” It comes out as a whisper, and Baz wishes he had the bravado to ask again, but the Humdrum makes him have a headache and the urge to throw up all at once. It’s fear in its primal stages, but Baz won’t admit that.

“He can now,” Simon replies, breaking eye contact and looking down at his hands. One thumb and forefinger rub at his wrist, which have both gone boney. “He took something from me today.”

“Fifteen pounds.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but neither Baz nor Simon laugh.

“There’s a new hole in the atmosphere,” Simon adds, like an afterthought. The holes in the atmosphere scare Baz, too. They always seem to open when Simon and the Humdrum meet. It can’t be a coincidence. Nothing with the Chosen One is coincidence.

Baz then crouches down in front of Simon like he’s about to give him a scolding. However, Baz just loosely takes Snow’s hand in his own. The finger bones feel too big in the skin that contains them, but they’re still warm. They still have a pulse in the wrist, and they are still tanned and freckled and have moles scattered across them.

“He won’t win,” Baz says to the floor. It’s cowardly not to meet Simon’s eyes, but it would take much more of Baz than he’s capable of giving right not. “You won’t let him.”

Simon nods, but it’s empty. Whenever something like this happens, Simon seems like he’s just going through the heroic motions. He’s read the fairytales and knows his role well enough to play it with few hiccups.

“I’ll die trying,” Simon whispers. Baz wishes he wouldn’t say that, but they both know how this story ends. The Humdrum will die or disappear or do whatever entities like that do when they’re defeated, but that won’t be the end of Simon’s trials and tribulations. He’ll be hunted by the vampires and the goblins and any other magic-hating creature.

And one day, something will kill him. Baz hopes to Merlin that the Old Families don’t want it to be him. He’d die, too if he had to kill the Chosen One. His last deed would be to kill the man that did Simon Snow in, and his family would never forgive him for it.

The urge to kiss Simon’s forehead takes over Baz’s mind, just to let Snow know that he’s so alive. That people love him and that people will protect him and that there are people who would kill and be killed for him.

And Baz is one of those stupid people.

Baz can’t kiss the Chosen One. Maybe he will, before Simon puts the stake through his heart. Maybe he’ll stop fighting for ten seconds to tell Snow how he’s in love with him, how he’ll always be in love with him, and how nothing Simon could do would change that. And then Simon would stab him or hex him or go off and not protect him, and it would be over.

That night is not tonight.

…

The earthy smell of wet dirt and rotting wood makes Baz gag again. The wood began to rot a week ago. There’s no plush velvet interior like a coffin for a real dead person. This is one of those cartoony coffins Baz would see in reruns of Scooby-Doo when he was young.

Perhaps the Numpties think they’re doing him a favor. Maybe they get all their information on vampires from cartoons. It would explain why he hasn’t been given food or water or been exposed to the sun in the last five weeks. However, he was kidnapped in broad daylight, so…

At first, Baz thought someone would come for him. Maybe the Numpties sent ransom. But after he scratched a sixteenth dash into the wood, he knew he’d die here.

It’s a pretty shitty way to die. No ventilation, surrounded by earthworms to pick the bones left behind, and with Numpties blabbering right on the other side of the wooden coffin. To think, the last thing he’d eaten was a fucking pasty from the country club.

The blood they were giving him tastes like none he’d had before. What if he died with another human’s blood in his system? Whose blood? Someone he knew? A father? A mother? Sister? Son?

After the third day of refusing blood, Baz gives in.

Today, they give him another 32 oz. Styrofoam cup filled with blood, and no food or water. Maybe he should demand it. Would they actually listen to him? Maybe they’d think it was a trap. There’s no way Baz can trap them. He’s too weak to move. The first few days, he had promise, but they hit him over the head with a rock when they gave him the blood, and he woke up hours later in the dark again.

There’s no difference between light or dark here. The only indication Baz has as to the passage of days is the giving of blood. It’s possible they give him blood every other day and it’s really been ten weeks. It feels longer than five weeks, but that could be the fatigue. Vampires can go longer than humans without food or water, and the blood counts for the barely-there amount of water he is getting.

However, they need that holy trifecta to live: food, water, and blood.

Baz has two-thirds.

He’ll die here.

The first time Baz thought that, he let himself cry in the most cramped and crumpled position possible. (Coffins are decidedly not spacious.) The second time he thought about his death, he laughed and laughed and laughed until a Numpty came in with a rock and gave him a good thump behind the ear.

The third time was now. Day thirty-seven (by best estimates). No one is coming for him.

Baz doesn’t cry or laugh. He just sighs through his nose and takes a sip of blood. If he doesn’t drink it fast, it gets congealed at the bottom, and even though he’s going to die in a Numpty den in a coffin in the ground, he won’t die on an empty circulatory system.

His stomach will just have to deal.

The darkness used to play with eyes. Now it just dances like the elephants in Dumbo until Baz gets bored. Then it settles back to darkness. Sometimes the Numpties go away to talk, and the silence talks to Baz until they get back.

Surprisingly, the silence sounds like an angry David Tennant. Maybe that’s just how every angry Scottish person sounds, but silence might be inherently Scottish.

But when the Numpties eventually come back, Baz breathes more deeply and closes his eyes. And he sees it.

The bronze curls always come to him first. Then the unextraordinary blue eyes take formation, and the moles follow. Baz allows himself to focus on that mole just beneath the left side of the jaw. The smile comes last. It’s a smile Baz has saved in his memories by countless times witnessing it from countless angles. The mole to the right of that mouth makes Baz’s eyes water.

Those eyes shine down at him. For some reason, he’s taller in Baz’s memories than in real life. Maybe he’s grown since seventh year. Probably not, though. Neither of them have grown much since sixth year. They both just filled out in the shoulders and got squared away in the face. No more pockmarks.

Baz can hear the laugh that emits from that mouth. It’s a sound he knows the angels crafted for ears of the damned to hear. Maybe they thought the damned would think twice about falling if they heard that laugh. It was made to be the first glorious sound deaf people here and for blind people to try to put a face to. It was made for people like Baz, whose souls were up in the air and just needed to be caught and nurtured.

Those lips were made to be chapped in the cold wind but warm to the touch. The moles and freckles were made to be dreamed of and painted. Those eyes…those unextraordinary but beautiful eyes were made to make women swoon. They certainly made Baz swoon.

His last thoughts would be of Simon Snow’s lips and moles and eyes. Baz knew this is how it would end. With one of them in tears, professing love, and the other driving a blade into a damned heart.

However, the one that’s supposed to end him is probably having tea right about now at Watford. Hundreds of miles away. Not knowing that the one he has to kill is being killed by someone else.

Simon Snow is alive, Baz thinks.

And I’m hopelessly in love with him.

…

“What do we do now?” Penny asks. Simon looks up from the ground. The dead birds are starting to get to Baz. There’s blood everywhere: spilling from the Mage’s ears, drying around Ebb’s corpse, and from the birds that were near enough to Simon’s explosion.

Baz can’t help it. He hasn’t fed since two days ago in the woods right before a hole opened above his house. He goes to a corner and feeds on a few birds. Penny and Simon should be reprimanding him for doing that, but they’re all so drained that they don’t stop him.

Eventually, Simon tears his suit jacket off and lays it over the Mage’s body. Even though Snow technically killed him, Baz knows this will tear him up inside. He’s probably the only one that ever loved the Mage properly. Some loved the man for his power, and others for his influence, but Simon loved him because that’s all he could do.

Baz lays down on the ground away from the bodies and tries to go to sleep. It’s not hard. The last few hours have been more draining than a marathon. In a way, it was a marathon to save Simon Snow.

A scream interrupts Baz’s nice dream about a hill far away where the sun shines down on the grass and birds are singing in the trees. Simon’s there, too, laying beside him and resting in the shade. It’s the best dream Baz has ever had.

It’s Bunce’s mum that screams. Baz thinks that maybe having two dead bodies surrounding three (nearly) alive kids could probably give someone the wrong impression, and he rises to see Bunce hugging her mum and Simon hugging himself. Those stupid wings are still spread out, and his cartoonish tail even whips around on the ground.

Eventually, they leave the White Chapel and go to Mummer’s. The Mage’s army has been summoned, and the Coven and Old Families also arrive. Baz almost flinches when Snow’s hand grabs ahold of his and Bunce takes the other. If anything, he’s at least gained two friends from this miserable experience.

They wait in the bedroom in the turret for what seems like hours. About five different people of five different ranks from five different groups ask them what happened, and they tell the same story separately five times. However, Simon always comes back to Baz’s bed and grabs ahold of his hand again. It’s a good balance because Baz is shivering, and Snow is a personal furnace.

Finally, they all leave, and Bunce leaves with her mum. No one comes to get Snow, and Baz refuses to leave until tomorrow unless Snow wants to come with. He doesn’t, so Baz doesn’t go. It feels wrong to leave him in this place when there’s nowhere else to go. Bunce’s mum wasn’t in the right place of mind when she left, so Baz is sure that’s why she forgot to ask Simon with them. Baz isn’t sure Simon would’ve gone anyway. Why does it feel so appropriate to be in this room of all places on Earth?

“What do we do now?” Baz echoes Penny from hours before. It had been a good question at the time. Two dead bodies, a missing Wellbelove, and no cellphones to call anyone on. This was similar to that. No one left to tell them what to say or do. No one peering in from the outside to get the scoop. No one trying to get evidence to blame either side for the deaths.

They’d track Wellbelove down soon enough and get her side. Then everything would be clear.

Simon rests his head against Baz’s shoulder. Baz rests his head against the tuft of curls that tickle his neck. They’re still holding hands. It’s not awkward. It should be.

A lot of things should be awkward right now. Snow spent Christmas with Baz. They had (still kinda do have) an alliance. They know the Mage succeeded in having Natasha Grimm-Pitch killed all those years ago. Inadvertently, he also caused Baz to be Turned into a vampire.

So many new pieces of trivia. So much to sort through. So much to strike and add to the Record. So much that they should want to forget.

But Baz just keeps holding onto Simon’s hand and brushing his face against those bronze curls. It’s a good dream come true that he’s allowed to do this, but Baz doesn’t have the mental capacity at the moment to think about how his fifth year-self is hooping and hollering inside of his heart. He’s too tired to want more than is being given.

Baz would be content if this is all Simon Snow ever gave him.

A few months later, Baz stands at a punch bowl while the people he’s known for eight years dance and cry behind him. The punch isn’t even spiked. They’re all still too wrung-out from trying to understand what happened in the White Chapel that night. Dev and Niall wanted to know why Baz hadn’t killed or at least seriously maimed Simon that night.

How does one explain homosexuality for the arch nemesis to two duds like Dev and Niall?

Simon doesn’t know, though, so neither should Dev and Niall. Or maybe he does, and he just won’t say so. It would make sense. Baz has been trying to kill Simon since they were eleven, so the revelation of love would either shock him or make him laugh so hard he would piss himself.

Simon didn’t come back, and neither did Bunce, but after Bunce’s mum became Headmistress, she let all of them have cellphones on campus, and Baz had stayed in near-constant contact with the two of them. He tried to reach out to Wellbelove, but she explained she just wanted to run from it all.

If that was an option for Baz, he would still be running.

But there’s a Leavers Ball and ceremony to attend to, and if the Chosen One and his insanely smart friend aren’t going to show, he kinda has to. It’s an unwritten contract that at least one of them has to show up to these kinds of things, even if it’s just to let people know all three of them are alive.

Simon hasn’t gotten in touch tonight, and Baz thinks about texting him just to make sure he’s still kicking it. However, Simon might be sleeping. These Leavers Balls take place at night, and even though it’s only nine, Baz would like to be in bed, too, preferably with the Chosen One tucked against his side.

Baz scans the room for anyone worth talking to. It’s strange how his best friends have alternated from Dev and Niall (Niall being his literal cousin) to Penny and Snow. (Baz has decided Penny’s name is worth saying every once in a while.) It just goes to show…something. Baz’s brain is spent from exams and that speech he gave a few hours ago.

His eyes lock on a figure entering the small procession that is the Leavers Ball. No one at Watford is late, so who would be walking in nearly an hour after the Ball’s started?

The boy who’s loved making entrances since he was born, apparently. The Golden Boy, the former Mage’s heir, the Chosen One, Simon Snow makes his way over to where Baz is standing. It’s like a reverse of what happened halfway through the first term this year.

Baz stands so still a stray tumbleweed could blow him over, even though Miss Possibelf spelled the tumbleweeds away hours ago.

Simon runs a hand through his hair, a little nervous trait Baz has picked up on these last few months. Simon has a few of them, the newest being tugging on his little devil’s tail, though that changed after he got it surgically removed a few weeks ago. The wings were gone sooner because Simon kept knocking people and things over, and Penny and Baz both breathed a sigh of relief when Simon could walk through a hallway without knocking over a vase or painting.

Someone’s given him a proper suit, and he looks like a cardboard cutout model with a few extra moles here and there.

Baz feels a genuine smile (not a smirk) tugging at his lips. To see Simon Snow in a proper suit with his hair somewhat tamed feels like seeing a unicorn, though he’s been told that a couple hundred live in a sanctuary in Switzerland.

“Didn’t think I’d be here so soon after…” Simon leaves it open-ended. Baz doesn’t need the end of that sentence. He didn’t personally know if he’d come back after that Christmas break, but Fiona’s threats about the cross still ran around his brain all these years later, and he didn’t want to disappoint his mum. She valued education more than the person who created it.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Baz replied, setting his little glass of punch back down and adding, “Party was dull without you, Snow.” Simon grins over at him and bites at his bottom lip. It’s something cheeky Baz has only ever seen him do around Wellbelove, but she’s been well and truly gone for a long time now.

“I guess the last few months were pretty dull, then?” Simon asks. Baz smiles and nods. It was nice not being threatened with dragons and flying monkeys every couple of weeks, but not having Snow even as a presence was unsettling, and after Bunce left, there was no real competition anymore.

“Ah, Snow, you were gone but not forgotten,” Baz replies, walking away from the table and closer to Snow. It’s the closest they’ve been since right after whatever happened in the White Chapel. Even then, it’s not very close. Baz is about a foot and a half away from Snow.

Simon’s only a little bit shorter than him (give or take three inches), but he seems so much older than he was a few months ago. He’s by no means a man. In Baz’s eyes, maybe Snow will always be a boy (the boy), but there’s no denying that something has fundamentally changed about the way Snow carries himself.

Maybe it’s the shared trauma.

“Have you danced?” Snow asks. It’s an odd question, but Baz really doesn’t think anything can be that odd between them anymore. They nearly died together on multiple occasions last December, and it’s foolish to believe they could ever be what they were before. They’re not enemies, and they share a side now, though it’s not either side they were on before. It’s all their own, now.

“No one to dance with, Simon,” Baz says, and the exasperation is overshadowed by the stirrings of those fifth-year feelings. All the songs they play at the Leavers Ball tonight are slow and meant for couples and sentimental friends. It’s meant to be a celebration, but there’s nothing to celebrate this year except maybe that Headmistress Bunce has brought back end of year books filled with photos. (Even though Simon, Penny, and Agatha left, they were still featured throughout the book.)

“Any girl here would have danced with you if you asked,” Simon mutters, and he shoves his hands in his pockets. Baz quietly thinks to himself that suit pockets are not meant for hands or anything, really, but Simon makes pouting look good when he’s dressed up.

“Come on, Snow, you know I’m not looking for a girl to dance with,” Baz replies, toeing at the ground with his expensive dress shoes. Fiona presented them to him a few days before, and even though Baz tried to insist he had enough dress shoes for a thousand different balls, she won.

Simon huffs, and a loose piece of hair falls into his eyes. He hasn’t cut it in a while. “I’m sure more than a few blokes would dance with you, too.”

Baz rolls his eyes and feels a blush creeping onto his cheeks. He’s had enough blood tonight for more than a few types of blushes. “I’m not looking for more than a few blokes.”

“What are you looking for?”

The way Simon poses that question makes Baz want to reach out and snog him in front of everyone watching. Everyone already is watching. Baz is surprised, but he shouldn’t be. Even though he and Bunce know about this weird friendship that’s blossomed, it doesn’t mean everyone else was clued in. Baz didn’t want anyone else clued in.

Baz looks up from where he is tracing the line of grout between the tiles, and he feels like he’s fifteen again, just trying to simultaneously please and displease Simon. He feels like they’re back in that blazing forest again where Simon talked him down from a suicidal rampage and walked him back to the car. He feels like the flames that existed in Simon’s eyes until his magic left have now planted themselves right at the base of his spine and are tickling his back.

Simon’s got his mouth quirked to the side, and a little dimple appears there. He’s still got his hands shoved in his pockets, but he seems more tense than before, like he’s holding something back. In these last few months of three-way Skype sessions and phone calls and group chats, it’s never felt like Simon’s tried to hold back. The three of them have something not a lot people can say they do: shared trauma.

And Simon and Baz have more. They have the forest fire and the Humdrum setting Baz off like a killing machine. They have years of sitting in that room at the top of the turret and bickering over a window and bathroom schedules and posh soaps. They have a rivalry that’s morphed into this friendship that still feels like it’s morphing even as the silence stretches between them.

“I want you to dance with me tonight.” It’s simple. It isn’t a confession of anything, but Simon smiles anyway. He outstretches a freckled hand, and Baz takes it. Now all those who were staring are gaping openly, but the song that plays is nice, and Baz has heard it before.

It’s a slow rhythm meant for only two people to hear together. It’s meant for them, even if it really isn’t.

Simon’s not the nervous wreck he once was. Baz once watched him at a special ball the school held for a blood moon, and the stiff way he danced with Wellbelove made Baz spit out his punch and laugh. Now, though, he’s the one that’s stiff. His dark blue suit feels too heavy and hot now that Snow is within inches of him. It’s the closest they’ve ever been, including after the mess in the White Chapel.

It’s closer than two platonic blokes get. It’s closer than a lot of romantic blokes get.

Snow must have been taught to dance before tonight and after than disastrous ball so many years ago. Baz thinks about him practicing with Wellbelove, and a small flame of jealousy glows in his mind. Then he remembers Wellbelove is in America, and the glow subsides to a flicker.

Maybe Simon just doesn’t realize how close they’ve gotten. Maybe he’s about to trample on Baz’s toes and knock his forehead into Baz’s chin. Maybe he thinks two blokes can dance like this and just be friends.

If this is all Baz ever gets from Simon, he can die happy and sated. He feels fuller than after he’s drained a deer. He feels like his feet aren’t nearly as heavy as they have been the past few hours. Simon’s got his arm behind Baz’s back, and Baz can feel the muscle of Simon’s shoulder through the suit jacket. Baz’s hand, eternally cold, feels comfortably toasty in Simon’s.

It’s a strange feeling to be dancing with Simon Snow at a Leavers Ball. Baz never thought he’d make it this far. He knew he’d go to the Leavers Ball, but he thought he’d spend the entire night at the punch bowl, shooting glares at Wellbelove and Simon and nearly crushing glasses in his fist. Maybe people would assume he was mad about Agathe making up her mind once and for all about the good guy, and maybe some astute pixie would feel the jealousy and properly place it.

Baz never thought he’d share a dance with Simon Snow at their Leavers Ball.

He never thought they’d both make it this far. He never thought there’d be a time when they could look each other in the eye, let alone be dancing at a Leavers Ball together instead of at each other’s throats the entire night.

It would be easier if they were at each other’s throats. They’ve been there so many times that they could do the motions in their sleep. Baz is quite sure Simon already has. He’s slept close enough to the Golden Boy for the last seven and a half years to know they’re both plagued by nightmares that are too scary to mention in the morning.

This feels like one of those dreams that Baz wouldn’t let himself think of. If he dwelled on the good dreams he had of Simon, he’d never stop. There are so many he can’t remember because he’s forced them out of his brain, but they come back now.

There’s the one about sleeping under the sun for hours with Simon next to him, and the sun doesn’t burn them and ants don’t bother them. It’s free of bugs and sunburns and evil. That’s one of Baz’s favorites. There’s another where he’s just woken up and can feel Simon breath against the back of his neck, and he doesn’t need to look to know it’s him. And the one where they’re just kissing for hours on Baz’s bed, not moving or noticing the world crumbling away around them.

But this is so much realer than all of those dreams combined. The hand grasping Baz’s is real and warm and calloused from calling and holding a heavy sword for years. The occasional brush of dress shoes on the floor sends vibrations through Baz’s legs, and they threaten to buckle right underneath him. He knows now that Simon would catch him. No matter what, Simon has always caught him.

“Why are you here?” Baz asks. It’s been bothering him. Without needing to say it, Simon basically swore off ever returning to Watford after December, and Baz understood. He swore off that nursery before he knew what swearing things off really meant. Baz wasn’t even irritated when neither Penny nor Simon showed up to hear his speech. People would record it, and he’d get a copy and show them if they really wanted to see it.

Baz would swear Watford off, too if it had broken as many promises as it had with Simon. Watford promised to keep him safe. Watford promised to always be a home for him. Watford promised so many things that couldn’t have ever been promised.

Life hasn’t kept its promises to Simon Snow.

Baz will. He’s broken the necessary ones, like the ones about killing him and smiting everything Simon loves. Coincidentally, a lot of the things he loves are now things Baz does, too. He likes Penny a lot, and sour cherry scones aren’t bad. Baz will never wrap his head around Simon’s fascination with butter, but it’s probably rooted in not being fed properly for eleven years and then suddenly getting as much food as one could want.

Baz has promised himself to Simon Snow, in whatever way the Chosen One will have him. Baz supposed now he’ll have to stop calling him that, but now is not that time for large shifts in character. There’s been too much of that as of late.

Simon shrugs and looks down at the floor. “I guess…I didn’t want to think about you alone here.”

“I’m not alone,” Baz rationalizes, looking around. “There’re loads of people here. The teachers, for one, and people we’ve grown up with, and…” He wants to go on, but that obviously isn’t what Simon was getting at. Simon’s been seeing a magical therapist (one of three in the world), and while they’re working on Simon voicing his opinion, it’s not always easy.

“Why are you here, Simon?” Baz asks again, this time with a tenderness in his voice Baz hasn’t used since Mordelia was a baby, back before she was a terror. “It’s fine to not want to be here, you know, I wouldn’t have ever made you come back.”

Simon huffs out a laugh and looks up just as the song’s changing. The fairy lights catch the curls in his hair in brilliant flashes of light. If Baz was more of a dreamer and less of a realist, he’d call Simon Snow an angel or the closest thing to it.

Simon smiles and says, “I know you wouldn’t.” The hold on Baz’s hand gets stronger, and the arm across his back bring him closer to Simon. “I love it when you call me Simon,” he adds, finally looking around the room and seeing everyone staring.

“They’re all looking at you,” he mutters, his face suddenly aflame in a blush Baz will remember until his dying breath.

“They’re looking at two blokes dancing,” Baz replies, deciding to tighten his hold on Simon as well. “Two blokes dancing who they used to have to split up before a fight broke out.”

Simon does let out a genuine laugh at that, even if it is small. It’s a start. Baz loves to see him smile like this. The tension eases out of Simon’s back, and his arm doesn’t feel like a steel rod against Baz’s back. It just feels like the reassuring touch you’d give to someone who desperately needs it. Does Baz desperately need it? He desperately needs something from Simon Snow.

“All that fighting,” Simon practically whispers, “and we ended up on the same side after it all.” Baz guesses that Simon can’t believe it either. Who would?

“I was always on your side,” Baz says. It’s true. Even though they fought enough for five different arch enemies, Baz was never completely on the side of the Old Families. He was also never completely on the side of the Coven. He was on a side made for him and Simon and whoever else he deemed worthy. (Penelope Bunce was more than worthy. She actually probably made the side herself, and Baz just climbed on board before he knew it truly existed.)

Simon looks at Baz, truly, truly looks at him then. It’s the kind of look someone gives another person when they want to see if there’s a hidden intention or just true sincerity. Baz feels like he’s laid himself out time and again these past months. He’d go through it all again a million times if it got him here. He’d fight two-hundred chimeras and one-thousand dragons to be here.

Simon’s the one that gets to decide what happens next. Baz has always been deciding what’s gone on between them. He’s chosen where they go and who they talk to and what they bicker about. It’s Simon’s turn. The ball is in his court. In a way, it’s always been, and Baz has just been playing with that stupid, red ball Simon carried all first year.

Baz, honest-to-Merlin, doesn’t expect Simon to drop his hand and cup it around the side of Baz’s neck, just above two pin-prick sized holes that drained him of life all those years ago. He doesn’t expect Simon Snow to lean in and smile like he’s going to tell a secret, and then kiss him.

It’s just a kiss. It’s small. It’s Baz’s first. It’s not Simon’s. Simon’s lips are chapped (like always), and his hand is calloused and tickles Baz but not enough to make him giggle. Baz doesn’t expect the kiss, so his feet move for a millisecond longer than Simon’s, and he nearly falls over. Simon leans back and lets out a single huff of laughter. His smile is genuine, and he just picks up Baz’s hand like it’s nothing.

Baz will fall asleep that night with Simon pressed against his back in a pair of Baz’s silk pajamas. It’s a déjà vu that’s so much better than the dream. Baz will dream of that sunny hill where bugs don’t exist and birds chirp happy songs. Baz will wake up tomorrow and leave the grounds of Watford the last time for a very long time.

But right now, they sway back and forth to a tune unfamiliar to both of them, and the world looks on at the Chosen One and his former enemy.

Keris hands Trixie five pounds.

#snowbaz #simon snow #baz pitch #carry on #rainbow rowell #Penelope bunce #penny bunce #Agatha wellbelove #the mage #what an ass #natasha grimm pitch #Fiona pitch #fluff #5 plus 1 #five plus one #SnowBaz fluff

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lizzybeth1986 · 6 years ago

Note

Sorry for this XD, but 1, 4, 9, 11, 26 and 27 for the salty ask? If it's not too much, of course

Don't say sorry! 😁 Thanks for the ask Nonny and apologies for the delay.

I must caution you, the post is going to be long and and there's too much salt in my responses for even me to handle.

1. OTP in fandom that you just do not get.

IDK I most don't give much of a thought to OTPs that I don't get. Like that is the nature of any fandom, that you can see potential for ships even without a say-so from canon.

What I really don't get is the absurd double standards that I see sometimes - how some fans will pull down other LIs/characters to make a favourite look good, how some LIs will be nitpicked to high hell while others can say the grossest things and not be judged. How one character can be judged for the same thing we will admire in another (I'll get to this later).

It's weird, considering the app literally allows you to choose who you will fall for (unless you're wlw or like a character that's a person of colour in a majority-white cast, in which case they will dangle scraps in front of you once every ten chapters, I suppose). You don't need to trash one LI to justify your choice of another. They're there. Stop tearing down an LI while deliberately tagging the character's tag and ship tags for your notes. Go generate (and promote) content for your own ships and characters instead.

4. A personal NOTP? Are they considered an OTP in the fandom?

Hana x Madeleine. Fortunately, lots of people had plenty of problems with this pair and the way it was written in Book 3. The narrative was subtly pushing that ship over the course of Book 3, but the backlash was strong enough that they got Madeleine to issue an apology for her bullying in the epilogue instead (I doubt they even remember the chocolate allergy scene, given that the MC acts like this information is brand new).

It still left a bad taste in my mouth, because it showed me how little the writers cared for Hana as a character, but at least the fandom made sure it didn't become a ship.

9. Most Disliked Character(s):

Hoo boy. I have a freaking list. Besides the really really obvious ones:

• Drake Walker: has way more privilege than he knows what to do with. Narrative acts like he is the Voice of the Commoner...well. I feel sorry for the commoners that don't get to practically live in court without having to change their attire or yap all day about steak, burgers and whiskey. And whose sisters don't have friends that will fleece their entire ancestral house's already-plummeting finances to keep her house running while her brother trash-talks the same friend in Book 1.

• Damien Nazario: is a hypocrite. That is all.

• Constantine: Almost every apology of his has to come punctuated with an excuse. Even if it involves orchestrating sexual assault.

• Madeleine (TRR) and Mallory (RoE): The demonic duo of People PB Wants So Desperately For Me To Forgive™. Without them even having to earn that forgiveness, too (Nana deserves to be on this list too, except the question of forgiveness doesn't even arise when it comes to her. She is worshipped in this series!). I see a small step towards change in D&D Book 2 with Lady Grandmother, but only time will tell if they will actually execute the "will never forgive you" route properly.

• Penelope: is so, so fucking entitled I just can't. I understood how her condition, and manipulation from people like Constantine and Bastien, got her to the point where she would be ready to harm someone. But I can't for the life of me understand how she can forget this so easily after the tea party.

I was hoping for a redemption arc where Penelope recognizes what she's done and unconditionally tries to make amends in Book 3, but that never happened. There was not a single reference in Book 3 to the harm she did you in Book 1. We had to do an immense amount of coddling to convince her to come for the wedding, and there were consequences if you didn't call her your "best friend" or support her demands. The narrative has Drake Walker...Drake "Ambassadors Go To Dangerous Areas, Lady Kiara (So Get Over It)" Freaking Walker...reassure Penelope in a way that Kiara never gets from anyone in the group, and she suffered a knife attack. Ezekiel is literally created out of thin air as a reward for her.

Why does she need a reward again? Who knows.

• Ajay: Didn't apologize.

11. Unpopular Character that You Like that Fandom Doesn't.

(This is going to be loooong. I'm not sorry. This rant has been really, really building up. It's like a dam).

Kiara. It's popular to sorta kinda like her now, but back when she started showing feelings for Drake she got a lot of hate...hate that I feel bled into the treatment she got in the third book.

It took me a while to warm up to Kiara, but I think what did it for me was her friendship with Penelope. She was protective and supportive, even though she lacked an understanding of what Penelope was going through. I was even more pleasantly surprised when she spoke about her bond with Savannah. There was a warmth and a sweetness about Kiara in Book 2 that we didn't see much of in Book 1 and she slowly won me over. When they spoke about her injuries in Book 3, I was looking forward to seeing that story explored.

I will always maintain that Kiara in Book 3 is what happens when both the writing team and the louder, more vocal portion of the fandom are heartless towards a particular character. Heartless is a heavy word, and a word I don't want to be using willy-nilly, but I've seen enough to come to that conclusion in this case.

Kiara was often called an opportunist and a host of other names in the fandom for not supporting the MC through the scandal. Except that we all forget she never promised anything beyond supporting your claim to being picked as future Queen. She tells you straight off the bat in Book 1 that she is looking for allies and not friends (guess who is often admired for that mindset? Madeleine...well, until she harms Hana for flimsy reasons). Meanwhile we have Penelope being all adorable and happy and congratulating you knowing that you're going to be slut-shamed, humiliated and dragged out of court for a scandal she helped generate. Kiara on the other hand was honest. She wanted a job in the ministry and a bomb married life while she was at it. I'd rather have an ambitious (but won't abuse her power like Madeleine does) Kiara in my corner than a person who lies to my face about supporting me, does little more to help than just tell me who her boss was, then expects me to call her my best friend later.

Kiara had to only look at and flirt with Drake for people to hate on her. Meanwhile Olivia could spring an unwanted kiss on Liam in public, and the fandom would still be blaming Liam for not loving her back. In regular fandom content Kiara was mocked and sometimes suspected of having an illicit affair with Drake, in fanfic that featured her she was often either villainized, or written as the "other woman". Which is okay - fanfic is your own personal sandbox, after all - but it does highlight a pattern.

In canon...Kiara was made a survivor of a terrorist attack and nobody cared. Not the MC, not the country's king, not her closest friends, not the man who got injured at the same ball. It was bad enough that her parents were considering leaving the goddamn country (they should have). She was ignored in her own estate. The MC speaks to her not with sympathy and reassurances, but instead reminds her of her 'duty' and pressurizes her. (@callmetippytumbles illustrates this amazingly in her ask here, having Liam say "have a apple and buck up for Cordonia". No lie there. No lie there at all). All the 'sympathy' goes to a brother who has absolutely nothing to do with court.

She was suspected and interrogated at Lythikos. The MC has the option to be dismissive and to minimize - by labelling her "not as driven" - as Kiara literally pours her heart out about her trauma. Sample this:

(Ngl folks. Reading this was really, really triggering for me. I know exactly what it feels like to have my trauma dismissed like this. It doesn't feel great. Fuck you MC. Fuck you Drake. Fuck you TRR writers)

There are no consequences for doing this to her, btw. She still returns and she still fights at the boutique and she'll still speak very positively about you to her mother. I imagine if Joelle found out the truth of how the group really treated her daughter, she'd verbally destroy them and never support the kingdom again. And she'd be right not to.

On its own that scenario looks bad enough already, but when you hold it up next to how we treat the other ladies? Pure, stinking trash:

Madeleine: A diamond scene to console and encourage her, and all the right options are meant to support her to her parents. If you don't succeed in making her parents understand what she wants, you lose out on their support. There are consequences.

Penelope: A diamond scene to comfort and reassure her that they will not be like Madeleine. Immense coddling from the group. If you don't call her your best friend or altogether be nice and supportive to her, that negatively impacts the way Landon responds to you. AND I have heard that if her parents don't believe Penelope is safe with you, she doesn't even join the tour. There are consequences.

Kiara: No diamond scenes to even figure out how she is or what she thinks. A one-minute scene to convince (emotionally blackmail, actually) her to "do your duty", which will happen no matter which option, then a diamond option for her brother...who exists only because they want to give Penelope a reward for something I still cannot fathom. Her brother's response depends on his own issues and the presence of Penelope, and Hakim and Joelle's depend on what you do at the Festival. Kiara's situation of being an attack victim should have warranted the kind of coddling Penelope felt entitled to, yet when it comes right down to it her plight matters to literally no one.

In Lythikos no special diamond scenes for her either, just an interrogation. While we can choose to view Kiara as innocent in Chapter 11, her leaving is branded "suspicious" by both Drake and the MC by default the next chapter, and Maxwell literally says (disappointment writ large on his face) "jeez, that's one suspect off our list" after we're done. We go to her pretending to be her well-wishers, but in reality we're interrogating a traumatized woman, and not even ashamed when she trusts our untrustworthy asses with her secret.

You get the option to forget what happened to her (for which she rightfully slams you). You get the option to be a trauma-minimizing pile of steaming fecal matter (for which she doesn't slam you, even though she should). No matter what, Drake is your puppet and will agree with you, and you get away with all this. Drake stands there and minimizes her experiences with you, and shows zero remorse for putting an attack victim in that situation.

Like, it's actually quite shameful the more you think about it. Kiara was interrogated. After two traumatic experiences that at the very least should have her questioning whether we are worth her support at all. In a scenario that any fool would realise was at least scary to her if not altogether traumatizing. Madeleine and Penelope feel entitled to good treatment, Kiara has to make do with the crumbs we throw at her. She is never given a chance to speak of this as problematic, and the group never gets truly called out on their bullshit.

Even if you do pick the absolute nicest options...the fact remains that the MC, Duchess of Valtoria (and possible future Queen) and her group of influential friends, ignored the concerns a person who was badly injured at their event, pressurized her into showing support for them, didn't do jackshit to ensure her safety, suspected and questioned her when she rightfully withdrew public support, and dishonestly interrogated this traumatized woman, while still keeping the expectation that she support them. All without earning a shred of that support. They felt zero remorse, every last one of them, for putting her in that position.

Kiara not getting much attention isn't exactly a surprise. She has always been given the least focus among the ladies of the court and Book 3 wouldn't have been an exception...if they hadn't made her a victim of a terrorist attack!! Once they placed Kiara in that position, she deserved to have her concerns addressed, and addressed properly. What happened to her was a highlight of the failure of the security system at the palace and Royal Court, and to have that ignored while we had all the time in the world to address Madeleine's parents' petty family squabbles was disgusting. That there are absolutely no consequences for doing this to Kiara, while there are for not attending to Penelope or Madeleine's concerns, and it all ends with Kiara praising us to her mother, is disgusting. That the writers were more busy trying to backtrack on Driara and make the ship impossible to happen in canon, than on focusing on Kiara's own story in her own estate, is disgusting. And I cannot ignore that the latter decision sprung in a large part from the hate the fandom was spewing on Kiara for most of Book 2. The writers wouldn't have dared to do such a thing to Penelope, and it was clearly because there would be a backlash. They knew they could get away with insensitive writing for Kiara easier than they would with Penelope - and they did.

The other thing is this. Back in Books 2 and 3, loads of people in the fandom used to aggressively ship Liam and Olivia (to the point where he would be blamed for not returning her affections). Loads of people would also find excuses to hate on Kiara once she began to show she liked Drake. Nowadays, it's popular to state that "Olivia deserves better" (I'd be inclined to agree if it weren't for the way that argument is often framed. She deserves a man who loves her completely) - again, in a way that blames Liam for not returning her affections.

Yet, when people speak of Kiara's feelings being one-sided? Little to no blame for Drake there, even though he was rude or dismissive to her more than once (for me, personally, Lythikos was the last straw). Hardly a handful would say "Kiara deserves better than Drake". I can bet if Liam treated Olivia even half as poorly as Drake behaved with Kiara, we'd be bashing that man to the high heavens. I guess it's because it's Kiara who is the recipient of this kind of treatment that it matters to so few. I shouldn't be surprised.

26. Most shippable character?

Hayden xD Mostly because they're so much fun to customize, yet there's a very strong inner core there that does not change and that grounds the character.

27. Least shippable character?

I don't know. Nana?

#salty asks #ask me #trr kiara #anti drake walker #anti damien nazario #anti trr #anti the royal romance #anti trr penelope #anti trr madeleine #long post

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enamis1 · 6 years ago

Photo

OC INTERVIEW

it’s that time again where I ramble about stuff only i care about! i got tagged, as always by the lovely @courierspikeee and i'm tagging @worthlesssix if they're still around and wanna do stuff 1. Choose an OC. 2. Answer them as that OC. 3. Tag 5 people to do the same.

[Three months after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam and the declaration of Vegas’s independance a young ‘news courier’ managed to orchestrate an interview with the local courier-turned-leader on the casino floor of the Lucky 38]

1. What is your name? Viva. Or Empress Vivianne if you wanna be fancy.

2. How old are you? [she rubs the back of her head] somewhere in the ‘thirty’ ballpark I’m guessing

3. What do you look like? You have eyes don’t you? And yes the white hair is natural. No, I don’t really know why it’s like that. Apparently it’s some genetic condition.

4. Where are you from? Where do you live now? I'm from the West. I've been told. [pause] Maybe. But as far as anyone’s concerned I might as well be a native Mojave-ian. Won't be leaving Vegas or, hell, even the Lucky 38 anytime soon.

5. What was your childhood like? I’m sure it was fine. I mean, I have no memory of it, but I’m sure it was /fine/

6. What groups are you friendly with? Are you allied with any factions? [she groans] As you can imagine politics are a bit uhh… tense at the moment, what with me kicking the NCR out of my city and all. Our current alliance consists of the Families, the Kings, Freesiders, the Boomers, and the Followers. Once we get our issues here sorted I'm extending my hand to all the independent settlements in the area and we’ll go from there

7. Tell me about your best friend. Which one exactly? ‘Cuz I have a few. Oh, I know, I can tell you about this guy [she points over her shoulder to a securitron with a static smiley on its screen] This is Yes Man, he’s my second in command. [the robot raises a clawed hand and gives a cheerful ‘howdy’] It's not that i couldn't manage coordinating a brand new, independent nation by myself, but he does make all the busywork and number running and security that much easier. And he yells at me if I forget to eat or sleep for a few nights [Viva proceeds to glare at the robot, its smile unchanging]

8. Do you have a family? Tell me about them! [Viva glances away for a moment] My friends are my family. [pause] and even if we don't get along entirely, that's just how it is. I wouldn't trade any of those fuckwits for the world.

9. What about a partner or partners? [she gives a single loud laugh] Do I look like I have time for shit like that? Especially now of all times?

10. Who are your enemies, and why? I’d hazard a guess and say at this point everyone who’s not my explicit ally [Viva drums her fingers for a moment] Of course the NCR is going to pretend to be nice for now, but politics is like chess. Complex, and annoying and I hate it. Give me a year and i’ll be begging for the Legion and their blunt insanity

11. Have you ever heard of The Brotherhood of Steel? What do you think about them? Oh I’ve heard of them alright. [she grumbles under her breath] Good people. Bad priorities though.

12. What about The Enclave? [shrug] no comment

13. How do you feel about Super Mutants? What you mean the ones up north? They're great and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I mean, yeah sure they're pretty scary to be around, especially if the nightkin get antsy, but they're decent people. Marcus is… Marcus is a good man.

14. What’s the craziest fight you’ve ever been in? I… [she trails off, thinking] There was… /is/ a man. Who knew me from before. Long before. He challenged me to face him in a grave of ash and… I consider the three weeks it took to track him though the pits of hell as one very, very long and very exhausting fight. [she pauses again] That and all the verbal sparring along the way. And… everything after, too.

15. Have you ever fought a Deathclaw? I mean… I've shot Deathclaws. And they're about as pants-shittingly terrifying as they've always been. But that's what the .50 cal is for

16. Do you like fighting? [she grins] I like shooting, I’ll tell you that much

17. What’s your weapon of choice? [Viva holds up her finger to pause and proceeds to heft up an Anti-material Rifle. It’s new with a faint silvery sheen, and only a little scuffed from use, the Gun Runners logo still visible on the side. It is custom made, with every possible attachment, some parts are black carbon fiber. There are three bands of color around the stock and several engravings including six letters -CALBVR] [Viva is gleefully beaming as she wordlessly shows off the gun]

18. How do you survive? Your wits, your charm, your skills, brute force, some combination? (a.k.a. what’s your S.P.E.C.I.A.L?) You don't get to where I am without a bit of everything. But you could say my speciality is shooting, robotics, and outplaying people in the games they weave. [she tilts her head back and hums] Back when I was still just a mailman i knew how to hide in plain sight. Saved my life more often than not. That and brass knuckles. Very effective. Anything mechanical is child’s play too. Can't figure out how to cook geko without burning it though, so all the money I saved on gear i spent on food. [she rubs the back of her head and mutters through her teeth] and bandages. so. many. bandages. I swear the world really wants me dead and is having better luck at it than I am

19. Have you ever been in a vault? What do you think about them? Plenty ‘round these parts. Can't say I'm fond of lurking around /in/ them but… Marvels of tech those things, shame most of them failed. There's actually one or two I want to strip for parts in the future. If I can get the wildlife out beforehand that is.

20. How do you beat all the radiation around here? Has it affected you? Radiation and I have a… complicated relationship. [she turns to the securitron and mutters something with a slight smirk. Suddenly the lights of the bottom floor wink out. Viva faces forward once more, her already unnaturally green eyes now glowing with a faint, sickly light. The lights flick on just as suddenly with a loud clack and the woman giggles] Honestly if I don't end up as a ghoul by the end of my life I will be /very/ surprised

21. What’s your favorite wasteland critter? Do… Do the robots count? Because I'm going with the robots anyway.

22. What’s your least favorite wasteland critter? I’d say it starts with death and ends with claw, but that's not right. At least with those fuckers I know where to aim, no, first place goes to cazadores, the best reason for carrying around a shotgun.

23. How do you feel about robots? [she gestures to the dozens of securitrons surrounding them with a wide grin] Bliss, home, paradise and then some.

24. How many caps do you have on you right now? I mean- [she rummages in her pockets] I don't have my bag with me. 23. I can't fit more into these pockets they're too full of specialty ammo.

25. Nuka Cola or Sunset Sarsaparilla? Nuka. I fucking hate Sarsaparilla and I know it's blasphemy in these parts, but listen, if you're dehydrated and all you have to drink is that mind-meltingly awful shit i'm looking for the nearest cactus to suck on

26. Do you do chems? Uh. [she rubs her neck and nervously bounces her leg] I mean. Mentats are uh. Pretty… pretty great. [she bites her lip] Next question?

27. Do you ever think about the Pre-War world? It fascinates me. What a life they lead to have created tech of this calibre [she gestures to the casino once more] I keep on finding parts of the old world that shine though, all the good, all the awful, all the same, always there. [she thinks for a moment] Like the past isn't as distant as people want to believe. But maybe that's just me… I've had more run-ins with old world ghosts that you’d believe. And I don't mean my previous employer either.

28. What’s your deepest regret? What would you do differently? [her expression darkens] [after a minute of silence she shakes her head] Can't change what was done. No point dwelling.

29. What’s your biggest achievement? Or what do you hope to achieve? [she exchanges a look with the smiling securitron] Right now? We’re in step four. There's a lot of steps to go. [exhale] And every single step takes more effort than anyone realizes. Because a lot of people don't think. Don't think about food, don't think about water, don't think about safety, don't think about business, don't think about what's next. I have to. And it's hard yaknow? But I've done more than I could ever imagine. I dethroned House, I defeated the Legion, I defanged the NCR. That’s more than most can say…

30. What do you want for the future? For yourself? Your friends? The world? [she sinks into her seat] I didn't do all of this because I thought it’d be fun. [her expression darkens to a cold seriousness] Vegas is something else. Vegas and the Mojave. Everything that's happened here is that much more important than anyone realizes. This place is a crossing point. A bridge. Between the West and the East. And bridges can't belong to either side. I need to make sure it stays that way. I need to make sure this place, everyone who put their faith in me, /my/ people are safe. Are fed. Are… Vegas has to prosper as it stands and everything else’ll be sorted out in time. That's what I want. The Mojave to thrive. And so help me I haven't walked through storms of fire and death to let all of this fall apart. [she raises her eyes, a haunting look with a smile] So tell everyone who’s gonna be listening - I have the shadow of a nation behind me. I won't waste it this time.

#fallout new vegas #fallout #courier six #courier OC #courier viva #meme #ask meme

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penwarrior11 · 6 years ago

Text

If I Had a Heart

(Been sitting on this post-FNV Lucy/Ulysses oneshot for a year and a half. It’s about time I posted the damn thing)

Lucy Decker leaned against the rocky wall of the trail, arms crossed, one booted foot propping her in place. Her hazel eyes focused on the man sitting several feet away. His back was to her while he worked and the wind coming off the Divide tugged at his dark braids.

It'd been three years since the battle at Hoover Dam. Three years since she'd bested the might of both the Legion and the NCR, finally taking the Dam, New Vegas, and the Mojave at large for herself. But that hadn't been the end of things, no. Nothing in her life ever ended so easily.

The first time she returned to the Divide had only been two months after the battle. She'd found him up on the cliff's edge overlooking the Divide. He'd tensed as she approached, and she guessed that he hadn't expected her to come back. Still, he hadn't said a word as she sat herself down next to him, just listened as she recounted what went down at the Dam. Lanius, General Oliver. The aftermath.

"Not what you expected," he'd said after a stretch of silence so long she thought it might go on forever. It wasn't a question. He knew.

Still, Lucy hadn't been able to help but reply, "Never is."

Since then she'd found her way back to the Divide countless times. When she could spare a moment. Or when she needed one. Honestly, she needed one a lot. Power was what she'd been gunning for, going in. More power than some poor girl whose only home was the dusty road could've ever dreamed of. Power didn't come so easy, though. Once you had something, you had to fight tooth and nail for it, lest it slip from between your fingers once more. Lucy knew that particular lesson all too well. She'd lived it so many times. And, as they said, uneasy lay the head that wore the crown. So she kept coming back to that canyon, to his cliff-top, again and again and again. Just for a bit of perspective.

Somewhere along the line Ulysses stopped referring to her as "Courier" to her face. She was "Decker" now, the dual syllables often spoken as a curt acknowledgment of her presence. But not Lucy. Never Lucy. Not once in the three years she'd known him as more than the ghost lurking over her shoulder had she heard him say it. Got a good look at him without that mask of his on occasion -- another thing she'd also thought impossible -- but never that. Shame. Would've been something to hear it said in that voice of his.

"I'm still not so sure this is a good idea," she called, the words carrying despite the wind.

Ulysses was preparing for a foray down into "The Courier's Mile," that patch of Hopeville they'd blown to hell with the Ashton missile. An irradiated deathtrap filled with the worst sorts of marked men and deathclaws. Lucy'd thought the name was pretentious from the first time she'd heard him say it. The Courier's Mile? Really? Then again, this was Ulysses they were talking about. Despite his grim nature, the man had a flair for the dramatic to rival her own. Besides, she hadn't been able to think of a better name, so it'd stuck.

"Never asked for your help, Decker," Ulysses replied as he shot her a brief glance over his shoulder. "Could stay behind."

She snorted. "And let you have all the fun without me? Not a chance. Besides, the Mile's just as much my fault as yours. You aren't the only one who should be going down there."

Lucy already knew the "Why of it," as he would put it, for his trips down there. The marked men in the Mile were getting antsy. He couldn't risk letting them make a break for the Mojave. And, frankly, neither could she. There was too much riding on it staying intact.

Pulling her rifle off her back, Lucy double-checked the stabilizer. The last thing she needed while she was down there was an inopportune tremor ruining a shot on a deathclaw. While she worked, she kept talking.

"Brought some stims and Med-X if the sonsabitches decide to get a little too friendly. Rad-X, too. Better pop some before we head in there. Don't want to glow in the dark by the time we get out."

Ulysses made a noncommittal noise in response. He was checking over his anti-materiel rifle now. Good. They'd need something that packed that kind of a punch with those damned deathclaws lurking about. She propped her own rifle against the face of the cliff behind her.

"Found some .50 MGs on the walk over, by the way. I figured you might be running low," she said, tossing a clip in his direction. He caught it and loaded it into his rifle in one fluid motion.

Evidently satisfied, he slung the rifle across his back. Grabbing the battered old flagpole he used as a weapon from its place on the rocks beside him, he used it to push himself to his feet.

"You good?" Lucy asked once he was standing, quirking an eyebrow.

He nodded. "Time to go."

"Right. One second."

Holding a tie in her teeth, Lucy gathered her chin-length blonde curls as best she could before pulling them back into a short, ragged ponytail. With that finished, she snapped her goggles into place, pulled a mask much like his own over her mouth, and picked up her rifle. Then she gave him a thumbs-up.

Together, they headed down through the silo bunker toward the canyon floor, passing the bodies of old marked men and destroyed heaps of bot parts. Reaching the end, they stepped out into the ruins of Hopeville. The wind was stronger there than it was from the cliffs. It howled in Lucy's ears and whipped dust around her face as they headed to the right, circling the edge of the destroyed buildings. Their path curved up around the rocks and onto a destroyed stretch of road. Upturned, rusted vehicles littered the cracked pavement. They picked their way around them and stopped at the top of the hill overlooking to the Mile.

It appeared just as it had the several other times she'd ventured down into it since the missile hit. Massive chunks of broken metal and cement were strewn about, shaping the ragged landscape. The air had a faint misty quality to it, hovering as a sick cloud over the destruction. Reaching into her bag, Lucy pulled out her bottle of Rad-X. She cracked the lid and poured the pills inside out onto her gloved palm. Moving her mask aside, she popped a couple into her mouth. Then she nudged Ulysses and held out the remaining couple to him. He took them from her in silence.

They both stood on the hilltop for a few moments, waiting for the effects of the pills to kick in. Peering through her binoculars, Lucy examined the ruins for any sign of their quarry. There was no movement as far as she could see.

In an undertone, she told Ulysses, "No sign of them yet."

"Further in," he replied. She lowered her binoculars again with a nod.

They began to pick their way through the Mile. When he gestured to one of the crumbling towers, halfway sunken into the ground, she silently followed him toward it. The two of them climbed up over the broken bits of concrete scattered around it to reach the upper floors, careful not to shift any of the rubble as they did. Even the slightest noise could alert the residents of the Mile to their presence and ruin the element of surprise they were relying on.

Reaching the top, they both crouched down on either side of one of the empty windows. Ulysses pulled his AMR off his back and got into position. For a long time, he silently watched the ruins through the scope.

"Fifteen marked men," he finally muttered. "Legionnaire leading. No deathclaws."

"What's he using?" Lucy asked.

"Gatling."

She sucked a breath in through her teeth. A marked man wielding a Gatling laser was the last thing they needed at the moment. He was going to be their primary target, then. Lucy readied her rifle and waited. She watched as Ulysses clicked the safety off on his own and took aim. The still silence was broken by a sharp crack as he fired. Peering around the edge of the window, Lucy saw what was left of the marked man in question crumple, his head little more than red paste. One down, thank god. Then the others all turned in their direction. Lucy picked off another of them, then another, but the rest were coming up on them too fast.

"Time to move," she said.

They scrambled back down the ruined tower to put some distance between them and the swarm of marked men. Bullets whizzed overhead or struck the concrete around the two of them. Sooner or later they'd hit what they were aiming for. Cover was scarce at the moment, so the ghouls needed to be stopped. Fast. Fishing a grenade out of her jacket, Lucy pulled the pin and looked at her companion.

"Ulysses!"

He turned at her shout and she tossed the grenade in his direction. With a solid swing, he hit it with Old Glory, knocking it straight into center of the group of marked men. It exploded, splattering bloody chunks of the flayed soldiers all over the nearby crumbling walls and kicking up a massive cloud of dust.

Lucy grinned at him from behind her mask. "Nice hit!"

Ulysses said nothing, but she thought she saw one scarred eyebrow quirk a little.

Any further celebration was cut short by a loud clanking from behind them. Through the settling dust came another marked man, carrying the Gatling laser. He must've picked it up off his dead comrade. The barrel was aimed right for them. Lucy saw the thing whir to life and felt her blood run cold. She took a couple steps backward. Almost unconsciously, she reached out for Ulysses. Her fingers barely brushed against the edge of his duster before the gun went off.

All Lucy could hear was the scream and the rat-a-tat as the lasers fired. She wasn't sure where the strength came from -- adrenaline, the remnants of those implants from the Big Empty, or some combination of both -- but she grasped Ulysses' coat and yanked him down to the dirt with her, out of the path of the beams. When she hit the ground, it was hard enough to knock the wind out of her. Her head swam. Her right leg was practically screaming. Gasping, she rolled over to assess the damage.

She hadn't been fast enough. One of the beams had hit her thigh, tearing through the leg of her jeans and taking a solid chunk out of her flesh. Worse still was the big hole she saw singed into the front of Ulysses' threadbare shirt. Past that, burned flesh and a gaping wound. She heard a muffled grunt of pain from behind his mask.

"Shit," Lucy gasped, wiping at her dusty goggles to get a better look. "Shit."

There wasn't much blood; the laser'd cauterized it almost instantly. Beyond that it was hard to get a read on how much damage it'd done. How far had the shot made it in? All the way through? Was that bone? She'd seen guns like that take out full-grown deathclaws. The fact that he was still breathing at all was a fucking miracle.

The Gatling laser shrieked to life again and she had to duck to avoid the renewed shots. A quick look back over her shoulder told Lucy the marked man was still coming up on them. Slow, to keep firing the Gatling, but steady nonetheless. Her first instinct was to bolt. Jam a stim into herself and hope her leg didn't slow her down as bad as she thought it might. If she was lucky, she'd get to cover before the ghoul reached her, then pick her way through the ruins and out of the Mile. There was enough of a head-start to make it if she didn't outright collapse on the way. A sharp intake of breath turned her attention back to the man beneath her. Behind the breathing mask his face looked ashen. Ulysses might be dying, and he would definitely die if she left him now. The thought set a raw, gnawing ache tearing at her insides.

Damn him.

She looked back over her shoulder again. The marked man was too close now for her rifle. She pulled Maria from the holster at her hip and fired twice at the ghoul. A spray of red blossomed from the back of his head as her shots impacted and he crumpled to the dirt. With the immediate danger out of the way, she pulled a stimpak out of an inner pocket of her jacket and jabbed it into Ulysses' arm. She heard the familiar hiss as it injected.

From somewhere in the ruins around them came a series of low, garbled growls. More marked men, by the sound of it.

"Not now," she muttered. Slinging her companion's arm across her shoulders, she looked around for a bit of shelter from the impending attack. "Like I said before, I've got some Med-X if you want it, but we've got to get to cover first. I -- Ulysses?"

Something was wrong. His grip on her was much too weak and, despite what appeared to be his best efforts, he was losing the fight to stay conscious. His head thumped against her shoulder, and his skin felt cold against hers. Her breath caught in her throat. The stim hadn't worked. They were still deep in the Mile, and the nearest auto-doc was in the Hopeville Missile Base. There was no way she'd be able to get him out of there and fight off the marked men that'd be on them at any second. Not with him barely conscious and her busted leg. At the rate he was fading, Ulysses would be gone in minutes, and there wasn't a single goddamn thing she could do about it. Unless...

Frantically rummaging around in her bag with her free hand, Lucy pulled out the Transportalponder. She stared uneasily at the device in her hands, blue and crackling with energy. Trying to use it this far from the Big Empty, and with this much interference from the radiation? It was a long shot at best. All she could do was hope for a miracle.

She adjusted her grip on Ulysses, wrapping arm around his back and clenching a fistful of his duster to pull him tight against her side. Aiming the device at the sky, she fired.

Currents of electricity hissed and snapped around her, and she held tight to the man next to her. For a second everything was static. When her vision finally cleared, they were both sprawled on the balcony of the Sink. Staggering halfway up to her feet again, and stumbling when she put weight on her injured leg, Lucy headed for the door. It hissed open at her approach and she pulled him through.

"Sir?" the Central Intelligence Unit called over to her as soon as they'd passed the threshold. "Is everything all right, sir?"

Lucy didn't answer. There wasn't time. Her feet slid on the smooth floor, slipping out from underneath her, and she sat down hard. Wincing, she crawled back over to where Ulysses had fallen. With a start, she saw that his eyes were closed now.

"No, no, no, no, no." She fumbled with his breathing mask, trying to get it off. Her left hand was shaking so bad it was all she could do to try and get a grip on the thing. "Shit. Come on!"

Lucy finally got the straps undone and she cast the mask aside, sending it skittering across the floor. The other personalities that made up the Sink babbled at her in the background. Voices of confusion and concern. She ignored them. Ulysses wasn't breathing.

"You son of a bitch, we're five feet away!" she shouted at him. Grabbing the back of his duster again and gritting her teeth, she continued to drag him across the room. "Doc, incoming!"

"Get him in here," the auto-doc told her as its door opened.

When she finally reached the other side of the room she practically ripped off his duster and what was left of his shirt before shoving him into the machine. Once he was inside, the door slid shut again, blocking him from view. A second later she heard the muffled but distinct sounds of the tools whirring to life.

Silence. It was all Lucy could do to just sit there, gulping in deep breaths while blood pounded in her ears. Her leg gave a horrific twinge. Gritting her teeth, she took another stim from her jacket and stabbed the needle into her thigh. That'd have to do until Doc could look her over, too.

She then yanked off her goggles and her own breathing mask, casting them aside. Her eyes stung. When she touched her face, her fingers came away wet. Fuck, she was crying. Why was she crying?

"Ma'am?"

She looked up at the machine. "Talk to me, Doc."

"Well, I got him breathing again and most of the damage can be patched up, but there's a problem." It paused before explaining, "The wound -- laser-made, by the looks of it -- it goes right through the sternum. Punched a hole in his heart that I can't fix. And with the Think Tank gone I've got no more replacements. I can keep him going for a little longer, but..."

It didn't need to finish. Lucy already knew.

She lurched to her feet again and started pacing, even when her leg screamed in protest. Back and forth, back and forth, with short, unsteady steps. Her hands tangled up in her curls almost by themselves. She wanted to break something. Instead, she slammed her fist against the wall before slumping against it and closing her eyes.

Three years since she'd first tracked him down to the end of that canyon, three years of heading back into that death trap again and again just to see him, only for him to die because she'd been a second too slow to pull him out of the line of fire? Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. And what about Doc? It could rip her own heart out on Dala's command and shove it back in again, but it couldn't fix this?

Her eyes snapped open. That was it.

"Use mine," she whispered.

"What was that?" Doc asked her.

"Use mine." She spun on her heel and ran back over to the auto-doc. Reaching the terminal on the side, she began frantically searching through the options. "The tech implant my heart was replaced with when I first got here. I know you've still got it, so use it!" She'd kept it in the back of her head as a "just in case." Well, now she needed it. Finding the right selection, she punched it in.

"It might not work."

"Try," she begged, and she took a step back from the machine. The voice sighed, but seemed to relent. There were a thousand ways this could go wrong. She knew that. But the alternative was even worse.

For a long time, the only sounds came from the auto-doc. The dull hum of the sensors, the metallic buzz of a saw. Lucy stood there, watching, waiting, her clenched fist pressed against her mouth. She barely dared to breathe. Even the other personalities had gone quiet for once. Finally, the door slid open with a sharp hiss.

Ulysses sat slumped down on the floor of the auto-doc. His head lolled to the side, temple pressed against the inner wall of the metal tube, eyes closed. A long red gash ran vertically down the middle of his chest, marred by the round, puckered mark from the laser. Lucy could see they were both already partially healed from stim injections. It'd leave one hell of a scar. She would know.

Crouching down in front of him and holding her breath, she checked his neck for a pulse. There it was, beating steady under her fingertips. She let out the breath as one long, shaky sigh. For now, at least, the transplant worked.

His eyes half-opened then and he looked up at her. His voice wasn't much more than a hoarse rasp as he said, "Decker..."

"You're not checking out on me just yet," she murmured. On instinct, she pressed her lips against his forehead. When she looked down at him again his eyes were closed, but his breathing was steady.

Leaning back, she shouted, "Muggy!"

The miniature securitron rolled in from the other room. Despite his display not changing from its usual image of a cheerful cartoon coffee mug, he started in a snide voice, "I don't know what you expect me to do--"

"You're the only one in here besides me who can move, so you're the only one who can actually help," she said, slinging one of Ulysses' arms over her shoulders. "So help."

Lucy wasn't sure how long it'd been since she last slept. She dug the heels of her palms into her eyes, further smudging whatever remnants were left of her makeup. Not that that really mattered at the moment.

Together, she and Muggy had managed to get Ulysses from the AutoDoc into the Sink's bedroom and lay him down. She was currently sitting on the metal crate by the wall, chin resting in her hands, keeping an eye on him. He had yet to wake up, but at least he was still alive. That thought in and of itself unsettled her. The amount she'd come to rely on him over the past couple of years... frankly, it was terrifying. Sooner or later, that man would be the death of her. She was sure of it.

With a sigh, Lucy got to her feet. Her leg wobbled a little, but she figured she was steady enough to walk a couple feet to the balcony and get some air. It wasn't like she planned to go fight a deathclaw or anything.

Stretching, she said, "Muggy, watch him, would you?"

"Sure," the robot grumbled from the other side of the room. "Not like this is keeping me from my real job or anything."

"You can go back to that once there isn't a man half-dead in here. Let me know if anything changes."

He continued to mutter half-hearted threats as she walked through the Sink's main room and out onto the balcony. Most of the Big Empty was dark and indiscernible on the other side of the shimmering blue forcefield. The only other point of light was the Forbidden Zone, its distant red glow shining like a beacon in the crater's gloom. Lucy leaned against a nearby metal post holding up the balcony roof and checked the time on her Pip-boy.

4:15 am

She tipped her head back and squeezed her eyes shut. It was a godforsaken hour, and her head was just about swimming, but she finally had the time to breathe. To think. Probably too much time, knowing her.

House rotted in his crypt, the Legion was headless and bleeding out somewhere east, and the NCR was too busy licking its wounds to do much for the time being. New Vegas was hers. The Mojave was hers, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough. She always felt like she was still reaching for something. For a shadow, maybe. For a ghost. For a man, half-dead and comatose in her bed of all places. Alive because a heart that'd once been hers now beat in his chest.

Lucy's eyes snapped open as the door to the Sink let out several loud clanks. Looking over, she saw Ulysses standing in the doorway. Though he'd pulled his duster back on, his shirt was still gone. It'd been so burned up by the Gatling laser that she couldn't exactly blame him. The incision scar on his chest looked better than it had when Doc had finished with him, but not by much. Behind him, she could see Muggy trying to squeeze past his legs.

"You said to come tell you if anything changed," the robot called to her. "This enough for you?"

"Muggy, go back inside," Lucy said. Her eyes never left Ulysses.

"I told him to stop, but no. Nobody ever listens to poor Muggy. Why would they?"

"Muggy."

The little securitron stopped ranting. He shot a quick look between the two of them before turning and rolling back into the Sink, mumbling, "Yeah, okay. Back inside I go."

The door clanked shut again behind him, leaving Lucy and Ulysses standing alone on the balcony. For a while there was only silence as they watched each other.

"You shouldn't be out here," Lucy eventually told him, if for no other reason than to break the quiet. "You've still got a ways to go before your chest heals over."

"Got questions."

"I bet you do, but they can wait until you're--"

"Saved my life," Ulysses said, cutting her off. "Why?"

She looked away and licked her chapped, dry lips, which only made them sting. The lipstick coating them was almost gone. Worn away like so much else back in that canyon. What could she even tell him?

"'Cause I can still see the edge, I guess," she whispered, as she stared out across the darkness of the Big Empty. Ulysses stayed silent, but she hadn't expected him to say anything. That's just the way it was with him. All or nothing, thunder or dead quiet. Shaking her head, she said in a louder voice, "Since you pretty much saved my life, I figured I'd return the favor."

He didn't respond for a long time, long enough that Lucy almost thought he wouldn't at all. Then, "Never asked for your help."

She rolled her eyes and let out a small snort of laughter. "You've said that already. Look, if you want me to just zap you back to the Mojave right now, fine. You're still pretty busted up, but it's your choice. I can't stop you and, frankly, I don't really care at this point."

"You're lying."

Lucy was taken aback by his abrupt reply. She stared at him, dumbfounded. "Excuse me?"

"You care, Decker," he told her, his voice full of far too much conviction for a man who'd just been at death's door. "Could've run. Would've, it was anyone else. Know that much about you by now. But you stayed, risked death in the Courier's Mile even when you had an escape. Something more than debt kept you."

Lucy felt something in her chest give a tight squeeze and quickly turned her eyes away again. There were footsteps across the metal floor of the balcony as he walked over to her. She didn't look at him. Hell, she wasn't sure if she even could. It wasn't until he spoke again that she realized just how close he'd come.

"And in that machine... you kissed me. Can't help but wonder what that means."

Shit. She'd hoped he'd been too out on Med-X to remember that.

"It didn't mean anything," she retorted with a harsh laugh. "I've kissed a lot of men, Ulysses, and plenty of women, too. You weren't the first, and you sure as hell won't be the last."

She could still feel his eyes on her, boring a hole into the side of her head, but she kept her own resolutely fixed on the black sky in the distance. No, it hadn't meant anything. It never did. So why did those words sound hollow, even to her?

"It was different. You know it, too."

Lucy closed her eyes. Different, he said. He'd always been different. Benny -- who should've had a fucking army ready when she came for him -- barely thought twice about being within arm's reach of her once she'd batted her lashes at him. Elijah'd thought he could toy with her like she was some puppet whose strings he could pull. Dean had, too, in his own way. He should've realized something was wrong when he waltzed into Vegas and she was already there, waiting for him. The Think Tank let her have free run of the Big Empty to do their dirty work, never once thinking she might find a loophole and come back for them. Every one of them underestimated her, and every one of them paid for that mistake in their own fashion.

But not Ulysses. He'd known exactly what she was capable of from the start, had been ready for it. He saw right through her. Lucy was sure he was seeing through her then, too.

When she woke up in Goodsprings, alive and angry, she'd been standing near some sort of metaphorical cliff. By the time she followed Ulysses' transmission into the canyon, she hadn't just been walking toward it. No, she'd been running, ready to throw herself off the edge and take anyone else she could manage down with her. She'd wanted revenge on the man who shot her. She'd wanted power when it got offered up. Not once was she able to see past all the blood in her eyes. Then she saw the Divide. Everything she'd loved had been destroyed in that blast. Being there again woke her up, showed her exactly what would happen if she kept going down that road. Now Ulysses kept her off it. Had been keeping her off it for the past three years. She needed him.

But that wasn't it, though, was it? The reason. The why of it all. Not if she was being honest with herself, which was getting so much harder to do. This wasn't about need so much as want.

Did she want him? Oh yes, she did. She wanted the way he made her feel. Longed for it. There was a comfort in his quiet she'd never known from anyone else. And, if she was being really honest, she'd wanted him since that first fleeting glimpse of him back before the Divide went to hell. A glimpse that'd almost made her hesitate. Almost kept her from going to the NCR to bring back the package that doomed the home they'd unknowingly shared.

She hadn't stopped then, but she'd managed to find her way back to him anyhow.

Lucy shook her head once to snap herself out of it. What was she thinking? She couldn't be having this conversation. Not there. Not with him.

"You know what?" she snapped as she put up her hands. "Fine. If you won't go inside, I will."

She started to push past him, heading for the Sink's door. Her head buzzed. Her heart pounded. Going outside had been a mistake after all. Frankly, she'd rather fight a deathclaw -- or, hell, why not seven of them? -- than face whatever this was turning into.

"Lucy."

That made her stop. She lurched to a halt and stood there, frozen. When she tried to swallow, her her throat felt tight. Slowly, she turned back to face him. Ulysses' dark eyes were still on her, unblinking and far too focused. Lucy could only imagine what she looked like at the moment. Dark circles beneath her hazel eyes, lipstick rubbed to practically nothing, blonde curls hanging around her face in tangles. The Divide always knew how to unmake her, strip down her pretty defenses to the raw places that lay underneath. Or maybe that was just him. Either way, whatever he was seeing right then, it wasn't what the rest of the Mojave did.

"Means light," he went on. He seemed to be mulling over the words as he spoke, considering them. "Suits you."

A small frown tugged at her mouth. She took a few slow steps toward him and asked, "Why's that?"

"Lights can blind. Told you, once."

Lucy's frown deepened into a scowl. If he was just going to berate her again -- for Vegas or her methods or whatever else he could think of -- she wasn't exactly in the mood at the moment. But he wasn't finished.

"Lights can also make you see," he told her. "Made me see. Took a long time to realize anger wasn't meant to be the answer -- not yours, not mine. More than that, too. Tried for years to understand, and only now begin to grasp the why of it. Spent too long chasing each other for all this to mean nothing."

It finally dawned on her that this wasn't an accusation. It was a confession.

"You're a hard woman. Hard to kill. Hard to love." He went quiet again. Then he brushed the loose curls away from her forehead. His fingers traced the scar that ran along her hairline and the puckered spot beneath it where Benny'd put a nine-millimeter into her skull. In a solemn voice, he added, "Might try."

"Which one?" Lucy asked, feeling breathless.

"There a difference?"

The soft edge of a laugh escaped her. Ulysses' fingertips hadn't yet left her face, she'd noticed. Instead they traveled down her jaw to curl beneath her chin. She got the feeling that he was holding back, waiting, but when had she ever been one to hesitate?

Lucy grabbed the edges of his duster to pull him toward her and rose up onto tiptoe to kiss him. Even stretched out to her full height, it was barely enough. Their lips barely brushed. That is, until he gripped her thighs and hoisted her up into his arms, silencing her surprised gasp against his mouth. His lips were chapped, but still. Still. He kissed her with enough hunger, enough fire, that it threatened to burn her from the inside out. And she was more than ready to let it. She wrapped her legs around his waist and reached up to hold his face between her hands. Her fingers scraped against the stubble along his jaw.

Was this what she'd been reaching for all this time? The end of the road, the center of the spiral, the point of collision. A light. A ghost. Two sides of the same goddamn coin, too caught up in their own trappings to face reality. A pair of Couriers with too much history to burn or to bury.

"Didn't walk through ash and hell to lose you now," Ulysses murmured. His words held the rough edge of a promise. Lucy knew he was big on those.

So she didn't mean it lightly when she answered back with, "Good luck getting rid of me."

She felt his heartbeat thundering in his chest. A heart that'd once been hers. Figuratively, literally... didn't really matter. He'd stolen it from her, sure as hell, too long ago now to be certain of when it happened. Too quietly for her to notice it even happened at all. That fact alone surprised her.

The bigger surprise was that she didn't care. Not if it was him.

#fallout new vegas #fnv #ulysses #courier 6 #ulysses/courier #lucy decker #otp: lights and ghosts #took me long enough

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honeyandfiregame · 6 years ago

Text

The ask for this got lost forever in my inbox, but the prompt was from that Day unrequited love angst I wrote a long time ago, but a different scenario. This time it’s Zenos falling in love with MC, who is with Day instead.

Under the cut for length (2.1k words)

Gods, you were adorable. Irresistible. Not without flaws, but lovely all the same.

Anyone would be lucky to have you.

Except for him. He couldn’t be so lucky, because you are not his. And you never will be...

He’s not bitter. In fact, he’s happy for you and... for the man you chose instead. He’s mature enough for that, he’s strong enough. He never told you his feelings, because why would he? You didn’t have an interest in him, did you? He could tell he was not the one in your heart, and he accepted that.

You chose Day. He doesn’t know why, but he won’t pretend to ever know why the heart does what it does. Like why his beat for yours knowing yours would never follow the same rhythm.

He accepted that, gave Day his blessing, and moved on. Or so he told himself he moved on. But when he opened the front door to see you in Day’s arms, lips locked with the man he calls a dear friend, he can’t deny the way his heart shattered.

Shaken to the core, he put on a perfect mask of nonchalance and made a teasing joke that somewhat embarrassed you before fleeing as casually, yet quickly, as he could to his office.

The slam of the door behind him freezes his spine solid, forcing a gasp past his lips. He breathes shakily, almost desperately, a hand coming up to curl around his throat as if that could relieve the feeling of it closing up. What the… hells…

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Zenos’ back slams into the door, violently startled by the sudden voice. His eyes frantically scan the room until they land on Niina at his desk, her eyes wide and hands up, just as surprised as he is.

“Wow,” she starts slowly, uncrossing her legs and standing up. “Didn’t think I’d scare you that much. Especially given you were supposed to be expecting me.”

Zenos sighs, bringing a hand up to his forehead as he tries to force the accumulated tension from his muscles. “Gods, Niina, I’m sorry. We were supposed to talk about the budget, right? It’s just… been a bit of a day.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Was it really a ghost?” She draws closer, a tentative but teasing smile on her lips. “Or… a crush, maybe?”

Ugh, he feels sick… Which seems to show on his face, because the smile fades from Niina’s.

“Sorry…” She sighs, backing up to give him some space. “Can’t believe you fell for the guy we practically picked up off the side of the road.”

“Not what happened.” He pauses, his eyes trailing the light across rows of bookshelves. A thought he’d normally never have creeps into his subconscious and he finds himself mumbling it before he can banish it from his mind. “I can’t believe he fell for the guy with the communication disorder.”

“You don’t mean that.” Niina smiles knowingly.

Zenos frowns. “Of course not… But damn, I wish I did.”

He eyes his desk, feeling jitters through his nerves down to his fingertips. The sick tension in his stomach tightens. Breathing doesn’t want to come easily. Gods, he doesn't want to do this. He can’t be the boss right now.

“Hey,” he starts, almost absentmindedly. “Do you think we can put this off for now?”

His glaze flicks to Niina’s, who straightens up a bit. His tongue swipes out to wet his suddenly dry lips.

“Mr. Kylan gifted me an expensive wine last month. Remember, when I personally played private investigator for him?”

Niina tilts her chin up a little, smoothly raising an eyebrow. The corner of Zenos’ mouth twitches upwards.

“Wanna get Dani, her not-secret liquor, and forget our problems for a bit?”

...

And that’s about all his foggy mind remembers right now.

Next thing he knows, he’s waking up horizontal, staring through bleary eyes at a dark wood ceiling. He feels like an old spirit awaking after centuries, long forgotten in a sealed tomb. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, his head pounds, his muscles are stiff, and he might be still a little drunk.

His voice cracks as he lets out a pained groan. Yeah, he’s gonna have to stop drinking so much. He picked a bad remedy for heartbreak.

Ah, but… it seems like such a good idea in the moment, when his heart hurts the most.

“Are you awake, responsible leader?”

The deadpan sarcasm is a dead giveaway to whose house he’s found himself in and, internally, he groans again. He really doesn’t feel up to that kind of guilt right now.

Zenos’ gaze slides away from the ceiling to the carmine eyes watching him, thoroughly unimpressed with the no doubt sloppy state he must be in.

“...Did I do anything to be embarrassed about?” His mouth is dry and his throat sore, making the words come out rougher than his usual honey way of speaking.

“Not particularly.” Day’s kind enough to hold a hand out, which is gladly taken, and pull Zenos into a sitting position.

He pushes a glass of water into Zenos’ hand as he continues, “You banged on my door until I opened up, invited yourself in, and started talking about… I wasn’t listening. Something about ‘horny’ and ‘stupid’, which, I admit, is not what I tend to expect from you.”

He pauses, eyes flicking around as he lets out a heavy sigh. It’s pretty obvious he doesn’t want to be talking so much, energy already seeping out of him like a leak in a dam, but he’s toughing it out. Right about now, Zenos can relate.

“Then you were really insistent on us being on the same page. You really wanted to make sure we were on the same page. I thought for a while, but… Yeah, I still don’t know what it was you wanted us to be on the same page about.”

Zenos lets out a dry laugh. The corner of Day’s lip twitches in turn.

“And… then you passed out on my floor. I mean, passed out.” He tilts his head. “Does your head hurt, by the way? I didn’t catch you.”

“Day.” Zenos rubs a hand over his face. He feels like garbage. “My head hurts for a lot of reasons. You’re fine. And yes, I know you weren’t apologizing anyway.”

Silence falls, thankfully, and Zenos concentrates on downing the water while trying furiously not to throw up from this hangover situation.

He feels like he needs a bath, but as his mind settles in on the events of the previous- or is it still the same day?- he finds he wants it for many reasons. His self-loathing floods his veins again, the painful memory of seeing you kiss Day, smearing his unrequited love in his own face like he’s a misbehaving dog, brings the pounding in his head to a crescendoing thunder.

“Oh Gods…” he whimpers under his breath, gently touching his fingers to his temple. It’s just too much. He really hopes he’s already cried too much to shed anymore tears.

“You don’t get drunk without a reason. Should I ask why this time?” Day sounds like he’s choosing his words carefully. There’s typically only one reason Zenos gets drunk. The suspicion is there, it has to be, but neither of them want to say it out loud.

“I…” Zenos’ voice cracks and he winces. Embarrassing. Why does he have to be so broken up over one guy? Why is he always so soft-hearted? Setting his jaw, Zenos lets out a huff and tries again.

“What reason is it usually? I got my heart broken. That’s not something that concerns you anyway, does it?” He frowns, picking at the rips in his pants if only to not have to look Day in the eye. He forced defensiveness in his voice, but he knows it’s nowhere near as strong or convincing as what Day’s capable of.

“Not particularly, no.” Day’s lips thin into a straight line. He kneels down, though Zenos is still refusing to meet his gaze. The next question is unsure, tentative. A tone unbefitting Day, but the subject makes it understandable.

“Who?”

Who broke his heart? You know who.

Muscles tense, a dull ache settles in Zenos’ lower stomach. Each breath feels cramped in his lungs. His brow furrows in a fierce frown as if showing his abhorrence at himself would stave off the pressure behind his eyes, the hot wash of shame in his face. He’s too hungover for this.

“I’m sorry.” The apology spills from his lips before he could even realize it was coming. A shaking sets in.

“For what?”

Stop asking what you already know.

“I’m… sorry.” His voice loses all its confidence.

“I’m sorry.” It slips out again, and then again. He pulls his knees up, curling into protecting himself with his trembling arms. Tears fill his eyes. He’s such a mess. Pathetic. “I didn’t mean to.”

He didn’t mean for this to happen. He didn’t mean for it to turn out like this. He hates his stupid, fragile heart.

“What did you do, Zenos?” Day’s question twists the dagger. There’s now a steel in his tone, protectively hiding the uncertainty from earlier now that his suspicions are confirmed. He knows. He knows and it’s over.

It hurts.

“I’m so sorry, Day,” Zenos sobs, the tears finally slipping free. Maybe it’s the hangover, maybe this was just inevitable, but he can’t bottle it up anymore. He needs to say it out loud.

“I love him, Day. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” His fingers dig into his arms, scratching pain in old scars. There’s a steam hammer in his head, throbbing around his eyes that’s making this unbearable.

“I’m in love with him and I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want this.” His shoulders shake with his sobbing, the humiliating salty taste of tears on his lips. “I’m sorry…!”

Day’s gaze softens, just a bit, and so does his tone when he murmurs, “You need rest.”

Zenos doesn’t protest when Day’s strong hand curls under his bicep, coaxing him to his feet. He stumbles, falling into Day’s side, the strength sapped from his legs.

With a sigh, Day slings Zenos’ arm over his shoulder and helps him towards the bedroom. Zenos hiccups, scrubbing his face.

“I love him, I love him…” he repeats, a mantra of self-torture that has Day’s grip on his waist tightening.

“I know,” he murmurs, unheard. He carefully pushes open the bedroom door and beckons a flame to light the lantern hanging by the door.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Day.” Zenos whimpers, lost in his own world of tipsy, sick self-loathing.

“I know,” Day repeats right back. Coming to a stop at the end of the bed, he lets Zenos slip from his grip to fall heavily onto the wide bed.

Day stares down at him sinking limply into the blanket, chest shakily rising with each struggling breath only to cave in as it expels in a sob. Day’s shoulders sag and he looks away, brow furrowed.

“I’m going out for a bit, but I’ll be back to kick you out later. Get some sleep while you can.”

With that, Day turns on his heel and heads for the door. Where he might have left without waiting for a reply, he instead pauses in the doorway. His hand slowly reaches out to turn the lantern down to a soft light, not painful for Zenos’ currently sensitive eyesight.

It could’ve been totally missed, a ghost of a whisper dispersed in the morning air. Unbefitting his personality so it couldn’t be real. His lips move once more before he turns his back for good and leaves.

“I’m sorry, Zenos.”

Left alone in his misery, Zenos curls in on himself, hugging himself with arms crossed over his chest.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” The apologies fade to hoarse whispers, your name thrown into the mix as he shakes his head, burying his face into the soft blanket.

The tears keep coming, choking him and making his migraine so much worse. And they don’t stop until the energy has drained from his body, exhaustion too heavy to keep crying settling in and bringing him the relief of the cool, dark waves of unconsciousness sweeping over him.

He needs rest. Because when he wakes up it will be time to repress the events of the last two days. So you’ll never find out about his feelings. So you’ll still be around him. So he can look at you with Day and be reminded again and again that you can fall for men, but you can’t fall for him. Reminders everyday there must be something that makes him unlovable.

He needs to sleep. So that the cycle can start anew. Breaking him a little more each time.

#Zenos #angst #shorts #Honey and Fire #HoF #it's 2 am #so if i made any typos or grammar mistakes #i didnt catch them #welcome to Zenos crying #this is why we go poly instead of love triangle

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cannibalisticshadows · 6 years ago

Text

Nightcall (2/2)

[ao3 Link] . [Part One]

Megamind drops out of the media. Though the media doesn’t drop him.

The spike in his frequent fights with Metro Man has done a complete 360, much to the relief of the locals and to the disappointment of tourists. The news and media alike have leaped onto his sudden change like scavengers to fresh offal. Talk of his recent rendezvous, or lack thereof, are on everyone’s mind.

“He’s a maniac,” some talk-show host said into the speaker, hunched over a desk looking quite aggressive. The screen of the television baths the blue alien in a dull electronic glow illuminated his reflective eyes. He frowns at the person but having no good point to disagree. He’s just offended someone would be so bold to jump into the obvious.

“He’s a maniac, and Metro Man has been taking his sweet-ass time in trying to bring this alien-fuck down. Sure, sure, all-righteous and no-killing and what not. I’m sorry but he’s just pious.” Not just ballsy, but controversial. “My only guess as to why Megamind has abruptly vanished like a phantom is because our city’s hero finally grew a pair and kicked his skinny blue ass into the next life. And by God will none of us miss him. Look at what a shit-show he’s turned this city into—“

Megamind turns the TV off by throwing the remote so hard that it shatters the screen.

Sighing, he crawls out of his little nest of blankets and decides it’s time. He’s been procrastinating enough; he’s done nothing for the past two weeks and it’s getting to his head.

His plan to tell Roxanne started out sounding like the only resort to fixing him and his dumb extraterrestrial make-up, but he’s been pushing it off since he got home the last time he broke out of prison. Who knew he could really raise some hell by simply doing nothing.

Roxanne has made few appearances on television since her last kidnapping. Sadly enough, due to his absence, she had little to do (at least, to the public eye). She was the main reporter, focusing on Metro City’s star inhabitancies. Metro Man had nothing much to do besides helping little old ladies or getting cats from trees—not worthy of making an emergency announcement on the news.

And since he hasn’t seen her, he’s going into such a stump he’s made several near attempts to just show up at her place with no spray. How would she respond?

Well, he’d find out tonight.

He filled the invisible car up with his home-made energy source, making sure it wouldn’t run on empty. Tonight he was going out, far enough to reach the boonies.

And he wouldn’t be alone.

Megamind, unsure of how she’d react but knowing this would be practically life or death for him, grabbed a few essentials. The de-gun. Knock-out spray. Rope. You know. The usual. This had to go as smooth as possible for him to get serious with her, to assure her he’d never bother her again as long as he got this off his chest so he could wallow in misery with a peace of mind.

So, making sure she’s home with the affirmation from one of his spy-bots, Megamind packs up his things in the car and zooms out of the Lair before Minion can so much as ask “Where are you going, Sir?”

When he gets to her building, he uses a brainbot to fly him up to her balcony. She never locks it (Oh, Roxanne, I do question your sanity sometimes), so when he pushes the glass doors open, he enters a relatively quiet domain.

The lights over her tiny kitchen are on, illuminating her one-person apartment. Sniffing, and catching the remnants of her perfume, he follows it until—

“Mega—“ Before he gives her time to even finish saying his self-given name, he whips around and gives her a reasonably large dose of spray. She gasps, eyes roll up, and her body drops in a dead weight. Flinging out an arm he catches her, unable to keep his hungry eyes from the expanse of her pale, bare neck. Megamind splays his fingers across her bare, marveling at seeing her for the first time in weeks. It’s been too long.

Tonight she’s wearing civvies. A pair of dark wash skinny jeans and a white peasant blouse with little red and blue flowers along the neck and sleeves. She’s missed a barber appointment, he thinks, as her hair is exactly two centimeters longer than usual. Her hair’s also a bit damp, curling ever so slightly at the very ends. She not wearing makeup, either, letting him see all of her little brown freckles dusting her cheeks, like little stars in a milky white setting. He licks his lips.

Megamind ties her wrists and covers her mouth with a cheap duck tape. He’s never taped her mouth shut before, but for once he doesn’t want her screaming or complaining. And despite every Hollywood movie where the bad guy tapes the victim’s mouth shut, it’s very possible to remove it without the use of hands.

He carries her out bridal style, whistling for the brainbot to bring him back to the car. Once on the ground, he tucks her into the passenger seat and pulls the belt on, all before getting in himself.

And then he drives. He drives for a long time, content for the moment to sit in silence beside the soft rumble of the car’s engine.

Swerving through Metro City’s night traffic, the city lights gleaming in this never sleeping place, he keeps his head low as he goes, so stressed he finds himself clutching the wheel so hard it threatens to snap. The leather of his gloves scrunches.

They (he; she’s still knocked out) drive out of the midnight city into the rolling countryside, past the lake and past the forests. Lush green hillsides and vast farm lands. He can hear the road scratch under the car tires as asphalt turns into gravel and dirt.

After about forty minutes of driving, he can tell Roxanne is beginning to stir. Quickly, he pulls up beside a huge oak tree in the middle of no where, and void of another living soul for miles.

Well. There is a cow outside but it’s like, ten feet away minding its own business.

As the car comes to a stop, he turns the key and all is instantly quiet.

With a soft grunt, Roxanne squirms in her seat and consciousness slowly comes to. He doesn’t watch her, choosing to star at his bony knees and twiddle his thumbs. All he can hear is her movements, and his own rapidly beating heart.

“M…Mmm?” Her eyes slowly open, blinking in the dim atmosphere. Her eyes then open wider, and she looks around for the usual sights of a kidnapping. Seeing as they’re only in the car, and her mouth is taped, she abruptly begins to struggle.

“Wait!” He says frantically, trying to calm her like one would do for a wild horse. “It’s okay! This isn’t a kidnapping! Well, technically it is but it’s just us—“

“MMM!?” She starts to work her mouth through the tape in earnest, tongue visibly trying to lick at the stickiness.

“Please, wait! This is—I just want to tell you something. Something… important. I promise on my ancestors that you have full permission and more to beat me outside but… please. Just listen to me. Please, Miss Ritchi.”

Her struggling stops, and she turns to him with a suspicious glare. He bows his head, flushing in shame. She hates me.

Though she’s trapped him under an intense stare, snaring him more than he had with her, Roxanne goes still as if awaiting for whatever stupid thing he’s got to say to her.

“I… want to apologize, for my behavior two weeks ago. It was unforgivable.”

“Mm.”

“But—I… I…”

She glares harder. Ashamed of himself, he turns his stare to the dashboard.

“I love you.”

He doesn’t look up to catch her reaction, but she doesn’t respond verbally.

“I love you, I love you, I love you.” He bangs his forehead against the steering wheel with each confession, feeling all the pint up emotions in him pouring out like water from a broken dam. It burns his insides with glorious relief and bittersweet shame all at once. Yet it keeps flowing. “And I’m so, so sorry. It’s—not my choice, Miss Ritchi. I can’t help it. My b-body…Ah—s—“ he stutters, so anxious it’s close to making him piss himself. He can feel it claw at this throat, threatening tears. “My species… we d-don’t have crooches, like a human. We… fall in love. Hard. And once. Only once. Once and only with one person. And that’s it. We mate for life, like doves. Or beavers. Wolves. I-It doesn’t matter. But once the relationship is formed that’s it. Cheating or finding a second love if the other leaves or dies is purely an earthly concept. My own p-parents, they—they only had eyes for each other. Sex or romance wasn’t even a concept I understood before I met y—…. I didn’t chose you, Miss Ritchi. I didn’t want this to happen. You don’t deserve this. I’ve already turned your life into a living hell, and for that I cannot apologize enough, even onto my grave. My transgressions are unforgivable. Yet, even being here on Earth I cannot…. There is no place for me. My planet, it’s… I’m all that’s left. And Minion. I didn’t think I could possibly imprint on anyone, much less a human, in this way. Yet… I am so sorry. It’s all my fault. I should have known…”

She’s fidgeting ever so softly beside him, he hears the crinkle of the tape.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until he takes in a staggering breath, wet tears rolling down his sharp face and trickling on his lips. Salty like the sea.

He can’t bring himself to speak again in fear of weeping like a damn baby, but he feels as vulnerable as one in the moment. Weak. Childish. Pathetic.

The car falls into a silence, with his shaky breaths and a light breeze rolling against the windows. Other than that, it’s as quiet as a void. He glances at her from the corner of his eye, and sees her staring outside at the cow as if it had done something personal to disrespect her.

They sit in silence for a long time.

“I’m done,” he suddenly says.

He hears her move around again.

“I’m… I’m done. With this business,” he gestures to himself in general, to the car, to his gun. “I mean, there are things you don’t know about. Things I’ve done behind cameras. In the underworld. I’ve committed enough sins to last multiple lifetimes over. There’s blood on my hands. Miss Ritchi. Like you wouldn’t believe. And… I’m going to give it up. I can’t keep doing this…

“This such a archaic concept for me. Aah, uh, did you know… Of course you wouldn’t… The males, sometimes even the females, of my kind have to… catch the other sometimes. To express that they feel the same way. Avoids miscommunication or misplaced feelings. My own father… had to sneak into my mother’s household as teenagers to propose to her. It’s—I didn’t even realize it until recently I was courting you! Unconsciously! I’m—God I’m so sorry, Miss Ritchi. I just need to go away. “

She lets out a muffled sound again.

“I’m moving from this place,” he looks around at the vast farmland, the dot of the city in the distance, reflected by his rear-view mirror. “Romania sounds nice. I do a lot of business over there. Lots of forests and hillsides where there’s no one for miles. I can’t bother you or anyone out th—”

Roxanne suddenly spits.

Looking over to her in surprise, he sees she has vanquished the duck tape and has rolled it up in her mouth to spit it onto the dashboard. Turning on one hip, she faces him with such a glower it chills him to the very bone.

“Don’t. You. Dare,” she hisses.

He shrinks in his seat.

“Don’t you dare drop this on me and say you’re just gonna leave!” She yells, pulling against her taped wrists. He opens his mouth to let out a string of never ending apologies, but—she’s starting to cry, he sees, much to his absolute horror. Has he truly upset her this bad? He really was a monster.

“How—you stupid, stupid man,” she cries out, and suddenly—he sees her raise her arms, still taped by the wrist, and he honestly thinks he’s about to be hit when—

She loops her arms around his big blue head and latches onto his neck, yanking him closer and making him clumsily fall onto the stick shift as—

Her mouth is on his. So hard do their mouths come together that their teeth clack, faces clashing together he barely has time to process what’s happening. Gasping, hands wild and unsure in the air as she seemingly tries to suck his soul out, but—he knows what’s happening, mildly, but a bigger part of him is convinced he’s dreaming or hit his head.

The feeling of her lips touching his, though, is electrifying. Every nerve in his body begins to sing and scream all at once, overwhelming him with a sensation override. She moans and presses closer, both of them awkward and clumsy as they clutch at the other from opposite seats. Clutched… he feels his hand involuntarily grab her waist, holding his close but terrified he’s mixing the signals. It feels so so so good, though, and—

She pulls away before he can even realize he was responding back, albeit unsurely. Arms locked around his neck, he mentally curses himself for tying her up. But. It felt like the thing to do at the time.

“You listen to me you son of a bitch,” she viciously spats. “You come to my place, ten’o’freakin’clock at night, and tell me you love me only then to say you’re leaving? What the actual hell!?”

He attempts to pull back, hide in his shell, run away from her furious reprimand, but his neck is still trapped by her arms. Shit. Really a bad decision to tie her up. The alien’s prepared to say something, anything, to show how much of a lowly creature he is in her light, but all that comes out of his throat are choked warbles and whimpers. “I—“

She sniffles.

He meets her eyes in surprise to see two glassy blue orbs meeting his. Frantically, he try to console the weepy female by nervously patting her back. “Ah—M-Miss Ritchi—“

“You were such an A-hole,” she says, sobbing. “Megamind, for once you were actually cruel. It scared me.”

“Oh, oh my dear—No, no, my sweet, no! I wasn’t—“ he swallows. “I wasn’t trying to be cruel. I was just frustrated. With myself. With my instincts. I—if I behaved any less I would have made a fool of myself.”

“Well, you already did that by yelling at me, you cabbage.”

“I-I’m sorry.”

“You made me feel like a whore the last kidnapping.”

He remembers that dress she wore. Wine red, rimmed in black. His... comment to it. Megamind bows his head and clenches his whole body. “I am sorry.”

“And you made me worry about you. I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

Confused, he looks up at her. Roxanne then pulls at her arms and lets him go from between them. Gesturing with her wrists, he catches her drift and pulls out his trusted butterfly knife and whips it out, glad to have something to do with a tool he’s familiar with. Nothing else felt familiar; alien and strange.

As the plastic finally rips away, her skin safe from his sharp little friend, she wraps her hands around his neck and yanks him to her again. Eyes wide, he numbly feels her kiss him a few quick, consecutive times before—

She slaps him in the chest.

He’s nearly got a concussion from how bad the whiplash is.

“Is it true?” Roxanne demands. He’s unable to speak. “Is it true? Do you love m—“

“Yes. Yes, I love you. A million times over.”

This little woman shakes her head, eyes glistening with something he can’t begin to understand. He feels like he’s drowning, with a weight tied to his feet to prevent him to swimming to the surface. He can't breath. She then grabs onto his shoulders. Shaking her head again, she says, “Then don’t go to Romania. Don’t leave Metro City. This place is our-your home.”

“Miss Ritchi, I can’t… stay around you anymore,” his voice breaks. “I can’t without—“

Her lips are on his again.

Shocked, but rapidly trying to learn this new skill she’s apparently trying to teach him, he responds as best he can. Periwinkle blue to unpainted pink, their lips press against each other, seining the warmth and the wet of the other’s mouth. He once saw this activity between lovers an unsanitary and strange thing, but now he understands its meaning. His lips are quite sensitive, and this kissing sets his body to flame, scrambling towards something he can’t seem to catch.

When she pulls away, he follows her, not wanting this connection to end. A tiny bead of saliva snaps between them as their lips depart.

“For such a genius, you can be unbelievably dense.” She cups his face. “I love you Megamind."

What.

"God, I love you. And your behavior, this month—I thought you’d finally lost it. Or just got tired of me.”

His first instinct is to respond yes, yes he has lost it, completely and utterly, but—

“You—you what—“

Roxanne shakes her head again, this time smiling so wide that it nearly reaches her ears, all pearly whites on display for him. She lets him go, finally, letting him think straight. Which is bad because his brain runs in about five hundred directions. Blinking rapidly to disperse the tears in her wet lashes, she continues with, “I’m glad you told me this. Because—I was considering on moving as well.”

He jolts in his seat.

“I sometimes get job offers in other places. This time… I had an offer in Liverpool.”

“Leeverpul!? What’s can you find in Leeverpul?”

“I like the British accent. And it’s far, far away from here.”

Hapless, he stares at his knees.

“Hey,” she pulls him out of his stupor. “Look at me. That’s better. Now. That stuff you said about… imprinting on me? Is that true, too?”

“All of it,” he breaths.

Roxanne nods her head and leans back against the leather seats. “Then listen to me. I love you with all of my heart. I have for a long time, Megamind. So it hurt me, so, so much with how much of a dick you were suddenly turning into. You may as well have stabbed me in the heart.” He winces. “And then you just up and vanished. Gone. Everyone is talking about you!”

He can’t believe what she’s saying. It’s nothing like he ever imagined happening in any probable outcome of this. She… actually… returned his feelings? What??? What witchcraft is this!? He really must’ve bumped his head hard!

“I... know. I see the news. I see my lack of an appearance in the public eye has given you less work… Ah, are you sleeping better?”

She looks at him in confusion.

“You were always falling asleep.”

Roxanne lets out a loud sigh. “I know… I know…”

“Why.” It isn’t a question.

“I always thought you were just a bit ol’sweetheart that grew up on the wrong side of the law. I fall in love with you a little harder every time you goof around like that. I hate that you’re always destroying something or trying to start a fight, but it was a little endearing.” She lets out another loud exhale. “And then you started acting like I was shit under your shoe.”

“N—!“

She raises a hand, and he immediately goes silent.

"So I started drinking. Tried to drink the pain away. But that doesn't work," her voice breaks a bit.

He wants to bang his head against the wall.

“And I hate that you dragged me out here,” she motions toward the countryside. “You don’t have to ship yourself off to God knows where, but stopping the kidnapping would be nice. Even if it’s apart of your… culture.”

“Whatever-Whatever you desire," he swears reverently.

“What I desire,” she says, placing a hand on his knee, “is for you to take me home.”

He nods, expecting that answer.

“And I want you to come up with me. We’re gonna have a talk.”

“O-kay...?”

Suddenly she leans over again and presses his lips to his cheek. With his breath hitching, because its still a lovely, foreign feel to him, she adds, “And then I’m going to show you how much I love you, too.”

“W—“

“I know you, Megamind. I can see it in your face. Now. Take us home, sweetheart.” She kisses his lips again.

This time he knows what to do, and copies her actions better than before. It feels like fireworks.

He’s glad he told her.

#megamind #nightcall #megarox

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zephyrfuse · 6 years ago

Text

What Reshi says about ur weapon (requested)

There are some weapons I don’t have enough data on or dont know what to say about it so I leave em blank. Sorry for those who main those weapons and im like uhhh idk man lol

This is 50% opinion, 50% jokes if u take offence ill wedgie u

Splattershot JR Rating: Nostoliga Player: You like the level one baby squid clothing or probably can’t aim well enough for N zap

Custom Splattershot JR Rating: P fun to play tbh Player: You like the cute custom inkpack, and also are probably a p good player despite having terrible aim

Splattershot Rating: Reliable nostalgic shitbag Player: Laggy oneshotters who bullshit through anything

Tentatek Splattershot Rating: I think I like you a little more Player: Not as BS as Splattershot but still p bs

Octoshot Rating: The only valid Splattershot Player: You are an Octo slut more than a tryhard Splattershot player.

Splattershot Pro Rating: I like it tbh Player: you have a little more loyalty to your weapon compared to forge players so i like you

Forge Splattershot Pro Rating: I use you briefly because ur good but not game changing Player: You probably follow the crowd in ranked SZ and use the weapon cause everyone else does decent with it but for some reason your win rate doen’t change much

Splash o matic Rating: Quick inkjets...are nice Player: You really are a rare tryhard who REALLy wants to show off with inkjet

Neo Splash o matic Rating: p fun tbh I like it Player: You can actually aim but stays low and prefer rush for support. You still can be p bs tho

Sploosh o Matic Rating: Lesser Inkbrush Player: You can’t aim but you generally aren’t a bad player. You LOVE just zooming around the map and panic specialing when someone gets close

Neo Sploosh Rating: I honestly dont even know Player: I honestly never see anyone using this weapon

.52 Gal Rating: normie Player: you probs just like Aloha or rlly like RM and CB

.52 Gal Deco Rating: I like this weapon but also the 2ko sucks against it Player: You’re kinda a normie, but also you like sparkles and ur kill rate is decent

.96 Gal Rating: Get ur Armor Player: Idk much about u but the fact you had sprinklers was a pleasant surprise for me

.96 Gal Deco Rating: ??? Player: You didnt want to be a basic bitch like the 52 gal or the Splattershot pro so you live in this limbo willingly

Aerospray MG Rating: Traded u for brush a LOng time ago Player: 95% of the time u guys Suck...

Aerospray RG Rating: Fuck you that u stole the sprinkler from the inkbrush Player: I am trippin balls but you are literally all about them

N Zap Rating: Ur a good armor provider when teaming with friends Player: You are probably a tryhard noob

N Zap 89 Rating: What if it was orange and good at harassing chargers Player: You are almost DEFINITELY a tryhard noob

Jet Squelcher Rating: God you are so valid Player: You probs use it for TC only if anything

Custom Jet Squelcher Rating: Stingray keeps me alive Player: You actually know how to play this game and are a p solid player although not flashy. You are the more mature brother of the Splattershot Pro

L3 Nozzlenose Rating: I respect you Player: You are a rare beauty now a days and i need more of you

H3 Nozzlenose Rating: HOW its SLOW Player: honestly if you used the Cherry competitively in Splat 1 fuck you

Squeezer Rating: Crack a cold one with the boys Player: You’re a valid joke and i love u

Foil Squeezer Rating: Bubbles are nice Player: ??? Your kill rate isn’t THAT bad generally but also move on already

Heavy Splatling Rating: You are reliable and I trust you Player: Was a tf2 fan or a competitive charger fan who ditched the charger for a higher tier weapon

Heavy Splatling Deco Rating: I love you Player: You like bubbles and SZ

Mini Splatling Rating: You are like the lesser used more valid version of the splattershot and I like u Player: You like to go fast

Zinc Mini Splatling Rating: holy shit Player: You like to go fast and realized this kit is bomb af

Hydra Splatling Rating: I love you unless ur my enemy on Shellendorf Player: You stand strong and fast and do not change

Custom Hydra Splatling Rating: Strong...valid Player: You realized inkmines aren’t always shit and thank you so much

Ballpoint Splatling Rating: hell yeah Player: you’re probably a higher level player and finds it fun but still realizes regular splatlings still a little stronger

Nautilus 47 Rating: God this is a nice weapon, its a shame its just a splatling gootuber Player: You are a skilled player but also not too tryhard since you know your weapon isn’t very good. Practicing the stored charge swim strafing is fun.

Slosher Rating: I miss the burst combo Player: You like missiles that much dont u

Slosher Deco Rating: give me my soda slosher back Player: You are solid and good for CB (and probably rlly miss the soda)

Sloshing Machine Rating: Not my type Player: You generally always kill me and u solid

Sloshing Machine Neo Rating: ??? Player: always kills me but with bomb rush

Tri slosher Rating: I can’t use you for shit Player: You had the confidence of the Straight White Man till you got Nerfed

Tri slosher Nouveau Rating: still cant use u for shit Player: you arent as bad as the other counterpart tbh

Explosher Rating: I like u but not that much Player: You loVe the pit its ur best friend

Bloblobbler: Rating: Fun weapon for leaguing as MR. CLEAN Player: you’re MORE invalid than blaster unless ur doing the above

Blaster Rating: id rather die than touch u Player: Fuck you

Custom Blaster Rating: HISSSS Player: has ligma

Range Blaster Rating: BS plus slow = Extra BS Player: honestly I cant even begin to understand what kind of person you are

Custom Range Blaster Rating: ew Player: Fuck you if you cannot aim, and ESPECIALLY fuck you if you CAN cause you OKO me all the time

Luna Blaster Rating: Not bad but I’m too salty to use it Player: You LOVE TC and probably know you are a bunch of bull

Luna Blaster Neo Rating: Not as bad as regular blasters but still Player: ???

Rapid Blaster Rating: I love u, ink mines ARENT shit Player: You are using one of the most valid blasters be proud

Rapid Blaster Deco Rating: Bombrush is useful sometimes Player: You are also p damn valid

Rapid Pro Rating: hard for me to use most of the time Player: You are a respectable player who is generally good and not that flashy.

Rapid Pro Deco Rating: Doesn’t get armor fast enough Player: ????

Clash Blaster Rating: Haha its crayons... Player: As much as the clash is bs, you still are p valid and can use stingray

Clash Blaster Neo Rating: Its crayons but bs Player: you hate aiming so much that you got away from the stingray

Splat Roller Rating: You’re p fun but not as much as the others Player: You really want a buff to this weapon dont u

Krak-on Roller Rating: My hero in RM for most of my career (till i started using inkbrush again) Player: You miss kraken it doesnt even make any sense doesn’t it

Carbon Roller Rating: Fast... Player: why you haven’t traded your soul for the deco is beyond me, but at least you still have yours and i respect you

Carbon Roller Deco Rating: holy shit Player: you traded ur soul to satan for the most bullshit chaos of weapons I fear you as an inkbrush main

Dynamo Roller Rating: God ever since they made you almost unusable you became so valid Player: You probs use both rollers but this time Sting ray seemed nice

Gold Dynamo Roller Rating: my wonderful new nerfed son... Player: You cry cause u want to cosplay Rider but rlly suck at this weapon OR you are actually good at this weapon and are fine that you can’t dominate the ring anymore like how it used to

INKBRUSH Rating: 420/10 I SMORCh, weapon of the GODS Player: You are SO valid, and if you use this outside of CB then you are a god and I will scream im ur biggest fan

Inkbrush Nouveau Rating: You’re a bunch of valid shit but only most of the time Player: You either use this ONLY for CB or want to actually die irl

Octobrush Rating: Reliable ranked weapon for easier going days Player: You like easier kills and harassing with autobombs and generally get a decent splat count

Octobrush Nouveau Rating: This kit is a downgrade Player: Probably a noob who can’t aim with inkjet

Flingza Roller Rating: It has a cool design and is the smarter of the two Player: knows to throw a wall before safely vertical flicking.

Foil Flingza Roller Rating: Dont use the vertical flick Player: Uses the vertical flick and dies

Splat Charger Rating: Oh how I still love you even though bomb rush was nice Player: You probably moved on to Heavy Splatling but if not, you still are scary as fuck but suffer from lower splat rates.

Firefin Splat Charger Rating: Bombrush is good choice sometimes Player: You probably main both chargers but just like standing back and then rushing when you get your special

Every Splatterscope Rating: ew claustrophobic Player: you a tryhard probably and isn’t as valid as normal chargers

Classic Squiffer Rating: god id give my blood to help you u poor cleaning tool Player: You probably main another charger but your heart is still here and i love you

New Squiffer Rating: I would be running out of blood but i still would give it Player: You spam autobombs to make up for your weapons shit abilities

Bamboozler Rating: Pew pew pew pew ( i love this weapon but slightly salty ur range is higher than the squiff) Player: pew pew pew pew pew pew

Bamboozler mk 14 Rating: pew pew pew pew pew pew pew Player: pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew

E liter (no scopes) Rating: Dam what happened to u son...i mean I mained u in 1 but i dont miss u that much, sorry Player: you just like the extra range but you often don’t do that good anymore

E liter (with Scopes) Rating: AHAHAHAH look what happened to u bitch Player: You deserved the nerf how does it FEEL huH

Goo Tuber Rating: I have high respect for this weapon and I WISH i was good at it Player: you’re most likely a tryhard JP player but JP doesn’t read this post so...you’re a tryhard charger user but knows your weapon isn’t at all that good

Custom Goo Tuber Rating: Ditto above Player: You just like the inkjet and extra mobility but also ditto above

Splat Dualies Rating: Nice, i cant aim burst bombs for shit Player: You can’t aim with inkjet or prefer the one two punch with the bursts

Emperry Splat Dualies Rating: I can’t aim with inkjet but one day.... Player: You probs are a tryhard ranked player and you are either good or bad

Dualie Squelchers Rating: Oh how I flipped out when I saw ur trendy upgrade...my dual squelcher baby all grown up...sniff Player: You just stuck with the originals and LOVE your missiles despite them being low tier specials for the longest time

Custom Dualie Squelchers Rating: You so smooth man...high tier but still valid Player: You probably use them because of they're high tier and reliable but you did make a good choice

Dapple Dualies Rating: I use you sometimes when I want your dps to do the work for me and want a bombrush Player: You are probably 25% BS but suffer when people do not use ur beacons. You probs find some bs way to get beacons in the enemy spawn and constantly harass us from behind if ur actually good at it

Dapple Dualies Nouveau Rating: I use you to do the dps work for me and also harass people with toxic mist Player: no one used ur beacons

Glooga Dualies Rating: its cute but God its...so slow Player: You never do too well and I respect you. Probably uses it for CB or RM and doesnt mind the ink mines

Glooga Dualies Deco Rating: The tryhard cousin of the Glooga Dualies Player: You blamed the mines but then realize the whole weapon isn’t that good in general

Dark Tetra Dualies Rating: Weapon cooldown after roll is invalid Player: you just want to win but you generally aren’t as good as you like at it

Light Tetra Dualies Rating: Autobomb launcher surprised me Player: You are probably just trying it out for now but still ??? about it and is just having fun for now

Splat Brella Rating: 10/10 still salty u stole my dream inkbrush kit Player: You don’t care much about kills and u p chill. You hate blasters tho

Sorella Brella Rating: My right hand man for ranked Player: You got tired of shit and decided to bring the thunder

Tenta brella Rating: so slow...but god ily Player: You are defense and support and probably love CB and ur teamies

Sorella Tenta Brella Rating: weird kit but valid Player: ???

Undercover Brella Rating: why are you so bad Player: you tried it and realized it sucks. You are salty of the low duration and slow kill rate

Sorella Undercover Brella Rating: thats a little better Player: you like CB probably and liked the original idea of the undercover and knew it sucked, but you are loyal

Any hero weapon Rating: I have one(1) Player: you have no life and likes to look cool

#reshir rambles #splatoon #splatoon 2

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