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aubreyprc · 3 years ago

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favourite crime

part six of my sour series

for @florenceremingtonthethird who asked for hotchniss + favourite crime, hope you like it bestie💘💕💓💞 (also big shout out to @ssa-m-187 for editing this lol love u my bestie bff)

-hotchniss affair, which is something me and lili (@eprcntiss ) spoke about for .. two months at 4am because we have mental problems, (love u king) but yes. this does have cheating in it so .. this is ur warning don't come for me i bite :)

ao3

It's bittersweet to think about the damage that we'd do

'Cause I was goin' down, but I was doin' it with you

Yeah, everything we broke and all the trouble that we made

But I say that I hate you with a smile on my face

Oh, look what we became

The first time it happens, she’s been on the team barely two months. A bad case in Missouri that lands the team in a tough spot with no good outcome, the loss of three young girls inevitable and it leaves them all drained, hurt, and in need of something that doesn’t leave them drenched in their guilt, in their failure.

They end up in the hotel bar, of course. Everywhere else feeling too far out, no one having the energy or the desire to travel somewhere that would take them further away from their beds for the night. The horrifically pitched screams of the mothers who had lost their children ringing in their ears, a sound that not even the soft but overly loud music playing in the surprisingly busy bar could drown out.

Reid leaves first, followed by Morgan, a soft hand on the younger man’s back as the two leave the bar; the genius taking the unfortunate deaths of the victims harder than the rest of them, him being the one to be in the room when the shots had gone off. Him, and Emily. Emily, who was staring at the drink in front of her, tracing her fingers around the rim of the glass as her mind replays the moment the bullets went off over and over again. Emily, who was unable to even look up to say goodnight to Reid and Morgan, not even realising they had left the table until Hotch gently nudges his knee into hers, sitting across from her and sending her a soft but, layered-with-questions smile, a little tilt of his head as she lifts her lips into a sad smile when she looks up for a moment before dropping her eyes back to her glass. Emily, not even hearing JJ announce she was calling it a night, a soft hand on the brunette's shoulder causing her to jump before turning, a quiet goodnight leaving her mouth as she smiles sadly and avoids eye contact, fearing the barrage of questions behind one look.

Rossi looks at Emily, then at Hotch, whose eyes haven’t left her since they sat down over an hour ago, and decides to make his leave as well, knowing full well that if anyone was going to get Emily to talk, it would be him. Although, looking at her, he can’t help but wonder if she even would talk, knowing first hand the damage that watching three young girls get shot can have on a person, especially a person like Emily. A person who holds so much in, but feels so intensely it could easily become her downfall. He taps Hotch on the shoulder, a whisper of talk to her leaving his lips, and closing the tab on his way to his room; he walks out, looking back one last time to find Emily looking at Hotch, watching as his lips move and Emily responding with a small smile.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks softly once Rossi is out of ear shot. Her eyes slowly lift to meet his, the pain behind them almost knocking the air out of his lungs.

“No,” she says in a voice he barely even recognises. “You really don’t want to hear it,” she tells him, shaking her head.

“I’ll have to read the report anyway…” he offers, tilting his head as she looks down again, before gently reaching out and grabbing her hand that rests on the table, stopping the nervous tap of her fingers. As their skin touches, her eyes snap up to his, a look in them he doesn’t think he’s seen before; but the burning in his hand as it rests in hers, and the way the feel of her hand in his has his breath catching in his throat, he assumes he’s probably looking at her the same way.

“Talk to me.” he says to her gently, trying to conceal the way these feelings are making it harder for him to catch his breath properly by speaking in an almost-whisper.

She stares at him for a long moment before she sighs, slowly pulling her hand out from his, but missing the way it felt rested on hers the moment it leaves his grasp. She clears her throat, leaning back into the chair as she tucks her hair behind her ear, looking down at her lap.

“I don’t have anything to say," she says quietly. “You know what happened.”

“I wasn’t in the room.” He tells her, watching as she tenses, starting to pick at her fingers while her hands rest together on her knee.

“No,” she tells him in a small yet stern voice, taking a deep breath before looking at him. "You don’t want to know, Hotch.” When they make eye contact, her eyes bore into his as though she could change his mind with just her gaze.

“I have to know," he says, pausing briefly. “It’s my job to know, Emily. We can talk about it now or, I can read it in the report later in the week. But either way… I’ll know. And I’d rather hear it directly from you.”

Emily looks at him, before sighing, grabbing the drink she hadn’t touched in over an hour and finishing it in one go.

“We’re going to need some more...” she starts, voice trailing off as she watches him grab the bottle of whiskey Rossi had bought for the team before they’d all taken off, and pours them both another drink. She takes it with shaky hands, downing the whole glass before even starting to speak. She then shares everything with him. She tells him how the young girls died, how they were so close to saving them before something even she can’t figure out went wrong, how shots rang out and all she could hear were the cries of the now-dead girls, and how those cries are a sound she'll likely never forget. She tells him how the sight of those three now-dead girls were the only things she could see, how the unsubs almost shot both her and Reid before they were shot by Morgan, how he then pulled them out of the room after saving their lives. She tells him how the rest is a blur, and how the last thing she remembers after leaving was him, standing in front of her asking if she was okay.

“You did everything you could.” He tells her, a unexpected pain blooming in his chest as he watches her wipe her tears with the sleeve of her shirt, unable to move past how small she looked sat there, working through her most recent trauma brought on by the job. He pours her another drink, pushing the glass towards her as she laughs sadly, grabbing the glass and looking at him. He takes her hand again, his eyes on hers and smiles.

“You did everything you could.” He tells her again, and after a few moments, she nods.

Even as they spend another hour draining what's left of the bottle, sharing laughs and sharing stories, the harrowing sound of the girls screams and the sound of the heavy silence that followed, coupled with the sound of mothers' anguish learning of their daughters' deaths is something that remains a constant, similar to a ringing in the ear that lingers even after the event. Sounds they both needed to replace.

It’s the need for the replacement sound that leads them into spending the night together (at least, that’s what they tell themselves the next day). Neither have an explanation of how exactly they ended up in his hotel room, his hands in her hair as she clawed at the buttons of his shirt, his lips on her jaw as he has her pinned on the door, teeth scraping her neck as she tilted her head. No idea how she ended up with her back meshed against the mattress as he pressed above her, entwining their hands at the side of her head as he kissed her, the sound of the cries and the silence and the screams of the mothers effectively drowned out by their soft whispers and sighs, the two hidden in the dark, not thinking of the consequences, the outcome, thinking of nothing but themselves.

It’s after, as the moonlight that pokes through the window catches his wedding ring, the silver band glistening in the room as his arm rests over her, and it grabs both their attention, the room all of a sudden engulfed in a different sort of silence. A silence that only lingers in the presence of two people who stumble over a line that can not be uncrossed, hanging them in the middle of something that feels almost like a crime.

She leaves a few hours later, dressing in the dark while she feels his eyes glancing over her.

“I’ll… see you tomorrow.” She says almost awkwardly. As she grabs her jacket from the middle of the floor, she hears him sit up and the sound causes her to tense.

“Emily—”He starts but she knows what he’s going to say and she doesn’t need to hear it.

“This was a mistake. It was a tough case, we— we had too much to drink and—”

“Em—”

“You’re married, Hotch.” She says, cutting him off, turning to face him. Even in the dark of the room she can see his face pale at the mention of it.

“I know.”

“Let’s just forget about it, okay? Pretend it never happened.”

“Okay," he affirms, and she nods before dipping out of the room, tiptoeing towards her own; and as soon as she’s behind close doors she closes her eyes, leans her head the wall, and curses herself for ending up in a position like this again.

He showers, trying to rub the evidence of her from his body, the hot water burning his skin. As he lays in bed that night his mind runs wild, thoughts of Emily racing through his mind before he’s reminded of his wife, his child, who are at home waiting for him. It's then that the guilt sets like a stone in his stomach, unable to truly understand just what it was about Emily that caused him to break the vows he said to Haley surrounded by their family and friends all those years ago.

Both Emily and Aaron try to move on from it, but something lingers between them.

She remembers the way his lips felt on her body, the way his hands spanned her entire abdomen when flattened against her, the way his fingers laced so gently into hers, the way his teeth left marks on her neck. She remembers how she had briefly registered that his hands might leave bruises but thinking nothing of it at the time, but now she's sat regretting that whisper of a thought because those bruises he left meant he was on her constantly, a stark reminder of what had gone down, branded on her pale skin for days afterwards. The fact that he’s her boss, her married boss no less, has her walking on pins, automatically tensing when he’s around her and actively avoiding being alone with him, overcome with the fear that what they did was unable to remain a one time thing.

He remembers how she sounds whispering (sighing, he tells himself sometimes, before shaking the mere memory of it from the forefront of his thoughts) his name. The way his given name slipped easily from her mouth, the way her body felt under his, the way her lips fit so perfectly against his he's now left with the fear that they might be part of the same puzzle. But more than anything, he remembers the way she looks when she’s at peace, when she’s staring at nothing and thinking about nothing, an easy smile splitting her face when he traced patterns across her arms and asked her pointless questions in the dark and he knows it's a sight he wants to see again. More than the wanting it itself, it's the knowing he shouldn’t want it that leads himself craving it. He wants to feel her lips on his, to feel her hands entwined in his own, to hear her say his first name in a way he doesn’t think anyone has ever said it before, so full of husk yet so soft and delicate, it’s a craving, it’s a crime and it’s one he wants (needs) to commit again, but it’s the knowing he shouldn’t want it that makes it all the more dangerous, and ultimately all the more appealing.

The two spend far too much time catching the other in a deep stare for either one of them to be able to act as though there isn’t a want, a need for a repeat, (for several, repeats) all while knowing the damage they’d do, how much betrayal would follow them around, knowing what they would destroy for just a few moments of whatever it was that they had created in that one hotel room that one time. So when he shows up at her door nine days later, the look in his eyes one she remembers all too well, she isn’t the least bit surprised, and she isn’t even hesitant as she lets him in, closing the door behind her with a bite to her bottom lip.

It’s three weeks later when their fun slowly turns into something neither expected, and it's then that the surprise shows up. It's then that he finds himself wanting to stay the night, to wrap her in his arms and feel the rise and fall of her chest slow as she falls into her slumber, to kiss her softly in the mornings when she’s groggy and content.

Then it's four weeks. When their secret nights in hotel rooms are no longer just sex but comfort, when it's resting in each others arms discussing cases, when it's acting as an emotional beacon for each other, gentle whispering and soft hands running through hair, delicate wipes of tears and tender kisses shared... it’s four weeks in when they finally realise that whatever this started as, it isn’t that anymore. It's four weeks in when they realise this goes far deeper than whatever they had originally been telling themselves it was.

Their affair truly begins four weeks and two days after that first night in Missouri, a betrayal of his vows to the woman who is raising their son alone as he travels for work and chooses to share a bed with another woman, another woman he now has feelings for. Any chance for good this "other woman" may have had, ruined; by choosing trouble, by choosing to catch feelings for her married boss, by choosing to let herself fall so far into something she knows she can never have. Again.

The two fall even deeper into their mess when the feelings expand into love; eight letters, three words neither would ever mutter aloud, keeping the confession unspoken, even if they were both painfully aware of it.

He’s a married man, he shouldn’t be involved with— he shouldn’t be falling for —another woman, let alone his subordinate. She, she’d told herself that when she got out of Interpol, out of the CIA, and into a normal life, that she would avoid trouble, avoid anything even under the umbrella of it, yet three months into being in the BAU, is sleeping and falling for her married boss. They share a bed almost every night in different hotel rooms across the country, and when they're not across the country he’s in her bed, he’s walking around her apartment; it almost looks domestic, almost normal, as long as they both ignore the shiny metal band sitting on his left hand, one that reminds them he isn’t hers, couldn’t be hers and they're brought right back into reality. They are having an affair, and even if they continue to tell themselves it won’t fall apart, that they’ll figure something out, their joint happiness is always shot down by his need to leave, to go home to his wife and pretend as though his heart isn't lingering in her hallway, pretend that he doesn’t crave to be in her bed, wrapped up with her in his arms as they whisper words of no importance. She watches him go and acts like he doesn’t take half of her heart with him, acts as though the thought of him and his wife together doesn’t make her feel slightly nauseous, as though how much she misses him has her wanting to smash every glass in her apartment, as though she isn't overwhelmed with just how deep he rested in her, and how quickly whatever this is had escalated from something that really, should never have happened to begin with.

She's standing in the middle of his hotel room, flattening her shirt and pants as she listens to him speak to JJ on the phone, humming in agreement with whatever the other agent was saying; Throwing her hair over her shoulder she catches him heading towards her, feeling his eyes rake down her exposed neck and cleavage, her stomach fluttering when she catches him smirking at her eyebrow raised in question, continuing on his venture towards her; as soon as he says goodbye to JJ and throws his phone onto the bed, he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her into his chest, catching her lips with his own as she places her hands on him softly. Smiling as he slowly pulls away, she starts running her hands up his chest to hook her arms around the back of his neck, clasping her hands together as they rest there, gently scratching at his hair as he wraps his other arm around her waist, pulling her closer, as if he could join them as one.

"We have to be at the station in ten," he whispers, looking down at her. "Will I see you tonight?"

"Hm," she teases, shrugging her shoulders as she holds back a smirk. "I suppose so."

Aaron laughs, kissing the smile on her face as she chuckles happily.

"Go," he says softly, reluctantly letting go of her. "I'll meet you guys down there."

She nods, grabbing her jacket from the chair; she's turning go to when he gently grabs her wrist, turning her around and kissing her quickly, before she chases his lips, connecting them yet again.

"I'll see you later," she says quietly, smiling as she turns, ducking out of his room and into hers across the hall, leaving a cleaning tip and ruffling the sheets before grabbing her go bag and walking out, bumping into Morgan on her way out the door. The two of them walking towards the elevator when her eyes catch Aaron's as he leaves his room as they pass his door, a small bite to her lip before she looks away.

It's a look that follows him all day, one that means he has to grab her half way through the day, hiding them in a file room while he kisses her like his life depends on it. He thinks, maybe it does.

The case finishes quicker than they expect and they're on the way home that night. He walks up behind her in the back of the jet, touching her elbow to turn her towards him while everyone is preoccupied.

"About tonight..." he starts regretfully, and even though her heart falls out of her chest, she paints on an understanding smile, she has to. He's not even hers.

"It's okay." she says through a sad smile, trying to keep her voice neutral, forcing it not to give away that it hurts, that she'll never come first for him. He looks at her with a sadness she isn't sure she's seen before and it makes her tilt her head slightly, and gently grab his hand as it falls from her elbow.

"Is everything okay?" she asks gently, lacing a few of her fingers through his, their eyes flashing towards the team for a split second before he entwines their hands together; sighing before he looks at her, he just nods softly.

"Everything's fine," he tells her, "I'll try and see you tomorrow?"

"Aaron," she says, forcing him to look at her, "Spend the weekend with your son, it's okay." She smiles at him softly, actively avoiding the word wife or the name Haley. Avoiding his left hand, the cold, harsh metal feeling like a flame on her skin, a reminder of what they are doing, what they were destroying. And even with that knowledge at the forefront of their minds, even though they know this can't end well, that they're hurting people, that if (when) it got out they would lose everything...he would lose his wife and son, his job, his friends... she, her new family, one she'd searched years for and finally found, knowing if (when) they found out about her and Aaron they'd never be able to forgive her for destroying said family, then she'd have no choice but to go back to the life she wanted out of, back into the grasps of undercover operations and fake friends... even understanding all of this is not enough for them to stop, too caught up in each other, too tangled in a web of feelings that border on love and obsession, too fond of nights spent wrapped in each others arms, basking in the afterglow in hotel rooms across the city, across the country, as they laugh and share jokes and stories no one else has heard.

He listens to her, and then spends the weekend with his family and hates that as he watches Haley smile with their son, he's wondering what Emily is doing, the other woman a constant thought, the craving to be around her a pull just a little too strong, and he's at her door Sunday night, a smile on his face as she opens the door, stepping aside to let him through and for twelve hours it's just them. Behind her closed door they can pretend that this is normal, that they are fine. They can pretend that what they have is real.

(She notices the lack of a wedding ring somewhere between late Sunday night and early Monday morning, when he cups her cheek gently with his left hand and her body doesn't tense under the feeling of a cold ring on her skin. She doesn't comment on it.)

Haley wound up joining him and the team at the bar, his invitation more of a formality at that point, a small, we’re just going for a few, something to take our minds off work for a few while, leading to him mentioning that she should come, thinking she’d never accept because she almost never has but then she does. She accepts gladly, a small smile on her face as she mentions something about how she should get to know his friends better, and kisses him quickly before leaving the room, leaving him standing there, his mind running in circles about how the hell he’s going to cope with Haley and Emily in the same room, the same table.

He gives Emily the heads up, tells her the day before that Haley will be joining them, and she just nods, her body a string of tension even as she smiles, a small okay leaving her lips.

Now here he stands, watching as Emily stands at the bar with Morgan, a loose smile on her lips as he talks to her, handing her a drink with a wink and a smirk, and it causes him to clench his fists and look away, back at his wife as she speaks to Garcia, but he has no idea what about as his attention was completely stolen by Emily once again when she and Morgan laugh, a laugh he has only ever heard when it’s just the two of them, a laugh he wishes he could bottle up and keep for himself. He hates the jealousy that flares up in his chest as he reminds himself that he’s sat with his wife, he isn’t supposed to be jealous, he has no right to be jealous. Because, after all, Emily is a free woman to do as she pleases, their ‘relationship’ merely a string of stolen moments, secrets and lies, and he knows she deserves better and that he should let her go. She'll find someone who can— who will love her openly and freely, who will be able to show her off to their friends and kiss her in the streets and take her on dates and share ideas about the future, a future he’s well aware does not and cannot exist for them. But he can’t do that, he can't let her go, because as much as he’s fought his feelings and as much as he bites his tongue and ignores the flutter in his heart when she smiles at him, he loves her. He loves her selfishly and so completely that he won’t let her go, he can’t.

“Aaron?” Haley questions, her tone obvious that it’s not the first time she’s tried to grab his attention. He’s pulled from his thoughts, turning to face her with a small smile. “What are you staring at?” she asks with a laugh, turning to follow his gaze, frowning when it lands on Emily.

“Nothing,” he retorts, bringing the bottle of beer back to his lips; she turns to him with a confused frown.

“Emily and Morgan?” she asks sharply. “Why are you staring at Emily and Morgan?”

He’s silent, racking his brain for any excuse as her eyes stare daggers into his.

“There’s a fraternisation rule, no two members of the same team are allowed to…” he starts, the last words dying on his tongue, “Just making sure they’re behaving,” he says with a slight smile, a hint of a joke in his tone and even as she smiles, nodding her head at his explanation, he knows she doesn’t believe him, knows she’s been questioning his schedule more these last few weeks, wondering about his phone calls and just where he disappears to after them.

“Emily and Morgan?” Penelope laughs, “Please. Emily wouldn’t touch Morgan if he was the last guy on earth, trust me. They’re just friends.”

“Good.” he says, clenching his jaw as he takes one last look at them, his eyes lingering on Emily for a moment too long, he realises, when Haley turns to look at her as well.

Haley brings it up later that night, after Jessica leaves, after she’s checked on Jack.

“Emily seems nice,” she says casually, walking into the bathroom. “Are the two of you friends?”

“Sort of,” he replies, heart hammering in his chest.

“Sort of?” she questions, leaning on the door frame.

“Yeah,” he pauses, looking at her, “She’s a member of my team, we spend time together as a team…”

“But you get along? You like her?”

“I suppose,” he lies, as images of her underneath him, on top of him, lay next to him, smiling, laughing, winking, kissing him, all flash through his mind. Like doesn't begin to cover it, he thinks to himself.

“You seemed very interested in her tonight.”

“What?” He looks up just to see Haley shaking her head, dropping the subject.

“Nothing,” She says, “Never mind. It was nice getting to know them all tonight… It’s a shame I never got the chance to speak to her.” She continues as she walks into the bathroom.

“Yeah…” he says, running a hand over his face, trying to figure out whether the tightness in his gut is because she almost found out about him and Emily, or if it’s because she didn’t.

The sound of the gunshot coming from inside the building causes him, JJ and Reid to freeze, and the silence that rings in his ear piece, has his stomach rolling, his heart beating rapidly against his ribs and terror coursing through his veins. The minute of silence feels like hours, and he’s almost running into the building himself when a gasp of breath echoes through their ear piece, followed by Morgan’s gasping of we're okay, and the terror that had threatened to overtake him turns to relief, turning around to compose himself, the realisation that he could have just lost her making him feel sick.

He turns just as he hears people leaving the building, the two unsubs being taken out by officers, Morgan and Emily following closely behind, her holding her head as she laughs at Morgan and he smiles back at her. He knows he should wait, that he shouldn't have this need to run to her, to make sure she is okay, but before he can even think about it, he's rushing towards her.

"What happened?" he asks as he forces himself not to reach for her as she meets his eyes.

"This idiot thought he could shoot his way out, ended up shooting me right in the middle of my vest." Morgan sighs, rubbing the centre of his chest as he mumbles.

"You should get checked out by the medic," Hotch tells him and he grumbles, sending a nod to the two of them before wondering towards the medics.

"Are you okay?" he asks her once they're out of ear shot.

"Yeah," she says, rolling her eyes at his eyebrow raise. "Honestly, I'm fine."

He grabs her chin gently, forcing her to look at him as he examines the cut on her head, her eyes widening as he cups her face.

"What are you doing?" she whispers frantically, her eyes moving quickly towards the rest of the team who, thankfully, were completely preoccupied, He drops his hands instantly at her question.

"You might need some stitches." he tells her, looking at the cut on her head and she rolls her eyes once again.

"I'll be fine." she replies, but his eyes drop down to hers, a plea in them. "Well, fine." She smiles, laughing when he smirks at her and they walk to the medics, her eyes on the floor as she bites her lip and he gently runs his fingers across hers before heading towards Reid and JJ.

(He goes to her hotel room that night, helps her put cream on the stitches as she leans against the sink, a smile on her lips as he mutters to her about being more careful, before kissing her forehead and walking out of the bathroom. The normalcy of it causing her heart to flutter in her chest.)

He can't help but stare at her, when the team end up at Dave's for dinner one Friday night, and so when she dips away into the bathroom while everyone is distracted, he waits a few moments, drinking the last of his wine before he follows suite, looking behind him to find everyone enthralled in their own conversations before turning to head up the stairs.

Just as he reaches the bathroom door, it opens. She smirks at him as he stands there, before laughing when he grabs her hips and walks them backwards into the bathroom, silencing her laugh with a kiss as he closes the door with his foot, her smile breaking their kiss as she wraps her arms around his waist.

"Hi," she says softly with a smile, one he can't help but kiss again as his own grows on his face.

"Hi. You look beautiful," he whispers against her lips, smiling again as a blush form on her cheeks as she looks down, biting her lip before lifting her head to look at him.

"You don't look too bad yourself." She jokes, laughing once again as he backs her into the sink.

He kisses her, pulls her in by her hips and she goes effortlessly, fitting against him perfectly, slotting together like it was something they were always meant to do.

"Lets go out for dinner," he says as he pulls away. She stares at him, shock written all over her face.

"We— we can't... what if someone—" He stops her with a quick peck.

"Let's. Go out. For dinner." He says again with a smile, and it's one she can't help but reciprocate.

"Okay. Okay," She agrees, smiling as he laces one of his hands through hers. "Where?"

"That's a surprise." he teases quietly before kissing her jaw, then her neck, before she cups his face and pulls it gently to hers.

"We are not having sex in Dave's bathroom." she tells him with a slight laugh, running her thumb across his cheek gently as he pouts.

"Why not?" he smirks, leaning over to catch her lips in his once again, before placing a few more scattered across her jaw and neck.

"Because..." she begins, pushing him backwards playfully before grabbing his face with both hands. "Everyone is downstairs... They'll notice we're both gone soon."

"Fine." He pouts, pressing another kiss to her lips before stepping back from her; a strand of hair falls over her cheek and he reaches out, tucking it behind her ear before holding his hand there, but as he does, he notices her tense under his touch and pull away slightly.

"Are you okay?" he asks her. She just nods.

"I'm fine. I should head back down."

"Emily," He says quickly, grabbing her wrist to stop her from leaving, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She says with a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes, and he follows her gaze as it quickly flits down, and then he realises.

His ring.

"Hey—" He says gently, but she just shakes her head.

"Its okay. I'll see you down stairs."

"Emily—" He repeats, but she's gone as soon as the door opens, and he can't help but curse at himself.

(The feel of his ring cold against her skin lingers all night, a harsh reminder that he isn't hers and it has the texture of his ring feeling like a weight, a burn that sticks to her cheek even hours later.)

He grabs her just before she leaves, the two of them the only ones stood in Dave's front lawn.

"Hey," He says to her and she turns to face him.

"Hey." She smiles, but it isn't her smile. "I was just leaving..."

"Emily." He says and she stops and finally looks at him.

"What?" She sighs, "I'm tired, Aaron. I'm going home."

"I'm sorry." He tells her and she laughs, shaking her head.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for." She tells him, "Everything is fine."

"Em—" He starts again but she grabs his hand, his right hand, he notes.

"We're fine." She smiles, "I just—"

"I know." He whispers.

"I'll see you on Monday." She tells him and he nods.

"I'll call you," he promises as she starts to walk off, before getting into the car. He watches it drive off before he turns around, choosing to ignore Dave's eyes on him in the doorway.

He takes her for dinner a week later, a feeling of complete normalcy falling over them as they sit at the table. It gives them a hint into what could be, had things been different. It takes them both by surprise how easy their conversation flows, how easy it was to forget just how complicated things truly were and for just one night they were able to pretend that it was just him and her and nothing else mattered. Emily is laughing at something he says while he laces their hands together on the table because he can. She smirks at him, lifting her glass to her lips.

They're both so caught up in each other that neither noticed Penelope entering the restaurant with a date of her own, didn't see the smile on her face drop the moment she spotted the two of them and didn't feel her sense of right and wrong shift completely as she watched her married boss and newfound close friend laugh together on the other side of the restaurant, with their hands clasped together and a look love in their eyes.

Neither Emily or Aaron see her as they leave the restaurant hand in hand, don't spot her as they share a kiss as they walk down the street, right past the table she was sat at and they don't feel her heart shatter, the two people she had come to understand as good, pure, innocent, in something that to her feels like a crime. Unable to understand how Hotch, the man she trusted with her life could be doing this while his wife stays at home and raises his son, she can't fathom how Emily, a woman who embodied good and protection, could be dating a man she knows is married, a man she knows has a son.

Emily and Aaron don't notice her.

Things would have been very, very different if they did.

It all falls apart one week later.

It's starts with an outburst of Penelope in the briefing room on a Monday morning.

"What did you get up to this weekend, princess?" Morgan asks Emily with a smirk, "It seems you still have that glow." He winks, which earn him a playful eye roll and a smile in return.

"Nothing." She smirks, "Why, are you jealous?" She teases.

"Is there something to be jealous of?" He jokes back, raising an eyebrow at her as they take their seats.

"No." She shrugs with a smile, watching as he squints at her.

"So you didn't do anything this weekend?" Garcia asks, and the room goes silent as Emily looks at her with confusion.

"I'm sorry?" She laughs, "I...?" She trails off, but her confusion has her stunned for words.

"Over the weekend? You had no plans? Didn't go anywhere?"

"What are you getting at?" Emily questions, as the normally overly sweet, nice, go-lucky tech analyst she's come to see as a friend interrogates her.

"Well, you're always asking other people what they do over the weekend yet whenever anybody asks you you seem to avoid the question... Is there a reason for that?"

"Pen?" Morgan mumbles to his best friend, raising an eyebrow, looking at her with the same confusion everyone else is.

"Does no one else find it strange that we seem to never get any information on what she does over the weekends... It's like she's sleeping with a— "

"Garcia." Hotch scolds as he stares at her intensely and the blonde woman goes silent.

"Of course you defend her." She mumbles under her breath just loud enough for him to catch and he stands.

"My office." He tells her, already walking out and Penelope freezes, regretting her outburst the minute she finds all eyes on her, and she walks out of the room.

"What the hell was that?" Morgan asks the rest of the team, who shake their heads with shock. Apart from Emily, of course, who feels a stone set in her gut as she watches her leave.

"Do you care to explain what that was about?" Hotch asks the moment they are sat down.

"How could you?" Penelope asks him sadly, looking at him.

"I'm sorry?" He asks her, a frown on his face.

"You... You have a wife at home, and a— a child. A family." She says, shaking her head.

"Garcia? What are you—"

"I saw you." She tells him, finally meeting his eyes and his heart drops to his stomach, "You and Emily, at the restaurant."

He remains silent, processing her words.

"I always saw you as... as good. You were a leader and you had the respect of everyone in the room and you always did the right thing and now? Now I don't know what you are." She pauses, shaking her head and looking down. "No— I— You're a man who cheats on his wife."

"Penelope—"

"I don't want to hear this. I'm not the one you owe an explanation to." She looks at him, "Either you tell Haley or I will. I refuse to be a part of this, to let you do this."

"There's more to it—"

"No," she sighs, "There isn't." She stands, "If that's all, sir."

"Garcia." Hotch says and the woman turns to face him, but no other words form.

"I'll give you a week to tell Haley." She says, and then she's out of his office, her ultimatum hanging in the air behind her.

He takes a breath, trying to calm down as his heart threatens to beat out of his chest and he stands, making his way back into the briefing room, avoiding eye contact with Garcia as she apologizes to everyone.

"Prentiss," he calls at the door, "A word, please." He says, already walking out of the room.

Emily stands, looking at Penelope as the woman refuses to look at her and she knows what's about to happen before she even leaves the room.

As she walks into his office, she finds him closing the blinds.

"She knows, right?" she asks and the defeated look on his face tells her before he does.

"Yes," he says, "She saw us at the restaurant."

Emily nods, taking a seat on his couch as a sick feeling washes over her.

"She said either I tell Haley or...or she will."

Emily remains silent, just nodding her head, taking everything in as best she can; Aaron takes a seat next to her, sighing as he sits down.

"You should tell her," Emily whispers, "It's better coming from you than from Penelope."

"I know," he whispers back, "I just—"

"I know," she says quietly, accepting his hand when he laces his fingers through hers.

"We'll talk about this tonight," he tells her, and Emily just smiles sadly before she stands, slowly pulling her hand from his.

She's stood in the middle of his office, neither sure what the next move is, neither sure what the next move should be.

"We should..."

"Is she going to tell the team?" Emily interrupts, the realisation that their...whatever this is...going public means people actually knowing about it hitting her a second time around.

"I don't know," He admits.

"Okay," she whispers, clearing her throat as she turns to leave. He grabs her hand, forcing her back to him before he kisses her, wrapping his hands in her hair as he kisses her like it will be the last chance he gets. (He realises it might be). She kisses back just as intensely, the potential finality of it overwhelming her as they pull away, his forehead resting on hers.

"We will talk. Tonight," He whispers into her mouth.

"Okay," she replies, before slowly backing away, before she turns and is out of the door.

The smell of her perfume lingers in his office, and he stands surrounded by it for a few more moments before there's a knock at his office door.

"No case," JJ tells him as she opens the door, "I'll let everyone know about last week's reports that need finishing."

He can only nod, shock still having him at a loss for words, and without any indication of there being something wrong, she smiles before leaving his office.

Hotch walks out an hour later, catching Emily's eyes as he heads for the elevator, his heart feeling like it could fall out of his chest as she just smiles sadly at him, already accepting that they were over, that they had to be.

Once he arrives home, he drops his brief case onto the floor and just looks at Haley with eyes of guilt and a hole being eaten into his stomach by nerves.

"I have to tell you something."

It takes four hours of screaming, crying, shouting, and one ultimatum before he leaves the house, a weight still on his shoulders as he drives to her apartment with a heavy heart, Haley's words ringing in his ears.

"You have to choose," she tells him, "Me or her. Her or your son."

"Haley—"

"Choose," she says, "Your family? Or Emily?"

He knocks, his heart feeling like a burden as it thumps in his chest, and as she answers the door, the simple question of his family or Emily doesn't seem so simple anymore.

She steps aside to let him in, closing the door behind her just like all those other times. Except, this time she isn't filled with excitement and happiness, rather with dread and heartache, knowing what he had come to say before even opening his mouth.

"I told you dinner was a bad idea," she jokes, he lets out a breathy laugh, wondering just how much longer he could have had with her had they just stayed in. "What happened?" she asks quietly, eyes trained at the ground next to his shoes.

"She was upset, angry. Rightfully so." He pauses before taking a deep breath and speaking quickly. "I have to choose," he says to her, his eyes landing on hers as they lift back up towards his face. "It—it has to be her," He admits sadly, "for Jack."

Emily nods, squashing down the pain with a deep inhale.

"I know," she tells him, "I get it."

"I wish—" He stops, shaking his head as he looks to the ground.

"Me too," she breathes.

"If things had been different... if—"

"But they're not," she tells him curtly, her voice thick with emotion and misplaced hurt. "You have to choose your family, Aaron. It's okay. I get it, honestly."

"None of this is okay," he says with the shake of his head. "This shouldn't be so hard."

She doesn't reply, just looks to the floor, heart breaking in her chest as she realises that this really is it for them, that whatever they had was over now and the aftermath of them had just begun. He takes the few steps to stand directly in front of her, their eyes locking as he stands inches from her and he takes her face in his hands.

"I don't regret this," he admits to her. "I should. I know I should. We caused so much damage and there are so many reasons as to why I should but I don't. I can't."

"Me neither," she whispers, leaning into him.

He catches her lips in his slowly, basking in the way she feels; the way her fingers clasp behind his neck, the way her hands press up against his chest, the way her body bends into his perfectly. As they part, she smiles.

"I hate you," she tells him, and he laughs, running his thumb over her cheek.

"I hate you too." He whispers back with a smile of his own, before kissing her one last time.

The irony of that one four letter word is not lost on either of them.

"I should go." He whispers after a few moments, before kissing her one last time. "I meant what I said. I don't regret this. Any of it."

"I don't regret it either," She assures him, lacing her fingers through his as they rest on his cheek before bringing their hands down, smiling sadly as she steps away from him. He clears his throat before he starts walking, holding down the door handle before he turns to face her.

"I— " He says.

"I know," she tells him, "Me too."

And just like that he turns away and walks out of her door for the last time, the sound of the click of the lock drowning out her sobs as she curls over, leaning against the couch as she tries to catch her breath, tears finally falling freely down her face.

Three hours later, she makes the phone call.

"I want back in," she says sternly. The man on the other line whistles.

"Five months..." Clyde says "I had you down for at least a year."

"Yeah, well.."

"Is everything okay?" he asks her.

"That depends, is that London job offer still open?"

"For you? Yes."

"Then everything is fine," she tells him.

"Emily—"

"I'll explain it all when I'm back. It doesn't matter right now."

"Can you get a flight out on Monday?"

"Yes."

"Then...welcome back, Agent Prentiss." Clyde smiles, and Emily closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, welcoming the feeling settling over her now. Some semblance of relief, maybe, from something that shouldn't be a solution to a problem that shouldn't have happened to begin with.

He lets his tears fall on the journey home, back to his family. He takes a few minutes in his car, sitting in front of his house, to compose himself before going inside.

He's rocking his son to sleep that night, his mind replaying his time with Emily as he stares out of the window when Haley comes up behind him, throwing her arm over his shoulder gently.

"We can work through this," she tells him, and he ignores the voice in the back of his head that makes him question if he really even wanted to. "There's a house in Boston just a few miles away from the major crimes unit, if you get the transfer we should look into it."

"Sounds good," he responds half heartedly, and she kisses his cheek before walking out of the room and he goes back to staring out the window, starting to actively wonder if choosing family was the right thing to do.

Emily hands in her resignation to Strauss four days later, words of apologies and a job offer in London that she couldn’t give up falling from her mouth as the older woman accepts it, wishing her the best of luck for the future and letting her know there will always be a job for her at the FBI should she choose to return one day.

She leaves a different letter on his desk, one that reaffirms that she doesn’t regret what they did or what they had, and that the last five months they spent together were the happiest she had ever been and that maybe, if things had been different they could have been something great. She tells him she understands his decision, and that she hopes he finds happiness with his family. She ends it with an I love you, something she’d debated for awhile before knowing that she had to tell him, that there couldn't be a single thing she regrets about their relationship. She heads out of his office, wondering whether she should say goodbye to the team she’d started to look at as family before deciding she couldn’t, not if they were going to be aware of her relationship with their boss; she'd rather live in denial, refusing herself proper goodbyes, than finding out how they may hate her after finding out about everything.

The team do find out, three days after learning about Emily’s sudden departure, their questions answered by Penelope when she explodes with the secret she wished she never found out. They never get the chance to confront either of them, Emily somewhere unknown and the announcement of Hotch’s transfer getting to them too late. The man already in a different building in a different state.

He finds the letter the day after she leaves, reads it more than three times over. His mind echoes with her final words, the I love you feeling like a stab to the chest, as snippets of a life that could have been if things were different flash before his eyes. It makes him furious. Furious that he fell in love with her and even more furious that he had to pick his wife. His son. His family. He transfers to Boston, he and Haley starting fresh in a new state, a new home and a new job.

But the ghost of Emily lingers. How could it not?

He and Haley divorce a year later, some things just unable to be fixed, and he thinks about calling her, telling her that he loves her too, even all these years later... but he doesn’t. He doesn’t because she could be happy in London, could have found someone who can love her the way he wishes he was able to from the start, and he won’t destroy that possibility for her.

She builds a life in London but she never fully moves on, a string of short term relationships left in his wake because no one was ever able to make her feel the way he did, and she doesn't think anyone ever will. She thinks about calling him, wonders if he and Haley were ever able to recover from his—their—betrayal, but a call from her could have repercussions, she knows that, and it stops her every time.

They never do find their way back to each other, and forever remain a bittersweet memory each can look back on with a smile, knowing that even after everything, they could never regret what they became, those five months of something better than never having anything at all.

fin

#hotchniss sour series #hotchniss fic #hotchniss #tw / affair and cheating #just hotchniss having an affair :/ that’s it #but it’s sad :/#and :/#they’re so in love but he’s married #yknow #anyway #yup #hotchniss affair rights 💞💕💘💓#emily prentiss #aaron hotchner

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kilesplaysthings · 3 years ago

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guess who's made another ikemen playlist~

This time we doin ikevamp boys with classic (love) songs! :3

Napoleon: You're the Inspiration by Chicago (cheesy, i know, but Napo's kinda cheesy ngl lolololol)

You're the meaning in my life You're the inspiration You bring feeling to my life You're the inspiration Want to have you near me I want to have you hear me saying no one needs you more than I need you

Arthur: Fooled Around and Fell in Love by Elvin Bishop

I must've been through about a million girls I'd love 'em and I'd leave 'em alone I didn't care how much they cried, no sir Their tears left me cold as a stone

But then I fooled around and fell in love I fooled around and fell in love

Mozart: Go All the Way by Raspberries

I never knew how complete love could be 'Till she kissed me and said, baby Please, go all the way It feels so right (Feels so right) Being with you here tonight Please, go all the way Just hold me close Don't ever let me go

Leonardo: Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce

If I could save time in a bottle The first thing that I'd like to do Is to save everyday 'til eternity passes away Just to spend it with you

And if I could make days last forever And if words could make wishes come true I'd save everyday like a treasure and then Again and again I'd spend them with you

Vincent: I Want to Know What Love Is by Foreigner

In my life, there's been heartache and pain I don't know if I can face it again Can't stop now, I've traveled so far To change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is I want you to show me I wanna feel what love is I know you can show me

Theo: I'm Not in Love by 10cc

I'm not in love, so don't forget it It's just a silly phase I'm going through And just because I call you up Don't get me wrong Don't think you've got it made I'm not in love, I'm not in love

Isaac: Can't Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon

I can't fight this feeling any longer And yet I'm still afraid to let it flow What started out as friendship has grown stronger I only wish I had the strength to let it show

I tell myself that I can't hold out forever I said there is no reason for my fear 'Cause I feel so secure when we're together You give my life direction, you make everything so clear

And even as I wander, I'm keeping you in sight You're a candle in the window on a cold, dark winter's night And I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might

Jean: In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel

Love, I get so lost sometimes Days pass and this emptiness fills my heart When I want to run away I drive off in my car But whichever way I go I come back to the place you are

All my instincts, they return The grand façade, so soon will burn Without a noise, without my pride I reach out from the inside

In your eyes; the light, the heat I am complete (in your eyes) I see the doorway To a thousand churches (in your eyes) The resolution Of all the fruitless searches

Dazai: The Chain by Fleetwood Mac (Dazai's route seems a bit dark and dramatic, so I feel like this song will fit the potential heartbreak his route could have)

Listen to the wind blow, down comes the night Running in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies Break the silence, damn the dark, damn the light

And if you don't love me now You will never love me again I can still hear you saying You would never break the chain

Sebastian: Stand By Me by Ben E. King

When the night has come And the land is dark And the moon is the only light we'll see No, I won't be afraid Oh, I won't be afraid Just as long as you stand Stand by me

Comte St. Germain: Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues (ooooh how I love this song!! I had to use this for him. it's so passionate like I feel his route will be~)

Nights in white satin Never reaching the end Letters I've written Never meaning to send Beauty I'd always missed With these eyes before Just what the truth is I can't say anymore 'Cause I love you Yes I love you Oh, how I love you

Shakespeare: Every Breath You Take by The Police (I mean..are you even surprised by this?? lol)

Every breath you take Every move you make Every bond you break Every step you take I'll be watching you

Every single day Every word you say Every game you play Every night you stay I'll be watching you

Charles: Hungry Eyes by Eric Carmen (idk if this is fitting or not, but I just felt this for him. Don't really know the three newer guys yet so we'll see!)

I've been meaning to tell you I've got this feelin' that won't subside I look at you and I fantasize You're mine tonight

Now, I've got you in my sights

With these hungry eyes One look at you and I can't disguise I've got hungry eyes I feel the magic between you and I

Faust: Addicted to Love by Robert Palmer (I really can't get a grasp on Faust yet, but this song is quite obsessive which seems fitting???)

Your lights are on, but you're not home Your will is not your own You're heart sweats and teeth grind Another kiss and you'll be mine

Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love

Vlad: Don't Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult (Fun Fact: I came up with this playlist specifically to make this song for him!!)

All our times have come Here but now they're gone Seasons don't fear the reaper Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain We can be like they are

Come on, baby (don't fear the reaper) Baby, take my hand (don't fear the reaper) We'll be able to fly (don't fear the reaper) Baby, I'm your man

#ikemen vampire #ikevam #ikevamp #playlist #ikevam mozart #ikevam leonardo #ikevam arthur #ikevam isaac #ikevam vlad #ikevam vincent #ikevam theo #ikevam napoleon #ikevam faust #ikevam charles #ikevam comte #ikevam shakespeare #ikevam sebastian #ikevam jean #ikevam dazai

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thevoilinauttheory · 3 years ago

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After School

[ FFxivWrite2021 Prompt 22: Fluster ]

[ Content Warnings: cheesy romance so sweet it might give you cavities, the barest implication of sexual themes towards the end (wouldn’t call it nsfw though) ]

[ Maximiloix learning magic, something something title lol - Earth - Water - Fire - Lightning - Wind - Ice ]

youtube

Their path to the next stop was a long one - from one end of the Shroud to the other, eventually making it to the ever chillier Coerthas area. It was as Caromont wanted - the winter moons were setting in, and the snow was making its return. The cold had never bothered him, it was one of the things he was thankful for… considering that winters were the worst here. Caromont, too, wasn’t as affected by it - though he always underestimated just how cold it got.

“Maxieee…” It was cute to hear such a stoic man whine, then watching him hold together his robes to keep out the wind. “It’s yer fault fer not thinkin’ ‘bout it ‘gain!” He barked out a laugh as he stopped off to the side of the road to dig in their bags for a thicker coat. “Good thing *I* do. C’mon, c’mere.” He wrapped the coat around his husband, leaning down to kiss his forehead. The bags got thrown back onto his back before they continued on again, though the trek didn’t stop Caromont from trying to tuck himself against Maximiloix for more warmth. Their hike took them north, where the winds howled over the cliffs, using canyons as their flute. They stopped at the edge of one, sitting down to enjoy the scenery and time company, overlooking the horizon of white.

“So what’s this one, ice?” “Wind. Ice will be in Western Coerthas - just a bit away from Falcon’s Nest.” “So what’s wind ‘bout?” “Wind is used for a great many things - usually for harming opponents with biting or cutting gales. Much like these ones. However… I use it to calm. It is gentle and soft, it can bring peace as much as it can blood, if not more so. Many people associate wind with something like a breeze, with good memories or feelings. For those in hysterics, I have found wind to be the element they react the most positively to. I feel as if many should turn to using wind like that, considering that it is a basic conjury spell - and conjurers are to help and heal others.” “I see…”

“Would you like to attempt using a spell for more than just its power? Perhaps we could attempt to combine elements in a safe manner. There is no threat of danger here, it would be perfect for practice.” “Yeah, that’d be nice.” He watched him twist the second to last crystal into his lance - finally studying just how the crystals shone. In and out, breathing with life, some brighter than others; they called to him in an unknown language, a need to be held and loved. Maybe that was just the work done by Caromont, begging to be put to proper use. He stared at it with the same awe he gave his husband. “Yer doin’ somethin’ t’it, aren’t ya’?” “Hm?” “It… has this feelin’. S’more than jus’ crystals, ain’t it?” “Ooo - you got keen! Yes… just a little help from me. A tiny sliver of aether to keep them sustained.” “...I don’t think that’s it.” “No? What do you believe it is, then?” “...” He thought for a moment, staring at those stones. Each one held some meaning, some wonderful feeling he never wanted to let go of; reminders of how much he was loved, how much he laughed, how free he was. “Memories.” “You know me too well.” Caromont smiled softly, running his fingers over and around the elements with his own fondness. “So that you may never forget, that you will always have a means to remember when you feel you may lose yourself.”

“How could I ever ferget?” “How could you, indeed! I will be miffed if you do!” He laughed, passing the lance back to its owner. Maximiloix knew better - he saw something, though he was never comfortable sharing his visions. What a curse that must have been, to see things and not be able to warn others of them, to be forced to watch and see what happens. He never asked Caromont about them, what it was he saw exactly, never pressured him to share; at first he didn’t care to know, but now he wished to simply out of want to be a support. He smiled at him, that was all he *could* do… but it let him know that he was there, if he did want to speak of it.

“Right, so…” Maximiloix stood up, brushing the snow from his pants. “What’re y’gonna teach me?” “Something warm.” Caromont stood with him, taking his free hand in his. His touch was so gentle, the schoolchild crush fluttered in his heart again, only causing him to smile even more. “Focus on what Coerthas feels like in the spring and autumn… slightly warm, gentle breeze. Guide the fire carefully, slowly, into the winds around you; just enough to feel the warmth in your skin and nothing more. It is all about control.” Maximiloix started his focus… only to end it soon after, looking down at Caromont with a dorky grin.

“Oh, dear, what are you planning now…?” Caromont laughed, watching him tuck his lance back into its place on his back to take both of his hands. His catalyst was still upon his body, making the spell easier to cast; his eyes closed again and in the feeling of being close to his love was the warmth easy to bring forth. It wasn’t quite how Caromont had told him to envision it, no; he took to those memories placed in his weapon and turned them into magic. How could he describe such a feeling? It was soft, it was comfortable, warm, it brought a hearth to his home - it was so deeply filled with a love he never imagined was possible. “Maxie?” He could barely hear his voice, the breeze that whistled past his ears as he focused on those feelings and nearly drowned in them. It was the thumb under his eye that brought him back, wiping away at tears that had flowed just as easily as the smile that followed. “Why are you crying, is something wrong?” He shook his head in response. “S’perfect.” “Well… so is your spell, it seems.” Caromont looked to the grass which had shown itself under the melting snow, just as green and bright as he knew it to be in any other moon. “Flowing with life too, taking every element and making it your own… I knew you were a special one~.” Maximiloix snorted, waving one of his hands dismissively, turning his head away to avoid the red on his face from being stared at. “Ain’t that special.” “Special and beautiful~, look at those brilliant eyes.” Caromont reached up to force him to face him, and he stuttered over his words for a response - he couldn’t find one.

“N- Now yer jus’ teasin’, stop it - thought I was here fer lessons.” He huffed. “So cute~!” Caromont brought his hands down his neck and back up into his hair, ruffling it with a bit of warm wind from himself - yet despite the gentle heat, it made him shiver. His fingertips were cool compared to the magic, dipping down his spine and drawing them back up. Maximiloix bit down on his lip, turning his eyes away from the ones that bore into his soul - they knew his every thought and every action, he had never felt so naked and vulnerable before meeting him. “Caro… now ain’t th’time fer that.” “And why is that?” He didn’t have the words, he couldn’t say no - not that he wanted to, anyways. He was just trying to get away from the embarrassment that filled his cheeks. “Outside.” “That never stopped you before!” Caromont laughed. “No, you are just too flustered to know what to do with it all - did I overwhelm you?” “Fl- Flust-- overwhelm? N- No, I-- mmn.” He huffed out of his nose in annoyance, folding his arms over his chest to turn his head the other way. “Aww… you are so adorable when you pout~. Okay, okay. I will stop.” He stood on his toes to give him a kiss before drawing his hands away from his head… not without yanking on the strands first, of course, knowing exactly what that would elicit from him. A deep, low and loud moan crawled out of his throat on accident; and he threw his hands up over his mouth and stared at his husband with disbelief that he would do such a thing. “C- Caro!”

His misfortune was only laughed at, leaving the poor man cold to return to the cliffside - only to be caught by the collar and dragged back for smothering kisses and touches. The warmth and breeze in his fingers that drew goosebumps out of both of them, graces of magic between them in some soft secret whispered to them. “Like hells yer doin’ that n’gettin’ ‘way with it.”

#ffxivwrite2021 #prompt 22 #fluster #about: Maximiloix Voilinaut #about: Caromont Allard #the cold truth #reading the stars #the fire in the stars #;u;#i enjoyed writing this one #it kinda made me tear up #how dare my own characters give me emotions

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slimy-vore-bog · 3 years ago

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To expand on the Hunter and Luz noms ask: maybe a tiny Hunter runs from the Emperor's Coven in fear of Belos and what he will do when he finds out Hunter failed his last mission. He ends up running to Luz, begging her to hide him. She instinctively swallows him but forgets to explain that it is perfectly safe. Definitely not what he expected.

Oh, kinda had a similar-ish RP with another person!

(Except it was Flapjack's idea for Luz to swallow Hunter and I made it more of a funny situation by him trying to stuff him into her mouth while flying in her face. And it was also to hide him from an assassination attempt rather than Belos)

But it felt like both of us were kinda like "????? Wat we doin??" so I don't think either of us had any idea where it was going or wtf was going on. I didn't have a lot of detail from them being kinda "yeah, sure, let's go with that" or leaving it up to me.

Which, tbf, I was fine with, I just hoped for a little more prompting/feedback.

Didn't help I was Luz lol, it's hard to control the plot when you're the character who has no knocking clue what's going on. I had to go of what they said and both OOC and in character it was only "I don't know."

(also if they ever create a tumblr account, please don't take this the wrong way! I'm not mad at all, I found it very fun! c: I was very unsure too, so I 100% get it)

Anyway, tangent aside!

I also said I would think about writing a pred Hunter story to someone else, because they don't like female preds. Not that I'm doing it for their sake, but I might as well to kill two birds with one stone, y'know?

#the vore bog answers

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babbushka · 4 years ago

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Biting Dust - Ch.2

Life ain’t too easy for a woman, ‘specially not a woman on the run like you. With a bounty on your head and gunpowder in your nose, you’ve grown adjusted to a life of solitude away from the hustle and bustle of civilization. That is, until you meet one particular man who’s got a face you’d only ever seen in your dreams – or on wanted posters. And when he offers you a proposition that sounds too good to be true, well. You don’t think your life will ever be the same again…

Outlaw!Kylo Ren x Reader

Tumblr Masterlist | Available on AO3

4.7k ; Content warnings: Mild angst (old west existentialism, mentions of hanging lol)

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The shock of the sight in front of you has you starin’ at this man with your mouth agape, with just one question running through your head – how? How is he still alive?

He’s clearly swingin’, or no, maybe he isn’t, you realize as you ask Agnes to trot over with urgency. This man, the thief, is precariously balanced on the hide of his horse just so, just so that he must be alleviating some of the pressure around his throat where the noose is wrapped tight. You can’t quit starin’, Agnes coming up beside the great black horse who chuffs and whinnies softly at the strange new presence in front of her.

“Good evening ma’am,” The man uses what little purchase he has to spin himself around on the noose to face you, small grunts of his struggle wrenching out of his chest as he tries not to choke himself any more than he already is, “Could you do a fellow a favor and reach into the knapsack on my horse, use the knife that’s in the left pocket, and cut me down?”

It’s absurd, you think as your eyebrows shoot up, the way that he manages to seem so nonchalant, given his predicament. But the moment he manages to turn and face you fully, any amused notions of his calm vanish, replaced only by the weight of the features which you’re now confronted with.

He’s a collection of pieces that don’t make no sense, shouldn’t go together the way they do. His hair is long and dark as it waves and curls, but his ears stick out beyond the locks. His nose juts out strongly, but it looks like it’s been broken once or twice. A pink tongue darts out to lick plush plump lips, framed by a soft looking goatee, sharp cheeks, but a weak chin. Most of all though, are his eyes. They’re somehow both beady and cunning, calculating and warm, or well…his left eye is.

He’s got a scarred over gash that practically splits his face, something between a burn wound and a cut, halfway in the middle. Whatever it was that gave that to him, took his eye with it, or at least tried to. It’s still there, but it’s milky white, whereas the other one glows a liquid chocolate as the light of the setting sun hits it.

He’s handsome, utterly and completely handsome.

He’s also still hanging by that noose, and you still don’t know how he ain’t dead, so despite all of that, you can’t help but blurt out,

“What the fuck is this?”

The man clearly was not expecting such a question, because he almost loses his footing on the black horse’s hide, and goes sputterin’ for a moment as he tries to right himself.

“Excuse me?” He’s got some sense of humor, you think, because he’s frowning at you, scowlin’, when he steadies himself once more.

“How are you doin’ that?” You clarify, gesturing with one hand to the fact that he’s alive, how he must’ve been hanging here for two whole days, and is still alive.

“Well,” The man sighs, and you can imagine that were his hands not bound behind his back, he might’ve scratched at his chin or his scalp. “I think my old girl Sam here is trying to teach me a lesson. She won’t come close enough to make this easy for me, but I figured if she were really sick and tired of my bullshit, she’d’ve rode off and let me hang. You know how horses get sometimes.”

Who is this person, who is so seemingly confident and sure of himself, and simultaneously must be the most lucky motherfucker to ever live? You can’t tell if you wanted to smack him or kiss him. Maybe both, but that decision can stay safely locked inside your brain. Even after the two minutes that you’ve known this man, something tells you that his ego would go through the roof if you gave him the satisfaction of a kiss.

“Oh do I.” You bite back a raised brow. While his presumptions may be correct, you were taken slightly aback with how freely he was willing to give them.

“Yes ma’am, I can tell by the way your horse is lookin’ up at you. Sam gives me those same looks, well, when she ain’t bein’ so difficult, of course.” He grumbles, and the black horse, Sam, seems to chuff in exasperation.

The sun is setting faster now, and you start to feel anxious. Surely folks would be still eatin’ dinner by now, surely no one would start walkin’ out and about at night, aside from those who take some comfort in the music and beer in the saloon. Surely no one would see you, see you talking to the hanged man, but…but suppose they did.

What would they do then?

What would you do?

You frown, wanting to get this whole interaction over with. You’ve resolved to cut him loose, but first, you’d like the honor at least bein’ introduced to this strange wonder of a man. You’d like to know just whose life you’re saving.

It ain’t often, that you go around saving lives instead of taking them.

“Quit calling me ma’am.” It’s too formal, too proper for the kind of woman that you are, somethin’ about it reminds you of your mother and – you nip that in the bud real fuckin’ quick.

“Yes sir.” The man offers with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, and you wonder if he ever smiles. He’s certainly got the humor for it, but as far as his face has moved, those lips are held firmly in a scowl, even as his eyes sparkle.

Without getting off of Agnes, you reach into a knapsack of your own and pull out a knife. It’s nothing too fancy, but the blade is sharp and it should do the trick.

“I have a couple questions.” You begin sawing at the thick rope which binds his hands together, carefully twisting him so that you can have a better angle. You don’t want to accidentally cut his flesh, don’t want to do anything other than get some information and be on your way.

“Please, ask away.” The man is sarcastic, and the thought of stabbing him clean through the chest flits across your mind like a smooth stone over a pond. Although, as you brace yourself against his back with one hand to keep yourself steady when you cut through the rope, you’re not surprised at all to find he’s made of nothin’ but hard muscle.

“What’s your name?” The rope gives way and immediately he wastes no time rubbing at the chafed skin around his wrists, cracking the joints that had gone so stiff.

“I ain’t so sure you’d’ve ever heard of me, but I go by the name of Kylo Ren.” He says quietly, gauging your reaction.

It isn’t one that he expects.

Something inside you lights up like the flickering flare of a candle, and before you know it, you’re reaching for your gun and holding it steady in his direction. Immediately, his newly freed hands go up in a display of surrender, but you don’t dare waver, not one inch. After all you were willin’ to do for him, you’d take it back in a heartbeat – you ain’t got no desire to go helpin’ a lying man.

“Bullshit.” You spit, drawing the word out into two different syllables, scowling at him.

He wasn’t Kylo Ren, he couldn’t be. Kylo Ren was a legend, a myth of epic proportions. They’d be singin’ songs about him and his gang until kingdom come, they’d be tellin’ stories about his escapades and adventures ‘til the cows came home. Kylo Ren was uncatchable, he was elusive, no one had ever met his wrath and walked away -- there was no way that here he was caught in front of you. Just because this man was blind in the same eye didn’t mean nothin’, lots of folks had injuries like that, and it makes you mad to know he’s hidin’ behind someone else’s identity.

“Beg pardon?” He almost sounds offended that you don’t believe him, and that only makes you more angry.

What, did he think you were stupid? Did he think you were so easily swayed by pretty falsehoods? Naw, you might’ve been easy on the eyes but you had a mind sharp as a tack, and he wasn’t going to make a fool out of it.

“There ain’t no way Kylo Ren would get himself strung up and left in a tree to die. So I’m going to ask again, and you’re going to tell me, otherwise I’ll shoot you clean through the gut and then you’ll have wished they hanged you right.” The gun doesn’t move, and instead of growing angry or brash or violent in the way you might expect a man to act while he’s starin’ down a barrel, he flushes a deep red.

“You’re mighty quick with that, I have to admit I’m impressed.” He chews on his lip, eyes crinkling up at the corners while he blushes and mumbles softly, “I like a woman who can handle her steel.”

“I like an honest man.” You counter, cocking the trigger. His reaction to bein’ held at gunpoint was nothin’ like you’d ever seen before, you’d never in your wildest dreams imagined you’d meet someone who thought being threatened like this was a turn-on.

“Kylo Ren’s the most honest answer I can give you.” He shrugs simply. He speaks with a sincerity that you still have a hard time believing, but there ain’t much you can do about it, you’ve done too much already, wasted too much time.

You’ve wasted so much time, here with this man already.

“If you’re Kylo Ren, then I’m Angel Eyes.” You huff, wondering how he might feel about that, if he’d ever heard of you in return.

You’re countin’ on him thinkin’ that you’re bluffing, countin’ on him to throw his head back and laugh, to underestimate you. He doesn’t, instead of all of that, he only blushes a little harder, looking away from your gun and straight into your soul. Whether he’s heard of you or not, his eyes are wide and hopeful, starin’ at you like you put the stars in the sky.

“Won’t you cut me down, Angel?” Kylo asks, voice velvety and deep. The sun gleams off his teeth in a glint that has you realizing most of the ones on the bottom are made of gold, as the last slips of light make one last hurrah over the canyons.

He’s charming, too charming. Even with the noose around his neck, even still balancing like a moron on the back of his horse, he’s charming. A man like that is bound to be nothing but trouble, you think. You don’t know why, but something deep in your bones tells you that he won’t be leaving you alone so easily, once you cut him free.

If you cut him free.

But the sun is setting faster faster faster, and the last of the orangeredyellow is gone from the sky, leaving only the dusky blues and purples of twilight. There’s no more time for games, and you both know it.

“God dammit.” You sigh in aggravation, eventually giving in and holstering your gun once more.

You nudge Agnes to move a little closer, and she obliges warily. The rope around his neck requires a bit of elbow grease to saw through with your knife, but it only takes a couple of minutes before it too gives way, like the rope around his wrists had.

As soon as the tension around his neck disappears, Kylo loses his balance and falls off his horse with a great big thud, and you roll your eyes. Putting the knife back in your own knapsack, you don’t really pay much attention to whatever the hell he’s doing on the floor, trying to get his footing after two whole days of being stretched out. His muscles are probably on fire, burning from the effort to not succumb to strangulation, but that’s ain’t really your problem.

“Alright Ren, you’re free to go. I suggest you find some salve for that nasty burn you’ve got – hold it right the fuck there.” When you do eventually look up, it’s to see Kylo standing too close.

Far too close.

Your gun is back, and you jab it straight in the hollow of his scarred cheekbone. For having such good reflexes that you do, he caught you completely off-guard by popping up the way he just had. How was he so tall? He didn’t look that tall up in the tree, the man must be over six heads high. Once again, his hands are up over his head in surrender, and you’re confused, jumpy. You don’t like strange men gettin’ too close to you, don’t like it one bit.

“I ain’t gonna hurt you! I swear.” He rushes to say with a shake of his head, “You saved my life, I’m in grateful service to you. Wherever you go I’ll follow, and keep you safe from harm, until the day my debt can be repaid.”

Kylo realizes then, that he must’ve messed up, said the wrong thing. You can see it in his eyes, or at least, the one good eye he’s got, the one that ain’t scarred over and milky white. You can tell he didn’t mean to go causin’ no offence by offering you his protection, not at all.

“I don’t need any help, not from you, or from anyone.” Your tone softens just a little when you regard him, lowering the gun that you’d had held firmly against his cheek. You decide that there’s no use in blowin’ his head off, no point in wastin’ a bullet when you could’a just let him hang.

Kylo seems to know this, and when your gun isn’t digging into his cheekbone any longer, he takes a hesitant step towards you, so close, too close.

“Well then,” Kylo’s voice is equally soft, soft and deep in a way that’s almost unnerving, how it can be so soothing. He kicks up some of the reddened earth below his boots, sticks his hands in his pockets and gives you the most honest not-smile you’ve seen in your life as he blushes, “Looks like we’ll be together for a mighty long time.”

The sun is completely down now, darkness creeping in all around. You need to get away from this place, need to put some distance between yourself and the town, between you and Kylo, so you simply urge Agnes forward, and without another thought, you’re galloping into the great unknown.

Agnes is fast, even in the dark.

Maybe especially in the dark, you think. She’s always had a penchant for roaming around at night, in fact, it was at night that you had found her. That was seemingly eons ago, and you don’t have the energy to mull about in your head dwelling on the past more than you already do.

In the moment, there, right there in the desert, it is a clear night. Light from the moon is bright and pale, a silvery wash of deep toned blues and a million stars in constellations you have memorized like the back of your hand illuminate the vast expanse of nothingness ahead of you.

Agnes is fast, but Kylo’s horse has no trouble keeping up, and though you’re not entirely surprised just because of the sheer size of the creature, you’re still impressed. Sam can’t quite match Agnes, her small stature making her all the more quicker, more streamlined that the midnight creature. It’s a slight observation you can’t help but make, their colors. Where Sam is pitch black, Aggie’s coat is glossy white and reflects the moon easily so Kylo can keep up.

When was the last time you rode like this with another person? Not away from someone, but with them? Kylo can’t see you grinning, the dark cloaking your smile as your hair whips around your head, but you are. You are, out there in the dark, flying through the canyons under the moonlight, putting that distance that you need between yourself and the town. No one would find you, no one would even know where to look, should they come try.

You don’t trust him, you don’t trust Kylo one bit, but you have to admit that the fact he hasn’t killed you point blank and stolen all your possessions means a lot. You’re not really in the business to go around trustin’ strangers, you’ve spent nearly your whole adult life alone, on the run. Now wasn’t the time to start…but it felt good, to be with another soul.

Eventually, when you’ve had your fun, when Agnes and Sam have stretched their legs enough, you and Kylo slow them down to a trot. You’ve come to the edge of the canyon here, so neither of you move any closer. Leaning over ever so slightly, you can hear the gentle trickle of water, can see the light sparkle of moonlight glittering off the rippling water of what has to be the Colorado River a thousand feet below in a gorge that you’ll have to descend in the morning. The map had named this place Horseshoe Bend, and you’re looking forward to seeing it in the daylight.

Neither of you are anywhere near Colorado yet, you’re actually closer to Utah than anything else, but you know that if you can just stick close to the river, you’ll be going in the right direction. Kylo notices you noticing the river, and eventually he pulls gently on the reins to get Sam to come to a soft stop.

This is a good place for the night, you think, and you swing your legs off Agnes’ back. Kylo mimics your movements, coming over slowly and carefully so that you hear him.

You don’t know it, but he doesn’t want to scare you again like he had by the tree, he doesn’t want to scare you ever again.

You’re too tired to protest when he begins helping you lift the bags off Aggie’s saddle, his arms are far bigger and stronger than yours, and though you want to tell him to fuck off with his chivalry, you’re undeniably grateful for the help.

Kylo seems to notice, and you’re just glad that he doesn’t make a whole to-do about it. He must be exhausted too, you’re sure.

Not exhausted enough to let you simply throw down a bundle of something for a pillow and sleep though, as he lights a match on the sole of his boots and tosses it onto a small pile of dry brush and sticks that he scrounges up quickly. The fire makes you wary, wary that someone might see, but you’re too close to the gorge for it to be a problem. No one would dare come rushing towards you here, lest they’d be risking falling straight over the edge and cracking their skulls on the rocks below.

Watching as Kylo makes the fire and keeps it steady, you wrap a blanket around your shoulders. Nighttime got chilly out in the desert, and you’re lucky to have such a beautifully made blanket to keep you warm. You had purchased it just earlier this year at a trading post, it to this day it remained your most prized possession.

A woman had had a selection for sale or trade, hand woven wool in the most striking of patterns, and when you saw the black and beige striped one, you had given her all the money in your pocket for it. You wear it with respect, always make sure to keep it clean and mended, folded neatly in your bag, always remembering that human hands had created this, remembering that it is the skill of that woman and her hands which keeps you warm, keeps you alive on the harsher desert nights.

Kylo has no blanket of his own, or if he does, he doesn’t bother to wear it. Instead, he lies down close to the fire and adjusts his arms behind his head so that it can act as a pillow. You wonder how he can be comfortable like that, but you bite your tongue. If he’s doing this in an attempt at manliness, you won’t be so quick to give in to the bait.

You are looking at him though, with enough interest that Kylo feels the need to clear his throat.

“Where are we headed, then?” He asks quietly as he settles down, shuffles a little closer to the fire.

You meet his gaze, but there’s nothing upsetting about the intensity of his eye contact. In fact, lying on opposite sides of the small fire like this, your faces cast warm by the glow of the soft flames, you feel almost as though you’re in a spell, caught in his eyes.

Where were you headed, where were you headed really? What a loaded question, you think.

He’s lookin’ at you, and you’re lookin’ back at him, and unshed tears prick the back of your eyelids just for a moment because if you think about it too hard, you’ll realize that in the end, you’re headed where all the wanderers, drifters, loners and outlaws head; “Nowhere.”

Kylo gives you the ghost of a smile, and shrugs, reaching forward enough to light a hand-rolled cigarette by the embers of the small campfire.

“I’ve always wanted to go there.” He says softly, and you can’t help but let a small chuckle slip through your lips. Kylo offers the cigarette to you, but you shake your head and decline, never havin’ gotten much into smokin’. He nods in understanding and puffs on it once or twice, blowing blue smoke up into the night sky.

“Are you always like this?” Tightening the blanket around your shoulders a little more, you try and get some sort of idea of who this person was. You’d always been a decent judge of character, well, you had to be, all alone like you were. Get betrayed one too many times, you start seein’ the signs of shifty drifters from a mile away.

But with him, with Kylo, you can’t sniff out anything rotten in him, not yet. Maybe it’ll come out in a day or two, hell, maybe it’ll come out in an hour once you’re fast asleep. If you wake up and he’s still there, if you even wake up at all tomorrow, you’ll be more surprised of that than anything in the world.

“That depends.” Kylo finally replies around the huff and puff of his cigarette, giving you more of those vague half truths that you can already tell are going to drive you over the cliff.

“On what?” You ask, already knowing the answer.

“On whether you like it or not.” He gives you another one of those not-smiles, where he somehow looks at you, straight through you, with all the warmth of an old friend, though he be but a total stranger. You scrub a hand down your face in exasperation; it ain’t hard to see why Sam wanted him to suffer a little bit, back by the tree, you think.

“Let’s say for argument’s sake that I don’t.” You offer, and Kylo lets out a sharp breath of a laugh through his nose.

“Then yes, I’m always like this.” Kylo smokes pleasantly, and you curl in on yourself, and roll onto your back.

There’s a million stars up there, you’re sure. Maybe a hundred million, a million million. You used to tell the stories of the constellations to your students – no, you think. Don’t go down that memory lane, the one fraught with fire and anguish.

Shaking your head slightly, you open up your eyes as wide as they’ll go, your pupils swallowin’ up all the light they can. There’s purple white blue clouds in a thick cluster above the gorge, and you know that to be a wisp of the Milky Way. The view is impressive, and humbling. After all, you are nothin’ but a small spec in the universe, aren’t you?

“Ain’t it wild?” Kylo starts to ask, smokin’ and turning his head up to the galaxy above you both. “To think that a thousand years ago, someone was lying where we lay, was starin’ up at these stars we see? To think that a thousand years from now, someone else will be in our position, wonderin’ about their place in the cosmos.”

“What is that you’re smokin’?” You tease softly, no real bite to your words. His baritone nestles into your chest and you feel the thrum of it in your bones, your eyes wetting, not daring to look at him as the fire snaps and crackles between you.

“Nothin’ but tobacco, honest.” Smoke pours out of his nose, his mouth. You can feel his eyes on you, can feel him lookin’. “Don’t you ever think about it, about your place in the world?”

“No.” That answer comes easily enough.

“How come?” Kylo’s voice is a deep deep deep whisper in the night, and it weighs heavy on your stomach as your hands twist in the blanket.

“I don’t got one.” You can’t believe you’re admitting something like this to him, to this stranger.

Something about being here with him, lying so close to another human being for the first time in years, makes you spill all your secrets. You’d told him your name, you’ve never told someone your name. Granted, he probably thought you were just jokin’, but still, whether he knew it or not, he knew the truth. Kylo hasn’t laughed at you yet, though.

He hasn’t mocked you or pushed you in any way. He’s answered your questions and the ones he asked in return weren’t nothin’ of too much trouble. In fact, out of all the men you coulda picked to be stuck with, he seemed like one that wasn’t too shabby. Had a good sense of humor, at the very least, and was calm under pressure, if his behavior by the tree was anythin’ to go off of. He seemed sane enough, or maybe just insane enough. You weren’t sure.

Whichever one it was, it had to be why he had declared undying loyalty to you so quickly. Maybe that was the kind of person he was, Kylo was. Maybe that was all you needed to know about him.

Maybe he was just as lonely as you.

Maybe he hadn’t slept beside another human being in just as long.

The sky above you moves, creeps and crawls at a snails pace, but moves. The Milky Way turns, and with it so do the stars. Your eyes are tired, every part of you is tired, and you shudder from the sheer exhaustion in your muscles. Those seven hours at the hotel were more sleep than you’d gotten in the whole week prior, and it was as if your body remembered how badly you needed that sleep, once you’d gotten it.

You sigh a little to yourself, not so sure when another opportunity like that would come again.

“You’re cold.” Kylo speaks up enough so you can hear him even as your eyes slip closed, darkness around your vision lulling you into that in-between state of consciousness and slumber.

“I’m fine, the fire’s enough.” You mumble, your words slurring together as you turn closer towards the fire, let the heat of the flame seep into your body, trapping it under your blanket.

“If you’re comfortable with it, you’re more than welcome to come sleep next to me.” He offers, and if you were awake enough, you’d probably chuckle at how bold he is, how forward. You still had your wits about you, still had your decent judgement, you know nothin’ about this man and you don’t trust him as far as you can throw him.

You don’t know anything about him, nothin’ at all. Not even his name.

Maybe you do know his name. The odds of that are so astronomical though, so outta this world, that…well…you’re inclined to believe them.

“Are you really Kylo Ren? The Kylo Ren?” You have to ask, forcing your eyes open to look at him one last time, before you fall asleep completely and deal with whatever trouble tomorrow might bring you.

“I suppose you’ll just have to wait and see, Angel.” Kylo whispers, giving you one of those sincere not-smiles, and looking right back.

#kylo ren #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren/reader #kylo ren x you #kylo ren/you #kylo ren reader insert #kylo ren fanfic #kylo ren fanfiction #my writing #biting dust #western au #outlaw!kylo #cowboy!kylo

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clownistyping · 4 years ago

Note

Hello Elizabeth! Do you mind if I send you some tmnt request? Those guys are usually the ones saving people, so how about this time someone saves them? Like maybe they got ambushed by foot clan or something?

I don't mind at all and actually want them! I'm assuming you want the reader to save the bros lol. Also I have no idea how someone could take on like...more than 5 footclan members and be a human being. Bc I sure can't. So I may go a bit weird. also idk if u want bayverse but I love bayverse so u get bayverse.

Readers gender is: Tired. (Gender neutral)

You were peacefully buried yourself deep into your blankets as your soft white noise machine played and your dreams were soft of you having a picnic in the park. Only for it to be cut short by; grunting, yelling, swords?

You sat up, sighing you turned on your light and got out of safe haven. Unsure of where the sound was coming from, you checked the living room. Nothing. Kitchen, empty. Bathroom, dripping faucet but no swords.

Leaving the bathroom you hummed, shrugging the sound off as a neighbors TV you went back to bed, light off, eyes shut, dreamland doors opening.

And they slammed right in your face. Sitting up again you looked right at your window, now slightly agitated you slammed your window open.

The fighting sounds were much louder, and you looked down at the alley way. Being on the third floor wasn't that bad, you could easily see the ground, but it was still dark.

"HEY! QUIET THE FUCK DOWN! PEOPLE ARE TRYNA SLEEP!" You yelled, staring down at the shadowy figures who all paused.

You heard footsteps quickly running and you just rolled your eyes, turning around you sat on the windowsill now fully awake at 4 AM. You feel cursed since you have a shift tomorrow at a the Stone Pizza Palor.

Only to jump from the window when the fire escape shook from behind you.

"Hey thanks for the save!" A voice called and you went stiff, what the fuck.

"Mikey! Get down from there!" Another voice called from below, and slowly you turned to face the voices. Sighing internally that you couldn't see the person's face. You stayed right where you are.

"Chill out bro, I'm just givin my thanks!" The voice, who you can assume is 'Mikey' laughed.

"Um uh...you guys were keeping me awake..so I had to. But um no problem?" You said,

"Oh sorry about that, just was protecting the city like bam and punch!" You couldn't see the movements he was making but assumed they were action poses, but right in the middle of a pose the fire escape shook again. Another person joined Mikey.

"Mikey, what the hell do ya think ya doin'?" The voice was rough.

"Owowow! Raph come on man! Just bein a good samaritan, man!"

"You don't even know what that means." As the two argued you slowly backed up, reaching for your lamp you switched it on. Your eyes went wide.

"Aw shit." The one called 'Raph' muttered and Mikey waved, you could only stay stiff as you finally realized that you were not talking to humans, or even bodybuilders.

You were talking to two giant...green things...you don't know what they are exactly…

"Are they okay?"

"Cours' they ain't, they did just see our ugly mugs!" The one wearing red yelled and managed his way into your bedroom. He pointed a finger at you.

"You. If you eva tell anyone about thi-"

"Raph!" Another voice spoke making you gain consciousness again and sit on your bed in shock.

Mikey joined the bedroom, sitting near you with a smile that made you unable to blink. Then ANOTHER turtle joined the room, not even asking for permission. This one wearing blue,

"How many times do I have to tell you-"

"I know Leo, don't threaten, maim, harm or harass any humans. But hey, not my fault I'm defensive!" The red one argued. The other one wearing blue, named Leo, held his face and groaned.

"Well technically it's Mikey's fault for this stranger seeing us, I mean he did come up to their window. We could've just left before they called the cops on us." Another voice said from the window, a head peaked in. This one, wearing purple and large glasses. Mikey just shrugged, not even defending himself.

"Hi, I'm Donnie." He said with a wave and you just sighed. Suddenly all eyes were on you,

"Please tell me this is some dream I'm having after binge watching monster movies."

Mikey laughed,

"This is real, dude!" He said with a smile that didn’t help the situation at all.

"He's right, this is all real-" Leo tried to speak,

"Come on, we coulda just knocked their ass out and left!"

"Raph no!" As the red and blue argued, the purple one 'Donnie' slipped inside. Well not slipped he did struggle because of the gear on his back,

"Plus dreams can't get that complex based on things you see in real life. So yes, sadly, this is true. Also sorry for keeping you up."

"So what are you four gonna do now, kill me or something?" You said, Mikey shook his head.

"Nah man that's against our code." He put his fist and palm together and bowed,

"We're ninjas." He smiled, Donnie added on.

"And we're teens."

"We're fucking mutants." The red one snapped, turning back to the blue one,

"But we're not monsters, we're just turtles." Leo tried to lighten the mood with a smile but by then you were too tired to care.

"And now, we are forever in your debt!" Mikey said, getting on one knee he held your hand. You quickly pulled it back and made a confused face.

"What- why?"

"Because you totally saved us, dude! You scared away those bad guys who were totally kickin' our asses!"

"Mikey!" Raph tried to defend himself but Mikey stopped him,

"Sorry, butt."

You stood up and sighed,

"Listen you are not in debt to me, none of you are. I just wanted some sleep, I always yell out that window, well..mainly at crackheads..never at..giant..turtle boys."

"Men." Mikey winked and you blinked,

"No," you shook your head, "listen if you all just leave, right now, I won't tell a soul. Not even a stray cat. Alright?" The turtles hummed,

"Deal but. If you tell anyone. We will find you." Leo said his finger almost in your face and you rose a brow,

"Ya, you know where I live. I expect that." His finger curled away and he blinked, then he shook his head and left through the window.

Then it was Donnie, Raph and Mikey. Who sat in the windowsill. He looked at you,

"Wait, I have a question."

"What is it?"

"Why..why aren't you scared of us?"

"I live in fucking New York City, I see shit like you guys everyday. You're not the first mutants I've met." You said, and Mikey then smiled with joy and shock.

"Awesome, I'll catch ya later dude!" He waved and suddenly he disappeared. You stared out the window, watching as Mikey joined his brothers telling them of what you said. While you couldn't hear them, you know that you're bound to meet them again.

#tmnt leo #tmnt raph #tmnt #tmnt 2014 #tmnt 2016 #tmnt michelangelo #tmnt donnie #tmnt x reader #tmnt imagines #gn!reader #leonardo x reader #raphael x reader #michelangelo x reader #donnatello x reader

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ellewords · 3 years ago

Note

i’m back again, with more svt + hq brainrot!! hopefully a little less infrequent than in the past ahah

thanks so much for indulging me again btw!! i rewatched the video after i saw your answer to my ask and my cheeks started to hurt a bit because i was smiling so much…..idk why but just thinking of the hq boys getting caught up in the same kind of chaos really HITS differently yknow

anyways here’s the next part of the dive into TTT set!! there were so many good moments in this omg

(0:04) ATSUMU AS MINGYU (WHAT IS HE SO DRAMATIC FOR HEEELP) AND HINATA AS DINO

(1:08) i see a group of three and think the adlers kjdsdsjkl can you imagine one of them doing the little bounce that joshua(?) does ahaha

(1:14) SUNA AS SEUNGKWAN

(1:38) BOKUTO AS DK

(1:43) THIS IS GIVING ME HINATA OR KAGEYAMA VIBES FOR SOME REASON

(1:49) atsumu as joshua.....he wants to be cool but it doesn't really have the desired effect......

(2:02) HEAR ME OUT OK OK OK so hinata is dino, atsumu is seungkwan, and IWA AS SCOUPS i love the image of iwa being a menace like this and atsumu would totally be like wait you're our trainer WAIT we gotta warm up wait w

(2:22) HOSHIUMI AND HINATA AS HOSHI AND DINO

(2:30) hinata and kageyama trying to wrestle each other and make the other fall......

(2:42) RETURN OF IWA THE MENACE the shot of three of the guys trying to get away from scoups running towards them kills me

(2:58) THIS PART WAS SO FUNNY HOW DID HE GET UP THERE????????? IMAGINING ONE OF THE BOYS SOMEHOW MANAGING TO CLIMB UP THERE SENDS ME

(3:16) BOKUTO AND HOSHIUMI ATTEMPTING TO THROW HINATA INTO THE WATER MAYBE???

(3:44) "ooWAH!!" --things hinata has probably said

(3:57) SCOUPS' FACE LMAOOOO somehow i can see kuroo doing this lol + sakusa as joshua doing it successfully

(4:04) ATSUMU AS MINGYU AND BOKUTO AS DK BENDING THE WHOLE STRUCTURE OVER

(4:24) HINATA RUNNING AWAY FROM KAGEYAMA

(4:37) IDK WHO but imagine one of the boys to to kuroo: "you're promoting our team so don't scream too loud even if you're scared...Ah. like this" (THE BOYS BEING LIKE Ah. Ah. Ah. ON THE RIDE WAS SO FUNNY)

(5:16) aran to suna: "if you can finish this without falling into the water i'll give you 1 million yen"

(6:06) ATSUMU TRYING TO GET INTO THE SELFIE TOO

(6:12) ushijima is just vibing.....just munching....

(6:16) bokuto the banana leader!! the yellow would match his eyes hehe

(6:34) kageyama as wonwoo holding his nose as he falls into the water

(6:52) MINGYU'S LITTLE LAUGH WAS SO CUTE????? atsumu is just mingyu this entire little segment like he totally would be hanging off. Dead at the end

(7:19) suna: "atsumu, that handle's about to rip off, so goodbye" SOMEHOW I IMAGINED SAKUSA AS JEONGHAN SAYING IT'LL BE FUN IF IT RIPS OFF????

(7:50) the power rangers segment: hinata as dino, bokuto as dk, hoshiumi as seungkwan, and iwa as scoups who's reluctant to join in but does eventually (idk who'd be jeonghan....i was thinking atsumu or even kuroo but i'm not sure)

(9:04) suna as vernon and aran as wonwoo

(9:28) THE EDIT FOR THIS KILLED ME IS THAT JOSHUA FALLING OFF???????

(9:34) hmmm maybe suna as jeonghan, atsumu as dk, aran as scoups? i was going to say atsumu would be jeonghan but something about the way that he was so chill about suddenly falling made me think of suna haha

(10:14) BOKUTO OF COURSE

(10:40) THEY'RE ALL JUST GANGING UP ON DK JKDJSKJDS

(10:58) BOKUTO MAKING THESE EXACT FACES AS HE GETS SPLASHED

(11:02) KUROO AS HOSHI LAUGHING WHILE SPLASHING BOKUTO/DK

(11:39) what da wonwoo doin........

(12:13) "i found one, we found them all" --suna, who has not found any of the remaining stones

(12:26) ATSUMU LIFTING KAGEYAMA TRYING TO PREVENT HIM FROM GETTING OUT OF THE THE POOL

(12:44) KUROO AS HOSHI LAUGHING AGAIN AND DINO???? BRO???? ok a couple of months ago there was a set of acrylic stands released with hoshiumi/hirugami/kita/atsumu/osamu and the twins were literally making the face dino makes at this timestamp so

(13:16) NOT DK PUTTING THE STONE IN HIS MOUTH HELP

(13:19) HOSHI REALLY JUST .

(14:00) jun's face...................relatable

(14:35) seungkwan, dk, and jeonghan as hinata, bokuto, and atsumu with SAKUSA AS MINGYU JUST WATCHING THEM

once again feel free to add your own!! i was a little unsure on some of them so i’d love to hear your thoughts^^ good luck on your midterms!! i hope this gives you a least a small break from studying + schoolwork hehe—🌸💫

AAHHH PLS YOU ARE THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING ILY!! svt + hq are literally my two personality traits >_< thoughts and additions under the cut hehe

(0:04) pls tsum would be so dramatic and make a whole show about it, going on and on about being injured and hinata would just indulge him -- but he forgets that tsum lit rally just fell and rushes in and slides like dino too

(0:17 / 0:39) woozi as kags,, just thoughts being thunk // hoshiumi's 'don't be nervous' and he replies with 'am not' // falling almost immediately

(0:29) thinking of bokuto doing the Hoshi run uwu

(1:08) oooh mayhaps ushi?

(1:14) keeping his brand of never letting his phone down, responsible for 90 percent of their pr

(1:38) awe that oh yeah is very bo

(1:43) YUP!! hinata definitely,, esp with the lil giggles and the way his legs are just moving around

(1:49) YES!! and the guys just giving him so much shit for trying to be cool and failing

(2:02) YES BUT ALSO BC IWA WOULD ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PUSH TSUMU INTO THE WATER UNPROVOKED LMAOO

(2:22 / 2:30) mhmm would have loved to be around to witness this personally; hinata would def try to carry kags too

(2:42) pls they're so cared of him,, I love it

(2:58) HOSHIUMI DEF GETS TO CLIMB UP THERE NO JOKE or maybe suna too

(3:16) and bokuto would end up falling in the water too awe love this dork

(3:44) oh definitely, esp with his penchant for sounding things out

(3:57) gosh I'm imagining kuroo with scoups’ exact expression and it’s sending + he’s also just side-eyeing omi like- how were you able to do it ??

(4:04) IT’S THE BIG BEEFY BOY LINE SO DEFINITELY

(4:24) ...I see it tbh asdfghjk

(4:37) EXACTLY,, kuroo : “remember to maintain your image guys”

(5:16) suna would one hundred percent get his phone out to record aran saying it so he has proof >_<

(5:41) bokuto and hinata holding hands,, bokuto waving like Hoshi and hinata singing woozi’s lil drone camera song

(6:06) and HOSHIUMI OR KUROO WOULD DEF LAUGH AT HIM FOR FAILING TO JOIN IN TOO

(6:12) yup, I see it -- that’s actually his second ramen of the day lmao

(6:16 / 6:34) no thoughts only yes,, like that is their personalities summed up right there

(6:52) yes and he gets aran to switch places with him awe

(7:19) please omi would say it in the most monotoned voice but there's a lil smile creeping on his face at the thought of it

(7:50) YES YES ABSOLUTLEY ,, kuroo and tsum both work with the segment aaa would actually like to see this animated with the hq boys

(9:04) suna doing vernon’s run giving me the biggest burst of uwu

(9:28) I THINK IT IS?? BUT ENYA’S ONLY TIME IN THE BG DEF KILLED ME LIKE WOW THAT SONG FITS SO WELL ??

(9:34) OH SUNA IS DEF JEONGHAN IN THIS SITUATION SDFGHJKL

(10:14 - 58) with the facial expression too-- I can't-- BOKUTO AS DK AGENDA CONTINUES / I KNOW!! AND THE TEAM WOULD GANG UP ON BO TOO TBH

(11:02) YES YES

(11:39) HE’S VIBING,, OH THE USHIJIMA OF IT ALL

(12:13) YES AND ARAN AS DK GOING ‘NO U FUCKIN DIDNT’

(12:26) I WANT THIS ANIMATED SO BAD YOU HAVE NO IDEA

(12:44) FR?? I KINDA WANNA SEE THOSE ACRYLIC STANDS NOW

(13:16) OH THE BOKUTO OF IT ALL -- also when I first watched the ep I straight up chortled at the scene like?? dk?? sweetie?? you okay pal??

(13:19) TSUM WOULD PANTS SOMEONE I JUST DONT KNOW WHO?? like it’s def not iwa or aran or ushi hmmm mayhaps bo or hinata?? idk idk

(14:00) he’s so cute I love him sm

(14:35) HAHAHAHA YES OMG SAKUSA’S JUDGING THEM BUT HE ALS LOWKEY WANTS TO JOIN IN ON THE FUN!!

thank you so much for this,, definitely a welcome break from schoolwork <3 hope you're doing ok!!

#— visitor center.#— visitor : 🌸💫 anon <3

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desperationandgin · 5 years ago

Text

The Honeymoon (Market Price)

Rating: Mature

Also Read on: Ao3

Market Price from chapter 1

All of the Market Price one-shots

Summary: Jamie and Claire’s honeymoon.

A/N: Shout out to trashyKT for coining this ‘Pandemic Porn.’ It’s my new favorite phrase EVER. Also thanks to her, @happytoobserve and @walkinginland for the extra eyes! I couldn't be more honored that so many of you have told me this is your go-to happy fluffy place. So, in the face of the pandemic, I give you the fluffy Fraser's honeymoon. If you've never read any of Market Price, you certainly won't be lost, but I'd love it if you gave the rest of the series a shot ❤️

And sorry, I’m not a graphic maker, pls enjoy my moodboard free words, lol

+++

The Honeymoon

When she begins to wake, it’s with resistance.

In no way does her dream-self want to give up Jamie’s red curls bobbing between her thighs as he thoroughly enjoys himself, but Claire can’t stop the pull of wakefulness. A deep sigh of unfulfilled want rises from her belly, evolving into a quiet gasp of surprise as flames ignite, her body being moved gently until she’s flat on her back. Jamie pushes her legs apart by one knee, and she’s awake.

Her husband of forty-eight hours is buried between her legs, and the first thing she does is let out one note of a laugh that dissolves into a moan as both of her hands move to the top of his head. Somehow, his hair has never felt softer, like a collection of curled feathers. His tongue on her and inside of her makes her feel electric as his fingers press indents to her hips that won’t quite leave bruises. He’s holding on for dear life, and she’s giving him every reason to.

Pleasure begins to build, making her back arch up, up, up, until only her shoulder blades are resting on the bed. Jamie moves with her, more determined than he’s ever been, and she thanks God for it. The precipice suddenly feels too close, the inevitable drop too far down, and Claire scrambles to grasp at him, to both pull away and push him closer. She feels his growl of perseverance as a vibration in her body, and her hands grip his hair, grabbing twin fistfuls.

Jamie’s lips form a hollow of sensation, and Claire shatters, aware of nothing save for the persistent tongue eagerly lapping her up. It takes her brain a moment to realize he isn’t stopping, and when she falls again, he’s there to gently guide her down.

Time fades away, and her body seems to melt into nothing. His kisses falling against her stomach bring her back to consciousness, and she stretches languidly. She can still feel the pleasure in every limb of her body, and when she rolls onto her side, she opens her eyes to see Jamie. Her heart, having just caught back up, stutters for a moment at the sight of him. His hair looks as though a small tornado blew through it, and his face is bright red, but it’s his eyes - so blue she could soar into them - that break her wide open.

They reach for one another at the same time, instinctively, and her head tucks against his neck, her leg moving over his hip as he guides himself into her.

“When you look at me,” she whispers, one hand laying flat along his cheek, “I can see everything, Jamie.”

Keeping his gaze on hers, he raises his hand to cover the one against his face. “Tell me what ye see, Sassenach,” he requests, voice low as he begins to move in her slowly.

She can’t break his stare, pouring her heart into his as she speaks. “It’s always been us.”

Their souls have known one another for an infinite amount of time, and Jamie turns his head to kiss her palm, breathing heavily against it for a moment. “You are mine, mo nighean donn,” he gasps, then gathers her as close as he can while still moving. “Mine, now and forever.”

Claire wants to somehow meld with him, to feel every part of him become a part of her, and as her pleasure breaks for a third time, she feels him spill into her, his quiet gasp of release an utterance of her name, whispered as an offering of thanks to the Almighty.

In the quiet after, they lay wrapped around one another, her head tucked under his chin. His heartbeat, steady and sure, causes her to drift until his voice quietly rouses her as his body shifts away from her.

“I’ll return for ye,” he promises, and she protests with a grab at his backside when he vacates the bed.

Turning to watch him pad naked into the bathroom, she hears the suite’s large shower turn on, and she smiles softly at his thoughtfulness. When he returns, he holds out a hand to her and she takes it, standing and letting him pull her into a kiss that turns into him lifting her so that her legs can wrap around his hips. By the time they make it back to the bathroom, he’s having his way with her against the wall, the fingers of one hand building her up until her desperate cry of release drowns out the sound of the running water. Only afterwards do they begin the job of getting clean.

The shower is tame, at least to start. Neither of them particularly wants to wind up with an injury, though that doesn’t stop Jamie from very thoroughly washing her body. By the time he’s crouching in front of her, it’s as if his mouth has a mind of its own. There’s no effort required on her part with her back against the wall and Jamie holding her securely, so she gives in on the assumption she probably won’t break a hip.

This time when she comes, it’s with a quiet sigh of his name, head bowing as if in deep prayer. She’s murmuring quietly, and he has to stand again to hear her over the water, his arms wrapping around her.

“I love you,” she whispers. “I love you. I love you.”

When he tilts her chin up so that she can look at him, the glaze of tears in her eyes causes his own Pavlovian response to her emotion, and he takes her hands in his, cradling them against his chest.

“I love you, my own. My wife. I love ye so much I could burst wi’ it,” he says quietly. They each let their own happy tears fall, mingling with the water in the shower. Once he’s just as clean as she is, they step out, toweling off only to fall damply back into bed.

“What time is it?” she asks, stretching languidly against him.

Reaching for his phone, he has to smile at the lock screen photo (Claire with her mouth wide open and her eyes closed in a laugh he can still hear). “Quarter to noon,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms back around her.

She hums and burrows against him, breathing in the clean, soapy scent of her husband. “I’m ravenous.”

Jamie growls against her neck before ducking lower to press a kiss between her breasts. “Mhmm. So am I.”

Feeling his grin on her skin, Claire tugs at his hair until he’s looking at her.

“Ye meant food,” he says sheepishly.

Laughing, she nods after stealing a kiss of adoration from his lips. “Yes, your wife could do with some real food. There’s most likely something within walking distance.”

He makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat. “That means putting on clothes.”

Claire snorts. “Well. We have to at some point. If you want to see any of Greece, I mean.”

“Not yet. Unless ye’re starvin’,” he adds.

But she’s so charmed by him that she shakes her head with a soft smile. “Not yet,” she agrees.

For a while, they drift together, until Claire reaches out to drag her fingers lightly along his hip. “What are you thinking of, right now?” she asks quietly.

“How worth it t’would be, to get up and go to the beach. I want to see ye in the new bikini.”

Her laugh is loud and rousing, more awake now as she rises on an elbow to look down at him. “I didn’t think you paid attention to what I wore,” she teases.

“Aye, I do, when it’s itty and bitty…”

“Not yellow-polka-dot, though,” she interrupts with a bright grin.

“Oh, I saw. Bright red. Verra bawdy and bold,” he says, hands rising to cover her breasts, unable to resist.

“I thought you liked me bawdy and bold.”

Jamie grunts, evidence of what he thinks about her in a red bikini growing against her thigh. “Wouldna have ye any other way,” he agrees.

“I could be bawdier, maybe,” she suggests, shifting so that she can press a soft kiss to his chest, then one lower, down his abdomen.

Swallowing in anticipation, he reaches out, tugging at a curl. “I’m no’ going to stop ye in yer efforts,” he promises, then groans as her lips press a kiss to the tip of his cock.

“So, you’re interested, is what you’re saying?” she teases, dragging her tongue up the length of him.

She’s made it so that all thought ceases immediately, and there’s finally a delayed aye of agreement.

Claire knows what she does to him, that she reduces him to a single brain cell and one single want. She knows she can do it from across a crowded room with a simple look. As she pleasures him, she takes her own, a hand snaking between her thighs. As the sounds in the room fade to white noise, she feels his head rise and knows the moment he realizes she’s touching herself.

He turns stone hard and she breaks just before him, pulling her mouth away as her hands finish both of them. She closes her eyes for a moment, each of them panting before forcing herself up to reach the tissues on the nightstand. Mess cleaned, she drapes herself across him and sighs contentedly.

“Now can we go and get food?”

“Aye,” he chuckles, gathering her close to kiss her lips. “Aye, we can go.”

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

Two servings of souvlaki and loukoumades later, they walk aimlessly, avoiding most of the larger tourist traps thanks to her fuzzy memory of a trip taken when she was twenty-two.

“And what were ye doin’ in Greece at twenty-two?” Jamie asks, eyebrows raised.

“Kissing cute local boys, mostly,” Claire replies casually.

“Trying to relive the glory days of yer youth?”

“Why, are you interested?”

He pulls her into a kiss right there on the street, tasting honey and cinnamon on her lips. By the time he breaks it, she’s grinning.

“Aye, verra interested, ye could say.”

They laugh, holding hands as they walk leisurely throughout the afternoon, not making it to the beach, but buying random trinkets and postcards; small things to remember their time spent mostly making love. They stumble into a restaurant hidden away in an alcove just before the sun has a chance to set, winding their way through the main dining room and toward open-air seating. Dinner is spent on a patio roof, drinking wine and eating lamb, and during a dessert of white chocolate and berries, she brings the conversation around to their future plans.

“I’ve been thinking about our flat.”

He swipes at a bit of rogue chocolate on the plate with one finger, licking it clean. “Aye? What about it?”

“I think it’s only a two-bedroom and we need more space. Unless you’ve decided we only need the one child.”

Jamie grunts. “I see yer point. And it would be better to have the luxury of time to find a place to live.”

“A place we pick together,” Claire points out, smiling as his face softens.

“A house, ye reckon?” he asks, a slow idea forming as he tries to suss out what she’d like.

“Something close to Lallybroch for the farm. I don’t know what we’ll find, but-”

“I could build ye one, Sassenach.”

Claire’s taken by surprise, and she pauses with her spoon halfway to her mouth. “What?”

“I could draw up the plans, hire home builders, but aye. And I could do it on the land we already own,” he decides, seeing it in his mind’s eye.

“How big of a house?” she asks curiously, ignoring the rest of the dessert completely now.

“To fit six weans-”

“Six! That’s up from four.”

“To fit four to six weans,” he continues, undeterred, “We’ll need at least six bedrooms, I reckon.”

Claire considers this. “Ours, of course. And five additional bedrooms to figure out the rest. I suppose it’s a good plan.”

“And I dinna ken where we can find all of that, plus plenty of bathrooms, all wi’ in Broch Mordha.”

He has a point, and she looks out over their view, at the way the sun is setting and the birds are flying in Vs toward home. Looking back at him, she reaches across the table for his hand, her thumb moving over the gold of his wedding band.

“My husband is going to build me a house. Is that what I can tell all of my friends at the hospital?”

Jamie’s smile is slow and makes her stomach tighten into a knot of anticipation without his uttering a single word.

“Ye can tell anyone ye’d like. The decision is made, Sassenach.”

Just like that, she’s getting a house. “How do you do that?”

He finishes the wine in his glass, looking at her curiously, a quiet hmm? indicating he wants to know what she means.

“Make me feel secure. As though there isn’t anything I need to worry over on my own.”

“Because there isna anything ye need to think on by yerself,” Jamie responds right away. “We’ll do this together, Sassenach. I’m no’ saying the house will be done tomorrow or even this year, but once we’ve returned to Scotland, we’ll go look at the land, decide where to build.” There’s plenty of space thanks to Brian Fraser’s thoughtful planning decades ago.

“You’ve made me feel like this from the beginning,” she insists, not meaning only since their vows. “I thought I’d ruined everything on our first date, that I’d offended you by burning supper. But you didn’t miss a beat.”

“And now, one ruined meal, a dozen or so - what I’m assuming were perfect - dates, and a thousand kisses later, here we are, Sassenach.”

He stands and reaches for her hand, and once she’s facing him, her arms wind their way around his neck.

“Here we are. On a rooftop in Greece on our honeymoon. Not a burnt morsel of food in sight.”

They both laugh softly, foreheads meeting. “Ye’re getting better.”

“Because you’re teaching me.”

He brings his hands to her hips and smiles. “I’ll always teach ye. Anything ye want tae ken.” For a moment he doesn’t move, and it’s just the two of them in the sunset, swaying to the sound of the ocean in the distance.

When he speaks, it’s so soft that she, just as quietly, asks him to repeat himself.

“Sorcha.”

She raises her head just enough so that the tip of her nose can graze his. “What does that mean?”

“‘Tis yer name in the Gàidhlig,” he begins, pulling back enough to be able to cradle her face. “But also ‘light.’” He pauses to find his words before speaking once more.

“Ye’re my light, Sassenach. A beacon to call me home.”

Claire’s eyes are wide as she fights the urge to cry, losing the battle as he reverently draws her hand around to kiss her wedding ring.

“There are days I believe ye were only shining for me.”

She wonders how he does it; how he can undo her with words. As a tear slides over the apple of her cheek, she speaks quietly, leaning in so that the words can fall softly across his lips.

“That’s because I was. I am.”

They hold one another as the sky fades into gentle purples and pinks, and the world is all around them, suddenly new with possibility.

#outlander #jamie x claire #jamie fraser #claire fraser #outlander fic #my fic #market price

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valentinesparda · 4 years ago

Text

4am time to ramble about killian

first and foremost-- *grabs sylvia. picks her up. puts killian in her place with travis*

I'll work out a legitimate backstory later but killian was working with sylvia and henry from the first game on until the second. they were friends (or killian assumed they were friends) but sylvia really just needed an extra set of hands to do "paperwork". through the work with sylvia is how they met travis

anyways this whole time sylvia drones on and on about how travis is an excellent assassin and throughout the first game killian gets to know travis but they're not super important to the story at this point, they just kind of watch from the sidelines and maybe you see them once or twice with sylvia in cutscenes

they're a "glorified secretary" and they do like their "job", they meet interesting people, but it's such a hassle--

killian eventually became an assassin at some point as well, but it was mainly to keep people in line and take out the REALLY bad ones. they didn't necessarily like the killing at first but it was something they ended up really kind of being good at

is it cheating to thin out the herd?? maybe. but sylvia doesn't care

the whole time they cannot stop thinking about travis. maybe it's because sylvia and the other assassins won't shut up about him but also them having seen him a couple of times personally they end up developing this major crush on him that no one knows

so when sylvia is like "lol wouldn't it be fun to get travis back in the game" killian is kind of like "uhhhh. boss. didn't we almost get caught last time. why are we doing this" and sylvia is like "no no you misunderstand - we are Going to get him back into this"

then they meet travis again for the first time in three years and the first thing they do is fight him!! respectfully. none of that kimmy shit, nay nay. it's because they a) would like to stack up their abilities against his and b) sylvia wants them to prove themself and c) DEAL WITH CRUSH AS VIOLENTLY AS POSSIBLE

its a whole thing where they step out in their professional outfit with heels and a nice suit (I'm going to design it just for this because if sylvia can have five costume changes so can I) and travis is STARING and they spin their scissor blades and everything is cool and sexy until--

cue the extra-hard tripping over themself because "travis. it's travis. he's here. oh god I'm gay. please make it stop". meanwhile sylvia is like highkey flirting with him the whoooole time. and killian is like "I do not see it I do not see it do not perceive me"

eventually sylvia be like "you like travis don't you squidward" and holds it over killian's head

meanwhile all travis knows is that there's this weird emo thembo who keeps avoiding him and they won't talk to him but he thinks they're cute (among other things)

so they do go to travis's apartment on behalf of sylvia and this normally stone cold assassin secretary who doesnt say anything sees jeane the cat and sits down and just fuckin sobs and coos over her

travis, who has heard them say maybe five words, is Officially enamored.

"oh now I have to woo them"

he starts flirting with them more than he does with sylvia and this catches killian off guard and they're "??!!??!!"

killian.exe stops functioning and they leave before they like. I dunno. pass out from embarrassment

but it's too late sylvia knows about the crush and now it is operation "throw killian into situations where they could possibly fight travis so that either something happens between them or they die. either way works"

travis is just doin his best trying to fight his way to the top but he keeps seeing killian everywhere and flirts. every. single. time. and if he flirts well enough they flee but if he says something mean then they fight him. spinny scissor blade time.

eventually they stop by his apartment again (probably around the same time that travis has saved henry and is keeping him there) and they just. they deliver a love letter okay. it's a funny trope but this time it doesn't involve travis almost being killed by some creepy schoolgirl it is a genuine confession and tbh he does not know how to respond but that's ok because killian fuckin RAN WHILE HE WAS DISTRACTED

he does not see them for a few days and probably eventually has to fight another assassin who has them kidnapped but because travis spent too long to get there he shows up as killian frees themself and there Is no fight

after that is when travis is like “I AM DETERMINED” even though killian now sends him a gift every day in an attempt to woo him as well

idk what else to say i got nervous about typing all of this up,,

maybe next i’ll actually talk about killian and travis because theyre cute i prOMISE

#si: killian #el.txt #text

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m88n · 4 years ago

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Hiiii ti! Omg no it’s all good, I tend to reply pretty promptly otherwise I will actually completely forget to and will only remember in three month’s time haha. It’s all good, as long as you enjoy talking to me and I’m not disturbing with so many messages 😂. I’d love talking but am v conscious everyone has diff boundaries and I don’t think your priority should ever be a stranger on the internet lol. Oh that’s so good!!! i’m quite spiritual too. I think you get more zen as you get older 1/??

too because you just give no shits about what people think. Omg more power to you!!! i feel like I transform when I wear it, like a magical girl 😂 but I’m just too lazy to do it lol. That’s a good way to be 😌. What’s ur fave makeup brand or product?Ooooh if u want I will send them to u via insta then!!!! I am always cooking and baking for my friends and fam 😌. i think one of my favourite cakes is an opera cake, which has layers of coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache 🤩2/??

or a white choc muddy boi!!!! Except I need them to be dairy free because milk hates me 😭. do u have a fave sweet or cake? I’m march 14! White day 🥰. Hehe yes pls don’t visit me until it’s safe 😂 in the interim we can plan a brunch crawl LOL. seclusion ftw. I was psyched when I went into remote working LOL an introvert’s dream!!! Luv u hope ur well get on the beers 🥰💖🥰💖 3/3 lol soz i think the formatting got eaten when i submitted these dkjaskdsa

🌚🌚🌚🌚🌚

Hello ... its me again steph 🥺💖🌚 hahahaa i feel you on that, but i really am someone notorious for replying late 😂😂💀💀😔😔 rip i mean as long as ppl get i dont mean any harm 🥲🥲 feel like my way of doing things is just very .... ??? Sometimes LMAO at times i feel like that part of me *might* b a lil similar to jaemin (??) like ppl cud sometimes b like tf is she thinkin HAHHAHA but i mean is me guys wat can i do abt it ..... yes v happy to hear that ur conscious about diff boundaries (giving + receiving) steph cos i feel like thats super ipt when ur relating to others.....🥺🥺👍🏻 but please plz don’t think ur a stranger to me steph😢😢😢 makes me feel the saddo !!!!

Thats so true hahaa omg it took me awhile to get here tho girl and im happy i did (and happy u did too🥺🥺💐) cos i feel like not everyone has the privilege of coming home to urself methinks. Same omg i literally do it to boost my fickle self esteem during the rona & bc im not exposing myself to any action these days 😂😂😂🌚🌚💀 n its fun !!! Exactly like a magical girl, like what kinda look shud i do this time !! Hahaha. Hmmm im a lipstick hoarder LOOL n i always love it when i mix colors n stuff... i dont usually buy korean makeup but i love their lip products omg !! My recent fav lip product is apieu true matte liquid(?) in some almond omg... its so good girl like i cud smudge it or wear it straight up🥲🥲🥲 love makeup LOL. Do u have any fav makeup products steph or a fav brand ???🥺

YES PLZ ok its about time i come home 2 our ig dms 😭😭😭😭🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 send them plz (if u don’t mind) !!!! 🍪🧁 Like how cat spams her cat pics whether or not were there to respond HAHAHAHA :”D ohhhhh damn opera cake is a solid cake yum !!! 🥲🥲 ohhhh u a white choc girl ?? (Fitting cos ur birthday on white day ???) I personally dont really like white choc😂 or what typa choc u like the most ??

Noo that must’ve been annoying since u love baking n desserts :/ but u gotta do wat u gotta do . Lately my stomach thing is doin its thing n man ... its so annoying but truly Health #1 . !!! ! Yes omg !! I LOVE strawberry shortcakes and fruit rolls like ones ud see at a japanese bakery 🥺🥺🥺🥺 or anything chocolatey mmmmm. Or mille crepes!!! Ohhhh damn. So many of my friends have birthdays in march ... u got anything planned for ur special day steph?? 😃👍🏻💘 LMAOOO but yea im actually planning to eventually visit u tho (if im still welcome then LOL), cos im also visiting my other friend who moved to syd 🥲🥲🥲👍🏻 two birds w one stone only rona getting in the way . OOOOO brunch crawl yes yes yes please !!! I went to syd a few yrs ago n i remember eating so many good food damn. 🥺🥺🥺✨✨✨

LOL omg dude fr tho 😂😂 my extrovert friends r like dying n im rly js chillen in my room HAHAH 💀💀💀💀 thank yu i hope ur well too luv 🥺💘💐 unfortunately getting on the beers will still hav 2 be postponed bc my stomach is being an ass these days lsjfkfjwojdj 💖💖💖✨✨✨

#aqiaquas #💖💖💖💖💖#asks

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thejamesoldier · 5 years ago

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A Single Frayed Rope

AO3 Link :)

Prologue | Chapter 1

A/N: I've taken some artistic license with this. Sometimes I will stray from canon and some of the dialogue will not be the game script verbatim. I'm not changing core aspects of the plot/characters we know and love, I just wanted to enhance or elaborate on certain aspects of the story so its told the way I would like and not just a copy of the original. I really wanted to make you feel like you are part of the story, woven in as an integral piece of the world instead of just dropped on the surface. If that makes any sense lol. Anyway enjoy !!

Chapter 2 ~ Colter II

"Sorry!" You say on a choked inhale, air struggling to get past your heart that's lodged itself up into the back of your throat.

The apology was reflex if you are being honest, along with the harsh startle your body gave when you whipped around towards the voice.

"What are you doin' there miss?" A man smeared in shadow asks in a dangerously neutral tone, taking a few ominous steps forward as he does so.

While you can't make out much of him, just a black silhouette against the slightly lighter black canvas of the night, your heart stutters over a beat or two as you recognize his voice. This is Arthur. This realization brings you absolutely no comfort. He justifies this feeling as he crosses his arms tight against his broad chest when you hesitate to answer right away. Your spine locks against your shivering, pulling your insides in opposite directions and straining the muscles in your neck.

"I'm --," You grit your teeth at the pain in your head and the scratch in your throat and decide that you don't have the capability to lie (well) right now, "I was trying to steal from these saddlebags." You surrender with a hitch in your voice.

"I see," He indulges in a slow drawl, then after a long punishing beat of silence, "And how's that workin' out for ya?"

"Not well." You reply as you hug your arms around yourself, not being able to stand the cold and the fear at the same time.

"Yeah, Sabine here," You just make out Arthur sending a stiff nod in the aggravated horse's direction, "Tends to get possessive of her personal space."

"I noticed." You say.

"Well," He huffs, a strange curl to his tone making something in the back of your head stomp its foot, "How do you reckon we go from here?"

"Please don't kill me." You immediately rush, not above begging for your life. He just caught you trying to steal and he had already been talking about torturing you earlier so yeah, definitely not above begging.

Arthur seems to falter as he hears the genuine fear wobbling in your voice. You're not sure how you sense such a subtle shift in his approach to the conversation but you do as he uncrosses his arms and clasps his hands together in front of his hips, the movement loud in the twilight, before clearing his throat,

"Won't be doin' that just yet miss."

"Yet?" Your chest constricts and stars fall from the sky, swirling in your vision and making your head feel like air. That venison jerky you ate whole earlier tumbles like a brick in your stomach, and you regret eating anything at all as bile fills your mouth.

"Yes, it would be a waste of my effort to kill you so soon after savin' you."

"You were the one that saved me?" You whisper on empty lungs as the stars begin to collect around his outline.

A streak of bold moonlight cuts through the thick overcast and slants across his figure, highlighting small silver slivers of him -- the rim of his hat, the swell of a cheekbone, the rounding of a muscled shoulder; a mystery amidst his own galaxy.

"Miss?"

You feel yourself falling as the stars around him start to spin.

I'm getting really sick of fainting, you think before the black swallows you whole.

"Goddamn it!" Arthur curses as he lurches forward and catches her just before she crumples completely into the snow.

Once he's adjusted her in his arms, he finds himself frozen and unable to move. Holding her close in an ironically graceful dip, the light of the moon whispers across her face. It tangles in her lashes and kisses her brow, runs down her nose and lounges on the soft curve of her upper lip. Arthur is struck by her, again, and stunned in the silent night. The beauty of her, obscure and poignant and unnameable like all things in nature are, seizes Arthur and he --

He hates her because of it. Hates the softness it encourages in him.

The anger that protects him from all his vulnerabilities gathers up around him like wildfire, burning that softness in him to ash and charring him into a familiar numbness. A numbness he feels when he beats a starving man for debt money, or shoots a noncomplying witness who was going to send the law on the gang, or sees helplessness eat up the good in John's eyes, or watches Jack collect stray wildflowers for his mother, or the gentle pinch around the skin of Hosea's eyes whenever he smiles at Arthur --

Arthur grits his teeth against the hollowing in his chest and hoists the woman fully up into his arms. He walks carefully but quickly back to the Marston cabin, trying not to jostle her too much as he would hate to have her wake. Why is it that this woman always ends up unconscious in his arms? Arthur's not even carried Mary this many times. His brain short circuits at the thought of Mary -- oil pouring over open flame -- and nearly grunts out loud with the effort he puts into shoving all things Mary related back down the dark hole it slithered up from.

The woman's body burns like a live wire against him through the layers of his clothing, the memory of her naked skin pressed to his making his blood boil. He shoulders open the door and lays the lady down in her place by the weak fire. Arthur snatches his arms out from under her when she's fully transferred to the floor, slowly backing away like she could wake any second and attack him.

"Hi Uncle Arthur,"

Arthur jumps slightly at Jack's small voice whispering at him from a couple paces away. The boy is kneeling at the head of John's cot, both John and Abigail are asleep.

"Go back to bed Jack, we'll be traveling tomorrow and you don't want to be tired." Arthur chastises through a tight throat, wanting to exit the room and put space between him and the feeling tearing up his insides as soon as possible. Because absurdly, he feels...he feels fragile right now. Hot and shaky and exhausted and fragile. He hates it, hates her for kicking him into this familiar spiral. Hates that nowadays he can be so easily sucked into it in the first place.

"Okay," Jack answers as Arthur quietly leaves the cabin.

Arthur doesn't know why he doesn't immediately return to his post once he steps out into the snow, doesn't know why he sneaks a glance back inside through the frost fogged window. But what he sees sends deep cracks through the fist of stone that lives in the bone cage of his chest instead of a heart. Jack remains kneeling by his father's side and slowly begins reaching one tiny hand towards John's head. The moment crystallizes and Arthur can't move, can't breathe. The boy shakes as the tips of two of his small fingers graze the bruised skin of John's face, the side without the bandages. Jack's fingers hover after the first pet, and when John doesn't stir Jack bites his lip with child-like concentration and lowers his whole hand with earth-shattering tenderness to press against John's cheek.

Time unpauses and Arthur wrenches himself away from the window, gasping around the devastation in his chest as he drags himself back to his post by the horses. The cold night cloaks him, trying to put out the flames as Arthur stands there unable to escape the riot of emotion wrecking havoc on what's left of his soul. The stars whisper to each other above the clouds about humans and their talent for self-destruction while the moon looks on, ruler of the lonely, and is only sad.

You awake with a startle and a gasp, sitting bolt upright from your place on the floor.

A sharp twang sings through your body and you try to bite off your shout of pain. It takes a moment for the hurt to finish rolling through you, and your body to settle enough so you could try and focus. Once you do get a grip you see that you're back in the cabin, and it still seems to be night time. You don't know how long ago your unfortunate encounter with that man Arthur was, but you thank any and all deities that may be listening that you're not dead.

You figure there's not much you can do right now to immediately aid yourself, but that doesn't stop you from planning. You need to be smarter and being smarter starts with gathering your wits and getting your shit together. No more fainting (if you could help it), no more escaping on a whim, no more naive honesty. You need to adapt and you needed to do it now. Tomorrow would most likely determine your fate and you refused to give fate the chance to fuck you over even more than it already has. Falling asleep is out of the question as every worry and fret piles higher and higher only to bury you deeper and deeper. You give a small start when a tiny voice clears its throat.

"You know," The young boy murmurs to you from across the room, "When I have trouble sleeping I count my Mama's breaths." His mother (Abigail, was it?) is curled around him tight, sitting with her back against the wall, her cheek squished against the ledge of the man's -- John, you remember -- cot, and her arms wrapped securely around the boy. "If...if you want, you can count her breaths too."

You recognize that he is offering you something precious, a tiny jewel sparkling in the dark room, and it lightens the horror of the past however many days you've been here.

"Thank you, um," You blank on his name.

"Jack." He provides quietly.

"Jack, thank you Jack. I just might."

Jack gives you a cautious half-smile before closing his eyes and snuggling deeper into his mother's arms. After you've fried your brain to a crisp with worry you eventually try to rest. For a time you do actually start to count Abigail's sleeping breaths, thinking it can't hurt to try. When that doesn't work though you try to count John's, then even little Jack's. All of this does nothing but expand your hearing, making you hyper aware of every insignificant sound: the wind howling through the frozen town, the stray creak of brittle wood, the muted crackle of a weak fire in the next room over. It all pushes in on you, suffocating you with paranoia.

When you can't stand it any longer, you jerk your eyes open and quietly but swiftly stand up. Since going outside would be pointless and stupid (as you hazard Arthur or someone of this gang might be out there), your gaze targets the door connecting this room with the adjoining one. You close the short distance to it and carefully turn the rusted knob. As you open it slowly in the hopes of making the least amount of noise, you wince when it protests with a loud creak. Fuck it, you think before yanking the damn thing open wide enough so you can quickly slip through. You're halfway into the next room when you stop cold.

There, sitting hunched before the fireplace, is the large bulk of a man who's cleaning a shotgun. He turns at the sound of your intrusion and sees you frozen in the doorway. You can't make out much of his face in the dark room and he doesn't speak so you can't identify him by voice, so you both just petrify into statues.

One beat.

Two beats.

Three beats.

Then --

He silently hefts his gaze back down to his gun, effectively shattering the moment but not cutting the tension. That certainly wasn't an invitation to come in but it also wasn't a hostile demand to leave. So, naturally, you remain fixed in the doorway torn clean in half with indecision. Most of his back is facing you so only a slice of his profile is visible, and even that is blurred by the orange light of the small fire flickering in the wooden hearth in front of him.

"What you want?" His words fire like gunshots into the space between you, mirth curling like smoke out of the corners of his mouth as the air in the room becomes charged.

The baritone of his voice resonates in your memory...

Arthur?

How is it you keep running into him? Another habit that needs to be broken.

"Thank you,"

You jump at your own voice, surprising yourself, and he stiffens before ceasing his cleaning entirely. Your heart pounds between your lungs and blood roars in your ears. Why did you speak, why did you speak, why did you speak --

"For, for saving my life." You clarify, your voice tight as it fights its way out of your locked jaw and heavy with a gratitude so dense your tongue fumbles around the syllables.

Arthur doesn't reply at first, just jerks back into methodically wiping down the long barrel of his gun after a moment or two of silence.

"You're welcome." He says eventually, tone hard and carefully blank, and its what you had been waiting for apparently because as soon as the words leave his mouth you're slinking back into the room you came from.

Your heart doesn't stop racing even as you lie back down in front of the fireplace and watch the dim embers flicker, even as you try to listen for Arthur in the next room, even as you slip into an uneasy nightmare-plagued sleep.

This time you awake to your wrists being not-so-gently tied together.

A man with a mean glint in his eye and a cruel smile hovering over you is the first thing you see when your eyes shoot open. He's talking down at you with loud harsh words that try to stuff themselves into your ears at the same time, all sharp edges and poisoned corners as they tumble around in your head.

"Bill get her tied to the wagon beside the other O'Driscoll and then we'll be ready to set out." Says a voice you've heard once before. A man with black shoulder length curls and dressed like he's straight out of some Victorian drama leans into your vision over the shoulder of who you now know to be Bill. His gaze is piercing and the authority in his voice is unmissable. His name evades you though as you instead struggle to grasp all that's happening.

It takes you a second to realize what the man had said, and before the increasingly familiar grip of fear can truly settle in your bones, Bill wrenches you up to stand on your feet and shoves you out the closed door. The pain of smashing front first through the door, the shock of the cold, the light of the morning, and the noise of people and horses bustling about hits you all at once, stunning you into a stand still before Bill pushes you forward again. You almost collapse into the snow at the force of it, still infuriatingly weak and still fighting to keep up on the current situation. Bill grabs the scruff of fabric at the back of your neck, scoffing his aggravation at your incompetence, and proceeds to drag you over to one of the wagons being readied for departure that are lined up on the main road.

"O'Driscoll whore!" Someone hisses at you as you're wrenched kicking and screaming down the line towards the back.

You're too disoriented and focused on trying to maintain your footing in the snow to see who it was. Though the scratch in the woman's voice sounded familiar, almost like a vulture's caw.

"Bill is all that violence really necessary?" Comes another voice you think you've heard before, tone a bit brittle with age or maybe its just the cold. You're too busy trying to twist yourself free to look up to the source of the voice -- a man who's perched on the driver's bench of the wagon behind the one you've stopped in front of.

"Dutch said she was an O'Driscoll spy, possibly one of their whores, I'm treatin' her accordin' to her station!" Is the attempted justification of your abuser, then you're yanked hard by your hair so your back is forced to press against his front, "Makin' you squeal will be so easy," Bill hushes into your ear.

You don't have time to register the pain in your scalp because his foul hot breath pours over your cheek and collects in the shell of your ear along with the rub of his course full beard, making your stomach drop in violent disgust. A revolted sound half way between a shout and a gag rips its way out of your lips and he laughs at the noise, shoving you off him to crash into the wooden lip of the back of the wagon. A scuffed up man shivers in the snow beside you, hands bound like yours are but tied to the back of the wagon like livestock. You both just stare at each other wide eyed and scared as Bill manhandles you into more rope and more knots as he also ties you to the wagon. He cackles and hits your behind hard, promising you something you wish you hadn't heard before walking off.

'The pleasure of breakin' you for my own is gonna be so much fun.'

Incapable of anything but choking on your panic, you flinch as the rub of the harsh rope against the skin of your wrists -- twin shackles of pressure and heat that only tighten further as you try to rip yourself free -- begins to burn.

"Don't yank or you'll make the ropes tighter," You jump as the man beside you murmurs urgently under his breath, "I think this will be a long journey and you'll want to maintain feelin' in your hands or you could lose 'em."

Lose your hands? Long journey? Your breathing cranks into hyperventilation and you feel yourself spiraling --

"Hey! I-Its okay, um my name's Kieran. Whats yours?"

You look at the man -- Kieran, and try to get yourself to take his bait, try to allow yourself to be reeled away from your panic. Smarter, you need to be smarter.

"Y/n, my name is Y/n." You force out in a hoarse voice between gasping breaths, desperately searching for some stillness in yourself amidst all the chaotic noise of your fear.

"Y/n, that's a nice name. It's good to meet you even if it is under unfortunate circumstances."

You can't manage a response but Kieran looks like he doesn't mind, just offers you a grimace you assume is meant to be a smile. But his effort to calm you is in vain, because your panic rockets back up when Kieran cowers as someone walks past him towards the wagon parked behind you. The man responsible for this reaction is tall, has a build on him that displays a kind of packed strength that contains true physical ability. Though something about his shape -- in the way he moves, sparks an ember of familiarity in your mind.

"Whatchu lookin' at?" The man challenges and stops dead in his tracks as he catches you staring, his shaded eyes lock with yours under the dark brim of his hat. His shoulders hold a tension that speaks to an intimacy with violence and his hands are fisted in great balls of bone and muscle. Its his voice that hits you like a thunder clap.

Arthur.

Making use of the daylight, you quickly pick out a few defining aspects of him to match to the Arthur in your memory then divert your gaze down and away, not wanting to risk his wrath. This is apparently the right thing to do because as Arthur dismisses the both of you with a grunt and heaves himself up onto the driver's perch of the wagon behind you beside an older looking man, Kieran shuffles closer to your side and warns,

"If there is anyone you don't want to piss off, its him."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

It probably makes you a horrible person but you're glad you aren't alone, glad that someone else is a prisoner too -- that there's at least one person who doesn't want to kill you. And if Kieran is claiming Arthur to be the worst of them, even worse than that Bill person, you think that maybe surviving this situation isn't going to be something you're capable of.

There's some clamoring around and shouts between the wagons as everyone begins mounting up, but it all blurs for you. You shake from the panic and the fear and the cold and the hunger...you go to a numb place. One where your senses dull, your mind blanks, and emptiness yawns in your chest -- eating up everything in its path. You dissociate hard because its the only way you can cope. When reigns are snapped and cries of 'Onward!' are released into the fridge air, all the wagons jerk stiffly into motion, you along with them, and your journey begins.

Arthur watches the two O'Driscolls struggling through the snow behind the wagon in front of him with a knot in his stomach. It was Micah's idea to have them walk tied to the wagon and not just sit secured in the back.

The wagon isn't going fast but its the terrain that's the problem. The prisoners first try to walk in the deep tracks the wagon impresses into the snow, but their ropes aren't quite long enough to allow them that far back so they end up just getting yanked forward. Then when they abandon this tactic and just simply try to keep up with the wagon by breaking their own path behind it through the knee deep snow, they tire -- fast. They inevitably begin to slow, their ropes loosing their slack, and they are once again pulled forward. There really isn't a happy medium, and no doubt all this dragging and yanking worsens the blood circulation of their bound wrists. Bill had tied them real tight and with short leads. Unnecessarily short in Arthur's opinion but whatever, he's too tired to bring it up and he figures that was probably Bill's intention anyway.

Exhaustion consumes Arthur as the caravan trudges down the mountain, the cold a great heavy iron blanket covering him from head to toe. Dutch has been running him ragged these past few weeks -- with fair reason -- but still, Arthur's gotten maybe a total of twenty-four hours of sleep broken up in small chunks throughout the past week alone. He worries he'll fall asleep at the reigns but is thankful Hosea chose to sit shotgun and is currently demanding to drive. Arthur grunts but relents the reigns, sore from the non-stop cold, lack of rest, lack of proper nourishment, and having helped Javier and Charles hack all the left over ice that froze the joints of the wagons off right before departing. Because while the storm did break and the sun had shown for the first time in days, it didn't mean the snow was going to thaw anytime soon.

"If you feel yourself fallin' asleep make sure to lean towards me and not off the wagon." Hosea says with that familiar teasing humor of his but Arthur can clearly hear the note of concern in his voice.

"I'd crush you if I fell asleep on you old man, better to fall clean outta the wagon and risk a scrape or two then kill ya tryna sleep."

Hosea gives a wheezing chuckle at that and the sound loosens a darkness from Arthur's heart he hadn't known he'd been baring. It lets warmth into his chest and shakes the stitches pulling his eyebrows together out too. Arthur is grateful for Hosea's attempt to lighten his mood, knowing Hosea himself has been sour this past week, as sour as Arthur's ever seen him. He's also never heard Hosea argue with Dutch the way he has been before. It worries Arthur, it worries Arthur greatly.

"Well crush me then, can't have you breakin' bones --," Hosea suddenly pulls the horses up short as the O'Driscoll woman in front of them stumbles to her knees, letting out a cry as she's dragged for a moment, before forcing herself back up. Hosea lets the two prisoners get a few extra paces ahead before encouraging the horses forward again and continuing, "Once we get down into warmer country I'll make an herb paste you can put in some hot water. Drinkin' it should help you recover."

"I ain't hurt." Arthur bites out on reflex.

"You ain't well neither." Hosea immediately shoots back, accompanied by a significant look he sends at Arthur's profile.

Arthur sighs and surrenders the argument, finding he could never win them against Hosea anyway. That was due largely to the fact that Hosea was mostly always right, but Arthur chooses not to think too much on that as his shoulders slump forward and his back aches something fierce. Also the base of his skull has been throbbing since yesterday but he figures that's also due to his exhaustion.

"Bill shouldn't have made 'em walk like this," Arthur hears Hosea mutter as the woman falls again, "No point in it. Will only slow us down."

"I don't think she's a spy," Arthur admits as he rubs his face with his gloved hands, sniffing hard once he's done to keep his nose from running.

"No?"

Arthur shakes his head and scratches his beard, the skin under the thickening stubble dry and cracked from the cold.

"Caught her tryin' to steal from my saddlebags last night. I stood six goddamn feet from 'er, didn't notice me at all." Arthur elaborates with a scoff, "Plus she apologized when I caught her. She ain't no thief."

"Why were you up?" Hosea questions with that fatherly fierceness of his, completely ignoring the rest of what Arthur said.

"Dutch put me on watch." Arthur shrugs.

Hosea is silent at this and when Arthur turns to look at him, Hosea has a rather hardened expression on his face,

"He should have let you rest."

"Ah don't worry about me, I'm fine."

Hosea doesn't validate Arthur's words with a response, only frowns deeper as the O'Driscoll man does his best to encourage the woman to keep going as she struggles to stand from another fall.

"You think she's an O'Driscoll?" Arthur questions in the hopes of distracting Hosea from his thoughts, hating the dark look molding his face into a mask of muted ire.

Hosea only gives a noncommittal hum and continues brooding. Arthur realizes why Dutch always says he reminds him so much of Hosea, they have the exact same brooding face. Arthur clears his throat and returns his gaze forward knowing Hosea wants to not be bothered for a bit. A few beats of silence throb by and Arthur realizes Charles has been awfully quiet (not that that isn't normal for Charles but still).

"How you doin' back there Charles!" Arthur calls as he turns in his seat to face the back of the wagon where Charles is sitting, huddled and wrapped around himself tight, on one of the barrels.

Charles levels him with a look that makes Arthur immediately regret asking. Clearly Charles is miserable just like everyone else. Feeling a bit sheepish, Arthur is about to turn back around when Charles' face lightens out of its exasperation as he takes a breath to speak.

"I'm doing alright Arthur."

Arthur nods, "How's that hand?"

"Better. It'll heal a lot faster once we get out of the cold."

"Good." Arthur grunts before swiveling forward, missing the rare small smile Charles gives Arthur's back at his concern.

You can't feel your legs.

At first it was just your feet, but as you continue to trudge through the deep snow the numbing feeling begins to crawl upwards. Maybe its a good thing you can't feel them, they probably would be aching just as insufferably as the rest of your body is. You don't know how much longer you can keep going for, you hope its long enough, but the snow is getting thinner and thinner so you figure once the snow is gone things will get easier.

Wrong. You are so wrong.

Since karma or fate or whatever is responsible for you is a complete asshole, you quickly realize how close you are to truly losing your shit. Once you leave the mountain feeling eventually returns to your legs as you travel into warmer and warmer areas, and the pain is excruciating. You haven't eaten anything but a slice of stale venison jerky, you've been on your feet for god knows how long, you're weaker than you've ever been, and you're surrounded by dangerous people who all want to kill you. Your panic is like a new limb at this point, constantly there living in the back of your head never sleeping just always on. Like a switch you can't turn off. And it drains you, drains you of everything you are. You've forgotten what its like to not be exhausted, what its like to be strong and safe and happy.

There has been a pretty constant stream of small talk happening in the wagon behind you, but you're still so distant you don't have the capability to pay attention to what they're saying. You're in too much pain to even try.

You hear the water before you see it. Kieran begins wrapping his hands around the lead of his rope, pulling him just short of the wagon. He nods at you to do the same,

"The river looks deep and the current looks strong, you don't want your rope to snap if you fall."

Before you can ask why, you catch a glance around the wagon at the deep river flowing towards the unmistakable roar of a waterfall. The wagons cross single file a yard or two away from the drop off, the horses snorting and neighing their protest at the force of the current. Your attention spikes like a plucked wire, all your nerve endings zinging to life as your wagon nears the water. You copy Kieran and frantically wrap your wrists in the excess rope, shaking as you do. Your panic ebbs like a tide in your brain, drawing back to crest in a tidal wave as you are finally forced into the cold water.

It's deeper than you thought. Much deeper and much stronger. The current takes your feet out from under you almost immediately.

You open your mouth to scream but your lungs flood with water. Kieran can't do much but shout for you as your head goes under. You fight to gain footing, and once you do your head bursts through the surf with a gasp and you clamp your hands around the splintered lip of the wagon, holding on for dear life as the wagon trudges on.

Arthur's breath had stopped when he saw her go under.

"Careful of the rocks Arthur!" Hosea calls to him, snapping Arthur's attention back on driving.

The wagon jerks in the water as the left rear wheel crunches over what felt like a cluster of rocks.

By the time Arthur looks back up, the wagon in front of them is out of the water and on the otherside of the bank, and the woman sounds like she's coughing up a lung.

"Get us outta the stream!" Hosea then orders when he notices Arthur's attention has been stolen once again, "You gotta keep us movin', but calm --,"

Arthur interrupts him with a grunt and guides the wagon out of the river, they get maybe a foot onto dry land before a resounding crack echos up against the ravine and the wagon collapses.

"Ah shit!" Arthur curses as he pulls the horses up short.

"All right, let's take a look," Hosea sighs in a very obvious tone of exasperation.

The line of wagons halt, people shouting their concerns.

"You okay?" Javier calls from the wagon in front of them.

"Everything alright back there?" Bill says almost at the same time from beside Javier.

"Does everything look alright?" Arthur snarks, voice sharpened by sarcasm and aggravation at being the reason the line is held up as Hosea, Charles, and him all hop down to assess the damage.

The two tied O'Driscolls eye the situation from over their shoulders, huffing and shaking in exhaustion.

"Well, what's going on?" Javier says from his perch on the driver's bench, swiveled around to face them and squinting to see what all the fuss is.

"I broke the goddamn wheel!" Comes Arthur's tempered reply, gesturing to the wheel that's rolled off a bit as he walks to the back of the wagon.

"Alright, let's get it fixed." Hosea concedes as he waves Charles over.

"You need help?" Javier offers as Bill rolls his eyes at the entire scene and faces forward.

"I reckon we can handle it!" Hosea assures as he makes his way to the back of the wagon, "Alright Charles you and me hold the thing up, while you try to put the wheel back on Arthur."

As Arthur picks the wheel up and begins rolling it back over to the wagon he says,

"You still strong enough to hold up a wagon?" He phrases it like a jab, but he really does want to know if it'll hurt Hosea. They could always switch.

"Shut up." Hosea snaps with a strange opposing gentleness, a special tone he always seems to use when he's being short with Arthur.

"I'm just sayin," Arthur grumbles as he positions the wheel onto its knob.

"Well, say less." Hosea grunts as he and Charles lift the wagon with the strength of their legs and their lower backs.

You fight the whole body collapse you feel simmering just under your skin and hollowing out your bones. This is the longest you've been still for who knows how long, and you're beginning to wonder if you'll be able to move again. If you have the strength to take even one more step. There's grunts and the sound of muscles bashing against wood as your wagon jerks into motion again.

"We'll meet you back at camp!" Calls the voice of one of your drivers, his accent sounds Hispanic though you can't place which country.

"Alright!" Someone shouts back as your body locks up in pain in anticipation of moving.

Your feet are throbbing, your knees feel like snapping, your hips and upper body feel as heavy as stone...how much longer...

I will try and update as soon as possible! Sorry for such a long break!! :(

Chapter 3

Masterlist

#A Single Frayed Rope #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x fem!reader #arthur morgan x y/n #arthur morgan fanfic #rdr2 fanfic #rdr2 #arthur morgan #my works #my writing #thejamesoldier

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