#just firing off the occasional shot to keep the rent low if you know what i mean | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

percywinchester27 · 4 years ago

Text

La Petite Mort

Word count: 2.1K

Pairing: Dean X Reader AU

Warnings: None, just fluff, humour and implied sex ;)

Series Summary: The reader has just shifted to a new flat and boy, someone on the floor has a really banging sex life! The passionate moans have been keeping her up for several nights in row and enough is enough! Reader has her suspicions, but is it really the green-eyed hottie from room no. 307?

A/N: It’s a neighbours!AU. I’m finally writing one. So excited to share it with you guys. Hope y’all like it! <3

Beta: The best babe, @deanssweetheart23

Everything was fine till the banging started. Pun very much intended.

The shift had been smooth, the job was going great and life was finally on track. You had slid under the covers with the most satisfied smile in years only to be woken up to a lady very, very, very happy with her life.

Oh yeah… oh yeah… ahhh right there… oh fuck yeah…

You sat up right in your bed, eyes wide, face hot.

Third night in a row. Third fucking night. Literally.

What in the good heavens? The landlady might have mentioned this while renting out the flat!

Shoving the pillow over your ears, you fell back onto the mattress, closing your eyes shut very tightly. Eventually sleep overtook you and you lapsed into lousy dreams of trying to catch the taxi which kept evading you. Not a metaphor for your sex life at all. Nope.

The disturbed sleep didn’t help your mood the following day. Everyone at the office thought of you as a happy-go lucky person. Lately, they were seeing this whole new dark side of you. Sleep was essential to your functioning.

In the evening, on your way back, you stopped by the coffee shop downstairs to pick up a brownie. It was a little place; busy yet quaint. The barista, Charlie, made two hearts in your coffee instead of one. That put the biggest smile on your face.

At least, the day was ending on a high note.

Your newly rented flat was on the third floor of a very complicated building. One staircase did not directly lead into another. An entire hallway had to be crossed to get to it. The design probably broke a hundred different by laws and someone was definitely paid off in the city civil office to get a construction permit. You did not want to imagine how the people would fare in case of a fire emergency. Learning the escape plan was like memorising the map of a treasure hunt. You escape, you win. You lose… whoops! Better luck in next life. But the rent was cheap and you were already living all the clichés of a struggling writer- one incomplete book, a job at a publishing house and addiction to coffee. So, yes, you would brave fire when it came to being able to afford a living.

Struggling with the brownie package and the coffee in your hand you jammed the key into the door. It didn’t go in.

What the hell?

You tried again, and once more the key got jammed. On a closer look, you realised that the lock didn’t resemble yours at all. Stepping back, you peered at the door. 307. Not 306- which was yours.

The floor design was insane and instead of the flats being lined up next to each other, they were all fronting one another in a haphazard fashion. Shaking your head, you took a step back and jammed the key into the lock of your own flat.

Jesus! You’re losing it, Y/N.

Shirking off the mild irritation, you cooked yourself a hot cup of instant noodles, put on your favourite TV show and slinked into your couch. Tonight’s episode was going to reveal who the murderer was and you had been dying for the suspense to finally end.

Just when the protagonist was about to point a gun at the killer in the shadows…

Oh my God... you’re incredible… aahhhh… ahhhh… ahhh…

You completely abandoned the TV and jumped up from the sofa. The fire hazard might still be worth it, but the thin walls so weren’t.

On tiptoes, you made your way to the east side wall, putting your ear against it. The noise wasn’t coming from upstairs. That was the only sure thing. But it was impossible to pinpoint the direction. The moans were reverberating through the walls. So loudly that there was no escaping it. Not in the bedroom, the kitchen or the living room sofa.

Of all of them, the east wall seemed like the culprit.

Right there… yeah…

307. Whoever it was in that room needed to calm the FUCK down. You grabbed your blanket and dragged it to the end of the living room, fuming. What ticked you off was how much this was ticking you off.

It’s sleep you told yourself. The lack of sleep was the only thing making you mad. The sex noises couldn’t be it. Because there were other noises- a dog barked somewhere occasionally, one of the rooms had a very loud stereo and someone was too much into baking- the beater was ceaseless. No, it had to be the timing and your wrecked sleep schedule.

Just like the nights before, you covered your ears and started reciting the story of the manuscript you had been reading at work. Eventually, sleep overtook you again.

The next morning you woke up in a crappier mood. If that was even possible.

Breathing down on anything and everything, you locked the door on your way out for work. Turning into the corridor, you ran into a wall of solid flesh.

In your groggy, sleep deprived state, the first thing you noticed was the way he smelled- leather and whiskey and something headier than that. It was divine. Next, you looked up into those eyes- stunning green, like sparkling water running over jade.

“Easy there, sweetheart!” The guy smirked.

You straightened yourself and took a step back. In front of you stood the most handsome guy you had ever seen. He was tall, with dirty blond hair, almost brown, and those stunning eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” you muttered, trying to collect your scattered thoughts. You had one of those dumb faces that gave away every damn thought crossing through your brain, so obviously you tried your best not to meet his gaze. Which was a shame really. That face demanded to be ogled at. Let alone the body that followed.

“No, no… I didn’t mind at all.”

You saw him reach out to the door of 307.

“You’re the one who lives there?” You asked through gritted teeth.

He raised an eyebrow. “Sure. You want a tour?”

Uhgg the best looking guy and he has to be such a douche!

Slipping past him, you stomped off towards the stairs. This too-good-looking-for-the-world asshat had been ruining your nights and in turn your life.

You knew it was wrong to be mad at him without, at least, talking about the issue first. A polite conversation explaining your situation wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world now, would it? But how does one start a conversation pertaining to that? After all, he wasn’t exactly the one making the noise. What would you say?

So, hey would you mind pleasuring your girlfriend a little less?

Or better. Ever heard of a ball gag?

Mere thought of it made you shudder.

The work day was spent trying to shove your neighbour's stupidly handsome face out of your mind. It didn’t help that your mother kept calling, repeatedly. You knew what she had to say. How you should have taken that bigger job at Royal’s publishing. How the writing career might never take off. How you really should get a boyfriend now, or you’ll be the only unmarried cousin in the family.

Usually you could entertain your mother with well-timed hmms and ahhs. Today wasn’t that day.

Bone-tired and absentminded, you jammed the key in the keyhole in the evening, only for it to get stuck again. You looked up at the door. 307.

Well, shit!

Putting both your hands into it, you yanked the key with all your might, just as the door opened. There he stood, with his crooked smirk, dimples digging in, wearing nothing but a thin cotton t-shirt and sweatpants that hung all too low on those hips.

“You don’t need to break into my house. I already offered a tour.” Of course, god gave him an irresistible voice. Cause at this point, why not?

“Sorry,” you muttered, looking anywhere but at him. “I keep getting the wrong door. This one’s mine.”

“Oh, so you’re the one in 306!” You could feel his smirk more than see it. “Looks like you’re having a good ol’ time in there.”

“Excuse me?”

The guy raised scratched the back of his neck, face apologetic. “You might… ya know… just keep the voice down in there?”

The audacity of this guy!

“Rich of you to ask anyone to keep it down!” You hissed. “Why don’t you tell your girlfriend to keep it low?”

With that, you shut your door in his surprised face. The worst part was, after bumping into him in the morning, your mind was producing distinct images of him in the bed, doing things to a woman. You had tried your best not to let them make a home in your head. But like a stickly tenant, they refused to evacuate. No wonder it was hard to look him in those brilliant, brilliant green eyes. The guy was hot! There was no denying that. You weren’t even willing to accept to yourself just how much time you had put into imagining him naked.

If anything, the denial mixed with your pre-existing irritation and sleep deprivation had you ready tonight.

So the moment the enamoured voice started begging, you hopped out of your chair. You had every intention of yelling yourself hoarse at the delectable resident next door, but the moment you stepped into the corridor, you came face to face with the very man.

He was- thankfully, completely clothed- looking a bit harassed, himself.

aahhhh… ahhhh… ahhh… right there...

Your head whipped up to the suspected direction of the voice, and back at him. “Wait, you aren’t… it’s not...?”

His face mirrored your expression of surprise and then he burst out laughing. “Looks like we’ve both been played.”

“Not intentionally,” you said, peering at the adjacent doors, mostly to not look at him. “Where do you think it’s coming from?”

He shot a glance at the door opposite to his. “If it’s not you, my best guess is that guy over there. I mean, if you ask me, Nick over there doesn’t look the type to make a woman that happy… but what do I know?”

“You shouldn’t make assumptions about people,” you said, taking a tentative step towards the said door.

Mr. hot guy smartpants laughed. “Oh, trust me. He’s the douchiest douche you’ll ever meet. Guy like that? Definitely selfish in bed.”

You frowned at him.

“He asks women in the street to smile more,” hot guy explained.

“Uhhgg… yeah you’re right. It’s definitely not him.”

Hot guy pointed his fingers at the rest of the doors. “That one’s rented by three guys. I don’t think it’s them. Mrs. Hendrickson over there works night shifts. I have no clue who lives in there,” he pointed to the last door, directly in front of you.

Goodness you’re amazing...

“Yes, lady, we already know!” He called out.

You couldn’t help the giggle that burst through your lips.

His eyes softened. “Dean Winchester,” he said, offering his hand.

“Y/N. Y/N Y/L/N,” you said, taking his. He had a firm grip. A very funny sensation gripped your stomach. Like a flutter. Nervousness?

“It’s great to meet you, Y/N.” He smirked. “I sure wish the circumstances were better.”

You bit your lip. “Listen, I’m sorry for the comment about your girlfriend. I was just mad about, you know... “

“Don’t worry about it. My non-existent girlfriend is very cool. She took no offense.”

You snorted.

“I was dead serious about the house tour,” He winked. “I can promise great coffee.”

“Sure, sometime soon.”

He shot a look at the door with the unknown occupants again. “I hate to leave this here, but I think we should get whatever kind of shuteye we can while they’re quiet over there, huh?”

“Oh, yeah!” You hurried back to your flat. “Night, Dean.”

He gave you his crooked grin again, just a hint of mischief. “Night, Y/N.”

You knew it wasn’t him now, and he was right about making the most of the quiet and fucking off to sleep, and yet, each time you closed your eyes, your mind decided to replay your imaginations for you. With a start, you sat up in your bed, a thought occurring to you like a hit on the head- If you had been thinking about him that way? Had he been imagining you as well?

Blood rushed to your face at the very idea. Though a tiny part of you begged for the answer- would it be such a bad thing if he had?

*********************

A/N 2: So? So? SO??? What do you think?

I value each and every reblog more than I can tell you! Thank you! Feedback is love and life!

This series will have a total of 5 or 6 parts max.

If you want be tagged in the future parts, YOU CAN SEND ME AND ASK or add yourself to the taglist HERE.

Or here’s my side blog @percywinchester27-writes. You can give that blog a follow and turn the notifications on to get notified when there’s an update.

La Petite Mort Taglist:

@deanssweetheart23 @cosicas-cuquis @like-a-bag-of-potatoes @mlovesstories @feelmyroarrrr @thefridgeismybestie @gabavaldman @akshi8278 @michellethetvaddict @fandomoverdose666 @badlittlehabit99 @lastcallatrockysbar @mrswhozeewhatsis @thestralsaregood @yoursmilemakesmeloveyou @notan-applepielife @stoneyggirl @tricksterdean @sea040561 @i-is-for-inspiring @torn-and-frayed @flamencodiva @sunflowers-n-rocknroll @binxy @sdavid09 @sherala007 @ohgodwhybloggg @mogaruke @seekingkairos @tootsie562 @pansexualgrapes @soitiswritten05 @shesnotmaria @miss-nerd95 @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @atc74 @onethirstyunicorn @thoughts-and-funnies @deandreamernp @deanwinchesterinthedarktower @outofnowhere82 @traceyaudette

#dean x reader fluff #dean winchester x reader #neighbors!AU #bartender!Dean #dean winchester reader insert #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester fluff #dean fluff #neighbor!dean #Ana writes LPM #spn fanfiction #supernatural fanfiction #lpm 1 #anawrites #anawritesspn #q

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mamabearcat · 3 years ago

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Proposal fic + hair (braiding/brushing) InuKag

Ooh thanks Nonny 😘

Okay, I'm gonna revive an AU I've never actually written but it's been loitering around in the back of my head forever. I may even write it one day if I feel like doing a longer AU full of comedy fluff. The first bit was posted on Tumblr forever ago, but now it gets to be continued!

Inuyasha wasn’t quite sure how he fell into it; who would have thought you could make a career out of being a model for romance covers for fuck’s sake?! Apparently his half-demon heritage that had blessed him with his father's long thick white hair, amber eyes that glowed in the darkness and pointed dog ears gave him an edgy look, whatever that meant. His ability to retain a lean muscular build no matter what he ate didn't hurt either.

But, the money was very good, even if he had to fight off the occasional stalker, and hide from screaming female fans trying to stuff underwear in his pockets when he went out to buy milk.

His manager Miroku was a total letch, and Sango had been slacking on security - waking up to find a strange woman in his kitchen making coffee in nothing but an apron was more than a little surprising. He actually had more than a sneaking suspicion that something was going on between those two.

But the best part of being a model was Kagome. His photographer, his best friend. He'd known her for years now, and there was no one he trusted more.

Their first photo shoot three years ago had been memorable. He’d accidentally called her Kikyo, and she'd exploded at him. How was he to know? They looked kinda the same, and they were both photographers. It did kinda suck that her cousin Kikyo had possibly ruined her chances of having a serious career in photo journalism, but this gig she was doin’ paid the bills right?

Why did she have to be so serious anyway? He’d abandoned any thoughts of self respect long ago. When you knew what it was like at the very bottom, didn’t know where your next meal was coming from, you understood that self respect was a luxury.

Ah, but Kagome. He couldn't help but love her. Even though this wasn't what she wanted to be doing, she put her whole heart and soul into her work, wanting it to be the best. He knew all her little mannerisms by heart - the way she blew upwards into her fringe when she was feeling frustrated, the way she jiggled her legs under the table when she was feeling fidgety, the way her eyes lit up when she got a good idea for a shot.

He'd always said he'd do anything for her, would gladly take a bullet for her. He'd already blocked a knife attack for her, that had to count for something, right? He'd never been more terrified when she'd been threatened, and the thought of what might had happened if he'd left just a little earlier still broke him out in a cold sweat sometimes.

They'd been closer after her life was threatened, so much closer. He'd been hopeful, but pretty sure she still only saw him as a friend. I mean, how cliche was it for a model to fall for a photographer? He was pretty sure she'd think he was joking, and laugh right in his face. And then on the steps after the trial against that stalker she'd kissed him. And it had been like the heavens had opened and angels had sung.

Kagome had always wanted to be a photo journalist. She'd dreamed of it since high school, starting her career with the local paper, gaining notice when she won a world renowned travel photography competition. That was the chance that should have got her a job with a top magazine, the chance that should have made her career. But it had been stolen by her cousin Kikyo.

Kikyo, who had been her flatmate when they finished high school, so they could share their passion for photography and help support each other in their move to New York as they tried to achieve their dreams. Kikyo, who had taken the message about the year long internship she had been offered after they saw her winning photo. Kikyo, whose features were similar enough to her own that they were often mistaken for each other, if you didn't know both of them that well. Kikyo, who had turned up for that internship and somehow convinced them that she'd used a different name for the competition.

Her cousin had milked that experience for everything it was worth. And now she was the one working for a world renowned magazine, and Kagome was paying rent doing cover photos for romance novels. She may be the best one in her field, but it wasn't quite what she'd dreamed of. It's not like she'd wished upon a star when she was five and asked if she could be the one to discover the next Fabio.

The best thing about her work was spending time with Inuyasha. She'd been so angry at him the first day they'd met all those years ago. Fresh from a weekend at a family event where she'd had to hear once again that Kikyo couldn't make it because she was overseas, doing some big story, and they were all so proud of her. And he'd called her Kikyo, because he'd seen some article recently and mistakenly thought she was her cousin. After she'd calmed down, she couldn't really fault him. They had the same last name, same initial, even looked similar enough.

But he'd grown on her. And it wasn't just his good looks - he had those in abundance, but he didn't really seem to care about that. He was rough around the edges, a little rude, definitely obnoxious, but very funny, charming, brave, and also... kind of sweet?

That day she'd had that terrible cold but had still come to work because they'd had a deadline, he'd given her his jacket and then rushed out to the supermarket at lunch time so he could make her a sure fire cold remedy his mother had taught him. It had tasted absolutely feral, but surprisingly, she'd felt a lot better the next day.

Just a few weeks ago, they had finalised the court case with Inuyasha's stalker. For some reason, Jakotsu, one of Inuyasha's most ardent fans, had bizarrely seen Kagome as a threat, even though it was obvious they were only friends.

At first it was just strange letters delivered to her workplace, which she'd ignored totally. She'd only begun to be worried when weird notes appeared in her own letter box at her apartment. And then the late night phone calls had started.

She'd managed to keep it from Inuyasha until Jakotsu had slashed her tyres, and then he'd been furious. Angry at her for not telling him what was happening, and incandescent with rage at the stalker.

After that he'd been there for her whenever she'd been afraid, so protective and caring. When Jakotsu had snuck up on her late one night in the parking lot, he'd blocked the attack, stepping in front of her in the nick of time, taking a slash to his arm that was originally aimed at her face, then knocking out Jakotsu and holding him until the police arrived.

He'd been the one injured, with nearly 20 stitches in his forearm, but he'd been worried about her. Thank goodness for swift youkai healing. She'd been devastated that he'd been injured, but he'd just shrugged it off, telling her he was glad it was him and not her.

After that, she'd finally admitted to herself that her feelings for him were more than just friendly. Had been for such a long time now. He was gorgeous, but she wasn't the kind of girl that slept around. She needed to be friends first, be comfortable, and there was no one she was more comfortable around than Inuyasha. He was her first thought in the morning and her last at night. But wasn't that a little cliche, a photographer falling for a model? She'd thought he'd probably think she was joking and laugh in her face.

But that moment after the trial and they'd been standing out in the sunlight, she hadn't been able to help herself. She was just so happy, so grateful that he hadn't been injured worse. So she'd practically crash tackled him and kissed him. No tentative pecks. No warning. She couldn't bear to let another day pass without him knowing how she felt. And when he'd kissed her back, with Miroku and Sango cat calling in the background, yelling at them to get a room, it had felt like heaven.

"Where's Yura this morning?" asked Inuyasha, glancing around the make up room, as if she would suddenly appear out of nowhere with her ever present combs and scissors.

"She's called in sick, so you've got me on double duty today. Aren't you lucky?" Kagome teased, poking her tongue out at him.

"So, you gonna model with me too?" he grinned, wrapping his arm around her waist and holding her close to rub his nose softly againt hers. "Who's gonna take the happy snaps?"

"You wish. It's a new model today, Tuva, we haven't met her before. This is for the viking one, so we needed someone with fair hair and pale skin. The photos in her online portfolio are gorgeous. And the agency recommended her, so she should be fine."

Kagome gave him a quick peck on the cheek, laughing at his pouting face, then patted the chair in front of the mirror. "Sit down already will you? I called her earlier to let her know what was going on and she offered to get her own hair and makeup done at the studio there, so now I've just got to do you."

Inuyasha couldn't help the flutter down low in his stomach at her statement, even though he knew she'd meant it innocently enough. She began by brushing his long hair and he closed his eyes, feeling the regular pull of the brush on his scalp, her fingers gently protecting his ears from the rough bristles.

Damn that felt good. If he were a cat he'd be purring, and it took every inch of self control to not let out a deep rumbling growl of pleasure when she ran her hands through his hair, pulling the top back and securing it in a rough pompadour with a ponytail behind his head.

Then her nimble fingers were making small cornrow braids near his temples, adding little leather thongs and silver charms. The gentle tugging of his scalp felt so good. He squirmed in his seat a little, keeping his eyes closed.

"Sorry, am I pulling too hard?"

"Nah, feels so damn good. You're a natural at this. Wanna change careers and become my hairdresser?"

She pretended to think a moment, then giggled.

"Maybe. You're hair is fun to play with. It's much prettier than mine."

He opened his eyes, watching her as her deft fingers twisted his hair together.

"Nope. Untrue. Have you ever seen your hair in the sunlight Kagome? The way it shimmers almost blue? It's beautiful."

Her cheeks pinked, and she glanced at the mirror, her eyes fluttering downwards again when he caught her eyes.

"Stop. You're the one that's the freaking model, Inuyasha. Let me concentrate on this or we'll be behind schedule."

"So Ms. Higurashi can take a compliment about her photography skills but not her person? That's kinda weird don't you think? Especially when you're so pretty."

"Inuuuu..."

"C'mere", he said, tugging on her arm to move her into his lap, ignoring her squawk of protest. "Why can't my pretty girl take a compliment from me, huh?"

"I can! But we're at work right now Inuyasha!"

"Alright, prove it. Look in the mirror and say what I say, and then I'll let you go." She squirmed but he tightened his arm around her waist, pinning him close to her. "Gotta do what I say Higurashi. Gotta keep the talent happy!" She smacked his arm, still trying to wriggle out of his hold, doing her best to hold in her smile, but failing miserably.

"So, how should I keep the talent happy Inuyasha?" she smirked. "You were pretty happy when I left your apartment last night."

He moved his head to rest on her shoulder, looking at her reflection in the mirror.

"Ah, but that's where you're very wrong pretty girl." Kagome's face fell.

"You didn't enjoy last night?"

"Oh I did. Very much", he grinned, bucking his hips underneath her, then kissing a path down the arch of her neck onto her shoulder. "But then you left. And I was in that big empty bed all alone, with no one to keep me company."

"Oh, poor you. You know why I left Inuyasha. You needed to have a good night's sleep before the shoot today, and you know what would have happened if I'd stayed longer. There wouldn't have been much sleeping going on."

He nuzzled into her neck. "Maybe not, but this talent would have been much much happier. I don't want you to leave anymore." Kagome froze.

"You... you want me to move in with you?"

"I want you to move in", he said, his teasing face now serious. "I want you to be with me always. I know we've only been going out for a month Kagome, but I love you. I've loved you for years. And that's not going to change."

She turned on his lap so they were now facing each other, cradling his cheeks in her palms. "I love you too", she whispered. "So much."

"Would it be crazy if... if I said I wanted even more than that?" he asked softly, his eyes searching hers. "Would it be crazy if I said I want to be more than just your boyfriend, that I want more than you moving in. That I want us to belong to each other? And tell the whole world about it?"

Kagome's eyes widened, and her heart began beating wildly in her chest.

"That sounds an awful lot like a marriage proposal Inuyasha."

"That's because, maybe it is. We wasted so much time Kagome. I don't wanna waste another second. Please say yes."

"How could I say no to those puppy dog eyes of yours?" she giggled wetly, her eyes filling with happy tears.

#this kinda got outta hand #but what can you do?#shrugs #writing asks

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ambivalentmarvel · 5 years ago

Text

so the story behind this is that @sreppub arrived in my dms saying “sitcom starring two uppity, former rich guys and a regular poor college kid who follow up an online ad and become roommates” and i said something along the lines of “your MIND” and here we are. she does the art, i do the fic, and we both yell a lot along the way. read it on here or ao3 and enjoy!!

The Sitcom Supreme

If Peter or Stephen were around to hear Tony tell the story of how they all ended up rooming together, they would have plenty of objections, to which he would call them both dirty liars, to which they would gang up on him because they’re terrible and like that, to which he would probably throw up his hands in exasperation and/or make the mistake of engaging them in a debate, to which they would grin like wolves because, once again, they’re terrible and like that, but Tony’s the asshole who put up the Craigslist ad, so he gets to start—because he’s terrible and like that.

It’s a common trait amongst the three of them, what can he say?

The beginning of the story does not involve either of the other two, however. It begins with Rhodey, who is only occasionally terrible and like that. Rhodey has been Tony’s best friend since the tender age of fifteen. Considering Tony at age fifteen was a greasy little douche bag with too much money and a whole bunch of daddy issues that were somehow more obvious then than they are in the present, this is an impressive feat.

Where things start, Rhodey and Tony are roommates at MIT, which is Howard’s school of choice to shove his problem child onto. Tony is supposed to get a single dorm room, but there’s a cockroach problem in that building. Administration has to get creative, which is how Rhodey, fresh out of boot for the fall semester, gets saddled with approximately one hundred and fifty pounds of neglected teenage boy who has only kind of gone through puberty.

The first words out of Tony’s mouth are blunt: “Any chance you have plans to drop out?”

And Rhodey looks at him with a raised brow, efficiently unpacked and totally unimpressed with the enormous stack of Tony’s things wavering in the doorway. “You have any plans to quit being annoying?” he retorts, which set the tone for their entire relationship.

Tony loves him to pieces.

He’s the older brother he never knew he needed, yanking him by his collar from frat parties on the weekends and to his house for holidays because getting swamped by Rhodey’s six younger siblings is infinitely better than having to wear a suit and tie for Christmas dinner with six CEOs and maybe some senators, depending on the year. In return, Tony sees him through every finals week of his collegiate career, during which Rhodey gets so nervous he usually pukes at least daily and pulls so many all-nighters Tony memorizes the exact shade of red his eyes are at the end.

So, it’s safe to say they get along well. They get along so well, as a matter of fact, that when they stare at each other after their graduation ceremony for their Masters—a two-year process for both of them, and Rhodey receives two degrees to Tony’s four—surrounded by Rhodey’s family and Jarvis, Tony’s lips curl in a smirk Rhodey knows spells the best kind of trouble. “What do you say we keep the roommate streak alive, yeah? Howard’s building an office in New York, and I’m thinking of doing a doctorate at NYU.”

Rhodey’s brows raise, but he’s grinning, so Tony already knows his answer. “Depends. Are you still gonna’ snore?”

“Are you still gonna’ have a stick up your a—”

Mama Rhodes shoots Tony a look from where she’s trying to corral the rest of her kids.

“—butt?” he finishes with a sheepish glance her way.

Rhodey does not even remotely have a stick up his ass, but of the two of them, he features in tabloids far, far less, which Tony somehow uses to his advantage.

“You know it,” Rhodey replies, and so they find a fancy penthouse that Tony mostly pays for, with the excuse of Rhodey satisfying his part of rent via generally covering Tony’s ass to the best of his ability. And he has a lot of ability, honed from years upon years of Tony self-destructing at the drop of a hat, but there’s only so much he can do, especially as his military career just keeps flying higher and Howard just keeps pushing Tony harder.

A few sex tapes, especially wild benders, and crashed cars later, when Howard cuts Tony off and tells him, quote, “I won’t speak to you until you learn to do something other than disappoint me”, Rhodey very gracefully still shacks up with him in their considerably less fancy apartment.

This is all important to know, contrary to what someone whose name may or may not rhyme with Tephen Trange might say about Tony’s “long-winded” and “overly-complicated” storytelling tendencies because it explains exactly why Rhodey is a traitor.

Is Carol a very cool lady who could kick Tony’s ass? Yes. Is she sickeningly cute with Rhodey and not just because a smile from her makes him melt into a pile of fucking goo on the floor? Also yes. Does it probably make more sense for Tony to find roommates who will actually be around to monitor his—allegedly—poor mental health and self-care habits? Okay, fine, yes, but the bottom line is, Rhodey is moving in with Carol and abandoning Tony, and nobody said he had to like it.

(This is not strictly true, what with the approximately ten conversations Rhodey and he have had about his happiness and how, if Tony needs him, all he has to do is say the word and he’ll be back, but Tony has always had a flair for the dramatic.)

The whole idea is that Tony will find someone gone less than Rhodey with all his military business to enjoy having around the apartment. It’s technically a three-bedroom, but he and Rhodey use the extra one for storage. Fortunately or unfortunately, that storage area has become a lot of junk they go through before Rhodey makes his grand exit, and Tony suddenly has the option of having two roommates.

The ad is a low point, he can admit that, but there is a flaw in what Tony loudly calls Rhodey’s master plan to leave him alone to wallow in misery: Tony doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends, nevermind people who he’d want to live with.

“Rhodey. Honeybear. Platypus.”

“The nicknames are old, and you need to stop using them around Carol. She called me Platypus last night during sex, and it ruined the whole mood.”

“You poor thing.”

“She thought it was hilarious.”

If Tony has to lose Rhodey to anybody, by God, Carol is his first choice by a long shot.

“Anyway, as I was saying, Sourpatch—”

“I hate you.”

“—how am I supposed to find someone else to live with?”

Tony is thirty-two and regularly speaks out with all of four people: Pepper, Rhodey, Carol, and Happy. Unfortunately, Happy works in Stark Industries’ California branch and has stated rather firmly that he’s not interested in transferring to the city, Pepper wouldn’t live with another person for love or money, and the other two are spoken for.

It’s a terrible situation to be in, honestly.

“Craigslist,” Rhodey deadpans, fighting with some packing tape.

Tony feels his heart stop beating in real time from his place folding some of Rhodey’s clothes into a plastic tub. His head snaps up, and his jaw drops, absolutely affronted. “You would suggest that I, even disowned and stripped of my former glory—” Tony has several million dollars in the stock market, but that’s neither here nor there and isn’t much compared to the fact that he was supposed to be a billionaire. “—would stoop to looking for live-in friends on Craigslist?”

Rhodey looks up to meet his eyes, unfazed. He’s used to Tony’s antics after nearly two decades of friendship. “Well, I’m not moving out until you have at least one person guaranteed to take my place, so unless you have any better ideas, yeah.” He shrugs—just shrugs, as if he isn’t advising Tony to scrape the bottom of the fucking barrel in terms of reliable people to regularly fall asleep around.

It’s insulting.

“I’m not putting out an ad for a roommate on Craigslist,” he protests, shoving the next horribly colored polo into the tub with disdain.

That night, he tears up thinking about stopping Rhodey from being happy with Carol, and the post is up by the time Rhodey gets up—stupidly early, like normal—for his morning run. Along with his contact information and a few blurry pictures of the place, it includes a blurb about the circumstances.

Best friend moving out. Need a roommate or I will die of Sadness. His girlfriend is cool but hewas mind first. Carol, I am watching you. Two rooms open for business. But not sketchy business. You can just lve there. Current resident (me) is cool and very charming. I am a man. No dumb fuck offers. Thanks.

It could use some work, but Tony’s never been great with words, even less so when he’s crying to rock ballads at two in the morning. He edits it when he wakes up, and by noon that day, it’s looking better.

At seven o’clock that evening, he receives one of two messages that actually work out.

Enter the first offender: Peter Parker.

Peter, Tony will learn, is nineteen, attending NYU—like Tony did, which is a sign, really—for a double major in biochemistry and physics, and has the worst luck of anyone Tony’s ever met.

Rhodey’s moving out in a week—he’s been putting off finding a roommate for a while, alright—and Peter has to legally be out of his dorm in three days. That is quite the predicament, and Tony, by nature, is a curious creature. He is not, however, one for beating around the bush. That results in a text that reads exactly this.

Tony: What the hell did you do?

He could hack through the university files, but explanations are always more fun with a personal touch that’s lacking in, say, an incident report. Tony watches a bubble with three blinking dots for a long, long time, and the reply is surprisingly sparse—sparse enough, in fact, for Tony to have more questions than answers when he receives it.

Unknown Sender: theres been a few things but the kicker was the fire

Tony: The fire?

Unknown Sender: i tried to make popcorn and the microwave blew up

Now that is some problematic behavior Tony can get behind. He amends the kid’s previously non-existent contact information.

Tony: How can they kick you out for that? That’s not your fault.

Roommate (?) Peter: it blacked out the power on the entire first floor

Tony: And?

Roommate (?) Peter: last month i got the blame for contaminating half the campus water supply

Roommate (?) Peter: so i was already on thin ice

Tony: Accidentally?

Roommate (?) Peter: idk sometimes things just happen to me

Tony doesn’t know how to respond to that. If Rhodey knew, he’d never let him live it down. He can hear his annoying laugh in his ears like a premonition—“Hah—Tony, speechless?”—but then there are the dots again and a simple message to follow the last, a touch pathetic.

Roommate (?) Peter: please let me move in

Tony likes him.

Peter shows up on the stairs of the complex thirty-six hours after Tony posted the ad with a backpack and a meager total of six beat-to-shit boxes. The backpack holds nearly all of his school supplies, which makes Tony, in retrospect, genuinely fearful for the integrity of his spine, and the contents of the boxes are sorted, as Tony will learn, into three categories that each have two boxes in them. The categories are fairly simple—clothing, necessities, and whatever other shit he could fit from his dorm—and leave Peter with thrilling possessions such as an entire collection of truly atrocious shirts with science puns on them, a gallon of hand soap, and any food he had in his cupboards.

Thankfully, Rhodey is out furniture shopping with Carol when Tony goes out to meet him, which solves the problem of Rhodey going into overbearing caretaker mode at the sight of a beanpole of a kid failing to manage their life successfully. As someone who has been made many a you-haven’t-eaten-a-meal-in-two-days-and-I’m-secretly-a-panicking-mother-hen casserole, Tony counts his blessings.

Tony waves. “Peter?” he asks, reluctantly changed out of his pajamas for the day.

The kid nods. “That’s me. And you’re Tony?”

“Guilty as charged. Want a hand with those boxes?” he asks, watching Peter lift three at a time.

“No, I got it,” he insists, and then the box on top slides out of his grip and onto the sidewalk.

Peter stares at it for a second before he lets out a long-suffering sigh.

“Maybe I could use some help,” he admits, and with much struggle, the two of them, each with three boxes, waddle inside. There is a moment and only one moment where Tony thinks that it might be nice to have some extra assistance, but with another thought of the things Rhodey would do at the sight of a woefully inept college kid, Tony decides it’s for the best.

Tony leads the operation, considering he has the key and also knows explicitly where they’re going, and he would have to say his biggest complaint about the ordeal is that Sam, who lives in the apartment below Tony and Rhodey with Steve and Bucky, happens to open his door as they walk by.

Being an asshole, he has something to say about it. “Need some help, shellhead?” he crows.

Tony wishes he had a free hand to flip him off.

“Watch your back, Wilson,” he growls in return, a continuation of the beef the five of them have maintained since they met approximately seven years ago, when they all moved in on the same day and kept knocking into each other’s shit in the halls.

When they reach the top of the next flight of stairs and Tony starts to fumble with the key, Peter asks about it. “So—uh—who was that?”

“That was Sam. Part of the deal with moving in is that you harass him and the other two idiots who live with him. He also responds to jackass, douchecanoe, or birdbrain.”

“Birdbrain?”

“It’s an old joke. He had a rather—” Tony grunts, forced to set down his load to unlock the door, “—spectacular run-in with some pigeons a few years ago.”

“Oh.”

“They shat on him. A lot.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a good nickname,” Tony assures him, throwing open the door with his arms flung wide for dramatic flair. “Welcome to Casa Stark. I mean, I guess it’s Casa Stark-Parker now, but if we’re hyphenating, my name goes first because I lived here first.” He holds up a finger as if to stall Peter, who has yet to speak from where his mouth is decidedly blocked by the aforementioned three boxes he is carrying. “And I know what you’re going to say—that Parker-Stark works better because it’s alphabetical—but that is where you are wrong because letters have no place in this house. Numbers are much preferred, and we play by seniority here, anyway.”

He gives Peter a meaningful look that he cannot see because, once again, boxes.

“More on that, by the way—”

“Hey, Tony?”

He cuts him off which is, objectively, rude, but Tony rarely gets along with people who aren’t a little curt with him from time to time. This is a positive sign, really, so he allows it.

“Yeah?”

“This can be Casa Stark-Parker, but can we get to somewhere I can set these down? My arms are, like, going to give out on me.”

Not even ten minutes in, and he’s already learned the art of bargaining. Tony’s proud, and he ushers him inside without any more monologues and a grin stretched across his face.

Peter, by virtue of moving in before Rhodey is out, ends up with the room that is no longer being used for storage. Tony has several questions for him, beginning with the fact that, despite the six packets of instant noodles he bothered to bring, he does not appear to have a mattress. Or a desk. Or a dresser. Or anything that’s supposed to go in a room.

His solutions for Tony’s concerns are as follows.

In place of a bed, he has two blankets, one to put on the floor and one to cover himself with. He was planning on sitting on the floor to do schoolwork instead of using a desk. And finally, he was going to leave his clothes in the boxes.

This is all relayed to Tony with an earnest gleam in his eyes and a smile.

Tony blinks in disbelief. Then, very eloquently, he says, “Kid, that is the saddest shit I have ever heard. Aren’t your parents helping you with the move to an apartment?”

The kid shifts from foot to foot, shoving his hands in his pockets and glancing to the side.

Tony’s eyes narrow. As someone who is extremely well-versed in avoidance tactics, he feels very confident in saying that is definitely a fucking avoidance tactic.

“About that,” he begins, “first of all, I’m an orphan.” Jesus Christ. “Second of all, my aunt doesn’t exactly—uh—know I got kicked out of the dorms.”

That is all interesting information, to say the least, but luckily, Tony thrives under pressure.

“Alright. I can respect that.”

It’s not like he never hid anything from his parents. Evading his aunt is Peter’s problem, not Tony’s. None of this is Tony’s problem, really, except then he looks around the room and wonders which of Peter’s boxes are holding his two blankets.

Tony was concerned about Rhodey, but he can’t stop himself.

“But I’m also gonna’ level with you—you’re not sleeping on the ground. You can take the couch.”

The until I get you a proper bed frame and mattress goes unsaid, but sometimes things like that are better as surprises. It’ll be a fun housewarming gift, Tony thinks, and by the time the shipment from IKEA arrives containing both of those things and the aforementioned missing dresser and desk, there will be a third roommate to help put it all together, not that either of them know it yet.

That night, Rhodey and Carol show up with enough ingredients for lasagna to serve four, and Tony delights in showing off Peter as they cook because now he has a “super cool roommate too! Take that, Platypus.”

Rhodey glances to Peter. “If you’re being held hostage, blink twice.”

“Hey!” Tony protests. He is a perfectly lovable roommate, thank you very much, and he’s so offended, he’s not even going to let Rhodey know about his mission to furnish Peter’s room.

God bless her, Carol just laughs.

The four of them get along with surprising ease, considering Peter’s only been around for a few hours. Peter even tries to help with the lasagna, but Tony has a near-photographic memory and has not remotely forgotten the popcorn incident, however vaguely it was described.

“You just sit there and be a nicer person than Rhodey,” he urges him, and Peter nods, hiding his grin behind his hand at the argument that starts.

Once everyone is done, he and Rhodey get suckered into dish duty while Carol spirits Peter off to the living room, claiming she has to warn him about what he’s getting into. Tony doesn’t care enough to complain, and when her back is turned, he splashes a plate of suds onto Rhodey’s front.

Rather than rise to the bait, however, he raises his brows, slipping into what Tony affectionately calls his big-brother-giving-a-stern-talking-to mode. “You have to be a good example for him, Tones.”

Tony blinks. “I’m sorry, did you just say—”

“I’m serious!” They keep their voices mostly down, but Rhodey’s rises a bit with the declaration.

“He’s nineteen—an adult, in case you forgot. He signed the lease all on his own and everything,” he hisses back incredulously.

He thought he dodged the bullet by not disclosing just how underprepared Peter is to live in an apartment, but Rhodey’s head dips. Tony braces himself for the part of his big-brother-giving-a-stern-talking-to mode where he tells Tony he’s making a bullshit excuse and needs to get it together. “Don’t give me that. He’s a baby adult at best, and you know it.”

Yep, there it is.

“That’s still an adult!”

It is! Tony was on his own way earlier than nineteen. This is not a big deal, no matter how outlandish Peter’s circumstances are for moving out of NYU’s dorms.

“Watch his back.”

Tony scoffs. “It’s not like I was going to feed him to the wolves. I’m barely thirty—I’m not his dad.”

“Tony.”

Ah, the final, crushing blow of this version of Rhodey: his name—but with emphasis.

Tony sighs. “Fine,” he acquiesces. “I solemnly swear I will not let him get up to no good.”

A beat. Rhodey squints at him, slowly lowering the plate he’s holding into the sink. “You told me you refused to read Harry Potter.”

Shit.

Back when the books were first coming out, Rhodey was insufferably obsessed with them, and Tony loves him, but emotionally, he couldn’t handle having Rhodey think he was willing to discuss anything having to do with the series for longer than thirty seconds. Thus, he read the books—everyone in the world was doing the same, okay, and he cannot stand being out of the loop—but lied to Rhodey about it.

And now, he’s been made.

Rhodey and he launch into a very spirited discussion that draws Carol and Peter back to the kitchen, and despite the vein throbbing dangerously in Rhodey’s forehead, the promise has been made.

The day after Rhodey moves out, he and Peter manage to flood the bathroom.

In Tony’s defense, he only promised to look out for Peter. He said nothing about curbing his own dumbass tendencies, and it’s not like Bucky’s bedroom is all that damaged by the leak that Tony fixes before it’s really even a problem.

He and Peter settle into a nice sense of camaraderie, and Tony, content with his situation, forgets to take down his Craiglist ad that, logically speaking, someone would have to dig to find at this point, over a week after initially posting it.

Then, he receives a text that is as simple as it is effective: Is there still an available room in the apartment?

Enter the second offender: Stephen Strange.

Ahem, Doctor Stephen Strange, technically, but Tony has six PhDs. Nobody sees him going around making people call him Doctor Stark, and that’s because it makes him sound pretentious and stuffy, both things Tony prides himself on not being. However, Tony likes to push buttons, and very little gets Stephen worked up as fast as someone ignoring his credentials.

It’s a fun set-up, really, but annoying the piss out of Stephen is something that comes a little later—Tony’s not there yet in the story.

He humors the text, and after getting a read on things, he bursts into the living room, startling Peter nearly off the couch. He’s been doing his homework there and on the coffee table in front of it because the Swedish have many things but fast shipping is, apparently, not one of them, not that Peter knows there’s anything to be waiting on, but he’s getting off-topic.

Peter lets out a short yelp and presses a hand over his heart, both things that Tony ignores.

“We have a situation,” he announces.

“I swear I didn’t do it,” Peter defends pleadingly.

Tony is trying to teach him that messing things up is expected and, especially in particularly magnificent cases, admired in Casa Stark-Parker, but it’s a work in progress.

“I know you didn’t—don’t be ridiculous,” he waves his concerns off. “We are talking bigger than setting things on fire by accident. I bring you, my young protege, the proposition of—” A pause for dramatic effect. “—another roommate.”

“Ooh,” Peter says appropriately, setting his textbook down to examine the texts Tony brandishes. He begins to scroll, but while he does, Tony figures he can go ahead and fill him in on the essentials. It’s a very juicy situation, after all, and he can’t help himself.

“His name is Stephen Strange. He’s a neurosurgeon, but he got into a pretty bad car wreck that messed up his hands. He’s trying to save money while he goes to physical therapy—he apparently has a chance of recovery, but it’s a ways off—and that includes downsizing on where he lives.”

“I mean, yikes, but that’s an oddly specific backstory.”

“I’m glad you think that too, but I am intrigued. I looked him up, and he’s a real person—has a basically flawless reputation, or at least he did before his accident. Thoughts?”

Please say yes, please say yes, Tony thinks. The chance of a competent human—not including Rhodey, who looks more put together than he really is next to the chaos Tony perpetually dwells in—choosing to live with him is too fascinating to pass up, and he needs Peter to see that too.

Peter shrugs. “I’m down if you are. How old is he?”

Victory!

Satisfaction floods Tony, but he tries to maintain his cool.

“Thirty.”

Peter blows out a long breath, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling. “I didn’t anticipate moving into a nursing home,” he remarks dryly.

What a little shit.

It’s worth noting half the reason Rhodey left so easily is because he said he trusted Peter to keep Tony on his toes. Then again, that Tony likes being snarked at is a large part of why they get along so well despite only knowing each other for a matter of days.

“You’re the worst, Parker. I’m going to feed you to the hooligans downstairs. Steve has a monster appetite, you know.”

Peter hums, picking his textbook back up. “Not if I feed you to them first. And, Tony?”

“What?”

“Only old people say hooligans.”

Tony thinks about that one book, Give a Mouse a Cookie or whatever. Except in his case, it’s Rent a Teenager an Apartment, and Tony doesn’t have to adhere to the literary equivalent of a G-rating.

His response to the dig is creative and colorful, and Peter laughs.

Four days and a brief conversation at a coffee shop later—a formality he and Peter did not do and probably something Tony should’ve thought of as the older adult before giving him the address—Stephen’s team of movers invade the apartment.

The man himself stands like a drill sergeant at the last flights of stairs it takes to get to the apartment, arms crossed, beard wild, conducting activity.

Peter and Tony share their evaluations, peeking their head out from the doorway when it’s unoccupied by movers and Stephen isn’t looking their way. This involves quite a bit of ducking, but they are very careful not to be caught.

(Someone’s whose name may or may not rhyme with Tephen Trange later informs that “they were not at all subtle” and “were, in fact, very embarrassing”, but that’s how things with the three of them generally are, so Tony figures it was a good crash course to how life together goes.)

“He’s kind of scraggly,” Peter whispers, his head under Tony’s because he’s the shorter of the two of them, something Tony delights in refuting Peter’s quips about his age with.

“Kind of? He looks like a hobo.”

It’s true, okay? Facially, at least, the guy is a wreck. He’s not quite to Einstein levels of bad hair day, but he’s getting there.

“Be nice,” Peter chastises him. He’s gentler than Rhodey when he does it, but considering neither of them ever shut the hell up and they have thus bonded very easily over the course of their short relationship, it’s gotten to feel as natural as most of their interactions.

“All I’m saying is that I am happy to retain my place as the most attractive person in the apartment, okay?”

They’re forced to retreat from the entryway as another load comes through, and Peter looks at him disbelievingly. “Dream on,” he replies bluntly.

Tony gasps in offense.

Peter shrugs. “Look, I’m just gonna’ say it—you knew Rhodey before me, and now that I’m here—” he trails off, looking at Tony in faux-sympathy that doesn’t match the mischievous glint in his eyes.

While it is true that Rhodey is a fine specimen of a man—yet another reason Tony can’t, in good conscience, be truly angry Carol mooched him away from the bachelor lifestyle—Tony can’t cede that easily for the sake of his pride, and he scowls. “I am going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

They’re still bickering as the movers finish up and Stephen enters the apartment, dressed in what Tony recognizes as the latest from Armani and Tom Ford.

He may not get invited to fashion week anymore, but he still has taste, alright, even if Rhodey limits him to one designer purchase a month.

(Rhodey isn’t around to see what packages he orders now, Tony thinks but shelves the thought for later.)

Tony and Stephen met over coffee, and all three of them said hi to one another before the moving business officially began. However, there is a little stiffness in the air, make no mistake. It’s not Stephen’s fault, exactly, because he’s just kind of a foreboding guy, but still.

It figures that Peter would break the ice. As Tony’s found and will continue to discover, Peter is just as talkative as him. Granted, that trait usually appears in the form of rambling about something from class, but it’s not surprising that his natural passion for life comes through with someone about to be very, very involved in it.

“Hi!” he begins. “Are all of the movers gone now?”

Stephen raises an unimpressed brow. “Yes.”

His reply is seriously lacking enthusiasm, but Tony isn’t allowed the opportunity to jump on that as Peter keeps going.

“Sweet! Okay, so welcome to Casa Stark-Parker.”

Woah, woah, woah—timeout.

Tony frowns, raising a hand in a motion for Peter to stop. “I thought that was my thing?” he interjects.

“Well, it has my name in it, so it gets to be both of our things,” Peter replies, then furrows his brow, looking to Stephen. “Actually, since you’re here now, I guess it’s Casa Stark-Parker-Strange. Order’s based on who got here first, sorry,” he explains with a smile that Tony, now familiar with the fact that Peter has more to him than meets the eye, notes is a touch impish.

Tony is pleased to see, despite his generally wholesome appearance, the kid has at least picked up on the power of staking a claim.

Stephen blinks. His hands, Tony has noticed, don’t stop shaking, not even when he folds his arm across his chest, like a physical barrier between him and Peter’s excitement. “Okay?” he drawls slowly, confusedly.

“Tony’s rules, not mine,” Peter assures him as if he doesn’t just want the satisfaction of having his name not be the last in the line-up.

Tony scoffs. “Oh okay, so now we’re throwing me under the bus?”

“You have to take responsibility for your actions, Tony.”

“Oh, sure thing,” he replies, tone betraying that he does not, in fact, think any responsibility is at all necessary. He looks to Stephen, rolling his eyes. “Can you believe what I have to put up with? And it’s barely been a week.”

Stephen blinks again. “I see it’s a lot,” he says measuredly.

Peter gasps, unaffected. “Oh my God, we should make a sign for it,” he enthuses. “We can put it up on the door, and we’d be so much cooler than Sam and them.”

To say that Peter rose to the challenge of bothering their downstairs neighbors with zeal is something of an understatement.

Tony is, honestly, a fan of the sign idea, especially if it were to light up, but that is where Stephen cuts in, his hands still trembling as he gestures. “Can we slow down for a moment?” He looks carefully from Tony and Peter and back again, bearing the appearance of a man in the throes of realizing he has made a bad decision.

Tony knows that look well. It usually shows up when Rhodey agrees to one of Tony’s ideas and doesn’t realize just how badly constructed it is until it’s too late.

“First of all, I am fairly certain my car is parked illegally, and before we get too far, I need to fix it before I get towed. And secondly,” Tony watches Stephen’s lips curl in a self-satisfied, I-totally-think-I’m-better-than-you-even-if-I’m-not-technically-saying-it smile, “I am not here to be part of any Casa. I am waiting for physical therapy to work for me, and then I will be out of your hair. I appreciate being able to live here, but—”

Yeah, Tony’s had enough of that. Personally, he would like to thank Rhodey, who, in a way, begins and ends the story, and truly is the greatest best friend a man could have for teaching him how to properly deal with pompous rich people.

“Nuh-uh, none of that. If you’re living here, you’re a part of Casa Stark-Parker-Strange whether you like it or not.”

Stephen looks downright appalled that someone would dare to interrupt him, which, Tony knows from experience, is exactly the kind of shock rich people need to go through. He splutters for a second before he manages to get out a reply, “That was not in the lease.”

Tony spreads his hands as if to say what can you do? “And you didn’t mention in your texts that you were going to try to be a bump on a log, but here we are.”

Perhaps sensing the mounting animosity in the room or maybe just as excited as Tony to have someone to bother, Peter takes advantage of Stephen’s overwhelmed and bewildered state.

“First day with all three of us!” he shouts. “Picture!”

And before anyone can protest—including Tony, who would prefer to be documented in something other than a Black Sabbath tee and his work pants—Peter leans in with the camera on his phone ready to capture the moment.

In the resulting photo, Tony looks vaguely alarmed, Stephen looks pissed as hell, and Peter wears a grin that stretches across his whole face. The whole thing is blurry, and they eventually get it framed.

It’s a beautiful and fitting start to their time as roommates, and in the humble eyes of the asshole who posted the Craigslist ad, that is how the story of how they came to live together went.

#tony stark #stephen strange #peter parker #supreme family #iron dad #spider son #fic #tss #ambivalentmarvel #if you tag this st*rker you die by our blade

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keelywolfe · 4 years ago

Text

FIC: The Rose and the Thorn: Chapter 10 (Mafia AU)

Summary: We left off with Edge and Rus on a cliffhanger, let's see where they go from there!

Tags: Spicyhoney, Cherryberry, Mafia AU, Flower Shop AU, Violence, First Meetings

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Read on AO3

Read it here!

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Rus knew what he looked like. Tall, gangling skeleton and his bones were thin, almost delicate. Most people probably thought a stiff breeze would send him off like a tumbleweed and they were sort of right. He would’ve had more than a couple scars from a childhood from tripping over his own feet if his brother wasn’t such a good healer.

But if you took his innate clumsiness out of the equation, it was a load of bullshit, really. He’d helped his brother set up their garden, hauled bags of soil and manure, lugged oversized flowerpots, carried fencing and poles. He wasn’t weak, thank you very much, but even he had to admit, holding up a Monster of Edge’s size for any length of time was pushing him to his limits.

Luckily, he didn’t have to manage long. Edge caught his balance quickly, rocked unsteadily back to his feet and once Rus wasn’t completely blanketed by tall skeleton, he got a better view of the Dogs standing on either side of him, helping hold him up. Okay, they were at least part of the reason Edge hadn’t fallen on him, so what, he was pretty sure he did his part.

More Dogs, wow, did they buy these guys by the six pack? They were pretty good at the stoic, almost as good as Edge, but Rus didn’t miss their brief, amused tail wags. Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, watching him trying to catch Edge must’ve been a funny sight, like a meek village fool trying to catch a crumbling mountain.

But watching them immediately school their expressions to bland seriousness when Edge looked at them was even better.

Large hands settled on his shoulders, drawing his attention back to Edge and more to the point, his face, holy fuck—

“I’m all right,” Edge started, and no, just no.

“you certainly don’t look like it!” Rus snapped. He took hold of one of Edge’s sleeves, flinching at sight of the charred fray that was all that remained of his gloves. “come on, for pity’s sake, come sit down!”

Edge didn’t really resist, bemusedly letting Rus lead the way down the hallway. Only for Rus to stop a few steps in, turning back to admit sheepishly. “um. i’m not sure where you were going?”

He hadn’t heard any of the Dogs speak yet, but that wasn’t entirely unusual, some Monsters didn’t use a verbal language. It didn’t stop one of them from letting out a snicker, hastily quelled when Edge slanted him a dour look.

“This way, flower shop.” Edge took the lead and stayed on his feet mostly under his own steam with the occasional steadying hand from one of the Dogs. He led the way to another of the thousand doors, only this one had a panel that opened to reveal a keypad. Rus pointedly didn’t watch as Edge punched in the code and went inside.

But it wasn’t an infirmary of any sort or even a bathroom. Inside was a large bedroom, dominated by an enormous four poster bed that was covered in an fluffy comforter and huge pillows, with actual curtains hung around it, like they’d taken an accidental trip with the Ghost of Gyftmas Past and wandered into the bedroom of Ebeneezer Scrooge. Rus hovered awkwardly by the door as the Dogs helped Edge to one of the wide sofas set in a half-circle in a sort of open-air sitting room.

Once Edge was settled, the Dogs took their leave and Rus didn’t miss the wink one of them sent his way.

Well, it seemed they were expecting him to play nurse, not exactly a role he’d had much experience in. One look at Edge had him setting his shoulders, ready to step up and give it his best shot, though if there were any cracks about him putting on a little white dress, he was out.

Or maybe he was fooling himself, because he couldn’t possibly leave Edge alone like this. His clothes were streaked with burnt marks, the fine suit from that morning looked like it only recently stopped smoldering. Worse of all, the bone all down one side of his face was scorched and blackened, and Rus supposed it was a small mercy that the damage was on the already injured side of his skull.

Just looking at it made nausea lurch up into his throat. Rus swallowed it down and walked over, biting the tip of his tongue and focusing on that tiny hurt while he inspected the damages.

It must be painful, but Edge didn’t flinch from Rus’s timid prodding as he tried to decide if he actually could help or if he needed to find a phone to call for someone more qualified. So much soot and who knew what damage beneath it. Rus blinked hard as sympathetic tears welled; he’d always hated seeing anything hurt, Rus was the one getting teased for rescuing worms from the sidewalks after a storm and giving the pigeons in the park the crusts from his sandwiches. A thumb grazed underneath his socket, wiping away the trickle of tears, and Rus could smell the smoky char on Edge’s ruined gloves.

“It’s not that bad, flower shop,” Edge murmured. “I’m only a little crisp around the edges.” If he were trying for lightness, he failed, and Rus could feel wetness escaping from around his touch, trickling down his cheekbones. “Don’t,” Edge tried, “You don’t need to—"

“this is about us, isn’t it?” Rus interrupted softly. He wasn’t sure what kind of fool Edge thought he was, but he could at least manage to put 2 and 2 together and know that a vengeful fire monster who was prone to kidnappings likely matched up with fresh burns.

Edge said nothing and that was all the answer Rus needed.

“then i think i do.” Rus drew away, wiping impatiently at his damp cheeks bones with his sleeve. “where’s the bathroom?”

He followed where Edge pointed and one step inside was enough to stifle his remaining tears. If he thought his own lavatory was opulent, this one seemed to belong more in a palace than above a strip club in the red-light district, all of it gleaming dark marble streaked with gold. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and sighed. All his efforts to obey his brother’s scold to keep his new clothes clean ruined by smudges of soot streaked all down his shirt and a full set of handprints impressed on his shoulders.

Welp, guess it was a good thing he probably wasn’t going to be doing the laundry.

Under the sink was a basin that he filled halfway with cool water, along with a well-appointed first aid kit. Rus snagged both along with a couple clean washcloths and clumsily carried the lot of it out, only spilling a couple splashes of water to disappear in the lush carpet.

Edge hadn’t moved, only watched him with an intensity that sent an odd prickle down Rus’s spine. Whatever, let him stare. Rus ignored it to set his newfound supplies on the coffee table and sat on the sofa next to him to get to work. First, wetting a washcloth and very gently washing away the layers of soot to reveal the chalky, damaged bone beneath. It actually wasn’t too bad, he was relieved to see, at least Edge was right about that. Most of it was filth, the only real damage seemed to be to the very side of his face, a ragged line that ran from his forehead nearly to his chin. Edge never made a sound even when Rus had to really scrub to clear away the sooty blackness. The friction must have hurt terribly, but he allowed Rus to clean him up as he muttering vague apologies the entire time, because honestly, if he’d been the one hurt, Rus would have been howling for mercy by now.

The silence grew to be too much, nothing but the splash of water as he wrung out the cloth again and Edge’s crimson eye lights following his every move. Luckily, filling silences with nervous chatter was one of Rus’s greatest skills.

“i’m glad the bathroom was close,” Rus admitted with a self-deprecating laugh, “if it was in the hallway, i would’ve been a while. i’m not sure if i could find anything in this labyrinth.”

“It’s not as big as it seems,” Edge’s sockets fell half-closed as Rus gingerly cleaned around the delicate, damaged rim, showing only a bare gleam of crimson. “You only think it is because of the Dogs.”

That gave Rus a pause. "what do you mean?”

Edge offered him that little half-smile of his, "The hallways are designed like a labyrinth and my brother has the Dogs lead people through the same ones several times. Even the artwork is designed to change the picture when someone walks past it, to make it seem larger and more confusing than it is.”

“seriously? what kind of low-rent james bond villain bullshit is that?" Rus blurted. He winced at his own words, shit, calling Red a villain wasn’t exactly what his brother would call good manners, but Edge's slight smile only widened.

"I prefer the term frugal.”

“hmmph,” Rus huffed, deciding not to argue the point. If Red wanted a subplot of being a cheapskate, that was his problem. “are you going to tell me what happened?” he asked, dabbing gingerly at a particularly darkened spot. The bone beneath was slightly pitted and he could only hiss in sympathy, imagining how much it must hurt.

That little smile faded. “I went to see Blaze in a neutral location, to negotiate.”

“looks like negotiations went south.”

Edge grunted in agreement, closing his sockets entirely as Rus finished cleaning his skull with a last gentle wipe. He dropped the washcloth into the dingy basin water before digging through the first aid kit for burn ointment. With the soot cleaned away, the burns matched Edge’s assessment of not too bad. They should heal fine, probably wouldn’t even scar if Edge kept it clean and well treated. Of course, there was another option.

Rus carefully set the ointment aside, reaching out instead with a cautious bare hand, “you were right, it isn’t too bad. i’m not as good as my brother, but if you let me heal you—”

The hand that caught his wrist moved so quickly Rus barely saw it. He yelped in surprise and automatically tried to pull away. Uselessly, that grip tightened painlessly as Edge said, firmly, “No.”

Even sitting, Edge was taller than him, especially when he wasn’t slumped back on the sofa. Taller than him, larger than him in every way and even sitting here in a ridiculously lavish bedroom in his ruined suit, Edge seemed larger than life, nearly a force of nature. And Rus looked up directly into his hurt face and asked boldly, “why not?”

The flick of his crimson tongue over his teeth nearly distracted Rus from his words. “Because having someone else use their magic on me outside of a fight is entirely too intimate for my tastes.”

Intimate. That was the problem? Considering that Rus was in possession of a shivery memory of Edge’s weight on top of him, pressing him into the cushioned plush of the rug with the heat of the fireplace pouring over them as Edge’s gloved hand skimmed against his bare hip…um…better to stop there. Anyway, considering all that, it seemed silly to him for Edge to suffer through days of discomfort when a little healing magic could ease it.

Exasperated, Rus pointed out, “you were willing to have sex with me but won’t let me heal you?” It was only after he said it that Rus belatedly remembered that actually, Edge hadn’t been willing to have sex with him, that was sort of where their awkwardness this morning came from and he looked away, a miserable blush rising in his cheekbones, like an echo of Edge’s burns.

To his shameful relief, Edge didn’t comment on that, only ran his thumb over the delicate, interlocked bones at the inside of Rus’s wrist. “It’s not the same. Magic involves souls, sex is only as intimate as you allow it to be. Anyone can take your body, flower shop.”

“yes, thank you for that reminder,” Rus muttered unhappily. He couldn’t hold back a shudder, remembering Blaze’s unbearably sweltering hands on him, forcing his touch on Rus as he whispered horrible things, cruelly teasing threats about Rus’s mouth and what he might do to it.

Edge’s voice jarred him from the unpleasant memory, cushioned in gentleness. “You’re safe here. This club is as well protected as it could possibly be. Aside from basic security precautions, we’ve been layering on every sort of protection spell possible over it since we got to the surface.”

That was a comfort to know, for now. But what about when he left, they left, him and Blue heading back to their shop and their lives without an ounce of protection surrounding them.

“i want to go home.” The words slipped out, small and miserable. And true, their home was small and a bit cramped, but it was home.

“I know,” Edge said, softly. He offered no promises about getting Rus there and he wondered wanly if he should be grateful for that honesty. Rus reached up and took hold of the large hand still holding his other wrist as his gaze searched Edge’s face, eye lights skimming from the untouched side to the one stark with darkened burns. With a tug, Edge brought their joined hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss against them and murmuring, “I’m working on it.”

There was something in his voice, something coldly dark beneath that tender touch and Rus swallowed hard, “you’re going to try to kill him, aren’t you.”

“Don’t ask questions that you don’t want answered.”

“aren’t you?” Rus persisted.

Edge let out a small frustrated sound, "It's the only way to end this. The only way you'll get your life back."

Rus shook his head, helplessly. That couldn’t be true, the only answer simply couldn’t be tainting Edge’s soul with XP, racking a LV onto Edge’s conscious in the name of their wellbeing, his and Blue’s and Rus knew without question that his brother would agree. “there has to be another way.”

“Are you willing to bet your life on that, flower shop?” Edge countered, “What about your brother’s?”

“there has to be! i can’t let you—” kill someone. Rus choked on the words, felt the ache of tears welling up again.

Again, that thumb rubbed a soothing little circle against Rus’s wrist. “Why do you care so much?”

“I…” Rus swallowed nervously. “it’s…it’s the right thing to do!”

“Of course,” Edge said wryly. “And you always do the right thing, don’t you.” He let go of Rus’s wrist and sank back into the cushions. “Go on, then.”

“huh?” Rus blinked, confused, ready to argue that he wasn’t about to leave with this debate still between them.

“Go on,” Edge repeated, “Heal me.” A sardonic slash of a smile tipped up the undamaged side of his mouth. “Since it’s the right thing to do.”

Oh. Rus had to kneel up to reach, leaning across Edge’s torso to settle his bare hand lightly against the side of his skull. It was a matter of moments to focus his magic, calling up the tingling warmth of healing and concentrating it on the burns. He certainly didn’t miss Edge’s relieved sigh; it must’ve hurt something awful and honestly, fussing about intimacy when the alternative was days of pain? He really couldn’t understand these people.

When Rus finally stopped, the bone beneath his hand was smooth and unblemished, at least as much as previously cracked bone could be. All signs of any burns were gone and Rus beamed at Edge, pleased.

“there,” he said triumphantly. “isn’t that bett—oh!”

The way Rus was leaning already put him off balance and the sudden, strong arm winding around his waist sent him nearly sprawling into Edge’s lap. A rough chuckle greeted his twisting and squirms until he was sitting across Edge’s femurs, looking up into his newly healed face with wide sockets.

“Yes,” Edge agreed softly, “This is much better.” He lightly bit the tip of one of his fingers, tugging off his glove and spitting it aside before reaching out to brush bare fingertips lightly over Rus’s mouth, cautious of the sharpened tips. Rus sat frozen beneath that touch as it slid lower, broad knuckles curling beneath his chin. “To tell the truth, I’m at a loss,” Edge murmured, low, like a confession. “Even if I deal with Blaze, you’re irrevocably linked to me now. Do I let it be? Or do I embrace it?”

That…that sounded…Rus wasn’t sure, his thoughts were in wild turmoil, caught up between Edge’s words and his embrace, “what about what i want?” he asked, weakly.

A soft chuckle gusted over him like a caress and Edge’s face was close to his own, as he said, “Pretty flower, you’ve wanted me since the day I walked into your shop.”

Rus wanted to deny it, but what was the point? It was true, he couldn’t possibly have been more obvious. He didn’t move as Edge leaned in, every possible protest twittering out of his mind even as Edge said, his deep voice raw with the barest of regrets, “Just remember, I tried to let you go.”

His mouth was achingly gentle, coaxingly sweet and Rus parted his teeth with a watery sigh as he met it with his own. Parted his teeth to timidly meet the slide of a clever tongue with his own. He was surrounded, Edge around him, beneath him, the arms that circled him held Rus close. Safe, he realized, he was safe, and Rus groaned shakily, clinging to Edge’s broad chest as those dizzying kisses deepened, teeth scraping with tantalizingly deliberate roughness as a low growl rumbled out from deep within Edge’s chest.

In the back of his mind, Rus was hyperaware of the enormous bed behind them, equal parts inviting and terrifying to consider Edge carrying him to it the same way as he had to the rug. His heavy weight again between Rus’s femurs, the hard press of his hips, and the senseless magic settling in Rus’s pelvis wanted that, wanted even more. He could feel his magic taking form, embarrassingly eager wetness dampening his undershorts. His mind might well be unsettled, but his body was making its wants known to them both and he couldn’t help wriggling again, already feeling the response of Edge’s body beneath his pelvis.

The door bursting opened shattered any burgeoning arousal and Rus jerked back, scrambling away even as Edge reluctantly let him go.

Red didn’t even seem to notice them yet, kicking the door shut as he groused, “dogs said you and blaze got into it, bro, you okay—” he stopped, staring blankly at his brother, eye lights gliding over where Edge’s joints were flushed and his jaw clenched. Then flicking to Rus who was curled up far on the other side of the sofa with a burning blush high on his cheekbones. Red chewing on the end of his cigar furiously, saying acidly around it, “might need to have a word with ‘em, since they didn’t see fit to mention this lil’ tête-à-tête.”

“Perhaps they thought they didn’t need to,” Edge said, coolly, “There is this charming social construct called knocking, you should consider trying it sometime.”

“uh huh, you know me, all up in the social constructs.” Red turned his sour look back on Rus, who only cringed harder, “sorry to interrupt, but i’m fresh outta social constructs right now. me and my bro need to talk, hit bricks.”

Edge crossed his arms over his chest, “No, he can stay.”

Yeah, because Rus was all about hanging around Red with his magic still uncomfortably roused between his legs. “i really don’t mind, i can go.”

Neither of them paid him any mind, both brother’s glaring. Finally, Red shrugged, “i was gonna talk business, but if you wanna scar your pretty lil’ flower, ain’t no skin off my bones.”

That seemed to give Edge a pause. He frowned, considering, then sighed out, “Go, Rus.”

Rus wobbled to his feet, all ready to head for the door. Only to have Edge catch his wrist, reeling him in. He didn’t try to take a kiss, thankfully, no attempt at a little pda in front of his brother. He only studied Rus’s face as if drinking in the sight of him, then tapped him lightly on the nasal aperture as he said, sternly, “Behave.”

That made him remember that morning, sneaking downstairs to chat with the ladies in the break room. Rus gave him a wobbly nod, and said, “i always do,” hoping his guilt didn’t show on his face as he slipped away and headed towards the door.

He skirted widely around Red and even that didn’t keep Rus from hearing him mutter, “if that’s you behavin’ flower shop, can’t wait to see ya bein’ bad.”

Outside the door one of the Dogs was waiting and Rus was about to ask them to show him back to his room, preferably without the extra mileage, when his eye lights caught on a long line of blistered redness along their muzzle.

“did you get burned, too,” Rus gasped, appalled, “that must hurt, do you want me to heal…it?” He trailed off awkwardly, expecting to be brushed off. But the Dog only whined and lowered their head, their dark brown eyes hopeful.

The little wound was even easier to heal than Edge’s and the Dog heaved a sigh of relief when Rus was finished, offering him a slightly slobbery grin, along with something else that had been sitting unnoticed by their feet. They held it out in offering and Rus took it, uncomprehending at first until the familiar jangle made him look down in disbelief.

It was his backpack, somewhat sooty and Spongebob was more than a little worse for wear, but it was his, with all his pins still attached.

“how did you—” Rus started, dumbly. There was only one answer and Rus glanced at the door speculatively, wondering if he’d gotten the backpack before, after, or during getting burnt to a crisp. Questions for later and he added it to his list as the Dog led him back to his room.

The moment he opened the door, a loud shout almost sent him tumbling head over heels back out.

“Where have you been!?”

Rus sighed to himself and shut the door, bracing himself to face his brother.

Where was a kidnapping when you really needed one.

tbc

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underwap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #mafia AU

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theres-no-protocol-for-this · 4 years ago

Text

Necessary Repairs

Part III. I don’t even know if you have to read any of the other parts. SecUnit should probably have slept through most of its own healing, but that’s not this machine’s luck.

Part I | Part II

At some indeterminate point later, I woke up.

I was receiving minimal sensory data, and none of it was sight-related. A diagnostic subroutine spun up and casually began sending me bursts of error messages I couldn't even begin to translate.

Oh, and the world was pitch black.

It took me more than five seconds to determine that the darkness was self-inflicted and open my eyes. Longer still for the random noise to resolve into sounds I could understand -- the hum of an air circulation system, at least two distinct voices, and an automated warning system. My connection to the feed stabilized, but the walls that normally guarded my mind against its onslaught were conspicuously absent.

Something else was shielding me, something big and surprisingly gentle.

Friend?

I could feel cold metal under my back and head, probably the medical suite platform. My internal temperature refused to rise, so I was shivering and couldn't stop. It felt like I was still leaking, and the pain ebbed and flowed with each passing moment.

“Would you like me to turn up the heat?” Transport asked.

Yes. Where the hell am I?

I felt a mild shock as the governor kicked in. It hadn't liked my tone, apparently, or the phrasing of my answer, and wasn't shy about letting me know. The standard code read, "you're outside of protocol and need to adjust your attitude."

Silently, I cursed the damn thing. I was getting used to life without it.

A moment later, Transport answered, "SecUnit, you're still in medical, and your performance rating, while stable, remains abysmally low."

The ship paused and sent me a couple of data packets that succinctly described all the things still wrong -- which was most of them. I should've probably remained in stasis, but the medical unit was calibrated for humans. So, it hadn't given me nearly enough sedative to knock out the organic parts of a construct for any appreciable amount of time.

I was awake, kind of.

"I'm waiting for your vital signs to improve," Transport added. "Until then, would you like to watch an episode of that one show you liked?"

Yes, please.

The ship's calm tone reassured me, even though everything else looked like shit. My diagnostics were coming back with nonsense, still. The governor couldn't find a SecSystem to connect with. The Traveler didn't have or need one of those; it had a skeleton HubSystem instead managed security, life support, and logistics. My inflexible governor couldn't figure out how to interface with it.

Surprise, surprise...

It fell back on some preprogrammed garbage, complete with a minimal set of actions and responses. "Yes, please" and "No, thank you" was probably the best I could manage at the moment without incurring its wrath. I'd try poking at it later when my performance no longer looked quite so dramatically sad.

Captain Owens pulled up a chair and sat down where she could see me. Transport shared the view from one of its cameras, so now I could see her, too. It also queued up an episode of a long-running serial and waited for the captain before it started playing. I wanted to ask about the hostiles but couldn't -- thanks governor -- and Transport didn't seem inclined to enlighten me.

I suppose it was only fair; it was doing its best to keep me calm.

MedSystem sorted out the sleeping issue in the meantime and had injected more sedatives into my resupply channel, so sleep was happening shortly, whether I liked it or not. I could practically feel my diagnostics slowing down to a crawl since they relied on data from my organic parts, which were affected by the drugs.

"Good afternoon, SecUnit. I'm glad to see you're awake." The captain nodded in my direction and then turned toward someone I couldn't see. "As I mentioned, thanks to SecUnit, we came out of the boarding attempt in one piece. I'm sorry to hear your ship wasn't as lucky."

A stranger in formal wear came into camera view as he approached Owens. I figured he was the owner of that second voice I hadn't been able to identify earlier. The logo on his tunic looked familiar, but I couldn't place it. Parts of my memory felt like tangled network cables.

"Indeed, but this is still better than nothing. I don't suppose you've already contacted your bonding company?"

The captain's face scrunched up in confusion. "We're insured outside of the Corporation Rim," she explained. "I've sent a message, but I'm here pretty much on my own."

Outside of the Rim, everything appeared to work in ways that were incompatible with corporation control. A lot of the propaganda around freehold planets implied they were a complete shitshow. Except, clearly, the Traveler was doing just fine.

I had a sudden burst of "bad feeling" in my organic neural tissue. Something about the newcomer didn't sit right with me. I thought it might be unwise for the captain to tell him anything about herself or her ship.

"No, thank you." It sounded like my voice, but I didn't remember speaking. Hi buffer, I thought I'd never see you again.

The newcomer gave me a puzzled glance. "So, where'd you get your unit then?"

Owens shrugged and schooled her expression. I'd seen that face before when she'd spoken to her daughter before our first jump. "I rented it from a friend, as a security consultant. It's doing a great job."

I was?

I mean, the human was alive, and the Traveler had an intact hull, so I guess things weren't terrible. I could practically hear the Transport laughing on a private channel. If I could roll my eyes, I probably would have, but the governor frowned on that sort of thing, and my eyes had closed minutes ago.

"I see. Well, if you wouldn't mind giving us a hand with repairs, we can both be on our way." The man watched the captain like a hawk. "I would also recommend getting your unit checked out at a licensed repair station when you get a chance. With this level of damage, there's no telling what other problems are hiding under the surface."

As far as statements go, it was polite enough, but I didn't like it. It sounded to me like a threat.

Performance rating dropping. Initiating emergency shutdown.

I really would prefer you didn't.

***

Memory fragment:

The mining installation doesn't inspire confidence. There are eight of us and two combat models. Ten security units should be enough to keep a workforce of 153 miners and a dozen more supervisors in line. Everything looks worn and rundown, including the humans.

Protocol dictates that we take shifts. A human has created a schedule to which we adhere. The two combat units are mixed in with the rest of us.

It's my patrol shift. I walk through one of the mining shafts and stop at the far end. I can hear a supervisor arguing with two of her employees—something about the rocks they've uncovered. I turn around, ready to head back to the primary installation, when one of the combat units walks up to the three humans.

It has been summoned by the supervisor.

The supervisor tells it to fire on the workers. It does, without question. Bodies crumple to the floor. Then, the supervisor notices me.

***

Transport popped into my feed. "Wake up, SecUnit. How're you feeling?"

"Like I got shot."

The words were out before I could consider the consequences, and I braced for an electric shock -- or worse. Nothing happened. Performance reliability was at 87% and rising steadily. My diagnostics routines had run several times, and the results looked promising. I was also no longer leaking, and most of my organic parts had grown back.

I had two arms again. That was nice.

Transport shared a smiling sigil. Reason unknown. "You did get shot, silly. MedSystem patched you up pretty well. If you're up to it, my captain and I could use your help." It paused and added, "Captain suggested that you might want payment in exchange for services rendered. That's how it works in CR, right?"

I had my doubts about anything actually working in the Corporation Rim. Still, arguing with a clearly sentient ship about theoretical economics didn't sound appealing. I'd rather get shocked again.

"OK," I said aloud and sat up. "Priority question: who was here earlier?"

"Dr. Alexander Soren is the current captain of an ArialHydra exploration vessel. They are stranded in this sector after a pirate attack. Captain Owens speculates that it may be the same group of pirates. We were lucky to have you on board."

Lucky. Right.

I shoved off the platform and crumpled to the floor in a pile of arms and legs. Hi there, limbs. A few minutes later, I managed to get up and stumble around under my own power. I admit to sitting on the floor and trying out my new arm. It didn't have a cannon -- MedSystem didn't have the required parts -- but it was fully functional, otherwise.

"I've seen Dr. Soren before." I couldn't remember where. That bothered me.

"Perhaps you were deployed on one of his survey missions?"

"I don't know."

One of the ship's drones floated into the room, carrying spare clothing, which it dropped directly on my head. I grabbed at the falling fabric and started getting dressed. It was the Traveler's standard-issue uniform, beige and blue and generally not hideous. I missed the protective qualities of armor, but it would've been weird to wander through the ship's pristine, carpeted halls with it on.

Captain Owens walked into the medical room and waved at me and the drone. "I see you're both here and scheming."

"We're not scheming, and technically, I'm everywhere," Transport informed us.

"I don't think you should trust Dr. Soren," I blurted out.

Owens narrowed her eyes. "Do you know anything you'd care to share?"

I shook my head. Constructs don't get gut feelings -- we don't even have a gut to have them with -- and my memories of any encounters with the doctor had been removed. Memory wipes aren't typical, but occasionally, a bonding company or a manufacturer/repair company decides they're necessary. I've had at least one that I know about. I also had no idea how to explain that my organic neurons probably remembered things the rest of me didn't.

"Well, in that case, has Trav told you what we need?" At my puzzled expression, the captain said, "We gave the other ship supplies, and they're almost ready to depart. And they're making a fuss about..." She sighed. "Something. I really don't care. They'll be coming back aboard in a few hours to discuss whatever it is. And I would feel much better if you were there. Just in case. And only if you're feeling up to it."

Protecting humans was literally the only thing I liked about my job. "OK."

"Great. Do you want a weapon?"

"Depends on how threatening you want me to look." Any weapon I wielded would be for show unless the human was in danger. And if she was, I had a miniature cannon hidden inside an arm.

The captain pondered this for a moment. Her face went through a range of expressions that Transport interpreted for me as "Captain Owens thinks the other ship's posturing is stupid and would like to be on her way, but it would be impolite to leave, so here we are." I agreed with the captain's assessment.

Finally, she said, "Let's try without any extra threats and see what happens. The quicker we get this over with, the better."

Transport suggested we spend the time between now and the upcoming meeting watching more of its favorite shows. I agreed.

#the murderbot diaries #SecUnit #let me sleep #into the unknown #fanfiction

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imnotwolverine · 4 years ago

Text

The Englishman JACK - CHAP 3

< Chap 2 | Chap 3 Cocks And Guns | Chap 4 >

Summary: Jack finds himself in a crossfire between friends, foes and silent admirers.

Author’s note: To the handful of people reading this: I hope you’ll enjoy this one! Have a good weekend my lovelies. ❤️

Word count: 5.105 (18 min. read)

Disclaimers: NSFW - Strong language, misogyny, lots of cigarettes, alcohol abuse, extortion, WWII PTSD, (gun) violence, mobsters

–

Cocks and Guns

The woolen uniform itched and Jack was eager for the night shift to be over. With sweat running down his back, he peered into the darkness that surrounded the makeshift war camp. Everything seemed so calm and quiet; it was near strange to think that a few miles from here the Germans lurked. The enemy.

A few months ago he had seen their faces for the first time, the mood grim in the dead land between bloody trenches. It had rained for weeks on end and Jack could have sworn it had been God himself crying for the travesty that was this war. In that moment he had also wondered if these Germans before him truly wanted to fight. He, for one, surely didn’t. He felt the same dread he saw in them. Cheekbones fallen in, eyes wide.

That day the battlefield had remained calm. And not many days later Jack was reassigned, one general impressed with his good eye for detail and sharp mind. It was why he now was here, belly flat on the earth as he peered out into the distance, eyes sharp and back soaking wet with sweat. Behind him he could hear the occasional male voice or thump of sturdy boots. But before him the land was unreadable. All scraggly bushes, haunting tree shapes and the song of hidden cicadas. Jack felt the sound irked him, even though he couldn’t quite explain to himself why. The creatures were perfectly harmless and he had learned that the locals were terribly fond of them.

At first this new job hadn’t seemed so bad. They got more rest than in the trenches, and the men seemed a tad more cheerful. On the odd occasion they had even slept in real beds, made music, met women. And these women, French women, were utterly divine. Jack had never been outside of English territory, so he was near shocked to find how very different the French were from his usual English birds. In a hash he thought that maybe, if ever he’d get out of here, he’d marry one of those pretty brown eyed mademoiselles. Start a life here in the rural lands that usually harvested wine. What a life that would be. Besides, it wasn’t like he missed England all that much. Especially not when that same England sent him out to fight like this.

Scratching at some sweat that was drying on his jaw, he lost focus for just half a second. And though the cicadas continued to sing and the stars to shine, Jack knew something was amiss straight away. The male voices were no longer solely behind him. They were before him. Hushed and part of the darkness that stared back. Had he imagined it? Swallowing harshly he focused on the black lines of branches and bushes. With the wind quiet, any movement would indicate unfriendly visitors. But none moved. None sighed. Indeed, perhaps he had just imagined it. With a coded click of the tongue he signalled the other scout whom lay a few meters up ahead.

The man shot up disturbed, helmet crooked on his head, followed by a thump of lead hitting flesh. Jack’s heart was racing in an instant, eyes noting his dead fellow scout, shortly followed by then a blitz of stars in the bushes. Bullets were being fired and even ducking low he could swear he would be hit. That this would be it. That he would...

Gasping, Jack shot up from the bed. A sheen of sweat stuck to his brow and it took a good few moments before he realised he was no longer in France. The room surrounding him was dark, but he recognised it well enough. He was at the Maniari’s, having just awoken from a bad dream. Sighing, he let himself fall back on the comfortable mattress. Even years after the war, he was haunted by his days in the army. And he felt it only got worse when he was alone, the cold sheets a cocoon that trapped him in the most frightening of memories. Staring out at the ceiling he waited for his heartbeat to calm and breath to steady. But that was not going to happen.

Gunshots fired in the night outside. And before he even realised it himself, Jack had thrown himself off the bed and onto the floor, arms tiger crawling up to the window sill, eyes peering over the edge. The window was cracked open slightly, letting in the cool nightly Tuscan air to relieve the heat after a sunny day. That same heat still remained in the stone ledge he pressed his cheek into, bewildered eyes finding the cause of all this ruckus: Augusto and his men.

Down on the patio on the far end of the house there stood a group of swaggering, loud men. Thick cigar smoke curled up in the air and from the way they had to steady their every move, it was obvious they were well into their cups. In total there were four, faces hard to discern in the low moonlight. It didn’t however refrain the men from clearing their identities with loud laughter and booming voices. With a shotgun in hand, Augusto stood at the front, a cigar hanging over his lip as he looked over his shoulder, hinting at the other men to watch.

‘Watch and learn!’ He growled, body starting to jerk as he cleared a few shots in the dark. Jack noticed that he wasn’t just shooting at nothing; from a tree hung a white ribbon that stood out just enough for even the drunk men to see. Not knowing whether Augusto hit anything at all, Jack flinched as the men started to cheer even more loudly.

Next up was one of the more slender looking men. Perhaps one of the bodyguards. Holding a handgun he outstretched an arm, aim more pure than that of Augusto. With a Hollywood-esque exaggeration he blew the heat from the gun’s barrel, laughing as one of the other men clapped his back.

Like this the nightly banter outside continued. It felt like hours upon hours, and though Jack had forced himself to lay back down in bed, he could no longer catch any sleep. Staring out at the ceiling he watched and waited, and dozed and mulled on thoughts that mixed reality and dream until finally he saw the first rays of sun crawl over the wooden beams above him. The sheer lace curtains drew pretty patterns there, reminding him of his first acid trip. How relieving that moment had been after months of struggling to deal with his post traumatic shock disorder.

You’ve got it bad boy, Lucia had whispered, brushing away his hair when he would wake bathing in sweat.

She was gone now.

Sighing, Jack pushed himself off the bed, head feeling dazed. He hoped that this wouldn’t occur every night, but something told him that he shouldn’t keep his hopes up. This family was mad and he knew it. Stretching himself out, hands above his head, he cracked a few joints before returning to the window sill, eyes finding that a butler had moved out to the bullet shell covered terrace on his left. The man was placing a whole collection of glasses, half finished liquor bottles and crowded ash trays onto a larger tray, face stern and focused.

Then Jack realised there was another person up and about. Just beneath his window, seated at the long end of a table, chair covered in a black and white striped cotton, sat the only daughter of the Maniari’s. Bunny. She was all dressed up to the nines, hair neatly coiffed and body clad in a blue knee length dress.

From his position, Jack could see everything perfectly. The way her cigarette smudged with lipstick, the way her eyes sometimes moved to the butler who was cleaning up the mess on the other terrace. And he also noted that her fashion magazine was a bit peculiar; either they had started to include an accounting segment, or Bunny dear was holding a secret. The pages looked off. Reaching a little further, Jack tried to figure out what it was she was hiding, but that move betrayed him. The window creaked and with a hurried scowl Bunny looked up, hand closing her magazine.

‘Good morning,’ Jack chimed, smiling warmly. Bunny sucked on her cigarette and stared up at Jack. A moment passed.

‘If you say so.’ She sighed, pressing the half-finished cigarette into a glass ashtray before walking back inside.

Jack contemplated how he had wronged her, but as his eyes wandered over the curves of the misty hills, his mind bleaked. In the far distance, behind the neatly kept gardens, he could see the vineyards, stretching for miles. Most of it owned by the Maniaris, small houses dotted over the landscape, all rented by locals or used by family members. Today was the day he would meet some of them. He wondered if they would be just as mad.

‘Too expensive.’ The old nan flared an aggravated hand in the direction of the suit clad man who had come to gather the rent. Her eyes spoke poison, but also intrigue when she noted Jack. For a short moment her trembling jaw quieted, wrinkly features studying the unknown man before her.

‘YOU, you do something about it!’ Her finger directed back at Big. ‘The protection is shit! Last week one of my goats was shot and look at what you do. NOTHING. No-thing. You scum! You..-’

One of the men pushed Jack outside of the small cottage and closed the door, leaving Jack alone. The sun was starting to sink down and with a quick check on his peculiar sundial watch he noted the time. 4.30, just about. And violence..? He listened and heard the muffled whines of the woman inside. Yes. Biting his tongue he started his way to the end of the small garden that stretched around the cottage. Vegetables were growing in long rows of green. Cabbages, leaks and the like; nothing spectacular. But he also noted feet. Or feet marks to be exact. Dragging in the mud and too large to fit the small woman that lived here, alone. Had she had a visitor? Clicking his tongue he turned heel, hearing the front door re-open, men pouring out.

‘Fucking nuthouse.’ One of the bodyguards muttered, lips glueing to a cigarette that was lit with a bloodied hand. Jack noted that too, but said nothing. It was not why he was here.

‘Found some footsteps over there.’ Jack nodded, and the men looked up.

‘So?’

‘Male. Large male. Old, most likely, or wounded. Hard to see through the red stain of this darn mud.’ Jack pointed at the garden and two of the men stepped in, one of them taking notes and photographs of the measurements and findings. They nearly looked professional - were it not for them to be stinking like a brown pub in the wind.

‘Unlikely to be Alfi.’ Big stepped forward, still distrusting of Jack. Luigi hadn’t come along, though he had offered; it was Jack who had refused. At first the idea of having Luigi with him seemed pleasing, but seeing Luigi’s slightly particular behaviour yesterday made him rethink. Perhaps it was better to find the brother’s motivations and relations one by one; in the end they both had been in Paris at the time of Lucia’s demise.

So far though, the young Maniari mostly just seemed like a spoiled brat, who, unfortunately, wasn’t all that clever. Big scowled at Jack, who smiled a fair laugh.

‘Alfonso can’t get hurt, you say?’

‘It can’t be him because why the fuck would he be in some old hag’s shitty garden? He’d come home if that’d be the case. Pfft.’ Big shook his head in disbelief and regarded one of the men who had walked to a nearby tree to take a leak, hand brushing down the pee on his pants before he let out a relieved sigh.

‘Fwoa. You just keep on pissing from that stuff.’ He laughed.

Big smirked. ‘That’s what you do. Drink like a god? Piss like a god.’

The rest of the men laughed, but Jack didn’t. He turned around, watching the distrustful woman who peaked at him through the lacy veil of her curtains. Perhaps he’d return to her later.

The sun was sinking fast, but apparently there was one more job to be done. After a short stop at the villa, a small garrison of three sleek cars drove up the ruby red roads. At the front was Augusto’s car, a silver Mercedes, it’s lacquer shining in the last drops of honey hued sunlight. In the far back was the brandless black beast that carried Jack and four square shouldered men. These men were new to Jack, and for a moment Jack wondered if he was brought along so Augusto could keep an eye on him. Of course he had hoped that he would have been just allowed to lumber around alone, but reality was different. In reality even family friends had to join in on the dirty work. Whatever the dirty work would be right now.

After a short drive the cars halted before a small winery, long rows of vines weaving in patterns behind the tall cypresses that stood at either side of the muddy road. The sun was close to disappearing now, leaving long and tall shadows at the men’s feet. The Maniari crew had nine men in total, which seemed excessive for a visit. But then again; perhaps it wasn’t enough. Jack noticed how they all kept a hand close to the insides of their jackets, buttons undone. He was no fool. There were weapons held disguised, ready to be used at will.

Turning on his heel, Augusto was surrounded by his trusty bodyguard number One - a surprisingly small and slender man - and the four jarheads.

‘No words English. Just watch. I need your eyes alone. No funny business.’

Jack nodded, not sure what was about to happen. With confident strides the men walked up to the near abandoned looking winery, an old tractor parked near the door. The yard was muddy, leaving hundreds of tracks of cars, feet and what looked to be dog paws.

‘Nando!!’ Augusto called at a man who stepped out of the front door. The leather faced man was obviously not eager to see Augusto, eyes skittish and hand holding onto the door knob.

‘Good eve.’ Nando watched the many men that surrounded Augusto, eyes narrowing. ‘I don’t want no trouble sir.’

‘Then there won’t be any trouble.’ Augusto smiled broadly - too broadly, his cheeks drawing menacing shadows in the light of the sinking sun. ‘Just business talk.’

‘Right now? I was just about to eat sup--’

One of Augusto’s men pushed Nando back inside, pushing through the narrow hallway until all men were indoors. It was there where yet more visitors were found. More tough looking men in suits, hands staying nervously close to their pockets.

Jack barely got a chance at properly looking at these other men before the situation escalated. Augusto voice boomed with some insult about ‘crooked investors’ and then all hell broke loose. Or, so it seemed. Being pushed back against the opposing wall of the narrow hallway, Jack lost track of movements. Men were rushing back and forth, commands being yelled. The house was too small and it didn’t help that Jack had hurt his head, his vision swimming.

It was seconds later when the calm returned. Jack found himself leaning into the wall. On the ground in the small living room red stains leaked into the carpet. And watching Augusto, he saw those same red stains on his blouse. Had the mobster been wounded? Gasping in horror, Jack blinked, memories flooding him.

RUN JACK. RUN! Harry’s bloody teeth gulped the words, eyes wide.

The memory faded.

Hold! Hold! Hold for the king! Rain clattered on poorly made helmets, the dark night icy cold. Are you soldiers? Or are you weak? Right there the enemy awaits us, but we are ready. Squadron 2, line 4. Get ready to climb!

Jack felt sick, feet stumbling. The whole hallway seemed to tilt a few degrees, like he were on a ship filled with cute picture frames and handmade doilies.

‘Let’s get outta here.’ Big pushed Jack back out of the door, the rest of the men following.

‘What a fucking mess.’ Augusto growled. He didn’t sound as wounded as he seemed. Jack inhaled sharply, the evening air biting into his lungs. Panic and trauma washed over him and he had to try his best to stay afoot. Around him the other men walked out, reminding him of the soldiers in the trenches. The same mud that slipped beneath his unsteady feet had been there in France. Day in day out. Everything had been so wet, all the freaking time. At some point he hadn’t even known anymore whether it was the rain, blood or both. With blinking eyes Jack focused on his shoes, red splatters climbing up his leather shoes. He knew he wasn’t in France. He knew he wasn’t hurt - yet. And yet the ache in his heart seemed to seep in every corner of his limbs, turning his usually sharp mind to muddle.

‘Such a waste of wine.’ Augusto clicked his teeth. ‘And to you.’ He reared his head and looked at the man who looked at him through the small doorway. Jack didn’t know the man, but he seemed like a boos of sorts. His smug face raised a challenging chin, but said nothing.

‘Shame on your pitiful blood.’ Augusto spat on the ground. ‘This was once my father’s land. And now what?! Look at this! The moment some poor man comes up and tries to rebuild it, you take it from him.’

Jack frowned. Before him he saw the same Augusto that had beaten his daughter and threatened his family with the worst of repercussions. And yet that same man now wanted to protect this poor winemaker. Really? It almost seemed absurd.

‘There’s much waste, old friend. But this? I see potential. You see flaws. You hold onto the old. I embrace..the new!’ The smug looking man laughed. ‘And you see, Nando here.’ He turned and squeezed the terrified looking farmer into the door frame. ‘Has become a very, very good friend of mine. Haven’t you Nando? Hmm?’

The poor man swallowed and nodded quickly. ‘Y-yes sir.’

‘No no. We’re friends. Call me Gio, please.’

‘Yes..Gio.’ The man nodded, terror clear in his eyes.

Augusto sighed dramatically. ‘Well, dear Gio, you ruined my shirt!’

‘Oh curse you old friend. Buy yourself a new one. And kiss your wife for me, will you!’

‘Watch your words!’ Augusto wanted to step in and all men were back to grabbing for their pockets, but Big was there to hush his father.

‘Father, let us deal with this another--’

‘Another time? Would you look at that smug bastard with his..’ Augusto waved his hand in the air with disgust, his pretentiously friendly tone gone.

Gio laughed and waved, his skin lighting up with the last rays of sunshine. ‘Let us have proper wine soon my friend. We’ll discuss business, like the old days!’

Augusto spat on the ground and shot one last poisonous glance at the boisterous man in the doorway. It was obvious the two had a history. And Augusto was pulling the short end of the string tonight. With dragging feet he let himself be guided back to the cars. Even now Jack wasn’t quite sure why they had come with so many. Was it to show off? Or had they really been ready for a war? Still feeling a little wheezy, he walked to the last car and got in, his body soon squeezed in the middle of the bench between the two large men.

‘You’re hurt!’ Luigi exclaimed. With hasted feet he worked his way through the men who had started to scatter in the large hallway. Some went to the lounge for a drink, others to their quarters for sleep. None were rueful enough to deal with their boss Augusto right now.

The man groaned. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘Oh why look at you father.’ Luigi tutted, peeling at the winesoaked blouse of his father. His father swatted his hand away.

Luigi hesitated. ‘Ehh.. I must warn you, father.’ Luigi licked his thin lip. ‘Mom has one of her...moments.’

Augusto turned heel, eyes wild. ‘She..what? Why didn’t you do something?!’

Luigi shrugged in defeat and pointed outside. In a flurry of curse words his father ran out, feet thundering on the loud marble floor.

‘You alright?’ Luigi stepped in next to Jack. The other men had dispersed, leaving the two men standing here alone.

Jack nodded quietly. France still ringed in his ears. Or perhaps it was a mild concussion. Either way he could do with some rest and a meal.

‘Quite a day it was.’

‘Indeed. I heard Mrs. Tuscesi got another beating. What a woman. What. A. Woman.’

Jack nodded, allowing Luigi to guide him up the stairs like he had yesterday. Again that fleshy warm hand found his lower back, but Jack didn’t object. Stepping in turn with Luigi, he told his friend about the little situation with Gio. Luigi sighed.

‘My papa never learns.’

They halted amidst the stairs, where a window gave a lookout over the shadowy gardens. Little torch lights cast a mysterious hue over the greens, where the signora danced, a little 3-legged dog by her side. Meanwhile Augusto was storming through the long lane between sky high cypresses, right at her.

‘Didn’t know you had a dog.’ Jack said. He didn’t want to question what was the matter with Luigi’s mother - it seemed a touchy subject, especially now he was living here with the Maniari’s. For a moment they watched as she waved her expressive arms in the air, before throwing a shoe for the dog toe catch. It hobbled awkwardly on its three tiny stilts.

‘My mother has a dog.’ Luigi corrected, then returned his warm hand to Jack’s back. Jack again, didn’t object and followed as they continued their way up the stairs. This time Luigi got a little further before he halted amidst the hallway, feet quiet on the stone floor.

Jack smiled, knowing exactly what Luigi wished to ask. It seemed near inappropriate, but in a way Jack could use some friendly company at the moment. Besides, he still needed to find out what Luigi’s true motivation was in life. He had changed so much since last they met in person. Not only had he grown in size, also his manners had changed. The Luigi he had met in Paris was not quite the man before him. That Luigi had been an oversized boy who liked to play. This was a man who made the game.

Turning on his heel, Jack looked over his shoulder. With a single nod the affirmation was given; join me. And so Luigi joined.

With most of the men gone on their nightly mission, the house was left quiet. Bunny peaked through her cracked bedroom door. On either side of the hallway the lights were dimly lit. But no guards were there to keep watch. No brothers were there to call onto her. All she could hear was her mother on the phone and her brother’s record player downstairs. From the looks of it both were preoccupied and so Bunny took her chance, feet slipping out of the door frame.

The heavy creak of her door made her flinch. Fuck. Holding tight onto the door knob she waited. Perhaps there soon would be footsteps, guns cocking, knuckles cracking. But no, there was nobody here.

Continuing her quiet pitter patter, Bunny made her way to one of the doors on the right. Not far from here her mother was babbling into the phone. Or worse yet; crying into the phone. Bunny again halted her steps.

‘But I need you! I..I need you!’

Her mother sounded positively desperate. But then again, so were all women who lived in this household. Her mother would drink herself to death. Bunny would run herself to death. Pick your poison, they say, right?

Gritting her teeth, Bunny turned her attention to one of the doors on her right. It’s where Alfonso’s study was located. A bunch of mystery rooms that she had rarely been allowed to visit. And the attraction to visit became even stronger when Alfi disappeared. The brother’s had looked inside for a bit, but decided there were no clues worth mentioning to the Englishman. All seemed as it should be, they said.

But Bunny didn’t believe it could be that easy. Alfi always had been a weird brother. Being the oldest of the bunch, he had always felt terribly important with his books and administrational work and numbers. He had always been the precise one, the easily ignited one. One thing out of place would send him into fury, and so it was here where Bunny decided to do some of her own research. Here in his study. Where all her brothers seemed too busy with their gun fights and extortion, Bunny knew that it was unlikely to be just a regular kidnapping. There had to be clues. There just had to be.

With a click of the door knob she opened the study room. And it was exactly what she expected to find. A simple desk set amidst ceiling high bookshelves filled with administration and books. It was kept so orderly it was hard to think this may just be the start of a crime scene. But Bunny had read books herself, too. Agatha Christie had taught her one thing: death is in the details. And patterns are always there. The only difference was that this was no oriental train or desolate island, but home. The home she had lived in with people that could very well star in one of Christie’s books. For they were characters, each and every one of them.

Behind her, Bunny could still hear her mother’s wails, followed by a sharp click of the door. Was her mother going out? Oh no. Oh shit. Quickly closing the door behind her, Bunny pressed her ear against the door, listening to the footsteps in the hallway. It was definitely her mother, and from the way her heels tapped the floor in an uneven rhythm, it was clear that she was drunk. Not that this was such a surprise; each time her mother suffered a setback, she’d fall back into the dirty old habit of binge drinking.

‘Zazoooo. BABYYY where are you sweetieeee.’ Her mother’s shrill voice called as she clambered down the stairs, footsteps fading.

Zazoo hadn’t been able to climb the stairs ever since the incident. A shooting incident. And though all said it had been the Luchesse’s, or perhaps even Gio himself, Bunny knew better. She always knew better. And she was sure that it had been one of the family who had shot the dog’s leg during one of the many drinking fests. One night the dog had four legs, the next just three.

Poor dog.

Turning back around, Bunny let out a sigh. Again her eyes fell on the many small details around her. Having learned from her mystery books, she tried to find clues. The burned candles, the disturbed dust on the shelves, the…Hmm. She walked to one of the shelves that had obviously been disturbed quite recently. With a tug she pulled out some of the folders that were tucked tightly together. She wasn’t sure what exactly she was looking for, the numbers all unfamiliar. But there were names here too. Many names, though unfamiliar in most cases. Only the Luchesse named immediately rung a bell, but then the numbers didn’t clarify much either.

Flitting through the pages, Bunny let her eyes slide over the neatly noted numbers. Prices, codes, phone numbers. They could be anything. Continuing her research, her eyes stopped on one page. A blood stain had poured into the thin paper, dark red, though also still slightly slimy. An unusual type of blood stain when at best you’d suspect a paper cut.

Noises in the hallway made her turn on her heel again. More people. Male. Fuck. Hurrying to get the folder closed and back on the shelf, Bunny nearly let it slip from her hands. Her heart was thundering and fingers slippery. She knew that if she was caught red handed now, this would be last day she ever saw daylight. Her father would not have this. He didn’t like unsubordinate little women. He wanted them meek and mild, not curious and self established.

Rushing towards the door, Bunny already tried to find excuses to tell. Perhaps she had heard a faint noise and since she couldn’t find the guards, went to see for it herself. Perhaps she thought she heard Alfi. Perhaps she..

‘My mother has a dog.’ Luigi’s chuckle reverberated up the stairwell. Bunny sighed and relaxed a little. Luigi didn’t give a crap about these administrational books. He cared more about appearances, self pampering and other slightly dubious male activities. Pressing her ear back against the door she listened, but no further words came. It were two pairs of feet, moving in the same direction. Towards the Englishman’s room, or hers. Oh no. Oh no! You can’t be saying they were looking for her!

Making sure the footsteps were far enough away, Bunny unclicked the door and rushed into the hallway. The men were gone. Though their voices returned, chuckling through Jack’s door.

Bunny knew at that moment that she would be better off if she just went back to her room. She was putting her nose in things she didn’t understand. In things she wasn’t supposed to understand.

‘Oh Jack!’ Luigi exclaimed, followed by a bit of laughter. Bunny quietly moved in closer, ears peaking to pick up the sounds. But no more sounds came.

Then Bunny made another mistake. She watched. Women weren’t supposed to see these things. But here she was, bending over and peeking in through the keyhole. Inside the well-lit room stood the two men. Jackets removed, embracing. But it wasn’t the type of embrace she knew. This was..different. Long lasting. Luigi’s hands were on the Englishman’s buttocks. And it lasted too long. This was..this was. Bunny watched in shock and awe through the tiny keyhole. And then Jack’s blue eyes found hers.

Fuck.

Chap 4 >

General tagsquad: @harrysthiccthighss @tumblnewby @magdelen69 @thereisa8ella @darkbooksarwin @summersong69 @madbaddic7ed @luclittlepond @maroonmolly @just-a-normal-fangirl18 @hell1129-blog @agniavateira @tillthelandslide @elinesama @maddyreads14

#henry cavill fanfiction #henry as jack #the englishman jack #mobster mystery fic #original story #multichap

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theimpossiblescheme · 4 years ago

Text

Broader Shoulders

@orgyofthedamned and especially @hereissomething got me feeling some kind of way about their Hammer Horror/Fright Night/Bloodborne crossover, and the idea of Peter Vincent coming across Vicar Amelia has been living rent-free in my head for over an hour now... so here’s this. Trigger warning for body horror and animal death (in a sense)...

He was running low on bullets… that would teach him to rely on his gun moreso than his other weapons. So sue him if he preferred facing these things not at close range. Peter Vincent sighed heavily as he heaved himself up onto a low ledge to sit as he reloaded the chamber. Tonight had already been a hell of a night, and it was nowhere near over. And somehow the worst thing about it hadn’t been the various beasts. No, it had been the people. He didn’t have the heart to tell that poor little girl what had happened to her father… and if he’d known what would become of her, he would never have spoken to her at all. Finding her little hair ribbon in the sewer had made him sick with sorrow and rage, and he’d considered giving up the hunt right then and there before he caused any more harm to anyone. But he couldn’t. Not if any more children were to avoid her fate tonight. So he’d dragged himself through the sewers, through what was left of Old Yharnam, and now here he was back at the Cathedral Ward. Tasked with rescuing survivors and bringing them here to safety, no matter where they were.

I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders. The proverb sang gently through his mind, like the memory of a lullaby. Tonight of all nights, he needed to remember that. Clicking the chamber back into place and placing the gun back in his belt, Peter got back to his feet and proceeded into the cathedral tower.

There, in front of a great golden altar covered in candles and praying saints, wreathed in the glow of the rose window above her, he saw a woman in white kneeling on the floor in prayer. A single candle sputtered next to her, and as Peter crept closer, he could see that her clothes were tattered and stained with what he hoped was merely rust. In her hands she clutched a small pendant as if it were her only friend in the world.

Immediately Peter could feel his chest clench looking at her. This was no place for a lady all alone—not tonight. “Miss?” he ventured quietly, trying his luck and coming closer. “Miss, you need to come with me—it’s not safe up here by yourself…”

She didn’t hear him. Or if she did, she paid him no mind. She simply continued muttering a feverish prayer under her breath, clutching her pendant even tighter. Rising from her kowtowed position, she pressed it to her heart…

And then it happened. She gave a mighty scream as her head snapped back and her spine made an audible sickening crack. Peter wanted to rush forward, but terror rooted him to the spot as she curled in on herself, a mass of grey and white spines erupting across her back and through her white robes, her hands clawing desperately at her throat as though to keep whatever was bursting through inside. Finally, it was as though the tiny human body could no longer keep the beast at bay—there was a spray of blood that spattered the faces of the saints, and the young woman was no more. In her place was a towering creature covered in grey and white matted fur, barely supporting its own weight on spindly, arthritic limbs and paws that only served to pad the long gnarled claws. Its head was contorted into a long canine muzzle, short twisted antlers emerging from behind its ears and a frayed white cloth covering its eyes.

And in its hands, it still clutched the golden pendant.

The world spun around Peter, and he wanted to vomit. For a moment, all he could see was Ed… that poor boy, crouching under the stairs, hands covered in blood as he tried to pull the splintered table leg from his chest… human eyes staring agonizingly out of his beastly face, begging to know what he’d done wrong… begging for Peter to ease his pain. But what could he do? What could he do but stay… stay so the boy didn’t die alone… he couldn’t see this creature’s eyes, but he could imagine the pain in them. He could see them as clearly as he could see Ed’s right now.

“Miss…” Blinking away tears, Peter reached out his hand…

And the creature—or the poor woman trapped inside—let out another bloodcurdling scream. It—she—swiped out blindly with one of her massive hands, catching Peter square in the stomach and sending him tumbling across the floor. His head swam horribly, but he managed to stay conscious and watched as she writhed above him and slashed at the air with her claws, battling an enemy that wasn’t there and careening unevenly across the floor as she did so, still letting out her terrible cry. She reminded him of a rabid dog racing wildly through the streets as if trying to escape its own disease eating them from the inside. Only there was no Gregory Peck waiting at the end of the road with a shotgun to put her out of her misery.

There was only Peter. And his gun.

So he fired straight into her chest from where he sat. Six bullets, emptying the chamber. Each shot struck home, causing her to shriek even louder as her fur ran with blood. In a haze of pain and rage, she slammed her clasped paws on the ground and triggered a massive shockwave that sent Peter sprawling again and cracked the stone floor beneath them. Scrambling to his feet, he unsheathed the saw cleaver from his belt and rushed at her—it was time for a more direct approach. If he could just make this quick…

But she must have heard him coming because she whipped her head around and snapped her enormous jaws at him. As he jumped back, she lashed out with her claws again, slicing open a part of his shoulder and making him cry out in pain. He didn’t dare stop, though. Instead Peter rushed forward, slashing at any part of her he could reach, hoping to reach her heart and put a humane end to her suffering. All the while, she clawed and snapped at him, staggering across the floor and occasionally leaping out of his way as her new overlong joints audibly creaked and cracked, but he never relented. Every so often, she would freeze in place and clasp her amulet even tighter, as if starting to remember who she had been before. It never lasted though—even when Peter stayed his hand and dared to hope, the visceral roar that followed was all the more horrible, and he was forced to forge on ahead. The fight seemed to last for hours. She was damnably strong, and so many of his blows seemed to merely bounce off of her, but very slowly he could sense her weakening. Her front legs were splintering like decaying wood, and Peter realized with a sickening jolt how he could bring an end to this.

Swinging the saw cleaver in front of him and wildly praying it would work, he sliced right above her wrists, sending her toppling to the ground at last. And as she tried vainly to stand, he drove the blade once more into her chest as if thrusting a stake into the heart of a vampire. That was it. Her screams died away into a low whining keen as she sagged forward and pressed her paws against her heart in a useless attempt to stop the bleeding. Peter pulled the blade free just in time for his knees to give out in exhaustion, and he hit the ground just in time to catch the very tip of the creature’s muzzle over his knees. They were both covered in her blood, and he could see frantic movement under her blindfold as her eyelids fluttered, trying desperately to stay open through the pain.

“Ssssssshhhhh.” Peter shifted so more of her head was in his lap, stroking back her fur as she gasped. Every inch of his body hurt, his injured shoulder was throbbing mercilessly, and he could feel more tears stinging at the corners of his eyes, but he didn’t dare move. “Sssshhhh�� it’s all right, it’s over now… it’s over… it won’t hurt anymore.” Her fur was surprisingly thick and soft, and it was a moment before he remembered that he couldn’t simply scoop her up and cradle her like a scared dog. If only he’d done this for Ed years ago… was it enough for him to be here now? Did this even begin to make up for it? After killing two innocent, terrified souls… “I’m so sorry.”

It was a very long time—almost as long as his struggle against her had been—but eventually the motion behind her blindfold ground to a stop, and her labored breathing slowed to a gentle rasp and finally stopped. Her claws unclenched, and her head went limp in his lap. For a moment Peter stayed with her, still stroking her fur. Then something clattered quietly to the floor beside her… her pendant. When Peter picked it up and turned it over, he could see the inscription carved on the other side, even with how much it had been scored with claw and stone.

Vicar Amelia. Servite cum hominibus sanguinem Christi.

Amelia… so that was her name.

“May your memory be a blessing, Amelia,” he whispered as he eased her head from off his lap and got slowly to his feet, tucking her pendant back into her hand and closing her fingers around it. He couldn’t imagine what would happen to her now… perhaps it was best to leave her here, let the other members of the church take care of her. First Father Gascoigne and his family, and now this poor woman. Peter could only hope this night came to a swift end. There had been enough suffering.

#bloodborne #fright night 1985 #vicar amelia #peter vincent #not-so-fun with crossovers #my fanfic

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vateacancameos · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Words: 1393 Fandom: D.E.B.S. (2004) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Amy Bradshaw/Lucy Diamond Characters: Lucy Diamond, Amy Bradshaw Additional Tags: Autumn, Established Relationship, Post-Canon, Pictures, Belgium (Country), Foliage, Marriage Proposal, except not really, Well maybe a little, Lucy spoils Amy, One Shot Series: Part 1 of snapshots of autumn Summary:

Part of the snapshots of autumn series, which tells stories of ladies in love during autumn, this story can be read independently.

Lucy and Amy get away from sunny Barcelona during the fall, spending some time in the Belgium countryside so Amy can take pictures for her end-of-term project. This is a little one-shot of them being adorable while Lucy spoils Amy.

Story:

The click of the camera pulled Lucy’s gaze away from the mirror smooth lake, and as beautiful as that view was, it was the new view that made her grin like a fool. Amy’s camera dropped away from her face so she could return the smile.

“Gorgeous,” she said, her gaze fond.

Lucy shrugged. “I promised my girl the best autumnal landscapes on the continent. Glad I could deliver.”

Amy let the camera hang loose on the strap around her neck so she could bring her hands up to cup Lucy’s face. “Not what I meant, but those views are beautiful too.”

Read the rest under the cut.

Even after a year and a half, Lucy still got that warm feeling when Amy complimented her. She would never have believed two years ago that she’d be happily in love now. She’d given up on it, only for it to fall in her lap—or more accurately, her soup. And even after she and Amy had found each other, as amazing as it was, she’d not let herself believe it would last, even as she was fighting tooth and nail to win Amy’s affections. But here they were, Belgium in the fall, Amy looking positively adorable in a teal toque and matching fingerless gloves, smile wide as she took in the brightly clothed trees around them.

Lucy couldn’t have made it more perfect if she tried—the scent of bonfires in the air, a light fog cloaking them as they stood at the edge of a lake—and she silently thanked Scud’s random knowledge of secret but photographic European locales.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, but this is only the beginning, babe,” Lucy said. She kissed her girlfriend before turning her so Amy could look out on the lake again, Lucy holding her from behind.

“Lucy! This is already the best vacation ever. You don’t have to take me anywhere else.” Amy’s protest was half-hearted. She knew Lucy loved spoiling her, but Lucy knew she still felt the need to make at least a token protest.

“You can’t take pictures of just a single place. That would make for the most boring end-of-term project ever. Next up is Versailles, then of course we have to visit a few German castles.”

“How long is this trip supposed to be? I do have classes, you know.”

Lucy hugged Amy a bit tighter. “We’ll be back in Barcelona next week, promise. But we have to take advantage of the fall colors while they last, they’re only around for a short period after all. And you’ve been so busy with school and me getting my business off the ground, we both needed the break.”

“Mmm,” Amy hummed. “I still don’t know how you found out that fall is my favorite season.”

“Scud, of course. Well, Janet, really, who told Scud, who told me.”

Amy laughed. “Of course.” She slipped out of Lucy’s arms, straightening her down vest and rubbing her arms. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I could use a hot drink and a fire. I’ve gotten too used to the warm beach climates.”

“You love it here,” Lucy teased, but went to grab their bags so they could head back to the chateau she’d rented for the weekend (just because she’d gone legit didn’t mean she hadn’t kept enough dough in the bank to keep them living comfortably; her girl deserved the best).

“Oh! We need a picture of the two of us.”

Amy latched on to Lucy’s hand with her own, pulling them close. Lucy went willingly but pretended to put up a fight. “Ugh, why?”

“Because we are an adorable couple, the landscape is gorgeous, and I want to remember this fantastic trip.” Amy’s grin turned into a pleading pout. “Please?”

Lucy sighed dramatically, and let her face be smooshed next to Amy’s for a self-portrait. She scowled as fiercely as she could to make Amy laugh later when she looked at the pictures, but switched to a grin when Amy put her arm around her waist for the second picture. For the final picture, she turned to plant a kiss on her girlfriend’s cheek, and was thwarted when Amy did the same, and they locked lips. Which turned their picture-taking session into a make-out session, Lucy barely managing to remember to slide Amy’s camera softly to the ground before it could fall.

She’d have to thank Scud for the vacation idea. Later.

🍁🍂🍁

They were sitting in front of the outdoor firepit by early evening, hot drinks in hand and a shared blanket over their laps. Lucy put her arm around Amy so she could lean in to see the pictures on the tiny camera screen that Amy was scrolling through. She didn’t know much about art—except knowing which pieces were worth stealing, which she didn’t do anymore anyway—but the pictures were gorgeous. They managed to capture the atmosphere perfectly—the mist ghostly, the leaves brilliant, the air crisp.

“You’ve got an amazing eye, babe,” she told Amy, snuggling closer. “Pretty soon, you’ll be selling your art for millions, and I can quit my job to become a trophy wife, lazing around the cabana all day.”

Amy chuckled. “I’m still in school, and I’m not even the best in my cl- oh my God, did you just propose?” Her eyes wide, mouth open with shock, Amy turned to face Lucy.

“Oh, shit,” Lucy said. She’d been thinking about it more lately, but she hadn’t talked about it with Amy at all. “I- I mean, no? Yes? Maybe?” She bit her lip as she looked Amy in the eye. Had she just ruined everything? She knew Amy loved her, but did she love love her?

“No, yes, maybe? Well which is it?” Amy was very still, her face still a mask of surprise.

Lucy grimaced. “Ummm, whichever you want it to be?”

Amy gave her that stern, squinted-eye scowl she’d perfected with the D.E.B.S. that Lucy had always found just a little bit sexy. “Which do you mean it to be?”

With a sigh, Lucy slumped back on the bench, looking at the flannel blanket in their lap. “Well, I guess I’ve thought about it. Vaguely …?”

“Vaguely.”

“Well, yeah. You know. Like, I’d like to, at some point, when we’re both ready. No rush!” She chanced a glance up at Amy, who was biting her lip like she did when she was happy or worried or wanted to fool around. It was always adorable, and it gave Lucy hope.

Amy’s eyes were wishful surprise. “Really?”

Lucy cupped her cheeks in her hands, giving her a quick kiss before pulling back to look her in the eyes. “I love you, Amy Bradshaw. There’s no one else for me.”

“So … you’re proposing?”

“No!” Amy’s face fell, and Lucy hurried to reassure her. “I want to propose for real, with a ring, a candle-lit dinner, string quartet, all that romantic stuff.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Amy whispered. “I don’t need that. I just need you.”

“But I want to. You deserve the best.”

“You need to stop spoiling me!”

“Never.” Lucy turned away so she could snuggle back in at Amy’s side. She sipped her hot cider and smiled. Amy wanted to marry her, Lucy Diamond, former supervillain, current boat captain. She was the happiest woman alive.

They sat in silence for a time, the only noise the snap of the logs on the fire and the occasional evening bird call.

“You know …” Amy eventually said, low in Lucy’s ear. “If you wanted the perfect moment to propose, it would’ve been here, today.” She motioned to the bright red, gold, and orange trees around them, the fire in front of them, the chateau next to them.

Lucy playfully dug her fingers into Amy’s side. “You’re terrible, you know that? Why do I want to marry you, again?”

“Because I’m adorable, and you love me.” She shot Lucy her most innocent smile.

Giving up teasing completely, Lucy smiled at her girlfriend. “Very true. I do love you. So much.”

Amy smiled fondly in return, leaning in to peck her on the lips. “I love you too, Lucy Diamond.”

Maybe that day would’ve been the perfect time to propose, with the gorgeous views and the intimate setting, but Lucy was content to wait. Any time was perfect, when she was with Amy.

#d.e.b.s.#debs #fanfic #ficlet #one shot #lucy/amy #autumn #autumn mood #ao3 #meagan writes #wlw #f/f

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missbrightsky · 4 years ago

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I didn’t know where else to go

Fics Masterlist

Previous Chapter

Chapter 8: Rhysand

Well, I thought it started out fine. According to everyone else, however, all the signs for a shit show were there from the beginning.

After Amren snuck into Mor’s apartment and informed us of the incoming shipment for Amarantha, we all sprung into action. Cassian was gathering his men to rendezvous with us where it was coming in, Azriel’s spies scoping out the surrounding buildings and streets. Mor disappeared for a costume change.

Feyre… she watched us, only barely looking unsure of her place in all of this. This would be her first mission with us, the definition of out of the frying pan and into the fire. But she took it all in stride. Less than 15 minutes later all of us were sorted into two cars and were on our way to the docks to intercept the shipment. Feyre had emerged in tight dark grey pants and a black long sleeve that clung to her curves, hair tied back and stuffed into a black beanie. Cas let out a whistle and immediately started spouting his shitty pick-up lines. To my amusement and relief, her only response was to flip him off and follow Mor out of the apartment.

That’s when it all started going downhill. Mor and Cas claimed they wanted to grill Feyre on her police training and drug her into Cas’s SUV. That left me with a quiet Az and ever-grumpy Amren in my sedan. Why I couldn’t be the one to ask about her training was beyond me.

Most of the ride was spent in silence, only broken by texts of information coming through. Ten men were expected to be meeting the container. Contents unknown. Amarantha herself was not expected to be there.

This would be the first real lead on her operation, despite myself, I was optimistic. For once, we would have a handle on her plans.

How

Were

Wrong

Thinking back, it’s lucky that we escaped with only scrapes and bruises with only one of the men grazed by a bullet. Very lucky those were the only injuries but now she knew that there was someone on her tail, and that would make tracking her that much harder.

After a more or less uneventful ride to the docks, we parked a few blocks away from the arrival location. My men were at our sides in seconds, quietly distributing weapons. I already had my typical compact tucked away on my person, I seldom left home without it. Extra ammo disappeared into my pockets and a hunting knife clipped onto my belt. Feyre was offered a 9mm, no one batting an eye if they recognized her as the cop that used to hunt us down. She looked at ease, checking the chamber before tucking it into her waistband. And damn, if it didn’t make her that much hotter.

“I’m going to go scout out rooftops, boss,” Az said to me, carrying a sniper rifle. I only nodded to him, turning to Amren to listen to her explain the plan to the others. She and I had hammered it out on our way over, but I wanted everyone else’s input before finalizing it.

“James, Wernt, Niam and Yao, I want you approaching from the left while Johnson, McGuire, Harlan and Tagaras will come from the right. I don’t want any stragglers escaping, we need all the information we can get.” The eight nodded, having no comments to give. It was a standard flanking procedure.

“Azriel will be on the rooftops, he’ll help keep everyone corralled into one spot,” I said. “Cas, Mor, Amren and I will approach from the containers towards the meeting place. Modrow, Cain and Carvalho will cover our backs. Keep low and keep quiet, I want this done without the police being called on us for as long as possible. Watch your shots, try to take them down using force first.”

“Injure first, kill only if necessary,” Amren warned, her silver eyes flashing in the dark alley. “This will be the most dangerous situation we’ve handled yet. Not your typical rent-a-cops from the research facilities. From what we can tell, these are trained hires, most likely private protection company. We have surprise on our side so use it.”

“My flanking groups,” I said, “Only engage once we have, until then, stay in the shadows and keep your eyes open. Comms are going live… now,” quiet static burst in my left ear before fading. Az’s voice came through, confirming that he has a clear view of the delivery point and that ten men are waiting there. Five grouped up near a semi, three spaced to the side watching the water for the incoming boat, two monitoring the surrounding containers.

Feyre lingered at the back of the group, watching Amren and I lay out the plan with a blank face, no hint of whether she approved or was appalled.

“Go now,” came Amren’s quiet command and the groups scattered, each carefully checking the street before turning towards their destination.

Feyre approached us, “Where do you want me?” No demands to be in the middle of the action, no comments on the plan. Amren let me answer her question.

“I want you with the group who will be covering our backs. I trust them to treat you fairly,” I hastily add on, “Not that any of my men would lay a hand on you, they just already know why you’re here.” She smirked at how I nearly tripped over my words. “Also…,” she tensed, unsure of my next words, “I want you to keep your face hidden in case any of Amarantha’s men escape. They might recognize you and I have a feeling that would be bad for your reputation.”

Feyre released a tight chuckle. “It would be ideal that the rest of the world doesn’t know that I’m helping a crime lord.”

The tight knot that appears in my chest before a mission loosened a little. I wasn’t sure how Feyre was going to take being in the shadows, but it seemed I had nothing to worry about. She followed us out of the alleyway, her steps as silent as ours. The shipyard was only two blocks from our position, but every second out in the open was a risk. Azriel’s spies said that there were only men at the drop site, and they were rarely wrong.

Rarely.

Yards crept by, buildings giving way to a grid of shipping containers and roads. The occasional voice came through on the comm, confirming positions or giving warnings. Feyre easily blended in with the team watching our backs, taking silent cues when to advance and when to hold.

Soon, there was an empty space ahead of us, only the shadows covering us. True to Az’s observations, there were ten men in varying positions, precisely where he said they would be.

Minutes ticked down until a low hum increased in volume. There along the waterfront was a barge, much smaller than the massive ships that frequented this channel. On it was several large crates, all unmarked.

“Hold,” came the quiet command, Amren. It was unnecessary but this operation was too important to take the chance.

More minutes slipped by as the five men by the semi prowled towards the boat, exchanging words that were too low for us to hear. One of the men hopped into a small crane that was on the edge of the water and began unloading the crates when another used a forklift to transfer them to the semi.

“Ready,” Amren breathed. Mor to my left slid her gun from her holster, ready to ambush the clearing.

“Put your gun down.”

My blood ran cold at the growl that came from behind me. Low swearing came through the comms that sounded like Feyre.

The four of us froze, slowly turning towards the source of the sound.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I realized my thought was the exact same thing that Feyre had muttered a few seconds ago.

The man had short-cropped blond hair and green eyes that glittered harshly in the low light. His stance was ready but relaxed, a predator who knew he had his prey right where he wanted them. Three other men were at his side, guns pointed at us.

Tamlin.

Fucking.

O’Toole.

Next Chapter

#acotar #sarah j maas #feyre #rhysand #feyre x rhysand

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hoeseamatthews · 6 years ago

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In The Nick Of Time

A/N: My first fic for this fandom! I’m a lil bit nervous about this, but I still hope you enjoy it nonetheless!

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 1,796

Summary: You’re caught in a sticky situation, but luckily for you, an old, familiar face unexpectedly comes to your aid.

“Hey, you get your damn hands offa me! The hell d’you think you are?!”

You struggle to wrench yourself free from the client who’s currently dragging you up the stairs of La Bastille Saloon to his rented room. A drink is what you’d initially agreed to, and he’s obviously taken it too far with the booze tonight, which is a deal-breaker for you. You’ve never taken advantage of a drunk man in any way, shape, or form, and you’re certainly not about to start now.

Of course, when you’d told him you’d prefer to call it a night, and that maybe he’ll see you tomorrow night instead when he’s sober, he didn’t take too kindly to that. Even though he’s absolutely spangled, he still has you in a vice grip, and he holds you even tighter while he fumbles to open the door to his room.

“Shut up an’ keep quiet!”

He slurs, staggering slightly, momentarily releasing the handle on the door and steady himself with his free hand. His grasp is tight enough to bruise your forearm, and despite the fact that you haven’t prevailed in the struggle so far, you persist.

“I told you, it ain’t happenin’! Not tonight!” you fire back, “Someone’s gonna come along an’ put you in your place if you don’t let me go!”

Leering in, he laughs mirthlessly, and you can almost taste the whiskey on his breath, never mind smell it. You grimace, trying to turn away, but he’s got you cornered with nowhere to go.

“Yeah? Who’s gon’ come and help out some whore, huh?”

You’re silent, and for him, that says it all. He manages to get the door ajar, and you cling to the wall in a desperate last effort to get yourself out of the situation, proceeding to make a racket as you do so. He’s bound to overpower you, you already know that, but you want to at least try preventing the inevitable, or maybe give yourself time to conjure up a way to catch him off guard somehow-

“The hell is goin’ on out here?!”

A hotel room door swings open, snapping you out of your rapidly racing thoughts. Out steps a gruff looking stranger, and upon closer inspection, you come to realise that he is, in fact, not a stranger at all.

Arthur Morgan.

Not that you were ever expecting to meet him again, certainly not under these circumstances, you never did forget that name or face.

Back before everything had completely turned to shit for you, he’d once helped you and your parents out with trouble with bandits targeting your ranch while he was just passing through one day. Even then, his timing was perfect. Some things truly never do change, huh?

Your client turns to look at Arthur, and he scoffs, shaking his head at him, refusing to loosen his grip on you.

“Nothin’ for you to worry about. Get outta here! This ain’t nothin’ to do with you!”

Arthur strides forward, and his gaze is piercing, unfaltering. He stares the stranger down with every step he takes, until finally, he’s standing directly in front of him, keeping up the eerily calm resolve.

“The lady told you to let her go, mister. I suggest you listen to her.”

His voice is low, the hint of a threat behind his words. He’s almost challenging the man to argue back, and the poor bastard is drunk - more like dumb - enough to keep running his mouth. However, it’s enough to get him to finally release you, and without a second thought, you’re ducking out of the way.

“Get outta my face, boy, or I’ll knock you flat on your ass!”

He bites back immediately, sneering at an unflinching Arthur, which only seems to anger him even more. He draws an arm back, ready to swing at him and stay true to his word, but Arthur simply ducks to the side before it can connect.

Arthur simply shoves the stranger in the direction of the nearest wall with enough force for him to bounce back off of it, and he falls sideways, his head connecting with a side table. He hits the floor with a thud, flat on his face, and you stare, shocked at first. Then, the shock quickly morphs into fear. You’re honestly not sure if he’s just inadvertently killed this man or not, and before you can even stammer out an apology for intervening, Arthur is crouching down and rolling the man over onto his back, and he holds a hand out in front of his face, leaving it there for a second or two.

“It’s alright.” he hums, still crouching, “He’s still breathin’.”

Arthur glances at you before he rises back up to his full height again, and then, he turns his full attention to you. You bite your lip and nod slightly, doing everything possible to avoid looking him in the eye, but you know you’re going to have to at some point during this interaction.

“You alright, miss?”

“I...y-yeah. I think so.” you near enough mumble, and your eyes finally meet his, “...Thank you. If...if there’s anythin’ I can do to pay you back, just name it. I ain’t got much, but...I owe you.”

Now that Arthur’s had the chance to really look at you, there’s a flicker of recognition in his features. It doesn’t go unnoticed by you, and while he can’t place a name to the face to begin with, it eventually hits him like a punch to the gut.

“...(Y/N) (Y/L/N).”

He states your name, properly studying you now. What was once loosely braided hair now resembles a nest. Decent clothes have now become rags, and the bright smile you once wore has now turned into a semi-permanent frown. He can hardly believe it at first, but there’s no mistaking that it’s most definitely you.

You sigh and shuffle your feet, nodding slightly, and Arthur frowns, leading you away from the unconscious man laying before you both.

“What happened to you? Your daddy lose the ranch or somethin’?”

He asks, and that sets you off crying. But you don’t blame him. He has no idea what happened back then, and you sure as hell don’t owe him an explanation, but you’re about to give him one anyway.

“No, uh...y-you...well…” you stutter, pausing only to compose yourself, “...Remember those bandits, the day you met me, momma, and daddy?”

You ask, and he nods, willing you to continue in your own time.

“They...some of ‘em got away. Half of ‘em wasn’t even shot that day, and...they came back. Killed momma and daddy. They was gonna kill me, too.”

Your voice breaks, and the tears flow with no intention of stopping anytime soon. You momentarily turn your back on Arthur, praying you can calm yourself down to at least finish what you’re in the midst of telling him.

“Aw, miss, that’s real awful.”

Arthur sighs, and even then, he’s not sure if he’s saying the right thing, but he figures that it’s better than standing in silence. Your sobs turn into sniffles, and you slowly turn back to him, swiping the tears away with the back of your hand.

“...I got away. Hopped on the first horse I found and rode the hell outta there. Didn’t know where I was goin’, but...thought Saint Denis was promisin’.”

You clear your throat, looking him in the eye before you continue. Arthur is listening intently, arms folded, his eyes not leaving your face while he gives you the time to tell your story, knowing that nobody else is likely to have even asked about it anyway, so he grants you that, at least.

“I didn’t have nowhere to go. Slept in the backs of empty wagons an’ some folks barn when I knew they wasn’t gonna catch me there. Probably woulda shot me or somethin’. And...now here I am, waitin’ out on the street for whichever feller wants to take me with ‘im, just so I got enough money to eat, or maybe get myself a room if I’m lucky. Lord knows how I survived this long.”

You let out a shaky sigh, shrugging to yourself, trying to smile despite it all. But you fail. Your lip quivers, sobs threatening to resume all over again, even though you’re trying your hardest to put on a brave face.

Arthur could easily leave you here, give you enough money so you can at least attempt to start over elsewhere. But he doesn’t. Instead, he considers you for a moment, weighing both options he has in mind. Finally, he sighs, shaking his head slightly, but it’s meant more for himself, not you.

He doesn’t usually do things quite like this, but he knows you’ve lost everything you held dear, and he really does feel sorry for you. Had Arthur not already known you, maybe he’d see the situation differently, and even though you’re falling apart at the seams in comparison to the last time he saw you, he knows that the sweet and amiable rancher’s daughter from his memory is still hidden away in there somewhere.

“...C’mon.”

He stands aside, creating space to allow you to pass, but you don’t. You simply stare at him, dumbfounded and frozen in place, mouth slightly agape. Arthur gestures to the clear path in front of him, nodding his head to the side, signalling you to follow him.

“Wh-...What?”

“I’m gettin’ you outta here, somewhere safe. I ain’t just gonna leave you on your own like that.” when you step forward, he continues, “I’m with a group, where we’re camped out ain’t too far from here. You can stay with us.”

A few seconds later, your feet drag along the hotel hallway floor whilst your legs carry you towards Arthur. You open your mouth to speak, but no sentence, let alone any words, spill out. He waits until you’re by his side before he continues to walk, remaining close to you in hopes of you feeling some form of comfort from his presence. You do, of course, and it’s not until you’re halfway down the stairs that lead into the saloon that you’re finally able to speak.

“You...d’you think they’re gonna mind? I don’t wanna just show up if it’s gonna be-”

“It’s all gonna be fine.”

Arthur interjects, softly. He halts just before the next step, and he turns to gaze down at you, occasionally glancing down at your hand, as if he’s asking permission to take it. When you don’t shy away, he slowly reaches out, clasping your significantly smaller hand in his, and he gives it a reassuring squeeze.

“Come with me, sweetheart. I’m gon’ help you out. I promise.”

#arthur morgan x reader #rdr fic #rdr2 fanfic #fem!reader #arthur morgan/reader

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dothewrite · 6 years ago

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pieces, number nine

Stay with me, on winter’s eve.

On a rare clear night such as this, the billboards and neon lights glittered even brighter around Piccadilly circus. The massive snow cloud haunting the city the past few weeks had worn itself out, and the near blizzard had abated into an unusual but not unwelcome emptiness, with only a few brisk gusts to usher people on with their evenings. Tonight, of all nights, was Christmas Eve, and most people were being very much ushered into their shamefully last-minute Christmas shopping. Everyone seemed to be scurrying somewhere with exasperation plastered all over, and no fewer than eight people had swung their hulking great bags into your shins in the time it took for you to cross a few streets to the pub.

There weren’t any customers loitering outside the wooden doors this evening, even if there had been a steady stream of people heading in all sort of directions along the pavements nearby. It was left free for you to shove your shoulder against the handle instead of having to pull your hands out of your warmed pockets.

You looked up when the small welcome bell hooked above the doorway didn’t ring, missing all the daggers shot your way for letting in the frigid air.

“Close the bloody door,” someone hollered from the back, and there was a laugh, and the barkeep’s familiar voice cut in before anyone could start cussing.

He pointed at the brass bell above your head. “It froze over sometime last night.” Wisely, you let the door fall shut behind you to avoid being mobbed. “Haven’t had the time to sort it out yet, but we’ve all got eyes, don’t we? Don’t need a blooming chime to see a grown man walk though those creaky doors.”

“Oh yes,” agreed someone else, slow and drawling and doing a terrible impression of being serious. “I think we can all attest to your eyes being abnormally functional.”

The barkeep rolled his eyes and continued wiping down the beer nozzle. “You’re welcome to hop over the counter and keep this business afloat with new folk coming in here trying to scurry out before paying their tabs.”

“You’d think it’d be better in Central London,” added another, over the rim of a wooden mug so huge it was almost a tankard. You slipped past a few seats to catch sight of Daichi with what looked like a miniature barrel of mulled wine tucked in-between his hands (it was always mulled wine in winter; he hated beer and tried his best to avoid downing apple cider in front of such disreputable company), nodding along to the barkeep’s next complaint and flashing you a warm grin. Sat next to him was Ushijima, body loose and draped over the bar table almost casually and five different sized glasses, all empty, were strewn about him. It was Kuroo’s doing, of course, who was sprawled like a resplendent ghost of Christmas to come, watching Ushijima’s development rather smugly.

Daichi gestured at the empty stool between him and Kuroo. There was a cup of something frothed perched on top of it to keep it warm for your bum and a thick plaid blanket sat happily next to it, messily folded and all ready to be shaken out by a shivering customer. When you stood there motionless for a little too long, Kuroo tapped the stool with the toe of his boot and gave you a long look.

“Come on, it’s cold by the door. Daichi even got you a drink.”

Someone’s bag caught you by the ankles again as you headed towards your seat obediently. Calmly, Daichi set the drink on the table in front of you whilst you unfurled the blanket and huddled underneath it. Sneaking your hands out of your mittens and around the steaming mug, you took a massive gulp, ignoring the burn of heat down your throat. Ushijima made a small sound of surprise from a seat over and before you could burn your mouth to death, he leaned over the table and gently pried the cup out of your grasp, and to your right, you heard a quiet sigh.

The three of them were quiet for a moment, sipping their drinks and attempting to watch you without you catching on as the hum of muffled chatter in the background filled in the empty spaces. Even the barkeep was unexpectedly polishing his wares in silence, but not before he slid a platter of freshly baked scones over to your small party on one of his ghastly vintage plates.

“Thanks,” you managed from underneath your scarf, and he nodded.

It was almost ceremonial, how the three of them would be here on Christmas Eve. As the collective backbone, founders and continual authority of Thursday bar nights, it was fitting that they would be here in your group’s favourite pub with your favourite owner, underneath holly wreaths, flashing tinsel and drunken carols to herald in a new Christian year. Not that anybody gave a second shite about baby Jesus or the three wise men, but it was undeniably the best holiday of the year and such communal goodwill and cheer was not to be left unexploited by a few blokes who really liked drinking in crowded places.

There were occasionally more people in attendance, but that varied with each Christmas. However, these three were here unfailingly year after year and every year like so, you would sit in the chair sandwiched between them as they pressed in closer with their pointy elbows and loud laughter.

Slowly, you would put out of your mind the question of what comes next, after the glow of giving slowly evaporated from the masses and London once again returned to its dreary politeness and the ungenerous atmosphere of rush-hour traffic.

“Harrod’s is green this year,” Kuroo said. “It’s a bloody good change from red all damned season, I say.”

“It’s green because it’s Christmas,” Ushijima pointed out. “It’s quite literally the only other option.”

“Is that so? What about the North Star, or the national colours of Jerusalem? Couldn’t have someone done something with those colours? You’d think Father Christmas would be sick to death from seeing green and red for fucking millennia.”

“If anyone would know,” Daichi said with a wry smile, “I think it’d be you. How is Father Christmas this year, by the way? Feeling the full weight of those presents and adult responsibility on his broad, aching shoulders yet?”

That pulled a snort of laughter out from you, imagining Bokuto in his annual role as Father Christmas at home for his army of nephews, nieces, and an infinitely extending family. Akaashi would be there, of course, bearing all his antics as gracefully as possible, but anyone who knew him well would easily spy the tell-tale flush on his cheeks and the way his lips would be twitching upwards, his eyes soft and curved. And, through all of that, Bokuto would probably be attempting to scale their long defunct chimney, closed due to modern fire hazard reasons, trying not to snap his neck into an early grave.

Kuroo sniggered. “His third cousin’s given birth to twins, and they’re not gonna let him off the hook any earlier than two in the morning.”

“God forbid he takes off the costume,” you murmured, “I don’t think any of the kids in his family are old enough for the crushing reality of ‘guess who really pays for those presents, and it’s not a happy fat man’.”

“Hah, that’d be a sight for sore eyes. Can you imagine? Reindeer? In London? Do you know how many residents are going to file complaints for deer shit on their rooftops after Boxing Day?”

Ushijima sighed emphatically. “You’d think that grown men and women would be able to climb up their very low houses and pick up a few lumps with a plastic bag. No reasonable person should ever see shit on their roofs and think, ‘I know who I’d nominate for the job: The Chief of Police.’”

You took another draught of your drink. It was a latte—which pubs definitely didn’t sell—meaning the barkeep must’ve gone upstairs to his flat for his coffee machine especially. Belatedly, you noticed that it had already half disappeared. Along with quite a bit of your sense of taste, thanks to its temperature.

“Ushijima, you’ve just described the entire country’s current pet climate.”

“It’s quite a bother sometimes when they poop right after you’ve run out of bags or paper.” Daichi sighed heavily, the echoes of personal trauma ringing after it. His dog, although very large and very lovely, was also infuriatingly picky about his excretion. Many people—all strangers—have yelled. “But at the very least I can say that I’ve never called the police for it.”

“Pet owners don’t call the police,” said Kuroo bitterly, also a regular attendee of Traumatic Pets Anonymous, “they have the police called on them by heartless, petty neighbours.”

You frowned. “Your cat tore up someone’s sofa.”

“You’d want me arrested because of some claw marks?” Kuroo asked, affronted.

“They’d probably be there to prevent her from murdering you in the kitchen,” Ushijima muttered, and Daichi burst out laughing. “It’s Italian leather,” you protested, and they chimed in halfway with what they had heard a thousand times before.

Oh, someone was bound to say something about your sofa next, and if only you had someone to bet against, you’d double your entire fortune on that person being Kuroo and his charitable comments.

“I’ve never understood why there’s this queen of bloody furniture sitting in the middle of your living room when your mattress is still second-hand IKEA,” said Kuroo. “I mean, we’re all adults here so fuck it—are you or are you not afraid of cum stains? Don’t—” he quickly cut you off when you opened your mouth for a poor explanation, “—don’t deny it. They are there. They are always there. You think university students don’t fuck any chance they get, their own fists not excluded? You have a job, woman, stop collecting hand-knitted throws and start saving towards a new Sealy’s.”

You were cut off again by a very amused looking Daichi on his second tankard of wine. You had to agree that they really did look very authentic, and if you didn’t know better about the high rent prices, you’d think there was a storage room in the back just full of little historic mugs being aged properly in the dark, dank cold.

“I reckon it might have to do with how much one of those things cost, Kuroo. You could afford a new car with just three of those, four if you’ve a big family. Besides, we’re still young enough to endure a few more years of poor spinal support, don’t you think? And stains aren’t something that a new bedsheet can’t solve.”

Kuro leant in closer to you, and you caught a whiff of the rich liqueur of hot eggnog on his breath.

“I am offended on your behalf.”

His eyes were narrow and focused, the heat of questions you knew he wouldn’t dare ask in the middle of a pub thinned his lips and you were barely aware that time had suddenly slowed, and your breath building up in your lungs.

It could have been after the rest of the evening or an entire month, you weren’t sure, when Kuroo finally leant away from you again, resting on his elbow and an inscrutable expression dancing along his brows. You turned back with a faint breath to your drink, now slightly cooled from neglect, and found Ushijima watching you as intently as was politely possible. Daichi was clearly not looking, instead interviewing the barkeep about something related to cider and buckets.

A thick lump swelled in your throat, clogging your voice and suffocating it underneath its sour sting, and something else had been birthed in your gut, writhing, furious and slowly wrapping itself around your insides, throttling the feeling out of your lungs and creeping up your trembling hands. But all you could see was your splotchy reflection in your mug, pale, still and your cracked lips frozen into a thin, straight line that did no favours for your dull eyes.

You tried to smile, to break into a laugh to brush the atmosphere away, but you were met with only a grimace in your cup.

There was suddenly a squeeze around your arm and all too easily with a heartbeat so slow you might as well be catatonic, you turned to look. Kuroo watched you, his hand wrapped around your bicep firmly but softly, and his arm twitched, like he couldn’t decide between shoving or pulling.

And because you couldn’t, you shouldn’t, and you most certainly didn’t deserve to, you looked into his worried eyes and permitted yourself to feel absolutely nothing. Someone could have slapped you across the face and you’d have stared back at them with your parched, stern stare.

“I’m fine,” you said, even though nobody had asked.

The hand tightened a fraction, but Kuroo finally looked away and dropped his hand. “I’m fine,” you repeated, this time with more feeling, and he nodded once, unable to meet your eyes. You could see the line tense in his jaw as he clenched it, and barely, just barely, did you tamper the urge to say something completely inane because you’d more or less come to ruin someone’s evening. It made it no easier to know better than most that Kuroo deserved a festive night without the pressure of your charming presence.

You wondered what had happened to the mindless chatter a few minutes ago. Your stupid leather sofa had seemed so important then, and the mentions of friends in warmer places—it was almost as if nothing really mattered as long as everyone was appearing to have a good time, even if they were in the middle of London with a bunch of drunkards instead of setting up their Christmas trees with their parents.

The dull throbbing in your head in part wished Daichi would stop talking to the barkeep, and that Ushijima would stop staring at you as if he could flip through all the pages in your book if he wanted to.

But that would be ungrateful, and you needed to be anything but that if you were to make it through the rest of the night.

“Are you all going home tomorrow?” You asked, swallowing the last vestiges of your coffee, and faster than you could blink, the barkeep set down something else in front of you. You did your best to offer him a reassuring smile when he only seemed to frown even deeper. The drink looked as brown as the rest of the pub in the dim lighting, and it took you a sip to identify it as a glass of hot buttered rum before adding, “I assume everyone’s here because they’ve done all their obligatory shopping.”

Ushijima gave you an odd look, but when he opened his mouth Daichi cleared his throat and shook his head ever so slightly. Looking no less troubled, Ushijima fell back into his seat in silence.

“You know I’ve done all of mine last month,” said Daichi. “Stores start selling Christmas things in late October, and they almost always hike up the prices mid-December.”

“To punish the slothful, I know, I know.” You huffed. “Always the saint.”

Daichi laughed and winked at you. “It’s the secret to affording decent mattresses, my dear. You’ve got to get ahead of the curve.”

“Wait a minute.” Kuroo frowned and stared accusingly at Daichi. “What about your rounds? Do you do those in November too?”

A silly tradition they shared was their open-door policy nearing the hols. It was the only time of year where everyone’s houses effectively transformed into revolving doors. Combinations were shared and spare keys passed around, and any time of day someone could be wandering into their friend’s house, sneaking a wrapped parcel underneath their mandatory Christmas tree and then prancing off into the night unseen. Oikawa was always the man to go to each year—he unofficially ran the black market for everyone’s keys and passed out individual schedules in exchange for favours, and in no small part due to his dizzying success after Boxing Day, he was always bullied into being the host for the New Year’s Eve bash at his vast, vast apartment. Or at the very least, that was the way it had been the last time you showed up, four years ago.

Daichi’s face fell blank and if he looked any more innocent, a choir of angels would feel compelled to descend in song in praise of his name. “Don’t be daft,” he said. “Where would I put your gifts in November without your trees ready?”

“He has his ways,” Ushijima offered sagely, a veteran of the magic that is Sawamura Daichi’s responsible adulting. “It’s possible he’s actually gotten all the Christmas shopping completed for the next ten years and he’s just stored them in a hidden compartment in your storage cupboards. You’d never know.”

“Stop unveiling all my secrets,” Daichi muttered, giving Ushijima’s thigh a lazy slap. “I take the Magical Statute of Secrecy very seriously, I’ll have you know.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” Musing, you rolled the image over a few times in your head. “You’d be one of those people at their boring desk jobs at the Ministry, and we’d only realize on your death bed that you’ve been secretly researching spells of mass destruction.”

Daichi reached out for a scone and bit into it with relish. “Hardly. Mass destruction is not my style.”

“Right. Serial mind-control, perhaps?” Kuroo suggested. “A drinkable Imperius?”

“I see you’ve been confusing me with Koushi.”

“Please. You know he’d offer to be a Dark Lord just for fun.”

Daichi shrugged. “He’ll suggest a Harry Potter themed Christmas one of these days, just you wait. You can tell he’s bursting at the seams for a holiday where everyone’s together and we march down the street demanding equal rights for muggle-borns and non-magical folk.”

“Do you?” Ushijima wondered aloud. “Do you think we’ll manage a Christmas where we’re all together?”

“We’d probably have to rent out Westminster cathedral to fit us all,” Kuroo grinned, clearly picturing the scene it would make—a mix of professionals, professors and national athletes all dressed up and pointing sticks at each other in robes along the antique pews. The collateral would be horrendous. They’d end up having to pay for the damage with indentured servitude.

Ushijima and Daichi smiled into their drinks, a little longing flavouring their sips. It was the warm, soft sort of longing that one reserved for wishes for happily ever afters and cosy family occasions, where they usually thought ‘this would be lovely’ and proceed to feel satisfied enough to simply imagine it. It was always better for images to replace reality; they were kind, fluttering things that diffused just enough warmth to forget the cold seeping in.

And although dreams ruined more lives than drugs have, you allowed yourself to bathe in the fleeting comfort of being surrounded by laughing, hugging people who looked at each other—and you—as if they were all the most important things in the world to each other.

“We’ll do it,” came Daichi’s voice on your left. The distant warmth faded as you raised your head to meet his eyes. His gaze pinned you down with that enveloping, unconditional kindness of his that you often wondered if it cost him a little of his soul each time he shared it with another. “Within the next five years,” he insisted, “we’ll do it. Suga will plan it all with fervent enthusiasm and we’ll get everyone together, like we’ve always wanted.”

Who, exactly? You wanted to ask, because the ‘we’ve’ seemed laden with suggestion, seemed a little to firm for it to be believable, and your chest ached at Daichi’s earnest gaze that seemed to eat through all your thoughts.

You took another sip, and although the rum was cooled by now, the burn of the alcohol still churned your insides with a shovel.

“If everyone wants to,” you said, your voice sounding far off even to yourself. Daichi’s expression darkened, and you studiously ignored it for the brick wall behind the bar.

A hand fell on your lap, squeezing at it tightly so that you couldn’t possibly pretend you weren’t the one being addressed. You wondered if Ushijima would be watching as intrigued as he had been earlier, and if Kuroo was the one pretending not to hear a word this time. No, he would be listening with that tick in his jaw and a simmering frustration that you were always the cause of.

“We’re not all going home tomorrow,” Daichi said quietly, pitched so low that only you could hear. “We’re not just here tonight because we don’t have anything better to do.”

Your voice wouldn’t come, and your cheeks burned as your heart hammered against your ribs as a lunatic does against his walls.

“I’m happy to see you tonight,” said Daichi. “I really am. We all are.”

“I come every year.”

“And?” The hand squeezed tighter, and for a moment you felt a flash of worry jolt through you—perhaps you’d managed to anger even the one person who only had indiscriminate acceptance to offer. That just perhaps this Christmas was the last where people still bothered with you. “We’re here every year too. I know you got up, changed, threw on that scarf of yours and came to have a drink with us for a reason. Why do you—still?” He took a deep, halting breath. “Don’t. Just let it be.”

There were so many things you felt like you could cry into the night, that you could quite credibly protest with, but they all snuffed themselves out halfway into a thought. In the face of such devoted conviction, no matter how misplaced, anything else you wanted to say would only break Daichi’s bleeding heart, and you weren’t sure you could handle watching his face crumble with disappointment. You had enough experience in that department already that it was meaningless to hasten what would always, always come.

Was there a way to be kind even as one said ‘no, thank you,’ to someone offering their love? You considered trying it one of these days; Christmas was as good a time as any for revelations when everyone was always uncomfortably free with their kindness and tended to only retract it after the new year passed.

You nodded, and Daichi seemed to relax his grip on you after a second of study and sat back in his seat.

Everything had been signalling that this was a poor idea, but the passing years brought no wisdom to your door as you made the same mistake time and time again of indulging your impulses.

At home, nobody expected anything of you and nobody had to waste their evening throwing a pity party for a guest who seemed determined to disappear into the cracks. But as the carols outside grew bolder and the children started to shriek with joy in their little voices below your window, the longing grew stronger; the pull at your heartstrings wrapping their spindly fingers along the edge and tugging you closer and closer to the soft rug of fresh snow. The flitting visions of Kuroo cackling, Daichi’s knowing smile and Ushijima’s heart on his sleeve seemed so forgiving from far away, and with the vignette of the mind’s eye, you could almost picture yourself in the middle, as if you belonged, as if you could smile easier with people who would accompany you grin for grin.

Once, a very long time ago, you thought if you begged for something hard enough, life would take pity.

And then you grew older, and learned that your yearning was second to nobody else’s, and that life didn’t celebrate Christmas. Everyone had their sorrow; everyone suffered. You weren’t special. You would never be and had never been.

For a long time, you learned to acclimate to those rules that had revealed themselves too late. Things could be borne, aches could be weathered. You too, had bought gifts and distributed them to everyone in secret, and doing it in part gave you a little hope for some festive spirit, knowing that despite it all you’ve managed to do something for someone else, feeling alive in the spur of the moment.

But those shadowy little doubts that held bonfire dances around your demons waged war when the bells began to toll around the city. On your walks alone, you noticed tiny gift stockings beginning to dot various kids’ parks. Affection would perfume the air, and couples had their arms wound tighter around each other. Parents would come out of hibernation and send a myriad of cards to their children’s friends, and you could see the shine in the eyes of passers-by as they brainstormed all the ways they could bring joy to the ones they loved.

It was easier to convince yourself that you were faring just as well as the next person when they weren’t glowing with it.

“I know I invite you each year,” Ushijima broke the silence slowly. “But you’re still welcome at my house tomorrow. My mother’s always glad to see you.”

“Thank you,” you said, even managing to sound enthused. “But I’ve already made plans to stay at home.”

“Are you quite sure?” He leant on his elbows and held onto you with his hazel eyes. “We have our spare room fixed up for guests each Christmas.”

“I’m quite sure.” It warmed you, just ever so slightly, and your mouth curled up into a faint smile. It was comforting, even if it couldn’t possibly work out, to know that Ushijima always spoke what he meant. “It’s waking up to family that’s the best thing, after all. I’d just be too tired, besides.”

Ushijima stared for a few moments, and you were relieved when he let it go. He shrugged.

“Goshiki’s coming in the afternoon. Satori’s not too pleased about it, but it’ll work out somehow.”

“Really? Your mum’s a brave woman. Did she do the invites?”

“She always does. It’s festive, to have lots of people together, even if Satori would like as few people together as possible.” Ushijima barked out a short laugh. “He’s quite contrary for family occasions. But still, mother’s house, mother’s rules. Goshiki will be complaining how he’s not in the big city with the rest of us again.”

“Like his mother would ever let him go,” Kuroo snorted. You startled at the sudden noise, and realized he’d been silent so long that you’d almost forgotten he was sitting there. When you dared a peek at him, you felt an unfamiliar wash of relief when he looked every bit as normal as before, glorious and dangling his glass precariously between his fingers.

He caught you watching before you could look away. After a moment’s hesitation, he smiled, and dipped his head in a small apology.

There was clearly nothing he could be sorry for that you could figure, and the bafflement must have shown on your face as his face stretched into a grin and he shuffled his stool an inch closer towards you. Don’t worry about it, he mouthed, and turned to listen to Ushijima again.

“I can understand her,” Ushijima was saying, “but I can’t really empathize. Mine couldn’t wait for me to get out of the house, even if she demands me back every other weekend.”

“Kicking the eagle out of the proverbial nest,” said Daichi. “You must’ve been an overly capable youngling. Do you bring gifts and stuff with you each time you visit?”

“Of course. I’m a filial son.”

The two other men laughed, and you cracked a small grin. “That’d be why.”

“What, why she wants me gone, or why she wants me back?”

“Both,” you said, reaching out for a scone. “Mothers are fickle beings; very difficult to get a grasp on, especially during festive seasons.”

“They’re most easily observable during early evenings,” Kuroo boomed in his best David Attenborough impression, “as they flock to their kitchens with pots and pans, and their habitat is quickly overwhelmed with sounds of vigorous dicing.”

Ushijima rolled his eyes. “My mother’s terrible at cooking. She does all that stuff, but it’s my father who sneaks in and fixes everything before she can burn the house down.”

Daichi wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. “What a beautiful love story. And nobody dies, which is even better.”

“Not yet,” Ushijima said sombrely. A chunk of the weight on your chest lifted when they chuckled around you, the stickiness of liquor still dragging their voices down in a low chorus. “It’s only time, mark my words. We’ve all got the hospital on speed dial the moment someone inevitably keels over after a stray bite of pie.”

The smile remained ghosting along your lips as Kuroo said something vehement about the theory of pies and how they were literally flour bits stuffed with mystery meat that could be human for all they knew, and Daichi seemed to be nodding along happily to every single point made and throwing little inflammatory comments at the rights moments. Ushijima looked as if he was arguing for his own liberty, his eyes flashing in the dim light.

It was better when they were all smiling, laughing. It was the evening they deserved.

The barkeep wandered up towards you in the middle of their conversation. He had been keeping an eye on the four of you, even when you’d completely forgotten to keep notice as he poured drinks at the other end of the room.

He gestured at the scones, now almost all gone. “Did you enjoy those?” He asked and broke into a beam when you nodded. “Third batch, those were,” he said vehemently, “first two were little explosions on the baking tray; you should’ve seen them. I’ve got some peppermint sea-salt crumbles huffing away upstairs right now. I’ll bring ‘em over right as they’re done.”

“Thanks,” you said for the third time that evening. “I can’t wait.”

The barkeep smiled but gave you a firm looking once-over. “You look like you could do with some mint to pep you up tonight. Them three treating you alright?”

“Always,” you told him honestly, and he puffed up with satisfaction.

“If they’re giving you any trouble,” he barked before turning back to the wine rack, “just holler, and I’ll give them a quick boot up their arses.”

Without a moment to respond, he vanished past the corner and down the cellar. Daichi sipped wordlessly at his drink beside you and Kuroo rested his head on his palm as he watched the man leave.

“He’s clearly never heard of the evils of favouritism,” he muttered under his breath. “Blatant bias is what this is.”

Daichi took a particularly loud slurp. Beside him, Ushijima grinned.

“Right,” he said slowly, “and will you be informing him of them tonight?”

“Think that lowly of me, do you?” Kuroo said indignantly. “Or are you just plotting to have all the mint biscuits to yourself?”

“Hardly, considering his favouritism,” Daichi supplied, and you smiled. “You all know what miracles that man can achieve with some Himalayan sea salt.”

“How on earth is he not married? Why is he still working on Christmas eve?!”

“How should I know? Go ask him out if you’re so heated up about it all.”

Kuroo only snorted and threw up two fingers at Daichi, who received it with a blown kiss. “You’re not getting all the biscuits either.”

Ushijima blinked. “Oh, so he is learning.”

“Careful now, I’m sure he’s only feeling magnanimous during the hols,” said Daichi. “You’d better lube him up with some more drinks otherwise he’ll remember this come January and get back at you.”

“Hullo,” Kuroo said, turning to face you fully, his head wearily in his hands. “Not only am I daft, now I’m deaf too, apparently.”

Taking a drink from your own glass, you turned to face him too for the first time that evening. He looked… melancholy, despite his signature smirk, and when you weren’t required to speak, you watched him intently. He was on his third drink, which was nothing considering anyone under three found themselves painfully sober, but he often glanced at the contents as if it was withholding the secrets of the universe in its depths, and only if he could drain it all would he find it scrawled into the bottom of the thick, tinted glass.

You couldn’t remember much what he seemed like earlier, but you could swear that his sighs were lighter and his eyes a lot more generous with their creases and laughter. You wondered if it was because of you—all the bland, insensitive things you seemed to say without a filter, or the fact that you were sat next to him and your misery was contagious.

If only there was a magic to Christmas and it would make him happier, you would pour what was left of your own joy into his dwindling glass and bring it to his lips. You’d watch it disappear down his throat and he would glow softly, the edges to his hardened lips melting away with eggnog spice, and he would lean closer with a sparkle to his eye and speak to you as if he held the key to festivity.

It was what he could be. If there were other people here, if you didn’t simply sit there dumb and motionless, staring at him like a silent film in an empty cinema.

Because there wasn’t magic, and you couldn’t do a thing about it, you opened your mouth to talk instead. “Would you prefer they plotted behind your back?”

“That depends,” he said after pausing to consider it, “would you share some of the biscuits with me if they did?”

Stone cold sober you were, yet you found yourself admitting, “I’d share anything you wanted, if it meant you’d feel better.”

Kuroo started, stunned and eyes glimmering like the fairy lights behind him. You could feel your sad, lethargic heart beat a tiny bit faster from fear, the adrenaline kicking in as your dull expression froze onto your face.

“You know,” he finally said, and your hands felt so cold you’d almost lost all movement in your fingers, “I never thought you’d notice.”

You most certainly deserved it, but hearing it stung more than you anticipated. Yet oddly enough, it was exactly what you needed for your face to work again, and you smiled. It likely broke the record that evening for the most disingenuous expression in the room.

“Right.” Because I’ve been so pathetically self-absorbed all evening? “Sorry.”

“No, I meant—” he broke off, looking angrily at his hands for a moment before schooling his expression into something less vicious before looking back to you. “I thought I was not showing it as much. I thought I was better than I felt, to be honest.”

“So, it wasn’t nothing.”

“What?”

“You said not to worry about it earlier. It.”

Kuroo glanced quickly at the other two, and relaxed when he saw that they were wrapped up in another conversation entirely. “I was just thinking too much, that’s all. It still is nothing.”

It was obvious you weren’t idiotic enough to believe a word of it, but it was easier to nod and say nothing, and Kuroo seemed to accept that just as well. You watched as he traced his finger over the rim of his glass, occasionally catching a note with the condensation clung to it.

“I heard what Daichi said to you a few minutes ago.”

You let out a little sigh, unsurprised. “Which part do you mean? He said quite a bit.”

Kuroo’s lips twitched. “That he did,” he said, but turned serious again. “I mean the part about letting it go.”

“Alright. Did you want to add to it? Or do you agree?”

“Of course I agree, you daft nit.” He flicked the back of your hand irritably. “I just wish I had been able to offer something useful of my own, instead of getting in a huff.”

“Well,” you said, spreading your arms out to gesture at yourself. “Go on.”

Kuroo rolled his eyes, but there was a hint of his old smile returning. “Don’t be a twat. All I can do now is do my best to make tonight as fun for you as possible. It’s what Christmas is for, after all.” He drew in closer to you, nose pointy and eyes as cool as flint as the smile vanished. “I won’t push you into anything, but you need to know that we’ll be here for as long as you want us.”

“And you?” You countered, your chin held high and teeth ground tightly together. “Do you want to be here? How could you?”

“How could I not? C’mon,” he said, his voice cracking near the end and you watched as he, like Daichi, crumbled a little because he simply had too much love to give. It would be easier, you knew, if they learned to withhold it from the undeserving. “I just want you to smile again, that’s all. You told me you used to love Christmas as a kid.”

“I did,” you said, not bothering anymore to pretend to not be saddened by the memory. It had come out one evening when a bunch of you had camped out, semi-drunk, at Bokuto’s apartment waiting for the fireworks to start. “I think that I would have been a very different person if I had people like you to celebrate with me back then.” You laughed shortly. “But it was easy to be excited about things you’ve heard stories about when you’re five and have the memory retention of a golden retriever.”

“I’m here now. We all are. Even the barkeep and his scones.”

“I know.” You said, and pulled back from Kuroo’s earnest gaze, too weak of spirit to hold it any longer. You’d rather he glared or curse, or anything other than—than that. “I know. Kuroo, I know.”

You watched his blurry shadow shrink, and you knew he had drawn back into his seat.

“I don’t want to ruin the rest of your night,” he said, voice thick. “This isn’t the time or place.”

You didn’t have the heart or energy to tell him that nights couldn’t really be ruined if they weren’t much in the first place. What a dreadful thing to be thinking—even though you’re happy that you’re out here, and people are talking to you and you’re surrounded by noise that isn’t your own fumbling about in an empty apartment, you can’t feel a single iota of it. Your pulse is still as slow as earlier, beating away at the pace of a cadaver.

Truthfully, you wouldn’t be able to recall the last time you felt happy even if someone pressed a gun to your head. Christmas was the pinnacle of not feeling miserable, and even then, it wasn’t enough. You still couldn’t prevent yourself from dragging everyone else down to your murky depths, still couldn’t bring yourself to not let everyone else down, even if you were old enough to not be berated for it.

Sometimes you still were. That voice would never leave you, shouting things and sneering and scoffing—it’d hang about the hallways whenever you felt particularly down, and it would shriek at you with words you’d memorized until you marched yourself down to the pub again, soothed by the murmuring crowd.

People didn’t like sad people. Especially ones who didn’t have a reason to be. What a failure.

“Hey, hey.”

Both Daichi and Kuroo had their hands on your shoulder, shaking you gently. You looked up to see the barkeep, lips almost twisted into an upset frown, as he held a large plate of pink cookies on a porcelain plate.

“Are you alright?” He asked and turned to the guys when you seemed to be incapable of speech. “Is she alright?”

“Not at the moment,” came Ushijima’s comforting tone, “but we’ll make sure she’s better before she leaves.”

“You’d better.” The barkeep’s voice was stony. “You four finish those biscuits, understood? You’re not passing through those doors without someone laughing their way out, I swear to god.”

“We promise,” Daichi said. “They look delicious, if she’ll share some with us.”

“For fuck’s sake—of course I will.” With vehemence that surprised even you, you snatched up one of those genuinely beautiful looking biscuits and stuffed it into Daichi’s mouth. To his credit, he barely blinked, and chewed on it thoughtfully.

“Just the right amount of peppermint. Is that strawberry I taste?”

“I think it’s cherry,” Kuroo said in between bites of his own. “Or, wait. Maybe you’re right.”

“It just tastes like fruit punch,” Ushijima confessed. “Kind of like a really light sangria.”

“Does your mum know you drink?” Daichi asked incredulously, “why is almost everything to do with alcohol with you?”

Ushijima shook his head, but you noticed him peeking at you in his peripheral vision. “Definitely not. I do not look like someone who drinks as a hobby.”

“Literally your only saving grace.” You brought yourself to smile faintly before he grew so concerned he toppled off his stool. “Best not to piss Satori off tomorrow in case he spills all in front of her.”

“Oh,” he answered darkly, “he doesn’t know half the things I could spill about him.”

Kuroo raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing. His hand hadn’t left your shoulder for a second, and he squeeze it gently, hooking his ankle around a leg of your chair.

“Well,” he announced, giving the massive plate of biscuits a quick shake, “we best get to work, hadn’t we?”

And get to work you all did. The tension dissolved as quickly as the sugar did in your mouths, and with enough blind determination, the chatter seemed to return again effortlessly with Ushijima’s apparent treasure mine of dark Satori-related secrets that had you laughing despite everything else. A time of sharing indeed, considering some of the things you learned that evening, and you were almost touched that he had deigned to share them with any of you.

The next time the barkeep reappeared was when he came to collect the esoteric looking plate, and this time he seemed a lot more pleased when you gave him a smile, deeming you fit enough to face the rest of the holiday without his supervision.

It was a start, if nothing else. Most of the bar had disappeared by the time the clock chimed one, and even Daichi was yawning at half past, on his fifth mug of wine, and suggested reluctantly that perhaps it was good for you all to head home before someone got into an accident from being too sloshed.

They all offered to walk you home, Ushijima almost demanding you to go home accompanied as a lone girl in the wee hours of the morning, but Daichi fended him off just in time. Kuroo was the last to leave your side, gazing up at the slow return of a light snow, and he bid you goodbye with a wave that looked almost sad in the orange lamplight.

There were very few people on the streets by then. A few clubs here and there still had pounding music shaking the grounds, but all the storefront lights had been turned off, and London looked almost like normal again, shrouded in fluorescent orange and the whistling gusts of wind about your ears.

You tucked your hands back into your pockets, now chilly after the warm pack had died an hour back, and turned to head home.

#kuroo tetsurou #sawamura daichi #ushijima wakatoshi #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #female original character #pieces series #sfw #i writes the haikyuu

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sunyoonandstars · 7 years ago

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In Between (BTS Series) || Chapter 7

So, dear readers. This is Chapter 7 of the (currently) ongoing series formerly known as “BTS Imagine 5: Namjoon cheating on you & you getting revenge”, based on a request by the lovely @im-cxnfused . I didn’t like the old title from the beginning, to be honest. And I don’t think it fits this series anymore, considering that it has by far outgrown the status of an ‘imagine’ by now. 😅

I hope you all managed to find this chapter despite the change of name!🙏🏻

Thank you for reading 💜 and sticking to this series so far! It’s much appreciated! Also, feedback is always welcome, in case you didn’t know. I hope it was worth the wait and chapter 7 doesn’t disappoint.

Enjoy!

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Chapter Index - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.1, 9.2

Synopsis

You and Namjoon are in a committed relationship. Or so you had thought. When you catch him cheating, however, you decide to take revenge in a way equally brutal. But soon the events take an unforeseen turn, leaving you torn …

Pairing: You x Namjoon, You x … Jimin … ??

angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, occasional hints of smut

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[…]

„Are we done here, Namjoon?“ „Just one more question“, he says, lowering his voice to a soft whisper, the sound of it making you uncomfortable, as he takes another step towards you. „Do you still love me, y/n?“ „Are you deaf, or what? Didn’t I make myself clear earlier? Yes, I —“ Before you can finish your argument you’re silenced by Namjoons lips on yours, kissing you urgently. For a second your weak body is ready to give in to the temptation, but your mind doesn’t stand for it, mental images of Jimin being unreeled before your inner eye like a film, memories of shared laughter and intimacy, echoing with whispered words of love and trust. Wide-eyed you push Namjoon off of you. „What the —“ A noise by the door lets you jolt around, the sight of Jimin’s pale face and the excruciating pain showing in his round eyes leading you to choke on your last words. „Jimin —“, you commence, but he has already turned on his heal, his hunched figure quickly disappearing into the dark corridor. „Shit!“, you call out, ramming your fist into the wall with such force the instant pain shooting up your arm makes you shudder. „Y/n —“ „No, Namjoon! Just — NO! What the hell were you thinking!? What was that!? Have you lost your mind? Did you see his face?“ With your uninjured hand, shaking, pressed to your mouth, stifling a gasp of pure exasperation, you turn to run after Jimin, hoping, pleading to whatever God may receive your prayers, that it’s not too late. That you will not have ruined everything. That you will not have lost them both for good this time.

Chapter 7 || In Between

„What is it? What happened? I heard a door bang.“ You rush past a flustered Jungkook without even sparing him a glance. „Yah! Y/n!?“ „Not now, Kookie!“, you call back at him, headed straight for Jimin’s room. When you arrive at its door you find it locked. „Hey, Jimin! Please, open up! Come on! Let me explain!“, you beg, your injured right hand pressed to your chest while the other one keeps hammering against the massive wooden door, so vigorously and tirelessly your knuckles soon start to hurt. „Please, Jimin! What happened just now — It was a misunderstanding! I swear! Please, let me explain! I only need a minute! I beg of you! Just let me explain! Give me another chance!“ Shrill, heavy with tears, your voice echoes from the walls of the empty corridor, your desperate pleas going unanswered. Nothing, not a single sound reaches you from the other side of the door, the quiet smothering, sickening. Minutes of unavailing knocking and begging pass before you finally forfeit to Jimin’s unyielding silence, sinking to the ground in exhaustion. With your back against the cool wood, you remain seated in front of the door, involuntarily wincing as you flex your bleeding knuckles, examining the damage done. Great. Now both your hands are incapacitated. Still, you don’t commiserate your sore knuckles. Because your unremitting knocking must have gotten Jimin’s attention, and hopefully your persistence will earn you at least another shot at making things right. However, another quarter-hour elapses without the door to his room moving even an inch. You are almost ready to abandon your post when it finally opens. Quickly, you move aside, your heart pounding, only to discover that it’s not Jimin peaking outside through the crack, barely wide enough to fit a head. Hoseok’s head. His expression is unusually serious, the afflicted look in his eye even scaring you. „What? What is it, Hoseok? What did he say?“ „He can’t see you right now, y/n. I’m sorry.“ „You mean he doesn’t want to see me“, you huff. Hoseok remains silent, his mouth set in a hard line, lips pressed together, his eyes, however, speaking volumes. „Please, Hobi, let me in. Let me talk to him! Nothing happened between me and Namjoon! I can explain! I can explain everything! Please!“, you beg, actually on your knees, wringing your hands, disgusted by your own pitifulness. But if it would mean to get Jimin to at least listen to you, you’d gladly stab your own pride right in the heart and bury it with your own bare hands. Neither your tears nor your devotion or guilt seem to impress Hoseok in the least, though, the slender dancer staying put, unmoving, in the doorframe, wordlessly shaking his head. „Please, Hoseok“, you plead one last time, your voice no more than a low whisper now. „I have to explain. I can’t hurt him. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Please.“ You can tell by the look on his face that Hoseok desperately wants to give in to your begging, but in the end, his loyalty clearly lies with his best friend. „I’m sorry, y/n, but I’m gonna have to tell you to leave. Jimin is in no condition to talk to you right now. And, quite frankly, I doubt that he’s even willing to. I can only pass on to you what he said to me: This, this thing between the two of you, was a mistake. You should’ve stayed friends. Or, even better, should’ve ended your friendship three years ago. He should’ve known this was bound to happen. And he is not willing to be your meaningless rebound anymore.“ Gasping, you slide backward, away from the door, away from Jimin, the air escaping his room suddenly seeming poisonous to your lungs. „So … what you’re saying is he’s basically breaking up with me? Through you?“, you barely manage to get the words out, tears filling your eyes anew. Hoseok does his best to appear indifferent as he shrugs his shoulders. „Those were merely the words he used. I guess what you make of them is up to you.“ „I see“, you mutter under your shallow breath, nodding to yourself. It’s like Hoseok’s words flipped a switch inside of you. All of a sudden there are no tears to be cried anymore. There’s no pain left in your aching chest. No helplessness. No desperation. Just numbness, readily giving way to a searing, screaming anger filling up your entire being. Without even so much as looking at Hoseok again, you get up and turn around to leave, your body moving by itself, your paining hands clenched to fists and your feet quickly carrying you towards the front door. You can hear faint voices calling out to you, can feel hands grabbing the fabric of your sleeves, pulling you back, but you simply ignore them, the rage stirring dangerously close to the surface by now, threatening to burn through your skin any second, making it almost too easy to block them out. Without turning back you storm out of the house and simply keep on walking, lost in a powerless, trance-like state, unaware of where your legs are taking you. All you know, or believe to know, is that you’re leaving all the pain and confusion further and further behind with each and every angry step you take, and that’s all that matters right now. At least half an hour must have passed when you finally come to a halt. Confused, you stop and turn in place, incredulously taking in your surroundings. You’re on that bridge again. The very same bridge you ran to all those years ago when you learned of your father’s death. The same bridge you magically arrived at on the day you thought you’d lost your scholarship, or the night you were fired from your part-time job, sudden unemployment leaving you without money for rent or food in the heartless metropolis of Seoul. The same freaking bridge you came to three years ago, on a day very similar to this one, believing to have ultimately pushed away your closest and dearest friend. The same bridge you came to all those times life had seemed too hard to carry on. A fact you can’t simply dismiss. Being pulled here once again today must mean something. Maybe it’s time, you think to yourself. Time to settle this matter for good.

„Hyung, come on now. We really have to go, otherwise, we’ll be late for practice. We can’t let personal affairs like this get in the way of our comeback, Jimin. We promised. And we’re professionals, after all. Or at least I thought so.“ Losing patience, Jungkook starts tugging at the older singers sweater, throwing back his head theatrically. „Jimin-ah, will you finally get your pretty butt in gear!?“, he whines, relentlessly pulling Jimin’s arm now in an effort to drag him to the door, almost stumbling to the ground when the older one unexpectedly gives in. „Okay, okay. Stop with the wailing already. You’re right, okay? We are professionals. It just slipped my mind for a second there. I’m back now. I’m good.“ „You are?“, Taehyung asks, patiently waiting by the door to Jimin’s room, obviously not entirely convinced. „Because you don’t look so good, Jimin-ah. Your face is kind of grey, actually. Are you gonna be sick? Are you gonna puke?“ „No, Taehyung. I’m not gonna puke.“ Jimin strides past him with a shake of his head, faking a smile in a halfhearted attempt to mask his annoyance. As if it wasn’t obvious that he’d rather be left alone right now. „What a shame. That would’ve been quite a show“, Yoongi smirks, the commotion in front of Jimin’s room having attracted even Motionless Min. Hoseok and Jin dart him warning glances that he simply shrugs off. „Come on, Jimin, don’t take it so hard“, Yoongi goes on, having trouble to keep up with Jimin’s fast pace. „You shouldn’t jump to conclusions. I’m sure y/n can explain everything if you just let her.“ „Would you shut it!?“, Hoseok gruffly snaps at him. „What? Is she taboo now? Aren’t we allowed to call her by name anymore? Should I paraphrase then?“, Yoongi retorts, stopping cold in his step to block Jimin’s way and, in doing so, force him to face him. „Well, in that case, Jimin, I’m pretty sure you-know-who is feeling just as shitty as you are right now.“ Jimin avoids any eye contact, contritely gnawing at his lush lower lip. „I don’t care how she feels.“ „And that, my friend, is a big fat lie“, Yoongi calls out. „It’s enough, hyung“, Jungkook trounces him. „Let me through“, Jimin simply mutters, eyes still fixed on the floor. Although reluctantly, Yoongi steps aside, letting Jimin and the others pass and continue their way towards the front door where Namjoon is waiting patiently, his face a pale, stony mask bare of any expression. „Where is she anyway?“, Taehyung suddenly wonders when they’re already about to step out. „Did she retreat to the kitchen? Or your room?“, he points his chin at Yoongi who shakes his head, as does Jin. „Not to my knowledge“, the eldest replies. „I thought she went out. Didn’t we see her leave the flat?“ „Yeah, we did. But I thought she probably came back, that’s all“, Taehyung shrugs. „Why? Why would you think that?“, Namjoon asks, alarmed, Taehyung’s vague words drawing his attention. „Just because she left her coat. And her scarf. And her keys. And her phone. And her shoes“, he casually lists her belongings, pointing towards the coat rack and side table next to the door where they’re still neatly placed. Instantly, Namjoons mouth falls open, a soundless gasp leaving his lips. „Her shoes“, Jimin shakily breathes, eyes wide, any remaining color rapidly draining from his face as pure horror descends upon him. For a few seemingly endless seconds he remains frozen, until his head jolts up, eyes alight with sudden determination. „I have to go.“ „But — practice“, Jungkook calls after Jimin who is already halfway downstairs. „Screw practice“, Namjoon mumbles, frantically searching the hall stand for his parka. „Who knows where y/n is right now. She must be freezing, maybe even lost. I can deal with the repercussions of skipping practice for once. But I could never forgive myself if anything happened to her.“ „Alright, alright. We understand. We totally agree. Right, guys?“, Hoseok asks the boys who mumble in agreement. „Don’t worry, hyung, we have your back. Just make sure y/n’s safe.“ „I will.“ „Any idea where she’d have gone?“, Yoongi wonders aloud. Namjoon nods, his expression fierce. „I think I know exactly where to look for her. I just hope I’m not too late.“

Eyes squeezed shut, you stand by the bridge’s railing, drawing yet another painfully deep breath, your body being shaken by the cold, icy gusts of wind tugging at your clothes and hair and piercing your skin like a million tiny needles. You can feel the frosty air blow through you, through every fiber of your being, cleaning you of any anger and resentful thoughts you might have still carried within you when you arrived at this fateful spot. All you can feel by now is the cold. It’s liberating. Not to feel yourself anymore. Just the cold. Infinite cold. Too late, by then already having arrived here, had you noticed that you’d been running around town dressed in nothing but your jeans, socks, and shirt. No shoes, no coat. People must’ve thought you’d escaped some kind of mental hospital. But in the end, it doesn’t matter what people think. You can’t change their perception of you anyway. You learned that the hard way. Only today you learned that even the people you believe know and understand you won’t deviate from their picture of who and what you are. Jimin didn’t even hear you out. And even if he had, he wouldn’t have believed you. Neither of them did, neither of them would. Neither of them understands. And now you lost both of them. Jimin and Namjoon. No. Even worse. You’d cost them each other’s trust and brotherly affection. You’d spoiled their friendship. God knows, maybe you even ended BTS, a thought so horrendous you don’t even dare to ponder the consequences in case it would actually become a reality. And again, your head starts spinning. With another dizzy spell threatening to get the better of you, you cling to the banister more tightly, your injured hands painfully objecting. No, y/n! Cut it out! They’re done with you, so you’re done with them. No more drama. No more breaking hearts. No more confusing feelings. You didn’t deserve any one of them. The two of them are far better off without you and probably glad you’re gone. Jimin was right. You should have neither become his woman nor his friend in the first place. You surely couldn’t have been meant for each other with everything turning out so horribly. That’s not how destiny is supposed to work. Or at least it shouldn’t be. And you don’t believe in destiny anyway. Life isn’t ruled by fate and premonitions. Its course is determined by decisions. Decisions you have to make. However, this one you can’t make. This decision you can only escape. Flight is really the only bearable option. „Yah! Y/n!“ „Y/n! What are you doing! Get away from that railing!“ „Y/n! Step back! Y/n!“ You hardly believe your own ears. What the … A jolt of surprise going through your entire body brutally brings you to your senses. Reluctantly, your lids flutter open, the cold wind immediately bringing tears to your eyes. Or is it really the wind? „Y/n!“ Your heart pounding, sending adrenaline rushing through your veins, you turn to your left, only to be faced with a desperate Jimin, running towards you as if he was running for his life, eyes wide, hair flying and exposing his smooth forehead, his face as white as his anorak. „Y/n! Step back! Don’t do anything stupid!“ Bewildered, you now turn to your right where Namjoon has come to a stand at a safe thirty feet distance, panting heavily. „Do what!?“, you call back at him, finally having retrieved your voice after the first shock has worn off. „Don’t be so full of yourselves! I didn’t even for one second contemplate jumping off this damn bridge because of you two!“ Constantly, you turn from your left to your right and back, torn, overwhelmed by this unforeseen development. You didn’t think they’d even notice that you were gone, being busy with practice and all. And now they are here. Both of them. At the same time. But who of them should you face first? Who should you look in the eye, talk to? And, most importantly, who of them should you choose this time around, if it is even still your choice to make? You don’t know. You feel like you don’t know anything anymore. Except that it’s all too much. And currently, both of them are closing in on you, Jimin from the left, Namjoon from the right, slowly, cautiously coming closer. No. No. It’s too much. Too much. You can’t have them both near you right now. Not yet. „Stop!“, you shout, putting out your bruised hands, each to one side. Instantly both men freeze in place. „I didn’t think of jumping before, but if one of you moves even only so much as an inch closer, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna jump, alright!? So stay where you are!“ „Alright, alright!“, Namjoon mutters, putting up his hands in a gesture of resignation, his gaze intently fixed on you and his body tense, as if he’d be ready to lunge at you at any given moment. „Don’t even say such a thing, y/n“, Jimin says, his voice so low it’s almost inaudible over the gusty wind. He seems to be frozen in place, simply staring at you, his face showing no emotion, his eyes, however, desperately pleading with you not to do it, not to jump, not to leave him. „Now what?“, Namjoon asks after a good five minutes have passed. „Now you leave. Both of you. Just go and leave me the fuck alone. I can’t handle this right now.“ „No“, both of them reply in unison. Groaning, you throw back your head, eyes closed. „Please. Just leave. Leave me be. Get on with your lives. Before I ruin them completely.“ „No!“, they call out once again, with even more determination this time. Albeit grudgingly, you open your eyes to look at them, one after the other. First at Namjoon, his round face with its dominant chin, his clever eyes, and softly curved lips. Then at Jimin with his thick hair and smooth features, the enchanting black wells of his eyes, his plump lips. „Alright. What’s it gonna take for you to leave?“ „We won’t leave“, Namjoon replies unhesitatingly. „Not before you make a choice“, Jimin adds, giving you a stern look. „Him or me. You have to decide. Right here. Right now. No one’s going anywhere before you do.“

To be continued …

But who will you choose, dear readers? It’s up to you!

The following part will be interactive (if you want to call it that). Your decision will decide the outcome of the story. There will be TWO ALTERNATIVE ENDINGS.

Will you go left or right?

(UPDATE COMING SOON)

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⏮ PREVIOUS CHAPTER NEXT CHAPTER ⏭

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As always, thank you for reading! I hope you have a great day wherever you are! Take care! 💜

If you like and haven’t already, feel free to check out my Masterlist for more BTS fiction.

108 notes · View notes

pattson · 7 years ago

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Ace of Clubs

Hi! So periwren on ao3 asked that I write a sequel to this fic? And who on earth am I to turn down a request? So, in response, this is the result.

Roman loves his friends, but he might just love their relationship more. He’s already planning the beautiful blue roses at their wedding and what suits they’re going to wear. What he’s not planning? A premature breakup. With Patton up in arms and Logan as stone cold as ever, what is Roman going to do?

On the archive here

Roman thumbed through his cards, eyeing the other sides. Virgil was sitting next to him, his knees pulled lazily to his chest. Logan was on his other side, sitting ramrod straight, as always. He was occasionally sipping coffee from some mug. It wasn’t his favorite-- the two tone blue one with sine and parabolic functions had been missing lately. Patton was between him and Virgil. Patton was… well. Patton was off.

He’d been off for the last couple days. Roman couldn’t imagine what was wrong. Surely there was nothing! Thomas was prospering, Logan was-- well, Logan, and everything was normal. It was not as if his relationship had ended, Roman was sure of that, too. Logan and Patton were acting around each other as they always had. That said, he definitely seemed a little low, and if playing War was his card game of choice, gosh darn it, Roman would play it all day.

Well, maybe. War got boring after a while.

Roman threw down a card. Jack. Aha! He had to win with this one. The odds of someone one-upping him were slim, and--

Virgil smirked, tossing down a Queen. Roman curled his face in distaste. Patton, next to go, softly set a King of Hearts on the table.

“Patton, you truly are the king of hearts,” Roman said, nudging Logan with his shoulder. Logan did not react. That was… odd. Okay. Logan usually went along with Roman’s banter. Huh.

Logan set his card down on top of Patton’s.

Ace.

“Logan takes the deck,” Virgil said. Roman rolled his eyes, and Logan scooped up the cards. He, too, seemed distracted. Roman layed down another card. Jack. Again. Surely, this time, he’d-- no. Nope. Virgil layed a Queen, Patton a King. Logan an Ace.

“Are you sure you shuffled?” Roman asked, watching as Logan picked up the pile yet again.

“Positive,” Virgil said. To prove his point, he flipped over his own card on top. Four.

“Okay,” Roman said, flipping his card over. Six. Patton put his down, too-- nine.

Logan’s card was an Ace.

“Alright, alright. This time I’ll get you,” Roman said. Ten. Virgil’s was five. Patton’s, seven.

Logan had an ace.

“Okay. Something’s fishy,” Roman said. “And I don’t mean Go Fish.”

“He isn’t playing the game wrong,” Patton said. Roman looked up. It was the first time he spoke in a while. “Logan just gets… lucky. Maybe it’s some algorithm or something. You know Logan. All mind, no heart.” There was a strange venom behind the words that seemed uncharacteristic for Patton. Was he mad? He didn’t have anything to be mad about! “Then again, how would he know what it means to feel, hmm?”

“You know what, actually Go Fish sounds like a great idea all of a sudden. I’ll shuffle,” Virgil said. He quickly pulled the cards off the table, messing them around in his hands. Roman made a face of protest, but Virgil shot him a look. Roman knew well enough what that meant. Shut up, I have my reasons.

“Okay,” Virgil said, dealing out the cards into separate piles of seven. Roman looked over the back of the deck. Little pictures of different birds were on the back of each card. He noticed Patton pick up the pile with a wren on the back. Roman smiled.

“Ren!” He pointed out, pointing at Patton’s card. Patton instantly flushed red, his eyes going to Roman’s pointing finger.

“What… did you just call me?” Patton said. “Wh-- How did--”

“He meant your card, Dad,” Virgil said, patting his shoulder quietly. Patton took an audible breath, looking down at his cards.

“Right. My card.”

“Roman, do you have any tens?” Virgil said, drawing eyes away from Patton.

“Nope,” Roman said, popping the p. “Go fish. Hey Patton, got any sixes?”

“Go fish,” he muttered.

“Virgil,” Logan said. “Do you happen to have any aces?”

“Yeah. I have an ace in here somewhere,” Virgil said.

“Good job, Logan! Don’t forget the rules, you have to go again.” Roman said. Logan’s eyes turned to him, and he adjusted his glasses.

“Logan wouldn’t forget the rules. He lives by them,” Patton said. Logan all but spoke over him.

“Roman. Do you have any aces?”

“It’s your lucky day, Lo,” Roman said, passing over the Ace of Diamonds over. “You’re on fire!”

“Patton. Do you have any a--”

“I have one.” Something transpired in that word, some malice, that Roman was not able to pick up on. Patton put the Ace of Clubs on the table, sliding it over to Logan. “Funny. Do you know what the Ace of Clubs means, Logan?” Logan’s eyes flitted up to meet Patton’s. “It’s the card that means ‘Knowledge.’ A knowledgeable ace, huh? That sounds familiar. But hey, at least the card tells people that it’s an ace. At least it doesn’t just go along with life, leading its partner on, not telling them it’s an ace, pretending that their feelings don’t matter, huh? Isn’t that important, Logan? Isn’t it?”

“I-” Logan started, but he didn’t get a chance to explain. Patton stood up, tossing his deck of cards on the table.

“If you couldn’t figure it out with that super-brain of yours, it is.” He sunk down then, not even bothering to take the stairs up to his room. At this point, it wasn’t even worth it.

The room was still for a moment. The silence was only broken when Virgil sighed, putting his head into the palm of his hand. He’d tried so hard to keep them all together through this. He really did.

“I should go apologize. Even if he does not wish to speak to me now, he will be glad he did when his fit is over,” Logan said. Roman watched him walk up the stairs. An inquisitive look fell over his face.

“Did. Did they… Did they just break up?”

“They’ve been apart for over a week now, Roman,” Virgil said. His leg was bouncing up and down underneath the card table. Roman looked up at him, his eyes unbelieving. “And I thought, I thought I could keep them together through all of this, but sometimes that’s not enough, is it?”

“Wait. Wait wait wait. Hold on. If they’ve been apart this whole time, how come they still act like a couple? They haven’t changed in the slightest!”

“Well, Roman, that’s because--”

“They were going to get married! I have the flowers picked out for their wedding,” Roman said. He stared dejectedly at the floor for a second, before a determined look fell over his face. “No, this will never do. No way. I will not stand for it. I have to go up there and fix this, I have to sort this out.”

“Roman?” Virgil said.

“Oh, that wedding is still on. What if I set out candles? Candles and roses. Blue roses, yet again! This time I will set it from Logan’s perspective. We can go to a beach-- no, we’ll rent the whole beach. Could we buy the beach? Can you buy a whole beach?”

“Roman.”

“I’m going to carve a heart in the sand, complete with both of their names. I’ll do it in Logan’s handwriting. Of course, I will need to steal one of his journals to learn his handwriting. What if I stole his diary? Does he have a diary? Ooh, then I could see how he feels about Patton! How they’re truly in love, and--”

“Roman. Stop,” Virgil said. His booming, echoing voice was used. Roman looked up. He hasn’t heard that since… Well. Since Anxiety became Virgil. Roman took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair.

“Right. I’m sorry. I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Roman, they aren’t meant for each other. Logan’s--” Virgil started. Roman ran a hand across his forehead, a sigh of defeat falling through his voice. He reached down, picking something off the table. He handed it to Virgil.

An Ace of Clubs.

“You’re on the right track,” Virgil said. He stood from the table, moving to sit on the couch. “Roman, have you ever heard of aromantic?”

Time passed, and things grew back to normal. Patton’s bitterness towards Logan faded. Of course it did. Despite the two no longer being romantic, the bond of the heart and the mind could never be broken. They were closer than ever, if Roman was being honest.

“So. No fairytale ending after all, huh?” Virgil said. The two of them were sitting on the couch, looking over Logan and Patton rapidly matching off in a game of Spit.

“A fairytale doesn’t need a wedding to be happily ever after,” Roman said.

When he thought about it, they were all really cards. He was the quick-witted soldier, once considered a knight. Jack. Virgil was the indispensable, once-thought evil, protective caretaker. Queen. Patton was the soft, kind, and benevolent side, holding them all together. King. And Logan?

Logan was ace.

And, much like the actual cards, he completed them.

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bygoneboy · 8 years ago

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a tide in the affairs of men

5 Times Percival Graves Quoted Classic Literature (And The One Time He Didn’t), for @doitforcredence’s gravebone twitter exchange! kay’s prompt: ‘domestic gravebone, minor angst. any au, something cute, with daily events of the two of them happy. any rating. basically writer’s choice’

3500 words, warnings for vague mentions of past!grindelgraves bullshit and nothing else. very soft, very sweet, very sfw.

EXCERPT:

Credence smooths the tips of his fingers down the spine; the cover is velvet to the touch. He opens it to the very first page—

And very nearly drops it when the author’s bearded ink-portrait-likeness smiles up at him, and winks.

“Oh, don’t mind Whitman,” says Graves, waving a hand and turning back to the make-shift library he’s made of his home. “He’s a horrible flirt, especially in that edition— ah, and here’s Fountain of Fair Fortune, and Enchanted Encounters, of course, you’ll like those…”

The first time Credence sees Mr. Graves again, it’s from the shadows: deep in the night-black back corners of an alleyway, and from within the dark beast he’s made of himself. He sees him come out of a brightly-bannered shop with a thin package under his arm. He sees him pass under the streetlamps, and glance over his shoulder at every other turn. Somewhere in the back of his mind Credence thinks no, thinks bad, thinks run, run, run. But it’s the first familiar shape he’s recognized since the subway tunnels, and the thing inside of him is bloodied and bruised. And crawls closer, whimpering, begging to be fed.

Wrapped up in the obscurus everything appears fragmented, and very far away. Shattered glass eyes, smudged at the edges. Graves looks thin, odd. Patchy. Nothing like the smooth, sleek creature Credence had known, but it’s him, Credence thinks— or Credence’s beast thinks, rather, flaring, reaching, he knows it’s him, he would know him anywhere—

Graves turns, abruptly, on his heel: there’s the spin of his coat, blowing out behind him, the tear of the package paper and the clatter of its box on the pavement. Then Graves has a wand clutched in his fist, white-knuckled grip, thrust out at the thin-stretched shadow that’s all Credence has left.

There’s a long moment of silence. Of Graves’ wand-hand trembling, and the vein in his neck pulsing, wild and out-of-rhythm.

“Ah,” he says at last, mildly, if hoarse. “Yes, of course. That’s…right. Just my luck.”

This close to him, Credence feels dazed, and sort of spectral. He can make out more than he could from the alley: the hollow gauntness to his face, the gray shot through his hair. He watches as Graves bends down to gather up the box and wrapping. He watches as Graves pockets his new wand.

“Credence,” says Graves, looking at him, through him. “You’re Credence? Can you understand me?”

Yes, Credence thinks, distantly, but doesn’t say. Doesn’t speak. He’s rather forgotten how to.

“Are you going to kill me?”

I want to, Credence thinks, but doesn’t say, and wouldn’t say, even if he could. He doesn’t know how true it is. He doesn’t know if it would help. He’s very tired. And Graves is pacing, wearing down the pavement under his oxford heels.

“Damn it,” he’s muttering, “damn it all. What’s Sera’s policy for— to hell with policy, Christ. Credence,” and he’s looking up at him again, “just…”

He reaches toward his own throat, and undoes his tie. He pushes back his collar. There’s a thick-banded red scar circling his neck.

It looks, Credence thinks, a little like a chain.

“Brutus was Caesar’s angel,” says Graves, like Credence is supposed to understand. “That's—” Graves clears his throat, glass scraped over rock. “Sorry. It’s from a play, never…nevermind.”

He paces a few more feet, something slightly frantic to the uneven stagger of his steps. Then he slows, and turns, and looks back.

“You could come with me,” Graves says. “You could trust me, Credence. I wouldn’t hurt you.”

He would be a fool, to fall for it twice.

But what else can he do, apart from this, the only thing he’s ever understood?

So he follows.

ii.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. When he wakes, it’s to the foreign feeling of soft, heavy quilts, and a sweet, earthy smell, and the sound of half-muffled voices in another room. He flexes his fingers, wiggles his toes. They’re solid: flesh, blood, and bone. The beast is quiet, still fast asleep; he closes his eyes, to follow it, and falls back into blurry dreams.

When he comes to again, Tina Goldstein is slumped on a stool at his bedside, with her face in her hands.

Graves is in the doorway.

His tie is loose around his neck, and his sleeves have been rolled to his elbows. With the strange scar caught around his throat he looks like a ghost— or a daydream, Credence thinks, sleep-addled, or a strange collision of something all mixed up, in-between.

“Credence,” Graves says, softly, when their eyes meet, then, louder, “Tina.”

Tina startles, her head snapping up. Credence blinks slowly at her as she stares at him, her hands curling into fists at her knees. “Credence,” she says. There’s pity in the shape of his name, and guilt. “Do you remember me?”

He tests his voice. It comes out thin, and whispering, “Yes.”

She looks relieved. Graves looks sort of stricken. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired.”

“Of course— I’d imagine—”

Tina’s fingers curl and fidget in her lap, one knee bouncing. Her mouth twists, as if weighing something in her mind; then she seems to toss worry to the wind, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, pressing one hand to his own. “Graves,” she says, pointedly, over her shoulder.

“Right,” says Graves, taking a hesitant step toward them; Credence curls into Tina, and he stops. “I’ll…maybe you should explain. Better, if he hears it from you.”

“He has a scar,” Credence whispers to Tina. He can feel his heartbeat against his ribs, frightened and unsure.

Tina’s hand tightens over his. “Yes,” she says, “he does.”

“I don’t remember…” He stares up at the ceiling. Had he ever seen it, before? It seems like a strange thing to forget. “He hurt me,” he says. That, he’s sure of.

“Credence,” Tina says, gently. “I know this is going to sound crazy. But the man you knew—”

It takes a long time for her to explain.

It takes longer for Credence to understand.

By the time she’s finished, he’s half-shadow, and half-asleep.

“I don’t know how he did it,” murmurs Tina, as he drifts off again. “I don’t know how— he’s still whole.”

Graves hums. “The minute I saw him, I thought it was over. But all he did was stand there. White eyes. Just like the report.”

“If I’d been through everything he has…”

“‘We are all created to be miserable,’” says Graves, low.

“That’s…not helpful, Graves.”

“That’s Tolstoy, Tina.”

Tina’s laugh, strained but true, is the last thing Credence hears before sleep swallows him whole.

iii.

Living with the Goldsteins proves easier than Credence had expected: the rhythm of time goes on, whatever beat it’s been given. The fireplace sends Tina to work early at the Woolworth building, and most nights she stays there late, far into the evening. On the weekends she hauls home thick-papered case files and dumps them on the floor, scratching through them with a fountain pen and remembering to munch occasionally on whatever her sister has fixed her to eat.

Promotions, says Queenie, shaking her head, sometimes just mean twice the work, without double the pay. She had used to work there, too, but never doing any of the kind of things Tina does. And in any case, she’d quit to work at a bakery— which is supposed to be a secret, for reasons Queenie hasn’t explained, although it seems inexplicably tied to the way that she looks at the bakery’s owner, and the way that he looks at her.

Credence spends most of his time there with the two of them, keeping quiet and out of the way and as human as he can manage. Sometimes Jacob asks him to bring up something from storage; often Queenie sends him on delivery runs, but he doesn’t mind. It’s a little like being handed the keys to the city, allowed out without the constant threat of a belt-buckle hanging overhead. It’s certainly a different world, one he’d only ever dreamed of, glimpsed briefly.

They’ve discovered that his magic is either wandless, or destructive: Tina accepts this after he sets the living room on fire. They’ve talked about hiring a private tutor, but money is stretched thin between the three of them and the brownstone’s rent. And so instead Credence sets out to learn on his own: picking up whatever he can from Queenie’s old schoolbooks, and Tina’s spare minutes between work and sleep.

“Maybe Mr. Graves…?” Queenie had said, once, innocently enough, but the look Tina had given her would have sent Credence’s beast quailing with its tail between its legs.

Admittedly, when it comes to Graves, Credence feels slightly cast aside.

He suspects that Queenie knows how it’s nagged at him, and perhaps that’s the reason she’d brought it up in the first place. Queenie knows most things, knows most everything. It seems annoying at the very least, overwhelming, at most; he isn’t sure he would want to hear even the things that sometimes pop into his head, from anyone else. Things about Mary Lou, the other Graves. The real one.

Credence hasn’t seen him since the night he had been led to Tina’s doorstep. It isn’t that Graves owes him— if anything, he owes Graves. For his life, maybe. For everything he has now, undoubtedly.

But he wouldn’t know where to find him even if he wanted to.

“Hey, honey,” says Queenie, flour on her hands and in her hair, jolting him from his thoughts as she bumps him with her hip. “Be a doll and deliver these for me?”

…

Honestly—

He supposes he should have seen this coming, from a mind-reader.

“Credence,” says Graves from behind the open door, looking about as startled as Credence feels. “What— what are you doing here?”

Credence holds out the parcel. Then holds up the address, Queenie’s scrawl on a small slip of paper.

“Kowalski’s?” says Graves. “I didn’t put in for a delivery.”

“Oh,” says Credence, feeling his face go hot. “Uh, sorry. I’m sorry. Do you just— maybe, want to take them, anyway?”

Graves chews on his lower lip for a moment. He looks from the parcel to the address to Credence, back to the address again.

“They’re Erumpent muffins,” says Credence, weakly, and sees Graves smile, close-lipped, crooked.

“All right,” he says, at last, and opens the door wider. “Come on in.”

…

There’s an uncanny amount of books littering the small entryway, and the cascade continues as Graves leads him through the parlor— more books than Credence has ever seen in one place, or at all. They seem to have been tossed haphazardly around the place, taking up cushions and tabletops alike, along with a generous pile of food-crusted dishes. “My apologies for the mess,” Graves says, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’m taking some time off from…everything. Which includes housekeeping, apparently. I suppose I could hire someone to take care of it for me, but, well.” He looks over at Credence and smiles, half-sardonic. “I’ve had some difficulty managing the idea of letting a perfect stranger into my home. 'Safety from being understood,' if you catch my meaning. Not that you’re a stranger, I didn’t mean to imply, I meant— well. You know who I meant.”

There are books in the kitchen, too. Graves pats his pockets for his wand, which he doesn’t find, then curses under his breath, finally sweeping the books off of the counter without it and cradling them against his chest. “There. You can set them there, thank you.”

Credence does. But then, of course— without the parcel in his hands, he isn’t sure where to put them. In his pockets? And how does he normally stand? He thinks of leaning against the counter, and then feels rather stupid. “You have a lot of books,” he says at last, his voice coming out higher than he’d have liked.

“True,” says Graves, amused, glancing down at the pile in his arms. “I was…something of an avid reader, before MACUSA. And now that I have so much time to myself—” He swallows, throat working around words he doesn’t say, and Credence remembers the scarred ring around his neck. “There are some things I’d rather not be thinking about,” Graves says. “I figure it’s either a hobby, or drinking myself into a stupor to sleep, and— I’d prefer to bet on the hobby.”

He sounds bitter. And sad, but just a little.

“Anyway— I’m going through my old collections—”

“I could help,” Credence says. Unthinking, letting the words leave his mouth before he really understands them, “I could help you. With the mess. And the books.”

“Would you?” asks Graves, something hopeful lighting behind his eyes. “Although— I wouldn’t want to subject you to this, the work would bore you, no doubt.”

“No, I’d love—” He stumbles over his own tongue. Too willing, over-eagerness spilling out even as he tries to hold it to his chest. “I’d like to. Very much.”

He’s an hour later than he’s ever been, by the time he heads back to the bakery.

But he has a feeling Queenie isn’t going to mind.

iv.

“Do you read much, Credence?”

They’ve started in the parlor, where there are mostly scattered historical fictions, and a few volumes of fantasy. Credence looks up from potion-stained pages of E. Nesbit’s Fairy Tales that’s begun to fall out of its binding. “A little,” he says, meaning hymns and prayers, a chapter of introductory spells and nothing else.

“Tell me,” says Graves, “what sorts do you prefer? Adventure, drama? Romance?”

Credence flushes, thinking about the dime-novels he’s seen on cart-corners and in general stores. The printed pictures on the covers had always fascinated him: bright colors, grand scenes. Canyons and caves and ship battles at sea, men with dark eyes and strong arms— Mary Lou had always pulled him away. Eventually he had learned to stop looking.

Graves seems to notice his hesitation; he doesn’t press. Instead he chooses a book from the stack himself: thin, yellow-paged. “Here,” he says, offering it. “Maybe this?”

Credence smooths the tips of his fingers down the spine; the cover is velvet to the touch. He opens it to the very first page—

And very nearly drops it when the author’s bearded ink-portrait-likeness smiles up at him, and winks.

“Do all of the pictures move?” asks Credence, cheeks heating as he watches the poet wiggle suggestive eyebrows within the confines of his little frame.

Graves makes a non-committal sound, browsing through more titles. “Not all of them. Some of these are printed non-magically— although even no-maj copies do sometimes pick up magical traits, if they’ve been sitting around particularly potent reads.”

Credence turns to the second page. There are inked flowers scrawled along the top, encircling each poem; when he touches them with a fingertip, they shed petals, drifting down and gathering at the bottom of the page. Silent. Snow-like.

“Life is infinitely stranger,” says Graves, watching him, “than anything which the mind of man could invent.”

“That’s lovely,” says Credence, hushed.

“That’s Conan Doyle,” says Graves. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you there.”

Credence comes back the next day, and the day after that. And slowly the rooms of Graves’ apartment begin to take shape and form: the fireplace is revealed, behind a teetering pile of biographies; after clearing the kitchen of the plays, Credence finds the empty bakery box. The only leftovers are muffin crumbs, and a candied Erumpent eye.

And then, two weeks into the project, Credence lets himself into Graves’ apartment, and finds the parlor empty.

He isn’t in the kitchen, either, and his bedroom is empty and still— at last he finds the bathroom door shut, steam creeping through the slot underneath.

He’ll let him know he’s here, he thinks.

He raises his hand to knock.

The door opens, and his closed knuckles land on Graves’ bare chest.

“Oh,” says Graves, surprised, and naked.

“Sorry,” blurts Credence, flushing up to his ears. He turns away, squeezing his eyes shut on instinct, opening them a moment later when he stumbles straight into one of the knee-high stacks of novella. “Sorry, sorry—”

The bathroom door shuts behind him. He can feel his heartbeat in his head, low in his belly, pounding incessantly; he curls his toes in his shoes and grits his teeth, afraid that he’ll start to disappear. Afraid that when Graves comes back out he’ll be nothing but smoke and ash and shadow.

The door opens again.

“Credence,” says Graves.

“Sorry—”

“It’s all right, you’re all right.”

Credence turns around. Graves has pulled on a pair of trousers; his chest is still bare, hair still dripping.

The scar around his neck is scarlet.

And Credence, feeling either idiotic or very brave, asks: “How did it happen?”

Graves’ hand flies to his throat. He barks out a laugh, humorless. “I— hah. I made a mistake.”

“What kind?”

“The kind you can’t take back,” says Graves. “He disguised himself. Came to me claiming he was seeking some sort of asylum. I believed him, and—” He fingers the scar, thumb rough on the edges. “Woke up in chains.”

“You trusted him.”

“‘The man of many devices,’” Graves quotes, rueful. “You trusted him, too.”

Credence nods, throat closing around words: remembering the way the wizard had spoken to him, drawn him in. There had been something enchanting there that sickens him, now. He thinks of Graves’ favorite story, the Odyssey and its sirens, singing so sweetly that all the sailors dove themselves drowned.

“I heard he was quite the charmer at the office,” says Graves. “My fault, I’m afraid, I was hardly close with my subordinates. It gave him a beautifully blank slate. No one suspects anything from just a smile.” He draws a hand through his hair, half-dressed and weary and unfairly beautiful. “He made victims of us all, Credence.”

But he’s gone, Credence wants to say. And you’re here. And it isn’t a tragedy, not yet. Maybe not ever— please, Credence thinks, desperately, please, not ever.

“I don’t feel like doing much work today,” Graves says, filling the space his silence has left. “We’ve made a decent enough dent already, haven’t we— why don’t you stay for dinner?”

Credence has never had more than a mass-sip’s mouthful of wine before. And later, that is exactly what he’ll blame it on.

Graves had magicked together the food, the same way Queenie does; even after living in the Goldstein’s brownhouse, Credence had still watched it happen with an embarrassing sort of awe. At the table they sit across from each other, Graves carrying conversation the way he always does, Credence sipping too fast from a wineglass that looks too expensive to touch. Feet bumping into each other, on accident. Credence sipping more wine and feeling them bump— less on accident.

“Did you ever finish that book of poems?” Graves asks, suddenly. “The one you took, with the portrait, the one that startled you.”

Credence blinks, memory coming slow. “Oh, I— I put it back,” he says. “I didn’t borrow it.”

“Hmm,” says Graves. “You should.”

“Borrow it?”

“Take it.”

“For…for me?” Credence asks, feeling warm from his toes to his ears. “I don’t know, it’s yours, I shouldn’t—”

“Credence,” says Graves, looking straight at him, “I’d hate for you to mistake this as a complaint, but I can’t help but notice— you’re here quite often.”

The warmth evaporates.

“You could use an extra hand,” says Credence, very softly.

“If that’s the only reason…” Graves gestures, aimlessly. “It’s a lot of work, for nothing in return.”

“I want to help. I like— helping you.”

It’s half the story. But the full truth is off-the-table, the restricted section: the fact is that it’s Graves he likes, immensely, that it’s Graves who puts Credence at ease in a way he’d never felt with Grindelwald, with anyone. And it’s Graves who’s as lonely as Credence had been, before Queenie and Tina, before he’d learned to translate the humming buzz in his bones as magic, and not just another kind of sin.

“What if,” starts Graves, then stops short. “Hell, Credence. What if I’d just prefer your company— over your help?”

His head feels fuzzy— wine, he’ll say, later— “You don’t…want me to help?”

“I want—” Graves says. “Credence—” he says.

And his chair scrapes back and he’s half-standing, one hand braced on the table, the other holding Credence’s chin between his thumb, and his forefinger. “You’ve made me feel more alive in two weeks than I’ve felt since I saw the sun again. Happy, without reservation. Endlessly, you understand?”

“Oh,” says Credence, very faintly, going dizzy, feeling Graves’ fingers on his jaw, leaning up, leaning in. “What— what is that from, is that from something?”

“No,” Graves says, and smiles until he laughs. “No, Credence, it isn’t.”

Around them there’s a sort of thrill, rippling through the room; Credence feels it break from the frame of his body without warning, sending book pages rifling: his own sort of magic. Wandless. Wordless, beyond language.

When Graves kisses him, it’s magic of another kind.

BONUS:

There’s a parcel on the Goldstein’s kitchen table the next morning, with Credence’s name on the tag.

Inside is a thin, yellow-paged book, a winking, bearded poet, and a quote, handwritten:

We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of sight of the land, Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse, Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you.

“If Tina asks, I don’t know a thing about it,” whispers Queenie beside him, giggling as he feels his face go hot, and begin to redden. “Whatever are friends for, honey?”

#i love this format fucking sue me #gravebone #hal writes #read more #long post #doitforcredence

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chiseler · 8 years ago

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Bridging Noir and The Beats: JONNY STACCATO (1959)

Following the 1956 publication of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” the 1957 publication of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, and the national spotlight that was suddenly focused on these potentially dangerous Beats and the throng of young followers who tried to emulate the lifestyle and mindset, it didn’t take long for the mainstream media to exploit the scene as it could.

The beatniks were easy—just give a character a goatee, a beret, a set of bongos, a mouthful of incoherent poetry and a jazzy score and you were all set. Suddenly drive-ins saw a flurry of quickie low-budget beatsploitation pictures, which for the most part were standard genre films (murder mysteries and juvenile delinquent movies), but featuring affected types who hung out in coffeehouses and said “daddy-o” a lot.

In those terms, 1959 was a watershed year, witnessing the release of Charles Haas’s The Beat Generation and Roger Corman’s A Bucket of Blood, as well as the arrival of Bob Denver as that beatnik’s beatnik Maynard G. Krebbs on TV’s The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

As easy as beatniks were to satirize, it was much more difficult for the mainstream (especially on television) to get a grasp on the original Beat mentality that lay beneath the co-opted cartoon affectations. It’s certainly understandable—the Beats weren’t exactly striving to be understood by the mainstream, after all—but NBC came close that same watershed year with the premiere of a new weekly series, Johnny Staccato. In historical and cultural terms, the show worked as a bridge between the fading postwar ennui and paranoia that spawned film noir and the new youthful openness and countercultural energy of the Beats. The connection is locked in place with a jazzy score composed by Elmer Bernstein, who’d fired the first hesitant noir jazz salvo with his score for 1955’s The Man With the Golden Arm.

John Cassavetes (who admittedly only took the role to help finance his own film projects) brings an easygoing streetwise cool to the titular role, playing a jazz pianist in the house combo at Waldo’s, a funky Greenwich Village bar. In each half-hour episode, Staccato finds himself embroiled in a noirish scenario, complete with a voiceover that dances the line between the hardboiled and the hep. Staccato knows everyone, it seems, from cops and stoolies to musicians, low-rent gangsters, immigrants, newstand operators, writers, artists and penny-ante thieves, so is the neighborhood’s go-to guy whenever one of his countless bohemian friends needs protection, help in clearing their name, or anything else that might come up. He’s smooth, he’s calm, and he’s as rational and honest a Johnson as you’ll ever hope to find. Although he has a knack for prying into other people’s business, he knows how to keep his mouth shut. The terms “Beat” or beatnik” never come up save for one episode in which he tries to track down a missing poet (played by Christopher Walken’s older brother), but Staccato is the embodiment of Beatness, whether trying to save a young couple from a black market baby ring or unmask a crooked storefront preacher who’s been preying on the poor and vulnerable. And all of it without a single “daddy-o.”

In Thomas Pynchon’s novel Inherent Vice, pot-smoking hippie private dick Doc Sportello holds Staccato (a clear inspiration for the character) up as a shamus on a par with Spade and Marlowe, if not greater. And despite all the hepcat trappings, the character actors who make guest spots (Elisha Cook, Charles MacGraw, etc.) only further solidifies the show’s noir pedigree.

Though filmed on a Hollywood soundstage for a major television network, the characters who populate each episode represent a melange of believably misbegotten and forsaken mid-century Village denizens.

It’s my guess that in 1959, however, an ultra-hip, wise, countercultural hero who only turned to the cops when absolutely necessary, a guy who was trying to help people out simply because he was a stand-up guy, as well as the assorted lowlifes he dealt with every week, were still too alien and threatening to family audiences at home.

So halfway through the first season, the producers began tinkering, trying to force the show and the character of Staccato into more familiar and comforting molds, beginning with the opening credits. Suddenly the original cool but up-tempo credit sequence was sharply punctuated with a shot of Staccato smashing a window and firing a gunshot at some unseen enemy. Just as suddenly, it seems, not only was the character an officially-licensed, gun-toting private detective working hand-in-hand with the cops, he was a Korean War vet to boot. While prior to the shift he’d mostly been helping out lost souls who’d gotten in over their heads, now he was after powerful mobsters, counterfeiters, hit men and occasionally getting caught up in Cold War shenanigans. You know, things the audience at home could better understand. And while we’re at it? Yeah, that whole “pianist in a jazz club” thing? Our marketing shows those places still make people kind of uncomfortable. I mean, don’t negroes hang out in those places? And all those jazz musicians are a bunch of hopheads, aren’t they? So maybe we could just kind of edge that whole scene out of the show, okay? We don’t want to make our sponsors nervous.

In midstream the show abruptly became a straight and familiar detective series, with a much higher ratio of fistfights, gunplay and general action. Still, it was a schizophrenic one, my guess thanks to those scripts greenlighted before the tweaking began. Sometimes he’s a licensed private dick with a gun, sometimes not. Sometimes he’s a Korean vet, sometimes not. Sometimes he’s tight with the cops at the local precinct, sometimes the mutual open disdain leads him to avoid the cops at all costs. And sometimes he’s a professional jazz musician who investigates crimes in his spare time, and at others there’s nary a hint of Waldo’s or his musical career.

For it all though, and for all the shifts and changes and discrepancies in the character’s background, Staccato himself remains an earnest constant, at once finger-popping and intense, thanks exclusively to Cassavetes’ performance. He clearly understood (even if he hated doing the show) who the character was supposed to be from the beginning, and never wavered from that. It’s also interesting to note that, regardless how comforting and familiar the network heads tried to make the show, it remained surprisingly downbeat. More often than not the people Staccato is trying to protect end up dead, and those whose names he’s trying to clear reveal themselves to be guilty as hell. Which I guess can either be read as brutal honesty about a cruel, ugly, and meaningless world, or a cynical comment on the part of the producers warning viewers they’re better off bringing their troubles to the officially sanctioned authorities and federal agencies like proper citizens, instead of counting on some damn beatnik for help.

The final episode of the series is telling, with the writers at once giving the producers what they wanted, while at the same time spitting in their face. Four years earlier, we learn, a renowned Soviet classical pianist defected with his wife during a concert tour of the US. The elderly couple has been on the run and in hiding ever since, pursued by relentless dirty commie assassins. So you got a simple Us vs. Them Cold War scenario that allowed true blue viewers at home to wave little American flags. The pianist finally gets a regular job at Waldo’s, where the assassins find him once again and, well, things don’t end on a happy note. Much of the episode is a hearkening back to the show’s origins, with most of the action taking place within the club, and jazz and classical music playing throughout. Staccato himself plays only a minor role here for the most part, but after the pianist and his wife are gunned down in the street, Staccato’s closing VO is unusually bitter. The assassin got away, and though he hints at an ongoing storyline, he says someone else is going to have to take care of it. People are going to continue killing each other, but he wanted nothing more to do with it himself. “I’m finished,” he spits as the closing credits role. In short, he’s turning his back on the Beat sensibility that drove him to try and help the forgotten and the gutter trash. Nope, from that point on he was just looking out for number one, like any real American. The producers likely saw that as ending on a high note, with that dirty beatnik finally coming to see the light and redeeming himself in the eyes of the general public and the sponsors.

After a single twenty-seven episode season, the show was cancelled, but the original spirit was resurrected shortly thereafter in the form of Route 66. Meanwhile the cheap beatsploitation caravan rolled on in 1960 with Paul Frees’ The Beatniks and Ranald MacDougall’s questionable adaptation of Kerouac’s The Subterraneans, which were much easier for the masses to understand.

by Jim Knipfel

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