#let us be free. let us rejoice. let us see the sun for a final time. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

writingsbychlo · 4 years ago

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poker night | stiles stilinski

word count; 9320

summary; you and stiles have grown close since leaving for college, and the pack coming to visit is the little push you need to finally cross that bridge.

notes; this is teh second fic for my birthday week/7,000 follower celebration!

warnings; smut, drug use, underage drinking.

Excitement and pure joy were coursing through your veins as you watched out of the open curtains down to the street below, the sun just beginning to set as the late evening moved into early night, and you heard Stiles chuckle from across the room where he was tipping various chips into different bowls to lay out beside the poker table he’d rented that sat in the middle of the room.

“Excited, much?”

“Yes!”

You turned to look at him, giving him a pointed stare as you dropped your hand from holding open the curtains to instead place both of your hands on your hips, giving him a wide smile as you rocked on the balls of your feet, and he returned the wide grin, crumpling up the foil packets and dropping them all into the bin as he deemed the room ready. He was lucky, he had a rather large dorm, and all to himself, far bigger than yours was but you were still convinced that the pre-FBI program gave each of their candidates far better university living than the rest of you got. There was plenty of space for everyone to cram in, some of them choosing hotels in the area and some of them choosing to stay with Stiles, it had been a squeeze to get everyone in, but it was worth it.

You hadn't seen your pack since the day you’d left Beacon Hills.

It was hard to be away from them all for so long, after everything you had all been through, and yet you knew you had it easier than most. Stiles had only been a fifteen-minute drive from your accommodation, and so the two of you had grown infinitely closer than you had ever been, relying on one another heavily to make the transition easier. Lydia had called you every day for the first month and a half, and you’d all had weekly facetime sessions, but it just hadn't been the same.

With the first year coming to a close and everyone being far too broke to be able to afford to actually go anywhere, you’d settled on a few days up at college together for a small but parent-free vacation before the journey home.

It was the perfect opportunity for you all to get unnecessarily drunk, excessively high, and eat a lot of junk food, all while not having to worry about any oncoming attack that might strike, as the year-marker of safety was quickly approaching. Naturally, Stiles had decided to set a theme, and where was the place that drinking and gambling was the norm? Vegas. So of course, Stiles had gone all out with renting a poker table and set, and hanging vaguely Vegas-themed decorations around the place. He was even wearing a t-shirt with a tux pattern printed on the front, and had managed to convince you into wearing your party shirt with the flapper-style tassels on to match.

“C’mon, Stiles, it’s been almost a year since we’ve seen anyone from the pack, why aren’t you bouncing off of the roof with excitement?”

“I’ve seen one person from the pack all year.” He prompted, shooting you a playful wink and laughing as you rolled your eyes at him, before throwing away all the wrappers and holding his arms out for you in an invitation for a hug.

Accepting his offer, you moved away from the window and let him wrap his arms around your waist, barely a sliver of space between your bodies as you looked up at him and sighed. “I’m nervous. It’s been so long since we’ve seen them all, and I love them all so much, but nothing bad has happened since we’ve all been separated but what if just when we all get together again, something bad happens, and we don’t even get to enjoy it an-”

He shushed you gently, using one hand to weave through your hair and tuck it away behind your ear, his eyes fixed on you carefully as the playlist you and Stiles had spent a whole week building was playing in the background, waiting for everyone to arrive to appreciate it. “Bad things don’t happen when we’re all together, bad things happened because we were in Beacon Hills. We aren’t in Beacon Hills anymore, and we aren’t scared kids anymore, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You wanna’ cheer up? Nobody can be sad in faux-Vegas!” He cheered, waving his arm around the room, and you chuckled, catching his face brighten even further as he watched the worry slip away from your features, his lips brushing your forehead before he was tucking you under his chin, and holding you tightly.

You were only still for a second, the two of you swaying slowly before you heard the tell-tale signs of a car pulling up outside, the engine dying and doors slamming, and an excited gasp left your lips. “I bet that’s them!”

His fingers laced with yours and he was moving before you were, the two of you speeding over to the window to peer out, catching sight of Derek’s black car, the man himself leaning against it and waiting as Mason and Liam pulled their bags out of the trunk, Scott sitting in the passenger seat with the door open and his bag in his lap. Both yours and Stiles’ phone were chiming a second after he put his own away, notification in your group chat as he informed you both that they’d arrived, unaware of you watching on from the window with anticipation.

The group was on the move, the car locked and disappearing from sight as they entered the building's lobby area, and Lydia had offered her own ETA as the others all chipped in theirs, and just like that, your fears were gone as you swung open the front door and peered out into the corridor while you waited.

Within forty minutes of the Beacon Hills group arriving, everybody was here, and drinks had been cracked open, snacks dug into, and you were all lounging around and catching up on missed gossip and news, sharing photos and stories that you had wanted to tell in person and saved just for this moment.

Pizza boxes were piled high within two hours, and smoke was filling the air, giggles and laughs shared all around as the group simply rejoiced in being back together once again. Liam and Mason had told you all about the latest shit that Coach had been dishing out, and all the pranks that they had committed, as well as Mason, blushing when Lydia and Kira had pressed him about Corey. Scott and Derek had given a brief update about everything that had happened in Beacon Hills, which was surprisingly little with all things considered, and Lydia had tried to inform you all about the advanced placement work she had been doing in her classes, but had lost you all at some point as it became far too complex for you all to understand, and so instead had switched to telling you about the cute guy she had met at the coffee shop three months ago.

Kira and Malis had been travelling, the pair had recently been all over Europe exploring, and had even visited Isaac in France and Jackson in London, before they’d finally returned home to see everyone. They dished out all the little souvenirs that they had bought, and shared them out with you all before showing you pictures and telling you the stories behind each trip. You had shared your own stories, all the funny ones you had of Stiles falling over or spilling something in public, and he embarrassed you just as much, teasing you until your cheeks were red and he was cuddling you into his side and ruffling your hair as everyone laughed.

It was like nothing had ever changed, and you loved it.

The night had drifted on with natural progress until the music had been turned down to a lower level with the late hours, and the hazy atmosphere had everyone moving sluggishly and lazily as empty bottles littered the floor and the stubs of many dead blunts sat in the ashtray on the edge of the poker table, even the wolves having a little wolfbane laced treats to help them hit the mood just as much as all of the non-wolves had.

You were currently lounging across both Liam and Malia on the couch, lay out over them as you continually brushed off your midriff, crumbs dropping down onto your top each time Liam took a bite of the chip dish that was positioned between him and Mason, the two absolutely gone as they laughed and giggled among themselves about everything and anything.

Alongside their voices, and the conversation between yourself, Malia and the boys, was the rustle of cards and clinking of poker-chips, and you were itching for more physical affection than you were getting now, your inhibitions lowered and your need for physical attention through the roof from the substances racing through your bloodstream. Your sights honed in on Stiles, hair messy from playing with it and back facing you, your chair long abandoned from where you’d given up on cards when they’d started the real gambling, and you’d remembered just how crap you were at the game.

Getting up onto wobbly legs, you made your way across the room, resting your hands on Stiles’ shoulder as you stood behind him, smoothing them down his chest and he placed his beer down, licking the excess of the bitter liquid from his lips and placing the hand on top of one of yours, squeezing lightly as he turned to look at you.

“Hi, cutie. What d’you need?”

“Nothin’.” You sighed, slumping down further and resting your chin on the top of his head, used to the sweet little nicknames he fixed you with, and you relaxed against him as he leaned back a little further in the chair and pushed himself a few inches out front he table, seeming to predict your next words before you had even spoken them; “Was just feeling like I wanted some attention.”

“Hm, well c’mere, you can play cards, I’ve seen your poker face in the midst of some much more intense situations than this, I think you can handle it.”

You flicked him in the ear for his joke about all your supernatural struggles, but he held your hand and guided you around him to stand by his side, making space for you to sink down atop him and get comfy.

Slumping down across the boy’s lap with a deep sigh, your legs were slung across his at an angle, and his arms were quick to wind around your waist, one hand tucking itself under your shirt to seat on the heated skin of your waist, and the other held his cards limply in his hand, but his focus was no longer on them. You’d long since given up on the game, barely able to hold a focus as your mind spun from the hazy smoke in the air, and the taste of bitter-sweet alcohol still lingering in your mouth.

Slightly sticky lips brushed your shoulder as he peppered the bare skin with sweet kisses, and you turned your head to give the boy a dopey smile, watching as his own face creased in a beaming grin in response. His eyes were blown wide, slightly widened and his hair messy from constant playing with it, the arm of yours that wasn’t sitting around his neck for support was lifting up so that you could weave a hand into the chocolate locks, and he sighed out softly at the contact, letting you twist in his arms to face him even more.

“Like it when you play with my hair.”

“Mhm, I know.”

Your words were mumbled in response and he chuckled under his breath as his eyes fluttered shut, tipping his head into your hand, before a voice coughed loudly and the two of your jumped, eyes snapping open and focus moving back to the poker table before you both, other members of the pack gathered around and smirking at you both knowingly, but you let out a deep sigh and only relaxed into the boy under you even further.

“Stop looking at us like that.”

“Like what, exactly?” Lydia all but purred out her words, and you shot her a pointed look, as the others around the table all tried to muffle their laughs of agreement. Derek was looking at his cards and trying to bite away his smile by nibbling on the inside of his cheek, Scott and Kira were pretending to discuss their hand at cards, but were shooting the pair of you small looks throughout their whispered conversation, and Lydia was staring at you with a challenging smirk. You could even feel the members of the others scattered around you watching on, the pack spread out around the smoke room, the funky smell hanging off of everyone and everything.

“You know what like. You’re looking at us like you know something we don’t, like it’s a joke only we aren’t a part of.”

You felt a nose push at the underside of your jaw and tipped your head up to allow the boy more space to nose at the space under your jaw and by your ear, letting him just gain his own affections to his heart’s content, and this only spurred on Lydia’s piercing stare at the two of you. “You aren’t a part of a joke, and in fact, it’s incredibly unfunny. However, I do know something you don’t. We all do.”

“Care to share?”

It was the first night in almost a year that the pack had all been together. Lydia had finished her exams early, Scott had gotten ahead on his training with Deaton to create time, and Liam and Mason had ditched their last week. Derek had driven them all up here, and Lydia had come down from her college to see you all. Kira had come with Malia on the plane after they had recently finished their travels of Europe, and you had come across from your own dorms.

It was barely a travel, you and Stiles went to colleges that were only ten miles apart, and so you were hanging out regularly during the week, you were the only two that had seen each other in person since leaving for college and not just via facetime, and in this time, the two of you seemed to have grown even closer than you had ever been despite all the supernatural drama you had been through.

“C’mon, you two have gotten so close since we all left for college.”

“So?” you and Stiles spoke at once, looking to Scott for his comment, before you were giggling and sharing glances in your utterly smoked out state, finding entertainment in your joint statement.

“Nothing.. ‘sparked’ in that time?”

You took a deep sigh, your eyes wandering around the room, flicking from Lydia to Malia, before back to the redhead who was watching you intensely. “Feels a bit weird to talk about this in front of two of his exes.”

“So, there is something to talk about!” Lydia shouted the words like she had suddenly realised the key to life, looking far more excited than someone who just discovered their best friends having feelings for their ex should look. “God, finally, I’ve only been staying with you for three days and the sexual tension is already too much for me to handle.”

“What are you talking about?” Stiles questioned, breath fanning over your face from where he was all but mouthing at your jaw, dry kisses pressed there as he held you to his chest tightly, having put his cards down on the table at some point so hold you with both hands.

“When I left, you two were friends who would hug, now you’re this pair who are all over each other without even realising it! I mean, the two of you are closer right now than Scott and Kira have ever been!” The couple that was involved against their will let out various noises of complaints, being waved off by the redhead and they comforted one another with small kisses, both you and Stiles shrugging languidly. “Listen, Malia and Stiles ended ages ago, and Stiles and I were barely a couple, we didn’t even sleep together, so don’t feel weird.”

“Way to boost my ego, Lydia.” The brunette under you sighed, but you only squeezed yourself around him tighter, feeling him reciprocate the emotions and push his hand even further up over your ribs.

“Even I can smell the arousal and longing rolling off of the two of you in waves. Just admit it to each other already.” Derek muttered, shifting his cards before pushing some of his counters into the middle, and despite all the alcohol and weed in your system, your eyes went wide as you shifted to look at the boy underneath you, his lips parted a little as he gave you a nervous smile.

“You’re longing? For me?”

He grinned widely, his head tipping to the side, cheeks flushed with warm heat, before he licked over his lips and nodded slowly. “Yeah, since like the first month when you stayed that whole weekend to binge marvel movies with me so I didn’t feel alone and you did that dance thing while you were making pancakes on Saturday.” He paused, thinking over his words, before he was leaning in a little and bumping his nose with yours as your hand came out of his hair to sit on his cheek delicately. “You’re aroused? By me?”

Your breath hitched, and he smirked very lightly at your response, his lips brushing yours when you nodded. “Yeah, ever since the day you came over right after going to the gym and you were all sweaty and asked if I minded if you used my shower and then you walked around with your shirt off before dinner. I definitely didn’t mind.”

He laughed lightly at your statement, his eyes glazing over a little as he remembered the day. “Are you longing, too?”

“Mhm. Are you also aroused?” Your question hung heavily in the air and he let out a soft sound under his breath as you asked him.

“Of course.”

“Cool.” You both spoke the single syllable word at the same time, your eyes closing as your fingers dug into his jaw a little, your breathing as light and shallow as everyone else in the room seemed to fade away. It was simply the two of you, sharing breath and his tongue brushing your lips when it peeked out of his mouth to wet his own, and you whimpered under your breath so quietly only he would hear it, to which his hands tightened on your flesh as he picked up on the sound.

“You want to go back to your place?”

“Oh, definitely.” You nodded rapidly, and he beamed shifting in your lap, taking a swig of his drink as he downed the rest of the glass, and slipped his hand into your back pocket as the rest of the group stared at the two of you with wide eyes, shock evident on their faces about how easy that conversation had really been, but you didn’t care, because Stiles was running the pads of his fingers very subtly over your ass and squeezing through your pocket, even as he stared down everyone else in the room, and your skin was beginning to feel hot from something entirely other than the atmosphere in his dorm that you had all created. “We need a cab.”

“We can call one and makeout in the doorway while we wait, go get your bag.” He pulled his touch away from you, placing a playful slap on your ass and grinning at the way you squeaked before scurrying away to gather your belongings, and he was grabbing his wallet, throwing down a handful of notes on the table, quickly booking an Uber with the app on his phone.

When your hand slipped into his again the shocked looks had morphed into smirks, the only three teams still sitting around the table were reshuffling cards and setting themselves up to play, Stiles telling them all not to wait up for him to come home, before he was pulling you from the room and towards the door. “You booked a cab?”

“Yes.”

“And we’re going to make out in the doorway until it gets here?”

“Fuck, yes.” He tipped his head to look at you, slamming the front food shut and guiding you towards the stairs you were so familiar with, as the two of you set off on your quick and stumbling journey toward the main entrance to the building.

“Will you grab at my ass again like you were before?”

“Do you want me to?” He didn’t give you a chance to respond, however, before his fingers were leaving yours and moving over your lower back to grab at your ass roughly, feeling your shake as he curled you into his side, the two of you inching down the lower staircase. “Like that?”

“Yeah?”

“Honestly, I’ll do anything you want me to.”

“I’m going to remember that for later.” You punctuated your words with a nibble on his lower lip, glancing up into his swirling whiskey eyes through your lashes, and he groaned under his breath, letting himself nod slowly as he used his grip on your ass to pull your body flush up against his. His mouth descended onto your own once again, catching your lips in a fiery kiss, instantly parting as the lust took over your both, tripping and stumbling down the final few steps as he pressed you into the wall beside the door, uncaring for who may see the pair of you as his tongue tangled with your own, visible between your parted mouths whenever your heads twisted to the side for deeper access.

It was sloppy and wet, and a clash of moans and whimpers as the two of you teased done another endlessly with a mixture of slow and ongoing kisses that alternated with needy and rushed ones, teeth clashing and lips dragging.

Hands roamed one another’s bodies, your palms tracing over the broad and hardened planes of his chest, the workouts he had been on for the pre-FBI fitness programs had done things to his body that lacrosse never did, and you were sure the day you’d seen Stiles do a pull-up was the day you realised rolling over guys may actually be a thing. The muscles twitched and tensed under your fingertips, and his hands were rubbing along you back all the way to your upper thighs, exploring your body as he pinched and squeezed in places that made your body jerk and twitch into him.

His lips were working along your neck as your heart raced, your eyes closed and back arching up, chests pressed flush together, and the what around the two of you almost felt like it was too much. The fingers that were sitting low on your waist slipped even further, grazing along you covered pussy through you jeans, ad he pushed down teasingly on the spot he knew your clit would be, biting down on the joint between your shoulder and your neck when he heard you moan his name out breathlessly at the simple action.

He dragged his tongue over the spot, moving in to dip back down to kiss you, before the two of you were breaking through your haze at the sound of a horn honking, and the phone in his back pocket was buzzing. He was panting for breath as he pulled back from you, only one hand still touching you as his fingers laced with your own, a stark contrast from every part of him pressed to every part of you only seconds prior.

“Good thing, one minute longer and I probably would’ve had my hands down your pants right here in the doorway.”

He gave you a sultry wink, before he was pulling you along to the car waiting on the edge of the road, ignoring your wide eyes and stuttering words, holding the door open for you and helping you inside like a gentleman, like he hadn't just threatened public nudity and a great orgasm only seconds prior. He was seconds behind you, confirming his identity and booking to the driver, and as the car took up motion on the short journey once again, he turned back to you.

“You okay, baby? You look flushed.” You turned to look at him, sensing the light tone in his voice that was playfully disguising the question underneath as to whether you still wanted this, and you nodded gently, taking his face in your hands and pulling his face down so that you could peck his lips.

“I like it when you call me baby.”

“You do?” He dragged his nose along your cheek, brushing a kiss to your skin, the intimate and sweet touches making you blush hot and red under his touch, his chuckle so soft that only you could hear it.

“Yeah. We could have been doing this for months, y’know.”

“Making out in a taxi and trying not to feel each other up to much before we get back to your place?” He joked, tucking an arm over your shoulder and you settled into his side, your hands playing with his other one as it sat on your thigh and squeezed lightly.

“I was going to say being together, but sex works too.” Your words were whispered out, and he twisted until he was nuzzling affectionately into your hairline.

“You want that? To be together with me?”

“Well, I wasn’t longing for fun.” You scoffed, and he shifted his hands to lace your fingers together, his arm squeezing you tighter to him.

“I can’t say I always knew we were meant to be, or that I spent my whole child and teenhood pining after you, but I really think we would be special together, and I think we could go a long way together.” You rolled your eyes at his affections, but the alcohol and drugs in your body were making you emotional, and you sniffed away your feelings as you pushed your face into his neck, pressing a kiss to his skin in a silent acknowledgement of his statement.

“Together, then.”

“Together.” He confirmed, and the scenery flashing by before you both was quickly coming to an end, Stiles confirming a payment to come out of his bank account, before he was thanking the driver and watching as you clambered from the car to stand before your own building, Stiles stumbling out behind you and pressing himself up to your back as the two of you giggled in your drunkenness.

It was an awkward walk between the two of you, you back pressed to the wall of your elevator as you each tried to hit the right button for your floor, seeming to hit every single one but the right one, and the journey was filled with shared giggling ad little moans as you let him kiss and lick at your neck, marking your skin with red marks that would be dark by the morning. His hands had fished your keys out of your pocket, and he was holding them up before you as the two of you all but raced along the corridor to your room.

The door slammed off of the wall as you made your way in, dropping the keys to the floor and kicking the door shut behind you as he navigated you on the path he knew so well toward your bedroom, the light feeling in the air gone as lust and heat replaced it, your mouths meshing together in urgent kisses that begged for more, wandering hands and tugs of material, your jacket pushed from your shoulder to the floor and your hands tucked underneath his t-shirt as you finally got to feel the abs that you had so often watched sweat run down when he’d taken you to do workouts with him, or showed up at your place straight after the gym or a run.

Pulling his own shirt up and over his head, your hands were immediately drawn to the exposed skin of his chest. It certainly wasn’t the first time you’d seen him without a shirt on, but it was the first time you’d been allowed to actually look, to touch, and your fingertips were pressing into the smooth skin, palms flat to his flushed chest, pink and shining with a light layer of sweat from the heat forming between the two of you. “Damn, Sti.”

“What? Still thought I was the skinny kid with the buzzcut from sophomore year?”

“No, you’ve spent enough time wandering around without your shirt on while I’m around for me to know you’re hot, it’s just now I can actually appreciate it.” You flashed your teeth at him in a cheeky grin, and he gave a breathless chuckle in response, the muscles in his stomach tightening as your fingers dragged down over the taut flesh, until your nails were scratching at the trail of dark hairs below his navel, hooking into his dark jeans.

“I wouldn't have minded if you’d appreciated it before.” You tipped your head up, kissing along the underside of his jaw gently, licking at the smooth flesh from where he had shaved earlier in the day, and his breathing shallowed as you did, his fingers tightening on your hips. “Okay, no fair, shirt off, baby. I’ve been wanting to know what your tits looked like since you wore that red bikini to the pool party I took you to.”

You went almost the same shade as the aforementioned garment as he whispered the filthy words into your ear, and he pushed his hands up under your shirt, hands inching the flimsy material up until it was sitting just under your bra, his thumbs smoothing out over your skin and brushing at the wire of your bra. “You sure you want to do this? We don’t have to. I swear, I’d be more than happy to just cuddle with you and watch movies like we always do on Tuesday nights, just s-”

Your lips met his, pressing a deep and longing kiss to his lips, and he moaned into your mouth when the connection was made, your bodies coming up flush against one another as you moved your hands back up to loop around his neck. Your fingers weaved into his hair, one hand behind his head as the other cradled his jaw, and he tipped his head to the side, your noses bumping and brushing as his tongue dipped out to tempt your lips to open up for him. Instead of allowing that, however, you were pulling away, just enough until your lips were barely brushing his, letting him groan out in dissatisfaction.

Pulling your shirt up and over your head and dropping it to the ground, his eyes widened as he took in the sight of your exposed chest, all other than the simple white bra you were wearing underneath, and your jaw dropped as you suddenly remembered the underwear that was clad on your body.

“I wasn’t expecting this when I put my comfy underwear on today, I have way cuter bras than this.”

He smirked, popping the button on your jeans so that they were loose enough for him to tug down softly, until they were tight around your thighs, your jaw hanging open as both of his palms slipped down to squeeze at your ass. “I was assuming you wouldn't be wearing the cute blue thong when you had no idea what would happen tonight. Besides, if you'll let me, I’d much rather have your underwear off and on the floor, with my head between your thighs and my hands on your tits instead.”

“How do you know about my cute blue thong?” You whined, tipping your head back with false-irritation in your voice, and letting him kiss down your neck as your hair fell back behind you.

“You do your laundry with me every week, sometimes I’d see what was going into the machines, and that piece caught my eye, I always hoped I’d get to see it on you, and we have plenty of time for that. Besides, I’m wearing boxers with hotdogs printed on, so don’t worry about it.” His fingers moved one of the straps of your bra away, letting it fall away to sit on the side of your arm, exposing your shoulder to him, and you own hands found the clasp behind your back, undoing it for him and watching as his eyes focused in one your breasts, nipples already hard under the material, and he licked at his lips as he stared down at your chest. “Shit, you have such perfect tits.”

You took one of his wrists in your hands, dragging the limp limb up until his palm was pressing over your skin, a content sigh falling from your lips was beyond your control as his fingers twitched and he took control once again, squeezing at the fleshy mound you had given him access to. His thumb and forefinger pinched your nipple teasingly, rolling the taut bud between the pads, and your back arched up, pressing even further into him.

Dipping down, he took the other between his teeth, pulling lightly before sealing his lips around it, his arm wrapped around your lower back so that he could tip you backwards, your hips pressing into his and the bulge in his jeans becoming obvious as you found yourself flush up against one another.

“I really need to know what else that mouth can do, and what else you’ve got hidden, and then when we’re all fucked out, we can definitely cuddle and watch a movie. First, though, I want you to make sure I scream loud enough that my neighbours know your name.”

“And here I was thinking I’d be doing the dirty talk, huh?” He sighed out against your skin, pulling away from your breast with a ‘pop’, the skin wet and shiny and he moved back up to brush his mouth with yours. “You got it, princess.”

His hands found your hips, pushing you backwards onto the bed, and he was pulling your jeans the rest of the way down your legs, taking your socks and shoes as he went, stripping you down to just the polka dot cotton panties you wore, and your hair fanned out around you on the bed as your chest rose and fell, mind spinning as you tried to gather yourself, the whole motion had happened so quickly. His hands were on your knees, pushing your thighs apart until he could settle on the mattress between them, and lick a long stripe up along your covered core, spit soaking you underwear, but the feeling of his hot breath against you was already making you tremble underneath him.

“Can’t wait to taste you, I bet you’re sweet, hm? That okay? I’ve been dreaming ‘bout getting my head between these thighs, or having you ride my face, cum on my tongue, how’s that sound?”

“Yes! Yes, to all of it, whatever you want!” Your words were promising for him, and he caught your eye as you propped yourself up on you elbows to look at him, his eyes blown with lust and dark as he hooked his fingers into the elastic of the waistband, tugging the material away from your swiftly, and he let out a noise that was somewhere between a growl and a moan as your glistening folds were put on display for him, with no barrier between.

“Oh, fuck, you look so good. All spread out for me, dripping wet and blushing. You’re perfect.”

“I’m not perfect, Stiles.”

“You absolutely fucking are, and I’ll prove just how perfect I think you are.” His lips descended onto yours as he leaned over you, one hand holding him up as you shared a sloppy and heated kiss, the clashing of teeth and tangling of tongues, wet sounds audible in the room as the two of you frantically dove into one another's mouths, exploring and becoming familiar with new territory. The other hand snaked down between your body, cautious fingers dragging along your drenched skin as two digits parted your folds, swirling in the built-up wetness and bumping against your clit. “Shit, you’re so wet. All for me, yeah?”

“All for you, Stiles, you really have no idea what you do to me.”

“Mhm, I think I do.” He joked, grinding his hips down into one of your thighs, pressing the erection that was straining into his jeans into your thigh, and you both let out whimpers at the action.

“Then fuck me, Stiles, show me I affect you like you affect me. Fuck me, now.”

“I will, I promise.” He cooed, grinning into your skin, his face buried in your neck as he sunk a single finger into you, all the way down to the knuckle, feeling your velvety walls clench around him immediately, coating his skin in your juices. “I gotta’ open you up first, get you ready for m’ cock, okay? And, I do just really want to fuck you with my tongue.”

With that, he was slipping out of your eyesight and down your body, his arms wrapping under your thighs as he situated himself between your legs, letting out a shaky breath as he lapped at his lips and stared lustfully at your centre. You felt drunk on his touch, everything in your world seeming hazy and blurry as he pressed kisses up along the inside of your thighs, his teeth dragging against the soft skin, and you felt your breath hold in your lungs as he came to the apex of your thighs. That second-long pause felt like it dragged on for hours, before his tongue was finally dragging slowly along your core, a trail from your entrance to your clit, and a loud moan tore from you at the feeling of his mouth on you.

His lips sealed around your clit, sucking harshly, and your back arched up from the bed as he barely did anything, and yet pleasure was already spiking along your entire body. He dragged his tongue, flat and warm, over the bud and made sure that he moved as slowly as possible, teasing you endlessly, despite how much you wanted more. You wanted to remember this moment and make the most of it, but you couldn't think about anything but the pure bliss Stiles was giving to you, the way he was drinking up every drop of arousal you made, the way he was sucking and nibbling at your core in a most delectable way that had a heat curling in your belly and your body somewhere between relaxed and tense.

Once he was satisfied that he had licked up everything you had already given, his mouth closed over you, the tip of his tongue poking and prodding at your entrance and teasing the hole, before dipping his tongue into you, and he groaned out as his mouth was flooded with more waves of your juices. You clenched around the wet muscle eagerly, feeling the way your own body was reacting to him like you never had with anyone else, and your hips rocked up into his face, rolling in repeated motions to meet the thrusts of his tongue in and out of you.

“Fuck, Stiles!”

His chuckle was muffled against your core, the feeling of it vibrating along you body though, and the upturned tip of his cute little nose was once again you downfall, though now instead of being due to making your heart race, it was instead form the way it was nudging against the throbbing bud nestled between your legs, and you felt the nerves in you body zapping and jolting with electricity each time he tilted his head or dove into you even deeper than he already was.

His fingers were digging into your thighs, holding you close to him as you cried out his name, and he was moaning into your centre with each flick of his tongue and drag of his lips against your dripping cunt, slurping sounds that would make a pornstar blush, and you brought up a shaky hand to thread into his hair, tugging on the chocolate locks in warning. You felt the heat overwhelm you, your body tensing and back arching up until it was no longer on the bed and your legs clamping around his head as you came, his name leaving your lips as a sob when he bit down on your clit just enough to spur on your orgasm with a little more power.

Your body was shaking and muscles cramping up, your skin shining with a sheen of sweat and he continued to greedily lap at your hole until you were oversensitive and pushing him away prying your own legs open to release him, and when he popped back into your line of sight, he was wearing own of the cockiest looks you had ever seen on him. His cheeks and chin were shining, and his lips were swollen, hair messy from where your fingers were tangled in the strands and he kissed his way back up your body, smearing your sin with your own fluids, and taking his time in making sure he had kissed and licked at every bit of skin, until his mouth was moving across your cheek and back to your lips.

“You tasted so fucking good, you want to try?” His words were deep, and seductive, and his voice was raspier than you had ever heard it, even in the mornings when the two of you had fallen asleep slumped against one another on the couch after marathoning a new TV show. You found yourself nodding before you even really processed the words, and he beamed down at you with a filthy smile, his thumb pulling your bottom lip down and opening your mouth just enough for his tongue to slither out and play with yours when his lips slanted across your own.

It was a taste you weren’t used to, foreign in your mouth and unexpected and yet it was just a little sweet, like he had said. It was mixed with the taste of him, one which you much preferred but at this point every inhibition you had was thrown out of the window because right now you were drowning in the way his lips played with your own, his lips tempting yours into the interaction alongside his. For a few minutes, you just lay there, your fingers weaved into his hair as you made out, lazy and messy and hot in a way you couldn't even begin to explain, but each kiss left you breathless and craving more, and each flittering touch of his hands along your body as he moved them, dragging them over every limb and expanse of skin, had your body setting alight once again.

“How do you feel?”

“I feel fucking incredible.” You smiled up at him dopily, and he laughed down at you, the moment so incredibly intimate that you felt like your heart was swelling up, and his finger tapped the tip of your nose, before brushing over your kiss-bitten and pouted lips, letting you kiss the pad of his finger.

“Yeah? That’s good, I like this. Us. I like us being like this, it sorta’ feels like one of those lazy Sunday mornings. Don’t you think?” Your arms wrapped around his neck, and you pulled up your legs to clamp around his hips, humming thoughtfully as you considered his words.

“I do, but-” you paused in your words, flipping the two of you over, and he let out a sound of sunrise and shock, before he was staring up at you in awe and swallowing thickly as he found himself on his back, watching your tits bounce above him as you leaned down, hair framing your face and lips barely touching his. “-if this was a lazy Sunday morning, you definitely wouldn't be wearing jeans, and I would be able to ride you a lot easier.”

To emphasise your point, your rocked your hips down into him gently, your eyes rolling a little and eyes fluttering shut as the denim he wore grazed against your sensitive core, a wet patch being left over the bulge of his jeans, the two of you watching between your bodies as trails of slick leaked from you, covering the front of his pants each time you rose up and pushed back down into his covered erection. “You are everything wet dreams are made of.”

His words were groaned out, his hands coming down between your bodies, and he rose his legs behind you, bumping you up just high enough that when his hips lifted from the bed with you sat in his lap, he was able to push his jeans and boxers down to his mid-thighs. His cock was pulsing with need, skin hot and flushed and dripping with precum, both of you letting out squeaky and broken sounds of satisfaction when his cock rubbed against your folds.

Grinding down onto him, his legs fell flat, both of you far too needy for a connection to even undress him properly, and you sat up, hands splayed over his chest for leverage and knees digging into the mattress on either side of his hips, giving you the leverage you needed to be able to rock your hips into him.

The head of his cock pushed against your neglected bead each time, his cock and thighs shining with your arousal as you pleased yourself, whimpering at each strangled noise he let out as his hands clenched by his sides, chest rising and falling under your palms as your dragged your pussy up and down his cock, feeling him nudge against your hole each time, but you were enjoying the build-up a little too much, and you could tell he was too, from the way his face was scrunched up in pleasure and the way his lips were parted to let out short breaths.

“Please, princess. I need to be inside you, I have been wishing for this moment for almost a year, don’t make me wait any longer.”

You nodded, lifting yourself up as he quickly took himself within his hand, pumping himself easily with all the slick on his skin, before he was lining himself up, his eyes finding yours and his other hand finding your jaw, bringing your lips down to meet his in a tender kiss as he felt you sink down onto his cock, gasping against your mouth and nibbling on your lower lip as you took him into your warmth, inch by inch until he was fully sheathed within you.

He let out a long and shuddering breath when your hips met his, your walls clamping around him and flexing experimentally, and he wiggled happily, his whole body deflating as a look of ecstasy and joy took him over. “Holy fuck, you feel incredible.”

You rolled your hips back, circling them slowly as you adjusted to his size, and you felt the breath knocked from your lungs as he dragged against every inch of your walls slowly. There was no barrier between you, and your forehead dropped down to press against his as you experimented with the swivels of your hips and the movements you made, trying to find a rhythm of what worked best for the both of you. His hands came up to your hips, holding on tightly and helping you move, and when his noises picked up in frequency and pitch at the same time that your own eyes rolled back and your skin erupted in goosebumps was when you knew you had found the best way to move.

You left a series of prolonged and loving kisses to his lips, feeling him lean up into it as best as possible, before your nails were digging into his skin scraping lightly as you moved yourself back to sitting up on his lap. He stretched you out, his generous girth and length filling you to the brim, and he was tapping against spots you didn’t even know you had, bringing you more pleasure than you could possibly have imagined, and you clenched around him tightly and rolled the muscles in your stomach. “Oh, God! Don’t do that unless you want me to cum in like thirty seconds, because that was fucking incredible, but I won’t last if you do.”

His words were wheezed out and you smirked, repeating the action and watching the way he writhed and squirmed underneath you, and he shot you a mock glare, pinching at your thighs and making you jump in a way that brought both of you a little jolt of electricity.

“You are a hazard to my fucking health, princess.”

A needy noise left you at the pet name, and you began to bob up and down on his shaft, throwing you head back as you took what you wanted, the feeling of another climax buildings as creeping through your veins and making your vision flash with spots as your eyes rolled, and your lips were drying with each quick pant you took for breath. The angle changed when he pushed himself up onto his hands, and a cry left you, your legs tightening around him as he pushed against a certain spot.

“There?”

“Right there, Stiles! Fuck, please!” Your hands were in his hair, his lips on your tits and teeth grazing your skin as he tried to buck up to meet your movements, and you only sped up more and more as you found yourself becoming comfortable in your motions. The room seemed to fade away, nothing mattered between the two of you except the way his hands felt on your body and the way his cock felt every time it slid out of you almost entirely, before you were slamming yourself back or him and crying out his name.

His own mumbles of praise and arousal were spurring you on, your body feeling like it was on cloud nine, and you no longer felt intoxicated on anything except the feeling of his body underneath you, the way he looked at you lighting you up and the way he kissed you making you feel like nothing would ever matter again. Stiles meant everything, he was made for you, and you could feel from the way the pair of you fit so well together that nothing would ever matter again, as long as you had him and he had you.

Your muscles were growing tired, your knees aching thighs screaming out, but your climax was so close that you could barely even speak sentences now, nothing but his name and your begs for more, and you could feel him twitching and leaking precum within you as he neared his peak. He fell back until he was laying down again, his legs still popped up behind you and you followed after him, a hand on either side of his head as his thrusts into you became easier for him, your jaw slack and tears lining your eyes as pure pleasure overtook you.

He picked up his pace, chasing his own high as well as yours frantically and the press of your chest to his, the feel of the short hairs at his base tickling against your overstimulated clit was enough to completely drive you into bliss. He was pounding into you, never letting up as he kissed your through your climax, feeling you scream out into his mouth as he muffled your sounds and made sure to fuck you through until you could no longer take it. You were scratching at his chest, shaking as everything all when into hyperdrive, feeling like you were floating as he flipped you over, holding your legs up and open as he desperately fucked into your abused hole, wetness on your cheeks as a third orgasm built, straight off of the second one and it all became too much.

His fingers on your clit, his mouth on your chest, his cock stretching you out wide and dragging against your rim with each deep and penetrating thrust, and your fingers tangled in the bedsheets as you thrashed happily under him. Nothing had ever felt this good, no orgasm you’d ever had with anyone else or alone, nothing you had even imagined, and every nerve within you was sparking and crackling with energy as you finally exploded for a third and final time.

You clenched around him so hard that you dragged him over the edge with you, his body collapsing down onto you as he went entirely boneless, spasming atop you as the two of you pressed together and rolled through your peaks. Spurts of hot and thick cum filled you up in ropes, spattering against your walls and filling you up, so much so that each time he shafted you could feel him leaking out of you and dripping down into the bedsheets below, and he pressed multiple soft and chaste kisses to the skin that he could reach, before letting out a deep and satisfied groan.

“Oh, my God. That was the best sex I’ve ever fucking had.” He was crushing you, but you still managed to let out a small giggle underneath him, before he was rolling himself off of you and pulling out, a relieved sigh on your lips as he did. “You’re incredible, absolutely amazing, the best. Just the best. Fuck, I can’t wait to do that again, and just be with you. This is going to be great, an-”

You pressed up to push your lips against his, and he let out a soft sound when you did, before his lips were curling up in a smile and he was kissing you back as best he could.

“You were rambling. You’re even more affectionate after sex.”

“Are you complaining?”

“No! God, no, I love it.” You rubbed the tip of your nose with his, before you were sitting up and grumbling at the protests your body made as you did. “I like it when you’re all clingy and needy, it makes me feel less weird about it when I do the same to you.”

“I like it when you get all touchy, and now I can really do something about it, because let me tell you, all those cute time that you’d come over and just want to cuddle me while I was cooking for us or when you’d hold my hand when we went shopping or lean into me when you’re tired? I wanted to kiss you so fucking badly, and now I can.” Long fingers brushed sweaty and matted hair out of your face, and he pressed his lips to your forehead, before standing up and shucking off the jeans that were still pooled around his calves, kicking off all the remnants of his clothing.

“I can’t wait, because a little secret would be that I wanted you to kiss me in all of those times, too.”

“Good to know, princess.” You hummed, accepting the hands he was holding out to you, and his eyes scanned along your naked form, swallowing thickly and averting his eyes when he caught sight of the mess leaking out of you. “We should get cleaned up, then you can have those cuddles I promised you.”

“Bath time, then a movie?”

“Sounds perfect to me.”

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the-knight-of-the-stars · 3 years ago

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Fictober Day 4: Arranged Marriage - Uma/Ben

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When Uma came down the stairs, and the scandalized crowd looked at her between whispers, she couldn't help feeling a lump in her throat, she froze for a moment. But she remembered the words she had said to her crew when she had left them behind, doubt and fear throbbing in her chest. "We will be free, whatever it takes."

So Uma took a breath and raised her head, taking pride in what she did, taking pride at this moment as she would have done in the face of a battle fought and won. Because that's what it was. It was a victorious night, of rejoicing. At least that was what Ben had told her when she had released him from his imprisonment and he had agreed to stay and talk. Until Mal had arrived to rescue him from a problem for which he had already found a way out, without the need for swords and blood, only with his words and his kindness.

From that moment Uma had realized how different Ben was from Mal, how powerful he could be despite being a mere human that at first glance did not seem to stand out in any way. He was good with words. Uma respected that quality, but at the same time, she feared it. The Island was full of silver tongue masters, and the sweetness of their mouths was always revealed as rotten lies.

But Ben had given her more than words, he had given her time, he had entrusted her with his life. Uma found herself surprised by the courage of this skinny and seemingly naive boy, who would rather die than commit a dishonorable act, rather than fail his people. The same could not be said of his father, who Uma knew, would never have deigned to set foot on the Island.

And much less, King Adam would never have returned a second time, without coercion, without backup, just him and his goodwill, to offer Uma the opportunity she had always asked for. The opportunity to change things. Returning to ask her to come by his hand to the land of the opulent and become one of the ladies of his court. Asking her to accept the political power he offered her so that the guilty would be punished and the innocent would be free.

But Uma hadn't really been able to believe his words until that moment. There, in shells and tulle dress, illuminated by the glow of the chandeliers, staring into the face of all the people she had waited all her life to face. And as she went downstairs, Uma realized that Ben and only Ben looked her in the eye, with respect, with dignity. So Uma dared to take his hand, relying on her own goodness, her own strength, daring to believe that happy endings existed even for people like her.

She dared to see the light beyond the horizon, she was tired of the dark. She had spent her life drowning in anger. Uma had grown up to take pride in calling herself a villain, in embracing all the darkness in her world and transforming it into her own power. She would be the villain if that's what it would take to get out of that prison to which she and her peers had been condemned. She would burn Auradon to the ground, bring the mighty to their knees if need be. Because even her anger wasn't enough. Because she could do better because she deserved better.

Uma was tired of anger, of hopelessness. So he took Ben's hand. And allowed herself to be young for one night, allowed herself to smile when he kissed her hand and announced her to everyone as his lady. She allowed herself to forget about Mal, about revenge, about the misery that had been her life. And she allowed herself to celebrate because while she accepted her place as one of the daughters of Atlantica in that court, the royal knights were ordered to prepare the new royal decree: Liberty, for all the villain kids, all the children of the Island.

The decree, stamped with the king's ring, signed in his own handwriting, was carried to its dusty glass case outside the castle, displayed for Auradon to know as soon as the sun rose. And the councilors would protest, and the nobles would try to stop it, and the old kings would refuse to allow it. This fight was not over yet, but there was no going back. The decree had been issued, there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

So Uma danced to the beat of the violins, looking into Ben's eyes, her heart moved, recognizing in the boy the same longing for happiness, for greatness, to do whatever was necessary. The same stolen youth, the same tired struggle. And she realized that he too had spent his life waiting for someone to take the necessary step to change things. Uma recognized him, and it was like seeing herself in a mirror.

And when the day came the obstacles came, and they could feel that something in the world had already changed. And they had changed it. The static shock of the people, the scandal of the nobles. People who came screaming and protesting to the boardroom, where Ben had to shut himself up to calm things down for hours. And Uma had to restrain herself, listening behind the door, not to enter to strangle the arrogant councilors who called the inhabitants of the Island hopelessly ignorant villains.

The ancient King Adam, in particular, found no graces in the decree. He saw it as a challenge. For him, for his kingdom, for everything he had built. But it didn't take long for him to realize that manipulative words and half-truths no longer had an effect on Ben, now he was out of their reach. He had underestimated the true power of his son. And now, face to face with his mistake, he wanted to find an alternative. After all, he was not the type to give up power so easily.

He knew his own vague and pliable laws, he had made them that way, and now he planned again to use them to his advantage. If Uma, the instigator of this ridiculous mission, turned into a lady, he would make sure to see a benefit. And it was not difficult to find it, after all, the girl had only achieved it thanks to her ancestry. Triton's court.

By the time the second dawn arrived, King Triton had already been summoned to answer for his niece, and at the instigation of King Adam, he arrived with a stern hand. As part of his court, Uma now had to answer to him.

And so she did, with her head held high, while bearing the gaze of the King of the Seas, and holding her ground, defending her position as she had done all her life. But Triton, in his already known intolerance, called her to answer for her mother's crimes. Thanks to Adam's advice, now he could do it within the fuzzy limits of Auradon's law. His plan to bring order seemed perfect.

But Adam, in his human arrogance, had forgotten that even the great Triton must respond to a greater power.

Uma was ready to break free and return to the fight when the sirens arrived to chain and condemn her. And Ben was ready to let her do it, even if it cost him his throne. But they did not even get the chance. Triton retracted, to the surprise of those present, much to Adam's disbelief, who saw his strongest ally bow his head and solemnly proclaim that the matter was beyond his power. And then he understood.

Olympus had taken matters into their own hands.

The Great Lord of the Seas, Poseidon himself, had ordered to have Uma under his wing, recognizing in her the anger and power that all his other granddaughters and grandsons lacked, the strength forged by metal and blood. A worthy heir to the gods. Poseidon looked at the earth and saw that this kingdom was the least he could offer her, it was what she needed to rule like the mighty. Oh yes, The God of the Sea had plans for Uma, and there were nothing mortals could do at the will of a god.

Uma heard him call her from the waves of the sea, the echo of his great power manifesting itself in that invisible ghost, who stroked her hair and offered her power over human affairs if she agreed to become the queen of Auradon and leave the name of the sea forever embodied in the history of the kingdom. In his own words, the perfect union between men and gods. This was how the world had to change, that was his command.

Ben heard it from other ears and realized that he also had no power in the matter, after all, he had always known that his marriage was hardly a matter of the heart. He couldn't risk his people to the fury of the gods, he had no choice. Ben had given up the right to choose love when he had put on the crown. Now more than ever he understood that.

There was no need for Uma to say a word when they finally sat down to talk. It was only enough to see her in the eyes to know that she carried a similar duty on her shoulders. They had been born with power and had decided to use it. Now they had to bear the consequences. Uma looked at Ben, understanding and resigned, and remembered that hope was not yet over. She could still do it. They could still do it. No more fighting, no more bloodshed.

"We will be free, whatever it takes"

#buma #ben x uma #uma x ben #uma daughter of ursula #uma descendants #ben florian #king ben

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emikadreams · 3 years ago

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The Lord and the Lady

A/N: IT'S HERE FOLKS!! I hope you enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think💕 once again I highly recommend listening to this(I killed the bitch) playlist while you read this fic. song recs are always welcome! Hope you enjoy this fic...

INCYMI: PROLOGUE

Chapter 1: THE LADY HAS ARRIVED

The wolves were howling, for their lady had come home.

The sun was shining with renewed vigour, the cherry blossoms filled the air with their fragrance and the people rejoiced and welcomed Feyre with open arms.

The high lady was revered and loved by her people and by the Mother herself, she was Feyre, Cauldron blessed after all, after three years of denying herself her land, her birthright, her power she found herself again and accepted every fibre of her being. She breathed in the smell of her home deep into her lungs and sighed in contentment.

She was safe-she was free.

She welcomed the sweet pleasure of liberation and smiled as her people roared her name from the moment she set foot in her court. She stood with her spine straight and head held high as her bloody clothes stood in stark contrast to her serene court. With her tattered dress blowing in the wind she walked into her home, a throng of people had gathered behind her. They followed their high lady, with unrestrained happiness. She passed merry children, stunned citizens, and busy marketplaces before walking into the garden where she came into her power.

In the heart of her court, her throne was placed on a raised podium,and her people had lovingly painted it with a myriad of colours when she was crowned as the High lady. The swirls of colour depicted her artistic soul and her childlike wonder that she thought was long gone. She skillfully conjured up stairs of darkness and stood at the bottom of the podium and said with a voice that resonated through the bones of every being in her court ,

“ I’m home.”

She outstretched her hands and her dirty, torn clothes transformed into her training leathers and a mantle adorned her shoulders. Her hair was left unbound and cascaded down to her waist.The blood, dust and grime disappeared from her body and she smiled without restraint, her happiness made the sun glow brighter, the flowers continued to blossom over the horizon, wolves howled in pride, and a chorus of thunderous applause followed. Her general, Nesta Archeron, walked up to her with a crown in hand. Nesta held her hand before whispering, “Welcome home Fey.” Feyre could see Nesta was trying not to cry, she swallowed a lump in her throat and nodded, her eyes conveying everything she felt when words continued to fail her. Nesta’s eyes softened and she hugged her sister tightly.

Her spymaster, Elain Archeron floated up to them and joined the hug, “We missed you, Fey. We were beyond miserable without you.” Even though Elain’s voice was muffled, Feyre heard her loud and clear. They pulled out of the hug and Feyre saw tears lining Elain’s eyes but she blinked them back and smiled.

The Archeron sisters were whole yet again.

The three sisters stood close, their hands linked together with Feyre in the center. The sisters flanked her on either side, forming a formidable wall of power. They were a force to be reckoned with and the world now knew that the Archerons were not be messed with. The sisters were hesitant to let go of each other but they knew what had to be done first. Nesta placed the crown on Feyre’s head and every inch of her sighed with relief at the rightness of it, Elain placed the sword of Astraeus in her hands and nodded towards Feyre.

Feyre held the sword and ascended the stairs towards her throne. Once she reached the top she placed the sword on the engraved slot along the spine of the throne, instantly illuminating it. Gasps of awe and surprise erupted from the court which only increased in tempo as vines of light and darkness snaked down the throne. The garden was at once filled with stars and mist that emanated from deep within her, she sat on her throne and Nesta, shouted on top of her lungs,

“Long live, High Lady Feyre Archeron.” her voice was laced with pride,

Her people echoed the sentiment and bowed.

Feyre smiled and rested her hands on her throne, relishing in the feel of it. Every part of the court was hers, she had betrayed, manipulated, bled and killed, for this throne. She owned every inch of it and she reveled in the knowledge.

She scraped a nail along the inscriptions etched on the hand-rest as the mist behind her throne took the shape of large wolves that placed themselves on either side of her. They bowed their heads, welcoming her back into the pack and resumed their role as the protectors of the High Lady. The chorus of her name continued and she let them rejoice, feeling a sense of peace wash over her. After she decided that she had received enough attention to last a life time, she walked down the stairs and stood amongst her people, cleared her throat and the garden fell silent, her people turned attentive, “So, what have I missed.”

The garden erupted into chaos and thus began the court’s one week revel, Solely for praising the High Lady of the Dusk court and filling her in on what had happened while she was away.

A week went by and Feyre had the eerie sense that trouble would be finding her soon. She walked the halls of her estate like a ghost and carried on with her duties but she couldn’t shake the feeling that her picture perfect world would come crumbling down any moment. Later that evening as she was holding court with her sisters and her emissary, her suspicions were proven correct and her life was upturned yet again.

“Why wasn’t I aware of the fact that our borders were infiltrated!” Feyre snarled in anger at Pari, the emissary to her court who had let this crucial detail slip from her tongue. She looked around the room nervously, earning a glare from Nesta and sigh from Elain. Pari stood rooted to the spot with fear as Feyre shook with barely restrained anger.

Feyre was furious, her grip on her power slackened, the chandeliers started shaking and the mountains trembled in the distance.

“Feyre,” Nesta said cautiously , “You were preoccupied,” Nesta raised an eyebrow and shrugged nonchalantly, besides we handled it.”

“That doesn’t give you free rein to keep me in the dark about the comings and goings of my court!” Feyre snapped. She started pacing the length of her room, while the room fell silent. Nesta turned her attention back to polishing her knives and Elain returned to reading her reports, both content on letting their sister sort her thoughts out. Seeing that the spotlight was no longer on her, Pari took this as an opportunity to all but run out of the room. The gears in Feyre’s mind were turning, multiple plans already taking root. She paused in her furious pacing as an idea took shape.

“How did they get past our shields?” she asked Elain.

“Apparently, they found a weak spot.” she replied from her spot on Feyre's bed without raising her head from her reports.

“That’s not possible.” Feyre whispered to herself but her thoughts were interrupted when Nesta cleared her throat, dragging her attention towards her eldest sister.

“ I have an idea that can help us fully understand how our borders were breached but you won’t like it,” Nesta grinned. Feyre rolled her eyes and sketched a bow,” Humor me.”

Nesta’s grin grew wider, “ It requires talking to a certain violet-eyed High Lord.”

Feyre paled at the mention of the High Lord of Night, she started shaking her head, “No way. No fucking way!”

Elain sighed in exasperation and Nesta grinned at her sisters, “Time to meet the almighty Lord of Night, dear sisters.”

Feyre groaned in frustration,“Well, Fuck me!”

“I’d be happy too but maybe later, darling” a smooth voice cut her off. The Lord of the Night and his entourage sauntered into her bedroom and bowed while Rhysand stared her down.

Nesta brushed mental claws against the adamant shield to Feyre’s mind, she opened a sliver and let her in, Feyre’s exhaustion, anger and surprise enveloped Nesta like smoke as she spoke to Feyre in her mind “ We had to speak with him so we arranged a meeting a week ago when we finally got word that you would be coming home, so, surprise?”

Feyre wished for a hole to open in the ground and swallow her whole as she straightened her spine and lifted her chin and regarded the infamous High Lord.

The two stared at each other as if they were the only two souls in the galaxy, stars winked to life in Rhysand’s eyes and Feyre felt a shiver of excitement snake down her spine.

“This is not going to end well.” Elain mumbled and Nesta hummed in agreement and got up to leave but Feyre glared at both of her sisters rooting them to their spots. She tilted her head as if to say that they got her into this mess, so they were going to burn with her. They sighed but drifted to her side, her General stood to her left while her spymaster was to her right. Rhysand’s entourage grinned toothily and Feyre’s sisters snarled in defiance.

Everyone in the room sucked in a breath as the High Lady of Dusk and the High Lord of Night spoke.

“Rhysand”

“Feyre darling.”

“Oh mother have mercy,” Feyre thought to herself as two of the most powerful faes in Prythian regarded each other with apprehension.

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snarkywrites · 4 years ago

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December Horoscopes: Game Changer

We have made it to the last round of 2020, a time to put everything that was learned to the test because Saturn is about to exit Capricorn and enter its two year transit in the sign of Aquarius. For many of us, 2020 has been a tough year and we have been put through trials with all of these transits. Now as we get closer to the end, we are deep into eclipse season in the signs of Gemini and Sagittarius, the beginning of more eclipses to come with this Mutable duo. The month begins with the Lunar Eclipse in Gemini from November 30th, impacting us for the next several weeks (or months). The Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius on the 14th will have us all wanting to pursue some spiritual topics. We will be in touch with our higher mind and be motivated to learn. Sagittarius is the teacher for some and philosopher to others. It can be a jester at heart, but it is a sign that is inclined to pursue the realm of philosophy. Expect a month of reflection, even when Venus enters Sagittarius on the 15th. What we value will be analyzed as well as how we view our own self-worth. On the 17th, Saturn leaves Capricorn and begins its reign in Aquarius. Cardinal signs will rejoice while Fixed signs prepare. Things get slightly more interesting when Jupiter enters Aquarius on the 19th and both planets will conjoin on the 21st. This conjunction is a transit filled with growth, optimism, and enthusiasm for succeeding; an excellent energy needed to enter the year 2021. The Sun enters Capricorn on the 21st as well, giving a serious tone to the end of the month. Everything will close out with the Full Moon in Cancer on the 29th. It will be an intense period, but it is appropriate to have the peaceful, nurturing and caring energy of the Moon in Cancer ready to bid adieu to this intense and challenging 2020.

Aries – As a Cardinal sign, you are most likely excited that we have made it this far. With Mercury moving into Sagittarius on December 1st, you are ready to let the world know just how you feel and with the energy of the Full Moon in Gemini still in play, there is no biting of the tongue for you. Remember not to be too blunt, even if you are in the right. This month is about patience. The Empress appears in your reading for the month, reminder to not be afraid to tap into that divine feminine energy that you might have neglected. This is a period of healing and devoting time to forgive yourself. The Solar Eclipse on the 14th in Sagittarius will leave you feeling quite inspired to pursue your goals and dreams. As a fellow fire sign, you resonate with the lessons here as you set off to plan what new things you feel like learning for the upcoming new year. Venus enters Sagittarius on the 15th, making you fall in love with ideas, education, and new philosophies. This is a spiritual energy that is all about bringing the peace with hints of optimism. On the 17th, Saturn leaves Capricorn and enters Aquarius, alleviating those tough times for you as you can now focus on transforming your personal connections and friendships for the next several years. Jupiter will also be changing signs on the 19th, allowing an easier flow when it comes to your view and general outlook. Finally, a major event will be the Full Moon in Cancer on the 29th. This is a time to meditate, focus on what is to come and bringing more harmony to the home. That Empress energy will follow you through the New Year.

Taurus – December will have you reflecting and analyzing your next steps. A lot will happen this month that will impact you for the next several years. One of the major shifts for Fixed signs is the transit of Saturn and Jupiter both entering Aquarius on the 17th and 19th. As a Fixed sign, this upcoming Saturn transit will be one that will help you evolve. With Uranus already in your sign, you are in for a lot of changes that lie ahead for the next several years. The Solar eclipse on the 14th is going to set the tone for what you will be focused on in the next few years. Your work ethic will be tested but this will not be stopping you as long as you understand your limits. On the following day, the 15th, Venus enters the sign of Sagittarius also moving your focus on self-care and changes in your health routine. 2021 will have you driven and in top shape. On the 20th and 21st, Mercury and the Sun enter the sign of Capricorn, which is an enlightening transit for you as you prepare to take a course you have been interested in or learn more about subjects in school. Either way, you are in it for some growth and understanding. In December, you are The Star, a very Aquarian card that can also relate to the changes currently happening to your sign. All your work and effort will be taken into account. Things might be shifting quickly but you should just take things as slow and steady and remember to breathe in when things are beyond your control.

Gemini – Geminis will be in awe as the Full Moon eclipse on the 30th of November does some numbers on your sign. This is not a bad thing; eclipse season is transformative and enlightening. It can even feel spiritual during this season, especially with Mercury entering Sagittarius on the 1st. It is a time of introspection and analysis for you. Letting for of the past will also be in your plans. You are seeing the opportunities that are presented in your horizon, especially when the Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius happens on the 14th and Venus enters the same sign on the 15th. Lots of potential and growth, lots of romance and exploration. This is a month that will surely keep you on your toes. Saturn and Jupiter change signs on the 17th and 19th. Another major moment as you see fellow Air Signs taking the helm now with this major transit. This period is going to make you question your beliefs, ambitions, and goals. It is a challenge, but it will be worth it as you set your sights for greater things once it is over. Six of Pentacles appears in your reading, a sign you will be imparting some valuable pieces of knowledge to those around you. Sagittarius season will be a time for learning and discoveries, so it is only fair you share your wisdom with others.

Cancer – The King of Wands Reversed is in your reading for the month, a sign you need to keep your eyes on the prize. The last two years have probably worn you down, but you have grown and felt more empowered by it, like your other fellow Cardinal signs. On the 30th of November, the Full Moon in Gemini will serve as a reminder that you need to recharge your batteries and if that didn’t settle in the first time, the Solar Eclipse on the 14th, in Sagittarius will be another reminder to take things easy and make changes to your habits. On the 17th and 19th, Saturn and Jupiter will finally leave the Cardinal grip and enter the Fixed sign Aquarius. You will probably be feeling the excitement around that time because these planets are no longer in Capricorn and they will not be in aspect to your sun, moon or rising. Your focus now will be on working through letting go of the past, but you have the mindset to continue to fight and succeed in what you set your sights on. Mercury and the Sun enter Capricorn on the 20th and 21st, making you feel more relationship focused on this time. You might want to reconnect with friends, an ex-lover or start a new romance. One transit that will keep you on your toes will be the Full Moon in your sign on the 29th. This will be a closing of a chapter that was probably initiated a few years back or earlier in the Summer. Either way, it is a reflective period where you will see how much you have changed and who you have become.

Leo – It is eclipse season and this upcoming one on the 14th in Sagittarius will be a beautiful one for you. It will be a time for reconnecting or initiating some new romances if you are single. On the 15th, magic will be in the air for you as Venus also enters the sign of Sagittarius and it would not hurt to have a little fun by either treating yourself or just doing Venus related things like a spa day or just resting. The King of Pentacles is your card for this month, in command and in control. Fixed signs will be looking forward to the 17th and 19th of December, as Saturn finally changes back into the sign of Aquarius. You have already experienced a bit of what Aquarius had in store for you back in the Spring. We will now be experiencing this transit full time until 2023, so expect the next couple of years to be very crucial for you. This is the evolutionary period for your fellow fixed signs. The Sun enters Capricorn on the 21st, a time that will briefly echo the Saturn in Capricorn transit. You will be focused on work and taking care of yourself and might even think back to what you have gone through in the last few years. The nostalgic period is amplified when the Full Moon in Cancer graces us on the 29th of December. A perfect way to close the year with this beautiful water sign, giving us a calming peaceful energy that is needed as we enter the new year.

Virgo – With the Page of Cups as your card for the month, you are entering an exciting phase. Saturn in Capricorn has brought things down a bit for you when it comes to your romantic life. If you are single, this will be the time where you can start to meet new people. Saturn and Jupiter move into Aquarius on the 17th and 19th and will meet up for an epic conjunction on the 21st the same day the Sun enters Capricorn. You might feel starry eyed and ready to take the plunge because everything will be rosy colored for you now that you are free from the ties of Saturn in Capricorn. The Solar Eclipse on the 14th will be pivotal for you, as you will experience changes in your immediate environment as well as school or work. No need to be afraid, changes are needed to help us evolve into our next kick ass form. The last year has been a challenge for everyone and you have worked through it all with patience that has made you stand out to those in charge. Keep up the good work. If you have slacked, this will be a good time to redeem yourself. Overall, the month is filled with many opportunities for work and success especially now that Saturn will be in Aquarius. On the 29th, the Full Moon in Cancer will bring you a happy vibe as you can spend time with friends and family over zoom or if you are already living with them, you can experience a joyful time together this holiday season.

Libra – The Full Moon in Gemini on November 30th will be a doozy for you and fellow air signs. You can feel the changes in the air as we all get ready for the big planet Saturn, to move into new waters. With Justice Reversed as your card for the month, you are ready to experience those karmic conclusions and this Full Moon will be eye opening for you. The Solar eclipse on the 14th will make you more communicative, allowing you to reach out to people and being in your chatty element. This is a great time for creatives to set new goals and begin some fun projects for the next six months. On the 15th, Venus enters the sign of Sagittarius as well, giving you more of an imaginative boost, masked in romance. You will be able to charm anyone during this time. Major changes with Saturn and Jupiter will begin on the 17th and 19th when the giants change signs into Aquarius. You will be dancing with joy since things will no longer feel as stressful compared with the Capricorn transit. This can be a period where you might begin to feel a bit more relaxed. The Jupiter and Saturn conjunction on the 21st, will have you feeling emotional about the people and relationships in your life, in a good way. Expect to feel appreciative and just an overwhelming sense of content. The month ends with the Full Moon in Cancer, illuminating your career house and you will see the results of your efforts around this time.

Scorpio – A momentous time for you will be the Full Moon eclipse in the sign of Cancer on the 29th which will serve as an empowering time where you get ready to make choices that will transform you for the next several years. With the Knight of Cups in your reading for the month, it will be a time for lighthearted moments and romance. You are in a very relaxed state, even with the Full Moon Eclipse in the sign of Gemini on November 30th, making you wonder how to make more empowering moves that will benefit you financially. This energy follows through towards the next Full Moon transit at the end of the month. Mercury entering Sagittarius on the 1st has you thinking about making money moves and you will not be afraid to jump into terrain you were not accustomed to before when it comes to learning new things. The Solar eclipse on the 14th in Sagittarius will also provide that sense of empowerment as you set your intentions now for a more prosperous New Year. On the 15th, Venus enters the fire sign Sagittarius as well, boosting your confidence and making you carry that boss energy. The big shifts will happen on the 17th and 19th when Saturn and Jupiter enter Aquarius, respectively. This will affect your sign because these two planets are no longer in Cardinal but Fixed territory. Expect your shift in values and home for the next several years as Saturn will restructure everything around you.

Sagittarius – So close! You can feel Saturn slowly leaving the sign of Capricorn because you might have felt your finances suffering a bit. Good news is that Mercury will be entering your sign on the 1st, giving you the mental prowess to solve problems, be charming and stress people out with your words. Remember not to be too harsh and to practice a little diplomacy. Luckily, Venus enters your sign on the 15th, adding that charm and passion into your demeanor, making your words feel like honey. The Five of Cups appears in your reading, showing that you need to stop being a downer and focus on the good times. Of course, you would never let others see just how much anxiety you can have since you give off the nonchalant vibes. This New Moon Eclipse on the 14th continues your evolutionary stage, so chill out and do not let that Full Moon in Gemini keep you nervous, just continue to focus and handle your business. On the 17th, Saturn enters Aquarius, and you might feel a sigh of relief. Your focus now for the next couple of years will change to other things pertaining more to communication and not your wallet. Jupiter will be in Aquarius on the 19th, initiating a very enlightening period for you, as you will most likely tap into your higher mind and spiritual pursuits for most of 2021. You will be right in your element.

Capricorn – This is a huge month for you since we enter your birthday season. Your ruler will also be leaving your sign later this month. It begins with Mercury in Sagittarius on the 1st, an interesting counterpart to the Full Moon in Gemini on the 30th. The themes with these two revolve around you taking care of yourself if you have been neglecting it. With the Five of Swords as your card for the month, you might feel drained by conflict, so this would be the perfect time to focus on creating peace and practicing diplomacy. Saturn enters the sign of Aquarius on the 17th, a time where the pressure starts to slowly leave you. Now you can focus more on restructuring yourself atter this Saturn transit in your sign for the last several years. On the 20th, Mercury enters Capricorn, and you will be inspired and motivated to take charge with what you say and do. The Sun will also enter your sign the following day, reenergizing you after what might have felt like a brief slumber. Finally, the month closes with the Full Moon in Cancer on the 29th, where you will devote your energies to your partnerships and appreciating the people in your life who are there for you. Rest up and Happy December!

Aquarius – One of the major events this month will be Saturn entering your sign on the 17th and Jupiter will follow right behind it on the 19th. This month will be transformative for everyone and you will begin your new journey for the next few years. You already got a taste of what Saturn in your sign has to offer earlier in the year and now you get to experience it. Seeking answers, learning about yourself and finding some new philosophies will be major themes for your sign in the next few years as shown with the Page of Wands Reversed. You will have to search deep inside to learn and truly understand yourself. Luckily, Jupiter will provide some healing qualities for most of 2021. Other notable events this month for you will be the New Moon in Sagittarius on the 14th. This is another eclipse that will open your eyes on how you view the collective. Venus will also enter the sign of Sagittarius on the 15th, a time where you can feel extremely passionate for a cause or you might just want to fall in love. This holiday season will be packed with fun and notable moments that will make you appreciate the circle of friends you have. This eclipse will let you know who has your back and who does not.

Pisces – Your card for the month is the Six of Swords, depicting that this is a transitional phase for you as 2021 approaches. Saturn will now apply some pressure since it will be in your house of dreams and secrets for the next few years. 2021 will begin your period of patience and focus. This is a meditative and contemplative time and 2020 has strengthened you up just for this moment in time. The Full Moon in Gemini was on November 30th, but the energies will still be felt through this month. Topics pertaining to your home will pop up, you might feel inspired to make changes around your immediate environment by decorating and making some home improvement changes. On the 14th, the New Moon will be in the sign of Sagittarius and Venus also changes to Sagittarius on the 15th. During this time, all eyes will be on you, so make the best of it as you capture the attention of mentors, teachers and/or bosses. This can be a time where you receive praise for the work you have done so far. Something we have all been looking forward to is Saturn entering Aquarius once more on the 17th and Jupiter changing signs on the 19th. With Jupiter in Aquarius, you can feel a healing and spiritual vibe that will set the tone for 2021. Remember, you are ready for this, just before Saturn enters your sign in 2023. You should feel the excitement towards the end of the month with the Full Moon in Cancer, bringing some life to your house of creativity and adding depth and joy to the end of the year.

#Horoscopes #Astrology #Aries #Taurus #Gemini #Cancer #Leo #Virgo #Libra #Scorpio #Sagittarius #Capricorn #Aquarius #Pisces #Monthly Horoscopes #My text

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lastxviolet · 3 years ago

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Madripoor is for Lovers (Zemo x F!Reader) - Ch. 2

Summary: Y/N is a SWORD agent recruited to help Sam and Bucky track down Karli and the super-soldiers. When Helmut Zemo joins the team, he takes a special interest in her. The friendly union is wrought for disaster, but then things take a turn for the worst when Y/N is taken as collateral. Will Zemo keep her forever? Does she even want to escape? And what happened in Madripoor that made the whole thing so complicated?

Warnings: 18+ / eventual smut / kidnapping

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32878015/chapters/81589774

The plane completed its descent, jolting you awake and away from the dream of what happened next.

His hands inside your dress and the moment in the evening that stopped feeling like an act.

“We are here,” he confirmed, gripping your hand and leading you from the plane.

The air wasn’t cold anymore and smelled like spring. It was May in the states and DC had felt the same so it was possible that you were still in the northern hemisphere. The United States and Canada weren’t options for the criminal, neither was Germany.

Italy?

He spoke to the driver in German and although you recognized the words, you had no clue what they meant. A short drive later and the car stopped. He untied the blindfold and you took in the sight of a lone chateau at the end of a lavish driveway. He opened the door and motioned for you to follow.

“No gun,” you questioned, eyeing his relaxed demeanor.

He smiled. Although you were angry and the sun was too bright, you were glad to finally be able to see something again.

“Not necessary,” he nodded at the rolling hills around them. “Where would you run?”

You glared at him, letting him know that this was still against your will and that any familiarity you’d had, was gone.

“You’re very confident that I prefer your company over death,” you hissed, eyeing the wilderness.

“You’ve come with me this far.”

Your eyes met his. It was impossible to know what he was thinking beneath the stern exterior.

“You could’ve screamed for your comrades,” he shrugged.

“There was a gun aimed at my temple.”

“Or jumped out of the plane.”

Again, you glared at him. If looks could kill.

“This way,” he said, clearing his throat. “Please.”

You followed him, debating if you could make it to the car or even out of the compound before Zemo shot you or caught up.

The terrain was unfamiliar, and now you were in a foreign country, alone and uncounted for.

Zemo slowed and matched your snail’s pace, signaling that it was time to hurry up. You moved slower despite his hand on your back and he clicked his tongue. You made the journey last as long as possible until there was no choice but to cross the threshold.

“Your room is up the stairs and to the right,” he said, eyes on your face.

You stormed up the wooden stairs, making each groan with your anger.

“Dinner will be ready soon,” he called after you.

You slammed your door in response. The wall shook and you half hoped it’d bring the whole house down, taking you and Zemo with it.

An hour later, you entered the small and intimate dining room. A round table sat in a nook surrounded by windows, looking out onto the cliff-like drop below. You didn’t even glance at the food before you. There was only Zemo, and convincing him to let you go.

“Is your room to your liking?”

You scoffed. “My cell is fine, thank you.”

Unfortunately, your warden was fond of conflict, and difficult people. The words only seemed to intrigue him further. His eyes danced over your face, glancing down towards the exposed skin on your chest and then up to your lips.

“They say a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity,” he mused.

“I’m a pessimist because of intelligence,” you quoted.

His eyes twinkled again, he knew, as you did, that it came from an Italian philosopher. It was applicable but also, a guess.

He raised his glass towards you before finishing the quote. “But an optimist because of will.”

In true Zemo fashion, he neither confirmed nor denied your suspicion. You lifted your glass of red wine towards him with a scowl.

You ate in silence for a while, you, staring out the window, Zemo, eyeing you. You made it half an hour before the weight of his stare became unbearable.

“So what’s your game plan, with all this,” you asked, waving your fork to yourself and then to him and the house.

“Do not ask questions you already know the answer to,” he chided. “It is beneath you.”

“My life for your freedom.”

He sighed then, almost like he didn’t like that answer either. It was the right one, you both knew that but it looked like it pained him. Seeing that flicker of humanity hurt more than you wanted to admit. It'd be easier if the man beneath the mask wasn't real. It'd be easier if he'd been lying and there weren’t two versions of him. You wished that there wasn’t a charming and passionate man beneath the evil Baron facade, but there he was again.

“Prison is not an option for me,” he admitted, laying down his fork. “But I am sorry that it had to be you.”

You nodded and scoffed, rolling your eyes for good measure.

“I do hope to make you comfortable, in the meantime — ”

“Before you kill me,” you interrupted.

He clicked his tongue again and glared. It was the plan he orchestrated and yet, he didn’t seem to like it.

“I may not have to,” he corrected.

You laughed then, with little care for his strained expression. “Have you met the Dora Milage? They’ll go through whoever they need to, to avenge their king. They don’t know me nor do they care about me. You don’t have the winning hand that you think you do.”

“You are forgetting about your colleagues. They've lost one of their own. If not loyalty, then pride will make them come for you,” he corrected.

Again, you smiled at his miscalculation. “I’m a foot soldier, not an avenger; not a super soldier; not one of them.”

"There is no such thing as small people, only small — ”

“Great,” you bellowed. “More wisdom! Your riddles and literature are useless now. You should’ve spent more time studying negotiations while you were incarcerated. Why didn’t you take Bucky? Or Caps little assistant? The US would’ve been at your feet for them back. You could’ve gotten a pardon and a reward!”

“I have no need for a reward,” he spat.

Your chest was heaving, out of anger, out of nerves, but most of all because the man in front of you was once again, impenetrable.

“Or a pardon from the great United States,” he continued, almost in a whisper.

Your eyes snapped to his but he avoided your gaze. He swirled his wine and stared off into space before inspecting you again. Something was missing, something that didn’t make sense.

The glimmer of humanity returned, despite his best efforts to hide it.

He’d been the main orchestrator of his outbreak from jail. He had private homes, apartments, transportation, weapons, cars, everything. He could run forever but he didn’t need you to do it. How was this life any different than what it would be if he was free? He watched you come to the realization and winced as it clicked into place.

“Why am I here,” you whispered, squinting.

He was silent and looked back to the window.

“Zemo,” you whispered. “Look at me.”

Funny enough, he followed the order.

His lips moved in silence but words didn’t escape.

“Why did you choose me?”

He pursed his lips in exasperation. It was no secret that he liked having the upper hand but he’d shown you all his cards a moment ago. You wondered why he hadn’t bothered to lie.

“I chose you because they wouldn’t �� they won’t.”

He stood up and leaned against the sill, sipping wine in small swigs and staring out at the greenery.

“You would die for your country, Y/N,” he explained. “I find that admirable — heroic even but the problem, for me, is that they would let you.”

“Let me?” You repeated the phrase slowly, trying to understand the point.

He let out a huff. “If you caught a grenade in the name of bettering America, what would happen?”

You cocked your head in question. “I die? Maybe get a Purple Heart?”

“And then what? Would they bat an eye before rejoicing you — celebrating you and your sacrifice? Encouraging others to do the same in your name?” He paused and stared at you.

“No….no they wouldn’t because your death would mean that their wars are working. Another name in the long list of people that they were willing to gift to the god of war.”

“That sacrifice is what I signed up for — it’s my choice,” you explained, confused about where he was taking this.

He nodded and yet made no amends or clarification. The angry veins in his forehead receded and his gaze flitted away like he couldn’t bear to continue. You suddenly wondered if he'd even sent a ransom note, or whatever kidnappers do. The look in his eyes, told you no. The tone of his voice told you that he might not ever.

“Then you are doing your duty as a prisoner of war here, with me.”

He smiled and your anger dissipated. You lunged to grab onto any remaining frayed piece of it but there was nothing left. All those years of training and fighting, all to succumb to an evil man in a fitted turtleneck. You hardened your expression in an attempt to remain vexed.

“Your circumstance could be worse,” he concluded.

“And what of your circumstance?”

Silence ate up space between you. His gaze was set on you once again and then it seemed like you were the only two in this room, this home…the world.

“Better than it has been in a long time, schatzi,” he sighed.

“How so,” you asked, pushing for information.

He shrugged. “I am free and I am alone….with you.”

You winced and shook your head. “Don’t,” you whispered.

His brows furrowed. “In previous interactions, you did not seem to resent my…affections, Y/N.”

Butterflies ravaged your sternum, bringing memories of the night at Sharon’s with it. If it was different, if he had turned over a new leaf, then it would be easier to admit your feelings.

“Is this your version of affection? Holding me hostage?”

“Yes,” he breathed, coming to sit next to you, so close you thought he might touch you.

“Let’s not…talk about it,” you whispered, trying to push away the longing in your chest.

“I would like to,” he pushed.

All you could do was stare. The memories should've stayed in Madripoor. It should live in your brief collective drunk past. But you could see that it weighed on him as heavy as it did on you.

“That is fine,” he sighed. “I can talk if you will listen.”

You nodded once. The residual affections plagued you and it was impossible to keep your heartbeat at bay. The thought that he might feel the same was exhilarating and terrifying.

“It was you who assisted me with my escape plan. You who tracked Karli. You who guessed that I’d betray you on countless occasions. You who ensured that we evaded Captain America as long as we did. You who played your part so well that everyone in Madripoor thinks I have taken a wife.”

“Your point,” you hissed, deadpan.

“The super soldier solution does not increase intelligence, as you know. Nothing does. Even all the books in the world cannot alter what is already there. Either you are born with the glorious burden, or you live in ignorant bliss,” he explained.

He reached up and brushed his thumb along your forehead. “I know your burden, Y/N, because I share it.”

A stuttering breath left your chest. Compliments were the easiest forms of manipulation. You’d studied it, known it, resisted it in many years of training but this felt different. Everything he did and said, felt different.

“I do my job Zemo, that’s it.”

“You excel,” he corrected. “You make the rest of your colleagues look like newborns and yet they don’t...value you. Not like I do, Liebling.”

“If this is about the incident at Sharon’s,” you said, recognizing the nickname. “It was a mistake.”

He chuckled. “An optimist would call it a happy accident.”

“I’d call it life-ruining,” you said, trying to decipher the feelings of anger and something warm inside your chest. “If it led you to this.”

“I understand if you hate me,” he explained. “But you should know that living here with your hatred will be akin to breathing, for me, if it means you are safe. Natural and life-bringing.”

Your face gave nothing away but he’d stunned you.

“The evil baron is becoming less and less of a character.”

“They say hate itself is a version of love,” he mused, ignoring your words and staring at your lips.

The word knocked thought and common sense back into your head. This wasn’t love. This was ownership and selfishness. A myriad of terrible things that had tangled you both in this mess. It’d spurred from fascination and proximity but for love to grow, there has to be more. There has to be more good than bad. You looked around the home, owned by the man in front of you. Both beautiful, breathtaking even. But not enough to trade your freedom for.

“How convenient for someone with so many enemies,” you hissed.

His eyes squinted then and the Baron who commanded respect in Madripoor returned. There was this side of him too, you reminded yourself. And it seemed to be winning over the side who loved books and witty conversation.

“Are you my enemy, Y/N?”

For the first time, you didn’t know what to say. Before this, it wasn’t safe to call him anything other than an enemy but now? He ruined any chance of normalcy or redemption. The question lingered between you and it struck you how close he’d gotten. It would take almost nothing to start a repeat of the night at Sharon’s. But this was a different man.

“I didn’t have to be,” you breathed before breaking eye contact. You gave him no time to answer before fleeing back to your room.

#zemo smut #zemo fic #baron zemo fic #baron zemo x you #baron zemo x reader #baron zemo #helmut zemo x you #helmut zemo x reader #helmut zemo smut #zemo x you

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magicmanias · 4 years ago

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The Story of Creation

Episode 1 of Polaris

[per - uh - jee] (n). Astronomy. the point in the orbit of a heavenly body at which it is nearest to the earth.

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Summary: A fugitive out of time + interdimensional space travel + a love story. Always on the run, and while Loki might be able to escape the TVA, he always gravitates towards you. Not even bending the fabric of space and time itself can cut his heartstrings. Occurs after the events of Endgame. Replaces Loki mini-series timeline.

Warnings: Blood, Death, Mild Violence

Word Count: 3.0k

A/N: I'M BACK BABY! *cue sit-com cheers* I thought of this mess of a series, and I had to get back into writing, damn it. I hope you enjoy it! Feedback is always welcomed!

<- Previous | Next ->

He did not think this through.

The fallen god grasped at the ground beneath him. He’s covered in ash and the air around him burns and freezes. He smelled smoke and fire and then blood and flesh. He pushed himself up off the metal floor. “Where the hell am I?”

A weak moan alerted him, and to his left, he found a man in his final seconds. The dying man lifted his arm weakly; his fingers shook. He rasped out a last cry for help at his prince before his hand fell and his soul was sent to Valhalla. Loki knew that man. He sold Blåveis and wildflowers at the edge of the market when he was a child. Why was he here… dying a warrior’s death?

“Our crew is made up of Asgardian families.” A transmission. “We have very few soldiers here. This is not a warcraft. I repeat this is not a warcraft.” Asgardian? This ship certainly wasn’t Asgardian... Why was this man sending a mayday call?

“Hear me and rejoice…”

The bodies around him were all Asgardians. Soldiers and men laid lifeless in this iron room—on this ship that was not a warcraft. Surely Thor wouldn’t let this happen… Nor Odin. How did this happen?

He was no less confused when he heard his brother speaking on the other side of a large crack in the metal wall. On the level below him stood his brother trapped in steel and strange beings he’d never encountered. One was tall with a gauntlet of gold like the one Odin kept locked away in his vault. He was collecting Infinity Stones… Behind him was a thin and sinister figure. And another was… himself. With the tesseract. Like the one that was… where was it?

“Loki?” A woman watched him from behind a fallen support beam. In her hands was the Tesseract. Her lip curled downward and her brow wrinkled in confusion. “Why do you have this?”

“Who are you?” Alright, so she knew his name, and he clearly didn’t know her. Her clothes were not of Asgard. The dress was revealing and unfitted to her, the straps her too long, making the neckline only slip further. Even as she watched him carefully, she still absentmindedly pulled up the straps.

“Wha—”

A scream from below interrupted the woman. She ran to the edge of the room and peered through the wall. Loki could not see what was happening, but the horror in the woman’s eyes said enough.

“Oh Valhalla...” Her hand clamped over her mouth. Loki slowly approached the source of the screams before he heard his own voice.

“ALL RIGHT, STOP!!” The woman gasped and stepped back, turning to face him. Her eyes watered and her bottom lip trembled. She turned back to him.

“Who are you?” she demanded, though her voice wavered. “Are you one of them?”

Loki scoffed. “I haven’t the slightest ide—”

“Why do you look like him?” she cut him off. “You’re not Loki,” she insisted.

Loki chuckled nervously, but he flashed a charming smile and lifted his hands hoping to appear non-threatening. He started to approach her, trying to figure out a way to get the Tesseract back.

“Don’t come any closer! I will—use this!” she warned, holding the cube in between the two of them.

“Do you even know how to use that?”

“Um—well, do you?”

“I got here with that thing, didn’t I? Now give it back.” He stretched his hand out to her, but she didn’t move a muscle.

“No, I—”

Loki had enough. He wanted answers. Now. The woman gasped as he disappeared and reappeared in front of her in a flash of green, the cube now in his hand and her arm in his other. “Tell me where I am.”

She stared at his grip on her. “You’re not my Loki…” she inquired once more.

A daunting whir of hums and struggles came from the crack. The woman peered back at the scene below. Thor’s muffled cry filled the walls of the iron room, but it was the woman’s scream that shook Loki to his core. She fell to the floor and wailed and howled in agony. A weak “no” and soft pleas escaped her tears.

Loki glanced through the hole as the woman started to gulp air between her sobs. His lifeless body was strewn on the floor, and a purple haze shrouded his view of the scene below. Amethyst flames began to surround the ship. Metal and dead men were enveloped in the blaze. Loki never liked the heat…

It appeared that Loki’s time here… wherever he was, was about to come to an end. Blue light encased his fingertips and the cube materialized before him. A sharp choking sound clouded out Loki’s attempts to think of anywhere he could go—the woman.

“Shit…” Using his free arm, Loki pulled the woman up before she could protest. “This better work.” He lifted the Tesseract and prayed the silvery clouds encasing him and his new acquaintance would take him anywhere better than here.

Loki sat up covered in sand. Again, more heat. He was really starting to think this damned cube was more a curse than a blessing.

“Oh… ow…” The woman groaned and rubbed her puffy eyes. Squinting under the desert sun, she glanced around to view her surroundings before her eyes widened in realization. “Oh shit!” Her hands returned to the ground, burying themselves in the sand frantically.

She whipped around in a haze of anger and hysteria. “Take me back!” she screamed to him. “Take me back!”

“What the hell are you talking about!? That ship is gone—and I just saved your life!” Loki argued, but she wasn’t listening and continued to dig through the sand. Loki ignored her as he concealed the cube under his magic. He looked back up to see the woman still clawing at the sand. “Who are you?”

“Take… Take me back,” she begged, slowly giving up on the sand. “I have to go back.”

Loki watched the woman break into sobs once again. His grip on the dagger up his sleeve softened and his gaze relaxed. “Who are you?” he asked once more.

“Is this some cruel trick you played Loki? Because it’s horribly unfunny!”

“I assure you that I don’t have the slightest clue as to what you’re referring. That… Loki. He wasn’t me.” Where did this damn thing take him?

“I don’t believe you. You… Out of all the things you’ve done Loki. Lying, stealing, killing, faking your death. I’m… I can’t take it! You promised you wouldn’t—”

A flash of orange cut off the woman. The light shaped itself into a doorway above the dunes.

“What the hell—” Loki turned on his heel to face the orange portal in time to see four men step out two-by-two. Their tailored coats were labeled with “TVA” and Loki’s stomach immediately dropped. “Shit.”

One of the men in the back handed the forefront man a clipboard from which he read off, “Mister Laufeyson and… friend. The TVA requests your presence at headquarters. You are under arrest for meddling in with the fabric of space-time. Please be compliant and come with us. Your friend can come if she’d like.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Loki insisted. “If you don’t mind, I would hate to have all this trouble I’ve been through go to waste. Thank you. Bye!” Just as he was about to pull out the Tesseract, one of the men suddenly appeared in front of him and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Loki threw a dagger at the man, hitting him square in the chest. The man merely looked down at the weapon, no change in his expression. He grabbed onto the handle of the dagger and pulled it out. No blood, the wound already healed.

“Please comply, Mister Laufeyson. The TVA expects your arrival,” he said.

“I don’t think so.” Loki revealed the Tesseract with his magic, praying it would take him somewhere good for once. But as soon as he took it out, the handcuffs were tightened on his wrist. The emotionless man repeated his request for compliance.

The other men move then, making their way to the woman. She stands slowly and silently allows them to escort her to the portal. She refuses to meet Loki’s eyes as they both walk defeated to the portal.

“So he’s really not lying then,” she said quietly. Her hands dug into her skirts. Her hair covered half of her face, but anyone could make out the tears that lined her cheeks.

“No, I’m afraid not, Miss,” Mobius answered. “I regret to say your actual husband is gone.”

She pushed the desk and her metal chair screeched on the linoleum floor. Loki didn’t look up from his hands planted on his tan prisoner uniform pants as he listened to her distant footsteps and the sound of a closing door. He tugged at the cuffs on his wrists. He could feel the magic dampened in his veins. The muscles in his forearms felt dull.

“Loki,” Mobius started. “As you can see, the warrant for your arrest specifies that we will have to prosecute you. You’ve broken several laws, violating the guidelines of linear time travel as well as interdimensional voyaging. While our agents are currently fixing the mess you made, including sending that lovely woman back to Earth-200000, you will, of course, have to be sent back to Earth-199999 so that the course of events and play as they were supposed—”

“You’re going to kill her.”

“Excuse me?”

The door kicked open again. Another agent in a clean suit marched in with a glass plate in hand with a sandwich laying on top. He placed the sandwich on the desk and left as quickly as he came in. “The woman. There’s nothing to send her back to. The ship she was on was destroyed before I saved her. You’re not sending her back. You’re going to kill her.”

Mobius leaned forward on his desk, clasping his hands. “We’re simply sending her back straight back to the time and place she left. If that happens to lead to her death, so be it. That’s her fate.” He paused to rest his head on his hands. “What do you care anyway? You don’t know her.

Loki hesitates to answer. No, he didn’t know her, but… he can’t stop thinking about how she reacted when… he died. The he that she married. Devoted herself to. She looked… dead inside. Hollow. Did she feel as he did when he fell from the Rainbow Bridge all those years ago? Was he looking at her the way Thor did when he let go?

“Are you going to eat that by the way?” Mobius pointed to the sandwich. “That’s technically for you, but I skipped lunch.” He didn’t wait for Loki’s answer before bending over the desk and taking the sandwich before taking a large bite out of the corner. Loki leaned back in his seat.

“If she was my wife in another dimension, I can’t help but be curious. Perhaps I’d enjoy her company.” Loki tilted his head. The gears turned in his head. He needed to figure out a way to escape. The TVA took the Tesseract from him, and he wasn’t keen on making an exit in prisoner attire.

“I didn’t know you had a thing for widows.”

“Well, I can’t say it’s never crossed my mind,” Loki smirked.

Mobius chuckled and took another bite of the sandwich. “Sadly, we’ll never know how that would work out. An agent will escort you to your holding cell until further notice.” An agent waited for Loki to stand and directed him towards the exit. “Oh, and thank you for your compliance.”

The TVA looked awfully like Midgard, perhaps from some decades ago. The architecture was garish, and the employees were... disconcerting. Each bred and born for a specific purpose. His… Odin once told him about the Time Variance Authority. Existing in an infinite dominion between worlds, a bureaucracy that rules the operations of time across the multiverse. Workers are cloned to working perfecting. Minimize disputes, increase efficiency.

The agent guided him down another long hall with identical doors lining the walls, opening and closing as countless numbers of agents entered and exited them. Loki glanced to his left. An agent walked through the door… to a jungle on the other side. To his right, a female agent exited a metropolis with flying vehicles. Another escorted a Krylorian to a portal leading to a crashing ocean. The chains between his limbs clinked as he strolled down the hall that never seemed to end.

“Thank you. I… think I’m ready now.” You stood in front of a closed door, holding the hand of an agent. He nodded and you dropped his hand. He opened the door, silently motioning her towards the shipwreck that Loki had rescued you from a mere couple of hours ago.

Loki muttered your name.

“Oh, uh hello.” You shifted uncomfortably. “I have to say. I think you look better in green.”

Loki smiled softly. “I think this attire might be worse than my actual punishment.”

You chuckled in return. “At least I can die in dignity in my own clothing.”

Loki was taken aback. “You’re not serious?” Loki again noticed the state of your appearance. Eyes flushed and puffy and red. Your bottom lip was swollen as you continued to chew on it.

“I am.” He said your name once more, like he was in disbelief that you would be so willing to give up your life like this. He reminded you so much of the man you married. Always the survivalist. It was strange to see the face of the love of your life standing before you even though it wasn’t really him. Some part of you wished your husband was the one standing before you, but there stood a slightly younger version of the god that you would have given your life for... in the flesh. “I hate to end our new friendship on such a bad note, but you do age quite a bit in the next few years. Try to sleep more, my dear Loki.”

The god scoffed and turned his head. “I’m not letting you just… kill yourself.”

“I’m just taking a page from your book.” You swallowed, a frown evident on your lips. “I assume you did the same as my Loki after Thor destroyed the Rainbow Bridge.” You turned and looked at the scene of the broken ship floating in the cosmos. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that… Take care of yourself, Loki.”

Loki grasped your wrist before you could walk through causing the cuffs to pull his other arm up. The agent behind Loki tapped his shoulder, insisting that they needed to move on, but he ignored his probes.

“I’m not letting you walk through that door.”

“My husband is dead.” There was an insistence in your voice that you seldom used, and yet your breath quivered. The tip of your nose was cold. The tears welled up in your eyes once more, but you sighed and wiped your eyes. “It’s okay,” you whispered. “I want to be with him. Let me go, Loki.”

The agent now placed a firm hand on Loki’s shoulder. “Mr. Laufeyson. It’s time to go.”

Loki turned back around, a devilish grin lining his lips. “Yes, I believe it is.”

In a trice, the agent behind Loki was on the floor and the one guiding you was on the other side of the door, floating in the ship debris where you were supposed to be. The raucous alerted the other agents in the hall who turned their heads in the direction of the noise. They began to make their way towards you. Loki acted quickly, lifting his cuffed hands above your head and looping his arm around your waist, pulling you to the other side of the hall.

“Are you ready?” he asked, backing up slightly like he was readying himself for a leap. Loki didn’t wait for your answer and ran straight towards the open door across from him. You saw a small glimpse of a grassy field before hitting solid ground.

“Why did you do that!?” You whipped your head up, your hair strewn about your face in a wild mess. Your ill-fitting clothes were now caked in dirt and grass stains. You stood on a hill overlooking a… rather familiar landscape.

“I saved your life. Again!” He pointed an accusatory finger at you, but the effort was lost with his bound hands. He grunted in frustration.

“I-I wanted to go. I didn’t want to be saved!”

Loki took in a hot breath. “You wouldn’t have seen him anyway. Valhalla is a heaven for warriors and your valiant death wouldn’t have given you an in.”

That you laughed at, if not bitterly. “You always said you’d go to Hel. I intended on seeing you there.”

“I am not your husband,” Loki spat, venom lining his words.

“No! You’re not. Yet you’ve kept me from him,” you said matching the malice in his voice.

Two voices interrupted your argument.

“Goddess, you will ruin me one day.” A young boy with inky hair ran up on the other side of the hill, holding a posy of flowers. He looked down the hill and knelt down, reaching his hand out. An equally tiny hand held onto his hand, letting him pull up. A girl pushed up and sat on the peak of the hill. He awkwardly shoved the flowers in her hands, like he’d been holding them for her when they climbed up the mound of dirt and grass.

“My mother says you’re dangerous, Trickster,” the girl taunted, reorganizing the flowers in a prettier arrangement. “Like the Midgard Serpent. You’ll strike when we least expect it.”

“Perhaps I’ll marry you. Your mother surely wouldn’t expect that,” the boy smirked. The girl pretended to attack her friend, attempting to make him jump. She wasn’t strong enough to knock him down though, and he snickered. He pushed her playfully, but she slipped and rolled down the hill, giggling the entire way down. The boy hopped down, rolling and laughing along with her.

“Oh Valhalla…” You paled.

“What?” Loki prodded. Watching the children at the bottom of the hill.

“We have to hide. Now.”

Loki was about to prompt her for an explanation, but the little girl’s playful wail answered his questions instantly.

“Loki!”

#loki x reader #loki #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #loki (tv)#loki tv #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #loki x you #reader insert #fanfic #loki x reader fanfic #loki (marvel)#loki fanfic #loki x reader angst #loki x reader fluff #perigee #episode 1 #dearspacepirates

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spinchip · 4 years ago

Text

I Hope We Both Die

Summary: Zane sneaks out of his room and goes down to the dungeons. He talks to Vex one last time before they leave.

Warnings: Ask to tag Pairing: Gen, One-sided Friendship. Wordcount: 2100

They stay in the Never Realm two days after Zane shatters the scroll of forbidden spinjitzu across the throne room floor, releasing his iron grip on the people beneath him. There are loose ends to tie up, decisions to be made, judgements to pass in the days to come. The nights are overwhelmed by celebration, feasting and fire and colors, traditional clothing and dancing and singing and drinking until too drunk to stand- songs are written on the spot about the occasion, The Fall of the Frozen King, sung with the bellies of men in rejoice. The land exploded in revelry, euphoria and jubilation as messenger hawks swept the country- the king is dead! Their message cheered, and we are free!

They burned effigies of his silhouette late into the night, bonfires made of wood and glory charring as fire and warmth are welcomed back into the land. The bloody fear of a country cauterizing and clean.

Zane spent that night in political meetings, shackled to a chair, as his friends tried to convince the nobles not to slaughter him.

He doesn't say a word in his own defense, nothing but facts- the cave, the amnesia, Vexs manipulation, nothing more. He stares ahead, eyes unfocused, and tries not to dwell on the sick look on everyone's faces as he describes the brutality against him, how Vex broke him and scattered the pieces. The hand the cuff is strapped around is unfamiliar, and he can't stop staring at it. He’d seen his reflection once since he’d awoken, a passing glance in a mirror as he’d been escorted by two guards, and the man looking back wasn’t him. This wasn’t his body, he hadn't done those things, he couldn’t have.

But he did. The static in his mind shrieked and howled, overhwelming and loud.

Grimfax asks him to stop, and Zane looks down at his hand that’s not his hand and the ice that’s spiralings from his fingertips and confesses I don’t know how. His voice is quiet and scared and he’s been broken all in pieces and the pieces are put back all in the wrong order. Grimfax asks him never to return, and it takes Zane too long to register that he's being allowed to live. He is put under constant supervision and released to his friends, guards trailing his every move, and while statues of him burn he sits in a bedroom surrounded by his friends with his head in his hands. He doesn't talk, he doesn't cry, he just sits while they flounder around him. He feel sick and wrong and nothing they say can soothe him.

Day turns to night and he lays in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, and when the sun rises he doesn’t move. No one has come to get him, Vex’s voice doesn’t seep through his door to prepare him for his day, there’s no morning report he must attend to. Why get up at all? Cole and Lloyd try to coax him out of bed, try to get him to eat. He can’t stomach it, only moving from his bed to sit listlessly in the fancy sitting room with his friends, silent and hurt and lost. Night comes again, the men outside his room peek open the door every hour to check he’s still there.

But he is a ninja, to his very core, they couldn't trap him if they tried.

Shadows cling to his shoulders because he asks it of them, sneaking down the halls without a sound. The guards are lax and relaxed, they scan their halls with tired eyes, they yawn and chat and joke, and it's all exploitable weakness. He slips by them easily, it’s no challenge, disgusted by their actions. His guards had been serious, and the fools that thought they could speak into his bedchamber with knives or vials of poison were caught long before they could get close. If Zane willed it, he could slip into the king's room now and reinstate his rule, all it would take is one blade.

His stomach churns and he feels sick immediately.

I made them scared, he reminds himself, they can relax now that I’m dead. My era of pain is over, I won’t harm anyone. The thoughts don’t help him, and he feels unmoored and unsure, disconnected from reality and his body.

The stairs he takes one at a time, carefully. He’d been down here only a handful of times, maybe less, when prisoners were too sickly or injured to be moved to the throne room, when their execution was too important to entrust to another. It was warmer now, a linger smell of blood as the ice trapping it had melted. There’s only one prisoner here, now.

The wood door seems almost innocent. There’s no guard down here, maybe a rotating patrol that would be in at some point, but for now Zane can walk right up to the cell and peek inside.

Vex isn’t asleep, sitting up in bed as staring watchfully at the door as he listens to Zanes approach. He blinks at the sight of him, owlish and shocked.

“My Emperor.” He says dumbly. They’ve stripped of his armor and status, plain clothes hung unfamiliar and strange off his frame. The bed is quaint, nicer than anything they’d provided before, with a thick blanket to keep out the chill. A lamp sits on the floor, lit by a flickering fire. It’s the only light in the room other than Zanes eyes.

“Vex.” He says, surprised when his voice drops an octave on instinct, deeper and more menacing.

The man surges from his bed to the little window between them, "My Emperor." He repeats, devoted and reverent and slimy, "You’ve come to release me. Now is our chance, they are drunk from their celebration, they have underestimated our strength! We can reclaim your throne!”

Vex rambles and his voice is like honey, a soothing balm on the frayed and raw edges of Zanes mind. Familiar and comforting and constant. The storm in his head calms, a rush of relief to the all consuming shame and disgust, the sick unreality he’d been stuck in slipping away with each of his advisors words, and Zane lets his head thunk to rest against the bars. His eyes close while Vex fills the silence with promises of power and retribution, drawing the tension out of his shoulders sentence by sentence. Specific words are lost, his voice running together and fuzzy and tranquil in a way that settles the static threatening his eyes. Zane had tuned out, but his eyes snap open when Vex’s voice trails too close.

"It can be like it was before." he vows, power hungry and opportunist, only a slab of wood away.

Zane studies him for a long moment and Vex doesn't flinch under his eyes, confident in Zanes loyalty. Why else would he come, if not to free him? if not to ask him to help him take back his throne? "they asked me what they should do with you." He says instead of freezing out the lock and letting him go, his voice reverting back to normal, “After they allowed me to live, after I told them all you’d done to me, they asked me what punishment I would pursue.”

Vex draws back, taking a step deeper into his prison.

"They asked me if they should execute you."

Frost crawls up the bars where he clutches them between his fingers, and Vex tracks them with wide eyes, “Execute..?” he breathes, shaking his head, “Is it evil to speak? You'd condemn a man for his words? I held no weapon!” Vex argues instantly, scrambling away from him as the implications for his late-night visit sink in. there was no one here to protect him.

“I was your blade.” he tracks Vex’s movement with his eyes, staying still as a statue as his element overtakes the cell.

“And what a blade you were,” He sneers, back pressed against a cold stone in fear, “How you reveled in bloodshed, I didn't ask you for that. My hands are clean. Who is the beast among us, truly?” he throws, and it hurts to hear more than Zane expects.

He stays silent, years of one-sided conversations engrained in his code so deeply he doesn’t know how to respond.

“And now you've come here to execute me. Your final act as my emperor. What's another stain upon your soul?” Vex grabs at the lamp, holding it close to ward of the encroaching chill even if the cold hadn’t bothered him in years, “And how poetic, that am I destroyed by the monster I created.”

That stings, white hot and painful in his chest, “I am not a monster.” He says, and cant hide the hint of desperation in his voice. His friends had promised him he wasn’t. He cracks the ice forming around his fingers, wrenching his hands from the bars and tucking them beneath his armpits to chase away the frost, “I told them to spare you.”

Vex doesn’t shiver, staring with dark eyes across the space between them, “That doesn’t sound like the ruler I know.” He says, stunned.

Zane feel something in him crack. He grins and it’s all teeth, raw and unkind, “The ice emperor is dead.” He informs him sharply, clenching around himself and hunching his shoulders, looking Vex directly in the eyes. “You are the last of his regime, and it will die with you, whenever that may be. The formling Chief and the King will speak tomorrow to pass your judgement.”

“Why are you here?” Vex flings in response, body tense, “Why have you come?”

Zane has an answer, it crowds behind his teeth and no matter how hard he tries he can’t swallow it, “Because I love you.” the confession tastes like blood, “You were all I had. I trusted you, my greatest friend.”

Vex spits, “If that were true, you’d unlock that door.”

“You deserve this.”

“I hope you die.” Vex tells him, venom in his words that burns across Zane's mind.

He slams into the bars, ice cracking out violently from the wood and stone, and Vex yelps, “I am already dead.” he snarls, anger threatening to sweep away his rational thought. Vex flinches, unused to the ire of the Ice Emperor, frost nipping at his toes.

Silence draws, and Zane pulls away from the bars again. The frost recedes, “I’m leaving tomorrow. I am going home, and this will be the last time we see each other.”

Vex doesn’t say a word, glaring at him between the bars. Heartbeats pass in the quiet, his internal clock ticking before Vex breaks, “What do you want? A goodbye?” he asks hotly, “I never cared about you. You were means to an end.”

Zane doesn’t want a goodbye, not really. He wants Vex to tell him what to do. He wants direction. He doesn’t know how to decide for himself anymore. Years and years on that throne, whispers from Vex’s silver tongue, attack Vex would advise and Zane would jump to it. He did nothing but listen to the whims of his general, he obeyed without question while believing all the while he was hearing a friend. He wants those years back. He wants to recognize himself in the mirror, to know the man looking back, to… to…

He wants to let him go. He wants to listen to Vex’s voice and allow it to wash out the pain, the confusion, the shame. He wants to forget all of it. He wants to believe Vex is his friend, he wants to believe he wouldn’t hurt him.

But he did.

And now all he wants is to kill him.

“Goodbye.” He says, instead of skewering him to the wall. It’s closure, maybe.

He takes the stairs back to the main level two at a time, and when he sneaks back into his room he stagger in, exhausted. He slips beneath the covers half a second before the guards check back in on him, feigning sleep, and when he opens his eyes again he has to turn away from the sunlight cutting across his face- it’s morning. He’d slept through the night. They’ll be gone before the Formling Chief makes it to the capital, he won’t know how Vex’s story ends. He finds, surprised, that it doesn’t really matter.

He’s going home today.

#zane julien #vex ninjago #ninjago #ninjago season 11 #ns11 #spinchip fic

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sasa-gay-yo · 4 years ago

Text

Just Us (Chapter Fourteen: Forget)

← Chapter Thirteen

His homecoming wasn’t eventful, nor was it welcomed by the others of Trost. They came back in the night, a tenth of what they left with, and yet people were still up to throw things out the windows at the Scouts as they proceeded to their base. I wasn’t awake for that part, and Jonas thought it was best to not wake me. He told me the next morning that he’d locked eyes with Levi and he almost shrunk away from the window. Jonas thought the rage he saw was directed at his presence, and he was probably half right, but the other was just towards the world in general.

He didn’t come into the cafe the next morning like he usually did. No. I was sure the Scouts would stay out of Trost for a while and their own safety. It never made sense to me though. The people of Trost would rejoice that the famine was over but in the same breath blame all hundred-some Scouts for not being able to protect millions of people. I held my tongue, giving the everlasting fake smile. There was no reason to fight anymore. They were home and most were safe. Levi was safe and in one piece and I would probably see him tonight.

Five months after they left.

Flowers were already growing out of the ground, and there was no need to wear a jacket anymore. Sometimes, I would go out and sit in the meadow facing the Scouts HQ, just like Levi and I had before. I would allow myself to sit and think clearly. Sometimes, I would sneak to the Scout HQ and feed the horses that were left behind for various injuries, evading the one Scout they left for the same reason. I’m sure the young boy knew I was there, but he seemed to not mind. I took feeding the horses off his daily to-do list. I wasn’t happy by any means, but after getting Jonas back, it made it easier to be alone with my thoughts.

“You don’t need to stay tonight, Jonas,” I told him, putting the chairs up so he could sweep the floor. He gave me an annoyed look, but nodded, understanding why.

“Just don’t forget about me even if he’s back,” it was a low whisper so he could try to hide the begging nature of it. I knew better than to let Jonas go this time.

“Don’t worry. How could I forget about your ugly face?" His mouth went wide and I laughed. Before I could dodge, a wet rag flew at my head, narrowly missing me.

That night, I sat on my couch reading some random book, waiting for a knock at the door. My heart was beating the whole time, and I couldn’t focus on the words I was trying to read. It had been so long since I’ve seen his face. Since I felt his touch. I wish I had some drawing to be able to look at his face instead of imagining him through his cursive or button-ups. Maybe I’d ask him to get one. There were random men who sat in the Trost city square and drew people for money. Maybe I would get him one of myself too, knowing that the small stitches on his cape wouldn’t last long. My mind was swirling with ideas, trying to keep it occupied. When the clock on the wall hit three in the morning, I was losing hope. In my hands now was the journal I’d faithfully written in for five months. It was the first thing I’d give to him, showing that I was still devoted despite the distance. Even if it was hard for him to read it, he told me to do it, and I did. Every single night I did. I wondered if he’d done something similar, but he probably wouldn’t want to share with me, nor recall the days he had outside of the walls.

At eight in the morning, Jonas had let himself in after yelling up from the very full cafe. He saw me sleeping on the couch, the journal still in my arms, no indication that Levi had been there. When he woke me up, I could tell there was pity in his eyes. I shied away from it, going to get dressed to work. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He’d just gotten back and it was hard to get into Trost without ridicule. He’d come eventually. I already felt more at ease knowing that he was alive anyway.

The next night, he didn’t come either. Then the next. Then the next. It turned into a week. Then another week. Every day, I would wake up and give him excuses. I would smile at Jonas and ask him how he slept. I would stare at his table in the cafe, now occupied by a different customer. Once the time kept ticking on, I knew that there wasn’t anything holding him back from coming. There wasn’t anything holding back from sending some letter or note with Erwin’s private service either. The only thing holding him back was himself, but I didn't want to come to that reality. How could someone who'd left me the way he did, lingering touches on my doorstep, not want to come back?

That’s how I ended up at the Scout HQ stables again. Their numbers had dwindled again, and by Levi’s past letters I knew when mandatory lunch service was. Again, I felt alone as the wind blew through my hair, yet this time I was staring Levi’s horse in the eyes. The horse that almost bit my head off. I could see she was injured, and I reached out to pet her nose, giving an apple I’d brought from the cafe. She seemed to be thankful for the offering and let me into her stable without a problem. I slipped the journal into a cubby with some riding supplies, hoping he’d see it sometime. Before leaving on Jonas’s horse, I glanced up at the windows of the abandoned castle, the sun reflecting in them enough to blind my eyes.

“Ma’am, what are you doing near the horses?” I looked down at the cadet who was left behind. He knew my face by now, but he seemed not afraid to confront me anymore. I raised one hand to him, the wind picking up around me, blowing my skirt up.

“I’m just leaving. Don’t mind me.” He held his hand up, beaconing me not to leave before I could answer whatever questions he had. I didn’t hear what he was yelling at me as I rode back towards Trost. Hopefully, he would report that someone was near the stables and Levi would find my notebook. If anything, I wanted him to read that. If he saw how sad I was without him there, then maybe he would come back quicker.

“It’s been how long?” Jonas asked as I returned his horse later that night. He taught me how to ride it a month ago, seeing how I could only use public transportation to get to Mitras, which took money and hours. While I was still unsettled getting on anyone’s horse, Jonas’s was nice to me and I fed it extra apples for good measure. I was doing that right now as he brushed her out.

“Almost three weeks since they’ve come back.” He nodded and continued to brush, not pushing the obvious response. Jonas had gotten much better at that. He’d let me think when I needed to, and then only when I was getting beside myself he would jump in. There wasn’t any need to do that right now, and my mood had gotten more control over the past few weeks that he didn't need to do any intervention work recently.

“It’s almost May Day. There are enough supplies to celebrate this year, so Trost is having a little festival to make up for Spring.” I pet the horse on her nose before hopping up on the stable’s door to sit.

“Are you asking me to go drink with your friends since no one did it for the Equinox and now there’s an excuse?” He huffed once in laugher, trying to feign his innocence.

“No, I was just going to ask you if you were free next week for no reason. Drinking? How dare we? We’re getting too old for that sort of stuff.” I smiled lightly down at him as he put away the horse’s brush to turn to face me.

“Sure, I’ll go. It’s been a long time since I’ve been out.” A big smile broke out on his face when I agreed, and it seemed to carry all the way into next week. He would never stop reminding me that on Saturday, we would go to the festival to grab drinks and take them outside to the meadow near the walls. At one point, I had to bar him from talking for a few hours so I could get work done. When the day finally came and I closed the shop, he was bouncing off the walls watching all the people walk to the town square.

“You know, usually we’re taking Elias and June to these types of things,” I reminded him and he just shrugged. June was probably working and Elias would be with his school friends running around. We’d probably see him on our way out of town.

“When they turn eighteen, I’ll gladly take them for their first drunk meadow excursion. It’s a right of passage.” You rolled your eyes at him, remembering his first time puking at the base of a tree in the meadow. A right of passage, sure.

Jonas’s friends were a rowdy bunch. They were that way in high school as well and never changed how many years out we were now. While you weren’t very much involved with them unless forced by Jonas, you knew the four of them well enough to be comfortable to drink with them. Two of them, Jonas’s roommates, brought girlfriends or girls they were trying to entertain with. Again, I didn’t know them all that well, but I’d be sure to ask Jonas as we walked behind the rest.

It was refreshing to be out like this, as we walked past the Garrison to be let into Wall Rose. The atmosphere was up, some of the boys having already downed a few drinks, and everyone seemed happier than before. The news of millions of refugees dying didn’t affect them, so why did they have to feel sad about it? In moments like this, it made me think of my own existence and how selfish it was to do these sorts of things. We were exploiting the safety of Wall Rose to go and drink, not thinking at all about titans or a food shortage anymore. I wanted to apologize to the refugees whom I served previously, but they were undoubtedly all gone.

“Hey,” Jonas nudged me, probably seeing my glazed-over expression, “Live in the moment?” He suggested as the wind picked up around us. The grass blew in the breeze, and we turned to walk against the wall. The meadow near the wall was only a few minutes walk, and near a village of farmers. One time, during a game of truth or dare, Jonas was dared to go pick a farmer's pumpkin, which ended up with him being chased a good half-mile from where we were original. The only person who waited for him to get back that night was me and we both got scolded for how late we had returned. Ben was also very suspicious of how dirty Jonas's pants had become and later he guilted me into telling him everything that happened, minus the underage drinking.

“I’ll try,” I told him, pushing away the thoughts I had before. Selfish. The refugees weren't able to separate their life from the certain death they were facing by the titans. They weren't able to go off and celebrate like we were. Imagine if Eren Jaeger could see me now. I could see the anger lighting up in his eyes knowing what we were doing. I looked out into the wild expanse of grass, knowing right where the Scout HQ would lie over the hills. What would Levi be doing right now? It was around dinner time for them if the breakdown of his schedule was still accurate. Would he approve of the activities I was about to indulge in? Probably not.

“Eva,” Jonas said again, snapping me out of my thoughts once more. His expression was now concerned, but there were shouts as we reached the destination, those already buzzed excited to get even drunker. Laughter rippled through the air and the wind carried it further along the wall, echoing. It was a weird sound for me to hear, and I realized then how long it had been since I’d even left my sphere of influence. I’d been to the capital a few times for supplies, and I’d visited the Scout HQ twice, but those were all by myself. I haven’t done anything with other people for a long, long time. I used that fact to try to convince myself that I deserved this break as I took a sip of the cheap wine that was brought.

They all talked and talked about their lives, whatever drama was going on around in their shared friend groups, and how many people were getting “panicked married” as Hulia, one of the potential girlfriends put it. I agreed with them, nodding my head and inputting some opinions here and there, but I was never engaged in the conversation enough to start my own. I would just sip and sip, not minding how much Raphel was filling my cup with.

The more I drank, the more it made me think about Levi. Why hadn’t he come and visited me yet? Did he not like me anymore? Had I done something wrong? Had something happened on the expedition? Did he find someone else? All of these were running through my head at hundreds of miles per hour, that when Jonas nudged me to answer a question Hulia asked, I had to make her repeat it.

“When do you think you’ll get married, Eva?” She asked with no ill-intent, and there was a dreamy look of romance in her eyes with this question. I wasn’t the first one to answer the question, but I was also the only girl here that wasn’t with her boyfriend or whatever they were to each other. I wondered what the other two had said. Probably something cute and romantic. They’d get married in Trost, maybe move to Wall Sina, and start a happy little family away from the titans and away from conflict. There had to be something in there about flowers and picking out a dress too. Maybe I wished I listened to them so I could fake an answer and model it after theirs. If I was thinking realistically, my chances of getting married now were slim to none. At least, that was what I had gotten from Levi. Actually, we never talked about those things, and it became clearer and clearer why. First, he didn’t think he was going to come back from this expedition. Secondly, how were you supposed to dream about marriage when you don’t know what the next day is going to bring?

So I lied to them and Jonas knew. The look in his eyes told me he knew what I was truly thinking.

“Sometime later in life. Not right now, but when I can settle down and hand to the cafe over to someone for a bit. I have no dress or inheritance from my mother, so that part will be quite difficult.” Hulia was digging me further into a grave, not feeling my discontent or seeing Jonas's stare.

“Oh, Eva!” She clasped her hands together, “I think you’d look beautiful in a white dress! You can have Ben walk you down too and you can have those blue flowers that you always love to have in your cafe. It will be one of those small intimate marriage ceremonies, you know? When I get married, I have so much family I don’t know where I could fit them all!” I gave her a look, but she was too drunk to realize the weight of her words. Was she bragging about how big her family was to me? I had half a mind to tell her off, and of course, the wine was fueling me. How many glasses did I down while looking into the fading horizon?

The others were now running around in the field, playing some sort of game like the kids their wine-filled brains told them they were. I used to be like that when I was drunk. I’d play tag or truth or date or some type of game that children play in school. Arguably, that was before I swore off drinking after getting so drunk I couldn't stop throwing up the next day. Now here I was, thinking randomly about the end of the world while staring off into the setting sun. Jonas wasn’t with them either, and I knew my attitude made him barely drink. He just sat next to me, leaning back on his hands, trying to find the words to say.

“Do you think the world will end because of the titans or because of the humans?” He sighed and let out a ‘what the fuck’, before entertaining me. He knew I was drunk.

“Humans.” I shook my head, disagreeing with him.

“I think it’ll be because of titans. Want to know why?” He picked at the grass but indulged me.

“Why?”

“Because they’re already trying to ruin my life.” That made him pause, take the wine glass out of my hands, and down the rest of it for himself in one gulp. He was right, I didn’t need any more of that, or my true feelings were really going to come out. He probably still wasn't emotionally ready to hear me drunkenly babble about Levi when he could barely stand it sober.

“What do you want to do about it?” I knew he was asking about the titan problem, but I remembered a conversation we had earlier. It had now been another month. Six. The same amount of time I’d waited for him last time, but the thing was last time he came to me right away. He loved me then, holding me at night on the couch. What was so different now?

“I don’t want to do anything because I want him to come to me on his own, but I’m afraid if I don’t do anything, he won’t come.” He moved to sit up completely, trying to see the expression on my face.

“And if he doesn’t come?” I could hear the faintest hint of hope in his voice, and it made me laugh sadistically.

“I don’t know. I’ll spiral into madness again. Something like that.” He groaned and leaned back fully on the grass, hands behind his head. That was what I meant by not being able to handle it.

“Do you want to know my opinion now that you’re drunk?” I scoffed.

“I’m not drunk, but sure. I haven’t got much left to be sad about, give me more.” I went to take another sip, but the glass was emptied and so were the rest of the bottles we’d brought. This just left me to stare at whatever game the couples were playing.

“I think he’s an asshole and doesn’t deserve the patience and kindness you’re giving him.” It sounded a lot calmer than I thought it would come out. I knew that already, though. I knew what Jonas thought of Levi, and that sentence was an extremely abridged version. I would always hear him mumble profanities and insults here and there about him whenever he was brought up, and I heard some of his famous opinions from Ben too. However, some of his opinions did get to me, mostly about the wait. Why was I waiting for so long? I thought about that too, late at night. What motivated me to stay with Levi even though he’s been away from me for at least a year in total. The time we’ve been together has been so small, and by now, I’m usually making breakfast every morning for the man I’m seeing. That’s what had happened before.

“You thought that about Kristian, too, and he was your friend.” Jonas froze next to me, having not heard that name exit my mouth in years. He thought it was an unspoken rule I’d given him to never mention Kristian. It was probably because I was drunk that I brought his name up, and this situation felt eerily similar to our past best friend.

“Well, Kristian wasn’t in the Scouts when you were with him. Same complaint, different circumstance.” The sun finally made its descent below the horizon, and the purples that spread throughout the sky masked the tears falling from my eyes. I hadn’t thought about Kristian for a while either, but something about this moment reminded me of him. One because, again, I'd picked someone over Jonas who didn't agree, and, two, because of what Jonas had said back then that he'd said before. He just thought that, now, it was taboo to bring in Kristian.

“When you asked me if the pain was really worth the love, it made me think about Kristian.”

“Oh,” Jonas nodded, easily remembering how Kristian and I had left things, and how his death made it impossible to make things any better. Regardless of his death, Kristian wouldn't have been forgiven.

“With him, it wasn’t. I was always in pain near the end. He was too domineering, too chaotic; he was everything I was running away from. He was the temptation to turn back into what I once was, and it always excited me to teeter on that line with him. Thrilling maybe, but toxic. He crossed that line, and I stayed where I was. The pain back then wasn’t worth the two or three laughs Kristian would give me throughout the day.” There was a silence, both of us not knowing what to say to that. Kristian was gone, and he had been gone for years now. It felt wrong to speak on his name like that, but he deserved every bad thing that came to him. We both knew that too.

“Kri-”

“I don’t feel that with Levi, Jonas. Right now, most of the time, I don’t feel the regret I felt back then when I was stuck with Kristian. But then I think, maybe I don’t feel it now, but down the road, I’ll feel it again. That scares me, because I really, really like being with Levi. When I’m with him I’m happy, but when I’m without him I can barely function. It’s codependency in a way. I was codependent on Kristian, and look where that got me. I don't want to be codependent on Levi, and I don't think I am right now, but it could be that way. I also just think I feel so awful now because, for five months, Levi was out fighting titans with no way of me knowing if he was dead or alive. It's not codependency but worries. Logical.”

“So, you’re saying that you don’t feel like Levi is like Kristian, but you’re afraid that it might turn into that if things keep going the way they are?” I picked at the grass, not caring that tears were slowly falling down my face, making permanent trails. Actually, it had been a few good weeks since I'd cried about something. It felt like a good release now, and because I was far gone on wine, I didn't feel the depth of my tears. It was like I was just crying to cry, and not because all of the feelings I had when I was with Kristian were coming back. Not because I was scared it would turn out that way.

“They were both Scouts.” He hummed, putting one of his hands on top of mine to stop my nervous picking of the grass. He was concerned, and you were glad the coming darkness hid your tears. If he saw them, he would take you back immediately. He would pull you up, makeup up some lie to the others, and sit me down on the couch after we got back, not holding me anymore, but just sitting to my right, a hand over mine.

“This is very not me to say, but have you told Levi about this?”

“What do you mean? About what?” He bit his lip, decided whether to say something or not to me. He always bit his lip when he was holding back something for my mental benefit, but I wanted him to say it. I needed him to say it. Something to snap me back to reality.

“Does he know that your greatest fear is abandonment?” I pulled my knees to my chest, not liking out that sentence made me feel emotional. I’d like to say it was the wine that made me start crying even more, but I knew that wasn’t true. Jonas had broken some flood gate inside of me, finding the root of the problem was having. I was afraid of being abandoned. That was the real reason I’d work at the cafe hours and hours on end. If Mr. Flynn saw how I was a good worker, he would forget about my previous bad behavior or bad grade and he wouldn’t throw me out on the street again. If I just gave into Kristian’s physical wants and did what he said, then he wouldn’t leave me like before. He’d stay then. But now, I couldn’t think of something that I did or was doing to Levi. Was I making him face his feelings too early? Did the fact that I was weak and not a Scout deter him from coming to see me? I would do anything to fix it. To make him come back. Jonas just sat there with one hand on my back for what felt like forever. The laughter in the background took on a new cynical tone as I sat there in juxtaposition to their fun. I was thankful, too, that the sun was finally down, so in their drunken haze, they had no idea what was going on to the right of them.

The next day, I rode back to the Scout HQ, and seeing that the notebook I’d left two weeks ago was still there, I took it back with me. I had no idea why I felt like this, but I just needed to take it. It was like I had given him a three-week opening to my heart, and since he didn't take it, I'd take it back. If he wasn't moved to come back after reading it, if he even read it, then he didn't get to anymore. I really didn’t know what to do when I slammed it on my desk, along with the letters he wrote me previously scattered on the surface. I’d read them over and over again, trying to rationalize why he wouldn’t come back even when he wrote words as sweet as those. It had to have been the refugee expedition. Something had to have happened then for him to not want to see me, perhaps even ever again.

For the first time, I was angry at him.

He couldn’t even bless me with two minutes or a piece of paper to display his feelings towards me. He was hiding again, but this time there was no injury to hold him away from me. Jonas said he looked fine, and in one piece, and for the longest time I was glad. That was enough for me to get by; waiting for him. Waiting. Waiting. Why was I always waiting for him? In a burst of anger, I picked up the book and threw it across the room, hitting the blackboard with battle formations on it. The blackboard that Levi used when he was here. Everything that he left was still there, but now I knew the papers must not have been important if he didn’t come back for them. I shoved them back in the drawer, one by one, not caring if I bent them. What use would they have anyway? Next were the letters. I was going to keep them, I wasn’t that mad to ruin something this important to me, but I didn’t want to see them anymore. They would go in the drawer along with his papers. Lastly, I picked up the notebook that I threw on the floor. Five months of pain, and he didn’t have the decency to read it? This one, I let my fingers run along the cover, remembering how I wrote in this night after night. I could feel the pain come from the leather it was bound in. I remembered the moments I would just hold it, reading over my won words, and crying again. I flipped open the pages, skimming the words I wrote again for one last paintime.

The last page didn’t have my handwriting on it. The very last page of the journal, the only one left blank, was now covered in that familiar cursive scrawl. I lifted a hand to cover my mouth, not knowing what feeling I had inside. He had read it… but even so, he didn’t come back. How long had it been since he’d picked up this notebook till now?

Evlynn M Flynn,

I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to you. For the ways I’ve made you feel inside. Reading this journal made me realize how much I hurt you. I’m sorry for everything. For giving you false hope and hypnotizing feelings. It was never my intention to make you feel like this adding my presence in your life. Find someone who gives you true happiness, because it will never be me.

Levi

What was this? He'd read it. Yet, I wasn't happy. I was the opposite of happy. I stared down at it, reading it over and over. The tears started to make the ink run on the page and I reached down to rip it out, crumbling it in my hands. Is this what I wanted? Some note? Some proof that he cared? And wasn’t I thinking the same things? His lack of presence caused me pain. His not being there hurt me emotionally and physically. I had written that in the notebook. We had read the same notebook, the same journal entries, so why did he interpret it so differently? Him leaving was going to be the best solution? Did he not see how I was lost without him there?

I was angry.

So much so that in the dead of the night, right after dinner and right after I'd gained the courage, I hitched up Jonas’s horse without him knowing. When the Garrison members stopped to ask where I was going, I just glared down at them and rode past the gates into Wall Rose. I knew that there would be cadets everywhere on the ground until my past visits. They would see me riding up, some might even stop and question me, but I had one motive. I was done waiting. What person tries to leave someone by leaving a short note? Is this how cowardly Humanity’s Strongest was?

I rode on the HQ grounds, not breaking the horse's stride. The cadets turned to look, not ever seeing my face before. They probably turned to each other, asking about my presence, but I was past them too fast to notice any conversation. When I jumped off the horse, leaving someone else to take care of it, the same cadet I’d encountered before called out to me. He had to be a groundskeeper or something to always be chasing me off. Either way, I started up the stairs that I’d only walked up once, him behind me yelling. He never caught up, and when I turned the corner to the officer’s wing, he sounded even more frantic. If it was after dinner, the officers were sure to be in some form of meeting, and I wasn’t going to let them continue. Whatever it was, they had weeks to talk about it. This was a more pressing matter.

“Please! Ma’am! The officers are-!” I shoved open Erwin’s door with ease, hearing it slam against the interior wall. They all turned their heads to look at me, all sitting around a table, a map in the middle displaying figures of titans and horses. Some I recognized and others I had no clue who they were, but I wasn’t looking at them. I stared down Levi whose eyes were as wide as he would let them. Had he forgotten he’d told me his schedule or was he surprised that the sad, depressed me had displayed this much effort to see him?

“Commander! I’m so sorry I let her get in here! I can take her away if-” Erwin held his hand up and was inspecting the look on my face. He knew there was no stopping me at this point, my breathing growing heavy as I looked back up at him, waiting for whatever orders he’d give me. Did he know why I was here?

“Squad Leader Hange, can you take Miss. Flynn to your office, please? The meeting won’t go on for more than ten minutes.” Hange stood, pushing her glasses up to their original place, before walking over to me with a smile. She put one hand on my shoulder before speaking to me.

“Come on,” she said in a hushed tone, pulling me down the hallway silently after dismissing the cadet. There was tension there, but I couldn’t tell why. Did she know why you’d suddenly appeared?

Hange’s office was different from Levi and Erwin's. Glassware, chemicals, and books were thrown everywhere with no organization. There were drawings of titan structures hanging all over the walls too, barely leaving the white brick exposed. The biggest difference was the fact that there were candles and oil lamps everywhere, illuminating her workspace and the room. It felt warm but did nothing to calm my anger.

“You know, I told him not to do it.” It didn’t make me feel any better, even if that was her intention. It made me think of how many other people he’d talked to about this besides myself. She walked out after that, closing the door behind her and leaving me to stand in the middle of her office, looking at the books sprawled out on the center table. None of them really made any sense to me, filled with anatomy or certain titan sciences, but it still was a welcomed distraction from the conversation to be had five minutes in the future. I flipped through her hypothesis about titans and sunlight, a few things about their internal body, and other more complicated diagrams. I never knew Hange was this scientifically inclined, all I knew was that she was the designated doctor for the Scouts since the government thought it trivial to send them a real one. Come to think of it, there was nothing in this office that even hinted at medical care, meaning Hange probably just picked it up for necessity.

Levi never told me much about the people in the Scout Regimen, probably for isolation purposes. I’ve only talked to Hange three times, and Erwin only once when he personally came to visit the café. It was interesting to see them in their natural habitat here, and I had to agree that the look Erwin first gave me when I stormed into their meeting was scary. He was the Commander though, it was his job to demand and control. Levi had called Hange a Squad Leader once, and I wasn’t able to ask him what that meant, but it was probably close to his rank as she was also in the officer’s meeting and had an office like this. Notably smaller than Levi’s it was still an office. Standing here now, I wished I’d known more about the place I stood and maybe about titans.

“What are you doing here at this hour?” It was harsh and I was paying too much attention to Hange’s books to notice the door had opened and Levi came in. Still, I didn’t react to his words and just kept staring down at the book. Truthfully, I didn’t think I’d get to this point, and everything that I had rehearsed on the way here had left my head and had been replaced with slight happiness at finally seeing him again. It had been so long. There he was, standing unscathed, his eyes looking down at me. How badly did I want to run over there and throw my arms around him like the hug we shared when he left?

“Are you not going to talk to me? Isn’t that why you interrupted our meeting?” I wondered if he was happy to see me at all, but it didn’t seem like it. His voice was hallow and distant. There was no emotion in his eyes at all as I looked over my shoulder at him. He just leaned against the wall, arms crossed, looking right at me. When I, again, didn’t answer, he sighed and closed his eyes, eyebrows knitting together like he was the one allowed to be frustrated.

“If you’re not going to say anything, I’ll just leave. I have a personal meeting with Erwin.” He turned to open the door and that’s when my whole body turned to face him. It was a tactic, after all, just to get me to finally respond. He probably didn’t have anything to do other than paperwork, Erwin knowingly dismissing him. I held out the crumpled piece of paper out in front of my body and he took one look down at it, knowing exactly what it was. I had no idea how he thought he wouldn’t have to confront me about this personally, but he did seem a bit… annoyed?

“I’m glad you read the journal, but I was not happy to find this in the back.” He sighed, turning away from the door and back to me.

“You need to forget. Forget about the Scouts. About the HQ. Everything. Forget about me.” The paper dropped from my hands, and I lost the composure I was holding in before.

“You read through that whole journal and that’s what your solution was? To leave?!” His eyes shifted to the door, knowing someone outside was probably listening, so he kept his voice down.

“Being with me hurts you, and it will continue to hurt you the more I have to be gone. You told me once that you’d be fine if I died, but after reading your words, I know that won’t be the case. You need to forget me now so I can’t hurt you more in the future.” I gripped my hands into fists, not believing what I was hearing. I could take it in written form, but I had thought up until now it was a mistake.

“You know I don’t care about that!”

“But I do.” His voice was calm this whole time, showing no emotion. It was like he’d reverted before me. All the work and effort I’d put in to make him comfortable to share his feelings around me was crumbling. I couldn’t tell what he was feeling when he was saying these hollow words to me.

“What happened? What happened between when you left for this expedition till now for you to think like that?”

“Watching millions of people die in front of you makes you think about who you can and can’t protect. If I can’t protect them when they’re right in front of me, how am I supposed to be able to protect you?” I huffed in anger, looking at the ceiling as tears were threatening to fall. I was not about to cry in front of him. Not when he was giving me no emotion. He didn’t deserve mine. There was no regret or remorse in his voice either when speaking about the refugees. This was not the same man who had confided in me on the couch about how opposed he was to this mission.

“You don’t need to protect me. I’m in Trost, I’m surrounded by other people, and you’ve taught me how to defend myself. Most of the time I’m with Jonas anyways. There’s nothing to be-” Levi seemed to catch something in my sentence and ride with it. The worst thing possible.

“Go be with him.” That made me pause and blink. This couldn’t be real. There was no way he would have said that before.

“Who are you?!” I yelled, feeling the frustration build and build.

“I read the journal. Over and over. And every time I got to the point Jonas came back, you were happier. Over and over, I read about another man making you happy.” My mouth was wide open when he said that. Still, it was emotionless. What did he really want? It couldn’t have been that. It would have never been that. He'd vocalized his distaste for Jonas over and over again and now he was just yielding to him? This was not Levi.

“Jonas is my friend. You know that. You make me happy, Levi! So why are you taking that away from me?!” He shook his head, pushing himself off the wall.

“He can give you what I can’t. You want a family, kids, whatever, I can never give you that. How can I think of my future when I know I’m not going to have one?” I put one hand on my head, finally getting a headache from everything he was saying. He wanted to let me go because he didn’t want to hurt me? Because he couldn’t give me what I wanted? Yet, I’ve told him so many times that all I want is him. He's agreed, too. He's told me what he feels for me. How deep he feels for me. And now he was going to throw that all away so easily? Levi was never someone to do something like this. He would never let me go this easily.

“You’re not my Levi. Whoever is talking right now, you aren’t him. Levi would never say something like that!”

“You’ve only known me for a total of four months, how do you know who Levi is?” I looked up at him fiercely, feeling that as an insult towards me. How did I not know who he was?

“You’re not the Levi who fell asleep in my arms? The one who confided in me about his fears? About his past in the Underground? The one who kissed me every night with unyielding passion? That wasn’t you? Was I housing a stranger?” He scoffed this once. Just once, he gave me what he was feeling. He scoffed at me. He insulted me. And now, after I told him that, he couldn’t even look at me to deliver the final, heartbreaking line. The line that made me stop speaking and stare at the ground. The line that haunted me as I laid in bed that night, not being able to sleep.

“The emotional codependency you have for me is stifling, Evlynn.”

That made me shake in anger, in sadness, I had no clue. It was the fact that he’d echoed my biggest insecurity out loud. Was I codependent on Levi for my happiness? I’d thought about it over and over, trying to get myself out of the five-month slump, but now, he just confirmed it. He confirmed that he hated it. I was stifling him. Everything he said before felt fake. It was an excuse to make me feel better about him leaving me, like it was even about me this whole time. He had written that note to hide his true feelings apparently, but how true were they? How could he go from holding me, loving me, to just... not feeling anything?

“T-then why are you… wh-why are you with me?” He still couldn’t look at my hunched over figure.

“I only realized when I read your journal how dependent you are on me. It’s stifling. I don’t like it. I can’t deal with it when I have more important things to do.” It was like every word he said was a hammer, hitting me down lower and lower to the ground. I had to grip Hange’s table to stand, and even then it sent books flying to the floor. My heart was burning and so were my eyes. How could he be so cruel and brutal with me now? Was this the Captain Levi that everyone had talked about? The man you were convinced to be needy and kind was just now showing his true form.

“I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t love me.” I could see the way he froze. The way he still couldn’t look at me even when I was ready to lock eyes with him for the last time. I was staring right at him, the tears still yet to fall. I couldn’t show him emotion, it would be burdensome, wouldn’t it? Still, he didn’t look at me. It was stomach-wrenching the silence in the room as he thought over his answer.

“I've never told you I loved you.”

No, that was the line that haunted me. That was the one that I’d think about forever. Yet, that was the one that forced me out of the room. I just stood up, balancing myself before I walked right out the door. Right past his body, the one who still couldn’t look at me and show me his true emotions. I would never get to see it again. I stopped, right before closing the door, and looking right at Hange who was standing against the back wall, probably in wait. Had she known? That’s why she told me that when I’d entered her office. He had told her everything. He’d told her that he didn’t love me and I was too burdensome for him. How many people had he told before telling me? Coward. This realization gave me a false calm as I was falling apart inside. I needed to be strong in front of him. I couldn't show him how much he'd just hurt me.

“I love you, Levi. And if you deem that as codependency, then I don’t think you’ll ever know what love is.” Hange didn’t look at me after that, she looked right at Levi. I saw the look in her eyes too. Anger. At least I had one person here who seemed to support me. I walked past her, down the stairs, and out the door quickly, grabbing the horse that someone had hitched up for me. The cadets had all gone to their rooms, and the field was empty. This allowed me to walk out of the Scout HQ grounds, knowing that he would be looking at me from a window. I didn’t turn around though. I didn’t look back to see if he was there. I just rode back to Trost, holding in the tears I had till I was sitting in Jonas’s stable, feeding his horse an apple for everything she’d seen while I took her from her sleep. I just cried and cried, hiding my sobs in the back of my hand. Trost wouldn't get to hear my wailing for him. For that asshole. For that spineless, cowardly, annoying, handsome, kind - no. The only person who got to heard my sob was me and Jonas's horse.

“What did he do?” It was an angry voice behind me, but I didn’t look back at him. I didn’t want Jonas to see me crying over Levi again and again like he had warned me about. I didn’t want Jonas to know he was right. So, I just stood there and cried, and only allowed Jonas to see my face when he came to hug me to his chest in comfort. We stood there for what seemed like forever, and he didn't speak for the longest time. I wanted him too. I wanted him to confirm how awful Levi was so it was easy for me to start to forget. But who was I kidding, how was I going to forget him? In an out of my life like a flash, but one so bright that I'd still see him when I closed my eyes every night to sleep. I would never forget Levi.

“Shh, I’m here, Eva. I won’t leave you.”

xx oopsiesssss

Chapter Fifteen →

Chapter Masterlist

#levi ackerman scenario #LEVI ACKERMAN #levi ackerman x oc #levi ackerman x reader #levi attack on titan #levi ackerman x you #attack on titan #attack on titan x oc #attack on titan x reader #shingeki no kyojin #shingeki no kyoujin levi #snk levi #levi aot #aot #snk x reader #snk

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yodawgiheardyoulikeponies · 4 years ago

Text

PART 2: CONCLUSION OF THE SUPER DRAMA FILLED STORY: ATTEMPTED REGICIDE AT THE DREAM CASTLE!!

After some failed attempts to identify a culprit of who tried to attack Re Unicorno, chief detectives Sunburst and Ice Crystal were hot on the case! But, help was to arrive very shortly...

Tenderheart Bear burst into the Dream Castle, “I think I have a suspect for you!!!”

Re Unicorno was so happy to see his old friend, “Tenderheart, I remember when Care-a-Lot was founded. It is so nice to see you again. But, you think it was one of your own who tried to attack me?”

Tenderheart unfortunately agreed, “Yes, we have the poseable hands necessary to handle a weapon such as the one used in the attack. And, someone left Care-A-Lot almost at the exact same time when the attack occured...we must investigate further...”

Sunburst and Ice Crystal agreed to take them and the rest of the Mountain Boys to Care-a-Lot and investigate, “We will be back...hopefully with the suspect in our hands!”

Celestia and Luna became overwhelmed with emotion, “No! Please don’t go, that’s so dangerous..what if we never see you again?”. Both sisters nuzzled into Ice Crystal and Sunbursts flanks, “I love you...”

Re Unicorno couldn’t believe it, “Why did I never know of this? The future Queens, courting non-royals?”.

It was too late to even try to comprehend what was going on. Tornado whipped up a wind to catapult the Mountain Boys to Care-a-Lot, Sunburst controlled the sun not to burn them, and Lightning made thunderclouds light the way. It was such a dangerous, risky mission...but having a violent criminal running around Ponyland would have been even worse...

Once the Mountain Boys finally reached Care-a-Lot, they saddled up with some Care Bears and Care Bear Cousins, “I wonder which one of us would even want to attack someone? That’s against the Care Bear way!!”.

Grumpy Bear realized, “Maybe....it’s not a Care Bear...maybe..it’s someone else who lives among us!!”

With the Care Bear’s guide, the Mountain Boys galloped across the land...unsure of what dangerous creature they might encounter!!

Finally, around the bend, Sunburst and Ice Crystal came across a very suspicious man....with a MASSIVE pair of scissors in his hands no less! Tenderheart couldn’t believe his eyes...”The Cloudkeeper?? Why...why would you do such a thing?”

The Cloudkeeper was angered, “Don’t you see what’s going on? Re Unicorno comes back from his selfish mission, after being gone for so long...and the entire Ponyland is completely enamored with him!! Ariana can’t stop posting pictures with him!!! If this continues, she’ll stop caring about her entire collection!! We are all in danger because of him!!! Especially me, I was free in a lot! FREE! I’m not even worth her paying for me!!”

“So, if I were to devalue him by cutting his hair...(or even cutting off his HEAD!), we would be safe and get the attention we deserve!!! But why stop there...I’m sure Mountain Boys value TANKS with a HAIRCUT!!!”

Well, Tornado and Thundercloud snuck up on The Cloudkeeper, trapping him and getting rid of his weapon!!! Finally, Ponyland would be safe!!

Ice Crystal, Sunburst, and the rest of the Mountain Boys along with the Care Bears brought the captured Cloudkeeper to the High King.

Re Unicorno and King Majesty deliberated, “Well...Father...your law remains in place...it is your decision on what punishment to grant for him...”

Re Unicorno spoke, “In my days of rule, there was much war. The ponies all could not be reunited, and our nation was divided. It would do no right for me to harm this being. Therefore, I proclaim exile from Ponyland, to further protect my people, but let him live”.

The Care Bears and Cousins took the Cloudkeeper away, deliberating on what to do with him..

Re Unicorno apologized, “I am so sorry to have judged you. Nobody should be judged on their rank or nobility. I ruled in a very different time, with very silly laws and expectations that must be changed! And love conquers all. When my son married the princess of the pegasi, it reunited the groups of ponies who had so many wars between them.Therefore, I will accept your courtship with the Princesses Celestia and Luna, just as my son has so far. I see how brave, responsible, and fearless you all are, traits that will undoubtedly make great princes...and one day kings”.

Tenderheart presented gifts, “I know we discussed a reward for your efforts, but all you want are two small rings? They won’t even fit you boys...”

Sunburst and Ice Crystal both agreed, “Tenderheart they aren’t for us!!”

Both brothers got down on one knee, and asked a very important question, “Will you marry me??”

Ponyland rejoices!!! Re Unicorno and the rest of Ponyland is safe, and now there will be TWO Royal Weddings!!

~THE END~

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mourntheantagonist · 4 years ago

Note

hc that Billy comes to love bath bombs after Starcourt. He starts keeping some at Steve's house and some at home. He finds they help a lot when he's having a really hard time either with physical pain from his injuries or just when he's struggling mentally.

don’t mind me absolutely going off below. idk how this turned into a full fledged one shot but I hope you enjoy it anon because your mind is so amazing.

———

I can imagine billy at home for one of the first few nights and he decides to take a bath because he still can’t really stand up too well on his own. when he walks in there’s a little bag on the counter that has his name written on it. Inside is this yellow sphere wrapped in plastic. he reads the label and follows the instructions and is stunned when the water starts to turn yellow and the scent of lemon fills the bathroom.

the scent is very calming, and considering he’s been on edge ever since he stepped back through the doors of his home, it’s a welcome feeling. when he gets in the water he’s surprised to notice the change of viscosity in the water. It’s slightly slimy but it feels really relaxing.

when he gets out of the tub after soaking for a while he feels for the first time since everything happened to be cleansed of the mindflayer. not entirely. but lingering hints to the scent of lemon make him feel clean and light and just a little less like a monster. no monster smells this good.

later that day max asked if he liked the bath bomb. for a split second he’s stuck on the word bomb until he figures out what she’s talking about.

“yeah. smelled good. thanks.” he’s still struggling to open up but he’s getting better about letting down his defenses, at least to max. part of letting down his defenses caused him to only be able to speak in one to two word sentences.

max understands though. and she appreciates not having to constantly walk on eggshells around him anymore. or at least not in the same way. instead being more concerned for scaring him rather than the other way around.

a couple days later he finds a box filled with twelve additional scents and colors and effects on his bed. he smiles. max.

she continues to restock for him as he cycles through each kind. his favorites are vanilla and lavendar and also the lemon. something about it makes his thoughts slow and his aches numb and he’s almost addicted to the feeling.

although it doesn’t last long because one day neil calls him out on it. asks him why he ‘smells like a faggot’. billy is initially able to say he used one of max’s soaps because he ran out, but that won’t fly for long. he eventually stops using them and lets the little collection he’s gathered sit under the sink in the bathroom to collect dust.

then he starts spending more time with steve. just needing to get out of his own house and out of his own bed for just a couple hours of the day he goes over to steve’s when he’s not at work. steve is constantly telling billy he enjoys his company but billy continues to apologize for burdening him. he’s not used to people just caring, and it’s especially foreign coming from steve for several reasons. one being that less than a year prior he nearly put him in the hospital. the second being that steve was a man, and there has never been a man in his life to actually care about him in that way. worried for his safety and well being. so billy tried to pull away, because he wasn’t going to allow him to let someone in just to be turned away at the door a second later.

but steve gets absolutely sick of it. sick of billy pulling away and believing he’s undeserving so steve practically forced him to believe it by kissing him the very next time he walks through the door. a very risky act on his part but he’s grown to trust billy over time that he’s not as worried as he could be for the outcome. he’s relieved when billy kisses him back, dropping a duffle bag to the floor that went completely unnoticed by steve as he was too locked in on billy’s lips. too locked in to notice the black eye that he only spotted when they pulled apart. too enthralled with the fact that he was kissing billy to taste the blood in his mouth. he’d ran away this time. he packed a bag and left and hoped steve would take him in. being met with a kiss right off the bat was the best thing that could have happened when steve opened that door. like the huge favor he was about to ask for almost became a small request because steve was inviting him into more than just his home. the kiss was an invitation into his life, and invitation for his care and love and all the mushy gushy stuff.

“I need a place to stay.”

steve, obviously and literally, welcomes billy into his home with open arms. immediately taking him to the bathroom to fix up the damage his father inflicted. steve kneeling before him while he sits on the toilet seat in complete silence. acting as if they didn’t have each other’s tongues down their throat just moments ago. both of them deciding it wasn’t the best time to talk about it. billy looked absolutely exhausted and worn and desperately needed sleep, and a nice bath (I know I just veered way off course but back to the regularly scheduled programming).

it was actually steve’s suggestion. noting the aches in his legs and back would probably be happy to be submerged under hot water. steve runs him the bath and goes to grab billy’s duffle upon request. steve gives him a soft kiss to the top of his head, before he leaves telling him they can talk about everything in the morning, and for him to just relax and take his time.

billy rummages for the small box he remembered to pack that’s filled with all the fun scents that max had been gifting him, after having to switch to using unscented alternatives which were nice but didn’t give him that same feeling.

he quickly picks out the cotton candy scented one that he’s been dying to try out. because what does cotton candy even smell like? he drops the bath bomb into the water and watches as it sizzles and quickly turns the water pink. oh if neil were there to see his sun soaking in a tub filled with pink water smelling like a fucking candy shop owner he’d do more damage than what had been inflicted earlier that night.

despite the developing bruises all over his body and the sting as the contents of the bath bomb filled his open wounds, he hadn’t felt this good in months. physically he felt like shit. but he was mentally and emotionally euphoric. running off the high from just minutes ago having steve harrington’s lips on his. the boy he believed to have been so far out of reach and was happy enough to just appreciate from afar. it felt unreal and like it was a dream. all that combined with the surprisingly intoxicatingly amazing aroma filling his senses and the feeling of rejoice as he finally took the steps to leave the clutches of his abuser and was so much more than successful. it was sheer bliss accompanied by aches and pains from past and present inflictions that didn’t seem so bad anymore.

steve and billy sleep in the same bed that night. they don’t cuddle or even so much as let limb touch limb, still unsure of the boundaries. but even with the distance between them steve can smell the unfamiliar candy like scent and takes it all in.

when they wake up in the morning they talk everything over during breakfast. billy tells him how his father just came home and started pounding into him completely unprompted. shouting slurs at him. the smell of whiskey potent on his breath. billy truly knew then that it was no longer about what he did or did not do. he’d feel his wrath regardless. and steve had scolded him about self preservation before and finally decided to take his advice.

then they adress the even larger elephant in the room, their kiss. it’s not that they were avoiding the topic per se, but they were definitely afraid to abandon this good feeling by talking about it. but they bite the bullet anyway, and they don’t regret that they do. despite how uncomfortable it is for billy to talk open about his feelings, especially these kinds of feelings, he feels something inside him release at the confession. like everything he was holding inside of him is free to the open air and steve takes hold of it and cherishes it.

their little unspoken thing that has been developing over the course of a few months finally being spoken. finally giving a name to the meaning to it all. of their late at night trips to the quarry. sharing a joint as they stare at the water below as it reflects the night sky. of their movie marathons on steve’s living room couch. giving meaning to each individual brush of the knee under the shared blanket. of stolen glances and words said under their breath. of thoughts of the other invading their dreams at night. a name to it all.

it’s a strange adjustment. to go from two guys secretly pining over each other from afar to instantaneously dating and living together. sharing a bed together, sharing meals together. things they were so used to doing alone now having a guest. it was nice and strange at the same time but they both welcomed it. waking up under the warmth of another human being. getting to see each other at their worst, when they were riddled with bed head and morning breath, and loving each other all the same.

what they did in bed wasn’t fucking. screwing. banging. it was much more. it was unfair to use those words that once described their previous encounters to describe what they did with each other. it was much different. putting their partners pleasure above their own. yearning for each other’s lips upon their own above anything else. as cheesy and corny as it is it was, they made love.

things moved awfully quickly. the two of them knowing they were in love with each other from the very start, however never saying the words out loud. they didn’t go through the normal stages of a relationship. they skipped a lot of steps and that led to some bad days. sometimes they spent too much time together, and billy’s on true safe haven came in spherical shaped and wrapped in noisy plastic, rather than a can of beer or a pack of marlboro’s.

that’s where he goes when things get shaky between the two. when he feels his fists clenching against his will and the veins on his forehead make their presence known. he escapes a potentially bad situation and lets his anger rise out of him with the steam of the hot water, and dissipate into nothingness. cleansing himself of the hurt. scars hidden under opaque colorful water.

the problem is steve doesn’t like when billy leaves him alone without word. he understands he needs his space, but he wishes he’d only talk to him about it before walking off.

on one day, when billy left mid conversation, steve follows. he honestly doesn’t know what he thought billy did in the bathroom for hours, and he’s not sure why he’s surprised to find his boyfriend laid out in a bath full of deep blue water with his eyes closed just relaxing. noticing the rise and fall of his chest as he takes in deep calming breaths. noticing the beach like scent that floods the room.

“can I join you?” steve finally asks. very intrigued in what all of this is.

billy thought he’d be more upset about steve bathing in. about him completely disregarding his need for space, but he wasn’t. perhaps space wasn’t really the thing he needed. he gestures to the other end of the tub, signaling the affirmative.

steve strips and slowly lowers himself into the tub. he’s facing billy who has since gone back and shut his eyes, head pointed to the ceiling. the water is very hot but feels really good on his skin. he has his legs pulled up to his chest as to not disturb billy. he just watches him as he relaxes completely. a state he rarely, if ever, has seen him in.

after several minutes billy opens his eyes and pulls steve over towards him so now they are both facing the same direction and steve is sitting in between billy’s legs. he has his arms wrapped around him and kisses his shoulder.

“I’m sorry for just walking out.”

“it’s okay. I get it.” steve responds, bringing his own hand to lay on top of both of billy’s that grip his stomach. “wanna tell me how you made the water turn blue?”

“magic.”

steve laughs and leans into billy, closing his eyes like he had and completely understanding almost instantly. it’s like he goes somewhere else. somewhere warm that smells of the ocean. somewhere nice and serene. he could easily fall asleep right there in billy’s arms. allowing himself to prune up under the water.

it’s something they continue together. when they both feel like they’ve had enough of each other for the day, instead of going off on their own, they strip down and enjoy a moment together in the tub. closing their eyes and imagining far away places while wrapped up in each other. a reminder that they’re both still there for each other. alone but together. dealing with their issues as a unit. feeling clean and smelling good afterwards.

steve comes home one day lugging in multiple bags worth of bath bombs along with other fun stuff like bath salts and bubble bars. their bathroom cupboards are better stocked than their kitchen. they both admit it might be just a little excessive.

but it doesn’t matter. because it’s perfect for them. any fight, any argument, any disagreement. all it takes is a brightly colored bath bomb and all that tension disaplears under the sizzle. it’s strange knowing they have max to thank for all of it.

#harringrove #this was so much fun to write #sorry it’s long and drawn out but I had to get it out bc I love this hc so much #billy hargrove #steve harrington #stranger things #fanfic #mandi writes tresh #headcanons #anon

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