#like damn at least say some creative shit like ‘pull the trigger’
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kill yourself bitch
AHHHH U MADDDD LMFAOAOAAO😜😜😜‼️
oh me oh my i’m shivering in my timbers🌚🤓
how ever will i live when user @saetoru has told me to kill myself 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤓🤓
oh u loser ass tumblr bitches always be the biggest cry babies i swear bro😭‼️🙏🙏🙏
#❙ ⋆ 𝑨𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐄𝑺 ❞#bro has no valid argument for me LMFAOAOAAO#idek if it’s sae i’m just assuming since her bitch ass assumed her anons were karma and she made herself look like an ass#anyways sae or not#please come up with something better next time#y’all r so corny😭☠️#AND BORING#ohmygod?????#like damn at least say some creative shit like ‘pull the trigger’#BOOOOOORRINGGGGGG SNOOOOOORRRINGGGG#ok i’m done 😭
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Erron black trying to court s/o headcanons? 🫡
Erron Black Courting HC's
I LITERALLY LOVE YOU FINALLY SOMEONE REQUESTS ERRON! I love him so much, cowboys are just AUGHHHH 😫😫😫 This is probably the fastest request I've written!
Character: Erron Black.
Triggers: Mentions of guns, lmk if I missed anything.
Requested: Yes
🔓 Requests are open at the moment🔓
Link to rules
🐎 Erron Black would maintain his mysterious aura but gradually reveal his softer side to his S/O. He might leave little gifts or hidden notes around to pique his S/O's curiosity. He leaves small, enigmatic notes with cryptic messages, encouraging the reader to solve them, leading to secret meetups.
🐎 Occasionally, he sends them rare desert flowers or unique trinkets as tokens of his affection.
🐎 Erron challenges you occasionally to a shooting competition in a secluded area, setting up targets in creative and challenging ways.
🐎 He'd provide shooting lessons, standing closely behind the reader to guide their aim, creating a romantic tension. He just wants to impress you with his sharp shooting skills
"Let me show you how it's done," Erron stands behind, guiding his S/O's arm, both focusing their vision on the target in front of them. "Now, squeeze the trigger gently."
🐎 An adventure might involve a surprise horseback ride to a hidden oasis, complete with a picnic he prepared. I know this is Erron we are talking about but he's gonna try his damn best to make you happy.
🐎In perilous situations, Erron would shield the reader, using his skills to ensure their safety. He'd be damned if something happened to you. He'd go to great lengths to ensure his S/O's safety, showing his commitment and care.
"I can't stand to see anyone threaten you. I'll always keep you safe, no matter what."
🐎 Erron's morally ambiguous nature might lead to inner conflicts, as he tries to balance his loyalty to Outworld with his feelings for his lover. He doesn't want to scare you away or think he'd hurt you, but he's not going to give up his outlaw life, just keep you away from the dangers.
🐎 During quiet nights by a campfire, he definitely would tell you stories, some goofy, some intense. He might gradually open up to you about his past and the reasons for his outlaw lifestyle, creating a bond of trust and intimacy.
🐎 YOU CAN'T TELL ME HE WOULDN'T TRY TO CHARM HIS S/O WHILE COURTING THEMMMMM!! HE SO WOULDDDD.
🐎 Expect lots of playful banter and teasing from Erron as he tries to charm you. His wit and humor would be part of his courtship strategy. HOWEVER THEY ARE ALL SUPER CHEESY AND FUNNY. I love him but I feel like he'd be saying some of the most goofy shit possible with someone he genuinely likes.
🐎He would tease the reader with witty one-liners, creating a playful yet flirtatious dynamic.
🐎 Banter between them would be a recurring theme, adding humor to their interactions.
"You might want to be careful, sweetheart. I've been known to steal hearts." Erron said as he wrapped an arm around you, pulling you closer to him as the two of you watched the stars.
"Oh really?" S/O chuckles as they rest their head against his shoulder. Rolling their eyes at his cheesy attempt to charm.
🐎This man is an outlaw, he's unpredictable.
🐎 What does this lead to?
🐎He might surprise the reader with unexpected acts of kindness or show up when they least expect it, keeping them on their toes. All of a sudden he's appearing at their doorstep with a homemade dinner and flowers in hand.
🐎 Unexpected visits during storms, when the reader least expects it, would be Erron's way of expressing his affection.
"I brought dinner. Hope you like it."
"You can cook?"
"A little something I picked up over the years. Just for you."
🐎 Erron Black would likely be a fan of slow burn, gradually building a connection and chemistry with his S/O, making the eventual romance more rewarding from his courting.
"I reckon I want to savor every moment with you, darlin'. No rush."
Essenceeater © 2023 ┃ do not copy, modify, steal, repost ANY of my content.
#mortal kombat#fluff#angst#mortal kombat fanfic#mortal kombat fanfiction#mortal kombat x#mortal kombat x reader#mortal kombat 11#sfw#erron black#erron black x reader#erron black mk#gender neutral s/o#gender neutral y/n#gender neutral reader#headcanons#courting headcanons#tw gun mention#tw gun#cowboy
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5/31/23
Yep, it's late again. XD
What happened this time? I don't know... I kinda panic-rushed to start working on those prototype beads at... 2 fucking 30 in the morning. You know... as one does... And here I am, starting my journal at 4:44 AM, the birds filling the air with their cheerful song, the midnight blue of dawn slowly warming the sky.
The good news? I got a really cool design done on one of the beads. The bad news? My goal was to do 4 of them, and to Mod Podge at least one of them. And I clearly didn't. So... yeah.
The day just got away from me again. Like... ugh. It's just frustrating me. I seriously don't even sit down to have my coffee until like 5 PM, and I'm rarely done drinking coffee before 7. Where do the fucking hours go?!
Like... I barely spent any time in bed! I got up, I did yoga - the lower back and hip one I like - then I did a bit of a workout after, because I hadn't been doing them. I have this ritual of opening the window and then doing the coffee before yoga, so it steeps while I'm doing that. And then, after the workout, I go and make cereal and I sit down and... it's like 4:30. At least.
I mean... I did play Risk of Rain a bit... but just one run to go for an achievement, I don't think it took longer than an hour... Hmm... maybe that did take longer than I remember. Maybe that's the X factor. Hmm...
Welp... after all that, I went and showered. I put a clothes iron and a glass bowl to make another plant terrarium thing with in a cart on Amazon and never ordered it. I made dinner. I played music for a long time. I got really sucked into it too. I even opened Cubase and got ready to record and everything. But... I never pulled the trigger on it. Not until too late.
What's getting in the way? Twitch. I guarantee it. I'm just getting distracted. It's too fucking easy for me, it's so damn tempting. It's improv, it's comedy, it's drama, it's character-driven stories. How can I say no? I don't know, maybe I'm being a bit hard on myself.
I did an intense workout today, I snuck in some work hours late at night and I'm still kicking my own ass about not "being productive". <eyeroll> I need to chill with that shit.
The flowers really didn't have the same level of aroma tonight as they did yesterday... I wonder why that is?
Anywho, since it's so late, I'm just going to move along to tarot. And I'm counting this as work, because I honestly think I could give some good readings for people, and I plan to try in the near future on stream. I would offer in-person, but... I don't even have a table in my apartment. We'll see.
Past - Ace of Wands, inverted (Inspiration, creativity, fresh ideas. The seed of confidence you need to embark on a new creative journey.) Present - Six of Cups, inverted (Nostalgia, memories, past relationships. Learning from and reconciling with the past, to create a better future.) Future - IV: The Emperor (A powerful, dominant, strategic and protective figure of great influence and reach. Symbolically, important changes, a shift in power, new responsibilities or authority. Adjacently symbolizes stability.)
I swear I shuffle and cut these every time. I even looked through the top of the deck to see if there were any other familiar cards from last night there. I guess these symbols are important!
So... last night we explored my connection between the Emperor in Past... and an inverted Ace of Wands in Present. Now we're looking at that inverted Ace of Wands as the catalyst. My inability to access my creativity: having creative block, me restricting or censoring myself, whatever the reason... That leads to a dysfunction in my ability to reflect on the past. Something gets fucked up there. Or... my nostalgia turns dark... That was the first thing I felt when I learned what the card meant. Like... how I struggle with nostalgia because... it's rarely good memories. It's like a minefield of trauma and painful emotions. So... I'm guessing my lack of confidence in my creative self can be a direct route to that. And... if that's out of whack? The Emperor comes out. I mean, why wouldn't he. He's the father figure, the protective guardian, the lord. And, in essence, that's not necessarily a bad thing... but... if we put that in the context of the reading last night about the Emperor having a strong tendency to cause inverted Ace of Wands to happen... That's a feedback loop right there.
When I struggle to connect with my creative spark, or lack the confidence to engage with it, I end up looking back to the Past in ways that are... not helping. Hopeless longing, or dreading, even spite. "I didn't used to be like this." "I never used to struggle like this." "I used to have friends to help with this." Shit like that, which just sends me spiraling into all the shit that comes with those memories, all the attached nightmares, all the ghosts haunting those houses. And the reaction to this? The Emperor comes out to keep order. The "alright, what's going on here, we're supposed to be working, right? How productive have we been today? What's on the whiteboard? You can think about that stuff later if it's important" voice. And he's good at keeping emotions at bay... for the moment... But what last night said was... when he comes out... it tends to actually either reinforce or even cause a blockage between me and my creative spark. Or, at very least, my confidence to take creative risks. And this can result in a great outpouring of emotion. Ironic, eh? XD
Welp... that's a bit of a cluster fuck, isn't it? Hmm... so... if there's anything I've learned this week. I gotta work on my inner parent. I need to let myself wander a bit more, and be okay with a few days of meandering. I need my inner parent to focus more on... constructing larger scale plans. Like... some form of day structure... like developing strategies to get to bed earlier, constructing hypothetical scenarios where I'm working and enjoying myself, finding ways to get me outside more. Shit like that. And less... self-policing. If I had a good foundation, a healthier framework, I wouldn't need to self-police at all. So... that's my solution. Instead of going "oh no, don't ever listen to the Emperor" or whatever... to give little tweaks customized to how I know my personality works. Something that seems doable.
But for now, I'm off to bed.
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Today I bring you… *drumroll*
Edit: I forgot to tag the lovely artist that inspired me write these. @levionok, ask and you shall receive!
Teacher!Hob headcanons (mixed with an aftertaste of dreamling because I’m mentally ill about them)! Plus a bonus, mildly NSFWish, bit because, as much as I insist on writing sexy shit about them, I’m shy in front of an audience
Teacher Hob headcanons
Hob drives a motorcycle to university. it’s very important to me, ok? (picture him in a well worn leather jacket, distressed blue jeans and taking his helmet off/putting it on 😭💦🥴)
Hob’s outfit game slides from the most “cleans-up-nicely”, contemporary style, to the “just woke up with a migraine this morning after pulling 3 all nighters grading essays” half-made bun and T-shirt. His students can tell at what point of the school period they are depending on Mr Gadling’s looks alone.
Some of Hob’s literature students have taken to playing a game consisting of making him rant about William Shakespeare. He’s become scarily good at keeping his thoughts about the playwright to himself through the ages, and he can manage entire classes teaching his works without issue (maybe Will is still important or whatever). Still, once every blue moon, a student is able to get him riled up enough to trigger one of his signature “Shakespeare’s overrated” monologues. They have kind of a formula figured out: Bring up the topic of the bard’s possible inspirations, or the possible muse for Sonnet 130 and you’re pretty much a winner. He gets… passionate about it, to say the least.
Hob writes short quotes on the board at the beginning of his classes, hinting at the topic of the day. He makes his students try to guess it. He can be quite creative, which makes guessing more difficult. So, if they get it in the first three tries, he let’s them leave a bit earlier. As a treat.
He’s a MASTER storyteller. It’s one of the reasons why his lessons are so in demand and almost always full. His intonation, rhythm and body language are captivating. Sometimes, he’ll wear full-on costumes (with props and everything, the sweet man) to make his lessons more entertaining and interactive. Mr Gadling may be a little exotic, but that’s part of why he’s so popular at uni. (Something something, Dream’s rather private, but the pride that swells in his chest at Hob’s narrative abilities is undeniable).
Hob showed his students an antique fire weapon once (it was one of his, from the 17th century) and proceeded to baffle them after. demonstrating how to safely dismantle it, quickly put back it together, charge it and shoot it in record time. Like he’d been there when they first were made… Hey, Mr Gadling certainly has a variety of interests, huh?
So many faculty members have a crush on Mr Robert Gadling. He’s damn handsome and his easy smile melts even the coldest of hearts. He never seems to return anyone’s romantic sentiments, though. He insists there’s someone in his life already, but no one’s ever seen them?? And Hob won’t even tell their a name??? (He’s still a bit possessive about Dream’s name. It took him 600 years to get it, for god’s sake).
Cue the entire university slowly getting invested in Mr Gadling’s love life.
Bonus NSFW!
Dream enjoys visiting Hob at the uni. Sometimes, he’ll materialise in lecture halls, wait for him at the door, at the halls, at his office… Hob’s prudence is constantly hanging by a thread because Dream has taken a liking to showing up with nothing but his pitch black robe on and getting Hob to push him against the wall and maybe fuck him on his desk, if they have time.
#dreamling#the sandman#sandman#dreamgadling#dream x morpheus#dream x hob#hob x morpheus#hob x dream#dream of the endless#dream#dream the sandman#hob gadling#morpheus#dreamling headcanons#headcanons#the sandman headcanons#sandman headcanons#these are more like a ultra-short drabbles because i couldnt stop writing what the hell#i thought they'd be harder to write so imagine my surprise when the ideas wouldn't stop coming#anyway my thirst is really starting to show so imma stop there
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RUN | Pietro x Reader
Originally from my Wattpad
CHAPTER 11 - FAST
tw // violence, swearing
----
I have never, ever told anyone my secrets. I've barely even told them my real name. But everything Fury had said felt like a stab to the chest. I didn't like the fact that he had that power over me. To hear someone say the things I've only thought about in the dark out loud was making me feel exposed. I wanted that to end, and quick.
He was right. That was what angered me the most. Every syllable, every word he had uttered was dangerously close to the truth. No one knew I had nightmares. And no one knew I lived most of my life in the darkness of the Red Room. These were things that I kept to myself. But somehow, Nick Fury got his dirty hands on my secrets, and I wanted the one who put their nose in my business to pay.
"What makes you think someone told me these things?" He inquired. I wasn't interested in his game anymore. I just wanted him to get straight to the point.
"The fact that you question the possibility is a sign." I dug my fingers into my own skin, fighting the anger away. I couldn't let it get out of my control, not now. No matter how much I wanted to strangle him to death, I couldn't risk getting killed. At least not until I find out who spilled my secrets. "Answer me, Fury. How did you get the information?"
He took a deep breath, pausing before he said, "Through a reliable source."
"A source that happened to know everything about me? You're a horrible liar." I scowled. "I made sure those sources were dead. Hell, anyone who knows even my favourite colour is six feet under." Or you know, burnt to ashes. A very creative way of disposing and cremating, I'd say.
"I beg to differ."
"Oh? So, I wasn't the one who killed them? I wasn't the one who murdered them with my own two hands? Who watched them take their very last breath with my own two eyes?" I watched him squirm in his seat, it was subtle but I caught it. "I guess they burned their own bodies."
He laughed, raising his eyebrows in mock humour. "That's cute."
"Adorable, I know." I grinned, but I knew the usual playful sass it carried was lacking. I was dripping venom. "Someone new told you these things. And if you want my full loyalty..." I turned my head to the mirror, which was obviously built for people to look in. If I guessed right, a group of Avengers were standing right behind it.
"Then you'll let me slit their throat."
The man let out a loud laugh, baring his teeth as he did so. "We have files of you, too, you know. Don't need to get so dramatic, L/N. You're not as secretive as you think."
"God. You can stop trying to lie now, Nicholas. There is no file. Even if there was, it would be useless. I wiped all my records clean and I made sure of that." I leaned forward. "Now, tell me the name."
On the other side of the mirror, a certain Avenger was trying her hardest not to run away.
"She's going to kill me." Wanda let out a sharp breath, her heart racing fast. She didn't think herself as someone who scared easily, but the look in Y/N's eyes shook her to her core. "She's already overpowered me once. I'm too weak against her. My powers-"
"-are strong enough to defend yourself against L/N. You have nothing to worry about, Wanda." Pietro cut in, trying to comfort his sister. He kneeled in front of her as she sat, looking into her eyes.
"I meddled in her mind. I invaded her privacy." She stood up from her seat, her chair screeching against the floor as she pushed it forcefully. She was trying her hardest to not explode into a flurry of emotions. God, if stress was visible in colours, she'd look like a damn festival.
"We needed you to." This time it was Steve who spoke up. "What you did was necessary, and if it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have even gotten close to her accepting the offer."
"Besides, she's just playing mind games." Natasha chipped in. "She's trying to get Fury to break."
"Well, it might not look like it's working on him but I'm definitely affected." The young woman's eyes glowed red once more, the familiar scarlet waves swimming through and around her fingers. She tried to focus on the warmth, trying to find comfort in the familiar surge of her powers.
"Calm down." Pietro put his hands on her shoulders, urging her to stay seated. "She can't do anything to you. We won't let her." And he swore on that.
"Don't worry about it, kid. I'm sure Fury's got it all under control." Tony moved from the mirror to join his friends in comforting the young witch. "Plus, Pietro's right. We won't let her mess with you."
Wanda chuckled, amused at her family's antics of trying to cool her down."Are you just trying to calm me down so I don't accidentally blow this building up, or do you guys actually care about me?"
"A little bit of both." Tony shrugged. A small laugh escaped her.
"Guys." Natasha's voice brought them back to the problem at hand. Everyone moved to the mirror.
"You can shove that up your motherfucking ass, L/N."
The conversation had gotten heated. The room went still as everyone anticipated Y/N's next words. But then they couldn't hear her anymore.
"He muted us." Tony huffed.
Nick had disabled the speakers, and all they could see was him screaming at her, pointing in the direction of the two-way mirror.
Nobody moved.
Y/N was laughing, her body shaking as she cackled. They could see her mouthing a few more words before Nick slammed his palms onto the table and walked out, leaving her with a smug smile on her face.
Everyone's blood went cold.
"Wanda." The door suddenly opened, revealing a stone-faced Nick Fury. "I'm afraid it's gotten out of my control."
———
After approximately two hours, two men dressed in the familiar S.H.I.E.L.D attire came into the room I was in, and then led me outside to a well-lit hallway. The walls were stark-white, strips of light lining up at the sides of the ceiling.
"Where are you taking me?" I turned to the taller one of them two, trying to get him to look me in the eyes. But he kept his head straight, dragging me along as he walked.
"The Director ordered us to take you to him." He didn't react. He was like a robot...not even an ounce of emotion behind his eyes. I bet he'd be very good at playing poker. Maybe I should ask.
"Can't he just get me himself?" I whined like an ass, wanting to get at least some reaction out of him. But he stayed silent, barely affected. I huffed, turning to the other one instead. He was bald and he looked very angry.
"Is he always like this?" I pretended to laugh. Bald Man gave me nothing but a fierce sideways glance. This was boring. They were boring me. "Fine. Don't talk. Can't believe S.H.I.E.L.D hires people with dry humour."
"Hey...out of curiosity, do you play poker by any chance?" I genuinely wanted to know. Tall Man threw me a dirty look before turning his head away again. Still no damn reply, though.
"Jeez. It's just a question." I stopped talking immediately. I wasn't going to waste my breath on these two assholes.
Just as I was about to bask in the silence, a loud crash echoed through the hallway, the sound of gunfire and shouts bouncing off the white walls.
"GET DOWN!"
I heard the familiar whizz of a bullet coming towards us, and immediately dived to the floor, stomach flat on the ground. It hurt like a bitch, but I'd take a couple of bruises over a bullet any day.
The two men beside me immediately reached for their handguns, aiming it at whoever shot at us. I couldn't see, too busy trying to dodge bullets to focus on the attacker. It was a cursed situation. I was in handcuffs, and I had no weapon whatsoever.
Yet here I was, getting shot at in the hallway of S.H.I.E.L.D's headquarters. What have I gotten myself into?
"Search for her!" I heard a male voice shouting in the middle of all the commotion. Could it be? This wasn't just anyone. The minute I heard his voice, my blood went cold and I froze in my tracks.
He was here. And he was coming to get me.
"We have to get her out of here!" Tall Man yelled to his friend.
I heard the familiar crackle of a radio from where Bald Man was, "Code Red! Code Red! We've got a breach in the security system-"
A gunshot cut him off.
"Damn it–Tall Guy! I think this is the part where you take my handcuffs off!" I prayed he would comply. Please just get me out of here, please.
He didn't respond, so I rolled over to my back and heaved myself up, hands still bound. I couldn't be here. He was here. How did they find out where I was?
It took me years to get off their radar. I was invisible for so long, it seemed like I was so close to being forgotten. But they never forget.
Hydra never forgets.
I ran blindly through the hallway. Somewhere in the commotion, they threw smoke-bombs at us. Even if I wanted to run, I'd risk running into them.
Thousands of possibilities swam through my mind. Was this really the end for me? For my freedom?
My panic levels surged as I felt a pair of hands grab my shoulders. I yelled, but I ducked out of their weak grip quickly, landing on the ground with a hard thud as my imbalance overpowered me. It was an unfamiliar face wearing an all-too-familiar emblem on her chest.
"You." She grinned.
"Yeah, no shit, it's me." I tried to scurry away from her, dragging my body pathetically on the ground as she creeped closer to me. The minite she was close enough, I swung my right foot across her feet. She fell on her ass immediately.
Old-school trick. Hydra's hiring idiots, now?
I scoffed before moving into action, swiping her gun away from her holster and shooting at her stomach. She clutched her wound, howling in pain as blood flowed out. I couldn't afford to think twice about it.
I ran again, this time in the opposite direction of where she had come from. Then I bumped into a brick-hard chest.
Panicked, I aimed my gun at the intruder. Only to find a silver-haired man at the end of the barrel of my gun. He held his arms up. "Don't shoot."
"I could pull the trigger right now." I was breathless–not only from fatigue, but from anxiety. "I would, you know."
He didn't say anything, but he did move. It was a hell of a blur, and just as I blinked, he held my gun in his hand while I stood empty-handed.
"Now you can't." He raised an eyebrow.
"Find her! Now!" It was his voice again.
Pietro's eyes flicked from my face to the area behind me. I turned away from him again, scanning the place for an escape. There was none.
My hands were cuffed. I had no weapon. I had no advantage. I was at a dead end.
There was only one way out of this. Unless I was willing to walk head-first into hell again. And God knew I would take this road just to avoid the other consequence.
"Alright. I give up."
"What?"
"I pledge my fucking loyalty to you. Or whatever it is that you want. I swear." I looked into his eyes, desperate for him to oblige, to listen. "Now get me out of here. Fast."
#run pietro x reader#avengers reader insert#pietro maximoff#pietro x reader#pietro x you#pietro maximoff fic#wanda x reader#wanda maximoff#marvel reader insert#mcu#steve rogers#natasha romanoff
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companions react to news of the institute christmas party courser revolution and the fact that the institute is now apparently populated entirely by festive rogue coursers in elf costumes and also what ramifications this has on the politics of the commonwealth as a whole. father's drowned corpse, still in his silly santa hat, is now impaled on the antlers of the fake reindeer on the sleigh prop by the institute's metaphorical front door as a warning and a symbol of their casting off chains.
Cait: “You have to at least give them some points for creativity.”
Cait pulls a face, but says, “I guess.”
“Come on, Cait. You could at least admit it’s a little funny. I’d have paid good money to be a fly on the wall that day.”
“It’s fucked up, is what it is. How are you so calm?”
“How are you so stressed?” They lean back in their chair, folding their arms contentedly. “They basically did our job for us. No more Institute.”
She sighs. “You’re nuts.”
“Maybe. I guess all we can do is wait and see what happens, huh? Maybe they’ll retreat to their underground hidey-hole and leave the Commonwealth alone.”
“Not countin’ on it.”
“You can be as pessimistic as you like. The way I see it, this is a good thing both ways. Either the Institute collapses without strict management- which would be good- the coursers decide they don’t believe in what the Institute was doing before and stop- also good- or we go in there and only have to kill half of what was there. A win-win-win situation.”
She shakes her head. “Whatever you say. I’m not buyin’ it.”
Curie: “The absurdity of the situation is certainly not lost on me, Madam/Monsieur, but surely there are still, ah, consequences for this?”
“Oh, sure, yeah, definitely. I mean, they’ve basically got my son on a pike on the CIT lawn. But, you know, don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things, as the old saying goes.”
“I... do not think this is a ‘petty thing’ anymore.”
They wave a hand dismissively. “We’ll wait for the dust to settle, then go check it out. Until then, I’m not jumping to any conclusions.”
“I am merely saying that, given the evidence, this seems quite disastrous, especially in terms of political instability.”
“Ah, who cares about politics? Unless they or someone else starts a war, it’ll be fine. Let ‘em live a little. Everybody’s gotta have a rebellious teenager phase at some point.”
Curie wasn’t sure this counted as being a rebellious teen, but if that was what brought sole comfort, she would let them have it.
Danse: Listening Post Bravo is quiet. That’s how he likes it, and how it’s going to stay.
Courser uprising. Of course, it was a courser uprising. What else could it have been? Those things are killing machines; death is everything they were designed for, and now they’ve taken the reigns and can do as they see fit across the Commonwealth with no masters to keep them in check.
He pulls himself a little tighter into his corner. God, what a mess. This is over. They needed to go back to DC and forget they had ever heard of the Institute. Tactical retreat. If Arthur wasn’t so far on his warpath, he might have even suggested it, but he was six feet deep in his “now’s the time to strike” speech with no sign of stopping to think about the hole he was digging.
Well, Arthur could do what he wanted. Danse has had enough of this, enough of the goddamn Commonwealth, enough of the synths, enough of it all. This was his home, now, and he was going to sit here and plant potatoes and forget anything that happened outside. Especially the fact that coursers even existed and could, presumably, come knocking on his door at any moment.
He was going to make an effort to forget that first.
Deacon: He lets out a long, low, whistle, then turns to Dez. “We should’ve thought of that one first, Boss. It’s genius.”
“It’s madness.” Desdemona pinches the bridge of her nose. “But I suppose it works in our favor, at least for now. There should be chaos in the Institute right about now.”
“Other synths probably saw the carnage.” Glory pipes up. “They might be getting some similar ideas. This could be our moment.”
“Who would’ve predicted this, though?” Deacon grins. “It’s so out there that I can’t even be surprised that it happened. I mean, tell me “Holiday Office Party Leads to Destruction of Commonwealth Boogeyman” doesn’t sound like a headline you’d see in the Publick these days. It’s the perfect brand of Commonwealth crazy.”
“The Brotherhood is going to want to get on this,” Carrington says, shooting a glare Deacon’s direction. “We need to act before they can get there.”
“I’ve reached out to our man on the inside,” Deacon replies, glaring back. “But until we hear back, we might as well enjoy the show.”
Dez shakes her head. “I suppose so.”
Gage: “Honestly? Can’t blame ‘em. That holiday party sounds like an actual nightmare. I’d kill someone if they stuck elf ears on me, too.”
“Damn. There go my plans for next Christmas.”
Sole’s tone is dry enough he can’t tell if they’re joking. “I’m serious, Overboss. You even look at me with a costume-”
“I value my life, thanks.”
“Just providin’ fair warning. I don’t think any of the others would take kindly to it, either.”
They shake their head. “Mason wouldn’t mind. He practically dresses up in a costume every day.”
“Are you shitting me? He’d be the one that hated it the most.”
“Absolutely not. Mags would hate it the most.”
He thinks about it a moment, then replies, “Fair point, but what about Nisha?”
Sole sucks in a tense breath. “Oh, that’d be a mess. A bloody, ugly mess. Moral of the story: no holiday parties.”
“Good advice.”
Hancock: “I mean, good for them?” He stares at the ceiling, still a little baffled. “I guess?”
“But what does this mean, John?” Fahrenheit lights up a cigarette across from him.
“Well, we’ll be fine. I have that on good authority. Everybody else...” He makes a face.
“Exactly. No one knows.”
“No one even knew this was an option.” Smoke hisses between his teeth. “I mean, it’s fitting that they’d go up in smoke because of their own arrogance, but still.”
“People are losing it.”
He snorts. “Think of the Brotherhood. They must be havin’ a real heyday over there. But us? We’ll be fine. That’s what matters, right?”
“That’s what matters.”
MacCready: “I honestly don’t know what to say.”
Sole shrugs. “Then don’t say anything. I’m still not sure how I feel about it myself.”
“This is a good thing, right?” He looks to them for some explanation. “Right?”
“It’s too early to say, yet.”
“’Too early to say’? It’s a courser uprising for crying out loud. Forget what I said. This is bad.”
“Could turn out to be good, though.”
“Okay, it could, but...” he shakes his head. “What the heck. You’re right. We’ll see.”
Still, it’s a messed-up way to go. The only thing worse than being killed by a courser, he imagines, is being killed by a courser dressed up as a holiday elf.
Nick: He blinks slowly, purses his lips, then carefully folds his newspaper and puts it to the side.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I know. Crazy, huh?” Sole pops the cap off a Nuka-Cola and takes a seat on his desk. “All it took was a Christmas party.”
“I gotta say, this wasn’t among the ways I thought the Institute would go. Up in a firey ball, sure, but at the hands of killing machines dressed as Santa’s elves?”
“That’s what makes it so great! No one saw this coming, the Institute least of all, I assume. Can you imagine the mess that must be happening at Boston Airport right now? The Brotherhood is shitting their pants as we speak.”
He just shakes his head. “We can close that case, I guess. I’m not sure if I should be happy for them or horrified at the circumstances. Still, we should be careful; it’ll be hard to know what a change in leadership means for us.”
“Sure, sure.”
“I’ll give ‘em credit for creativity, though.”
Piper: This is the best thing to happen all year.
For once, papers are flying off the shelves. She’s selling copies right off the press, selling them before they’re even printed. She’s on backorder for the story of the festive courser rebellion, which she’d heard all the details about from a Diamond City guard wearing suspiciously Deacon-like sunglasses. But forget him.
People have traveled to get here and get their hands on the Publick. There’s someone from Bunker Hill sitting next to someone from Cambridge next to someone who said they came from the Glowing Sea, of all places. The caps she’s making is more than she could have ever imagined, and she’s glad she faced sleep deprivation to make this one a Publick Occurrences exclusive. It’s been well worth it so far. Nat doesn’t even have to stand on the street to hawk the paper, people are coming right up to her door and knocking, no joke.
She knew the war would be profitable, but it’s made even better by the way it all went down. A holiday party gone wrong is the perfect headline, and if she could find a courser, she’d kiss them for their genius. Because this is the best thing to happen to her since she not-so-subtly implied McDonough was a synth.
Bless the coursers of the Institute for their impeccable sense of style.
Preston: “I have to say, I didn’t expect to be crossing ‘take care of the Institute’ off of my to-do list so quickly.”
Sole cocks their head to the side. “I mean, it’s not gone yet. Just... under new management.”
“New management, new threat in my opinion. You can’t really believe everything is going to stay the same after this. The Institute is going to change in at least a couple of ways.”
“Fair.” They lean up against the workbench. “Kinda crazy how it all went down, though.”
He chuckles. “I’d call that an understatement, General. No one could’ve seen this one coming. Trigger-happy Brotherhood goes on the warpath? I thought we might see that one, but blowing up from the inside?” He shakes his head. “That’s a new one.”
“They kinda had it coming, though. Who thought making killing machines play Barbie was a good idea?”
“Someone who came to regret it, no doubt.”
#so many courser asks#so little time#the festive courser uprising has a special place in my heart#so it gets its own tag#festive courser uprising#fallout#fallout 4#fo4#fo4 companions#fallout 4 companions#fallout 4 companions react#cait#curie#danse#deacon#gage#hancock#maccready#nick valentine#piper wright#preston garvey
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days go by and seasons change (lets try again next winter)
julie's ready for a year away from home, studying and trying to refind the magic in music. luke's about to start on a summer tour around europe opening for a band. they meet one night, sparks fly and emotions run hight. now they've just got to try and see if they can maintain a long distance friendship.
ok hello hi so this is my wild ride of a fic that i’m working on, a scene (much later on) came to me in a dream, and much like how smeyer wrote twilight, i just had to find out how they got there fhbdj there’s some drinking which would be classed as underage in the us but is legal in the uk which is where it’s set so
trigger warnings!! alcohol and swearing
also on ao3 –– [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | extras 1 & 2 ]
winter
There was a line almost outside the door for the coffee shop, people wanting something to warm them up or just to avoid the sudden downpour of rain. Julie had been in England for just over a month now and she still wasn’t used to the randomly changing weather, how were you supposed to plan an outfit for the day if it started mildly sunny and ended in a thunderstorm? It was January! She had come prepared for snow, not rain, damn it.
From her table in the back corner of the cafe, hands wrapped around a mug and headphones blaring music, Julie people watched. Sure, she was supposed to be working on an essay, but she’d been there for half an hour already. She deserved a little break.
Even through her music she can hear the sounds of the cafe around her. Customers placing orders and rain on the windows and cups hitting tables and people laughing and it’s comforting. The sounds of life going on around her while she pretends to be doing work.
Pretends, because she’s been trying to work on this essay for a week now and getting nowhere with it.
When she’d signed up for the study abroad scheme her mind had been on experiencing a new country, on the places she could visit, the new friends she could make, the thoughtful looks she could escape.
She hadn’t thought much about the work she would have to do, the essays that would need to be written, the awkwardness of settling into a new place, the strangeness of hearing new accents.
The actual creative side of her course she found easy enough, but when it came to writing about her stylistic choices and her themes and her influences and how they all tied back with what they’d been reading about? She was drawing a blank.
Blowing on her drink, Julie let her eyes wander around the coffee shop. It was a fairly small place with an extensive collection of teas and fresh baked cakes and free wifi. She’d found it by mistake while looking for a music shop her first week in the city, they’d lured her in with carrot cake and coffee and she’d been coming back at least once a week ever since. A group of boys push through the door, shaking off hoods and laughing at something as they join the queue.
Something about them seemed vaguely familiar, like she’d seen them from a distance in a dark club, or scrolled past a group photo of them on her instagram suggested posts. Or maybe it was because they just looked like every other group of young adults she’d come across, both back home and in Liverpool. One thing she had learnt pretty quickly was that boys were the same everywhere.
She was saved from mulling it over by her phone vibrating on the table with a text, Carrie’s name popping up on the screen and Julie swapped her cup for her phone, a small smile already tugging at her lips as she read the series of texts on her screen.
Julie’s attention is dragged away from her phone by something – someone – knocking into her table, sending her pen rolling off and her cup to shake. Pulling her headphones out of her ears she looks up as the culprits eyes widen, mouth pulling into a grimace as he stares at the coffee now running down the back of her jacket that had been happily sitting in the spare chair.
“Shit,” he mutters, already pulling a napkin out of his back pocket and dabbing at the mess. “I’m so sorry, I uh– wasn’t looking and the chair leg and fuck I’m so sorry about your jacket, can it be dry cleaned?”
And he looks so sincere in his apology, all wide sad eyes and words stumbling out too quickly and messy brown hair curling out from under a beanie and accent that sounds like home, that Julie swallows back the annoyed retort she had ready to go.
It was just an accident. Accidents happened. At least it wasn’t over her laptop. Blowing out a breath, Julie shakes her head at him once, pushing back her chair to inspect the damage.
“It’s fine, honestly. Don’t–” she pauses, holding up the denim on either side of the collar and frowning at the pretty large brown stain. “Worry about it.”
Can she wash it? She’s never tried, but well. She bites her lip as she looks at it, the stranger awkwardly standing just a short distance away with a wad of used napkins and his half spilt drink, and yeah, she definitely won't be able to wear it tonight.
“I’m so sorry.” He says again and someone must catch his attention over her shoulder because his eyes dart away from her, eyebrows shooting up and shrugging his shoulders and, it’s kinda cute. The way he seems to be hovering, unsure if she’s going to shout at him.
“Seriously, it’s fine. Accidents happen, right?” She shoots him a quick smile – though not missing the way his cheeks turn slightly pink – before turning back to her jacket, carefully laying it out on the chair to hopefully dry out enough for her to stuff it in her bag before she needs to leave. She really hopes it stops raining.
“I uh– shit I’m sorry. Again. I gotta–” He gestures to the door where Julie can see his friends waiting for him, barely contained grins on all their faces that has Julie rolling her eyes. Boys. She looks back at him, raising an eyebrow even as her lips tick up into a small smile, she’s rewarded by his cheeks going red, the hand still holding the napkins rubbing at the back of his neck and a stuttered ‘goodbye’.
Sitting back down, Julie rolls her eyes again, muttering under her breath about ‘annoying cute boys’ and ‘favourite jackets’. Leaning down to pick up her fallen pen with one hand while the other tapped out a reply to Carrie. An hour more of sitting here, attempting to do her essay and then she’d have to go if she wanted enough time to get ready.
\\
“So where are you?”
Julie couldn’t hear what was being said on the other side of the phone, but judging by the way Carrie was rolling her eyes the answer wasn’t correct. Flynn leans her head on Julie’s shoulder, their linked arms drawing them closer as they walk, it’s not the most comfortable way to walk, but they’ve already had a few drinks and Flynn gets a little clingy after one. Julie puts her head on top of Flynns as they stumble along cracked stone streets.
“She actually might end up killing Bobby at this rate,” Julie mutters and is rewarded with Flynn letting out a laugh that has Carrie looking over her shoulder at them, eyes softening for a moment before she’s rolling them again. If she hadn’t known the other girl as long as she had, Julie would be worried about permanent eye damage.
“Fucking hell. Okay. Yeah, okay we’ll be like, ten minutes then. Yeah, yeah, okay bye.”
Sliding her phone into her back pocket Carrie took a half step back so she was walking with them again, linking her arm on Flynns other side.
“They’re at the Cavern Club,” Carrie looks at Julie over the top of Flynn’s head and lets out a loud sigh, “I know. That’s where we were going to go anyway. They’re so annoying.”
But she says it in a fond sort of way. Like how you talk about your neighbour's dog that barks too early in the morning and wakes you up, but always runs over to say hello to you through the fence when you walk past and brightens up your day. Annoying, but sweet.
Julie’s only met Carrie’s cousin Bobby once, it had been a short ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ type interaction as he ran into Carrie’s house to pick up his bag and then run straight back out again.
She’s never met the other three members of the band at all, but she knows, after doing a little bit of internet searching, that their band isn’t half bad. They’ve got some pretty good songs and a small following that she is sure is bound to get bigger by the time they’ve finished being the opener for whoever they’re touring with and their first album is out in the world.
The three of them flash their id’s to the security on the door, slightly giddy smiles on all their faces even now, still not used to it all being legal for them to drink under the age of twenty-one. But the security guy doesn’t even blink and then they’re walking down a flight of stairs, the air getting warmer and the sound of drums and guitars reaching them.
Carrie grabs hold of Flynn's hand and Flynn grabs a hold of Julies and then they’re weaving through people and avoiding knocking drinks out of hands.
Her attention is pulled from the crowd to the stage at the back of the room, a band playing a cover of something she can’t name, they don’t sound too bad, and the part of her that used to fall in love with music every time she heard it wants to stop and listen. But that part of her is small and quiet and shy now, so she keeps her grip on Flynn’s hand and follows along.
Julie doesn’t know how Carrie knows where she’s going but all of a sudden they’re coming to a stop, her free hand reaching out to balance herself on Flynn’s shoulder even as a small part of her is still trying to work out what the song is.
Turning her eyes away from the stage she looks at the five boys sitting at the table, a collection of bottles scattered across the wood, and Julie smiles at Bobby who’s standing up to hug Carrie, opens her mouth to say hello before stopping. Her brows furrow as she locks eyes with a shaggy haired brunette who’s own eyes are widening in realisation.
“You!” She blurts out before she can stop herself, and if anyone asks she would blame it on the three drinks she had before leaving the dorms, detangling her fingers from Flynn’s to point at him. With the music blaring so loud only the boys still sat at the table and Flynn heard her, the latter turning to raise her brows while Julie can see the boys trying not to laugh.
“He’s the guy who spilt coffee on my jacket earlier,” she shouts over the music, hand gesturing wildly at the table and Flynn follows her hand, eyes resting on the culprit.
“That was her favourite jacket!” Flynn props one hand on her hip and almost glares at him, but it loses part of its ‘scare factor’ when she starts swaying a little in place to the music. Well, Julie thinks it should lose some of it’s scaring power, but the guy still looks kinda worried, so who’s Julie to know?
“I said I was sorry!” He puts his hands up, shoulder raising to almost his ears, and with his eyes already open so wide and his hair curling slightly at the ends, Julie has to wonder how much trouble that look has gotten him out of over the years.
“You guys have already met?” Bobby jumps into the conversation before Julie has a chance to reply and Carrie is looking between them, lips pursed.
“This is the girl whose jacket Luke ruined earlier,” the blonde one says and Julie vaguely recognises him as being one of the boys from the cafe.
“Dude,” Bobby raises his eyebrows at the jacket ruiner – Luke, Julie reminds herself – shaking his head in disappointment.
“It was an accident!” Luke turns his sad kicked puppy look on Bobby before looking back at Julie, his hands lowering but his eyes still drastically wide, “I really am sorry about it.”
Julie tries, she really does, to hold on to that small kindle of annoyance that she’d felt upon seeing him again. But well, the jacket is already ruined and she’s come out to avoid doing an essay and she’s finding it really hard to be mad at someone so cute. Blowing out a breath she shakes her head at him.
“It’s fine, I’ll forgive and forget the whole thing if you buy me a drink.”
“That I can do,” the furrow in his brows smooths out and his shoulders relax and suddenly there’s a smile spreading across his face that seems to light up his eyes.
“So, you’ve met Luke. That’s Reggie, he’s our bassist,” Bobby nods at the dark haired guy sitting next to Luke who grins and waves, and it’s such an infectiously happy wave that Julie can't help but wave back. “Alex, kickass drummer,” the blonde who spoke earlier ducks his head a little, an almost shy smile on his face as he nods at them, “And Willie. Officially he’s one of our roadies, unofficially he’s just here to hype us up and do cool tricks in empty arenas.” Willie, who’s sat pressed against Alex’s side, raises his hand in a wave.
“This is Julie and this is Flynn,” Carrie points at them each before claiming the seat next to Alex and looking at Luke, “We’ll take 3 vodka lemonades. Please.” She only adds the please on the end after Flynn sits next to her, nudging her elbow into her side, Julie notices with a smile.
There’s a moment of bodies moving as Luke gets up from his side of the table, pulling Bobby along with him towards the bar and Reggie is waving his hand at her, nodding at the empty space along the bench next to him that she slides into gratefully.
They can’t really see the stage set up from here, but the music is still just as loud and Julie starts nodding her head along to the beat, trying to focus on the conversation happening on the other side of the table. Something about Carrie’s group and choreography and convincing someone to add in a dance break to a song. She’s laughing at something Willie said when a glass is slid across the table in front of her, a bottle of something passing over her to Reggie and she looks up in time to see Luke sliding into the space next to her, a small smile on his face.
“Forgiven and forgotten?” He asks, eyebrow quirked as he lifts his own drink, tilting it towards her in invitation.
“Forgiven and forgotten,” she agrees picking her glass up and tapping it against his beer bottle, shooting him a smile of her own before chasing the straw of her drink to take a sip, trying hard not to blush at the intensity of his stare.
//
It’s two hours later, three drinks and a deeply regrettable shot later, happily on the precipice of truly drunk but hanging out in tipsy land, when Julie shakes her head at Luke who’s standing on the bench. Tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration as he writes on the curved brick of the ceiling.
“Dude no ones gonna be able to even read that!” Reggie complains from next to her, his eyes squinting as if it will help him to read their names better. It doesn’t, Julie’s already tried.
“Why did we let the one with the worst handwriting do this?” Alex tilts his head to look up at Luke, who waves the hand not holding the pen in his face, almost hitting him but missing by several inches to the left and it sets them all off giggling.
“Because the rest of you are cowards!” He wobbles a little as he shuffles his feet to change angle, and Julie reaches out on instinct to hold his leg, fingers wrapping around his calf as if it will stop him from falling. His head drops down to look at her, teeth biting his bottom lip as he smiles at her quickly before going back to the ceiling.
To leave his – their – mark on a legendary musical site. Luke's words, the rest of them hadn’t been able to talk him out of it so they’d gone right into encouraging.
“I think you’re getting cowards and idiots mixed up,” Carrie mutters, head propped up on her hands, elbows resting on the table. Well, Reggie and Julie and Willie had gone straight to encouraging, the others were still on teasing.
“Do you want your name added or not?” Luke grumbles but Julie can see his pen moving, going over the letters of what she assumes is meant to be Dirty Candi, and bites her cheek to not laugh.
“Don’t forget it’s an ‘i’ instead of ‘y’ for candy!” Flynn leans forward, eyes on the ceiling as she shouts up at him and Luke says something, but it’s too quiet for any of them to hear.
It isn’t until he moves to get off the bench that Julie realises she still has her hand wrapped around his calf, her fingers idly tapping along to the song some guy with a guitar is playing behind them. Heat fills her cheeks (that she’ll blame on how warm it is in the club and the alcohol in her system thank you very much) as she lets go, pulling her hand back into her lap, watching from the corner of her eye as he jumps down and back into his seat, a proud smile on his face.
“Now when we’re big and famous people can come and hunt our names down.”
“And finally realise that you have awful writing and question how any of our songs get written,” Bobby grins at him, elbow nudging his side which sends Luke leaning into her to try and avoid it, sliding along the bench until there’s no space between them, and she can’t find it in herself to be too mad about it. He smells like tequila and mint and aftershave all mixed together, not really a good combination, but one she finds herself liking anyway.
“Well why don’t you start writing the songs, huh?” Luke retorts, and starts a back and forth with Bobby, Alex chiming in and Flynn watching it all like a tennis match, and Juile tries to follow it, but all she can think about is how Luke hasn’t moved back. How his thigh is pressed against her leg and his arm is resting around her back, hand near her hip and how if she wanted to, she could rest her chin on his shoulder and kiss his neck.
Not that she wants to kiss his neck. Does she?
Julie furrows her brows, biting her lip as she examines those thoughts, tries to decide if it’s the alcohol or the music or her lack of sleep or if she just wants to kiss him.
Flynn says something and it makes him laugh, loud and bright and unrestrained, head thrown back and eyes closed. And yeah, she just wants to kiss him. Fuck.
//
Reggie slings an arm around her shoulders, the other going over Flynns and tugging them together until their cheeks are all pushing together and Julie giggles, poking at his side with her partially trapped arm.
“What do we think chocolate tequila is like?” He asks, eyes glued to the chalkboard menu above them.
“Not as nice as the summer fruits one,” Julie says back, wrinkling her nose a little at the memory of when she’d tried it. If you liked chocolate, it was a bitter disappointment in her opinion. But she was also drunk enough now not to mind.
“Alex says we can’t get the coffee one. Thinks we’ll have a repeat of the red bull incident.” Luke appears on her other side, pushing his body into the small gap between her side and the next group of people. He’s stood so he’s facing her – them – and rests one arm on the counter top.
“Man he’s gotta get over that, it was one time,” Reggie mutters and Julie wants to ask what the ‘red bull incident’ is, but then Flynn is sliding three shot glasses towards them, salt and limes following, apparently having ordered without any of them noticing.
“We’re standing with mango!” Flynn shouts, shot already in one hand and salt on the other, clearly waiting for the three of them to catch up. Reggie lowers his arms and Julie can feel Luke’s hand brush past her arm as he moves to lick the back of his hand, she can feel herself flushing as she watches him do it. And is happy to note that he flushes just the same as he watches her lick her hand in turn.
Idly, Julie notices that Reggie counts them down, that Luke inclines his head at her before he lifts his shot to his lips, that Julie lifts her own, the liquid sliding down her throat with a slight burn that’s not eased at all by the lime she bites into. She squeezes her eyes shut against it and when she opens them sees Luke grinning at her, eyes full of something she can’t name but makes her want to blush again.
“Y’know what? Screw Alex, four of the coffee my good man!” Reggie shouts next to her, waving a hand at the bartender in front of them who just rolls their eyes but puts out four more shot glasses.
“Okay, you gotta tell us about the red bull incident,” Flynn finally asks what had been nibbling at the back of her mind from the moment Luke had spoken so she pulls her attention away from him and back to her friends as Reggie launches into his story that even grabs the attention of the bartender for a moment.
But Luke is a warm presence at her side, leaning into her space and breath ghosting against her neck as he chimes in the story. If she stepped back, just a little, she could lean her back against his chest. She wonders if he’d wrap an arm around her waist to hold her steady? Julie blinks and blows out a breath, raising an eyebrow as Reggie talks.
“Wait, how’d you get onto the roof?”
//
“So why Liverpool?” Luke asks, hands stuffed into the pockets of his coat as they aimlessly walk through almost empty streets, faint music coming from clubs and other drunk people giggling in doorways. The fresh air has helped a little to sober her up, but not enough for her to know where they’re going. But they’re following Carrie, who has a plan for the night and they’ve no option but to follow it.
Julie wraps one arm around herself, the other pushing hair over one shoulder as she thinks about it. There isn’t really a big fancy answer, no special reason for her choice, she shrugs at Luke, lips ticking up into a smile.
“It was the only place still with spots open,” she can see the slight confusion on his face and explains more, “I wasn’t going to take the study abroad year, but I changed majors and I needed to get away from home for a while. Carrie and Flynn had already signed up and the internet said the train didn’t take too long to get to Manchester or Glasgow.”
“You changed majors?”
Of all the things she’s said that hadn’t been the part she’d thought Luke would zone in on. It wasn’t really something she liked to talk about much, her fall away from music. She still loved it, still listened and wrote and sang, but the passion she’d once had, the magic she’d once felt whenever she sat at a piano? It had gone away. Had been gone for a long time. Had been gone for four years and she’d only been pretending she still felt the magic.
Everything she played or wrote was missing something and no one had seemed to notice but here.
It hadn’t been until one of her teachers in first year had pointed something out that Julie had finally confessed. And changed course and major the next week.
Everyone had tried to understand, had listened as she explained why she couldn’t do it. How her mom and music were so intertwined together in her head and her heart that it felt impossible to detangle them, to love and play music without always feeling like there was something missing. But she knew they didn’t really get it
So she’d signed up for the study abroad, and picked Liverpool because they had a good English Lit course and was close enough to her friends if she needed them. Okay, so maybe she’d lied a little, there was a fancy answer for why she’d moved, but picking Liverpool had just been random.
“Yup,” she pops the ‘p’ and glances ahead of them, where Willie has Alex clinging on to his back, running through a puddle and laughing loud and clear. She can’t help but smile at them, at the carefree way Willie spins around and Alex holds tighter, face red with whatever he’s trying to say between laughs. Luke must follow her gaze because he lets out a soft snort of laughter, and she can see him shake his head from the corner of her eye.
“I’d hate them if they weren’t so adorable together,” he muttered, but his gaze is soft as they both watch the couple; Willie lets Alex off his back and grabs hold of his hand before he had a chance to get too far away. They’re all soft eyes and teasing smiles and vibes that scream about being in love, you’d have to be blind not to see it. Julie looks away, feeling like she’s intruding on a private moment as they share a kiss.
“Tell me about the tour,” Julie says, drawing Lukes attention back to her and it’s the right thing to say because his face lights up with a smile that she’s sure is going to drive girls wild one day soon.
//
Julie nods along with the song blaring through the speakers, mouthing the words so herself as she scrolls through her phone, ignoring the press of bodies crowding the smoking area as best she can. From her spot near the wall, opposite the door, she can see Carrie and Willie and Alex dancing together, wide smiles and heads thrown back.
Flynn and Reggie are talking to a group of people off to the side and Julie can see the way Flynn has pulled her braids over one shoulder and is gesturing to Reggie every few words the way she does when she’s trying to hype someone up (she knows, from having been on the receiving end of it, many times). Bobby, standing with them, seems to find the whole thing hilarious, grinning around the cigarette hanging from his lips.
“Okay, favourite book?” Luke asks, leaning in close to be heard over the noise and if he doesn’t move back, well Julie’s not about to complain. The little space heaters on the wall don’t provide much warmth, and it’s January and she’s cold and someone ruined her jacket.
“Currently or of all time?” She asks, raising an eyebrow as she turns her head a little to look at him. Her heart stutters for a second at how close his face is to hers, she can see the small flecks of green in his eyes, can feel his breath ghost across her cheeks.
“Current,” he says and she can see as his eyes flicker down to her lips quickly before back up to her eyes and Julie really hopes she’s not blushing right now.
“Stardust. By Neil Gaiman. I’m reading it for one of my classes and it hits all the boxes for a fairytale.” She likes fairy tales, likes the idea of them, likes the message of true love and pure of heart and happily ever afters. This one just happened to involve lightning pirates which was a bonus. Okay, so maybe the lightning pirates were mostly a film detail, but still. “Favourite food?”
“There’s this little hole in the wall place down by the strip? They do the best cheeseburgers. If I could have one for every meal, I would.”
They’re still standing close together, eyes staring too intensely for a game of twenty questions and comments about cheeseburgers and Julie’s eyes flicker to his lips, can see the way they’re pulling up a little on one side. She wants to lean forwards, close the gap between them and press her lips against his. But then she shivers, shoulders hunching up around her ears as she rubs her bare arms, conscious of how close they’re sitting and how much she just kind of wants to steal his body heat.
“Are you cold?” He’s biting his lip, pulling back out of her personal space and Julie almost whines at the loss of contact and body heat and – well maybe she’s too drunk to be making smart choices right now if she’s five seconds away from whining.
“Well someone ruined my jacket,” she points out, eyebrows raised at him and is rewarded with his cheeks flushing and one hand rubbing at the back of his neck which she’s quickly coming to realise means he’s embarrassed or just a little flustered.
“I thought we’d agreed to forgive and forget about that?” He mumbles and before she can come up with a response Luke is standing up, shrugging his jacket off his shoulders and then he’s carefully draping it over her shoulders, fingers tapping lightly on her arm until she holds it out for him to slip through one arm hole, doing the same on the other side and then pulling her hair out from under the collar.
It’s too big on her, but the faux fur inside is soft on her skin and still warm from Luke and she can stick her thumbs through the little gaps created by the fastened buttons and if she turned her head a little she could smell his aftershave clinging to the collar. Julie can’t help the little smile that graces her face, rotating her shoulders to let the coat settle better on her body.
Looking up at him her brows furrow a little at the look on his face (if she wasn’t so drunk and giddy and tired she’d say it was something like awe but that made no sense. Why would Luke be looking at her in awe while she wore his jacket?), but it’s gone just as quickly as it appeared and he’s smiling at her, that wide smile from back at the start of the night when he’d handed her her drink and she’d tapped it against his.
“Thanks,” she tilts her head to the side, loose curls falling across her cheeks as she looks at him, a wide smile of her own and she opens her mouth to say something else – though she’s not sure what she’s going to say – when another voice cuts through and pops the little bubble they’ve created.
When did they even create their private conversation bubble? Julie doesn’t know, and from the way Luke’s head whips around to land on Flynn and Reggie and Bobby with wide eyes, he probably doesn’t know either. But it’s nice to know that he’d been enjoying their conversation as much as she had.
“We’re gonna get food, come on!”
//
“I wanted to be wrapped up in bed an hour ago,” Julie sighed but there’s no real annoyance in her tone as she hugs Luke’s jacket closed tight across her chest, shoulder brushing against his arm as they walk.
“But you also wanted pizza instead of McDonalds like everyone else.” And Luke has a point but she still pulls a face, sticking her tongue out at him and getting a laugh in return. She couldn’t even be annoyed at it, he had a nice laugh.
Plus, when she’d said she wanted pizza Luke was the only one who’d wanted to come with her, the rest of their friends going back to their hotels. He’d walked all the way to the takeaway with her, shared half of his chips and then started walking her back to her dorm, insisting on carrying her half eaten pizza too. It was all very sweet and kind and not helping her not want to kiss him.
“Where’s your first stop?” She asks, because he was about to start a tour and she had school and maybe if they were both back home they might have been able to give something a go, but they weren’t and Julie wasn’t really a one night stand kind of person.
“We’re heading up to Newcastle on Sunday to kick it all off,” there was a slight bounce in his step, his excitement almost palpable and Julie could tell that this was all he’d ever wanted. To play music to as many people as he could. A small part of her remembered what that was like, to want to share your songs with the world.
“Sing something!” She pulled him to a stop in the middle of the street, bouncing a little on the balls on her feet and grinning at him. Because she was still a little drunk and she missed feeling excited about playing music and here was this sweet charming guy who loved it so much and felt it with everything he had and Julie wanted to be like that again too. She wanted to think about music without it being tinged with sadness.
“What?” He laughed, eyes a little wide and glassy and with his hair looking more wild then it had when they’d started the night, but Julie was pretty sure she looked the same so she didn’t comment.
“Sing! Anything! Please?” Julie tried pouting at him, doing her best impression of Carlos and his puppy dog eyes and something about it must have worked because Luke huffs out a laugh as he looks at her, biting his lip in thought for a moment before he nods his head for them to keep walking before he starts singing.
His voice is a little rough, from screaming lyrics in the clubs and shouting to be heard in the bars, and his words are a little slurred because he’s a little drunk and a lot tired, but Julie’s sober enough to decide it’s one of the best versions of Mamma Mia she’s ever heard. As he gets to the first chorus she joins in.
They were just two slightly drunk young adults, singing in the street and if nothing else comes of his night she’ll always have this memory of unadulterated joy.
“You can sing,” he whispers and now it’s Luke’s turn to pull her to a stop with a hand on her arm and a look of wonder on his face. Julie shrugs a little and can feel her cheeks heating, but she keeps their eye contact and smiles at him.
“Only drunk in the streets.” Which is more true then he’ll ever know.
Luke opens his mouth to say something but she cuts him off by pointing over his shoulder at the building behind them.
“This is me.” She’s not sure what to do now, take her pizza and run? That seems a little rude, and unsafe. Julie’s not sure she can actually run in these shoes without falling. Luke looks over his shoulder quickly before looking back at her, blowing out a breath and nodding.
“Right, right.” He seems just as unsure as she is about what to do now, which makes Julie feel a little better about it.
“I should–”
“Can I–”
They both start at the same time and then Julie is laughing and Luke is huffing out a breath while a smile grows on his face. The only thing between them is a pizza box and she doesn’t miss the way his eyes keep flickering down to her lips.
“I can’t kiss you!” She blurts out, a hand quickly going up to cover her mouth and Luke’s eyes widen, taking a half step back, retracting his hand like he’d been burnt.
“That wasn’t– I– this–” Luke started stuttering, face going red and Julie quickly shook her head at him.
“That came out wrong! Fuck. I–” She curled her hands into fists at her sides, squeezing her eyes shut before opening them, “I want to kiss you, but I can’t.”
The shock on his face had softened at the start of her sentence only to morph into confusion at the end.
“You’re gonna have to explain this to me, Molina.” Luke still looks confused, but he’s still standing in front of her and that’s enough for her.
“I like you,” she dips her head as she says it, because Julie’s pretty sure she could really like him if given the chance, “but I’m no good at one night...things and you’re about to go on a tour and I’m stuck here and I just, I think– I think I’d like us to be friends. I think we could be really good friends actually.”
Because they’d only spent a few hours together and she’d laughed and smiled more in that time then she had in awhile. Luke was sweet and funny and had something to say about every song the DJ picked to play but sang along anyway. Which is why she doesn’t want to risk a friendship for one night in bed. The confusion on Luke’s face turns into understanding and the soft, slightly sad smile that he gives her tells Julie that she’s right. A friendship with him would be better than one really fun night.
“I get it,” and he carefully puts his hand back on her arm, squeezing slightly before pulling away. “And, for the record, I’m not very good at one night things either.”
Her heart beat sounds loud in her ears and it takes Julie a moment to refocus her thoughts. Friendship. No kissing. Friendship.
“Well, maybe if we can keep a friendship going until we next see each other we can try this moment again,” she waves her hand around them with a small laugh. They could probably keep a friendship going long distance, but Julie isn’t so sure that they’ll ever get a moment like this again.
“Deal,” Luke grins down at her and pulls his phone out of his back pocket and unlocks it, Julie raises her eyebrows at him when he holds it out for her, “In order to keep in touch we’re gonna need to exchange numbers.”
“You make a point,” she agrees, putting in her information and handing it back to him in exchange for her pizza box. “Text me when you get back to your hotel, okay? So I know you didn’t get lost.”
“Yes, boss.” His smile is a little teasing now and Julie shakes her head at him as she brushes past him to walk into her dorm. She’s half way across the road when stops in her tracks to turn back at him.
“Wait, I’m still wearing your jacket.” Julie stars to shrug the item off when Luke shakes his head, already starting to walking backwards down the street.
“No, keep it!” He shouts with a smile, “Means we’ll have a reason to see each other again and have another go at this.”
Julie just shakes her head at him with a laugh, watching as he walks away before tightening her grip on the box and finally making it into her dorm. She’s still got an essay to write and a pile of laundry to put away and magic in music is still missing, but she’s gotten herself a new jacket and a friend who she thinks could make her life a little brighter. So she’ll forgive and forget that she's home an hour later than promised.
#julie and the phantoms#jatp#julie molina#luke patterson#alex mercer#reggie peters#carrie wilson#willie#flynn#rosie vs writing#i just. really like making fake texts and igs and tweets lmoa#*fics
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The Treatment of Capt. Syverson-Chapter One: Evaluation
Pairing: Captain “Sy” Syverson x OFC (Shane Benton)
Shane Benton gets a new patient, veteran “Sy” Syverson. He’s one of the most complex cases she’s had, in more ways than one. She thinks he’s already starting to like her and what’s worse...she feels the same.
Word Count: 2.3k
Warnings: None, really, mentions of war and trauma and some hate on the Chicago Cubs, but like…it’s not MEAN! (I’m a Missouri girl, and for the purposes of this fic, Sy is a Missouri boy, and we will bleed for our sports teams. Lol!)
A/N: Inspired by this post right here, and hopefully turning into some splendid fluffy and smutty stuff for my lovely Cavillry babes all around including the two that essentially forced me into this. Lol! (I’m thinking I’ll have at least three or four more chapters.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, Henry is not mine, le sigh, and all mention of him, his characters, or his precious doggy, Kal, are strictly for transformative and recreational use. I neither ask for, nor accept payment for the work I post on Tumblr or AO3.
Tags: @onlyhenrys @cavillryarchive
Let me know if you wish to be added to the list! I’m happy to do it!
Shane was working on her morning's notes as she scarfed down her lunch. So many hand's-on patients made for a busy so called "lunch hour." Time which their boss was always reminded them was only half for their personal use, and could be taken away if census demanded. She was pretty sure it wasn't legal to make such threats, but thankfully, the secretaries usually had the therapists backs.
As she typed, she got a notification in her messenger app.
Just a head's up, your 1:30 is such a major babe I could barely look at him while I checked him in, so good luck with that.
Heather, one of her best friends in the office, had warned her, as she always did when there was a potential problem with a patient.
Oh, and his KOOS score is 27.5! Yikes! Shit, she'd seen arthritic grandparents with better scores on that test, which essentially rated your ability with the affected knee. Ideal was 100. She pulled up his chart review to see what she was getting herself into with this guy.
Tricare insurance, so, a vet. And only a year older than she was, so, recent discharge, or even active duty. She pulled up his order…shit. Traumatic tear of the anterior cruciate ligament. With damage to the medial collateral ligament as well. And a patellar dislocation. Repairs had been done, but this guy was in bad shape. He was going to be coming a while.
She replied to Heather.
Damn, that's bad. I'm looking at his order, and I'm already thinking I'm gonna want to try to keep him on my schedule if we can. And three times a week. If not with me, Jordan, if he's got openings. Can you start working on that when you have time?
Sure thing…I think you'll be glad you kept him on your caseload once you get a look at his face…and like all of him. Even on crutches, he's tall as shit!
Heather, come on. I'm a professional. I have a doctorate ffs. Lol
You also have a uterus, to the best of my knowledge, and it's about to explode. Promise.
Haha, okay. I'll be out for Prince Charming in about ten. Lemme pop a breath mint and run a brush through my hair.
Good call.
Shane did just that, but still pulled her dark hair back into her customary functional high ponytail, made sure there was no stray food on her shirt, and headed out of her treatment room for her patient.
As she walked down the hall to the waiting area to get him, she noticed a slumped and bearded figure leaning forward on a set of crutches, a KC Chiefs baseball cap slipping up off of his forehead revealing short cropped dark hair. She smiled at his repping one of her home teams, and stepped up to him, greeting him warmly, but formally.
"Mr. Syverson?"
"Ma'am." he said, as he adjusted his cap and stood immediately at attention, still relying on the crutches, but making himself as tall as possible. He really was a soldier. Despite her proximity to Fort Leonard Wood here in St. Robert, Missouri, she didn't see many military men.
"Hi, My name is Shane. I'm a physical therapist. I'm going to be working with you today."
"Oh, okay. They told me my therapists name was Shane, I figured…"
"Yeah, I get that a lot. Don't worry, I act like one of the guys. You'll hardly notice."
"I doubt that." he muttered, but she ignored it. She didn't know which would be worse. Him being a macho chauvinist who couldn't deal with a female therapist, or having a crush on her and making things weird. She'd had both. And it never ended well for her.
"Well, let's go have a chat in the treatment room."
They walked toward the room she'd just left, and when they arrived, she asked him to set on her plinth mat.
"Could you please verify your date of birth for me? Gotta make sure I got the right patient in here."
"May the 5th, 1983."
"Thanks, and the last four of your social?"
He told her, quietly, and against her will, a shiver ran up her spine at the softness the bear of a man exhibited in his voice when trying to maintain privacy. But she kept her composure.
"Excellent." she began typing her eval note, and asking him questions. He began telling the harrowing story of the mission, the mission that effectively ended his career in the military as he knew it. At lest, what he could tell her. Obviously some of it was classified, but certain details she would need to know in order to know how he it and how to treat him. She could tell he was trying to hold it together. Reliving the trauma was probably triggering to an extent. Her heart went out for the broad-chested, blue-eyed man.
"God, that's incredible. The fact that you're alive is amazing, Mr. Syverson."
"I go by Sy, ma'am. And as aware as I am of that, it's tough to feel good about it when some friends in my squad weren't so lucky." he examined the pattern on the tile floor as he rubbed the heel of his hand against the wide thigh of his injured leg. A nervous habit, she presumed. She had similar quirks.
"That must be difficult for you." she knew she was getting off-track from what she needed for her SOAP note, but after all, he was going to be on her caseload exclusively for the foreseeable future. She'd have time to flesh out the goals and basically finish the eval next visit.
"Yeah, but I know there's a lotta guys' got it worse'n me, ma'am."
"We think that should make it better, but it never does. And if I'm calling you 'Sy,' you have to cut the ma'am business. It's Shane, even to my patients." she smiled.
"Sorry, m--sorry. Habits die hard."
"Just like John McClean." she chuckled, not expecting him to get her ridiculous movie humor. But he laughed.
"Did you just make a Die Hard reference?" he smiled, and the sunshine of it paired with the stunning blue of his eyes nearly sent her flying into the wall. Thankfully, she had something to occupy her gaze in the form of her laptop, where she tried to document on him.
"Did you just get one of my movie references? Because nobody around here appreciates that I'm a total movie nerd. I'm wasted on these people."
"Ya know, maybe you're right about feeling like I'm getting PT from a guy." he chuckled.
"I told ya!" she laughed, but tried not to let her heart sink too far.
The evaluation continued with her doing strength and range of motion measurements on his knee. "Okay, push against my hand…now resist when I push…now bring your foot back against my hand…and resist when I pull." she did this with both sides to compare relative strength. "Great job. Okay, I'm going to see how much range you have in your knee. Lay back on the table for me, please." she thought she saw a flirty glint in his eye, but again, she ignored it. She had a job to do. And it was to hold this goniometer up to his knee and see how many degrees of flexion and extension this man had in the joint while trying not to think any salacious thoughts about the thigh connected to it.
"Okay, now, listen, Sy, I know it goes against your instinct, but I'm looking for pain-free range of motion, here, so don't be a hero. Don't move it farther than you can without hurting it. And let me know if it starts to hurt when I move it."
"Yes, ma'am." he winked.
"I'll let that one slide, I guess." she giggled. She concentrated on the numbers she was getting from the big protractor, and typing them into her eval, and not the man lying before her.
"Okay, I'm gonna get the other knee now to compare for goals."
He nodded.
"Were you pretty active before this happened?" she was more or less making small talk, as she could tell by the condition of the rest of his body that he was incredibly fit.
"Yes, m--yes, I was. We had a gym on base, nothin' like what y'all have here, just some machines and a few free weights."
"No bikes or treadmills or anything?" She herself liked the elliptical, but knew it was a considered more of a girl's machine in the gym world.
"Nah, with electric being spotty where we were stationed, we sorta had to…get creative, I guess you could say, for cardio." she let it slide, apparently there was an inside joke to which she wasn't privy.
"Right, understandable. Well, here, we don't have to get that creative. I'm gonna put you on some equipment gradually, and just warm up the knee, then get to work on joint mobilization and myofascial release. But at this point in Dr. Potter's protocol, he only wants gentle stretching and weight bearing as tolerated. We can start a bit of strengthening after next week."
"So, you think I'll be back to running anytime soon?"
"We can make that a goal, Sy, because I can absolutely get you there. But you're going to have to take it slow. You've got not one, but three major injuries we have to contend with, and there is major trauma in there. But it will heal. With time and effort. And like I said, don't be a hero. The number one rule of therapy is 'if it hurts, don't do it.'"
"I'll hold you to that, m--Shane."
"You're a quick study, Sy. I think you'll be alright. Looks like Heather's put some appointments in for you already. If any of them don't work, call us, and we'll try to get them swapped. I'd like to keep you on my schedule as much as possible, but if there's a conflict in your schedule, any of our therapists will be terrific. And I'll make sure they're looking at your chart and protocol thoroughly before seeing you."
"Sounds like a plan to me."
"Okay, I'm gonna print out your schedule for you, and a few exercise handouts I'd like you to work on, especially on days you don't come here. And I'll know if you don't do them, because you won't have improved…so, you better do them."
"Yes, ma'am." she half expected a salute. She rolled her eyes.
"Okay, maybe I'll give you three strikes on the ma'am thing."
"Baseball fan, too?"
"Not that three strikes is so obscure that I'd have to be to know it, but, yes! Major St. Louis Cardinals fan."
"I knew I was gonna like you from the start. Although, being brought up 'round Kansas City m'self, I'm more of a Royals fan."
"Hey, only time I don't root for KC is when they're playing my Redbirds. And even if my team loses to them, it hurts less than if they lose to, say…the Cubs." they shared a scowl of disdain for the Chicago team. "Although, I was happy for them and their fans when they won the series back in 16."
"Yeah, I guess we could afford to let them win one in a hundred years…I'm hoping their next one comes long after I'm in the ground." he chuckled.
"Can't have them getting a big head, can we?"
"Nope! Sure can't!" they both laughed at their mutual interest in dissing rival sports teams.
"Okay, I'll be right back with those handouts." she ran to the office all in one machine to grab the papers she'd printed for him, making sure they were all his and not another patient's. She put them in one of their folders and headed back to her room where he sat on the mat, waiting for her with a smile under his rather impressive beard.
"Before I let you out of here, what questions can I answer for you about what we did today?"
"Oh, uh, nothing comes to mind. You explained everything really well. Did you look at my schedule? Am I with you all the time?"
"Hmm, let's see here, looks like the next two, yes, but I'm off next week, so Heather put you with Jordan, which is what I asked her to do. You two will work great together and he's got a great instinct for injuries like this. And I'll talk to him before I leave. He's one of the best PTAs I've ever worked with, I promise."
"I guess, if you have to take a vacation. I'll see you next time though."
"I'm looking forward to it. That's when the real work will begin, Sy. And our number is on in this paperwork if you have questions, and I've put my card in here, too." they shook hands, and he grabbed the folder from her.
She saw him out of the room and into the lobby. She'd finished with him a bit early, but her next one was already waiting. She needed a break. To collect herself. To breathe.
"Jason! Hey! Go on and get on the recumbent bike, level two. Ride until I get there. We'll get a lot done today if you're already warmed up. I've got a note to finish. And then I'll be in. I should be 15 or less."
While the 19 year old with a torn meniscus hopped to her instructions, she went back to her computer to attempt to finish Sy's eval and pretend that she didn't already have a serious and intense crush on him. This was going to be a long twelve weeks…at least.
Up Next: Chapter Two-Therapeutic Procedure
#henry cavill#henry cavill fanfic#captain syverson#captain syverson fanfic#captain syverson x ofc#netflix sand castle#sand castle
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‘wouldn’t it be nice?’
okay so ever since i made my Joan and Jane fic (here) I've decided i wanted to make a oneshot for all the ladies and their queens! this one is a lot more happy because my heart can’t handle a sad Maggie rn like i’ll die.
this is also me just being a wannabe soccer jock because i finished my first season this school year :> of yea and if i accidentally refer to it as soccer and not football i’m sorry i’m a dumbass american
synopsis - Anne thinks today would be the perfect day to kidnap her closest friend and sports-related hijinks ensue! with maybe a slight side of bruises and concussions..
Words - 2593
Trigger warnings - none that i know of but tell me if you think i should add one!
Maggie loved the early summer. It was the perfect time of the year, not too hot nor cold. She could leave her window open to let in natural sunlight during the day, she’s always hated artificial lights, they give her headaches. It was the best time to just hone her skills and relax, she could let all of her stress just melt away. The brunette started learning a new song she heard so she could play it to the ladies and queens. “Wouldn't it be nice”, by some old american group called ‘The Beach Boys’, it was a nice feel good song the guitarist just felt amazing hearing. The old song’s lyrics remind her how good her second chance at life really was, “And wouldn't it be nice to live together,In the kind of world where we belong?”, it was perfect.
Her hands gracefully floated over the strings, eyes locked on the chords displayed on her computer screen. It felt like the world had stopped moving for a moment, like everything was calm. Well that feeling didn’t last that long. Maggie’s hands suddenly gripped the neck of the instamet as a large crash came from down stairs, ‘oh no what is it this time’. The musician laid her guitar down on her bed right as a slew of very creative and colorful curses came from what she could only presume was Bessie. With a quick trot down the stairs she was soon to find a very peeved bassist, a started pianist, a confused drummer. She made haste to the living room where they were standing to also find one very apologetic tudor queen and one rambunctious gremlin on the floor, oh and a slightly broken window.
“Gosh Bess I’m so sorry about her, we just got back from pret and i let her buy a large chocolate frappe, i'll pay for the new window..”, the blue clad queen said with a sorry smile. Maria spoke up with a curious tone, “Wait why are you guys here anyway? Atleast give a reason Miss Kermit the Hulk over here came crashing through our window?”, the green eyed woman finally stood up from her place on the floor and shuffled shyly. “Well Cathy wanted to come over and get some piano lessons from Joan and I tagged along to hopefully get some time with my favorite ferret!”, Maggie gave an amused chuckle and stepped forward. “Well okay you sugared up raccoon, what did you wanna do?”, Anne made her way to the couch and plopped down, “Well before we do anything, you need to go change into some shorts and a tank top oh and put your hair up. Cathy then grabbed one of the two drawstring bags she had been holding and handed it to Anne, who was already in some black running shorts and a neon green muscle tank. “Well me and Joan are gonna go hit the keys, you two have fun with whatever trouble Anne will get you both in”, and with that the two shorter girls made their way across the room and began to talk quietly.
The band member made her way back up to her room and began to pick out an outfit. ‘ Huh, I wonder why Anne is having me wear sports gear..the only kind of sport she watches is hockey and that's because she thinks it's funny to see them beat the shit out of each other’. She opened her closet and picked out some white athletic shorts(with pockets because all pants need them in her opinion), and a pastel cyan dri fit shirt with a black double note on the front. Lastly, she ties her hair back in her normal high ponytail she wears for shows.
Finally they were ready and made their way out of the house and onto the London streets. Anne still had her green bag, without giving a single hint to what could be inside. They made their way down into the nearest tube station on the Piccadilly Line. Maggie could now slightly narrow down the places they could be heading,but just a little. They stayed on the hot tube for a good few minutes before the hyper woman pulled her off and gave her a little time to look at where they had gotten off, Hyde Park Corner. This had just gotten even more puzzling as they made their way up to the surface. They were so close to leaving the station, till they had to scan their oyster cards. Anne had gotten through the gate easily with a quick swipe of her card. Maggie walked forward and scanned her card, but as she was walking through she felt a pressure on her waist. The Confused woman looked down to find out.. The gate had closed on her and she was stuck in between the two sides of the machine. “...Well shit… that's a problem”, the two rudor women laughed and Anne waved down a worker to let her friend out of her plastic-mechanical prison.
They finally made it out of the station, at least they already had a funny story to tell the others. They ambled their way down the stone sidewalk, smiling and laughing like school kids. “So I tell Joey about the whole pasta-wall test and she actually does it! Wait it gets better, she grabs a handful of angel hair spaghetti and chucks it at the kitchen wall! In front of Maria and Bessie! Let’s just say she wasn't allowed to be near any kind of noodle for a while”, Anne bursts out in laughter even stronger than back at the station, wiping tears from her eyes. Suddenly the green queen stopped and grabbed her friend’s hand and pulled her over to the other side of the road. “Tadah! We are gonna hang out here and try something new!”,the enthusiastic woman points to the stone arch like structure above them. “Hyde Park? What could we possibly learn here?”, Anne gives no answer as she continues to drag the poor musician into the park and off to a flat clearing.
The Boleyn girl stops right in the middle of the small grassy area and finally pulls out what has been hiding in her bag, a basic football and a small bluetooth speaker. “I thought it would be fun if we learned how to play Football! It seems easy enough and it would be fun bonding for us!”, she put the speaker down next to her bag and put the ball at her feet. Maggie was beyond confused, neither woman had ever tried sports, she knows Cleves runs and does boxing with Kathrine but that's about it. The guitarist gave a nod to the woman in front of her, she was about three meters away. Anne pulls her foot back like a bow and slams the front of her foot into the ball and sends it flying towards the other burnette. The ball hits Maggie’s right shin, she stumbles back and trips over the object at her feet and falls on her backside. “Ow shit!”, both women say loudly, Anne holding her foot and Maggie on the ground clutching her shin.
“Okay so bad idea, maybe we should..I dunno, learn how to play the damn game before we start kicking shit?”, the tudor queen gave a shy nod as she walked over and helped the injured girl to her feet. Maggie pulls out her phone from the pocket of her shorts and goes to her trusty friend, Google. “Okay Mags we should start with how to kick the damned thing without breaking all of your toes”, the guitarist gave a small chuckle and searched what Anne had suggested. After about thirty seconds of looking she finds a short Youtube video titled, ‘How to properly kick a soccer ball’, huh made by an American i guess. She clicked the video and turned her phone so both inept reincarnates could watch. The woman in the video showed her foot parallel to the ball, lightly kicking it with the inner side of her foot, unlike Anne who ‘toed’ the ball from what the woman said. The demonstrator showed how to open your hips wide to pass forward and how to angle your foot to make sure the ball goes in the right direction. After the tutorial ended Maggie turned her phone off and returned it to her pocket. “Okay Anne go back to your spot with the demon-sphere so we can try this again”.
So it was take two and they widened their stances slightly like the player in the video did, “Okay Mags remember to stop it with the side like she said so i don't break your foot! God the other Ladies would kill me..”. Anne got ready and tilted her foot outwards slightly and pulled back, she hit the ball correctly, well sort of. She used the right part of her foot but hit the very bottom of the ball and it flew upwards and towards the poor ferret-like woman in front of her, hitting her square in the face. Maggie stepped back and made a low grunt noise and held her face. “Christ Annie what did you do wrong this time? You did exactly what she said and it was still fucked up!”,Anne gave a confused look with a tilt of her head, “I dunno ‘M, maybe it was wind?”. Both gave a frustrated sigh as they sat down on a nearby bench and started to think. Before they could conjure up a coherent thought, Maggie spotted 3 teenage looking girls with matching gold and red sports uniforms with low and behold, a football. The younger girl shot up from the bench and gave her queen a confident smirk, “Anne i think i have a good but also maybe terrible idea”, she sped up to the girls and stopped them in their tracks.
“Hey sorry to bother you girls but erm… you play Football right..?”, the three girls looked at each other confusingly, “Um”, the tall brunette girl starts, “Yea we are on our school’s team..why?”. Anne catches up to Maggie right as the conversation continues, “Well I’m Maggie and my friend Anne and I want to learn how to play but we are kinda…”, Maggie trails off for Anne to finish, “Bad at it, like really bad”. The tanner girl with gloves on stepped forward with an amused look, “Well okay then, we were just about to go for a short practice so we could totally help you out!”, she put her gloved hand out for Maggie to shake, “I’m Samina, I’m the team’s goalie and these are two out of three of my defenders, Piper”, she points to the girl from brefor who gave a small wave, “And brooke”, a shorter brunette looked up and gave a small nod. “So I see you're already kinda set up here so let's get to it!”, the goalie led her girls over and gave the older pair an encouraging smile, “Show us whatcha got ladies!”. All five of the girls got in a wide spread circle with Anne’s ball at her feet. “Okay so first things first, do you know how to kick it without hurting yourself or sending it to the moon?”, Anne looked over and answered for Maggie, “Kinda, we can do it without harming our precious feet buuut it went flying and ‘bout gave Mags a broken sniffer..”. The shortest girl gave a small nod and gazed over at the pair, “Well then you hit the bottom of the ball, next time hit the middle or top, but i say middle because you might trip if you hit the top”, she said in a monotone voice. Anne decides to give it a go and turns to face Maggie, giving her a look that says, ‘be prepared because this might end horribly’. Giving her queen a quick nod she gets ready to receive the weapon of death, aka the ball. Anne pulls back and hits the ball just like she was told and it zooms towards Maggie on the ground and the brown eyed woman manages to catch it with somewhat ease. “Nice job Bo!”, she says as she rushes to give her green clad friend a high-five who gladly returns. “Now”, Piper starts, “time to learn how to dribble with the ball!”. Both girls groan in response.
After about an hour and a half of learning the simple methods of the sport the girls had to leave so it just left Maggie and Anne to figure it all out from there. Maggie spots an opportunity to turn up the fun and jogs over to Anne’s speaker and connects her phone. An upbeat guitar melody begins to play and just a few seconds later words start to emit from the speaker, “Wouldn't it be nice if we were older? Then we wouldn't have to wait so long?”. The musician gives a bright smile as the cheerful song plays, she now could really understand how grateful she really was for this new life. She sauntered over to the smiling Boleyn girl and they began to pass the ball around and laugh. They practiced thier passess and dribbleing, even tripping a good few times which made their smiles even brighter as they became covered in dirt,grass, and small bruises.
“Annie! Heads up!”, the ball flew past the queen’s head and into a tree behind her, getting stuck up in some branches. “Shit sorry, i'll go up and get it dont worry!”, Anne gave a worried glance, “Are you sure Maggie? We could just throw stuff at it to knock it down..”, Maggie had already started scaling the tree. It was anything but graceful, she looked like a blind cat with a missing tail,left leg, and whiskers, she couldn't balance at all. After making her way up about 5 or so branches she finally got to their beloved horri-ball. She grabbed it with her left hand, leaving her right, non-dominant hand, to be the one holding onto the flimsy branch above her, it was a recipe for disaster. “Hey Anne, I got the bAL-”, where her last words before the branch gave way and she went tumbling to the ground. Luckily or not so luckily, her dearest queen was there to break her fall. “I told you so”, is all Anne could croak out from under Maggie before she pushed her off. After that fiasco they moved a tad bit farther from the trees so they didn’t have to go home in full body casts.
After a few more hours it was starting to get dark and they thought it best for them to head back to their respective homes. They parted ways and started the trek back to their humble abodes. “See you later Mag! I'll text you later!”, and with that Anne was gone, Maggie has always wondered how she just vanishes right when you take her eyes off her. After a very cautious tube station trip and ride, she was finally home. The guitarist, happy to be home and rest, opens the door, ready to have some quiet time. Her dreams are slightly crushed as she sees a small brown blur scurry across the hall with a very distressed Maria rushing after it. The drummer stops in her tracks to make eye contact with her bandmate, “Bessie,Cathy, and Joey went out for dinner, don't say a word about this Margret”, today just got even more exhausting.
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Okay well that was an absolute acid trip-
i hope yall enjoy some cute bonding shit becuase the last one was so edgy n shit, and before any of you ask, yes the three girls on my team who are all really amazing players and friends and i love them so so much-
the next one will probably be with Maria and Lina and them dealing with Maria’s.... new little predicament haha
#six#six the musical#six musical#six fanfiction#six fanfic#six the musical fanfic#maggie lee#maggie on the guitar#anne boleyn#bessie blount#bessie on the bass#joan meutas#joan on the keys#maria de salinas#maria on the drums#cathy parr#catherine parr#six ladies in waiting#ladies in waiting#six LiW#LiW#ladies in waiting fanfic
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Aye yo CORPSE! ...
Dead ass;
You can't convince me that Corspe was/is/does ;
in no particular order..
• Deserve to be held ( I would smother him with my chest and hold him tighter than he has ever been held) & protected from this world
• Pyro! Mans loves🔥🔥🔥 - mostly his fav elemental (Leo is a fire sign); “WOOO... now that’s a fire!”
• Loves knives/weapons- has a collection (quite a nifty 1, ay thank-a-you) & even knows how to use butterfly knives/ tackle combat.
Has a collection of weapons (brass knuckle, daggers, swords, knives,etc.)
• Highly interested in combat/training. Most likely has training in some sort of combat. Loves any form of physical combat < UFC,MMA, Boxing, any type of martial arts>
• Absolute proper gentlemen / clearly has the utmost charm/cunning
I.e holds the door open & will slap yo ass on the way in, moves you away from street side when walking, pulls chairs, defends your honor, etc.
• Takes A . L . O . T to truly capture his attention- but once you have it ..%100
• With his person; protective/obsessives/ possessive/ sensual/ affectionate .
< mine is mine. me no share -like absolutely not at all>
“ You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down for ya“
• RP'er on DeviantArt/chats had his own OC. (also prob had his fav person to RP with)
<prob even talked to them in MSN or private chat>
• Watched mostly nothing by anime/cartoons (nick/CN) as a kid & also mostly watched certain shows/movies as a kid well into his teens
(could recite quotes/scenes as second nature)
• Not a major musical theatre type of kid. But musical movies/shows was 1 of his favs- but still highly interested/ in love with theatre/musicals/preforming arts none the less.
-EYES DON’T LIE
•’staring problem’ he’d just stare at you -deep in his head (both good & bad) you’d have to bring him back to you ..”babe- eh, come *snap*back to me. What’s on your mind my love?’
• Genuinely a really warm person- but only to certain people, but comes across cold & distance
• Grew up in the internet & knows the way around the 'business' & 'faceless' YouTubers/celebrities
• His teens/ late adolescents consisted & grew up on YouTube O.G videos/ video game commentary/content;
Cry.. <Cry was a huge part of my life & still hold a special place in my heart. Corspe just like I was most likely devastated with the shit that went down>
Jack
Nova
Sp00n
Jontron
Smosh
Nigahiga
Shane
Jenna
Hanna Hart
Phil/Dan
KevJumba
Ray William Johnson
Pewds
Machinima
EMT
ERB
Wassabi Prod.
VlogBros,
-etc
• Has an oral fixating (lovebites indefinitely <like dead ass ya’ll be chillan/ out & he’d attack you> & just needs something in his mouth always)
• Fidgety af, always need to be playing with something in his hands/playing with
• Is a goddamn absolute certified freak--but also super soft bean boi. (can't stress how this boi needs& deserves to be protected)
• Constant hand/arm touching/stroking for comfort.
• Daddy{papi} / Mommy(mamá) . Master . Sir kink - hard control kinks- but highly sub.
hard(er) kinks
• Lovebites = M I N E
obvs fishnets/ crossbody straps/ lingerie
lace
collars/ restraints
toys
•RP
degrading/praising
sub/dom switch
showing/proving your actually/completely & utterly his/ he’s completely & utterly yours..
& of course you know it's go time when 1 - if not both of you has kitty ears on.
over stim
*no touchy/ don’t let me go*
“look at what I’ve done to you”
“you kno only I can do this to you”
“look how greedy you are for me”
“look at the mess you’ve made because of me’
“cum on my face”/’cum for me”
“who do you belong to” / “you belong to me & only me”
100% all black clothing 🖤
*that once we get home / I swear I’ll deal with you right here, right now* look
primal play “when you run from me, it only makes me want you more” “you know imma find you kitten”
pet names (beast< i feel like you call this man “ (a) beast”-he about to lose his absolute fucking mind> , “oh Corpse/______, you absolute fuckin’ beast- my God” kitten, babyboy/girl, baby(e), bae, my love, lover boy, my darling, slut, needy little bitch, cum slut, lil’ whore, master/mistress, king/queen”
“only yours” “just ______” “ no-one but _____” “only____” “only you”
‘I’ll keep you so no one can find you or bother us’
“that’s my girl” / “that's my boy”
“would you like to/ I saw----”
“look at me” “don’t look away from me”
GROWLING / talking through clenched jaw
not breaking eye contact
• his name & ‘Corspe’ being cried out
“cry out my name for me baby. know who you belong to”
video/sexing/teasing
breeding kink
voyeurism
abrasions
aftercare af
impact play
24/7
edging
accidental stim; “holy fuck- I’m so turned on by you rn”
rope bondage
begging
worships
• But also soft kinks;
MEME SENDING
head on lap/chest
naps
playing with hair
matching outfits
voice messages
always touching (somehow)
no space between bodies
picture taking together/ just of you
body rubs, head rubs
massages
competition
play fighting
“this reminded me of you”
“I remember you said” “I know you...”
“you know I love you”
“I can tell by your eyes”
“ugh- I swear to shit imma marry you 1 day”
“nothing really made sense until you”
“do you wanna watch”/ “WAIT!? YOU HAVEN’T SEEN?!”
“damn- you really do love/like me, eh?”/ “you are SO fucking mine”
“that’s my girl”/ “that's my boy”
pet names/ “MY_______” “YOURS”
long stares
dates- stay at home dates are his fav, as your attention/focus is just on him
choker/necklace/ jewelry (that 1 of you bought- NOT LIKE HIGH PRICE TAG, but like seen it & was like ‘omg ____ would so wear...’)
cuddles with movies /anime watching time
just being in the same room/on call- even in silence
* emojis*- just some sort of communication
inside jokes/ puns/dark humor
seeing 1 another with kids
future kink (family, travel, etc)
playing video games
dancing/ singing with 1 another
Sitting on the ground, wrapped around his leg when he streams/edits
Nerf gun fights
Watching him record (tracks/editing/streaming)
• Loves- loves surprises <like dead ass would set up a surprise date/ do a scavenger hunt for you/ surprise you with your fav thing>
• Loyalty is everything & his best attribute (& pride)
• The music that he make is from the soul/heart. He pit everything has has/what he has left into his art
• No one has seen the real him - a side he truly hides
• He's both book & street smart
Taught himself through YouTube/Reedit/online
• Fav actors; Jim Carrey/Robbin Williams/Will Smith (?)
• Man’s straight up dangerous. we only know like a quarter of him & people fall at his feet. ( h e . i s . n o t . t o . b e. F U C K E D . w i t h)
• Hates silence
( constantly needs background noise) <also can't fight me on this babyboi cuddles pillows/blankets for night-night time>
• People don't understand the pain he is in every day, unless they have fibromyalgia/GERD/high functioning (sever social)anxiety/depression/ agoraphobia
(my mom suffers with fibro/depression <I myself have GERD/ sever social amenity/depression>& I wouldn't wish those illness on my worse enemy...)
• Over all pain has changed him
• Has dealt with self harm since a young age- most likely 9- 11 yrs old. (as someone else who’s suffered with SH for years- when you become so numb it 1 of the only ways to feel some sort of anything/makes you feel like you’re alive)
• Addiction (drugs/people/things)
• Wrote & read a lot of fanfiction
(most likely his main source of reading in pre/teenage years)
• Is a hopeless romantic but has his guard way up
• Obsessed with Japan / Studio Ghibli
• Doesn't think he deserves any of the recognition/ fame he's gotten--but definitely deserves it all as he's creative & inspirational as fuck. Also he’s worked so hard for it & had put himself through so much
Contrary is highly appreciative of those that are supporting
• Doesn't do it for the fame but for the fact he know how he's gotten people through hard time (just like those on the internet got him through)
• Was a scene boy that vibe’d of myspace/ listens to a lot of ‘scene’ pop-punk, emo/ scene band shit (band?)
• Also is/was a major tumblr boy
• Would be a phenomenal father
• His love language: physical touch & words of affirmation
• He would flinch at touch movement but would melt in your hands
• Face caresses would trigger anxiety/ tears.. but once he’s calmed/comfortable would burry his face in your touch. neck & chest
• Still caught up in daydreams
• A part of him is still never satisfied even if it’s exactly to the pin point detail of what he wanted
• Has at least 40/50(ish) songs he hasn't released
• Mommy & daddy issues (not saying his home life was really- really fucked - but non the less- it certainly wasn't the best).. Also wants to protect/provide for his family (especially his sister) & was prob closer to a grandparent/aunt/uncle)
• Definitely prefers to be by himself, as every time people come around, it's like;‘"this is why I'm okay (ish)with being alone"
• lost an important person to him due to O.D/ suicided..
• Also most likely to of heard his "friends" shit talking 'Corpse' or something correlated with him
• His pride is his biggest sin (next to lust)
• Has single-handedly defined a huge part of 2020 ( in the best way)
• Went through a fighting stage where he was ready to fuck anyone up on a drop of a dime (middle/'high school'/street fights- possibly even under ground)
but also a stage where he cut absolutely everyone off for a solid couple years
• Most likely obsessed with 1 of 3 creatures; lion, dragon, wolf ( 5ish- possibly bear/fox)
• Dinosaur obsessed
• Internet & video games raised him
• He raised himself
Quick to adapt to surroundings/situations.
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was his shit ( I CAN SO SEE YOUNG BABYBOI RUNNIN AROUND THE HOUSE IN A POWER RANGER SUIT) "IT'S MORPHIN' TIME MOTHER FUCKER"
fav ranger- green
• Has up until next year planned out & is working on the next 'version of corpse' ( PR, vids, music, etc)
• Also med/high key this man was most likely in a physcward (more than once) ..
• This man deserves more than he'll ever give himself recognition for & knows in the back of his mind--people will hate just to hate
• Rose is his fav flower 🌹
•⛈️🌧️. >🌞. Loves storms/ rain & prefers them over sunny days
• Loves the moon/stars/space (?) < observatorium dates = fuckin mint>
• Pixar/Disney lover
<still believes- deep down in happy ever after ... but thorough an twisted yet not so twisted- simple(??), dedicated process(?)>
• Fav Pixar movie.. either Wall.E or Toy Story
• Pixar > Disney
• But fav Disney movie- Beauty & the Beast (?)
• Most likely had a Jackass obsession's (doing dumb hoodshit)
• Fall is his fav season (?)
• Horror/ thriller movies/shows over everything (obvs)
• Had an escape place in town where he’d hide from the world- that absolutely no one knew about.
• Was really into graffiti/ street art
• Arested as a youth - but charges dropped- or was still considered a mirror (either fighting/ possession/ trespassing/ vandalisms)
• Arrested on heavier charges (also same as above - but not tried as an minor)
• also-ALSO ... thou he feels like he owes people something. HE DOESN’T OWE ANYTHING TO A N Y O N E . His mental & well being is the most important.
• On a side & major note. You can't deny that this man single handily is a (in my opinion) the 2nd biggest “C” that define 2020.
• Was most likely really into skateboarding/BMX
• Late night drives/impulsive road trips & playlist/ sitting at lookouts, just in silence & touching 1 another.
• Clingy af-.. but could also be distance & cold af- especially on high pain days. stormy brain days. PTSD episodes.
• Slow dancing/ dancing around the apartments. with or without music.
• Rocking out with each other- screaming lyrics in each other face.
• “hey baby- how you feelin”
*grunting* *shuffles over & lays on chest*
• Huge comforts for 1 another;
Especially when going out, being wrapped around him for comfort & reassurance. Even being at home alone together- panic attacks are shit, PTSD episodes are even more shit. helping each other with bathing & caring
When he’d be hiding from his reflection- or stares just a little too long. Going up behind him & worship him (vise versa)
• He’d be your biggest hypeman/ #1 fan (vise versa)
• Would LOVE you wearing his clothes/jewelry & would love to wear you things.
Was probably engaged to his ex (that's why he gets offt when people mention "corpse wife"
There'd be days where he'd be so distance & cold.. & tell you to leave but wouldn't let you.
He'd sit in the bathroom with you when you shower/have a bath.
As he doesn't sleep most night. He'd be up just watching you sleep & caressing you.
Lil spoon > big spoon.
<more to be added>
I love you... genuinely . turly. madly. deeply.
#dear cropse#if youre seeing this#i kno youll be okay#im sorry for everything you've had to go through#plz kno#to me#you are my brightest star in a universe of supernovas#you make everything okay for me#till fate do us part#i kno 1 day we'll meet#the universe will bring me to you & you to me
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My brain is still a messed up bowl of depression and anxiety soup. However, I’m trying to get back into writing so I can finish Last Year’s Wishes. And hey, thank you everyone for reblogging my dumb not-fic this morning, that was sweet.
Anyway @tasyfa gave me some suggestions on re-igniting the fires of creativity- like re-reading the story, putting on the right playlist, thinking mindfully about the next step in the story.
I spent the morning re-reading, and it felt a bit weird. Like I know I wrote it, but wow it feels like a million years ago... bits that I love and can’t believe came out of my brain:
From Chapter 8- I loved writing stoned Alex.
The sounds of Michael moving about the cabin, the thunk of discarded boots on the wooden floors, the soft close of a door and the start of the shower all made for a soothing background noise that Alex drifted in peacefully. He shut his eyes for a moment, only to find himself awake to the strong scent of food again.
Michael sat a plate on the coffee table in front of him. Dinner was a pair of hot dogs slathered with relish and mustard, with baked beans spilling around it. He placed a can of soda next to it, sweeping away the now-warm beer bottle from his reach. “You awake enough to eat?”
“Yeah, I'm starved.” Alex rubbed the drug fatigue from his face, and reached toward his hip for the melting bag of ice only to encounter a fresh pack with his fingertips. Michael had thoughtfully changed out the ice and prepared him dinner, all after working a full day at Sanders's. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you do all this after working.”
Michael cracked open a bottle of beer, and settled back in the chair with an amused look. His own plate of food balanced on his thighs. The shower’s effects were present, the damp curls mussed and in intact locks around his face, and his grease-marked clothes exchanged for a simple sweatpants and t-shirt. “You make a terrible wife, Alex, not having a hot meal ready at the end of the day for your hard-working man.”
“Haven’t had a lot of practice.” Alex bit into the hot dog, noting to himself that Michael prepared it just the way he liked it with no ketchup to be seen.
“No? You never played house like this before with a boyfriend? I mean, once you could legally.”
“Can’t play house if you've never had a boyfriend.”
Michael paused, holding his beer to his lips in surprise. “What, never?”
It was flattering that Michael appeared so shocked by the idea. Alex chewed with deliberate consideration. “Depends, are you counting yourself?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Then never.”
***
From Chapter 12:
Michael swallowed hard, twin wet tracks of tears shining on his cheeks. “That family tree, the evil doesn’t branch out much, does it? Direct line to your dad.”
“I’m so sorry-”
“Don’t,” he cut Alex off brutally. “Don’t apologize. You’re not the one who put her in that cage. That was what, your great-grandfather Harlan? And you’re not the one who gave her that fucked up exam, that was just your granddaddy. And you’re not the one who killed her. That was just daddy dearest-” Michael choked harshly, as a sob caught in his throat. “Or me, depending on how you look at it. So don’t apologize, Alex. It wasn’t you.”
“No, just everyone I’m related to,” Alex replied bleakly, taking a seat next to Michael. He reached out to rest a hand on Michael’s leg cautiously. “I'm sorry that you saw that. I was… I was looking for footage of her where she was... where she was just in her cell. Not okay, but not being hurt.”
Michael tipped his head to the side, to meet Alex’s gaze finally. “Did you find any?”
Mutely Alex shook his head, as his own eyes welled up.
“Yeah, didn’t think so.”
His heart breaking at the amount of pain and hopelessness on Michael’s face pushed him to keep going, “It’s early though. I… I've only been able to crack two out of twelve of the drives. That one’s part of one that documents procedures. There might be others that are just surveillance.”
“Mmmm. So I can watch her pace in a glass cage, instead of being sexually assaulted. Cold fucking comfort, Alex.” Michael’s voice broke on the word assaulted, before it turned hard and angry. “When were you going to tell me you had these? When you found some nonexistent footage of her not being tortured?”
“I was going to tell you, I was,” Alex defended weakly. The justification for waiting for the correct time was just as Kyle predicted, feeble and without weight. This was the fruit of his cowardice. “It’s horrible, I know. I was trying to spare you the visuals.”
“I need you to stop doing that. You can’t keep trying to control shit by holding onto information and then saying it’s to protect me. I have a right to make my own damn decisions. She was my mother!” Michael ended his ragged speech with a harsh cry. He wrapped his left hand into a fist, pulling tight on the black wrap on his knuckles.
Immediately Alex tensed, as he wiped at an escaped tear. His brain, formed and shaped by his experiences with his father, went into high alert. Michael, with his own trauma-shaped instincts, caught his flinch instantly and exploded upward from his seat and away from Alex to place several feet between them in the close confines of the bunker.
“For fuck’s sake,” Michael shook his head, wounded as he fisted the curls back from his eyes. “I will never, fucking never, lay on a hand on you.”
More tears spilled from Alex’s eyes, as he took a deep breath to lock down his feelings. He was really messing this up with Michael, not that the reveal was ever going to go smoothly. The progress that they had made in the last few weeks was vanishing right before his eyes, and he felt helpless to stop it.
Trying for calm and conciliatory, he replied lowly, “I know. I know you wouldn't. We've never done that to each other.”
“Right. Never.” Michael kept to the other side of the room. He dropped his hands flat against his side, keeping them in view. His face was red, struggling to hold back his devastation at Alex’s response, merely compounding the grief triggered by the video. “I'm pissed and I can barely look at you right now because you kept this from me, but that. That’s not me, that’s not us.”
“I know, Michael.” Alex took another deep breath, and wiped at his face with his sleeve. Gradually he felt his pulse starting to slow, with the soft embrace of an upcoming adrenaline crash threatening at the edges. “Just... tell me what you need?”
“I don’t know. Short of a time machine, where I can rescue my mom, there's nothing. She’s dead. She lived a long, miserable life here. How ...how old was that clip?”
***
From Chapter 14
“Well, it’s like you said, I’m the expert in leaving.” He twisted his lips in a semblance of a smile, “I had just learned you had slept with my best friend and you were working on a way to leave orbit, how else was I supposed to react?”
“I don’t know, I guess I didn’t really think you’d care,” Michael paused, shrugging carelessly, “about either of those things.”
“Now we’re back to the ways in which I’ve fucked up with you.” Alex braved a hand on Michael’s arm. “I care about both of those things. I'm trying to come to terms with you moving on from me and that’s not going great, okay? This limbo we’re in, it hurts, but it’s nothing compared to what you leaving the planet will do to me.”
Michael blinked a few times forcefully as his eyes started to glisten. “Really?”
Alex tightened his grip on Michael’s arm, as he dug down for the words. He knew this was usually the point where he backed off and let things be understood instead of implicitly being said. The second, third, and fourth chances to get this right kept slipping away from him.
It would be stupid to waste another moment.
“It would kill me, Michael. I know I left in the past, with deployments and training rotations, but I was always going to come back. Even after the IED hit, I pulled a belt off my dead friend and killed my right foot just so I could live long enough to come back to you.” Alex swallowed hard, forcing the grief back down his throat. “I was prepared to hack the DMV once my assignment to Roswell was over just to track you down. But I can’t hack a spaceship, so I kept the piece from you. I’m sorry.”
A tear finally streaked down Michael’s face as he let go of the console and turned to put his arms around Alex. “God you’re such a fucking asshole.”
The sentiment was in direct opposition to the tight embrace Michael pulled him into, before he leaned back to meet Alex’s eyes. His hands trailed from Alex’s waist and glided up to cup his jaw, holding his face close, so he tipped his forehead against Alex’s. “Such a fucking asshole,” Michael repeated wetly.
“Does that mean you forgive me?” Alex ventured tentatively, soaking in his touch greedily.
****
From chapter 17:
“Yes, and no,” he admitted quietly, his fingers fidgeted with the discarded beer cap. “I want to talk to my best friend about my boy problems but he’s also your boy problem so that makes it hard.”
“Pretend he isn’t then,” Maria urged softly. “Can you do that? ‘Cause I miss you, Alex. There’s nothing I want more than to talk to my best friend about dumb boys again.”
Alex had had a lot of experience pretending it wasn’t Michael Guerin he was twisted up over and then seeking out the counsel of Maria in return. It wasn’t that much of a stretch when he thought about it. Over ten years of discussions about feeling he wasn’t saying the right thing, or being too scared to act on his impulses, and she had patiently held his hand through it all without once knowing the identity. Steady, supportive, and always with a wicked twist of humor to remind him just what a catch she thought he was.
When he was a teenager trying to fall asleep through the various dull aches that came from disappointing his father, he used to press his bruised face into his pillow and pray for two things. To not be Jesse Manes’s son, or if he had to be that, then at least let him fall in love with Maria Deluca.
God was cruel enough to keep him under Jesse’s roof and to leave his desires unchanged.
While his love for Maria skipped over the romantic track, nonetheless it still flowed strongly over the years. Scattered around the loft were various gifts that Alex had sent to her during his time away from Roswell. A wall tapestry he had picked up in Kabul hung from one wall. A pipe and ashtray set from an Istanbul market sat next to a wooden cigar box where Alex knew Maria kept her weed. A bright blue glazed bowl painted in the geometric designs of peacock feathers rested on a side table. It had been a gift from a thankful Yazidi father after his unit evacuated his daughters to a UN camp safely. He had meticulously packed and padded the bowl to ship to Maria two weeks prior to the IED. With the typical international shipping delays, he had already transferred from Landstuhl to Walter Reed by the time Maria had received it.
He held onto that connection, pushing down the lingering question of where Michael spent the night in the close confines of the loft. Certainly not on this small couch.
“Alright, deal.” Alex licked his lower lip in thought. “So there’s this guy, and we have some pretty heavy history together. We’re trying to be friends and like figure out who we are to each other outside of-” he broke off, glancing toward her bedroom alcove nervously before finishing, “outside of the bedroom.”
Maria followed his glance without comment, before taking another sip from her bottle. “That sounds like a healthy and adult decision, Alex. Can I take the credit for browbeating you over the years or do I have to share it with your therapist?”
“Depends, Maria, do you want to take credit for my complete failure here? ‘Cause for whatever reason I keep fucking it up.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
Alex raised his eyebrow skeptically, “Do you?”
“Yeah, you’re right, I forgot what a disaster you are,” Maria teased gently. “I mean you have a good job, you have amazing friends if I do say so myself, you’re the kindest person I know. And your face isn’t half bad either. So you have a few walls to climb, who doesn’t? Alex, you are worth the effort here.”
“He hates my job, and he really hates that I signed a new contract.” Alex tipped his bottle to finish the last swallows. Dully he looked down at the bottle cap pressed tightly between his fingertips, “My walls are pretty high, here. I either hold back on him, or I get scared and push him away, which means I’m either pissing him off or hurting his feelings. It’s no wonder he wants-” He stopped, leaving the rest of the thought unfinished.
“Being afraid of being hurt or rejected is normal. Life has taught you a lot of reasons why you need to protect yourself and if you’d share that with him, I’m sure he would understand.” She reached up to touch her necklace absently, before sighing. “I admit, I wasn’t thrilled when he told me you re-upped.”
“Not you too, Maria.”
“You were so close to being out-”
“I can’t leave until the job is done-”
“Please, that’s the kind of thinking that has kept us in Afghanistan for twenty years.”
A beat passed between them before Alex cracked a disbelieving smile at her sarcastic reply. “Did you just compare me to Donald Rumsfeld?”
Maria covered her mouth, as she started to laugh with him. “I mean, maybe? You have much better hair though, or at least you did. There’s only so much product can do to fix that boring flat top.”
“Thanks,” Alex replied drily, as he reached upward to his hair out of reflex. Maria giggled as he belatedly brought his hand away from his head. “My ego is safe with you around.”
“See? You need me around, you’d be lost without me.” Her smile widened with fondness, the old comfort of teasing each other over having high maintenance hair habits settling in naturally. This time, her words landed awkwardly into the air and her smile slowly dropped away. Her eyes grew bright and glassy in the warm light from the two floor lamps. The atmosphere between them changed again, as the unsaid pressed against them impatiently, nagging for their attention.
Alex dropped his eyes to the floor again. The words in his throat were tangled, as he wished one more time that he didn’t feel like this with Maria. He was caught in the rough current of feeling jealous and angry while being tossed against his ever-present pillars of self-loathing.
“What are we going to do?” Maria asked forwardly. She was braver than him like usual. “Are we ever going to get past this? I mean, I can pretend some more if you want-”
“God, that’s all I do these days, pretend, so maybe it’s best if we don’t.” He licked his lower lip, registering the dry chapped feeling from his nervous chewing. “I pretend with Michael, I pretend at work, and I don’t want to have to pretend with you, Maria.”
“I don’t think you’re pretending with Michael,” she pointed out, in a no-nonsense tone. Her eyes lost their sharp focus as her face reflected the changeover from friendly observation to a psychic read. “Unless you’re pretending that friendship is going to be enough for you. You love him and you’re not getting over him, and you’re sabotaging yourself with him because you’re afraid. You’re afraid that friendship is enough for him.”
The air in the room felt thin to Alex. He closed his eyes, and placed his hand on his chest to count the rapid beat of his pulse. The black spots in his eyes swam in front of him, and he blinked several times to clear his vision. “I thought he had already made his choice. But then living together, pretending that we never broke up- It’s complicated now. Messy. And I’m afraid if I really ask, he’ll tell me the same thing he did before, that love isn’t enough. That it’s too much baggage to get past and he won’t choose me.”
****
From chapter 19:
Michael closed his eyes, as a tear slipped down his cheek and turned his face into Alex’s touch, as he whispered roughly, “Losing her, my mom like that, I didn’t want to be known by anyone. Not by Max, and not by you.” He lifted his face away, his eyes still wet as his smile wobbled, “That’s why you found me at the Wild Pony.”
“I figured,” Alex replied, his throat tight.
“I know now that I hurt you by doing that. It’s a fucking weak excuse to tell you that I really didn’t think you would care. ‘Cause it doesn’t change the fact you did.”
“Michael.” He started to tell him that it was fine. That he understood. Except on one level, as much as they had laid out the pain and wounds that had been exchanged between them, some targeted, some merely shrapnel from outside forces, there was the unavoidable fact that it wasn’t fine. Discarding the emotions of it, which he was never going to find comfort with, Alex fell into the cold facts of what happened. “I wasn’t what you needed then, or wanted. And that’s okay. You are allowed to make that choice for yourself. You went through something unimaginably terrible, how could I begrudge you for turning to someone who made that a little better for you?”
The hurt miserable laugh that escaped from Michael as he pressed his lips against Alex’s palm in a kiss, sent a chill down Alex’s spine.
“You were exactly what I needed after Caulfield, Alex. You make everything, fucking everything, in my miserable life better. This whole month, every minute of it, you made me feel whole. I can take a full breath because of you. I am okay, and that’s so much more than I deserve to be. And I tried to fight it, especially early on when I was a dick to you, but as it turns out, hurting you so I could make myself miserable isn’t worth it.”
Alex was frozen, his hand still against Michael’s face as he worked to understand just what he had said. The first three thoughts circled back to Michael still being drunk, or perhaps this was delayed gratitude for helping keep them safe from the police investigation. For all that Michael spoke of not feeling like he deserved to feel okay, it was shockingly clear in Alex’s mind he shared that same sentiment. Their broken pieces were shattered on the same fault lines, not necessarily the mirror opposite that would fit together in the same way.
Michael kissed his thumb softly, looking up at him, “I can see by your face you are having a hard time believing me. If you let me do this, open up the bond print, you’ll get it. You’ll see that as nice as Maria is, she doesn’t have nearly the power you do. You’ll feel what I feel. Um, just what I feel, if you’re worried about your privacy. This is a one-way street.”
There was a brief moment of disappointment for Alex hearing that, but the lure of Michael’s offer was too strong to deny. “Okay. Do it.”
“Yeah?” Michael smiled brilliantly as he sat in bed, and gently pressed Alex back on the mattress. He spread his palm flat on Alex’s chest, directly over his heart, its beat strong and quick beneath the touch. Michael’s eyes flickered down at his hand and then to Alex’s tense gaze, his lips quirking with shy pleasure at what was about to happen. “Merry Christmas.”
Michael’s hand didn’t change in temperature, even as a red glow started to build in his palm. It was reminiscent of how his mother had communicated in those last doomed moments at Caulfield. And like that too-short interval from before, there was no pain on Michael’s face, just rapturous joy.
Alex stored that snap shot of Michael’s face, looking so unbelievably happy, away in the place he hoarded his good memories.
It was the last clear thought he had.
Oh. It was a lot.
His therapist had warned him a long time ago that trauma had changed his brain patterns forever. It wasn’t just psych jargon to understand that his electrical pathways of experiencing pleasure and joy were forever altered after his childhood. His doctor had argued to him that comparative MRIs would prove it. The therapeutic homework of practicing pleasure and reacquainting his body to positive feelings had been taken with a dose of skepticism. Michael had always made him feel okay in receiving and giving pleasure, but later Alex realized it wasn’t necessarily the comfort of sex that was the issue, it was happiness.
Michael loved him.
It washed all over his mind, like standing under a waterfall. The torrential press of love, joy, peace beat down on the brittle feelings of shame, of self-hatred, of feeling like Alex had been made wrong in some way right from the start, after all, why didn’t his father love him?
Michael loved him.
Water was the most destructive and most transformative force on earth. It was relentless. It sought out cracks, pouring into the hollows while it filled the caverns. Once inside, if needed, it could freeze and expand, to break down defenses, until the path was clear. It nurtured with the same unstoppable power, feeding the roots, nourishing the parched throats, cleansing the wounds and washing away the filth.
Michael loved him.
It was infinite. It was one thing to know it intellectually, after all, Michael had said it once to him, present tense and all. This connection made Alex feel ashamed, because now he knew he had never really believed it. It wasn’t Michael’s fault though; the core truth was Alex had made it 28 years believing he was the issue, that he was unlovable. Any words that Michael had said, Alex had dismissed as something shallow, or perhaps the result of a trick.
The connection battered at that belief until Alex had to discard it as false.
****
From chapter 21
There was a moment when he thought Michael would break away, he could feel Michael take a deep breath, his chest heaving in effort before he tipped forward into Alex’s body, a mirror of Alex’s earlier collapse. He caught Micheal’s weight easily, and held him securely.
“I really want to scream right now, just so you know,” Michael warned with a low voice in Alex’s ear. “I don’t want to be mad at you, but I’m fuckin’ mad.”
“You can be mad at me,” Alex offered weakly, keeping his arms around Michael.
“I really can’t, Alex,” Michael huffed a humorless laugh, “you tried to pick a fight five minutes ago about Maria, and I saw your face when you got here, you were totally white. You didn’t expect this reveal to go well, did you?”
Alex hummed a little in his throat, acknowledging Michael’s point without argument. He thought about the file that had his father’s request for testing when he was a child and locked down his feelings on it to deal with later. “It’s not all terrible news to report though. If the pod responds to intent, then we should have Liz and I guess Kyle, meet us at the cave so we can see what it might be doing to Max in the meantime. See if there’s any readings we can gather.”
Michael moved his warm hands up to cup Alex’s face, the fabric wrap on his left hand rasping lightly as he gently moved Alex back to meet his eyes. “I’m sure Liz was thinkin’ about saving Max, but he’s not the only one in a pod. What were you thinkin’ when you put your dad in there?”
“Honestly?”
“Uh yeah, of course.”
Alex smiled grimly, “I was thinking how good it felt to choke him out and finally win a fight. I was thinking he got to see my face as darkness took him, the way I used to see his face when I was a kid. And I hoped he was scared. I hoped he felt small and powerless.”
“God, I hope so too. I hope the pod is making him relive that non-stop,” Michael breathed fiercely as he tightened his hold on Alex for a moment, then he leaned in to capture his lips in a deep, hungry kiss. Alex opened under his mouth easily, surrendering to Michael as he backed him against the parked Bronco. He pushed his fingers into Alex’s short hair, pressing against Alex’s body as Alex’s tongue stroked firmly against his.
The warning burn in Alex’s lungs was the only thing that brought the kiss to an end, as he sucked in a gulp of air, the taste of Michael and a hint of beer still on his lips. “As much as I want to continue that, um, you should finish up here so we can make a plan with Liz and Kyle.”
“You’re lucky my trailer is at the cabin, otherwise you and me and a horizontal surface-”
****
Also from chapter 21
The warmth of Michael scooted up against his back as his arms snaked around Alex’s chest. He pressed his lips against Alex’s neck and offered softly in his ear, “Listen, if this is…. If this is something in your head, I can help with that. If you want.”
Anticipation and pleasure lit up briefly through the agony as Alex followed the train of thought to Michael’s offer and remembered Christmas Eve. It was beyond tempting but being back on active duty made that an impossibility. With regret, he shook his head, “No bond print, too risky.”
“Nah, not that, but I could go inside your mind, and um, persuade you that what you’re feeling isn’t real.”
“Oh,” Alex breathed. Michael inside his head, seeing his thoughts, seeing just how messed up Alex was, not that he couldn’t already guess it from the outside. The cramping seemed to intensify as he debated, from what felt like a stabbing feeling from the ball of his foot, to a deep burn into the arch of his instep, traveling up his right leg. “Yeah, okay, do it.”
Michael licked his lips at the acceptance and took a deep breath. He shifted in bed again until Alex faced him. He brought his palm up, to cup Alex’s cheek gently, meeting his eyes. Alex blinked heavily at the touch, tears from the pain slipping down his face as Michael brushed the wetness away with his thumb with love.
Then.
Then it was warm and bright. Michael was the joy of a perfectly played note, the pitch and harmony of Alex’s favorite song, slipping into his mind to curl around him. The percussion of matched heart beats, thundering in time together. The vibration of strings, dancing across two keys, one high and soprano, one low and deep.
That was Michael in Alex’s mind.
Alex though, Alex was a crumpled ball of paper. The painstaking drawing, scratched out in eraser marks and errant ink blots. The brush strokes of a self-portrait imperfectly translated from three dimensions to a flat disappointing two. Discarded and tightly balled up, waiting to be tossed into the trash.
Then.
Teasing at the edges, Michael picked at and pulled at the scrapped drawing, the furrowed shell of Alex. With infinite care, he worked to flatten out the wrinkles and to smooth the creases. This wasn’t a failed attempt; this was a work of art, worthy of being framed. He laid out love, ironing out the perceived imperfections, until the crushed bits, and worn notches were treasured marks of strength and experience. These weren’t deficiencies to reject, or blemishes to trash but well tested symbols of armor worthy of protection.
Then.
Alex blinked again, and swallowed down the sob pressing at the edges of his throat waiting to erupt as the pain was gone. Inside his head, every small scrape and cut was calm and soothed. Michael had wrung the tension from his mind and body, leaving him loose and shapeless.
“Better?” Michael asked, his hand still on Alex’s face.
“Yeah, much.” Alex licked his lower lip, his mouth dry. “Is that, is that really how you see me?”
An enraptured look slipped over Michael’s face as his eyes grew dark, “You are a work of art, Alex. You’re beautifully made, inside and out. I wish you could see yourself the way I do.”
Blushing, he had to look away, unable to meet the intensity in Michael’s gaze. “I think you’re crazy.”
“You’re the crazy one for not seeing it, but I know why you can’t believe me.” Michael’s expression saddened as he turned to catch Alex’s eyes, “He is wrong about you. He was wrong when you were a kid, and he’s wrong now.”
“Ah, you saw it. What my dad wanted to do.” Alex pressed his lips together tightly, and sighed.
“Yeah, I saw it.” Tension grew in Michael’s grip, as he moved his hand down Alex’s shoulder to his chest, pressing his hand against the rising beat of Alex’s heart. “He is a monster, and it’s his loss that he could find anything in you that was deserving of hate, but sweetheart,” Michael’s voice broke briefly, “it breaks my heart that you might agree with him on any level. Your body, the way you love, how you love, it’s all part of what makes you, you.” He paused, before finishing with a thick voice, “And I love you. You should love you too.”
“I’m trying, Michael,” Alex leaned in to kiss his lips gently, “I’m trying really hard to do that.” He let Michael deepen the kiss, sighing at the care Michael used in touching him, like he was that precious work of art he’d glimpsed in Michael’s thoughts.
“Don’t be ashamed of this,” Michael whispered, his mouth hovering over Alex’s.
Alex shook his head, and leaned up to trade another kiss, “I’m not, not anymore. Well, not most days. I’m working on it.”
Michael smiled in response at Alex’s honesty, “Good, anytime you need a reminder, let me know. We can fight those demons together, darlin’. Speaking of, how’s the pain?”
Stretching his right leg out, he rubbed his stump against Michael’s leg, and sighed in relief at the motion. “Gone.”
****
All self-indulgent clips.
#personal stuff#the writing process is tough#just reminding myself that I can do this#self-promotion sorry#oh hello imposter syndrome nice to see you#wip whine#ignore this as I give myself a pep talk
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wild palms- thor odinson
thor odinson/reader
word count: 1980
story type: hella angst (sorry)
characters: female reader, thor odinson, sam wilson, and Steve rogers
trigger warning: i curse like a sailor I'm so sorry
A/N: Hi, everyone! This is my first writing piece I’ve uploaded here- I’m trying to get back into creative writing and what better way to find my way than through Marvel fanfiction. I appreciate any and all feedback! Sidenote: I did Samuel Wilson so dirty here I am so sorry. Sam deserves the WORLD and I absolutely did not give it to him in this story, but I wanted to make this as heart-wrenching as possible. Thanks for reading!
“The second time I ever saw you I learned that what I had read in books but I never had actually believed: that love and suffering are the same thing and that the value of love is the sum of what you have to pay for it and anytime you get it cheap you have cheated yourself.”
-The Wild Palms, William Faulkner
The lingering touches, the stolen smiles from across the room, the late nights staying awake talking about god knows what for hours on end; the daily “I made you coffee because you were still asleep and I know you hate everybody and everything until you’ve had caffeine and I didn’t want you to wake up angry” cups of coffee on each other’s bedsides, the delicate “you’ve got something on your face, let me get it for you” touches that are just excuses so you have a chance to finally touch each other- it’s all too much and you can’t breathe.
The rational side of your brain screams at you to lock these feelings back up and throw them to the bottom of a lake somewhere inside yourself and never acknowledge they even existed in the first place, but your brain is getting increasingly smaller by the second and pretty soon you will not be able to tell the difference between good and bad- right and wrong, and god this is wrong. But you have been holding your breath for far too long and he feels like fresh air and it’s far too painful to deny yourself breath any longer than you already have.
You realized this the third time you had acknowledged your feelings for the God of Thunder: you realized that love and the sacrifices you make for it walk hand in hand and any time you do not have anything to lose, anything to risk, you have cheated yourself of what love should be. You, yourself, have absolutely nothing to lose. You do not deserve the love- the honest to God real fucking love you crave so badly. You have too much red in your ledger for someone like him.
Your world before the Avengers was confined to the walls of the Red Room, knowing rarely of life elsewhere. You weren’t stolen from your beloved parents, you weren’t kidnapped off of the streets- you don’t have- no, you don’t get a sob story. You were selfish. The reality of the situation is that you wanted to be something better- something bigger than what your life had to offer. Your greed and pride and lust for recognition drove you over the edge of insanity; you ran off to the Red Room of your own accord at the age of twelve, naïve to the life awaiting you inside its concrete walls. Your intentions were to become the best goddamn weapon the world had ever seen, morals be damned. And you achieved your goal- you had made yourself a name by the age of nineteen; hell, you even popped up on S.H.I.E.L.D’s radar, finally getting at least some of the recognition you craved. But all victories come with a cost.
Your cost rang up to be watching your parents being lowered six feet underground, murdered by the very people who made you into the monster you wished to be. No weaknesses, right? After the murder of your parents, you went spiraling. You left the Soviet organization and turned yourself into S.H.I.E.L.D. Following months and months of training, therapy, and conditioning, you were again utilized as a weapon, but this time, for the good guys- for the Avengers.
Now, here you stand, gripping your glass of water so hard it might shatter, angry with yourself for believing for even a second you deserve to love and be loved by someone so kind and so… free, for loving someone you didn’t have to settle for. Clearing your throat, you set your damn-near-forgotten drink on the kitchen counter beside you. You press your back against the cool marble of the counter. Your hands go to your face as you take a deep breath in, trying to steady yourself from the crashing waves of nausea hitting your stomach.
Heavy footsteps echo through the hallway filtering into the kitchen where you are currently situated, cuing you to stand up a little bit straighter and look a little bit happier. Thor strides into the space, carrying himself as if he had wings. That confidence, that strength he possesses is something you’ve admired about him from the moment he stepped onto the grounds of the compound from the Bifröst years ago. The world could be crashing down around him and he’d still stand tall amid the chaos. His strong stature was and is formed by his kingship over Asgard undoubtedly; if not for himself, he must be strong for his people regardless of the circumstances. He never makes himself small.
“Good morning, little dove. Has sleep been kind to you in the night?” Thor’s tired, raw voice rings through the air as he mirrors your position against the countertop opposite of you. A small smile crosses your lips as you take in his sleepy appearance. A similar smile takes its place on his.
“Yeah, um…” your eyes catch his for a fleeting moment, waves of emotion threatening to spill over. You can’t have him, (Y/N). “You could say that…” you trail off. You shift your weight to your arms as you push yourself to sit on top of the counter. “How about you, dove?” you reciprocate with more enthusiasm, poking fun at the term he used mere moments ago.
The god lets out a breathless chuckle with a shake of his head, “Sleep is always no stranger to me.”
His looks, however, betray him. The darkness surrounding his usually-bright eyes, the shallow wrinkles making a home ever-so-subtly in the contours of his face not slipping your mind. It’s no coincidence thunderstorms paint the skies during odd hours of the night- hours in which only you are awake, or so you ignorantly presumed. They always let up before morning, of course.
You sigh, locking your eyes with the god’s.“Thor, you don’t have to hide from me-”
Your sentence is interrupted by the ding of the elevator opening just a few meters from you and the god. Neither you nor Thor move from your places, his gaze lingering on you for a moment longer as you shift your attention to the pair of bodies stepping out of the elevator. You shut your eyes momentarily as your heart drops at the sight of Sam and Steve making their way towards you and Thor. How foolish of you to drift so far from your reality for even one fleeting moment.
“There she is! There’s my favorite girl.” Sam hooks his arm around your waist and presses a kiss to your shoulder. “How’d you sleep, sugarmama? I didn’t have the heart to wake you this morning when I got up. You just looked so peaceful and shit laying there.”
You clear your throat and plaster a smile of feigned affection on your face as you turn to look at Sam. “Just fine, thank you, babe.” Little did he know you had been fully awake as you pretended to sleep, your mind running marathons and jumping hurdles as you tried to figure out how to fucking get yourself together.
Steve’s hand makes contact with Thor’s shoulder as he laughs at something he said, Thor not paying much attention to him at all. Instead, his eyes were fixed on the interaction playing out between you and Sam, anger and jealousy and loneliness flooding his veins all at the same time. You, however, catch this- his change in demeanor. Before, the atmosphere surrounding the two of you was light and safe and now the tension is so thick between the two of you it can be cut right in half. Your eyes meet his again and you give him the saddest smile he thinks he’s ever seen and it just about sends him over the edge.
The god clears his throat and mutters a polite “excuse me” to Steve as he seemingly drags himself out of the kitchen and down the hallway, a small rumble of thunder shaking the skies; it’s faint, but it’s there and it hurts. The boys shake it off and start to discuss their post-run workout. You bite your lip and close your eyes, taking a deep breath in through your nose as all of your self control keeps you nailed to the counter. I’m sorry.
“Hey, (Y/L/N), wanna join us for the workout?” Steve’s voice snaps you out of your daze. “I promise we won’t go easy on you.”
Sam snickers, pulling at the baggy shirt hanging around your body. “C’mon, babe. Training’s always fun with the chococino...” Steve laughs at Sam’s remark as Sam wiggles his eyebrows at you.
Please don’t. You offer a small smirk, shoving your emotions further down your throat and into your stomach. “As tempting as your offer is, I think I’m going to take a rest day today, boys.”
You hop off of the kitchen counter and grab your glass of water. “Oh, okay, babe. I see how it is. I’ll just have to work for it today, then.” Sam snakes an arm around your waist once more as he speaks, pulling you in for a quick kiss shortly after. As your lips graze his, you feel like you want to vomit. Everything is suddenly too much and you feel as if you’re being hurled into the fucking Sun.
You’re quick to pull away and excuse yourself from the room only to find yourself standing in front of a bedroom door- Thor’s bedroom door. Before you can talk yourself out of what you’re about to do or calm yourself down at all, your knuckles rap one, two, three times on the hard wood of the door, the knocks seemingly deafening in the silence of the hallway.
“I am in no mood to converse at the moment, Rogers.” Thor’s gruff voice sounds through the door, muffled by the heavy wood of the door.
My god, you’re going to regret this. “It’s just me.” your voice comes out shakier than you had hoped it would.
Silence. There’s silence, but just for a moment. On the other side of the door, Thor has his head in his hands, gripping and pulling at his hair hoping to make himself just fucking snap out of it. He can’t have you. You. You. You. No. Thunder cracks and crashes against the sky outside. The best of him left as soon as Sam touched you.
You flinch at the sound, cursing your feet for bringing you where you obviously aren’t wanted. Your eyes fly shut. A shaky breath escapes your lungs as the doorknob twists with a creak. The door opens and Thor is met with your terrified expression. You’re not terrified of him, god no. You’re terrified of how you and he are going to get through this because you know damn well he feels the same way you do and you know damn well he’s just as scared.
“Oh, my love, come here.” Thor gently pulls you into him as he closes the door behind you, hiding the two of you from the whirring cameras lining the hallway.
You press your forehead into Thor’s chest, your hands going to his hips. One of his hands is solid on your back, the other weaving its way in your hair, holding you against him. Thor’s eyes flutter shut as he tries to memorize the feel of your body pressed against his, praying to all the gods above he gets to do this every day. How the hell is this so wrong?
“What are we doing here, Thor?” your voice breaks, loneliness and longing seeping through. Just like you hoped it wouldn’t.
“I don’t know, little one.” He tucks his chin on top of your head. “I don’t know.” The god presses a kiss to the crown of your head, lingering for a moment longer than necessary, silently saying “this is where your crown should be sitting, my queen”.
#marvel#marvel fanfiction#thor odinson#thor odinson imagine#thor imagine#thor odinson/reader#thor/reader#thor odinson x reader#thor x reader#sam wilson/reader#sam wilson x reader#sam wilson#steve rogers#avengers#avengers imagine#avengers/reader#avengers x reader#I use italics too much#and run on sentences#creative writing
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in too deep (part 3)- jules
jules x reader
warnings: language, anxiety, creepiness, some violence, homophobia, overall just weird vibes (if you’ve seen the movie you know what i’m talking about)
TW: MENTIONS OF NON-CON (please don’t read if you’re triggered by this!! this was the bit of the story i had to change for the story to make sense since i swapped mickey’s gender. it doesn’t actually happen, but if the threat triggers you, do NOT READ!!!)
notes: i’m gonna try and keep this one shorter bc writing long chapters stresses me out
also! i’m writing this based on a pdf of the original script for the movie, so some dialogue may be different, or it may be my own creation because believe it or not, there are times that i do in fact possess creativity!!
you woke up with a jolt, dreams of the strangest variety plaguing your subconscious. you reached up to touch your pounding head- well, at least you would’ve if it wasn’t restrained.
“what the hell?” you tugged on the handcuffs, quickly realizing your legs were tied down, too, rendering you completely immobile. upon discovering this, you began to panic, breaking out in a cold sweat as you called out for your security blanket. “jules! jules!”
“she’s not gonna hear you. she’s down in the basement with sweetiepie.” gloria said calmly as she entered the room.
not impressed with her answer, you questioned her. “what are you gonna do to her?”
“my, my. you asked about her safety before even questioning yours! the bond the two of you share must be stronger than i thought.” she mused, looking down at your panicked expression. “your belle is safe and sound, don’t worry. but if you want to see her again, you’re going to have to cooperate.”
“cooperate? what the fuck are you gonna do to me?” you wrenched at your restraints, your heart rate beginning to pick up sufficiently. you depended on jules more than any other person in your life, and without her, you began to quickly unravel.
“just sit tight, all will be revealed soon enough.” gloria stated with an eerie smile. you hated how calm she was, it made you feel like she knew something you didn’t. “would you like to see some photos of my son?”
was she serious? look at some photos of her son? all you wanted was their car! how did you end up in this mess? the sudden aggravation caused you to lose your composure.
“no, i don’t wanna see any pictures of your fucking son! i wanna get my girlfriend and that fucking kid and get the fuck out of here!” you screamed. “i wanna get the fuck away from you and your crazy ass husband! i wa-” your sudden outburst was cut off by a firm slap, giving you little time to react before gloria had you in a chokehold.
“you keep your damn mouth shut! you won’t refer to anyone in this family like that under my roof!” you spat in her face, taking in a wheezing breath as she let go of you to wipe her face. her sudden anger morphed into what you assumed was her signature brand of unnerving calmness.
“you wanted to know what i’m going to do to you? i’ll tell you.” she smiled creepily. “you see, george and i have wanted our own children for the longest time, but that’s just not what the good lord had planned for us. so think of yourself as a vessel for us. an oven for our bun, if you will.”
your jaw dropped, the color in your face draining as your eyes widened in shock. “fuck! what the fuck? that’s so fucking fucked up! you’re not gonna fucking touch me, you bitch!” you couldn’t catch your breath, your chest heaving with every intake of air.
gloria got up to leave, her long skirt spinning with a flourish as she made her way to the bedroom door. “d-don’t f-fucking leave,” you wheezed as she exited the room, slamming the door behind her.
“jules!” you shouted. “jules, please fucking help me,” you whimpered, shutting your eyes in defeat.
-------------------------------
time ticked by slowly, your arms and shoulders starting to ache as they were held in the same position. you tried to reposition them to get some relief, but none came.
suddenly, you heard the door click open, your eyes flitting up hopefully. gloria entered with a grin on her painted lips, making her way towards you.
while you were in the room by yourself, you had used the time wisely to come up with what would hopefully be a successful escape plan. you looked up at her with your best puppy dog eyes. “gloria, can we talk?”
“absolutely. what’s on your mind?” it was creepy how quickly she seemed to get over your defiance from earlier, but you pushed the thought from your mind.
“well, honestly, your proposal.” you began. “i know how i acted the other day was totally uncalled for, and i’ve reconsidered.”
“well, you didn’t really have much of a choice, sweetheart, but i’m glad you feel that way.” she stroked a hand over your stomach, making you feel physically sick. “is there anything else?”
“yeah, there is. can we start now? i wanna start these happy nine months as soon as i can.” you faked a smile, the words coming out of your mouth churning your insides.
“well yes, i guess that could be arranged,” she moved to get up and you panicked, your plan quickly setting out of motion.
“wait!” you exclaimed. “can you uncuff me? i don’t think it would really be enjoyable if i was tied down like i am now.”
she looked skeptical, but sat down next to you anyways. “give me one good reason you wouldn’t be trying to escape as soon as i untied you.”
“well, i’ve had a change of heart.” no i haven’t. “i’ve considered it, and i think you’re right.” no you’re not. “i think this experience would be really beneficial to me,” no it wouldn’t. “especially if i wasn’t chained to the bed the whole time.” definitely not.
“it seems that you’ve really put some thought into this, i’m very proud of you.” gloria crooned. she sat on the side of the mattress, working on uncuffing your hands from the bedposts. as soon as both your hands were free, you took a tight grip of her hair and used your body weight to launch her off of you and onto the floor. she cried out, clutching her head as you worked at the ropes around your ankles.
“you psycho fucking bitch!” you cursed at her. “i’m getting my girlfriend and that fucking kid and we’re getting the fuck out of here!” once your legs were finally free, you took off, running down the stairs as the damsel called out for her husband.
you raced towards the door, prying at the handle, when a gunshot goes off right next to your head. you jumped in fear, raising your hands in defense to see george at the top of the staircase, wielding your pistol.
“exactly what in the hell do you think you’re doing? get your ass up here!” he shouted, waving the weapon threateningly. when you stood frozen in your tracks, he spoke again. “i’m a crack shot, kid. i missed you on purpose that time. now get on up here.”
you grudgingly headed up the stairs, keeping your wide eyes facing straight ahead. you heard gloria sobbing in the other room, sounding as distraught as ever, and you knew you were in for it. “who the hell raised you like that? you of all people making a woman cry like that.”
“i’d blow your brains out if i thought you had any,” george sighed. “well, i’ll tell you one thing; you’re a bit too spry for my liking.”
suddenly, he pulled the trigger, and the bullet ripped through the meat of your thigh. you screamed in agony, clutching the wound as you cried out. “fuck! what the fuck? you just fucking shot me!”
he acted like it was nothing, simply tossing a towel at you to stop the bleeding. “quit your whinin’, ya sally. we’ll get you bandaged up.”
----------------------------
“don’t make me put another bullet in ‘ya. just behave, goddammit!” george growled as he dragged you down the basement stairs. through your hazy vision, you were able to make out jules handcuffed to a pole not too far away from the girl. he drops you to the floor, yanking your hands behind your back and cuffing them next to jules’.
“y/n!” jules called out, a happy yet worried smile making its way onto her lips. her gaze landed on your leg, her eyes widening when she saw the bloody wrappings. “oh my god! you motherfucker, what did you do to her?”
“what are you blind? i shot her.” george stated matter-of-factly. “now you two keep quiet down here. keep an eye on ‘em, sweetiepie.” he looked over to the girl before heading upstairs.
“fuck, i’m so happy you’re alive, baby! i heard those gunshots go off and i was so scared i was gonna lose you! are you okay?” jules blurted out, trying to turn towards you.
“it hurts so fucking bad, but i’m okay.” you panted, breathing labored. you wriggled your arms, pulling on the cuffs frustratingly.
“can you pick it?” jules asks hopefully. your heavy eyes darted around the basement, searching for something in arm’s reach small enough to fit in the keyhole.
“i don’t have anything to pick it with.” you huffed, leaning your head back against the pole as tears of frustration brimmed your eyes. “shit!”
you peeled your eyes open to look around the room once more, eyes landing on sweetiepie as she stared back at you in fascination. you had had enough of this little girl; she was the reason you were in this whole mess. if she just would’ve fucking cooperated, the three of you could be outta here and on the route to florida. “oh, i’m so glad you’re here, i didn’t get the chance to say fuck you!”
jules nudged you with her elbow, as if to discourage you from swearing at the child. “leave her alone, she feels bad. she didn’t know what she was doing.”
“how the hell do you know? she talked?” you asked in confusion at her statement.
“i don’t know, i just do.” jules shrugged. sweetiepie had resumed playing with her toys once more, the little princess dolly riding away on the heroic stallion’s back. you sighed at the seemingly hopeless situation, letting your eyes fall shut.
this was gonna be a long night.
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okay so an itty bitty change of plans: if this ended where it was originally supposed to, it would be really long and kinda unsatisfying (to me at least), so i’m splitting this into two chapters.
which means that instead of a 5-part series, this will be 6 parts! it just makes more sense to me that way.
anyway, i hope you guys enjoy!! i really had fun writing this part!
tags: @emmyrosee @flowers-in-your-hayr @willyourecognisemee @bill-skarsgard-owns-my-ass
#jules#jules x reader#jules imagine#jules oneshot#jules fic#jules fanfic#jules fanfiction#jules villains#villains#villains 2019#maika monroe#maika monroe character#my writing
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The Sides Become the Roman Protection Squad
ITS ROMANS BIRTHDAY!!MY FAVORITE BOYS BIRTHDAY!!!! DID Y’ALL REALLY THINK I WASN’T GOING TO WRITE SOMETHING FOR HIM???
Fandom: Thomas Sanders/Sanders Sides
Parings: it was meant to be platonic LAMP (because that’s what I’ve been doing for these birthday one-shots) but it can be read as romantic because I cannot control myself
Summary: Patton, Virgil and Logan have been preparing for Romans birthday for an entire month. If only they could find the birthday boy.
Word Count: 2,337
Trigger Warnings: Descriptions of injuries, bleeding, mentions of surgery and stitches, mention of needles, Virgil curses out dragon, character is unconscious
"Patton, will you please stop pacing?"
Patton stopped in his tracks and turned to face Logan, who was leaning against the doorframe with the faintest amount of concern in his eyes. "Sorry, Lo! I'm just a little worried."
"You're more worried than I am," Virgil called from his position on the couch. "Which is saying something. What's going on?"
"Roman still hasn't come down yet!"
"It is his birthday. Knowing Roman, he's catching up on his beauty sleep. Nothing worth you fretting." Logan reasoned.
Patton sighed, plopping down in an armchair. "You're probably right- you usually are."
In the corner of his eyes, Patton noticed Virgil fiddling with his hoodie strings. "Now that Patton's mentioned it, I've felt off all morning. I thought it was the normal anxiety with deadlines and Thomas being social, but maybe it's not."
Logan sighed, pinching his nose. "If it will calm both of your nerves, I will go check on Roman."
Patton flashed the logical side his brightest smile. "If it's not too much of bother, could you?"
Logan gave a short nod, then turned and walked up the stairs. Patton watched him go until he was out of sight. Then, he looked over at Virgil. "Are you okay, Kiddo?"
Virgil nodded, letting go of his hoodie strings. "I'm good. What did you make for Roman's birthday?"
"Red velvet macarons! I've wanted to make macarons for a while now, and I know Roman loves red velvet, I decided to give it a shot! They turned out really nice, and I was able to make a gold paint splatter effect on them too!"
"Roman's gonna love them, Pat," Virgil replied.
Patton grinned. "I sure hope he does! What about you, Virge? What did you make?"
A soft smirk formed on Virgil's face. "I need to have some secrets, Pat. What I will tell you, however, is that I'm surprised my fingers are still in one piece after how many times I stabbed myself with a needle."
As Patton winced at the thought, footsteps echoed down the staircase. Both the moral and anxious sides turned to see Logan coming downstairs. "Is-"
Patton's voice died in his throat when he saw the troubled look on Logan's face. "Roman's not in his room-"
Virgil took a sharp intake of breath. "-then where-"
"-but the door to the imagination was left open."
Patton bounced up from his chair, taking the few steps between him and Virgil and resting a hand on the other's shoulder. "Well, Roman's probably in his domain! I think we should go check on him. Is that okay, Virgil?"
"Yeah. Let's go drag Princey out of his kingdom." Virgil decided, standing and shrugging Patton's hand off his shoulder. Patton glanced at Logan, who's concerned look was growing larger by the second. It was no secret that Virgil got defensive when he was anxious. The sooner they found Roman, the better.
Silently, Patton and Virgil followed Logan up the stairs. The door to the imagination was next to Roman's room. Golden light peaked from the cracked open wooden door.
Patton pulled open the door and stepped into the golden light. He'd stepped through his door before- they all had. Roman regularly dragged the other sides through his beautiful kingdom.
Or, at least, what was usually beautiful.
Patton's mouth hung open as he studied the scenery. What was usually a crystal blue was a dark storm. What was usually lush green grass and bright flowers was dead grass and thorns. The air, which usually smelled sweet, reeked of death.
"Something's wrong. Something's very wrong." Virgil mumbled, his finger tangled through his hoodie strings.
"The imagination is linked directly to Roman's well-being. Which would mean-"
"Logan, shut up. I don't need to hear that." Virgil snapped.
Patton felt his heartbeat quicken.
"I'm going to kill that prick," Virgil muttered, dark eyes scanning the area. Suddenly, he took off running.
"Virgil!" Patton yelled. "What- where are you going?"
Logan grabbed Patton's arm. "Virgil has the best instincts out of the four of us. If he believes he can find Roman, I reckon we should follow him."
Patton nodded, and he and Logan chased after Virgil. They raced through the brush, thorns tearing through clothing and heavy breaths escaping from their mouths. They almost crashed into Virgil, who had frozen in a mix of horror and fear.
When Patton saw what Virgil had, he almost vomited.
A dragon stood in the clearing, with voids for eyes and knives for teeth. The monster's scales were a hideous green that clashed with its red claws.
Wait. Its claws weren't naturally red. They were covered in blood.
Roman's blood.
The prince was crumbled in a heap on the ground, his sword inches away from his hand. His white shirt was covered in dark stains, and blood dripped down his cheek and clotted in his hair. His eyes were closed. His chest was barely moving.
Not a single word was uttered between the other three sides- none were needed. They simply burst into action.
Patton ran for Roman's unconscious body, throwing his cardigan behind him to Logan. When he reached the creative side, he bent down and scooped the prince into his arms. Blood splashed against his own shirt, but Patton didn't have the time to care. Roman's breathing was slowing and blood was still spilling. From his position in Patton's arms, Roman's wounds were visible. A gash across his chest and a twin cuts on his cheek and behind his hairline were causing most of the blood loss. Countless other bruises and nicks covered Roman's body.
With the prince's broken body cradled to his chest, Patton brought Roman back to Logan, who had torn Patton's cardigan into strips. As soon Patton laid Roman on the ground, Logan began to press the fabric to his wounds. The gray quickly turned red.
Meanwhile, Virgil had picked up Roman's abandoned sword. The anxious slide wielded the blade with flames in his eyes. "HEY FUCKER!"
The dragon's attention left the prince and the moral side and devoted itself purely to emo. Virgil felt the panic rise in this throat as he stared into the dragon's midnight eyes, but he swallowed it and shouted, "YEAH, I'M TALKING TO YOU!"
The green beast cocked its head in surprise. The dragon had apparently not been prepared for the prince to have backup.
Virgil waved Roman's sword around, surprised with how right it felt in his hand. "Fight or flight," he muttered under his breath and shook away the fear clogging his throat. He was not going to submit to his fear and panic. Roman needed him. So, he tightened his grip on the sword and charged for the dragon.
Patton had just handed Roman over to Logan when he saw Virgil going for the dragon. Not exactly thinking it through, Patton called out, "Hey! Mr. Dragon!"
The beast turned it's attention away from Virgil and stared at Patton. Taking a feet steps away from Logan and the injured prince, Patton yelled, "You know, it's not nice to attack people."
The dragon looked like it was lost in its confusion. It definitely wasn't prepared be lectured for attacking the loud prince.
"It's actually quite rude to try and kill people." Patton continued, crossing his arms. He kept his eyes on the beast but kept checking the corners of his vision for the speck of violet. "There are much more civil ways to handle issues than violence. Which is a bit hypocritical, I guess."
As the Dragon was trying to understand what the moral side had said, a sharp pain stung from its chest. It looked down to see the angry side from earlier pulling the sword from its gut. Virgil glared up at the dragon, his hands shaking and his grip of the now bloody weapon slipping.
Then, because things refused to make any sort of sense in the imagination, the Dragon exploding into golden light, leaving only a pile of ashes behind.
Virgil kicked the remains. "Eat shit."
Patton ran over to Virgil, checking his kiddo for any injuries. Other than a scrap on his knee from a thorn bush, Virgil was in good shape. The anxious side stared at Patton, obviously trying to comprehend what he had just done. "Did I-"
"-just slay the dragon?" Patton finished, a soft smile forming on his face. "You did. You really are our protector, Vee."
Virgil shook his head, hands still quaking a bit. "I am not thinking about that. Nope, not happening. What I'm going to do is chew out Roman for getting himself injured and scaring us and making me fight a god damn dragon."
"I suggest you refrain from chewing Roman out for now. He is in, for lack of a better term, shit shape." Logan called out, the said side held in his arms. "I managed to stop the bleeding, but I believe he needs stitches for the incision on his chest."
"I could probably do it. I sew my clothes, what's the difference between sewing cloth and someone's skin?"
"There are a thousand differences-"
"Sarcasm. But I think I can do it. But let's get him out of here before I panic and lose whatever adrenaline rush I'm on."
The three sides and their injured counterpart made the trek back to the door, the thorns fading into dust behind him and color returning to the sky. As soon as they entered the mind palace, Virgil scurried to his room to grab his supplies. Logan laid Roman, who was still out, on the couch that Virgil had been laying on only hours again.
"Patton, can you get me some fresh towels and some hydrogen peroxide?" Logan asked, removing the scraps of Patton's cardigan from Roman's wounds?
"Hydrogen peroxide?"
"Rubbing alcohol."
"Oh, gotcha Lo!" Patton ran off to the bathroom the four of them shared. He had to push away both Virgil and Roman's make-up bags to find the bottle he was looking for. Grabbing a towel from the cabinet, Patton ran back to Logan, giving the logical side the supplies.
As Logan began to clean Roman's gashes, Virgil appeared from upstairs, holding a black box. "Here starts the beginning and end of my career as a surgeon."
"Are you sure about this, Kiddo?"
Virgil nodded, only hesitating for a few seconds. "Someone has to help this dumbass. Besides, it gives me something to put my nervous energy into."
Patton placed a hand on his shoulders. "I'm proud of you, Virge."
"Thanks, Popstar." Virgil shot Patton a finger gun with his free hand. Logan stood from Roman's side.
"I finished cleaning his wounds. He's ready for stitches, Virgil, as long as you are."
As Virgil walked over to the creative side, Logan came closer to Patton. "Would you like to get your macarons from the refrigerator and help me collect other food?"
"Oh! Sure, Lo! But-"
"I believe it's in our best interests if we allow Virgil to do this alone. He will only feel pressure if we sit here and observe. Furthermore, I doubt you would feel any delight in watching."
Patton let out a quiet laugh. "Right as always, Lo."
The two sides left for the kitchen, Patton pulling out his macarons and Logan searched the cabinets for what seemed to be protein bars. "Roman will need sugar when he awakens. It will help combat the effects of his blood loss."
"Good thing I made all these macarons!" Patton replied, pulling the cover of his tray. Logan glanced over at the desserts.
"Those look delectable, Patton. You've truly outdone yourself."
A bright smile flashed on Patton's features. "Thanks! I wish that we were eating them to celebrate Roman's birthday, not to celebrate that he's not dead."
Logan let out a humming noise as he set down the box of protein bars on the table. "That is an agreeable statement. Do you have everything you need Patton? I think Virgil will be done by now."
Patton gripped his tray. "Mmhmm!"
When they entered the commons, Patton almost let out a squeak of joy. Virgil had finished the impromptu surgery and currently had the creative side laying on the couch with his head in his lap. Virgil's fingers were brushing some of the blood out of Roman's hair.
Then, Patton heard the myriad of curses coming from Virgil's mouth, and the moment became a bit less sweet. Though, Patton decided that Virgil deserved some cursing after the day.
Logan sat down on the left of Virgil, handing the anxious side a protein bar. Virgil took the bar gratefully and bit into it. Patton sat on Virgil's right, leaning on the anxious side but adjusting himself so Roman still had room. He reached for the remote, and silently put on Heracles.
Halfway through "Go the Distance", Patton noticed Roman's eyes slowly opening, confusion written in the brown.
"Hey, Kiddo," Patton said. Virgil looked down at the side laying his lap, a relieved smile appearing for a few seconds. Logan's shoulders finally relaxed.
"What- there was the dragon- how?" Roman mumbled.
"We got you out of there, Princey," Virgil responded, wiping some of the dried blood from Roman's face.
There were a thousand questions brimming in Patton's mind, but something told him it wasn't the time to ask. Roman looked so vulnerable, not even shying from Virgil's grip or demanding that he was all right. A glance between Logan and Virgil showed they both agreed. Questions were for later.
Instead, Patton pulled out the macaroons and handed one to Roman. "Happy birthday Ro."
The creative side blinked. "It's my birthday?"
"Indeed," Logan said, leaning into Virgil and resting his hand against Roman's side.
"Yeah, you went and almost died on your birthday," Virgil muttered.
"Let's worry about that later, okay?" Patton replied.
Roman nodded, taking a bite from the macaron. "These are delightful, Padre. Thank you."
Patton smiled down at him. "Of course, anything for our prince."
With Heracles playing the background and macarons being devoured, Patton allowed his smile to remain. Roman was safe, he was happy, and the four sides were going to celebrate the hell out of their prince.
As soon as they were done cuddling, of course.
#roman sanders#sanders sides#thomas sanders#virgil sanders#logan sanders#patton sanders#emily writes#platonic calm#hurt/comfort#sanders sides fic#its my favorites birthday!#birthday fluff#fluff then angst then fluff#fluff#angst#happy birthday roman#cursing tw#injury tw#blood tw#stitches tw#needles tw#dragon tw
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CHAPTER THREE.
JTRM — THE “R” STANDS FOR RECOVERING!
PREVIOUSLY.
It’s time for Devi’s side of the torment!! It pains me to write her as anything but sarcastically happy, but c'est la vie...
Devi sucked listlessly on her Brain-Freezy, eyes trained on nothing in particular, while Johnny continued happily scrawling away from his seat on the floor.
She killed him. She really did.
Well, sort of.
It was an unnerving feeling, the metaphorical blood on her hands. Even with a history of guys around her losing eyeballs and brains, or bursting into flames beside her, none of that gore was ever her fault – aside from the chalk-induced asthma attack that killed poor Spindgey Simons, which was gruesome enough for her. The most violent Devi had ever gotten was beating the man sitting a few feet away from her within an inch of his life, which he had done well to deserve, in every regard. So, it was strange to be so hung up over pushing that one inch further and actually killing him – inadvertently or not.
The point was that Johnny laid the responsibility of his impermanent demise solely on her, and maybe that’s why it bothered her so much.
The fact that Johnny was more-or-less elated that she had been the unsuspecting command behind the very real trigger was baffling to her, but of course, he was naturally more comfortable with the concepts of murder and death than she was. At some point, he’d rationalized murder as a means to an end of bitter, ugly things, so to him, the fantasy of her blowing all the horrendous, malicious things clean out of his head with one shot must be so romantic. Devi would have gagged if she wasn’t so disoriented.
She needed to talk this out with someone, and there was only one person she’d place that much misguided trust in. Her legs bent as she moved to sit up.
“Hey Nny.”
Johnny’s head bobbed up immediately, and again her stomach squeezed anxiously from his eager response.
“I forgot that I… promised to check in on my neighbor-friend. The rats have gotten so bad, I worry they’ll start eating her feet off while she’s asleep.”
Devi looked to the side, hoping such a stupid lie could pass as a bizarre truth. Johnny watched her a moment, inquisitive eyes darting around the space of her figure, before tilting his head acceptingly as he turned his attention back to the page.
“Yeah, the rats’ll do that. They always start ankles first.” Was his reply. Devi held in the nausea that she felt from how knowledgeable he sounded about the subject.
“RIGHT.” She balked. “So, I’m going to go run down and check on her, before y’know, the rats get at her. You just uh, stay here, keep working, I’ll try and keep it quick.”
Johnny seemed less comfortable about the idea of being left alone, but agreed as casually as he could. Devi didn’t hesitate to rush out, lest something stupid manifest to stop her from reaching her destination, again. Even if Sickness was neatly contained right now, she hadn’t forgotten the lengths the little tumor had gone through to make the halls of the building an impassible maze of shit.
Her strides got faster without her notice the closer that she got to Tenna’s apartment, and her heart steadily increased to a panicked pace as the direness of her situation sunk in. Her fist landed hard on the door, whacking against the cheap material franticly. A single concerned squeak was the initial reply, which at least confirmed Tenna was inside, and awake.
“Tenna, it’s me, open up!” Devi whispered as loudly as she could. It only took a few seconds for the door to open.
“Oh my God, Devi, he’s murdered you hasn’t he!?” She gasped, but didn’t receive any answer besides being pushed back inside her home. Devi released her grip on her friend’s arms to walk in paranoid circles around the living room, muttering curses to herself. Tenna watched her go around with large, kitty eyes.
“Oookay, so obviously he hasn’t murdered you.” She commented, growing more concerned the longer Devi hissed and spat at no one. “…Did you kill him??”
“No!” Devi looked at her, devastated. “I MEAN—YES!”
Tenna covered her mouth in horror at the admission, and Devi dropped onto the couch with her face in her hands. Tenna quickly scuttled to her friend’s side, arm slung around her in a messy hug.
“Oh shit, Devi! That’s – very bad!! But I bet he did something to bring that on right? Right?” She asked hurriedly. Devi rested her elbows on her thighs and hung her head down.
“Shit, shit, shit, fuck, FUCK.” She shuddered out. “No Tenna, he’s not dead. But I killed him. I did! I killed someone.”
“…Uh, what?”
Devi shivered, shaking her head again.
“You remember that night you told me to call him? And we heard a bang and a scream and all that?”
“Yyyeah?” Tenna looked away uncomfortably at the memory.
“The bang was a gunshot. He had something rigged up that if he answered the phone it would shoot him, and that… killed him. He died that night.” Devi stared at the ground. Saying it aloud was horrible. “But because he had those brain-things – or maybe it was the primordial demon living in his fucking WALLS – he got a redo. Satan sent his ass back here, mostly parasite free. Fan-fucking-tastic.”
Tenna could only stare at Devi in concern.
“And he convinced you of all that?”
Devi immediately defended her certainty in the outlandish story.
“Tenna no, he was, like, having a fucking epiphany in my living room! You had to see him – he was absolutely losing it, ranting about how I saved him from his insanity and this and that – oh GOD.”
She fell back on the couch, melting into a heap on her side. Tenna patted her arm sadly.
“Damn it, Tenna, what did I get myself into?” Devi groaned into the cushion. “He’s still up at my place, and I have no fucking idea how I’m going to go back up there.”
“Poor, poor, foolish Devi.” Tenna sighed and continued her patting.
“No kidding. He was so bizarre about it, Ten. He looked at me like his salvation. Like I’m a fucking saint, or something.”
“Well, bright side, at least he won’t try to murder you again if he thinks you’re the Patron Saint of Destroying Head-demons, right?” Tenna thought a moment. “Well, he did try to kill you because you were his only joy in life, or whatever, so…”
Devi screamed her torment into a couch cushion for a few seconds, then sat up again, calmer now.
“No, I don’t think he’s going to try to kill me.” She said plainly. “At least not right now, anyhow. Who knows how he’ll be the more these… lessons go on.”
“You’re still going to mentor him?”
“Well, yeah, I guess!” Devi shot her hands out in exasperation. “If I told him to fuck off now that’d probably just piss him off. I don’t even know if he’ll leave me alone now that he likes me so much.”
Tenna could sense the repulsion wafting off of Devi with that emphasizing on “like”.
“Ewww, you don’t think he’d… try anything, right? All touchy-touchy?”
“Ugh, no. Thank God.” Devi looked up at the ceiling. “That was one of the things I liked about him so much, at the start. He never tried anything like that. Never tried to grab my hands or put his hands on me, or get me to put my hands on him all flirty-like – he didn’t even ask me out, I asked him. And that stupid… kiss, I initiated that too.”
“YOU wanted to give another human being a KISS?” Tenna’s eyes glittered teasingly.
“Mmughhh, don’t torment me.”
“You really liked him.”
“UUUUGH.” Devi slumped again. Why was her life so hideously unfair, constantly?
“None of those HORRIBLE choices matter right now. I’m freaking out over kinda-sorta killing this guy, and also that he’s totally enamored about it.” She exhaled. “I just needed to… let that out, I guess. Because I’m stuck with him now, for some unknown amount of time.”
Devi got up and stretched her arms and neck out while she walked. Tenna pouted.
“So you’re just gunna go back up there…?” Tenna debated momentarily if she should try and talk Devi into staying longer, or not going back at all, but any deterrent would be unlikely to work, knowing Devi, unless she had a couple of weeks to chip away at her immense stubbornness. She offered her some uplift-y parting words, instead.
“Well, I guess I’m glad you’ve been with him for like, an hour, and no death has happened yet.”
“Thanks, Ten. I’ll… call you when he leaves, or something. Wish me luck.” She sighed and left to return to her self-made mental turmoil.
--
LATER, UPSTAIRS:
“How’s this?” Johnny lifted up his finished comic to be inspected by his newly-appointed tutor. Devi pulled her mouth away from the straw of her now-melted Brain-Freezy and took the tablet from him, reading over his scratchy handwriting as best she could.
It was a fairly simple multi-panel Happy Noodle Boy comic, with protagonist hollering about ugly things on the street and committing acts of erratic violence. One of the comments he made was randomly about having head pain, and Devi wondered a moment if Johnny just used half of what was intended dialogue, and the rest was random thoughts that went through his mind while he wrote – in this case, likely a brain freeze. She decided not to bring up the writing and focused on the effort put into some of the panels.
“Y’know, even if it’s just stick figures, you’ve got a pretty good handle on perspective.” Devi commented with a lenient nod. Johnny’s eyes glistened a moment from the positive feedback, but made sure to flicker his pupils down and away from Devi’s focus when she moved to hand him back his drawing.
“I think your original talent’s still in there someplace, Nny. It’s like a drippy faucet, you just need to turn the water on – something like that.” She took another sip of her drink. Johnny stared at the comic laid across his lap.
“You said it was being “rerouted”, before.” He replied. Devi perked an eyebrow, but after a moment remembered their previous conversation on the cliff about the same subject.
“Well, if you’re not murdering creatively as an artistic outlet now, there’s only one place for it to go.” She peered down at him, and Johnny lifted his head in modest surprise.
Like usual, Devi was right. Compared to his life before the wall-thing’s destruction, he killed far, far less frequently, and definitely much less colorfully than before. He used to pull out intestines with salad tongs at buffet tables; break off limbs and reattach them to another victim with a staple gun; insert things that should never be inside a human being into orifices and then sew them up – now his killings were sparse, and straightforward in nature. A tire iron to the head of a truck stop bastard was a merciful attack, in comparison to what he would have done to him for the same offense a year earlier.
“I guess so.” He mumbled noncommittally, despite his growing certainty about it.
“You’ve just been distracted still, which is obvious with the existence of your Meaty guy. All I’m doing is making you focus your energy onto paper instead of letting it evaporate out of you.”
Johnny was silent a moment before speaking again, picking at his drawing absentmindedly.
“And what if that doesn’t work?” He asked. Devi stuck her lip out curiously.
“It will.” She affirmed, even if she wasn’t exactly sure of it herself, seeing as the only test of her theory was her own experience. But with those statistics, it worked one-hundred percent of the time, and those were good odds, right?
Johnny didn’t look totally convinced, but decided to trust Devi on the matter, for now. She had yet to steer him wrong as it was, and as she had implied before, he was the urchin in need of guidance, not her.
“Right…” He murmured as his eyes shifted away. Devi held in a sigh. She suddenly felt more exhausted with offering up her free emotional energy to play therapist to Johnny, and decided she was done for the night.
“Welp. That’s enough arting for one night, I think!” Devi announced with a pair of slaps against her knees. She sat up and walked from her seat to the middle of the room, as if to urge her guest to get up as well. She had successfully survived an entire night with her former attempted-murderer, and with the evening’s events still weighing on her, she was unwilling to let it drag on and invite something even weirder to happen. Johnny was surprised by the abrupt ‘last call’, and watched her move away with hesitant eyes.
He got up, if only to appease her, but the idea of leaving her side now made him a pinch more anxious than he would have liked. It might have just been a delusional sense of security, but it was one that he had grown quite comfortable in for the few hours that he remained at her apartment after his revelation, and the fact that he would need to leave had escaped him until she had said as much. In all likelihood, Johnny thought, Devi probably wanted to sleep, a bodily function that he often forgot other people did nightly. He wouldn’t want to deprive her of it, even if the concept of sleeping was completely unalluring to himself.
“Oh, yes.” He stalled while he tried to think of some small talk to distract himself. “That was quite a bit of drawing, for me anyway.”
“It’s a start.” Devi gave him a tiny smile, and Johnny felt he chest swell with pride – both in accomplishing the task given to him, and for seemingly pleasing Devi. He messily loaded up his pencil bag, then stepped around the coffee table to linger near her side at the door for a moment.
“So… do I come back tomorrow?” He asked. Devi’s eyes widened in surprise, mostly at herself for not even considering a time for this new addition to her schedule.
“Oh, uh,” She tried to think. “—maybe not tomorrow.”
Devi couldn’t tell by Johnny’s expression if he was saddened by that, or if his stare was one of expectance, waiting for instruction from her. Truth be told, he could come over tomorrow, but she wanted a some time to digest all of this, and maybe plan things better, if that was even possible.
“I’m going to send you home with er, well, homework!” Her mouth hitched up on one side in an awkward smile. “Just… draw a couple of things while you’re away, and bring them back in, uh…”
God, how she wished she didn’t have to give herself a countdown for this.
“—in, um, three days! Same time.” A wider smile forced over her face, and she tried not to think about how she had less than a meager seventy-two-hour window of no-Johnny time to rethink her life choices. Johnny wasn’t happy to have to wait that long to see her again, but accepted her judgement with as little pouting as he could manage.
“Alright, I will see you at 6:00PM, in three days.” He repeated aloud, more so to make sure he remembered than anything else. Devi nodded and opened the door for him.
“Great! Okay, see you later, Nny!” Her voice barely held back her deep desire to be alone now. Johnny smiled at her and waved a sporadic goodbye with his hand beside his chin.
“Bye!” He bid happily. Devi only waited for him to turn around before shutting and locking the door as quickly as she could.
Her hand remained tightly clenched around the last lock as she finally, genuinely, allowed herself to absorb everything that had happened tonight. Her forehead hit the doorframe with a forlorn thud, and her shoulders lowered pitifully.
Learning she had been the cause of Spindgey’s death as a child was hard enough to swallow, but at least it was medical-related. An asthma attack – it was about as bad as accidentally giving a kid with a peanut allergy a bite of your PB&J during lunch hour.
Knowing her actions had lead to the grisly, violent demise of anyone, let alone someone she used to… care about, was sickening. Truly nauseating. Her imagination was too healthy for her own good at the moment, visualizing Johnny bloody and broken on the floor of his house, a circular piece of his fucking skull missing. She suddenly regretted having seen so many horror films, as any and all concepts of exit wounds and brain matter haunted her in a fleeting flash of imaginary gore. It was only made worse by the new memories of his upbeat, enthused expressions from the rest of the night.
Just for a moment, Devi despised those new memories of his happiness that she had. They reminded her of the ‘old’ Johnny, and she didn’t want to picture him as he was before – how she had perceived him; as a comically-cynical movie nut and art buff. Someone that she enjoyed spending time with, laughing about how stupid people could be, and musing over whether this-or-that had deeper meanings. Mixing the image of his sneery smile that she used to love so much with any idea of how he could have looked in the clutches of death made her want to convulse in hurt and disgust.
She urged herself to her bedroom and sprawled across the face of her bed, before bundling herself up in a misshaped, unhappy ball. If the universe would permit it, she would be grateful to not think about him for the entire three days that she would be without him, but Devi knew without a doubt that the universe sucked ass, and that she would be plagued with constant thoughts of her new ‘pupil’ whether she liked it or not.
--
NEXT.
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The Audacity
Fandom: WWE
Pairing: Incubus!Jeff Hardy/Female Reader
Rating: Holy shit M.
AN: Thirsty Crew, happy Valentine's Day! Tagging the broskis @toxiicpop, @oraclegazes and @hardcorewwetrash as is my custom! This was written for @helplessly-nonstop 's Winter Writing Challenge, utilizing prompt number thirty two: “May God bang us all.” “Well, he may not bang us, but I will definitely bang you.” Enjoy!
[!TRIGGER WARNING!: Contains mentions of typical incubus behavior, vague and absolutely inaccurate summoning rituals, blood in general and a hint of sacrilege. Stay safe!]
Catchphrases were sort of your thing. Witty quips and one-liners were all but your bread and butter. They had served you well in your life. That is, until now.
You stared at the...whatever it was in your apartment, the thing that seemed to be slowly solidifying into a vaguely masculine form. Your finger was still stinging from nicking it with that steak knife, but you pushed it away for the moment.
Your creative brain was having a real bear of a time parsing what it was seeing, and your words failed you as the...well, probably-male figure shook his head and stretched his arms out with an obnoxiously loud yawn.
“‘Bout fuckin’ time.” He groaned. You were abruptly pinned to the floor, a set of curious green eyes boring into your own. “You summoned me, yeah? Well, whatcha’ want?”
“I uh. Pardon?” You asked weakly.
Those eyes narrowed. “Playin’ coy, huh? Nice try.”
“How...How did you get in here?”
His right eye twitched and he settled back on his haunches, making an irritated noise while he gathered the long, dark hair out of his face. “You've gotta’ be shittin' me. I'm askin’ for a circle redesign, this is the third fuckin’ prank call in a hundred years!” He griped, hands working behind his head to tie his hair back. “Finally have the chance to work all my kinks out and it's just some slack-jaw sittin’ in their livin’ room!”
“Hey!” You yelped. “Excuse the hell out of me, buddy! If someone decided to magically appear in the middle of your living room, I'm sure you'd be pretty slack-jawed yourself!”
“I'd get a shovel, if we're bein’ hypothetical,” the man(?) replied, prowling around you on all fours. His baggy pants dragged on the floor. They looked strikingly similar to something you would have worn during an emo phase (which you may or may not have had in your younger years). “I'm not exactly big on hospitality.” His right shoulder blade and arm were covered with a tattoo that looked eerily like a network of large, hole-riddled veins. Your overactive imagination swore up and down that it was glowing faintly purple and shifting more than could be explained away by his motion.
A discordant jangle caught your attention and you glanced down, noticing for the first time that he was wearing a collar with a long length of chain attached. Try as you might, you couldn't seem to locate the other end of the chain. You hurriedly got to your feet and sidestepped out of the loop he was making around your ankles. “Listen, I don't know who you are or how you got in here, but if you leave now I won't call the police.” You gave him what you hoped was a stern look.
“You summoned me, y’ dumb--look at the damn floor.” He retorted, gesturing at the area he had appeared. Specifically, the area of thick rug where you had been absently dragging your fingers through the luxurious pile of fibers and enjoying a lonely steak dinner.
You had cut yourself accidentally while trying to slice off another piece from the steak, the serrated blade of the steak knife easily parting your skin. Blood had started to dribble quickly, splattering onto the plate and the rug when you bolted to your feet to grab a paper towel. And when you had returned…
“That,” The man stressed, pointing at the messy circle and lines you had drawn into the velour of the rug, “is my circle. You gave a human blood offerin’ after drawin' the circle, kinda’ old school but whatever. So I'm here now. Here to fulfill your needs.” He spoke slowly, obviously mocking you. “You get all that?”
“Well no, not really. I...h-hey, let go!” You exclaimed when he snagged your wounded hand.
He proceeded to ignore you and smear the tiny amount of blood left on your finger with the end of his nose, looking back up at you after several moments of silence. His pupils had shrunk to pinpoints in the green-blue of his irises. “You have no idea what you've done, do you.” It was sort of a question. Maybe. You shook your head. “Augh. What the fuck.”
“Get fucked Sunshine, your shitty attitude and vague explanations aren't helping whatever situation I'm in right now!” You snapped, entirely through with his griping.
“You brought me here, okay? I only show up for one thing.” He said after a long pause where he seemed to be trying to formulate a sentence. “I don't look like this normally. I look like this because that's what you wanted. I’m here only because you asked...or, demanded. Bein’ summoned can get to be a gray area after a while. Do you at least know what I'm here for?”
“I don't understand any of this so, no.”
He put his face in his hands, yowling down into his palms in what was clearly frustration. “Alright butterbean, no sense beatin’ around the bush. Since you're a damn dumbass. I'm here to fuck you.” He snarled finally. “I'm summoned to fuck. You specifically. You designed my body. That's how this shit works. It's made to be appealin’ to you.”
I'm here to fuck you.
You were entirely at a loss, staring at him in disbelief.
You designed my body.
You inhaled sharply, trying to keep your eyes from wandering. He still seemed to notice, if his little smirk was any indicator. “You like what you made? It's all yours to play with. Every inch.” He undulated his body, hands laced behind his head in a smug pose. “You're lookin’ hungry. Why not let me satiate that appetite of yours?”
“I...I am just so confused right now.” You said weakly.
“Don’t think. You're alone on Valentine's Day and I am the answer to your heart’s call.” He murmured.
“I mean that's great and all but...hey, how do you know I'm alone?!” You exclaimed, folding your arms across your chest.
He raised an eyebrow at you, then glanced pointedly down at the solitary plate on the carpet. “Really?”
“Good God you're rude. Supernatural entity my ass, I've met sixth graders with more maturity.”
Those green eyes flashed dangerously. “Your God's got nothin’ to do with me an’ that's just how I like it.”
“Well well! The personalized fuck machine has daddy issues. Who could have guessed?” You shot back, confused when a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Mm, I like this. Sharp little knife of a thing, ain't you?” He advanced, forcing you to step backwards or risk being within reach. “Who made you that way? Doubt you came out the womb spittin' venom.”
“I trained in the mountains. Sat under waterfalls and wrestled bears.”
“Aha, you're so quick. It's been ages since anyone's given me this level of sass.” Your back hit the wall and his hands pressed to the space over your shoulders, loosely caging you in. “I can’t hurt you. I'm only here for one thing. Sure I like playin' with my food, but I won't do anythin' you don't consent to, my little blade.”
The term should have been insulting, and yet, it seemed almost...endearing when he said it. Affectionate. As though he believed you were dangerous and actually respected you for it.
“So what do you want me to do? What's your heart's desire in the bedroom? Your softest wish, the one you ain't told nobody?” He whispered the words, his voice low. “Whatever you want, my beautiful, sharp-edged summoner, it's yours.”
“Whew, you say some wild shit.” You managed to reply after a moment of mentally fanning yourself. He was so close, his chest nearly touching your own every time he took a breath. You felt warm and a little giddy, dizzy from the attention he was lavishing upon you.
“I say what I need to.” His fingers brushed your cheek. “An' I wait for the go-ahead on everythin’ else.” He grimaced suddenly, hand flying to the collar around his neck. “Fuck you, that's how it's always been. No need t' strangle me old man.” He snarled under his breath.
“Who are you talking to?” You asked in bewilderment.
“The oh-so-merciful one holdin’ the other end of the chain.” He coughed out the words, air wheezing in his throat. You could see that the chain was pulled as tight as it could go. “He gets wound up about nasty things like me. Wants me to be ugly about this an’ I--”
His voice abruptly cut off and he clawed at the collar, seemingly unable to undo the simple buckle you could plainly see.
You reached out your hand to him without thinking and strangely, he took it and pressed it to his cheek. ‘Thank you’, he mouthed. His luminous eyes were pained when he released you.
Your fingers snatched at the buckle beneath his chin, the sharp metal punching into the skin of his throat. His eyes widened as your other hand came up and started to feed the free end of the collar through the buckle. It was harder than you thought it would be; jagged spikes laced the inside of the leather like shark's teeth, digging in and refusing to let go. “Hang on, okay?” You muttered, wriggling the strap with all your might.
“What are you-?” His breathing hitched and he fumbled to grab your wrist. “Y’ can't, wai--” He pleaded, shaking his head.
You glared at him, your eyes narrowed. “Listen, if what I'm doing is wrong, is an affront to the big man or whoever it is that's choking you out right now, well…” You paused, finally loosening the buckle enough to pull the strap free. Those spikes tore out of his neck and you flung the collar across the room with all your might. “Then I guess...may God bang me for my insolence, or whatever. May God bang us all.” You finished proudly, dusting off your hands in a self-satisfied manner.
“Well,” The man in front of you drawled as he straightened up, his teeth flashing in a lazy grin, “He may not bang us, but I will definitely bang you.” The wounds on his neck had started bleeding lightly, like they were nothing but scrapes instead of the deep punctures you knew them to be. Hands slammed into the wall over your shoulders and he leaned in close. “The name's Jeff, little blade, an’ it seems I owe you a debt of gratitude.” Those vibrant green eyes fell to your mouth. “I could never remove the collar myself, and no one has ever been particularly interested in releasin’ me from it.” Jeff's breath ghosted across your lips. “I assume you'll accept payment up front?” He whispered.
When had your hands landed on his shoulders? Your palms pressed down on the flesh beneath them, fingers fumbling at Jeff's skin. What an ordinary name.
Seeming to sense your hesitation, Jeff dropped to one knee in front of you. Firm hands grabbed your hips and he began pressing kisses to your stomach right above where your skirt began. “Let me please you?” He murmured against your shirt, a growl rumbling in his throat. “It's the least I can do, y'know.”
…
Their fingers were smearing the blood that had started to pool in the divots of his shoulders and collarbone. Jeff bit the satisfied snarl down into a safe little growl, his neck tendons snapping taut beneath this unfamiliar skin. This precious little dagger of a human had no idea what they were doing to him; a concealed blade that slid its way between his ribs to prick his long-cold heart.
He inhaled sharply through his teeth when their hands moved up into his hair, tugging it gently at the roots. They still reeked of sadness and frustration, tastes bitter on his tongue. “Why the hell not,” They mumbled. “Go on ahead.”
Jeff was an incubus. For as long as he could remember, as long as he had been collared, he had been driven forward by a bone-deep desire to conquer, claim, intimidate. With the leash gone though, it was as if everything became smooth. He could see past the tunnel vision of what he was made for and venture tentatively into the new realm of what he could actually do.
And this human had made it possible.
Jeff jerked the metal snap on their jeans off with one twist of his fingers, sending it flying outside the halo of light from the lone lamp. They gasped, their hands grabbing his own.
Jeff could have pulled away. Easily. Overpowered them easily. Taken them easily. Something stopped him, the knife point piercing him just a bit more. Their eyes were startled, knuckles whitened with the effort of stilling his hands.
“Be gentle, okay?” They said, “Don't hurt me.”
Jeff was seized with a strange sensation. He didn't want to hurt them, that was the odd part. But hurting so often seemed to go hand in hand with acts like this, leaving him at a loss. He let them cup his face and he sucked their wounded finger into his mouth, making them inhale as he laved the sensitive skin with his rough tongue.
“Show me.” He muttered, quickly returning their finger to his mouth after he spoke. He felt them press down on his tongue, a light pressure that turned into a stroking motion. They seemed to be marveling at the texture more than anything, which was amusing. “I imagine you’d like this tongue in at least one other place, yeah?” He prompted, grinning at the way he could feel their pulse start to race. “Lay down, little blade. Show me what you like.”
They obliged after a little more coaxing, their shyness nearly too endearing for Jeff to handle. He wanted to fuck it out of them, but at the same time he loved it so much he never wanted them to stop. The way they curled up, the way their body trembled and heated under his touch...it was intoxicating.
When they finally, finally helped him peel their jeans off, Jeff was certain that he was dreaming. Their thighs fell open for him without another protest, his sweet little blade unfurling the most delicate petals he had ever encountered. Awed, almost dazed, Jeff slid his fingers over them, collecting the slick that had gathered. They whimpered, the noise rippling down his spine in a shudder of want.
Jeff covered the insides of their thighs with kisses and nips, tormenting himself with the knowledge that they were right there but they needed him like this. Needed these lip-presses and bites far more than anything else at the moment. They had laid down on the very edge of the circle of light cast by the lamp, their face and upper body illuminated by the soft glow. He watched them bite down on their own knuckles, eyes closed and head tipped back.
He couldn't refrain any longer.
Jeff buried his face in the apex of their thighs. They cried out at the first stroke of his rough tongue, their free hand raking through his hair. Jeff growled against them and made no effort to hide the noises of his satisfaction, of their own wetness. He alternated between lashing their clit and soothing it with the smooth back of his tongue, the differing textures more than enough to make them knead at his scalp and mewl like a helpless kitten.
“Tell me how much y’ like it, my darlin’ summoner.” He whispered, looking up at them and then slowly, slowly easing his tongue into them. The textured surface rubbed against their inner walls, urging forth a half-choked noise of desperation when he withdrew it. “Tell me whether I'm bein’ too rough, okay?” Jeff continued, thrusting his tongue back home to punctuate his request.
He set a pace that made his body ache, trying his hardest to be gentle while fucking them with his tongue. As deeply as he could reach, as slow as he could force himself to go, the flat of his tongue pressing upwards towards their pubic mound while his hand rubbed circles on their belly. Jeff closed his lips around their clit every time he fully sheathed his tongue in them, enfolding the sensitive nerves in the heat of his mouth.
He wasn't sure how many times they came. They kept twitching and begging for more, their cracking voice a melody sweeter than any pleasure he had ever experienced. Hands in his hair, thighs gripping the sides of his head like they would die if he moved from between their legs...Jeff was certain this beautiful little blade had been rammed home into his heart.
He continued his breathless assault, his cock stiff and rubbing fruitlessly against the fabric of his baggy pants. Jeff took a selfish moment to grind his pelvis against their wet heat, his legs quivering with the desire to bury his cock in them and claim them until the sky pinked with dawn. But he shook it off, returning to working them over with his fingers and tongue. “One more for me? Can y’ maybe give me one more?” He murmured, chuckling at the whine of breath they let out. “It’s jus’ one more, little blade, I know you got it in ya’.”
They propped themselves up on shaking arms, their ability to still move surprising Jeff. He was even more surprised when they beckoned him up, up their body to their mouth. The kiss they gifted him was hungry, sweet, breaths panting into his mouth as they licked timidly over his tongue. There was nothing timid about the way they ground their hips against his own, though.
Jeff choked on his breath, grunting while they rocked their heat against the rigid line of his stiff cock. Their slick soaked through his pants and he let them push him onto his back, let them grind against the obviously display of his need. This was new. He had never abstained from penetration.
They continued to shift their hips back and forth over his clothed cock, the press and slide of them absolutely maddening. It was a tease of a fuck, a pantomime that threatened to kill him with every hypnotic motion. Jeff’s hands fell to their hips, fingers digging in as he bucked up against them. He indulged in the newness of this fuck-tease for what felt like a lifetime, his pants saturated through with a mixture of their slick and his own. It eased the friction, urging him on more and more to hold their hips and force them down. He could feel the head of his cock prod their entrance every now and then through the fabric, that taunting little hitch that made them gasp and croon.
Jeff had never thought that not penetrating someone could be this exhilarating, the muscles in his thighs straining against the desire to come. His body teetered halfway between frustration and completion for a short eternity, their fingers covering his own on their hips all the catalyst he apparently needed.
Jeff's head fell back, his breath caught in his throat and when they bent down to kiss him, he moaned into their mouth while coming all over the inside of his pants. They just kept kissing him, their own body shuddering at the sensory overload of his previous ministrations. Jeff silently wrapped his arms around their shoulders and pinned them to his chest, their ear pressed to where his heart would be thundering.
But something like him had lost its heart a long time ago.
…
When you woke up, you kept your eyes shut against the sunlight. You felt…
Strange.
It was a mixture of headache and low level buzz under your skin. Your whole body was tender, half-numb but too sensitive all at once. The sheets twisted in your fingers as you pulled them up over your head, blocking out a little more of the light pouring in through the window.
What a night, you mused. Bits and pieces of it played back, making you blush and bury your face in your pillow. Hell of a way to spend a lonely Valentine's Day, wet-dreaming yourself into a coma!
When you opened your eyes though, you were met with the hysterical proof that last night had not, in fact, been a dream. You yelped in dismay as you stared down at the dark red marks on the insides of your thighs, headache forgotten while you floundered to get out of your bed. Struggling into your bathrobe, you rushed to the living room as fast as you could.
A sheet of paper laid in the middle of the very obviously disturbed rug. You cringed as you took in all the lines that looked suspiciously like they had been clawed by fingers, all the areas that were pushed in a different direction than the rest of the carpet. That was what you got for splurging on a such a plush velour rug, you supposed.
You crept to the piece of paper (which appeared to be a note) and after hesitating for another moment, you knelt and picked it up gingerly.
My beautiful little knife,
Leaving before the reality sets in is pretty much my forte, I'll apologize for that. Normally I'm thrown out as a fantasy until the poor soul's belly starts to swell with the fruits of my labor. Now that you freed me, well…I'm not really sure what trouble I can get into, but I am sure you're going to see me again. Promise I'm not going to spend my free time ravishing morons in their living rooms. Unless it's your living room, of course. You're too sharp for me to be able to stay away for very long.
Happy Valentine’s and all that crap,
Jeff
“Oh.” You breathed, your fingers tracing over the messy circular pattern he had drawn in the lower left corner of the paper. “Damn. Alright then. Thank you, overly-expensive fuzzy rug.” You continued aloud, petting the fibers beneath your knees as a grin slowly snuck it's way onto your face. “Happy Valentine's Day to me in-fucking-deed. May God bang us one and all.”
#jeff hardy#jeff hardy/reader#incubus!jeff hardy#winter writing challenge#thirst party saturday#on a thursday#happy valentine's day!#may god bang us all#i had too much fun#knife metaphor
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