#like that little girl from gravity falls and shit from what I’ve seen in the screenshots of ppl posting about this whole thing | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thran-duils · 4 years ago

Text

Lost In Zero Gravity (P.3)

Title: Lost In Zero Gravity (Part Three) Summary: Fem!Reader x Mob Boss!Tony Stark x Mob Boss!Steve Rogers. Reader is a call girl who runs high end parties. She catches the attention of Tony Stark who invites her back to his room with his friend. She might have performed too well because she becomes their new favorite play toy and they don’t like to share. Words: 2,574 Warnings (for the fic in entirety): Smut, prostitution, infidelity, angst, domestic violence, stalking, possessive behavior

Part Two || Part Four || Masterpost (mobile) || Fanfic masterpost

There were hands on you and you tried to push them away, frightened.

A man’s voice said quickly, “Sorry, sorry. I’m here to help. I’m gonna get you some help.”

“I… no, no ambulance,” you got out.

“You do not look good at all, love,” the man said, his hand cupping the back of your head to keep you steady as you tried to push yourself up off the ground. “You should stay down.”

You shook your head, “No… I live close.”

You stumbled getting to your feet, falling back against the wall. You groaned painfully, holding your head and slid back down the wall to sit back down on the ground. Your vision was swimming.

“You can’t walk on your own. I’m calling an ambulance.”

“I—”

“It’s okay,” the man said, and you heard him saying, “Yes, I’m on Newman Avenue—”

<><><>

Tony was calling again. He had called a couple days ago, texted yesterday, and you had not responded. You were too afraid to speak to him; you knew you would probably cry because you would have to explain why you could not meet up with him. It went to voicemail again and you sat there staring at your phone. You did not want to lose him permanently as a customer; you liked his attention. You were actually starting to develop feelings which was a big no-no but you could not pull yourself away.

It had only been a week since Jared had messed you up in the alley and your face did not look great. Your eyes were black from your broken nose and he had left quite a shiner on your cheek. Your ribs were still sore too from where he had kicked you, bruising them.

You crawled off your bed and walked to the door, throwing it open. You made your way downstairs, passing one of the other girls on the way down, who rubbed your arm affectionately. You gave her a small smile before continuing on to Tatiana’s office. You knocked on the door lightly, seeing her through the crack of the open door.

“Yes?” she said, looking up from her desk.

“Can I come in?”

“Of course, stellina,” Tatiana said, sitting up straight at her desk. Her eyes ran over your face and you saw her expression tighten. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit still.”

“I can imagine.”

You shifted and asked, “Can you do me a favor?”

“What is it?”

You held up your phone and said, “Tony called me a couple days ago… texted too. And he just called again. I… I don’t think I can talk to him about it. And I don’t want him to think I’m mad or anything or that I’m done with them. Could you call him and explain?”

Tatiana nodded immediately, “Of course. I have some time now.”

You grabbed a piece of paper off her desk and copied his number down for her. You pushed it across the desk, “Thank you.”

She held up her hand and said, “Wanna sit here while I do it? Just in case… something comes up.”

You hesitated but nodded and sunk into one of the chairs across from her desk.

“You know this is mutually beneficial for me to do this,” she told you. “If they like you as much as they seem to, maybe they will shower you still with gifts.”

“I’m not worried about that,” you cut in quickly.

“Regardless, having them keep up pay possibly in the meantime will help out. Not to be crass.”

You nodded, “I understand.”

Tatiana picked up her desk phone and dialed the number you had written down. “He might not answer,” she said as it began to ring. “Won’t recognize the number.” She sighed, hearing it go to voicemail. Briefly, she left, “Mr. Stark, please give me a call back at this number regarding my employee that you’ve been trying to reach. Thank you.”

She kept it vague. Smart.

When Tony called her back almost immediately, she smirked. “Looks like I was clear enough…”

“Hello, Mr. Stark,” Tatiana said, answering the phone, putting it on speaker. “This is Tatiana Bianchi.”

“Did I get blacklisted?” was the first thing out of his mouth.

Her face scrunched, “No, you didn’t.”

“Then why is Y/N not responding to me?”

“Y/N is not working.”

There was a pause. “Did she leave the service?”

“Kind of. She is taking a break.”

Tony’s voice was rougher this time, “So she’s on vacation? She could have at least told me that.” You flinched at that. “I’ve called a couple times and texted.”

“I don’t know how to put this lightly, but her ex found her,” Tatiana said. And added quickly, “Her asshole of an ex. He left his fucking mark. Broke her damn nose, bruised her ribs. Gave her a concussion. I think he would have done worse if some Good Samaritan hadn’t intervened before he could do anymore damage. Bastard stole her money too and her purse. The job she was working was close to here and he said he had been following her, so he knows where this place is. She doesn’t want to see anyone, understandably. I wouldn’t put her out there either right now. And in regards to her responding to you, she asked me to talk to you about it because she’s upset. Again, understandably.”

Tatiana was watching you across the desk as she spoke. You were chewing on your lip, listening to her explain it to him.

“I wanna see her,” Tony said tightly after a few moments.

“Mr. Stark—”

“I want to see how bad it is. Talk to her about it.”

Tatiana locked eyes with you and she asked, “Can I put you on hold?”

“Sure,” he said curtly.

She pressed the hold button and looked at you expectantly.

“I don’t want him to see me looking like a trainwreck.”

“Y/N,” Tatiana said in a quiet voice. “You know why he’s asking to talk to you.”

“Yeah, he feels bad and I get that—”

“No,” Tatiana cut in, shaking her head. “I think he wants to talk to you about it for a reason. A very specific reason. You know what he does, you know who he is. You really think he couldn’t handle that little dickhead?”

You shook your head, “I… I don’t think that’s what he means.”

She gave you a knowing smile, “Okay. So, maybe he does just want to come and give you flowers. Is there anything wrong with that?” You stared at her for a few moments, and she pressed, “He seems like he’s a pretty stubborn person. What’s to say he won’t just show up anyway? Why not do it on your own terms and permission?”

“Okay.”

Unmuting the call, Tatiana said, “Sorry about that. I needed to talk to her to see how she felt about it. She agreed.”

“I can come early in the morning. Like 5. Before it gets light.”

“I’m sure that would be fine.”

“Alright, I’ll be there. Thank you for the call,” Tony said.

“Goodbye,” Tatiana said to him before he hung up the phone.

“God, that’s so early,” you muttered, slumping back in the chair.

Tatiana quipped, “You better get a good night’s rest then so you’re up and ready.”

You pushed yourself out of the chair and said, “Easy for you to say. You’re essentially a vampire.” That caused her to smirk. You thanked her, “Thank you for doing that.”

She nodded, “Of course.”

<><><>

There was a loud knock on your bedroom door that drug you from your sleep. Your eyes snapped open, and you quickly realized you must have turned your alarm off completely when it went off. You swore under your breath, checking your phone. It was 5:07am. You got out of bed, rubbing at your eyes and walked over to your door.

When you opened it just a crack, you saw Tony and Steve standing there with a couple of their men standing behind them in the hall. You saw their jaws set seeing you, taking in your face. Even if it was just illuminated by the light coming in from the hall, you were sure the bruises were visible enough.

“Um, morning,” you stammered. “Sorry, I didn’t get up in time. I’m still in my pajamas…”

Tony rose his brows, “You wanna let us in?”

You swallowed sharply but opened the wider, stepping back to let the two of them file in. You turned from them and walked over to your bed, flipping on the lamp to give soft light in the room. Their men stayed in the hall and Steve closed the door behind him.

There was no way to hide now, and you turned back to them, playing with the hem of your t shirt, shooting an embarrassed look at them.

“Christ,” Steve muttered upon fully seeing you.

You eyed the large bouquet he was holding but before he could hold it out to you, Tony came up to you. He was staring down at your face and you could see the fury in his expression. He reached up, turning your face gently to get a better look at your cheek.

His jaw clicked before he asked, “He found you on the street, Tatiana said?”

“Yeah. He followed me, I guess. Has been following me it sounded like. I hadn’t seen him in a year and a half almost.” You gestured at your face, explaining honestly, “It’s not anything new. I didn’t leave him for no reason.”

“You wanna give me a name?” Tony deadpanned.

Your heart race increased. Tatiana had been right. “Not really,” you told him quietly.

“A name, Y/N” Tony repeated.

“I just won’t walk alone,” you tried to reason and side step it.

Steve snorted, shaking his head and your gaze was drawn to him. He shook his head again when he saw you looking. “No. That’s not how this is gonna work. This,” he gestured at your face. “is fucking unacceptable at best.”

“I don’t care to give you a name. Really. I appreciate—”

“Y/N,” Tony’s voice was firm as he cut you off.

You were pleading practically now, “I’m serious. I don’t care and I don’t want to deal with him.”

“I came here before dawn to figure out how I’m gonna kill this little prick. I would appreciate it if you would help me out, darling,” Tony told you tensely. “I don’t take lightly to men hitting women. Especially women I’m invested in. And you won’t be dealing with him. We will be you. You don’t have to be involved at all.”

Tatiana was right about him being stubborn, although you already knew that. He was not going to leave without the information that he wanted.

“Jared Easton. I don’t know where he lives now though.”

“Where did he live last you knew?” Steve asked.

“We lived in Chelsea. I don’t know if he’s still there.”

Tony took his phone out of his pocket and opened up his note app. He held the phone out to you and said, “You can put the address in here.” There was no room for a discussion, he was telling you to do it.

Grinding your teeth, you took the phone reluctantly. Your hands shook slightly as you typed in the address of the townhouse that the two of you had shared. When you handed the phone back to him, Tony’s demeanor relaxed. His hand came up to hold your neck, staring into your eyes.

“You don’t have to be afraid of him,” Tony told you softly. You nodded, tears pricking your eyes and you tried to hold them back desperately. Tony sighed, reaching up and wiping away one that escaped with his thumb. “We will see to that. We promise.”

He gave you a hug and your heart skipped a beat as he kissed the top of your head. This was a different kind of intimate than normal. You liked it, despite all the warnings to not get attached.

When he stepped back, he said, “There’s breakfast downstairs for you whenever you get hungry. I know a lot of people don’t like to eat super early. But Steve’s smart, thought it would be good to bring it. He remembered you liked that place in Williamsburg. I think he only remembered because you liked somewhere in Brooklyn.”

That caused you to give a little laugh which is what Tony had been aiming for you guessed.

Tony’s eyes ran over your face and he gave a small smile. “There. That’s better. I don’t like it when you look sad, baby.”

He stepped back and Steve stepped up, holding the flowers out to you. You took them and you thanked him. Steve leaned forward, giving you a kiss on the top of the head as well.

“When you’re feeling better, let us know,” Steve said as they made their way back to your bedroom door.

<><><>

After they left, you brought the flowers out to the dining table, putting them in the center.

Elisha appeared in the doorway and looked around. She was still in her pajamas but she did not look tired; like she had been up. That was odd because she loved sleeping in. But you got your answer soon enough.

“So, they did come.” You nodded. She smiled sheepishly, “Sorry, the knock woke me up and I waited up to talk to you about it. If you want to.”

“It’s fine.”

“They brought flowers?”

“And breakfast.”

“Aww,” Elisha said coming over closer and leaning in to smell the flowers. “That’s super sweet of them. So… did they do what Tatiana thought they were going to do?” You nodded and her eyes widened. “Did you give them anything?”

“They forced me to basically. They weren’t going to let it go.”

“Why are men so goddamn protective of whoever they’re bedding?”

You shrugged, “I hope nothing bad comes from it.”

“You should be happy.” Tatiana’s voice startled the two of you. She walked further into the room, and said seriously, “They’re doing you a favor. You should relish in that type of protection. Not many are afforded it. And don’t worry about them messing it up. They’re professionals, Y/N.”

“I just don’t want anyone dead because of me,” you said. “Even if it’s him.”

“Well, then let them do it for me. Because when I came into that ER room, I wanted to find the little bastard and gut him myself. So, better them than me getting my hands dirty. Assholes like him won’t stop with a restraining order or charges against them, so this is the best course of action.” She paused before forcing you to look at her directly. “Y/N though, my dear… just know what this means. This is big. A very, very big favor they’re doing. Sure, it is going to satisfy them but they are killing someone for you. That is not something to brush off. You need to show appreciation for it. Elisha is right. Men are very protective of whoever they are bedding and they also like to be praised for it too. Do you get that?” You swallowed sharply, giving a curt nod. “Good.”

She clapped her hands, her mood changing quickly. “Now, let’s get you some of that breakfast because I saw what it was and it looks delicious. It’ll cheer you up. Go, go!”

~~~

Forever tags: @coconutqueen21

Fic tags: @icant-hangout-imdrumming, @oceaniamaddness, @multifandom-superlover

#steve rogers x reader #tony stark x reader #dark steve rogers #dark tony stark #dark marvel fic #dark!tony stark #dark!steve rogers #my shit

160 notes · View notes

gay-otlc · 3 years ago

Text

Little Miss Perfect

Summary: Straight hair, straight A's, straight forward, straight girl

Straight hair is most beautiful. Straight A's are most successful. Straight forward is fastest. Straight girls are the most perfect. And if straight girls are the most perfect, and Biana is the most perfect, ae has to be straight. Ae doesn't get a choice.

Little miss perfect, that's me

Content warnings: Internalized homophobia, homophobia in general, cursing, mentions of abuse, mentions of eating disorders, lmk if I should add more.

Word count: 3143

(Read on AO3)

Straight hair, straight A's, straightforward Straight path, I don't cut corners

Biana Amberly Vacker is beautiful, and smart, but that's hardly a surprise. Even before ae was born, everyone knew ae would be beautiful, and smart. Ae's a Vacker, after all. Ae wakes up early to straighten aer hair and stays up late to study, so ae's tired all the time, but ae's gorgeous and ae's at the top of aer class, so does it really matter?

Ae takes life one day at a time, one step after another, because if ae slows down or turns around, everything ae's running away from might catch up with aer.

So ae doesn't do that. Biana keeps following the straight path and hopes the road ahead of aer doesn't wind too much. Make sure every step leads aer to perfection.

I make a point to be on time Head of the student council

Not only that, but Biana's on time for everything. Aer parents make sure of that, but ae probably would be even without their help- Biana likes to plan ahead. Or really, ae doesn't know for sure whether ae likes it, or if it makes ae feel trapped. But at least it saves aer the confusion and terror of an uncertain life. Whatever the reason, ae makes little notes in aer planner for all aer appointments.

And bigger notes in aer journal for the rest of aer life.

Make it through Foxfire.

Manifest an ability.

Get a respectable job.

Marry a respectable boy.

Have children.

Step four... doesn't seem so great, by which ae means downright nauseating, but that doesn't matter. What ae wants doesn't matter. And anyway, this will probably be what ae wants in the long run. Ae's just not old enough for boys yet. Plenty of time for that in the future.

Ae'll be on time for every step of aer perfect fucking life.

I don't black out at parties I jam to Paul McCartney

Biana doesn't break rules- mostly because ae's afraid of how aer father would punish aer. Either way, ae's never snuck out at night, never spent time with the classmates he said were beneath aer, never wore something he said showed too much skin, never ate more than ae was allowed to. Every single one of his rules, ae followed.

If that meant not going to Marella Redek's party because her mother was too "strange," even though everyone else was talking about how fun it would be, ae wouldn't go. Ae would just miss out. Fun.

Ae heard that at the parties, they played human music. What would that even sound like? Fitz knew- he got to go to the human world all the time, but Biana didn't. Still, after incessant begging, aer dad let aer listen to one song, by a human named Paul McCartney. It wasn't bad. Quite good, in comparison to elvin music. Still... ae wished ae could listen to more.

Of course, ae wouldn't. That would be disobeying aer dad. And ae didn't do that. She always had to be the perfect daughtaer.

If you ask me how I'm doing I'll say... Well, hmm

Lying wasn't good, of course. Ae shouldn't lie to people who asked how ae was doing.

But ae couldn't admit to being anything less than perfect.

So ae'd just mumble.

Perfect until proven otherwise.

I was adopted when I was two My parents spoiled me rotten

Okay, so Biana isn't actually adopted- but for years, ae thought ae had been. Always out of place in the perfect Vacker family, because everything comes so effortlessly to them, they're exactly what elvin society wants without any struggle at all. And ae... wasn't like that. Too loud, too argumentative, not quite ladylike enough. Not smart enough, ae needed to work harder. Not pretty enough.

Not interested in the right people.

But when ae learned to stay quiet, keep aer head down, and follow all the damn rules, aer parents seemed to like aer better. Well, Alden did. Della always appreciated aer, however quietly, slipping aer little pieces of mallowmelt behind Alden's back even when he told aer that ae had to be thinner. Whispering compliments into aer ears after Alden scolded aer so much his voice was hoarse from screaming and aers was hoarse from crying.

And when Alden was proud of aer, she would get everything ae wanted. All the pretty dresses. All the sparkles and sketchbooks and sewing kits. Trips to Atlantis or Eternalia. Anything ae wanted, to reward her for being Little Miss Perfect.

Often I ask myself, "What did I do?" To get as far as I've gotten

Some of the time- who the hell is ae kidding, it's most, if not all, of the time- Biana feels like... ae doesn't deserve aer last name, or aer popularity, or any of aer privileges in life. Mentors at Foxfire practically revere aer and aer peers bend over backwards to be liked by aer.

Ae is so fucking sick of it.

Why aer? Ae wants to scream the question at every single person who treats aer differently. Why is ae the one to get that treatment? Ae had never done anything important in aer whole fucking life, ae didn't do anything, and all this praise should go to someone far more perfect than aer.

A pretty girl walks by my locker My heart gives a flutter

Biana is, unfortunately, very well known at Foxfire, and ae thought ae knew everyone else too. But ae's never seen this girl before, because ae would know if they had. It would be impossible for past Biana to have seen this girl and not remember her.

She has dark skin, even darker than Biana's, and long dreadlocks pulled into a knot and streaked with blue. Biana thought ae was used to the beauty of elvin girls- they were all quite pretty- but this girl, holy shit, ae was not prepared to see this girl. Her flat nose and full pink lips and turquoise eyes are all so beautiful. Biana's heart pounds and flutters around her chest like it wants to fly out and meet this girl, and aer breath catches.

Maruca Chebota, as ae later learns, is perfection.

But I don't dare utter a word 'Cause that would be absurd behaviour For little miss perfect

The pretty girl continues walking, seemingly unaware that she's thrown Biana's world wobbling out of orbit. Biana wants to call out to her, to yell, to make sure she doesn't walk away and make it so that amazing high, those butterflies and awe and something ae can't even describe, seems almost like it never happened.

But there are a lot of people in the hallways, and they're already staring at aer far more intensely than what ae would describe as comfortable, ready to judge each and every thing she does. Running to catch up with a girl because she's pretty? Not normal. Not normal for any elf, but especially not aer.

Biana silently watches her turn around a corner into a different hallway and out of aer line of sight, wishing ae could have been a little less perfect. Just for one second.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na No, I can't risk falling off my throne

Dear Maruca,

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've been avoiding you lately. I'm sorry I can't talk to you. You haven't done anything wrong, I promise.

It's just... you're dangerous. To my heart, my... my reputation. My throne.

That's not quite true. You're not dangerous to most people. You're just dangerous to me. Maybe you're fine, and I'm just too fragile. Too imperfect.

La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la Love is something I don't even know

Dear Maruca,

What if we did love each other? Bravely. Boldly. Unapologetically.

What if I pretended it wouldn't topple me off my throne; or pretended I didn't care?

No. That's stupid. I shouldn't sacrifice all that for love.

This isn't even love, anyway. I don't know what love is, but you aren't it.

Straight hair, straight A's, straightforward Straight girl

Straight hair is most beautiful.

Straight A's are most successful.

Straight forward is fastest.

Straight girls are the most perfect.

Little miss perfect That's me

And if straight girls are the most perfect, and Biana is the most perfect, ae has to be straight.

Ae doesn't get a choice.

One night my friend stayed over We laughed, and drank and ordered

And straight girls would like Maruca, sure, but not in the way Biana does. Not in that all consuming, heart wrenching, feels like ae's floating and falling and spiraling all at once way. Just in a... a friend way. A normal way. Because the two of them would make perfect friends, and anything other than that would end in fiery disaster.

So Biana makes friends with Maruca. Friends. They talk about their Universe class, and play splotching together in PE (Maruca wins; Biana gets distracted by her braids), and horribly bake mallowmelt together. It burns.

Maruca is... fun. It's fun to be friends with Maruca. Ae invites her over to Everglen for a sleepover- Della is overjoyed that Biana is finally making friends- and they have a fun time. Playing games and talking about useless shit and going to go bother Fitz and his friend Keefe.

It doesn't need to be anything different, Biana tells aerself, again and again. It's perfect like this. It doesn't need to change.

Something about her drew me in What? It's totally platonic

Biana can't stop staring at Maruca.

She feels like gravity, a star, and ae feels like a planet. They work perfectly together, orbiting around and around and around. If Maruca smiles, Biana's mind races to solve the mystery of how exactly that smile would taste on aer lips. It tastes good, ae thinks, though that's a stupid thought.

"What are you thinking about?" Maruca asks. "You have this goofy smile on your face, and you didn't hear the story I just told."

Biana turns bright red. Of course, ae can't say I was thinking about your lips on mine, because that would sound... weird. Ae has to keep it platonic, because they'll never be anything other than platonic, and it's not like ae wants that either. Ae swallows, and finally says "You. I'm really glad we're friends."

Platonic friends. Perfect, platonic friends.

That night was so exciting Her smirks were so enticing

"Yeah, I'm an awesome friend," Maruca says, flicking one of her intricate braids. Biana's eyes linger on it a little too long.

Ae clears aer throat and quickly deflects the conversation, still blushing. "You are. Do you want to go downstairs? It smells like something's baking."

"I would be honored to go eat some of your mom's amazing desserts, m'laedy," says Maruca, extending a hand with mock formality. Her gorgeous lips are pulled into a smirk. Biana's breath catches; ae wants to freeze this mental image for eternity. Cautiously, ae takes Maruca's hand in aers.

Skin touching. Holding hands.

It's stupid, it's a cliche, but it does feel like sparks shoot across aer skin as Maruca wraps her fingers in Biana's and starts walking downstairs. Aer stomach flips around excitedly.

Then ae crashes and burns. They are friends. Both girls. Friends don't get this excited about holding other friends' hands. Biana rips aer hand away and stuffs it in aer pocket. Maruca looks a bit offended, but Biana clenches aer jaw and looks down.

It hurts, but ae has to be perfect. No exceptions.

Hours speed by like seconds Then, what happens is iconic

Once they get over the awkwardness of that moment, they slip right back into the fun they were having before. Della's ripplefluffs disappear quickly, and the two of them go back into Biana's room to keep talking. Biana shows Maruca aer sketches- ae hasn't really shown them to anyone before, Alden thinks a Vacker should have a more noble profession than designing fashion- and Maruca tells Biana that ae should dye aer hair.

Alden is going to kill aer, but for once, ae isn't thinking of that. Della would probably say yes, but the two of them decide it would be more fun to sneak out, so they light leap to Slurps And Burps as quietly as they can, in silent giggles the whole time. Maruca decides to re-dye the blue streaks in her hair, and Biana opts for violet. They go back to Biana's room and laugh more. Biana wildly thinks this is the most fun ae's ever had.

It's perfect, even if ae isn't.

She takes a sip, I bite my lip She tells a joke, I nearly choke

Aer stomach is sore from laughing, and ae still can't stop looking at Maruca. She's so pretty, something ae could stare at forever if ae had the chance. The longer ae looks, the more ae notices little details, like the way her braids fall against her shoulders, and how she has barely visible freckles splattered across her nose, and how her hand brushes against Biana's every so often. It's warm, and smooth, and perfect.

Maruca is a masterpiece of a person.

Currently, Biana's fascination lies in how her lips curl around the straw of her lushberry juice. It’s disgusting and wrong and so thrilling as Biana imagines kissing those lips.

No. Stop thinking about that, Biana commands aerself, biting aer own lip to draw aer attention away.

"Biana? Bi? You listening?"

Ae turns red. "Yeah, sorry!"

"Alright, so I was reading about cowboys, except I read it as cowgoys because it was really late, which implies the existence of Jewish cows. So then the thought 'Bar Moo-tzvah' came into my head and I can't stop thinking about it."

Biana snorts; the joke is funny enough on its own, but the cute little smile on Maruca's face and the way her eyes light up nearly make aer choke.

“Shut the fuck up, brain, let me be the perfect Vacker,” ae muters, too quietly for Maruca to hear.

She braids my hair, I sit there Blacking out for the first time

Maruca says Biana's newly violet hair looks beautiful- ae needs to fake a coughing fit to keep from squealing- and asks to braid it. Biana nods, and lets aerself get lost in the feeling of fingers weaving through aer hair and brushing against aer head.

Aer eyes close- ae doesn't know when, but the room around aer disappears and all ae can feel is fingers and this all encompassing, overwhelming love ae seems to be drowning in, blacking out everything else.

Next thing I know, I lose control I finally kiss her but oh no

Without making any conscious decision, Biana spins around, cups Maruca's face, and gently presses aer lips against hers. Their flat noses touch, eyelashes flutter against each other's cheeks, lips kissing. Kissing. It's fast, and sweet, and wonderful. Biana feels aer world aligning perfectly, like this is the way everything was meant to be, and there are fireworks shooting across aer skies.

Biana smiles against Maruca's lips.

I see a face in my window Then my brain starts to go

Everything happens at once.

Maruca yelps and pushes aer back. The door swings open, revealing a shocked Fitz. Fireworks vanish, as quickly as they came.

Biana's world shatters.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na No, you can't risk falling off your throne

Dear Maruca,

That kiss was amazing.

But it's too risky to do again.

I'm sorry.

La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la Love is something you don't even know

Dear Maruca,

What do I know about kissing? It's not like I have anything to compare it too, besides that one time I kissed Keefe on the cheek because I thought I was supposed to. No, because I wanted to. Because I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to kiss him and I didn't want to kiss you.

I don't know what kissing is supposed to feel like. Or what love is supposed to feel like.

It'll be better with a boy. It has to be better with a boy.

I'll know love eventually, and it won't be with you.

You shouldn't love me either.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na You can't risk falling off your throne

Dear Maruca,

I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you-

No.

I hate myself.

La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la Love You don't even know

Dear Maruca,

Or maybe I love you.

I don't know.

I probably don't.

Because I can't love another girl, right? I have to be misunderstanding what love means if I think I can love a girl.

I don't know love. But it can't be you.

Rewind, induce amnesia Deny the truth, that's easier

Fitz tells her what to do- pretend like it never happened. That's what Alden told him when he kissed Keefe. Biana snorts humorlessly at that; two fucked up Vacker children. But ae follows his advice. Forget about it. Pretend it never happened. Never address it with Maruca; or speak to her again, really. Pretend, pretend, pretend.

Ae's been pretending aer whole life.

Life continues on, and ae pretends to be okay. Maruca makes friends with Stina, and Biana makes friends with the new girl. Sophie Foster. Sophie is nice enough, but she's not Maruca. She can't replace Maruca. No one can fucking replace Maruca, and no one should have to- ae just fucked up aer only chance with someone that wonderful. But ae pretends Sophie is enough, pretends ae's not heartbroken.

Pretends, pretends, pretends.

Pretends to be perfect.

You're just confused, believe her When she says there's nothing there

Biana talks to Maruca once.

They both apologize in the same breath.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what happened-"

"That was weird, I'm sorry-"

"I don't like you, I was just confused."

"So was I, kissing girls was just something I thought I'd try, a bit of a phase."

"No, totally, it's not like I really like girls or anything."

"Nah, that'd be weird."

They never speak again. There's nothing between them. Biana tries to believe what Maruca told aer. Ae doesn't.

“You're just confused,” ae repeats to aerself. “You're still perfect.”

It's never worth it When you're little miss perfect

Dear Maruca,

Maybe someone else can love you. Someone who doesn't have to be little miss perfect.

#shai's writing #shai types things #kotlc #biana vacker #bianuca #fuck alden #little miss perfect

76 notes · View notes

ledbiantastic · 3 years ago

Text

Okay, it's time for my Harrow The Ninth read through post. Spoilers, obviously. Thanks to @shakespearerants, @irascibubble, and @mayasaura for encouraging me to keep going. Enjoy!

I am on page 33 of Harrow the Ninth and I am making a prediction. I initially thought the Body referred to the dead girl in the locked tomb, but now I think it's Gideon. We'll see if I'm right.

Page 44 says it is the dead girl in the tomb, but I'm not convinced it isn't also Gideon

Gideon must be important to have to be erased from Harrow's mind like that, right?

Did Ortus the First kill/try to kill Gideon's mom? The timeline adds up, they said he messed something up nineteen years ago, Gideon was 18 in the last book and time has passed

In the weird retconned memories, after every death, or during, someone says "is this how it happens" which makes me think it's, like, Harrow's brain asking that

Who are those notes from and to? What's up with that?

I love seeing Harrow spend time with Magnus and Abigail. I liked them

If Harrow is haunted, but this is not the real version of the past, is her mind creating the ghost? Is it Gideon? I don't think Gideon would write notes like that though...

Page 291 is Ortus talking to her like she's Gideon's mother? IS HE ASKING WHY SHE BROUGHT ALONG THE BABY?

Is Ortus' cavalier more active or something? Like he doesn't remember because she takes control?

Page 315 "he had seen me" who is he and who is me? Who is narrating this to Harrowhark? Is. It. Gideon? (Later I decide it's Palamedes seeing the Sleeper, who is also narrating and is possibly Gideon. We'll see if that's right.)

Is the poster on page 318 Gideon? Is It? IS IT? But Gideon's hair didn't go down to her shoulders. Is it her mom?

Are Camilla and Coronabeth on the side of the rebellion? BOE? Is old Harrow? I KNEW IT! But I'm sad they're on different sides.

Is Ianthe the spy? Is that how she knew Coronabeth was alive?

Does the Sleeper represent the part of Harrow and/or her brain that erased her memories and it's cleaning up the debris in her psyche? OR IS IT GIDEON? AKA the DORMANT part of Harrow-as-Lyctor? When the Sleeper is unmasked, will we see Harrow or Gideon?

Did Gideon's mother start the rebellion or something? Is that why they had a poster of her? Was she Eden?

So, Canaan house was on earth then?

Did Harrow (old Harrow) tamper with her own temporal lobe? Did Mercymorn? Ianthe?

Whose idea was it for Ortus to kill her then? John? Augustine? Mercymorn? Someone else?

Did Harrow break into the locked tomb? I want to believe she did, because I support her. But if not, who is the Body?

Shit, I can't remember what color Gideon's eyes were. Page 363 when Harrow's eyes are two different colors, black and gold

Ianthe wants to marry Harrow? Weird. I don't ship it. But I'm kind of stuck on Gideon and if I wasn't, maybe.

See a man about a queen? What does it mean? What is Ianthe doing? Also love that she cursed Harrow's hair to grow extra, just to be petty.

I'm so confused by chapter 40. What the hell is going on? Why is Harrow trying to be a cavalier? The fuck? Role swapped false memory? What is even happening?

Is Harrowhark's brain just, like, randomly spit-balling while she's dying or something? Love that Abigail and Magnus seem to be aware that it's not real.

OH OH OH THAT WAS GIDEON! SERVING THE COFFEE AND MAKING HARROW BLUSH IN THE THIRD(?) FALSE MEMORY OR DREAM OR WHATEVER! I love that Abigail is NOT having this, like, no I'm not gonna watch your romance novel version unfold.

I think I've noticed that the ones who have speaking roles the weird memories are the ones who died in the last book.

Are they all taking active part in these false scenarios? All the dead from Canaan house?

Oh my god oh my god here it is she remembers and she's so sad!

So she erased Gideon to save her soul. Nope nope nope nope nope I can't. I can't deal with these feelings. Y.Y

Who the fuck is the angry spirit?!?!

Who fucking stabbed her?

IS GIDEON DRIVING HARROW'S FUCKING BODY AROUND DURING A FIGHT? HELL YES! AND THAT MEANS I WAS RIGHT THAT SHE'S NARRATING!

OH AND I PREDICT THE GHOST IS CYTHERIA!

I'm still thinking about what Harrow did. It's so sweet and so sad and she's so lonely and she didn't even know how lonely she was.

Also I'm already excited to reread this series.

Oh yeah, this is GIDEON in here, swearing up a storm and trying to use a sword.

Okay, first I'm getting emotional just from heading Gideon's voice, then I'm emotional about what it was like for her to be in Harrow's body/mind, then I'm emotional about all the things she wanted to say but didn't have time, AND THEN I'M EMOTIONAL when Gideon says why she thinks Harrow did it and I'm like baby nooooooo it was because she loved you, not because she didn't want to rely on you! Honey, baby, no!

"Harrowhark, I gave you my whole life and you didn't even want it." HARROWHARK, I GAVE YOU MY WHOLE LIFE AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN WANT IT. 💔💔💔😟😟😟😭😭😭 Excuse me while my heart breaks.

Oh, also a bigger issue in this book is the whole concept of the afterlife? And it's messed up because of the emperor? I don't know why I wasn't prepared for that but I wasn't.

Ortus holding Harrow and pointing out that she and Gideon were neglected children is making my therapist soul ascend.

I'm such an idiot. His name wasn't Ortus, it was Gideon. He did kill Gideon's mother, that's why she shouted his name. Or they were in love? One or the other... Or both?

Harrow did a find and replace in her brain and it had unexpected consequences.

I've been leaning more and more towards the Sleeper and ghost being Cytheria.

Oh my sweet sword lesbian himbo, how I've missed you. "The sword I had to hold overhead in one hand as I used the other to keep everything inside you; stuff was coming out, Harrow, I don't know precisely what stuff because I'm not a goddamn necromancer."

Gideon is OCCUPYING HARROW'S BODY during a deadly invasion and is like, 'I'm gonna shut my eyes to reach under the shirt and get rid of encumbrances. I tried not to touch you, so don't get mad.' I feel like Harrow would be the first one to say 'do whatever you have to do to stay alive, you imbecile!'

So Mercymorn stabbed Harrow... So the heralds would eat her as a way to buy time? Was that the plan? Gideon calling her "my necromancer" made my heart do a thing.

I want to understand what she's saying about Gideon's mother. Was Gideon a science experiment? Like Kipo?

Where. THE FUCK did Cytheria get the gun?

Dulcie is *horny for revenge* Abigail is a BAMF and my new (and final?) prediction is that the Sleeper is Gideon's mom.

Gideon and Ianthe is a fun dynamic. I love how protective Gideon is, that she's mad at Ianthe for hurting Harrow's heart.

Gideon must have her mother's eyes to be freaking all the lyctors the fuck out.

"I wanted you to use me... I wanted you to live and not die... Harrow. I already gave my flesh to you, and I already gave you my end. I gave you my sword. I gave you myself. I did it while knowing I'd do it all again, without hesitation, because all I ever wanted you to do was eat me." Why am I crying? 😭😭😭😭😭 Why is this the most romantic thing when it's also full of insults and curses and is followed by a your mom joke? What a Gideon thing to do, be so romantic and gross and sassy all at once. I love her, I want to be her. Gideon forever.

Love that Ianthe also thinks Harrow got rid of Gideon because she didn't want her. /s I'm starting to worry that it's silly for me to hold onto the 'because she can't live without Gideon' explanation.'

"But Nonagesimus, you hating me always meant more than anyone else in this hot and stupid universe loving me. At least I'd had your full attention." That's why indifference is the opposite of love, hate is still passionate attention. But this also makes me feel so bad for Gideon because she deserves to be loved, dammit!

Okay, "gall on gall" is pretty hilarious. Good job Ianthe.

Love that the ghost of Matthias Nonius speaks in meter because he's been so deified by the Ninth house, and he's confused by it. It's like people in a musical being aware they're in a musical, like, why am I singing?

Ortus' poem was important after all!

Is it the sword? Does Harrow have to destroy Gideon's sword? Because that would break my heart a little.

"It bewildered her, back at Canaan House, how the whole of her always seemed to come back to Gideon. For one brief and beautiful space of time, she has welcomed it: that microcosm of eternity between forgiveness and the slow uncomprehending agony of the fall. Gideon rolling up her shirt sleeves. Gideon dappled in shadow, breaking promises. One idiot with a sword and an asymmetrical smile had proved to be Harrow's end." I just... This is so beautifully written. And describing Gideon as one idiot with a sword is so perfect and right and I just... 🖤🖤🖤😭😭😭

No no no I hate this either/or bullshit! I know I'm a sappy optimist, but I want both of them to survive, damnit! I want Harrow to be able to go back to her body without losing Gideon's soul. I want Gideon to keep existing.

What does Dulcinea know?!?!

Commander? That's Gideon's mom, right? Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead Kia Hua Ko Te Pai Snap Back to Reality Oops There Goes Gravity

What does that all mean? Are those Eminem lyrics? What other language is in there?

WHAT'S ALL COME OUT?

I knew she was in the sword.

Oh my god, if you need John to get in the tomb, and she was trying to get in the tomb and had something, a tool... Samples... She was armed with the baby... Is Gideon's father John? Is Gideon the fucking child of God?

She named the baby Bomb... This whole series could have been Bomb the Ninth... Bomb Nav...

Yep yep called it, child of God. The first time they put that plan in action was to get sperm to make Gideon. The second time was so Harrow could kill the first Gideon.

A dad joke?! A DAD JOKE?!

Gideon and Harrow were so cruel to each other as kids. It just makes me so sad.

Was Harrow able to get into the tomb because she made Gideon bleed?

So is Alecto John's cavalier? Annabel and Alecto... Are the same person? I'm so confused. She's the body in the locked tomb? But how is that related to her eyes being in his genes?

Wait, the eyes switched? I continue to be confused. Did he do the lyctor thing but also put a part of both him and his cavalier into the cavalier's body? But she was never human? What's going on? Why do they think she never had genes?

Oh cool, Mercy killed God and now everyone's gonna die... ... ... Ooooor not.

I love that beating up Harrow is Gideon's job AND saving Harrow is Gideon's job. Very cute.

Sooooo Gideon the OG and Pyrrha both fucked Gideon's mom... With the same body...

Gideon, such a romantic, wishing she had Harrow's name on her lips as she died. "I mean, yeah, I was thinking about you too; if I could've turned that off I would've turned it off years ago" HAHAHAHAHA You can't stop thinking about Harrow even if you want to! God, what a sweet himbo.

"Yes, well, jail for mother" says Gideon... Is she referencing Miette? Jail for mother for one thousand years!

Okay, so we have definitely confirmed that the Body is Alecto/Annabel/God's cavalier.

What did Dulcinea tell her? That Gideon is moving her body around? Doesn't she know that? Shouldn't that not be a surprise?

Okay, so, wait, what happened to Harrowhark?

ARRRRRGH I'm not smart enough for this book! Or I'm not visual enough! I know I should recognize the description of bobbed hair and "lambent" eyes but I have no idea who it is and also WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO GIDEON AND HARROWHARK?! UGH NOW I HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE NEXT BOOK AND I'M GONNA BE SO IMPATIENT AND CONFUSED!

Well that was fun to reread. Impressed I got some things right, but mostly I was very wrong.

#harrow the ninth #spoilers #locked tomb spoilers #locked tomb trilogy #doing my best #lesbians are just so good #disaster lesbian #it's me i'm the disaster lesbian here #i love this himbo #himbo gideon nav #live blogging #abigail pent #dulcinea septimus #ianthe the first #long post

29 notes · View notes

brattyfics · 4 years ago

Text

Savage

Summary: Miguel Galindo’s wife accidentally shows off her new lingerie set to Nestor and other members of the security team. Inspired by @sheeshgivemeabreak head cannon of Miguel’s significant other being seen by Nestor in her lingerie.

Pairing: Miguel Galindo x Black!OC

Warnings: Some cringy use of the word savage, Miguel Galindo quoting Beyonce and Megan Thee Stallion, exhibitionism (sorta?), rough sex.

Word count: 2K+

Placing the Chanel #5 perfume on the vanity, Ava, leaned back to admire her handiwork.

Her normally big, thick hair had been pressed and curled to perfection, falling down into beautiful barrel curls past her shoulders. Long-lashed eyes blinked back at her in the mirror, glossy, pink lips gleaming despite the low lighting.

Ava’s eyes trailed down to her breasts, shifting and adjusting to make sure everything was perfect. A white lingerie set from Agent Provocateur’s latest line clung to soft curves. The set was see-through for the most part, exposing her chocolate nipples and brown mound. Lace frilled the edges of the bra cups and panties, completing the naughty angel look.

Satisfied, she turned from her reflection to strap on a pair of vintage designer heels, one of many gifts from her fiance, Miguel Galindo. She spared one final look at herself in the mirror before embarking on the mission to get her man in bed.

It wasn’t unheard of for him to spend long lengths of time in his personal study, the nature of his business called for it. Ava understood, but that didn’t mean she liked it. She tried to let him work uninterrupted for the most part, but sometimes he needed to be reminded of what was waiting for him in bed.

The short silk robe that covered her body did very little to preserve her modesty, so she was extra careful when scanning the hallway for bodies. Miguel normally kept his men off the second floor. It was hard for her to adjust to having someone watching her at all times, and this compromise did give her a small semblance of normalcy.

Confident no one would see her, she crept towards the office door, wanting to maintain the element of surprise. The two of them understood that she should know everything or nothing at all. Before getting married, they agreed on full disclosure. Still, Miguel didn’t want his two worlds completely fused together. Ava could tell he didn’t like her to be in the office, but she figured she would quickly be forgiven. As soon as the ties of her robe opened, Miguel would be focused on one thing.

Ava had seen Marcus leave earlier, it was rare that he did so. Being Miguel’s advisor meant he needed to be accessible 24/7, but everyone needed a break sometimes. For that reason, Ava was confident the two of them would be alone when she twisted the door knob and entered.

As soon as the door closed behind her, her fingers went to work at undoing the silk ties, and with a quick shrug Ava let gravity do the rest. Miguel’s head lifted from his papers in just enough time to watch it hit the ground, his mouth falling open, eyes widening in surprise.

Then movement to her right caused her to shriek and stumble back into the door. It was Ava’s turn for a surprise.

Her own mouth fell open in horror. To her right stood a stunned Nestor, who had previously been occupied with something on the bookshelf.

“Shit!”

All three of them seemed to curse at the same time. Nestor scrambled to cover his eyes, books raining down with a thud in his haste. Eventually, he managed to turn so his back was facing Ava. Miguel dropped the papers he had been holding, locking eyes with Ava, communicating without saying a word. Your ass is in big trouble, missy.

That tore her out of the shocked, frozen trance she had been in. She spun to open the door, her palms sweaty and clumsy, making the task ten times harder. Her heels clicked against the floor as she shuffled her feet impatiently. The tops of her ears burned, the thump of her heart sounding off within them.

The door opened, but not because of Ava’s doing. Hearing the scream and thump had caused the security team to run up the stairs.

“Shit!” She shrieked again, bending down to scoop up the silk robe. Her nipples pebbled against the thin fabric as the gust of air from the door swinging open hit her.

Nestor took that as his opportunity to make a dash for it, Miguel right behind him to slam the door in everyone’s face with a swear.

Harsh breathing were the only sounds to be heard on their side of the door, sounds of dress shoes clicking away on the other side.

Without a doubt, this was her most embarrassing moment. Ever.

The two of them stood there, Miguel’s hands above her head on the door, trapping her against it with his body as a gate. She tried in vain to calm herself and she was sure her man was trying to do the same. Waves of anger radiated off of him, and she knew there was an epic punishment coming her way.

“I-I’m sooo sorry, babe.” She apologized, slowly turning so she was facing him.

He reminded her of an angry bull in that moment-- full of rage with a clear (and easy) target in front of him. Unfortunately, she happened to be the target stupid enough to provoke him. His eyebrows pinched together, lips downturned in that dangerous scowl he usually reserved for employees that disappointed him. The dark look in his eyes told her to stop while she was ahead, but she felt the urge to break up some of the tension.

“I didn’t--” His hand rose, and there was no more room for explaining. She gnawed on her gloss covered bottom lip.

“You are without a doubt the most disobedient, infuriating person I’ve ever met. I deal with bikers, drug traffickers, hitmen, all kinds of fucking degenerates and yet no one manages to piss me off more than you.” His hand found its way back to her collarbone, tossing her hair back behind her shoulders.

“I give you everything. Try to treat you like the princess I know you can be, but you insist on being an insolent brat. I give you free reign of this house-- this fucking city, but you have to show up in the one place you shouldn’t. Why is that?” He leaned down to look in her eyes, fingertips ghosting over her neck until she shifted to stare up at him.

Miguel watched, fascinated as she transformed into the most demure version of herself, one she reserved for times like this when he was really angry. Her arms left her sides to lock around his neck, batting her eyelashes in hopes of a little mercy.

“Don’t act like a good girl now.” He scoffed, enjoying the closeness despite himself. He leaned in to nibble at her neck. “We both know you’re not.” She hisses at the sting, fire back in her eyes as if she was telling him she would bite back.

“You’re a bad bitch, right? A savage— or whatever that damn song you’re always singing says, right? So act like it.” He always acted as if he was annoyed by her mini-concerts, but she knew he was secretly her biggest fan. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing out loud. He didn’t allow her amusement to distract him. “Get on your knees. Now.”

Back in submissive character, she dropped to her knees.

“Now you listen.” He tsks, hands moving to unbuckle his pants. “Probably because you think there’s something in it for you. Sucking cock is your favorite pastime. Isn’t that right, sucia? You get off on being on your knees but I can promise you, this isn’t for your pleasure.”

Ava tried her best to look disappointed. No matter what he said, there absolutely was something in it for her. They both knew it. She resisted the urge to help him undress and instead watched him, resting her weight on the backs of her legs. He finally stepped out of his dress pants and underwear, tossing them to the side.

He stood in front of her, stroking his thick cock in her face. Her eyes watched him stroke, back and forth, milking it until precum puddled around the tip. She leaned forward, her lips puckered to give it a kiss, only to be pushed back into position.

Ava gave him a cross look. “Don’t look at me like that. You don’t decide. I do. It’s time you learned that.” She felt hypnotized as he continued to pump his hard dick. She felt like a puppy, eager, desperately wanting to drool and wag her tongue. Her eyes darted back and forth between his beautiful brown dick and his face, squirming and shifting her knees.

“Open your mouth.” She presented her long, pink tongue to him.

He teased her with the tip at the opening of her mouth, tapping it on her tongue. She begged him with her eyes to continue.

“Take it as deep as you can.” He used that firm tone that always made her pussy throb, the fat tip invading her mouth. She sighed in relief, her tongue softly massaging the bottom of his dick as she struggled to take it all with no build-up. When he hit the back of her throat, her eyes closed, concentrating on controlling her gag reflex.

He withdrew from her mouth, causing her eyes to snap open. “Look at me while you suck my dick.” Ava nodded in understanding, letting the storm brewing in his eyes egg her on. She let him feed her dick, her eyes trained on his.

More often than not, Miguel was soft with her. She was always mi amor or bebita, perched in his lap while he read the newspaper or holding his hand across the table while they breakfast. He loved to shower her with expensive gifts and lavish trips. In return, she was his oasis. She navigated the duality of her complex man with grace, always managing to be exactly what he needed. Still, she lived for the moments where she could get under his skin.

He groaned as he watched her gag around his dick, water welling up in her pretty eyes. She pushed herself further, thick lips moving up and down his length. Her face alone could do him in-- but the looks she gave, the sounds she made, the way she expressed her love all over his dick had him ready to melt. He could barely breathe from trying to hold his moans in, stroking the top of her head with affection.

Her hands went up to rest on the tops of his legs as she throated him to the best of her ability, moaning and making it as wet as she could. Tasting him, breathing him in, swallowing him, and looking at him all at once overwhelmed her. Her panties flooded, eyes fluttering closed again.

She heard the sound ricocheting off her ass before she felt the sting, hands going back soothe her ass cheek with a whimper. Her mouth fell open in surprise.

“Did I tell you to close your eyes?”

“No, sir.”

Miguel’s hand gripped her neck firmly.

“Did I tell you to take my dick out of your mouth?”

Another negative. “No--”

“You can’t do anything right.” Her eyebrows pulled together, lips falling into a pout. “Don’t worry, princesa, I’ll do it for you.”

He guided her by the neck, pushing her back towards the door, reaching down to pull her legs from under her, so her head could rest flush against it. The only way his dick would leave her mouth would be if he took it out.

He used her mouth like a pussy, pumping in and out to soothe his temper. Ava was sure to maintain eye contact this time, even as spit dribbled out of her mouth onto his dick and down her chin. Down it went and Miguel didn’t let up, watching it spill between the valley of her breasts.

She tracked his eyes, reaching up to pull down her bra straps to free her breasts. He could see the mischief in her eyes as she jiggled them at him.

He slapped her hands away with a grunt, replacing them with his own. He tugged on each nipple, loving the feeling of her moaning around his dick.

Her drenched panties clung uncomfortably to her womanhood. She needed him to take his frustration out on her pussy next.

Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes, but she refused to look away, telling him with her eyes how much she wanted his release. I want that big load so bad. Come all down my throat, daddy. Feed your princess.

Miguel cursed under his breath, thrusts faltering as he looked up to the ceiling. Relishing in his moment of weakness, she hummed around his length. “Fuck…” He pulled out immediately. “Get up.” He grabbed her up by her shoulders, spinning her so she faced the door.

He clawed at her panties like a lion with its prey. The mushroom tip poked at her entrance, further coating the tip in the moisture. “You’re so fucking wet.” He slid himself between her fat lips, trying to prepare himself before he came prematurely.

Ava jumped forward when his tip met her clit. “Stop moving.” He hissed as she rocked back against him, begging to be put out of her misery. His hand rained down smacks in retaliation.

She tired, but couldn’t stop her wiggling, desperately needing relief. She felt near tears. “Please.” She whined.

With a forceful thrust in, he knocked the wind out of her, giving her no time to adjust. “So fucking hardheaded.” Ava bit her lip, turning to look at him only to find his eyes focused on her ass, watching it ripple with each thrust in.

“Fuck me.” She whimpered, using the door for leverage to push back against him. Ava fucked him the way he liked, making it nasty while looking at him innocently. “I’m sorry for being bad, daddy. I wanna be your good girl again. I wanna be daddy’s princess--” His hand came up to cover her mouth, silencing her before she made him bust.

“Shut. Up.” He breathed harshly, whispering dirty words in her ear. “Just do your job and fuck me. Shake that fat ass.” No, you do your job and fuck me. She couldn’t talk so she licked the palm of his hand in retaliation.

He rained down slaps on her ass until he could see a red undertone on her brown skin.

She wailed his name and he did his best to muffle her screams, but there was no doubt everyone in the house knew what they were up to.

“You want everyone to hear you being a desperate slut?” He pounded into her, no longer caring about the sound of her hips thudding against the door. “You’re the most cock-hungry bitch I ever met. You don’t care who knows as long as I pound you the way you like, baby?”

She tried to deny his accusation, shaking her head. There was always someone around to watch their backs so being heard and occasionally walked in on didn’t bother either of them much.

But men that worked for Miguel, amongst them his very best friend had seen his wife practically naked. He poured his anger into every stroke, pulling on her hair until it rested on his shoulder. His fingers snaked down to massage her soaking clit, sending her over the edge.

“Fuckkkkkkkkkk.” She cried out as he continued his assault, more frenzied than ever in his movements. Her legs shook as she tried to remain upright, her pussy walls clenching and pulling him in even deeper.

“Fuckkkk.” He groaned his own release, strokes slowing as he filled her pussy.

Ava’s head fell forward out of exhaustion but before she could lose her balance, his arms wrapped around her midsection. He pulled her into him, peppering kisses on her neck, behind her ear, and finally in her fruity smelling hair.

Even as he held her up soothing her, Ava worried he would hold onto his anger as he sometimes did because of pride. Her worries dissipated when he spoke.

“I’m definitely the savage in the relationship.”

#mayans mc #miguel galindo #miguel galindo x reader #miguel galindo x oc #miguel galindo x black!reader

351 notes · View notes

minijenn · 3 years ago

Text

Keys to the Kingdom Preview 2

Anyway here's a little more from this chapter because I'm having a wonderful time writing Sora interacting with the Mystery Twins so I had to show some off to ya'll. Enjoy some cute shit for a change!

***

“Hiya!” the girl greets Sora happily, largely ignoring her brother’s attempt at pulling her away. “I’m Mabel, but if you’d like, you can call me the girl of your dreams.”

Despite his best efforts, Sora is unable to hold back a small snort of a laugh at this attempt at what he can only assume to be innocent flirting. “It’s… nice to meet you, Mabel,” he smiles, leaning down a bit to be on face level with both twins. “My name is Sora.” His smile widens a bit as he extends a hand out for the twins to shake, all while forgetting what his hand currently looks like.

“W-what the-?!” the boy gasps, his grip on Mabel’s arm tightening as he stares at the sharp claws only inches away from them.

“Oh! Sorry!” Sora exclaims, quickly pulling his hand away from the pair. “I-I… um… I’m…” he stammers, unsure of how to explain as he simply shoves his hands into his pockets while muttering another awkward apology instead. “Sorry…”

“What are you sorry for?” Mabel asks, raising a confused eyebrow. That confusion soon shifts back into excitement however as she happens to take notice of Sora’s now abnormally sharp teeth. “Oh my gosh! Claws and fangs!? This just keeps getting better! Are you a werewolf? A vampire? A werepire?!”

“Ok, seriously, Mabel, can you stop being boy crazy for like two seconds?” the boy scoffs, beyond disgruntled by this point.

“Pfft, never,” Mabel turns her nose up at him before offering Sora another small, spritely grin. “You’re gonna have to excuse my party-pooper of a brother here. My specialty is friendly smiles, while Dipper’s specialty is grumpy scowls.”

“Tch, is not,” the boy--Dipper, apparently--crosses his arms, his expression set in, unsurprisingly a grumpy scowl.

“Is too!” Mabel counters, sticking her tongue out at her brother.

“Is not!”

“Is too!”

“Ok, ok, you two,” Sora cuts in as he stands, letting out something of an amused chuckle. “I just got rid of those Nobodies, I don’t wanna have to break up another fight.”

“Nobodies?” Dipper inquires, eyeing Sora suspiciously.

“Those monsters that were attacking you guys,” Sora explains. “That’s what they’re called. I’ve fought them a few times before--many times before, actually.”

“Well, we’ve never seen any monsters like that around here before,” Dipper huffs, pulling out his book again to jot a few notes down in it. “Which is weird since Gravity Falls is basically a hotspot for all kinds of monsters.”

“Gravity Falls…” Sora mutters, remembering Bill saying that before. “Is that… what this place is called?”

“Um, yeah?” Dipper glances up from his book. “How do you not already know that?”

“Oh, well, uh… I-I’ve been… wandering around for the past few days,” Sora explains as simply as he can. “I don’t really have a map or anything like that so… I must have lost track of where I am?”

“Ohhh, so that’s why your clothes are all torn and dirty!” Mabel infers. “Don’t worry, it's a fun look! You totally pull it off; same with the hood. It makes you look all tall, dark, mysterious, and handsome!”

#mabel is so fucking thirsty i cant XD #meanwhile dipper is like #this teen is sus as hell #i missed writing for my kids hhhhh #its like coming back home #jen writes #keys to the kingdom #keys preview

9 notes · View notes

cjstalkingstarwarsagain · 4 years ago

Text

hi! i’ve recently decided to rewatch all the star wars movies and take notes on them and then,,, share them with you. so if you’re even mildly interested in my star wars opinions, here you go :)

i’ll divide it into a couple categories so,,,

well start with rogue one!!

shit that made me giggle

"oh look, here’s lyra back from the dead. it’s a miracle."

everything K2 says and does. i love him and he’s perfect.

i love the continuous attempts by K2 to appear imperial and how he fails every time. not a single storm trooper or officer ever believes him when he starts running his mouth.

so sorry but bohdi getting his cable caught and trying to shake it loose is such an adorably human moment. makes me giggle every time.

i honestly thought this section would be longer, this movie made me laugh a bunch.

stuff i don’t like or doesn’t make sense

why does jyn start believing in the rebellion? there’s no indication that she cared before they found her. there’s no real turning point that we can see. she just,,, suddenly is really into this shit. which is strange because the only reason she ever joined was because she was given a non-choice (either help or get put back in prison). i guess i can kinda see how her father dying could have changed her, but we see none of that on the ship after his death. we just get to the rebel council and all of a sudden she’s the poster girl for rebellion.

saw seems really stable at the beginning of the film, so why did he go seemingly crazy and paranoid? it’s probably explained in the novelization but that’s no excuse to just have a character go crazy with really no explanation or backstory.

that being said, a lot of the character development is pretty lacking. i don’t think i’d care about these characters nearly as much if i wasn’t already a star wars fan.

video game cut scene style general tarkin

bor gullet is supposed to make you lose your mind but bohdi was pretty much fine after like,,, a day

how does the death star,,,, move?? like i know it can but has that ever been explained? is it like little thrusters? like the ones you can see in real life to stabilize things in space? there’s nothing i can visually see. i’m not mad about it i just wanna know.

why does saw insist on staying behind? why doesn’t he come and help?? it would have been so easy to just leave but he insists on staying behind and just watching as death inches closer. i think it doesn’t make sense because we know *so little* about his character. give me more on him, make me understand.

since james earl jones is getting older, vader sounds older. was there??? nothing the audio or editing department could have done about that??? not super mad about this one just because darth vader is really cool and i’ll never really complain too much about darth vader screen time.

when the fuck did jyn become a motivational speaker??

my one gripe about pretty much every star wars movie is the sheer number of times people climb through huge shafts and jump around and shit and they’re always *fine*. no way they wouldn’t fall to their deaths in any normal situations.

can someone?? check the science of the hammerhead corvette?? because there’s no gravity or weight in space right?? theoretically all you gotta do is give that star destroyer a bump and it’s spinning out, right?? i know absolutely nothing about space physics but i gotta be right. maybe i’m wrong. i dunno. i’m dumb as rocks. hear that baby girl?? it’s the spare change rattling around in my skull. i got pennies where my brain is.

absolutely no fucking shot cassian survived a blaster hit AND that fall AND climbed out. my belief simply cannot be suspended that much.

DUDE I FORGOT THAT THE DEATH STAR CAN TRAVEL THROUGH HYPERSPACE HOW DOES WORK SOMEONE TELL ME!!!!!

why doesn’t vader just,,, force grab the plans. i know he sees them. why not just force stop the guy running away with them??

final note now that the movie is over. yes, it’s got a lot of issues. the plot is ehhh at times. the trailers don’t match up with the movie shots AT ALL (i wanna know what happened behind the scenes with that). the character development is lacking in many major ways (that has not stopped me from loving these characters though, but that’s the autism talking). but like i’ll say in the "stuff i liked" section, this is such a damn cool movie. i was once talking about it with an older friend of mine and he said seeing rogue one in theaters felt like watching the original trilogy in theaters back in the 70s and 80s and honestly that’s such a compliment. i love this movie, i really do.

just cool shit,,, you know the vibe

DEATH TROOPERS

krennic is probably one of my favorite imperial officers. for some reason he just really sells it for me, the evil and manipulation that borderlines in try hard. and (i mention it more later because you see it more in the "choke on your aspirations" scene) beyond that just the fact that he’s?? a guy. just a dude. at any given moment he could be described as just hanging out. but he’s trying so hard (for whatever reason, we don’t know his evil motivations) to be this big bad evil dude. and it’s just interesting to see someone *trying* to be imperial and *trying* to be evil, as opposed to a tarkin-type character who’s just naturally an asshole.

i love the rogue one main theme. don’t even talk to me. it’s so cool.

it’s cool to see more about the birth of the death star, seeing other people learn about it. sort of realizing the fear and terror that everyone must have been experiencing. especially after being a star wars fan for so long and being like, yeah it’s the death star it’s just a staple of this universe. it reminds me that "oh god this was a planet killer and this was the first time something like that had ever even been heard of".

there’s gorgeous visuals in this movie.

i like the "i’m wanted in 12 systems" guy cameo (did you know his name is cornelius? i googled it)

when the storm trooper asks for papers?? like fuck yeah show me what life is like under imperial rule. give me that shit.

chirrut is so badass i’ll never get over it

"i’m one with the force and the force is with me" i’m eating that shit UP! salivating over the meal in front of me. i really want more exploration of the guardians and jedi worship in general. like gimme that weird funky space religion.

seeing an at-st just walk around a town. i dunno i like that shit.

K2 saying sorry for hitting cassian. i’m so soft on this robot.

"clear of hostiles,,,, ONE HOSTILE"

jyn stepping in front of K2 to protect him after she (not ten minutes ago) made the comment “i’m just afraid they’ll miss you and hit me”. jyn,,, your soft side is showing,,,,

i like the cool machine blaster that baze has. it’s awesome seeing different blaster styles when originally the only variation we really saw was chewie’s cross bow style blaster.

i really wanna see more of baze and cirruit. i wanna know what happened that made baze stop believing. i wanna know how they met. i wanna see them evolve and grow together.

i like that jyn argues that 16 is too young to be a solider (she’s 21 in the movie). i like that she’s mad that she’s young and has been put in a position to protect herself and then later save the galaxy. (for context: luke and leia were 19 in a new hope. anakin is 19 in attack of the clones, ~22 when he became darth vader, and rey is 19 in force awakens. stop putting the fate of the galaxy in the hands of people who are *barely* adults)

the testing of the death star is awesome. love seeing wicked cool space weapons. when it blocks out the sun? ominous as hell fuck yeah.

it’s interesting that baze says cassian doesn’t look like a killer, that "he has the face of a friend", when one of the first things we saw him do was kill a man. i think about that a lot. does that say more about baze’s ability to read people or does it say more about who cassian is deep down, beyond what he’s done to serve the rebellion?

cassian’s relationship with death and killing is very interesting. you could argue that cassian is just as brainwashed and deep in the rebellion as anyone imperial. i really hope it’s something that gets explored in his stand alone show. he mentions he’s lost everything and has been a rebel since he was 6. gimme cassian andor backstory.

"careful not to choke on your aspirations director" is probably some of the most dramatic-anakin-skywalker shit i’ve ever seen vader do

i like seeing rebel infighting. so often it seems there’s always general consensus about what the rebellion wants, but it’s good to see that they don’t always agree on how to rebel.

i love the consistent "found family" rebel alliance shit in these movies. it makes my dick so hard.

ARTOO AND THREEPIO CAMEO FUCK ME UP THOSE ARE MY BOYS

okay i totally get that the empire is evil, i really do, but rogue one (and lots of moments in the sequels) really reminds me how fucking cool some of their shit is. like death troopers? imperial droids like K2? the base on scarif? vader’s castle on mustafar and his bacta tank?? fuck me UP.

i loved hearing the troopers doing their dumb small talk about the T-15s on the beach.

i think ben mendelssohn is perfect for the role of krennic, no notes there. he’s just like?? a guy and he’s doing everything he can to fit into this evil role and he just wants to be like this big bad imperial boy on campus. i don’t know. i don’t have the words right now to express how fuckin awesome he is. i’ll write an essay about it later.

THE AT-AT COMING OUT OF THE MIST?? CHRIST ON A BIKE. LAY ME TO REST. LOVE IT.

fucking love me some female fighter pilots. the women of star wars are so badass. doing justice to my return of the jedi ladies.

i think a whole lot about jyn giving K2 a blaster. the way he takes it and looks at it and holds it so gently. i think that’s the first time a human has trusted him with a blaster since his reprogramming. he seems so appreciative of that trust.

i love seeing the faces of baze and the other rebels when a few of the x-wings show up and take down an at-at. i’m so very soft for the relationship between these rebels. not to be cliche, but the *hope* that they have. it’s so moving. this movie is just so full of that quintessential rebel feeling.

hey so i’m super emotional about the death of K2 okay? because in the novelizations you learn that in the last second k2 had before a full shut down, he ran a simulation where cassian lived and even though he knew it was impossible, it made him happy. FURTHERMORE K2 is very well known and his name is often listed along side jyn’s in terms of talking about the history of the rebellion.

chirrut and baze’s deaths are so important to me. we know they’re best friends, and even though we don’t know how long they’ve been together, they love each other so deeply. chirrut being the path for baze to return to the force? touching. i so wish these dumb force husbands could have had more screen time. baze calling chirrut back?? chirrut telling him to find him in the force?? baze looking to see the man he loves one more time before he dies??reminds me of the silken quote about dying in your best friends arms because it’s all you know. anywho,,, if star wars canon has any mercy then these two lovers are force ghosts together rn. don’t care how you feel or whether you "ship" them or not. love comes in so many forms and they encompass all that love.

terribly sorry but i think about those two star destroyers colliding with the rogue one main theme playing over it every day. it’s,,,,, so,,,, ( ´∀｀)

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again BEN MENDELSSOHN??? UH YEAH

krennic watching his weapon (his beautiful, successful weapon) power up and kill him,,, the poetic justice of it all,,,,

any time anyone says "may the force be with you" i dunno maybe it’s my religious trauma but i’m head over heels for that good shit

the star destroyer coming out of hyper space as the rebels are escaping and some of the ships hit the destroyer?? one of my favorite things in the new star wars movies is directors and writers saying "oh this can totally happen" and they DO IT

jyn mentioning earlier in the film that she isn’t used to people sticking around when shit hits the fan and then dying in the arms of cassian?? because he stayed?? and for the first time she has someone??

in that same vein: cassian also says earlier in the film that he lost everything too. his connection with jyn is also important to him, just as important as it is to jyn. they need each other. i can’t remember who on this hellsite said it, but someone mentioned that they hope the stand alone cassian stuff coming out doesn’t make him this swindling playboy who fucks around a bunch. i think having him as more of like?? a mandolorian type character would be really cool. like he’s a rebel assassin: make him one. make him independent and badass and cool and DONT give him a bunch of romantic or sexual interests because then that downplays the clear love he had developing for jyn. again LOVE COMES IN FORMS BEYOND BASIC SHIPS. and there’s a lot of love in star wars.

i’ve said it a million times but vader is so cool and over and over again this movie reminded me that he’s actually so scary. i saw star wars for the first time when i was 6 and i can’t remember my initial reaction to him, but i’ve definitely (like with the death star) been desensitized to the fact that if i was in star wars, darth vader would scare the shit out of me. he’s *scary* and that’s cool. i liked seeing vader effortlessly go fucking mad on these rebels. then you understand why they were so scared in that first scene of a new hope.

no i absolutely will not get over the vader scene. i won’t. his saber turning on. his force abilities. his effortless lightsaber work. the choral music over the scene with the hectic orchestra. don’t touch me i’m emotional.

i loved seeing leia. it touches me so deeply every time.

fuck i love this movie despite all its faults.

if you’ve made it this far, thank you!! i hope you enjoyed. please remember that this is totally a safe space for all star wars opinions and you can feel free to disagree with me! i’d love to hear what some of you thought :))

#star wars #rogue one #baze #jyn erso #chirrut imwe #cassian andor #baze malbus #bohdi rook #k2so #star wars opinions #star wars critique #star wars review

22 notes · View notes

internalsealpanic · 4 years ago

Text

Fabulous Friday Evenings

Summary: You were having a really bad day. Conner decides to help cheer you up and make sure your drunk ass doesn’t face plant on the side walk.

masterlist

word count: 2,652

a/n: Special thanks to @anothertimdrakestan for helping with the ending and helping with editing! Love you, Elle!

warnings: alcohol and swearing and author does not know how alcohol works. No one is under the drinking age. This may benefit from more editing.

"Mosht people are jusht the careful scaffolding of complexshesh," you slurred, your face red, head half buried in your arms, and golden ear cuffs winking under the dim bar lights.

"You somehow still sound like a fucking nerd even you're when drunk," Conner laughed throwing his head back, handsome face stretched with a cheeky smile. "You look like a mess," he said softly, reaching out for your cheek.

"Fuhk you! Not eberyone can be born too pretty for their own guhd- how did yah evehn know I was here? It was Tim wasn't it! "

"Good guess buuuut it was actually Bart" Conner explained casually taking a seat next to you as you lifted your head momentarily before plopping it back down to stare at the amber gloss of the drink. The light from the ceiling seemed to dance so elegantly in your eyes even as you wrinkled your brows. "That rat," you cursed miserably into your arm.

Across from you, a pretty brunette shot you two a wink and without looking you could tell Conner flirted in kind. Normally, you'd have the audacity to steal the girl's attention away before Conner could even make a proper move but tonight you were in absolutely no mood to be charming. In fact, you were sloshed. You didn't know whether it was the fourth or fifth drink that did it but there you were sitting next to one of the most attractive people he knew with your makeup smeared and eyes still swollen and puffy. You kind of just want a portal to open up and swallow you.

The brunette made a motion to her friends which indicated that she was gonna try her luck and you wished her the best of luck. You bit your soft lips before pressing them into a pout. It took everything in Conner not to kiss you on the spot. Be the responsible one they said. It would be fun, they said.

"We should go. You're-"

"Have fun," you said, patting him on the shoulder, cutting him off curtly; placing some cash on the bar before leaving. The buxom brunette approached Conner placing a hand on the shoulder you’d just touched moments before. He didn’t seem to notice her, his mind still lingering on the warmth of your hand. Before she can say anything, he pivots and runs towards you .

The casual slump in your shoulders in place of your usual elegance was a pretty good indication that you would probably fall in a gutter before you got home. Conner highly doubted you could see straight.

"I can’t believe Roz let you get this sloshed without checking on you," He joked bringing one of your arms over his shoulder and slinging his own arm around you for balance. You walked like a newborn horse. It was incredibly embarrassing and you wanted to die. Conner, on the other hand, just found it incredibly hilarious.

"She's out getting into her own brand of sloshed at a bachelorette party,"

"Huh. Didn't know she was the wedding type. Thought she hated going to those,"

"She's the stripper," You deadpanned, sounding abnormally sober. With that Conner let out a genuinely hearty laugh. You would trade all the martinis, dackories, and margaritas in the world just to get drunk on that laugh.

"That reminds me," Conner drawled, adjusting his hold feeling just how shaky you were from the late October Metropolis weather pressing you closer to his warm body. You kind of wanted to melt into his side but you had too much pride. "Bart never said why you were out here getting shit faced," You frowned at him but couldn't really muster any sharpness into your expression.

There were lots of reasons to get 'shit faced' even in shiny Metropolis. You twitched your nose and mouth side to side gathering the makings of a sentence. Where do you even start? Your little sister got suspended, your mother (who somehow found out you were in Metropolis) is either demanding money or for you to drop everything to go back home to help around the house (translation: help out with the bills while babysitting your siblings), Bats and some other league members were on your ass for the last mission (probably the only thing on this list you found reasonable), this morning, you got fired from your library job so they could hire Marco's girlfriend (who is in fact a perfectly nice person which means you can't really hate her), or the dozens of little annoyances such as Bart not being able to keep his trap shut.

"This week was just a little much,"

A long moment of silence passes between you. Uncharacteristic for Conner but it was cute that he thought silence would make you fess up.

"You know I could have gone home on my own. That brunette looked like she was up for a good time,"

"Yeah right. Also you're welcome."

"You're right. Thank you for getting blue balled this fine evening to escort me" you didn't want to be prickly but Conner was being too nice and that made your skin crawl. Why couldn’t he be mean to you right now like a normal person?

"First off, she wasn't even my type-" You raised a brow.

"Kon, her tits were the size of Jupiter-"

"Did you really just say 'tits'?"

You threw him a scowl clearly sobering up from irritation.

"Shut up. Point iiiis, you didn't have to-"

"You just said-"

"Oh for the love of- yes, I said tits. Speaking of which you should be staring at some instead of having to lug my sorry ass around on this fabulous Friday evening." Your hand fluttering, gesturing vaguely in the air.

"Eh. There'll be other Fridays" Kon shrugged. Pulling you closer and some selfish part of you felt relieved.

----------

Much to your surprise (you really ought not to be), Roz wasn't home yet which meant you had to dig out the keys from the secret hiding spot- another hassle. You reached out peeling a hilariously well concealed hole in the wall and fished out the set of jingling keys. Conner looked like he was between amusement and bewilderment. Good enough. At least, this stopped Conner's 30 minute TED Talk about the new 70s sitcom he'd found.

You two entered the shoe box apartment clumsily thanks to your disastrous limbs.

You blew out a breath and muttered a thanks as Conner helped you plop onto the couch. Though, it was more like gravity decided to magnetize your body to the couch and Conner just let it happen.

You shut his eyes for a moment wrapping a ragged blanket around you. You made a mental note to raid the thrift store for a new one. Preferably one void of holes.

"So what's up and don't you dare say it was nothing. I've never seen you this hammered before," He said handing you a mug of steaming hot chocolate.

"Does it occur to you that I might get hammered like this often and you might just not see it? Who knows maybe I'm actually a functional alcoholic?"

"Ok, first off, you are barely functional. Second, that might be your weakest deflection yet. Try again,"

"Ok... did it occur-"

"I didn't mean it lite- just tell me what happened. Everyone's worried,"

You stared at the steam rising from the fresh cup of cocoa. It was none of Conner's business. It was no one’s business. Your friends were too goddamn nice. Blowing out another breath, you said "You might wanna sit down too,"

Conner takes his own mug of hot cocoa and sits next to you because for some reason eye contact made you a better liar and Conner for all his dumb decisions wasn't gonna let you off the hook that easily. You shifted uncomfortably and muttered about either Cassie or Roz ratting you out. He assumed it was the eye contact thing. Conner felt a little offended. He might not be Tim but he’s smart enough to figure it out on his own. Despite his hurt feelings and bruised ego, he decided to table that and focus on the current issue or, likely, issues.

"Do you want it in alphabetical order?"

"Please tell me you can actually do that," Conner teased with a wide grin. You couldn’t fight off a smile forming on your face. "Sadly, I am not Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne. My brain cells work like a normal person's,"

"Didn't you die?"

"Death only fixes stupid when you stay dead. You've seen Red Hood and whichever other Ex-Robin has been to the pearly gates,"

"You say that as if Jason wouldn't tell the big man to fuck off,"

You blinked and turned your head up to the ceiling. "Ok that's true," You conceded, your mouth twitching rapidly from side to side making you look like an exasperated rabbit. Cute.

"So what's up?"

All the good mood from the past few minutes dissipated in an instant. You looked down solemnly at the still steaming mug. You were silent for what felt like an eternity.

"It's family- Immediate. And the source of all evil-"

"Lex Corp?"

You snorted a shy tired smile cracked across your face. You shook your head. Those little gestures just make Conner feel a little warmer. You, on the other hand, cursed at how easily Conner could make you laugh. You were supposed to be sad damn it.

"Money," Conner knew immediate family was always a sore spot for you. No one knew the specifics except Roz but that was inevitable when you're cousins. Money was also a sore spot and based on your near dead tone. You’ve either lost a lot of it or you’re in a tight spot but not ready to elaborate.

"Wanna try buying a lottery ticket?"

"What?"

"Who knows you might get lucky?"

"You could have gotten lucky you if you-"

"Are you seriously gonna keep bringing that up?"

"Yes, most likely. Depends,"

"On what?!"

"On whether I can think of something funnier to give you shit about or if you can convince me-whatever the fuck you're thinking of doing stop!"Conner's cheeky grin did not disappear nor did the faint flush on your cheeks.

"I wasn't thinking of anything, you sick pervert" he laughed. You really should have been exasperated with Conner. You tried damn it. You looked at him skeptically before violently letting his head rest on Conner’s shoulder causing the other boy to fall over.

"Aaaaaaawwwww babe , if you wanted to cuddle you could have just said so,"

You wanted to. In fact, both of you wanted to. But unfortunately neither of you were martian and neither of you was willing to say jack. You closed your eyes trying to pretend Conner wasn't a little shit. Conner radiated too much smug for that though.

"Shut up," You mumbled into Conner's shoulder already feeling sleep pull him under. You clung to him. Maybe just for tonight you can indulge in this. Just for a little while you can cling to Conner's warmth. Maybe in the morning your head will ache too much to remember this. Waking up alone wouldn't be too painful then. Hopefully.

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

You woke up feeling like a troop of Can Caning hippos decided to host a live performance all over your head. You sighed remembering that you had in fact run out of Aspirin just days before so you decided on just lying there and praying that Roz also needed Aspirin and had more energy to run to the store.

You settled in nuzzling in to the warm-

Wait. It was October.

Nothing in the apartment should be warm.

NOTHING.

Then, you heard it. A LOUD snore. It honestly sounded more like the roar of an engine than anything. Everything else followed. The slow rising and falling of the chest beneath you, the press of stubble against your forehead, and the strong arms loosely wrapped around you.

Yeah. You died again. Yeah. You finally went to heaven. Yup. You were ok with that. You were definitely 100% A Ok with this if this was heaven. Being held tenderly by the guy you liked while you got a good night’s sleep was definitely heaven. God, you were such a sap.

How the hell you missed all of that baffled you.

Oh wait. Dancing hippos. Fuck.

Your head felt like it was threatening to crack open but somehow you honestly could not mind even if you tried. You were laying on top of a hot (literally and metaphorically) guy mutually cuddling. You nuzzled into the junction between Conner’s neck and shoulder in an attempt to steal more warmth. Sure, you were probably gonna go deaf from the snoring. Sure, you were definitely irritated by the stubble pressed against your face. And sure, you would probably die of embarrassment once Conner woke up. You could worry about all that later. All you could think about was how nicely your arms fit around Conner’s neck and how Conner’s arms wrap around you a little tighter in return.

Click.

You could hear the distinct sound of your own camera shutter. Each sound chipped away at your peace of mind. You lifted your head only to see Roz holding your camera.

TAKING PICTURES.

Your cousin was nothing if not a petty opportunist.

“I would tell you to get a room buuuut the only bedroom iiiiis preeeeeeetty occupied,” Roz drawled smugly way too pleased with herself. You opened his mouth to ask but you’d already made the mistake of walking in on Roz and a guest once and you were pretty sure you needed more therapy for that than you did for your murder. You just sighed as Roz took another picture.

“Come on, (y/n), smile a little,”

“I’m not smiling for your blackmail material,”

Roz gasped trying to sound scandalized. She failed, only sounding amused beyond belief. “It’s only blackmail if you’re ashamed of it. Personally, I think you’re scoring big time,”

“Roz please just fuck off before you wake him up,”

“Too fuckin’ late for that. He’s been awake for awhile,”

You could feel Conner smiling into your hair and his arms wrap around you a little tighter. You tried to straighten up. To tower over him. To look intimidating.

But…. you couldn’t. You were kind of trapped because, yanno, super strength.

You were seething and threw a scowl at Conner who only chuckled at you in response.

“You’re never gonna let me live this down, are you?” You snarled, clearly exasperated and feeling the hippos start their encore performance.

“ Mmmmmm, it depends,” Nope. The hippos did not only come back for an encore. They brought friends. Based on the absolutely smug look on Conner’s face, you were in for an entire parade.

You let out a breath not sure if you wanted to play this game but not really seeing any other options. “On what?“

Conner paused and hummed and hummed and hummed some more as if he was actually thinking but you knew from the crook of his lips that he had this planned out. Maybe not this exact scenario but something close“Go out on a date with me,”

You blinked then rolled your eyes theatrically enough that your head rolled along with it. “And be seen with you in public?” You teased, an almost sheepish smile tugging at your features.

Yeah, Conner wasn’t exactly expecting you to say yes.

“Yeah. Sure. Why not?” You said playing it off as casually as possible but you couldn’t help but mirror the absolutely goofy grin plastered on Conner’s face. His happiness was infectious. You felt weightless. It was probably the fact that you were floating with him but you were pretty sure you were just on cloud nine. You were doomed. Definitely, inevitable, indubitably doomed. Even though everything has been shit up to now. The happiness radiating off of Conner was enough to make everything feel a little better.

Thank you so much for reading!

tag list:

@idkmanicantenglish

@batarella (I thought you might like it?)

#conner kent x reader #conner kent #conner kent imagine #My writing #dc fanfiction #DC comics #kon el x reader #kon el imagine

176 notes · View notes

bi-writes · 4 years ago

Photo

notorious: reboot — chapter nine mercy

I’m not sorry I did it; I’m just sorry it had to be you.

type: series, alternate universe detail: mob!tom word count: 12.2k warnings: mature language and themes, including violence and character death series masterlist music playlist by mood, curated just for notorious

Fear was supposed to be relative, but it was more than that to you. Fear was motivation. Every time you were afraid, your instincts took over, and it was the reason you were still alive. Survival was the only strategy here, and it had you by the throat every single day. For a long while, it was the only emotion you knew. Your father was always keeping you on edge, and you were always sleeping with one eye open and a hand on the gun under your pillow. You had never known safety. Not even when your mother had been around.

If it wasn’t your father you were afraid of, then it was everyone else. There was a reason you never opened yourself up to anyone in your world. While you fell for Mariposa, in a rhythm of selfless love that you were eternally grateful for, you were quick to leave her when things were starting to fall apart. You had only loved her distantly, not enough for you to completely absorb the gravity of your relationship, and it’s why it was so easy for you to leave and so easy for you to forget her. It was wrong, of course it was, and you vowed to make up for it every single day, but to you, it was the only way to survive. If there was no one you loved, you had nothing to lose. You could throw yourself headfirst into foreign territory, and the only weapon others could hold in front of you were the ones you knew how to handle.

Giovanni, Viktor, the men you had encountered in your life, they never realized how dangerous you truly were. There was nothing more perilous than a woman that had nothing to lose. It made the killing easy and the conquering even easier.

You stared at yourself in the mirror, blinking as your eyes ran over your figure. You were glowing, your skin still glistening from the warm sheets you had rolled out of. There were bruises littered all over your body, dark marks in clusters around your hips. Your neck had been nipped and kissed at until you had fallen asleep, and you felt hot all over remembering how you got them. You fastened your belt around your jeans, and then you tugged on the dark tank top. You fastened the thigh holster over the fabric of your jeans, slipping your gun into it, and then you sat down on the bed as you laced up your heeled boots.

Tom came out of the bathroom, in sweats and nothing else, and to him, it looked as if you were getting dressed for battle. He picked up your leather jacket from the bed, and when you stood up, he held it up for you so you could slip your arms into it. You turned around to face him, and you both stood in silence looking at each other.

You waited a few moments before you hugged him tightly, and Tom wrapped his arms around you protectively, putting his head into the crook of your neck as he hugged you back.

“I’m scared,” you whispered finally.

I am terrified.

Tom closed his eyes, one hand going into your hair to soothe you, “there’s nothing to be afraid of. We’ve talked about this.”

“He’s lying to me, Tom. Whatever plan we had…he’s lying to me, Tom. I can feel it,” you said weakly, pulling away to look up into his eyes. You needed him to see how serious you were. “He doesn’t want me to win, Tom. He’s using me…I know he is.”

Tom smiled a bit, rubbing a thumb across your chin. It was subtle, but his touch was the only thing keeping you grounded.

“I’m not worried, y/n,” he said finally, looking at you carefully. “I’ve got you. And you’ve got me. What the fuck is there to worry about?”

“The plan going to absolute shit,” you argued, putting your hands over his. “My father lying to me yet again, and…and then us losing.”

Tom shook his head, “we’re not going to lose, y/n. Your father is good at many things, and underestimating you is one of them. If he lied to you, then he’s only fucked himself over again. You and me? We’re the most dangerous when it doesn’t go as planned. Because then it’s just up to us, and we’ve survived this long. I’ve seen what you can do, y/n. I’m not worried.”

You leaned up a bit to kiss him, winding your fingers through his damp curls, and he made a point to suck on your bottom lip lovingly, and you exchanged a few gentle laughs as you held onto each other. You leaned your forehead against his, sighing deeply, taking in the way he smelled and how sweet he tasted. Tom could say whatever he liked, but your heart was pounding, and the uncertainty of what your father would do had you by the throat. If he had it inside of him to kill your mother, then he had it inside of him to kill you. Your father didn’t know what love was. He was incapable of it. All he knew was how to win, how to step on top of others to get to where he needed to be, and for a while, you thought that that was the only way to get what you wanted.

Tom had taught you differently. You couldn’t always step on others, sometimes you had to get down in the dirt and show that you were worthy of it. You wouldn’t get anyone’s respect by just shedding blood. There were men in this world that didn’t respond to that, and Tom was one of them. You had shown him what you were worth, and he fell for that, and so had you. Taking what you wanted was risky, but earning what you deserved was always enough. You had earned your place here. You had to be different than your father. Your father was a ticking time bomb, and he was going to get himself killed and you with him if you weren’t careful. You were so blinded by his treasures that you had no idea how precarious his position was. Your father was one wrong move from his own downfall, and when it happened, you couldn’t be there to fall with him.

You had to be better.

In Los Angeles, your father and his men were animals. Tearing apart anything that threatened their territory, blind rage that controlled their entire beings, with no disregard to what they left behind in their wake. You had been buried underneath it all, forced to watch and never allowed to make change. Your father had made sure you were always on a leash, and he made you believe that it was meant to be there. He made you believe that you had to have his permission to take the chains off, to be more than just his little girl, to be you.

You weren’t an animal. Your father’s hold on you wasn’t real.

“Your father is going to tell you a lot of things tonight. All of them will be lies.”

Despite your mother becoming a scared, manipulative liar, she always told the truth when it came to your father. She hated him as much as you did, and on that, you could count on her.

Tom nudged you out of your thoughts. You had made your way downstairs, and you were waiting for a car. Tom opened the door for you, and you got into the back. Tom shut the door behind you, and you rolled down the window, looking up at him.

“Hey,” Tom put a hand on your cheek, shaking his head. “After tonight…I’ll take you away from here for a while. We’ll get the fuck out of this city, just for a little while. I promise.”

You put your hand over his, nodding in agreement, not daring to say anything or your voice might have broken. There was love in his eyes, and you never wanted to look away.

“y/n, I’m going to take care of you,” he voiced, leaning his forehead against yours. “Just breathe.”

You did. You let Tom hold you close for a moment longer, and you finally let out a long breath. It came out shaky and weak, but Tom held you still, rubbing his thumb across the apple of your cheek gently.

“I’ll see you tonight, love,” he murmured, and you nodded, sitting up a bit to kiss him one last time, and Tom could tell you didn’t want to pull away. You were nipping at his bottom lip, holding him close, keeping the kiss soft as you held onto him for as long as you could. He pulled away slowly, just to breathe, and he wiped away a stray tear that had fallen halfway down your cheek. He planted a soft kiss onto your forehead before letting go, and you rolled up the window and tapped on the drivers’ seat. You needed him to drive or else you were just going to stay with Tom, trying to avoid whatever was going to happen tonight.

I’d hold onto him and make him run away with me. And I would never look back.

You didn’t even realize the car had stopped until someone tapped on the window, drawing your gaze from your boots back upwards. De Luca was there, and you unlocked the car door, and he opened it for you, offering you a hand to help you onto the sidewalk.

You looked up at the warehouse in front of you, a building you had become familiar with the past few months in New York. Your father ran his operations out of Queens, in a warehouse tucked between residential office buildings, and since you had landed here six months ago, you had frequented the place to talk to De Luca and familiarize yourself with how business was on the East Coast.

And to learn, because he won’t teach me himself.

You had developed a rapport with your father’s men here. You visited Mariposa’s father many times in his office here, talked into the early hours of the night with De Luca, and met up with your father’s men to help them do their own jobs in the city. You were a welcome face here. Your father’s men had become your men, and they followed you as loyally as they had him.

Maybe even more so.

You knew their names. You didn’t snap your fingers at them or yell at them. You liked to sit at their desks with them and share a drink, listen to what they had to say, and you made changes to certain operations based on their feedback. You sat with your father’s accountants and even tried to pick up a few new tricks from them. You had high expectations for them, and his men had grown to adore you so much that they fought to exceed those expectations. They had been starved for a long time of authority, and they welcomed yours. They appreciated the way you heard them, the manner in which you helped them, and that you were always there when they needed you. You were present and not just commanding, and for a long time they had been waiting for someone to come along to prove to them that all of this work was worth it.

You were worth it.

The revenue you were bringing in was enough proof that you were what they had been waiting for all along. There had been many nights where you sat on the warehouse floor with many of your father’s men, laughing and helping them count money, helping them put files together, finalizing plans and giving approval when they felt they needed it. You tried not to just be a face they never saw but were forced to obey. You wanted to be seen and known, and you wanted them to know that they mattered. Tom’s philosophy of men as family had struck you as something important, and treating your father’s men as family worked. They wanted to listen to you, they wanted to do right by you, and if they didn’t have the answers, they tried hard to answer those questions they were unsure of.

You have to be better.

De Luca opened the door for you, and you entered with a nod of your head at him. Your boots sounded against the linoleum floors, and all of your men were acquainted with it, looking up as you passed them, waving, smiling, greeting you warmly.

“Good morning, Miss y/n.”

“Hello, boss.”

“Good to see you, Miss y/n, how are you?”

“Good morning.”

You nodded at them, giving them tight smiles as you walked past their desks, crossing your arms over your chest. You glanced at the papers, watched as money orders flew past you in crates. It was almost the afternoon, but the warehouse was always busy with work. De Luca grabbed your attention, a hand on your arm, and you followed him into his office. He shut the door behind you, and you sat down at his desk, despite it being his, and he allowed you to. You folded your hands in front of you, taking a deep breath.

“Has he come yet?” You asked him, and De Luca leaned back in his chair.

“He came last night,” he answered, nodding, and you pursed your lips.

“What…what did the boys think?” You wondered. “Did they like him?”

“Well…you know personnel here is fairly new. The few that had met your father before weren’t very friendly, and your father had a few things to say about…the way things are done here,” he said simply, and you rolled your eyes.

“Right, cause everything I touch is tainted to him,” you sighed. “Was Muñoz here to say hello?”

De Luca nodded slowly, “yeah. But you know how that is. Ever since your mother’s been gone, he hasn’t been keen on meeting with your father.”

You looked down for a moment, tapping your fingers nervously on the desk in front of you.

“He came with some demands, didn’t he?” You inquired, and De Luca reached over to pull a paper out from a folder on his desk. He showed it to you, and you looked down at it. They were potential locations for Holland operations, most of which were wrong, you could tell just by looking at it.

“Your father doesn’t wait. He’s already having us look for where they store their supply,” he told you. “He wants locations secured immediately so he can put our guys in there tonight. After…the wedding and all.”

You met De Luca’s eyes for a moment. You wondered what he thought about all of this. You wondered if he was on your father’s side, the idea of getting rid of Tom Holland and acquiring everything his name entitled him to. You looked at the rest of the papers on the desk.

“He’s going to London?” You raised a brow, looking at an itinerary that was printed out. “Is he serious?”

“As soon as he has his acquisitions, Miss y/n, he plans on making it known,” De Luca explained, and you swallowed the anger inside of you. Your father wouldn’t even wait to let Tom’s body get cold. He wanted to take Holland territory, and he wanted it in a matter of days.

“Maybe I can help,” you took a pen off the desk and started crossing out the locations on the list that you were certain Tom was located in. For the time being, you didn’t want your father getting the upper hand. The rest were addresses you didn’t recognize, and you gave the list back to De Luca. “Give this new list out.”

“But your—”

“I know what my father wants,” you smiled bitterly at him. “Either you can give this to the boys, or I will. If I have something to say, you know they’ll want to know it. I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation, De Luca.”

He swallowed a bit, nodding his head, “yes, Miss y/n. I apologize.”

De Luca got up from his seat and left his office to go distribute the list. You rifled through the papers on the desk, just glancing at the contents, but it was enough to know that your father was looking to completely absorb Tom and all he had in the next 24 hours. He wasn’t waiting for you, he wasn’t waiting for Tom, he was just going to take what he wanted. You shoved the papers away from you angrily, putting your head into your hands, your heart pounding into your chest. One mistake, and everything would be swept out right from underneath you, and Tom would be dead. You tried to remember how calm Tom had been in the morning, but it only made you panic inside even more.

It’s all gone to shit. Maybe daddy’s right. When push comes to shove, what am I capable of accomplishing? What am I doing?

“Hey, Miss y/n, is everything okay?” A knock followed the gentle question. You looked up from your hands, smiling just a bit and nodding.

“Yes, Jacob, I’m okay,” you stood up. “How…how did things go last night? Did you get the shipment to Brooklyn alright?”

“Yes, Miss y/n, everything went just fine. We would’ve called if it hadn’t,” he tried to smile back at you, and you walked to meet him, following alongside him as he made his way back to his desk.

“Right,” you nodded your head. “Of course. Uh…do you boys have anything else planned for today?”

“No, Miss y/n. Just to attend the meeting tonight,” he told you. You narrowed your eyes.

“What meeting?”

“The…” He frowned a bit, cowering under your eyes. “Yours. He…said last night that his…little girl was getting hitched. I thought that must mean you, right?”

You gave him another smile, but it was only to cover up the worry building up inside of you. You had no idea why your father needed your men to attend your meeting, but there was an impending alarm going off in your head at the thought. There was no need for your men there, but your father clearly had different plans.

“Your father is going to tell you a lot of things tonight.”

“Yes, Jacob. That’s me.”

“All of them will be lies.”

You decided not to ask him anymore questions. Word could have gotten around that you were asking about the meeting, and it would tip your father off. You needed everything to go as he thought it would.

You stayed in the office with De Luca for a few hours, going over usual business with him. You were keeping track of the money orders that had to be cashed through your subsidiaries, and De Luca was telling you about some shipments you were expecting the next week. You watched the clock move as you worked, and as it counted into the afternoon, you felt yourself growing more and more anxious. You had trouble concentrating on work you normally enjoyed doing. The numbers in your head had stopped making sense, and you grew farther and farther away from focus.

“y/n,” De Luca said finally, snapping you out of your thoughts.

“Huh?” You looked over at him. “W-What?”

“What’s the matter with you? You’ve been working on that spreadsheet for too long.”

“Sorry,” you looked down. “I’m just…thinking.”

“Something’s wrong,” De Luca observed. “You’ve been like this all day, y/n. What’s bothering you?”

You looked into his eyes, fiddling with your fingers. You put the pen down that you were holding, leaning over the desk. “What…what do you think of Mariposa? Of me?” You asked. “Be honest. I won’t…I won’t be upset.”

De Luca leaned back in his chair, staring at you for a moment. He was thinking about whether or not to answer before he crossed his arms over his chest, shrugging, “I think…you’re my girls. What can I say?” He sighed. “I’ve known you since you were a little girl, y/n. Mariposa, too. It would kill me if anything happened to you, you know that.”

“I know how you feel about us,” you said, pursing your lips. “I’m asking what you think of us.”

“I think…” De Luca moved his head from side to side, “that before you came back, things weren’t getting done around here. These boys…we were just picking them off the street, and they were lost. They responded to orders poorly, and it was difficult to control things here when there was no one here with some sort of real authority. I think they felt like they were working for ghosts, and then…you came along. My boys adore you, y/n. It’s not a secret. They like when you’re here, they feel…supported when you go with them on jobs, and…they want to impress you. Things are better here. Honestly, y/n, I wish you could stay after tonight.”

Oh, De Luca…why do you lie to me?

You tilted your head to the side, “why wouldn’t I stay?”

De Luca’s eyes snapped up to yours, and he paled a bit, shifting in his seat, “no, of course…yeah, of course you’re staying.”

You scoffed a bit, shaking your head. Your father was so predictable. Giovanni here, his men prepared to come to your meeting, and he was already planning on sending you back home. Your father was going to put that leash back on you tonight. You had done your job, like a good girl, but he was never going to accept you into his arms. He was never going to give you a chance to be anything more than a little girl.

He’ll never let me go. No matter how many times he kisses me, coddles me, assures me differently. He’ll never leave me be.

You stood up from your seat, leaving the office as you pulled your phone out of your back pocket. You waited for it to ring, and it didn’t take long for Mariposa to answer.

“y/n,” she greeted you, and you looked around you to make sure no one was listening before you talked.

He’ll tie weights to my ankles and throw me in the fucking deep end. He’ll watch me drown, and he’ll be smiling as I disappear into darkness.

“Hey, Ri. I need you to do something for me.”

You hadn’t always been this way. You weren’t always so cold inside, so dead inside, so unfeeling and unforgiving. You remembered when you were younger, the innocent presence you used to carry with you always. You used to be quiet, a little bubbly, always smiling, and your mother had been your best friend. You didn’t always see darkness in yourself, and you didn’t always hate what you saw in the mirror.

You had changed the moment you saw blood for the first time. Seeing the carpet of your father’s study rolled up into the corner, spilling crimson everywhere, threatening to stain your toes if you had stepped in it. There were always moments when you wished you had just been good. You wished you had stayed in your room, you wished you hadn’t been so curious, you wish you had just done as your father had asked you to. Maybe it wouldn’t be so fucking hard to look at yourself in the mirror, maybe you wouldn’t have to put a mask on every single day, maybe you wouldn’t have ever seen the way stars fill someone’s eyes right before they died.

So many stars, sparkling like a million lights. I’m taught not to stop until the lights go out, until the stars twinkle and wash away.

You saw Viktor sometimes when you closed your eyes. You remembered how sticky and warm his blood had felt seeping between your fingers. You remembered how sharp the glass was in your palm, how it cut your skin and dug into the back of his spine. You remembered how afraid you had been after it was over, how quickly the adrenaline had faded from your body so there was only an unnerving, malicious emptiness left behind. You remembered staring at yourself in the mirror afterwards. You looked so different now. You had never killed someone like that. It was easy to kill when you held up a gun and pointed it, shooting aimlessly. They were always so far away, just ants in the distance, and you would watch them drop, emotionless because you never saw their faces or knew their stories or spoke to them.

Maybe the stars are the memories they hold inside. Maybe they see good things right before they glimmer and fade away. Maybe they see serenity.

Viktor haunted you in your dreams. The spiders you once saw in your sleep had changed into blood, and you would wake up now, your head filled with the choking feeling of slow-moving, thick, sour blood coming out of your mouth and down your nose and from your ears and in tears that fell from your eyes. You would wake up tasting copper, smelling iron, and you would feel like you were stuck still in that bathroom, Viktor’s blood still wrapped around your legs and covering your arms and painted across your face.

Or maybe the stars are their sins. Maybe they see hell.

You could still see that woman in the mirror now. No matter how many times you washed your hair or scrubbed your face or scratched at your arms, you would see glimpses of that woman in the mirror, and she would terrify you. That woman was capable of horrific things. That woman had tasted blood, and she liked it. That woman had an appetite for power, and that woman would do whatever she wanted to get it. Blood had become her armor, and she had no idea what mercy felt like. She only knew pain and misery and anguish, and it had consumed her completely. You tried so hard to see someone else in the mirror, but it was no use. Like the blood in your dreams, she was covering you completely now, building up a new mask, a better mask, one that would be impenetrable, a mask only she could take off, but you knew she would never want to. That woman was you, and you didn’t have a clue how to escape her.

Maybe because you really don’t want to.

“You look beautiful,” a voice interrupted your thoughts. You looked behind yourself in the mirror to see your father standing there in the doorway, adjusting his watch on his wrist. He was wearing a dark suit, and you could see his infamous gun tucked into the waistband of his trousers. You sat up a bit taller on your vanity chair.

Maybe you need her.

“Daddy,” you breathed, and he came up behind you, staring at you in the mirror.

“You look different,” he murmured, putting a hand on your shoulder, and you nearly smacked him away from you. Instead, you plastered a smile on your face, and your eyes widened with surprise.

“I’ve learned so much, daddy,” you said softly, putting your hand over his. “You would be so proud. Did you hear about all our work at the office? Everything we’ve done?”

“I did,” he chuckled a bit, leaning down and kissing your head. You closed your eyes at that. “You’ve done so well, sweetheart. Your mother would be so delighted.”

“He doesn’t deserve you. And he never has. He never will.”

Your lips quivered at that thought, and it took everything inside of you not to shake. You held back the tears already forming, swallowing down the sob in your throat. You nodded finally, opening your eyes. There were faint tears in your eyes, and your father sighed when he noticed.

“y/n, you’ve given me everything back,” he turned you to face him, and you looked up at him. “New York…the Hollands…London. You…” He put his hands on your cheeks, his thumbs stroking over your skin. Every touch from him felt like he was tainting you, rotting you from the outside in, but you didn’t move. “We will be unrivaled after this, just…untouchable, y/n.”

Unbreakable.

You felt weak, sitting there under him, letting him touch your face and hold you and kiss you. There was nothing you could do but pretend, play along, and you felt like you needed to bathe as he ran his knuckles down the length of your face. He disgusted you to no end. He had the audacity to call himself your father, but he was nothing but a broken, empty, merciless sadist. You didn’t realize how much you truly hated him until this moment. You felt a burning desire to open the balcony doors and toss him thirty stories over, but instead, you smiled, cried, called him family, and you felt begrimed with yourself for letting him go even this far with you.

I can’t wait to see his face when he realizes there are no leashes on me any longer. I wonder what he will say when he realizes I’m not his. I wonder what he will do when I take back what’s mine.

You stood up from your seat, standing beside him in the mirror. You were wearing a white strapless dress, a corset hugging your figure until your hips, where the dress flowed out until your ankles. There was a tall slit on one side of the skirt, intentional so you could have easy access to your thigh holster and the gun you would put in it. You reached for the gun sitting on your vanity, but your father put a hand over it, putting it back down.

“You won’t need that, y/n,” he shook his head. “You’re with me now. I’ll protect you.”

You froze, your eyes darting from the gun back to his face. You let go of it finally, and he put it away into one of your drawers. You swallowed, watching him move around in your things.

“Do you think…he’ll try and hurt me?” You asked him, and your father stood up straight. He shrugged finally. There was no concern in his face.

“I would hope not,” he replied, putting a hand on your shoulder. “My men tell me Thomas is quite enamored with you. So…I think tonight will go smoothly, y/n. You did perfectly, baby. He cares for you…he’s been gaining power here…you could not have done better.” He smiled, something sinister in his eyes, brushing your hair back and away from your eyes. “You’re perfect, y/n. And if he tries anything…my men will take care of him. While I’d like him alive to sign away his properties, once you’re married, I’m sure we’ll be able to acquire everything ourselves. Just keep him calm until you’ve signed the papers, y/n. After that, I’ll take care of the rest. Yes?”

“Yes, daddy,” you said obediently, nodding your head. He leaned over and kissed your forehead, and then he let go of you.

“Come. The car is waiting for us downstairs.”

He adjusted his suit jacket as he left your bedroom, and you went to gather your purse, about to stuff your gun into it when your phone began buzzing. You glanced to make sure your father wasn’t near before picking up, seeing Harrison’s name blinking across it. You put the phone to your ear, swallowing.

“Harrison, what is it? This is not a good time,” you hissed lowly.

“y/n, where is Ri?”

His voice came out cracked, a bit shaky, and you frowned. It was then that you realize Mariposa had never checked in with you.

“I…I asked her to do something for me. It shouldn’t have taken long,” you said in a whisper, peeking around to make sure you were still alone.

“y/n, she’s been…she’s been gone for hours,” Harrison breathed. You closed your eyes, putting a hand to your forehead.

Mariposa, not now. God, not now.

“Shit,” you mumbled, swallowing hard. “Shit, Harrison…shit! Shit…tell Tom it’s gone to hell, Harrison.”

“What?!” Harrison shrieked from the other end. “What the fuck are you talking about?! y/n, we gotta…we gotta get Ri. Tell me where you’re meeting, I’m going to—”

“Harrison, don’t,” you warned him. “You’ll be outnumbered there, and we don’t have time to discuss how to get her out. You leave it to me.”

“y/n, fuck!” Harrison cried. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Harrison, relax,” you whispered. “She can take care of herself. She’s going to be fine.”

Do you truly believe that, or are you just trying to make yourself feel better?

“If she doesn’t come out of this, y/n, I’m going to kill you,” Harrison said hoarsely. “I’m going to kill you, y/n, I swear it.”

And I’ll let you.

“Harrison, I have to go—”

“She’s pregnant, y/n,” Harrison snapped. “S-She’s…she’s…”

All the air left your lungs. Your heart completely fell flat in your chest, and your body felt limp and frozen all at once, a coldness going through you that had you chilled to the core. Mariposa hadn’t even batted an eye to do as you asked.

And I’ve just sent her to her deathbed.

You heard your father coming near, and you hung up quickly, shutting your purse. Your father stood in the doorway, nodding his head, and you slipped your heels on before hurrying towards his outstretched arm. You took it, wrapping your arm around his, following him out of your apartment and downstairs, where he had called a car for you both. De Luca was driving, and you both got into the backseat. You felt around your skirt, almost letting out a scream when you realized you had forgotten your gun, sitting in your vanity drawer.

And I’ve sent myself to my own deathbed.

You gave your father a tight-lipped smile before looking out the window as the car started. You had to keep wiping your hands on your dress because of how sweaty they were becoming. You told yourself that you didn’t need a gun. You were capable all on your own, and you could take down someone double your size without nothing but your heels. A gun was only worth as much as the person behind it, and you were much more than metal and fast bullets. You were human, and you were much more dangerous than any gun you’d ever held.

I have to be. I have to be better.

You could feel your heart pounding, so hard that the blood was rushing in your ears. You were so on edge. You wondered how far Mariposa got before they caught her. You wondered, selfishly, if she finished what she was supposed to do before they got to her. You wondered, helplessly, if she admitted what she had done for you.

You shook your head a bit, putting a hand over your mouth. You had to trust that Mariposa had gotten it done, and that she would keep her mouth shut. Mariposa always, always did as you asked, and she always came through in the end. She would come through for you one last time, you had to trust that. You had to trust that she could take care of herself.

Because if anything happens to her, I will kill myself before Harrison has the chance to.

You were struggling not to shake. You had always prided yourself on being so well composed, even when you weren’t prepared for what was ahead, but nothing was going the way it was supposed to.

The car stopped finally, and neither you nor your father moved from your seat. You turned to look at him, and he met your own eyes.

“I’m scared, daddy,” you whispered finally, and you weren’t lying. “People are going to get hurt, and—”

He reached over and put a hand over yours on your lap, squeezing your hand gently. He shook his head.

“I’m here, y/n,” he said lowly. “Everything will be alright. You have to trust me. I can’t do this without you.”

You can’t do this without me. You can’t do anything without me. You couldn’t do it without your wife, and now you can’t do it without me.

You nodded finally, squeezing his hand back, and he let go of you to pull out the gun tucked into his trousers. It was your father prized possession, his favorite gun, the one with the chrome detailing and scratched metal and wooden accents. It was the gun he used to taunt you with at home, the gun that was always just out of reach, the gun you so desperately ached to inherit. That weapon was a symbol of your father’s power, the first gun he ever owned, and it had gotten him to this place, right here. You stared at it now, and you could not have despised its presence more.

You didn’t need your father’s trinkets to know you had power. You didn’t need to inherit anything from him to know that you were more worthy of his fortune than he ever taught you to believe.

You didn’t even need his name.

Seeing him check the chamber for bullets brought life back into you. You took a deep breath, and lights flashed in your head, images of everything you had done just to be sitting here, beside him, full of purpose. You closed your eyes as you let out that deep breath, straightening out your posture, letting that breath trickle from your toes all the way up your spine.

That woman you saw in the mirror? You needed her now more than ever. You couldn’t escape her, you couldn’t be free of her, you couldn’t even decipher who she really was or how she truly came to be, but if you couldn’t be rid of her, you needed to use her. You had gotten yourself to the finish line.

And she will get me past it.

De Luca opened the door for you, and you stepped out onto the sidewalk. You met his eyes for a moment, shutting the door behind you, and he stared at you right back.

This is wrong. You know it is.

Your father took you by the arm, tearing your eyes away from De Luca’s own. You swallowed as he guided you up the sidewalk, your eyes scanning over the familiar warehouse you had spent the whole day in. Whenever you were working in here, you felt like you belonged, you felt in charge, and you felt safe. You were anything but on edge now, the creaking of the front door making you flinch now. It was dead silent inside instead of the normally bustling warehouse, and all of your men were gone. The office upstairs was lit, but the shades were drawn, and your father guided you up the stairs to go inside.

He was sitting there, in a chair in front of the empty desk, a half-burnt cigarette hanging off his fingertips. Your father let you go, nodding at you, and you came up behind him, putting your hand on his shoulder. He stiffened for a moment until your fingers touched his cheek, and you leaned over and kissed the skin there.

I’ll always be yours, and you will always be mine.

De Luca picked up a leather chair from the corner, setting it down beside Tom for you. You took a seat in it, crossing one leg over the other, turning to glance at Tom. Your eyes met for a moment, and it took everything in you to refrain from taking his hand and squeezing it. He just nodded slightly, so slight you could barely see it, and you realized he was telling you that Harrison had told him what happened, that he was aware.

“Mr. Holland, I’m going to have to search your person. Just for…security reasons,” De Luca said lowly, and Tom handed you the cigarette before standing. From the inside of his jacket, De Luca found a pair of brass knuckles and a switchblade, and from his waistband he found a handgun, setting them down on the desk in front of your father, who nodded for De Luca to take them. The door shut behind him, and then it was just the three of you, staring at each other, no one daring to speak for a few achingly long moments.

A bookshelf lined the back wall of the office, piled high with peeling hardcover texts, papers messily sticking out of files, and rusted and dusty trinkets of all shapes and sizes. There was a single lamp in the corner of the office, beside the bar cart, and the yellowness of the bulb flickered every so often, drawing a strange light over the entire room. The shades were drawn for privacy, making the room even darker, and the mahogany desk your father sat behind was spread out with lone papers, empty liquor glasses, and ashtrays filled with ash and cigarettes. It was quiet, nothing but the slight creak of the hardwood floor. You thought this wouldn’t be the most suitable place to die.

I’ll get dust in my starry eyes.

“I’ve got to admit, Thomas, I never thought we’d be here,” your father chuckled, leaning forward and folding his hands together on the desk. Tom’s face was stoic and unreadable, completely blank as he let your father speak. “And I never thought it would be under these circumstances.”

Tom took the cigarette back from you, taking a long drag from it, letting out a breath through his nose. The cigarette glowed for a moment, casting an orange light over his face, and it only made him seem all the more intimidating.

“Your daughter and I have accomplished much together here,” Tom said simply. “I don’t see a reason to change that.”

“And neither does she,” your father sighed, shaking his head. “I’ve been trying for a long while to get her to marry someone to my liking, but I’m sure you’ve figured out by now how difficult she can really be.”

Tom shrugged, “I find she’s quite agreeable when you simply give her what she wants, isn’t that right, love?”

You didn’t say anything, just shifted in your seat.

“I have to disagree,” your father countered. “It seems the more I give into what she wants, the more she demands. Her desires are insatiable, aren’t they, sweetheart?”

You met his eyes, and it was all you needed to know that he was looking right through you. He smiled finally, and you felt helpless as he leaned back in the leather chair.

He knows. He’s known all this time.

“When did you realize that, daddy?” You asked, just above a whisper, and he shrugged, reaching for his own pack of cigarettes in his blazer pocket. He lit it with a match, tossing the burnt stick onto the desk, and you watched as small tendrils of black smoke rose from the now black bud of the match. The same orange glow came over his face, but it did nothing to make your father any more menacing.

He isn’t. He’s a small man in clothes that don’t fit. Don’t let him make you feel less than what you are.

“When Viktor came about,” he replied simply. “How did that feel, Thomas? My daughter, killing that Russian leech for you? Convenient, wasn’t it, that he wanted a piece of my daughter…little did he know how skilled she was, how…how well she fared under pressure, how…instinctive murder could be for someone so sweet and innocent. He was quite a problem for you, wasn’t he, Thomas?”

Tom narrowed his eyes a bit, sucking hard on his cigarette, his nose scrunching up for a moment, but he stayed silent.

“But you, y/n…you killed him without a second thought, didn’t you?”

“He was trying to kill me, daddy,” you said stiffly. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“No,” your father chuckled. “We always have choices, my darling. You just chose something different.” You blinked, confused. Tom smirked finally, shaking his head as he scoffed. You turned to look at him.

“It was you,” Tom said lowly. “With the Russians, aye?”

You frowned, your head turning to look at your father, whose smile was still plastered eerily on his face.

“Daddy, that’s not true,” you laughed a bit, nervously. “Tell me that’s not true.”

He was silent for a few moments, still grinning, “you know, y/n…you are smart, but you are terribly blind,” he sighed. “I thought I taught you better than that.”

“Did you know Viktor was going to kill me?” You breathed, your whole body on edge as your father let out a cloud of smoke from between his lips. “D-Did you know what he was doing? What he was planning on doing?”

“Of course I did, y/n,” he said easily. “I paid the bastard.”

Your lips parted, and you scoffed, moving to stand, but Tom put a hand on your arm, forcing you back into your seat. You had angry tears in your eyes, and you were glaring at your father, and he was glaring right back.

A small man in clothes that don’t fit.

“I think I can forgive the shit you pulled with the Russians if we can come to a fair agreement,” Tom muttered finally. “We came here to get married. Not discuss family issues. This is between me and you, Mr. y/l/n.”

“You’re right, Thomas,” your father grinned again, nodding his head. “Here’s what I want. I’d like to secure the routes along the Hudson and Staten Island. And—” He paused to suck a long drag from his cigarette, “I want your Brighton contacts.”

Tom chuckled a bit, “no,” and then he shook his head.

“And,” your father continued, producing a paper from the file on his desk. It was the marriage certificate, courtesy from New York city hall. “I want London.”

Your father produced two black ink ballpoint pens, setting them down on the desk for you to sign the paper. You reached instinctively for the gun on your thigh, but you felt nothing. There was nothing there. You had nothing but yourself.

And that has to be enough.

Tom scoffed, “that’s not a deal,” he said simply.

“And,” your father laughed a bit, “Manhattan. I want it all, Tom. And you’re going to give it to me.”

Take me apart, piece by piece.

“Daddy—”

“You shut up,” your father snapped, standing, slamming his fist on the desk. “I’m so fucking tired of you, y/n. I’m so fucking sick of you talking back to me. I’m so fucking sick of you, thinking that you’re anything but my daughter! You have no place here! Shut your fucking mouth, because your word means nothing here!”

Bury me, so deep you can’t hear me screaming anymore.

“You were never going to make a deal with me,” Tom murmured, calmly taking a drag of his cigarette. “Mmm…you were right, y/n. He’s a crazy prick.”

Your father chuckled darkly, “of course I was never going to make a fucking deal with you, Thomas, are you an idiot? You’re vulnerable here. You did this to yourself. You fell in love with my…e-excuse for an heir, and now it’s coming back to bite you in the fucking ass. That’s what happens when you fall in love, when you put your trust in women like y/n.” Your father picked up his empty glass from the table, finishing it. “They’re snakes. You get fucked. That’s all they do. They take, and they take, and they take from you. They’re uncontrollable, fickle little girls that know nothing of authority or of honor.”

I’ll always come back.

You watched with glassy eyes as he rounded the desk, going for the bar cart by the door. He poured himself a generous glass, and then two more for you and Tom. You met Tom’s eyes, but he just shook his head. Tom was not in charge. It had to be you.

Piece by piece, put me back together.

“You’ll learn that quickly, Thomas,” your father continued, bringing the glasses to you both. “You’ll learn that after you sign your name. You’ll learn that after I take every single piece of you that fucking matters, and you’ll learn, but you’ll never be able to fix your fucking mistakes. You’ll be long fuckin’ dead before you get that chance.”

“Is that why you killed my mother?” You shot back, squeezing the glass in your hand. “For honor?”

Do it again. Over and over again.

Your father laughed hysterically, tossing his head back for a moment.

“Oh, sweetheart, of course not. It’s because she was useless to me,” he leaned down towards you, shaking his head. “She refused to give me a son. And all she did was try and tell me how blessed I was to have you, y/n. And you know…whatever she did for you, whatever fucking men of mine helped you along the way, I do have something to be thankful for when it comes to you, y/n. You weren’t useless, and that’s why I hate to do this to you. For once in my life, something good came from my fucking family, and you did exactly as I thought you would. Predictable you are, so it was easy.” He kissed your forehead. “You brought Tom Holland to his knees. Just as I thought your beautiful face would.”

My resilience is limitless.

You started to breathe deeper, slower, and your father raised his glass.

“A toast! To the newlyweds.”

At the cue, the door opened, and both you and Tom stood up when all of your father’s men shuffled into the room, your men. Then there was Mariposa, her face covered in running mascara as Jacob, your Jacob, held her by the hair as he pressed a gun to her head. Her hands were tied, her shoes were missing, and she already had a purpling bruise forming on her cheek, a gash near her hairline. Your father was thorough, you would give him that. And for a moment, you regretted getting close to Mariposa, to Tom, you regretted becoming anything more than acquaintances with them because you were powerless now.

You’re wrong.

“There was no missing shipment in Brooklyn, was there?” You asked finally. “All of this…this whole fucking thing…is was bullshit, daddy, wasn’t it?”

Your father shrugged, “what can I say, y/n? I’ve been doing this a long time. These things, acquiring new territory—it takes time! And I’m a patient man, I really am. I do pride myself on waiting for things to fall into my lap rather than getting my hands dirty. You know how it is. When you get to the top, when you are like me, baby, you don’t have to do anything but wait.”

You watched as your father came up to Jacob, putting his hand on Mariposa’s cheek. She cried out as your father kicked her to her knees, and you froze.

You’re wrong. There is nothing more dangerous than a woman in love.

“So what?” You called out. “You have Tom and I sign these stupid papers, and then what?”

“And then I order these men to put a fucking bullet in his head, sweetheart,” your father dragged his knuckles down Mariposa’s cheek. “And then his brothers. And then I take a nice trip to London to take care of my new responsibilities, with you in tow, and that marriage certificate. And then I take what’s rightfully mine.”

You saw your father pull out his chrome pistol, the metal reflecting the yellowing light flickering around you.

“Sign the papers, y/n,” your father said, turning to face you. “Sign them now.”

You stepped forward, but your father pointed his gun at Mariposa, who cried out as he pressed the barrel to her forehead. Tom subtly put a hand on your arm, keeping you still, and his touch brought you back to the ground.

“I didn’t think Giovanni was telling me the fucking truth,” he chuckled. “He told me you and Thomas were closer than you let on, but I didn’t believe him. Because y/n, I really…for a second I thought maybe you could truly be my blood. But you’re weak, sweetheart. You’re soft. And I thought I taught you better.”

He gripped a handful of Mariposa’s curls, forcing her neck back, sighing, “you can’t have good people in this business. You can’t have people you love. You can’t have strings attached. Because then they end up like this, y/n…” He looked down pitifully at Mariposa’s darkening green eyes. “You end up getting them killed.”

Threaten what she loves, and you find out what she’s made of.

“I’ll sign the papers,” you whispered. “I’ll sign the fucking papers, just…let her go, daddy. Please. Just let her go.”

He nodded his chin towards the desk, and you slowly turned, rounding to the front of the desk. You sat down in his leather chair, picking up the pen and scribbling your name on the line. Your father was quick to pull on Mariposa’s hair again, and Tom growled under his breath before picking up the pen and signing his own name. You let your hands fall into your lap, and then you met Mariposa’s sweet eyes. There were tears in them, but you could see the faint nod of her head, and you felt under the desk, feeling the tape and then the cool hand of the gun she had hid underneath it. You wrapped your hand around it, sucking in a breath.

You are not made of metal and wire.

“There. It’s done,” you said softly, and your father nodded his head towards you and Tom again. His men, your men, held up their handguns to you both, and you stared at all of them. Each of them, you made sure to meet their eyes, searching for anything inside of them besides pure, blinding obedience. De Luca had struggle in his eyes, and you would play on that. You had to.

Your father let go of Mariposa, who slumped down on her knees, her sniffles gentle and soft. You tightened your grip on the gun under the desk.

You are made of skin and bone.

“Do you always have your men do your dirty work for you, daddy?” You interrupted him. “Do they always do just as you say, just like helpless, blind dogs?”

“You’ll never get to find out, my love,” your father said simply, sighing deeply. “This isn’t how I wanted it to go, y/n. I did want you to be a part of this. I did want you to work with me. But…” he shrugged his shoulders with a laugh, “you weren’t made for this life. This business…it’s not for you.”

You are made of fire and smoke.

“If you knew me at all, you’d know how full of shit you are,” you snapped. “Do you know what it feels like to kill someone, daddy? Do you know how it feels to…watch them die in front of you? Do you know what it looks like?”

“Of course I do, y/n.”

You scoffed, “you’ve never done it yourself, have you? Not once in your sorry life have you ever done it on your own. You’ve always made good people, people like these men, like me…you’ve always made good people do your bidding. Not once have you ever, ever been man enough to do it yourself, isn’t that right?”

“I’ve given—”

“Orders,” you finished for him, gathering up the saliva in your mouth and spitting at him. “It’s pathetic. You’re a coward. You have no idea what it takes, daddy. All this time…all this time you talk about how much I don’t know about business. You talk about how incapable I am at running things. But you’re wrong. You weren’t made for this business. You’ve never been made for it. You’ve just been pretending. But I will tell you something, daddy…you’re damn good at pretending.”

You are made of blood and tears, memory and starlight, and he has convinced you for so long that what you are made of is something to be ashamed of.

Your father snickered a bit, and you stood up, pulling the gun out from under the desk, holding it up to him, aiming right at his chest. His men all changed direction, from having their guns pointed at Tom to having their guns pointed right at you.

“y/n…don’t be ridiculous,” your father said, shaking his head. “All of my men, against you? C’mon. Just put it down.”

He told you that because he is afraid. He is afraid of what women can do when they know what they’re made of.

“They’re not your men, daddy,” you said lowly. “They’re mine.”

Your father sighed, running a hand over his face before he brought up his own gun.

“y/n, don’t make me do this,” he said, sounding annoyed. “All of this mess, it’s really not necessary.”

“You’ve never shot that thing,” you laughed bitterly. “Even from this close, you’ll shoot anywhere but at me. But I won’t miss. And you know that.”

A look of doubt crossed his features as he looked at the gun and then back at you. It was true. His gun had been scratched, used, touched, played with, but not a single fleck of gunpowder had ever left the barrel. Your father had never fired a gun, you knew that, but he liked to play with guns anyway. Your father was just a boy in a man’s shoes, and he would always be that way.

“Did you hear me, daddy?” You called him out of his thoughts. “I won’t miss.”

“But my men—”

“They’re mine,” you interrupted him. “I dare you to order them to shoot me. They won’t. I’m not scared of them. Do you have the same faith in them, daddy? Are you so sure they won’t shoot you?”

He is afraid of me. He is afraid of me, and I have him.

Your father laughed, but it was nervous laughter. His voice cracked halfway through, and you knew you had him. You met De Luca’s eyes again, and he slowly, so slowly, lowered his weapon. The rest of the room watched, and after a few tense, silent moments, the guns pointed in your direction were drawn towards the floor. De Luca put himself in front of Mariposa, his body shielding hers, and the look in your father’s eyes was one of complete, utter disbelief.

You rounded the desk, lowering the gun pointed at your father. You handed it to Tom, who took it gratefully. Your father hadn’t lowered his gun, but you knew the trigger wouldn’t budge.

He still has the fucking safety on.

You stepped in front of him. You had been in front of a gun a few times before now, but it felt different this time. It was strange standing on the other side of a gun you used to admire, a gun you used to worship. On the other side of it, even worse, was a man who had never seen you as anything more than his little weapon, his object of a little girl. You thought you could love him all over again. You thought there was something redeemable in him. You thought that maybe, just maybe, New York would be your chance to change his mind.

“He will never learn until it’s too late, and by then, nothing will be able to save him.”

Your father had no redeemable qualities. He never would. Even now, staring at you in a room where his power meant nothing, he was still trying to put you down.

At the end, all we have left are our words. It is a shame that his will mean nothing.

“You think this means you’ve…become something?” Your father breathed, pressing the gun into your chest. It was cool against your skin. “You think just because you got a room full of men to be on your fucking side that you’re anything but my little girl?”

You stared at him blankly, unmoving.

“You’re still nothing, y/n. You’re still nothing, you’re not ready. You don’t have what it takes to do what I do. You don’t have the fucking…y-you…” He struggled to find the words, and you tilted your head to the side, watching him catch his breath. “You’re still a scared little girl at heart, and just because you’ve been running things in New York, you think you’re prepared to run my empire? You’re as stupid as you look, y/n.”

“Maybe I’m not ready,” you laughed a bit. “But I’m not alone. That’s your problem. Everyone around you is an enemy. Even me, your…your daughter. You don’t have family. You don’t have friends. You push everyone away because you think that being at the top is duty enough for only one man. You isolated yourself, daddy, and now look at you. It’s over, and you’re alone. You pushed everyone away, and it…it killed you.”

“I’m not dead, y/n.”

“You’ll wish you were,” you whispered, shaking your head. His pupils dilated at the sound of your soft voice. There was malice in it, evil, pity. He couldn’t accept that he was the only man against you, he couldn’t accept that for once in his life, he was losing, to you no less. “Put it down. It’s over, dad.”

“It’s not over,” he grunted, putting his finger on the trigger. He hated that you didn’t seem afraid, he hated not being feared. You were so calm, and it was eating at him inside. “It’s not over! It’s not over until I say that it’s over! It’s not fucking over! You’re my daughter! You’re going to turn around, grab that fucking piece of paper, you’re going to put a bullet in Tom Holland’s fucking head, and you’re going to give me what I want!”

He is afraid of me.

“No,” you said softly.

I like this feeling.

“No?!” Your father scoffed. “God, dammit, y/n, I’m not fucking joking around anymore! I’m your father!”

Your throat closed when he pressed on the trigger, his index finger squeezing it hard. The barrel, pointed right at your chest, and from this close, with the metal touching your skin, there was no hesitation. It was a spot to kill, and he had pulled the trigger. But just as you knew, the trigger didn’t move, and you snatched the gun out of his hand, using the back of it and hitting him on the side of the head. You watched him crumple onto the floor, onto his knees, and you swallowed the lump in your throat as you watched him bring a shaking hand up to his forehead, touching the fresh wound there, wincing.

The devil does bleed, it seems.

“You’re no one to me anymore,” you said faintly. “You mean nothing to me.”

You couldn’t hear anything anymore. All you could see was white. You didn’t blink, you didn’t think, you just did.

“Nothing? Nothing?!” Your father laughed. “You’re making the biggest mistake of your entire—”

You just did. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was the hatred, or the anger, or the desperation inside of you, the part of you that just wanted to be free. Or maybe it was her, the woman who you needed so badly but who you were ashamed of. It had to be her. She liked blood.

You have gotten yourself to the finish line. And she will get me past it.

You could hear them calling your name, somewhere, far away. They were calling your name, telling you to stop, but you couldn’t. She had taken over you completely, and it was as if you weren’t in control anymore. Anger had devoured you, swallowed you whole, and the woman it spat out was the woman you were hiding from everyone else. You didn’t know forgiveness, not today.

Over and over again, you couldn’t stop. You thought maybe you were screaming, because your throat was starting to hurt. Maybe you were crying, because your face was wet, or maybe it was the blood. Your arm ached, it was tired, but you couldn’t stop bringing it down, over and over again, as hard as the woman inside of you allowed. She was ruthless, she was reckless. She had no mercy, none at all.

She has no idea what I have in me. She has no idea what I can do, but she’s realizing it, and she won’t let me stop.

Strong arms wrapped around you, yanking you up off the ground. You dropped the gun you were holding, and it clattered onto the floor, but you couldn’t hear it still. There was a ringing in your ear, and all of their voices were distant, detached, faint as you stared down at your father. He was starry-eyed; if you looked away too quickly, you would miss them fading into nothingness.

“y/n! y/n, fuck, stop!”

It was him. His voice came through first, suddenly loud and clear, right in your ear, and you had been screaming, because as soon as the ringing stopped, you could hear your own voice crying out in anger. You closed your mouth, finally quieting.

“y/n, it’s alright,” he whispered in your ear, not letting you go. You had been kicking and screaming as he held you, trying so hard to break away and let the woman finish her bidding.

Let her finish using me to do what she really wanted to do.

“It’s over. It’s over, baby,” his voice soothed you, soft and honeylike in your ear, and his touch was warm, firm, tight against you. “I’ve got you. It’s over.”

“I-I—” Your voice caught in your throat, and you turned around to face him, hot tears on your face. “I-I don’t know what c-came over me—”

You let out a sob, and Tom put a hand on the back of your neck, pulling you into his chest, quieting your cries. Tom made eye contact with De Luca, who understood almost immediately. He undid the ties around Mariposa’s arms before picking up your father’s gun, dripping with blood.

“What…w-what did I do, Tommy?” You wept into the crook of his neck, “what…what did I do?”

Tom said nothing as he kept you securely in his chest. He stared down at the floor, your father limp and lifeless against the hardwood, his face a mangled, unrecognizable mess of flesh and blood and bone now. For a few moments, Tom hadn’t been able to move. There was a madness inside of you that had rendered him absolutely useless, a blind, merciless hatred enthralled over your entire being that even he had been afraid of. Your father had been reduced to nothing at your hand, and the memory stuck with Tom even as De Luca and your men dragged him out of the room, the door shutting behind them.

Tom reached a hand out to Mariposa, who was still on the ground, shaking on her knees. She reached for his hand and took it, letting him lift her off of the ground. Tom wrapped his free arm around her, pulling her into his chest, and then Tom had two girls against him, their tears wetting his shirt as he held them together. He closed his eyes painfully, kissing the tops of both their heads.

“It’s alright,” he assured you both. “It’s alright. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Mariposa clung to Tom, her arm going around his middle, and she found comfort in his chest, her cheek against it as she hid there. She put her other arm around you, despite the blood all over you, and she held the both of you as close to herself as she could, closing her eyes as silent tears fell down her face.

You opened your eyes finally, turning your head to see Mariposa, her green eyes wide as she opened them to meet yours, too. You reached out with a shaky hand and touched her cheek, wiping away a stray tear, and you smeared blood on her, but she didn’t seem to mind.

You were a long way from being kids. Far away, miles away, years away. You grew up knowing this sweet face of hers, but now that you stared back at each other, you both knew things were different. This was a long way from cops and robbers, from kiss and don’t tell. You had seen each other do things for one another in the last six months that you never thought you would, and now that you were staring at each other like this, you knew there was nothing that could tear you apart anymore. There was nothing that would ever take you away from her again, from Tom, from Harrison, from your family.

My real family.

“I’m sorry,” you croaked out, and Mariposa shook her head, not saying a word as she stared back at you. She didn’t need to say anything. You already knew the answer. Mariposa would do anything for you. It didn’t matter what you asked, she would do it for you, and she wasn’t sorry that she did it for you. She would do it again, even if she knew what would happen afterwards.

You looked up finally, right into Tom’s dark eyes. He was staring down at you, and he leaned down to rest his forehead against yours, and you sucked in a shaky breath at his touch.

“Tommy,” you whispered, your voice hoarse and broken. “Why didn’t you…you did nothing. You didn’t stop me…you barely said…a word.”

He shook his head, “it wasn’t my fight, y/n. It had…it had to be you.”

Tom wiped the tears that quickly fell down your face, and you tucked your face back into his chest, his warmth the only thing keeping you together.

It had to be you.

There was a part of you that knew he was right. It did have to be you. Your whole entire life, you had fought with your father. Your fought for his attention, then you fought for his approval, and then you were fighting just to open his eyes. Your entire existence had been dedicated to proving him wrong. More than two decades of your life, you had buried the growing hatred and covered with some kind of mock love, some kind of sense of duty to being your father’s daughter. But you were never meant to be your father’s daughter, no, you were meant to be something else.

You are meant to be you, and no one else.

You squeezed your hands into fists, and you grimaced to yourself when you felt how sticky your hands were, clammy and thick with blood. When you closed your eyes, there were glimpses, flashes in your memory of the things you had done, the things you had seen. You had seen spiders once inside of you in your dreams, crawling, poisonous creatures with webs that had choked you. Then, you had seen blood, drawing red rivers of tears down the length of your face, war paint that you wore with dread as you swallowed it in metallic-tasting mouthfuls.

The nightmare you saw now was yourself. You, without decoration; it was just you, with nothing but warm eyes, cool tears, and your bare hands. You, who you saw now, this woman, she was the most terrifying nightmare you could think of. She found her hiding place in you, and she was there to stay. You could see her getting up, feel her making her way into your breaths, drawing fire from your heart, pushing pain into all the places you had closed off before.

No. No, no, no.

Suddenly, she was gone. Tom’s hand cupped one side of your face, coaxing your eyes to open, and you couldn’t help the flow of tears that followed. You were battling yourself, struggling to keep your sanity, but he made you feel like everything was still, calm, unmoving. You just had to focus on him, because if you didn’t, you had no idea where your mind would go.

It would roll and keep rolling, all the way until it fell off the edge. And I can’t see the bottom of this pit inside of me.

“I love you,” you whispered, and nothing could make you feel lighter than the way he looked at you then. His dark eyes softened, growing lighter in color as they stared down at you, and you wished he would always look at you like this because it made you feel whole again.

“I love you.”

She had no mercy. She was relentless in her efforts to draw you into that hole, that deep, endless whole of nothingness, but she would fail, you knew she would. She would fail each and every time. You knew what would happen every time you nearly tripped over that edge, every time she caught your ankle and dragged you. You knew she stood no chance against Tom. Tom could draw out the parts inside of you that you always kept buried, and he would do it, again and again, for as long as he needed to.

You knew he would. She had no mercy.

But he does. And he will catch me when I go too far. Every single time.

read chapter ten

#oh wow #the chapter to end all chapters wowowowow #hope you enjoyed it #tom holland imagines #tom holland imagine #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fic #tom holland #tom holland series #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #tom holland au #mob!tom #notorious

256 notes · View notes

wizardofrozz · 3 years ago

Text

The Perfect Pair

Warnings: swearing, violence, death of background characters, angst

Pairing: Loki x OFC

A/N: I hope everyone is enjoying this so far! ❤

____________________________________________________________

Chapter 9: Sakaar Welcomes You

My eyes snapped open at the sudden impact of my body slamming into a solid surface, knocking the wind out of me; I gasped, violently clawing at my chest, trying to relieve the pressure. Being able to breathe again chased off some of the stress, momentarily at least; I pushed myself into a sitting position, squinting at the sun, surveying my surroundings. Pulling air into my lungs at a steady pace soothed the burning feeling in my chest, but the ache I was all too familiar with roared to life again. Free falling through space for what felt like days left my legs about as useful as wet noodles; it took me a few minutes to adjust to gravity again, bracing myself against piles of garbage. Where the hell am I? I shuffled between mounds of trash, hoping to run into someone; after 15 minutes or so, my legs had adjusted, making trudging through the scrap yard easier. I caught a flash of movement off to my left, but I turned to get a better look, only to come up empty; another flicker of movement caused me to whip my head in the other direction. I froze when I heard something crunch behind me; I spun around, coming face to face with a group of eight creatures that I didn’t recognize. “Back off,” I snarled, lunging forward. The creatures jumped, stepping back slightly but proceeded to stare at me; a few narrowed their eyes, trying to understand what they were seeing. “Food!” one of the creatures yelled. The rest of the group responded with an array of screams and shouts as they charged me; I simply lifted my hand, palm out, sending tendrils of magic to wrap around each of their throats, lifting all eight creatures off the ground. A wicked smile crept across my face as I watched the creatures struggling against the magic cutting off their airflow; I slowly turned my hand, the pressure against their throats increasing. I gently started to close my hand, watching their eyes bug out until I noticed a ship clumsily lowering towards the ground behind where the creatures came from. The ship roughly dropped, a walkway extending as a woman stumbling out of the ship; I rolled my eyes as she drunkenly made her way to solid ground. “Hm, impressive,” she laughed when she noticed the creatures hanging in the air a few feet from her. I raised an eyebrow, simultaneously flicking my wrist, snapping all eight necks, smiling at the distinct thuds as bodies hit the ground. “Who are you?” I pushed my hood off, watching the woman nudge one of the bodies with her foot, nodding as she moved around the bodies. “Scrapper 142,” she shouted over her shoulder. “You’re powerful,” she raised an eyebrow, meeting my eyes. “Really, I had no idea,” I snorted, glaring at her. “Hm, Grand Master might like you,” she mumbled, surging to her feet, tossing a small disk at me. I lifted a hand again, freezing the object a few inches from my hand; the disk turned to dust with a simple thought. “Yeah, I don’t think so,” I snickered. “Actually, I kind of like you too,” she laughed, taking a step closer. I ran my eyes over her now that she was facing me; I caught the tail of a very familiar tattoo on her right wrist. “Oh, for shit's sake, you’re a Valkyrie,” I sighed, scrubbing my face. “Was,” she corrected. “Whatever,” I waved her off. I watched as she studied my armor, slowly getting closer; I tensed, magic crackling across my fingers. “Relax, killer; I thought I recognized your armor.” “I’d hope so; it’s Asgardian,” I sighed again. “What’s your name?” she barked, narrowing her eyes at me. “Violet,” I disclosed, narrowing my eyes at her. Something about her seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it; I continued to stare at her, willing my brain to come up with something. “No fucking way!” she shouted, a smile spreading across her face for the first time. The goofy grin on her face finally made it all click. “Brunnhilde?” I gasped, my eyes widening. “Holy shit, I thought you were dead!” she laughed, pulling me into a rough hug. I tensed for a moment but quickly relaxed into the hug, wrapping my arms around her. “How long has it been since I’ve seen you?” “I have no idea,” I laughed sharply, pulling back to look at her. “The last time I saw you was before Odin sent you off on some secret mission.” She visibly cringed at the memory; pain was written all over her face before it was replaced by disgust. “Odin sent us to our death. Hela broke free, and he sent us to push her back. She massacred the Valkyrie. I managed to escape, barely,” she mumbled, wringing her hands. “Shit, Bea, I had no idea,” I whispered, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Well, good news, Hela’s back,” I grunted. “No shit? Glad I’m here then,” she laughed dryly. “Where is here, by the way?” “Welcome to Sakaar.” Bea spread her arms wide, a smirk pulling at her lips. “Looks like a shithole.” Bea laughed, clapping a hand on my shoulder, steering me towards her ship. “You got that right, but unless you’re in a rush to get somewhere, stay a while. Could always use more scrappers,” Bea smiled, slinging her arm over my shoulders. “I should try to get my ass back to Asgard,” I grumbled, irritated that part of me even cared about Asgard. “Let me rephrase that; Grandmaster isn’t going to let you leave easily. You’re stuck without a good ship, so stay a while,” Bea sighed, gesturing to the seat next to the pilot chair. “Son of a bitch,” I rubbed between my eyes, trying to chase off the migration building. “Great, my...partner is going to be pissed when I eventually show up again.” “Sounds like an asshole,” Bea snorted, raising an eyebrow. “That’s an understatement, but I love him for some stupid ass reason,” I sighed, trying to ignore the persistent ache that gripped my soul. “Well, kick back and relax for a while,” Bea smirked, steering the ship off the ground. I took a deep breath, leaning back into the seat; I have to figure out how to get a ship of my own if I plan to get back to Loki. Unfortunately, it looks like being a scrapper is my best bet. /// 3 weeks later I threw back the rest of my drink, slamming the bottle onto the counter, cheers erupting around me; the harsh burn of the alcohol dulled the suffocating agony enough to function. “Damnit,” a dirty, ragged creature mumbled from next to me. “Pay up motherfucker,” I laughed, holding my arm out. I watched the credits deposit into my account, a devilish grin spreading across my face; I winked at the angry creature, jumping off my stool. “Alright, enough hustling asshole,” Bea laughed, grabbing my arm to pull me away from the bar. “You’re no fun,” I bump shoulders with her when I stumbled, earning a loud laugh from her. “Oh, did you hear, Grandmaster has a new apple of his eye,” she chuckled, taking a swig from the bottle dangling from her fingers. “Oh boy,” I rolled my eyes. “Who’s he pining after now?” “No idea, a few of the servants were gossiping about it. Apparently, Grandmaster has the hots for this guy, but he’s not interested in screwing the old guy,” she burps as she finished her sentence. “Poor guy has no idea what’s in store for him,” I giggled, drunkenly stumbling a little. “Don’t blame Grandmaster, though; I’ve heard he’s pretty good-looking. Hair almost as black as yours,” Bea winked, licking her lips. “Stop imagining about me naked,” I laughed, burping in between giggles. “I’m not sorry,” she giggled, stumbling into me. “Scrapper 142, Scrapper 210,” someone called from the end of the hall. “What?” I yelled, hiccupping again. “Grandmaster is looking for the two of you,” a small servant girl called, rolling her eyes at us. “Where is he?” I asked, stopping a few feet from her. “Follow me,” she sighed, turning away from us. “I’m too drunk for this,” Bea giggled, bumping into me again. “Ah, there’s my favorite scrappers,” Grandmaster bellowed, a wide smile on his face. “Grandmaster,” Bea and I hummed together, trying to collect ourselves. “I wanted to pay you for your last haul. We have a new wonderful group of unpaid workers,” he smiled, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Thank you, Grandmaster,” I stated, bowing my head slightly; Bea followed my lead. “OH! Have you met my new friend?” -he leaned in to whisper to us- “He showed up a few days ago,” he wiggled his eyebrows, making my stomach wretch. “Here he comes, say hello,” he pushed, gesturing towards the door to my right. “Of course,” Bea answered. I took a deep breath turning to face the poor sap Grandmaster was pinning for now; my brows pulled together when I had the unshakeable urge to move towards the door. I didn’t move, but my stomach dropped to my feet, suddenly sober, my heartbeat like a jackhammer in my chest as he rounded the corner, his eyes focused on the floor. I almost fainted, frantically grabbing Bea’s arm to steady myself as tears pricked at my eyes. “What the hell’s wrong with you!” she whispered harshly. “Loki,” I borderline sobbed. Loki’s stopped dead in his tracks, his head snapping up, his gaze landing on me a few seconds later. Loki stumbled slightly, like the sight of me almost knocked him to his knees as his eyes watered. “Vi? You’re alive,” he choked. The relief that flooding over me made me gasp for air, my head spinning momentarily. The second a relieved smile spread across Loki’s face, I ran for him, sending him stumbling back a few steps when I slammed into him, instinctively, wrapping my legs around his waist; Loki gripped my thigh with one hand, wrapping his other arm around my ribs to hold me close. “Holy shit,” I choked, squeezing him tighter. “I was sure you were dead,” Loki whispered into my skin, his shoulders shaking slightly. “Please” -I pulled back so I could see his face- “only you’re allowed to kill me for good. A handful of scrappers tried, but nothing I couldn’t handle.” I stared into his sparkling shamrock green eyes, just taking a minute to comprehend that he’s alive. Loki’s thumb traced circles along my thigh, bringing me back to reality from the sea of emotions coursing through me. “Haven’t lost your edge, darling,” Loki chuckled, his face getting closer as he spoke. My stomach fluttered, having him so close, and decided I wasn’t waiting anymore; I surged forward, slamming my lips to his. Loki let out a surprised yelp that quickly morphed into a throaty moan as my tongue coaxed his lips apart. “Darling,” Loki hummed, reluctantly breaking the kiss. “Fuck,” I groaned, my head dropping onto his shoulder. “Believe me, I’m going to ravage you” -I shivered against him- “but we have to wait.” I sighed, bracing myself on his shoulders so I could unwrap my legs from around his waist; once my feet were safely on the floor again, Loki gripped the back of my neck, looking into my eyes. “I love you, little one,” he said with a sweet smile, his fingers massaging my neck. “I love you too, shithead,” I chuckled, resting my hand on his forearm. “Well, I can assume you two know each other,” Grandmaster pipped up. “Uh, yes. It appears my queen made it here before me,” Loki mumbled, continuing to rub the back of my neck. “Queen?” Grandmaster and Bea said together. “It’s a long, kind of awful story,” I laughed awkwardly. “But yes, I technically was Queen.” “That means you’re married….” Bea trailed off, her eyes flicking between Loki and me. “Yes, we kept it simple and a secret,” Loki sighed, squeezing my neck a little too tight. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything, Bea” -I stepped away from Loki- “but I honestly thought he was dead. I wasn’t ready to bring it up.” I grabbed one of her hands, trying to ignore the death glare she gave me; I locked eyes with her, her expression softening slightly. “Come on, I never shared my feelings,” I giggled, squeezing her hand. “No kidding,” she snorted, rolling her eyes. “I guess I can’t be too pissed. I knew you weren’t getting blackout drunk just for fun.” “Well, this is interesting, to say the least,” Grandmaster huffed, turning to leave the room. Once Loki, Bea, and I were alone, Loki let out the breath he was holding, bracing his hands on his knees. “Thank god,” Loki panted; my heart swelled when the light caught the metal chain that shifted around his neck when he bent forward. “Don’t worry; you don’t have to sleep with him,” I jabbed. Loki’s head shot up, his eyes wide with fear as he stood straight again. “Oh god, I hope you’re joking,” he croaked. “Nope, that was his plan,” Bea tried to say around laughter. “When it comes down to it, I don’t particularly care about gender, but he makes me extremely uncomfortable. I could feel him watching me.” Loki shivered at the thought; Bea and I lost it, laughing until our stomachs hurt, earning a dirty look from Loki. “Come on. I’m starving,” Bea grunted when we finally calmed down. I reached for Loki’s hand, and he made sure to give me another dirty look before threading his fingers with mine.

///

Bea and I left Loki with Grandmaster when he requested we make a few extra rounds when unknown life was sensed in the scrap yard. “So, are you going to tell me about your wedding?” Bea probed, her elbow catching my ribs. “As Loki said, it was nothing big or elegant. Mainly, it was so I could take on the responsibility of Queen behind the scenes,” I shrugged. “Bullshit. You two didn’t get married for strictly business reasons. I mean, come on, I was just in the room when you two saw each other again. So spill it,” Bea insisted. “...okay, no, it wasn’t strictly business. Loki and I have been doing this intricate dance for years now. Rage-fueled fights, empty threats, mind-blowing hate fucking, but I’ve never felt a deeper, more complex connection with another being in my 1000-something years of life. It’s like something deeper connects us,” I rambled, my eyes trained on the floor. “Gods, you make me feel old,” Bea grumbled. “Anyway. So what, you two married in secret, and the Asgardians didn’t make a fuss?” “Well, that’s the thing. Loki was impersonating Odin, so the Asgardians didn’t know Loki was actually ruling, meaning I wasn’t publicly named Queen.” “I was wondering how Loki managed to get the thrown before Thor,” Bea mumbled, shaking her head. “Yeah, it wasn’t our best moment, but Asgard is thriving. The Nine Realms are at peace. I think we did a pretty good job,” I boasted. “I think I’d take Loki over Thor anyway. Loki never struck me as part of the typical royal family with all the lies and secrets. So I’m not surprised he managed the throne well,” Bee said with a shrug. “You don’t even know the half of it,” I mumbled. Loki’s Jotunn heritage was still a reasonably well-kept secret, and I planned to keep it that way, along with my halfling bloodline. I glanced at Bea, feeling guilty for keeping it from her; for a second, I thought of telling her, but the fear of judgment and hostility kept my lips sealed.

____________________________________________________________

Series Masterlist | Chapter 10

Taglist:

@criminalyetminimal @marvelfansworld

11 notes · View notes

adinosaurnamedmittens · 4 years ago

Text

Alright so I can’t stop thinking of RVB Zero and how much potential it has so I wanna rework it a bit to work better.

So first I’m gonna talk about the new characters and what I’d change before breaking down the individual episodes for critique and suggested rewrites. At this point, I’ve only seen up to episode 4, Encounter. So spoilers till that ep.

West - Honestly great! He doesn’t have a ton of character, but what he has is solid. He works very well as the gruff, no-nonsense leader who’s a tiny bit of a dad.

Raymond - Also great! He’s the most classic RVB character, as he’s an underdog who’s not the best at fighting, but has a lot of heart. My fav new character, right next to Tiny.

One - I want to change her to 2nd in command and drop the whole “can’t work within a team” thing. Keep the confidence and slight rudeness, but drop all the lines referencing anti-teamwork. It hasn’t factored into the story so far, One has been successfully working as part of the team for all the episodes. This would make her dynamic with Axel more interesting, being in a higher position of power. Especially considering how her healthy relationship with her dad contrasts with East and West’s relationship. This would reinforce the tension with East, since One now has an actual position of power over her. Also, she should have the exact same powers as Zero, but maybe less powerful. This would help foreshadow that reveal, and help us understand how the enhancements work. While One is a bit of a shit, and thinks she knows best, she’s willing to take the fall when her ideas fail or get them in trouble.

Axel - Imma be honest: totally forgot he was One’s adopted dad until I rewatched the episodes prepping for this. You could drop it totally, as it gets a bit redundant with West and East’s relationship, but I think there’s more fun in working with it. Also, if One’s 2nd in command and Axel isn’t insecure about it at all? Instantly makes him a more likable guy. I also think he parallels to Wash very well (bit of a kid at heart, weapons guy, team dad, emotional heart) so we’re gonna expand on that too.

East - Her and One’s relationship is the driving force of conflict within the strike team. With the changes made to One, East can stay pretty much unchanged. Before they were too similar. Now, with One being abrasive but willing to work together, and East being more reserved and distant, they’re great foils for each other. Also she parallels early Carolina, which I love (speed is her ability, prefers working alone, competitive as hell, dad runs team)

Villains: On characterization, they’re all good! Villains are allowed to be a bit more shallow, and they all seem to have understandable motives for what they’re doing: Zero wants revenge and power, Phase wants revenge especially against West, and Diesel just seems like he’s having fun. I do want to change Zero’s power tho, with Phase already having a teleport with a cool gimmick, and Diesel having a strength/tank ability, Zero should have a unique ability. Maybe gravity because of the sword? It would allow him some cool movement tricks while still being visually distinct from Diesel and Phase’s abilities. Or something inspired by his “ghost” line from Duo.

EP 1: Viper

The Good: The introduction to the villains and their abilities was amazing. I love Phase’s knife and it’s honestly one of the coolest things I’ve seen in the show. And the intro to the Strike team? Hilarious. Great character work. You can tell that One and Axel are close, that Raymond is hesitant and new, East and One have a very competitive relationship, and West is the tough love dad.

The Bad: Don’t violate the 180 camera rule. The intro fight scene was cool, but the camera moved way too much and made it hard to keep track of everything happening. And with the new, shiny art style we need a bit more time to absorb what’s happening since the detail level went up. Also y’all healed Wash’s brain damage with a throwaway line, and then immediately fridged him? Not cool. I mean, if you wanted to show how tough the villains are, you already had them beat up Carolina.

Story Changes: - Zero gets name dropped this ep so we get a scene next ep where Axel recognizes his name. - Either replace Wash with a high ranking soldier and completely scrub him from the episode, or give a different reason why he can’t help, maybe exactly Carolina’s reason of “you’re recovering”. I’m not committing to totally removing Wash bc in Recovery Carolina’s line of “That I-that we thought was a medium risk asset” hints that Wash knew exactly what they were carrying and I’m excited to see where they take that. - Mainly I want scenes of Wash talking to Axel and expanding on his characterization as they are both Nice Boys Who Have Been Through It. - I also think a scene after we meet Strike where Axel asks Raymond “You like riding with East?” and Ray goes “You two stuck me with her on purpose!” and One goes “Yup!” all cheerfully. Just reinforce those team dynamics and friendships before it goes to shit!

EP 2: Recovery

The Good: The garage scene was perfect. Tiny is amazing, love her so much! And Axel got such great characterization during this ep. What a dork. West and Raymond also work super well together, their interactions are great.

The Bad:You know it’s a problem when the villains have a better dynamic than the heroes. The scene where Carolina explains all the strike member’s abilities and personalities? Bad. Also a little OOC for her. And redundant, since we also get Raymond asking West about East, and Axel’s explanation of the girls to Carolina.

Story Changes: - Have Axel, the emotional heart, waiting outside the recovery room for Carolina. Honestly, this isn’t that big, but I think it’d suit his character. - Carolina’s exposition is changed to solely history and abilities, no commenting on their personalities. Maybe East gets a little “has shown difficulty in working with others” but that’s it. The physical acting for these scenes really shines through, so let it stand alone. Even watching without sound, you can pick up that West is a no-nonsense leader, that Axel isn’t a flashy fighter but gets the job done, that East is fairly young and doesn’t take fighting seriously, and that One is willing to leave others behind if she thinks she can do it better. - For Carolina’s convo with One this ep about her “not willing to work on a team” either swap One with East or change it to “you need to listen to your team more. Don’t assume that you immediately now what’s best” - At the end of training, when Axel says “the guards were priority #1″ One should say “I knew you could handle it.” and Axel could respond with “Well, it’d be nice if you let me know that.” to show that One can work well as 2nd in command, but needs to communicate and stop assuming things. -Also should change Axel’s warning line about her enhancements to “Don’t push yourself. Remember what happened last time?” to enforce that this is a habit, and that while he cares about her, he’s not trying to boss her around as much. -Don’t reveal that East is West’s daughter until Raymond and West talk. That way, there’s a bit more emotional weight, and Ray’s line of “I was digging through the team files” makes more sense if Carolina doesn’t drop that info in the previous scene. - When Axel talks about the experiments East went through, he should mention that he was there for some of them. Dropping more foreshadowing for the Axel/Zero reveal! - Carolina drops Zero’s name in their convo, and we get a shot of Axel’s hand tightening on his weapon, showing the audience that the name means something to him, but we don’t know why.

EP 3: Duo

The Good: First 3rd of the ep? Really good. I love One being rude to Carolina, and then gaining a grudging respect. West and Raymond are, again, the best dynamic. How? I honestly have no idea. The car looks so stupid in the funniest way, I hate it but I love it. Also god yes Axel and Zero’s relationship is so wholesome and could be the best thing in this season. One’s warning call to the facility? The funniest shit. And Zero’s dialogue is hella cliched, but it works bc he’s obv such a dramatic bitch.

The Bad: HOLY HELL THE DIALOGUE. First, One and East’s fight? garbage. Very forced. Super hard to believe these two are real people. Carolina and West literally repeat the exact same line, less than 5 seconds apart. The dishwasher joke West makes does NOT at all work, it’s too tonally dissonant.

Story Changes: - Obv. need to change One and East’s convo. End it with “Without your power, you wouldn’t even be on this team!” East should storm off or almost attack One, requiring Axel to diffuse. - It’d also be really nice to get a line where One acknowledges that she went too far with that, but puts off apologizing to East. It’d be a nod that she’s good at reflecting and assessing, but too proud to actually take her words back. - I’d like to make Raymond more panicked when they find Wash. It’d help sell that he’s in bad shape and add more weight to “He’s got a heartbeat!” - Maybe re-work Phase and Zero’s conversation a bit. The dialogue is definitely not this season’s strong suit. - Pull Carolina’s “I’m just trying to help, East.” since it’s more impactful for East to storm off immediately and West says the line a couple seconds later. And change East’s dialogue to “You may be my CO, but don’t try to be my dad. Not after what you’ve done.” Or something similar. - For the dishwasher gag in the meeting, either pull it or double down. It’d work so much better if someone asks “Are you serious about this? Aren’t there more important things to discuss?” and West just deadpans. “This is of the upmost importance. If we can’t keep this base clean, how can we be expected to do anything else?!” and then Carolina clears her throat super loud and West goes “...Right. Rookie? Take it from here.” - Rework the “Carolina stay behind” dialogue. Even just a “Carolina. You’re still recovering. If you get hurt again, it’ll just be longer till you can take these bastards down. Keep an eye on Wash, will you?” I just couldn’t get behind the wording of “we need you here. With wash” It sounds like every cliched “woman must stay behind while the manly men save everyone!” Might be personal preference but just ew. - Add a scene where One notices Axel being a bit off (bc he’s worried about Zero being a part of the bad guy team) and she asks if he’s okay. He brushes her off, says its nothing. She goes “alright, i trust you.” - Maybe make the flashback a bit more apparent? There was a moment in the middle where I questioned whether or not it was a flashback. Again, could be a me problem.

EP 4: Encounter

The Good: The fight scenes continue to be absolute standouts. The varied environments, the movement, the dynamics on point. Wish we could’ve saw a bit more from Axel, but as is the scene worked well. The framing of the ep was good too, cutting between the mission and the fallout. And Ray, resident coward, immediately squaring up without a thought after West got injured? *chef’s kiss*. THAT is good character development. THAT is an amazing way to establish their relationship without telling us outright. Go feral, my boy! And Tiny and Raymond’s convo was so cute. I love how, despite what he says, Ray is there for his team and always willing to help. Carolina and One’s convo was also pretty decent. It got a bit long and over-explainy on Carolina’s end, but there were some pretty good moments.

The Bad: The fight after the mission failure was SO over-acted. Too much motion, to many camera angles. It changed what should have been tense arguments to hilarious melodrama. This has been a consistent problem, but it REALLY affects this scene in particular. And the second Axel enters the scene it just immediately goes downhill.

Story Changes: - Add a line from West in the beginning scene like “I’ll cut them off!” to explain why he isn’t in the car too. This also means it’s not as out-of-nowhere when West shows up to trash the car. - One should call out Axel instead of East. If she’s his daughter, she should be able to tell when he’s acting off. And she would have an easier time connecting the dots between Axel and Zero. - Instead of “I trusted you.” One should say “You lied to me.” 1) He’s her dad. One lie isn’t gonna break her total trust. 2) This would imply it’s the first time he’s lied to her, adding more weight to the whole situation 3) It’s way more accusatory and less cliched (if only a bit) - Add in a “One, wait!” bc I am a sucker for it and we could hear the guilt in his voice, rather than the weird scene where the girls make him spin around by bumping into him. - It’d also be nice if Ray stayed back for a bit before leaving, so we got a bit of his feelings on the matter. I mean, obviously he cares a lot about West, but does he blame Axel for not being there to help? It’d be nice to know!

TL;DR The best parts of the episodes are the fight scenes, and when they focus on the fun team dynamics. The worst parts are dialogue (mostly the serious bits) and over-animating, as this takes away from the drama.

I don’t mind the cheesy villains, but that may not be the case for everyone.

The best part of RVB has always been the rag-tag found family dynamics. While the fight scenes are cool, they have always been supplemental to the real meat of the show. The writers are trying something new with the whole “actual family” but you have got to focus on and develop these relationships if you want fans to care.

Mostly, I see a lot of potential in these characters, but there are GLARING issues in this season that are holding them back.

#rvb #rvb zero #rvb zero spoilers #rant #long post #criticism #might add on to this when new eps release bc i am invested #though not entirely for the right reasons #i just see the POTENTIAL #and i physically cannot hold myself back

33 notes · View notes

seiya234 · 4 years ago

Text

and all the trees of the field will clap their hands, 1/?

oh hey look a new multi-chaptered fic. as always, I blame @marypsue. Very important note! This particular chapter is rated R for some gentle descriptions of married middle aged people having sex in the woods. If you want to skip that, it is in the last third of the chapter and has mostly little to do with the plot.

---

There are three ways this story begins: the short way, the medium way, and the long way.

—————————————

The short way was one day in the dying days of autumn, Stan got a call from Ford, who was on the Atlantic right now and headed towards New Jersey and

“Have the children ever been to New Jersey? To Glass Shard Beach?”

Stan adjusted the phone in the crook of his shoulder while he began to stir the bowl of Stancakes he was making, and coughed without covering his mouth.

“I think Mark took the twins when they were, fuck, six? The kids though? Never.”

“Well. I would love to see you.”

(In this universe do Stan and Ford share the ease and togetherness of other, more canon realms? No- their paths met for but a year or two before diverging again. But there was no anger, no bitterness, no sorrow in their parting, and a good relationship is still a good relationship.)

“Me too.” An idea hatched in Stan’s mind.

“When did you say you’d be in harbor again?”

---

“I have a proposition for you kiddo.”

“And I get frightened when you start using five dollar words old man.” Dipper laid down a three card book of jacks.

“Yeah yeah yeah. Look, this year’s been fucking trash right?”

Dipper thought about it. Then he thought about it again. The kids had turned 15....and then in the year following, Willow almost died, Henry became something Eldritch and Unknowable, Willow killed a grown woman, Henry was kidnapped, and they started teaching the kids how to drive.

Their 16th birthday party, while still having some of that patented Pines (mabel) Madness, was noticeably a little more subdued and scaled down than it probably would have been.

“Ford’s coming to Glass Shard right after Christmas, and since the kids don’t have to go back until middle of January, we were thinking-“

Stan laid down a run, a 4-5-6 of hearts off of Dipper’s 7-8-9. “Why don’t you and me take the kids to see Ford?”

Dipper’s brow furrowed. “You and me- what about Mabel and Henry?”

“I was thinking that maybe they’d like some time.” Stan raised an eyebrow. “Alone Dipper.”

Dipper raised his hands defensively. “Hey! I didn’t show up for their honeymoon or anything.”

“Yeah cookie for you. And when was the last time they had more than two days alone? Uninterrupted? By the kids or you?”

“Uh.” Dipper thought about it. Then he blushed. “Uh.” He drew a card.

“Exactly.” Stan laid down a book of aces, and discarded his last card, going out. “I’ll call Ford, you tell the kids.”

“What about Mabel and Henry?”

Stan snorted. “They said yes before I could finish.”

——————————————-

The long way this story begins is in 1866, when a callow and cruel young man with a trunk of grey clothes and a bloody saber inside landed in the newish state of Oregon to start a new life.

What is this young man’s name? I could tell you, but quite frankly he was a hateful piece of shit, so I’d rather not.

Here’s what you need to know about him.

He was the bosom friend of Nathaniel Northwest- they had fought side by side in the same regiment, and when the young man needed somewhere to run fast, it was Nathaniel who promised to smooth the way in return for working for him- he was strong, right? And Nathaniel knew he wasn’t adverse to rousting out some trash.

He was handsome. He towered over almost everyone in town, arms and legs draped with muscle, beautiful blonde hair, all of his teeth, and a smile that never reached his blue eyes.

And no one ever told him no.

He was loved by girls who didn’t know better, and enjoyed by women who knew to keep him at arms’ length. He was offered many favors, and he took advantage of each and every one.

A few times those favors ended with squalling, squealing piglets, red and angry and helpless. And the young poacher would take them from the homes of his cast off swains, promising to deliver the babe to a cousin’s farm the next county over, to a man running a tavern who needed the help, to a childless spinster he had heard about...

He took them to a pit he had in the forest, where he tossed them in and then covered them in dirt until the squealing stopped.

Mayhap some one suspected. But he was handsome and the friend of the town founder.

And no one ever told him no.

A fan of taking things out of season was our young man. In his hut he scalped the fur from foxes with dugs still full of milk and bear cubs that hadn’t even had the time to accumulate fat to use. The corpses of deer laid out back, the meat rotting on the corpse while the young man only desired the antlers for his home. The little corn he bothered to plant withered on the stalk, choked by weeds in an un-hoed field.

It should go without saying of course that any pigs or cows or horses he found wandering, branded or not, soon became his cattle. For the Huntsman took what he pleased and did what he wanted. He ate and drank and killed and fucked

And no one ever told him no.

Until one day when he ran into the Corduroy girl in the woods.

The men at the tavern told him to be wary of Etta Corduroy; she had a way of riling up their wives and giving them ideas. Nathaniel Northwest told him to be wary of Etta Corduroy; she had been talking with his loggers, giving them ideas. And his current swain told him to be wary of Etta Corduroy; for she spent far too much time alone in the woods.

(they called her a witch. and since this was gravity falls, they were right.)

But still when the young man saw her gathering mushrooms near his hut, he went to her. But still his hand strayed to her breasts when she rebuffed him. But still he grabbed her throat when she tried to scratch him, tried to run away.

Because no one ever told him no.

Not if they knew what was good for them.

So it was to his great surprise that when Etta Corduroy managed to get a hand on his chest, and spat out some unknowable word, that the world itself told him no.

It felt like a horse kicked him in the chest. It felt like the blood in his veins suddenly turned into boiling steam. Every cut he had ever gotten on his skin suddenly opened up, every muscle in his body seized up going rock hard and rigid, and it was hard to breathe, it was hard to see, it was hard to do anything at all except to fall down on the ground and writhe in pain as Etta ran away.

She ran away and she left him there. She left him there, bleeding and screaming and sobbing, covered in blood and spit, piss and tears, raining down from his body to feed the earth below him, the pit that he had tossed so many bodies in before.

Perhaps in his final moments the cruel callow youth should have been scared. But what he was instead was incandescently angry, because these were his woods, his to do with what he wanted, his his HIS-

And no one, ever, ever, told him no.

It was as his breath was growing shallow, as a disconcerting amount of deer began to circle around him, that he noticed the bright yellow triangle floating above him.

“... what?”

“WHOOPSIE CHAMP! LOOKS LIKE THAT WITCH DID A NUMBER ON YOU!”

“that... that...that bitch.”

“PERSONALLY I THINK THERE’S BETTER THINGS TO DO WITH ORGANS THAN EXPLODE THEM BUT THAT’S NOT WHY I’M HERE.”

The Huntsman coughed up more blood. It launched up in the air before splattering all over his face.

“YEESH. GROSS. SO YEAH, CAN’T SAVE YOUR LIFE. BUT I CAN OFFER YOU SOMETHING EVEN BETTER!”

“What.... what would it cost me?”

“ONLY THE LOW LOW PRICE OF YOUR SOUL! BUT DON’T WORRY! AS LONG AS YOU D̀O ̡W͠H͝A͟T I̢ ͜ŚAY̢ , I’LL NEVER COME TO COLLECT!”

“What do you want?”

“I’VE GOT SOME BIG PLANS FOR THIS TOWN- NEVER YOU MIND WHAT- AND I COULD USE AN ENFORCER.”

“And-?”

“AND THESE WOODS WOULD BE YOURS BUCKO! YOURS TO DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO!”

No one ever told him no.

“Deal.”

Roadkill County, as it eventually became to be named, was always mostly forest. Even after a century and a half of logging, the forest remained, endured, survived.

But.

But there were always parts of the forest that were stripped bare.

There were parts of the forest where the Corduroys, noted by all and sundry to be the finest woodspeople in the state, refused to go.

There were parts of the forest where children would enter and never be seen again.

This is what Bill offered the Huntsman.

(for he was no longer the Callow Callous Youth, and he was certainly no longer Bruce Wilder)

The forest was the Huntsman’s to do with as he pleased, though he could only be corporeal during the light of the full moon-

(A CONVIENENT PLOT HOLE, I KNOW KID, BUT LOOK, YOU’RE DEAD, WORK WITH ME HERE)

But during that time he could hunt and do as he pleased. Meat could pass his lips, his arrows would hit true, and any person that crossed his path was his to toy and play with until they broke.

And to help him do his bidding....and to amuse him when he was bored and intangible, the Huntsman was gifted with the souls of the pit, tiny mewling creatures finally turned to some purpose-

(SO THESE ARE YOUR BASIC LEVEL GHOULS POWERED BY FORSAKEN CHILDREN; I ADJUSTED THE SETTINGS SO YOU CAN PLAY WITH WHAT THEY CAN DO. SERIOUSLY, GO NUTS.)

-for they were his hounds in the hunt, they could harrow and harm his prey and in turn he had something he could hunt on the nights when the full moon was absent.

There was only one hard rule, and that was he could never, ever leave the forest that surrounded Gravity Falls.

(”Why..?” His vision was fading but before whatever happened, he just... he just needed to know-

“YOU KNOW I DON’T NORMALLY ANSWER QUESTIONS FOR FREE,” the triangle said, twirling a cane that came out of nowhere. “BUT LETS JUST SAY THERE’S THINGS IN THIS FOREST THAT COULD INTERFERE WITH MY PLANS. AND I THINK YOU’LL DO SOME GOOD WORK HERE KID. JUST DO AS I SAY AND N̤̪̦̖̥͡ͅͅE͏͖̹̫̬V̬̼̼Ḛ̛̳͓R̯̥͕͖̬ ͉̝̼̟̮͢L͔̪E̝̳͔͟A̻̟͕̝̥̖͞V̶͈̗E̛̝.”

Well. It still seemed like he was coming out on top here.)

However, eventually the thrill of the chase paled, eventually rumors of his presence spread and both the human and non-human inhabitants of Gravity Falls learned to avoid the forest at the full moon.

He turned to playing with his Beasts, growing crueler and crueler the more his boredom grew.

Yet despite his ennui, there was one other thing that kept the Huntsman in the forest, deal or no deal. For this is what the callous young man had found out after he had died.

There was no heaven.

There was no hell.

There was just life, endless, endless, endless rounds of life.

(some would marvel at the endless chances, endless possibilities for beauty and love and good food and song but we have already established that the callous young man was not that kind of person)

However.

Within this cycle were also the times in between.

The times where potentially very very angry people would be waiting for you.

So he waited, and hunted, and feasted, and waited.

And one day Bill was gone, and the deal was off, and that should have been it for the Huntsman but instead of dissipating he only felt himself grow more powerful.

For the Huntsman had so long existed independent of Bill’s plans (indeed he never saw the triangle again), had established over a century of terror a reputation, that the knowledge of his story and the raw power of the Transcendence released some of the bonds on him and his Beasts. No longer were they bound by the light of the full moon. Though they still could not leave the forest, now his prey was limitless.

He had gotten perhaps a week or two of finally being able to live again when he was cornered by the Multibear.

“I always wanted to fell you,” the Huntsman said, his Beasts snapping and slavering at his heels.

The Multibear did not leap to his bait. “This is your warning Huntsman.”

“Warning?” The Huntsman lifted his arm, to show his newest acquisition, a coat of red caps, some still crusted with dried blood. “I am tireless. I am deathless. And you are my prey. What warning could you possibly give me?”

“I am warning you now; refrain from killing the sentient creatures of this forest, focus your sick attentions on the deer and rabbits.”

“Or else what?”

One of the Multibear’s heads smirked. “Surely, you are aware that a new demon arose in Bill’s place?”

The Huntsman rolled his eyes. “And what of it? He’s but a mere stripling. And he and his sister have never run into me, never heard of my story.”

“Have you considered that what Bill gave you, Alcor could take away?”

“That is just wishful thinking.”

The Multibear turned- turned! exposing his back!- away, with one head saying over his shoulder, “Look inside of yourself. Dwell. And you will find that it is the truth.”

The Huntsman paused. He stood still for a solid minute.

Then the blood drained from his face.

Okay.

Okay, he could handle this.

He just needed to wait until Alcor stopped living in Gravity Falls, moved out of that shack that the Mad Man built and the Con Man ran.

(the Con Man had once shot the cap off of his head as he had approached his shack. The Huntsman swore vengeance... he was just going to get to it. Eventually.)

The Huntsman waited. And waited. And waited.

For no one ever told him no.

Until one day one of his Beasts brought him news of a deal it had overheard.

A deal whereupon Alcor would be gone for two weeks, sworn by his power and blood to do so.

The Huntsman, who was still obviously a colossal piece of shit, had unfortunately learned patience. And cunning. And dark magic.

He had a plan to make the forest truly his. A plan to make Gravity Falls his.

And from there well.

With his power, and the power he hoped to take, who knew where a bright, callous and callow youth could go from here?

---

The medium way this story begins is on day three of the Super Awesome Second Honeymoon No Kid Vacation.

Days one and two were scrubbing the house top to bottom. It was boring but the kids and Stan and Dipper were going to be gone for two weeks. Two! Weeks!!! Mabel thought it best to get the boring stuff out of the way first, to best optimize their time for smoochin, shenanigans, and sparkle spaghetti night.

So Henry lifted Mabel up so she could clean the gutters, and he mopped the whole house. She scrubbed the tubs and he fixed the basement door. They trimmed some tree limbs, changed the oil in the cars, put the zipline up for the winter, and all the other little things that needed doing but got lost in the hustle of raising three teenagers and running a small business and brokering peace amongst the gnome clans.

(Mabel could have asked for Dipper to do any or all of this for a price. And while some of it was a reluctance to rely on your magic brother for everything, more of it was just plain forgetting in the day to day of life.)

But now the chores were done, and Mabel could spring her plan into action!

Step one!

“Heyyyyy Henry.... can you put this blindfold on please?”

Henry put down his newspaper-

(oof the things she loved most about him was his hands. They were almost comically oversized, even for a man as tall as him. Beautiful pianist fingers, a long, elegant palm, and between the two a truly astounding dexterity.)

-and asked, “How long will I have to have it on?”

Mabel thought about where step two was. “Uh, twenty five to thirty minutes while we walk?”

“Can we maybe put it on right before the surprise?”

Okay that was fair. And walking through the woods blindfolded was probably a bad idea? Yeah, it probably was.

“Okay!”

Step two!

She had Henry kneel down so that she could actually put the blindfold on. She shivered as he was for once shorter than her, shivered as her hands tied the thick scarf around his eyes and her hips bumped into his back. Shivered as she helped him back up and took his hand.

She could not wait for this.

Step three!

Initially she was going to use their regular tent but Mabel was worried that if she had Henry kneel down it would give the game away so she had prepped a small pavilion tent instead, with the flap already open.

“Are we almost ready?” Henry asked.

“Mmmm hmmm,” Mabel answered, quickly taking off her sweater and skirt. She had spent a whole month crocheting lingerie for this.

She was about to tell him to take off the blindfold, and then she paused.

She put back on her skirt, and instead took her husband into a gentle hug.

“You can take it off now.”

He took it off.

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“This is just.... outside?”

Mabel grinned. “I’ve always wanted to.”

Her grin faltered. “If that’s... if that’s okay?

There was a pause. And then Henry lifted her up, making her squeak like every time he did that. He brought his mouth to hers. And that was all the answer she needed.

Step four!

What Mabel had dreamed about, from the moment her husband had become born again into someone new, someone not quite human, was this moment. She wanted him to pin her down with not only his arms (stronger, far stronger than they used to be) but with vines that sprang from the ground. She wanted to grab onto his antlers as she rode him into ecstasy. She wanted the earth to bloom around him, to trail her finger up and down his skin and see mushrooms bloom from her fingertips.

What happened instead was that they had some very pleasant but very normal sex, except it was on the ground and the ground was kind of hard.

She...

Well poop Mabel. Way to go and Mabel it up all over again.

They both were still sweaty and panty, but Mabel reached out to begin putting her clothes back on; this... didn’t go quite like she expected.

“Thank you honey. That was a lot of fun,” Mabel said, super casually and hopefully not betraying the turmoil roiling within her.

Henry smiled. “Of course.”

(he hoped that Mabel hadn’t noticed that the Woodsman had almost come out once or twice; it was being outside and he wanted to break free, to test his strength against hers, to grow new life in these woods and no-)

They finished getting dressed and stepped out of the tent and

Mabel froze.

“Mabel?”

Inwardly, Mabel began to curse at herself for not bringing her bat.

“Henry...” She looked around at the heavy fog around them both, sensed the deep knowledge that they were far from where she had led them, knew to her bone that the path home was concealed.

“I think I goofed.”

#transcendence au #seiya writes!

46 notes · View notes