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dysfunctionalcrab · 4 years ago

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cute vets, pets, and boys

Pairing: Quackity x reader

Pronouns: Gender neutral

Description: Tiger needs to go to vets. Over there, his owner meets a cute veterinary assistant (yes, I mean you)

Notes: Doctor Anderson is the name of an actual doctor I shadowed I couldn’t think of anything else okay, leave me alone.

His knee bounced up and down impatiently. The place was unusually packed today.

Tiger sat in his basket, loafed and with his eyes closed. Quackity’s heart ached for the small cat, the poor animal had stopped his regular eating habits. When he filled his bowl, it was only half finished, which was abnormal, since Tiger was usually finished within 10 minutes, and then meowed for some more.

He glanced at the clock, sighing after calculating that he had been been waiting for almost a whole hour, until a vaguely familiar man walked into the room with a clipboard. He was a middle aged man, grey hair and and stubble. He wore giant glasses with black frames. It was only when Quackity’s eyes landed on the name tag pinned to the pocket of his white lab coat, did he realise this was their regular vet.

“Alex!” He called out, looking up from his clipboard and locking eyes with him

Tiger hadn’t been to vet in ages, and when he did, it was usually his mom who took him, so to see him so enthusiastic, or even remember his name, startled him quite a bit.

He stood up, clutching the handle of the cat basket and lifting it off the floor.

“Doctor Anderson?” He tried to play it off as if he wasn’t reading his badge to remember his name.

“How have you been?” The doctor asked him.

“I’ve been good, busy, but good,��

“How are you? How is your mom?”

Quackity tried to be polite, answering all the questions he had. But in reality, he didn’t care about catching up with his vet, especially after waiting an hour of waiting just to even be spoken to while his cat sat miserably in his basket. It had entirely ruined his mood. He just wanted to know what was wrong with his cat.

He was relieved when Doctor Anderson finally ushered him into the room.

The doctor walked in with another man, he looked young. This man was going to be the final patient you assist before finally finishing the veterinary experience course. You took a deep breath and approached them both.

The other guy looked you, not in a weird way, but just to curious to who you were. You offered him a kind smile, and when you started to think wasnt going to, he returned it. Doctor Anderson watched the interaction from across the room.

“This is [Y/N],” he introduced, putting a gentle hand behind your back. “They’ve been shadowing me for the last 2 months, today is their final day,”

Quackity nodded, glancing towards you again, but less soft. Your smile dropped. You started to assume he wasn’t in a good mood today, especially since he probably had a sick animal with you. So, you resorted to standing in the corner of the room, just to observe.

“So then, how can I help you?” The doctor asked him

“I don’t know,” You watched him as he distressedly pushed his hair away, alongside fiddling and adjusting his beanie anxiously. “Tiger just hasn’t been eating lately and it’s been worrying me,”

Doctor Anderson opened up the basket and took out a small tabby cat who you now knew was named ‘Tiger’. Your heart awed at the cat, you loved cats. I mean, you loved animals in general, which was the reason you wanted to help them.

You watched as he started to check the cat, feeling his fur and his body for any irregularities. His face was fully focused, eyebrows furrowing. You could tell the owner was nervous since he was rubbing the seam of his shirt aggressively between his finger and thumb.

“Has Tiger ever-“

The door suddenly swung open with a loud creak. All your heads snapped towards the entrance, another doctor stood there, her face a little sweaty and she was huffing, completely out of breath

“Doctor- we need you please, it’s urgent,” She stated.

The doctor looked at you, and then looked at the cat, and then looked back at you. You felt yourself freeze in fear. You knew what he was asking, and you frantically shook your head, pleading with your eyes that he didn’t leave you alone.

“You’ll be fine,” he whispered, before taking off and dashing out the room,‘following the tinder woman. He accidentally slammed the door a little hard that the noise startled Tiger. He let out a small and scared meow.

You pursed your lips, looking down sympathetically at the cat. You then looked at his owner, he was giving you a blank, expressionless stare, his brown eyes told you he was a mixture of tired, irritated but concerned. You wondered how long he’d been waiting.

Quackity was nervous around pretty people, he was far from confident. After the way you smiled at him, he felt himself heat up. He’d be lying he if he said he didn’t find you cute.

If you weren’t in such a formal environment, he’d be initiating some sort of casual conversation with you to start things going, if he even knew how to. But now, especially since he had a sick cat with him, wasn’t the ideal situation. Your voice interrupted his train of thoughts.

“So,” you gnawed at your lip nervously. “He’s lost his appetite?

Quackity nodded slowly.

You hummed, observing her on the table. He was a cute little cat, his eyes were glossy and wide. You felt a pain in your chest at the poor thing. You had never been left alone with a patient before, so you were anxious to say the least.

“Has this ever happened before?” You asked

He shook his head. “Uh- no. No it hasn’t.”

You stroked her, he immediately nuzzled into your palm. You and him both locked eyes at the adorable moment.

“He’s cute,” You stated.

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “He is.”

He picked up a mental note of your interaction with him. It was uncommon that Tiger relaxed at someone’s touch so easily, usually he would do that at-least within a week of knowing or playing with them. He was also quite aggressive, living up to his name.

“You don’t need to worry, you know, I’m sure he’s fine, the worst it could be is like- kidney disease or something,”

His eyes widened

“Not that it is!” You took back, wishing you could swallow your words back up again. “I didn’t mean it like that, I was just saying that he could-“

He raised an eyebrow at you, this time out of confusion of your rambling.

“I’ll stop talking now.” You muttered to yourself

You felt ridiculous, being so nervous. You couldn’t tell if it was from the pressure, or the fact he had a strong gaze on you.

“I’m going to check his teeth, if that’s okay?” You asked

Quackity stepped back abit from the table. “Yeah, yeah, of course, do whatever you need,”

You patted her head before positioning her so you could look at her mouth. You gently held her head and used your fingers carefully to pull her jaw open. It all looked pretty normal, until your eye fixated on one of her canines that were looking black at the root.

You sighed, observing it a little longer. You smiled, thankful that you found the problem. It was funny to you how this guy hadn’t even thought to check her mouth before-hand.

“Well, we’ve found the problem,” you said. Quackity stepped closer and watched to where you finger was pointing. “Just a bad tooth, it most likely hurts when he eats,”

You smiled at him reassuringly and he relaxed. His Tiger was going to be just fine

“So now what?” Quackity asked you, petting Tiger. He quietly purred

You ran your tongue at the seam of your lips. “I don’t know, I guess. I don’t think if it’s legally permissible for me to diagnose anything or 8 anything- I think,” you spoke awkwardly. “It’s better to just wait for the doctor to come back,”

He nodded again. The silence in the room was making it a little uncomfortable for the both of you, the only thing making it less... weird, was the cute little cat laying on the table.

“So, how long have you been shadowing him again?”

You bit the inside of your cheek, he was clearly just trying to make conversation with you to diffuse the awkwardness.

“For two months,” you answered. “Today is actually my last day.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, kind of disappointed actually, this experience has been quite nice. Now it’s back to textbooks and PowerPoint presentations, it’s like being stuck back in high school”

“I get that. Law school is just case after case and it can get boring sometimes,”

“Law school? Holy crap,” you said, before throwing a hand over your mouth, remembering he was still just a patient. “Sorry, excuse the language,”

He giggled nervously. “Don’t worry about about it,”

Conversation with him from then on was easy. It flowed quite smoothly, from talking about about school to other general things.

He liked the way you listened, Quackity knew that he waffled on about certain subjects a whole lot. But you seemed to actually be interested, your face lighting up every time. You found it sweet the way he talked so passionately about things, for a stranger, you were pretty intrigued.

You enjoyed his company for the next 30 minutes, still waiting for Doctor Anderson to come back after rushing out of the door. To be fair, It was nice to have conversation during the day that wasn’t with a fifty five year old man for once.

“But we have restaurants here like Chipotle, or Taco bell!” You exclaimed, now sitting beside him on one of the blue chairs.

“They’ve never been as good as the ones I’ve had in Mexico,” he told you.

“Well then I guess-“

Again. The noisy door swung open. Both your heads simultaneously turning towards it. The doctor walked back into the room, his hair was a little ruffled and messy. He came in as if he was looking for a certain something, and then his eyes landed on you.

“[Y/N]? What are you still doing here?” He questioned, looking at his watch. “It’s past four o’clock,”

You took out your phone from your back pocket. Damn, time really flew by and you didn’t even realise.

“We were just talking about Tiger, he’s got a bad tooth,” you said

The doctor smiled at you. “Good work, [Y/N]!” He said, pride overtaking his voice. “But it’s really time for you to go home. You can pack up your things now and relax! You’re finally finished!”

“Oh-,” you said, feeling the slightest bit disappointed as you looked at Quackity. “Thank you,”

You stood up and hesitantly slipped off the spare white lab coat, folding it up and placing it in on a nearby counter.

You looked at Quackity again, his eyes were almost saying ‘sorry’ for you having to leave.

Quackity watched you leave the room. His mood dropping straight away. He knew he wasn’t going to speak to you again after this.

The doctor started talking to him again, giving him advice for Tiger and how they would deal with the problem. However, the unfortunate problem was, his attention was focused on you. You know sometimes you talk to someone once and then for the rest of the year you constantly think about that interaction? Yeah, that’s how he was feeling. He had no idea why you had suddenly invaded all his thoughts.

Too bad you’d left without so much of a goodbye.

If only he built up the courage and asked for your number.

———

Masterlist

Taglist: @inniterhq @basilly @nite-land @bunnyloo @siriushxney @notphilosopherstudentblog @tinyegg @dreamiewrites @kai-was-here @shiyanchan

#mcyt x reader #mcyt imagines #mcyt imagine #quackity x reader #Quackity imagines #quackity imagine #quackity x you #quackity fanfiction #quackityhq x reader #quackityhq imagine #quackityhq imagines #quackityhq FANFICTION

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prurientpuddlejumper · 4 years ago

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A Lipless Face That I Want to Marry, Ch. 8

<- Chapter 7 | Chapter 9 ->

Summary: Frederick alone.

2,163 words

How many days had he been in the hospital? There had been at least one more surgery since you left. More blood transfusions.

It all bled together without you there. There was nothing to distinguish one day from the next except the tedious procedures—a blood test to see how his kidney was holding up, some new skin here, a z-plasty there. He was a little bit glad you were not there when they grafted his penis with a stretchable mesh of skin. God forbid he got aroused while that was healing. He laughed at the thought, as if your absence was just temporary.

The sun outside his window told him whether it was day or night, but the stretches of hours he was knocked out under anesthetic and pain meds made it impossible to know whether it was was from the same day, or if he had slept until the next one. Without your schedule to ground him, it was pointless bothering to find out.

At least you were not always touching him, asking him about his feelings. Staring. He could feel the pressure of your gaze on his face, dancing like jabbing needles across his barely-healed skin. He hated it. He had some peace and quiet now.

It did not feel real yet. It seemed so certain you would be back—you had become such a steadfast presence in his life for the past three years, he never imagined you could leave it. Not forever. It did not seem beyond taking back.

But as much as he was in denial, he knew what he said could not be taken back. One cannot break off an engagement, tell their fiancé to move out, and expect things to ever go back to normal.

He didn’t need you. You always hated his preening, the sophisticated circles he traveled in. You wanted him this way—destroyed and disgusting, unable to pass in decent society. He was not sure if he really believed that, or if he just needed a reason to hate you.

A nurse could bring him the phone. All he had to do was press the nurse call button and Pamela would come running, and he could call you. He could apologize. If he reached you before you got rid of the ring, before you packed your bags, he might be able to convince you to stay.

He did not call.

***

The sun was down, whatever day it was. There was still fluorescent light shining in from the hallway, enough to dimly light the room. Frederick lay awake. Parts of his back ached from lying in the same position too long, and it had been too long since a nurse came and shifted him. He shifted himself, what little he could, and the heart monitor climbed frantically with the feeble effort of a few inches. His tight scar tissue pulled like he was wearing too-tight denim over his whole body, and his more recent stitches stung. He was so weak. So pathetically weak.

The sun was up again, some time later. Frederick eyed the small stack of mail for him at his bedside table. You were always the one who read to him. But he did not need you.

He pressed the nurse call button, which had been rigged with tape and a wooden tongue depressor into a large switch he could push more easily with his limited dexterity. He pushed down on it and it buzzed so loudly he swore, a throb of pain shooting through the back of his skull. Part of the jury-rigged switch caught on the gauze mitten wrapped around his hand and left the switch stuck on in a continual buzz. He swore again, more fiercely, and jerked his hand until the makeshift switch snapped, and the call button fell off the edge of the bed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!”

Where the hell was the nurse? If this had been an emergency he could be dead by now.

In his last physical therapy session, he had been able to reach nearly as far as the bedside table, with assistance. He reached for an envelope, and his mittened hand made it all the way to the edge of the bed before bumping against the metal railing that prevented him from rolling out. That was it. All at once, every latent frustration came out at that goddamned railing in a primal scream. He punched the metal—barely a twitch with his atrophied muscles, but enough to sting his tender fingers and draw another enraged shout. His breathing came in heavy, choked bursts, and he began to sob.

When finally a nurse showed up—his favorite, Pamela—she didn’t make any humiliating sympathetic comments about the tears wetting his face. He asked if you had called or tried to visit.

You had not.

***

The dead at least have the luxury of being done with what they lost.

The sky was dark, nearly black with clouds, though Frederick suspected it was day. Heavy rain pummeled against the window, and it gave the room a cold, dreary cast. He wondered if there was a way he could kill himself. To be done. It would have been easy in a hospital, if he had use of his legs and hands—he could tamper with his morphine drip, or find some anesthetic… the options were limitless to one who knew what he was doing with medical equipment.

The one person who never manipulated him into danger, the one person who stood beside him, the one person who loved him completely for everything he was, he had thrown away. Was it worth it staying alive for revenge alone? He was never going to get better. Not completely. He would be trapped in this scarred, aching body for the rest of his life. If he died, his will left all of his money to you. Then you would be free.

But he was Doctor Frederick Chilton, damn it! He did not give up. He did not give up after Abel Gideon tortured him, or after being framed for murder and shot. Every time he fell, he held his chin up, and rose higher. This whole incident brought him notoriety, a spotlight he would take advantage of to bring him greater fame than even Hannibal Lecter himself. Forget national bestsellers, this time he was thinking movie deal. In a few years, he would be walking again, he would have a new face, lips. He would have everything back.

Except you.

He could never get back the one thing that already felt like a hole in his life, and would feel like a gaping sinkhole when he finally returned home and you were not there. His comfort. If you were coming back, you would have done it by now.

Every time he angrily demanded you leave, you would always slink off with your tail tucked, but crawl back all sweetness and forgiveness the next day. This time was different. He said so many unforgivable things. But he had to go that far, he told himself—he had to break things off.

He was so bitter, and angry. He was never the easiest man to live with, and now all of his compassion had been burned out of him. You didn’t deserve to keep running back to a cruel, bitter man out of loyalty, to be smothered inside a dark hospital when you were meant to be in the sun. He knew exactly what Chiltons could be like, and he never wanted to put you through that. If that was the nightmare he was turning into, then it was better for you to be far away, not married to it.

But, oh, to touch you one last time…

***

Another day. He thought about calling you again, if just to hear the sound of your voice. But what would be the point? You could have called him. Clearly you wanted him out of your life.

A nurse knocked tentatively on the door. Not one of his usual nurses.

“You have a visitor, Mr. Chilton. They said… they’re not sure if you want to see them?”

He perked up immediately, so eager to respond, “Of course I do!” that he didn’t bother to correct the nurse about his title. His face fell when a young black woman walked in, carefully tapping a long white stick across the ground. “Oh. You.”

She stopped in her tracks, a timid expression of guilt written on her face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here...” she stammered, turning around.

“No, no, no. Come in, come in, Reba McClane,” he pronounced her name pointedly. “I wanted to speak to you anyway.”

“You did?” She began searching her way closer to his bed.

“Naturally. For my book. An interview with the Tooth Fairy’s lover.”

Her tentative smile quickly turned into a scowl. “Freddie Lounds already offered to tell my story.”

Frederick scoffed. “Tell me you are not considering that libelous TattleCrime gossip rag. I am a distinguished, respected author—what I could do with your story is far—”

“I told her the same thing I’m telling you: I do not want my name associated with that man. My entire life is already tainted. I won’t talk about him anymore. I only came to apologize… it seemed the least I could do. You’re the only one of victims left alive to apologize to.”

“You forget to count yourself,” Frederick corrected with uncharacteristic empathy. “We are both his survivors.”

Reba’s shoulders relaxed a little at that. “I wasn’t sure you’d see it that way. A lot of people, they think I knew. Or that I must be a monster to have loved a monster like that. I can’t blame them… I don’t know what to think of myself anymore.”

“There is no accounting for taste.”

Reba and Frederick settled into a surprisingly comfortable chat. She unburdened her guilt—she thought she had sensed someone else in the room that night, and knew something was off, but didn’t call the police—and Frederick magnanimously forgave her. Dolarhyde would have killed her and slit Frederick’s throat on the spot if she tried to be a hero. He chose not to call out for help, knowing that. They talked about love, and the deep vein of anger they both shared. Perhaps it set Frederick at ease that she was blind. If she stared, it was not with any regard to his face.

Then she went to the window, to stand in the warm light streaming through the glass, and knocked over a vase of plastic flowers. He snapped at her, his voice raising with violence so out of proportion to the offense, she wasn’t sure whether to apologize or yell back. After scrambling to find to the vase on the floor, she settled on dryly calling him an asshole.

Nobody had called him out so bluntly since before he was hospitalized, and it made him smile, as best as his cheeks could manage. “You remind me of someone,” he said.

Reba pondered why his voice was so fond at the memory of someone who called him an asshole. She wondered what the flowers meant. “Was this the somebody you were hoping it was when I walked in? Who—”

“Nobody important.”

“Really? That’s not what I’m hearing.”

He sighed grumpily. Then just sighed. “You told Dolarhyde you were not so damaged that you were incapable of love. Do you still feel that way?”

“If you’re looking for relationship advice, I do not believe myself qualified to give any,” she said, reading him like braille. “But I’m not going to give up on the goodness in people. Everybody has a darkness deep down, but not everyone’s darkness is murdering families. I survived Dee, and if I can do that… I can find someone whose darkness is a little softer. Soft enough to live with. I have to believe I can still love—that he didn’t break me. I hope he didn’t break you, either.”

***

Another day. He ruined everything with you.

The first question Frederick asked when EMTs found his still-smoldering body—rasping it over and over until someone understood—was if you were safe. Had Dolarhyde gone after his family? But of all the things that the Red Dragon had taken from him, you were the one he had destroyed all on his own.

Finally, after two weeks of resisting, he could not bear it anymore. When his physical therapy session ended, he quietly, firmly, with fragile pride, asked the nurse to help him with the phone. He dialed your number, and she held the receiver to his ear as it rang.

It rang.

It went to voicemail.

Frederick leaned into the receiver as your friendly, guileless voice instructed him to leave a message. It must have been recorded before everything, back when you were so happy all the time. It had been ages since he heard you sound like that. He wondered if you would be happy and carefree again soon, without him.

• ● • ━━━━━─ ••●•• ─━━━━━ • ● •

Tags: @beccabarba @caked-crusader @itsjustmyfantasyroom @thatesqcrush @dianilaws @permanentlydizzy @eclecticreader2020 @mrsrafaelbarba

#did someone ask for angst?? Who do I have down for angst? Come get your order!#frederick chilton #Frederick Chilton x reader #Hannibal #Raúl Esparza #dr. frederick chilton #My writing

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imgoodloveenjoy · 4 years ago

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I HAVE VERY ANGRY FEELINGS SO LET’S GET THE EASY STUFF OUT THE WAY:

ANNA CHARLES:

Mama is in serious trouble and she needs to talk to her parents about it as soon as she can; any decisions she make are time sensitive at this point. I don’t know why hearing that her father was looking for a child custody lawyer would make her not want to talk to her dad, for me it would’ve made me think that my father really wanted me, and it would be easier to sit down with him. I hope she talks to one of her parents soon.

MANCEL:

Sneaking out are we, Nat? This feels very one night stand-like & I didn’t want that for this couple mostly because Natalie called Marcel out over having them often. I kinda get her subtly blowing him off, she didn’t want to be one on his sex-capades but I do think that Marcel really genuinely likes Natalie. I also think that she put it on him hard to have him coming and asking her to come back to his place LOL. They’ll work it out soon. Also, Marcel’s wife, I wonder what kinda mess she’s gonna stir up….

WILL:

I don’t have much to say about Will but I like the interaction he had with April and her bringing up to him the issues with medicine and race bias. Approaching medicine without considering how things would appear on/in a non-white person is a huge disservice to POC seeing medical help. For example, the main reason why Black women die during childbirth is that there is some belief that Black people tolerate more pain that white people – totally untrue – so doctors and nurses ignore when Black women are in pain and telling them so, thinking we’re exaggerating. It’s a huge, global issue and I’m glad it’s being talked about on the show.

MAGGIE:

I actually didn’t expect for Maggie to find no one related to Auggie using those DNA ancestry sites, I halfway thought she would find someone and have to convince them to come and donate their kidney. If they don’t get a kidney for Auggie, I would like for Maggie and Ben to adopt more children who may have medical issues. They need someone to advocate for them and both Maggie and Ben can give them that because they understand. I also like that Maggie told them to stop with the “strong Black woman” trope, it ignores what heartbreaking, emotional b.s. we go through & frames it as “you’re strong, you’ll get over it”. I know Doris meant well but that trope needs to DIE!

ETHAN, APRIL, NOAH:

THEE EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL!!!!!

April baby’s Noah sooo much, she needs to realize that she cannot shield him from everything and all of his bad decisions. I understand him being compassionate and wanted to help his patient, especially since it’s a man whom he looks up to, but he put everyone in an impossible situation and took a moral-ethical decision into a moral-ethical-legal decision. And to do it all so sloppily! His immediate shift from being a passionate advocate to emotionally numb at Dr. Coleman’s suicide? Dead giveaway!

Both Noah and April emotionally manipulated Ethan; Noah by going to April and April for directly pleading for Ethan to do nothing ‘for her’ – they both know that Ethan loves April and would do anything for her and that would extend to protecting her brother. For April to ask that of Ethan makes me question if she ever loved him at all; she knows his moral character and the position he’s in as Chief of ED and twisted that to meet her goals when she should’ve respected that and let Noah fail. I mean the look on Ethan’s face when she asked him to look the other way ‘for her’, he looked crushed like he knows she’s using him through his feelings for her and I think that’s why he was so angry when he fired Noah.

I don’t think that Ethan would’ve turned Noah into the police, I think he wanted to put that fear in him; when April confronted him, he was standing outside probably thinking of the two avenues he had in front of him and knowing that turning Noah in would’ve ended it permanently with April and he doesn’t want that. Ethan firing Noah was the best outcome – Noah gets to keep his medical license & him moving to practice in ATL would cut the umbilical cord to April and give him some autonomy to make decisions knowing that she’s not there & cannot save him.

Do I think Noah was wrong when advocating for Dr. Coleman? – no, absolutely not. Do I think he was wrong for how he handled the situation? – Yes. Assisted suicide is not legal in Illinois, Noah should know that being a medical resident in Chicago, what he could’ve done was testified on Coleman’s behalf if it went to trail, help get him a payable bond so he can rest at home and whatever he would’ve done at home would’ve been it. Noah didn’t play the situation smart. What I do hope is that his character comes back to Med in the future when he is a more well-rounded doctor. Meanwhile everyone’s mad at Ethan for even calling the police when Dr. Coleman even understood that it’s what’s had to be done. Medical professionals are bound by law to report things like that to police & Dr. Coleman knew and accepted that reality.

I think I’m more upset with April than Noah; Noah ran to his big sister for help but it was her who manipulated Ethan’s love for her as a means to an end. You don’t do that to someone you love (or loved); you at least have that respect for them to not blackmail them like that. Then her asking him to not ruin everything Noah has worked for, Noah ruined it himself! That really puts all accountability on Ethan when the onus isn’t on him! Noah’s actions, Noah’s responsibility. I really question her love for him and I hate that because I have such a slow burn for Chexton – it’s very unfortunate. Looking back on their relationship, it’s full of April passing judgment on Ethan and wanting him to do things the way she wants them done – like his relationship with his sister & the way he chose to protect her with her sleazy baby daddy – and the way Ethan does exactly what she wants him to do, even taking her brother under his wing and mentoring him. Like Ethan is someone she considered marriage and children with AND she acknowledged that Noah asking Ethan to look the other way on a legal matter was a “big ask” only for her to turn around and do the same thing; she’s totally blind when it comes to her and Noah’s shortcomings.

I’m really tired of the writers framing Ethan as this unwavering bad guy & it’s all because the writers don’t know what to do with his character or his relationship with April other than have them but heads. They’ve been butting heads for the past 3 seasons, it’s ridiculous and redundant at this point. There’s so many ways they could’ve taken their relationship and expanded upon the character growth they’ve had for both parties but no, they had to regress and start at square one.

At this point, shelve Chexton and free Ethan.

Idk where this episode will lead Chexton or Mancel but here’s to hoping it doesn't go right to hell.

#chicago med #chicagomed #chexton #ethan choi #april sexton #crockett marcel #one chicago #natalie manning #daniel charles #sharon goodwin #mancel #will halstead #onechicago

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recurring-polynya · 4 years ago

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hello ms. polynya! if you are still taking drabble requests and are in the mood for it, I would love to see more of the mall AU (yes, THAT mall AU lmao). bonus points for more omnidirectional horny teenage pining, because that first mall AU drabble nearly made me cry laughing and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. p.s. re: that fanfic author meme—my favorite story of yours is hold on, hold on! closely followed by call me back when the war is over :)

(cont’d)

mall au anon again, realizing I forgot to send like half of what I wanted to request because I got too excited (durr hurr): would love the ensemble cast/lieutenant goon squad because I really enjoy how you riff off of these characters, and/or renji and izuru being dumb friends and also wrangling their Big Crushes. no pressure to fill this though, thanks for being wonderful and generous 💖

I saved this one ‘til last so I would have something to look forward to. I love the Mall Goths AU, it is my greatest pleasure in life to write a bunch of undead shonen badasses as dorky teens trying to ask their crushes to prom.

Thank you to @alopexplasma, who came up with the name of Renji's car. I compulsively write Renji driving a Camaro in every AU I can conceivably shoehorn it into, and somehow, the incredibly obvious name never occurred to me. I am a moron.

Read on ao3 or ff.net

(if you haven’t read the original, read Ch 7 first, either site will do)

💘 💌 💘

Renji folded his hands on his knees and leaned forward, regarding Izuru very, very seriously. “Look, as you know, I don’t have any money, or... connections, or… well, anything, really, but you know that if you got cancer or were in a car wreck or something, any organs that I have two of, like kidneys or lungs? One of them would be yours, man. Bone marrow? I have so much bone marrow, and you can have as much of it as you want.”

“You know,” Momo pointed out, setting two paper cups down on the table, “if you marry Rukia someday, you will be absolutely rolling in it. I brought you coffee.”

“I assume she would want a pre-nup,” Renji replied very philosophically. “Which I respect.”

Izuru rolled his eyes and picked up his coffee. Just before taking a sip, he remembered. “Is this just the sludge that collects at the bottom of the airpot again?”

“Could be,” Momo tried to sound innocent.

“Oh, boy, my favorite!” Renji announced. “It’s so good, you just have to put, like, six creamers in. You want some creamers, Izuru?”

“I’ll pass,” Izuru said, pushing the coffee away. “Why can’t we do this in the game store, again?”

“Because Rukia hangs out at the game store!”

Instead, they were in the Barnes and Noble, where Momo worked in the cafe. Nothing personal to Momo, but Izuru hated the Barnes and Noble. It felt so bland and corporate, and smelled like new carpet, and he always felt like he should buy something if he was going to hang out there (not that he ever did). Besides, the couch was comfier at the game store.

“Just do this for him,” Momo implored, while Renji dug through the creamers, trying to find six that matched.

“It’s not that I don’t want to do it,” Izuru explained. “It’s that I think it’s a bad idea. You have been friends with Rukia since, what, fifth grade?”

“Third grade.”

“Third grade. Right. You sit next to her in class. You eat lunch with her. You talk to her all the time. Just say, ‘hey, Rukia, I really like you, will you go to prom with me?’ There’s no way she can look into your dumb puppy eyes and say no. Tell him, Momo.”

“Izuru’s certainly right about the puppy eyes.”

Renji sighed. “You don’t know Rukia like I do. Her family doesn’t do affection at all, and talking about feelings really scares her. If I ask her point blank like that, she’ll get defensive, and she won’t speak to me for a month, and she won’t go to prom at all, and then I’ll have to third-wheel Ikkaku and Yumichika.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Izuru pointed out. “You could…” he waved a hand vaguely. “You could take Momo.”

Momo shook her head. “Nanao and the Kotetsu sisters and I agreed to go together as gal pals,” she explained. “You could be a gal pal with us, I suppose, but only if you’re willing to coordinate outfits. You do look good in aqua.”

“Thanks,” Renji replied glumly. “Hey, I thought Rangiku was in your group, too?”

“Oh, she got a date.”

Izuru sniffed, pretending to be disinterested. If Shuuhei had finally gotten up the courage to ask Rangiku, then good for him.

“That upperclassman with the silver hair, Gin, asked her. He seems a little creepy to me, but she really likes him, and he’s friends with Aizen-sempai, so he must be a decent guy.”

Kira’s hands tightened on his knees. “She’s not going with Shuuhei?”

Renji gave him a look.

“Shuuhei says prom is lame and he’s not going,” Momo shrugged.

“I see,” Izuru frowned. “I mean, he’s not wrong.”

“He is wrong!” Renji protested. “Prom rocks. You wear fancy outfits and buy flowers for the person you like and there’s some insane theme, like Arabian Nights or Haunted Halloween Castle. You slow dance to ‘Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing’ by Aerosmith, and when it’s over you go get pancakes. What part of that isn’t awesome?”

“This year’s theme is ‘Lifetimes Past,’” Momo dryly informed him.

“Exactly. In any case, I have dreamed of taking Rukia to prom for years, are you going to help me write her a love letter or not?”

Izuru groaned. “I don’t know why Rukia gets such crummy grades, because she’s actually very smart. She is definitely going to be able to tell that you didn’t write this.”

“I know that! You think I don’t know how smart she is? Look, I just want you to write it all nice in Kira-speak, and then I’ll translate it into dumbass. Just help me get my thoughts together. You know I don’t word good, but I really think that writing it out and giving her a chance to process it on her own is the best way to go about this.”

Momo turned sad eyes on Izuru, not that his resolve wasn’t already crumbling. Abarai was a goon and a bonehead, but his devotion to his long-time best friend was tooth-rottingly sweet. Izuru would feel like a villain in a Christmas special if he said no.

“Fine. Fine. But I want you to help me get the Festiva running again and I get to approve whatever it is you’re planning on wearing to prom. It better have sleeves, for one thing.”

“Deal!” Renji replied, his face splitting into a huge grin.

Izuru turned to a clean page in his writing notebook and licked the tip of his pen. “Dear Rukia,” he narrated.

“No! Don’t put her name!”

“Don’t put her name?”

“No names. I have seen a lot of teen movies, and notes like these always end up in the wrong hands. Rukia would die if something like that happened. Or if her brother found it, he would straight up murder me and then I wouldn’t get to go to prom.”

Izuru blinked at him. “Fine. No names.” He tapped his pen against the page. “ ‘We have been friends for a long time, and I feel that the time has come for me to make a clean breast of it. You are the most important person in my life. I am utterly besotten--”

“Er, hey, um, Izuru.” The tips of Renji’s ears were very pink. “Not to say that this isn’t, um, true, but I was thinking more along the lines of ‘Do you want to go to prom? JUST AS FRIENDS’ Maybe that part could be all in caps? or underlined? We could put in some little boxes that she could just check off ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and hand it back to me?”

Izuru raised one eyebrow. “But you don’t want to go ‘just as friends.’”

“Well, that’s true, yes, but this is Rukia we’re talking about, so you kinda have to ease her into things.”

Izuru regarded Renji with lidded eyes. “You can’t even ask her to prom as friends? You’re such a coward.”

“I’m not a coward,” Renji returned, but his voice was very small.

“You’re sixteen and I do not like to throw the word ��love’ around, but it’s very obvious that you love Rukia, and I refuse to help you ask her to the prom as friends. You don’t have to admit everything, but you have to admit something. It’s go big or go home.”

“Okay,” Renji grumbled.

“I think he’s right,” Momo said, patting Renji’s hand. “She must wonder how you feel about her from time to time. If you insist on framing it ‘as friends’, she may actually view that as a rejection of the possibility of anything romantic ever happening between the two of you.”

Renji wrinkled his nose, but didn’t say anything.

“Ahem,” Izuru cleared his throat. “Let’s put in some compliments. What are some things you like about Rukia?”

“Things he liked about Rukia” was one of Renji’s very favorite subjects, and he perked up right away. “She’s cool,” he announced. “She’s cool as hell. Write that down.”

“I think you’re cool as hell,” Izuru wrote down reluctantly. This is not your love letter, he reminded himself. No one is even going to know you had anything to do with this.

“Your hair smells really good and you’re the most creative person I know,” Renji dictated. “You have incredibly sexy biceps.”

“Renji.”

“What? She does!”

“Fine, fine. That’s probably enough compliments, we need to keep this to one page. Um, what do you regard as your primary ‘ship symbolism?”

“My what now?”

“You know. When you think about Rukia and yourself, what metaphor springs to mind? Sun and moon? Sea and sky? King and lionheart?”

Renji looked utterly perplexed.

“Momo, help me out. How do you see you and Aizen-sempai?” “Doctor and Companion,” Momo answered immediately.

Izuru made a face. “Right.”

Renji’s face was screwed up in hard thought. Izuru could practically smell circuitry frying. “Rukia is like… a star?” he finally hazarded.

“A star is good!” Momo encouraged.

“And you are…?” Izuru prompted. “The moon? The sky? A different star?”

“A Camaro?” Renji guessed. “I’m loud and I have a powerful engine.”

“How are you even in AP Literature?” Izuru groaned.

“Well, what’s your dominant simile or whatever with Shuuhei?” Renji demanded.

“Poet and warrior,” Izuru snapped back testily.

“Which one of you is the warrior?” Momo asked, wrinkling her nose. “I mean, you both work on the school newspaper.”

“Shuuhei takes tae kwon do!” Izuru insisted.

“Well, why don’t you just write in whatever you’re gonna say for the poet-warrior thing, since you’ve obviously already put a lotta thought into it,” Renji suggested. “I’ll polish up my star/sportscar metaphor and drop it in when I copy it over.”

Izuru did not like leaving the keystone of a love confession in the hands of a man who thought manual transmissions were romantic, but he had to go on shift down at the food court in half an hour. He had to keep this moving. “Fine,” he bit off. “‘You are my muse. Your strength of body and spirit inspire poetry in me. My soul sings when I am with you. If only I had your bravery, this admission would be much easier. Instead, I am sending you this shy missive to ask, from the depths of my tender heart: Will you go to the prom with me?’ Done.”

“Oh, that was so romantic,” Momo sighed. “Izuru, you should write a romance novel.”

“Never,” Izuru replied.

Renji was making a Renji face.

“You hate it.”

“It was just… pretty flowery.”

“Rewrite it however you want. ‘My soul revs at 5000 rpm for you, right before I drop my rusty bumper in your brother’s driveway again.’”

“Don’t trash talk Zabimaro!”

“I would never trash talk Zabimaro, I was trash talking the metaphorical Camaro that is your love for Rukia.” Izuru ripped the page out of his notebook and handed it over. “Here you go. I gotta go to work. Beef n’ Cheddars don’t assemble themselves.”

Renji studied the page for a moment. “Thanks, Izuru. You won’t regret this.”

“I already regret it. Good luck. I still think you should just talk to her.”

“Well, I think you should ask Shuuhei!” Renji barked out suddenly. “I know you want to! You can go to Denny’s with us afterward!”

Izuru flashed him a pitying look. “Thank you for your concern, but I happen to share the opinion that prom is lame and I have no plans to attend.”

💘 💌 💘

When Izuru walked into the gaming store the next day, Ikkaku and Iba were sitting at the front table, assembling decks of Magic cards.

“The girls took over the back,” Ikkaku grumbled bitterly as he contemplated a Thicket Basilisk.

“Is Renji here?” Izuru asked. “He said he was coming today.”

“Haven’t seen him,” Iba grunted. “Your friend Hinamori is, though.”

Izuru had been trying to maintain his usual heavy veneer of Not Caring About Abarai’s Wretched Love Life, but secretly, he was dying to know how the note had gone over. Renji had said he was going to give it to Rukia after school, and then ghost off to soccer practice so she had time to think it over. Izuru thought this was the dumbest idea he had ever heard, apart from every other plan Renji had ever had.

There certainly was a lot of giggling coming from the back of the store. Rangiku was holding court on the couch, Momo and Rukia on either side of her. On the coffee table, half a dozen magazines featuring girls in sparkly dresses were scattered among the usual copies of Dragon and Wizard.

“I can’t decide if I want to go for a one-shoulder gown, or something completely strapless,” Rangiku was sighing. “Rukia, you have good shoulders, what are you thinking?”

Rukia mumbled something about lacking the necessary structural support for a sleeveless gown.

“You’d be surprised! It just needs to fit tightly enough!”

“You should come shopping with us on Saturday, Rukia!” Momo offered brightly. “You really don’t know what’s going to look good until you try it on.”

“Oh…” Rukia stammered. “My brother said he would buy me a dress. He said it’s important that I reflect well on the family.”

“Fortunately, your brother has killer taste,” Rangiku shrugged. “I would let him buy me all the dresses he wanted to.” She smiled her bright, friendly smile. “You could still come shopping, though, get some ideas of what you like! We could take some pictures to show him. I’m sure he takes input.”

Izuru had met Rukia’s brother. The man most certainly did not take input.

“Plus, it’ll just be fun to have you along!” Momo encouraged. “You have a great sense of style, I’d love to have your opinions!”

The portents looked auspicious, but Izuru needed positive confirmation. “Are you planning to go to the prom, Rukia?” he asked, flinging himself down in the ancient, creaky recliner. “I would have thought you were too cool for that.”

Two pink spots appeared on Rukia’s cheeks. “Yeah, I’m going, I guess.”

“You are not going to believe this, Izuru!” Rangiku gasped breathlessly. “But our Renji asked her to go with him!”

“Surely not!” Izuru scoffed, a pleasant feeling of satisfaction filling his chest.

“It’s just as friends!” Rukia protested. “And of course I don’t care about prom, but it means a lot to him, so…” she made a frustrated shrug.

Just.

As.

Friends.

Izuru shot a glare of horrified disbelief at Momo, who shrugged helplessly.

As if on cue, Renji’s mop of bright red hair poked around the edge of the Warhammer display. The couch backed to the front of the store, so Izuru could see him, but the girls couldn’t. Renji pointed emphatically at Rukia, and then stuck out his tongue victoriously, making a “hang loose” sign with his hand.

“I need to talk to you!” Izuru announced loudly, jumping up, grabbing Renji by front of his shirt, and hauling him into the aisle with all the ceramic dragon figurines. “You moron!” he hissed.

“I just did what you said!” Renji defended, holding up his hands.

“No, you didn’t! Did you even give her the note?”

“I did not. I thought about it, and I decided you were right. I talked to her with my actual voice. I told her I really wanted to go to prom with her, and she made a real cute face and then she said yes. Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without your help.”

Izuru squeezed his eyes shut. “But you’re going as friends.”

“Yeah, well, we are friends, and I’m okay with that. You know, it was the right move, anyway. The reason I was late is because her brother cornered me after work and lectured me for half an hour.”

“Byakuya went into the Foot Locker?” Izuru frowned, trying to picture it.

“Of course not. He would never go into a Foot Locker. He waited outside.”

Izuru admittedly hadn’t taken Rukia’s intense, overprotective brother into account, back when they were writing the note, even though he remembered Renji bringing it up. “Well, I’m glad you’re still alive.”

“Yeah, me too. I offered to wax his car, just immediately. That knocked him off his game a little.” Renji made a thoughtful face. “He, uh… was appreciative, actually. I guess Rukia’s been wanting to go to prom and pretending she doesn’t, and he thought I picked up on it and asked her because I’m a good friend.”

Izuru stared at Renji blankly. “What?”

Renji shook his head. “I can’t explain it. Kuchiki brains are weird. Anyway, he said I don’t have to wax his car, but he wants me to come over to dinner so he can pre-screen my table manners and I have to meet their scary grandfather.” Renji scratched his head. “I wonder if the old man has a car I could wax.”

Izuru let out a big sigh. “Well, I’m glad it worked out. Sort of. Even if you wasted a very good love letter that I worked very hard on.”

“You spent ten minutes on it, tops, and it did not go to waste.”

Izuru frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“Don’t you feel like… like it helps to talk that stuff out? To put your feelings into words and write them down and look at them? I mean, I know it helped me, I was just thinking that maybe…”

“Give it up, Abarai,” Izuru mumbled. Whenever anything remotely good happened to Renji, he got really optimistic that all his friends could repeat his successes. When Izuru was in the right mood, it struck him as sort of sweet, but right now, it was just irritating.

Renji stuffed his hands in his pockets and huffed. “Look. Talking to Rukia was… it was easier than I thought. T’be honest, I pretty much expected her to turn me down cold.” He gave a wistful little smile. “We’ll just see how it goes, y’know? Might even be able to work up the nerve to ask her for a slow dance.”

Izuru shook his head. “You’re hopeless, Abarai.”

“Yeah, well, takes one to know one.”

“We are not the same,” Izuru informed him pointedly. “I am a dreamer who pines for that which is out of his reach. You’re just a dumbass who can’t grab at the thing an inch in front of him.”

Renji gave one of his big, open shrugs. “Say what you want about me, but I have grabbed. It’s hard to judge distance when you’re too close to it. I’m just saying that I don’t think your dreamy moon poet is as far off as you think.”

“Why do you always listen to me exactly enough to misunderstand everything I say?” Izuru griped.

“I am a dumbass, you had me there.” He stood up straighter. “But Rukia is not a dumbass and I would like to go say hello to her before she thinks we’re making out back here in the sparkly dragon grotto like Ikkaku and Yumichika.”

“I heard that!” Ikkaku’s voice echoed through the store.

“Matsumoto is trying to convince her to get a strapless dress,” Izuru explained.

“Really? I’m in favor of that,” Renji grinned, his eyebrows raising. “She’s got the shoulders for it.”

“Go,” Izuru sighed, slapping his friend on the back.

As Izuru turned to follow Renji to the back sitting area, he saw Shuuhei hovering in the store’s main aisle. He was wearing a Tool t-shirt over a ratty grey henley with the elbows blown out. His hair looked like he put a bunch of gel in it and then immediately gone to a gymnastics class. There was a ‘69’ sharpied on his cheek. As usually, Izuru couldn’t believe how cool the guy was.

“Uh, hey, Izuru,” Shuuhei said, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

“Hey,” Izuru replied, trying to sound nonchalant. “Wondered if you were in today.”

Usually, Shuuhei would reply with some joke about his loud co-worker, Mashiro, but instead, his fingers curled and uncurled around a piece of paper he was holding.

Hmm, Izuru thought absently. Shuuhei must use the same kind of notebook that I do.

Shuuhei’s eyes darted to the side, and then back to Izuru. “Hey, um, someone slipped a note in my locker today, but they didn’t sign it. I don’t, uh, want to be forward or anything, but I think… this might be your handwriting?”

The floor dropped away from Izuru’s feet. He was had been transported to the Elemental Plane of Mortification. His corporeal body had ceased to exist.

Suddenly, behind Shuuhei’s back, Renji and Momo appeared in the doorway to the back room, flashing huge grins and four enthusiastic thumbs up.

Izuru was going to kill them.

#wacky au requests #my writing #i loved this one??#a 90's high school au is a thing that can be so personal #i never went to prom and it has ruined my brain by making me obsessed with prom stories #mr p never went to prom either and he has not spent a single second thinking about it since #i said this was the last one but there might be one more

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peachfluffsoftstuff · 5 years ago

Text

Heart Of Gold [1]

Content: Soft Vore, G/T Vore, Unwilling Prey, Demon Pred, Fearplay, Teasing, Eventual Safe Vore Reveal

Word Count: 1855

Fandom: N/A; Original Content

A/N: Sivum is one of my favorite preds that I’ve created, I’m glad to finally have a story for him and his world!!!

The stranger pushes past him harshly as he tries to enter the bar, ignoring the loud shout of protest from inside. Sivum raises an eyebrow and dusts himself off lightly before proceeding into the bar properly. Tirk, the bartender, looks pissed.

“What’s all the ruckus? You scare off another customer, Tirk?”

The low rank demon grimaces for a moment, and then waves a hand in dismissal. “Bastard ‘tried out’ our new experimental stock and ditched without paying. Whatever, the MP will catch him.”

“Not even gonna put it on his tab?” Sivum teases, stepping forwards.

“Hah,” Tirk barked out a laugh, reaching for a dish towel. “No respectable establishment is gonna put a delicacy like a human on someone’s tab.”

Sivum’s steps stutter for the slightest moment.

“Oh. Well, I’ve got it,” he says, and then turns and strides right back out the door. He inhales deeply and finds he can still smell the thief, thankfully. Not far away.

He stalks through the complicated system of alleys until he finds the man in question. He’s a Wrath form, with ridged horns and sharp red eyes, leaning against a cobblestone wall and panting from exertion. Sivum approaches silently and then snags the man’s shirt in his hand, lifting him up a few inches to bring him face to face.

“Spit the human up,” he says, low and dangerous. The man hisses, struggles, tries to protest, but Sivum doesn’t have time for that. The human doesn’t have time for that. Sivum shoves him against the wall and punches him squarely in the kidney, driving all the air from his lungs. “Now.”

“Okay, okay!” the stranger wheezes, eyes white around the edges. He begins to hack, shuddering and gagging until a small lump is forced up and out of his throat. Sivum softens slightly in relief, and then glances up, just barely catching the malignant glint in the thief's eye in time to shove his hand forwards into the other demon’s mouth.

The wrath demon bites down hard simultaneously, and Sivum’s hand cracks under the force, sharp teeth piercing skin. He grits his own teeth, but it’s better than the human being snapped in half the way the man intended. He slides the human safely out of the man’s mouth, and then slams the demon’s head into the brick alley wall, knocking him out with a crunch. He’ll be fine, apart from maybe an extra chip in his horns.

The human is soaked in spit, about the length of his hand. They’re curled weakly into a ball, trembling, and Sivum can see the imprint of teeth marks along their skin, shallow cuts leaking sluggishly. He hesitates, fingers curling up, and wonders if he can get away with just going home, reputation be damned.

Of course, this is when another regular spots him and drags him back to the bar. He slips back into his normal persona, listening to the regular chatter on as they re-enter.

Tirk turns at the swing of the door, and raises an eyebrow in anticipation from behind the bar. With a sharp smile, Sivum opens his hand to reveal the barely-conscious human. There’s a cheer for his ‘unnecessary heroics’ from others who recognize him. In his palm, the human tries to curl in on themself further. Sivum pushes down the sickened feeling; he can’t let the masquerade slip.

“Awful lot of trouble to go to, ain’t it?” Tirk asks, eyes sharp. Sivum is careful to keep his posture relaxed, nonchalant.

“Nonsense. Catching a petty thief could never be too much trouble for my favorite establishment. This place is mine, after all.”

It’s a meaningful claim for a Greed form, one that isn’t taken lightly. The bartender throws his head back and laughs, and the tension between them winds down slightly. “You’ve got a sly tongue, you Greed bastard, but I like it. Still, damaged goods don’t sell. I’ll have to get rid of it.”

Sivum widens his eyes a bit, darts his gaze to the side as though trying not to give too much away. “Well, if you don’t mind… I’ll take the human off your hands.”

Someone whistles, and he lets some of the flush of anger shine through, making him appear embarrassed. Tirk laughs again.

“Got expensive taste, do you? It’s no skin off my back. Go ahead, indulge yourself.”

He gestures to the human, and Sivum inwardly curses. The barkeep had directed all the attention to him, expectant eyes waiting for a show. There was no way to leave with the human without arousing suspicion, unless…

He grins, faux sheepish as he seats himself at the bar. “Well, I can’t stay long, but…”

He wraps his fingers tighter around the tiny form, and lifts them to be eye level. He makes the mistake of meeting the human’s gaze, which is more alert than he’d expected. The human raises their hand to cling to him in a tiny motion, weakly digging their fingers into Sivum’s thumb.

“Please,” they say distinctly, voice small and shaky, and Sivum reminds himself to stay in character. He raises an eyebrow sharply.

“Sorry,” he says, with a teasing grin and remorseless tone, “but I don’t negotiate with food.”

There’s laughter around him, and he runs his tongue over his fangs in a display of anticipation. The human locks onto the motion with terrified eyes, visibly shaking with fear.

He pinches the tiny creature’s shirt between his fingertips, and lifts them up, tilting his head back and opening his mouth wide. The human kicks a bit, aimlessly, but in their injured state they can’t do much to try and prevent Sivum from slowly dipping their legs past his lips.

He carefully winds his prehensile tongue around their spindly chest and shoulders, pulling all of them into his mouth before closing it. He can feel the human’s chest rising and falling rapidly, and forces himself to make a performance of rolling them up against his palette like a hard candy. He hums in approval, saliva pooling in response to the human’s sweet taste blooming on his tongue, and begins to tilt his head slowly back.

“What, no blood?” A nearby patron says, disappointed. “Innards are the best part of a human.”

Sivum pauses, shifting the human’s wriggling form to the pocket of his cheek so he can speak carefully around them. “We all have different tastes,” he tells him, voice light, and laps at the human in example. “But if you want a show…”

He nudges the human into position at the back of his mouth, forcing himself to ignore the increase in thrashing as the human begins to slip into his gullet, and opens his mouth.

When he swallows, his jaws stay wide open, and there are a few astonished murmurs around him as other bar goers lean in to watch his esophagus tug the human down in two simple gulps. Their tiny hands go last, still grasping hopelessly before vanishing into the throat as well.

There’s a scattered drunken cheer, but he only has attention for the small form he can feel sliding down his throat, twitching but mostly limp. The poor thing has all but given up, assuming that their last sight would be jeering demons framed by Sivum’s own sharp teeth.

He trails the human’s descent past his collarbone with a finger and swallows again, letting out a sigh as his throat finally finishes pushing the human down and he can breathe again. When he swipes a hand over his mouth, he finds drool has accumulated in the corner of his lips.

He forces out a light chuckle as some clink glasses together, and then checks the time, faking wide eyes.

“Shit! I’ve gotta go, but thanks everyone for the receptive audience,” he says, tipping his head to the bartender before hurrying out the door.

He walks in circles for a bit to shake any tails, and then finally heads home, hand pressed against his stomach the entire way. He can feel the human inside, feebly shoving against the kneading walls, every touch making Sivum shiver.

He’s nauseous with the knowledge of what he’s done, how terrified and desolate the human must be, but at the same time, he’s never felt more… satisfied. The human tasted delicious, and something about how the tiny form had slipped down his throat and into his stomach, now just a soothing weight in his center, felt so natural.

He stomps that line of thought down instantly, berating himself, and then winces when his abdomen tensing prompts a new flurry of satisfying movements from the human. He can’t even imagine what it might be like in there, everything cramped and shifting and alive around the tiny being.

Soon enough, he arrives home, and brushes past Lyrai with a cursory greeting. The other tenant of his apartment doesn’t pay him much attention, which suits him just fine. He locks his bedroom door behind him, and settles carefully on his bed. He directs his attention to his stomach, where he can feel the solid weight of the human.

The tiny being has stopped struggling, but it doesn't last long. As soon as Sivum tenses his stomach and begins to shove the human back up his esophagus, the panic and thrashing starts anew, making it difficult to not instinctually swallow the wriggly mass back down. He’s not in the habit of letting his body control him, though, and he’s not going to start now.

He hunches over his hands and lets the flailing human drop out of his mouth, careful to keep them from landing wrong. The moment they make contact with his palms, they curl up like a pillbug, arms sheltering their head as though that would help any against a demon. He can feel them shaking.

Now comes the difficult part. What the hell is he supposed to do with a human?

After a moment of hesitation, he settles for letting them slide off his hand and onto the bed. This finally prompts them to unfurl, scrambling for purchase on his hand as though they think he’s about to drop them into a vat of acid… or another demon’s mouth. Sivum winced.

Despite their best efforts, the thick coating of spit and slime on them leaves them unable to grip much of anything, and they plop onto the bedspread wetly. He quickly stands and retrieves some wet wipes from his desk, embarrassed he hadn’t thought of it before.

The human is still sitting on the bed when he walks back, tiny and shivering and in shock. They go statue-still as he gets closer, like a rabbit before a wolf, and he pulls a wipe free and sets it in front of them, awkwardly ignoring their flinch. His memories of human life seem so far away now. He has no idea how to put them at ease. With the way they keep staring at his mouth, talking would only scare them.

… Food. It might be a Gluttony way to think, but everyone felt a little better after getting some food in them, right? Hopefully even when they’d very recently been the food.

Rising back to his feet, Sivum glanced back at the human once, before closing his bedroom door behind him and heading to the kitchen.

#Soft Vore #Safe Vore #Fearplay #Extreme Cuddling #G/T Vore #Demon #Vore Story #Vore Writing #OC: Sivum #OC: Lux #Original Characters #Heart Of Gold #Unwilling

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stonecoldjerseyfox · 4 years ago

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Jersey on my mind (part 20)

The sun rises and slowly transforms the pitch black night into early morning, then into forenoon. Daryl observes how the quiet community, as if it had been in a coma overnight, slowly wakes up. He sees people come out of the houses, hears Carol calling out ‘breakfast’s ready’ inside the house and the clinking of forks, spoons and knives against plates. But he doesn’t move from his spot at the porch stair.

Ever since he and Jersey handed over the watchtower to Eric and another Alexandrian that he haven’t bothered to put a name on and Mila went to sleep for a few hours, he’s been sitting here, sunken in thoughts.

It’s too much to process somehow. Everything he feels, everything he found out about her; it’s overwhelming not knowing what to do with all of these swirling… whatever it is. She’s like a goddamn hurricane. All hair and hell. Damn, she’s pretty, beautiful even. And that accent. She talks a lot. She’s pragmatic to the point of being indifferent. Maybe because she was raised like a goddamn robot by a psychopath. She’s hot tempered, impatient, stubborn... and holy fuck, Daryl digs it. All of her; the big heart, the kindness, the humor and the sarcasm. It’s like booze mixed with cherry coke. The way she looks at him… or is it just a creation of his own imagination? Is he a complete idiot for thinking that she looked at him in a special way when they sat there together, in the dark, sharing that bottle of vodka? Could it be- no! Obviously she doesn’t- he’s a fool. But the way he felt, throughout his entire body and soul, when their hands touched, he definitely felt something. But that might just be it, his own stupid delusion. When she told him she’d been engaged, and declared that whoever gave her the ring was dead, Daryl felt like the devil himself for feeling relieved, but also bad for feeling like that.

The night has truly been peculiar, he thinks, while resting his gaze on a bird in a tree, trying to feed its squeaking nestlings. Parts of what Mila told him Daryl had recognized from his own childhood. He’d been beaten up many times by his old man, leaving deep scars that never faded. He’d been neglected and abused for most of his childhood, by everyone when it came down to it. But he was a boy. Not that it justified his father's actions towards him, but Daryl could at least, and used to, fight back. He was a pretty good fighter at an early age and knew he had to aim for the kidneys. But Mila was a girl, an unwanted girl who had to face the shame and blame for not being born as the son her old man so badly wanted. He’d reminded her every single day of her shortcoming, and she had apologized, and that (and when she told about the physical abuse, because that’s what it was, even though she didn’t refer to it that way) had hit him hard. How she somehow, even though she clearly despised and distanced herself from his actions, could talk about him with something that sounded like affection, Daryl found astonishing. Like she desperately cling on to the good memories, the few she might have. Was it a perfect example of Stockholm Syndrome, or just pure madness? She’d lived in a lie for almost her entire life, he’d murdered people; how was it possible that she was so indifferent after what she’d been through? Or maybe she just managed to conceal it behind a thick wall of oppressed feelings. He could understand that more than well in a way. But on the other hand it seemed like she’d turned her life around; she had a kid who she’d managed to keep alive. Her story had made him feel secure, less odd about his own history that he’d tried so hard to oppress, to push back into the deepest darkest corner of his soul, never to reveal to any living soul.

Daryl had never talked to anyone about his upbringing, in fact he’d never talked to anyone as he talked to Mila. Somehow she managed to get these things out of him, that he had previously buried deep inside himself, that he’d never in a million years thought he would tell anyone as he told her the other night. She treats him in a way he’s never been treated before.

Daryl twitches when he feels a thug on his vest. He removes his chin from the stock of the crossbow and turns where he sits on the porch stairs.

“Hey kiddo.”

Juri smiles and sits down on the stairs next to him. He’s dressed in dungarees and boots, has seemingly managed to dress himself this morning, but has failed to tie the shoelaces that dangles around his soles.

“That won’t do. Come here.” Daryl waves his hand and nods at the shoelaces that flutter in the wind. The boy obediently raises his foot, Daryl takes it and puts it to his knees and begins to lace the small boot. “Gotta tie ‘em up good, or they’ll fall off ya’ feet.” he says and ties the shoe steadily, but not too tight. He doesn’t want to be responsible for causing Jersey Jr. a broken foot.

Daryl ties the other shoes too, then they sit there next to each other, quiet. Every now and then the boy snails up at him curiously. When Daryl snails back, Juri looks away, giggling. He’s kinda funny, Daryl thinks to himself and smiles. Cheeky, a li’ rascal.

“Ya’ mum’s not up yet?” he asks.

Juri shakes his head, then makes a snarling sound.

“She snores?” Daryl grins. “Yeah, ‘bet she does, kiddo. Heard ya’ were a snorer too.” He gives of a grunt, like a pig and Juri bursts into a big, faint, silent laugh. “Ya’ wanna go for a walk?”

Juri nods eagerly.

“Let’s go.”

Daryl gets up, grabs Juri under his armpits and lifts him up and places him on the ground. They walk around the pond, a walk that normally doesn’t take half an hour, but since his companion is only 3 feet tall, the pace is below average. When they arrive back to the house, Mila’s standing on the porch, shielding her face from the sun with her hand. Daryl once again gets all warm throughout the body and his tongue starts to crawl back up toward his palate. No, dammit! Juri starts to run towards her when he sees her, with three flowers clenched in his hand, that he picked next to the pond.

“For me!” Mila’s smile could light up the entire Safe-Zone if it would've been night, when he hands her the flowers. “Moya lyubov, thank you.” She looks up at Daryl. “Where are your flowers?”

“Didn’t pick any.”

“What a shame.” She stands up and looks at Juri. “You know what! Carol has been an angel, and made lunch for you, Romeo.”

Mila shoves Juri into the house, while the boy waves at Daryl from between her legs.

“Slept well?”

“Enough.” she answers easily. “I need to get out of here for a while. Gotta go find new shoes for Juri. What kind of mother lets her son walk around in heavy boots in this heat?”

“Good luck with that.” Daryl scoffs. “Getting past those assholes unnoticed won’t be easy.”

The sapphire eyes peers at him through the sun.

“Wanna join then?” She asks boldly with a grin. “Show off those hunter skills. Trust me, it’s easier to find game meat than a pair of kids size nine’s.”

Daryl snorts and looks around. It’s not an impossible mission, but foolish. On the other hand, he can’t just wander around in here. He’s convinced that she would leave on her own if he doesn’t follow, no matter how much he, or anyone else, opposed it.

“Gear up, Jersey.” He therefore answers and nods a little.

Mila smiles triumphantly, turns on her heel and enters the house. She returns minutes later, with the automatic rifle on her shoulder and a backpack, dressed in a worn, black leather jacket over the dark t-shirt.

“New jacket?”

“Not directly. I got it for my eighteenth birthday. Saw it in this store down in Ashbury Park and thought, ‘hey, I’d look so cool in that’, so Adam and Peter brought it to me.” She corrects her left boot with the other foot. “I love fun jackets! Fringes, embroideries- I'll be buried in this one, if that's the last thing I do.” Mila smiles. “Oh, and I told Carol we were going out.”

“What did she say?” Daryl asks, clenching his jaw. Some things are better left unsaid. Like sneaking off in the middle of what can be likened to a siege.

“Something like, have fun-” Mila replies and hurries down the porch. “And take it easy.”

They walk toward the wall, toward the place Daryl climbed to enter the Safe-Zone. Mila climbs onto the truck easily and soon they’re standing on the roof of the trailer, looking out over the landscape on the other side of the Alexandria walls.

“Head for the woods.” Daryl points. “The bike’s in there somewhere. Short run.”

Quickly and silently, they get down the trailer and start running towards the trees, into the woods.

“Ya’ know where to go?” Daryl asks as they find the motorcycle in the same place he left it.

“I have a strategy.” Mila replies. “Houses with toys and swing sets outside usually have kids stuff inside too.”

“Fine.” Daryl gets the motorcycle up and leads it up the road. “Let’s go find some swing sets.”

He straddles the motorcycle and scoots forward, to give her room to sit behind him. Mila throws her leg over the body of the bike and sits down on the leather seat and wraps her arms around his waist. Daryl takes a deep breath, tries his best to maintain a normal heartbeat.

”All right.” he coughs nervously.

He warns the engine once again before he kicks off. He can feel all of the power in the machine throughout his entire body. Behind him, Mila squeezes his waist and makes a delighted cry as he increases the speed as he maneuvers the beast on the desolated road.

“This is awesome!” Mila hollers into his ear.

A smile spreads on his lips and he speeds up, causing Mila to hug harder around his waist and laugh. They cruise around the nearby residential areas, scouting for children’s bikes in the driveways, basketball hoops, colorful slides and toys. Eventually, they find a street that seems to fill all the criteria. Daryl hits the brakes and the motorcycle stops next to a two storey house with a hoop and a climbing frame in the yard. Mila climbs off and takes her rifle, attaches the silencer over the barrel.

“Okay, let’s find some shoes.” Daryl states. “Lead the way.” Briskly, Mila starts walking toward the door, rips it up and raises the AK in front of her and walks into the house. He follows, cautiously listening for hissing sounds and dragging feets. It’s clearly not her first rodeo. Mila immediately starts looking in wardrobes, in the laundry room and in cabinets.

“Nope. Nothing.” she notes after a while. “Let’s continue.”

They leave the house and start walking down the street. Mila’s long hair blows effortlessly in the wind as they pass by abandoned houses, driveways and overgrown lawns. In the distance Daryl sees a lone, limping walker approach them in the street. He lifts the crossbow to his shoulder, aims and shoots. In the distance he sees it fall into a pile on the grund.

“That house seems promising.” Mila points toward a house with what looks like a homemade skateboard ramp in the driveway.

Daryl runs over to the walker, lying in a pile on the asphalt, to collect the arrow. When he turns, Mila has caught sight of a rotten creature, appearing from behind the molding ramp. With ease she lifts the rifle, aims and places a bullet in its head and it drops to the ground with a thud. With a crooked smile Daryl remembers what she said about the soup can. He then finds her inside the house, browsing the books in a bookshelf in the living room.

“Children's Books!” Mila holds up a book for him to see. Where the wild things are, Daryl reads from the cover. He’s never read it. On the other hand, his ma’ never read books for him and Merle. “There’s so many cute books here! Peter Rabbit, Paddington-” she grabs the books and puts them in a pile.

Daryl rests on the back of the couch, watches her stacking books on a chair. He’s amazed by how she engages her entire heart and soul to make sure that the boy has everything he could ever wish for. What would it have been like growing up like that?

With about ten children's books stuffed in the backpack, Mila then continues through the house in the search of a new wardrobe for Juri, faintly humming. Daryl finds a weapon cabinet where the owner forgot a Glock and a few boxes of ammunition, and Mila finds a pair of Chuck Taylor’s in Juri’s size.

“Half a size too big, but his feet will grow.” She states and puts the shoes in the backpack.

If he thought they were done by now, Daryl was mistaken. They therefore proceed to the house next door.

“You notice something?”

Daryl immediately turns all vigilant, looks around in search of hostility movements. Mila laughs a little.

“What?” Daryl scoffs, mildly irritated, and lowers his guard.

“We’re alone.” Mila says as they walk around a dense bush, once perfectly trimmed in a rounded shape, in front of the porch. “Like a little adventure. Pretty fun, right?”

She feels the door handle and nods. Unlocked. She pushes the door open and it goes up with a creak. Mila quietly walks into the hall, Daryl follows, with a gut feeling that something will happen. And his guts don’t lie. All of a sudden Mila’s pushed to the carpet by a walker coming at them from the left, followed by its two companions. The first one attacks Mila and Daryl’s grabbed by a male, missing an eye. Mila swears loudly, a muffled bang is heard when she shoots the walker right in the face and tries to get up from the floor. Daryl tries to pull away from the one eyed bastard, that clings to his vest. The rotting mouth and disgusting fingers claws to his torso.

”Watch it!”

With impressive force Mila grabs a hold of it by its shoulders, pulls it away from him and throws it into the opposite wall of the hallway. She takes her knife from her boot shaft and pushes it into its forehead. Daryl takes a hold of the last, remaining dead asshole and pushes an arrow deeply into its skull, forcing it down on the floor.

“Are you alright?”

“Ey, wha-”

Without another word, Mila lifts his shirt and searches his torso for wounds, or at least he thinks that’s what she does. Oh god, please don’t. Daryl gets intense chills of pleasure all through his body by her touch. Those soft, delicate fingers send shivers throughout his body in sheer delight. She withdraws, sighs in relief.

”Though it bit you.” she says.

“I’m fine.” Daryl replies, hardly meeting her gaze as he pulls the shirt down.

He tries to steady his breath, all while Mila still pants faintly. Their eyes meet, or are more like glued to each other. Daryl’s heart beats hard inside his ribcage, he can almost hear it like a drum inside his ears. Suddenly, before he’s able to say or do anything, Mila has thrown herself onto him, presses her lips against his in a kiss out of this world. It’s so sudden and so surprising that he can’t turn all flushed and angry, his usual defense mechanism in unfamiliar situations. But it’s also everything he’d ever dreamt it would be. Why would he withdraw? With her hands on each side of his face, her soft tongue finds its way in-between his lips into his mouth, exploring every inch of his mouth like a gold miner looking for nuggets. It’s mesmerizing, he’s never been kissed like this in his entire life.

He cups her face with his hand, the one not holding on to the crossbow, feels the soft skin towards his palm. It soon finds its way to her lower back, as he presses her body against his as she begins to guide them away from the hallway massacre, with the three dead corpses, into the other room. Daryl briefly presses her up against a wall, making a framed picture fall to the floor. The rough, passionate kissing turns into a frenzy of hands and heavy panting. Daryl drops the crossbow to the floor and steers Mila towards the dining table. He pushes her towards the table, while their fingers eagerly search for buttons and zippers during heavy breathing and intense eye contact.

He’s so excited, so frantically horny. Never before has he felt such a desire. He fumbles, all while Mila’s able to kick off one boot, push down her jeans and underwear, making them dangle around her leg and unbuckles his belt at the same time like a fucking magician. Daryl lets out a grunt as his palms run over her bare, soft thigh. He presses his forehead against hers and they kiss again, moaning into each other's mouths. Mila’s chest heaves rapidly underneath the t-shirt as she unbuttons his jeans, pushes them over his hips, releases his pulsating cock and drags him closer. She caresses him, touches him to the point of almost no return. Daryl ends it by grabbing her buttocks in his hands, lifts her up onto the table. She spreads her legs, pants breathlessly as she pulls him in between. Daryl grunts as he lightly fondles her, she’s so fucking wet. For him! That’s the most fucking incredible part, well, one of thousands right now. There is no darn turning back now. Without breaking eye contact, almost drowning in those sapphire eyes, while inhaling her scent, the floral and everything that enchants him, Daryl enters her, making both of them exhale loudly. She tightens around him and it feels as if he will come right away. Jesus christ, I can’t hold it, he finds himself thinking as he feels a rush of pleasure spread through his body, it won’t go. He starts to grind his hips into her, causing her to moan loudly, to dig her fingers into the back of his vest, as she jerks her hips forward against him. He lets out a low growl and starts to pound into her, making the table squeak, holding her in place while he with the other hand softly grabs the hair on the back of her head, not breaking their eye contact; all while a feverish heat runs through his body.

Dear god he doesn’t want it to end, but he can feel himself edging as her body clenches around him, and he realizes that it’s more than close. He can feel it, her entire body screams that she’s on the edge too. She lifts her head to the ceiling, as she reaches climax and the surge of warmth from her orgasm surrounds him. Daryl moans loudly into her neck, feels his entire body tremble as he digs his hips into her, as deep as he possibly can, exploding inside of her.

They gasp for air, as if there wasn't enough oxygen in the room, bodies trembling, but they don’t break eye contact. Something warm runs down his cramping thigh, bolting with his runaway pulse.

“Shit, I’m sorry.” Daryl’s whimpers, his voice breaks. He swallows, but doesn’t move, just keeps holding on to Mila’s body like a castaway clinging to a piece of board. “I’m sorry-”

“I’m not.” Mila pants with her fingers entangled into the back of his head, the other hand grasping the back of the vest. “I’m not.”

They remain like that for a few seconds; silent, trying to get a grip of the whole situation and what just happened, how amazing it was. Daryl lowers his eyes, for the first time in what feels like forever and with a soft movement he wipes away the warmth from her inner thigh with his thumb. He feels high on adrenaline, feverish, standing there with one hand under her left thigh and the other in a firm grip round her buttocks, welded together.

“I want ya’.” Daryl manages to utter between the heavy breaths, looking back at her. “Ya’ asked me what I want. I want ya’.”

Mila caresses his face with the other hand, runs it softly over his lips.

“I want you too.” She replies. Daryl’s uncertain, did she actually say that? The faint smile he gets, between the panting breaths, somehow says it all. ”You heard me, Dixon.”

#daryl fanfiction #daryl x oc #daryl dixon #twd daryl #Jersey on my mind #Daryl Dixon Fanfic #The Walking Dead fanficition #The walking dead fanfic #fanfiction #twd fanfiction #fanfic #twd fanfic #the walking dead fandom

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mor-beck-more-problems · 4 years ago

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Wickedness Must Be Punished || Morgan & Miriam

TIMING: Yesterday evening, after Morgan and Mercy’s confrontation

PARTIES: @meflemming, @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Go, and hunt her, and find her, and kill her...

CONTAINS: mild violence, non-specific discussion of torture

Morgan’s only hope was that Jo would come back to clear out her things before moving on to the next town or trying to find Marina again. Morgan snapped the unit open with her bolt cutters and shined her flashlight inside. Half the shelves were empty, but there were still some valuable items that the witch had to be coming back for. Morgan stuck the cutters back in her bag and inched her way in, casting a glance back at Miriam. “The specimen jars are a dime a dozen, and so are the materials for the right trade, but her failed tests on whatever the fuck she’s trying to acheive...,” she she flashed her light up to the wings and the misshapen skulls. “I think she’ll be back for them. Sooner than later if she’s smart. Should we go outside and wait for her to turn up, or check back at the hotel?”

Looking around the abomination of a laboratory with Morgan, Miriam wrinkled her nose in disgust. This was what spellcasters were. Horrible, wretched people who played with something they could never understand, perverting magic to their own whims and using it to harm others. She picked up a jar filled with eyes before setting it back down, a frown on her face. She felt her the color in her eyes bleed from green to red and had to shut them tightly. When she got her hands on the witch bitch that did this, Miriam would make sure she knew what it was like to suffer. Just like she’d made all these people suffer. “We should go outside and wait. You’re absolutely right. These are her prizes, her research. She won’t simply leave it behind. She can’t. I’m quite sure of it.”

“Yeah, she was uh, pretty proud of it the last time we were here,” Morgan said. “Does this mean you spend a lot of time thinking about the mind habits of witches? Are you suddenly the witch whisperer all of a sudden?” She backed away, feeling sick all over as she remembered Jo’s offer and the awful color of her blood circle and the way she’d tried to poison Mercy. She had nearly backed out the unit when she saw headlights flash and footsteps outside. “Shit,” she hissed, and turned off her flashlight. There was nowhere to go, no escape route where they wouldn’t instantly be seen. “Shit, shit…”

“Oh, fuck this.” Jo Muscgraves took one look at her storage unit and knew it wasn’t worth it. Years of gathering samples and cataloguing her finding, years of experiments, of trouble, of cleaning the blood out of different floors, all down the drain. This was more than a stupid setbak, this was tanking her life’s work. But if she tried to fight for it now, she was a dead woman. She turned on her heel and started running just the way she’d come.

“Of course she was. Bitch,” Miriam practically snarled out. Just like a witch to be proud of all of this. Crimes against living creatures like this was truly wretched, and Miriam wanted to do nothing more than make this woman pay. “Sometimes, dearest, I have to do the unthinkable and get inside a little witch’s head. Find out what makes them tick.” She winked. “I like to think I’ve got a way with witches, yes. I thought you were aware of this by now.” She’d only barely gotten the words out of her mouth before she heard the sound of footsteps fleeing the storage unit. “Fuck me,” Miriam groaned. She gave chase, her vampiric speed allowing her to catch up to and launch herself in front of the fleeing woman. Miriam planted her heels in the ground and put her hands on the woman’s shoulders. She gave a smile that her mother had once called breathtaking in the saddest tone of voice, and she cheerily said. “Oh, I don’t think so, darling. Jo, was it? Correct me if I’m wrong, though. I really hate being wrong.”

Jo wriggled in the woman’s grasp. She was still drained from the last encounter, focusing more on getting out of town fast before Marina organized her retaliation than she did on getting through another fight. She had been stupid, no better than an amateur. “Like hell I’m telling you anything,” she hissed, and struck out, kicking the woman in the kidneys and reaching for her face. A little burn might buy her some time but-- “Fuck!”

Morgan swung the heavy flashlight against Jo’s head again. Knocking someone out with a little blunt force trauma looked a hell of a lot easier in the movies. Jo didn’t collapse into a heavy sleep this time, but a heavy dent caved into her skull and she stumbled, eyes rolling strangely as she tried to keep her bearings. “Oh, it’s her,” Morgan said. “Trust me. So, uh, we should probably get her out of here while she’s out of it, right?”

Growling at the blow to her side but otherwise not moving, Miriam shifted a bit as the woman stumbled before grabbing her by the wrists and pulling them tightly behind her back. She looked at Morgan. “Thank you.” She had no idea that flashlights were such formidable weapons. “You’re right, of course. Though…” Miriam’s eyes glinted wickedly as she gave Morgan a grin. “Wouldn’t it just be a shame if our new friend here were to see her research get laid to ruin?” She tightened her grip around Jo’s wrists, careful to avoid her hands. Though, if she was as powerful as she thought she was, Jo would likely have no problem burning Miriam through the skin to skin contact, but the witch hunter was not concerned. She was in control here, and she had plans to feed well.

Morgan quirked an interested brow at Miriam’s suggestion. “I didn’t think you’d be so thoughtful, but alright. And, just so you know, I’d hardly say you had my head all figured out. Not all casters are the same, and I distinctly remember something about surprising you.” Nevertheless, she went over to the storage unit and started knocking every jar from the shelf. When that was done she went for the worktable, scraping all the tools against the wood, sending splinters flying. It was one of those drafting tables with a compartment underneath and Morgan flipped it open with ease, dumping all the papers and flash drives onto the ground. Those, she took special care to crush under her foot. She took a look at the framed wings on the wall and lifted them off their hook. “I think I’ll keep these as a parting gift, if that’s okay with you, Jo. For all the good times. Ooh, and some of these teeth...and these...flipping Universe, nail clippings? And people think I’m weird.”

Jo could not see straight, but she didn’t need all her faculties in order to know what was happening. She strained against the cold, undead grip around her wrists and tried in vain to lurch forward. “You don’t know what you’re doing! You don’t know the advancements, the cures, people’s hopes are in those!”

“I do, on occasion, have very thoughtful ideas,” Miriam said, teasingly. She rolled her eyes. “I suppose you surprised me a bit, darling, but I believe you’re the exception to the rule.” As Jo struggled, Miriam held her tighter and twisted a bit, reveling in the other woman’s pain and panic. “If you struggle,” she purred, leaning close to the woman’s ear, “I will make this so much worse.” She watched As Morgan began tearing apart the storage unit, grinning as the little witch had to bear witness to the destruction of what she saw as her livelihood. “You haven’t brought any sort of hope, Jo. All you’ve done is bring about destruction, pain. When we’re done, darling, all of your supposed advancements and cures will be nothing. You will be nothing. No one will care to remember your work or your face or your name.” Again, she twisted Jo’s wrists.

Morgan knocked the last of the samples over and went to tearing up pages she’d scattered by the handful and crushing all the little flash drives under her foot. “Gosh, I really hope that was special,” she said, watching Jo’s face twitch as one crunched in particular. She came over to the woman, grimacing as she saw her own horrified fascination mirrored back. “I just want you to know from the bottom of my heart, before things get dicier, that this isn’t because you’re a witch, Jo. It’s because you rolled into this town and you slaughtered a nineteen year old fae and dumped whatever you were through with in the trash where I could find her. I’ve talked with the fae about this, and they say it’s custom for assholes like you to be tortured. Tortured until you’re way past anything you inflicted on Coraline Adams.” She reached for the chain around Jo’s neck and ripped it free from her. A vial amulet with sand for transmutation. Of fucking course. “Torture’s not really my department of expertise, but I promise, I’ve brought in an expert. Just for you.” She backed away, crushing the little vial in her fist.

“I’m the expert, darling,” Miriam said brightly, allowing her eyes to shift to red and her fangs to drop. Maybe this was about the fae for Morgan, all the harm this woman had done to a very proud and secular community for what she deemed to be the good of humankind. Miriam

Felt bad about it, certainly, but, for her, it was because Jo was a witch. Though she had no doubt in her mind that this excuse of a woman would have been cruel and terrible even without magic, magic allowed her to act on those cruelties in ways that no mere human could. Magic was power, and human beings didn’t deserve such powers. “I would like, when your eyes can focus after that lovely knock to the head you received, for you to look at your work, Jo, and I want you to see just how easily it was destroyed. So much work, so much effort, and now it’s just nothing.” Quieter, Miriam leaned in a bit more, her mouth near the witch’s ear. Her fear was palatable, and Miriam enjoyed it for just a moment before she spoke. “I know you because I see you. Wicked and ruined to your core. We’re similar in that respect, you and I, and we’re similar in this respect as well: no one will remember our names. But do you know what they will remember? I am a witch hunter, and you, my dear, are nothing more than prey. I take great pleasure in the assurance that you truly deserve what’s coming to you.”

Jo wriggled away from the vampire’s touch as much as she could. She lurched forwards, muscles straining, bones tight in their sockets. “You selfish pigs!” She cried. “You’re just stupid, murderous pigs!” She strained against the vampire again, kicking and flailing out with her legs until she lost her balance and sunk to her knees. There was another crack of bone on the impact. “You don’t understand, you can’t even begin to understand…The world is a better place without those animals in it, even before I balanced them in the universe with my work. But why should you care about balancing harm? You’re one of them.” She spat at Morgan and the wad of saliva landed on her shoe.

Morgan watched, her face empty except for her furrowed brow. Jo’s words prickled with their familiarity and desperate earnestness. She understood a lot more than the witch reckoned from her, she just didn’t see how this idea crossed into murdering young girls or stockpiling remains for her alchemy lab. How one human could excuse so many dead fae, wolves, and undead. “I understand enough,” she muttered, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Enough of this.” Fighting wasn’t Miriam’s strong suit; she much preferred the lure and trap methods of hunting. However, she knew how to knock someone out, and knock Jo out she did. She couldn’t stand to hear the other woman ramble any longer. And it was just rambling, that was all, no matter how similar it sounded to her own ideals. Miriam took Jo under the arms as the other woman began to drop, and she looked at Morgan with a raised eyebrow. “Rude little thing, wasn’t she?” She looked down at the witch in her arms. It was impossible to tell that she was a witch. She just seemed like a normal, unconscious human. Miriam used to try and convince herself that she could sense the magic in witches, that she inherently knew who was what. Of course, she knew better, now, but sometimes she still tried to cling to that, even if it was just in her head. Not tonight, though. “You don’t have to try to understand her, Morgan,” she said quietly. “Sometimes, there are simply things that cannot, and should not, be understood.”

Morgan watched Miriam dispatch her work with cold, practiced ease. She jumped back, startled by how swift it all happened. “Yeah. She’s...something alright.” Knocked out, Jo didn’t look like much, a realization that made her skin crawl. She knew plenty of heartless people who looked harmless on the surface, but no one who had done anything so horrible as Jo. Looking up, she wondered if she should count Miriam in that camp as well, or if her hurt, her species, made her different. Better. “People have their reasons for what they do, don’t they? Even if they’re delusional or psychotic--” But Jo had been convinced she was helping. That she could transmute a cure for normalcy on the backs of tortured supernaturals. “What are you going to do to her?”

“She’s nothing, really. She’s not worth your time.” Miriam started moving the unconscious woman out of the storage unit and away, back to where she’d parked the car. “People have reasons for doing terrible things, certainly. However, you must always remember that a terrible thing is still a terrible thing.” She gave Morgan a wink, though there wasn’t much feeling behind it. “Take it from someone you know that does terrible things on a regular basis.” There were those out there that would look at Jo and then look at Miriam and see two sides of the same coin. Perhaps they were. Except Miriam hadn’t deluded herself into thinking that what she did wasn’t killing. She killed, slaughtered, destroyed, all on a regular basis. There were no other words for what she did. She was big enough to acknowledge them, to see them for what they were, and to continue down her path because there was a part of her, too large to ignore, that told her she must. “Well, I suppose I’ll take her back to my house. She should last me a few days, and feeding off someone like her will keep me full for some time.” She looked at the zombie and cocked her head. “You’re welcome to the scraps, if you want them.”

Morgan grimaced as she followed Miram to the car. She didn’t like feeding on humans as a first resort because she didn’t like other brains, other selves, sloshing around when on some days there was already so little of herself. She didn’t want Jo touching anything inside her. It was bothersome enough that she claimed to believe in the same things Morgan did. “No, thank you,” she said. “I don’t want to know what someone like that tastes like.” She cleared her throat. “Sorry, did you say days?” She thought back to the bloodstains on the floor of the wine cellar, the arc of the splatter in some places. There were no rusty knives or tainted bats, what little she understood of Miriam suggested cleanliness, or personalness, to her mind. A clean blade; a bloody, broken nail.

Letting Jo’s body drop to the ground, Miriam unlocked the trunk to her car. Not an enjoyable place to wake up, but, then again, Miriam had no desire to make Jo’s experience enjoyable or pleasant in anyway. “Suit yourself, dearest. But, truly, evil doesn’t taste bad.” She hefted Jo’s body into the trunk and slammed it closed, leaning against the back of the car. “Several days, yes. I’m not particularly interested in her blood. I feed on more than that. So, I’ll spend several days with her, we’ll get to know each other a bit better, and then, when she’s adequately paid for the things she’s done, I’ll put her out of her misery.” She crossed her arms, loosely. “Does this work for you? I assumed that you wanted me to help you with this because you know what I’m capable of.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to feel their personality inside you,” Morgan grumbled. She watched Jo loaded into the car like unwanted luggage, something you hauled with resentment like a shoddy microwave. The lid closed, drawing darkness over the scene. The sheer amount of time Miriam described was enough to spend her head turning. “You don’t have to put her out of her misery when you kill her,” Morgan said at last, still staring at the trunk of the car. “If she needs a day or two to get some feeling back in her senses so she can recognize pain again when you do it, by all means. I want it to hurt, right to the very end.” She let out a long breath, just so the concentration would take her mind away from the tension in her nerves. “And yes. I asked you here because you’re an expert. You’re going to live up to your hype, right?”

“That’s really a thing?” Huh. That was new to Miriam. Though, in her defense, undead things weren’t her area of expertise. “Oh, I don’t?” she asked. Impressed by Morgan’s ability to speak the words out loud. She laughed, the sound low in her throat. “It’s less about ending her misery and more about ending my boredom. Playing with your food for too long is only fun for a few days. I promise you, there won’t be more than a moment where she is not completely miserable and in pain. I rarely let my prey pass easily.” There was a feeling in the pit of Miriam’s stomach over the knowledge that, for as long as she walked the earth, she would be more known for her sins than her virtues. At least she looked good no matter what. “Dearest,” she said with a fanged smile. “I live up to the hype and then some.”

#wr miriam #wr chatzy #wr miriam chatzy #wickedness must be punished #wr #wickedswriting

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theunderdogwrites · 4 years ago

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Headcheese Adjacent

To know me is to know my taste in music runs the full spectrum, minus country music and death metal. And anything Mariah Carey sings. Not dissing her talent, just her. Sometimes I will succumb to disposable music. Its music that’s popular for a little while, but then later discarded. Think the opposite of tunes like AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’. A song that has passed the test of time. Disposable music feels overly processed and is ultimately not good for you, but acceptable in small doses.

For example: Mariah Carey is like microwave popcorn. There’s nothing wrong with popcorn and there’s nothing wrong with microwaving food. The problem is the bag itself. Perfluoroalkyls are just one class of chemical found in microwave popcorn bags. Some studies have linked perfluoroalkyls with health problems as diverse as impaired kidney function and poor semen quality. Mariah Carey is the bag.

Ok, I really just wanted to find a way to compare Mariah Carey to a bag of microwave popcorn.

I will just assume you understand what I mean when I say disposable music.

Britney Spears. Not sure how this is going to sound, but I was never a fan of hers UNTIL she shaved her head and attacked people with an umbrella. I’m also a fan of when mistreated elephants in captivity snap and trample their oppressors. Something about a caged animal finally fighting back… really resonates with me. I’m sure one day my future therapist will have a blast unpacking that last sentence, but until then let’s focus.

I recently watched the documentary “Framing Britney Spears”. Here is a quick synopsis from IMDB:

“Her rise was a global phenomenon. Her downfall was a cruel national sport. People close to Britney Spears and lawyers tied to her conservatorship now reassess her career as she battles her father in court over who should control her life.”

I’m not going to talk about the documentary too much, but it appropriately chronicles her rise to fame and gives you an idea of what happens to these young performers when they become held captive by the very thing and the very people who made them famous in the first place. I found parts of it almost… sad and other parts suffocating. If you’re able to find it, give it a watch. Some of the people who have dedicated a great deal of their time to this ‘Free Britney’ movement are obnoxious, but their intentions don’t feel misplaced. Britney Spears had nothing to do with documentary but has acknowledged it and approved.

Now, I know some people take the stance of – “Oh poor you, you’re famous with lots of money and adoring fans and if you choose that life you deserve no privacy and no sympathy when people pester you for pictures and autographs. That is life in the public eye”. Well, I somewhat disagree. And I disagree because whether it be acting or singing or whatever, it’s only a J-O-B.

Imagine you’re an accountant and suddenly it becomes the least boring profession in the world. Every time you leave your house there are throngs of people scurrying to catch a glimpse of you in all your glory while you’re just going to the pharmacy to get that rash cream prescription refilled. Not only that, they get up in your face… crowding you, snapping 100’s of photos at close range hoping to get a cringe worthy picture to sell to the tabloids, pulling at your sweater vest and screaming “do me and then do my taxes!”. Doesn’t that sound awesome?

I don’t believe anyone is sitting at home at this very moment and wishing they had the life of Britney Spears.

One of the best moments in that documentary (and something I didn’t even know had happened because I don’t pay much attention to her career) is when she was supposed to announce her next residency in Vegas. It was a live streaming event in Vegas with loads of crazed people in attendance where she was to come out, perform a little on stage and then talk. She came out. Walked down the steps to the stage and kept walking. She walked right past everyone without a word and disappeared. People were pissed. I laughed and cheered.

She then made a post stating that until her Father was removed as her conservator, she would no longer be working in any capacity. Full stop. A total walkout and strike.

If you’re not familiar with the situation with her Dad… the long and the short of it is – when her mental health became compromised due to MANY factors, he took over control of her life. Her career, her money… everything. And at that time, it was seriously the best thing for her. But now at 38 with two teenage sons, she wants her freedom. Her Father is insisting that he continues to manage her life because she is not capable of making healthy decisions for herself and fears the vultures are always waiting to pounce and take advantage of his daughter.

Honestly, I don’t have an opinion regarding her conservatorship. None of us should. We can sympathize / empathize but we don’t have any actual idea of what is really taking place behind closed doors. As a fellow human being just trying to make it to the end of toilet roll with all my marbles intact, I hope she is ok.

Does the world owe Britney an apology?

This question came to me after watching the documentary and hearing about how Justin Timberlake was called out to say sorry to her for weaponizing their break-up to his advantage; as well as Diane Sawyer and a number of others for their various questions, comments and jokes they’ve made at her expense over the years.

Funny thing about apologies… sometimes they don’t mean shit. Sometimes, without appropriate action, they’re just words people say to make themselves feel better about being instinctively terrible. Going on an apology tour for something you did a decade ago just seems inauthentic. Acknowledging your past mistakes and making concentrated efforts not to repeat poor behavior feels more appropriate. It’s called growth. It’s one thing to say your sorry to someone you feel you’ve wronged, it’s another to be pulled out and placed on display by the media and publicly forced to reconcile previous atrocities of character. For one thing, the media is hardly the yard stick for good morals. And the public… well if Twitter has taught us anything, it’s that everyone needs an enema of their soul. And it wouldn’t hurt if some people got their mouths washed out with soap for being callous little trolls looking for attention.

I write this to you as someone who has been both apologized to and done the apologizing. I fancy neither of these options. While it may be nice having someone tell you they’re sorry for something they did that didn’t exactly give you the feels, I struggle with the authenticity. That’s a me problem. I don’t scoff at any delivered apologies, but rather squirm, accept and want to move forward. I’ll tell you what is better than saying sorry to me – scotch. The silent peacemaker.

I don’t feel the world owes Britney Spears an apology in the same way I feel beets do NOT belong on a burger. Some will agree with me and some will argue that I’m wrong. Look, that documentary puts into focus how terribly she was treated by a wide range of people across the globe on multiple platforms. And the bottom line is – she’s not the first and won’t be the last. People love to see others fall and that is just the truth and people love to take cheap shots at them on the way down. Should they say sorry for being shitty humans? Nope. But they should not pretend they’re nothing more than headcheese adjacent. No one will be saying sorry today because WE DON’T LEARN. Maybe next decade?

The first time I had a burger with beets was when I lived in Australia. I asked the waiter why they put beetroot on a burger and he replied – “I don’t know… because it sounds good?”. Well so do apologies, but in reality, sometimes they just don’t taste right in our mouths.

#framing britney spears #britney spears #mariah carey #saysorry #beets #microwave popcorn

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badacts · 5 years ago

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What about jason and tim bonding?

ah. two idiots hanging out :)

Jason has a delightful collection of black-mold-infested safehouses that he keeps - or doesn’t keep - in some of the worst neighbourhoods in town, but he mostly doesn’t live in them full time. He keeps one more permanent place in Crime Alley, close to where he grew up, and then an apartment in the Upper East.

The doorman probably recognises Tim as he slopes through the lobby and takes the elevator up to the eighteenth floor. Tim pulls his hood a little lower over his eyebrows and hopes for the best.

His reflection in the mirror-lined elevator is a black-clad wraith in a jacket he stole off Bruce ages ago, comfortably oversized, and eyebags bigger than the backpack slung over his shoulder. He avoids meeting his own gaze. Too much like introspection, and he’s had enough of that in the last…lifetime. His whole life.

On second thought, the doorman probably thought he was breaking in.

There’s six apartments on the eighteenth floor, and he knocks at the door of the one labelled ‘B’. There’s a long moment of silence where he considers his next move - leaving, or breaking in. Then the door swings open to reveal Jason in sweats, one hand held just out of view between the doorframe and his body. Probably a knife.

“Drake,” he says, and then pointedly doesn’t put whatever he’s holding down.

“You need a haircut,” Tim says.

Jason’s expression turns from blank to incredulous. “That coming from you?”

“This is a stylistic choice,” Tim says, brushing his fingers over his bangs. “That is a place where small mammals give birth.”

“Wow, okay, is that all you wanted? Because I’m guessing it’s not, and I gotta say that if you did want something else, this probably isn’t the way to go about getting it.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” Tim scoffs instinctively.

By all rights, Jason could slam the door in Tim’s face right then. Of course, he just swings it open further so Tim has a clear view of him putting down the knife with the six-inch blade he was holding on the table. Then he crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow, expectant. Maybe Tim would prefer the door-slamming. That would stop this interaction from continuing, at least.

There is a very long silence. Tim is pretty patient, but he’s not stubborn like Jason is, and he’s got a feeling Jason will make him stand out here all night until he says something.

“CanIstayheretonight,” Tim mutters, examining the middle distance over Jason’s shoulder.

Jason’s expression doesn’t twitch, but he gives off a veritable wave of smugness. “What was that, red?”

Tim says, through his teeth, “Please.”

Jason’s mouth quirks. It looks like he’s just about to reply when his phone rings. He pulls it out of the pocket of his sweats and then flashes the screen at Tim. Apparently ‘dickhead’ is calling.

“Isn’t that a co-inky-dink,” Jason says, answering the phone and holding it between the two of them.

“Hey, Jaybird,” Dick says over the speakerphone. He sounds weary but warm. “Are you already out?”

“What’s it to you?” Jason asks, lounging against the door frame.

“Just wondering if you’ve seen Tim tonight.”

Tim holds up a finger to his lips. And then shakes it furiously to make his point.

Jason grins, holding Tim’s gaze. “Who?”

“Who?” There’s a moment of genuine bemusement from the other end, and then a sigh. “He’s with you right now, isn’t he?”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about, Dickiebird,” Jason says cheerfully, and then hangs up on him.

“He’s going to come straight here,” Tim points out. If there’s anything Dick hates more than his siblings disappearing from his well-meaning and impossibly overbearing presence, it’s knowing he’s being lied to.

“Nah,” Jason says, finally stepping back and gesturing Tim inside the apartment. “The guy’s got some boundaries. When it comes to me, anyhow.”

“Lucky you,” Tim mutters, and then, louder, “Love what you haven’t at all done with the place.”

“I got furniture,” Jason replies, unbothered. “You hungry?”

“No thanks,” Tim says, dropping himself onto the couch, backpack and all. He groans when his collapsed staff jabs him in the kidney. Jason gives him a look and then disappears from the room.

“So, why’d you run away from home?” he calls from out of sight.

“We don’t have to talk,” Tim says, attempting to wriggle himself into a more comfortable position without actually taking his bag off.

“Price of admission, baby bird,” Jason replies. “I don’t get many visitors in civvies. It’s either more interesting or way more boring, and whatever you say determines that.”

“I could put on the uniform, if that worked better.”

“Don’t bother. No way you’re patrolling tonight.”

Tim bristles. “You don’t give me orders.”

“It’s called an observation, idiot,” Jason says. “You’re wearing jeans. You don’t even want to go out. Also, I thought I was the one with anger issues here.”

“Nice to hear you acknowledging your issues,” Tim says sweetly and avoidantly. There are footsteps on the wood floor behind the couch - intentional, Jason may weigh more than two hundred pounds but he’s perfectly capable of moving silently - and then a plate lands on Tim’s stomach.

“Eat,” Jason says, shoving aside one of Tim’s legs so he can sit at the other end of the couch. “Come on. That’s premium peanut butter right there.”

Tim wasn’t hungry, but as soon as he takes his first mouthful of sandwich his stomach snarls. There’s a moment where he wonders if he’s going to throw up, but when he swallows it seems to settle. He says, “Tastes like Jif.”

“Duh,” Jason replies. “You wanna talk about it, or what?”

“No,” Tim growls, and then crams half the sandwich in his mouth at once. Through the bread he mumbles, “Dick is pissing me off.”

Jason nods contemplatively. “He does that. Most irritating guy I ever met.”

“You guys are tight though.” Dick gets on with everyone, that’s just fact. Jason likes four and a half people, and the half is probably Bruce, but Dick definitely counts as a whole person by himself.

“I get on with you better than I do with him,” Jason corrects.

“You shot me,” Tim says.

Jason rolls his eyes. “You gonna hold that against me forever?”

“I’m just making a point!”

“I was crazy as hell, Timbo. You really need to let it go.”

“I have,” Tim says. “...Mostly.”

“You’n’me, we got off to a rough start,” Jason says, which is the understatement of the century and also a hell of a way to describe literal attempted murder. “Dick and I didn’t end our relationship so good. And then I died, which made it complicated. You’re not complicated, though.”

“You’re fucked up,” Tim tells him very frankly. “Can I have another sandwich?”

Jason seems unbothered by this assessment, and a little amused. “No ‘please’ this time?”

“Hit my quota for today when I told Damian to please shut the fuck up.”

“And then you got the ‘being a good teammate and vigilante’ speech from Dick, right?”

“Worse,” Tim says, flopping an arm over his eyes dramatically. As he does it, the empty plate is lifted back on him. “He cornered me later and asked me if I’m okay, because it looks like I’m not sleeping again.”

There’s a snort from the direction of the kitchen. “And are you sleeping, Timothy?”

Tim wriggles down further so he’s lying flat, wriggling free of his backpack and dropping it over the side of the couch. “Jason. I am never sleeping.”

“Right,” Jason replies. A few moments later there’s the click of a plate being set down on the mismatched coffee table in front of the couch. “I’m going out. I’ll set the security before I leave.”

“Cool,” Tim mutters into the back of the couch. “Don’t get killed.”

“Eat your sandwich,” Jason advises, which is the last thing Tim registers before he’s asleep.

#tim drake #jason todd #red robin #red hood #batfam #dc #my fic #prompts #Anonymous #dick grayson #absolutely nothing happens in this fic

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justjessame · 4 years ago

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Babysitting Butcher Chapter 26

“You did what?” Billy was looking at me like I might be slightly crazy, but he loved me so what did that make him? I had just told him about the changes I’d made during my errands and he was taking it well. If ‘well’ was defined as considering having me tested for insanity, that is.

I rolled my eyes and stole the carton of noodles from him. We were having dinner in bed, Chinese food cartons scattered around us, it was a miracle my linens weren’t a mess. “I changed my beneficiary to you, William Butcher, and you also have power over my unconscious body should it become necessary. If it helps you sleep at night, most of my fortune will end up going to animal rescue sites.” I shrugged, and took a bite from the forkful of noodles I had in front of my mouth. Why was this so bothersome to him?

“Only your unconscious body?” Shit, my eyes met his and I had to remind myself how to chew. “Ronnie, I’m not sure I want all that responsibility.” That caused my eyebrow to raise in warning. He wanted the responsibility to screw me, love me, and keep me safe, but not deal with my corpse or insurance? Really?

After swallowing carefully, I put the noodles down and took a deep breath, reminding myself to count down from ten so I didn’t do something ridiculous like throw the carton at his head. “Billy, do you love me?” He started to open his mouth, but I stopped him. “That was more of a rhetorical question. I know you do. You love me, you want to keep me safe, and you don’t want to think about the reality of me being human.” He studied me intently as I went on. “I’m human, you remind me of that almost daily, it’s why I can’t meet with Homelander or the other supes without you or one of our team present, correct?” This time he nodded before I spoke again. “By that logic, even without outside interference, I WILL die one day. And when that inevitability happens, I don’t want there to be any question of my expectations.”

I shifted the cartons out of the way and curled up into his arms. His hands curled around my bare skin, his face burying in my hair, and I gave us both a few moments to calm down more.

“I love you, Billy, but you can’t see every action I take as me saying goodbye or preparing for an early death.” He went tense again, but I carried on. “People die, every single day, and I will too one day. Not that I plan on giving up the ghost anytime soon,” I tilted my head back so I could look up at him. “I haven’t had my fill of you, not nearly, and I won’t go until we’re both sick of one another.”

His dimples peeked out and his thumb brushed across my cheekbone. “Planning on becoming immortal are you?” His lips met mine and we got lost in one another, and my surprise at my sheets not being ruined by our picnic was knocked aside, because I could care less about sheets, or stains, nothing mattered when Billy Butcher pulled me to him and our bodies joined. Nothing.

We were in the office the next Monday. Lesser known supes were due for appointments, and we were still waiting for his majesty Homelander to verify his availability so Billy and I sat together doing what was almost becoming a script. Billy would have to bring out bad cop now and then, with a more headstrong or arrogant supe, but more usual was compliance. Acceptance seemed more and more likely as each supe that week came and went.

As we were packing it in on Friday, happy to have had a full week with one another, and a weekend to truly get lost together, an email came in. I would have ignored it, but Billy’s dinged as well. Homelander was willing to meet two weeks out, after checking with me, he confirmed it and we went home knowing that a face off was coming, but not knowing what else would come with it.

A few days before our scheduled meeting with Homelander, I had my head buried in the toilet as Billy stood in the doorway after I swore I’d kill him if he came closer. I swore, as I vomited hard and heavy, that I could taste food that I’d eaten as a child make a reappearance. My nose was stuffed up from the crying that vomiting forced me to do, and I knew I looked and smelled like death. I hated life and the world at that moment.

Then, once deemed empty, I felt fine. As though I hadn’t just become intimately acquainted with the interior of my toilet bowl. I actually felt strangely good. Washing my face and brushing my teeth, I felt my stomach rumble and thought about how hungry I was. As if I hadn’t thrown up everything I’d ever considered eating, I suddenly craved food. Lots of food. Greasy and filling food.

“Are you alright?” Billy cupped my chin and tipped my head back so he could look into my face fully. “Fever?” I shook my head and smiled up at him. “Ronnie?”

“I’m hungry.” I chuckled. “Like really really hungry.” Using both arms around his neck I pulled him down so I could kiss him, and then my hunger was diverted to another craving. Him. I wanted him. Naked and under me. Now. I was pulling his shirt off and unbuttoning his pants when his hands stopped me. “Billy.” It came out a whining plea. I was burning with need for him. My skin felt like fire and that’s when he turned me to face the mirror. Steam was actually coming off my skin. What the fuck?!

“Ronnie, I think we need to get you to the doctor.” I could see and feel how worried he was, and I had to admit, this time so was I.

Ever been to the ER and you’re sitting there thinking, maybe I should just go home? You’re surrounded by gunshot victims, and knife wounds, and you think so I steam a little bit, at least my ear hasn’t been bitten off like that guy’s, right?

Oddly enough, Billy Butcher did not think that my skin steaming like a train engine was less worrisome than Mr. LacksAnEar. And so we sat, and sat, until finally a bored voice called my name. After dealing with triage and vitals, my internal temperature didn’t seem to match the steaming skin temperature making Billy look very smug at his insistence that we stay, I was handed a cup to pee in. Now I could argue with the nurse about peeing in said cup, but what was the point? Not like I’m on drugs, I’m on birth control, at most the pee was going to show kidney issues, right?

Once that was done, we were led to a room and I was told to put on the truly modest gown provided and told that a doctor would be in shortly. Billy helped me with the gown and I started steaming more, forcing him to move away. Damn it. Whatever this was, I hope the doctor had a quick fix, not having Billy’s skin against me- Damn it, the steam rose as I even contemplated him naked now.

“Oh, my,” the doctor offered as he walked in at that moment. “That doesn’t seem-”

I glared at him through the fog, and Billy chuckled. The doctor began a routine examination, asking the same questions that are asked a million times a day. When was my last period? Not a clue because my birth control stints it. How did I feel aside from the steam? Aside from puking up everything I ate, great. I could run a marathon or have marathon sex. That thought caused the steam to start up again. Shit. A nurse came to the door and gestured for the doctor.

I sighed as I waited, ignoring the doctor and nurse’s animated conversation since I imagined it was something to do with another patient. When he came back in, he looked troubled.

“Miss-”

“Doctor,” Billy corrected, but the doctor assumed he had a question so he stopped speaking. “No, Doc, Veronica-she’s a doctor. Not a Miss. A doctor.”

“Ah, yes, I apologize, Dr. Taylor.” I nodded, thinking what the fuck? “Your urinalysis is complete and well-” I watched him gulp and felt a ripple of fear run through me. “When was it that you had your last birth control shot?” I told him and he nodded absently. “And before that?” I gave him the time before, the right time frame for that particular form of birth control. “Well, it appears that- You know that no birth control is a hundred percent effective, correct?” And he might have said more, but I was out. Darkness hit me hard and fast and I didn’t hear another word until I woke up.

It was dark, which was strange, given that we’d gotten to the ER in the early morning, missing work. If it was dark, then I missed an entire fucking day. I blinked awake, trying to discern where I was. The mattress was crinkly, which made me assume, rightly that I was still at the hospital. I groaned. Did I imagine the doctor was about to tell me that I was- No, of course not, I just overheated from the steam. What was up with the steam? Did I miss contracting a fucking weird fever?

“Hey,” I smiled at the sound of his voice. Billy was sitting close to the bed that I woke up on, and his hand took mine. “Glad you’re finally awake, scared me shitless.”

“Sorry,” I turned to see him in the dim light he flicked on with a button on the side of the bed. “Don’t know what came over me.”

“Not everyday you hear you’re gonna be a mom, Ronnie.” Shit, fuck, shit. “Or that I’m gonna be a dad.”

“So that was real?” I asked, shaking my head to clear it. “How?” I couldn’t understand it. I mean sure, Billy and I were basically rabbits when we got together, but my birth control never failed, not so much as a scare since I started it.

“They’re running tests.” I nodded, and he smirked. “Guess you giving me full power over your knocked out body came in handy after all.” I laughed in spite of how scared I was. Something wasn’t right. Pregnant or not, why the fuck was I steaming? “We’re gonna figure it out, Ronnie, I promise.”

“Ah good, Dr. Taylor, I see you’re awake.” The doctor from the ER had returned. “Your pregnancy has been confirmed, there’s another test I want to run. Hopefully it will explain the other issue you are experiencing.” You mean steaming like a hot shower? I nodded. “Unfortunately this test can only be done once your pregnancy progresses to 15 weeks. And it has to be performed by an obstetrician.” Great, a wait. “I’ve had the office compile a list of obstetricians in the area, so you can make an appointment. Once the doctor confirms how far along you are, they can schedule an amniocentesis. I think, I’m not sure, but I think the fetus is the cause of your-” he gestured to the warm air coming off of me like a street grate.

“The fetus?” Billy was staring at the doctor in disbelief. “Why would a human fetus do that?”

“Mr. Butcher,” the doctor removed his glasses and sat down heavily on the foot of my bed. “I can’t be sure the baby is human.”

#Billy Butcher x ofc #the boys #angst #illness #alternate universe

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veinsandknuckles · 5 years ago

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It's a bad life if you don't weaken, pt 5 (Tallahassee/Reader)

You had found a house. You’d found plenty of houses along the way, but this one looked especially promising with its two stories, a tall foundation that left the front door as the only entrance you’d need to guard, wide fields spreading out in every direction to lay bare anyone, dead or alive, who might try to sneak up on you. There were old tire marks in the soil running towards and away from the building, the latest set belonging to a car parked awkwardly against a wall with leaves and debris scattered on the roof - no one living was staying here.

Tallahassee tried to kick in the door and made a wonderful scene when it swung open without any effort, leaving him to land face first on the hallway carpet.

He looked so baffled and crestfallen when he got back to his feet that the three of you laughed at him even harder and he turned tail and ran on into the house until he found a door that hadn’t already been kicked in by some other survivor. You heard a crash, boots running across wooden floors, then another crash. Columbus and Little Rock entered after him and fanned out like a well practiced SWAT team to make sure Tallahassee’s display hadn’t awakened anything.

You carried in the bags, pushed the door back into its frame and secured it with the hallway cabinet and, gun at the ready, went to explore the next floor up. Those fools were making a lot of noise down there but you were sure by now that the house was empty. Thanks to their eager bad-ass antics, you had first choice of bedrooms.

Tallahassee came up the stairs once he’d gotten some of the smashing out of his system and he froze in the doorway to the master bedroom, his grin twisting into a mask of utter grief.

“No,” he breathed.

You were sprawled on the king-size bed, arms crossed behind your head, legs stretched out and luxuriating on the soft sheets. With a smile, you made the bed bounce and there wasn’t so much as a squeak of complaint from the springs. Three of you could have fit on the bed without brushing up against each other. “Oh yeah,” you purred. “This house was a great pick, Tallahassee - I can really see us making ourselves at home here.”

The other two finally caught on to what was happening and followed close behind. Little Rock elbowed Tallahassee aside and cursed at you. “Come on! I’m not sleeping on the floor again - Tallahassee, tell her.”

“Oh, wow,” came Columbus’ voice from somewhere down the hall, “this room is so nice! Hm, doilies.”

Little Rock bolted immediately and through the walls you could hear her flinging herself onto the bed in there and shouting “dibs!”

Tallahassee’s face was dark, and he glanced towards where your hand rested on your gun. “I could have you over my shoulder and out of here quicker’n you could get the safety off of that thing, missy.” He drew himself up with injured dignity and pressed a hand to his chest. “But I... am a gentleman. A gentleman with a sore neck and aching muscles and very long limbs.”

You raised your eyebrows and wondered if you could bring him back to the idea of lifting you up bodily. “Yes, that’s what we all call you behind your back. Gentleman.”

He shook his head. “You know, I give you kids everything I have and I get nothin’ but lip in return. I despair of your generation.”

Tallahassee did that a lot, drew attention to his own age and the gap between his and yours. He was welcome to fish for reassurance about his own all he wanted and you usually obliged, but lumping you in with the other two? “Watch who you call a kid. Columbus makes me feel ancient by comparison.”

He looked at you oddly before he smiled. “Figure of speech, sweetheart.” Something made him pause, as if he was weighing up his options. Then he sighed with exaggerated melancholy. “Well... if you won’t take pity on me, I’d better find somewhere else to bunk up.” Tallahassee touched the brim of his hat to you and walked off with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder before you could gather up the nerve to point out the bed was wide enough to fit both of you. ----

In the end, there were enough bedrooms to go around and then some - this house had obviously belonged to a real old fashioned country family. No one wanted to speculate further than this in any real way, but Little Rock made fun of all the framed photographs she found and amused herself by throwing them out the window, trying to hit the roof of the old abandoned car. Maybe she was working through something.

The other survivor(s) hadn’t stayed here long enough to ruin much. Their footprints had stained some carpets and there were broken egg shells and empty packets of food clogging the kitchen sink, but all of that would have expired by now in any case and in the cabinets there were cans, spices and nonperishables galore. There was also a corpse in the sitting room, but it was the still sort, so you pulled on some long rubber gloves, grabbed the edges of the rug it was lying on and dragged it, half wrapped up like a perversely over-stuffed burrito, slowly out and down the front stairs.

There were a few offers of help, but you wanted to stay busy so you declined, found a bucket and some soap, opened all the windows wide and eventually with a lot of elbow grease and retching, got the worst of the stink and the goo out. Tallahassee kept himself busy and alone in the rest of the house doing something mysterious, Columbus and Little Rock split up to rest a while and came together in the kitchen to cook and after a good few hours of quiet, hard work you felt your stomach rumble as the smell of death was replaced by the (honestly speaking, only barely) preferable smell of food.

It was amazing how quickly the unacceptable became commonplace - if you couldn’t learn to build an appetite with maggots crawling on your hands, you would have starved a long time ago.

When it was all done, the four of you sat down exhausted on the porch to the first hot meal you’d had in ages. The table was covered by an old sheet, there were wild flowers in a jug of water, there were beers to drink and the already empty bottles held flickering candles that picked up some of the slack from the setting sun. Someone, perhaps all three of them, had obviously had a hankering for the domestic and right now it didn’t seem like the sort of thing that any of you wanted to mock.

Tallahassee had gone to work with hammer, nails and whatever wood he could find and had already boarded up most of the windows that could be reached on the first floor. Everything that could and should be done today had been done and there was as much stillness and safety now that there would ever be again. In short, this was exactly the time when at least one person would be gearing up for a breakdown. The silence around the table could be excused while everyone was still ravenous and busy shoving the weird combinations of pickles, spam, noodles and preserves into their mouths but it worried you when things slowed down and there was still no talking. Something had to be done.

“Anyone feel like they’re going nuts?”

Well, that made them sit up. Columbus coughed and Tallahassee froze, fork half way to his open mouth.

Little Rock sighed. “I mean, yeah. Obviously.”

“You ever gone proper camping, like strapped into a heavy rucksack?” You addressed the question to her since she’d made the mistake of replying first.

“Ew, no. I had better things to do than subject myself to ‘nature’.”

Tallahassee kicked her chair under the table and she jolted and gave him the finger.

“Well,” you pressed on. “My point is, when you take the pack off and sit down, that’s when you feel how tired you are. And it’s almost impossible to lift the thing back up again after.”

Silence descended again. No one looked like they disagreed with you or were in doubt of what you were getting at. After a moment, Tallahassee opened another bottle with his teeth, took a drink, belched and said, “that’s a fair point, princess, a good analogy.” There was no knowing whether he meant it or if he was being sarcastic.

“You’re saying we shouldn’t get comfortable here,” said Columbus. He hadn’t looked away from you since you started talking, which was rare for him.

“No... we’ve got plenty of supplies, this place looks safe enough and the propane tank is almost full. I think we need to rest. I’m just worried, if we’re not focusing on moving and surviving...”

“Well, my plan,” Tallahassee said and leaned back in his chair, “and you’re more’n welcome to join me, is to get absolutely, incoherently, pants-shittingly hammered. Ain’t nothing in this world can’t be solved by drinking.”

“Drinking what? Did you find liquor and just... hide it from the rest of us?”

He smiled and trailed his fingers lazily up and down the neck of his beer bottle, and you’d gotten completely off the subject but everyone was talking and ready to strangle Tallahassee, so for the moment at least the crisis was averted.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he drawled. “Bet you wish you’d given me the master bedroom now...”

“That’s such a great plan, Tallahassee,” said Little Rock, each word dripping with insincerity and with only lemonade in her glass. “And are you finally going to let me have some? I mean, I can find other ways to let off steam, if you think that’s better. I still say your hat could use some glitter... who knows what I’ll get up to while you’re passed out in a pool of your own vomit.”

Tallahassee drew himself up, puffed out his chest and held on tight to his hat. “I swear to God, you so much as touch this hat and I’ll show you what your own kidneys look like.”

“I’m practically 13! Give me a goddamn beer!”

“Actually, you’ve got almost another three months.” Columbus looked thoughtful. “Wow, I’d better start looking out for some toy stores...”

“Toy stores? Are you deaf? I’m a teenager.”

“Hah!” Tallahassee cackled. “Give me a break - you’re barely out of your diapers. Oughta get you some velcro shoes, I’m sick to death of watching you struggle with your laces.”

Little Rock turned her indignation back on Tallahassee and he welcomed it with open arms.

You’d never articulated this thought to yourself before, but he really did rile people up on purpose and you were beginning to see why. It might very well have started as a way to keep them at arm’s length, but he had another reason now - better they were angry at him than sad. Or numb. As the saying went: don’t mourn, organise against the idiot who hogs the booze and farts on your pillow ‘to remind you of home’. It wasn’t a very nice favour he was doing them but you couldn’t help feeling cheated that he never needled you the same way. It’d at least meant he was giving you some attention.

...Christ, you must be getting desperate indeed if that’s was the sort of attention you were willing to settle for.

“Tallahassee.” Columbus’ voice was soft but firm, and he glanced over at you. “Bring us your stash and pour Little Rock a very small drink.”

“Make me.”

“I don’t have to make you. You’re outnumbered. I favor a nice merlot, myself, but I will settle for whatever you’ve got.”

#Tallahassee #tallahassee x reader #tallahassee imagines #Zombieland #zombieland: double tap #woody #my fics

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ineffable-dads · 5 years ago

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A. Z. Fell and Co.

Good Omens OCs, Peter Walsh, Isabelle Crowley, Snake!Crowley, FLUFF, Awkwardness, Peter being a soft bean

Summary: The first time Peter Walsh and Isabelle Crowley meet. Crowley is amused.

A/N: I know nobody is going to read this, but I just wanted to write about my OCs meeting. If, however, you do read this PLEASE COMMENT AND REBLOG!!!

Word Count: 3.3K

Peter Walsh stood silently for a long while staring up at the words scrawled carefully across the top of the corner shop.

A.Z. Fell and Co. had long been a rumor among the lecture halls at University, particularly in the religious studies department. Students, professors, and even professors of the professors talked about the shop like it was a mystic castle on the moors, only appearing in the light of a blue moon.

Despite his major or perhaps because of it, Peter put little stock in the supernatural. Similar description of the supposed owner across all tellings as a dapper, slightly plump middle-aged gentlemen with white blonde hair and blue eyes and a propensity to kick one out of the shop with polite determination, could be written off with some degree of logic.

Strong genetics could certainly be a factor if the business was passed down through the generations. There was also the fact people had the amazing ability to create images out of whole cloth. For example, it is widely accepted in the western consciousness that the devil is associated with fire and the color red. There was no evidence for it and even some decidedly against, but the image isn’t liable to die any time soon. A.Z. Fell and Co. and its mysterious owner had simply fell victim to a similar affliction, Peter was sure of it.

All the same, there were things about the stories that did intrigue him; namely, the supposed quantity of quality religious text which lay within it’s walls. It was why he had tried to find it when he was in London, how he came to discover it had moved some twenty-five years previously, and was what finally brought him to the South Downs to a tiny shop snuggly placed in the corner of a quaint seaside village. It had taken him some time to get there and he wanted to breath in the moment of a job well done.

“Right,” he told himself. “Best foot forward then.”

A small chime of the bell welcomed him as the distinct musk of old books washed over his senses.

It was a bookshop if ever a shop had books in it. It was the kind of bookshop he read about as a child just before the protagonist was whisked away on some wild adventure. It had the right smell, the comforting soft browns of faded spines and the perfect temperature for curling beside the nearest window and laying there for hours.

He only had to take a cursorily glance at the titles to know the rumors didn’t do the collection justice. He picked up a random book to find not only was it a first edition of The Voyage Out, but it was signed by Virginia Woolf herself.

Upon seeing the signature, he all but snapped the book shut and placed it back on the shelf. He wasn’t entirely sure he was allowed to breath near the collection.

His eyes made a quick turn around the space. There was no one else there. Not even the mysterious owner who he was growing more curious to see. The door was unlocked and there was no closed sign. Just as it occurred to him, he ought to call out to someone, he heard a small rustling behind one of the shelves followed by low, indistinguishable whispers.

He let out a small breath, relieved he hadn’t accidentally committed a minor felony, and wandered over to the line of shelves. He turned the corner ready to greet the mysterious Mr. Fell, but the words died before they could even enter his throat.

A woman stood before him. A very pretty woman. A very pretty woman near his own age, who looked more at home among the shelves than anyone had a right to. She was dressed like a bookkeeper from her long skirt and buttoned up blouse to her large round spectacles. In her hand was cradled a tanning copy of what could only be a first edition of Oscar Wilde’s Poems in Prose. Even her mass of black curls only seemed to cement the impression of an eccentric intellectual as they perfectly framed her high cheekbones and brought a compliment to her dark skin.

The only thing to prevent his eyes from focusing solely on her, was their current preoccupation with the massive black python wrapped around her neck as comfortably as a knitted scarf. Its large head hung gently in the air at the same level where the woman held her book. If Peter hadn’t known better, he might have thought it was reading along.

“Can I help you?”

The words snapped him back to attention as he tore his eyes away from the snake.

He was suddenly very aware of the pounding in his chest and the fact his eyes had been wide open for solid minute. He blinked a few times in a row to make up the difference all while willing his heart to move back to a jogging speed.

He focused his attention now fully on the woman. This did little to help his nerves, but he found it easier to deal with. He had only been scared silent by something capable of killing twice in his life. One time after crossing through the neighbor’s yard when he was six only to be confronted with their rather enthusiastic guard dog and another after nearly getting hit by a spooked horse when he was twelve. Both experiences left him rather shaken and he hadn’t developed a system for coming down after the experience. Being scared silent by girls decidedly prettier than him, however, was something he had perfected.

“R-religious texts?” he managed.

The women stared at him a moment, a look of surprise quickly running across her features. “Two shelves down, near the front desk.”

Peter nodded, and quickly moved in that direction.

He was only partially aware of the murmuring behind him. The words “your idea” and “doesn’t scare easy” being the only clear ones. A part of him wanted to linger on the words and their meaning, but more pressing matters pushed the urge aside; namely, the largest collection of Bibles and books of prophecy he had ever seen in his life.

His mouth gaped as he stared at the titles. It was a theologian’s dream come true.

He let his eyes wander up and down the shelves not daring to soil any of the spines with his bare hands. He wondered if he should ask for a pair of gloves, but quickly dismissed the notion. The idea of having to face both the woman and her snake gave him a fresh wave of anxiety. Instead, he pulled his sleeve over his hand and carefully pulled a book off the shelf.

A deafening hiss came from behind the book just before a flash of black scales snapped out of the dark opening.

Peter jumped back, barely managing to keep hold of the book. The snake stared back at him with dangerous yellow eyes. Another hiss filled the air as its tongue flicked in and out of its open mouth. Peter then remembered snakes smelled with their tongues and was left with the same feelings a chicken has when cornered by hungry fox.

“That one isn’t for sale.”

The voice came straight into his left ear. He whipped around to see the woman standing barely three feet from him. Her arms were crossed, her eyes narrowed, and her lips were pressed into a fine line. In that moment, he wasn’t sure if he should be more frightened of her or the snake.

With caution, he slowly moved his hand back toward the shelf.

The snake seemed to understand as it retreated from it hole, allowing him to put the book back in its place. Unfortunately for Peter, the snake had decided to take a more precarious spot on top of the bookshelf, allowing it to keep its eyes on him and within biting distance.

Peter moved down the shelf, his eyes glancing between the snake, books, and the woman equally. His hand went for another title only for the snake to give the same warning hiss.

“That one isn’t for sale either,” the woman confirmed.

Peter didn’t even bother to look as he hand when for another book.

Another hiss.

“Not that one either.”

A pause followed. Peter felt the need to stay something, but the number and variety of stressors currently looking at him left him drawing a blank. He could only think in clichés and so let out a cough.

“Are these all on reserve?” he asked.

The woman’s expression didn’t change. “They’re not for sale.”

He nodded. His mind clinging to the wall as it crept cautiously towards an idea. He wasn’t going to leave empty handed. He was sure about that, but clearly a change of tactics was in order. Part of the legend of this place was the owner attachment to all of his books. Of course, he wouldn’t have a shop if he didn’t want people to at least look at the books, would he?

“Well, what if I don’t want to buy one?” he said, his mouth moving at the same pace as he mind; slowly, but with forward momentum.

“Excuse me?” The woman��s tone was more curious than accusatory.

Peter felt a small relief, giving him the boost he needed and picked up speed.

“I just want to look at them,” he explained. “I’m a student, you see, and frankly I can’t afford this stuff to begin with. Not stuff! I don’t mean it like that. I just mean…this is an amazing collection and I wouldn’t want to sell them either. But, you see, I really, really need to look at these books. Study them, I mean. I’ve got a dissertation to finish by PhD, and I literally can’t find works like this anywhere else. You don’t have to sell them to me, if you don’t want. And if you’ve got buyers for some of them, I understand, but if I could just read them. I’ll rent them if you like. Or hold my kidney’s ransom or whatever it is you want, but…”

He took a breath, finally getting his thoughts in some kind of coherent order.

“The simple fact is; I need these books. And they’re not going to be much use to anyone sitting on the shelf. Books are meant to be read and appreciated and learned from, and that’s what I’m trying to do. So, let me. Please.”

The woman, stared up at him with an unreadable expression. Despite his instincts, Peter maintained eye contact. Even if he couldn’t express why, he knew it was imperative he didn’t so much as blink during her investigation.

A small tug came to the corner of her lip until it formed into an amused half smile.

“That was quite an impassioned speech.”

She looked just a little impressed with him, and Peter felt his heart beat harder against his ribs. He was sure he was blushing too but was in no position to do anything about it.

“I meant it,” he said, his voice surprisingly steady, given the state of his insides.

“I’m sure you did. Was that your plan all along?”

“What?”

“Well you’re not from around here, obviously,” she said, matter-of-factly. “So that must mean you heard about this place when it was in London. And if you heard of it, you must have also heard about how the owner doesn’t actually like to part with part of their collection.”

Peter knew this was coming to something and so said cautiously, “More or less.”

“So that begs the question,” the woman continued, “was your plan to come all the way down here to the South Downs, to treat the shop as your own personal library?”

Peter opened his mouth. It hung there a moment, but no sound came out. He closed it again.

She looked at him expectantly, with the same unreadable expression he was starting to think was her default setting.

“It wasn’t plan A.” He said it slowly, unsure what line he crossed but trying to show atonement for whatever it was.

The woman let out a laugh. It was clear, bright, and if it hadn’t been at his expense, he would have enjoyed it immensely.

“I’m just messing with you,” she assured. “I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

Peter blinked. “What really?”

She nodded. “I’ll have to double check with Papa, but I’m sure he won’t mind.”

“Oh,” he said, unable to keep the smile off his face. The legend might still have some truth to it yet. “Your Papa is the owner, then?”

“Yes.”

“So that would make you Ms. Fell?”

“It would make me Ms. Crowley,” she corrected.

The look of confusion must had been evident on his face as she elaborated. “My Dad got first dibs on the name. Though that does leave me curious, do you call every girl you meet, miss?”

“Only the ones that scare me.”

A wide smile spread across her face and Peter was faced with the mortifying realization he had said the words out loud.

“If I told you my name was Isabelle, would you be less scared,” she asked, still laughing at him behind her eyes.

Peter’s lip twisted upward despite himself. He did like her laugh, even the silent ones.

“Just a bit,” he said. “I’m Peter by the way, Peter Walsh.”

He offered her his hand, which she immediately took in hers.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Peter Walsh.”

“Nice to meet you too, Miss Isabelle Crowley.”

Their hands dropped. Peter swore he could feel his hand tingle ever so slightly.

“I suppose I’ll be seeing you around then,” she said.

“Yeah,” Peter said, the thought of seeing her again leaving his brain a little fuzzy. He would be seeing her quite a bit if this worked out with her Dad. Almost every day. He did have a paper to finish after all.

Her head tilted to the side, her eyes narrowing slightly in confusion.

His stomach dropped then. He had been staring too long.

“Right!” he said, just a little too loudly. “Of course you will.” He pointed vaguely towards the door behind him, not having it in him to fully turn away from her. “I’ll just see myself out and see you tomorrow, maybe?”

She shrugged. “Only if you want to get started sooner rather than later.”

He stared to nod. “Yes. Good. Research. Books. I definitely need to get started. Tomorrow.” He couldn’t stop nodding, even as he slowly made his way towards the front door.

His back hit something hard, and it was only then did he realize he hadn’t bothered to turn around. He whipped around to see the shelf he had run into rock slightly, but not damage had been done.

Just above his head, he heard a small hiss. He looked up to see the snake staring at him. He didn’t think snakes were capable of showing any real emotion, but in that moment, he could have sworn the serpent was laughing at him.

He looked to Isabelle. She was trying her best, but the smile on her face would not be contained by the hand over her mouth.

Peter gave a short laugh, as if that would make it less embarrassing, and all but ran out of the shop.

The door shut behind him with a chime as cool sea air poured into his lungs. He took heaping gulps of it as if he had just come up from a deep dive. It hadn’t been real, had it? Logically it must have. It had just happened. All the same, the cobble stones beneath his feet, the sun glowing behind thin cloud, and the breeze against his skin felt more real than anything he had experienced in the last ten minutes. He turned back around, half expecting for the shop no longer to be there, like in all the story books where the protagonist can never find the little door beneath the staircase or the hole in the fence once they come back from the other side. But there it stood. The sign A. Z. Fell and Co. still hung over the shop door. Shelves of books could be made out through the window and Isabelle Crowley walked among them, book in hand, and the snake draped once again around her neck.

Peter took another breath and let it out slowly.

“Fuck me.”

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Isabelle couldn’t hold it in any longer. As soon as the door chimed shut, she let out a hearty laugh.

Her Dad joined her, his laughter coming out in a series of high pitched hisses.

“I think that went rather well,” he mused.

“Yes, you’ve successfully traumatized a grad student,” Isabelle said.

“Asss if you wasn’t your idea.”

Isabelle rolled her eyes and walked over to the shelf the serpent was perched on. She held out her arm, allowing him to slither down and curl himself around her neck.

“Do you think he will come back?” Isabelle asked, idly.

“Oh, I think ssso,” Crowley answered. “Ssseemed like the determined sssort. Besidesss, he’s got a reason to come back.”

Isabelle nodded, taking a quick glance around at the shelves of books and all the knowledge they contained.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “There really is no other place like it, is there?”

Crowley hissed out a chuckle.

She looked down at him, her brows furrowed in confusion. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing Izz, just sometimes, you act exactly like Aziraphale.”

She laughed it off, or at least tried to. The sound never even made it to her throat. She had assumed he was referring to her clear love of books, but something in his eyes told her otherwise.

“What did you think of him?” Crowley asked, before she could linger on the feeling.

“Who? Peter?”

Crowley shot her a sardonic look.

She shrugged, not knowing what else to do. “I don’t know. He seemed nice enough. A nervous wreck, but you did almost bite his face off.”

“Is that all?”

She stood silent for a moment. She wasn’t sure what to make of him. Everything in his demeanor and tone painted the image of a shy, slightly awkward academic. He was slim, but not overly so. Tall, but not too tall. A little pale, no doubt from the lack of sunlight in dark achieve basements. His hands fidgeted, but she didn’t get the impression he was perpetually nervous. All the same, there was something else about him.

His little speech spoke of an underlining passion. He knew what he had come there for and wasn’t going to leave until he got it. It hinted at a confidence she was interested to see more of.

Yes, she would like to see him again. She would like to talk to him and see if she could get him to smile that wide smile which lit up those green eyes of his. She couldn’t think of a single person she’d met with proper green eyes like that.

“Wouldn’t mind talking to him again,” she admitted. “Why do you ask?”

Crowley rocked his head from side to side, giving the effect of shrugging without shoulders. “No reason, just ssseemed like a bright young lad.”

Isabelle narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Why is it I feel like you know something I don’t?”

“That’s because I do.”

Isabelle frowned, but Crowley countered by playfully nudging her with his scaly head.

“Nothing you need to worry about, my girl, crosssss my heart. All will reveal itself, soon enough.”

She wanted to press the matter, but let it go. If her Dad wanted to play his little game, she’d let him. No real harm could come of it.

“So, which one of us is going to tell Papa we’re allowing someone to rent his books?”

“I did no such thing,” Crowley defended. “That’sss all on you. You explain it to him.”

She let out a groan.

“No good deed goes unpunished,” he teased.

“Right,” she grumbled.

It really was going to be a trick convincing her Papa. But then she thought of Peter, and all her doubts melted away. She could do it. She told him she could, and she would. No matter what it took.

#crowley #anthony j crowley #good omens #good omens fic #ineffable dads #good omens oc #isabelle crowley #peter walsh #isabelle x peter

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bitchin-b33 · 5 years ago

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So with that new leak about SU: Future, I have more of a theory. (Here’s the link to the transcript on @novantinuum’s blog: https://novantinuum.tumblr.com/post/190209335254/transcript-of-leak-for-reference) Everything I say will be under a ‘read more’ and won’t have too much evidence linked since it’s my own personal thoughts that’re going to happen.

So, I totally believe this leak might be leadup to Steven corrupting, from the pained noises he makes towards the end, to the strain in his voice, like he’s trying to hold it together. It sounds also like it parallels Jasper, and what did Jasper do while she was corrupting?

She pushed Steven away, she pushed away his help he was offering. And her emotional turmoil, her anger and her hatred only served to corrupt her faster.

In Future I feel Steven has a lot of parallels to Jasper actually. He’s having outbursts of anger, something not common with Steven, he’s fighting (Mostly seen with Jasper, but Prickly Pair can be seen also. Though it’s mostly emotionally he’s fighting, not physically.) and he’s pushing people away. Though he’s pushed people away for three years (two years since CYM, and then a year since the beginning of Future since it was winter, and now warmer in Prickly Pair/Little Graduation. And since SU has never released episodes out of order, it’s obvious those two are after Snow Day. )

So what does this mean?

Three years, three years of Steven bottling up his emotions and putting a smile on, helping people. In the movie, he even says he won’t have a happily ever after like he wanted! This boy has problems that need solved! But that is no surprise to us fans, it’s still a surprise to the gems around him (Omit Spinel and maybe Pink Pearl... and Jasper.) They have seen Steven put a smile on for the last three years, why else would such outbursts be so outlandish to them? (They weren’t there to see Steven’s anger when he poofed Spinel. Spinel did though, and I bet she remembers, and if she shows up soon, she’s going to connect those outbursts to that I bet. She’s not stupid.)

What’s going to happen though is Steven’s corruption, I’m sure of it. I will bank my left freaking kidney on it. This leak simply gives more proof (and better proof to the smear frames, which I feel are a bit too... on point.) to that idea. Steven’s going to corrupt, and now, I feel the gems are going to be at the epicenter of him finally snapping. They’re feeding into him feeling like a monster, just look at their dialogue in the leak? Pearl especially, and then also look at how Steven talked about them in Prickly Pair. How he can’t go to them for various reasons (which aren’t really too true, at least, so we thought.)

Pearl isn’t going to spiral out of control if Steven tells her about his issues, but she wouldn’t give him sound advice either (Just by how she’s reacting in the leak, it just... Pearl might mean well, but it rubs me wrong. Blaming Steven for things he can’t control, and as a person with anger issues, being blamed for it never helps. In fact, it does the opposite. It makes me angrier, and I can assume it’d obviously be the same for Steven.) Now that isn’t to say Steven needs to talk it out, he needs to, but the ways the gems are trying to go about it since Prickly pair (This leak has to be either the next episode or the episode after.)

Anyways, how will this relate to corrupting Steven? I think this episode (whatever episode it happens in, probably towards the middle.) will be apart of three, three showing Steven corrupting, three years of trauma and pain and helping and burying his emotions ripping and tearing through him. Three years is a long time, and it can produce big trauma with what Steven’s been through (He was literally ripped in half in CYM, that’s going to stick with you.) But how would that happen if the season is in Steven’s perspective?

Easy, his negativity clouds him. It clouds his mind. And since Steven is half-human, he’s still able to think. Now, this is a personal headcanon, and easily thrown away or dismissed. I simply think it would be cool to see, would give more depth to Steven’s emotions, and ties back to Cacti-Steeb. He’s still in control, technically. He can think, he can speak, but his thoughts are skewed by corruption just like his body. All his negative emotions and hatred messes with his head. Just like someone who is angry and say/do things they don’t mean (Also taken from myself, I cannot speak for everyone, but a lot of times I get too angry to think clearly and I feel bad after.) And it’s just like Cacti-Steeb, relaying his true (or at least, anger-filled) emotions at the people he cares for. Showing them what he’s been bottling up for three years, and this is how he can start to heal, how his family can begin to help him.

Starting with the gems, Amethyst would be the first to get semi-through to him I feel. They have that sibling-like bond, she was also the first person he helped in the movie get their memories back. Then Pearl, who always meant well for him, she’s the second person who he helped in the movie get their memories back, then Garnet (Omitting Spinel even though she was next in the movie) and then everyone else he’s helped (that’re close, maybe had Nephrite in too though because just YES) Connie, Greg, the diamonds, his friends from Beach City, and it lets him put away his pain, lets him get over it enough that it stops consuming him (Enough that he can start to look more human again.) I feel this would be a song because SU is built on their amazing songs, and what’s the opening? What has always been the opening? The gems singing together. Make it a reprise of ‘We are the Crystal Gems’, the final song to end Su. The song we started with, is the song we end with.

But! As I said, these last few parts have been my own headcanons and are easily discarded, I do think it’ll take three episodes for Steven to finally corrupt, r at least, three episodes it takes for things to swiftly go south before the gems can help them (Listen, I really want it to explore the destruction Pink really held at her fingertips, and what Steven now has potentially unlimited access to.)

#SUF spoilers #su spoilers #su headcanons #corrupt!steven #corrupt steven theory #Su theory #SUF theory

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megalony · 5 years ago

Text

Touchy situation- Part 9

Here is the latest part of my slow-burn Roger Taylor series, thank you for all the feedback it is much appreciated. There is a lot of angst in this part.

Taglist: @lunaticspoem @butlegendsneverdie @langdonzvoid @jennyggggrrr @rogmeddows @radiob-l-a-hblah @rogertaylorsbitontheside @chlobo6 @rogertaylors-lipgloss @sj-thefan @omgitsearly @luckytrashgooprebel @scarsout @deaky-with-a-c @killer-queen-ofrhye @bluutac @vousmemanqueez @rogahs-drowse

Summary: (Y/n) and Roger still love each other even after their breakup but although they want to be together again, they can’t because Roger is with someone else now. Someone who is now pregnant.

Series masterlist

Enjoy.

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Freddie looked like a beacon to (Y/n), he was the light at the end of the tunnel that she was desperate to reach as if he was going to keep her from harm and calm her down.

Every emotion she had ever experienced seemed to be washing over (Y/n) as she could feel her anxiety and worries following behind her, nipping at her heels like raged animals chasing her down the hallway. There was only one thought that was racing around in her pounding mind and it was a thought that was scaring the flesh from her bones.

Roger.

He had been through more than his fair share of heartache and pain and it was about time that someone else took that burden from him to let him live and be free. But fate seemed to love watching the drummer struggle and see how far he could be pushed before Roger broke to a point there was no way that he could be fixed. No one could have everything they ever wanted in life but Roger didn't seem to be allowed anything. The band's success was the only thing in life Roger had been granted, it seemed he was allowed one thing in life to be proud and happy about and everything else was open to be destroyed.

Roger had been a mess lately even after learning that Andrew was fine after the incident with the bath and the drowning. It was as if Roger didn't really believe that everything was fine and okay, now he seemed to have had a reason for his worries.

(Y/n) didn't know whereabouts in the hospital she now was, she had simply followed the instructions Freddie had told her on the phone when he called her to say that she had to come down. But he hadn't told her what had happened, he simply said that Roger was in a state because something had happened with Andrew and she had to come down as soon as possible.

But they weren't near the ICU where Andrew should be and they weren't anywhere near Liz's ward in the hospital so something rather bad must have happened for them to be moved to a different ward in the hospital.

All (Y/n) could think of was that Andrew had suddenly gained an infection or his lungs or maybe even his heart had suddenly taken a turn for the worst. But he had been fine yesterday when she came down to see him and Roger and Roger said he could take Andrew home soon. How could things have changed so quickly in the space of one day?

Finally reaching Freddie, (Y/n) rested her hand on his arm as she took a moment to try and gain back the breath she had lost when she rushed around to try and get up here as quickly as humanly possible. She also scanned her eyes around but there were no signs and she hadn't taken notice of the name of this ward either. There didn't seem to be many rooms along this corridor, nor were there any people about and it was eerily quiet which was beginning to make (Y/n) feel on edge.

"W-what's happened? Is Andrew okay, was it his lungs?" (Y/n) tried to pace her words so that Freddie could understand what she was saying but it was hard to slow down when she wanted answers quickly.

(Y/n) locked eyes with Freddie as he rested his hands on her elbows both for comfort and to try and get her to calm down. He couldn't explain what had happened if she was panicked and rushed on adrenaline. There was something in his eyes that made (Y/n) cautious, he looked too calm like he was forcing himself to stay level-headed when he didn't want to be.

"Brian was here with Roger a few hours ago when it happened... Liz had some sort of psychotic episode and she... she tried to smother Andrew."

(Y/n)'s lip twitched as if she was going to snarl or be sick as she slowly started to shake her head. Liz didn't know how lucky she had it to be with Roger and to have Andrew with no complications, she had it lucky because she had never lost a child but she wasn't bad. She wouldn't hurt him, from what the boys and even Roger had said, the couple had been overjoyed to have Andrew and that was one of the reasons it was going to be hard for Roger to leave. She wouldn't do that.

"N-no... Fred she wouldn't." (Y/n) felt tears welling in her eyes as she tried to breathe but the action that had once been so easy was now becoming a struggle.

Why would Liz do that?

"The doctor did some kind of assessment after they detained her and said she's suffering from post-natal depression and psychosis." Freddie's tone showed he was struggling to keep the anger from his voice because part of him knew he couldn't be angry.

Liz wasn't in the right state of mind, she had acted out because she had suffered a psychotic episode which meant the situation had gotten out of her control. If she had been in her right state of mind she would never have done what she did and they had to see that she was ill which was why she had hurt Andrew. But Freddie was finding it extremely hard to be sympathetic and (Y/n) wasn't even trying. Liz may not have been in her right state of mind but no one had forced her hand.

Whatever had gone on in her head, no one made her hurt Andrew, she had still chosen to do that out of her own free will even if her mind hadn't been in the right frame like it normally was.

(Y/n) already knew that Roger was not going to be sympathetic towards her because she had just hurt his son. He wouldn't care if she had blacked out or she had suffered from psychosis, she had hurt Andrew and he was not going to be kind about that.

"Wait... the seizure in the bath, was that...?" (Y/n) clamped her hand down on her mouth but it didn't help in smothering a strangled sound that resembled a croaked sob when Freddie's face said it all. The doctors didn't know why she had the seizure because she hadn't had one, she had been in a state of psychosis at the time and Roger had clearly appeared when he wasn't expected to.

He had practically caught Liz when her mind was in a bad state and she was trying to drown their son. She would have had the choice of pretending it was an accident or letting him realise that she had done that on purpose. She had faked the seizure so she wouldn't be seen drowning Andrew and so there would be no blame put onto her.

(Y/n) could find no sympathy in her heart for Liz now.

It was always going to be hard for even a doctor to determine whether Liz had faked the seizure because she realised what she had done or if she did it when she was still in a psychotic episode. But she had lied and she had tried to kill her baby, only a doctor was going to be able to give her the sympathy and respect that she may deserve because the rest of them were never going to be able to do that. They would look at her and see what she had done rather than why she had done it and they wouldn't care. They would simply look at her in pure, unadulterated anger.

"I need to see Rog. He's with Andrew, right? Is he okay, did she hurt him?" (Y/n) suddenly started to pat Freddie's shoulder in some kind of attempt to get him to take her to Roger and Andrew.

He said that Liz had tried to smother Andrew which gave (Y/n) the thought that she hadn't succeeded. She needed to go and see how Andrew was and be with Roger. They couldn't leave Roger watching over Andrew on his own because Roger sent himself mad when Andrew as okay, he would be in a state of shock and turmoil watching over Andrew now that this had happened.

"He wasn't breathing so Rog did CPR and so did a doctor. They managed to get him breathing and they put in back in ICU-"

"Fred I have to go see them-"

"(Y/n)..." Freddie once again tried to stay calm and talk calmly but it was getting hard when both of them had stuff they wanted to say but didn't feel they had the time. (Y/n) wanted to see Roger and check on Andrew, she could be informed of the finer details when Freddie took her to them but right now she didn't want to stand around waiting anymore. "He didn't make it."

(Y/n) could physically feel a hand breaking through her ribcage and tearing out her heart. She felt her heart being squeezed in someone's fist to the point it was stuttering and giving up on her.

Andrew couldn't be dead.

He was a baby, he was one month old and he was the light in Roger's life, he was the reason Roger was elated in life and was now back on top when he had previously felt like he was down in Hell. Andrew was a newborn but he had quickly come to mean everything to Roger, there was no way that he could be gone now.

Roger couldn't have lost two children. (Y/n) had found it hard enough losing their daughter but she had been miscarried, she hadn't been carried to full term and been given birth to or had been taken care of for a month. She hadn't died because her own mother had wanted her to be dead. (Y/n) knew Roger like the back of her hand, losing one child had hit him hard but losing Andrew would tip Roger over the edge and it would be as if they lost him too.

"No... Fred no, d-don't-" Tears started to well in (Y/n)'s eyes as she violently shook her head but no matter how many times she pleaded or what she did, Freddie couldn't change reality even if he felt so desperate to. He didn't hold that power and he would have done anything in the world to have it but he didn't.

"His kidneys shut down, there was nothing they could do. He passed not long after I called you."

Freddie pressed his hand to the back of (Y/n)'s head when she fisted her hands in his shirt and pressed her face into his chest. She couldn't smother the cries nor stop the tears from falling anymore. (Y/n) had never wanted Andrew to exist, but she didn't mean it like this. She meant for time to reverse and him not to have existed in the beginning, not for him to be given a life for it to be stolen away like this. That little baby didn't deserve to be taken from Roger, especially not in such a cruel, heartless way.

But Roger's efforts to save him were in vain. He had done CPR and handed Andrew over to a nurse who had done the same until he was breathing and had a pulse. But the lack of oxygen and the time he hadn't been breathing without a heartbeat meant some of his organs had started to shut down. His kidneys had shut down and there was no medication that could be given to start them working again. With it happening so quickly and him being born he was never going to be on a donor list either.

The moment the doctor told Roger there was nothing to be done, Roger had screamed. He had broken down in a heap of sweat, tears and curses. Freddie had hoped that something would change and suddenly Andrew would pick up and get better, but he didn't.

"Where's Rog, I h-have to see him." (Y/n) hiccupped through the words as she didn't bother pulling away from Freddie just yet. She needed the embrace he was providing because without it, she felt like she would fall to broken pieces and never recover.

Andrew wasn't even her baby, but he was Roger's. He was Roger's baby and he meant everything to the drummer. (Y/n) could already feel Roger's pain flowing through her from wherever he was in the hospital and it felt like she was dying because there was nothing no one could do for Roger now. They wouldn't be able to help him or hold him together because they knew the moment Andrew passed, he had shattered every part of Roger.

"Darling... he doesn't want to see anyone. When I called I thought Andrew might pull through but the moment he didn't Roger sent everyone away, he won't speak to us."

Roger had screamed at the band and shouted words of abuse that they knew not to take to heart. But when Roger shouted that he didn't want John's sympathy because he had all of his children and had implied that it should have been John because he had four children, the bassist left. He knew Roger was hurting and he knew he could do nothing about it, so he went home. Roger screamed at Brian for not helping when they found Liz hurting Andrew and Brian had been in such a state of shock that he didn't bother responding and just went home.

Roger said he didn't know why Freddie was there because he didn't know what it was like either since he had no children but Freddie didn't listen. He wanted someone to be here for when Roger was ready to talk or needed consoling and he had to be here for when (Y/n) arrived.

But the drummer shut himself away and he wasn't willing to talk to anyone at the moment. Freddie didn't have the heart to disturb him either.

"Where is he?!" (Y/n) demanded through a sob before she finally pulled back enough to look at the singer who saw the pleading in her eyes. (Y/n) couldn't stand in the corridor and cry, she wanted to see Roger even if he wouldn't speak to her or even look at her, she had to see him.

Saying nothing, Freddie simply beckoned (Y/n) to follow him a few feet down the corridor before he stopped in front of one of the rooms in the corridor. It had a small rectangular window on the left side of the door but both the window and the door had the blinds shut so no one could look in and Roger couldn't look out. He wanted to be shut off and secluded from the world that had abused him and tortured him in this way. If he saw anyone he was viable to lash out.

Freddie dared not think what Roger would do when he saw Liz.

The singer knew that a nurse had had to tell Liz that Andrew has passed away but he didn't know if she was still suffering from psychosis and therefore didn't care or if she was more of herself and realised what she had done. But he couldn't find it in himself to care right now because Roger was the main priority.

(Y/n) looked at Freddie but his expression told her he wasn't going to try and go in with her. He didn't feel like intruding and he wouldn't be any help or use to Roger if he did. (Y/n) found her hand on the door handle but she couldn't seem to find the will to open the door. She didn't know if Roger would be sitting or standing, if he would be sobbing or sitting and staring into the distance. She didn't know if he would look at her and cry or look right through her or just shout at her to leave.

She tried to open the door as slowly and quietly as possible and was thankful when the hinges didn't even squeak to alert Roger of her presence. But what she found inside the room was something she wanted to be burned from her memory.

Roger was sitting in a dark navy blue chair in the middle of the rather small but quaint room that either didn't have very good lighting or he had deliberately turned it down. Tears were pouring down his face like taps that were left running but he didn't seem to be registering them anymore. What made (Y/n)'s stomach churn was the bundle resting in Roger's arms that he was hugging to his chest as if trying to stuff it into his heart.

He had his lips pressing to the top of Andrew's head as he tried his hardest not to scream but it was becoming too hard to stay quiet. He still felt like he was simply rocking Andrew to sleep and couldn't make a sound in case he woke him up. But if he screamed it would only make it set in stone that Andrew wasn't going to be waking up again.

The nurses had brought Roger here and said he could have as long as he wanted but he felt like walking out and going home because he knew sooner or later he was going to have to give Andrew over to them and he wouldn't be able to hold him again.

When he heard the door open, Roger's bleak, cold eyes locked on (Y/n)'s frame and for the first time, he didn't feel anything.

He didn't feel happy, excited, relieved, overwhelmed or sad that she was here. For the first time, he was looking at her and feeling no love in his body for her or anyone else but the baby on his chest. Roger felt hollow and he wondered if this was going to be the way he felt forever. He didn't want to live anymore if every day was going to make him feel like this.

"Get out." Roger spoke quietly as he didn't feel the energy to rage at her right now but if she stayed he would simply let his temper fly loose.

"Rog... I, I'm..." What was she meant to say? How could she say she was sorry when it wouldn't help Roger or bring Andrew back. Roger didn't even want her sorrow or pity. She couldn't say anything that would help or make him feel better unless she told him she could bring Andrew back which was out of her power to do.

"I don't want you here."

The way that Roger kept eye contact with (Y/n) as he spoke those harsh words made her heart break in her chest. He had no interest in her or any comfort she could give because it wouldn't help. He wanted to be alone with his boy, if he could Roger would stay like this for the rest of his life just holding the most important person to him that he had lost. But he only had a limited amount of time and this time was priceless to Roger. He was not going to spend it wallowing in pain with (Y/n) and Freddie trying to console him or hug and kiss him. He wanted to drown in his own pain, not theirs.

"Why are you crying, he isn't yours to grieve." Roger spat the words like they were venom on his tongue and to (Y/n), they felt poisonous. He was being cruel because he thought it would help and he had no energy to sugarcoat his words.

Roger couldn't see why (Y/n) was crying when Andrew wasn't her child to lose or grieve for. She hadn't given birth to him or carried him for nine months, she wasn't his parent and she didn't have the bond that Roger did. He felt that he was the only one who should be grieving because no one else lost Andrew. He didn't even class Liz as losing him because she had killed him. If Roger saw her crying or trying to grieve he would do everything in his power to make her stop because she didn't deserve it.

He felt enough pain for everybody so no one should grieve but him.

"Let him be on his own for a while, darling." Freddie whispered the words in (Y/n)'s ear as he rested his hands on her shoulders and gently pulled her from the doorway. Roger needed to be alone and they had no right to disrespect his wishes in his time of sorrow.

(Y/n) felt her knees caving as she wanted to run into the room and hold Roger when he seemed to break. He looked down at the baby in his arms before the most broken, shrill cry she'd ever heard left his lips. Roger bowed his head as he doubled over, holding Andrew so close yet so carefully as if he was going to break as he pressed his lips to the baby boy's head.

He'd lost him for real this time.

#roger taylor #roger taylor imagine #roger x reader #roger taylor x oc #queen band #freddie mercury #john deacon #Brian May #touchy situation #dad! roger

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