#maybe i could go my legacy challenge starting w her. i think it could be fun and a way for me to KEEP PLAYING THE SAME FAMILY!!! ough | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mochegato · 4 years ago

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Shut Up and Dance

“Gotta keep your eyes on me,” Ladybug taunted as she launched herself at Red X.

“Not a problem, Pixie,” he answered quickly, jumping just out of her reach so her fingers only grazed his sides. But, while they missed his body, they were close enough to grab his cape and yank. He yelped as he fell backwards towards her. He recovered enough at the last second to kick back, forcing her to jump away to avoid him.

“You sure? Because you’re looking around an awful lot for someone who has no problem keeping their eyes on me.” She smirked at him.

He examined his partially ripped off cape and looked back at her. If she could see his disappointed glare, he was sure she would feel at least a little guilty. “Just making sure we were alone.” He jumped to deliver a roundhouse kick that she easily dodged by leaning back into a back flip.

“Why? You embarrassed to get your ass kicked in front of others?” She gave him a fake sympathetic look.

“Naw, I’m always looking to show off my moves.”

“I can’t wait to see how you dance.” She swiped at his leg to knock him off balance. She followed up with a kick to his chest, but the kick was just short of enough force to knock him off the roof without his grappling hook.

He landed in a fighting stance. He warily eyed the ground from the skyscraper they were on, that he almost fell off of. He’d survive it, probably, but she had no way of knowing that and it would take more resources than he wanted to use. Thankfully, she hadn’t actually knocked him over. She was damn close though. If she had just moved her leg a fraction faster, she would have done it. And she could do it too. He’s been watching her… for research on his enemies... and she could definitely move faster. He suddenly cocked his head to the side. After a second he straightened up, his arms relaxed at his side. “You’re holding back.”

She furrowed her brow and jumped at him. “Shut up and dance.”

Her feet connected with his chest. The force from the impact knocked him to the side, away from the edge he had almost fallen over before. It had definitely cracked at least two ribs and breathing was already a bit harder, but he could tell she was pulling it. “Why are you holding back?”

“What makes you think I am?” she asked while throwing a punch he was able to easily deflect.

He trapped her arm between his arm and his chest. “I’ve studied you. You can fight better than this.”

“So you’ve been watching me for a while,” she smirked at him before twirling quickly to elbow him in the neck. He instantly released her. His hands flew up to his throat as he gasped for breath.

As soon as he was able to catch his breath, he faced back toward her. “I study all my… enemies.” The last word came out awkwardly.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that what we are?” She gave him a condescending smile and shrugged. “Maybe I don’t think you’re that much of a threat.”

Red X let out an offended scoff. “I think you’ve forgotten who the villain is here.”

“Villain,” she scoffed back. “I’ve fought megalomaniacs who tortured babies and turned them into weapons to terrorize millions of people.”

“What the fuck,” he sputtered, rising out of his fighting stance.

“So, you’ll understand how someone stealing secrets from corrupt corporations doesn’t inspire my need to cause more damage than necessary to stop you, like say killing you, even if their entire goal in life appears to be to embarrass me and my team.”

He stared at her uncertain how to react to that so he went with his default; deflect. He launched at her. He looked down as he moved. Ladybug jumped to flip over him, but he straightened up and caught her arms instead. He slammed her into the wall, pinning her hands above her head. “Don’t let the other Titans hear you being soft on me,” he said thickly.

She groaned in annoyance. “Can’t believe I fell for that.” She banged her head lightly against the wall and gave him an annoyed glare. “Bold of you to assume they haven’t heard this entire conversation, and they aren’t on their way now.”

He looked her up and down and hummed in appreciation. “Thanks for the warning. Guess we better wrap this up then. I’m leaving. You going to finally put effort into this?”

“Make no mistake, if I wasn’t holding back? You’d be splattered all over that building over there.” She nodded toward a skyscraper a few miles away. “But don’t worry. I’ll put in enough effort to impress you.”

“I’d love to see it, Cupcake. But later.” He ripped off the rest of his cape off and threw it in her face as he pushed off against her and rushed toward the edge of the building.

Did he really think she didn’t know how to get out from under fabric that had fallen on her? That was her specialty. She ripped the cape off in 1.7 seconds flat. “Does that mean we won’t be dancing, Sweetheart?” she asked as she threw her yoyo at him. The yoyo wrapped around him, pinning his arms at his sides and tying his legs together. He fell with an inelegant thud. “Shame. I was looking forward to it.” She gave him a mock pout.

“Not today, Pixie.” He worked his hands slowly up to his belt as he spoke. He angled his head to look up at her. “And you’re wrong, I’ve never tried to embarrass you.” He pushed the switch on his belt, allowing him to teleport out of her yoyo string and disappear.

Ladybug cursed under her breath. Clearly not enough effort after all. She had just started to pull her yoyo back when the rest of the Titans arrived.

“Red X?” Robin growled.

“Can teleport, so that’s good to know,” Ladybug noted with a hint of annoyance. “Note for future interactions, don’t let him touch his belt buckle.”

“Planning on interacting with him in the future, are you?” Beast Boy asked with a waggle of his eyebrows.

Ladybug narrowed her eyes at him and grabbed his discarded cape as she turned to get on the jet. “Hopefully,” she whispered just loud enough for her own ears.

<><><><><>

“Well look at that. It’s our friendly neighborhood Red Hood. Except you’re not so friendly, are you?” Ladybug observed mockingly with a pout as she landed in front of Red Hood, blocking his path forward.

“Oh, I’m more than willing to be friendly to you,” he waggled his eyebrows at her, which admittedly would have been more effective without the helmet.

She cocked her head to the side and raised an amused eyebrow at him. “And I don’t really live in this neighborhood either,” she noted casually. “And, you know, I never did ask, why do you call yourself Red Hood if you don’t have a hood?”

Red Hood made a facial expression she couldn’t see under his helmet, but his pause and cocked head let her know he was thinking about his answer. “The Joker used to call himself the Red Hood.”

Ladybug stopped and stared at him. “Why would you call yourself after the Joker?”

“Because I took it away from him. I’m planning on taking so many things away from him, but the name is just the first. It’s my name now. It doesn’t represent him anymore. When people think of Red Hood, they think of me, not him,” Red Hood announced. His voice was fragile and determined at the same time.

“Razing his legacy to the ground. Nice.” She nodded in understanding. Her eyes softened at him for a few moments before sharpening again. “But, I can’t let you do this.”

“You can’t stop me,” Red Hood scoffed.

“That sounds like a challenge.” She cricked her neck to the side to stretch. “Something you should know about me, I am extremely competitive.”

Red Hood let out an annoyed sigh and got into a fighting position. “Something you should know about me, I don’t back down from a fight.”

“It’s only backing down if there’s already a fight. There doesn’t have to be,” she said softly, her eyes almost pleading.

“If you’re standing between me and him, there does.” His eyes had taken on a harsh edge, determined and cold.

“I can’t let you go in there. You won’t survive. I know you’re good, but there’s more going on in there than you know.”

“Oh Pixie, I have moves you haven’t even seen yet.”

Ladybug’s brow furrowed at him. “You don’t get to call me that.”

“Special name, is it?” His voice was mocking, but there was something more behind it that Ladybug couldn’t quite define.

She scowled at him and started swinging her yoyo around. “You know what, show me. Show me your moves. Show me I’m wrong.”

“Or we can do it together,” he offered. He relaxed his pose slightly to show her he was sincere. “Come on, working as partners to take out the Joker. Think of how many people it would help. Think how much better Gotham would be with him gone. And we could do it… together.”

Ladybug stared at him contemplatively for a few seconds. Red Hood’s heart started racing. She was considering it, they could work together to clean up Gotham’s streets. His hope was short-lived. It died as soon as she shook her head. “I won’t mourn the death of the Joker, but I can’t. I just… I can’t go in intending to kill.”

“Fine,” he huffed and settled back into his fight stance. “Let’s do this.”

Ladybug pursed her lips and pulled her yoyo out. She swung it around in preparation. “That’s cheating, don’t you think?” he deadpanned.

“Oh?” she raised an eyebrow at him. “You think they’re not going to use weapons?” He cocked his head to the side and stared at her. “Fiiiine,” she groaned. “Keep your eyes on me.” She made a show of reeling her yoyo back in and placing it on the half wall running around the roof. “Happy now, you big baby?”

“Ecstatic,” Red Hood nodded. He launched at her, reaching out at the same time to grab her around the midsection. She jumped over his arm, landing in a summersault. He moved to kick her in the chest, but she bent back twisting just under his leg; the advantages of fighting a significantly bigger opponent. She could dodge his kicks without much effort. It was harder for him to kick low enough to make it difficult for her to dodge.

She elbowed him from behind, catching him in his side. He grunted and elbowed her back, catching her in the back of the head; the disadvantage of fighting a significantly bigger opponent. If they were closer in size, it would have hit her shoulder instead of her head. She fell forward from the impact, but kicked back as she fell, catching the back of his knee. She turned and waited for him to stand and face her again.

“You’re holding back,” he tutted, a smirk on his lips she couldn’t see.

“You’re the one that said you had new moves,” she shrugged.

“So?”

“So, shut up and dance,” she grunted as she lunged at him. He easily sidestepped her, twisting as he moved so he was facing her back. He kicked at her, intending to send her sprawling on the ground, but she twisted at the last second and shoved his leg hard enough to set him off balance.

She kicked him in the back of the helmet hard enough to knock him off center. She jumped on his shoulders and threw herself back, twisting and squeezing as she did, bringing him down with her. She summersaulted off of him as soon as she touched ground. He jumped back up and punched before his feet landed. She braced against the hit, redirecting it, but he grabbed her hand instead and used it to twist her arm behind her. She twisted with the arm and swung her other arm wildly attempting to connect with his chin, but he grabbed it too. He wrapped both arms in front of her, trapping her against his chest. He lowered his head to whisper into her ear. “Not the kind of dancing I’d like to do with you, gotta be honest.”

She turned her head just enough to look at him. The helmet made it impossible to tell if he was teasing her or if he meant it, or if it was both. She furrowed her brow and reeled her head back to head-butt him. She braced herself for the impact, vaguely wondering how well her magic would protect her head against slamming into the helmet designed to withstand getting shot. But before she could make contact they felt a rumble below them. Red Hood let go of her to let them both brace themselves.

She stumbled over to the edge of the building so she could look over the side. She let out a surprised cry as the wall started collapsing on itself. She didn’t have time to move before the ground she was standing on followed suit, crumbling down at the loss of support. She scrambled to get above the wreckage, but couldn’t get above it. She reached for her yoyo and let out a frustrated groan as the realization that she had set it on the other side of the roof earlier set in.

Red Hood staggered toward her, but fell backward as his side of the building started to collapse too. He grabbed his grappling hook and tried to run toward where Ladybug had fallen, grabbing her yoyo as he ran, but the ground fell through under him and the grappling hook fell away somewhere. He crashed through the roof, landing two floors down with an unceremonious thump. He groaned and tried to push himself back up. He rubbed the spot where he had landed on the yoyo. That bruise was going to last for weeks.

He pocketed the yoyo and limped to the window to assess the damage. His heart stuttered at the sight. The side of the building Ladybug had been on was completely destroyed and he couldn’t see any sign of her. He moved to a different window and looked again. He felt an ice cold blast surge through his veins. The Joker’s henchmen had dragged her out of the wreckage and were dragging her to a waiting van.

“Son of a b…” Red Hood ran toward the stairs only to find them gone. “Oh, fuck you,” he grumbled. He ran back to the window and gauged the fall. He was eight stories up. He couldn’t just make that fall. He pulled out the yoyo and examined it. It was essentially a magic grappling hook, right? He threw it out and gaped when it hooked on a roof a block away. He gave an experimental tug and let out a surprised scream when it pulled him in toward the connection point and momentum allowed him to continue, sending him in an arc that lasted another half a block before he started to fall.

He quickly tugged on the yoyo again, already seeing where this was going; if he didn’t get another connection point quick he was going to hit the ground at a deadly velocity. The yoyo retracted quickly. He threw it again and vowed to never return it to Ladybug. It was a hundred times better than a grappling hook. He felt like Spiderman. He looked for the van and was finally able to spot it a few blocks ahead. It was only outpacing him by a little. At this rate, he should be able to at least keep eyes on them even if he couldn’t keep up.

He was proved right when the van pulled into a warehouse about twenty minutes later. He took a breath and sent a message to Dick, the first message he’d sent him in over five years. ‘You might want to check your little bird’s tracker. Joker’s not going to wait until you finally realize she’s gone before he starts torturing her.’ Dick might not recognize the number, but he would check. That should be enough to tell him he needed to act.

Red Hood took his guns off safety in preparation. He wound up the yoyo again and threw it at the warehouse above the window he’d chosen to crash through. He flew through the air and braced to crash through the glass. He landed on a metal walkway near Joker who was holding a rope with a barely conscious Ladybug tied up on the other end, hovering above a vat of acid.

“Oh come on. You couldn’t have given me five more minutes to get this set up? That’s the problem with you new rogues, no patience. No respect for your superiors,” the Joker chastised him.

Red Hood scoffed. “The only thing you’re superior to is Egghead and that’s only because your puns aren’t egg related.”

The Joker growled at him. “Well, Red Hood, it seems like you have a choice to make don’t you? Because if you shoot me, I drop the rope and she dies. You get closer to me, I drop the rope and she dies. The only way to save her is to grab her,” he gave him a mock sympathetic pout, “but then you don’t get to shoot me.” He shrugged emotionlessly, letting Ladybug’s rope slip down a bit as he did. “But then again, maybe you’d get the shot off. I don’t know Robin, how good is your aim?

“So,” he continued without waiting for Red Hood to answer, “what are you going to choose? Well, I say choose. It isn’t much of a choice is it? If you kill me, you not only get me dead, you get to be directly responsible for the death of one of Batman’s little birds. You get to hurt the big, bad Bat in a way nobody else can. And let’s be honest, that’s the real prize isn’t it? Hurting the Bat.”

Red Hood growled at him, but waited where he was. If they could hold out for Batman to get there, one of his little sidekicks could save her and he could get the Joker. He tightened and loosened his grip on the yoyo, trying to come up with contingency plans. He couldn’t let the Joker get away. He was right there. He was so close he could almost smell his bad breath. He couldn’t just let him get away.

The Joker suddenly groaned in frustration and hummed as if in thought. “I’m already bored of this. Time to make your decision.” He let go of the rope and backed away, a malicious look in his eyes. His mouth widened into a revolting smile as he waited for Red Hood to act. He frowned and let out a disappointed snarl when Red Hood immediately threw out the yoyo and dove for Ladybug. He caught her a few inches above the acid.

They crashed onto the metal walkway on the other side. Red Hood checked to see where the Joker was, but he had escaped during the rescue. Red Hood growled, but focused back on Ladybug and started checking her over for injuries and freeing her from the ropes. Ladybug let him check her over, focusing on staying awake. She tried to bring her hand to her head, but it dropped midway there falling on her chest instead. “Easy there, tiger. Don’t know how you managed to get a concussion in your magic suit, but I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that’s what you got. Little worried about what happens when you get out of it actually. Make sure you’re careful when you take it off.”

Ladybug stared at him intently, or as intently as she could. Finally speaking after he had removed the last of the ropes. “Why did you choose me?”

“I’ll always choose you,” he said gently. He brushed her hair out of her eyes and cupped her face. He stared into her eyes for a few seconds before looking away. “You said that to me before, you know.”

“What?” she asked hazily. She leaned into his touch more than she probably should considering he was their enemy.

“Shut up and dance,” he elaborated as he lightly traced her jaw. “You said that to me once before, Pixie.”

She froze at his words, suddenly considerably more awake. There was only one person she’d said that to. The same person who called her Pixie. “Red X?” she breathed out, her voice barely audible over the sounds of the bats and police arriving on the scene.

He cocked his head to the side marginally and started backing away from her, but kept his eyes on her until the sounds were coming from the next room. He gave her a two finger salute and jumped through the window. She watched the spot frozen. It was Red X. Red X became Red Hood. Was that comforting? Or terrifying? She laid her head back down to let it rest and smiled as she closed her eyes. One thing was for certain, he was alive, which is more than she knew five minutes ago.

<><><><><>

This was exactly what Marinette needed. She could admit that, even if it meant admitting Alya was right, which she was loathe to do considering she had teamed up with Artemis and Cissie to trick Marinette into it. But feeling the rhythm of the salsa that was almost finished and the eyes of the ungodly handsome man that had asked her to dance immediately after getting to the club and the several drinks the four of them had before going out, she couldn’t deny how good it all felt.

Even the depraved jerks that had just tried to feel her up could ruin her night. She kneed one in the balls and Hot Dance Partner… she should maybe find out his name, but then again, she didn’t plan on seeing him again once they left this club… had glared the other man into running away with his tail tucked firmly between his legs.

Even after the two had disappeared, he continued to glare after them. “Hey,” she whispered. She cupped his cheek to redirect his face back to her. “Ignore them. I came here to dance. Just keep your eyes on me.”

His eyes immediately snapped to hers. He smiled at her. “My pleasure, Pixie.”

She cocked her head to the side for a second and gave him a strange look until another dancer bumped into her, knocking her out of her stupor. She gave him a hesitant smile and a nod before she started dancing with him again. She twirled away from him and grabbed his hand to twirl back into him. He guided her through a few more turns until the end of the song. He dipped her into a low dip, but her body was stiff, like she was unsure about him.

“You’re holding back,” he chuckled. She stared at him with curiosity that turned into surprise when he pulled her back up, her face close enough to feel his breath. “This is where you tell me shut up and dance,” he whispered to her.

“What?” She looked up at him wide eyed.

He smirked at her. “That’s what you usually tell me.”

Her eyes darted over his face. Her hand reached up to touch his uncovered face. Her fingers traced his cheekbones before moving lightly along his jaw. “Red X,” she whispered out. “It’s you.”

“Not anymore,” he whispered back. He cradled her face. He’d seen her out of costume from a distance before, but this was his first time seeing her civilian self out of costume up close. The first time she’d let him get this close. He really had no idea how she was going to react now that she knew who he was, so if this was the last time he’d have the opportunity, he was going to take it. He was going to relish finally being able to feel her skin free from gloves, feel how soft her skin felt, how his fingers tingled after each touch.

“Red Hood,” she said a bit more gravitas in her voice. She swiped her thumb over his lips. It was the first time she’d seen them. They were as soft as she had always imagined they would be.

He looked at her for a few seconds. “Not right now.”

“And who are you right now?”

“Jason Todd.” He took a breath before continuing. “And you’re Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. She should have figured out he knew who she was considering everything he had said so far, but she had been too caught up in seeing his face for the first time to connect those dots. “How did you know?”

“Because of your affiliation with Bruce,” he admitted. “I think I can count on one hand the number of people in his life that aren’t associated with this life in some way.”

“How did you…” She moved away from him, her expression morphing into a hurt scowl. “So this is your way to get back at him? By seducing and betraying one of his allies?”

“No, this isn’t about him. This has nothing to do with him.” She scoffed at the apparent lie. “I think this might be one of the few things in my life that has nothing to do with him,” he growled. He moved closer to her again. “This is just for me. I want you just for me.”

He rested his hands back on her hips, waiting to see how she reacted. When she didn’t pull away, he pulled her closer to him, wrapping his arms around her and keeping her close with a grip strong enough to hold her in place, but not keep her there if she didn’t want to stay. “And I promise you, if you give me a chance, I’ll never betray you.”

She shook her head unsure. “Why? If not to stick it to Bruce, why?”

“Have you really not noticed?” His voice was gentle as he searched her eyes. “I’ve been watching you since before you started working with Bruce, since the Teen Titan days. Since the first time I saw you.”

“Why? I need to know why.” She was searching his eyes almost desperately.

He sighed and lowered his forehead to hers. “Because you’re good. Because you’re kind. Because you’re strong and fierce. Because you’re brave. Because you genuinely want to help, but don’t get stuck on rigid right or wrong. Things aren’t wrong because they’re illegal. They’re wrong if they hurt people. Because you look at the big picture, but don’t forget about the details. Most heroes can’t do that. They focus on one or the other, but you keep your eye on both.”

He took her hand and brought it to his lips, slowly kissing each knuckle and looking at her from under his lashes. “Because you’re beautiful and graceful. Because your smile blinds me. Because even when I was your enemy, you still treated me with respect, you still saw me. Because that’s who you are.”

“You forgot funny.” He looked at her questioningly. “I’m funny too.” She smirked at him. “I’m hilarious.”

He grinned at her and brushed a strand of hair over her shoulder before returning his hand around her waist. “I’d really love to find out for myself.”

She looked at him with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “You once told me you have amazing dance moves.”

“Yes?”

“So… shut up and dance,” she whispered next to his lips. He grinned and pushed down to kiss her, but she moved just out of his range. She smiled up at him and giggled. She pulled his arm back toward the music, swaying her hips to the beat as she walked. He growled lightly and pulled her back against him and moved his hips in rhythm with hers. He wrapped his arms around her to keep as much contact between them as possible as they danced.

He lowered his head to run his nose along her neck, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake. She moaned lightly and reached up behind her to wrap her arms around his neck. He took advantage of the newly exposed skin to run his hands over her sides.

She ran her hands into his hair and he was gone. He turned her around and leaned down until his lips were a few centimeters away from hers. “May I?” His voice was husky and deep like he was barely able to stop himself but would if she asked and the sound alone was enough to cause shivers up and down her spine. She nodded and pushed up to close the gap.

Their lips slid against each other in an electric symphony. She could feel the current all the way down to her toes. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders for support when her knees suddenly weren’t strong enough to support her any longer. He wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her closer. His other hand cupped her face, his fingers wound into her hair. The symphony continued until they reluctantly pulled away, gasping for breath.

“Why don’t we move this somewhere else?” he whispered into her ear.

She shivered from the sensation of his breath against her neck and ear. She looked up at him and bit her lip shyly. She examined his eyes for a second before nodding.

Jason beamed back at her, relief and excitement pushing through. He wrapped his arm protectively around her waist as he guided her out of the club.

<><><><><>

The roses were in full bloom and their fragrance drifted across the garden with the breeze. It was almost like Marinette had planned it that way, made sure the roses bloomed in full force the day before and invited the breeze to gently blow as they gathered. And maybe she had. She did have miniature gods at her disposal. But then again, they could have done it on their own to make her day perfect. God knows she deserved it, not only for all she does for everyone around her, but for being able to deal with him. And she agreed to be with him until death. She deserved a goddamned parade in celebration of her patience and determination.

Jason smiled down at Marinette as she laughed and gushed with their best friends, a mix of Parisian and American heroes, vigilantes, and antiheroes. He ran his fingers over her back, exposed in her white, backless dress. He would never not relish the sensation of feeling her skin with his after years of only touching her with gloves on. He would never not relish the small, intimate, delicate touches after the years of punches and strikes and kicks. And while he did enjoy sparring with her, he lived for these touches, the touches only he was allowed, the touches she only wanted him to feel.

He chuckled as her friends pulled her onto the dancefloor with them. She leaned close to him and whispered, “Keep your eyes on me.”

“Nothing else I’d rather watch,” he whispered back. He gave her a chaste peck on the lips before she disappeared.

He watched her in a peaceful quiet for a few moments before he felt a pat on his shoulder. “You look happy, Jaylad. I’m happy for you.” Bruce stood next to him and watched the group dancing rather than looking in Jason’s eyes. “And… I’m proud of you, Jason.”

Jason scoffed. “Managing to get someone like her to look at me, let alone marry me is definitely deserving of praise.”

Bruce’s brow furrowed slightly but he quickly smoothed it out. “I wasn’t talking about this. You… It took a lot of strength to decide to change, to not let it consume you. You were always stronger than me like that.” A ghost of a smile passed onto his lips. “But yeah, you did good today.”

Jason turned to stare at him, unsure how to respond. He was saved from having to respond by Marinette bouncing over and collapsing into Jason and wrapping her arms around his waist. “Hey, Love. How are you doing?”

Bruce smiled at her and kissed her on the cheek. “Congratulations again to you both.” He gave them one last smile before moving back to speak with her parents.

Jason watched him walk away for a second before returning his gaze to Marinette. A bright smile made its way onto his face and he wrapped an arm around her waist. With his other hand, he traced the edge of her face with his fingers. “Did I ever tell you I knew we were bound to be together the first time I saw you?”

Marinette scoffed. “The first time you saw me you tried to throat punch me.”

Jason shrugged. “It was easy to avoid and I knew you would. I wanted to see you dodge. Watching you fight is like watching a ballet, but a much more interesting one with blood and black eyes and broken bones. And I could usually taunt you into a smirk or into getting that playful look in your eyes. It was worth the bruises.” He smiled when Marinette let out a peel of poorly concealed laughter. “You know, some of the break-ins and thefts were just so you would come to fight me.”

Marinette blinked at him. “No way.”

“Sometimes I would watch the fights you had with other rogues.”

She gave him a dubious look. “I think I’d remember seeing Red X watching us. One of us would have noticed.”

“I’d watch as a civilian and not out in the open, obviously. Couldn’t have Dick seeing me or Batman when we were in Gotham. I liked watching you, especially after the fights, after helping someone. Seeing the way you treated everyone, the way you help. You’ve always had the biggest heart I’ve ever seen.”

Marinette smiled lovingly at him. “That’s extremely creepy. You realize that, right?”

Jason barked out a laugh and pressed his forehead into her neck for a second until he stopped laughing. “Villain, remember?” He shrugged. Marinette rolled her eyes at him. “You never smiled like that with anyone else. Your eyes never lit up like that, not even with your teammates. I could see the future in your eyes. I knew then it wasn’t just me. I knew then you were my destiny.”

He stroked her cheek and she nuzzled into his touch. “Those were always my most and least hated fights. I knew you had a good heart. I liked playing with you, but I hated hurting you when one of my hits landed.” She cuddled in closer to him. “Felt even worse about it after I saw your face.” She grinned up at him and patted his cheek.

Jason gave her a smug smile. “I would sometimes do it when I knew Dick was out of town so he wouldn’t interfere because I knew he liked to and I wanted to have you all to myself.”

“I knew it!” she exclaimed and slapped his shoulder. “I knew you were doing it when Robin wasn’t around.” Jason grinned proudly. Marinette shrugged casually, but her eyes sparkled with mirth. “I thought it was because you were afraid of Robin.” Jason gasped dramatically. “We all did.”

Jason narrowed his eyes playfully. He leveled a warning finger at her. “Bullshit and slander.” Marinette laughed and hugged him closer. “I take it all back.,” he groused. “I was wrong about everything.”

“Jason,” she interrupted.

“Yeah, Pixie?”

She pulled him down for a passionate kiss. They heard a round of cat calls rise up around them and decidedly ignored them. “Shut up and dance with me,” she whispered against his lips.

He grinned down at her. “Whatever you want, wife.”

@jasonette-july-event @maribatserver

#maribat #Jasonette #Jasonette July #Jasonette July 2021 #prompt - Pixie

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rfamess · 4 years ago

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RFA + V and Saeran at a party!!

alright friends. picture this: a party. what kind of party? that is for you to think about. i’ll give my 2 cents on what they prefer, but their behaviors still stand. If you’ve ever been to a party, (and I consider just hanging w friends a party as well... literally anything is a party if you want it to be a party) you know DAMN WELL you can find a specific type of person at every single function. we’ve got the corner standers, we got the emotional rollercoaster, the bitches getting crossed, the couch chillers, the flirt, the table dancer. you get the vibe.

in short, this is a (very) drunk rfa at a party.

Jumin

- you already know this guy only drinks wine.

- two bottles; one red, one white (very bold) double fisting them.

- wine drunk is the best drunk lemme tell ya.

- he is just so relaxed. GODDAMN he’s chill

- he’s so chill that he could walk up to zen and take a drag of a cig. shocking. why would he do that? he would never do that! (he’s drunk bby)

- personal morals have left the chat

- definetly happy and very social. Likes to tell very good stories— and they are good. very funny guy

- total opposite from his work self, which many people know. it’s refreshing to see him let loose

- and when i say let loose i mean let loose

- oh, the function? he owns it. not only is he the life of the party, it’s actually in his penthouse. he literally owns it.

- he has the potential to throw a gatsby-like party, but he likes to stick with his close friends and colleagues. people are allowed to bring a plus one. the more the merrier. but not too many lol

Zen

- oh this guy? he’s a professional partier. balls to the wall type drinker.

- shotgunning beer, pong master, stack cup, ride the bus, shots, up jenkins. he plays them allllll

- very competitive. VERY. he gets really into it, but he’s not like a competitive jock type, he’s just very passionate.

- he will accept his losses with grace and dignity, as well as with a nice handshake with his opponent.

- his passion sometimes causes him some accidents. will probably bump into you, apologize and call you some sweet pet name, and then return back to his zone.

- everyone loves to talk to him. not just bc he’s handsome, but he is just so genuinely nice and can hold a great conversation, even while completely obliterated.

- he’s the kind of guy that goes around and makes sure everyone is having fun

- smooth moves. very flirtatious, duh. can literally charm anyone.

- ngl he’s probably also a horny drunk. he’s not creepy or anything. he is definitely very courteous and respectful, but sometimes he has a lot on his mind...

- you can probably find him at one of jumins gatherings, at a work friends house, clubs, etc.

- he also loves themed parties. he really gets into it

Saeyoung/Seven

- he goes so hard.

- another themed party lover. especially costume parties.

- would probably show up in a costume even if it in fact was not a costume party.

- sorry, have you ever listened to tik tok by kesha? seven literally IS the party. “the party don’t start til I walk in”

- freestyle dances literally any chance he gets. definetly starts a dance circle— everyone loves a good dance circle

- he’s not a good dancer. he’s not bad either. but dancing with the stars is not in his future

- he’s wasted, but even if he wasn’t, he’d still be the life of the party. it just becomes magnified by however many drinks he’s had.

- very much parks and rec tom haverford vibes. snake juice episode. classic.

- he gets antsy to build things for no reason. tries to do small physics balancing things or maybe just do something productive, like cooking. he never cooks so he has no idea what he’s doing. will probably set the smoke alarm off, sprinklers will be going and people will be partying with INDOOR RAIN.

- that’s his legacy— the guy who set off the sprinklers at that party that one time

- you could probably find him crashing random peoples parties. he hears one going on in some apartment on the street and somehow he gets in and nobody questions it.

Yoosung

- you already know he gets DRANK.

- he doesn’t drink alcohol, the alcohol drinks HIM.

- he always goes over his limit. not bad enough where he’s incapacitated, but he for sure blacks out a lot of the time

- he’s kind of like a mix of his two besties ;) zen and seven. he’s a dancer, but he’s a COMPETETIVE DANCER. lol he probably challenges people to a dance off or contest. also likes table top games.

- he is prone to.... emotion. which is okay! but it happens

- once in a blue moon he’ll cry over something minor, but then start crying-laughing over it 2 seconds later.

- he finds a wii console buried tucked away in a drawer somewhere. he really brings it together when mario kart or wii sports resort gets pulled out. especially if it’s the sword play one. his find gets him clout at the party lol

- probably sees someone he thinks he wants to talk to... he overthinks how to approach them a little too much. but he’ll take a shot and go do it

- it always works out, he’s very friendly and likeable.

- he attends his college parties and always ends up making friends but he’s also hammered so he might not remember it much.

- probably wakes up in a random field somewhere the next morning. he is very confused.

Jaehee

- she goes to town on hard liqour. she can handle it alright.

- genuinely wants to fight everyone. not in a bad way, more of a “let me show you how fucking strong i am” way. it sure brings an audience

- people accept her challenges— she always beats them. probably turns them into drinking competitions too.

- like zen, she’s very competitive. she might lose her composure a little bit, but always self soothes and gets right back into it.

- 2 words: HYPE. WOMAN.

- she can get ANYONE excited about ANYTHING. always cheering others on and having them break out of their comfort zone (if they choose to do so).

- very big emotions. fangirls a lot. flirts a lot. a little dramatic, but she’s very entertaining.

- another great story teller— she loves to talk to people about the things she loves or crazy things that have happened to her.

- once she sobers up a little more, she is quite the helper. she helps clean up, helps people who might be throwing up. she’s a gentle care taker and welcoming presence :)

- she attends house parties a lot. usually her office friends, but sometimes zen brings her to his friends parties.

- she doesn’t party a lot since she works so much but when she does, she goes DUMMY!!

- very creative guy. he’ll have a conversation with someone and midway through he goes HOLD THAT THOUGHT!! because he’s had a little intrusive lightbulb moment. runs to go write it down or do a quick sketch then return to said conversation.

- if there’s a hot tub, he’s in it. he’s so in it. he has a glass of champagne and just sits. a lot of the time he never changes he just keeps his clothes on in the water. people question his judgement

- he’s not super animated like a lot of others, he’s more chill, but he’s also very excitable.

- he’s very giggly. anything could make him laugh.

- he really stays true to his hobbies while drunk too.

- photographer/videographer. but since he’s at a party and he’s drunk, they aren’t professional photos. a lot of them end up blurry. but a lot of them turn out great!

- he leaves disposable cameras everywhere so people can just pick them up and take their own photos— he sends out all the pics after they get developed.

- he’s definetly the type to go around making sure everyone is safe and helping them whenever possible. he doesn’t take a lot of time for himself :(

- he parties with jumin at his penthouse. they have a lot of the same friends and it’s a familiar place.

- he doesn’t go to giant parties either, mostly just friends in the comfort of his or someone else’s home.

Saeran

- I don’t think Saeran drinks very much, to be honest. But hypothetically….

- he’s obsessed with making fancy cocktails. they are so beautiful. but they get infinitely worse the more he drinks them lol

- his parties are always with his close friends, probably at his own house. he’s more of a homebody. and the presence of his friends is very grounding

- he really likes to play tabletop-turned drinking games

- he also likes to make games up! kind of like true american in new girl. he’s actually really really good at making up rules on the spot and they always turn out super fun.

- he’s definitely the kind of guy you want at your party if you want to have a lot of fun just doing random shit.

- speaking of random shit, just like his brother he also gets spikes of energy to just go do something. he makes homemade ice cream in a plastic bag. he rearranges the furniture. he will learn magic tricks in about 2 minutes and then show everyone he knows.

- will try and flirt with you. like a lot. he’s incredibly endearing and gets kind of handsy. and by handsy i mean he wants to hold your hand briefly. both of his hands clasped around one of yours.

- he likes to do really harmless pranks. like so harmless that they’re just hilarious. he’ll take someone’s phone and sign them up for mailing lists they don’t want. he might replace a family photo with something else. or maybe just hide behind a wall and jump out and scare someone when they walk by!! PRANK CALLS. classic.

- he’s really funny. like really fucking funny. without even trying. and boy does he love to make people laugh. he’s comedy gold and a pro with the one-liners.

- after drinking he will fall asleep ANYWHERE. on the floor, in a chair, under a desk, on top of a desk, he could fall asleep standing up. all his friends have pictures of him just sleeping in strange places.

#mystic messenger #zen mystic messenger #hyun ryu #yoosung kim #jaehee kang #jihyun kim #v mystic messenger #mysme #saeran choi #saeyoung choi #mysme 707 #seven mystic messenger #jumin han

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copperpieceharlot · 4 years ago

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Bud I’m sorry to swing into your inbox uninvited like this but my soul is having an OOTS renaissance thanks to your content in the tag and did you say Leverage AU

haha holy SHIT this got Long. but yes. i’ve been. Thinking. (also literally Never feel like you have to apologize for sending me messages. i was Hoping someone would ask me about this. now i have an Excuse to share EVERYTHING ive written abt it :3)

Obviously, Roy is the leader/brains of the outfit. He grew up having some Strong Opinions abt what’s Legal versus what’s Right due to tragic backstory involving the death of his little brother which was definitely SOMEONE’S fault for negligence but since there technically wasn’t any illegal behavior, there were no consequences for it. Also he’s still angry at his dad bc he thinks his dad is also partly culpable (and also also just a dick). He’s the Moral Backbone of the team (alongside Durkon, more on that later) in basically the same way Nate was in og Leverage. He’s actually not the best at figuring out what people want (that’s Haley and, shockingly, occasionally Elan), but once he has that info, he is the absolute best at figuring out the ideal plan of attack to use in any given case.

Haley is still a thief. I mean she maps to Parker almost PERFECTLY. Her dad was a thief & a conman, her mom wasn’t but knew about it and mostly accepted it, but she died tragically in a mugging gone wrong or smth, which made Ian crank the paranoia WAY up and taught Haley to do the same in the name of “safety”. Let’s keep the “Ian is in Trouble and Haley needs money, Fast” which is why she signs on to the first job in the first place. She’s less acrobatic than Parker, tending towards finding (or making) weak spots in security, but she can still make a tumble check when she needs to.

Elan is the grifter who is somehow an Idiot but also not???? It baffles everyone. When he’s playing a part for a con, he’s FLAWLESS, but then the rest of the time he’s just. No Thoughts Head Empty. He probably gets lured in initially because he’s decided to try his hand at being part of a full team, rather than the two-man cons he’s been running that invariably end w his partner conning him as well and stealing half of his take. Also he likes the idea of being Crime Friends. He’s that tweet where it’s like, Roy: “after the heist is over, we split up and never communicate again” / Elan: [about to unveil his Crime Buddies Forever Friendship Quilt Puppets]: “never?”

Vaarsuvius is the hacker/gadget person. They have a Vaguely Snobby Yet Unidentifiable accent, dyed(?) purple hair (nobody has ever seen their roots) and nobody knows who they “really” are or where they came from, but they’re good at what they do so everyone just accepts the mystery. They probably got suckered into the team by their initial employer (who I’ll get to Eventually, lol) framing it as a challenge to their intellect, like, “oh, I see, you’re not smart enough to make this team work for you...” to which they were like Fucking Watch Me and also melted his computer. Anyways. They are joined (digitally) by their Intrepid Friend And Co-Conspirator (his words, not theirs), a fellow hacker known only as Blackwing, or, on certain forums, Blackwing_Bird. (In the first season, V only occasionally references him when saying they’re “calling in extra help” or smth for a particularly complex hack job. He starts showing up a little more in s2 and eventually by the start of s4 is a regular & established presence, but only appears as actions in a computer interface or output.) Elan is convinced he’s an AI, Belkar doesn’t think he actually exists, Haley pretends she doesn’t think he exists, and Durkon and Roy try not to think about it too hard, as long as B and V still get the job done.

Belkar is the hitter. He is on the team bc their initial employer got him out of jail for it. He doesn’t have a tragic backstory, he just likes doing violent crimes. As the series progresses, he grows some empathy & stuff, but really only for people who actually deserve it. Assholes still get decked. It’s all very touching. (Also he has dwarfism caused by achondroplasia. It doesn’t actually bother him and is useful in fights bc his opponents frequently have no fucking clue how to approach him, but he likes Pretending to take offense at stupid things just to see how far he can go with it.)

Aaaand last but not least, Durkon is the least involved member of the team. He’s actually a career criminal and Roy’s mentor, and wasn’t a member of the initial team that [redacted, I’ll tell you later, PROMISE] put together for a couple of reasons, the main one being that he’s Officially retired in order to spend more time with his family, which consists of his mom, his friend (not girlfriend) Hilgya, baby Kudzu, and a truly stunning number of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Roy frequently calls or visits him for advice and he Occasionally shows up to help out on local jobs, but generally he avoids doing crime if he can (as part of a deal with Hilgya, who is also a career criminal; basically, they’ve both cut back on the crime in order to provide a more stable home environment for Kudzu. But sometimes, you gotta do a little crime, and in those cases, Sigdi enjoys spending time w her grandson.)

NOW. THE BIG REVEAL YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. Who got the team together in the first place?!

The answer: Lord Shojo (or whatever Normal Person Name you want to assign him). Now this is where it gets tricky: he had them do a thing that they thought was good, THEN they thought it was BAD, but then when they confronted him he revealed that it Appearing to be bad was actually a test of character and would they consider working as basically internal investigators for him? But then he had a heart attack, so, rip. But THEN it turned out that he’d left them a bunch of money anyway and they were all feeling kind of Inspired so they formed the Order of the Stick, LLC (which, no, i am not coming up with a new name, actually, because I just don’t care. someone else can come up w a justification for that name, tho, i’m sure it’s possible). Also Miko was there and was unhappy abt their actions, and also their general existence.

Moving on. Villains!

Redcloak is the Sterling replacement, because that DEEPLY amuses me.

Xykon is a season-long main villain, probably one that Redcloak finds himself working for but then “teams up with” (read: blackmails) the Order to bring him down bc even Redcloak finds Xykon distasteful. That’s season 3, let’s say.

Tarquin is another season villain, say season 2. Nale probably shows up pretty early in s1, actually, as another recurring antagonist like Sterling but uh. Less good at it. Anyways the s2 final 3 eps deal with them (accidentally) discovering that Tarquin runs some Evil Empire Company, then trying to outplay him and take him down. Idk if Nale still dies in this version tbh.

Tsukiko is a one-off s1 villain who returns briefly in s4 alongside Miko, who has gone well and truly off the rails.

Season 1 finale has to do w Roy finally getting Vengeance for his little brother.

The vampire squad is the s4 finale villain who do smth terrible to Durkon and then get the Mother Of All Revenge served up to them by the Order.

I envision the show as being 5 seasons (like og Leverage) but I’m not going to sketch out s5 because I think it should be based off whatever happens in the current story arc, possibly involving some legacy of the OotSquiggle.

Other stuff!

The Order of the Squiggle is a legendary criminal team from the 60s who stole a BUNCH of famous shit & then proceeded to legendarily implode. This has no bearing on the plot I’ve sketched out, I just think it’s fun.

The Sapphire Guard members should probably be reworked as FBI. I don’t care about most of them but I do think that Lien and O-Chul could be like, FBI agents who Choose to look the other way while the Order does their very-much-not-legal-but-still-fair Justice Crime, and maybe even help them out on occasion.

So, the Final season-by-season outline, based on everything I’ve written so far:

s1 e1: getting the team together, doing a con for Shojo, then at the end he dies and the gang is like “dang what now?" and intend to split up except then they Don’t.

mid-s1: Nale shows up and tries to trick the Order, but then gets beat like a drum.

late s1: Tsukiko is an underling of the Villain Of The Week, winds up in police custody. But She’ll Be Back.

s1 finale: Roy’s Vengeance: The Vengeaning. also we meet Redcloak as an antagonist.

s2 e1: the truth abt Haley’s father comes out

early s2: The Two Live Crews Job but it’s the Order vs the Linear Guild and the Linear Guild ARE all bad guys.

mid-s2: Redcloak returns. ugh.

late s2: the sapphire guard FBI makes its first appearance, hello O-Chul and Lien.

s2 pre-finale: once again they’re in conflict w Nale over smth, he spends the whole episodes making Cryptic Remarks, they basically beat him (like a drum!) but then the stinger at the end is that Tarquin reveals himself and Elan is like “Dad?!”, roll credits.

s2 finale, part 1: Elan is hanging out w Tarquin bc he’s DEEP in Denial, the Rest of the team tries to take Tarquin down, but it doesn’t work.

s2 finale, part 2: Elan finally gets a clue and they manage to beat Tarquin. still haven’t decided if Nale dies or not, but I’m leaning towards yes. also they rescue Haley’s dad.

s3 e1: fuck dude idk.

early s3: Redcloak shows up, AGAIN, everyone groans. he has blackmail on them, he wants them to take Xykon down.

mid s3: The Rashomon Job but it’s about stealing the Talisman of Dorukan and it turns out that Nale was there too (“oh!” Elan says. “I was wondering why I looked so weird in all those mirrors! But it wasn’t my reflection, it was Nale’s!” “Sweetie, that wasn’t Nale’s reflection,” says Haley. “Huh,” says Elan, “so the mirrors were broken?”, cue eye rolling from everyone else.), and the Successful thief was Hilgya, who’d nabbed it from the owner before it even went on display.

s3 finale: they beat Xykon, actually factually, because he deserves to get his ass Thoroughly kicked, even if only in AU form. Lien and O-Chul are there, so are some other less helpful FBI people. There’s a bit where O-Chul Exact Wordses his way out of telling his superiors about the Order’s less legal activities without technically lying. King shit.

s4 e1: doesn’t really matter. maybe smth to do w some legacy of Tarquin’s company to set up the drama w Malack & Durkon later.

early s4: Durkon gets SENT TO PRISON. Malack approaches the Order abt this because sure they have Different Ethics but they’re still Friends. (Roy is surprised and a little hurt that he’s never heard of Malack, but he ignores that in favor of Let’s Get Whatever Fuckers Did This To Our Friend.)

immediately after that: Miko and Tsukiko return as a Team, preventing the Order from working on the Durkon situation

mid s4: Redcloak makes another unexpected & unwelcome appearance but he’s maybe a little less of a dick? the Order collaborates with Malack & his Crime Buddies (hello, Vector Legion) to pull one over on him tho, because “less of a dick” does not mean “a pleasant or decent person”, and also he was mean abt Durkon being in jail, so he totally deserved it. he still gets whatever he wanted tho, just takes a blow to his pride. also prevents the Order from helping Durkon. they’re having a LOT of setbacks wonder why that could be, not to make sure the season fills its whole length or anything, no sirree

s4 finale: something something taking down the organization, headed by Hel (yes that’s her real name), which framed Durkon for their Big Crime. Durkon goes free and Extra Firmly retires, For Good, He Swears, but says he “met someone new” who might be an asset.

s5 e1: minrah joins the team! and the episode is set in like, somewhere really snowy. that’s all i got.

the rest of s5: don’t know, don’t care, it’s open-ended until the comic finishes up.

#mine #ask #corvidcorgi #order of the stick #oots #leverage #leverage au #oots au #au #outline #haha this thing clocks in at 1.9k words because i am LITERALLY incapable of shutting up #hope u enjoy it bc i spent Way Too Much Mental Effort mapping out how the OotS plotlines might play out in a leverage setting #and then promptly ignored Most of that in favor of making it funnier & dumber & more villain-of-the-week #(bc lbr the comic is Good but it's got an overarching plot form that the Leverage story style does Not jive with)#i'm not tagging all these characters lol

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wrestlingisfake · 4 years ago

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Slammiversary preview

This is Impact's 19th anniversary show, although they didn't start using this name until the 3rd anniversary, and now they always hold it a month after the actual anniversary date. For the first time since March 2020, Impact will have fans at the show, but on a limited basis. So I would expect maybe 50-100 people spaced pretty far apart.

The show airs live tonight on Fite.tv. The pre-show is free and begins at 7pm EDT; the main show is $39.99 and starts at 8pm EDT.

Kenny Omega vs. Sami Callihan - Callihan is challenging for the Impact men's world title, which is represented by two of the four belts that Omega currently holds. The other two, the AEW and AAA men's world titles, are not at stake. This is billed as "no DQ match" which ought to mean that the winner gets to go to Dairy Queen but probably means can't be disqualified.

Omega and his henchmen interfered in a Callihan vs. Moose match on June 3, causing Callihan to win by disqualification. Since Moose was the #1 contender at the time, officials considered adding Sami to the Omega vs. Moose match on June 12, but ultimately they decided to book the winner to face Callihan here. The storyline is that Omega's manager Don Callis keeps arguing that Callihan is too reckless and unprofessional to be in a world title match, but we all know he's really just worried that Sami could hurt Omega real bad and win the title.

If it was me, I'd have done Omega-Callihan last month to set up Omega-Moose here. (Moose's contract negotiations may have made that impractical.) I don't buy Sami as the big destination for one of the biggest Impact shows of the year. I want to be interested in Omega trying to figure out how to deal with a misfit deathmatch guy. But Sami comes across more like a guy playing a misfit deathmatch guy. I mean, I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley, but I'd rather do that than listen to his corny supervillain speeches or look at his Roman Reigns cosplay.

At this point I'm seriously wondering where they're going with Omega invading Impact, so I'm willing to believe they could wrap it up any day now and get the title off of him. Omega has to drop the belt to somebody, and I can see Impact picking Callihan, even if I'd pick somebody else. Even so, I still want to think there's a long-term plan in place, and that the blowoff won't come until at least the October pay-per-view. So I'm expecting this match will just come down to another wave of run-ins and shenanigans so Omega can retain.

Ultimate X match - This is a six-way match for Josh Alexander's Impact X division championship. The ring will be set up with four columns at each corner, which support either cables or scaffolding that cross overhead like a giant "X." The title belt will be hung from the center, and the first participant to pull it down will be the winner and champion. So it's like a ladder match, but there are no ladders.

Impact introduced this as one of their signature match types back in 2003, and they've always been rather proud of it. Personally I have trouble getting into it, since all the spots revolve around falling off of things, and all the "near-falls" involve slowly inching across a high-wire or a scaffold.

The six participants are: Josh Alexander, Petey Williams, Trey Miguel, Ace Austin, Rohit Raju, and Chris Bey. The storyline is that Austin and Raju have formed an alliance, and since no one can be disqualified they plan to gang up on the competition with their respective henchmen (Madman Fulton and Shera). Alexander, Williams, and Miguel are trying to stick together to oppose this, and Bey has reluctantly sided with them.

Alexander recently won a sixty-minute iron man match to add to his credentials as a dominant champion, so in theory this match is meant to secure his legacy as an all-time great in the division. Problem is, if he wins he's effectively cleaned out the division, and if he loses it's yet another situation where the champion didn't get pinned to lose the X title, setting up yet another multi-man X title match. Nevertheless, I'd much, much rather keep the belt on Alexander and have him move on to new business (maybe against a recent WWE castoff), so I guess I'm rooting for him to win.

Deonna Purrazzo vs. ? - Purrazzo is scheduled to defend the women's title against a mystery opponent who won't be revealed until right before the match starts. The storyline is that Purrazzo has cleaned out the division (a trope that's getting worn very thin in pro wrestling these days), so she's gotten overconfident, and Gail Kim set this up to truly put her to the test. They haven't said the opponent can't be Kim herself, although Kim strongly suggested that it won't be.

WWE has released a number of women over the past few months, and any of them could potentially be the challenger. Impact is probably counting on fans to jump to that conclusion. By not naming the challenger, Impact encourages fans to infer that she's currently under a WWE non-compete clause that won't expire until right before the show. Of course, none of us can be certain about those non-compete clauses, or which wrestlers have negotiated to waive them. We also can't be assured that the mystery opponent must be a WWE name; it could easily just be someone like ODB coming in for a cup of coffee.

Matches like this tend to be trouble for long-running champions. The most famous example would be when the Ultimate Warrior shocked the Honky Tonk Man in 1989. It won't help Purrazzo that she's cut ties with her cronies, Kimber Lee and Susan, so she won't have them ready to interfere if she gets in trouble. However, Purrazzo is already booked to defend the title in a champion vs. champion match on August 14, so it's hard to believe she'll drop the belt ahead of that.

Four-way tag team match - This is for the Impact men's tag team title, currently held by Violent By Design. Typically in a match like this, members of two teams start in the ring, while everyone else stands in their assigned corner. The legal wrestlers in the ring can tag in anyone in any corner, whether it's their own partner or an opponent. The first wrestler to score a fall on any opponent wins the match and the championship for his team.

The championship is currently held by Violent By Design: Rhino, Joe Doering, Deaner, and Eric Young. In the tradition of the "Freebird Rule," you get booked to wrestle the team, not any specific individuals, so then the team gets to choose which members will actually be in the match. Young has been sidelined with a knee injury so I'm pretty sure VBD's options are limited to Rhino, Doering, and Deaner. But they could always bring in a new member.

There will be three other teams in the match, but only two have been confirmed: Rich Swann & Willie Mack and Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson. When the match was first announced, the team of TJP & Fallah Baah was supposed to be in it. However, we found out yesterday that TJP is unable to do the match for some reason. Impact said the match will still involve four teams, but didn't say that Baah will get another partner. So it's possible Baah has also been pulled from the match, and both guys in the fourth team could be a surprise.

The build for this match felt like a clusterfuck. VBD and Gallows/Anderson are the top teams, but they're all heels, so some babyface teams had to get thrown together, and then all of it is dumped into one match until an actual story direction emerges. The only cool outcome I see is if Fallah Baah really does step aside and a whole new team debuts. But they could just as easily stick Johnny Swinger and Hernandez in there, so I shouldn't get my hopes up. The safe bet is the champs retain.

Moose vs. Chris Sabin - Moose has been a top heel for a while, but he kind of went babyface a little in his program with Kenny Omega. With that out of the way, he threw a tantrum about losing to Omega to remind us he's still a heel, until Sabin chased him off. Without Alex Shelley or James Storm to team with, Sabin hasn't had much to do, so now he's in a match that could re-establish him as a singles guy.

I assume the winner of this match get into the hunt for the world title, perhaps at whatever big show they do in August. That sort of favors Sabin, although I can't totally count out Moose. Moose feels like he's headed for bigger things in Impact, and a convincing win over a former Impact world champion here would get him off to a good start. I guess I've talked myself into picking Moose to win.

Eddie Edwards vs. W. Morrissey - Morrissey (formerly Big Cass in WWE) is on a roll as the latest Mean Guy to beat everybody up in Impact. Edwards, a former world champion in Impact and ROH, is his toughest competition since he got here. I don't see Edwards winning unless they have big plans for him. And I suppose they might have big plans for Eddie, but big plans are clearly in progress for Morrissey. I'm certain this is just a glorified squash match to put Morrissey over.

Matt Cardona & ? vs. Tenille Dashwood & Brian Myers - Cardona and Myers were the team of Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins in WWE, but they've been feuding since they got to Impact. I'd actually forgotten that Dashwood and Cardona were dating about five or six years ago, which would maybe explain why she helped Myers beat down Cardona recently. So now we've got this mixed tag team match. Cardona has to find a woman to be his partner, but we don't know who it will be.

The minute they announced this match, they started teasing the mystery woman would be Cardona's fiancée, Chelsea Green. I suspect that tease was taped before Green showed up at the ROH pay-per-view saying she wasn't medically cleared in Maryland and that she would wrestle for ROH this summer. Of course, none of that necessarily means she can't wrestle for Impact with a wrist injury in Tennessee. But I think the tease is a deliberate misdirection. Dashwood has been trying to drive a wedge between Rachael Ellering and Jordynne Grace, so either of them might make sense in this spot.

If the mystery partner is any good, I think she has to get the win here. But even if Impact has picked up some hot free agents, I don't expect many of them to actually wrestle on this show. So it could be a deal where they reveal Green is in the company, Green swerves us by introducing (for example) Alisha Edwards as the partner, and the babyfaces just lose.

Kiera Hogan & Tasha Steelz vs. Rosemary & Havok - This is booked for the pre-show. Fire 'N' Flava (Hogan & Steelz) are defending the Impact women's tag team championship. As I recall, Rosemary and Taya Valkyrie feuded with Havok and Neveah a few months back over some spooky shit involving Rosemary and Havok. Anyway, Valkyrie and Neveah left the company, so I guess the spooky sides of those teams have put aside their differences. You could do some fun things with Rosemary and Havok as champs, but I don't know why you'd book the title change on a pre-show. So I think Hogan and Steelz retain, and this storyline will continue for a while longer.

#impact wrestling #slammiversary #kenny omega #sami callihan

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a-lil-perspective · 5 years ago

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Remember Me/Holding On (For Dear Life)

A/N: The Bad Batch X Reader. Playing around with a scenario where the Bad Batch removed their inhibitor chips with Echo, thus forfeiting executing Order: 66, and they go incognito in faking their deaths thereafter. Reader doesn’t know so it’s full of angst? All-around switching up my writing a bit with this one. Feedback is always appreciated. Technically is a Reader insert but I also switched up the pronouns a bit. [Warnings: Mourning over death of loved ones, subliminal implication of suicidal thought] @shadow-hyder @starflyer-104 @thegoodbatch @kriffingunlucky @karpasia @obiorbenkenobi @everyonehasanindividuality (Tag List is open.:))

{~***~}

Clone Force 99. The Bad Batch.

A Clone Force To Be Reckoned With.

A whirlwind of gray plastoid and flashing crimson accents. A brewing swirl of personalities and a tempest of skill, bleeding together seamlessly. Much like their bond. Brothers by blood, and brothers in arms. A camaraderie unprecedented, a stellar example of unorthodoxy. Their story begging, no—demanding to be told.

I’m not the right person to do so. You’d do well hearing it from the four warriors themselves.

But they aren’t here. They’re gone.

Not gone... I must correct. Merely marching far away.

No, marching is too straightforward and monotonous for them, too regulated and predictable; a disgrace and offense to their overall prowess—those insufferable, lovable di’kuts.

Not marching: Clone Force 99 is ‘charging-headfirst-into-no-doubt-a-suicidal-battle-comprised-of-an-equally-crazy-strategy’ far away.

Yeah. That’s more like it.

Accelerated aging. The untrained eye would’ve been none the wiser. The span of a decade accompanying, yet their demeanors depicted a thousand lifetimes. Fine lines etched into coarse and defined features, each one a new resolve for each man to fight for more than just existing.

They constantly challenged me to find a new angle. Something I couldn’t find solely through the scope of Crosshair’s rifle. They cut through and canceled stereotypes, combatant through even the thick resistance of daunt and demoralization: a resilience stronger than even the sharpest cut of Sergeant Hunter’s knife. Their oddities and wonderfully endearing peculiarities: fully embraced and secured in a grip stronger than even Wrecker’s large endow of muscle. The four men: definitively and unknowingly hacking into and through even the most incredulous beings by way of their efficiency and bond—an impressive capability that gave even the ingenious Tech a run for his credits.

Their aura of commandeering and confidence incited fear, evoked jealousy, or channeled respect. I’d like to point out from personal experience that it was absolutely possible to acknowledge the manifestation of all three reactions simultaneously. The Bad Batch had a peculiar way of affecting people; almost comical, when I think about it. Enough to nearly bring a smile to my face.

They say a person never leaves you. Maker, I’m hoping that might be true. What started so perfect was over too fast.

They boasted a ferocity, but a tenderness. Each member carried their armor a little differently, a little heavier than the other. When you unlatched and peeled away the protective encasing, therein was a raw vulnerability: humanity. A vulnerability, not a weakness. A strength. One of many the unique quartet possessed.

At their core: living, breathing, feeling, humans; ideal candidates concerning the way war tried to brutally strip them of that very individuality. But they protected as fiercely as they fought. They loved as passionately as they clung to their varieties of honed adeptness. Their loyalty and liberty was as explosive as the colorful destruction left incessantly imprinted throughout battlefields.

It’s borderline treasonous to say, that the Republic could’ve majorly benefitted from some propaganda courtesy of those four. Oh, how many times I tried to convince their stubborn and surprisingly bashful selves of the prospect—seriously, wouldn’t four handsome Commandos inspire you?

They seemed to think otherwise. Kriff. From the outside looking in, I would’ve enlisted in the militia the minute I saw those dark clad figures, shrouded in enigma and purpose, handsomely poised just above the text of some patriotic slogan that would’ve captivated me in a state of naivety and infatuation. Yes please. Sign me the hell up.

Not exactly how our first encounter went, but, not that far off, actually. The Sergeant of Clone Force 99 can could recall the story in great detail.

It hurts. I want to lift the pen and stop. But I press on.

On a more lighthearted notation: what you probably also didn’t know is that the boys kept a running bet. Gotta keep things lively when awaiting their next set of intel, right? Though more often than not, the four men each managed to singlehandedly work up the energy of a wild Loth-Cat, and of their own accord, impatiently and prematurely sprung into action; innately preferring to take charge whenever opportunities present. The indefinite cardholders, if you will: you play on their terms, or not at all—a subtle implication towards their fastidious and absolutely brilliant battle plans. Part of their aesthetic and reputation, you could say. I say with all affection: pure mischief, that bunch.

To their enemies: may you experience reverence and/or embarrassment in the 250+ fluent ways the Bad Batch could (or did) utterly kick your ass. In which case: may you rest in peace thereafter. Take that, shabuir.

Anyway, I digress; though not before the brief accredit of my improved fluency in the Mando’a dialect directed to the tutelage of Clone Force 99. Their methods define as unparalleled and most certainly, never present with redundancy.

Betting was limitless to the four, especially along the seemingly most insignificant points of interest: Who can find the best hiding spot for Hunter’s thieved bandana? Toss some credits in. How long will Tech go without sleep this time? Credits in the betting pool. How soon will Crosshair run out of his next batch of toothpicks? Bet.

As for me? I would’ve bet on us. We were untouchable. I always told them it’d take a whole damn army to drag me away.

Ironically, it took a half-dozen Clone Troopers to drag me away from the gravely man bearing news of their tragic fate.

I lost a part of me I’ll never find. But as sure as it is my obligation and desire to consistently—always— remember those men in everyday passing, it is more my duty to make certain their legacy is not lost. It’s my priority, the dedication of time and breath, to depict the breadth of their influence.

You should remember the skilled men donning a palette of gray and red. The men adorning variants of a skull insignia and two matching digits: 99. Distinct characteristics, delineate biographies demanding to not be cast aside nor torn from the pages of history.

Ramikadyc—a Commando state of mind. An adjective of the Bad Batch. An inherence that extended beyond their overt classification, one that outreached towards others, an absolute; an honorable invitation bridging the gap and instilling unification between fellow Clone brethren.

A minuscule sampling scratched within this piece as a broken illustration, of the life of the greatest Commando unit to ever exist, and of incredible men.

This is not the end. It’s just the beginning.

Be’Bes’Bavar Ashnar Olaror.

The Cavalry Has Arrived.

{~***~}

Her swollen wrists flexed to knot the crimson accessory around the piece of flimsiplast at last; a seal. It never got any easier to re-read her hastily scribbled Aurebesh requiem. It folds in on itself, the material crinkles, informing the woman that her hands are trembling as she performs the simple task involving dexterity. A dark splotch newly materialized on the worn fabric of bandana vaguely registers to her, of the salty tears now welling in her eyes. She inhales sharply and awkwardly bends to lay the rolled note to rest in the garden of stone and corpses. And with it, the remnants of her already fragmented composure.

Her throat was tight again. She struggled in swallowing deep anguish amidst the sharp winds that chapped at her soft facial features and stung against the dry sclera of her red-rimmed eyes. The buzz of the cold did little to counteract the hot flush rising in her cheeks. Time hung in stasis, yet the throb of her ankles indicated a semblance of how long she’d actually stood motionless at the foot of the weathering graves.

Or maybe the ache was from the extra weight carried purposefully around her newly swollen abdomen; she could no longer tell which. The deep pang in her chest robbed her of a breath, and she felt as empty as the four corpses now six feet under the stars. The thud of a heartbeat—now two—felt cruel and indignant within the graveyard and for a millisecond, a sickly enticing one, the DC series cinched at her hip was, obscurely, the most alluring décor amid the melancholy earth.

She startled at the fleeting thought; gone as quick as it began, giving way to the flood of despair. Agony was quickly sinking it’s teeth, despondency was bearing it’s full weight on her shoulders, and respite has abandoned her. A strangled cry scraped from her dry throat, a familiar sound she’s produced a dozen times in the wake of his disappearance. Six months.

It felt like a lifetime.

She remembers in total recollection the last night she saw him. It replays like a broken holorecord every time her eyelids shut. A moment that robbed her of more time; a cruelty.

His dark eyes harbored solemnity. She gazed up in anticipation at him, a nauseating knot twisting deep in her belly. At the time, she didn’t register the feeling of dread. He told her not to worry, that everything will be alright. She should’ve been more intuitive, should’ve known those words were accursed in their own right; a distinct diction almost always bestowing a finality or goodbye.

But he was gentle and soothing with his words, albeit deliberate in presentation. In the quietude, she associates him with serenity. The man’s adoration for her transcended. His fingers curled around her own in emphasis as he pushed the newly gifted DC blaster pistol to her chest.

“From me to you.” A raised hand quickly cuts off her stubborn reiteration of her full capability and independence without the weapon in tow. “It’ll make me feel better for you to have this. Never know when you’ll need it.”

Times are changing. He desperately wanted to tell her, about everything.

“I just need you.” Her declaration is faint. The spindly man briefly clamps his tongue in quelling his own dire reciprocation threatening to spew. The faint ticking of a chronometer in the corner warns him not to break down and unravel here, it’s not the time. Not right now. Not yet.

Only when he departs.

“What you need is to be strong. For me. Okay?”

For the baby. She quickly extinguishes her pained cries. Her hand splays reflexively across her midsection in stoked remembrance, and the calloused pads of her fingers rub soothing circles in the stirring, where there was now pressure from the child‘s restlessness. Mando’a serenaded habitually from between her lips, along with a promise.

“Ner cyare ad’ika... I promise that you will know all about your family. Your Buir. Your wild Bavodu’e.” A strained chuckle unbridles, leaving a bitter taste, short and succinct before disappearing. A forlornly glance to the headstones. Her voice cadences. “They would’ve loved you. Someday, you’ll be able to feel them.”

“Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la.”

Not gone, merely marching far away.

Something hopeful and inspiriting flits deep in her soul. Her lashes flutter upward and the stars are in a particular array of brilliance. It zips across the expanse of sky, like a ship jumping to hyperspace nearby.

“Ret’urcye mhi, ner cyare.”

Somewhere not so far beyond, she can feel his warmth; the tangibility of his deft fingertips resting assuringly at her shoulders, the wind now encasing her in a mimicry of his lanky but sturdy arms. She holds tight in his absence, and the wind resonates vivid echoes of his sultry voice just past the shell of her ear and bristles the stray strands matted to her tear streaked face.

He’s not here.

The sun remains persistent in rising and combating the dark, so she wills herself to stand amidst the devastation. An abrupt halt to her story—their story—left without a full narrative or plot to flesh out, now leaves her dubious over the already shrouded future.

A fond realization, no longer destined to be a memory—for memories are manifested from events already taken place—nevertheless flickers to the surface. The fondness remains just as palpable.

A memory never allowed to transpire, aggrievedly reminding her, a memory simply not meant to be. But she wills the strength to dream, anyway. She decidedly reaches for an alternate cover to write a new story in. It starts as a rough draft, but the growing bump of her abdomen is living proof of new beginnings, of continuing legacies and a beautiful piece that wholesomely envelops and accounts for the aching, missing one.

Not a memory; no. An assurance, a promising devotion to his origins inscribed on the delicate surface of her heart, and one day, sewed and etched into her child’s. Their child.

“Little Ram’ser: a sniper, just like your Buir.”

#star wars #The Bad Batch #Clone Force 99 #The Bad Batch X Reader #technically Crosshair X Reader but I don’t want to spoil #sorry if you saw that tag before getting into the fic XD #I rely heavily on subliminal messages and the element of surprise if y’all can’t tell XD #wrote this with an already established relationship in mind—particularly—between Cross X Reader based off the dynamics of my other fics #just to clear that up lol #my writing #it’s a Lil thing #again feedback is incredibly helpful and appreciative #it’s been quite stagnant around here lately #I’m honestly not sure what y’all like/what content you’d like to see next #if anything?#just come hang with me and obsess over Star Wars #I don’t bite I promise #OK gonna cap these tags off here before I can’t stop rambling #I haven’t slept so I don’t know half of what I’m saying down here XD

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haich-slash-cee · 5 years ago

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Is the print publishing world picking up online/fandom terms? How they are using them? How do we feel about this?

So this is... attention-getting, for folks who like to follow publishing and meta stuff.

https://twitter.com/sapphicxrey/status/1215065948677443584

https://twitter.com/TorDotComPub/status/1233391556750647299

(2nd tweet -- TW, mentions of non-con)

Are we seeing the beginnings of book publishers directly borrowing from online/fandom culture in promoting their books? How do we feel about these examples?

More below cut.

Exhibit #1: screenshots of Bonds of Brass promo from Jan 8 2020. (Which is probably going to have reactions of “haha, cute” at most.)

Transcript of blurb:

“If you like...

forbidden romances, “there’s only one bed”, cityships, weaponized umbrellas, powersuits, secret princes, best friends, best friends PINING, fake dating between PINING best friends, tactical streaking, the minivan of starships, cigar-chomping cyborg ladies, scary empress moms, galactic-level bisexual disasters, LEGACY (WHAT IS A LEGACY?), rooftop hopping, golden trios, rumblin’ drums, bootleg fireworks, BIG SPACE BATTLES PEW PEW, a surprisingly functional public transit system, mob trouble, one hell of a pilot, the inherent DRAMA of empire, a nice interlude in a river, smoking a joint that’s been on the floor, sick stunts, slick grifts, hiding in a dumpster, or any combination of the above,

Then you might like

BONDS OF BRASS”

The Twitter responses seem to be generally enthusiastic. (And also, “FinnPoe! FinnPoe!”)

Personally, I’m intrigued from a meta-view of “oh so that’s definitely pulling from online world and fanfiction world, interesting. I wonder how much fanfiction culture is starting to influence print book culture and promotion.” Maybe I’ve got some questions like, “Ok so moneymaking companies such as Penguin are now using culture developed by the not-moneymaking-world of fanfiction? How do we feel about this?” Anyway, the book looks cute, I’m interested enough and I might get it from the library.

I suspect many people’s reactions are along the lines of “hm, interesting”, “sounds like a lark”, or “haha they’re using AO3 tags as promo”, etc.

Exhibit #2, screenshots of DOCILE promo, from Feb 28 2020 (today is March 1 2020), and screenshots of Twitter responses so far:

(*CW, non-con discussion)

Tweet transcript:

“DOCILE by @KMSzpara:

-Dubcon/Noncon

-Dramatic Trillionaire Content

-BDSM and then some more BDSM and then a lot more BDSM

-Hurt/comfort and hurt/no comfort

-Cinnamon roll of steel

-The most scandalous kink: love

-Courtroom, bedroom, & Preakness drama

[Tor book website link]”

So this is getting mixed reactions on Twitter. All dozen or so reactions, so far. Here’s text transcripts and bio info from repliers, below. I’m being a little obsessive, mostly to show that there’s a mix of queer, book-ish people in the replies (including the author).)

Noncon is nonconsentual sex, rape. Even in fandom it's a content tag, not a promotional term. I can't imagine being a rape survivor and seeing this come across my TL. -- @WriteSomeGood [queer rainbow] [Cis queer homemaker, aspiring author, maker of incredible cinnamon buns. She/her] [has a Tumblr page]

I’m not a survivor but it was an instant “no thank you” from me. And I was sincerely looking forward to this prior to. This is the most immediately off-putting marketing push I’ve seen for a book in a long damn time. -- @AGAWilmot [Author, editor, artist. Co-EIC of @anathemaspec. @SFU alum. The Death Scene Artist/W&W 2018. Ace/enby. They/them. Horror is my comfort food.]

Whichever intern wrote this tweet, deserves a full time job. With benefits. -- @simeontsanev [Aspiring writer, post-aspiring musician, and overall geek He/Him /[queer rainbow]/ To the world we dream about, and the one we live in now! http://simeontsanev.com]

Idk why everyone thinks it’s always an intern writing copy and not a team comprised of extremely skilled social media experts, editors, publicists and marketers, and their assistants I worked on those tags with my editor and a good friend!! -- @KMSzpara [Kellan. [queer rainbow] Speculative fiction writer. Queer agenda. Hugo & Nebula finalist. DOCILE 3/3/20 from Tor Dot Com Publishing. He/him. Rep @suddenlyjen] *The author, bio page and twitter page.

this is CUTE! -- @MSSciarappa [queer rainbow] I do books. he/him.

I am Extremely Ready for this content thank u -- @JessicaBCooper [Journo ☽ Writer of faerie, villain fuckery & cruel desires ☽ Lestat & Loki's love child ☽ Aleksander Morozova's side-hoe ☽ Rep'd by Kate Testerman @ktliterary]

I’m listening -- @MerynLobb [Government worker. Weightlifter. Nihilist. Aspiring cult leader. Avid user of words, often bad ones. #AMM R6 Mentee. she/her]

Soon! Soon!! -- @castrophony [Geek. Gamer. Cosplayer. Bibliophile. Scientist. She/Her.]

[happy reaction gif] -- @TorDotComPub [Providing a home for writers to tell SFF stories in exactly the number of words they choose. All our titles are available globally in print and DRM-free ebook.]

[throwing stuff in dumpster, unhappy reaction gif] -- @cursedgravy [name's xavi, im a transman and i like to daydream about making content]

For more context, here’s the blurb from the author website. Below is the blurb from the publisher’s site:

“Docile

K.M. Szpara

K. M. Szpara's Docile is a science fiction parable about love and sex, wealth and debt, abuse and power, a challenging tour de force that at turns seduces and startles.

There is no consent under capitalism.

To be a Docile is to be kept, body and soul, for the uses of the owner of your contract. To be a Docile is to forget, to disappear, to hide inside your body from the horrors of your service. To be a Docile is to sell yourself to pay your parents' debts and buy your children's future.

Elisha Wilder’s family has been ruined by debt, handed down to them from previous generations. His mother never recovered from the Dociline she took during her term as a Docile, so when Elisha decides to try and erase the family’s debt himself, he swears he will never take the drug that took his mother from him.

Too bad his contract has been purchased by Alexander Bishop III, whose ultra-rich family is the brains (and money) behind Dociline and the entire Office of Debt Resolution. When Elisha refuses Dociline, Alex refuses to believe that his family’s crowning achievement could have any negative side effects—and is determined to turn Elisha into the perfect Docile without it.

Content warning: Docile contains forthright depictions and discussions of rape and sexual abuse.”

So that’s a lot of info and reactions.

Personally: at first glance, I absently skimmed the tweet and “hurt/comfort” popped out, and I was like “What? Mainstream publishing is cool with this now? I was wondering if ‘hurt/comfort’ would one day become commonly used in publishing [related post]. But this is way sooner than I thought.” And then I read the rest of of the tweet and thought, “Wait, what?”

And then I started reading through the tweet replies and thought, “OK, at the risk of getting a bunch of Tumblr drama, I want to bring this to the whump community and see how people feel."

As for myself, one of my squicks is non-con, and I’m not really interested in hurt/no comfort. So just from the tweet, I know the book is not for me. The official blurbs confirmed that. In this sense, this is like skimming Ao3 tags on a fic and saying “pass” on a story.

However, I have questions about the specific promotion of the book. So the official blurbs are pretty standard. What about that tweet, which Tor (and the author, who helped put it together) put out? Because I think an official publisher’s Tweet comes with different context than Ao3 tags.

First, the different internet spaces. You can filter tags on Ao3 and Tumblr. I know you can mute words on Twitter, but is that the same thing? Also, would people be expecting these tags on Twitter? Compared to Ao3 or Tumblr or Tumblr Whump spaces?

Within the Tumblr Whump community, from what I’ve browsed, the community attitude (guidelines?) seem to be “Write and discuss what you want. Be sure to tag it, use content warnings, or otherwise clearly communicate if you have things that may be triggering. Respect people’s squicks/triggers. Walk away from what you don’t like.” Like, tumblr whump has a very specific culture of trying to balance discourse/stories about potentially very dark stuff, but also wanting to make sure the IRL people and Tumblr users are okay. There’s always posts going around about how to do this, are we doing this in the right way, ethics, so on. Also -- and people can correct me -- the whump tumblr space might be where tags are content warnings for people to stay away, and also what people might actively look for. So if any space is going to discuss if this promotional tweet checks out, I feel like it’s this space.

Also, to note again, Tor Tweets are in the money-official-publisher-world, not unpaid-tumblr-people or unpaid-fanfiction-fandom-world.

Maybe I just want to ask, “Hey those first two tweet responses, does they have a point? Tor using ‘noncon’ as official promotion? On Twitter?” I mean, I’ve previously written, “The CW and TW tags that Ao3 writers use, I really wish those were used with published books as well.” But somehow, the Tor tweet was not quite what I was expecting. Maybe for reasons similar to that first tweet response. (I guess one could debate if a tweet is really promotion or just information... you know what someone can correct me, but I’m gonna say that a Tor.com tweet is promotion, compared to information like Ao3, and that tweet was there for promotion.)

Those tags operate within specific Ao3 and Tumblr cultures and infrastructure. I don’t hang around Twitter for whump stuff, IDK what the culture is. Anyway, does dropping these tags into a promotional tweet from Tor.... translate?

The tweet is evidently gathering the people who are there for it, and the people who aren’t there for it are quickly realizing that they are not there for it. But personally, the Tor website blurb does a better job at that, using writing that I’d expect from a publisher for communicating fictional non-con situations. (Maybe the blurb content warnings are what I wanted more of, when I said I wished for CW and TW in books.)

Anyway, there’s no huge drama about that Docile book promo on Twitter, as far as I can tell. So this is a niche thing, right now. But. The promo for Bonds of Brass and for Docile might be the beginnings of a trend of well-known book publishers borrowing from online writing / fandom culture and terminology in order to promote or categorize their books. These two promos might set a precedent or have other significance.

So if anyone has discourse on the tweets or potential future trends...

#meta #discourse #publishing #bonds of brass #Docile #publishers #future trends #maybe #non-con #trigger warnings #content warnings #fanfiction #ao3 #tumblr #whump #hurt/comfort #hurt/no comfort #books

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tslasvegas · 4 years ago

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Episode 5 - “The clowns are in full force this season” - Jaiden

The clowns are in full force this season. First of all that tribal council was a load of fucking shit lmfao, I could not believe the sob stories Nik and Joey were pulling out to try and stay another day in this fucking org... it is final 17 it's not that serious. I will say that I immediately regretted the decision to vote for Joey but now I'm realizing how beneficial it might've been after all, like.. now people don't see that Joey and I are as closely aligned as we are and it definitely shows Kailyn that not only can I be loyal, but also that I had an accurate read on the events of this tribe. Interestingly enough, Kailyn did NOT believe me when I told her we didn't have the votes to keep Nik without drawing rocks. As soon as the tie came in I acted all mad and said "I'm not drawing rocks for this, I'm flipping". ...and Kailyn still had the nerve to ask "wait did you flip?" after it was all said and done! The funny thing is, Ben also assumed Kailyn flipped and immediately DMed me saying "So I assume Kailyn flipped go figure" or something to that extent. LOVES IT! Maybe no one thinks I'm a flip-flopper after all. Rachael being on this tribe already bugs me because I think she's going to get along with just about everybody and we should've taken a shot at her when we had a chance. It's become evident that I need to start playing the chips game a lot more than I have been because those little buggers are going to become more and more important as time goes along. I think Rachael is fucking full of it when she says there was nothing on Exile for her. She either has an idol and is lying about it, or she's got some sort of advantage to help her out and I'm not here for it. I did eventually come clean to Rachael about the whole DeNara vote thing, where I whipped around and pretended to be voting for Ben afterwards, but I don't think it has a strong impact on our relationship. She gives me such an uneasy vibe and I don't want her around much longer... I kind of hate this tribe I got swapped onto because everybody here feels like legitimate threats to win this game except I guess myself right now. And Xavier. He doesn't really provide much to the game yet, but I bet he will surprise us all along the way. Agenda for this round... make sure we win immunity. But if we don't.. sorry Rachael, you're going to just have to see your buddy Nik a lot sooner than you would've liked. Ciao!

Survived another Tribal!

youtube

Super sad to see Nik voted out but also insanely glad to see Joey survived. It would be heartbreaking to see him voted out first after the swap. Livingston and I are sharing all the chips we have and when we spin the wheel we’re transferring chips so if we land on a bankrupt spot we don’t lose the 28 chips we have so far. If we win this next immunity challenge, we may have enough chips to purchase the super idol that’s on sale for 48 chips. (If we both bid two chips on the challenge and then spin the wheel and get some chips.) otherwise, if someone purchases it before we do, we may end up buying some other useful items. Now it’s a selfie scavenger hunt which I hate, but that’s alright. Gonna give it my all and hope to take home the win.

I just had a moment of clarity. The other tribe are full of OG Palazzo. If they stick together, we're screwed. We should win this next one, see how their vote goes, and change our plans accordingly.

So my lazy ass hasent done any of these yet. So let me catch y’all up. So when my original trive first went to tribal I kinda thought I was fucked cus like I barely talked to ppl. Nik and Rachel were my closest allies (Rachael being my final 2). So quickly they told me denara wanted my ass out. Fucking mistake. So I got my sheep in order and went to work. I pulled some bs outta my ass and was like yo we got a swap coming up and denara is too fucking social she’s gonna flip on your asses. The more I said it the more it made sense to me lol. That fucking tribal was AIDSSS. I’m literally sitting there thinking I was getting booted, but my fucming savior Jaiden came up clutch. We sent that bitch packing. So me and Rachael have had a strat this game to send each other our coins before spinning the wheel to avoid going bankrupt. Since I’m a fucking gambling addict I’m always betting on the comps and spinning that wheel till I’m stacked on coins. So we hit a swap and I actually started talking to people. John is pretty chill and Xavier is kinda weird ngl. When it came time to vote nobody wanted to bring anything up to me. I had to hear from kaitlyn that nik was sadly the vote. So I quickly went to work. I felt the least connected to Joey so I went after his bitch ass. Originally, I didn’t wanna stick with my tribe but like they kinda forced us into that by keeping us in the dark. Everytime I’d ask Xavier his thoughts he’d just say some weird ass response and avoid my question lol. So like I kinda expected a tie vote and tbh I wanted rocks. We get to tribal it was a tie, and I’m fucking trying my best to get Xavier to flip cus he just seems like the dumbest person there. He’s like we can take nik out now then Joey next. LIKE FUCK NO. He wanted to create an all noobies alliance with idek. But I agreed cus fuck it. So sadly nik went home cus jaiden flipped :/ BUT me and Rachael got all his chips!! Now I’m fucking vibing with 10, and Rachael had got 8. Tbh we wanna save up for an idol, but with the shop at 20% and another 4-4 vote looming, I’d be down to snag an extra vote. I gotta peep all these new prices tho. I do hope we win this comp cus I’m obviously betting and I’m too lazy to fucking deal with another tribal. Well anyways peace out see y’all later.

My plan continues to just be working on relationships and hopefully winning the challenges. Either way, I've participated one of the most on the team so I'm hoping if we do lose, I won't become the target. I know I have a strong relationship with Kevin, which is 1/4 of the tribe. I'm also working on my relationships with Keegan, Pat, and Livingston. I kind of hope the other team targets Rachael, just because I wasn't a huge fan the last time I had to deal with her. I also want John and Xavier to survive because I know I have solid relationships with them. We're at day 14 and I've already put so much work to evolve my game, I want to go from worst to first - I want to do all the things I couldn't do when I was 16. But I have to keep thinking three steps ahead. So if we lose, my target is Mo. Nobody from OG Pink has been voted out yet - but because they have majority on this tribe there really isn't much I can do yet, but Mo hasn't contributed to the challenge. They're also very awkward, so I think I'd be able to swing it. If I keep working on my relationships, working hard in challenges and showing myself as a good ally - I have a chance to make it deep in this game. For now - let's hope we win the challenge so I can relax a little bit more. Day 15 is the farthest I've ever made it so if we do end up winning I've completed my third goal. (The first two being going a tribal without getting a vote, and leading a blindside.) My other four goals - getting an advantage, making merge, winning individual immunity, and winning this game. Get your checklist out, cause I'm coming.

Keegs and I have 28 chips between us then Okay so I told Keegan this, and I could be wrong, but I feel as if the numbers in the vault seem fairly good and that leads me to believe that nothing has been bought yet. If anyone else gotten in there, they are likely saving up for the Super Idol. Keegan and I will be saving up for it but if it ends up being gone, we'll at least have enough chips to pick up some other stuff. Keegan to me: "Also, I just thought of something. Since it’s possible to go Bankrupt from the wheel, would it be a good idea for us to give most/all chips to each other before we spin the wheel? That way if we do land on a bad spot, we’re only losing like 1 chip instead of the 10-20?" This gonna be our wheel strat moving forward

...five seconds later

Jake came to me wanting to work together. Of course, there is no real way to turn such things down so I let Keegs know and then I told him I would be down for that. I am not tryna do some Final 2 or whatever. For now it is just a "I have your back if you have mine" type thing. Jake also went to Keegan so Jake better not fuck up and be overly messy because I have enjoyed my convos w him LMAO - Okay so update on that: he has pitched a 3 of me, him and Keegan. This is good for us so we are going with it but my loyalties are to Keegan before Jake and I think Keegan feels the same way. We are being hesitant just in case Jake has also pitched similar things to other people. If we go to tribal, ideally we keep Jake safe but if he's being like this with everyone then maybe he's the one to go. I like Jake so I would really make rather it be the former.

So nervous about this challenge! We went all in! I even danced Blackpink. My gosh we have to win this.

fuck

38 points in SSH is a terrible score, I’m upset at my poor performance, but now that I just acquired the Legacy Advantage, it makes my game so much more interesting to say the least. I have 11 chips, I could’ve bought an idol, but given my luck, I’d rather not risk all my chips and lose them on a bankrupt.

this is so lame, im not super worried about getting voted out but still i just like the serene environment that comes with immunity, the chaos is fun too but like ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh im tired

Well... we lost the challenge. And I am not surprised in the slightest. This was a very very poor showing from this tribe. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind voting out Jeff right now. He really flopped the challenge. But it seems like the OG Palazzo group is wanting to stick together and vote out one of Jake, Mo or Kevin. Ideally, Kevin would be the one to go. I’ve barely talked with him, and with his recent win in Travellers survivor, he’s certainly capable of playing a strong game. That’s someone I’d like out sooner rather than later. Andrew has suggested Jake. Which I definitely don’t want. Jake, Livingston and myself have a sort of three person thing going on. As long as Jake is casting his net over the entire tribe, I want to continue working with him. Mo is in a weird spot. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ At the end of the day though, I don’t really care who it is, as long as it ain’t me.

SO HAPPY TO HAVE FINALLY WON! Steph and I have enough chips either for an IDOL or two of other advantages. I would rather have two others, because there is an idol nullifier out there. And two advantages are better than one. I am going to be watching the tribal of Bellagio. I want to see if the OG Bellagio are a solid 5.

youtube

Ahhhh first time going to tribal. I’m really nervous. Not bec I think I’m in danger but more for long term... what to do?

girl... im so sick and tired of the people in this game keeping around inactive players because they know them from other games. SERIOUSLY, listen ma'am if my good friend is inactive, I know when someones dead weight. I get rid of them. They'll understand, and if they don't then thats a manipulative dumbass because who gets mad for being eliminated by a friend when they were inactive. it was originally gonna be me but ive been fucking pushing for kevin to go cus he doesnt do shit. DeNara give me strength.

Mo at one point was throwing my name out, which is awful. Apparently he’s not anymore. I think he’s voting for Kevin? Let’s hope so. I don’t want to be out of this game yet.

Currently holding that Legacy Advantage gives me much more access to information

0 notes

seriouslyhooked · 6 years ago

Text

Lost Souls and Reveries (Part 17)

22 part AU written for @cssns. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6,Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16. Story available on AO3 Here and FF Here. Banner created by the amazingly talented @shipsxahoy!!

Killian Jones is a wolf shifter without roots, without plans, and without a pack. He’s a rogue, someone humans should avoid and shifters should be wary of given his lineage. But one night years back set him on a path he didn’t realize he was taking, a path leading to a future he is destined for. That future is tied up in one woman – a human named Emma Nolan. Together Emma and Killian will find not only answers, but a love that’s truly fated. But will love be enough to set them free, or will past demons win out in the end? (Answer: love always wins – I am writing this so despite some tiny pockets of angst it’s basically a fluff-filled insta-love fest). Rated M.

A/N: Hey all! I am so glad to be back after just a week away this time, especially because I really want to get you all this resolution. I would have loved to have this chapter and the last one be just one installment, but I hit like 10,000 words and still had more to say so it just wasn’t meant to be. I hope you’ll forgive me once you read this part though, and I am so excited to see what you all think! Also, just in case it isn’t clear, there are three distinct POVs in this chapter (Killian, Liam, and Emma). Thanks as always for reading and hope you enjoy!

Witnessing the form of any man be overcome by a monster was a soul rattling thing. It chilled the blood and froze the mind, paralyzing it with anxiety and fear. But to see one’s brother go through such a horrifying change was something else all together.

For a moment, Killian caved to that panic as he watched the way his brother’s eyes flashed a hellish black and how the tension in Liam’s limbs made the lines of his body horrible and gruesome. The snarl on his face shouldn’t have been possible. No expression should convey so much hate and malice, and the growl that emanated from Liam’s chest was simultaneously low and yet sharp and scratchy. It made Killian wince, as if Liam had scraped his claws down a chalkboard, but despite the survival instincts in Killian’s head that told him to run, he stayed strong. It only took a moment for him to collect himself, to remind his now skittish animal of all he had to fight for and how nothing, not even his worst nightmare made real, would deter him from that. Killian had to protect the people he loved, and more than anything he had to fight with all he had to see his mate and his true love protected for now and always.

In seconds Killian readied himself for battle, crouching low, with every intention of shifting. His wolf was nearly at the forefront of his mind, his body just a hair away from transforming, but just before he did the monster in front of him went from totally controlling his brother to essentially disappearing. Liam physically stumbled, his body bending over as he shook his head with tremendous force, and when he looked up again his real eyes stared back at Killian, the deep darkness from before now gone. Liam was nearly normal again, though clearly had used a large amount of energy to fight back. But how? And more importantly, why?

“It’s like I said, before. The monster remains. There’s no shaking it.”

“But you’re trying to fight it,” Killian acknowledged and Liam nodded.

“Yes. I have tried everything I can to suppress it since that night. The night you spared me.”

“I might not know many details about what happened to you after our fight, brother, but I do know you stayed with the pack,” Killian bit out, his own resentment at that not hidden in the slightest. He’d thought it was a terrible idea then, and he still believed it to be so now. He had no idea how Liam would have ever rectified the want to suppress his inner demon with staying in that toxic place they once called home. “So it doesn’t add up. You fought darkness, but lingered in it too.”

“That night…” Liam paused for a moment as he tried to find the words for how everything had gone down. “That night I was unhinged and unwell, but I wasn’t fully gone, not like you thought I was. That instinct to stay with the pack – it wasn’t all the bite talking. That had always been my plan, since the moment we set out to kill Brennan.”

“You never told me that,” Killian said, not believing it even if part of him wondered if it could be true. Had Liam always wanted to return to the pack? Maybe, but the thought, even in hindsight, was so abhorrent to Killian he couldn’t fully comprehend it.

“Of course I didn’t. You never would have supported that idea. You were of one mind. All you could focus on was finding justice for Mum, and I knew there would be no discussion on the subject. I had hoped after everything was done that maybe you’d see. Maybe killing our father would free you from all your hatred of the past. Maybe you’d feel as I did, that our life back there was more than evil and power and greed. There was still good in where we came from. It just had to be nurtured and fought for.”

“Sounds like bullshit,” Tink said, her words reminding both brothers that she was still here, something Killian had already forgotten.

“It’s true,” Liam reaffirmed, his aggravation growing, but his eyes remained a steady cerulean as he looked at Tink. “I always planned to rid the ugliness from our past, and from our family.”

“Oh sure, that’s possible,” Tink said with a dismissive wave of her hand, “Hell, I’d say it’s even likely, seeing as you’re related to Killian, who does everything he can to be a good guy. But that bite should have changed everything. If you really wanted to make things better, you should have known you weren’t the man to do it. You were compromised, and you clearly still are.”

“I did know I wasn’t the one to truly make things right,” Liam confessed. “And despite knowing I still tried anyway because I was selfish. I fooled myself into thinking I would be okay. When Killian left, the beast inside me calmed a hell of a lot. He never truly went away, but he was quieter, less agitated. I hovered above the monster, and I did what needed doing. I got rid of the old guard, all of the pack who supported Brennan -,”

“They all supported him, Liam. Every last one of them,” Killian spat out and Liam shook his head.

“No, not all of them. They didn’t support him; they endured him. The fear we felt wasn’t ours alone to shoulder. There were many others stuck in the same torturous cycles, hoping for escape without finding it. Mothers scared for their cubs, fathers who knew that defecting from the pack would put a mark on them and their families forever. Brennan was ruthless and he hated nothing more than disloyalty. Everyone was trapped, and just because they all didn’t show the bravery of our mother doesn’t mean they all deserved to be condemned.”

Killian remained quiet. He knew that at some level Liam was right. The cubs were absolutely without guilt, for none of them could choose the pack they were born to or the rules of their clan. And yes, Killian remembered that there was fear beyond his own little world. People got quiet around his father, and the women especially made sure never to linger too long in his presence. It was always a place filled with whispers and walking on eggshells. Still, Killian knew that even if the bite hadn’t come between them he never would have stayed. Some might say Killian wasn’t strong enough to face the past. They might think he lacked honor for not going and rebuilding what was broken, but Killian didn’t see it as his duty to fix what his father had created. He wanted no part of Brennan’s legacy, and if he’d been forced to face it he’d have disbanded the clan and told every single member that they’d be better off starting over somewhere without all the baggage and heartbreak.

“I know you think the pack should have dissolved, and there’s merit to that thinking, but what you failed to see was that as much pain as the pack brought, the pack was also family. For better or worse, it was all most of them ever knew, and breaking that bond is painful. It’s like leaving a part of yourself behind forever. You never felt that when we were kids, but I did, and I knew how much it hurt and how badly I wished it never happened. I didn’t want to take anything more from anyone, so I tried to heal the hurts instead.”

“And how did that work?” Killian asked skeptically.

“It was slow going, but there was steady progress. A few years in and we’d discharged all of the remaining dissenters. Brennan’s core backers were gone, and the members that remained began to believe that more might be possible for the first time in a long time. We set new rules, we cleansed the laws of the pack, and we started to build something everyone could be proud of.”

“Sounds like a fairy tale,” Tink joked and Liam winced.

“Hardly. Much as I tried to deny it, I was still sick. I could play at being healed all I wanted, hell I even fooled myself into thinking I was still on solid ground. I told no one I was infected, and I lived for a long time like nothing was wrong. But it wasn’t that simple. I might have been caging my animal, but I was still feeding it every day. I made all of them rely on me. I amassed substantial power as alpha, both within our pack and outside it, even if it wasn’t through fear as Brennan had. I was in total command and that soothed the beast which lusted for control, but all it took was one moment to show me how wrong I was in thinking that I could ever overcome this.”

“What happened?”

“What always happens in pack life: an outsider came and challenged me, thinking he stood a chance to take what I’d,” Liam stalled, shaking his head and changing his wording purposefully. “What we had been building.”

“That’s not so unusual,” Tink said, though her nose scrunched up slightly in a show of disgust. “Well not for wolves anyway. You’re all so abrasive, that just comes with the territory.”

The joke fell flat though Killian knew in another situation he’d have laughed. Tink’s thoughts on other shifters were usually entertaining to him, but the look of regret in Liam’s eyes told Killian his brother’s dark deed had crossed a line. He could only imagine what that might have been like.

“A challenge is normal, yes, but there are customs now. We don’t fight to the death like the wolves of old. We fight until surrender or until one side can’t fight anymore. We aren’t supposed to see an attacker and think that the only way forward is draining the life from them. We aren’t supposed to welcome that kind of fight while vehemently resenting anyone for trying to stake a claim. Our animal shouldn’t crave cruelty or demand death.”

“But yours did.”

“Aye. Looking back it’s like someone else’s memory, but that fight… hell it was worse than ours ever had the chance to be. I was ruthless. I’d won the match ten times over, but the bite had me taunting and tormenting my opponent. I wouldn’t just have killed him. This was torture. This was blood sport…” Liam said, his eyes haunted and his shame written clear as day on his face. “It took every member of the pack to get me back from the depths of my demons, and even then they couldn’t fully stop me. I was possessed, consumed with this evil need. I was seconds away from finally killing him, but the ruckus of the pack distracted me, enough that I saw my reflection in the creek. My eyes were worse than black…”

“They were shattered,” Killian said, knowing the way his father had looked when they fought him, and remembering how ungodly the sight was.

“They were on the edge, the fragments were forming. The last pieces of my soul were withering away far faster than I imagined, and only in seeing that could I find a way to stop. And the only way to stop was to leave, so I ran.”

“Wait, you left?” Killian asked, shocked that after everything Liam would have ever left the pack for any length of time.

“I had to. I was stricken with the wants of the sickness for days. I couldn’t shift back to human form, all I could do was run, trying to exhaust myself and keep myself from turning back and finishing the job. Finally I passed out from the lack of food and water and sleep, but even then, when the fog of it all lifted I knew I couldn’t return. I called my second in command, and I told him I was done. The beast in me was too much, and I had to save the little control I have left for something more important. I had to save it for you, Killian. I had to try and mend things between us the best I could after everything that’s happened. I’m only glad you’ve found your happiness when you did, so Ruby’s block could be lifted and I could get here in time. It’s been over a year and each day I searched in vain, knowing I was never really close and would likely never find you. So you see, you finding your mate isn’t just your miracle, but mine too.”

Killian allowed that to sink in, and finally he accepted that Liam was really trying to do the right thing. This wasn’t a trick or a game. It was a genuine attempt by his elder brother to make amends. That was more than Killian had ever dared to dream of, but in accepting this to be fact Killian also realized that his brother’s words all pointed to a sadness he could not comprehend. Liam wasn’t here to hurt him, but he was here to say goodbye, and that goodbye was going to be a final one.

“So you mean to tell me that you withstood the bite for years, rebuilt the pack, overcame the beast again and have been tirelessly tracking me in the hopes of saying you’re sorry?”

“You’ve colored the story in my favor by putting it that way, but yes. It will never be enough, but I am sorry, Killian. I’m sorry for all of it. I miscalculated with Brennan even though we’d trained so hard. He never should have bit me in the first place, but I fucked up and he did. Then I caved so quickly to the crazy impulses this sickness brings, only to put you in the most impossible position. I can never take back that night, but if I could I truly would. More than anything though I want you to know that I tried. I tried to be the man you still believed was in me when you spared my life. I tried to be a man you and Mum could be proud of. I tried as long as I could.”

“And so now what, it’s just over? You’re giving up?” Tink asked, her own hard exterior defenses softening as she grappled with the self-sacrifice Liam was planning to make.

“There’s no other way. I can’t live with this beast without succumbing to it,” Liam confessed, his resigned manner making Killian’s heart ache even more. “I’m a threat to everyone I meet. It’s barely restrained. The monster keeps rising closer and closer to the surface. Seeing you right now is the work of so much time, brother, and it’s all I ever wanted, but the pain I feel at holding onto everything is almost blinding. Frankly it’s miraculous I’ve held on this long. Soon enough the dam will break, and when it does I’ll be gone, and you and the people you care about here will be in real danger. So I have to stop that from happening. I can’t become what our father was. I won’t.”

“So you’ll die a hero then, a man who overcame to spare the rest of us. Because that’s what you’re saying. You’re saying you have to die. That you have to…” Killian couldn’t even form the rest of the terrible words, instead leaving the implication hanging in the air around them.

“It’s the only way.”

“I don’t believe that,” Killian said. “I might have bought that before. If you found me even a few months ago I would have been jaded enough to do so, but now… there’s too much good in the world for this to end like this Liam. There’s hope that lives here, hope like we’ve never known before, hope you deserve to feel.”

“Your mate, you love her,” Liam said and Killian nodded, now not distressed at Liam’s casual mention of Emma or at the thoughtful smile that formed on Liam’s face. “She’s your light and your hope, just like Mum used to say a mate should be, and I’m happy for you, brother, happier than you’ll ever know. I only wish I had the chance to meet the woman who could be so much to my favorite person.”

“Killian!”

The call from Emma that sounded through the woods at this most opportune time caused Killian to move forward, soon enough she appeared at the tree line with Ruby, Elsa, and Anna, and when she did Killian could see her fierce want to be with him and to protect him. She didn’t realize that he didn’t need protection, but at least now Liam could see the light that he had guessed at previously. He could have one wish granted in the end.

As he was thinking that though, Liam surprised Killian by springing towards Emma and her friends, and Killian’s good thoughts evaporated at the perceived threat. Liam moved with lightening speed, charging in Emma’s direction and Killian matched his pace, acting on instinct until he’d come to stand right before his love, protecting her as best he could, but then he realized it wasn’t Emma Liam had in his sights, it was Elsa. The expression on Liam’s face was torn and in flux, his eyes flashed between blue and the brilliant color of a healthy wolf, but all of his attention was settled on Emma’s best friend. One moment he was joyous, the next confused, and concerned. His actions were strange and almost unknowable, but then Killian realized something: Elsa must truly matter to Liam. She must call to him, and intrigue him in a way that he couldn’t control himself. She must be…

……………

My mate!

The words repeating over and over in his head the moment Liam laid eyes on the fair-haired beauty before him were undeniable, and even stranger they were said in the tone of his wolf pre-sickness. The demons that had taken up residence in his mind the past few years were silent, and all there was to focus on was this impossibly beautiful woman.

For a few beats of his heart, Liam experienced a rush of yearning and rightness. For the first time in years he felt like he had a chance at being whole and at being more than okay again. Acting on instinct he moved toward this familiar stranger, pulled by something stronger than gravity to be closer in her orbit. He barely even took in the others in her presence. Ruby was there, and he spared her the same fleeting glance that he gave to the other two women. One was clearly Killian’s mate, as his brother had charged to stand in front of her in a show of protection, but Killian’s face wasn’t animated with anger. Instead he looked perplexed and then a small smile began to tug at his lips as understanding dawned on him. Liam didn’t have time to make heads or tails of that; all he wanted was to get to his angel – his mate.

“Liam, stop!” Ruby said fiercely, putting her body between him and the woman he wanted so badly and Liam felt a growl growing in his chest, but he ultimately halted in his tracks. He met his cousin’s eyes, which were slightly clouded in that familiar way that said she was here in this moment while also receiving one of the visions she’d been having since childhood. When it had passed Liam growled low again, not liking the distance from his new found other half, and though Ruby seemed more relaxed than a moment ago, her fear had shifted to annoyance very quickly. “Seriously, quit it or you’ll scare her.”

“Uh, isn’t that the point?” one of the other women whispered. Looking at her, Liam could see some similarities between this woman and his blue-eyed beauty. They must be related somehow, but Liam’s gaze only stayed with her a moment before returning to his impossible dream again. “He’s the bad guy, remember?”

“He’s not,” his mate said sternly, speaking for the first time in his presence. Her voice rang out with indescribable melody, and each word, each subtle intonation lapped at his very soul like a gentle wave on the shore.

Her eyes didn’t demure in any way as he continued to stare her down, instead she met his gaze head on, and the emotion that he saw in those crystal blue pools nearly knocked him over. She was already fierce in her want to protect him and defend him despite not knowing him at all, and God he could just see how sweet and pure she was. Her hair was so light it could hardly be real, and though she’d tied it back in a tidy, elegant braid, Liam longed to see it set free. So many little dreams passed before his eyes – flashes of what he wanted with her, of what he wished could be. He never imagined anything like her before, he longed to reach out and touch her and to hold her close. She was sunlight in the midst of so much shadow, but he’d never deserve her, and he knew rationally that they could never be together, even if he’d never wanted anything more.

“I am though, love. And this… it can’t happen. I can’t be here,” Liam murmured. The realization was worse than anything he’d ever felt. He’d do all of life’s most terrible moments over again a million times to avoid this fate. He’d give anything to have things be different, but they weren’t. He was broken, and though he didn’t even know her name, Liam knew he’d never subject this angel to the burdens that he carried.

“You can,” his mate replied, her eyes holding so much softness even in the face of his brusque attempt at cold.

“Elsa?” The woman who clearly belonged with Killian looked for guidance and more clarification from his mate, and Liam rejoiced at hearing her name for the first time. Elsa – so unique and uncommon, just like her.

“It’s all right, Emma. It’s going to be okay,” Elsa said before looking back to him and speaking directly to him again. “You’re going to be okay.”

“No, I’m not. It’s – God it’s a sick joke! I live long enough to find you, but I can’t have you.”

“Yes you can. I can help you,” Elsa said, her voice lilting with the same calm and warmth despite the fact that his own was edging towards full-blown despair.

“Help him?” Ruby asked, her face giving every hint that her visions weren’t serving her as well as she wanted right now. She couldn’t read the future that his mate seemed so certain of, but without even hearing the details, Liam felt himself start to believe this remarkable woman. He knew nothing of Elsa, but at the same time he knew everything, and if she believed then he would to. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I can heal him,” Elsa announced, totally and completely assured of herself.

“How?” Everyone except for Liam asked at the same time, and then Elsa smiled as she very clearly replied.

“Because I’m his mate.”

“MATE?!” the girl who looked like Elsa asked exuberantly. “Did you just say mate? Did my sister just say mate?!”

“Yes, Anna, I said mate,” Elsa said, her own happiness bubbling up into a tinkling laugh that sounded out like the chimes of a bell.

Liam’s chest filled with pride at her claiming him like this, and he knew he’d never felt such joy in his life. That she would feel all he felt for her was incredible, and that she could see past the darkness that he was… well it was the best thing that had ever happened in his life. It was only topped by the moment that his Elsa stepped forward, finally taking his hand in hers. At the contact he was overcome with elation in a way that defied description. All he knew was one moment he was a jumble of feelings and the next he was truly peaceful. For the first time in a long time all his monsters were at bay, and he felt anchored even as he reveled in this taste of true freedom. Then he watched as a swirl of light began to emanate from her. It was magic, raw, powerful light magic, and he felt it seep into him, warming him through and making him feel like more than he’d ever been, even before the bite.

“See what I mean?” Elsa whispered so quietly he was sure only he could here. “We can handle this. We’ll figure this out together.”

“Together,” Liam mused as his hands pulled her closer so she was flush against his body. “Got to say I love the sound of that.”

And though they’d only just met, and their journey together was still as new as new could be, Liam felt euphoric when his mate moved upwards to press a kiss to his lips. As crazy as this was, and as sudden as the shift had been from all hope being lost to every dream coming true, Liam wouldn’t have it any other way. Lost in the love he already felt coursing through him for her, he allowed the weight of his world to slip away, and as long as he had Elsa by his side, he knew there were no more beasts and no more demons that could ever be successful in holding him down.

……………

“So this hasn’t gone exactly as expected,” Emma commented as the rest of them watched Elsa and Liam connecting closer to the middle of the field. They were caught up in a heated kiss, but what was truly awe inspiring was the flow of magic all around them. You could see it and feel it all around them, and without even needing to be told of any set plans or remedies, Emma knew her friend was right when she said she’d be the one to heal Killian’s brother.

To be honest though, this was quite literally one of the last things Emma ever could have anticipated. Even if she had believed that there was a chance that Liam might still be savable, she couldn’t have ever expected that his savior would be Elsa or that her best friend would find the same kind of true love in an instant as Emma and Killian had. It was a truly remarkable thing, and as she watched Liam and Elsa’s embrace she felt her eyes grow misty. This was such a blessing for so many reasons, not the least of which was that Killian would have one of the most important people in his life back. Finally after so long so many of his old hurts could heal, and in the process Elsa would hopefully find her own happily ever after, which Emma knew she absolutely deserved.

“No, love. I think it’s safe to say this has gone completely off the rails.”

“In a good way though,” Emma joked and Killian laughed, pressing a light kiss to her lips.

“Aye, in the best way. My brother has returned, Elsa is confident that she can heal him, and it turns out they are fated mates. Who would believe it?”

“Well while we’re on the subject of mates, the new sheriff is making my wolf act up. Could be nothing but -,”

Before Ruby could get the words out a growl sounded from the woods, and Emma looked over to see a giant wolf at the tree line. It was clear the wolf had been there for some time, and Emma had to assume this was Graham. Even though she’d been around shifters more and more the past few weeks, it was still an amazing thing to see. These animals were gorgeous and different and huge, and yet it was still totally Graham. Emma couldn’t explain it, there was just something about the way this wolf carried himself. Well that and the way that he was not pleased with Ruby underselling their connection, which was admittedly hilarious. Still, there was so much happening here, Emma couldn’t help shaking her head in continued disbelief.

“That doesn’t sound like ‘nothing,’” Anna said gleefully. “In fact, it sounds like this might just be my favorite day ever!”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally here for the surprise love fest,” Tink replied as she stuck her thumb out in Graham’s general direction, “Especially if it means seeing this guy find someone after years of telling me he never would. You owe me a hundred bucks by the way, Humbert.”

Graham’s wolf made what was probably the animal equivalent of an amused snort, which caused everyone to laugh, except for Ruby who rolled her eyes in feigned annoyance.

“Oh what, like it’s hard to be fated for me?” Her words were barely out of her mouth and Graham had shifted back, holding her close and making her gasp as he leaned in to reassure her.

“Easiest thing I’ve ever done, babe. Count on that.” The words, corny as they sounded to Emma, made Ruby swoon, which in turn seemed to set off Elsa and Liam and even she and Killian.

“Okay, cool it cowboy. It’s been like ten minutes and there are other people present,” Tink said, sternly reminding the couples that now was not the time or place. “Like I was saying, this absolutely beats a battle to the death. But I gotta ask… are we actually out of the woods here? Is Liam safe to be around or to even have in town for that matter?”

“He’s safe,” Elsa and Ruby said at the same time and Emma felt the last of Killian’s tension leave him as he exhaled at their assurances.

“So it’s over then? That’s it?” Emma asked, her whole attitude brightening at the thought that this great daunting doom that had hung over them so long was finally through. Now she and Killian could get on with the whole settling in and building a life together thing, something that she was definitely ready for. And more than that, Liam not being a threat meant all of them were safe now. Her family could stop worrying, and her friends could rest easy. In short, this was a spectacular turn of events.

“Well I wouldn’t say it’s over,” Anna acknowledged with a wave of her hand. “It seems to me that it’s really only beginning. Plus if you think we’re ending this and I don’t get a fated match too then you’re crazy. I’ll be patient, but I will be finding true love, you hear me?”

It was impossible not to laugh at Anna’s words, and Emma tucked herself into Killian as she did, loving the rumble of his laughter as it moved against her at Anna’s antics. Closing her eyes for a brief moment Emma allowed herself to just take this all in. The sun was shining, the breeze was gentle as it moved through the glen, and the air around them crackled with that sense of rightness that Emma usually only felt when she and Killian were alone and trying to forget the world. That she could feel this with everyone was a gift, and Emma knew this was a turning point; it just had to be.

“Well, I think there’s really only one question left to ask,” Tink said with a look of pure amusement on her face. “Who’s telling the Nolans?”

“Not it!” Emma, Anna, and Elsa all chimed at the same time, but before they could debate amongst themselves who would deliver the updates to her parents, her mother’s voice interrupted over the static of the radio that no one had noticed until just now.

“Hey, I heard that! Oh shoot I forgot to say over. I heard that, over.”

Tink looked shocked and Emma knew that this wasn’t some elaborate prank. Tink was genuinely unaware that Mary Margaret had been listening in. They were all astounded, well all of them except Graham who immediately looked embarrassed. He motioned to the radio he’d been wearing and finally seemed to notice it had been set to on this whole time, even when he’d been in wolf form.

“That’s my bad. I gave her the extra radio at the station yesterday. Figured it would be the best way to keep them in the loop. I didn’t realize it was on all this time.”

“Was it really though?” Emma asked, knowing her mother could fully hear her now. “I don’t know how likely it is that Mom could hear everything happening today and keep quiet. First you and Ruby, then Elsa and Liam. It would have been an awful lot of temptation…”

“Emma!” Her Mom said with a tone of censure, but then there was mumbling in the background and she heard her mother sigh. “Okay fine, I wanted to say things but your father reminded me that if I did Graham would probably shut off the feed, and I just couldn’t risk it.”

“I may not know your parents well, but that sounds about right,” Ruby said with a smirk. “And five bucks says Granny’s in on this too.”

“No one’s dumb enough to take that bet,” Killian joked and sure enough Granny’s voice came through the feed confirming that she was there and enjoying all the updates as well.

“Oh I’m here, and I have all sorts of questions for this man who thinks he’s good enough for my Ruby Lee.”

“Oh Jesus,” Ruby said with the first show of embarrassment she’d had today. She grabbed the walkie talkie from Graham and finally put this all to bed.

“All right you three, show’s over. You’ve had your fun. Granny, I will see you tomorrow,” Ruby said, before backtracking after looking back at Graham whose eyes were on her and filled with both heat and a quizzical question asking if she’d really be up for company tomorrow. “Scratch that, I’ll see you soon…ish. You want references, you got them sitting right next to you. I’m sure Mary Margaret and David are all too happy to fill you in on all things Graham.”

Anna then took the reciever from Ruby and gave her own message to Emma’s parents. “And don’t worry, I was only playing earlier. I’ll be over to fill you in on everything you missed. All I ask is that you make one of your awesome blueberry pies. I don’t have a man yet, so I should at least get some damn dessert.”

Emma bit back another laugh at how quickly her mother agreed to that proposition, and over the next few minutes the group disbanded, with the new mates going to find alone time as Anna and Tink headed towards her parents house. For Emma and Killian though, there was so much to be said and so much to discuss, but Emma knew that they wouldn’t get into the details tonight. No, she didn’t see much in the way of talking happening tonight at all, not when the relief she felt was so distinctly mirrored in her mate’s eyes, and not when the lifting of the Liam burden had left space only for love and hope and happiness.

“Picture it, love,” Killian said as he brought her into the house, locking the door behind them and then pulling her into his arms so there was no space left between them. “A whole night just you and me and some good old fashioned peace and quiet.”

“Well I don’t know about quiet…” Emma teased as her hand trailed down his chest, her voice dropping a bit lower and the huskiness of her want for him sounding out undeniably in her tone. “I kind of like when we get all worked up.”

Killian’s growl gave away how much he loved that too, and the next thing she knew he was sweeping her up and bringing them to the bedroom. Whether it was shifter speed or just Emma’s own infatuated state any time Killian put his hands on her she didn’t know, but it felt like one second her feet were on the ground and the next she was pinned against the door in their bedroom as Killian gazed at her with lust and love and longing.

“Allow me to be more clear,” Killian murmured his mouth whispering the words against her skin between kisses as he moved from his lips to her jaw, down her neck and lower. “Tonight it’s just you and me and the love between us. Nothing – and I do mean nothing – is getting between me and my mate tonight.”

Killian murmured the words as he practically ripped the clothing from her body, and Emma was mindless to do anything but claw away the clothes he still had on too. She went from teasing to needy in the blink of an eye, and from the hungry, predatory gaze Killian sent her way, Emma knew the night before them would be anything but fast. No, Killian had other plans, and if the already delicious torment of his hands and his mouth were anything to go by, Emma was going to be more than satisfied in every way.

“Every day I wonder if I’ll be used to this yet,” Killian rasped against her skin as he brought her to the bed, trailing his wicked mouth along the bared flesh of her neck. He nipped lightly at one of the mating marks he’d left on her and Emma jumped, her body so hot and ready and wanting though they’d barely even begun. “I wonder if your beauty will stop taking my breath away, or if I’ll feel anything but awe here in your presence. Will my heart stop feeling fit to burst? Will my need ever calm or wane away?”

“And the verdict?” Emma asked as one of his hands moved up her thigh as his lips moved down to her breasts, his touches moving between gentle and demanding, riling her up so effortlessly.

“It’s a waste of wondering, love. For there will never come a day when I don’t crave you. I need you, Emma, more than anything the world over, and I love you in ways I can’t possibly put in words.”

“So show me,” Emma begged, her voice a breathy moan as Killian’s lips turned up in a sinfully sexy smirk.

“That’s exactly what I plan to do.”

Emma was so torn in this moment. Mindless with pleasure and crescendoing desire, she wanted to close her eyes and revel in all of his ministrations. His fingers came to touch her most intimate skin, and the brush of his thumb on her clit as his teeth nipped the sensitive part of her breast pulled more moans from within her. But if she looked away from him now, Emma would deny herself the pleasure of seeing the man she was made for looking both fantastically wild and totally in control. Killian was so damn attractive. He always had her thinking the dirtiest things and craving something more, no matter the time of day, but seeing him like this, totally assured and completely in command of her body had her arching to be closer to him. He was magnificent right now – and if someone were to tell her there was a world outside of this bed right now she’d hardly believe them. She was so caught up in this moment, so strung out sensation, all she could do was feel and want and beg for more.

“Killian,” she pleaded, words failing her, and then he growled with satisfaction against her skin.

The hum of his territorial action pushed Emma’s already aching need towards the edge of release. Then the anticipation pushed her still closer as he moved down her body, his lips tasting every part of her until his mouth came to feast on her, tormenting her into marvelous madness. She shattered so quickly, but her mate wasn’t anywhere near satisfied. He pulled her climax from her only to tease her more, building her up and taking another. He seemed hell bent on a third but Emma was brazen now and desperate for more. She pulled him back up to her, and when he thrust inside, filling her completely she felt nothing but satisfaction and the most ethereal sense of completion.

There was no telling how long they were locked together like this. Both of them were consumed with the other, chasing release and saying with words and with actions everything they felt. This was more than love; it was destiny while somehow also being a choice. No matter what the mating call had said, Emma knew that their love transcended all of that. Nature was strong, but somehow this was stronger, and the pull of wanting never seemed to fade between them.

“You’re mine,” Emma whispered, when they were both spent and exhausted, as she placed another kiss to the place just above his heart. She must have said it a thousand times tonight, but each time it was both a claiming and a prayer. She was so happy to have this and to have Killian, and there was no denying that he felt the same.

“And you’re mine, Emma. For far longer than forever.”

With those beautiful promises in mind, Emma lay there, wrapped up in her mate thinking about how sure this thing between them was. And as she drifted off to sleep, it was almost hard to discern reality from fantasy, because life, right here in this moment, was better than any dream. Because this life was real and it was hers and it was filled with endless, glorious, wonderful possibility.

Post-Note: So some of you (okay probably all of you) must have seen this coming. I would never be able to write something so painful as losing Liam or Killian having to kill his brother. I always knew ever since the start that Liam and Elsa would be mates, and I knew that the only way to heal Liam would require magic. There’s much more to come in terms of the bite and how Elsa will help Liam, so rest assured that will be covered. And there’s also quite a few more chapters left to go. My plan is to have 22 chapters and then potentially an additional epilogue, and trust me when I tell you there is plenty more story yet, and all of our twists and turns are not quite over. Anyway thanks so much to all of you for all your love and support. It might be few weeks or so until I get to publish my next chapter because I am doing a lot of traveling now that school is out, but I promise it’s coming! Thanks again and hope you all have a great rest of your week!

Tag list: @jennjenn615, @kmomof4, @winterbaby89, @teamhook, @ultraluckycatnd, @resident-of-storybrooke, @artistic-writer, @snowbellewells, @snarkycaptainswan4, @allofdafandoms-blog

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roger1na · 6 years ago

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careful ch5 - john deacon x reader

summary: you are a ballet student at the royal ballet academy. To pay for your tuition, you work part-time at the celebrity gossip magazine, Seven. One fateful day you’re sent to interview a band on the rise, Queen, post-concert and befriend the sweetest man on the planet.

word count: 2.3k+

warnings: swearing

author's note: i'm so happy w all the positive comments i get you guys have all my uwus <3. i've realised FAR too late that brian's supposed to have hepatitis right now so ig in this universe it didn't happen, let's save our boy from some sickness. i think if i can keep to plan, careful should be twelve whole chapters! i don't want to start any new series before it's complete, i'm prone to abandoning projects if i don't really stick with them.

[ch1] [ch2] [ch3] [ch4] [ch5] [ch6] [ch7] [ch8]

chapter five

There was a certain routine to being in love. The butterflies you got every time you wrote about him in your diary. The softness of your heart when you heard Queen play on the radio and perked up your ears to hear the often forgotten bassline.

You soon learned that ‘till next time was code for next week, when John brought you lunch again, letting you hold his hand and tease him about his thick curls and shy smile. The late July sunlight played with the shadows on his face beautifully. Sometimes you felt as if you could just stare at his face forever, get lost in his features. Rose comforted you, saying it was part of falling in love. It terrified you, as a thought. But you hadn’t even properly kissed yet. The thought was ridiculous.

“What’re you thinking about, love?” You let the term of endearment roll of your tongue nervously, relying on British culture to keep your true meaning hidden. You had been walking for quite some time in silence after enjoying lunch in Kensington.

He hesitated slightly before replying. “The new album is so Freddie, Brian and Roger. I feel like the bass is lost.”

“You wish there’d be more bass?”

“Well, I don’t mind not being in the spotlight all the time…” he trailed off.

“But?” You encouraged him.

“I miss songs like Liar. Where I had a solo and all that.”

“You should write your own song, then.”

He looked at you, eyebrows raised, incredulous expression plastered across his face. You laughed and shrugged. “I know none of the songs on Queen and Queen II are yours. Why don’t you give this one a little Deaky twist?”

“Yeah but I can’t sing.”

“Bullshit, you have a great voice.” You stopped walking and turned to him. “I at least like it.”

A small redness spread across his cheeks and he avoided your gaze. “Well, uh,” he stumbled over his words.

“And also, if you want something a little less serious, why not play a bit of a practical joke on them? Something silly and stupid, Freddie would go bonkers for that.” You trailed off before smiling softly. “And, uh, Liar is my favourite song. Especially the bass.”

“You flatter me.”

“I’m serious.”

“I am too! They’re going to have a laugh.”

“Well then, make it into a funny song. Then they’ll laugh for the humour and you won’t feel bad if they insult your poetry or whatever.”

“You really think I should do this?”

“Absolutely.” You took hold of both of his hands and grinned.

You were caught in the moment just staring into his eyes. They were a wonderful shade of grey, occasionally looking dark and black in the shadows and sometimes twinkling like diamonds. You kept going back to the concert where you’d met him. The mischievous glint in his eye kept bringing you back to the silver glint of his bass strings.

A camera shutter snapped behind you, startling you. John’s expression changed from happy to apprehensive and his stance became wary.

“Was that a paparazzi?” The word sounded so silly. So fictional. He grimaced and nodded as some college student with a pimply face and shaky legs ran off with expensive equipment, and probably a picture of you and John where you looked madly in love. Or completely ridiculous. Your skirt suddenly felt too short, your shirt cropped too low and your hair messy.

John’s grip on your hand tightened. “Can we just go back?” You mumbled, embarrassment creeping in your voice.

John looked at you, worried. “Yeah, of course. You alright?”

You nodded, but you didn’t even convince yourself. He lead you back to the office through various shortcuts and darkened alleyways, hurriedly making sure nobody followed you. Once you arrived at the big glass doors to your office he apologised profusely.

“I’m so sorry, I should’ve been more careful.” His eyes were sad.

“Hey,” you grabbed his cheeks and squeezed them together slightly to make him form a smile. “Don’t worry about it,” you assured him, although your knees were shaking slightly.

“That’s not normal, I promise.”

“I believe you.” And you wanted to. But fear was creeping in your heart.

“‘Till next time?” He asked nervously.

“‘Till next time,” you promised him, squeezing his cheeks one more time before turning and rushing to the office.

A cloud hung over you as you walked over to your desk, heart beating rapidly, blood rushing in your ears. Williams was whispering something to an intern who looked like he was about to pee his pants at the sight of her, knees clicking together in fear.

You didn’t feel like challenging her anymore. She had a superiority complex. And she definitely hated competition in the workplace, although your intention was not to rise through the ranks. She saw women as something to weed out. You never understood what made her put herself against you, until you were warming up for an audition, and you realised that all the other dancers were looking for the same prize you were. But today, you gave it no thought.

For the first time ever, it properly hit you. John Deacon was famous. He went on tours and played for lovesick fans and probably had an army of teenage girls ready to tear him to shreds if the opportunity presented itself. Or maybe you were being delusional and he was just slightly more known than usual. He was a niche, he was a bass player. He wasn’t in the spotlight that often. Maybe.

You boiled coffee for yourself in thought, stirring in cream and sugar and taking a thoughtful sip. Would your mark on the world be a paparazzi photo with a guy you maybe-dated? While he had an incredible legacy? You’d be like one of those girls in a fan photoshoot which got terribly famous - only to remain anonymous. It was all so complicated.

The office had grown quiet when you returned from the canteen. Several people shot you pitying looks and Williams didn’t look so confident anymore.

“What’s going on?” You whispered to her, suddenly uncomfortably aware of yourself.

Nat left her front desk quickly, hiding something behind her back. “Y/N, sweetheart, don’t be mad…” she trailed off before handing you a copy of the Sun’s evening paper. “It just came in print.”

On the front page there were tons of different news. About celebrity scandals and weird locals. And then a small square image on the right corner of the page. John, with a dopey smile on his face, holding hands with a girl. It was you. Stupid grin and eyes for only John. And the title of the article made you sick.

Queen’s mr. Deacon hanging with the wrong crowd? Somebody should warn you…

Earlier today Queen’s John Deacon was spotted with a girl who works for the infamous gossip magazine Seven. What’s the girl fishing out of him? More on p.13

The article itself was maybe an eighth of a page, accompanied with two pictures. The one on the cover and one where you were entering the office building. But it was pictures of you. It was tarnishing you. You were going to be sick. What would he think if he saw this? You set down the paper and stormed to the bathroom before anybody saw your tears spill over your cheeks.

You stayed like that for a while, occasionally thinking you were brave enough to face people again. Then you caught sight of your red, swollen face and bleary eyes and retreated back into your stall. You mulled things over and over again. Was it always going to be like this?

You were at the office long after hours. Eyes stinging from crying and wiping them with sandpaper-like toilet paper.

Nobody tells you this, but crying from embarrassment and humiliation is the worst type of crying. With every tear that falls, you are reminded of how you messed up or how somebody decided that your actions were something to laugh at. With every sniffle you remembered that you had to go back and face the world, even though your knees were weak and your moral low.

While you were busy letting yourself get run down, the office had emptied. The lights were off and you could hear a lone janitor whistling as he cleaned. You sat down at your desk, pulling your knees to your chest, the chair creaking under your weight. Your sniffle echoed too loud.

You sat there for a while, feeling abandoned by the world. You let yourself be vulnerable and the press snagged onto it. You let yourself fall in love and now half of England thought you were scheming slag.

Your eyes drifted around your desk and landed on the locked drawer where you kept your diary. You fiddled with the lock a bit before it clicked open.

It was filled with memories from the wonder of late july. John this, John that. Ballet had trailed off the pages. You still danced. Every day but saturdays and sometimes even then. Your toes were bleeding often and your ankles hurt and you barely slept because your job started early and ballet ended late. But you had forgotten how much it used to eat up your happiness. It was the only thing that brought you joy. Now that John was part of the scene, you had a break every day. Like an entry to a whole nother universe for half an hour. Where he told you about photography and birds and basslines and you explained how all ballet dancers were evil because every understudy hoped for the failure of the prima ballerina. It was change and it was great. The fear in your heart was losing the fight.

If Rose could astral project, she would’ve appeared to you right then and there, screaming at you to call him.

You dialed his number and picked up the phone. It rang a few times before he answered, nervous on the other line.

“Hello this is John Deacon here,” he announced and then made a small tsk noise with his mouth.

You were so overcome with the relief of hearing his voice that you only managed a small sniffle.

“Y/N? Are you okay?”

You took a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“You sound like you’re in tears.”

You laughed blearily. “Yes well, a bit. Don’t pick up the Sun today.”

“Ah, I see.”

“You read it?”

“Well, I know where you work. I’m still fine.”

You pressed your face into your hand. “God I feel like such an idiot.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s not your fault, y’know? I should’ve realised. You’re John Deacon of Queen.”

John’s heart stilled. You didn’t sound bitter, just sad. Like you were done with everything. The lunch dates were a bad idea. The ballet lessons and the phone calls and the pampering. Bad ideas. He was about to open his mouth but you stopped him.

“I’m all in.”

“What?”

“Paparazzi and bad reputation and all stupid things included. All in.”

“What?” He was struggling to grasp what you were trying to get across to him.

“I feel like… I was one foot out of the door? I was nervous and hesitant to fall for somebody. And when I saw that article, it was maybe the worst moment of my life so far.”

“This isn’t very convincing.”

You started laughing on the other end. “Oh, you’re right, I need to clarify. I looked through my diary and so much has happened since I fainted at that concert. I’m all in. No hesitation anymore.”

“You keep a diary?” You could hear his teasing smirk through the phone.

“That’s what you got from me pouring my soul out to you?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t pick up on the subtext that I’m definitely kissing you the next time we see?”

“Oh?”

“I’m going to hang up now-”

“No wait! Tell me more.” He urged you, laughing on the other end.

“You sure? You don’t want to tease me anymore?”

“I’ll stop, I promise.”

“Okay,” you giggled. “So, Swan Lake by my class group has its opening night next week, Friday at 8pm. And I was hoping you’d join me. Or join the audience, I suppose.”

“I get to see you dance?” His voice was alive with joy and wonder, in an almost childlike way.

“Yes, yes! That’s what I mean. That’s part of all in. You get to see me dance.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

“Yes I agree, I am wonderful.” You laughed.

He scoffed on the other end. But his heart was palpitating. He was overcome with happiness. It’d been strange, courting a girl who was so carried by art, so immersed in dance that she could let herself go for weeks on end just to keep up with it. Seeing her work come to life was the biggest prize he could’ve gotten from making time for you, bringing you lunch, making sure you didn’t starve yourself for the work.

“What made you decide you’d want to kiss me?”

“It’s been too long, hasn’t it? There’s been too many almosts. To hell with almosts.”

“Have you drank something?”

“No!”

“You promise? I won’t wake up tomorrow and you’ll have forgotten all of this?”

“Of course not, I’m responsible.”

“Sure.”

You chatted for a while. He was such lovely company. So full of adoration and respect and wit. He had such a way with words. You felt deep longing in your heart. You also felt relieved, like five years worth of missing love was finally replaced with the warmth of another person.

“I think I’ve got to go now,” you whispered when the janitor entered your section of the office. “I’ll see you friday.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Bye, John.”

“Bye, Y/N.”

You set down the phone, adrenaline making your hands tremble ever so slightly. You wiped your face one last time before taking your things and leaving the office. There was a spring to your step which echoed in the empty evening London streets. You could hear the bellowing of drunks from the pubs and the crying of a baby from a nearby apartment. But it didn’t really mean anything to you anymore. You were flying on the wings of love.

God you felt ridiculous.

***

taglist: @fourmisfits @deakysgirl @im-happy-at-home @obsessedwithrogertaylor @itsametaphorbriansblog @rhapso-kei

#john deacon x reader #deacy x reader #deaky x reader #joe!john deacon x reader #joe!john x reader #john deacon #queen imagine #careful - jd #aa u guys im so excited for the following chapters #trust me it gets fantastico #youre going to love it bc it's going to be /hella/ overdramatic #and trope-y #so trope-y

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anatemori-dughter-of-art · 5 years ago

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The Prophecies and The Quest

Last Chapter: “Where are you going?” asked Jason “I need a minute” is all he said as the door closed behind him.

The Prophecies and The Quest

As I sat on the beach watching the lack under the for once, clear midnight sky and remember back when this all started. Back on Mount Olympus, just after the gaea and giant war when all the greeks and the roman army filled the room filled with the Olympic gods.

********

Camp half-blood and Jupiter were still at odds with each other, even in the presence of the god they still didn’t trust the other, thunder and lightning shocked the air and in came Zuse, the King of Drama.

With the rest of the gods “everyone, we have summoned you all here to...to give are appreciations in your assistants in the war,” assistants? but we did all woke I thought raising my eyebrow, for a long time Zeus talked bullshit about how he and the gods did something, I have no idea what.

I mostly tuned him out only lightning when Annabeth elbowed me, it was all going relatively well till there was a sharp gasp, looking around to see Rachel, her eyes where a smoky green with dirty green smoke coming out of her mouth, which could only mean one thing: no, no no, Hades no, can't it be someone else.

I thought as Annabeth and I pushed ourselves to get to her, along with the camp counselors and the seven-plus Nico and Reyna as well as Chiron who ordered the campers to get back, we all made room for her, not wanting to crowd her, just as the people who were assigned to her came to through in the nick of time as Rachel was about to speak.

Twins of the eldest gods

Shall reach sixteen against all odds

Shall battle the Lost son

In the land where creation won

In a world painted black

And the gods held back

As all three worlds unit to

Triumph evil's might

A choice will be made

To save the gods or they Shall fade

As Rachel finished her last word she fainted, “well...that was...something” Dad said nervously, “what was that” a roman camper said “the gods will fade,” said another as more and more Romans and Greeks alike started freaking out.

“SILENCE!” Zuse shouted as the entire hall quieted down, “as you all heard, it seems a new great prophecy has arrived” he said “The Twin Prophecy, father” Apollo said who looked seriously and in pain“did you see anything Apollo” Artemis asked him who was shaking their head in pain, “it was so fast and bright even for me” he said holding his head in pain.

“Dad!” both the roman and greek kid of Apollo said softly “did you at least get a glimpse of something?” Asked Hera, she was just as pale as Zuse “well for starters this is well into the future, I saw brown hair...lightning...and blue eyes... Along with floating water...and, the dead were rising” well that was “WHAT?!” nearly all the gods shouted.

“LIGHTNING?! ZUSE DID YOU HAVE ANOTHER CHILD” Hera shouted “HE ALSO SAID WATER, POSEIDON DID YOU” started Zeus but Dad in his chill tone said “calm down brother, I swear to you Percy is the only son I have” Hera raised an eyebrow in disbelief “are you sure about that brother” she challenged back “yes sister, Percy is the only son I know of” he replied coolly.

“did you all forget that Apollo also said the dead were rising so HADES DID YOU CHEAT ON MY DAUGHTER AGAIN!!! I know you were a-” Demeter ranted on and on as Hades looked two seconds away from shadow traveling out of here, “EVERYONE” Athena shouted, gathering their attention“did you all forget, this prophecy dictated the birth of twins that will someday be the choosers of our fate, instead of guessing who sired them we must first find or look out for theses two” she explained in a commanding tone.

“brown hair, blue eyes and they may be able to control the powers of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades” Hermes listed, “dang these kids sound like legacies” he continued “dangerous, is what they sound like” mumbled Zuse yet we all heard him “now brother, quiet your paranoia this is serious business” Dad added “yes, indeed we need not worry about these Twins but also this Lost Son” Hades joined in.

“foreknow I believe we must wait" Hera said surprising everyone "what do you mean Hera" Zuse asked "I mean husband, is that instead of like the last great prophecy all we did was trust three brothers not to have children but only one followed through and don't forget all the death that was caused because of the fear we have of that child it talked about" she pointed out.

"instead of fearing this prophecy let us wait and see what it brings us, and maybe Hermes is right they could be legacies or even they have been given blessings declared them there champions by Zuse, Poseidon and Hades did none of you think of that" Heras words got us all thinking and agreeing with her, but don’t tell her I said that "you're right Hera" Athena said looking surprised.

"then what should we do? just sit around and wait" asked Artemis "yes, it seems so but the oath still stands" Zeus declared “but you broke it first” mumbled Hare "but brother you broke the oath first, twice even maybe we should keep a close eye for if any more of your children pop up" Dad said in a teasing manner.

"I could do a scan" Hephaestus said nonchalantly which got all of are attached "what do you mean a scan, brother," Ares asked Hephaestus who looked up from the gimmick he was working on "well you see after the discovering of Perceuse, I decided to build a machine that can scan the entire western hemisphere of a demigod with are godly makeup" he explained as he pulled out a box made of celestial bronze "and when did you make this contraption Hephaestus " asked Athena.

“I got the idea around the time Perceuse went missing and just about last week was when it finally started working,” he explained as the bronze box floated towards Zuse “just add a drop of your ichor and press down on the red button” Hephaestus. explained as Zuse dropped a bit of ichor into the bronze box it then began to emit a golden glow till a hologram of the western hemisphere of north, central along with South America was on full view and in North America, the United States in the south coast of Arizona is a blue dot, well dam, “ZEUS?!” Hara shouted in anger well Hades grubbled in ancient greek and Dad laughed so hard he almost fell out of his throne“we have another sibling” Jason said astound “oh great” Thalia said sarcastically but not surprised, as we all stood or sat looking at Hera yelling at Zeus for cheating on her, again.

“everyone” said a soft calm voice it was Hestia “why don't we bring them here, by the looks of it they're already fourteen we'll be going against the oath we made too Perseus” she said looking at the hologram which had zoomed into the blue dot and had words on it “yes, and Hera you can't harm them” Zuse said as he snapped his fingers and poof in a cloud of smoke stood two-finger.

the first a tall guy he has pale skin and dark hair styled in an undercut next to him was a kid around eleven or twelve with messy black hair that could give Nico a run for his money, with pale skin as well their backs were facing us so I couldn't see their faces, “w-what, where are we?” the taller male said as he looked around “welcome to mount Olympus, son” Zeus with all his drama said “mount Olympus like the stories” he said in disbelief “yes child, all you have read and heard about us greek god is real and you are my son,” he said.

“um...I’m Takashi Shirogane, please call me Shiro, I’m 14 I attended the galaxy garrison in Arizona and this is my little brother Keith, and it’s nice to meet you, Zuse...Dad...sir but why am I here?” my gods' poor guys freaking the heck out just then a red bore popped up on the kid Keith’s head “I had a feeling you were one of mine,” Ares said.

“and who the f***ck are you” said the kid and whoa the look on Ares face makes me wish I had a camera “Keith, please don't anger the gods” Shiro said sounding as if he's used to it “well you little Sh**t I’m ya Dad, Ares god of war” Ares said back, Keith who looked at him up and down “the guy that got trapped in a jar by two ideats?” oh my gods I really wish I had a camera on me right now, everyone laughed and I mean everyone, the greeks to the gods hack even the Romans who respect the war god more than Zeus.

Ares, on the other hand, looked two seconds away from blowing up“Shiro” called Zeus “yes” he said, “Do you have a twin?” wow smooth “Zeus my invention already looked for all your children there can't be another” Hephaestus. said “yes” Shiro said which surprised all of us “his name was Kron Shirogane he died when we were two” oche “my apologies for breaking up bad thoughts son” he said showing some sympathy he then snapped his fingers Shiro then had a blue lightning bolt floating above his head and a black glove on his left hand.

“what's this sir” he asked still looking nervous “this son is symbol of me claiming you as my own as well as giving you a means of protection the glove will transform into a sword when needed, you can ask your older brother and sister for help” that’s what didn't shock Shiro, he just grabbed Keith who by the way was having a glaring match with Aries and walked closer to us “um...hi everyone I’m Shiro and this is Keith” he said looking a bit more relaxed than before.

“hi I’m Leo, this is your blond superman of a brother Jason and scary huntress sister Thalia” Leo enthusiastically as he pointed at the two “hi nice to meet you” Shiro said outstretching his hand, Jason shock it “great meeting you at least know I’m not the only one in the Zuse cabin” he said “cabin?” he asked “will explain later,” I tell him just as Demeter staches the bronze box and throws it onto Hades who rolls his eyes and drops his own ichor into the device nothing popped up but two black dots in new york Hazel and Nico.

“see you ranting women I have done nothing” just as he tossed the box to Dad who without complaint did the same as the other and just like Hades nothing happens except for one, me.

“then it has been proven that the Twin Prophecy won't be happening for a long time, till then we shall head Hares word and instead of postponing the issue we shall all be ready” he announced “unm...Father sir can you please send us home I don't want to explain to parents how we ended up in Olympus” Shiro said.

“don't worry young one we will send a message to your parents of your whereabouts” Chiron explained, “ok now that we have gotten all this prophecy stuff out of the way, why don't we PARTY!?” Apollo shouted back to his usual bright self, as a big celebration was held as I looked around of how the Greeks and Romans were actually starting to get along and how Jason and Thaila were talking with Shiro looking around to see everyone having fun being carefree.

Twins of the eldest gods

Shall reach sixteen against all odds

Why does it sound, so close to mine, are they gonna be kids just like how I started only time can tell really I just hope I’m alive when they arrive.

******

“Don’t you think you have been out for too long son” I turned see Dad sitting next to me “how did you not know” I asked “they had a spell or seal powerful one on them, that's why Hephaestus machine couldn't find them they were just well hidden” he explains blankly.

“their mother I met her a few years after you were born at the time was traveling in Cuba that's when I meet her, Rosalena she was a great friend, but we were never meant to be nothing more than that” he chuckles softly, “If I had to take a guess it must've been around the fall of that year-” oh no “Dad, please don't tell me how my half-siblings were created I’m scared enough” he laughs half-heartedly.

“anyway, right now the god are baffled by this news and are just waiting,” he said as we got off the beach “it about time you head onto bed son doesn't want to keep you knew siblings waiting in the morning for ya” Dad teased as he walked into the water and disappeared. While heading to bed, my mind was filled with thoughts of what happens now? Do they go on the quest Rachel said before? And how in the span of thirteen months I become an older brother what is my life.

*******

I wake up to yelling, a lot of yelling as I run out the cabin to see a bunch of non-flaming skeleton hellhounds chasing what looks to be Keith and some other Ares kids. Well, Shiro is arguing with Nico, behind him Lance was standing guarding someone against behind with a look promising murder well the ground we starting to freeze around him.

“Percy!” I heard Annabeth call out turning and Thaila and Jason along with Leo and Piper “what happened we heard yelling and screaming,” she said, “are those hellhounds?” Leo asked looking at the hounds that were chasing the Ares kids “yes, yes they are why are they attacking the Ares kids?” Thaila asked “guys, I don’t know I literally just woke up, let's go ask Nico why he's arguing with Shiro and why Lance looks two seconds away from turning the camp into Antarctica,” I tell them as we race towards the arguing between Nico and Shiro.

“Guys, guys what happened,” Jason asked as he got between them “I’m trying to get Lance to stop tormenting my brother” Shiro explained “they.stabbed.Lana” Lance who was barely containing his anger, said through clenched teeth “we can go get Chiron for this, not sick hellhound on them” Shiro said glancing worryingly at his brother and Ares kid who were being chased around, those who were caught were thrown so far they landed in the lack some were even thrown all the way to the lava wall seeing this Leo whistled.

“Lance, stop, it's just a scratch” Lana said from behind him “but that's still not aloud how can they just stab a person and get away with it” he said back turning to her “then why is Keith among them, when he was doing nothing” Shiro said back “oh, no no no he was trying to defend those a**holes-” ''Languages!” we all yelled “he just busted in and started to say crap about how we shouldn't be on our high horses just because of parentage.”

a few more splashes where hard and once again Shiro, Nico and Lance started arguing and yelling well Jason, the poor guy tried to defuse it will everyone else tried to catch the hellhounds or the campers, maybe both “EVERYONE STOP!!” we heard Clarissa yelled as she and Chiron stood next to “Mr.D...you's back” I said “yes, Peter, I have returned to this miserable heap of temper tantrums and hormones” he said with his usual disinterested tone well summoning a Diet Coke.

“who’s this?” Lana, who was healed thanks to a nearby Apollo kid asked well taking a few steps back “this is are camp counselor we call him Mr.D but he’s the god of wine” their eye whined of the fact that there was a god in front of them “Dionysus” they said together “so you're the mysterious brats that I've been given every one

Upstairs heart attacks” he said with a laugh “wait, gods get heart attacks?” Lance who finally calmed down and didn't look ready to kill whispered to himself but came out about loud for me and maybe Nico to hear.

“anyway, we are having a meeting in the council room,” he said as he walked away towards the big house “and bring peter's new siblings as well as Jace’s little brother too” he said as he got to the door “that was Dionysus” Lana said “yes, what did you expect” Leo said as all the cabin counselors headed towards the big house and Lances hellhounds returned to earth as we all walked into the big house and stayed around and around the pinball table.

“so, what's the meeting for Mr.D” Piper asked “it's about the prophecy” he started looking more tired than usual “you don’t mean” I said not likening where this is going “yes peter, they have to go,” he said in a dry tone “what's going on, and what prophecy?” Lana asked, “remember what Rachel said last night.”

Nico asked them they both looked in deep thought, “it sounded like a poem starting with sea and death shell bare twins. That will rise above creations sins,” Lana said “yeah, it was really catchy I remember “shell travel south with the youngest son of skies and find where the eldest goddess lies, Sea and death shall find the key” Lance continued “but loses sight of what they truly see. for a choice, they shell mack, for love or heartbreak and may they find themselves in a bind For a friend will end their time” Rachel and “sounds ominous” Lana said “sounds sad” Lance added “it’s your quest” Mr.D said.

which surprised all of us, not it being the twins quest but him actually caring and being involved at the meeting “sorry, say that again I think I heard you wrong” Lance in shock asked “I, Lorenzo McClain am never wrong this quest is for you three children” he said looking at the twins then at Shiro! “Whoa, whoa Mr.D I think you got this all wrong Shiro can't go he's still new at this Demigod stuff,” Jason said coming to his Brothers defense who looked a bit sick.

“I don't see what is there to be wrong about Jackson, you were nearly fifteen when you saved Hera from the giants and peter was twelve when he returned Zeus's master bolt, what difference is there if they go on a quest at this age themselves” Mr. D ranted on again it's not normal, did Zeus finally let him drink “there are our siblings Mr.D, and Unlike us there are people worried about them” Thaila said “along with people capable of taking their place” Jason added just as loud thunder cracked across the sky “Jason you know one cannot avoid a prophecy, this is their time you must know this” Chiron said.

“hold up, so you're saying that me, Lance and him have to go on a quest to find a goddesses like in the greek stories” Lana said “yes” is all Mr.D said before the twins made a run for it, they were out the door before anyone could stop them “great, you scared them, now how are we going to find them” Thaila said “Mr.D what did the gods say about them, the twins I mean” Leo asked “first off, their mother pleased an ancient seal on them which completely blacked of all traces of there exists,which didn’t go well with Hephaestus heck even know, when they have been claimed and the seal is broken I can barely feel their presence, it freaked a lot of them out, my father at first won’t stop laughing when he remembered Poseidon's words of only Peter being his son, only when it was pointed out it was Poseidon's kids who’ll be in the prophecy again did he not only stop but flash out in anger and Hades just went back to the underworld to talk with Thanatos.”

he said which surprised a lot of us, there Mom was able to evade the gods “Whoa” Leo and Conner awed “now what” Clarisse said “Shiro, this may sound unbelievable to you but you and the twins are to go on this mission by dusk, right now we need to find the twins know to go along” Chion commanded as all of us left to go look for the twins and the grace siblings helping Shiro pack.

*******

It was two hours before dusk and no-ones found the twins yet even after getting the entire camp looking. It wasn't until Rex came running towards us “guys guys” he said “there at half-blood hill Henry Shay and I got all these things ready there just waiting by Thaila’s tree,” he said.

“But why did they run like that” Jason who was next to me asked just as everyone else was running over “there scared, and confused, first they lost their Mom and suddenly there Dad and Grandpa claimed them as their own and now there being told to go of and fined a goddesses, yeah no, Lance and Lana may look tough and act smart and confident, but they just needed a place to breathe to just not have to worry about all this for just a second so we took them to the strawberry fields than to the woods and climbed the tallest tree we all stayed there till a little over an hour ago was when they decided to go on the Quest.”

Rex explained all this in one breath “so there just waiting for Shiro and Argus” Annabeth said nodding is all Rex did as he ran back to the half-blood hill, as we went to tell everyone where they were Shiro was packed and ready along with “Keith?” I called out to him who had an angry look on his face, “what's wrong, still mad for what Lance did this morning” I asked he huffed in irritation “no, I’m not mad about that I heard what happened and besides, why can't I join Shiro on this quest I’ve worked really hard on my swordsmanship and I know my understanding of greek mythology isn't high but I can still help” he pleaded.

“Keith” I said as I kneel down eye leveling with him “you know it's against the rules” I tell him knowing I sounded like a hypocrite “lies you yourself snuck on a quest, so why can't I” he yelled angrily, well crap know I really regret letting the other tell them my quests I know this day would hunt me “Keith the reason Percy had to be on that quest was also apart of the prophecy so it was meant to happen, but you are not to go you may walk with Shiro to half-blood hill but no more than that” Chiron said seriously.

I looked to the twelve year old son of Ares who with one last anger glare held his brothers hand and walked off towards half-blood hill, as we walked Jason who cached up to us Chiron who kept a close eye on Keith and Shiro who looked anything but happy as we made it to the hill there stood Argus with Henry Shay and Rex standing there near the white oak tree.

“Hey, where are they?” Jason asked in which Henry shushed him and pointed toward the twin who where just thirty feet away kneeling down placing rocks sticks and flowers, down an area which had grass stained with dried blood “is that the spot” I asked “yes” Shay said softly as the twins backed away looking at their work the rocks were piled up neatly and to form a small hill with flowers poking around, some in or out of the rocks the sticks wrapped around the rock flower hill with the help of a liter the twins lit each branch when done they did what looked to be a pray as they turned around their eyes were puffy and red the closer they got.

The more I notice the clothes they wore, Lance an old brown 80s jacket and camouflage shorts with the camp t-shirt sticking out, with navy blue combat boots Lana, had on a black long sleeve shirt, with a sleeveless camp shirt we may live in the north but it’s still summer, how is she not boiling anyway she wore them with brown pants and the same navy blue combat boots.

as Lance as they walked up to us ignoring everyone but the trio of friends “hey Shy, well we're gone can you add flowers…” she trailed “of cores I will when you come back the spot will be blooming with a thousand flowers” she said softly again “if we survive” I heard Lance mumble which looking around they heard it as well which didn’t go well with Keith “hey!” he yelled walking close to them Lance glared and Lana sighed.

“what” he shot back in which Keith just pointed to Shiro “that’s my brother, my family, I can't come with you to watch his back so can you please watch it for me” his angry and confident tone changed to a soft and vulnerable one with each word as he locked eye with Lance, “yes, you moron if you think for one second I’m going to lose someone again especially some who is loved, no, never” he spoke in confidence “Keith, we promise we’ll bring you brother back” Lana added in.

“Styx” oh my gods did he just “ok, Keith I think that going a little too far” Jason said but I see that the three kids where ignoring us, the twins looked at each other with a look of determination, oh, so that’s how stupidity looks like “I Laura Amara Nyx Aleja McClain” she said “and I Lorenzo Alejandro Nicholas Calisto Erenos McClain” he also said and at that moment I knew what it felt like to be everyone else dealing with me “swear on the River Styx that we will bring back your brother alive.”

they said together as a loud thunder and lightning crashed down on the other side of the ditch sealing the Oth and my fate to worry about these two idiots for the rest of my life, “uh” I mumbled out in realization “what?” Jason asked “I now know what it feels like to be, well, all of you who goes on a quest with me,” I tell him as Argus the twins and with one last hug from Keith, Shiro went downhill and into the vane and off they went.

“Father, please give them warmth and protection” Henry prayed “Mother gives them shelter and keep them well-fed” Rex and Shay prayed as we walked back to the camp and waited.

*******

As the van drove out of Long Island and into New York City streets, was have Argus left us “so where to next?” I asked them Lance looked at me “first, we need to go to Gettysburg Pennsylvania” he said as he and Lana started walking towards a bus stop as I ran to catch up “why?” I asked he looked at me again and smiled “Grampa wants to talk.”

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efemerald · 6 years ago

Text

Fight Me

Read it here! (a kiribaku fantasy au)

“Fight me.”

The first time Bakugou heard it, he was caught completely off guard.

“Excuse me?”

“You like to fight, right? So fight me! I’ve arranged a whole sparring ring behind the sheds – it’s not much, but it’ll work.”

Bakugou stared at him blankly, mouth twisted into a frown. He liked the stable boy; he liked coming down here in the evenings, tired from a whole day of stupid princely duties, and finding comfort in the long hours of easy, dwindling conversation. Mostly, it was just him listening to Kirishima ramble for ages about whatever new hyperfixation he’d found that day, whether it be Riot, his favorite stallion, or Kaminari’s latest antics. And yes, it’d begun mostly as a way to hide from his Mother. But somewhere along the line, it’d become the best part of his day. Kirishima’s happiness was infectious, and his sense of humor, surprisingly, matched Bakugou’s exactly. They were a good pair. Bakugou didn’t know if he could endure his work anymore without those moments of relief to look forwards to.

So what the fuck had he done to make Kirishima angry? He’d thought that was literally impossible. Besides, he took every possible care to not piss Kirishima off – unlike most people in Bakugou’s life, Kirishima was worth taking care of – so this was frustrating.

As he stood there, raking over the past few days and trying to find anything offensive – a joke that had gone too far, an insult that crossed the line – Kirishima grew increasingly nervous. The redhead abandoned his bold stance, shrinking, and began fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “I mean, we don’t have to if you don’t want to. But, you know, I’ve been training at Fatgum’s a lot lately, and I thought–“

“The wrestling coach?” Bakugou’s nose scrunched into a sneer. “His arena’s dodgy as fuck, it’s literally in the basement of a butcher’s shop. The hell are you doing there?”

Kirishima’s face turned red. “Uh, practicing. You know. So I learn to, you know, fight, and stuff.” He mumbled the last part embarrassedly, and it took Bakugou a moment to understand it right.

Then the pieces finally clicked together. Kirishima wasn’t angry, he was just looking for sparring practice. That, Bakugou was more than happy to supply. He grinned. “Yeah? Think you can take me?”

In half a heartbeat, Kirishima regained his confidence. “Only one way to find out, Blasty!”

###

As such, fighting became a new part of their routine. It always started with a sly grin from one side, followed by the challenge: “Fight me… Wanna go?….Think you can take me?”

Sometimes it was for fun, sometimes it was just stress release, but either way, it always ended up with them thrashing in the mud, faces strained red with determination and muscles pushed to the top of their limits.

Somehow, it was a whole different world to Bakugou’s swordsman lessons, or even Kirishima’s wrestling ones. The unbridled passion on both sides; the freedom of flesh on flesh, of breath mixing with hot breath, this exhilaration was entirely new and intoxicating. Neither boy could remember being happier.

Afterwards, they’d lay on the cold pavement, tired but blissful, chests heaving, and just talk. The spike of adrenaline, combined with the darkening sky, created just the right conditions for unchecked, unfiltered conversation. It was here that the topic of the ball first arose.

“So, you’re gonna meet your bride there?”

Bakugou grunted. “Yeah, I guess. It’s my princely obligation or whatever. It’s about time, too! Soon as I marry her, I’ll get to be king of whatever backwater city she’s from.”

Kirishima barked out a laugh. “I feel sorry for whatever poor princess marrying you.”

“Oy.” he shoved Kirishima with a foot, too tired to do anything more. “I’m a fucking delight to be around.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kirishima turned to lay on his side, and Bakugou was sharply aware of the ruby eyes now roaming over his face. “When you’re not too busy blowing stuff up, right?” he smirked. “Try not to start a war on your first day.”

“Oh, really funny, Red.” Bakugou threw a hand towards the other’s face, attempting to push him away. Kirishima saw it coming and blocked just in time. He giggled again.

Then, quick as it’d appeared, the laughter died from Kirishima’s face. “Hey, Katsuki.”

He only ever used Katsuki when it was serious. Bakugou raised a worried brow. “Yeah? What is it?”

“Will you miss me? When you leave?” the words were so uncharacteristically soft and nervous, Bakugou almost couldn’t hear them.

“The fuck you talking about, moron?” he rolled his eyes. “You’re coming with me, obviously.”

“What?”

“I said, you’re coming with me.” he waved a dismissive hand. “I assume there’ll be horses wherever we are.”

He expected Kirishima to be pleased by this. Maybe even excited to see someplace new. Instead, all he got was empty silence.

After waiting for, and not receiving, any sort of response, Bakugou finally turned to look at his friend.

Kirishima’s eyes were narrowed into a squint. His whole face was pulled into an expression of dazed confusion. “But, Katsuki...”

“What? Stop looking at me like that!”

“Katsuki, your Mom’s already given me notice of leave. Once you leave, I’ll be fired.”

“...Oh.” The news hit Bakugou like a blow to the chest. He never thought he’d be so affected by the loss of a stable boy, and yet, here he was, at loss for what to say. For the first time in years, Bakugou was seeing red.

“Yeah,” Kirishima continues, oblivious to his friend’s mounting fury. “Your Mom says the princess is very pah-tick-yoo-lur,” (he placed special emphasis on the last word, particular, in an impressive and otherwise very funny imitation of Bakugou’s Ma) “about hiring staff. Says she doesn’t want some dirty hillbilly around her home.”

“...Ah.”

“Also, you know, your Mom’s worried about how close we are. Says it’s bad for the family reputation and stuff. Guess it makes sense.”

Bakugou was silent for a very long time. His eyes had become empty, staring vacantly off into space, as he thought it over. When he sighed, the heat of his breath tickled Kirishima’s nose.

Finally, “Okay. Fine, then.”

“Yeah.” Kirishima, misunderstanding, agreed with a disappointed huff. “But we can make the most of it! I’ll write every night, and–“

“No!” Bakugou snapped. “We’re not doing any of that shit!”

“We’re not?” His eyes widened with hurt.

“No, we’re not.” Bakugou said decisively. “I’m not marrying her.”

Kirishima blinked. “Uh. Huh?”

“You heard me. I’m not marrying her, not if it means losing my best friend, dipshit.”

With that, he began to stand, dusting the mud off his pants.

“W-wait!” Kirishima scrambled to his feet. “But what about your kingdom? Your legacy, and all that?”

Bakugou grinned at him. “Don’t worry about it, Red. I’ve got it all figured out.”

“You do?”

“Oh, yeah. All I need is for you to show up on Friday night. To the ball.”

If Kirishima was confused before, he was completely lost now. “But I don’t–“

“I’ll get you a stupid invite, stupid. I’m the crown prince, remember?”

“But–“

“Just trust me, Kirishima.” he picked up his cape from where it lay folded on the bench, wringing it out and shooting back a grin as he walked away. “It’ll be fun. I promise.”

With a flick of his head, he’d turned the corner, and was gone. Kirishima was left to stare dumbly at the empty space he’d once inhabited. “Well...” he murmured to himself. “Alright. Guess I should find something to wear.”

#kiribaku #bakushima #kirishima eijirou #bakugou katsuki #bnha #bnha fic #kiribaku fic #boku no hero academia

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officialmollymauktealeaf · 6 years ago

Note

I always like hearing about OCs, so could you do a playlist for Bladen or Oz (or maybe one you haven't talked about as much)?

A new challenger approaches after seven years! And for taking so long I’d like to make up for it by explaining my reasoning behind each song. They’ll be in no particular order and McFucking extensive in the lyric explanation I am so sorry (Like this shit is really fucking long and it’s best to just look at the titles and yeet)

1. Hey Look Ma, I Made It by Panic! At The DiscoThis song is honestly just… taken as fucking spitefully as possible. His mother abandoned him and here he fucking is? A loving partner and three beautiful, strong children who he will go to his grave defending and swearing they are all destined for greatness.

Are you ready for the sequel? (I take this as him talking about his boys)I’m gonna be the greatest (Bladen’s thirst for power)

And if you never know who you can trustThen trust me, you’ll be lonely, oh (Referring to those childhood years where everyone except his foster father was an enemy)

2. Boy in The Bubble by Alec Benjamin This song is for his foster dad. Bladen was technically a sheltered child with no real connections except for that man who greatly worried for him. It reminds me of him because Bladen never wanted fights but even knowing what the results could be

Punch my face, do it ‘cause I like the pain (Reminds him he’s alive)Every time you curse my nameI know you want the satisfaction, it’s not gonna happen (Bladen is nothing if not prideful. He knew what the kids wanted and he refused)Come the lightning and the thunderYou’re the one who’ll suffer, suffer (He always knew that the one that would regret it most are the people making life hell for him)

3. IMNOTYOURBOYFRIENDBABY by 3OH!3It’s half a joke song? He’s a horny son of a bitch I’ll be honest he’ll fuck almost anything that moves but miss him with that commitment bullshit. But there’s a verse that makes it less of a joke

Kill the lightsThese children learn from cigarette burns Fast cars, fast women and cheap drinksIt feels right All these asphyxiated, self-medicatedTake the white pill, you’ll feel alright (He’s learned that experience is the best teacher, regardless of how harmful it is in the end)

4. Unheavenly Creatures by Coheed and CambriaI’m gonna keep it real with you, chief. This playlist? Half of it is about how fucking much he loves his partner. He lives and breathes for her and if she fucking told him to die for her he would.

We were young and had it all figured outShe was the quiet one and I had the mouthUntil she fell to me We escaped through the alley in the back Judge told me, “creature, don’t you dare go back!”But I couldn’t dodge the ringing in my headThe lonely, subtle voice, through the echoes as it said“Please don’t leave me here, my love”(Like I mentioned in the backstory, he had a plan and so did she. But then they really just forgot the plan, ran away, and decided all they needed was each other. He really still does feel guilty for taking her away from that life of luxury and, as he would say, dooming her into raising children [not that she ever minded? She loves them all so much])

There was something I forgot to tell her thenBetween the kiss and “knock 'em dead, kid”“There will be no other like you” (I don’t know what to tell you man he just fucking loves her and feels like he doesn’t tell her enough? As years go by he starts panicking about how he’ll outlive her. Every wrinkle on her face is a reminder that he’ll lose her)

5. As The World Falls Down by David BowieI fucking told you bro he just loves her. Side note: this cover? Fucking superb holy shit

As the pain sweeps through,Makes no sense for youEvery thrill is goneWasn’t too much fun at all,But I’ll be there for youAs the world falls down (He feels guilty about what she had to go through, being a vessel and all and now seeing her children carry that same risk because of his dumb choices and how he blindly sought out power. It’s not until years later that he realizes how much of a mistake it was and all he can promise her is being there for her through it all)

6. Saint Bernard by Lincoln Tell me where I came from, what I will always be:Just a spoiled little kid who went to Catholic school (He really is just a brat and while not catholic, he was part of a faith and that cult will forever be a part of him) When I am dead, I won’t join their ranksBecause they are both holy and free (This part is referring to his first cult because at one point he lost the faith he had in their deity, the deity that left the cult free in a sense due to them having something to live for)And I’m in Ohio, satanic and chained upAnd until the end, that’s how it’ll be (He’s the polar opposite of the cult, his chains are exactly that. The difference he bears from them and it’s a secret he’ll carry until he either dies or gets caught which could easily be the same)

7. Take Me Dancing by Will Joseph Cook Surprise! Another song about him loving her partner. This is an early days song, back when he was trying to win her over

And as I fall into the bottle bank [broken glass] You can make me into anythingAs long as I’m reflecting you (Bladen always saw the good in her. If him being broken by her meant he’d be reshaped into anything even remotely similar to her he wouldn’t have cared)

Don’t let this loveWell I could be the answer toAll of your prayersTake me dancing (Once he really started to fall for her, since that day one, all he ever wanted was for her to give him a spin)

8. Save My Soul by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy Man this is one of the quintessential Bladen songs in my book. The rhythm, the words, and just the general aura of it

I consider myself lucky to have fallen in loveWith a girl, the city and the river of mud (He of course means Lilith and the place they’ve been hiding/living at)

Let me knowWhere I can go to save my soul (That deal with a devil eventually started to eat at him and he just wants redemption)I’ve heard Gabriel singin’ & playin’ his hornAnd lived to see the day both my babies were born (Rapture is always close behind him, or at least he feels like. His one consolation are his children and how they’ll carry out that legacy of his)

9. I’m Not a Saint by Billy Raffoul This one really fucks me up for him? This one is for when he’s entering those early thirties, seeing the real impact of all he’s done and just… reflecting to his best extent.

Had the taste of one too many lips hanging of my tongue, oh, oh (He’s had way too many partners, not that him or Lilith mind, but those lips brought some unforeseen responsibilities (more kids than he knows what to do with)) Sunday morning getting high, drinking here alone (Alone being what he’s now afraid of)Thinking up a brand new alibi for not coming home, oh, oh (He tends to disappear more than he should) And I’m sorry I lie so much (It’s all he knows how to do but he really is sorry)

Lord knows I don’t learn from mistakesAnd I’m not here unless I’m here by your sideI’m not a saint, but I could be if I tried (He starts to realize a lot near this age and all he wants to do is try. For her and for his children. They’re no longer some experiments in a cold search for power. They’re part of his life and he’s ready to dedicate himself to them but at this point it’s more than too late.)

10. Came Out Swinging by The Wonder Years This was one of the first songs I ever considered for him, tbh? It’s just such an optimistic song with the right amount of sad. This one is a mix of his early days and him nearing an older age

I’m running on empty The late nights and the long drives start to get to meI’m just so tired. (He’s been running around for a while. Oz is Lord knows where at the danger of being possessed at any moment, Mordei hates him and refuses to acknowledge him at this point, and his eldest has adopted their last name as their first name and is undead) I spent this year as a ghost and I’m not sure what I’m looking for. (This is in his youth, him just… searching)

I spent this year as a ghost and I’m not sure where home is anymore (Once again in his youth where lines started to blur)

My body feels rejected and I can’t say that I blame itMy heart keeps saying stay youngMy lower back seems to disagree (The contract was too keep him looking young, never aging so at later years it really takes a toll on him. He stops feeling like himself at some point and his body becomes more of an accessory)

And I spent the winter writing songs about getting betterAnd if I’m being honest, I’m getting there (This is a mid point in his life, this is after realizing how much he actually needs to try)

#i really #don't know if to apologize for taking so long or for... making it this long?#therefore I'm sorry about both?#I hope you at least like the songs akjfgkajgf #long post #dragonfist

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hungryflowers · 6 years ago

Text

Legacy

Chapter 2: Monsters Smile (Like You and Me)

At first glances, Alton Sterling could tell he didn’t feel welcomed. The billboard on his way here couldn’t have been more deceiving. He kept his fender forward and his eyes firm set in a gaze as he scoped out his surroundings. He came here for one thing; well actually two things. He never would’ve guessed that getting back into this line of work would mean he’d have to get back on the lines with McQueen.

Alton reminded himself that he was a gracious loser and didn’t care for seeing Cruz becoming successful despite moving up from trainer of his racers to becoming a racer herself. Still, Lightning was still on his mind, the mental of the racer invoking the car to act. Naturally, he was coming to Radiator Springs for an unplanned, unsolicited visit. He was here on business after all.

“I’ve seen looking about quite intently after our little tour, Mr. Sterling.” Donell’s voice was exotic, comforting but intimidating and attention demanding all the same. Sterling knew full well that this car was in charge but didn’t mind batting around with him. The silver car grinned a sideways smile, his lids lifted in playfulness as the larger matte black vehicle looked him over.

“I do know a thing or two, and am willing to help you with your racer if that’s what must be.” Maybe Alton was pushing his luck, due to the sudden darkening of the already silt purple eyes. He didn’t back down however, instead he craned his form in, leaning deftly on the robust wheel well of Chrome. His blue eyes remained measured close to the larger male’s fender and only rolled back to take in his eyes.

“How bold, Alton...,” The sound he made as he spoke his first name made Sterling’s disposition shrink slightly, “But I’m not looking for any to run the show here. Last time I checked, the last time you did that someone else bought you out. So just to be clear, I am a malignant force in the racing world. And now that I have Jackson Storm, nothing is going to change that. Not even a sardonic, bright cad like you.”

Alton makes a finite point to himself to challenge the authority of others when it benefits, yet Mr. Chrome was on a tier much higher than him. The large G-Class made it clear that he wasn’t going to be buffered by the smaller car. He keeps his eyes trained on the car and nods.

“Now that you seem to get it, Mr. Sterling allow my assistant to show you where you will be put up until we can get you an office space.” Donell spoke as he drove off toward the sliding doors.

“W-Wait! I’m--”

“You wouldn’t back down if I had told you to piss off, so make preamble of your time here if you have nothing better to do.”

Despite Chrome’s prior misgivings of him, Alton had managed to impress him. These days, Sterling keeps boosting the ego of a less humble racer. That doesn’t imply that he’d rather be stuck with Lightning. When he took over Rusteze the first time, he was obsessed with being the best, if not better racing sponsor throughout the Piston Cup circuit. Now, to say that he’s had a change in careers is not stated, he has managed something a bit better this come around. Which oddly enough brings him here.

Light blue eyes gleam with welcome as Lightning comes up in his view. Alton reflexively rolled back at first, taken aback by the older race car’s brand new livery. In spite of the measured calm laced in his gaze, Lightning did not grin nor smile back at Sterling.

“Mr. Sterling...It’s been a long while.” Lightning’s outer expression could be placed as a sense of bewilderment with a mix of fatigue. Alton wondered if he was getting any rest since Tex had taken Rusteze from him. He’d like to imagine the texan running the former racer as well as the newer one ragged.

“Please Lightning, it’s fine to call me Alton now. Mister is no longer required,” his eyes flitted to Cruz whom didn’t seem to hold a grudge about how he treated her, “Cruz, you wear the Dinoco label well.”

She offers the car a slight grin, it isn’t unfriendly but she doesn’t carry the sense of greeting.

“Mr. Sterling... what’s up? We never got any closure outside of what happened with Tex. Has life been good?” Cruz tried her best to make the best of conversation. Perhaps, she felt the same amount of befuddlement that Lightning seems to have at the time.

“Oh I’ve been swell. And about that closure, it was good enough between Tex and I. After all, I make a point to part with business on kind and beneficial terms.”

Alton smiled pleasantly enough, though Lightning could see something a bit off putting with the way his eyes gleamed. Cruz's smile wilted slightly, her eyes turning to her mentor, who was sharing her wariness.

“Glad you don’t have any ills when it came to the overall decision. But...”, Lightning paused, looking over the town as they appeared to wait for the last words, “Why exactly are you here, Alton?” There wasn’t a twinge of malice or anger in his voice, yet Sterling could tell he isn’t the most receiving of his visit.

“Well, I just wanted to see you...and maybe invite you somewhere. Somewhere being my new place of work. To showcase no hard feelings about either of us choosing our paths.” Alton kept on smiling pleasantly.

“And what if Lightning isn’t really interested?” Sally inquired coming up to his side. Sterling smiled at her pliantly and she smiled back just as warmly. It appeared to be a nice shift considering his current situation.

“Now Miss Carrera, if Mr. McQueen doesn’t feel the need to show up and just merely talk, that is something I ultimately cannot help. It’s only a recommendation, something he can take as he wants. Not saying he has to go.”

The blue race car couldn’t fashion it, but why did it feel like Mr. Ster-- Alton-- was baiting him? He protested inwardly calling out his suspicions as a myth of the mind. He drove a bit, seeming to instinctually put himself in front of her. Like a barrier of some sort. Even though, they weren’t in as much love as they used to be, Lightning didn’t stop wanting to being at her side.

“It’s fine Sally. I’ve sat on my tires for a long while now,” he flashes her a soft smile before turning to Sterling, “Alton, can we talk in a bit more private setting? So that we can get better details about your invitation?”

Sterling watched auspiciously as Lightning drove away, the outlines of his body gleaming in the moonlight. This time, his smile was hinting something. A feeling that he did not outwardly express. In that moment, the cars in Radiator Springs were a lot less of a worry. He tried to keep his accomplished grin to himself as he trailed behind Lightning.

“Tell me a bit more about what you’ve up to, Alton Sterling.” Lightning started, actually sounding interested in the current, yet unexpected events. Sterling glanced toward the racer, a slight hitch in his breath evident from how Lightning spoke his full name. It was a teasing, but nearly daring sound coming from him. Sterling stayed close to the young male as they turned a corner down to Willy’s Butte. He assumed they’d be heading down, yet Lightning made no movement.

“Well...where do I exactly begin? A lot of good, bad and odd things have been happening to me since I no longer own Rusteze. I am with someone else. The pay isn’t as glamorous as being an owner, but my lifestyle is. Sponsorship meet-and-greets, getting to rub tires, as well as wine and dine the elites. And on top of that, have a bit of time to myself to see you.” Alton’s smile was so warm, no ill being displayed.

“Looks like everything worked out in the end for you. You look better than the last time we saw each other,” Lightning expressed as he looked Alton over endearingly, “You still get to live in the spotlight, get all the luxuries that you could imagine. Sounds like you’ve been doing well for yourself.”

“I have been, yes. Thank you for noticing. But if I wanted to come just to rub tires with you, I’d like to do it in a setting where we’re both comfortable. But for the moment this is strictly business,” Sterling rounded and stopped to look at Lightning directly, “I would like to personally invite to a meet and greet in upstate New York. And if you’d like, bring Mr. Dinoco with you. It’ll be a swell time.”

Lightning didn’t blink for a second, a perplexed look screwing his features.

“A-A meet and greet? To meet who?” The race car inquired as his voice cracked slightly. Sterling saw to Lightning’s confusion. His eyes brightened with his well renowned charm.

“Lightning, there has been someone who was-- still is interested in you. He believes there is something in you that will help you and many generations of racers combined. Who knows, it may be beneficial to Cruz Ramirez as well. But we’ll never know if we just idle here.”

He unfolded something from the axle of his tire and placed it in front of Lightning.

“This is for you. Time, directions and instructions are all in the letter. If you give me your response now, I can be your direct line to RSVP. What do you say?” Sterling could tell that Lightning was contemplating. He couldn’t foresee the wiliness in Alton’s tone. This was almost too easy.

“I--I’ll... I’ll give it a little thought. First I have to talk to Tex. Then I have to get my factors and priorities straightened out while I’m here,” Lightning wheeled toward the letter and placed it in between his wheel well, “You’ll get my response later. But for the moment, I think you might have outstayed your welcome, Alton Sterling.” Lightning drawled with no malice. A wide smile gracing his features. A smile that Sterling himself returned kindly.

Sterling’s left side began to vibrate. He knew already what this was going to mean. He answered the call once he knew Lightning was far enough from him.

“Please, please don’t tell me you blundered this already--”

“I didn’t blunder anything. I got a response. Just not a very quick one.” Sterling retaliated on the voice.

“If you didn’t have a quick response, I assume it is a no.”

Silence.

“An intern could make better use of the time you waste, Alton. I didn’t put you on my payroll just for fun. If this is going to work, Lightning needs to be fully cooperative. By all means.” The burly male voice snapped.

“Yes, yes I know--”

“No...I don’t think you do. Because if you knew, Lightning would have said yes instead without a thought. And yet here we are now, with him merely thinking about it.”

Sterling’s eye twitched in annoyance. But while he didn’t have to take this, he also had no other choice. He sucked up the insults, put on his most convincing smile and braved the worst of the insults.

“He was about to make his decision. I have no doubt that Mr. McQueen will say yes to you. Especially since I’ve made him curious.”

A long pause rang through before the long winded sigh brushed out, “I suppose your time wasn’t a complete waste. Regardless, this needs to go faster. Await his response. And don’t return unless it is a yes.”

The phone clicked off and Alton looked down at the gravel and then the road he was on. Today didn’t feel like a complete waste. He did what he already planned from the beginning. Pique the curiosities of a rare and beautiful oddity.

A/N: Lightning is given the choice to follow Sterling into some kind of unknown Meet and Greet. Me thinks he’s gonna go. You all get to see too in the next chapter. Also, I struggled with this one a lot. So if my writing style sounds weird, it’s because I write weird. Sorry not Sorry. Enjoy.

#Pixar's Cars #cars 3 #Lightning McQueen #Cruz Ramirez

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