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ambiguouslady42 · 1 month ago

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Pairing: Satoru Gojo x Fem! Reader

Genre: Fluff (some suggestive content), Heavy Angst, No Comfort.

Synopsis: The summer of 2018 is exciting and new with your summer love, but summer doesn't last forever. The events are written in the past tense.

Tags: @hayatoseyepatch, @awkwardchick87, @peachsukii, @jellyfishart, @pixelcafe-network

Note: The events in this are canon to the manga (Post-Shibuya), so spoilers ahead if you haven't read ahead or finished the series. This is my way of coping with the end of the series. I did cry writing this, but it was helpful. The concept came about after listening to Fleetwood Mac

I didn't mean to love you, I didn't think it would work out

Summer was busy that year in 2018. You were dealing with curses left and right, but you didn’t complain. You saw it as a reason to travel all over the country and deal with the nuisances that were manifesting from everyday people. You knew it wasn’t pleasant to deal with this kind of work and it was life and death, but you always tried to look at the positives. It was hard to be optimistic in this line of work, but a certain person had caught your heart, Satoru Gojo

That summer, you were either alone or teaming up with other Jujutsu sorcerers. Sometimes you would chaperone the students from Jujutsu Tech to their missions and stood outside as they tackled the mission on your own. You always reminded them to be careful and you knew you’d intervene at any given moment. One night, you were asked to pair up with Gojo. You at first were baffled because he didn’t need any help to take care of any missions. However, you were there just to make sure he didn’t cause that much damage. The stakes were up when the search for the missing finger belonging to the King of Curses, Ryomen Sukuna, went missing. You felt silly at first listening to Gojo when he told you that you should come along with him to try the kikufuku while he sent Megumi to find the finger himself. Before you could intervene to tag along with Megumi instead, he had teleported you to the stand.

You felt dizzy from being teleported, but he was there to catch your fall. This further made your resolve difficult to keep your cool around him You fought with yourself that you needed to be there to support Megumi, but this tall and gorgeous man teleported him with you, maybe he might’ve felt something too? You have never tried kikufuku so that made Gojo more determined for you to try it. After he purchased it, he decided that he was going to give you the first bite.

“I can take that and take the bite myself!”, you say, with your cheeks turning red. As far as you remember.

“Woman, you never tried it. I should be the one giving the lady her first bite.” He said with that shit-eating grin.

“No! I can do it by myself!” you pushed back but suddenly you were laughing so loudly.

“It’s really cute when you laugh, you know that?”, he told you.

Gojo had removed his blindfold to get a good look at you. Turning bright red, you looked at him. He looked at you as if he was gazing into your soul. Did he know that you had feelings for him? Your heart beat so quickly for him. The first moment that you developed feelings for him was when you saw his display of cockiness. The more he would call others “weak” would irk you, but somehow that further attracted you to him.

You had only heard the stories of how he developed his curse technique, particularly how he learned the Hollow Purple. You knew that from the moment he learned this technique, he was considered “the strongest”. You had never seen him use his technique, but you knew you were in good hands with him if anything were to happen. When his best friend Suguru defected, he maintained a friendly, goofy façade, but somehow, you knew that it would be difficult for him to be close to anyone. You sensed at times that there was a loneliness to him when you saw him walking around with his students. The worst kind of loneliness is the one where you’re surrounded by others, but you still feel alone.

“Gojo?”

“It’s Satoru, but, yes?” that smile he gave you was always so reassuring

“As annoyed as I am that you brought me here, thanks for letting me see a little part of you”, you returned the smile to him.

There was a comfortable silence. You felt that this was the moment you could tell him that you harboured a crush on him, but before you could, he got a phone call from the higher-ups. There was no update on the search for Sukuna’s finger, so they were getting antsy and desperate to know if it was found at all. Before you could ask what that was about, he held you close to him as he teleported you. He got word from Megumi that he was at a high school trying to intercept the cursed object. When you arrived at the scene, you saw Megumi who was battered up. You also notice another boy with pink hair in front of him.

Gojo began to laugh at Megumi and took pictures of him. “I’ll show the second years how battered up you are!”, with that annoying laugh. You were too shocked to laugh, but you loved hearing his laugh. It was comforting to hear, but extremely inappropriate for a time like this. When Gojo inquired where the finger was, the pink-haired boy mentioned that he had eaten it. You were in shock while Gojo just said “really?” At that moment Gojo asked if the boy could switch with Sukuna at will, to which he said yes. You witnessed Gojo getting ready to try to take on the boy who had just become Sukuna. You went to check on Megumi while witnessing the spar between the two. A part of you felt that you couldn’t worry about him; he’d win, right? When you heard Gojo counting down from 10, the pink-haired boy passed out.

“Was that necessary?” you asked Gojo.

Gojo turns to look at Megumi and asks what he would want for the pink-haired boy. Megumi expressed that he would like for the boy to live.

“Leave it me!” Gojo said cheerfully.

Something in your stomach began to sink. You didn’t know if this was a good idea, but this was an innocent life, and at this point, you knew that you’d do anything to keep him alive too.

You learned that the boy’s name was Yuji Itadori. When you learned from Gojo that he agreed to be Sukuna’s vessel you felt your mouth drop. You were conflicted with placing that kind of task on a young boy, but also with the fact that this boy may die. It didn’t seem fair in your eyes for someone that young to bear the responsibility of being a vessel to the King of Curses. You glared at Gojo, but in the end, it was futile. Unfortunately, this was the best way for Yuji to have some kind of fulfilling life. Your eyes got glassy, and Gojo saw that it wasn’t a good time to make jokes or make an effort to annoy you. He understood that this was a moment of vulnerability and you were letting him see it. In this moment, Gojo embraced you. You felt safe in his arms, but this was the difficult reality for Yuji, whose future you felt uncertain for.

As you looked up at Gojo, he had removed his blindfold for you. In the way that you displayed vulnerability and tears coming out of your ears, he looked at you and there was an understanding of what you were feeling. Before you could utter a word, he planted a soft kiss on your lips. When the kiss was broken, you looked at him again. You initiated the second kiss, but this time with a desire that you were yearning for. You wrapped your arms around his neck as he held you closer. It felt inappropriate to do this right now, but this was comforting and he was your comfort at the end of today.

“What now?” you asked him as you wiped your tears.

“Well, let’s just take it one day at a time,” he responded.

From that night, you became almost inseparable. You both had your teaching duties, but both of you would find a way to sneak around to kiss. The kissing soon wasn’t enough; it escalated into sleepovers. Each night, he held you close to his heart. You fell asleep to the beating of his heart; it was calming. You enjoyed the nights when he would kiss your head and sneak a kiss to your nose; he found it the most adorable (of course, you hated it when he did that because you didn’t like the feeling). Nevertheless, you indulged him.

That summer was hectic. Your Gojo had just taken on a new task of being a protector to Yuji Itadori, the vessel to the King of Curses. You got to meet Yuji and you liked having him as a student. You slowly began to spar with the student to prepare him for the upcoming missions he would be thrown into. You were a witness to Yuji’s close combat skills and he had you matched. You didn’t feel like you had to worry about him.

Then the worst happened. You got the dreaded phone call, that Yuji had passed. You were upset, and you couldn’t fathom how your blue-eyed treasure was feeling. You mourned with your students, particularly Megumi and Nobara. You did your best to offer any support. Although, you noticed that Gojo began to behave differently; his cheerful demeanour came back rather suddenly, despite the passing of a student. Whenever you wanted to go to the basement to create your movie nights, he quickly interjected you and told you that he would rent out a movie theatre for you and get the films you wanted to watch. You thought he was ridiculous to spend such a grandiose amount of money, but he said that you deserved it.

Soon you felt that he was hiding something from you. There was a tension in the air; not one where you thought you would make a grand romantic gesture, but one where you wanted to make a declaration of hate. When you confronted him, he told you there was absolutely nothing to worry about. He took your hand and kissed it. The worries melted instantly whenever you felt his lips on your wrists and hands. You quickly hugged him, but you couldn’t remove the anxiety that he was keeping a secret from you.

One day, you decided to try to sneak downstairs to his basement while Gojo was out on a mission. You were able to hear the television playing in the background. If you didn’t know better, it was a Lord of the Rings movie. Before you could approach any further, you heard the familiar voice:

“Come on, Yuji. I’m taking you out!” you heard Gojo say excitedly.

“Great, where are we going?!” Yuji said excitedly.

Right before you could reach the basement entrance, suddenly everyone was gone. Was it just your imagination? That’s impossible, you know what you heard. You never teleported with him, but you know that he’s capable of doing it. You waited in the basement that evening to see if they would teleport back to the same spot. You sat there next to a cursed doll. The cursed doll didn’t move and when it did, one evil glared towards it and it pretended it couldn’t move. You sat there angrily; you know you’ve been lied to. You fell asleep waiting for their return.

“Did you see that?!” Gojo said excitedly.

“I did! I’m sorry I let them get away though.” Yuji said dejectedly.

The voices woke you from your slumber. The two of them didn’t notice that you were asleep. The moment you got up, they stood frozen and silent. Rather than make a scene, you decide it’s best to walk away. Yuji is alive, but why couldn’t he just tell you that he was okay?

“Babe, wait.” Gojo reached out to you.

“Not tonight,” you said coldly.

You went upstairs to the bedroom that you were sharing with him. It was reasonable to be upset over something like this. Why couldn’t he just be honest with you?

“Babe, I know I should’ve told you, but I had to play this close to the chest. If you were in my position, you would do the same thing,” he said in the gentlest tone.

You began to process the words. Would you have been able to keep a lie this big from your partner? Would you be able to keep a lie like this to your students? You’d do anything in a situation to keep your students safe. You’re not one to lie, but if you needed to do it, you would if it didn’t hurt anybody. Except, you were hurt by this.

“Just don’t lie to me again. I wouldn’t be able to bear it.” The words became muffled as you buried yourself into Satoru’s chest. He held you tighter as if he thought you were going to leave him. You weren’t planning to leave him this time because the truth was, you were already in love with him. However, what you couldn’t figure out was if love was enough to keep you together.

The Exchange Event took place not long after. Megumi and Nobara were just as upset about finding out that Yuji was still alive. They were more upset with Yuji who couldn’t just tell them the moment he had come back to life. You kept your distance as you witnessed the reunion. You remained hopeful that the three could remain together as friends. It was a corny thought, but they’re young and deserve to be with each other. You didn’t notice Satoru looking at you from the distance, but he also hoped that the trio would stay together too. However, he wondered if you and him would also stand the test of time.

Despite the anxieties that you and Satoru had, you took it a day at a time. After the exchange event, you hadn’t spent time together. One morning you woke up together and he said he had a surprise. When you prompted him what he should wear, he reassured you that you’d look cute in anything. You chose a dress that would match his eyes. It was hot that day. You were imagining a day in the city. The next thing you know, he was holding you closely and you were teleported to Yamanakako. The field of flowers facing Mt. Fuji was a sight to see. He held you close as you walked by the flower park. You felt safe in this moment and you wanted this exact moment to never end.

“I hope you’re here to stay, Satoru”, you whispered to him.

“I hope you never have to go”, the hold he had on you got tigther.

“Never let me go, Satoru”

“I’ll try not to.” He planted a kiss on your head.

Unfortunately, Shibuya tested the grounds of whatever relationship you had with Satoru. There was never a formality between you and him. You both were comfortable in knowing whatever this was. You knew that you were in love with him, and as far as you knew, there was love coming from him. You knew he loved you in some way, but there is a stark difference between being in love with someone and loving someone. When the seals made their appearance on that fateful night, you were with Satoru before he made his way into the subway station. You had a gut feeling that something was going to go wrong. You held his hand to keep him from going any further.

“Wait, I have a really bad feeling about this.” you expressed with so much worry.

“Babe, relax, I’m the strongest after all.” in that cocky tone, as always.

“Listen to me, I just know that this isn’t something…” Before you could finish, you received an urgent call that you were needed in another part of Shibuya. The urgency made you feel that whatever concern you had would have to come second.

“I have to go, I’m needed elsewhere. Promise me you’ll come back.” you looked at him, pleading with your eyes that he’d be safe.

Rather than respond in that cocky manner, he picked you up and held you in his arms for as long as he could. The kiss that he then planted made all the chaos disappear around you. It was the second to last time you would ever kiss him like this again.

“I’ll be back, babe. I promise” he said excitedly, with that grin on his face.

“Okay, Satoru. I love you.” you looked at him, with tears in your eyes.

As he walked away, he turned around, “I love you too.”

The moment you learned that he was sealed, you wanted the world underneath you to crumble and take you. However, the good news was that he was so strong that his seal remained on the ground of that station where he ventured off without you. You were hopeful that he would be unsealed soon, but that night turned out to be one of the worst nights of your life.

You lost your comrades in battle, people did die during the evening. Sukuna took over Yuji’s body and there was just so much destruction. You didn’t resent Yuji or blame him for the events that took place. He had no control of the situation, you thought. There was nothing that could’ve been done to prevent it. To this day, you would never want Yuji to die. He deserved to live. Unfortunately, after the event, Jujustu society didn’t believe and Yuji was to be executed. Meanwhile, your Satoru was still sealed in the prison realm, and he had been exiled. Anyone caught trying to unseal him would be considered a traitor. You didn’t care.

The days felt empty. You had to continue teaching as if it were business as usual. You missed the way he would laugh. You missed how you two would communicate in between classes. You yearned to feel him close to you. Going home was difficult because he wasn’t there. You knew the moment the door closed, he wouldn’t be there to follow after you. You held his pillow closely every single night and wished for his return. Although, you were not alone in your resolve to bring him back.

With some help from others, Satoru Gojo was unsealed. He was determined to kill Kenjaku, but Sukuna himself prevented him from doing so. When you realized the lengths he would go to try to defeat his enemies, you started to feel as if he was drifting away from you.

Something about him coming out of his seal seemed different. Whenever you looked at him, there was a certain bloodlust to him. He wasn’t going to hurt you, but he wanted to harm others. He wanted to start with the higher-ups and execute all of them. As hard as you tried to convince him that there was no point in killing others, he didn’t listen. He chose to end the lives of those above him. You were at a loss for what he was capable of. The person you knew was becoming lost. You realized in that moment that you had begun mourning the person who he used to be.

Rather than hold you close, he would turn his back to you and avoided sleeping altogether. He refused to wear the blindfold after some time. You couldn’t imagine how exhausted he was from using his six eyes constantly. When you tried to hug him, he unintentionally left his limitless on. When he tried to apologize, there was a hint of dishonesty to him. You started to put the pieces together that he could probably never be too careful anymore. The more you tried to get physically close to him, he began saying things like “not now” or “maybe later”. The realization that this was over was a challenging one.

The moment you said, “I think we need to talk”, it’s as if he knew what that conversation was going to be.

“I love you, Satoru. When you were sealed, I felt like I could wait for you for thousands of years. I’d do it all over again just for you, you’d never have to ask me. You promised me you’d be back, but I feel like a part of you never came back. I feel like you’re pushing me further away and there’s nothing that I can do to bring you back to me.”

With a defeated look on his face, he grabbed you one last time to plant a kiss. This is the first time in a while that you felt close to him, but you knew this would be your final kiss with him. The tears streamed down your cheeks and there was nothing he could do to make it better.

“I love you…I think there’s a part of me that always will, but, something did change. It wasn’t you at all. I just think that there’s something bigger than the both of us. I don’t think that love is enough to conquer whatever obstacles we face in this society. You deserve someone ready to be with you, come what may. I can’t be that person for you anymore.”

As you gasped for air and felt your heart breaking into pieces, you knew this was over. He wasn’t yours anymore. You walked away from him on a quiet afternoon that November. As you get further away from him, you felt his gaze. You stopped to give him one final smile. All you hoped for in the end was that every once in a while he would think about you.

One thing is certain, he’d never forget about you. You never forgot about him.

#jujustu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk #jujutsu kaisen angst #jjk angst #satoru gojo x reader #satoru gojo x you #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru x you #jujustu kaisen fluff #jjk fluff #jujustu kasien fanfic #jjk fanfic

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deliciouskeys · 6 months ago

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Cozy Corner Domaystic prompt #23: Coupons.

Homelander, Ryan. 1.3k. Rated G but it’s… it fucked me up a little bit while writing it.

A/N: I’m so glad I’m posting this before s4 drops and makes much of this non canon compliant 😁🥲

There were routines Ryan really missed doing with Mom. He missed it more now that he hadn’t been doing them for over a year—he never even asked Aunt Grace because she seemed stern and Ryan didn’t want to see her facial expression if he described the little games he and his mom used to play. He didn’t get brave enough to ask Dad to recreate some of these old memories until a couple of months after moving in. Sometimes Ryan didn’t know whether he was allowed to bring up the topic of Mom. Dad always assured him there was no problem, and that he was more than happy to talk about her.

“Sure, buddy, I’m happy to do anything you used to do together. As long as it doesn’t make you sad, you know?” And Dad winked, trying to sound happy. Ryan could tell that Dad’s body language got stiffer, that some kind of shadow would pass over his face every time Ryan even mentioned Mom briefly. Ryan wanted to know why. Ryan wanted to know why Mom used to have the same exact look when Dad started showing up at their house. They seemed like mirror images of each other now, in that sense.

But Ryan didn’t ask, because he had the feeling that asking about the reaction would only make the reaction worse. Instead, he tried to introduce Mom’s little household habits little by little. Soon there was a swear jar on the long bookshelf along with several rolls of quarters, and Ryan was delighted to notice that Dad sometimes added to the jar even when Ryan was away at school downstairs. Dad seemed really honest about a lot of things, and this was just one of them.

Dad had a very big screen TV and access to just about every movie Ryan had ever heard of. So they made Friday and Saturday night official movie nights, like he and Mom used to do. Friday was when they’d watch one of the Sevenverse movies, none of which Ryan had ever seen before. Mom always seemed disinterested in them and they never watched them. Ryan still doesn’t understand why he found a whole box of DVDs and BluRays from the series under Mom’s bed when he went snooping there for no good reason other than being six years old and curious. He got scared and put the box back under her bed and never asked her about it. Now he’d never know why she had it. Maybe she watched them alone at night because they were too violent to show him. But when he watched them with Dad, they seemed pretty tame. Many of them were even kind of boring, although Ryan would never admit that to his own dad, since he starred in many of them and seemed really invested in them. When Dad would tell him all kinds of backstories about making them, it made even the boring ones easy to sit through.

Saturday was when Ryan would show Dad one of Mom’s favorite movies (she had so many, but Ryan tried not to think about how he’d eventually run out. Eventually run out, because she was never coming back…). Sometimes when Ryan would think about that fact, he’d get so lonely and sad that only hugging Dad would help. It felt so good to never worry about hugging him too tightly. No matter how hard Ryan squeezed, his body wouldn’t ever start to make that ominous crackling sound that Ryan could hear in other people’s bodies when he was on the brink of hurting someone. Dad told him it was the sound of muscle fibers getting tense and stretched, not bones starting to break, nor anything regular people could hear, like Ryan had always feared. Even Mom, who seemed so tough and smart and invincible to him, had a fragile body. He learned that early on. He learned it again when he accidentally killed her while trying to save her. “It’s absolutely not your fault, what happened in the woods. You’re the only person whose fault it wasn’t,” Dad told him again when Ryan had a nightmare about it and couldn’t go back to sleep.

They didn’t have a kitchen in the apartment and Dad didn’t ever cook any meals for them. Ryan supposed that was probably normal for a single father. The meals made by the professional chefs at Vought Tower were fancy and tasty enough, and Ryan tried to like them, but Dad eventually asked if he missed anything from home. Ryan told him about how Mom made ants-on-a-log after he’d come home from piano lessons. Dad’s face was serious and impassive, maybe even a little judgmental as Ryan was describing the ingredients. So Ryan was pretty surprised when he came back to the apartment after classes to see that Dad and not Ashley was there to greet him, and that the apartment now had a minifridge and a rolled in countertop island.

“I can’t believe you went to all this trouble!” Ryan said, so moved he was afraid he might end up crying and embarrassing himself.

Dad waved his hand dismissively. “Oh don’t be silly. It’s no trouble at all. I’ve got plenty of space in here. Maybe I’ll ask them to build an actual kitchen for us.” Dad was smiling amiably, there wasn’t even any tension in his face, and he was patiently assembling several celery and peanut butter logs before lodging raisins into the dip.

“I’m also glad you’re here and not working.”

“You’re my absolute top priority. Don’t ever forget that. If I’m not here and you want me home, just call my cellphone. I’ll always come right away if you need me.”

“Well I know you have to work,” Ryan clarified. He wasn’t a needy little child. But it was nice to see Dad in the middle of the day like this. It was nice to have a father figure who didn’t blow him off and make him feel like he was very far down the list of priorities, a burden, and a danger.

Ryan wanted the next thing he introduced to be something for Dad to enjoy rather than to do as a chore for Ryan’s sake.

“A coupon book?”

“Yeah, on Mom’s birthday and Mother’s Day and stuff, she’d give me a coupon book with chores that she wanted me to do. So if I did a chore, I’d tear it out of the book, mark it, and leave it on her bedside table so she could see I completed it.”

“I see,” Dad said, sounding very uncertain that he actually ‘saw’ anything.

“You can put stuff like ‘vacuum the floor’ or ‘clean the windows’ or ‘take out the trash’.”

“It’d take you a while to clean the windows here…” Dad said, laughing.

“I can do it! Now that you taught me how to fly, it’s not even hard. Or maybe like… dust all the picture frames here!”

“Alright, alright, I’ll think of something,” Dad assured him, kissing him good night on the forehead.

The next evening Dad didn’t have a coupon book for him. Ryan assumed he had forgotten or just not appreciated the idea. But when Ryan woke up in the morning, Dad was up and about, looking nervous. Ryan wondered how much his dad ever really slept. He went to bed later and woke up earlier than Ryan ever did. Mom often did that too, but sometimes she slept in. Especially on the days she seemed a little sad.

“I’m not sure I did it right. But here it is.”

Dad handed over a very thick booklet, with 5 coupons per page, professionally printed, perforated for easy tearaway.

“Dad…” Ryan laughed nervously. It was his own fault for not explaining that it was usually 30 coupons, not 300. He was never going to finish these… And then he opened and started leafing through it and began tearing up. “Dad!” He ran over and hugged him, even though the man looked confused and unsure of what prompted that reaction.

Each page of the book was the same 5 coupons over and over:

HUG ME

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR DAY

TELL ME YOU LOVE ME

LET ME TUCK YOU IN AND KISS YOU GOOD NIGHT

WILDCARD (do anything together: watch a movie, go flying, play a game)

“Dad, you could have asked me to do actual chores or help you!”

“It would help me a lot if you did these,” Dad said, shrugging, but not letting go of Ryan, hugging him tighter.

(AO3 link)

#cozy corner domaystic #homelander #ryan butcher #parenting #the boys #the boys tv #mystuff

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fair-city-reporter · 2 months ago

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Whumping in Wordgirl

Please forgive the atrocities I'm going to write!

As a current Whumptober participant, I figured why not talk about the newest Wordgirl fic because it's a little disaster. Becky's our unfortunate whumpee in this, and it's a bit... mature (meaning darker depictions of things than the canon-). This fic will not be for everyone, but the idea simply wouldn't leave me alone tbh,

Though let's get right to it, yes?

Wordgirl Whump Ramblings;

Everything begins after Becky defeats a villain, but finds herself extremely winded and tuckered out which unfortunately leaves her vulnerable for other people. Due to the involvement of an organization, which doesn't have Fair City's best interests in mind, Wordgirl unexpectedly goes missing. Of course, the city falls into a literal uproar because of villains still being on the loose. Though... crime suddenly stops as Fair City's villainous citizens suddenly embark on a mission to find her, but... the damage is already done.

Let me just say one thing: the villains do see Becky as a member of their family; at absolute best, they're work colleagues who respect each other, and are mindful of one another. To see if one of their own suddenly vanish without a trace - well, it's not going to end well.

Of course, on top of the fact Wordgirl's missing, another very unrelated incident has gone down. Becky Botsford also went missing. Her family is now freaking out - having filed a report on their daughter, hoping she'll come home. No one is certain of what's going on, and well, to say the least... Sally Botsford will stop at nothing to bring down the fools who kidnapped her daughter.

Read below the cut for more information!

Headcanons/Rambles (Pt. 2)

Becky is going to be around 14-15 within the context of this universe. As it is major whump, the themes are dark and heavy which I will not be doing to a ten (and a half) year old Becky

Her powers do get stronger upon hitting the Lexiconian version of puberty; however, excessive use of powers does tire out the user and it's what's being used to weaken her for the fic (among other things, but we'll get to that later)

As mentioned before, the villains view Wordgirl as an adoptive member of their odd, little family. They are highly protective of their super-heroine (at least when it doesn't have to do with their criminal activities!)

The organization is an independently run facility. Being a little too curious on how superpowers work, they decide Becky's the perfect way to see this and, well, you'll just have to read the rest

Becky is an orphan back on Lexicon. This won't be relevant to the fanfic in the slightest, but I wanted to bring it up 'cause why not?

D2B has mixed thoughts on Wordgirl, esp. considering their history. It's just tense all-around but this man would level a building if something happened to her lol

The Butcher, Chuck, and Wordgirl have more of a sibling thing going - although Chuck's kind of like the awkward uncle at a family reunion; and because there may be Cheese Sandwich shipping here but I'm not sure yet

I'm not including every villain, but let me just say things will go very, very south once it becomes apparent what happened to the missing heroine

Tobey's crush on Wordgirl has simmered down over the years, and it did nearly vanish. He sees her as more of an equal - the plans, of course, a little different

This is whump. Becky's the chosen wet cat of the hour, unfortunately and is still a delight for me as writer - I'm going to break her in this, but this does have a happy ending, I swear. Just be patient with me lol

I might make this a multi-chapter, or there's a chance I write a lengthy one-shot. Reader Discretion is advised when reading this because it's going to deep into the prompts and I'm definitely mean when it comes to writing angst/whump

I would definitely say this is 'canon' in a very vague sense. It is set post-canon, but it still wouldn't have anything to do with it; it's just my own interpretation, woof but I'll leave this for now!

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mol1703 · 6 months ago

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So in my last post I made a playlist for huskerdust. And on that I added “The Winner Takes It All” by ABBA.

It is SO HUSKERDUST. Just hear me out.

I imagine it is Angel singing this to Husk after confessing his feelings to him. He thinks Husk doesn’t want him and uses Husk’s (theoretical) past relationships to counter Husk’s own confession.

I don't wanna talk

About things we've gone through

- This line referring to both Angel and Husks deals.

Though it's hurting me

Now it's history

I've played all my cards

- Angel thinks he’s funny cause lol “cards”Same for the next line as well.

And that's what you've done, too

No more ace to play

- Angel doesn’t want to talk about his past but Husk is just as hesitant if not more.

The winner takes it all

The loser standing small

That’s her destiny

- Angel sees Husk as some kind of winner because he believes Husk being with him will do him no good, but in return he is the “loser” (lol) because he will never get to be with Husk like he wants.

I was in your arms

Thinking I belonged there

I figured it made sense

Building me a fence

Building me a home

Thinking I'd be strong there

- Angel and Husk were getting close and Angel believed they could work together, but with their deals thinks it will not work out. He also mentions how the hotel became a safe space for him and how Husk was a big part of that.

The gods may throw the dice

Their minds as cold as ice

And someone way down here

Loses someone dear

The winner takes it all (Takes it all)

The loser has to fall (Has to fall)

It's simple and it's plain (It seems plain)

Why should I complain? (Why complain)

- Again Angel thinks he’s funny cause “dice.” Angel’s life on earth was shit and he was given a crap hand.

- “loses someone dear” would be Angel referring to Molly.

- Finally he believes he deserves all of the shit he deals with because he “did it to himself” lol no you didn’t.

But tell me, does she kiss

Like I used to kiss you?

Does it feel the same

When she calls your name?

Somewhere deep inside

You must know I miss you

But what can I say?

Rules must be obeyed

- In this head canon I have Husk makes Angel aware of his past relationships and Angel kind of throws it in his face to make Husk see how he’s not good for him.

- Angel makes his feelings for Husk known but goes back to his earlier point of how their contracts would never allow them to be together.

The judges will decide (They decide)

The likes of me abide (We abide)

Spectators of the show (Of the show)

…

A lover or a friend (Or a friend)

- The judges being Alastor and Valentino.

- Spectators being Charlie, Vaggie, Nifty and so on.

- And Angel wanting Husk in a capacity even if they cannot be together romantically he needs Husk in his life.

I don’t wanna talk

If it makes you feel sad

And I understand

…

I apologise

If it makes you feel bad

Seeing me so tense

No self-confidence

- Angel thinks Husk does not reciprocate his feelings so Angel wants to give him an out.

- Husky has previously mentioned how Angel’s self confidence is hot.

Can you tell I have thought about this way too much? This could end however you decide, but this song hits hard for these too and also in Mama Mia, so I highly recommend it.

#huskerdust #hazbin hotel husk #hazbin hotel #hazbin angel dust #music #abba #musicals #your honor they are in love #confession #found family

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gingerlurk · 1 year ago

Text

Lovers' Crest | Chapter 5: The Family

Din Djarin x f!Reader

Masterlist

Summary: You make some hard choices. Din makes a relatively easy one.

Word count: 4.2k

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, slow burn, non-canon (the Razor Crest never gets destroyed, it also gets upgraded with a cabin), canon-typical violence, eventual smut/filth, post season 3, canon-typical violence. Creepy cousin. Reader gets a backstory and childhood nicknames. Smut: Masturbation (m). Uhhhh please advise if there's more to add here thank you

A/N: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, A03. Thank you for reading!

You’re being escorted down an ornate hall, in a daze, drowning in emotion. You’d been near catatonic since the moment your Uncle had declared you a bride-to-be, to be sent to a neighbouring system to enshrine an alliance and propel his domain to new heights. To be sent into the belly of a beast.

No one cheered or made herald at the announcement, but they did clap politely and recite the Family maxim: Accipe quod debes.

Take what they owe.

They’d all known. Every one of them knew this was going to happen and they’d let you walk into it without warning. Even Avon.

You haven’t felt this lost since you were newly orphaned, walking these halls for the first time without your mother beside you. When the air splits apart with warning bells, you barely react. But your retinue freaks out. Despite being apparently skilled household personnel, they turn into a squabbling mess of panicked shouts and confused orders.

Through their frantic cries while pushing you down the hall, you ascertain that it’s raiders. Organised criminal units from the quarries, with highly trained assassins known as reapers. Murmurings of their plot to attack the Estate have been reported for some time but ignored by your hubristic Uncle. No way would they attack here, they wouldn’t dare.

You round a final bend and your group meets a furious assault.

Your senses sing to life, and you start to move.

The Mandalorian thunders up a flight of stairs three at a time. He shoulders an elaborate garden gate out of the way so hard it careens off its hinges. Hallways flick by as he searches for you, thinking on a loop, never should have left her, never should have left her, never should ha--

He rounds a corner and it’s like being thunderstruck.

The glittering golden fabric of your evening gown spins up a storm in the hall. In the frenzy of at least three reapers being tossed left and right by the gold whiplash, he makes out your figure. He sees you take one of them in hand and use the leverage to leap into an almost tender embrace in the attacker’s arms before hurling your weight down and converting it into a savage throw.

The sprawled figure doesn’t gain any purpose before glimmering wisps of expensive fabric are secured around his neck as you heave upwards. You don’t let go until the body is too heavy to carry.

A second reaper charges at you but you stay hunched until he’s about to barrel into you, then you straighten suddenly and he careens high. As he sails over you, the last of your luxurious skirt goes across his airway and you jerk it across your shoulder with a snap. The body thuds to the floor, neck lolling.

Din watches you drop the dead weight to the ground and sag against the wall, heaving. Without hesitating he makes his way toward you, so frantic as to miss your shoulders tense and your sigh of resolve as you ready for more fight. When you whirl with an almost staggering rage, he stutters, but your eyes clear in recognition instantly.

‘Thank fuck it’s you.’ You throw yourself into his hard, unyielding façade with a puzzling lack of care. Strong arms circle and squeeze his waist and he sucks in a breath. Din doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so after a moment he pats your upper arms a few times. His heart is battering itself against his beskar armour and he prays you cannot hear it.

You look around him. ‘Where’s Grogu?’

As if on cue, the kid bobs around the corner, making a beeline for you. He babbles a noisy string of sounds as you crouch to tug at his ears. You look up.

‘Follow me?’ It’s a question. Din smoulders, picking up the child.

‘Lead the way.’

You run.

‘Wait!’ You skid to a halt in front of a door. Mando stops, looking back. ‘Can you open this?’

‘Do we really have t—’ He cuts himself off and moves to the door, scrutinising the keypad. He holds the edge of his gauntlet against it. A loud bang with a puff of smoke obliterates the instrument. He locks his stance and reefs the door sideways one handed.

‘Subtle,’ you say, stepping inside your Aunt’s antechamber.

Your Aunt is a cold and distant shut-in who relates more to chemical suspension processes and program matrices than people. Among many predilections of hers is a fascination with formulating alchemical and nano compounds of varying purposes and effects.

It remained a mystery just how they were used, but few rivals and detractors stayed in the political landscape for long around here.

She also took great delight in displaying her creations.

You take down a dainty, glittering bandolier. Once slipped over your head, the thing is double lined with tiny capsules from collarbone to navel. You turn to a nearby drawer, tugging it open to withdraw a tiny sidearm, an obvious custom job. You feel about yourself and find a spot of fabric such in which to tuck it.

Somewhat armed, you feel a little better. You duck passed Mando leaning against the doorframe and sense him straighten up to follow.

You’d grown up on these grounds, so you knew the ways to take to avoid the worst of the bedlam erupting across the Estate. A few scuffles and several minutes pass before you slow; the three of you edge to the hangar opening and peer in.

From the shadows, your heart sinks. By the Crest stand a couple of household guards, some hangar grunts and, pacing furiously between them, your cousin, Avon. Cracking knuckles with a face of fury.

You study the scene and have a tiny battle with yourself, reaching a conclusion that elicits a pained tug in your chest. You turn to Mando.

‘I have an idea.’

Avon waits by the ship with his cobbled together retinue. If that creepy bounty hunter tries to take his cousin back off this rock, as is his suspicion, by damn is he going to make sure she stays put.

Plus, the chaos wreaking havoc would be a great cover to dispose of that weirdo.

As if summoning said chaos, he whirls at the sound of a deafening explosion to see the aft hanger start pouring smoke. From the haze he sees her sprinting towards him, barefoot, gown in shreds and face alight with terror.

She barrels into him and starts shrieking. ‘He’s here. He’s here! He’s right behind me!’

Perfect, Avon thinks. He wraps a protective arm across her shoulders. ‘Don’t worry,’ he tells her. ‘You’ll never have to see him again.’ He juts his chin to the party. ‘Head him off, do not let him into this hangar!’

The men turn on a deferential dime and scurry toward the obscured opening.

His cousin spins in his grip and grasps at his shoulders. ‘He’s dangerous,’ she stammers. ‘Are you sure those men can handle it?’

He hates seeing her upset. After all these years. Even though he knows he can’t protect her from his Father’s plots, he’ll still try. He pulls her into a hug and she burrows into his chest, hands clasped between them in a frightened little prayer. ‘Oh please, oh please…’

‘Relax,’ he puts a hand in her hair, head resting on top of hers. ‘You’re safe, Sunbeam. You’re not going anywhere tonight, hear me? They’ll take out that sicko and we’ll turn his hunk of junk into scr— urk!’ A painful spike radiates from the side of his neck and begins to burn a path across his whole body.

What? Confusion and vertigo assault his senses. He feels himself falling, the fire being followed by numbness, by nothing. Puhh… He strains to look up through vision being splotched with black and red and sees the face of his cousin, his little Sunbeam, a look of grief painting her features. Then he sees nothing at all.

You keep a tight hold on his shirt front with one hand and the little vial with the other. When you know the toxin is doing its work, you let the glass cylinder fall and grab at a shoulder, crouching slowly to the ground with his folding body.

Laying him down as gently as possible, you kneel next to him to whisper a pathetic little ‘sorry’.

You don’t get to keep vigil very long. The Mandalorian strolls from the dissipating smoke, your loop of toxic weaponry draped over a shoulder, to make his way to you. After a moment’s observation, he leans down. You feel his cloak drape across your shoulders. Oh, you’re shivering. Grogu appears beside you to put a gentle little claw on your hand where it’s dropped by your side.

Mando pulls Avon’s unconscious body across a hefty shoulder. Moving to the bench seating running along a wall, he lowers the body there, orienting him so his airway is unobstructed.

It’s so simple. And you’re so grateful you could cry. He turns back to you.

‘How long will he be out?’

‘A couple hours, I think.’

‘Ready to go?’

It’s not even a question between you.

‘Lead the way,’ you say.

Hours later, Din fidgets with an aggressive restless want, but tries to still himself enough to sleep. Shifting in the pilot seat, propping a knee on the console, he tries to clear his mind, let his thoughts wash over and away down the current.

Yet he can’t stop thinking back to earlier.

That particular section of hyperspace had been almost devoid of starlight, so the dim glow of the cockpit’s instruments mostly reflected its interior back at the three of them, huddled in separate trains of thought. Din couldn’t resist taking the chance to look back via the reflection, telling himself he’d just be checking on her.

She still had his cloak wrapped across her shoulders – the bandolier by then hanging in Din’s weapons locker. She had her knees drawn up and curled into herself, knuckles tensed against dark fabric. She seemed to be gazing into the black. It was hard to tell just going on the warped glass of the windows, but he’d been sure she was crying.

‘Hey, you okay?’ Kicked himself the instant it passed his mouth.

Kicked himself again as he saw her rub hard at her eyes and cheeks, pushing away as much emotion as humanly possible.

‘Oh, yeah,’ she sniffed. ‘Yeah, yep. Okay.’

A few blistered exhales out.

‘Just trying to figure how he could have simply sold me off like that. Down the river of greed and power and wealth. My own uncle, guardian for nearly all of my life.’ She’d scoffed, run a hand along the bank of inputs beside her and stood.

‘Guess family isn’t really worth much these days,’ she said, so sadly. ‘Accipe quod debes.’

She’d twirled the cloak off of her shoulders and draped it carefully over her vacated chair.

‘I’m gonna-- Is it okay if I go get some sleep?’

‘Cabin is all yours,’ he’d said. Then after a beat, added, ‘As long as you need.’

Now, he’s fighting a tight, hot compulsion to storm into that cabin and drop to his knees beside you. Offer himself to you; let you take anything you want.

He recalls the sight of you slipping that ribbon of multicoloured vials across yourself, adjusting it against the golden fabric hugging your torso and hips.

You’d looked powerful. And so damn beautiful.

Fussing and fidgeting for another few minutes, Din finally tells himself that he’ll never settle unless he releases the pressure. It’s just biological functioning, he lies to himself.

Huffing with embarrassed surrender, he nudges at his belt and pants until his cock is free. Rock hard and leaking already, he closes his eyes and lifts his chin while rubbing two fingers over the slick head. Maybe holding his gaze away from it won’t make what he’s doing feel quite so damn wrong.

He fists himself in his gloved hand and makes long aggro stokes – half pleasuring, half punishing. The snick, snick, snick of skin under friction fills the cockpit. He works at himself and barely manages to keep the vision of you at bay, a luscious glowing vision of breasts and ass and hair and lips.

And clever eyes, and quick hands, and laughter like music.

Din switches his hold to use two fingers and thumb, focused in on the frenulum. Efficiency now. Just finish it.

The feeling of your arms wrapped around him fills his mind’s eye without invitation and he grunts, cupping his free hand to take in his spent load. Panting for a moment, he tucks himself away and grabs an engine rag to wipe his glove off. He stuffs it into the top of a boot, to discard later.

Leaning back, he doesn’t feel that much better, but his eyes do feel heavier and he is able to slip into a restless slumber.

Waking with a start sometime later, Din automatically moves to check on the kid – his higher functioning taking time to engage. He’s halfway to Grogu’s little space before it all floods back.

He lets his shoulders slump in shame. Then they rise in concern.

Grogu’s space is open and empty.

‘Kid?’ Din calls. Nothing. ‘Grogu?’

A soft little ‘ehhh,’ comes from your cabin. What the--?

Din moves to the door that’s half open and glances in. You’re on your side facing away from him, blankets pooled at your waist and your sorry excuse for a dress barely covering your back and shoulders. But Din scarcely notices that, because Grogu’s big ears tweak and his shy face peers over you at him.

He’s been curled into your side.

‘Grogu,’ Din whispers. ‘Come here, leave her be.’

The child frowns but edges up into a crouch, grunting a little with effort. As he moves, your arm falls softly away to rest at your side. You’d been holding him in your sleep. The shame in Din’s chest turns to a sharp ache.

‘S’okay,’ you mumble, voice thick and weary. ‘He can stay if he wants to.’ You don’t turn from the wall and Din only just catches your next words. ‘S’nicer than being alone.’

This is all too much. Move into action, that’s what he knows how to do.

‘We are going to make a landing soon. Nowhere special but thought getting you some- some actual clothing was in order.’ You start to roll toward him, but he doesn’t think he can bear the sight. So he barrels on, ‘Just head up when you are ready. We will make it quick.’

He spins and stalks away.

Mando had left you wrapped in a blanket seated in the cockpit to head into the tiny settlement he’d found. You’ve no idea of the customs of this place or what their fashion is like, but Mando had also said he’d take you to Navarro where you could get a more substantial and useful wardrobe.

The choice of planet confused the hell out of you, and you’d said as much. But he’d haltingly explained that he had some land there. A modest home. An in with the local law.

You were fucking floored. Just when you thought you had some small measure of the man.

You stare out across the alien landscape and think.

‘Alright, here’s how this’ll work,’ you shift your crossed arms and instead plant them on your hips. The surprisingly well-fitted tunic and pants combo Mando had picked up for you casts you with an imposing silhouette and you’re thankful for it.

You’re proposing something crazy and you desperately want him to say yes.

Mando hadn’t offered to take you onto his ship again, but he also hadn’t made any indication he was planning to leave you somewhere either. You’d tuned up his diagnostics panel without asking and he’d simply nodded in thanks.

Was this just a thing now? Did he think you were onboard as a matter of course? Or was he afraid? Afraid that you’d reject him again?

Reject his offer, you correct yourself.

So you’d decided to be the one to make the arrangement formal, and then some.

You approach him while he’s doing maintenance on his Amban sniper, the Crest’s hold open to cool evening air and a bright twilight. He’s giving you his ‘passively listening’ posture, so you just steel yourself and get on with it.

‘There’s only so much I need to be doing on the upkeep of this old girl,’ you put a hand to the side of the Crest. Mando’s head snaps up. ‘And Grogu will usually either be with you, someone you trust, or just fine here. I don’t need to be like his babysitter or anything.’

The baby totters on a nearby rock, waving his short arms at a group of fireflies hovering overhead. ‘Ah!’ he squeaks in wonder, and sits hard on his butt.

You smile. ‘Not that I wouldn’t mind spending all day with that for entertainment. But you already have your ways of looking after him. And I also get the sense he can look after himself…’

You sweep your hand across the ship’s hold and turn to him. ‘So where does that leave me? Lounging around while you’re on jobs? No thank you.’

The man in front of you is as still as stone. You take a breath and lunge into your proposition.

‘So I’ll partner with you, on jobs.’

Mando gives an incredulous huff. But he tilts his helmet in what you believe is an ‘intrigued’ kind of gesture, so you push on.

‘You know I can handle myself. I can be useful to you. I’ll learn, maybe increase the work…’ you trail off, your words sounding painfully silly all of a sudden.

A pause so long the twilight has turned to dusk. Grogu trudges in and settles into his pod with little huffs and grunts. Din watches him with what you see is a deep softness.

‘Okay,’ he finally says. Wow, that took a lot less persuading than you were prepared for. ‘On a condition.’

Oh.

He slides the rifle from his lap and stands to clip it back into its holdings. Then he steps toward you.

A chill hits you and you shiver in your two-piece ensemble.

‘I have seen that you can handle yourself. There is no question there,’ he rasps. You shiver again, less from the cold this time. ‘What I would like you to tell me is… How?’

‘Huh?’

‘Those cards, the ones you say you hold to your chest.’ You swear his head dips slightly, like he’s looking down to where he just mentioned. ‘If you tell me about some of them and your answers satisfy me... We may have an agreement.’

‘May?’

‘That is the current offer.’

You sigh. You want this. Just do it.

‘Which ones would you like to know about?’

‘Where did you learn to fight the way you do?’

Oh good, an easy one.

‘Well for all my Uncle’s many, many shortcomings as a guardian and father-figure,’ you look down for a moment, feeling sad. ‘He did have a strangely strong desire to ensure I could defend myself. Sort of disconnected from how he really saw me in the end, and I doubt he ever paid any attention to the instructors I requested and the lessons I took. But he let me seek out and train with any master I could find.’

You smile. ‘I loved it. It was one of the few nice parts of my upbringing.’ You look up, shrug. ‘And in subsequent years, I’ve travelled a lot, not always in peaceful parts.’

You wait, Mando gives you a small nod.

‘Okay.’

‘Any other cards to flip for your pleasure?’ You’re pushing it. But you’re baring yourself so you’re feeling pushy.

‘Languages. I have seen you fluent in several.’

‘Oh, that’s just rich schooling.’

‘Right.’ Mando seems to gather himself. ‘That makes sense. One more card then.’ You try not to let your shoulders tense. You know what he’s going to ask. ‘The one thing that your… wealthy upbringing does not explain… is how you know your way around ships so well. Especially old class models, like the Crest.’

There it is. The hard one.

You contemplate lying. But you figure he’ll see right through you. So you straighten up, turn to look out into the darkness, away from his stare, and tell him what happened to you.

‘My Uncle may have conveyed a… jovial and floral air in his dealings. But politically, strategically, he was a fucking animal. Everything about his outward appearance was a calculated contrivance. Anything was fair game.’

You catch his nod from your periphery, as if he’d figured this out already. Fine, keep going.

‘One of his most secret and vicious weapons was my Aunt,’ you murmur, going back into that place and time you’d spent so long trying to push away.

‘You saw what she liked to do with compound alchemicals. It was a hobby of hers that she took into her “work” of contributing to the prosperity of the Estate and Uncle’s power lust. In the case of that particular undertaking, bumping off threats.

‘Another project she had dedicated years to was ways to make the workers of the Estate… well, not the best they could be really… But the most skilled, the most efficient, the most knowledgeable in their field. Elite and untouchable, to give her and Uncle’s empire its edge.’

You decide you may as well sit down, and lower yourself to the floor, knees pulled to chin. You sense Mando shift and retake his seat.

‘In one of her many… experiments, she worked with a mind flayer.’

‘How would—’ Mando cuts himself off. You don’t turn, just continue.

‘A modified one. Augmented to… I couldn’t begin to understand the fuckin’ tech but basically, to implant stuff. Programs she’d design to dump all the necessary know-how, skills, background, or whatever, whatever was needed for whatever job needed doing.

‘It was known to be painful, and dangerous. It rearranged neural pathways, forced the brain to change to accommodate the new stuff. Sometimes people went mad. Others died.

‘I was a kid, fascinated by the workers who would go into that room and come out dull and glazed. It was also highly secret so of course I wanted to see.

‘One afternoon, when I thought my Uncle and Aunt were off at some function, I snuck in. Didn’t touch anything at first, just, just poked around some. I um, I tripped and like, activated it. It freaked me out and I screamed. Turns out my Aunt wasn’t out and she burst into the room, furious.

‘In this- this fit of fury she grabbed me, shoved me into- into the beam of the thing. Held me there. I was probably screaming, trying to fight, but to tell you the truth I don’t really remember it all that well.’

You stop to swallow a few times, willing the tears to leave you alone. The stoic presence beside you is a strange comfort.

‘I was in a coma for weeks. They thought I might not wake up at all. But I did, and I had uh-’ swallow, breathe. ‘I had lost a lot of my memory, of my early life… My uh- my mother… and her voice.’

But there it is, burning tears make you stop and you cup your face in your hands, still trying to breathe deep so you don’t go do something stupid like sob. You rub at your face and look back out into the night.

‘Anyway, what was up in the lil’ ticker was a hypercharged datadump of the last program that had been loaded – ultraclass gunship mechanic with pre-empire specialisation. The poor sap who’d been awaiting that particular implantation was intended as a gift to my Uncle, a surprise from my Aunt for his vain little vintage ship hobby. I think they both always resented me for ruining it.’

You huff an exhale and feel oddly buoyant.

After a while, ‘I am sorry,’ Mando whispers. ‘For making you share that.’

You decide to tell him the truth. ‘S’okay,’ you say. ‘Kind of feel a little lighter from the telling of it.’

You feel compelled to tell him something else, something you’ve never told anyone: ‘The strangest part though, even though I know I have this skill with ships because of the program dumped into my under-formed brain… It’s almost like there’s more going on. Sort of, like… preternatural. Like ships speak to me or something. It’s weird.’

Okay, that was probably an overshare.

‘Uh, never mind…’

But he speaks. ‘Your skills with tech go beyond ships – programming, electrical…’

You shrug, ‘One takes a kind of logical path into another, I guess...’

He nods.

You sense the approaching rush of a decision from Mando. He’d leaned way forward as you were talking, but now he straightens.

‘We have an agreement.’

Your head snaps up to him.

‘We have an agreement?’

‘Yes.’

You smile. The growing darkness of the outside encloses your little patch of light as you and your companion look to each other.

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#remembered the break #the mandalorian #din djarin #grogu #mandalorian and grogu #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you

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carmenized-onions · 4 months ago

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hi. tried to reblog and leave a bunch of tags but made a mistake and tumblr wouldn't let me edit the post SO i took a screenshot because I WILL NOT REWRITE ALL OF THAT BECAUSE IT WAS ALREADY TERRIBLE TO TRY AND GO BACK TO MY NOTES TO INCLUDE THEM INTO THE TAGS BECAUSE THE APP WOULD ERASE EVERYTHING so here you have a long ass pic with a ton of tags. love u u fucking mastermind 💋

I DID IN FACT GET THIS ASK FIRST OF ALL, IF YOU SENT ANOTHER ONE OTHER THAN THE DID YOU GET THAT ONE, then I am missing one, but I got this one!

I'm so glad you think it could standalone and make sense because I went into posting this like "so many people are not gonna be able to keep up with the tense changing and the time skipping, i'm being incoherent" thank you all for proving me wrong. My writing profs taught me to believe everyone does not have reading comprehension. Perhaps we should be giving more credit to readers, me thinks.

Man, I wish Carmen in The Bear canon aligned with CK not particularly because I wish he was better but because watching S3 I was like oh,,,, did I get all that wrong? Because to me, yeah does Carmen run away from things? 1 fucking million percent. At the same time, however, Carmen is an artist and I think like,,,, he's taught, yknow? He takes direction and critique, is always how I took him-- And so like, he just compartmentalizes criticism of his character the same way he would his craft; and he fucking likes making shit better, so he transfers it to life.

I considered massively pivoting from this choice for him to accept that he needs to be better, and instead like, Bojacks it, basically, but like, I'd already done this in CK canon:

Did I emulate my own previous scene to call back to the beginning of their relationship in chapter 13? Yeah 100% I did but back on topic--

I'd already decided that this was how Carmen went about things, and to be fair, I think honestly if everyone had just let each other finish sentences in S3EP01, that entire season I think would've gone an entirely different route, but c'est la vie, that's the tragic comedy of it all.

NOW ONTO MIKEY! I think some have said they prefer this Jimmy negotiation to canon-- And to be fair, though the sobriety aspect may not have been a part of it, Mikey did say he wanted to franchise with Carmen, and that's what the money was for. Or at least that's what Carmen affirms:

god fucking jesus christ he was so much more charming in S2 what the FUCK moving ON

But anyways, I think the 10k/week thing honestly is something Uncle would do, and I guess this is me staking my bet on it. I'd like to believe Mikey was climbing his way out-- Or maybe that's more tragic? I dunno. Regardless, I adore him, so, yknow. he's the guy!

50 PLUS YEARS FOR CARMEN? YOU THINK THIS GUY COULD LIVE TO 80? BABY LOOK UP POPCORN LUNG THIS MAN WAS GETTING ULCERS AT 21 WE'RE LUCKY IF WE GET TO 60

regardless, thank you for enjoying i'm so glad that my interpretation of Mikey was enjoyed. I tried to be as like,,, accurate as possible to what I feel he'd act like out of the small scenes we've seen of him, but I also absolutely had to pull from my own oldest brother. so. i don't have issues idk what all of you are talking about.

also, I will put this in a master post of like, bits I was doing, later, because there's a fucking lot, but this is the last post I'm making before bed and I wanna get yelled at about this in my inbox in the morning nothing makes me happier:

Chapter 1! Tony Terry Tommy!

Chapter 13! Two Steps Back.

I know I'm a bitch, aren't I? I'm sure rereaders noticed this but I wanted the whole class to know.

While I'm at it, Chapter 12! Hit em with it!

YEAH BABY SHE'D BEEN THINKING ABOUT IT THE WHOOOOLLLEEE TIMMEEEEE YEEEEAAAHHHHHHHH I'm fucked up for this one. I had the Cold thing planned since chapter 1 I'm so SICK with it. Yell at me in my inbox I do love to make everyone mad ngl call me Carmen cause I'm a fucking shit starter baby

thank you for your thoughts and thank you for giving me a place to yap for WAY too fucking long GOOD NIGHT OR GOOD MORNING PENDING WHERE YOU ARE!!

#yapping #ask #ashtonweon #season 3 opinions #onion wip #i say wip cause like i'm talking about the process? it makes sense shut up

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arliedraws · 11 months ago

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Rewatching the PoA movie as I do chores, and I gotta pause while I’m thinking about this.

People who know me even slightly understand that this is my least favorite HP movie. In my opinion, it totally misses the point of the book and tries to simply hit plot points without understand what ties them all together.

If this is YOUR movie and you LOVE IT, this post is NOT for you! Save yourself some grief and don’t click the ‘read more’ below.

Here’s what the film does right:

- Wise/playful Sirius. We get a wink and nice touchy moment with Harry, and I see a glimpse of the Sirius I love here. This is good! The quiet moments with Gary Oldman is Sirius are VERY good. As time goes on, I am much more confident that Oldman would’ve made a very good Sirius given the opportunity. That intimate scene with Harry and Sirius at the end is a good cinematic interpretation of the internal longing Harry expresses to the reader.

Okay, that’s it. That’s all I like.

Nitpicky bits:

- The editing is just. Weird. We see ONE dinner scene with Marge and it seems like Harry just blows up one night (or blows her up lol) as if he’s just got a short fuse. Harry is a quiet person. He watches, he listens, he puts up with shit until he breaks. This scene needed to be longer, it needed to have more tension. We needed to understand the deal between Uncle Vernon and Harry + signing the permission form for Hogsmeade. One way this could have been shot with Harry at the table with everyone and slooooooow down the conversation. Build the tension. Close-ups, shots of Harry trying to pretend he doesn’t hear her. The book scene is very tense because Harry is quiet as they are talking about him as if he’s not there. THEN, he quietly speaks, drawing their attention.

- Don’t get me started on the Firebolt scene.

- Sirius saying when Remus is transforming “OH NO HE DIDN’T TAKE HIS POTION” as if Remus regularly took Wolfsbane back in the day? And then Sirius pleading with Remus not to transform??? Like Sirius, I think you know werewolves don’t work like that.

- I hate the werewolf design. It doesn’t HAVE to look like the wolf in canon (which is nearly indistinguishable from a regular wolf), but damn, it just didn’t do it for me.

- When Harry sees Peter on the Map??? Dude that was so dumb.

- The scene with the animal noises? Why? I don’t care about the other boys in Gryffindor. Show me why the trio are close other than out of loyalty (something that the books honestly miss out on)

- Remus being so upfront with Harry that he knew his parents and then focussing on LILY??? And also, part of what we learn over time in the book is that Remus knew James but refuses to indulge Harry. He keeps all of that secret—the mystery of Remus is completely wasted in this movie. I would have personally played this up in the film. Build him up as the “cool” professor who holds back emotionally. The payoff when he shows up at the end at the Shrieking Shack would be like, “Oh shit! I knew there was something off about him!” when it seems like he’s helping Sirius. Then, he would have to earn back the audience’s trust just like he does with the trio.

- The Aesthetic: this movie relies on aesthetic so much more than “what makes sense narratively.” There is so much winking at the audience by the filmmakers it drives me bonkers. Anytime something weird happens, they’re like, “Haha this weird thing is NORMAL in the wizarding world! Look at how weird it is! But for them! It’s normal!” Like jfc we get it. I know the first two movies are like, “look at how beautiful magic and cool is” but GOD. This is the film where we need magic to be “normalized.” We get it. We’re three films in. This is a magical world. These cheesy, winking-at-the-camera moments aren’t even like…cute or fun. They’re boring and uncreative. “Oh, how about a maid opens a door and a monster screams at her and she’s bland about it.” Like. Is it supposed to be funny? Because…it’s boring.

When you’re focused on Vibes rather than Character, everyone turns into a cheap, bland caricature. The filmmakers do NOT understand who the characters are. Even in Sorcerer’s Stone, Ron is the comic relief but we understand that he is fiercely loyal. In PoA, he is pure comic relief. They don’t even understand Harry. Both his and Ron’s lines are given to Hermione in the Shack scene which is like…why????

But this is the problem. At the heart of every scene, it was as if the filmmakers didn’t understand why the scene was there. In the film, Harry is an angsty teenager and things happen TO him. Oh sure, they want to show that Harry feels something but…we don’t really, as an audience, FEEL it. They TRY to force that emotional tension by rushing events along and then showing Harry crying sometimes and yelling his feelings. yawn, honestly.

- There is SO MUCH SHOUTING in this film. Harry screams about killing Sirius when he hears the Minister/McGonagall/Rosmerta talking about the betrayal. This was so…poorly done. This boy needs to close himself off from his friends and stew in his hatred, not scream about it. We need to be angry with him, not feel sad for him. We need to want to kill Sirius too.

HOW THEY SHOULD’VE DONE THE BETRAYAL EXPLANATION SCENE:

Look, it would’ve been a boring movie scene if they’d done it like the book. This is not an adaptation-friendly book, and I’ll be the first to admit it. BUT. What they could have done was this: use flashbacks and montages. They do it in Sorcerer’s Stone when Hagrid explains how the Potters died and it’s effective—you see Lily panicking, dying, and then you see cute little Harry with a wand in his face. That’s emotional!

This scene in The Three Broomsticks should have been a flashback with voiceover from Fudge/McGonagall/Rosmerta/Hagrid. It should have shown us Sirius and James being best friends at Hogwarts. With them, we could see Peter and Remus (who we wouldn’t know was Lupin). Then, we should have seen Hagrid arguing with Sirius about who gets Harry (the little devil in me wants to hear Sirius’s voice break, but also, we should feel like Sirius is going to harm the baby Harry). Thennnnnnn we should have seen what the Muggle witnesses saw — Peter crying that Sirius betrayed Lily and James, a misleading explosion, and then Sirius laughing. Thennnnn a close-up of Peter’s finger. Back to present.

Why is this effective and why would it build tension? As the audience, we need to be presented with proof that Sirius is a bad guy. We need to understand why this guy’s gotta be caught!

Also, show us how scary Sirius is by reeeaaaallly playing it up with a scene with the Minister in Azkaban—quiet, sinister Sirius please. Again, give us the tension! (Sirius acting all crazy in the wanted posters instead of the book’s slow blinking, empty-eyed prisoner totally misses the mark for me.) Then, show us him sleeping and talking in his sleep.

This would have been effective becaaaaaaause you could have brought back this flashback in the Shrieking Shack scene.

Which brings me to: The Shrieking Shack scene.

The most disappointing part of the film, in my opinion.

This is supposed to be it—the built-up tension (which never actually happens) finally explodes here. But the movie holds no tension so this scene is reduced to a lot of yelling in the movie. And of course Hermione taking everyone’s lines for some reason.

As as audience, we can’t just be scared. We should be angry. Sirius needs to be quiet, softer. He’s lured Harry away from safety by kidnapping his friend. He needs to be grinning, taunting Harry (I mean, he’s not, but it sounds like it). We need to feel like Sirius is just fucking AWFUL. Sirius MUST compare Harry and Ron to James and himself. Stretch this out like a rubber band until it snaps—until Harry snaps. GOD THIS COULD HAVE BEEN SUCH A JUICY SCENE.

The explanation should have been all voiceover—Remus explaining what happened over shots of the Marauders’ time at Hogwarts. Otherwise, it’s weird that we don’t have an explanation of the Marauders…at all??

When Sirius explains what really happened November 1st, we would see shots that the original flashback didn’t show (Peter looking miffed/jealous/“suspicious” behind everyone’s backs, Peter becoming Secret Keeper, a shady glimpse Peter kneeling before a faceless Voldemort or some shit, and then finally—the missing shots from the explosion in the flashback from earlier in the film.) Then, let’s see Sirius wasting away in Azkaban, growing older and older. Give us the EMOTIONAL WEIGHT. Then, Sirius’s voice breaks and we cut back to the present. We see the trio fighting with their own interpretations with close-ups.

(I also wanna see Sirius seeing the photograph of Pettigrew when he’s explaining how he knew Peter was alive.)

Also, also. Peter needs to be the Gollum of this film. Gives us watery eyes, precious. There has to be a reason he isn’t dead, and it’s because he’s so pathetic, no one can kill him. As an audience, we need to be like, “GOD, he is SO PATHETIC and defenseless!” The idea of killing Peter should be like killing a really ugly puppy. Like…ughhhh, I just can’t do it! Show us why Harry saves him. We need to see gross begging, manipulative sobbing, and completely emotionless Sirius and Remus, watching and getting ready to kill him.

Why does the film miss the mark? Because it’s about friendship, and the filmmakers had no idea.

The subplot of the book is seemingly Hermione and Ron being on the outs because of Crookshanks and Scabbers, but like Peter does with the Marauders during the war, Scabbers drives a wedge between the trio. He seems so innocent and we think CROOKSHANKS is the problem, but it’s the quiet spy. (Sure, Hermione was a dick about her cat and if Scabbers hadn’t been Peter, it would’ve been different—I get that. Not excusing Hermione. But stick with me). Up until now, the trio’s friendship hasn’t been tested by personal problems, and now, we see how Harry and Ron respond to a challenging situation with a friend.

Which. I don’t think that’s the subplot. I think this is the crux of this book.

Harry and Ron fail very hard at friendship in this story. They fail Hermione who, while extremely flawed and misguided, has good intentions. Harry treats her with indifference and then ignores her; Ron treats her with outright antagonism. They fail Hagrid miserably when it comes to Buckbeak, and we find out that Hermione has been doing her best to help Hagrid despite being rejected by Harry and Ron. And this is important to the overall situation with Sirius Black because before we find out the truth, we think Sirius was a bad friend.

Okay, let me talk about the Firebolt now because the Firebolt was never really about Sirius.

The Firebolt plot was so crucial to the story that it’s outrageous they cut this out of the movie. (But the filmmakers had no idea PoA was about friendship so I guess whatever.) When Harry loses his Nimbus to the Whomping Willow, he expresses that it “felt like he had lost a friend” so when he gets a new broom that he really wants, he’s willing to sacrifice his true, human friend for it. He rejects Hermione because she told on him to McGonagall to keep him safe—not her best move but honestly, if Sirius had really wanted to kill Harry, it would have been very easy for him.

When you are making an adaptation of a book, you must ask essential questions. What is the POINT of this film? What is the lesson we are showing? Every part of that film should be building up to demonstrate that point. Trying to hit every plot point without knowing why is so lazy. “I want to make a Harry Potter film—but the tone has changed. It’s DARK now. You gotta know—he’s an ANGSTY TEEN!” Yeah, that does nothing for me, dude.

Harry’s willingness to sacrifice himself for his friends in the Shack is supposed to show that he is capable of growth and that friendship/love should come before all else. You need to be able to forgive (Snape subplot/Hermione subplot), and you should be willing to set aside petty quarrels/greed for your friends (Firebolt subplot/Peter subplot). Sure, the plot is that “a murderer breaks out of prison and wants to kill Harry Potter” but it’s not what the film is ABOUT.

If Sorcerer’s Stone is about making friends and building a friendship, Prisoner of Azkaban asks the question, “What happens when the honeymoon is over? What happens when my friends reveal glaring flaws? What happens when those flaws affect ME?”

Anyway, I really tried to give this movie another chance (I’ve seen it about 6-7 times since it came out), and it STILL does not do it for me. I’ve come around to Gary Oldman as Sirius (but not when he’s yelling or hysterical—does he EVER yell in the books?), but that’s it.

#this was unnecessary #but I had to figure out why I can’t stand this movie #and through this poorly written analysis i think i’ve figured it out #finally #they should NOT remake the movies into a show because rowling does not need more $$#but please hbo if you’re gonna do it could you talk to me before you do season 3

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paranormaljones · 1 year ago

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okay i've seen the FNAF movie and oh my gosh. ohmy gosh. it was so good. i am fourteen years old again and i have to ramble senselessly. spoilers ahead, of course.

dude. the callbacks. the music. the lighting. the characterization of Mike Schmidt. i can't put all my love into words.

-the mirror saying "IT'S ME" in the dust???? UGH i almost screamed. love love love.

-the Balloon Boy jumpscares absolutely killed me, that was so incredibly funny. especially the one where it turns out to just be a little tiny figurine on a shelf. i was cackling. it's very obvious that this movie was made with its audience perfectly in mind, because it trolled us so well

-i was almost a little disappointed that Foxy just kind of flew down the hallway instead of that dorky run that he does in the game but that's not a big deal, obviously it was meant to be a very tense moment and that would have ruined it.

-on the note of Foxy, the "duh-duh dum dum" sounds??? chills. i love that they used the original sounds and how scary they made him.

-the dream scenes. oh my gosh. the emotional impact those had on me was immense. they really really made you care so much about Mike so quickly. and obviously dreams have been an important theme in the fandom for so long and i think they did them really well.

-the characterization of the animatronics/ghost children was perfect. yes i had my doubts during the fort scene. but it was so good in retrospect. it made perfect sense. these are the personalities of children. i LOVE that they completely ignored the widespread personalities given to the animatronics by the fandom (not gonna lie, i always hated those because they missed the entire point).

-i need someone to explain to me why Evan (Golden Freddy kid) was blond. Because Evan and the Crying Child are the same person, right? the Crying Child always had brown hair. i know the movies are meant to be separate canon though so he might not be Evan at all. or maybe i'm missing something. either way, that kid did such a fantastic job in his role.

-THE SOUNDTRACK. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. the retro vibes mixed with a freaking choir?????? absolutely INCREDIBLE.

-Josh Hutcherson was the perfect Mike. i never doubted that he would crush this role but he really crushed it. he's wonderful and i loved getting to see his talent again after not really seeing much of him since The Hunger Games. he's wonderful. i already said that but it's fine.

-THE CREDITS SONG!!! THEY GOT THE SONG!!!! i might have actually screamed.

-THE MESSAGE AT THE END AND THE MARIONETTE'S THEME. DUDE.

-i went crazy when those sounds started up at the end. i couldn't decipher them myself (auditory processing issues go brrrr) but i looked it up immediately and was delighted to find that others had already figured it out. "COME FIND ME". BET

i'll add on to this post as I remember more, i'm sure. all in all, they did a fantastic job and i really, really hope they make more. i especially hope they make a movie out of 4 because that was always my favorite game story-wise. would make an absolutely terrifying and emotional movie.

#sorry if this is how my followers find out i'm a fnaf fan #listen it's not an easy burden to bear #but i couldn't not ramble about this #fnaf #fnaf movie #five nights at freddy's #fnaf spoilers #mike schmidt #william afton #if you have a negative opinion about this movie seriously don't talk to me about it XD #for better or worse i'm crazy about it

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barrel-of-merry-aloe-vera · 11 months ago

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Howdy! It's your Secret Santa here. I have some quick questions about your present <3

1 - Post-canon what do you think Emily's relationship status is with Matt? 2 - Do you have any headcanons when it comes to Emily or Matt's personality or anything that I can incorporate in the gift? (I know this is randomly about Emily and Matt but I think I've got what I need aside from stuff about them lmao)

omg yaaayy!! in the case of emily and matt both surviving i don't think they'd stay together, but instead they'd build a stronger platonic relationship than they ever had before. i think if one of them died, though, the other would miss the relationship and mourn what could have been if that makes sense 😍😍

headcanon wise:

i think this may have been matts first or one of his first relationships so he's trying really hard to make it work

matt had been interested in emily for a long time before they started dating

emily and jessica had alot of inside jokes before they kinda started fighting and they hung out with eachother more than anyone else in the friend group

emily and matt are both like high honor role students and they studied together alot and i think that's how their relationship started

emilys favorite subject is english and matts favorite is math

other than some minor things i largely agree with their canon personalities. i do think emily is normally alot nicer, it's just that she (like most of the characters) is alot more tense because of the circumstances in the game. she's very still sarcastic though. let me know if you have any other questions id be happy to answer !!

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bloodpen-to-paper · 1 year ago

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Review Blurbs: Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach - Ruin DLC

General:

-For one, huge props to the devs for this DLC; you can definitely tell they looked at community feedback and reception from SB and not only polished the game a lot more, but also added in stuff they knew the players would like (ex. the wet floor sign bots have an actual purpose in the game + lore implications, Glamrock Bonnie official appearance and backstory regarding Monty, the Map Bot callback with the Mask Bot, etc)

-They also returned to their roots with making Ruin feel more horror-based than SB was. SB wasn't bad for not being as horror-based, but I know a lot of FNAF fans felt disappointed with the lack of horror considering FNAF is not only a horror franchise, but was a huge part of the indie horror game scene. They upped the atmosphere and it payed off pretty well

-Cassie was a great character, her sassy attitude felt very natural and fun, and unlike most horror video game protags she actually questioned the weird shit happening around her like a normal person would. Plus her backstory with Gregory was brief but gave us plenty to work with, I feel like the two have great matching personalities and it makes so much sense why they're friends

-Somehow they managed to make the animatronics even greasier than in SB post-pizzaplex fire. Chica having a garbage bag hanging out of her gut when she kills you in the bathroom was haunting, I loved it and I want more (also Monty physically should not be able to function)

-Ok the devs definitely looked at community fan works cause fucking Eclipse was canonized like I can't believe the crazy bastards did it lmao. I'm very curios about those implications cause I don't think Sun and Moon were ever Eclipse before, they would shift around on duty and the virus in SB is what made Moon go haywire, but somehow we made the two merge entirely and that caused the virus to leave them? And become a secret third option called Eclipse?? I'd love to know what that whole thing was about

-SB was completely different from how the previous FNAF games were and some felt like it was following the new indie horror mold and abandoning the iconic FNAF style, so it was nice seeing the camera and puzzle system implementation; though its still a first-person survival game, the new system made it feel more like classic FNAF

-The V.A.N.N.I. system was interesting, from a lore standpoint I think its a bit silly that a pizzaplex would have all this extremely advanced AI technology (SB was kind of a disaster as much as I loved it) but the mechanic was fascinating; I like how they took a little part of SB (Rocky's eyes letting you see through walls) and sort of expanded on that to make it a fun play feature in the DLC (though the potential to miss things when you're on either V.A.N.N.I. or Real World mode does stress me out but that's just me lmao)

-Love how it said "Security Node Breached" when you completed the code breaks. Cause Security Breach. Haha. Anyways.

-That one part where you're going down a ladder and the security bot is dead right in front of you was fantastic and deserves its own spot here

-I can't believe the game made the most difficult and tense enemy in the game the mini-DJs but didn't show us the actual DJMM. This is a crime against me specifically.

-The Security AI was a great character to force the player to be vigilant and put pressure on them when doing the node breaks, makes it so you can't just stay in AI Mode to avoid the animatronics

-Everything with Roxy was 10/10. Her reaction to Cassie not being Gregory and immediately going into human-companion mode, her still being pissed as fuck at Gregory and wanting her eyes back (which was hilarious btw), her remembering Cassie's birthday during that scene and protecting her from the Mimic... it does beg the question though of how exactly Roxy is unaffected by the virus where Monty and Chica weren't, cause even in SB she showed a level of sentience that Chica and Monty didn't. Questions questions...

-Headless stomach-mouth Freddy was not the boss fight I was expecting but damn did it slay, like I said they upped the spookiness and it payed off

-Gregory helping us escape the Mimic underground but then killing us "so they wouldn't get tracked" is confusing, I think that was the Mimic talking to us still and also the one killing us in the elevator, but does that mean we never talked to the real Gregory? Was there a point where we talk to the real one? Does it depend on the ending? God I have so many questions

Criticisms:

-I watched one letsplay so this might not be a thing on other people's runs but the enemies (animatronics and the Security AI) didn't really seem like threats. The game AI might've been jank cause it was pretty easy to get past their pathfinding, and it took a long time of being "caught" by the Security AI for you to actually die. The game felt like it had no stakes which decreased the intensity (they needed better pathfinding to chase the player around more consistently, and the Security needed to be more difficult to avoid/quicker to kill the player)

-I know its a DLC so its gonna be shorter but the sections went by way too quickly, I don't know if that was intentional or if the devs were on a time crunch but it felt hard to get immersed in the chase scenes cause of how fast they went by. I think one section had a jumpscare and then a chase scene that lasted 20 seconds before it was over, they needed to give more time dedicated to chase scenes and the jumpscares that start them (the Monty one at the beginning was great for example)

-Cassie's voice didn't always feel suited to the scene, they gave her a bit of a whiner/impatient voice which is fine, but even people with her fed-up attitude will have moments of fear, sadness, anger, and I think Cassie's VA needed more voice direction cause in moments when she should've sounded terrified, it sounded like she hit an annoying inconvenience rather a life threatening situation (she needed more range basically)

-How did Roxy come back when we deactivated her? Cassie essentially just hit the power down button so I know she wasn't dead but how did she push her own power button back on? Someone else would have had to do it for her to save Cassie. If I'm missing something then criticism rescinded but if not, its a loophole

Final Thoughts:

The game was less lore-heavy and character interaction-driven than SB, so the pitfalls of the gameplay were a bit glaring. Regardless, it had many shining moments and the devs really did listen to the community which is always much appreciated and shows care for the audience. Ruin is a solid horror game to play and I recommend it for anyone into FPS games and FNAF.

#review blurbs #five nights at freddy's #fnaf #five nights at freddy's security breach #fnaf security breach #fnaf sb #fnaf ruin #fnaf ruin dlc #fnaf ruin spoilers

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mockiery · 2 years ago

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carving out the shape of you

Layla sees Jake. Then, she sees him.

"What's your name?"

His eyes finally find hers in the mirror, his brow raised. The brown of his irises are black in the low light. "Getting personal, now, are we?"

She tightens her jaw at that, but she doesn't snap back at him like she wants to. She can't afford to be confrontational. At least not recklessly so.

"Lots of cab drivers get personal," she offers with a shrug, sitting back against her seat.

"Not this one."

[ao3]

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings/Tags: post canon, angst, first meeting, canon-typical depiction of DID, mentions of canon-typical violence, swearing, google translate spanish

She hadn't texted or called ahead. Maybe she should have. Maybe she hadn't so she could turn around if she changed her mind before reaching the flat. Maybe she just wanted the first time she spoke to them again to be in person. Layla wasn't entirely sure.

"Them" instead of just "him" was going to take some time to get used to. It'd been three full days since she'd said a quick goodbye to Steven and left a note for Marc.

Layla had spent that time pacing around her dingy hotel room, processing and thinking and even started to do some research on DID, though not much. Steven had done some on the flight back to London, sharing a couple of articles with her. She'd gotten two sentences into the paragraph on how and why it develops when a lump formed in her throat. She couldn't make eye contact with Steven for a few minutes, skipping over the rest of that section, all the while thankful that Marc had receded to wherever he goes when he wasn't around.

No, she'd rather know only as much as they wanted to share with her. It didn't have to be everything, but it had to be enough, if she was going to be in their life. Whatever enough was.

Her mind had been made when she'd climbed onto her bike, but, now, a block away from Steven's flat and getting closer, she's second-guessing— tenth, twentieth-guessing. The same anxieties she'd dismissed over and over the past three days inevitably return: that Marc would cut her out, emotionally and then all-together, again. That he was somehow hiding more horrible secrets from her, again. That any openness and vulnerability she'd show would blow up in her face, again.

There'd have to be changes if they were going to try and make this work, for her to be in their life in any capacity. And Layla needed to lay them out and not budge on them.

She parks around the corner from the entrance, still wanting some time to sit with her thoughts before she goes knocking on their door.

As she takes off her helmet, she spots him across the intersection. She almost doesn't recognize him, his back turned to her, hair tucked into a flat cap, his posture and gait all... wrong.

Not wrong, she edits herself, just different. When she'd first seen Steven, she'd had the same thought— no, not wrong, just wrong for Marc.

Her instincts takes over, and she goes into subterfuge mode, stepping off her bike and behind the car in front of her. Through the windows, she eyes him carefully.

He's crossing the street at an angle away from her, his hands in his jacket pockets; the collar of which is popped up in a way she'd never seen Marc do, and she can't for the life of her see Steven doing. He turns his head— to check the road is clear, she thinks— or maybe he senses someone watching. She can't be sure.

The fraction of an expression she catches is unreadable to her. His jaw is set differently, with a hint of a frown, but it's neutral, she thinks. His eyes are piercing.

This. This was their third. She had no doubt.

She follows him, debating all the while whether to try and catch him or just... watch.

His gait is confident and forceful, but not tense. Marc's tension and precision of movement is missing, Steven's hunched shoulders and fidgety unsureness even more so.

Layla can't help but consider the way he moves, if it lines up with the brutality of Marc and Steven's blackout in Cairo. Similarly, the focused nature of Marc's fighting style had been missing then. That had been raw power, dealt out ruthlessly to everyone in range of his fists and then Harrow's commandeered cane.

Not everyone, she amends. Not her.

In two and a half meandering blocks, it seems he reaches his destination, stopping at a cab and pulling keys from his pocket. He unlocks the cab and slides into the driver's seat in a single steady motion.

In the cab, he's obscured from view, but Layla still stares, as if her eyes will burn through the metal while the vehicle pulls out and onto the road. When it turns onto a different street, she lingers on where it was, the image still in her mind. License plate number included, of course.

She isn't sure what to glean from all this. The pieces didn't add up to a whole, with no way to know where or how they fit together. But the pieces did finally make this amorphous idea of someone into something solid. What was formless and fluid like sand was now stone, more than just an unknown third or blacked-out violence. A man with his own motivations, tastes, quirks— his own life. And, undoubtedly, his own secrets.

There isn't much she can do other than return to her bike and ride back to her hotel. She wouldn't be speaking with Marc tonight.

If she'd caught up, she wonders, would she have been able to? Would whoever this was disappear and send Marc or Steven forward as soon as she saw him, like he'd done in Cairo? Or, maybe they'd found a way to communicate with him, and it'd be more like it was after the tomb, able to speak and work in tandem. She hopes it'd have been the latter; that this other part of them wasn't still running around with them kept in the dark. She doesn't like the idea of knowing more about him than they do.

The cool night air blows her hair out of her face as she walks, her mind swimming with the pile of new information to process. A second breeze pulls at her jacket and hair as a cab pulls up to the curb next to her, making her stop in her tracks.

The passenger side window rolls down and he only gives her a fraction of a glance as he says, "Hop in," jutting his jaw towards the back seat. Before she can even think to respond, the window's rolled back up and this stranger in her husband's body is now waiting on her to get in his car.

She stares blankly for a second, questioning whether this is a good idea or not. His finger taps the wheel in a fixed rhythm, and her curiosity gets the better of her.

As she climbs in, her eyes never quite leave the man in the driver’s seat. Diagonal him, the angle on his face isn't ideal, but the mirror is well placed to see his eyes; they're unwavering, focused forward as he pulls back into the light evening traffic.

After a long moment of watching him, she takes a quick scan of the vehicle's interior. It's not a new cab by any means, but it's nice. Taken care of. No mess, nothing in the seats or floorboards. No weird smell, a hint of tobacco smoke at worst. Not much for her to go on.

There's a noticeable lack of a phone mount or screen in the dashboard for GPS or otherwise. Old fashioned, perhaps to avoid being tracked? Maybe old-fashioned for the sake of it too, she thinks. His flat cap, gloves, and jacket don't strike her as unintentional in their style.

He isn't stiff in his seat, but still. Steady. He drives the fastest he can without having to brake hard, coming to a stop far closer to the car in front of them than feels comfortable, and makes no show of it. His timing is impeccable, shifting gears without even the tiniest of stutters to the momentum of the car, the vehicle practically an extension of himself. He doesn't acknowledge her all the while, or even make any sign she's there at all.

After a couple of minutes, Layla starts to think she'll have to be the one to speak first, but he finally breaks the silence.

"Y'know, driving on the left's never gonna feel right to me." He says it aloud, more a general statement than directed at her.

"Yeah?" She eyes him, processing the difference of his voice. It's far closer to Marc's than Steven's, not just accent-wise, but pitch and tone. Enough so that it's strange to hear. "Did you drive a cab in the U.S.?"

"No, the Maldives," he deadpans. It takes Layla a second longer to catch than she would like, and she isn't sure if it's playful or rude. Maybe both.

She can assume the answer's yes either way, though. Not the best start.

"What's your name?"

His eyes finally find hers in the mirror, his brow raised. The brown of his irises are black in the low light. "Getting personal, now, are we?"

She tightens her jaw at that, but she doesn't snap back at him like she wants to. She can't afford to be confrontational. At least not recklessly so.

"Lots of cab drivers get personal," she offers with a shrug, sitting back against her seat.

"Not this one."

He considers himself a cab driver, then. If Steven was a "gift shoppist" then she supposes whoever this is can be a cabbie.

It also says a good deal about how much he intends to share. He wasn't going to lay everything out for her, nowhere close. He was giving her a slab of stone and if she wanted to carve it into the shape of a person, she was going to have to do it herself, with nothing but her bare hands.

"That tells me something about you though, doesn't it?" She observes with her own pique of an eyebrow.

He just grunts in reply.

She studies him. Some things about him feel oddly familiar; not his face or body, those are a given— but his presence. It doesn't feel as alien to her as it did initially. It's in the way he turns the wheel, how he holds his head, how he doesn't meet her eyes, the undercurrent of intensity to him.

"Is this the first time we've met?"

"Nah."

The direct answer surprises her, and she presses on. "In Cairo, with Harrow?"

"I don't think I'd count that as us meeting, hermosa." She notes his word choice for later, but that's more than enough confirmation.

In this moment, it was almost a stretch to picture the man in front of her now with what had seemed like such uncontrolled wrath displayed on that street in Cairo. His body relaxed and his voice quieter, he was more subdued and sure than both of his counterparts. He held his cards close to his chest and he knew he had a damn good hand.

"So, before then?" She says it more as a question than the statement she feels it to be, but gets nothing in response. More specific, then. "Once or more?"

"A time or two." He shrugs. Layla doesn't quite believe that, but lets it go. For now. He pauses, and she thinks she sees a thoughtful clench of his brows and a tiny shift of his jaw before he allows, "I'm not out much."

She takes the opportunity, clawing at the stone, "How come?"

"Don't need to be." His tone is sharp and sure. Cocky, even. "I get shit done."

She sits forward in her seat, interest piqued. She's made a crack in the stone, or just found one. "Like what?"

And suddenly, there's gravel in his voice. "You saw what."

"Killing people?"

The car brakes hard and he slams the gearshift, narrowly reversing out between cars-- earning honks from other drivers-- and into a parallel parking spot, one-handed, with expert ease. Well, not ease, exactly. The maneuvers jostle Layla around the backseat, nearly giving her whiplash, but the cab doesn't so much as get a scratch.

He whips forward in the driver's seat, gripping the wheel with both hands.

He exhales through a taught jaw, "Get out."

"Excuse me?"

"Get. The fuck. Out."

"Why?"

That gets him to turn.

"No voy ha hacer esta mierda," he says under his breath as he twists around, and his hard eyes meet hers again. "Get outta my goddamn car if you're gonna sell me righteous bullshit."

His words give her pause. The questions have built and built, and, like a chisel and hammer, the final blow of "why" splits the rock and a massive chunk slides away. It's the most he's raised his voice, and his body is a live wire, the ease of earlier gone. His accent's thicker, too— New York, she's positive now— like Marc's Chicago becoming more pronounced under stress.

She reorients. "Okay. What would you call what happened then?"

"Mierda—" he starts, but she cuts him off.

"I meant that as a genuine question. I'm not trying to be rude."

Maybe she is, just a little. What she really wants to do is yell in his face, demand answers, demand he get over whatever it is keeping him from communicating with Marc and Steven, because whatever it is incredibly stupid and not worth the effort nor pain it will inevitably cause them and him. But she's carved out enough to know that yelling at him to get his shit together wasn't going to help.

The tide of his anger is still holding despite her attempts, but it recedes some as he admits, "Look, I get that the fucking jig is up." It isn't an answer, and that doesn't go unnoticed by Layla. "They know I exist now, but that's all they're gonna fuckin' know, ¿Comprendes?"

There's fire in his eyes; engulfing, uncontrollable fire, but she pushes; "Why?"

The tide floods back in. "This. Is not. A fucking. Interrogation," he says through gritted teeth, flaring.

"Then what is it, exactly?" She counters. He mutters what sounds like a mix of Spanish and English swearing, the sound bleeding into annoyance more than anger. She throws her hands up, exasperated. "Hey, you're the one who invited me into your car and expected me not to ask questions."

There's a pause, and a hint of a sigh before his mirrored eyes find hers. "I'm telling you now, you and both of them," he says, slow and pointedly. "You mind your business—" He turns back to the road, left hand taking the gearshift. "I'll mind mine."

He drives, and Layla just stares.

She lets out a small huff of a laugh, crossing her arms over her chest. "That's not going to work for me. And I doubt it will for Marc or Steven."

"It will, is the fuckin' thing. You're the one I need to convince here."

"It may have worked like that in the past, but it won't anymore."

"Yeah? You know those pendejos so well?" He shoots at her, his eyes cold. Its a low blow and he knows it.

"I have actually talked to them. You should try it," she returns, refusing to let him get under her skin. "You might learn something."

He doesn't respond to her jab either, no shift in his expression.

She sighs and continues, "Talk to them or don't. They're not going to turn a blind eye forever."

He snorts at that, almost laughs. It's a dark sound— makes her uneasy, if she's honest. "Ignoring shit is what they do."

She much prefers the fire of his anger to the cold sharpness of his eyes now. But she thinks she knows how to get it back.

"Not you, though?"

And just like that, the lens is back on him, and he snaps.

Once more, he maneuvers the car like a madman to the curb, though Layla holds on this time, leaning against the momentum and maintaining her position in the chaos of his making.

In the stillness, she can hear the grip of his leather gloves tightening on the wheel. He practically spits, "Vete a la mierda," out of the side of his mouth, straight forward and rigid in his seat.

Layla didn't consider herself fluent in Spanish by any means, but she wouldn't have to know a single word to get the message here.

"Fine." She says, tightly. With a yank of the handle, she throws the door open and pulls herself up and out. Before slamming it behind her, she finds herself pausing, grip on the handle unreleased. With a quick breath, ignoring the twitch in her face, she turns and leans down enough to see him. "For what it's worth, thank you for saving us."

He says nothing, doesn't turn around, doesn't even so much as glance out of the corner of his eye as she shuts the door and steps away from the cab. But she thinks she sees a shift in his posture before he drives off. Another crack in the stone.

The next day, she calls ahead.

#here it is! my first finished/published fic in like 5 yrs lol #this has been rolling around in my brain nonstop for 2 weeks. these two were so fun and challenging to write #jake lockley #jake lockley fic #layla el faouly #layla el faouly fic #moon knight #moon knight fic #mk fic #my writing #kier writes

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leviiattacks · 4 years ago

Note

May I request a Levi x Reader angst fic? Just barely any fluff, mostly angst going on lol. The reader is a traitor, formaly working for Marley, but betraying them in secret and putting their loyalty on Paradis. The reader is also a shifter and married to Levi for a couple of years. That love and care however is gone once readers identity is found. He truly despises them, insults them, maybe a bit violent with them, and outright tells them that they mean nothing to him anymore and hate them to bits. Readers punishment is to hand over her titan to Erwin, and they agree instantly, broken over everything, believing its all their fault. Once Erwin inherits Readers titan, he breaks down and screams, crying, because Reader was innocent the whole time. They never betrayed Paradis. Never killed anyone, never harmed anyone. They finaly know why they betrayed Marley, the abuse being to much for them, enough to just leave them behind for Paradis. Just... loving and caring as they all saw them. But now the damage is done. They wont come back, they're dead, believing that they died, hated and despised, with no one to mourn their death. Everyone regrets everything.

author note :: i was thinking of leaving this in my drafts but i already wrote it and may as well post it. it didn’t end up going the way i hoped but yeah i hope it’s ok anon. anyways ANGST. ANGST, ANGST. as always i love feed back :-) ⟹ all of the headings with the years are just meant to mean it’s a different moment from that year so those moments don’t happen right after each other i hope that makes sense!! word count :: 7.2k warnings :: canon typical violence, death

845, i.

Everything is falling in place when it shouldn't.

Sun never makes itself known in Liberio yet here it is shining down onto the bustling streets. You half expect for it to crash down and burn into the hundreds of civilians going about their daily business yet nothing of the sort happens. It's typical sunlight and you curse yourself silently for your sinister thoughts.

Secretly the voice at the back of your mind still whispers frantically but you don't wish to hear what it has to say. Instead you choose to drown it out with the sound of Zeke's voice. Finally deciding to pay attention to what it is he's been droning on about for the past ten minutes.

"Soon, soon, soon." He sighs dreamily looking a little delirious.

"Soon?"

Your question catches him off guard, he lightly shoves you with his elbow scoffing in annoyance.

"Did you sit here to not even listen to me?" He turns to take a sip of whisky and the hearty gulp he chugs shows his mild irritation. You assume he's been rambling on about Marley's plan to infiltrate Paradis. You have to admit that the idea of destroying those demons from the inside is amazingly well thought out. However it's all he's been able to discuss for the entire week now and frankly you're getting a little exhausted of it.

"I zoned out..." Quietly placing your glass back down onto the wooden counter you sigh closing your eyes. It's too early to be drinking and you don't trust Zeke enough to slip into ignorance and leave yourself vulnerable. Men are to not be trusted, especially Eldian men. The thought of Eldians triggers your flight of fight response, you want to shrivel up into a cocoon and never come out until the world is rid of the monsters. The lowest of the low, the dirt in between the crevices of Marleyan soldier's boots. That is what Eldian's are.

It's ironic coming from you, your entire family labelled as undesirable Eldians yourself but you, you know you're different. An honorary Marleyan is what you will become. What you are. The treacherous imps who are but an ocean away are the true evil.

Eyes flicking to Zeke he's lighting a cigar. Old habits die hard and he's yet to quit this self destructive custom of his. You couldn't care less if he chooses to cut his lifespan short by ten years, it's his own choice to make. A disgusting cowardly choice but it's a choice fit for an untamed man like him.

The Island Devils are said to be the bad apples but you can't help but stare at your fellow citizens from time to time and wonder what it is they could be hiding. If a demon slipped through the cracks you wouldn't be surprised. Sly in nature, persuasive in tone, that is how devils go about their daily lives alone The hymns they drilled into you all the way through elementary school echo and rebound in your mind.

Locking your bitter thoughts away you have to push yourself to not punt Zeke in the mouth when he teasingly blows a puff of hot smoke into your face.

Fingertips grazing with his he freezes at the sudden contact giving you the perfect opportunity to slip his cigar away and take it in between your lips. You allow for it to linger there but you aren't foolish enough to inhale its contents.

"Zeke, my dear friend. We shall soon be met with the fruits of our own labour but I assure you that discussing Marley's plan constantly will be of no benefit for you nor I."

The day you and Zeke had met had been at warrior training camp. Zeke was a miserable, unmotivated oaf. Always tripping and falling behind the rest of the warrior cadets. You felt rather bad for him, if you were born as unskilled as him you don't know what you would have made of yourself. Zeke, the only child of his parents ironically only ever ended up rising through the ranks after handing them over to the Marleyan government. His father and mother had been conspiring an escape plan but were executed immediately alongside their fellow team members once Zeke had outted them. Unexpectedly he was spared, the fact he turned on his own parents showed where his loyalties were. To his surprise, he was even allowed to continue his training with the other warriors - only this time everyone kept an increased distance away from him. The warriors weren't informed of what he had actually done but everyone had a gut feeling. Everyone apart from you stuck with that feeling. You thought strategically, If he were to become an enemy in the future you knew being close would come at your advantage.

The day you and Zeke had met your mother died, his mother passed away the same day. At least that's what he had told you.

The two of you bonded over the little things, told each other stories about your life at home. Reminisced about what it was you missed.

Then it all came crashing down the day Zeke confessed. The day he told you he killed his mother and father by handing them over to Marley. Your knees buckled underneath you, crashing the floor he tried to grab at you but you thrashed around in retaliation kicking and screaming not understanding why he did what he did. Yes, they were traitors but they were his parents and if the monster had the nerve to turn on the people who gave birth to him who's to say he wouldn't do the same to you or to Marley.

Zeke doesn't know it but ever since then you take the opportunity to sneak the occasional glance at him. Every single time you narrow your eyes in malice. If there's a man in Liberio who you don't trust in the slightest it's him, he must think the feud between the two of you from childhood has been put at rest but it hasn't.

Zeke takes another swig of his alcohol. On this occasion he downs it entirely slamming the glass down with vigour.

"ONE MORE GLASS BARTENDER!"

846, i.

Another day of extensive training is about to end, your back is layered in uncomfortable layers of sweat and the same can be said for your forehead. Kneeling down in the under layer of the forest you're hidden waiting to strike. Going up against the elites is nerve-wracking but you're sure you can pull it off so long as you stay calm during this game of hunters against prey.

It's simple enough if you can conceal yourself and stay out of sight. The robust trees that surround you act as decent enough camouflage and your green cape paired with them lets you veil yourself, keeping you further into the foreground, blending into the environment.

No one will be able to catch you if they can't see you.

All of a sudden your previous thoughts are thrown away when you sense something in the atmosphere has changed, the hissing of the wind behind you isn't natural.

Turning to your side you don't bother to cover up the sound of leaves rustling and branches cracking, your priority is slipping away fast enough to hide again, a tug can be felt at your cloak and your reaction time barely covers for you, your gear fastens itself to a low enough tree branch and the descent is mind numbing. Your breakfast churns in your stomach but you ignore the uneasy feeling, leaping and diving wherever you find a small enough gap. You believe you can outrun your huntsman.

That is until you sneak a glance back and your muscles nearly tense up in pure astonishment, you've been kicked in the teeth just by the man's presence. Captain, Levi slinks behind you weaving through the gaps with increasing speed, he's gaining momentum and all the while his face stays relaxed, this isn't even his full effort.

Terrified you dart upwards and then left, a corner comes into view - Levi should assume you've turned into it and so you rashly choose to dart back down. Much to your hard luck you find that his senses are well adapted, the direction of the wind is enough for him to trace your whereabouts.

The pursuit resumes, and he stays disturbingly relentless.

Arm shooting to the right you think perhaps making it look like you're aiming to fly somewhere else again will completely catch him off guard, he can't expect for you to pull the same trick twice.

Setting your plan into motion your finger pulls at the trigger but you startle when the cable doesn't come out, it's jammed. Panic seeps into you and to make matters worse your gas is running out.

Without warning you're thrust into the body of a nearby tree, the bark scrapes against you and scratches begin to form anywhere you've made contact with the jagged surface, you want to admit defeat but the warrior inside of you denies Levi the pleasure of seeing you beg. In its place you deliver a harsh kick to his thigh, you're aware he's injured it and you're certain there are no rules to say you can't play dirty. Your boots hammer against leg hard enough for him to give out and let go of your body, but then you realize you lost this game from the very moment your grapple hooks broke, you have nowhere to hold onto.

Before you can even let out a shriek of horror Levi's shot back to you, he frantically accelerates and by a miracle humanity's strongest is able to grab a hold of you again. This time you don't dig your heels into his leg and you allow for him to clutch you by the torso.

Within a minute the two of you descend towards the forest floor and Levi throws you into the dirt furiously.

"You could have died. Being foolhardy will only lead to an early death." He barks as he directs his blade towards your neck.

"Am I dead yet?" Whispering back your gaze isn't trained on the blade but right up at him.

His nostrils flare up, his hair sticks to his forehead haphazardly and the knuckles that hold his pointed blades are white in tangled dissatisfaction.

Grabbing you by the hips he flings you over his shoulder choosing to not continue with the confrontation.

"I know what you're up to." His voice is still rugged from the pursuit and it takes you a split second to register what he's said.

Your eyes widen and your breath hitches in your throat, no way, there's no way in hell he knows. He's sharp but he's not a mind reader.

Your position means he can't read your face seeing as you're facing his back, instantly steeling your features you let out a breathy laugh.

"And what may that be?" Silently you pray he's worded himself ambiguously to catch a slip up.

"Being gutsy, you think that makes you a good soldier. It doesn't."

Relief floods you. He doesn't know.

"Soldiers need to be brave." Your retort makes him grumble.

"If you die with no meaning by being reckless what's the purpose of being a soldier?" His question has you stopping and thinking on what the correct answer is.

Unable to think of an answer you ask another question.

"Are you saying your previous comrades died without meaning?"

"No. Their deaths fueled me slay more titans."

"So if I died back there who wou-" He swiftly cuts you off showing no inclination of wanting to hear what it is you have to say.

"I'll cut your tongue off if it's stupid." He clearly isn't serious about the threat but he does mean it when he warns you to not overstep.

Despite the consequences you say what's on your mind. "I just wanted to ask who would give my life meaning if I ever died. I don't have siblings and my parents died long ago."

Silence follows and the crunch of his boots against the muddy leaves tells you he probably doesn't wish to answer your question.

"Sorry-"

"I would. I would give meaning to your life." He says it with such ease you almost want to admire the enemy but you know he's said it because he feels he has to.

"You barely know me but I hope one day you can stop thinking everyone has to rely on you." You say it with taunting understanding.

Another bout of silence follows. Only this time the two of you feel warmly comforted, he doesn't understand how you've seen through his facade but it's easy for you to spot another liar.

846, ii.

Brows drawn back you observe your surroundings attempting to mask your scrutiny. The place is running amok with uncontrollable Eldian folk. The stench of unadulterated sin makes itself known but you seem to be the only person able to smell it. Eren bumps against the table you're sat at and your face twitches a little but you say nothing. You're yet to get used to these people's lack of manners.

At least that's how you force yourself to think. To be truthful, you don't quite understand what it is these people have done wrong. Ever since you've arrived you've been nitpicking at every single minor inconvenience or possible issue. A girl stole a potato and broke it into uneven pieces to share and you attempted to twist the story in your head to make her look like an unfair, greedy voracious demon but... you found yourself finding very little to actually be angry at. These people are essentially normal in every way of the word, they aren't demons and you can't help but feel yourself slip away from everything you once knew as reality. You're finding it difficult to believe what years of Marleyan education taught you, the hymns that were once drilled into your brain permanently are but a vague memory.

You feel disgustingly under-dressed and out of place, you don't belong here not when you're meant to hate these people, not when you're meant to despise them. You should be fighting the urge to shove their heads onto pitchforks or to skin them alive and feed them to pigs. Everyone back in Marley told you to control your impulses but now you're here and you've settled down even having the opportunity to converse with these individuals, share their pain, share their loss, share their suffering, you wonder why you have no impulses to control. Have they brainwashed you? Or is it that you're the real demon in this situation?

Fingers mingling with each other on your lap you sit hopelessly alone. Interacting with the so called enemy is much harder than you expect. Worry consistently bubbles in the pit of your stomach and every night is spent tossing and turning evaluating then reevaluating who the bad guy really is. At first the task of daily interaction isn't a big deal, you find it easy enough to approach members of the team and fake interest in their lives until the original plan falls through. You do become invested in your team members lives and stories that it comes to the point where you don't have to force yourself to smile at their jokes or to sympathize with their tales of grief. You become one of them and you swear you're meant to feel like a traitor but eerily you feel like you belong.

Nevertheless you try your best to stick with what you know. You're nothing like Zeke, you're loyal, capable, faithful and trustworthy. Never will you turn your back on Marley.

Rising to excuse yourself from dinner you think you've just about made it and escaped finally able to hide away in the confines of your bedroom but your lips form into a straight uncomfortable line at the feeling of someone's hand latching at your wrist. You're halfway down the hallway just a few more steps away from your bedroom. You hope it's one of the rookies.

"Oi, come here."

Head shooting backwards your eyes land on Levi, his dark curtains fall in front of his eyes - you note that he hasn't trimmed them as he usually does. Despite his size his grip is firm and your wrist squirms around a little trying to manoeuvre out of his bruising grasp. He seems to notice he's underestimated his strength once again and loosens his hold on you. Narrowed eyes analyse your anxious form, they're grey and in this lighting almost glow appearing silver. For a brief second your mouth is left ajar by the delicate but rough manner of his face.

"Everything Okay?" He doesn't typically seem to care very much about anyone, the question activates your senses and you're on full alert but the eye contact you make with him seconds later slows down the gears in your mind, they only whir and hum in anticipation completely coming to a halt.

"Yes, yes everything is okay." You're playing around with the hem of your shirt and you silently question when you were ever this nervous around anyone. You're a Marleyan soldier for heaven's sake not an unrestrained, unsupervised child left to play in a park.

Despite your clear inability to cushion and shield yourself from your Levi's stabbing gaze you attempt to appear as nonchalant as possible.

"I'll be going I just feel a little —" At first you had thought to fake you were ill but at the feeling of a sudden strike of pain you hold onto your stomach, the ache burns into your abdomen and without permission it travels higher up towards your ribs. "A little unwell." You manage to wheeze out. Hand placed onto a nearby cement wall your thought process is hasty speeding up by the second. Have they figured you out and had you poisoned? No, you barely ate anything today.

You hunch over feeling the bile crawl up your throat, on reflex you clamp your eyes shut not wishing to anger a superior by acting insolent and disposing of your dinner in the hallway. Shaky palms reach hesitantly for your lips and you force yourself to keep it in. Levi would commit a murder if you heaved and gagged letting it all out in front of him.

You motion towards the door trying to emphasize that you can handle yourself in the privacy of your room. Tears bite at the sides of your eyes and your vision is so blurred you can only make out the faint outline of the man who was just in front of you.

"Relax. I'll clean it." Your hair is brushed away from your face securely held back and you can't hold it in any longer, the acrid storm surges through your throat, you retch at the harsh sting it leaves behind. Breathing heavy, perturbed and anxious you gasp in all the air you can get.

"I knew you looked ill." His hands hold your jaw gently, the pads of his fingers are calloused but his touch remains soft. A tissue dabs at your mouth wiping away the excess untouched sick.

Just like the sick which surged through you less than a minute ago you feel something else entirely tear into you. You can't put a finger on it but it's dangerous for you to not feel contempt.

847, i.

Your heart accepts what your mind has been ignoring for months on end when Levi looks you square in the eyes after a heart wrenching expedition. The vacant look on his face is enough for the guilt to consume you whole but he doesn't know that. He doesn't know of your sins.

The wagon of corpses reeks of death and desperation. It's rotten and the smell is sickening. Forcibly you stop yourself from feeling any more grief. The despair isn't yours to go through.

Your first ever personal loss outside of the walls and you've learnt Paradis is not home to demons. Cheeks burning in mortification you can't formulate any thoughts on your own accord, instead they continuously emerge in bursts and finally a single thought sticks out from the rest - Are you aiding in the destruction of innocent human life?

The both of you are sat on guard duty with the corpses, half of the team has been wiped out in one sweep. Your trembling hands don't seem to want to steady any time soon and you sit there with your guilty conscience strangling you slowly, your airflow is getting shallower. Shorter, quicker breaths leave you. The imaginary gash in your chest is bottomless, and your lungs push and pull in a power struggle.

Levi's coarse hands abruptly hold onto yours and the floodgates open again, he doesn't know what you've done to him, done to his soldiers, done to his people. If he knew who you really were, would things be different?

"This was out of your control."

Do you tell him?

The question sits in your mind for a while until you shake your head. He takes it the wrong way and think you're responding to him.

"This was not your fault." For the first time in months you've heard his voice crack under pressure.

"Pe- Petra she- I could have taken one for the team and died instead of her." All that remains of your dear friend is her blood soaked cloak. Her body was one of the few that had to be hauled away earlier to decrease the carriage's load.

The fabric still smells of Petra, smells of honey and chamomile and the simple soap offered at the base, but it still smells of her.

Firm hands grab your shoulders and Levi's fingers dig sorely into your flesh.

"Don't."

"But I- I didn't contribute as much as her and she has family who are alive." Hiccuping you try to bare with the fact that you'll wake up tomorrow and not see her preparing breakfast for everyone else. You know you could have propelled her out of the way just in time if you hadn't been so taken aback by the entire situation.

"You were her comrade. She made the choice to die for you."

You want to reach out, sob into his chest and yell that you regret it all, scream and tell him about the secret you've been hiding. A sorry excuse of a comrade you are to let her die on the battlefield not knowing your true identity. The tears roll down your cheeks and Levi feels his heart constrict and squeeze as he comprehends the lack of regard you have for your life. "It should have been me." Is repeated over and over again, your eyes are raw and bloodshot, the vicious wind sinks its teeth into you.

"Then die."

"If you're willing for her life to have no meaning. Die." The words he spits out are as cutting as the bitter wind. He feels cheated and you're finally able to come to your senses.

He's faired much worse but you doubt he's ever acted out the way you have in front of another person. In this never-ending void of darkness locking away the dull ache caused by deafening loss is the best choice for everyone.

Much like the night you had been sick he takes a grip of your jaw and directs your face towards his, this time he's not as gentle as before but you conclude that it's because he's drained, completely exhausted from the battle. The eyes are the windows to the soul but Levi's window panes are shattered, completely crushed by the weight of the constant burden he has to carry.

"I'm sorry." You croak out the apology. He grits his teeth because he doesn't want you to apologize but he doesn't voice out his opinion. As a substitute he presses his arms against you, the terribly raw panic is murdering you. Levi's gruff voice is a mixture of faux irritation but mutual understanding.

"Cry." He allows for your head to loll against his shoulder.

As the dark envelopes both you and him the scent of the dead only becomes more and more pungent, recalling fond memories of Petra and the others you know your heart settles on a decision before your mind does. You're a two timing back stabbing traitor for this. What you hated Zeke for you have become yourself.

Disloyal, unfaithful and fickle.

That day you place your loyalties with Paradis.

847, ii.

Levi's wiping down one of the kitchen tables, you're kneeled on the floor scrubbing vigorously. The others have already given up, panting they've left using the excuse of fetching water from a nearby well. Your back aches but you find cleaning reassuring and somewhat of a decent distraction.

"Why do you like to clean?" You're used to Levi asking you abrupt questions by now, after all the two of you have been acquainted for well over a year now. Through that year he's learnt about you and you about him. When in the midst of what looks to be humanity's final year's, twelve simple months is enough to form a bond worth a decade.

"I'm not good at a lot but I am good at cleaning."

"You know that's not true idiot." The tone of his voice indicates that your answer doesn't please him.

"But I do think I'm good at cleaning? Maybe not as good as you but I am half decent."

"Not that. You're good at much more than half the people I've ever met." He sneers, his footsteps edge towards you. "Purely being a good person is a talent these days."

You suppress a flinch because you aren't a good person at all. Neither are you that middle ground between good and bad. Rough around the edges and uneven, you're shards of glass ready to slash and hack away at him if Marley somehow lures you back.

The confession, if you could even call it that catches you by surprise and anger fills you. You almost want for him to not trust you and call out your bluff. It's a little unnatural how badly you want for him to realize the truth.

Your head turns up to stare at the man who's a few steps away from you. "Or am I just good at acting genuine?"

You don't even mean to snap at him and you don't even realize you have until you see his eyes widen and mouth part in imperceptible surprise. Biting your tongue your attention is diverted back to the wooden floor. Driving your washcloth into the crevices and dips of the floorboards you ignore Levi's leather shoes which now stand right in front of you.

"Are you questioning my judgement of character?"

Be born in Marley, That's what you had done, trained to destroy people you thought to be devilish entities, foolishly chose to grow attached to the so called enemy. Your mind lingers onto a specific thought and you're deathly afraid to be thinking it in the first place but there's no more avoiding it.

Falling deeply in love with Levi is your worst mistake to date.

"What I did. It was out of my control." you reply, voice hard.

"Not disclosing what it was?" He asks.

Your silence is his answer. Kneeling down to where you are he disarms you, the washcloth is taken out of your hands and he places it onto a table.

"You are a good person." His voice is brusque and he states it like it's a fact, something you should know. Hot tears threaten to spill over, he's stupidly naive for not rethinking that opinion of his. Lips thinned and eyes watering you don't know how to feel.

"Levi. I'm sure you'd like to think that but I am not."

"You love the members of the corps unconditionally I can see it in the way you look at them."

"Sometimes you look a little sad when you stare." The last sentence he adds in has your pulse racing. He's right, you often feel miserable thinking about how everyone would react knowing who you really are.

"I'm not interested in bad people." He sounds distant saying such warm words and it takes a moment for them to actually sink in. You don't quite believe you've heard him correctly. The dread sinks to the bottom of your stomach and the feelings you've buried at the back of your mind hit you like a tsunami. The thought of him feeling the same way for you, is agonizing.

"Stop being ridiculous." The uncertainty is killing the both of you.

"Loving you is not ridiculous, if you don't feel the same way you can say that and I'll step away. We'll be back to normal."

"No, no, no. You don't get it. You're just saying that." Your voice quivers and the intensity of this new revelation is too large for you to cope with.

"Why would, you," He begins, voice just above a whisper, "ever think that way?"

"Why would you even look twice at me?" You reply.

"Because I worry for you."

"You worry for everyone."

"I worry for you the most."

Instead of letting you respond to him this time he carries on speaking.

"We both know we feel the same."

You already knew you were in love with Levi, you didn’t need for him to tell you. You knew you were in love when you tried to memorize his facial features, you knew you were in love when his laughter was the cause of your laughter, you knew you were in love when you threw yourself in front of that abnormal for him.

That's when you begin to understand what all his signals meant. You now knew why he'd let you stare so intently, you now knew why he laughed particularly hard when it was you who had made a joke, you now knew why he scolded you and nearly broke down at the sight of your injured arm after that specific expedition.

You know it. He knows it. You both know what this will lead to.

But you still lunge onto his lap, you still press your wobbly lips against his. You still choose to surrender yourself to him and he still reacts by taking a hold of your shaky hands which lay on his chest. He envelopes them in his warm grasp. Slowly but gradually the ice thaws and dissolves. Heartbreak, anguish and suffering when one of you loses the other will be the end of your romance, you're sure of it. Hell, the both of you are in the middle of a war but your heart flames up thinking of all of the possibilities.

Perhaps it'll play out the one way you wish for it not to.

Could your ending be in betrayal?

848, i.

"Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded hus-"

"Cut the crap and kiss me." Levi's crude interruption isn't appreciated by Erwin but everyone knows Levi doesn't care all that much for formalities and hates being in the spotlight for too long.

Gripping him by the collar of his suit your lips are a centimetre away, he stops you tightening the hold he has on your waist. His lips gently press against your collarbone and his breath meanders towards the shell of your ear.

"Swear you won't die on me."

Gulping you look away apprehensively. You know you can't promise that.

“Oi, I’m expecting an answer.” His voice flickers slightly.

Forefinger holding your chin up you see your soon to be husband close to tears, he valiantly blinks them away. Levi has never been one to make his pain public and your heart twists in your chest as you realize just how much of a hold his feelings for you have over him.

"I can't promise that, you know it'll only hurt more." The strange bitter taste in your mouth won't let you comply with his request and by measuring his reaction you see his eyes cloud in an unidentifiable emotion, you're sure it's nothing positive.

"We may not have a happy ending Levi but we'll always have a happy middle."

Levi scoffs in derision, he has to think your attempt at being meaningful is ridiculous.

You lean into him and it's all so heart-wrenchingly familiar yet foreign. His body sags comprehending that not everything will go the way he wants it to. One of you is guaranteed to leave first.

Hands finding purchase in the cloth of his white dress shirt Levi doesn't cringe at you creasing the fabric as he usually does. He allows for you to call the shots this time, your lips brush faintly against his before you nosedive into him. No resistance is felt and he replies almost immediately. Everyone applauds as his fingertips press into the back of your skull and you find that this is all incredibly hideous. The innate disloyalty you feel, you throwing your entire life away for this man but you find yourself not caring. To hell with that miserable life crammed with sin.

Levi smiles against your mouth, you assume you're meant to magically smile back but you can't make yourself. It's uncomfortable relishing in the undeserved happiness knowing it won't last forever.

The world you live in isn't ideal nor is it forgiving.

Momentary joy is all an antagonist can hope for.

849, i.

Jean can’t take his eyes off the newly weds.

You’re cooing into your Levi’s ear gently, his cheeks flush scarlet at the feeling of your hot breath against his skin and he scolds you for having the gall to rile him up in public.

Jean sniggers finding some sort of odd delight from the interaction - he’s never seen the Captain this content and at ease.

849, ii.

You don't know why you've dragged yourself out of bed just to stare at your husband's face but you have, despite the toll life has had on him he seems sound for once. His breathing peaceful yours is anything but that. When it's dark the weight becomes heavier, your skin tingles and your throat burns aching for release.

Eyes blurring your hands shake reaching out for him but you can't find the courage to make contact. Nothing will ever warrant plaguing him even more with your existence.

The memories become increasingly bitter.

"If we make it out of this alive we'll have children and they'll look just like you."

"I want them to look like you." had been your reply.

Levi winced not seeming to like the idea.

"No, I want them to look like you. You're beautiful."

How wrong he was for thinking that.

You, beautiful? He'd stab himself ten times over if he knew just who exactly he had said those words to.

850, i.

Zeke had betrayed you after finding out who you were to Levi but you half expected that he would tell him the truth at some point regardless of that fact.

Tear stains travel through the mud and grime on your face, Levi's eyes are indifferent as he twists his wedding ring off his finger flinging it into the surrounding rubble.

Without your permission he yanks your arm forwards intending to take your matching ring away but you hold on digging your heels into the dirt beneath you.

"You disgusting bitch. Give me it."

You scream, high and awful, he continues jerking at your arm the muscle throbs crying out for him to stop but he doesn't and no one steps in to put a halt to any of it. Levi having had enough grabs at your neck ruthlessly. In any other circumstance he'd be labelled callous or cruel but everyone on the battle field shares a similar empathy for their Captain. Neither they or Levi had expected your disloyalty.

"I said give me the ring if you know what's good for you." His fingers slide around your neck, his seemingly low words cling onto the little respect he has left for you.

"No." Your defiance has his eyes hardening in and posture tensing. "I'm not handing it over."

Levi says nothing, he only holds onto your throat tighter, if he really keeps at it your windpipe will be crushed in no time. You know he's holding out on purpose, he's still giving you a chance. He expects for you to stand your ground, say you never deceived Paradis, say something, anything to make him let go of you.

"Marrying you... It just happened somehow. I know it was selfish of me." He squeezes harder. "I know it was. I'm sorry Levi." Gasping and breathless you clench and unclench your fists finding it too difficult to explain.

Your mouth opens, you want to tell him you haven't seduced him like he thinks you have, tell him you dropped that plan of yours long ago but then you falter at the last second. It's typically hard to tell when Erwin's infuriated but it's painfully obvious when you make eye contact with him over Levi's trembling shoulders. It's enough to tell you to give up. Enough to tell you that you're beyond redemption, you've ran and hid long enough.

"Hand over your titan." Levi says nothing to Erwin's proposition, the hold he has on your neck loosens but his silence is sickening. It means he agrees.

This is fate's idea of a cruel joke.

But you agree, on the basis of one condition.

"Fine but-"

Levi cuts in, all regard for you devoid from his system.

"You're in no place to be making demands." He snarls, his patience quickly running thin.

However Erwin urges you to continue speaking taking you aback.

"If it's not too much maybe we can accommodate your final wish." Erwin had always been thoughtful in nature and you thank him for even bothering to show you a sliver of benevolence.

Everyone's looking, all eyes are on you. Some are blinking away tears, others are disgusted unable to stare at you for more than a few seconds at a time. Levi falls into the latter.

Brazen with not an ounce of shame you mention the ring again. "Let me keep it." Your left hand covers your right and underneath the flesh is the last symbol left of your union with Levi.

Whispers and murmurs orbit you, none of them are kind and Levi loses it.

His reflexes are paralyzing, he's back at it clawing your neck mercilessly but you don't scream or shriek as you did previously. You take it, you let him unload his frustration.

"Levi. Let it go for the sake of humanity." Erwin says pointedly. Irritation pricks him, he wants this over and done with and your rebelliousness doesn't look as if it'll be tamed any time soon unless you're given what you want.

Levi's face is crimson, the fresh blood from the expedition still steaming. "Y/N, I'll saw your arm off if I have to." But, you know he's already given into Erwin's orders when he throws you to the ground letting you crash and wheeze for breath.

850, ii.

Levi's been appointed to guard you for your final night alive. The room feels wistful as you think back wondering if the life you lived was respectable.

"Why did you stare at me when I slept? Did you think of killing me?" Half commanding and half pleading his voice cracks. He coughs attempting to cover it up.

You jolt not expecting the interaction at all and you're not the slightest bit surprised that he had seen you all those nights staring so deeply. He'd always been a light sleeper. You turn your head up hoping he's looking at you.

He isn't.

"I wanted our children to look like you. I think you're beautiful."

It's now his turn to recoil, only he does so in repulsion remembering the familiarity of those words. They had left his own lips not too long ago.

"I'd never have children with the likes of you." He sounds tense then.

You understand. No one would want to have children with someone as hated and as despicable as you.

"I know." You whisper faintly.

850, iii.

When Erwin's eyes glaze over unable to focus on anything in particular Levi assumes it's him growing used to the titan powers. What he doesn't expect is for his Commander to bang his head against the floor unrelenting screaming your name.

Pairs of hands move to stop him but he thrusts them aside wailing. Levi stresses trying to figure out what it is you could have done in the wake of your death.

But Erwin Smith. Courageous, brave Erwin Smith, who never cracked at loss of life for the sake of humanity, who always eloquently spoke to everyone around him at all times, finds himself slumping down to his knees and weeping for you.

The warm blood from his self inflicted assault still trickles down his nose, a tremor shakes through his entire body when he thinks of breaking the news to Levi.

The edge in Erwin’s voice grows dangerous.

"We made the wrong choice."

Erwin can't word it any better than that.

But Levi understands right away, he wishes he didn’t, he wishes he was ignorant enough not to.

Hange sticks an arm out aiming for his shoulder but he stumbles away nearly falling back into the floor not wanting to be touched by anyone.

He finds that he is not human enough to cry. It’s that or he’s not human at all without your presence.

854, i.

Levi has grown old without you, lived to see months and new seasons without you by his side. Over time his eyelids have become heavier, the corners of his mouth naturally droop and he remains perpetually somber.

Sometimes you visit him in his dreams, each time you make a silly comment about how his grey eye bags make him look like he’s been punched in the face. “Levi Ackerman, I swear if you don’t sleep soon!” You cushion the blow by whispering sweet nothings, reassuring him that you still think he’s beautiful.

Occasionally you add in that you don’t blame him for the past, but those conversations only last for a few seconds at a time.

“I don’t blame you.” It always starts off with the exact same phrase.

“I should have listened to you.” Levi’s tone is stern and uncompromising .

“Lev, I was never going to tell you to spare my life. You tried to listen to me, I could tell you wanted me to deny it.”

Levi refuses to answer you, he still thinks he’s at fault.

Not a day goes by where he doesn’t think of that ring. He regrets throwing it away recklessly into the rubble.

Some day he’ll return to Shiganshina to find it. The idea sounds laughable but he has to find a reason to smile as he fights for his life.

That is what Levi thinks as two set’s of jaws snap shut onto his legs, a flurry of red surrounds him. His throat constricts at the feeling of his thighs being ripped away from the rest of him.

“I tried.” He whimpers to no one in particular, eyes blank and losing meaning.

“I know Levi, I know.” The same voice from his dreams soothes him.

“Do not despair. Find me again in another world.” The biting wind adds in.

Levi’s eyelids flutter shut unable to do much else.

He’s unsure if he has the courage to face you again in another lifetime.

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ladycatofwinterfell · 2 years ago

Note

Canon and Fluff? In what world. Canon is always angst😂 How about a kid (prefarably toddler Arya) goes missing but they find, them snuggeled in theor (Ned/Cat) bed. And then they have a family cuddle.

Lately I’ve had Arya with her parents feels, this was so nice. So have some NedCat and Arya fluff!

Ned was not particularly strict on people knocking and waiting for an answer before entering his solar, but he also appreciated when that was followed.

So when the door opened without a warning he hoped the little wave of annoyance did not show in his expression. Only to have that be washed away when he saw the frown on his wife’s face.

“Is Arya not with you?” she asked after having looked around the room.

“I have not seen her since supper.”

After they had eaten he had immediately gone to his solar to finish his work for the day before retiring for the night, he had not seen the children. They had not so much as briefly visited him and he had not left his chair.

Catelyn did not respond to that, she turned on her heels and walked out, leaving the door open behind her.

At first Ned did not quite understand what had happened and for a moment he simply looked at the open door. Though quickly he came to his senses and followed her.

“Do you not know where she is?” he called after her.

“She was not in her bed when I went there to see if she and Sansa were sleeping and no one has seen her leave their room.”

It was as if cold water ran along Ned’s spine, making every muscle in his body tense.

“How could no one have seen her? There are guards at their doors at night!”

At least there was supposed to be guards outside the children’s doors to keep them from disappearing after having gone to bed. To keep them out of danger and to make sure no danger would come inside.

“The one on duty says he only left his post for a few moments because he heard a noise down the hall and went to investigate, he did not see her leave.”

Her voice cut through the air like a whip. Cold, hard, unforgiving. He could not fault her for it, it was no small thing that had disappeared. It was their daughter. Their youngest daughter.

Surely she could not have left the keep, it was heavily guarded as soon as the sun disappeared underneath the horizon. At least two guards at every entrance, it was impossible to get in or leave without being seen. Unless something had happened.

“Is she with Robb?”

She could have got into her head that she would rather share a room with Robb that night. Robb and Jon, Arya was fond of them both. Catelyn had objections regarding the second but he was Arya’s brother, as well.

“I do not think so” Catelyn responded.

She stopped and turned to look at him. And for a short moment there was something lost in her eyes, as if she didn’t know how to proceed. Though it was gone as soon as Ned had noticed it, replaced by determination.

“I will go to Robb’s room” he told her.

If that was where she was it was better if he found her.

“Do so, I will look for her in the nursery.”

He did not want to believe anything other than that he would find her with Robb and Jon. The alternative was that he had no idea where she was. Unless she was in the nursery and Catelyn found her instead. His little girl could not have disappeared, she was nearby. Within minutes they would find her unharmed and bring her back to her bed. It had to be that way.

Though he could not deny that his heart was beating faster than usual and that his strides were longer. Perhaps his hand trembled slightly when he opened the door to Robb and Jon’s room, not even looking at the guard standing by the door.

At first his eyes struggled to adjust to what little light that came from the dying fire in the hearth, but when he stepped into the room it became apparent that there was no Arya in there. Robb and Jon were sleeping peacefully in their beds, no little sister had joined them.

It was hard to ignore the way that suddenly his throat tightened and it was harder to breathe. Even after he knew she was not there he could not quite get himself to stop letting his eyes wander through the room, still hoping for that he would find her there.

Though he managed to get to his senses and left the room after having assured himself of that Robb and Jon were still asleep in their beds.

“Is there something I might do for you, my lord?” the guard asked when he closed the door.

Before Ned had time to answer that he heard Catelyn call for him.

“Ned! I found her!”

The wave of relief that washed over him was welcome. He let out a sigh, forgetting about the guard and immediately going over to his wife.

She had a smile on her face, quite obviously as relieved as he was.

“Was she in the nursery?”

“I shall show you where she is.”

She took his hand, making him follow as she turned and walked. It quickly became apparent that it wasn’t the nursery they were going towards, and still Ned was surprised when she stopped at the door to her chamber. The chamber they shared much more often than not.

It took Ned a moment to find Arya after Catelyn had opened the door, only a messy head of brown hair was visible among the furs in their beds. Though he should have found her sooner because she also snored softly.

“I cannot bring myself to wake her up and take her back to her own bed” Catelyn whispered.

She still held onto his hand.

“So let her stay.”

Ned knew that also meant it was he who had to return to his own bed. Arya took up a lot of space despite being so small. She was spread out in the middle of the bed and had taken all the furs for herself.

They stood in silence for a while, hand in hand, and just watched their sleeping daughter. Ned did not want to leave, he wanted to linger there. Though when Catelyn let go of him and began undressing he knew it was time.

“Where are you going?” Catelyn’s low voice came before he had even reached the door.

“To my chamber” he responded.

“Why?”

“Because there is already someone at my side of your bed.”

She was on both their sides, but he guessed Catelyn would manage to take hers back. And while he preferred sleeping in the same bed as his wife he had no objections to giving his place to one of their children.

“Stay here, my love, there is room for all three of us.”

Ned made his way back to her, pulled her into an embrace and kissed her forehead.

“I shall see you on the morrow” he mumbled.

“No, don’t go.”

It wasn’t Catelyn’s voice that responded to him, it was a small voice belonging to a small little girl.

They turned their heads to see that Arya had woken and was slowly pushing herself up into a sitting position, rubbing her eyes.

“It is alright, Arya, you can sleep here” he said. “You need not worry for me.”

He left Catelyn’s embrace and sat of the edge of the bed, and immediately Arya crawled out from her nest of furs and placed herself in his lap.

“I want you both” she said, holding onto his shirt with her little hands.

When she looked at him all signs of tiredness was as blown away, and there was a determination in her eyes that was much like Catelyn’s.

“Stay, please” she continued.

He had been told that he sometimes struggled with telling his daughters no, especially Arya. And while he could not always see it himself he knew then and there that he could not refuse her request for him to stay.

“When you ask so kindly I have little choice” he chuckled.

He placed a kiss on the top of her head before gently lifting her up and placing her on the bed.

“You have your father under a spell, sweetling” Catelyn said, making Arya giggle.

She immediately made herself comfortable in the middle once more while Ned and Catelyn began changing into their night attire.

It was only when they were all in bed Ned realised that Arya most likely should have been berated in some way for sneaking out of her room at night. She knew she was not to do that.

“Arya, why did you leave your room without telling anyone?” he asked as Arya cuddled up against Catelyn.

She considered for a moment, silent.

“I really wanted to be with you, and I thought they wouldn’t let me.”

“If we say so they will always let you” Catelyn said softly, running a hand through her hair. “We were very worried when we couldn’t find you.”

“Sorry.”

“Just don’t do it again.”

Arya closed her eyes, trying to fall back asleep, but opened them again a moment later to look at Ned.

“Can you please sing me a song?” she asked. “The one about the wolf.”

Arya’s favourite song, one about a mother singing to a wolf was one Catelyn had brought with her north.

“Your mother knows it better than I do, you should ask her.”

“She always sings it wrong.”

Catelyn scoffed at that.

“I do not sing it wrong” she said.

“You do! You say the wolf should stay away, but the wolf is our friend!”

In the song the mother told the wolf to stay away, that it would never get her child, but Arya saw issue with that. The direwolf was their sigil, she had grown up with stories of wolves, and she insisted that wolves were their friends.

“You’re my child and I would never give you to a wolf. The wolf gets other food in the song, I promise he doesn’t starve.”

“But he is starving! It’s in the song.”

“Before he gets the food, yes, but after he will not starve.”

Ned could not help but smile as he watched them. His wife and his youngest daughter, oh how he loved them. Oh how he loved all his children.

In the end Catelyn was the one to sing the song, and by then Arya was too tired to argue when she sang it the way she had been taught as a child. She was asleep by the time Catelyn had finished singing, once more snoring softly.

“Sleep well, my love” Ned whispered.

“Sleep well.”

#canon and fluff in this world babey #catelyn stark #catelyn tully #ned stark #ned x cat #arya stark #my drabble

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onebatch2batch · 3 years ago

Photo

late to the party post-canon kastle adjacent, matt x elektra [ao3] my brain refuses to let me write for my current wips so i’m just going to continue posting little oneshots waiting for inspo to hit. enjoy!

Frank hasn’t really spent a lot of time in the vest lately. In fact, in the shuffle of getting his things moved into Karen’s apartment, he had to search for a disturbing fifteen minutes to find the damn thing. Which–yeah, okay, the trade off is definitely worth it. But still. There’s shit goin’ down in Hell’s Kitchen and he’s late to the party.

He puts his eye back to the scope of his rifle and searches the windows of the quiet building across the street. From Lieberman’s intel it should be crawling with guys and just a second ago he could have sworn there was movement–

Ah, there you are.

Frank watches as a body goes flying past the window too fast to be natural. David relayed that this place is the head of a resurgence of the Yakuza, gathering strength and numbers every day as they up the ante on the streets after dark, but it looks like someone is already handing their ass to them. Another body flops past the window. He came here to nip the group in the bud but it looks like he can sit back and wait for any stragglers to come waltzing out. If there are any, anyway.

He unscrews the lid of his thermos and keeps his eye to the scope.

Whoever is in there isn’t fuckin’ around. He knows it’s not Red by the blood that occasionally splashes up on the glass panes. Alter Boy likes to pretend the blunt force trauma he causes doesn’t cave in skulls; not really his style to go around slashing with a blade. There’s a brief, distant scream that cuts off a second later. Everything goes quiet, but no one exits. He frowns and waits.

His phone buzzes. After a moment of watching for any more movement and seeing none, he pulls out the phone and squints down at the screen in the dusky evening light.

Come home. I miss you.

Frank’s mouth twitches slightly. With another glance at the building, he types out a reply. Soon. Miss you too.

“Oh, that’s sweet,” a voice says in his ear.

He’s not sure if his reflexes have slowed during the last few months of inactivity or the woman behind him is just that fast, but either way she dances away from his fist with a soft, amused laugh. He yanks out the pistol from his hip and follows her with the barrel, scowling. She barely makes a sound on the roof of the building as moves and he can’t get a good look at her until she comes to rest a few paces away. Her long dark hair is bathed in the orange glow of streetlights, pulled up in a high ponytail. Dark eyes watch him above a cloth crimson that covers the bottom half of her face. She’s all bare arms and leather–what’s with these vigilante assholes and all the leather, anyway?--and has twin sais held loosely in her grasp. They’re dripping with blood.

“You the one lightin’ ‘em up in there?” he asks after a moment of tense silence, shoving his phone back in his pocket with one hand.

Her eyes crinkle in what he assumes is a smile. “Maybe. Am I detecting an admirer?”

“Think whatever you want, lady. Just tryin’ to decide if I should pull this trigger or not.”

Is it just him or does she look thrilled by the idea? She tilts her head and takes a step closer, watching him. Her stance is deceptively relaxed, but he can see the undercurrent of frenetic energy that crackles underneath. Her voice is sultry and challenging when she speaks again. “I would love to see you try.”

He wonders if she knows who she’s talking to. Frank repositions his grip on the pistol in thought. If this woman–and Christ, a single woman by herself taking out a whole warehouse of shitstains without a scratch, that’s impressive–is up against the Yakuza it means one of two things: she’s from some rival group edging out the competition, or she’s actually good in some skewed sense of the word. By the way she’s covered in blood, he’s leaning towards the former.

His finger fidgets towards the trigger and in the next moment, it goes clattering across the rooftop. He jerks his head back towards the woman but she’s standing in the same spot, unmoving, eye twinkling in mirth.

“Frank!” an all-too-familiar and all-too-annoying voice calls.

“Oh, Jesus,” he mutters.

Matt Murdock drops down, making an elongated triangle between the three of them. He’s in that godawful red suit, nunchuck in hand. The other is laying a few feet away with Frank’s gun.

Two pajama wearing assholes in one night, what a treat.

Frank shakes out the dull ache in his hand from the impact, scowling at the other man. This is not how he wanted the evening to go. “What the hell are you doin’ here, Red?”

“Oh you know each other?” the woman asks, thrilled, in a way that probably fools most gullible idiots into what she wants them to think. All breathy and pandering. It sets alarm bells off in his head. “How wonderful!”

Murdock stalks towards the woman and grabs her arm with a gentleness that throws Frank off. He ducks his head and says something quietly with that lecturing, emphatic energy Frank is all too familiar with, something that makes the woman laugh. She leans forward and pecks at his cheek and then twirls away, towards the weapons on the ground. The nunchuck she tosses to Murdock before walking over and holding out Frank’s gun. Murdock turns but doesn’t follow, head swiveling in an uncanny, watching-but-not-watching sort of way as she gets further from him.

“So,” she says brightly once Frank has his weapon back in hand and is frowning at her warily. “Time for some introductions, yes?”

Frank’s phone buzzes in his pocket. Considering his company, he lets it go.

“Yeah, no. Whatever you two’ve got goin’ on, count me out.” He holsters his gun and turns to pick up his rifle and go-bag. The sooner he gets out of here, the sooner he can be at home with Karen and the sooner he can pretend he’s not watching Murdock stare (or stare equivalent) after some bloodthirsty ninja woman like a kicked puppy. Because what the fuck.

“Oh, but Francis,” the woman pouts, and of course sh’s known who he is this entire time. “How will I find out who the ‘K’ you’re sending lovely little texts to is? Honestly, it’s going to drive me mad. Is it a–...Karoline? Perhaps a Kathryn?”

Frank stiffens, turning to look at her with narrowed eyes. She stares back at him pleasantly, but there’s something in her gaze that makes him think he’s stepping into a trap when he says, “That ain’t any of your business.” Like he’s admitting something he shouldn’t be.

And he’s right. Because Murdock makes a strangled noise of realization in his peripherals. “No. No, Frank.”

Frank does not enjoy being backed into corners and this corner is getting smaller with every passing second. He shoulders his rifle and wonders if he can get out of this situation without having to shoot at anyone. Karen would not be happy with him unloading on Murdock…again. Even if he and his goth girlfriend did start it.

“Oh, dear. Did I say something I shouldn’t have?”

“Elektra, knock it off.” Murdock sounds a mixture of exasperated and horrified that almost makes Frank smile. Almost.

Elektra. Weird woman, weirder name. Makes sense. “Yeah alright, we got a Frank, Murdock and Elektra. Introductions are over. Now I’m outta here.”

Frank has known who is behind that red mask ever since his blind lawyer waltzed up and politely asked, Can I call you Frank? during his trial and Murdock doesn’t seem all that surprised about it.

Elektra yanks down the cover on her face and beams at him. She’s pretty good looking–too good looking for Murdock, anyway. Although to be fair, Karen’s way too good looking for Frank, so they’re in good company. “Oh good, you know know each other. That makes this so much easier. Listen, Francis–”

“Frank.”

“--Francis. I have a favor to ask of you.”

Frank raises an eyebrow, curious despite himself. Plus, the temptation to play along and make Murdock’s head spin a little longer is too good to pass up. “Yeah, and what’s that?”

“I’m looking for the Yakuza. You know, the real Yakuza. Not these–” her hand waves towards the warehouse behind him, “--untrained groupies.”

He frowns. “They went underground.”

“Ah, no.” She smiles, cattish. “I’ve been underground. They weren’t there–were they, Matty?”

Murdock is looking like he’s thinking about jumping off the building. He twists his lips into a frown and says nothing. Elektra shrugs and looks back at Frank. “So, you see. Matthew doesn’t want me looking for them, but it’s imperative I do. You seem to have some experience tracking down people who don’t want to be found. Will you help?”

“You lookin’ to join ’em, or get rid of ‘em?” he asks dryly.

“I’m more of a lone wolf, myself.” She pauses and sends Murdock a plainly affectionate look. “Well, usually.”

Je-sus. Frank grimaces and adjusts the rifle on his shoulder. “Seems like you’re pretty capable on your own.”

Her smirk widens. “Thank you. However, I’ll have to drag Matthew along kicking and screaming if you say no, and what if he gets hurt? I’m sure K wouldn’t love that, hm?”

God damn it, she’s right. As much as he dislikes Murdock, Karen still loves him and values their friendship for reasons he doesn’t understand. If he goes and gets himself killed trying to protect this clearly unstable woman and Frank didn’t help? Karen would never forgive him. He grits his teeth and raises his eyes in exasperation.

“I’ll look into it, alright?”

“Hang on–Elektra, come on. You can’t be serious,” Matt says, frustrated. “This is insane. And–Frank, wait a second–you’re…you…Karen?”

“Sounds like you got a lot more to worry about than me,” Frank huffs, turning and heading for the entrance to the building. There’s another frantic buzz of his phone against his leg, which means Karen is panicking about his sudden lack of response. He hates worrying her like that, and she takes precedence over whatever circus is going on behind him. Time to get going. “Considering your girlfriend just laid out an entire warehouse of guys by herself, I’m thinkin’ you got bigger problems.”

“We’ll be in touch, Francis! Perhaps a double date is in our future,” Elektra calls when he yanks the door open with a groan of rusted metal. He can hear police sirens in the distance, getting closer, but she doesn’t seem concerned. “Wouldn’t that be fun, Matthew?”

“Yeah, not on your life, lady,” Frank tosses over his shoulder just as Matt says “Absolutely not” with much of the same horrified disdain.

He can hear her delighted, amused laughter as the door slams shut behind him.

#kastle #my writing #matt x elektra #what is their ship name??#kastle ff

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